Wrath

by K'wan

  “Y’all handle that situation?” Ace asked.

  “Yeah, everything is everything,” Jonas said. He wasn’t going to go into details in front of the stranger, who was staring at him.

  “Wait? Is that my nigga Raf?” the stranger asked.

  Jonas gave him a look. There were very few people who still called him Raf, instead of Wrath. “We know each other?”

  “C’mon, man. I know I ain’t been gone long enough for you to forget one of your closest running buddies.” He spread his arms.

  Jonas studied his face, flipping through his mental Rolodex of friends and enemies alike. It took a minute, but then it finally hit him. “Cal?”

  “In the flesh.” Cal embraced him. He squeezed Jonas so tightly that his back cracked. “Damn, the last time we saw each other, you were a skinny-ass kid trying to follow us to the jux!”

  “I remember. I gotta admit, I’m a little surprised to see you on the streets so soon since I heard they were hanging the bodies from that gun on you,” Jonas said suspiciously.

  “Aw, man, that was a bunch of bullshit.” Cal downplayed it. “My mom got me a good lawyer. They couldn’t prove that I had anything to do with the murders, so I just had to do a little time on a weapon’s possession. I just got paroled.”

  “Can’t keep a good nigga down,” Ace cut in. “I was telling Cal that now that he’s home, we’re gonna bring him in on what we got going on.”

  “Is that right?” Jonas gave Ace a look.

  “Word, I heard y’all out here doing big things out here, especially you, Wrath. Your name is ringing off behind the wall,” Cal told him. “I kept hearing stories about some young kid they called Wrath out here laying shit down, but I never made the connection. Wasn’t until toward the end of my bid that I figured it out. This kid named Pete came through, bragging about having survived a run with you. He’s still got the colostomy bag on his side to prove it. He knew your first name. Sound familiar?”

  “Can’t say that it does,” Jonas lied. He knew just who Pete was . . . The one who got away. Pete was a dude from somewhere in the Bronx that had gone to school with his sister Anette. They had gotten into a trivial argument over something, and Pete had spit on her. The next day, Jonas was waiting for him outside the school. Without saying a word, he shot Pete in the stomach. The only reason he hadn’t killed Pete is because he ran and had the good fortune of collapsing in front of a police station. He had always planned on finishing him off one day, but not long after, Pete had gotten locked up for something.

  “Niggas gossip like bitches,” Mula spoke. Unlike Jonas, who was good at hiding his emotions, Mula wore his on his sleeve. He didn’t care for Cal.

  “This my partner, Mula,” Jonas introduced them.

  “What’s good?” Cal gave him dap.

  “And I’m Tavion.” The youngster spoke up without being promoted, which annoyed Jonas. Cal didn’t need to know every player on the board until he was sure where his childhood friend stood as a young adult.

  “T, do me a solid. Run around the corner and grab me a dub from the Haze dude.” Jonas handed him a twenty.

  Tavion was naïve, but not so much to where he didn’t know he was being dismissed. “I got you, Wrath.” He took the money and disappeared.

  “Ace, I need to holla at you about something. Pardon us for a minute, Cal,” Jonas said.

  “Right.” Cal took the hint. “I gotta go check in with my PO, so I was about to get out of here anyhow. Yo, but I’m gonna come through and check y’all later on. Good seeing you again, Wrath.”

  “Likewise,” Jonas said in a less-than-sincere tone. He waited until Cal was gone before turning his attention to Ace. “Have you lost your fucking mind?”

  “What you mean?” Ace asked.

  “I mean you putting an outsider in our business.”

  Ace sucked his teeth. “Cal ain’t no outsider. We’ve known him since we were kids.”

  “We ain’t seen that dude in years. How do we know he’s still the same person?” Jonas questioned.

  “Jonas, your ass is too paranoid.”

  “I ain’t paranoid; I’m careful,” Jonas shot back. “Keep that nigga at arm’s length until we figure out if he’s got an agenda or not.”

  “Whatever,” Ace said with an attitude. He fired up a blunt and sat on the stoop sulking.

  A few minutes later, Anette came out of the building. She was wearing a pair of pajama pants, and a hoodie with her hair tucked under a bonnet. Over the years, she had really started growing into herself. She had flawlessly smooth skin and bright eyes that were full of promise. Now that she was older, she had started to distinguish herself from her twin, not only in looks but also in the way she carried herself. She didn’t hang out partying until all times of the night like her twin, instead, choosing to stay close to home and focus on school. She had graduated high school two years earlier and was about to receive her associate’s degree from City College. From there, she planned to go away to school to continue her education. The only reason she had stayed close to home that long was to take care of her family. She had taken Sweets’s place as the junior matriarch of the family.

  “What’s up, fellas?” Anette greeted the boys.

  “Hey, ’Nette.” Mula was the first to respond. He’d had the biggest crush on her since he was younger.

  “What y’all doing out here smoking on the stoop? You know the police be all up and through this strip,” Anette warned.

  “Police ain’t fucking with us. We got a license to ill,” Ace said sarcastically, cutting his eyes at Jonas.

  “Where you off to?” Jonas asked.

  “Nowhere. I came out to meet the bus. Jo-Jo will be home soon,” Anette told him.

  As if on cue, a yellow school bus pulled up to the curb. A few seconds later, Josette stepped off. She was only in middle school but was already nearly as tall as Sweets. She had inherited her height from her father, the same as Jonas had. She had to use special crutches to walk because her legs no longer worked as well as they once had. They had discovered that the source of Jo-Jo’s aches was cancer. It had gone undiagnosed for so long that by the time they caught the disease, it had spread through her legs and into her uterus. She’d had five surgeries so far and had to undergo chemo a few times per week. The doctors were not optimistic about her chances, but so far, Jo-Jo had proven that she was a fighter just like the rest of the Raffertys.

  “Put that shit out,” Jonas told Ace and went to meet Jo-Jo. “What’s up, baby girl?” he smiled at her.

  “Hey, Jonas!” Jo-Jo greeted her brother. She tried to rush to him, but one of her crutches slipped, almost toppling her. Jonas went to help her, but she waved him off. “I got it.” She righted herself and walked the rest of the way to meet him.

  “How was your last day of school?” Jonas asked.

  “Long!” she said. “But a funny thing happened. One of the kids in my class got into a fight with the teacher and snatched her wig off,” Jo-Jo chuckled.

  “Them kids at your school are a mess.” Jonas shook his head. When Josette was diagnosed, Jonas wanted the family to put Jo-Jo in a special school, but she refused. She didn’t want people to treat her differently because she was sick. She wanted to continue going to a normal school with the rest of her friends. “So long as ain’t nobody trying to fight you.”

  “Nah, ain’t nobody stupid enough to mess with Wrath’s little sister,” Jo-Jo said proudly.

  “What did I tell you about calling me that?” Jonas frowned at her.

  “But everybody else calls you Wrath. Why can’t I?” she wanted to know.

  “Because you ain’t everybody else. You’re my special girl. Never forget that.” Jonas kissed her on the forehead. “C’mon, let’s get you upstairs.”

  “Jonas, I need to bend your ear right quick before you dip,” Prince called after him. From the look on his face, you could tell whatever he had to say was serious.

  “I’ll be up in a second,” Jonas told his sisters
. Anette gave him a suspicious look before helping Jo-Jo up the stairs. “What’s good, Prince?”

  “Walk with me.” Prince cut his eyes at Ace and Mula, who were trying to see what they were up to. When they got out of earshot, he began speaking again. “Yo, you remember when I used to tell you stories about my cousins over in London?”

  “Yeah, them wild Jamaican cats who sell the guns,” Jonas recalled.

  “Well, they ain’t in the life no more. Since all this terrorist shit been happening, firearms have become a very dangerous business. You get caught with enough of them, and they’ll fuck around and try to brand you a terrorist. They used the money they had left from the gun profits and started investing it into legitimate businesses. Their biggest moneymaker turned out to be a T-shirt line they launched.”

  “These niggas stopped selling guns to sell T-shirts?” Jonas was amused.

  “That’s the same thing I said . . . until they broke it down to me. Turns out one of those rapper niggas was photographed in one of their pieces, and then the orders started pouring in! They were able to graduate from T-shits to selling actual pieces; pants, women’s gear . . . different shit. Last year, they pulled in a million and a half, and this was before they opened the boutique.”

  “Being that you’re bringing all this to me, I’m guessing you got an angle?” Jonas knew how Prince thought.

  “Indeed, I do. They’re looking to expand and started doing things Stateside too. To really do it like they want, they’re going to need investors,” Prince told him.

  “Dawg, you know we ain’t getting that kind of paper out here. We doing okay, but I doubt if anything we scrape up will be able to do much,” Jonas said.

  “Nah, man. I ain’t talking about bankrolling it, but we can buy in for a piece and get in on the ground floor. When this shit blow, which I’m sure it will, even as minority investors, we stand to make a nice piece of change.”

  “How much would we need to go in?” Jonas asked.

  “I’m thinking a hundred thousand is enough to get us a nice taste. I got about twenty or so in the stash already. If I really grind, I can probably get up another thirty or so in a few months.”

  “What little bit of bread I got access to is kinda tied up,” Jonas said, thinking of the investment he had made at the suggestion of Lou. It was something that he hadn’t yet shared with his crew, but he would in time. “Maybe Ace and Mula can go in with us to put us over the hump.”

  “I don’t think that’ll be a good move. I love the homies, but everything ain’t for everybody. If you give me everything you can spare, and I put it with what I got, it should be enough for my cousins to hold a place at the table for us until we get the rest. This can be something for just me and you, Wrath.”

  “Let me think about it,” Jonas told him. He was unsure about the move. After dumping the majority of what he had in the stash into his little project, Jonas was running on fumes. He didn’t know enough about fashion or the reliability of Prince’s cousins to go broke on a whim.

  “Well, don’t think too long. I’m gonna try to move on this whether or not you’re with me. I don’t know about you, but I don’t plan on risking my freedom over a few thousand here and there. It’s time to boss the fuck up.”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Jonas entered his apartment with Prince’s words still fresh in his ears. It’s time to boss the fuck up. He was right. Jonas and his crew were doing pretty good for themselves, but the fact that he couldn’t put his hands on at least $50,000 at will said that he was doing something wrong. Granted, the investment he had made would bring in money once it was up and running, but that would take time, and lately, he had felt like time was something that wasn’t on his side.

  The first things Jonas noticed in the apartment were two very distinct smells; something cooking and Pine-Sol. The house had been completely scrubbed, and the floors were mopped. These days, the Rafferty house resembled an actual home instead of a den of addicts.

  “Go start your homework,” Anette told Jo-Jo as she was helping her out of her coat. “I’m going to make you something to eat, and then we gotta get ready to go over to the clinic.”

  “Another treatment? I hate getting treatments,” Jo-Jo whined.

  “I know, but you have to get them, so they’ll make you feel better,” Anette explained.

  “They always make me feel like shit!” Jo-Jo cursed.

  “You better watch that month,” Jonas scolded her.

  “Sorry, Jonas.” She apologized.

  “Now do like Anette says and do your homework so y’all ain’t late for the clinic.”

  Jo-Jo looked like she wanted to argue with him but decided against it “Okay, I’m going.” She went into the room she still shared with her sisters.

  “I swear, you and Sweets are the only ones who can get that girl to do anything without her giving you lip.” Anette shook her head. Now that Jo-Jo was getting older, she was picking up the unmistakable sassiness carried by all the Rafferty women.

  “She’s just at the age where she’s feeling herself a little bit. Much like you and Yvette when you were 11,” Jonas reminded her.

  “Yvette, maybe, but I was an angel.” Anette batted her eyes.

  “Bullshit. You were a sour puss, and you know it,” Jonas mushed her playfully. “Speaking of your twin, where is she?”

  “Probably in the streets somewhere doing something she ain’t got no business doing,” Anette told him.

  Jonas shook his head. While Anette was focused on school and making something of her life, Yvette was doing the exact opposite. All she did was run the streets and hang around people who were no good for her. On those rare occasions when she was home longer than just to change her clothes, she was usually high, drunk, or a combination of both. Jonas had heard rumblings about the kinds of things his big sister was into, and he didn’t like it. He’d tried to check her about it a few times, but it would always end in the two of them arguing and her reminding him who the older sibling was. Short of him putting his hands on her, there was nothing he could do but pray she would get it together.

  “How’re Jo-Jo’s treatments coming along?” Jonas changed the subject.

  “Well, she ain’t getting no worse. I guess that’s a blessing,” Anette sighed. “Every time we start to get a little hope, she takes another turn.”

  “Damn,” Jonas was frustrated. The doctors had promised that Jo-Jo’s cancer would start to go into remission, and for a while it had . . . until it came back. They had assured them that the last operation she had would be the final one, but they had said that about the operation before that one. “I feel like we’re just sitting on our hands with this shit.”

  “We’re all doing what we can with what we have to work with. Other than going outside of the Medicaid network, what else can we do? Try not to stress too bad over it.”

  “Easier said than done,” Jonas replied. “I’m about to go see what’s up with Mom.”

  “Wait. I got something to tell you first. I didn’t want to bring it up in front of Ace and them. You know how they get,” Anette said in a tone that Jonas didn’t like.

  “What’s up? Somebody fucking with you?” Jonas asked. He had already proven he’d get busy for his sisters, but there was always someone who wanted to test the waters.

  “Calm down; it’s nothing like that.” Anette already knew where his head was at. “I saw an old friend of yours today.”

  “Who? Cal? I already know he’s home. I was just with him.”

  “Not, Cal . . . Alex is back in town,” Anette informed him.

  This bit of news surprised him. He hadn’t seen her since her family had sent her down south after Doug’s funeral. They’d exchanged some unkind words, and he never had a chance to make it right with her before her parents shipped her off. He had always regretted the way they left things.

  “Where?” he asked.

  “See, this is why I didn’t want to tell you. I’m sure this isn’t the first time
she has been home and hasn’t bothered to reach out to you, so she probably doesn’t want to be bothered,” Anette said. She had been afraid that Jonas hearing about Alex being home would stir old feelings in him. Her little brother had been devastated when Alex had gone away. She was his first crush.

  “You bugging. I might not even get a chance to check on her. I got mad shit going on right now,” Jonas said, as if tracking Alex down wasn’t the first thing he planned on doing.

  “Fine! I saw her coming out of her parents’ building,” Anette finally told him. “If she breaks your heart again, don’t look for me to help you pick up the pieces this time.”

  “Whatever,” he laughed it off. “Thanks for the tip.”

  “Thanks, my ass. If I’m going to be responsible for that girl turning your life inside out, then you’re gonna have to pay me for my part,” Anette told him.

  “What you want? Cash?” Jonas reached in his pocket.

  “Nah, let me get some weed. I know you’re holding.” Weed was one of the only vices Anette had. She said it helped her to focus when she was studying.

  “I don’t have anything on me, but I sent Tavion to the spot a few minutes ago. When I get back outside, I’ll grab something for you,” Jonas promised, and continued down the hall.

  When Jonas arrived in the kitchen, he found his mother over the stove. She was flipping a pork chop while humming softly to herself. Her skin was clear, as were her eyes, and she had gained about twenty pounds. She was coming up on two years sober. Janette was doing much better, and the kids were all so very proud of her. Oddly enough, they had Eight-Ball to thank for it.

  The gangster had really done a number on her. Besides raping her, he had beaten Janette up pretty bad. It took about a month to recover from the physical wounds, but emotional ones took even longer. She became withdrawn and skittish, seemingly afraid of her own shadow. She was especially distrustful of men. It was awhile before Jonas was even able to touch her in the smallest of ways without her trembling. The fact that Slick had gone missing didn’t help. He was a piece of shit, but he was still her piece of shit. When he disappeared, it broke her heart. She blamed herself for him running off, and it was awhile before she was able to get over him.