Married to the Game

by King Benjamin

  Riding around town in a black rented Charger, Oshiwa drove Doe to pick up money from a couple people so she could take the money back to Bones. Dressed in a strapless denim romper, dark blue Jordan 11’s and wearing dark Versace shades, she could feel Doe’s eyes on her every now and then. She always knew that Doe was attracted to her but the more time they spent together the more apparent it became.

  “You supposed to be the one driving me around town nigga. How I end up being yo’ damn chauffeur?” she complained.

  “Told that bitch I needed my car back by twelve o’ clock. I bet I won’t give her ass the keys no more.”

  Doe had given the keys to his car to his on and off again girlfriend to go bail her brother out of the county but five hours later, she was still waiting for his release so Oshiwa had to come get Doe so they could make the rounds they made on a daily.

  “Time for you to buy yo’ bitch a whip,” Oshiwa suggested.

  “I don’t know if she worth that kinda investment. Every week since I been back I feel like kicking her ass to the curb,” Doe admitted.

  “What she do?” Oshiwa asked as they turned on the block Rell was posted on at the time.

  Doe shook his head, frustrated.

  “She just seem like fucking dead weight sometimes man. I need a bitch like you in my life. A go getta. A bitch that’s gonna help build the bag up instead of helping me spend it.”

  “Everybody want a bitch like me, Doe, that’s just not how the world works.”

  Doe looked at her and she could tell he took offense to her statement.

  “You saying I can’t bag a bitch like you?”

  Oshiwa laughed.

  “Naw, I ain’t saying that, Doe,” she replied as they pulled up to the house with one window boarded up. “Just go get Rell, will you?” she asked changing the subject.

  She watched Doe hop out the car with a bit of attitude and she had to laugh. It was cute that he wanted a replica of her but he wasn’t the boss type that would attract the woman he envisioned for himself. As Oshiwa looked up and down the block she realized her usual paranoia wasn’t there. She was starting to enjoy being back in the mix again doing what she did. Besides, Bones was the one they really wanted, not her. She was starting to really believe this could work out.

  ****

  Gunner and Kelly were in the middle of a romantic dinner at an upscale restaurant getting some much-needed alone time while the baby was with Kelly’s mom. It was obvious that something was on Gunner’s mind but Kelly just assumed it had something to do with the streets because that’s what it usually boiled down to. But Gunner couldn’t stop thinking about his daughter.

  Butter had been on his mind every day since the day her mom was killed. When he attended the funeral, Butter was there and she’d asked could she come live with him now that her mom was gone. It broke his heart to have to tell his daughter she couldn’t live with him, and now he’d been feeling like a total piece of shit ever since. Butter moved in with her aunt Stacy but as much as Gunner knew that Stacy loved his daughter, he also knew the living conditions of her house more than likely hadn’t changed. It wasn’t the place for his daughter.

  “I’m ready to go back to work bae, foreal. Some days I’m just in mommy mode all day and other days he just sleep all day and I be so bored sitting waiting for you to come home,” Kelly said as Gunner poured her another glass of wine.

  Gunner didn’t reply because he didn’t have an opinion on anything at the moment. He’d been silent all evening. “You wanna talk about whatever is bothering you? I wouldn’t even ask ‘cause I know what you gonna say, but you barely said two words since we got here, Gunner.”

  Gunner’s cell phone rang and when he looked at the number it was Chenille’s sister Stacy. Butter had lost the cell phone he’d given her but he knew more than likely that it was his daughter calling and his guilty conscience wouldn’t allow him to ignore the call until a more convenient time. He answered with Kelly still waiting for a response.

  “Hello?”

  “Daddy.”

  “What’s up?”

  “Can you bring me some money for some food because my auntie don’t really have any food over here?”

  Gunner snorted in frustration. As if he wasn’t already feeling bad enough, now his daughter was calling because she was hungry. He wondered was Stacy selling her stamps and starving her own kids. He wondered was she even there with them most of the time and if not, who was? These were all the questions that had been haunting him for days, but he’d been afraid to know the answers because he didn’t feel he could fix anything. Outside of throwing money at the problem, he didn’t know what else he could do.

  “I’ll be over there in a little bit,” he told his daughter.

  “Okay,” Butter said.

  When Gunner ended the call Kelly wore a look of disappointment, knowing her husband was about to go back out into the streets instead of coming home with her and staying like he’d promised.

  “I’m sorry baby but I gotta take care of some business,” Gunner said as he glanced around looking for their waiter.

  Kelly huffed.

  “Can I ever just get one day? Damn!”

  “I’m not about to be out late, Kelly. I’ma make this one trip and come right back home.”

  “Well, take me with you if it’s just one trip. What difference do it make?”

  “You know I’m not about to do that,” Gunner said cutting his eyes.

  In all of the years they’d been together he’d never really brought Kelly around his business so she knew not to ask.

  “All I know is I’m getting really tired of this,” Kelly said as the waiter approached.

  Gunner wasn’t about to do this with her right now. He felt where she was coming from but right now Butter was his only concern. They could talk about their marital issues another time.

  “We ready for the check,” Gunner said.

  After dropping Kelly off at home, he drove straight to Stacy’s house. He called Butter when he got close to make sure she hadn’t fallen asleep or anything. As soon as he pulled up in front of the house, he knew that this living arrangement just wasn’t going to work. There was only dirt and trash outside on the lawn where the grass was supposed to be. The front door was half opened letting all sorts of bugs into the house.

  When Gunner got out and closed the door he could hear the kids playing in the front room. One of Stacy’s sons popped his head outside to see who had pulled up.

  “That’s my daddy,” he heard Butter call out from inside.

  Seconds later she was at the door and her eyes lit up the same as always when she spotted her father. Gunner gave a light tap on the door just to announce his presence as he slowly stepped inside. There was a stench in the air that he couldn’t describe and the furniture in the front room was totally destroyed. Stacy had always been a hoodrat and nothing like her sister Chenille, but Gunner never thought she would be living this foul.

  “Where Stacy at?” he asked Butter.

  “She in her room,” she replied. “You want me to go get her?”

  The house was such a pigsty Gunner didn’t dare go past the living room.

  “Yeah, go get her,” he replied.

  As Butter shot off to get Stacy there was a wide range of emotions flowing through Gunner. He was sad, fearful, remorseful and angry all at the same time. He knew he couldn’t let his daughter stay here and if he wasn’t going to allow her to stay here another night, there was only one place she could go.

  “Oh hey,” Stacey said as she came flouncing down the hallway wearing a nightgown and smoking a cigarette. “She didn’t even tell me you was coming.”

  “I’m taking her with me. Butter go get all your stuff,” Gunner announced.

  ****

  Bones didn’t care for his family much, especially since they’d ostracized him because of his relationship with his dead brother’s girlfriend. He knew better than to contact any of them anyway being that they were probab
ly being monitored in case he showed up or contacted them. But when he began to gather large amounts of cash and didn’t have anywhere safe to stash it at, his mind started to roam as he realized if something went down he’d get caught with everything or have to leave everything behind. He needed somewhere to hide some extra cash for emergency money and if worst came to worst, burial expenses.

  He did have one cousin that he knew the police would never look at or question because she wasn’t blood-related. Pam was a cousin through marriage but she and Bones always had a close relationship growing up. Pam really liked Bones and Dontae once they started selling drugs because they were never stingy with the money they made. He knew Pam owned her home and more than likely still lived there. Around 1 a.m. he convinced Oshiwa to drive him over to Pam’s house to see if she was still there.

  Bones knocked on the door and rang the doorbell enough times to piss Pam off before she even opened the door.

  “Who the hell is it!” he heard her shouting through the door.

  He didn’t respond. He was just waiting for her to open the door and find out on her own. The porch light was on and as Pam’s curtain on the window of the door came open, he could see the shock in her eyes. She hesitantly pulled the door open then unlocked it.

  “Boy, what the fuck is you doing in Detroit?” she yelled in a whisper.

  “Coming to visit you.” Bones smiled as he strolled in like he didn’t have a care in the world.

  “Seriously Bones, what is you doing back here?” Pam pressed.

  “Got homesick I guess,” he replied.

  Bones watched Pam’s chubby frame pace back and forth for a moment before she had a seat on the arm of the couch. Bones’s presence was stressing her out.

  “You crazy, ain’t no way I would’ve ever came back to this bitch. Nigga they gon’ try to shoot you on site if they find out you here.”

  “They ain’t gon’ find out though. Not unless somebody tell ‘em,” he added with a raised brow.

  “You know I’m not gon’ say shit about you to no damn police so don’t even look at me like that.”

  “I know you can keep a secret cuz, that’s why I’m here. I need you to hold some cash for me.”

  “How much cash?” Pam said as she took her turn to raise a brow.

  “Not much,” Bones said as he went in his back pocket. “This is sixteen thousand. Fifteen is mine and the rest is yours,” he said as he handed her the money.

  Pam took the money without any further questions.

  “Okay.”

  “I’ma need your phone number in case I need to call you,” Bones said.

  “Okay. Let me write it down.”

  “No just give it to me. I’ll remember it.”

  Since being on the run, Bones had become a pro at memorizing phone numbers and addresses. That way he didn’t have to log any of it down anywhere and he didn’t have to worry about a trail. Pam called out her number as Bones was about to leave.

  “You heard about they caught the boy who shot your sister?”

  Bones paused with his hand on the doorknob.

  “Naw, when you hear that?” he inquired.

  “It’s been a while now. They caught that boy over a month ago.”

  He stood there chewing on the information. More than anything, he wanted everyone to pay that had done something to hurt him and his family. Part of the reason he was back in Detroit was he wanted to settle the score when the time was right. This was a beef that would never die until either he or everybody in the Van Dyke Down Crew was dead.

  “He went to trial yet?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Find out when his next court date is.”

  “I got you,” Pam said as Bones opened the door to leave.

  ****

  Gunner drove around aimlessly for hours trying to find the right words to say to Kelly. Butter had fallen asleep long ago in the passenger seat and she was surprised when he woke her up and she realized they were parked in the driveway of a beautiful two-story home.

  “This where you live?” she asked with admiration in her eyes.

  Butter was still coping pretty well with her mother’s death. She cried at the funeral but other than that, she seemed to be moving on with her life as a kid but Gunner could just tell she was expecting her other parent to be there the rest of the way. He popped the trunk and went to grab her things as Butter grabbed a small bag of clothes and personal belongings from the backseat.

  She followed closely behind him as Gunner made his way up the walkway with his head down. He didn’t know what was about to happen but he knew it wasn’t going to be good. For the past ten years, he’d been doing everything in his power to avoid this day. He couldn’t help but think about the old wise parable, what’s done in the dark always comes to the light.

  As he turned the key in the door he could hear faint whining from his son as Kelly sat close by rocking him to sleep. The television was on in the living room letting him know she’d probably been up waiting for him to get in. When he walked into the living room followed by Butter, the look of shock on Kelly’s face said it all. Right now she wasn’t upset, just confused. Her eyes followed Gunner as he gave Butter instructions to have a seat.

  “Who’s this young lady?” Kelly asked in an even tone, but the closer she looked past the little girl's bright yellow skin and focused on the girl’s features, her face began to turn to stone.

  “This is my daughter Larisa. Her mama died about two weeks ago. I’ve been providing for her since she was born but now she don’t got a suitable place to live.”

  The tears came flowing from Kelly’s eyes before she could even find the words to respond. The pain in her heart was indescribable as she choked on her first words.

  “You…you got a daughter?” she forced through a trembling voice.

  “She's ten years old Kelly. She was born the same year you told me you would leave me if I ever had a kid on you. You didn’t leave me no other choice.”

  “You fucking right I’m leaving you! You son of a bitch!” Kelly shouted as she got up and stormed out with the baby crying in her arms.

  Butter sat by watching with her face a mile long, knowing she was the cause of it all. Gunner went chasing behind her but Kelly slammed and locked the bedroom door.

  “Leave me the fuck alone right now, Keith. I swear you need to leave me THE FUCK ALONE!” she shouted through the door.

  “You didn’t leave me no choice, Kelly,” he tried to explain, but he knew there was no use.

  She was right, there was nothing he could say right now. There might not ever be anything he could say to make this right.

  Chapter 12

  This was the fifth day that Doe’s cousin Ant hadn’t answered the phone for neither Oshiwa nor Doe. He owed almost four thousand dollars and didn’t seem to have plans on paying any time soon. Oshiwa knew there was always the risk of someone getting too much work in their possession and getting some bright ideas of their own, but this was the reason she had people like Rell around. Doe assured her they didn’t need Rell for this. It was his cousin and he’d take care of it, Doe said, but Oshiwa had her doubts.

  She knew how people could be lenient on family even when they deserved to get cut off and cut up and stuffed in a garbage can. It was this type of trait that separated the strong from the weak, and she didn’t feel like Doe had that trait.

  “I told you we should’ve just let Rell handle that shit, Doe.”

  “For what? Rell can go pop the nigga and kill ‘em dead but then we still out of four thousand dollars.”

  “Shit, you got a better idea?”

  “Hell yeah I do. Just wait ‘til I catch up with this nigga,” Doe said as he bent the corner to check out one more hiding spot that he knew his cousin Ant loved to frequent. “Bingo.”

  Oshiwa sat up in the seat as she peered through the front windshield.

  “That’s him right there ain’t it?”

  “Hell yeah, that’s him.�
��

  Ant was in a circle of five dudes leaned up against an old school Impala. When he realized it was Doe and Oshiwa, the jolt of fear caused him to drop the blunt dangling from his lip. Doe pulled up right in front of the crowd and parked in the middle of the street. He hopped out gripping a Sig Sauer pistol and wearing a menacing scowl that made everyone in the circle want to walk away and mind their own business.

  “Where the fuck that bread at nigga? Huh? Where that bread at?” Doe barked as he stormed right up to Ant.

  Before he could get a response, Doe smacked him across the head with the gun. He snatched Ant up by the collar and continued to pistol whip his cousin repeatedly, sending him down to the ground trying to cover his head. Doe continued his assault until his cousin was on the verge of passing out from the dizzying blows. Doe pinned Ant to the ground with a knee on his chest as he dug into his pockets and pulled out wads of cash. “Bitch ass nigga, you gon’ play me after all the shit I did for you?” he went on, pointing the gun in his face again.

  Ant never tried to explain, he just held his hands over his face hoping his first cousin wouldn’t shoot him.

  “I’ma get your money, Doe,” he finally said.

  “I know you gon’ get it nigga, all of it!” Doe barked.

  He kicked Ant in the ribcage before he snatched up a few more loose dollars that fell to the ground. Oshiwa never even had to pull her gun or get out the car. She watched on very impressed as Doe came back to the car and tossed the balled up money in her lap.

  “Count that,” he said slamming the car in drive before he sped off.

  ****

  Kelly couldn’t even sleep in the same house with Gunner after she found out about Butter. She packed up her and the baby some things and went to stay with her family. A few days later she came back and got even more things from the house. Gunner tried his best to make her see this wasn’t something he ever wanted to happen, but he had to do right by his child. Kelly wouldn’t hear a word of it. This was her worst nightmare turned reality. She cursed him for making a fool of her and asked for a divorce. All of his personal problems kept Gunner at home way more than he wanted to be. He had a daughter to look after and he was fighting to keep his marriage. This put a heavy strain on Gunner’s street life and he put pressure on Ray to pick up his slack.