Animal 2

by K'wan

  “We just wanna rap with you for a taste,” Ashanti told him with a sinister grin.

  “Look, shorty, you’re about to make a huge mistake. I’m Pretty Percy. I got some powerful friends who might not take it so well if something happens to me,” he said, trying to intimidate Ashanti. It didn’t work.

  Ashanti slapped Percy so hard that blood shot from his lips and splattered on the mirror. “Miss me with that tough-guy shit. You ain’t a gangster, you a pimp. I know just who your friends are, and that’s exactly why I’m here.” Ashanti turned to Cain and Abel. “Why don’t y’all make sure old Percy here sits still while we’re having our little chat?”

  Abel held Percy at gunpoint while Cain gathered the straps hanging from the chairs that they used to sharpen the razors and tied Percy down. Ashanti removed a pair of the barber’s shears that had been resting in the cleaning solution and approached Percy.

  “Getting back to your powerful friends . . . I need some information on Swann,” Ashanti said.

  Percy faked ignorance. “Who?”

  “Wrong answer.” Ashanti stabbed him in the leg with the shears. Percy howled in pain, but Cain shoved a brush full of shaving cream into his mouth to silence him. “How the fuck is he supposed to answer me if you choke him?” Ashanti asked Cain.

  Cain shrugged. “I’ll bet he’s used to talking with cream in his mouth. Ain’t that right, Percy?” He slapped him on the cheek playfully.

  “Knock it off.” Ashanti nudged Cain out of the way. He removed the brush from Percy’s mouth. “We really gonna play this game?”

  “I keep trying to tell you—” Percy’s statement turned into a shriek of pain when Ashanti stuck the shear in his other leg.

  Ashanti drew his gun. “Percy, it’s in your best interest to stop insulting my intelligence.”

  “I don’t know shit!” Percy insisted.

  Ashanti sighed. “OK, you wanna go about this the hard way, huh?” He shoved the gun into Percy’s mouth. “Word around town is that you like to suck big black shit in your spare time, so I’m gonna give you something to suck on.” He pushed the pistol to the back of Percy’s throat. “When this nuts, ain’t gonna be no joy juice on this floor, only your brains.”

  Tears sprang to Percy’s eyes. He shook his head back and forth, with his lips still wrapped around the gun.

  “You feel like talking now?” Ashanti asked. When Percy nodded, he removed the gun but kept it level with Percy’s face.

  “OK, I know Swann. I run whores, and in exchange for protection on the street, I kick Swann back a taste,” Percy admitted.

  “How does a bitch pimp bitches?” Abel asked. He looked genuinely confused.

  “Fuck you!” Percy spat.

  “Fuck me? Nah, fuck you.” Abel aimed the sawed-off at Percy’s face. “I’ll blow those dick-sucking lips off your face, pussy!”

  “Cool the fuck out.” Ashanti pushed him away. “As you can see”—he turned back to Percy—“my lil’ one is ready to rock you, scrams, and I just might let him, unless you tell me everything you know about Swann, including where he lays his head.”

  “I don’t know,” Percy said.

  Ashanti slapped him. “Percy, you must think I picked your name out of a hat. Nigga, I been laying on you for weeks, and I know that there’s more going on between you and Swann than just you paying for protection. You’re Swann’s play nephew. No relation, but he’s been looking out for you since you were a kid. There are a lot of nasty rumors floating around about the nature of your relationship, but it ain’t my place to judge. I just want to know where I can put my hands on this nigga. Now, tell me something good, Percy.”

  “I can’t betray my family,” Percy said, his voice just above a whisper.

  “You can, and you will,” Ashanti assured him.

  “Man, Swann is crazy. You don’t know what he’ll do to me if I talk,” Percy said in a frightened tone.

  “And you must not know what we’ll do to you if you don’t,” Abel said.

  “Ashanti, kick back and let me have a go at it.” Cain put his gun into his waistband and tightened the leather gloves on his hands. He went to one of the drawers that held the barbers’ tools and pulled it out of the counter. Cain dumped the contents of the drawer onto Percy’s lap so that he could get a good look at the instruments. From the pile he selected a razor that was sharpened to a fine edge. “Dig this,” he whispered in Percy’s ear. “One way or another, you’re gonna spill your guts before we leave here.”

  His brother, Abel, locked the front door and watched through the window for police, while Ashanti got comfortable in one of the barber’s chairs and listened to the sounds of Percy’s screaming.

  • • •

  Ashanti had to admit, had Cain chosen a path other than the streets, he probably could’ve been a master butcher. He started with the razor and then moved to anything and everything in the shop that had a sharp edge to it. Just as he’d promised, Percy had spilled his guts, literally and figuratively. By the time he was done talking, Ashanti was dizzy with information. He had only come to Percy to get a location but had gotten much more than he expected. It was true what they said about what’s done in the dark eventually comes to the light.

  Pretty Percy wasn’t very pretty anymore once Cain was done with him. His body was slumped in the chair, motionless. The only way Ashanti knew that he was still alive was by the gurgling sound coming from him.

  “Damn, that was some heavy shit,” Abel said to Ashanti. He was still shaking his head in disbelief.

  “Heavy like a boulder, my nigga,” Ashanti agreed.

  “You gonna run this to King James?” Abel asked.

  Ashanti thought on it for a long moment. “After a time, I will. For right now, I just wanna marinate on it. Keep it to yourself until I say otherwise, ya heard?”

  “You know it ain’t going no further than us,” Abel assured him.

  “Let’s get gone,” Ashanti said. “Yo, Cain. We gotta go—” His words froze in his throat. Cain was straddling the barber chair and Percy’s body. “What the fuck are you doing?”

  Cain turned so that they could see his handiwork. In one hand, he held the bloody razor, and in the other, the skin from Percy’s face. He held the flesh up over his own face like a mask. “Halloween is coming, and this year, I wanted to dress up as a bitch-ass nigga.” Cain laughed hysterically.

  FIVE

  ASHANTI, CAIN, AND ABEL WENT back to Ashanti’s crib to regroup after the hit. They took turns taking showers and changing clothes. Cain’s clothes were bloody, so they poured bleach over them and tied them in a plastic bag. When they went back out, they’d find somewhere to burn them.

  When Ashanti came out of the shower, Cain and Abel were sitting on his couch playing Xbox on his big screen. They looked so innocent, more like the kids they were than the killers the hood had made them. Ashanti was proud of his little recruits. They had been hanging tough for a while, but this had been their first actual murder mission together. They had to be tested before letting them in fully, and they had passed with flying colors. If Animal were there, he’d have been proud of Ashanti for picking them to add to his little family.

  Thinking about his comrade brought a smile to Ashanti’s face. When Animal had come back into the picture, it had been like a sign for Ashanti. Seeing his teacher and best friend reminded him of what a real nigga was supposed to move like. It inspired him to carry on the tradition of getting money and making bitch niggaz suffer. Losing Animal for a second time hurt worse than the first, but it sparked something in Ashanti. He would ride until they laid him to rest on a cold sidewalk, just as his mentor had.

  “Y’all niggaz cut that video game off, and let’s hit the streets. We got business to attend to,” Ashanti told him.

  “Chill, we in the third quarter,” Abel said, still flicking the joystick.

  Ashanti turned the game off. “I said, let’s go. You, too, Dr. Lecter.” He tossed Cain the bag of clothes.

  “
A’ight, let’s gather up the straps and dip,” Abel said.

  “Nah, we don’t all need to be holding since we gonna be together. It’s easier to beat one gun case than three, feel me?” Ashanti told him.

  “If we only taking one, I’m gonna hold it,” Cain said.

  Ashanti looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. “After that shit you pulled in the barbershop, it might be a while before I let you hold a weapon around me. And I hope you got rid of that nasty-ass skin mask.”

  Cain got quiet.

  “Blood, are you fucking serious? Man, get rid of that shit,” Ashanti ordered.

  Cain mumbled something under his breath before taking the plastic ziplock bag from his pocket that held the bloody skin. He put it into the bag with the clothes and stormed out of the apartment, the bag thrown over his shoulder.

  “What the fuck is wrong with that nigga?” Ashanti asked Abel.

  Abel shrugged. “Cain is just different.”

  • • •

  The three amigos found a quiet alley to set their little fire. Cain squirted lighter fluid all over the bag and the trash can they’d thrown the clothes in.

  “Be easy with that shit,” Ashanti said, noticing Cain splashing the walls.

  Cain ignored him and fished around in his pocket for some matches. After tossing the match into the can, he stepped back and watched as the fire slowly built. The fire wasn’t burning fast enough for him, so Cain decided to speed up the process. Before anyone could stop him, he threw the entire container of lighter fluid into the can. A small explosion rattled the trash can and probably woke up the entire neighborhood.

  “What the hell is going on down there?” someone shouted from one of the windows. They looked up and saw an older lady leaning out of the window. When her eyes landed on the flaming garbage can, she shrieked, “Lord Jesus, it’s a fire! I’m calling the police!”

  “Oh, shit!” Ashanti said, and took off running.

  They darted up the block, laughing and cracking jokes as if they hadn’t just almost burned down an entire apartment building. Ashanti was irritated with Cain for throwing the lighter fluid into the flames, but he had to admit it was funny as hell. They were all scared shitless.

  They had just turned the corner when there was the sound of tires screeching. Ashanti dived out of the way seconds before the brown Buick jumped the curb, but Cain wasn’t so lucky. He bounced off the hood and landed in the street, dazed and in a world of pain. Two men jumped from the car, one black and one Hispanic. Abel made a beeline across the street, but Ashanti and Cain got snatched up.

  “Look what we got here,” Detective Alvarez said with a smug grin, yanking Ashanti off the ground by his arm. He was a tall Hispanic man who wore his hair cut in a low Caesar. He made up half of the duo known on the streets as the Minority Report. They were hard-nosed cops who were known to use dirty tactics to make cases stick.

  “Somebody left their trash lying in the street.” Detective Brown pulled Cain to his feet and gave him a rough shake. He was a short black man, with a stocky build and a box-cut Afro that he’d had since the eighties. He was the more serious of the two detectives.

  “Damn, I think you broke my leg, blood!” Cain yelped.

  “Fuck yo leg, lil’ nigga.” Detective Brown shoved him against the car and began patting him down. Luckily, they’d agreed to only bring one gun out, and Abel was long gone with that. “Where’d your friend rush off to, pretty boy?”

  “Up your ass,” Cain spat.

  “Oh, you a funny guy, huh?” Brown kneed him in his injured leg but had a firm grip on the back of his neck so he couldn’t fall. “I got a few jokes of my own.”

  “What you want with us, now, fam?” Ashanti asked Alvarez, as he was frisked.

  “Same thing we always want, to put your deranged little ass in prison until you’re old and gray,” Alvarez said.

  “Ain’t worked out for you too well yet.”

  Alvarez shoved Ashanti. “You’ve been lucky until now, Ashanti, but shit birds like you always slip eventually. You see what happened to ya man Animal? He slipped and got his wig split.”

  “Ain’t you got no respect for the dead?” Ashanti asked.

  “Fuck no, especially not a murdering piece of shit like Animal. He almost got me and my partner killed. My only regret is that I wasn’t the one to put the bullet in the back of his head. But that’s OK, because you’re following right in his footsteps, so I’ll be able to put a bullet in the back of your head instead.”

  “Nigga—” Ashanti tried to spin but froze when he felt the gun on his cheek.

  “What?” Alvarez barked, pushing the barrel deeper into his face. “You wanna break bad, lil’ one? Go ahead, pop off. I would like nothing more than to put your brains on the hood of this car. Say something!”

  Ashanti remained silent.

  “This one is clean, partner,” Detective Brown said to break the tension.

  “See? We ain’t got nothing, so why don’t you let us go?” Ashanti said to Alvarez.

  Alvarez was pissed. He just knew that Ashanti would have his gun on him like always, and he’d be able to start building a solid case against him. Frustrated, he made one more search of Ashanti’s pocket and found something. “Well, look what we got here.” He held up the hundred-dollar bag of weed. “Looks like you’re going downtown after all.”

  Ashanti was shocked. “What? You gonna take me in for a bag of weed? Come on, Detective Alvarez, we supposed to be better than that.”

  “The law is the law, shit bird,” Alvarez said gleefully.

  “What about this one?” Brown asked, nodding to Cain.

  Alvarez thought on it for a moment. “Fuck it, we’ll split the bag of weed up between them when we get in the car and book them both for possession.”

  “This is some bullshit,” Cain said while being handcuffed.

  “Thank your mentor, Ashanti, for the heat you guys are catching,” Brown whispered to Cain as he shoved him into the car.

  “Alvarez, I used to have some respect for you, but this is some low shit. You know collaring me for anything less than a murder is a discredit to both our reputations,” Ashanti said.

  “I’ll take my victories where I can get them. You have the right to remain silent . . .”

  PART II

  SURVIVAL OF THE FIT

  “I’m trying to kill him, and he’s trying to stop me from killing him. That ain’t beef, that’s fact.”

  —Animal

  SIX

  “WHERE ARE YOU TAKING ME?” Animal asked, noticing the signs welcoming them to Rye, New York.

  “I told you, to a funeral. I figured on the way, we could have some time to talk,” Priest told him, watching the road.

  Animal gave him a comical look. “What do we possibly have to talk about?”

  “Animal, beneath all that Buster Bad Ass shit you keep kicking, I’m sure you’re at least curious about our history,” Priest said.

  “Our history is pretty clear. You fucked my crackhead mother and then cut out, same as every other nigga she ever brought in the house,” Animal said venomously.

  “Why don’t you watch your fucking mouth? Marie had her hang-ups, but she still brought you into the world. If your little ass can’t show some appreciation, at least show some damn respect.”

  “Yes, Father,” Animal said sarcastically.

  Priest took his eye off the road to shoot Animal a look. “You make it really hard to like you, kid.”

  “Obviously, since not even the two people who brought me into the world wanted anything to do with me.”

  “You really think it was just that simple, don’t you?”

  Animal shrugged. “Unless you plan to convince me differently during our little outing.”

  Priest sighed. “Listen, Tayshawn, I know you think me and ya mom were just two fucked-up kids who brought a baby in the world that they couldn’t raise, but it wasn’t like that. You weren’t just some popped condom or result of me forgetting to pul
l out. We wanted you. Your mom and I had a whole game plan.”

  His unexpected admission got him Animal’s undivided attention.

  “Your mom turned into a different person when that shit took hold of her, but she wasn’t always like that. She used to be the finest thing in New York, and whenever we’d walk into a spot together, she’d turn every head in the joint,” Priest reminisced. “Back then, Poppa Clark had just become boss, and I was his right-hand man. Me, him, ya mama, and his wife, June, used to run around heavy. The four of us were like family, which makes your beef with Shai so ironic. Y’all damn near kin.”

  “It ain’t no beef. I’m trying to kill him, and he’s trying to stop me from killing him. That ain’t beef, that’s fact,” Animal said.

  “Call it what you want, Animal, but it still doesn’t change the fact that you’re my son and he’s the son of a man who was once my best friend, so your destinies are intertwined whether you like it or not,” Priest told him. “Like I was saying, Poppa was the new king, and I was his right-hand man. Shit was good for us, but to keep things good, we had to put in the work. Me and Poppa were always in the streets, so your mother and June occupied their time partying and spending money. I heard things about your mother, and some of them were not so nice. I was losing my lady to the same streets I was running in, and I needed to do something to get a handle on things. It was around then I suggested we have a kid. She already had Justice from that pretty nigga she used to run with, but you would be the symbol of our union.”

  Animal laughed. “And what a union that turned out to be.”

  “Call it what you want, but in the beginning, it was pure . . . beautiful,” Priest recalled. “When you were a baby, you spent more time with me than you did with your mother. You were my little soldier, and I was the happiest nigga north of 110th Street. Then a cat named Mobi came to town, and everything changed.”

  The name rang familiar to Animal. He could remember a few years before hearing Tech and some of the older heads talking about a dude named Mobi who was supposed to have been a real maniac. One story that stuck out was how he supposedly cut a kid’s feet off for accidentally stepping on his shoes in a crowded club.