Hard Candy

by Amaleka McCall

  According to the hood, this was the man who had bragged about emptying a 10-round magazine into the back of Easy’s head. Candice didn’t know exactly who had actually shot the weapon that ended her father’s life, but she knew Broady was heavily involved.

  “I know you not from my hood, because I know everybody around my way. But, like I said, you look like somebody I might know. Something about your face is real familiar, baby girl, that’s all,” Broady said, his voice slurring.

  Candice lowered her eyes into slits and gritted. “I’m not your ‘baby girl,’ and you sure as hell don’t know me.” She instantly regretted the words after they had slipped from her mouth. Candice could feel her emotions taking a hold of her. She had to get it together, or she’d be in trouble. The sudden tension was as thick as the haze of weed smoke that hung in the club.

  “You got a live wire for a tongue, huh? You better watch your tone. I may think I know you, but judging from how breezy you talkin’, you certainly must not know me.” Broady lifted his drink to his mouth.

  Shana started laughing nervously, sensing that shit was getting critical. “Broady, you don’t know her. You always think somebody is familiar-looking. Stop the madness. We came to have fun. No more drama from ya ass,” Shana said, dragging Candice by the arm toward an empty table.

  “Girl, I’m so sorry about that. That nigga can’t hold his liquor for shit, and he always think he know some damn body from somewhere.”

  “I’m fine. I’m a big girl. I can hold my own.” Candice folded her arms across her chest. She wasn’t fine at all. She wanted to drop her bag and pull out her Glock and take Broady’s fucking head off right then and there.

  “Well, look . . . take a drink. All of the shit up in here, no matter how expensive, is free. I’m gonna go get Razor, so you can at least meet him. I mean that is the whole reason you came out tonight, right?” Shana said, eyeing Candice suspiciously.

  Candice just nodded. She was lost in thought. She saw Shana get up, walk over to a group of dudes, and come back with one.

  “Candy, this is Razor. Razor, Candy,” Shana called out over the music.

  Candice stood up and gave a halfhearted smile and extended her hand for a shake. The man she had been introduced to did the same. She gave him the once-over. Way too short, way too ugly, gold teeth, and a long pinky fingernail. Candice cringed. This man could do nothing for her by way of attraction.

  She sat back down, and Razor sat across from her at the table. She considered him for a moment. He might not prove entirely useless. Perhaps he might know some details of how Broady killed her father.

  “Candy, are you as sweet as you look?” Razor licked his lips like he was about to indulge in a succulent meal.

  Candice didn’t hear the question, because she couldn’t stop looking in Broady’s direction.

  “Yo, w’sup with your friend?” Razor asked Shana.

  Candice was sure Shana would intervene to divert Razor’s attention. She could hear them talking, but she wasn’t listening. Right now, she had one mark on her mind, and she wasn’t about to let him out of her sight.

  Broady Carson stood a hulking six feet seven inches tall by the time he was fifteen years old. His dream was to go to the NBA, but like with so many of his counterparts on the streets, it never materialized. The streets had called him early, as conditions at home with a single mother and absentee father deteriorated.

  Broady’s older brother, Davon, who everybody called Junior, had always tried to protect his big little brother from a life in the streets. When Junior was hustling and trying to make a name for himself in Brooklyn, he’d chastise Broady for staying out late, and he would try to encourage him to go to school and get a basketball scholarship.

  But Broady worshipped his older brother and always wanted to be just like him. He started hanging out on the street corners with his friends who were already hustling, and in the local gambling spot run by a dude called Shamrock. In fact, it was in Shamrock’s gambling hole that Broady got caught up in an event that ultimately changed the course of his life.

  It was a cold winter night, and Broady ran top speed all the way home. He was drenched with sweat under his North Face bubble goose jacket, fear danced in his eyes, and his heart was like a jackhammer in his chest. When he reached his building, he took the stairs two at a time and burst through the door of the project apartment he shared with his mother and brother.

  He ran straight for Junior’s room, which he had already been forbidden from entering. “Where the fuck is it?” he huffed under his breath, his chest heaving up and down as he rummaged through his brother’s belongings, tossing Junior’s numerous shoe boxes around. “Got it!” he said triumphantly as he finally found what he was looking for—a silver Beretta special.

  Broady had seen Junior stuff the weapon in his front waistband many a day. He also knew that Junior used a different weapon when he was on his monthly trips out of town.

  “Now, bitch! You wanna try to play somebody? Like a nigga can’t get his hands on his own ratchet. Well, we gon’ see who the boss now.” Broady gritted as he unzipped his goose, lifted his sweater, and tucked the weapon securely in the front of his pants, just as he had seen his brother do in the past.

  “Who is that out there? Junior, is that you?” Betty called out just as Broady rushed out of Junior’s room.

  Broady sucked his teeth. He always knew his mother didn’t give a damn about anybody but Junior. She didn’t care if Broady fell off the face of the earth, as long as she could have her favorite son, Junior. Nothing Broady did, even playing basketball, could satisfy Betty. Consequently, most of the responsibility for Broady’s care fell on Junior.

  Broady ignored his mother’s calls and walked calmly down the small hallway of their apartment to the front door. He took the project stairwell down, holding on to the cinder block walls so he could skip down the stairs two at a time.

  Outside, the cold air stung the inside of his nose and made tears leak from the sides of his eyes. Broady was huffing and puffing, causing a steady stream of frosty breath to escape his lips. “You a dead bitch-ass nigga now,” he said out loud to himself. He had already made up his mind about what he was going to do. There was no backing down or turning back now.

  Broady continued the pep talk with himself until he reached his destination. He banged on the raggedy wooden door three times.

  “Who?” a man’s voice boomed from the other side of the wood.

  “Junior!” Broady called out, lying about his identity. Broady figured that after the earlier dust up at the spot, they wouldn’t let him back in. He also knew his brother was well respected in the streets of Brooklyn, so saying he was Junior could get him into many places.

  When the door swung open, Broady placed the end of the pistol in the man’s face.

  “Whoa, cowboy! What the fuck is you doin’?” Shamrock said, putting his hands up like he was being arrested.

  “Where is that nigga, June Bug?” Broady huffed, his hands shaking fiercely.

  “He back there still playin’,” Shamrock murmured nervously. Shamrock had gotten his nickname because he was no bigger than a leprechaun. Standing five feet tall on a good day, he was no match for a hulking, young cat like Broady. “C’mon, man, you ain’t gotta do this shit here,” he pleaded.

  Broady grabbed Shamrock’s arm and dragged him along with him to the back of the small basement. The local illegal gambling spot was usually always packed, but it was three o’clock in the morning, and most of the dudes who spent their days there had already lost their money and dragged their sorry asses home. But June Bug just so happened to be playing his last hand of ghetto poker.

  “Everybody, stand the fuck up!” Broady screeched, placing his gun against Shamrock’s head.

  Shamrock pleaded with them with his eyes. One false move and he knew his brains would be all over the floor.

  “Young’un, what the fuck is you doin’? Your brother know you here?” an older man at the poker table
asked.

  June Bug stood stock-still. He instantly regretted slapping Broady earlier in the day and taking his money back from him at gunpoint. June Bug was a notorious sore loser, so when Broady beat him in a game of cee-lo, he took it back by force. June Bug swallowed hard because he knew he was Broady’s intended target. His gun was strapped to his ankle, so he knew he couldn’t reach it without being noticed. Any sudden movements from him and his ass was as good as dead.

  “Nobody fuckin’ move!” Broady screamed.

  The room went still. The only sound came from the small black-and-white TV that sat on top of a milk crate in the corner.

  “Everybody empty y’all fuckin’ pockets on the table now!” Broady barked.

  At first, nobody moved.

  “Oh, y’all think this is a joke?” Broady crinkled his face into a scowl and let off a shot into Shamrock’s left foot.

  Shamrock shrieked, his body buckling to the floor and blood soaking through his sneaker. Suddenly, all of the gamblers were emptying their night’s take onto the table with quickness.

  “Yo, Broady, man, we can discuss this shit,” Pops said.

  With his gun still trained on them, Broady walked around the table and grabbed up as much of the money as he could handle with one hand. He was sure he got his money back and then some.

  “You slapped me in my fuckin’ face like I was your bitch, right? You pussy!” Broady growled, getting close to June Bug.

  June Bug opened his mouth to answer, but before the words could leave his mouth, Broady raised his gun hand high and cracked June Bug in the mouth with the butt of the gun.

  “Oh shit!” June Bug howled as blood and two teeth shot from his mouth. He doubled over, holding his mouth, dark red blood seeping through his fingers.

  “Now who’s the bitch?” Broady placed his finger on the trigger and pulled it before he could even give it a second thought. He wanted to prove a point that night, consequences be damned.

  June Bug’s head exploded like a pumpkin being thrown off of a tall building and smashing to the ground, making one of the men vomit instantly.

  Broady had gray brain matter all over the front of his coat. He didn’t know what to do next. He contemplated killing everybody in the room so he wouldn’t leave any witnesses, but he was already spooked. He whipped around like a paranoid nut and then bolted from the basement onto the street. Broady knew he needed to call his brother, because he didn’t know what to do next. Junior would take care of it; he always knew what to do.

  “Candy, your ass been acting funny all night! Let me find out you’s a quiet drunk and shit. You ain’t hardly say shit to Razor all night. Girl, that is Broady’s best friend in the whole world and his second in charge. I wouldn’t hook you up with none of his other little flunkies. You better stop playin’ and treat a nigga right,” Shana rambled on, eyeing Candice like she was disappointed in her or something.

  “I’m good. I don’t get drunk, first of all. What did you want me to do? Jump up and down and hang off of Razor’s neck? I mean, he seems nice and everything.”

  Shana perked up when Candice gave Razor a halfhearted compliment, figuring that was a start. Shana had a very important stake in Candice and Razor hooking up, and she wasn’t giving up that easily. If she could hook Candice up with Razor, it would make her life easier because she would be able to use Candice to be around Broady more often.

  “Well, come to breakfast with us. We always go out after we leave here. Sometimes the fuckin’ party even spills over to our place, even though I hate that shit,” Shana said, her words beginning to slur. Shana had had a lot to drink tonight.

  Candice looked over at Broady and Razor and their entire crew. They were drinking, laughing, and being rowdy as usual. They really disgusted her.

  Candice was about to decline Shana’s invitation when she spotted a man who appeared to be gliding on air. He walked like Barack Obama, and people seemed to move out of his way as he walked by with his six henchmen in tow. Candice was blinded by his jewels, even from a distance. Her toes balled up in her shoes, and she clenched her fists so tightly, her knuckles paled. He looked much different than the picture she had of him on her corkboard. He seemed older and had grown a mustache and goatee, just like her father had worn for years. Candice wondered how much he had changed since he had committed the heinous crimes against her family.

  Suddenly her ears burst with the sound of her father’s voice. “Junior, don’t you ever fuckin’ question any of my executive decisions. I’m the boss. Remember that shit. If you don’t want to be excommunicated and shut out of this hustle, you better do what the fuck I said to do.”

  When Shana noticed Candice looking past her in a daze, she turned around in her seat. “Oh shit! Here the fuck we go,” Shana said, turning back around quickly and taking another glass of poison to the head. Shana was acting as if she’d seen a monster.

  “What’s the matter?” Candice asked, her eyebrows furrowed. She knew who the man was and his so-called street reputation, but she wanted to understand why Shana seemed so spooked by his presence.

  “Girl, that nigga that just walked in the club like he is fuckin’ King Midas is Junior. He is Broady’s brother and a royal pain in the ass. He is the boss of all of this shit. But when he’s around, Broady acts different. Like real stupid and violent. It’s like he be tryin’ to impress Junior or something.” Shana’s voice trailed off like she was reminiscing on something painful.

  Candice continued to take in an eyeful of Junior and the man that made a move every time Junior moved. She needed to observe as much as possible, just like Uncle Rock had taught her to observe everything about her mark—even small things, like a twitch, limp, or left-handed versus right-handed.

  “When you say ‘the boss,’ what do you mean?” Candice asked innocently.

  “Well, I’m not supposed to talk about Broady’s business, but for some reason even though I just met you, I trust you, Candy.” Shana lowered her eyes and her voice. She leaned in closer and whispered, “I don’t really have too many friends, you know, because of Broady. Anyway, Junior is a drug boss, like a kingpin.” Her eyes darted around to make sure no one else could overhear her. “I heard he killed a bunch of niggas to get to the top and shit. He is ruthless, but he is very rich.”

  Just as Shana finished her sentence, they both jumped, startled by a small commotion at Broady’s table. Junior was slapping hands and hugging Broady. Then several members of Junior’s entourage did the same with Broady’s crew members. Candice couldn’t hear what Junior was saying over the music, but she made a mental note that the two brothers had a close relationship.

  “See what I mean? Now I’m gonna get the fuckin’ wrath of Broady showing off, trying to impress his big brother tonight. Junior don’t want nobody to get close to Broady but him. I’m telling you, Candy, that nigga Junior is pure evil and fuckin’ crazy.” Shana took another glass to the head.

  Candice silently agreed. Shana’s statement was ironic. One time Candice’s father had said that same thing about her brother Eric Junior. Eric, always angry and unusually aggressive, had been the Hardaway family’s biggest secret. When he got old enough for Easy to start grooming him to take over, he would often get himself into trouble because of his temper. He was a great disappointment to his father and a constant source of frustration. Later in life, he’d been diagnosed as manicdepressive.

  Maybe the moniker Junior guarantees one to be fuckin’ evil, Candice thought.

  Candice and Shana watched as Junior went around the table smacking fives and chest bumping with Broady’s friends. She noticed them furtively passing small knots of cash under the table and one of Junior’s guys picking up the money. It was definitely clear who was the boss around there. Candice knew right away she was in the right place and had the right dudes. The information she had taken from Uncle Rock’s safe was correct—all of the major players did appear to congregate in this one place.

  As Junior started walking toward where Ca
ndice was seated in the VIP section, she suddenly felt like a kid again, when she played a game of hot peas and butter with her brothers and sister. Whenever someone got close to the hidden treasure, the other kids would call out, “Hot! Hot!” But if they were far away from the hidden treasure, they’d say, “You’re cold! So cold! Way cold!” Candice knew right then that she was hot, hot, hot!

  “C’mon, we leavin’,” Broady barked at Shana, hovering over her like a giant ogre.

  Shana gave Candice a look of desperation that said, “Please come with me.” She stood up to leave with Broady.

  Just as they were about to step away, Junior and the man at his side the entire night approached. “Shana, you ain’t gon’ introduce me to your friend?” Junior asked, smiling at Candice.

  Junior looked different than the pictures Candice had of him. His complexion was much lighter than his mug shot photo. Junior and his brother were definitely like day and night, in terms of complexion. Junior had definitely aged over the past four years, the salt-and-pepper specks in his mustache and goatee indicating that much. He was also taller than Candice had imagined him to be, but he wasn’t nearly as massive as Broady.

  The bigger they are, the harder they fall. Candice did not respond to Junior’s comment, and an awkward silence ensued.

  “W’sup, Junior? How are you? Me? Oh, I’m doing just peachy. Thank you for asking.” Shana rolled her eyes. Her disdain for Junior was clear. She was usually very good at hiding her feelings, but the drinks she had thrown back during the night had given her a strong dose of liquid courage.

  Candice smirked, secretly pleased with her friend’s brashness.

  “Damn, baby brother! You ain’t got this bitch in check yet? I guess I haven’t taught you well enough,” Junior said to Broady.

  It was like a master giving an attack dog a command. Junior had put the battery in Broady’s back for sure, and Broady took off like the little pink Energizer Bunny. Before Candice could even react, he lifted his huge Sasquatch hand and backhand slapped Shana across her face.