Justify My Thug

by Wahida Clark

  I didn’t even bother answering. I started the car and headed down the block. There was someone sitting on Trae’s porch. She had her head in her lap, a little chick. It can’t be. I parked and got out. The young lady looked up and then stood up.

  “Excuse me. Do you live here?” She asked me.

  Her voice went right through me. My heartbeat started racing. My mouth turned dry. I rushed up the porch. I stood there face to face with … her. I wanted to turn my back towards her and stop my tears but I couldn’t. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her.

  “Do you live here?” she asked again.

  I wanted to open my mouth to answer but … how could this be?

  Finally I asked her, “Kyra is that you?” She cracked a smile. “You don’t remember me?” I asked her.

  “You know me?” she asked.

  We stood there staring at each other for a good ten minutes. I didn’t want to believe it was her. It couldn’t be. The dreads was telling me it wasn’t her. But the scar. I could see the scar. She was shot. That’s when I knew. My eyes again welled up with tears.

  She reached out and wiped them with her thumbs. I kissed her hand. She was trembling.

  “Rick? Rick?”

  She kept saying my name. Tears were rolling down her cheeks. She hugged herself as she backed up. “Rick. Your name is Rick. I remember you.”

  And then she fainted.

  TWENTY-ONE

  KAYLIN

  Just when I thought I left the game behind the shit keeps coming back to haunt me. The last thing I wanted was to get in the middle of Trae and Kyron’s nonsense. I’m now a legitimate business man and all of this hood shit is beneath me. I’m going to make one last attempt to clean up this mess between the two of them and then I’m done with them both.

  I pulled up in front of Trae’s apartment in the city and he was coming out the door with a blunt in his mouth. He hopped in the car and did his usual, reclined the seat all the way back. I pulled off thinking to myself that if these muthafuckas don’t get their shit together, heads are gonna roll.

  TRAE

  As I reclined the seat all I could think was if I get up here and this nigga say one wrong thing he is going from the hospital bed to the morgue.

  Kaylin was silent the whole ride. Shit, I didn’t know why he was all fucked up, since it was my wife who was running around like a fucking chicken-head fuckin’ with his brother. Keeping it 100, he should be lucky that we are only on our way to the hospital and not to a closed casket funeral.

  KYRON

  I opened my eyes and these two niggas was standing at the end of the bed with rocks in their jaws, faces tighter than a bitch on Botox. Looking at their faces I had to laugh. It was painful because it felt as if someone was digging a jackhammer through my skull, but I couldn’t help myself, they looked funny as hell.

  “Look, I ain’t got all day so I’m going to make this quick. This whole situation is sloppy. People are talking, and talking loud,” Kaylin said as he looked back and forth between me and Trae before he continued.

  “I got a message from the dons. They said to make sure that the both of you understand it when they say, if y’all can’t handle business they know someone who will handle it for you. They shouldn’t be contacting me or us about this petty bullshit. And I’m no longer going to be the middle man for y’all two ignorant muthafuckas. I got my own family to worry about. So now, we need to lay all of our cards on the table. Speak now or don’t say shit later.”

  I was sitting here listening to my little brother lecture me and this nigga. Trae’s ass was standing there looking at me all square and shit. But before I could say anything he took Kay up on his offer.

  “Looking at this nigga laying here in the hospital I think I said enough.”

  Then I mustered up the strength to bang on the side of my bed. That was as close that I could get for a clap, since I only had one hand operating.

  “Big bruh, your speech, that was some beautiful Hollywood shit right there.” I continued to bang on the side of the bed. “Y’all niggas can’t be serious standing here sounding like two bitches.” I pointed at Trae, “This nigga crying over some pussy.” Then I pointed at Kay, “And baby bruh, you just flat out got soft on a nigga. Your bitch must carry your dick around in her purse. Keith Sweat ass bitches. I ain’t want to believe it. I thought we had the game on lock. Niggas was telling me y’all was all wifed up and shit, crying about getting out the game. Get out? We used to fuck the shit outta New York, raw. I gave y’all the muthafuckin’ keys to this city.”

  I turned my attention back to Trae. “And this nigga over here moved to Hollywood and grew a vagina.” After I said that these two niggas looked at me like they didn’t know who I was.

  “You—”

  Kaylin tried to interject but I shot that shit down. “Shut the fuck up nigga I’m talking. You said lay the cards on the table, and I got a whole muthafuckin’ deck. I put y’all on, do a bid for y’all pussies and get outta jail thinking we gonna be out here making this paper, but y’all niggas ain’t hungry no more.”

  “Hungry? Nigga we ate. It’s time to live now.”

  “Let me finish nigga. Never in my whole life would I have thought that some nigga would try to kill me over some ass, and my own brother don’t even got my fucking back.”

  “Man, what you talking about ass? That was this nigga’s wife who you was fuckin’ around with,” Kaylin yelled back.

  “So! We ain’t in the game to love these hos. You suppose to hit it and pass it to the left. I ain’t love that ho, it was just something to do.”

  I could see Trae’s fist ball up tight, but I wasn’t fazed. I laughed in his face before continuing to lay out my cards. “I don’t believe this shit. Y’all use to be some killas, robbing niggas, selling more dope than the Pope pray on Sundays. Now these bitches got y’all in robes and house shoes. Y’all use to cook coke on the stove now y’all heating up baby bottles, rushing home at 4:00 to watch soap operas. Y’all done got the game fucked up.”

  “I am now convinced, that you are out of your got damn mind,” my brother said to me.

  “Man I’m perfectly sane, it’s y’all niggas that crazier than a muthafucka. Scary ass, pussy whipped, walking through the mall holding your bitch’s purse ass, niggas. Never thought in a million years.”

  I had to laugh at the thought. “This is some bullshit, asking me why I fucked his wife. Why the fuck you think? ‘Cause I can. And as far as the Dons, don’t worry about me and them. I can handle myself. But after this I ain’t ridin’ with y’all niggas no more. Get the fuck outta here.”

  I know these two niggas wanted to take my head but they ain’t crazy they just walked out the room. I know they could hear me laughing harder with every step they took.

  THE END

  Kaylin and Trae stood in dead silence, waiting on the elevator. Kaylin was still trying to wrap his mind around the things his brother had said. He began to question his loyalty to his brother and to the streets, “Damn, am I really getting soft?” he asked himself while trying to justify his recent endeavors to become completely legit and walk away from “the game.”

  “Fuck this shit! I’m done; I’m out … I’m cutting all ties to the streets,” Kaylin said to himself.

  –Ding–

  The sound of the elevator broke the eerie silence that filled the hall, the elevator doors opened and Kaylin stepped inside but Trae did not. He stood there with the smell of revenge seeping through his pores. Kaylin glanced over his shoulder as if he smelled him and his lust for revenge that was obviously seeping out.

  With his back still turned to his partner in crime Kaylin said, “The game is over, when you get tired of playing.”

  Trae shook his head and said, “You said you wanted out the game, well this is the best time to bounce because shit just got real.”

  The elevator doors closed, leaving Trae behind.

  In the dimly lit hallway Trae removed the ski mask from the side pocket of his
pants and put it on top of his bald head wearing it as a skully. He then placed a pair of black leather gloves over his hands and turned his reversible blue hoodie inside out revealing the black inside. He had planned for the worst and was glad he came prepared.

  Making his way down the hall and not looking anyone directly in the eye, he dipped into a sleeping patient’s room, grabbing the bouquet of flowers off of the table. The three on duty nurses were distracted by an elderly patient going into cardiac arrest giving him the window of opportunity that he needed.

  He walked into Kyron’s room, undetected with flowers in hand, closed the door and placed the flowers on the table.

  Kyron’s eyes popped open.

  Trae pulled out his S30v steel blade pocket knife and pushed the curtains back.

  Trae plunged the blade deep into his throat, turned it and pulled it out.

  TRAE

  “What you got to say now, nigga? Talk shit now muthafucka!” He held down Kyron with his one hand, watching life slip away from the brother of his best friend.

  Kyron reached for his throat with his free hand unable to breathe properly. His silence was golden.

  I stood there until this grimy muthafucka took his last breath all the while thinking to myself: out of all the lives I took, and all the shit I did, not until this very moment had any of it felt justified. I knew that now I was no longer a retired hustler. I had just reentered the game.

  Reading Group Discussion Questions

  1. How do you think Kaylin handled the whole Trae/Tasha/Kyron fiasco?

  2. How should Jaz have dealt with Oni after her initial contact with Faheem?

  3. Should Faheem have made passes at Oni?

  4. What were your thoughts when Trae fucked Charli again?

  5. Do you think Trae overreacted on the plane? Or was he just passed his boiling point?

  6. If you were Tasha, would you have given Trae head after he punched you in the mouth?

  7. Did Tasha seem too nonchalant about Stephon’s death?

  8. Was Tasha wrong for continuing to fuck with Kyron? Should she or could she have quit while she was ahead?

  9. Do you think Rick should get back with Kyra or stay with Nina?

  10. Did Faheem overreact when he threw Jaz out? If so, why? If not, why?