by Anna J.
“Nigga, don’t you think I know that?” He said with way too much emotion, and I knew some shit had gone down that shouldn’t have. It didn’t seem like he was going to come right out and tell me what it was, either, so I decided to come at him sideways to get the information.
“What’s in the envelope, man?” I asked him, trying to come at another angle, but my man looked like he was about to fall apart. The longer we stood there, the more I knew something happened that Bunz wasn’t telling.
“Yo, let’s walk and talk,” he said like he was all nervous and shit.
I started walking toward the deli over by the Ville so that I could get me a vanilla Dutch before I went to handle my business. It sounded like this dude was about to girl up on me, and I wasn’t sure I was even ready for that shit.
During the walk, he started telling me about the bullshit that went down with him and Bunz down the bottom the other day. Apparently, these niggas done robbed the braid shop that Bunz’s simple ass had been plotting on for a few weeks now. The only thing is, the owner took the money when she left, and that spelled bad news for whoever was involved, especially if Bunz was the one holding the gun. He ended up shooting the young girl and the client, only coming up on a few hundred dollars that they split down the middle.
“So, what you so shook about, nigga? How many bodies you got on you now?” I asked him, being sarcastic.
See, Joey was from the streets, but not like the rest of us were. Most of us were pretty much immune to killing a nigga. We just made it do what it did and bounced, ditching that body until it showed up floating on the Schuylkill River near Bartram’s Garden. I didn’t give a fuck about a dead nigga, because that just meant his ass wouldn’t be testifying in court. Joey, on the other hand, was still going through his nightmare stage; but I was determined to make him into a real soldier sooner than later.
“I ain’t shook, nigga, so let’s get that straight.” Joey came back with an attitude that I wasn’t expecting. It was about time he got some balls about him.
“So, what’s the problem then?” I stopped right in front of the deli so that he could answer. I hoped this dude wasn’t getting soft on me ’cause I swear I was not in the mood.
“This the problem, nigga,” Joey said, showing me the contents of the envelope. It was from his son’s school. Apparently the child of the woman that Bunz killed was in his son’s class, and they sent the information home for the parents to look over. His son was in the same class as my niece, so I know that shit must have hit home.
I took the paper from him and quickly scanned the article. It said that the murder happened about three in the morning on the Friday before New Year’s Day. The client involved was getting her hair done before starting her book tour, said her family. It seems that she was some kind of bestselling author from Philly and had written all these books and shit. The young girl that was doing her hair was only seventeen years old. Her mother and the family of the deceased client did the interview, and the woman’s daughter, Kareema, attended the school. They had both of the women’s pictures on the cover. I remembered seeing her around the way. I think she had some family out the Ville or something like that.
“So, what you gonna do, man?” I asked as I stepped into the deli to get what I came for. I knew his son must have been going through it, and that meant that Journey probably was too. Damn, guess I wasn’t getting any head tonight. Usually I made her sweat for this good product, but I did have a heart somewhat. Tonight I’d just give it to her, but she’d have to put in overtime the next time around.
“Dude, I gotta get my son straight first.”
“Yeah, I hear that, but I told you that nigga Bunz is a knucklehead. Stop rolling out with that dude, yo. What, you ain’t eating right hustling on the block?”
“Yeah, I’m good, man. Money just got a little tight for a second, that’s all.”
“Street, honestly, you a good soldier, but you ain’t made for the stick-up business. Leave that shit for them knuckleheads that ain’t got nothing better to do. I got something in the works, but I’ma put you on later. Just give me a second to get shit poppin’.”
“Cool. Let me go handle my seed and I’ll get at you later.”
“Later, my nigga.”
“A’ight dude, later.”
I checked one of my stash houses before I went to see Journey to cop me a bag of that blueberry and to make sure my shit was running properly. I had a good amount of cash and product hidden at the house with Journey and her mom because I knew that the law would never look there.
When I walked into the crib, the first thing I noticed was the manila envelope sitting on the table. It was identical to the one Street showed me earlier. I knew I would have to sit down and say a few kind words to her about the situation, but on some real shit, I ain’t give a damn. We all have to go some day, and that’s just the way life works, but I knew I couldn’t explain that shit to her like that.
She was naked, just the way I liked her to be, but I felt bad about it today for some reason. Five more years and I’d be tearing that ass up, and the thought of it made my dick hard, but I held it down. Journey looked at me with sad eyes and clicked the television off. She kneeled on the couch, waiting for me to sit down so that she could handle her business, but as bad as I wanted my dick sucked, I couldn’t do it.
“Yo, go put some damn clothes on. I ain’t in the mood for this shit right now,” I lied through my teeth, the imprint of my dick pressed against my zipper telling another story. She looked hesitant at first, but the look I gave her told her she had better get moving before I changed my mind.
In ten seconds flat, she was standing in front of me, dressed in a dingy pair of panties with matching undershirt. For the first time, I took a good look at her ashy little body and I wasn’t so sure that I was doing the right thing. But when I thought about the magnificent head I’d trained her to perform, I couldn’t let nobody else get a hold of that.
Pushing my thoughts to the back of my head, I flipped through the folder that the school sent home, sticking it in my coat pocket to read later.
“Listen, I’m gonna come back through here tomorrow, so make sure you come straight home after school. I need you to do something for me, but now isn’t the time to get into details.”
“What about my mom’s medicine? She needs one for the morning, and I don’t have anymore,” she said in a small voice near the verge of tears. Damn, I hated to see her cry, and tried to block that shit out instantly.
“Here,” I said, passing her one cap of Snow White. “I’ll be back tomorrow, so that should hold you. Make sure you come straight home so that I can take you to get some new uniforms and shit. Then I got something I need you to do. Understood?”
She nodded her head and held on to the vial of drugs I had just given her like she was the fiend. I stood up from the couch and looked at her again, shaking my head and walking into the bedroom to look at my sister-in-law. She looked a horrid mess, the life gone from her body from years of getting high and shit. I wanted to feel bad for her, but she let my simple-ass brother turn her out, and now look at her.
“Journey, bring your ass straight home from school tomorrow,” I said to her on the way out, not bothering to wait for a response. I had been promising her school uniforms, and I figured if I laced her real fast with some fly shit and got her hair done and all that, she’d be more willing to cooperate with me on what I was trying to do.
On my way up the block, I saw this long-legged trick named Raynita that lived in the corner house next to Wanda’s bar down near 55th and Springfield. She must have been up here to cop, and I had just the thing for her ass. She turned around just in time to see me cross the street.
I felt almost bad for selling to her because she was a cutie. She had hips and ass like a mu’fucka, and a nice set of kissable titties, but you could see the use of drugs starting to wear away at her face. Her once full, dick-sucking lips started to twist from her habit, and it looked like she was
missing a few teeth. Another one bites the dust. I took her through the alley and got me a chewy real quick, since fuckin’ with Journey was out of the question. I even threw her a couple extra tops for doing a good job.
Back on the block, I pulled my North Face coat tighter around my neck and prepared to get on my grind. The drug game is never asleep, and as long as these dope heads had a taste for that Snow White, I’d be out there to give it to ’em. Another day, another dollar made.
Joey Street
Deal or No Deal
“Yo, Choice, man, Bunz is a fuckin’ mental case, dude. I mean, I know we out here makin’ it happen, but damn. Does he have to kill every damn body?”
I was sittin’ up in my man Choice’s house, watching a basketball game that he had recorded from the other day. This nigga had a fly-ass pad that his sisters kept in top shape for him on a weekly basis. He had some bad-ass sisters, too, and I was really feeling his sister Eve, but she knew my son’s mom, so she wouldn’t let me push up. Besides that, Choice was real protective over his sisters, so I wouldn’t dare disrespect him like that. You know how them Jamaican niggas get, and he been done tried to kill my ass.
“I don’t even know why you fuck with that dude, man. We soldiers. Why are you out frolicking with stick-up kids anyway? If your paper looking shady, you need to holla at Vince. You know he cool people.”
“Yeah, I know. Shanyce fucked some shit up for me, though, and I had to tap into my stash, but it’s getting handled now. I’m just pissed that she’s mad and she the one that fucked up,” I said to him, not bothering to go into detail.
Shanyce let her brother into our house to watch Khalid because she wanted to get her damn feet done, and this nigga dipped out with one of my packs. She begged me not to let Vince know because we both knew that Vince would dead that nigga, but in the midst of all that, I had to get that money back up before Vince started asking questions. In the meantime, we still had Khalid’s tuition that needed to be paid for the semester, amongst other things, and she wasn’t willing to come up off her entire check to foot the bill. I wanted to choke the shit out of her, but after the first time I had to smack her up for some dumb shit, I promised her that I would never put my hands on her again. She was making it hard to keep that promise.
Bunz talked me into doing this popcorn-ass robbery that was supposed to have been sweet, but that shit ended in a tragedy, as usual, leaving me exhausted because now I couldn’t sleep at night. It fucked me up even more when I found out that the woman had a child in my little man’s class, bringing that night right back to haunt me. What the fuck? I can’t win for losing sometimes.
“So, how much you in for, nigga?” Choice asked me, taking his eyes off the game for a brief second. I hated looking this nigga in the eye because it was like he could see right through me.
“I’m set only eight G’s now, but I’m almost in,” I answered, minus the eight thousand I had already turned in. The pack that Shanyce let her brother walk out with was worth sixteen thousand, and she only contributed about five hundred to the sixteen that was owed.
“You say eight G’s is all?” he asked, getting up from the couch and going into his bedroom.
I was tucked snuggly in his overstuffed chair that felt like I was wrapped in a damn cloud. Rumor had it that his shit was stuffed with thousands of dollars, but who really knew? Besides, no one had the balls to come test that nigga because he had papers.
“Yeah, nigga, that’s all, but I’m working it out.”
I took a swig from the Mike’s Hard Lemonade bottle that I brought up here with me and took a peek at my cell phone. Shanyce had called my phone at least twenty times since I’d been there, but I didn’t feel like the bullshit. When she’d shown me the package that Khalid brought home from school, we got in an argument because she blamed me for pulling the trigger. I denied the fact that I was even there, but when she asked me where I got the money for Khalid’s tuition, I nutted up. I wasn’t expecting her to ask that question, and I had yet to get my story together, so she caught me off guard. Instead of arguing with her and having to lie, I walked out on her ass. She’d been calling me ever since.
“Problem solved,” Choice said to me, dropping a bundle of hundred-dollar bills in my lap. I picked up the money and noticed $10, 000 written in blue ink on the wrapper.
“Yo, I can’t take this money, man. I’ll figure it out.”
“Take the money and get that cloud from over ya head. It’s nothing to me.”
“I’ll still be in debt because now I’ll owe you, and I’m already stressed.”
“Yo, take the money. You don’t have to pay it back; you just owe me one. Cool?”
“I guess, but I only need eight. It’s ten in here,” I said to him, skeptical about taking the cash. Owing him one could be worse than paying it back, and I wasn’t sure if it was even worth it.
“It’s a gift. Tell Shanyce to buy herself something pretty with it,” he said, sitting back down and rolling up another L. I was stuck because I really needed the money.
The thing is, Vince got me on the block, and I was making good money, but I wasn’t on lieutenant status like Choice and Bird. Them niggas was getting cake and baking pies like it was no tomorrow. I hustled the corners, and even though me and Vince were cool, I needed to either up my change or up my ranking so that I could get more money. I decided at that moment I would holla at Vince the next chance I got so we could talk about the situation.
Tucking the money away inside my jacket pocket, I decided that I wouldn’t turn in all the money right away, because then Vince would want to know how I got it that fast or would think that I was moving product like that and I wasn’t. Every time I turned in money, I would add two stacks on the top until the entire eight was in. That way, Vince wouldn’t be too suspicious of what I was doing. I had my cash and my remaining packs hidden in my son’s room in the wall inside of his closet, so we wouldn’t have this same problem again. And I wouldn’t tell Shanyce about the shit either. She would have to learn how this shit worked if she ain’t want our asses strapped to the ceiling ass-naked, getting beat by ten niggas.
Me and Choice watched the rest of the game in silence as we passed a blunt back and forth. He had a vanilla blunt wrap loaded with blueberry sticky that tasted like a damn blueberry pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top when you puffed it. That shit was that blaze that had you fucked up, and I copped a bag from him before I rolled out. I ain’t want to be caught on the streets with that kind of money on me, so I made a beeline from Choice’s crib to mine so that I could stash my shit.
When I walked in, the house was dark, making me glance at my watch to see what time it was. I knew Shanyce was probably pissed because it was already ten o’clock and I was just now getting back home. I went into my son’s room first, and he was sound asleep. I took that opportunity to stash my shit in his closet, using the light from my cell phone to see what I was doing. Everything was the same as I left it, meaning Shanyce hadn’t found my stash yet.
Once I was done in the closet, I gave my boy a kiss on the cheek before pulling the covers up over his shoulders and leaving the room, closing the door behind me. I wanted to leave back out, but I went in the room to hear Shanyce’s bullshit so I wouldn’t have to hear it tomorrow.
I stood by the door to listen for the television, but I didn’t hear anything, so I assumed she was asleep. Hell, I hoped she was; then I wouldn’t have to hear her damn mouth.
When I finally opened the door, I saw Shanyce stretched out on the bed, looking good as shit in red lingerie and heels to match. Her long hair was pinned up in a sexy bun, with wisps of hair framing her face and neck. My dick got hard instantly, and I almost forgot that I was mad at her simple ass . . . almost.
I acted like I didn’t even see her there, going over to the corner and sitting in the chair, taking my time removing the Timberland boots from my feet. She watched my every move as I stripped down to my boxers and folded my clothes neatly in a pile on th
e floor. Even though they were dirty from me wearing them all day, I didn’t like filth, and kept my stuff together at all times.
I noticed she didn’t have any panties on, and she was wearing that peach shimmer lip-gloss that I liked so much. Her titties sat up nicely under the lacy red material. Even after her having our son, her body was still tight. I resisted the urge to take her clit into my mouth and suck all the cum out of her body, but my dick was betraying me, and she could clearly see that she had me turned the fuck on.
I lay in the bed next to her and flipped on the television like I didn’t even see her, turning to SportsCenter so I could watch the game highlights. My dick was straining against my boxers, making me feel uncomfortable. I really wanted her to reach in there and release the beast, but I kept my damn mouth shut. If she wanted this dick, she was going to have to work for it.
It was almost like she read my mind. She didn’t waste a second reaching in and grabbing a hold of my throbbing dick. I wasn’t down to my knees with the shit, but the seven inches I had was heavy enough to knock the bottom out a pussy, and she loved every inch of it. Her small hand couldn’t even fit around the entire shaft, but it felt nice and warm as she stroked me from the base to the tip in a rhythm that was probably playing in her head. I tried to control myself from moaning out loud, but the pre-cum that bubbled up on the tip of my dick put me on blast.
She moved her small body over between my legs, her juicy ass blocking my view from the TV as she bent over and took my dick into her mouth. Her ass jiggled as her body rocked, and my toes were curled so tight I thought I would spontaneously combust as I enjoyed the blessing her warm mouth provided. It wasn’t long before I had unloosened her hair from her bun and grabbed a hold of her long tresses as her hair fell down around her face and across my lap, blocking my view of her mouth at work.
