by Cash
“Don’t ever leave me, Trouble. Promise me you won’t leave me,” she cried as I banged her back out.
“What if I die, shawdy?”
“I want to die by your side.”
“That’s this good dick got you talking like that.”
“No, it’s not. I wouldn’t want to live without you. Promise me you’ll never go away.”
“Stop talking crazy, shawdy. Didn’t I tell you from the getty up not to get sprung? Just wrap your legs around my back and enjoy what we have now. Tomorrow ain’t promised.”
When it was time for me to bust, I pulled out and shot babies all over her stomach. No more accidents.
The following Tuesday, Inez found out Bianca, with the help of Fat Stan’s mother, had sworn out a warrant accusing me of aggravated assault. Okay. But why the DTs? I hired a prominent attorney, Barbara Moon to find out.
“They want to question you about the murder of Stan Montgomery and other murders, including that of an ex-police officer that was killed some months back. These are very serious accusations and I advise you turn yourself in so that we can begin to address them,” she said after looking into things on my behalf.
“Am I charged with murder in any of the cases?” I probed.
“No. No murder charges have been filed against you, as we speak.”
“Which means that things could change once I’m in custody?” I read between the lines.
“Yes, they could. But I don’t expect that they will. I expect that you’ll be officially charged and booked on the assault charge. They’ll want to question you about the other stuff, but of course, as your attorney I will not allow them to.”
“A’ight. Last question. If I turn myself in, will I get a bond?” I asked, because if the answer was no, I was hanging up the phone.
“I’m sure the judge will set a bond, but it will be excessive due to the fact that you fled from the police. However, I’ll argue that your subsequent surrender mitigates that,” she replied in legal jargon.
“What’s excessive?”
“Maybe $150,000.”
That was peanuts because I would only have to put up ten percent.
“I’ll come to your office tomorrow, and we can go from there. But if I don’t get a bond, I’m gonna be real pissed off,” I said.
“You’ll get a bond,” she assured me.
“I stayed up all night smoking loud and directing Ava on what to do with my cache of guns, just in case the po-po raided the crib.
When morning came, I surrendered to the muthafucking law.
CHAPTER 30
I was out on bond in three days, I could not believe the lies Bianca had told in the warrant. It was easy to conclude she was also behind the po-po’s wanting to question me about Fat Stan’s murder. But she could not be guilty of pointing them in my direction for the other murders I was questioned about. That could have only been done by Criminal or Zeke.
I discounted Criminal because he participated in the murders. Also, every single murder they questioned me about was related to Zeke’s people.
The nigga popped all that gorilla shit about him regulating the game before I was in diapers and then when my gun got too hot for that ass, he dropped a dime on me.
“I want that ass almost as bad as I want Lonnie’s.” I said to Criminal.
Feeling the eyes of the law might be on me real strong, Ava and I changed addresses under the cover of nightfall. We now resided in North Druid Hills.
As fate would have it, we were out at the mall shopping for a diamond bracelet for shawdy. When we walked toward the jeweler’s stand, a woman in front of us said to the dude she was with.
“Please, Crucial! Baby, I really want those boots.” The name meant nothing to Ava, but it meant a lot to me.
“Shawdy, I think that’s one of the niggas that bombed Big Ma’s house,” I whispered.
“How do you know?” she whispered back.
“Hold up.” I hit Criminal ASAP. He answered on the third ring.
“What’s poppin’?”
“Fam, describe that nigga, Crucial, to me again.”
“Tall nigga. Sort of look like Dre 3000 from Outkast, but he’s a red nigga.”
“A’ight, thanks, bruh.” I hung up and dropped back to a distance that wouldn’t alert the couple in front of us that they were being followed. Soon, I got a real good look at the dude’s face.
“Sorry, Ms. Jackson, I am for real…” I sang to myself.
From that point on, I followed Crucial to a house way out off of Jimmy Carter Boulevard. I never once let him out of my sight.
I didn’t smash Crucial that night because I didn’t want Ava with me when I did it. I adhered to something I read in the book written by my pop. One of the strategies my pop employed when hunting down an enemy was learning their routine. He did not follow a target for days. He just found out the place they frequented the most and then he waited on them to show up there. That’s what I decided to do with Crucial. I counted on him to come back and fuck with shawdy sooner than later, and he did not let me down.
Two weeks later, I went bitch nigga hunting with my Glock .50 in my waist. I stepped out of the shadows of the walkway like the Boogie Man.
“Run, nigga, and I’ll blow a hole in your coward ass back!” I snarled in Crucial’s ear while digging my banger in his spine.
“I ain’t gon’ run, man. Please don’t shoot me,” he pleaded like a bitch.
“You’re an arsonist, huh? You killed a grandmother and a young girl. You think that makes you a killa?”
“Man, Juwan did that. I just drove the car. I didn’t even wanna do that, but I owed Zeke some money and—”
“Explain yourself to God!” I cut him off with a single shot. He dropped like dead weight, but he was still alive. I wanted him to suffer like Big Ma and Laquanda had.
Without hesitation, I doused him with gasoline until his clothes were soaked. I struck a match and dropped it on the nigga.
Three blocks away, I could still hear his cries.
The body count was approaching a new high in ATL and the year wasn’t half over with yet. I had contributed to the statistics a great deal, but I was not the lone beast on the loose.
Mexicans were dropping like flies, which told me that GF was putting in stupid work. Criminal had them all turned way up! Those niggas had the dope game in a chokehold, and not one of them were relinquishing it. Young broads rocked their nigga’s GF chains as a status symbol. Any nigga that got caught perpetrating— wearing fake GF chains— got dealt with.
Out of respect to Criminal, I never pressed any of his people.
“Join up with me, Trouble. I’ll make you head of this shit along with me,” he’d offer every time we talked. But a d-boy I was not.
“Just holla at me when you need a nigga flat lined,” I told him.
I knew he didn’t really need me to exterminate muthafuckas for him, because he was a killa surrounded by more killas, but my offer stood.
It was hard as hell to believe their numbers had swelled so fast. And Criminal’s name was ringing loud. I wasn’t on his dick, I simply respected his accomplishment. In return, he respected how I got down for mine.
A couple of weekends later, Ava and I hooked up with him and Hadiya, his new wifey who was from Miami. The four of us played Spades and got blunted.
When Ava wasn’t around, Criminal always brought up Kamora’s name. I hadn’t seen her in months, but he obviously had. Each time he mentioned her, I would change the subject. What I wanted to talk about was whether or not he had GF homies on lock who could do a major thing for me.
“We got GF all throughout the prison system,” said Criminal. “What you need done?”
I told him and he let out a slow whistle.
“I’ll pay any price. Just name it,” I said.
He thought about it for a minute. Then he decided. “A’ight, bruh, let me work on it. It’s gonna have to be some real niggas to handle that. It can’t be none of those fake
niggas who got down for protection on lock.”
“Okay, see what you can set up. Bruh, it means everything to me.”
“I got you, fam.”
I knew his word was platinum. I could hardly wait for Criminal to make it happen.
CHAPTER 31
“Oh, it’s gonna happen no matter what I gotta do to make sure that it does. Even if I gotta get cased up myself and finagle my way to Macon State Prison where that bitch nigga is as,” I promised Inez.
We were standing over the barbeque grill in her backyard discussing my plans to get at Lonnie. We kept our voices low because people were walking by and milling about.
Inez was having a cookout for Tamia and some friends of hers from school. What started out as a small thing had quickly turned into a block party. Several neighbors had wheeled their grills over to the backyard to help out. I sent one of the neighbors to the store to buy more meat.
“No pork!” said Inez, squinting her eye against the smoke rising up from the pit.
“What about beer?” the man asked.
“You might as well buy some because y’all have just taken over these children’s cookout anyway,” she replied, feigning an attitude.
I smiled and gave her neighbor money for beer.
“Now I’m going to have to keep a closer eye on these kids. I don’t want to send any of them home drunk. Shit, I need a blunt,” said Inez.
In a split second, I produced a sandwich bag of that goodness.
“When I get a chance, we’ll sneak inside and blow one,” she remarked, so I shoved the Kush back in my pocket.
Ava came up behind me and wrapped her arms around my waist. I caught Kamora squinting her eyes at us from across the yard. Her belly was huge. I calculated that she was just a few months from having the baby. I felt mixed emotions, but what was a nigga to do? I couldn’t ask Ava not to show any affection in front of Kamora, but inside I didn’t wanna hurt shawdy. We were no longer together, but I still cared about her despite how it may have seemed.
Slyly, I removed Ava’s arms from around my waist, “Help Inez for a minute, let me go crank some music up.”
We had rented an entire DJ hookup, and surprisingly no one had gotten the party popping yet. I went behind the makeshift DJ booth and got it crunk.
As soon as I played Swag’s recent single, Tamia’s friends started dancing and getting it in. Those little girls were poppin’ their asses like a bunch of grown ass strippers. I looked out onto the impromptu dance floor and saw Eryka doing her thing all up on some boy. Yep, I was gonna have to kill a nigga over Hot Mama.
People were playing spades at a card table and dominoes at another.
“Muthafucka you did renege? Why do bastards always have to cheat? Damn, it’s only a game,” a short, fat chick screamed across the spades table at one of her opponents. Her voice boomed over the music.
Another woman chased behind a toddler in a pissy pamper while trying not to drop the paper plate full of food that was in her hands. Her skirt rode up and gave a quick peek of her ass as she kept running behind the swift toddler and reaching down to snatch him.
Meanwhile, Criminal showed up with two of his homies. He wore Rocawear Jeans, a black T-shirt, and crisp Timbs. His platinum chain with the GF medallion hung down from his neck. The diamonds in the letters sparkled right along with the diamonds in his ears. His mans were shining just as bright.
I came from behind the turntables and greeted them. “Sup, my nigga.” I dapped them one by one.
“We’re just fallin’ through. You know my peoples Shyne and Doom, don’t you?” asked Criminal, indicating his homies.
“Yeah, fam, they pulled up on me in traffic one day. I thought some beef was about to cook, but they just wanted to recruit me into y’all’s thing.”
Shyne, who was brown skinned and diesel, nodded in recollection. Then I recalled he had gone on that Solo thing with us. Doom’s attention was on something else entirely. I followed his gaze and realized what had him stuck, better yet who.
“Don’t even think about it, bruh. That’s my lil’ sister and she ain’t legal yet.” I interrupted Doom’s lust.
I was gonna have to make Eryka sit her ass down somewhere. She was attracting too much attention poppin’ her fourteen-year-old ass.
Doom shook his head like, “Umph, umph, umph.”
I put my hand on his shoulder and warned, “It would get you killed, dawg. So, get your mind right.” I softened my words with a smile.
Doom nodded.
He and Shyne went behind the turntables and turned the party up another notch. I went and snatched Eryka away from her little dance partner and roughly pulled her inside of the house.
“Do you always gotta act like your ass is on fire?” I yelled in her face. My forehead was creased.
Eryka threw her hands on her hot ass hips and shot back, “I was only dancing! And anyway, you’re not my daddy.”
I grabbed ahold of one of her arms and pointed my finger in her face. “Don’t get breezy or I’ll take that ass home.”
“Humph!”
Inez came to Eryka’s rescue. Seriously I was two seconds away from going there.
“Lil T, let me talk to her,” said Inez gently.
I didn’t say shit. I just walked out of the back door and entered the backyard. I found my other sisters, Tamia and Chante amongst a group of girls acting their age. That was a relief because Tamia could get some sizzle in her ass sometimes, too. I shook my head in exasperation, wishing I had all brothers.
Just then, Ava came up to me with a heaping plate of food. “Here you go, daddy. I know you’re hungry and this food is the shit,” she declared.
I accepted the plate from her, it was stacked with barbequed beef ribs, chicken, potato salad and coleslaw.
“Did they come back with the beer yet?” I asked as I bit into a beef rib.
“Yes, daddy. You want me to bring you a Heineken?”
“Yeah, and twist me up a fat stick of loud it’s in my front pocket.”
Ava reached in my pocket and retrieved the ounce of good-good. I felt her hand rub my dick.
“Stop being fast before I take you in the house and put a permanent hump in your back,” I teased.
“Promises, promises.” She stuck her tongue out at me before doing a half pirouette and going to grab my Heineken. I watched her ass as she walked away—that muthafucka was shaped like an upside-down heart. No lie.
Later, I slid up to Kamora while she was engaged in conversation with Criminal. Who seemed to prefer me with Kamora over Ava—not that he had a say in the matter, but from time to time he would plead Kamora’s case.
Today, Kamora was glowing. Her face was a little fuller than normal, but her skin was radiant and she just looked pretty as hell. She wore a blue maternity top, blue pants and white and blue sandals. Her nails were long and beautifully painted and her new severely short hair style was banging.
“Let me leave y’all to talk,” Criminal said before I could say a word. He winked at Kamora like they had been plotting a conspiracy to get us back together.
Criminal bopped off with half the females with their eyes on his back.
“Sup, shawdy? How you been?” I asked. “Is everything good with the baby?”
“Yes.”
“That’s what’s up. Well do you need anything?”
“No, I’m good. Thank you.”
I looked Kamora in the eyes and then took a swig from the bottle of Heineken that was in my hand. I drained the bottle and then tossed it across the fence into the yard next door. I gazed back into Kamora’s eyes and asked if she was feeling some kind of way.
“As a matter of fact, I am.” Her eyes narrowed and her arms folded across her chest.
“Speak your peace, shawdy,” I encouraged her.
“I’m just saying, bae. You just cut a bitch off. Now you’re bringing Ava around Inez and them like that’s not supposed to hurt my feelings. That shit is not right. I don’t care how you spin it.
Let me come over here with the next nigga and you would have a real problem with it.” Kamora’s words spilled out like hot water that had boiled over.
Her eyes were cloudy, but I could not allow myself to be broken down by her tears. No matter what she or Criminal or Inez felt, I wasn’t being cold or unfair. When a person broke their word on one thing, they’d break it on another.
“You chose this, shawdy. So, don’t try to act like I cut you off for no reason. You know me better than anyone. You know how important a person’s word is to me.”
“I hate you!” she said and stormed off.
I stood there and measured the sincerity in which Kamora had slung those words at me. Did she really hate me? If so, how far would she go to make me feel her pain? That was something to seriously consider. Now my mood was thrown off. I went and found Ava and we said a quick and unexpected goodbye to everyone.
Heading home, I smoked a blunt and thought about what Kamora had said. Because I believed I knew her heart, and because she was carrying my seed, I decided not to kill her.
CHAPTER 32
“Lay down, daddy, and let me take that bitch off your mind,” said Ava in a sultry tone that made the python between my legs jerk its head up. We had just stepped out of the shower and dried each other off.
I lay back on the cool, satin sheets while Ava lit vanilla scented candles and clicked on that old school slow song Adore by Prince.
I sparked a blunt and watched Ava go over to the stripper pole she had recently convinced me to have installed in our bedroom.
Light from the candles bounced off of the ceiling and the walls and gave a soft background to the black and gold color scheme of the bedroom.
Until the end of time/I’ll be there for you. Prince crooned as Ava grabbed the pole with both arms above her head and pressed her ass up against it, staring into my eyes.
I pulled on the sticky and licked my lips in anticipation that only heightened when I noticed a lollipop in her hand.
Ava kept a big jar of them on the dresser. Ava slid her ass up and down the pole in rhythm with the song. Her firm titties gazed at me from five feet away.
