Trust in No Man 3

by Cash

  With things on the hush, I spent the next few weeks kickin’ it with Inez, Ava and my sisters. Inez’ oldest daughter, Bianca, still hadn’t returned home, but she was no longer out there headed for destruction.

  Now Bianca was back living with Inez’ mother who had primarily raised her anyway.

  That same week, Inez and I took my sisters to see Grandma Ann at the mental facility. As soon as the nursing assistants brought her out to the picnic area where we were seated, it was apparent she was getting better. Her eyes looked clearer than they had been in a long time, and her face wasn’t as swollen from the medication as it had been at the previous facility.

  “Ms. Ann, your grandson and some other family members are here to see you. Here, let me help you sit down,” said the plump woman who’d brought her out.

  “Chile, I can sit down on my own,” insisted Grandma.

  The nurse continued helping Grandma Ann until she was properly seated. Then she smiled and left us alone.

  “Hi, Grandma, look who I brought to see you,” I said.

  Inez, Tamia, Chante and Eryka were standing on each side of me. She looked curiously, as if searching her memory for recognition. She must have drawn a blank because her brows furrowed.

  “I’m Lil T, Grandma. Uh, Youngblood’s son,” I said, trying to jog her memory. “And these are his daughters, Tamia, Chante and Eryka. And this is Tamia’s mother, Inez, who was your son’s girlfriend.”

  “His girlfriend? Shan? Get her away from me!” she suddenly cried out and moaned with a pain that seemed to come from way deep down in her soul. I reached for her hand and held it in mine.

  “No, Grandma, that’s not Shan. That’s Inez, she really loved my father,” I said.

  She stared at Inez while mouthing her name several times. Then something clicked, because she smiled and said to Inez, “Hi, sweetie. Where have you been? Why isn’t my son with you? Is he still upset with me?” She was better, but still not well.

  “No, he is not,” replied Inez, fighting back tears.

  “Well, you tell him to come sit with his mother for a while. You hear me?”

  “Yes ma’am.” Now Inez had tears streaming down her face. I could tell she tried to keep them from falling, yet they managed to slip out.

  “Chile, stop that crying. And who are these pretty girls?”

  I reintroduced my sisters one by one. “Oh, my! Terrence certainly has been a busy boy,” she remarked.

  Everybody cracked up.

  “Where’s Toi? Why didn’t she come?” asked Grandma.

  Nobody said a word.

  “I want my Toi and I want Terrance. Bring my babies to me. Bring my babies to me! Bring my babies to me!” she cried.

  I wrapped my arms around her and held her while she cried against my chest. I looked up and there wasn’t a dry eye in our gathering, including my own.

  CHAPTER 36

  It took a week, a quarter pound of Kush and a half dozen boxes of Swisher Sweets to get my head back right after the heart-wrenching visit with Grandma Ann. I could see she was progressing some at the new facility, but it wasn’t enough. I resigned myself to get her the best psychological care in the country, if I had to jack every hustla in Fulton County to pay for it.

  I pulled on my fitted and checked my profile in the mirror. “Shawdy, hand me the Visine,” I said to Ava. “Jay-Z wasn’t lying when he said that stress will give a young nigga an old face.”

  “Boy, you don’t look old, at all.” She assuaged my ego. She applied the eye drops to my eyes and punctuated her tenderness with a kiss, leaving a trace of strawberry lip-gloss on my lips. I licked it off and squeezed her booty. “Don’t start nothing you don’t want to finish,” she moaned sexily.

  Shawdy was always tryna seduce a nigga when I was trying to roll out. The sultriness of her tone told me she wasn’t kidding. I promised to give her a tune up when we returned from the park.

  The whole hood attended a function at Grant Park to raise money to build an after-school youth center. I held my shawdy’s hand as we went from booth to booth checking out what they were selling. As usual, I was strapped because I still felt uncomfortable amongst a large crowd of people, any of whom could be the enemy.

  I ran into mad niggas who paid me taxes. I wasn’t stressing them. Had they wanted to get at me, why choose a public place where there were hundreds of witnesses and dozens of po-po’s?

  Criminal and them came through stuntin’ hard in Coogi gear and dumb jewels. Hadiya was not on his arm. She seldom rolled with him when his swag was on public display. He noticed Ava and me and came over to holla. His entire crew followed.

  We hollered briefly and then pushed on. I caught the lingering hard stares of two or three of his comrades as they walked away. The look I returned should’ve let them know that they could get served, too.

  At a barbeque stand, I ran into a lady who looked at me curiously and asked, “What’s your daddy’s name?”

  “Youngblood. Why?”

  “Wow! You look like he spit you out his mouth! Don’t he, girl?” she asked the woman with her.

  “He sure do. Your daddy was the livest muthafucka I ever met.”

  “Humph. And he had some good dick, too! I only got it once, but I remember it like it was yesterday. Woo, that nigga tore this cootie mama up!”

  I spit out the soda I was drinking.

  “Fiona, you ought to be ashamed of yourself!” exclaimed her friend.

  Fiona? I tried to recall the name from my pop’s book, but I drew a blank. My nigga had good taste, though. She was a fly broad and thick as hell, too. She reminded me of Lisa Raye in the face, and when she walked away, I could see she damn sure had a body like her, too.

  After they left, Ava and I made our way through a throng of teenagers to the front of the stage that had been set up. Local, amateur rappers were entertaining the spectators. A few of the niggas were nice, but a chick named LaLa ate ‘em up.

  As the sun dimmed, a buzz floated through the crowd. Then a slow procession of SUV limos made a path through the sea of bodies all the way up to the stage. Screams filled the air when Swag and his entourage stepped out of the vehicle and climbed up on the stage.

  He grabbed the mic and announced, “Anybody seen TI? When you do see Tip, tell him that I’m the muthafuckin’ new King of the South!”

  The spotlight that shined on Swag slowly moved to one of the tinted SUV’s. The doors swung open and four big niggas stepped out. The self-proclaimed Grand Hustla himself, stepped out next and climbed up on the hood of the stretch limo.

  “Nigga, it ain’t but one King of the South! You tryna jack my title?” TI said into the mic he held.

  The crowed went ape shit!

  TI and Swag battled back and forth for an hour. It was a lyrical heavyweight fight that left both opponents spent. The crowd roared its respect for both rappers’ freestyle mastery.

  Then, TI, the city’s prodigal son, took over the show. Swag noticed shawdy and me in the front row and sent two bodyguards to invite us on stage. I wasn’t one to bask in another’s nigga’s glow, but I went onstage so I could tell Swag that everything was gucci with us.

  Ava remained in the crowd. I climbed on stage, walked over to the side where Swag stood amongst his mans, and we embraced.

  “Sup, fam’? You clowned on the mic. That shit you said about TI’s girl, Tiny, stupid slick.” I congratulated him. I knew it had all been in fun because TI and Swag fucked with each other.

  “Yeah, I ate his ass up with that one. But Tip knows he’s my nigga. Just like you are. I’ll always fuck with you the long way.”

  “That’s what’s up. Just don’t try to change me, unc. I’m on a mission that can’t be stopped. Real talk, I been living gully ever since they stuck that needle in my pop’s arm.”

  “It’s all love,” he replied. “Fuck with ya boy. Why don’t you and your girl hang out with us tonight?”

  “Nawl, fam’, I promised shawdy some one on one time tonight. I’ma get w
ith you next time you’re in the A. I just wanted to square things away with us in case it’s the last time I see you, my nigga.”

  “Man, what you talkin’ about?”

  “I’m just saying, fam— you never know. Niggas die and get cased up in these streets every day. You never when it’s your time.”

  “Is that really all it is? Or is it something deeper? ‘Cause if you got beef out here that’s hot like that, I got goons who move on my command. Just say the word, nephew, and they’ll ride down and dirty with you,” offered Swag.

  I knew he wasn’t frontin’, in his entourage were killas and thugs. I could do nothing but salute that. I gave him a gangsta hug and hopped off stage.

  Ava and I weaved through the crowd, making our way back to the well-lit parking lot. There, we bumped into the last person I wanted to see.

  “My baby!” she cried. Then she smiled, showing a bare front grill. Besides her mouth, she didn’t look as tore up as I expected her to look, but her head was shaved as bald as a baby’s ass and she was very thin. Some old-school nigga was with her.

  Shan reached out to hug me, like we were good with each other, when we weren’t. I stepped back.

  “Lil T, please. I’ve been trying to find you so we can fix our relationship. You’re all I have left now. Mama’s gone, Laquanda’s gone—”

  “My pop is gone. Don’t forget that!” I reminded her.

  “I know, and I’m sorry for what I’ve done. If I could go back and change things, God knows I would.” She sobbed over the music that thundered out to where we stood.

  I felt no pity. “But you can’t change shit. You can’t take back the phone call you made. Because of your trife ass, this is all that’s left of a good nigga!” I lifted the urn around my neck and pushed it into her face.

  She wept. “Please find it in your heart to forgive me.”

  “What? I should spit in your face!” I blared.

  “No, baby, she’s still your mother! You don’t have to like the things she’s done, but respect her! Don’t do that to her!” Ava begged me.

  “Lil T, I wasn’t in my right mind back then. You don’t understand, I loved your father. But the more he rejected me, the more that love turned into hate.”

  “Miss me with that fuck shit. You fucked his partna. He should’ve murked ya ass. And what about Laquanda? Were you in your right mind the night you tried to prostitute her for a muthafuckin’ rock? Get out of my face before I thrash your trifling ass!”

  “Youngin, don’t talk to your mother like that. She’s already going through enough,” old school said and stepped into some shit that wasn’t his business.

  My banger came out instantly. “Nigga, stay the fuck out of mine!” I pointed it in his face. He threw up his hands in surrender. “Step, nigga!” I slapped him in the head with the banger and he ran off in the other direction.

  “Let’s bounce, shawdy. I get sick every time the gutter snipe is in my presence,” I said to Ava while sneering at Shan.

  When we turned to walk off, Shan yelled, “Lil T, I’m dying! I have cancer and it’s real bad.”

  I stopped in my tracks and slowly turned around to face her. “It’s called Karma. And as far as I’m concerned, you’ve been dead.” I turned and walked to the car without glancing back at her once.

  Now my whole mood was thrown off. Ava said nothing as we followed traffic down Boulevard. My mind wasn’t on my surroundings, and that’s how I almost got caught slippin’.”

  “Trouble, watch out!” screamed Ava.

  I glanced over to see that a car was side by side with us and a nigga was leaning out of the passenger window with a shotgun aimed at me.

  Ava snatched me down just as dude let the gun blast. My driver’s door window imploded into a thousand pieces of glass. The second kaboom peppered the door and then my assailants sped away.

  I rose up and flicked the dome light. “Shawdy, you okay?” I looked over in the passenger seat. Blood covered Ava’s entire upper body.

  “No, I’m going to die,” she moaned.

  “Nawl, shawdy don’t say that. You’re a survivor, just hold on to my hand.”

  Ava gripped my hand. I raced toward the nearest hospital, which was Atlanta Medical Center.

  As I glanced over at shawdy, I could see that the shotgun blast had caught her in the neck and upper chest. She was bleeding badly, and the blood was pouring out alarmingly fast. Her grip was weakening on my hand.

  “Sol—dier—Boy,” she groaned. He was the lick I hit through the stripper chick, Erotica, that Ava arranged that time.

  “Soldier Boy?” I repeated, honking my horn to bypass traffic.

  Ava nodded her head to confirm that I had heard her correctly.

  “I’ll get him, shawdy,” I promised, but I don’t think she heard me because her head went slack and her hand slipped from my grasp.

  Ava was pronounced dead upon arrival at Atlanta’s Medical Center. I was totally fucked up. Leaving another enemy alive had cost someone else close to me their life.

  Death was a bitter pill to swallow when the enemy struck back. To prevent this from happening to yet someone else close to me, it was time to turn all the fuckin’ way up.

  I buried Ava a week after she died. Inez and my sisters attended the services as well as Criminal and Hadiya.

  Before we laid shawdy to rest, we released twenty-two white doves. One for every year of Ava’s life. The service was beautiful but heart-wrenching.

  Back at the crib I had shared with Ava, memories of shawdy were in every room. I could even smell the scent of her familiar body wash in the air. I knew I could not remain living there for long. The recalls were too intense.

  I smoked loud all night and thought about shawdy. In the wee hours of the morning, I strapped up. I knew where to find who I was after. I got in my whip and pushed in an old Lloyd Banks CD, programming it to my favorite track before pulling off.

  Nobody here knew that they would die before they awoke/ they probably started out a few days before they were smoked/ out last night high be that murder she wrote…

  Ava’s absence squeezed my heart. Shawdy was gone. I was gonna miss her like crazy. I blinked back a tear and my pop came to mind.

  The smell of my nigga a couple of weeks soften/ I raise hell but I speak softly/ caught in the mix…

  My thoughts went from my pop to Swag and Criminal, two niggas who were proving that a few of us kept it all the way one hundred. Both had my back in different ways.

  My nigga ‘til the end/ fuck the bills, the freaks, the Benz/ let’s toast drinks ‘Til we die/ roll up the weed blow the smoke in the sky/ da da da…

  I knew that with one phone call Criminal would be riding shotgun, but I could handle this on my own.

  I pulled into the parking lot of the strip club where Erotica danced at now. It was closing time and customers milled out in groups. I waited until the parking lot was empty except the vehicles that belonged to the dancers and other employees.

  A while later, a very familiar looking, dark colored sedan pulled into the parking lot. I strained my memory trying to quickly recall where I had seen that car. Then it hit me, it was the car I had seen screeching away the day Inez’ house had gotten sprayed up while I was inside. It was also the same muthafuckin’ ride that the shooters were driving when Ava was killed.

  Soldier Boy got out of the car and posted up on the front hood waiting for Erotica to come outside, I concluded.

  Damn, I had slumped Fat Stan for something he hadn’t done. Oh well, he was a hater anyway. Fuck him.

  Erotica came out of the club and walked toward Soldier Boy’s car. I pounced out of my whip on some I don’t give a fuck shit. My banger was down by my side as I crossed the street ready to take it back to the Wild, Wild West!

  Soldier’s Boy’s street instincts were fine-tuned. He sensed danger before I could get up on him, and his hand shot to his waist as we glared at each other from about thirty feet. Just then, a police cruiser pulled into the lo
t. I smoothly kept my Glock hidden from the po-po’s view. Soldier Boy eased his hand away from his waist, put his fingers to his lips and blew me the kiss of death.

  “Another place, another time,” I said.

  CHAPTER 37

  As the book was closed on one life precious to me, another began. A month after I buried Ava, Kamora gave birth to a healthy baby boy.

  When I arrived at the hospital, Criminal met me in the waiting room.

  I was surprised he was there but he explained, “Kamora called me because your new number isn’t programmed into her phone. Inez was with her during delivery.”

  I gave him a gangsta hug. “Thanks, bruh. You go above and beyond for a nigga and I’ll never forget it.”

  “Don’t get all mushy, nigga,” he exclaimed.

  A nurse pointed me to Kamora’s room. I went in and found Inez at her bedside.

  “Congratulations!” Inez beamed, passing me a box of Black and Mild.

  “Thanks.” I hugged her. “Where’s my lil’ nigga at?”

  “The nurse will bring him back shortly. Wait ‘til you see him. He looks exactly like you and your daddy.”

  “Does he?”

  “You’ll see.”

  I walked over to Kamora’s bed. “Sup? How you feelin’?”

  “I’m okay. It wasn’t as bad as everyone said it would be, but I’m tired as hell now. What’s going on with you?” she asked.

  “You know how I do. Ain’t nothin’ changed but the time and date. I got a whole lot of things for you and the baby out in the car. I’ll bring them over when you’re released.”

  “That would be nice.”

  It felt strange holding a conversation with Kamora in this manner. The distance between us was obvious. I looked down at her and shook my head at what had become of the love we once shared. But I still felt what I felt and I knew deep inside that I was not wrong.

  “What do you want me to name him?” she asked, interrupting my thoughts with a foolish question.

  “C’mon Kamora, you know I’m giving my son his rightful name. Terrence Whitsmith III. And I’ma call his lil’ ass Trey.”