On the Run with Love

by J. M. Benjamin

  * * *

  Driving home, Freddie thought about the knowledge Gina had dropped on him about the measure of a man. She had seen right through him and she knew his pride was definitely running away with his reason. He had fixed his mind to go to war; whatever happened, happened. And for what? If he was faced with a “kill or be killed” situation, Freddie wouldn’t hesitate to kill. But then what? He wasn’t tryin’ to see prison for a murder rap. Then there was the flipside: if Cream killed him.

  He shook off that thought. Kill him over a piece of pussy they both knew was no good? With all this pussy in the world, Freddie wasn’t tryin’ to die over no piece, regardless of who it was. So, yeah, let Gina’s fam squash the beef. He had nothing to prove and niggas knew he wasn’t no sucka, so fuck it, he figured, and get on with life.

  Thinking of the situation and Gina’s support drew him that much closer to her, even though he tried repeatedly to convince himself that there wasn’t anything to their relationship and that he could cut her off at will, like a chain smoker who claimed he could quit anytime he wanted. Cats knew cigarettes were killing them, but that puff . . .

  Gina was like that puff to him. She was what he craved after every meal, and his meal was Simone. Just thinking of his fiancée and watching the sunrise made his heart sink. Of course he had an alibi: Slug. They had hung out all night. But if he claimed he loved her, why was it so easy to lie to her over and over again? Who was he fooling: her or himself? These were the thoughts running through Freddie’s mind.

  Chapter Five

  Freddie pulled up to his and Simone’s one-bedroom apartment in North Plainfield. He quietly turned the key. The plan was to enter his crib unnoticed and jump into the shower, then slide into bed next to a sleeping Simone like he had done so many times before. But what he smelled made his guilt turn into sickness: pancakes and turkey sausage. He could clearly hear the sizzle of the sausage as the buttery smell of pancakes wafted through the air. “Damn,” he cursed to himself under his breath. He knew there was no way he was going to be able to bypass one of his favorite breakfast meals without Simone becoming suspicious.

  “Hey, baby. I’m in the kitchen,” she called out sweetly.

  All he could think about was the song “It’s a Thin Line Between Love and Hate.”

  “Are you hungry, honey? Did you eat yet?” Freddie was bombarded with this as soon as he walked into the kitchen. He found Simone at the stove in one of his COWBOYS VS. EVERYBODY T-shirts. He felt like shit to see the smile she flashed him as he quickly kissed her. He prayed and hoped Gina’s fragrance wasn’t clinging to his clothes.

  “Where’s Slug?” she asked, looking over his shoulder.

  “I, uh, dropped him off at Mama’s. He ain’t wanna cock block a brotha,” he flirted, only because a lie is best swallowed with laughter, and Simone did laugh.

  “I thought y’all would be hungry so I fixed y’all some pancakes,” she said, gesturing to a stack of eight golden brown cakes next to the stove as she worked on the ninth.

  He gently pushed her shoulder-length hair away from her face and caressed her cheek. “Damn, girl. Will you marry me?” He smiled.

  Simone held up her left hand and wiggled the two carats on her finger. “I’m sorry, I’m already engaged.”

  “I hope that joker appreciate what he got.”

  She blushed. “I think he does.”

  “Yeah?” he asked, inching closer for her kiss.

  “Yeah,” she replied and met him halfway for his.

  Simone was his heart, and not once did he regret asking her to marry him. He pulled her close to him and pressed his body up against hers, running his hands up her shirt and tickling her nipples. She could feel herself going there, so she floated back to say, “I hope I didn’t slave over this hot stove for nothin’.” She smiled.

  “Oh, yeah, the pancakes. I almost forgot,” Freddie replied. “Damn, let me get my plate.” He reached up in the cupboard, took out a plate, and set it on the table. Then he poured syrup all over the plate.

  “What are you doing?” Simone asked, thinking he forgot the pancakes.

  “Getting ready to eat,” he replied, picking her up as he lifted the T-shirt to reveal that she was pantyless. Then he sat her in the sticky syrup.

  “Freddie!” she screamed, tickled, trying to squirm out of the plate. “You got me all sticky!”

  “Not yet.” He grinned, laying her back across the table as he rubbed her inner thighs until they were coated with syrup.

  “Freddie,” she purred, “This is craz—”

  The feeling of his tongue tracing along her walls caught her words in her throat. He gently rubbed her clit with his thumb until it stood perky; then he began to suck on it and Simone grabbed the back of his head, trying to direct his tongue while running her fingers through his short, curly hair.

  “Ooh, I love you, Freddie. I love youuuu,” she moaned, allowing Freddie’s tongue to dance and flicker inside of her garden.

  He cocked her legs higher and licked along the whole length of her lips until he reached that sensitive spot near her asshole, making her gasp for air.

  “Don’t stop, baby, don’t stop,” she begged, and he didn’t, licking, nibbling, and sucking her until she felt it in her stomach.

  “Don’t ever leave me, Freddie, please don’t. I love you sooo much,” she groaned passionately, rotating her hips to the rhythm of his tongue. “Right there, Freddie, right . . . Wait, wait,” she cried out in ecstasy as her love juices flowed out, mingling with the syrup, and her whole body shook and spasmed.

  He tickled her along her thigh, making her giggle. “Freddie, I’ma kill you if I’m stuck to this plate. Nasty-ass self. And mark this plate ’cause I ain’t never eating out of it!”

  * * *

  “Freddie! Ay, yo, Freddie! Wake yo’ ass up, nigga! This Slug!” Freddie had answered the phone in a daze. It seemed like he had just gone to sleep when Simone was shaking him and handing him the phone.

  “Slug?” he croaked. “What time is it?”

  “I don’t know, like ten-somethin’. Shit, time to get up. Come get me, nigga!” Slug yelled into the phone in his usual hyper tone.

  “Come get you from where?” Freddie asked, slowly coming around.

  “I’m downtown Plainfield, yo. Went on a little shoppin’ spree. Now I need a ride ’cause I don’t know how to get to your crib.”

  Freddie wanted to tell him to take a cab but he was up now. Fuck it. He checked his watch: 10:11. “A’ight, yo, gimme about half an hour. Meet me in front of the music and book store in an hour.”

  “I don’t know where the fuck that’s at. You gotta gimme a name or address or somethin’”

  “It’s called Muzik N Motion & Real Edutainment Books. You can’t miss it, next to a jewelry store called Bong’s.”

  “Oh, shit, I was just down that way. I brought me this platinum chain and medallion from the Asian joker, said he knew you.”

  “Yeah, that’s my man Bong. Good dude. But yeah, right next door.”

  “A’ight, I’ll be there.”

  “One.”

  “One.”

  Freddie rolled out of bed still dressed in his suit. He was so tired he had just crashed. He got up and took off his clothes to take a shower. Then he got dressed in a Black Label shirt and jacket and a pair of Red Monkey jeans, finishing it off with a pair of all-black high-top Pradas before grabbing his keys and heading out the door.

  Chapter Six

  The early afternoon traffic was light as Freddie made his way downtown, pumping a mixtape CD from a young, local upcoming artist by the name of Base. The artist’s father was from his projects so he had copped a copy of the I’m Almost There independent mixtape. What started out as mere support ended up becoming some of his most favorite music to listen to in rotation with Big Sean, Future, J-Cole, and Kendrick Lamar. The lyrics—I roll me a blunt and I sit and I meditate. So many snakes in the grass, I don’t walk I just levitate—echoed through the speakers
as he whipped Simone’s Acura through Plainfield’s Front Street like only Jersey dudes could. He was in and out of lanes while timing yellow lights. He got downtown ten minutes to one, made a right onto Park Avenue, then a left on Second Street, until he reached the parking lot behind downtown. He fed the empty meter, thinking about the meter maids who lived for writing tickets in that particular area. He had gotten caught a few times, hopping out of his whip and running into a store for a fresh fitted or pair of kicks. If he didn’t know any better, he would have sworn that they hid behind cars watching and waiting for shoppers like him.

  Freddie cut through the music and book store in search of Slug. He was not in the mood to be searching around downtown, so he hoped Slug would be where he’d told him they’d meet. As he walked through Muzik N Motion & Real Edutainment Books, he picked up the latest DJ Don Juan CD and J. M. Benjamin’s last two books, My Manz and ’Em, which had the housing projects where Freddie was from on the cover, and Ride or Die Chick. Freddie had always supported the local author, who was actually the owner of the establishment and happened to be from his hood. On many nights, rather mornings, he had spilled out of the owner’s after-hour parties he threw from two to seven a.m., with someone sexy and curvaceous to take back to his awaiting hotel room’s bed.

  Glad to see Slug at the proper place, Freddie greeted him.

  “What the deal, cuz?” Slug said, giving him a pound. “Let me cop this Best of 2Pac so we’ll have somethin’ to ride to.”

  “Yeah, okay, nigga.” He protested. “Picture you rollin’ in my shit bumpin’ that shit,” Freddie joked.

  “Cuz, you trippin’. And if you ever come to the South, don’t say that shit too loud, unless you want a problem,” Slug warned. “Niggas don’t play when it come to Pac.”

  Freddie paid him no mind. Slug shook his head at his cousin’s nonchalant demeanor. He chalked it up as a Northern thing.

  “I’ll be right back.” He ran into the store and paid for the CD, then gathered up his bags.

  “It’s on the Miami boys, huh?” Freddie joked again once he’d returned, referring to all the bags and sneaker boxes.

  “Naw, yo. It’s on that stripper broad,” Slug smoothly replied. “Shorty got that paper, yo. She damn near had a G in tips.”

  Freddie stopped walking. “Come on, Slug. Don’t tell me you did some petty shit like that.”

  “Shit, they do it to us! Soon as that chick fell out, I hit her ass up, grabbed a cab, and told papi to drop me off down here!”

  Freddie couldn’t help but laugh. And Slug was right: females in the game were good for hitting a brotha’s pockets and creeping out the back door. Freddie laughed it off.

  “Hold up, let me go see my man Bong. He ’posed to be makin’ me this new piece in white gold. Then we out.”

  Chapter Seven

  Cream stood inside Dante’s brother Mannie’s bodega on Fifth and Richmond Street impatiently. He couldn’t stand Mannie. Mannie thought that just because he was the boss’s brother, he was boss too. Cream only tolerated his ass on the strength of Tay. “Ay, Mannie! Nigga, is you ready yet?”

  Mannie ignored him and continued to talk on his cell. Cream sighed heavily and turned to look out the door. He was tired and his wired jaw ached, but he had to run Mannie around to make the pickups down on Sixth Street. He glanced up the street just out of boredom and his eyes caught the gleam of a green Acura RL. He looked again because his heart leaped and pounded in his chest. It was Freddie’s car!

  “Hell yeah! Yeah! Ay, yo, Mannie!” Cream exclaimed, pulling his burner out and shaking Mannie’s shoulder.

  Mannie looked up, agitated. “Nigga, can’t you see I’m on the phone? And fuck you doin’ wit’ a pistol out in my spot?”

  “It’s that bitch-ass nicca, Freddie!” Cream barked. “I see his car, yo! I’ma lay his ass down right now!”

  Mannie knew about the situation and laughed on the inside because he too had fucked Cream’s wife, and was still fucking her whenever the opportunity arose. But he knew Tay wanted an example made out of this nigga Freddie. Word got around the streets how their squad rolled, so it was on.

  “I’ll call you back,” Mannie said into the phone and hung up. “Where?”

  “Up the block,” Cream informed him, cocking his four pound.

  “A’ight, yo. We gonna lay his ass. And when he sees your face . . .” Mannie let his words drift off because Cream already knew the outcome.

  Freddie and Slug rounded the corner of short Third Street and Richmond, on their way back to the car. The two had gone into Jay Cee’s and thrown back a couple of shots of Henny and Coronas, seeing as how Freddie had to see his man Wajdee for a minute, who worked at the spot. He knew he was pressing his luck coming back into enemy territory, but having his cousin in the area and knowing how his cousin got down had him a little carefree. Freddie chirped his alarm as they approached, and Slug went around to the passenger side.

  By this time, Mannie and Cream had made their way up the block and were a short distance away from the street Freddie was parked on, locked and loaded. Had Freddie, or Slug for that matter, glanced to their left, they may have noticed Mannie and Cream.

  “There he go!” Cream pointed out, making his move.

  Freddie inserted the key into the car door and looked up, about to answer Slug’s last question, when he saw a familiar face emerge from across the street. Cream. They were already swinging out the door and raising the steel to clap.

  “Slug!”

  Slug took one look at Freddie’s face and knew there was no time to ask what, how, or where. His ghetto instincts kicked in and he knew the problem was behind him. As he reached for his pistol, dropping his bags, he dove over the hood of the car just as the passenger window exploded from the gun blast.

  “Freddie!” Slug hollered, hoping Freddie hadn’t gotten hit too.

  “I’m good!” Freddie said, pinned against the door, nervously trying to get in the car. Slug used the hood as cover and fired back at Cream and Mannie, who were crouched down behind an old Buick.

  Slug only had one and a half clips gone before Freddie got the door open and reached under the driver’s seat. His hand fell on Cream’s nine. He grabbed and cocked it, and came up firing. Short Third and Richmond Streets erupted in gunfire, screams, and a stampede of pedestrians running for cover.

  Mannie’s clip gave out. “Yo, Cream, let’s be out! Five-o comin’!”

  Cream heard the sirens but his focus was on Freddie. He kept firing and watched Mannie, out of his peripheral, make a dash. Freddie leaped up with a barrage of bullets, two of which found Mannie in the back of the head. Mannie met with death before he hit the pavement.

  “Mannie!” Cream screamed. He wanted to keep it hot but sirens were too close, so he headed back into the hat shop looking for the back door. Slug saw him run and duck, and he tried to cut him down but missed. All of a sudden, a cop car skidded around the corner.

  “Slug, let’s go!” Freddie ordered, and Slug was right behind him.

  One of the cops jumped out too soon and yelled, “Freeze!” But Freddie turned around and let off his last three shots, catching the cop in the chest, sending him flying back against the open car door.

  Freddie’s whole life flashed before his eyes. He had acted on reflex, out of fear and panic. He was making his escape and the police were the last obstacle, so he fired. Boom. Boom. Boom. His sporadic shots ripped into the cop he’d shot at.

  He tried to turn his momentum from backpedaling to forward speed as he crossed the street, but his timing was off and an old Caddy skidded to a halt, landing him on top of the hood. The car hadn’t run into him so much as he had run into it. The impact wasn’t enough to hurt him, but it was enough force to jar the gun from his hand, making it clatter yards away.

  He wanted to go back for it, but Slug hollered, “Freddie, fuck you doin’? C’mon!”

  More police were on the way. There was no time to go back for the gun. Freddie ran past Slug and took the
lead. It was if his feet were moving faster than the rest of his body. Sirens wailed in the air as they fled. Freddie reached the old, abandoned ex–Knockers strip club and dipped to the side of the haunted house–looking building.

  Police swarmed the area and quickly gained control, finding out how many gunmen there were and that they were on foot. The manhunt was on.

  His heart banged up against his chest as he tried to catch his breath. The thought of knowing that the police station was literally right around the corner from their temporary hideout did not sit well with him.

  “Yo, we gotta bounce from here,” Freddie announced once he had regained control of his breathing. He stuck his head out to the main street and looked both ways. Once he had established the coast was clear, he darted out.

  Minutes later, they were making their way up the Plainfield train station’s steps. Freddie figured his best bet was to take the train tracks all the way down to his projects. Escaping the Plainfield police dragnet out of downtown wasn’t a problem; escaping the twisted fate he saw ahead of him was.

  “You a’ight, cuz? You ain’t hit, is you?” Slug queried as they walked the tracks, looking at the blood and torn fabric on the shoulder of Freddie’s sweatshirt.

  “Naw, that’s from the car, yo,” Freddie replied. He was huffing and puffing real hard as if he were asthmatic. His adrenaline was pumping so hard he still couldn’t feel the wound.

  “Cuz, what the fuck just happened? Who was—”

  Freddie waved him off. “Later, yo. Son, I shot a cop.”

  That made both men shudder because they both knew what it meant. Killing Mannie was one thing, but shooting a police officer? And if he died, if he wasn’t dead already . . .

  “I ain’t goin’ to no fuckin’ prison, yo,” Freddie vowed. He didn’t want to die or go out guns blazing, and prison wasn’t an option either.

  “Fuck you gonna do?” Slug asked.

  The question was like a crossroads. The answer would determine his destiny. There was no way he could stay in Plainfield or New Jersey period, for that matter. The decision had already crossed his mind in midflight, and it loomed before him like the promised land.