Soft: Cocaine Love Stories

by Styles, T.

  He never got to finish his sentence. The smack came from out of nowhere and dazed him. Before he was able to fully recover from it, Silk was clawing at his face. The first set of scratches brought him back to the present.

  “Bitch!” He caught hold of her wrists just before she could deliver another set of tiger claws. In one instant he flung her across the room. The living room coffee table broke her fall as the glass shattered from her body weight. Smooth examined his bruises with his hand. The blood on his fingers confirmed she had dug deep. The whelts were already beginning to swell. The unexpected smack had forced him to taste his own blood.

  “I should break your fuckin’ neck,” Smooth barked as he watched Silk attempt to recover from the fall. He could see her mouth was outlined with blood, while traces of an opened gash trickled down her forehead onto her face.

  “Fuck you!” she yelled hysterically. “I hate you! I fuckin’ hate you.” Silk was now in a blind rage. She stormed out of the living room.

  “Yeah, get the fuck outta here,” Smooth’s voice echoed into the other room.

  Within seconds Silk returned. “I don’t want shit else to do with you. I never want to see you again, you ungrateful muthafucka,” she calmly spoke, regaining her composure somewhat. “And I don’t want shit from you. Keep all that shit ’cause that’s all you care about.” Silk made her way to the front door of their home.

  Smooth did not respond. Instead, he ignored her. As far as he was concerned, there was nothing else to say that he hadn’t already.

  The sound of the slamming door shook the walls of the two-bedroom condo. Smooth didn’t think twice about not going after her. Instead he sat in front of the kitchen table. He picked up the quill and took two strong, quick pulls of the small mountain of coke he had laying off to the side of the table.

  “That’s okay. You’ll be back. Two Quaaludes and you’ll love me again,” he mimicked in his best Scarface impersonation then took another hit of the drug.

  Chapter 4

  “Who dis?” Smooth answered aggressively, the irritation revealing itself in his tone by the disturbance of his cell phone. The ringing of his BlackBerry had been loud enough to wake him from his sleep. His voice was both groggy and raspy.

  “Nicca, wake yo bitch ass up,” the caller’s voice boomed.

  The words instantly got Smooth’s attention.

  “Who the fuck is this?” He shot up in his bed and became fully alert.

  “Don’t worry about who this is. Just shut the fuck up and listen.”

  “Fuck you!” Smooth roared into the phone just before disconnecting the call.

  Three seconds later the call from the blocked number filled the air once again.

  “Look mu—” Smooth’s words were overpowered by the unidentified caller.

  “No, you look, pussy. Hang up again and yo bitch dead!”

  “What?” Smooth exclaimed.

  “Oh, now it’s what? Nicca, you heard me. We got yo bitch,” the caller announced.

  Smooth let out a chuckle. He knew there was some type of mistake. “Yo, my dude, you got the wrong muthafuckin’ number, homie.”

  “Nah, I got the right one, nicca. And I ain’t ya mu’fuckin’ homie, Smooth.”

  “Yo, who the fuck is this?” Smooth asked, seeing that the call was intended for him.

  “Nicca, ask another mu’fuckin’ question and we gon’ kill this dumb bitch!” Something about the way the caller had put emphasis on his words sparked something within Smooth.

  And then, as if he had just discovered America, it dawned on him. Silk was not home. He had almost forgotten what had transpired earlier. He glanced over at the clock. It was three A.M., just three hours before he was scheduled to get on the road to make his trip. Smooth shook his head. There was no doubt in his mind that the “bitch” the caller was referring to was none other than Silk. He couldn’t believe this was happening. His blood pressure shot up from warm to volcanic.

  “What the fuck you want?” he snapped. He was growing tiresome of the games being played over the phone by the caller.

  “Now you talkin’.” The caller sound pleased. “I want everything!”

  “Ha!” Smooth laughed.

  “Yeah, mu’fucka, laugh,” the caller snarled. “But you got thirty minutes from the time I hang this fuckin’ phone up to bring every mu’fuckin’ thing to where I tell you, or else you can follow the map I put in your condo’s mailbox to collect pieces of this bitch’s body.”

  Smooth listened attentively as the caller explained his options, hoping to recognize the voice, but to no avail. He was sure the caller had Silk, but still he made one attempt to be one hundred percent sure.

  “You keep talkin’ about my bitch, but you ain’t givin’ me no proof that we talkin’ ’bout the same person.”

  “Ha!” It was the caller’s turn to laugh. “Yo, you’s a slick-ass nicca, you know dat?” the caller slyly remarked. “If I ain’t need yo’ shit, I could fuck with you, ’cause I can tell you don’t give a fuck. You gonna try yo’ head. But you right. Hold on.”

  Smooth could tell the caller had moved the phone away from his ear and lowered it down to his side. “Yo, bring that bitch in here.”

  Seconds later he heard, “Bitch, say somethin’,” and then he received his confirmation.

  “Hello, Smoo—” was all he heard.

  “A’ight, bitch, that’s enough,” the caller ended. “You satisfied, nicca? You know your bitch voice.”

  Smooth’s mind was speeding a hundred miles a minute. He knew he had to make a decision and make it quick. Although he had a falling out with Silk, still she was his people. This didn’t have anything to do with loving or not loving her or how he felt about her; this was about loyalty. Smooth weighed the pros and cons, and the scale always weighed the same—in Silk’s favor.

  When he met her, he was down to his last, and she had contributed in a major way to him getting back on his feet. He weighed up the fact that she had rode with him to hell and back and never left his side since they’d met. And most of all, he weighed up the most important fact that if the shoe were on the other foot, she’d give it all up for him.

  With those being his thoughts, Smooth made his decisions knowing that after this was all over, he would be able to get it all back and then some with the help of Silk. Besides, now that he had come down off his high, his conscience began to kick in about the way he had handled things with her earlier that morning.

  “Where the fuck you want me to meet you?”

  “Listen to you, still try’na keep it gangsta,” the caller said in a mocking tone. “You New Projects jokers kill me.” He laughed lightly.

  Both men could hear the other breathing as silence filled the air. “Nigga, you know the ole horse trail in Edison?” the caller then asked.

  Smooth thought for a moment, but his thoughts were interrupted.

  “Mu’fucka, you know where that shit at!” the caller boomed. “Take Stelton Road and make that right before you get down to White Castle’s. It’s on the fuckin’ right.”

  “I know where it is,” Smooth retorted dryly, remembering the abandoned trail.

  “I knew you did, you slick-ass nicca,” the caller said through clenched teeth. “You got thirty minutes to grab all that shit up and get that shit to me or she a dead bitch and you a dead-ass nigga. And don’t try no funny shit, and try to be no fuckin’ hero,” he then commanded.

  “Nigga, how the fuck I know you ain’t gonna slump her and then me when I get there?” Smooth barked. He had long ago grown tired of the whole ordeal.

  “You don’t, mu’fucka!” the caller shot back. “That’s a mu’fuckin chance you just gonna have to take. A half an hour, bitch!” The phone went dead.

  “Mu’fucka!” Smooth cursed, frustrated. The deck was indeed stacked against him and the odds were definitely not in his favor, he thought.

  It hadn’t dawned on him until he had just said it that there was a possibility the kidnappers would take
everything he and Silk possessed and still kill them both. Furthermore, he had no way of knowing if they had killed Silk as soon as they hung up and were waiting to kill him next. The money, he knew, he could get back and then some, but his life was something else. Smooth was no stranger to danger, but he was also no dummy.

  With those thoughts on his mind, Smooth decided that if he was going to go out like this and play their game, then he was going to add some of his own rules and go all out.

  He glanced at his Bulova and hurried to the bedroom. There, he snatched two pillowcases off the bed pillows, then removed the floor panel and began shoving the stacks of fifty thousand–dollar bundles into them. Initially, he intended to comply with the assailants for the sake of his partner in crime and let them have everything. Now, he was bagging everything up for a different reason. Smooth knew that when he walked out of his condo, he would not be returning under any circumstances. After this, he was leaving New Jersey. As bad as he hated to admit it, Silk was right, and he promised himself he would tell her—but first he had to save her.

  Once he was done, he made his way to the bedroom closet and grabbed his Kevlar from the back of it, threw it on, and strapped it up. He lugged the pillowcases to the living room and propped them up against the wall. He removed the black and white framed picture of Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali together to reveal a wall safe. He emptied the bricks of coke he had packaged up earlier out of the safe and dumped them in the duffel bag he intended to put them in before taking his North Carolina trip. He then retrieved his two P89 handguns and snatched up the two extra clips he had sitting in the safe. Just as he made his way to the front door, he remembered the twelve-gauge he had in the hallway closest. Five minutes later, Smooth was in his 2008 Yukon with all of his street earnings and enough heart and fire power to protect it.

  Chapter 5

  Smooth killed the engine of his SUV. It’s showtime, he thought as he pulled out his infamous dollar bill. He took two big snorts of the drug, snatched up his weapons, and then hopped out of his truck. He tucked one of his P89s in front of him, the other in the back, and shoved the 12-gauge down the side of his right leg.

  After traveling past the old horse trail and finding a secluded parking spot just up the street, he doubled back and headed toward the trail. Smooth crossed the road in order to be on the same side as the trail. It was nearly pitch dark on this particular path. He was thankful for the abundance of tree-filled and dark roads. It made it easy for him to blend in with the darkness being dressed in all black.

  As he approached the land where the trail was located, he noticed how he could barely see the farm that sat off toward the back—nearly three hundred feet away from the road—due to nightfall setting in. Smooth took the 12-gauge out of his pants leg in order to climb the old worn-out wooden fence that surrounded the place.

  He cautiously made his way through the knee-high grass toward the abandoned farm, ready for whatever. As he drew near, he checked the time. Only twenty-two minutes had passed since the caller had hung up on him. Smooth intended to utilize the eight minutes of battery life remaining on his cell.

  The closer he got to the farm, the steadier he became. He told himself this wasn’t any different then any other situation or predicament he had made it out of. Smooth shrugged his shoulders up and down repeatedly to loosen himself up. This is nuthin’, you do this shit for a livin’. These mu’fuckas picked the wrong dude to fuck with, thought Smooth.

  His pep talk was disrupted by a crackling sound. At first he couldn’t pinpoint where the sound was coming from, but the second sound, which was a familiar tune, gave him confirmation.

  “Y’all been eatin’ long enough now, stop bein’ greedy. . . . Keep it real, partna, give to the needy. Ribs is touchin’, so don’t make me wait. Fuck around and I’ma bite you and snatch the plate. . . . I can get—”

  “Shut the fuck up.” Smooth’s tone was low but strong. The cold steel of his gun was pressed against the unidentified man’s temple. It was the words of one of rapper DMX’s songs that allowed him to get the drop on one of the would-be kidnappers. He literally caught him with his pants down.

  The man cursed himself. Without having to see, he knew who had caught him slipping. Although he was strapped, there was no doubt in his mind that if he made a move for his weapon, he’d be killed where he stood. So instead, he stood there with his dick in his hand, hoping someone came to his rescue.

  “How many niggas in there?” Smooth asked, careful to keep his voice down.

  “In where?” the would-be robber answered.

  “Wrong answer, mu’fucka. Last chance,” Smooth told him. He grabbed the would-be robber by the shoulder and spun him around. “Now, how many nig—” Smooth’s eyes grew cold as he recognized the face of the kidnapper. He didn’t bother to finish the sentence. He knew there was no need. The identity of the man was more than enough information for him.

  POW! The bullet tore into the man’s face at point blank range, ending his young life instantly. Wasting no time, Smooth rushed to the stable.

  “Riq, what the fuck was that?” the leader of the crew asked his younger brother.

  Riq shrugged his shoulders. “Sound like a fuckin’ gunshot.”

  The leader of the crew held his wrist up and glanced at his Seiko. He saw there was only five minutes remaining of the time he told Smooth to come to the horse trail. Something told him it was a bad idea for him to appoint his young homie the job of lookout man. Against his better judgment, he brought him along and gave him the position only because he was the type to shoot first and ask questions later.

  “Yo, go check on that silly-ass nigga Blaze,” he instructed.

  “On it.” Riq drew his Glock and cocked it back, then made his way out of the abandoned horse stable.

  “I hope that’s not your mu’fuckin’ boy try’na play super save-a-ho.” The leader looked over at Silk, who was duct-taped to a chair and gagged.

  “I bet that’s that nigga!” the leader spat.

  No sooner than he thought it, his words were confirmed.

  Luckily for him, he spotted Smooth before Smooth had spotted him. Had it not been for Smooth using his little brother as a human shield, he would have already pumped a half dozen shots into him.

  The leader of the crew let out a loud chuckle. “You never cease to amaze me!” he bellowed. “I fucks with this nicca,” the leader added as he made his way behind Silk.

  “Whaddup, Troub?” Smooth said, calling the leader by his street moniker.

  “What’s poppin’?” Troub replied with his Blood gang greeting.

  “Fuck this slob, bro. Eat this nigga!” Riq called out, despite having a gun pressed against his dome.

  “Relax, li’l bro. You good,” Troub said calmly, but on the inside he was boiling. It was apparent to him that the gunshot they heard had found its way into Blaze. Judging by the blood leaking out of his brother’s mouth and the fact that he was in Smooth’s custody, he was no match for Smooth.

  Troub could not believe how a foolproof plan had turned disastrous in a matter of minutes. He had a headache that had Excedrin written all over it, but he maintained his composure. “I told you I had your bitch.” He smiled as he ran his 40-caliber down alongside Silk’s face.

  “And now I got ya punk-ass brother and slumped ya dumb-ass man. Now what?” Smooth said with confidence, feeling that he had gained some leverage.

  “Now what, huh?” Troub laughed. “Let me tell you now what. You let my mu’fuckin’ brother go and I let your bitch go. You cough that paper up and I don’t send every Shine homie from east to west at yo ass, smell me?” Troub threatened.

  It was Smooth’s turn to laugh. “Nah, I don’t like them terms. Tell me something better, mu’fucka.” Smooth matched his tone.

  Troub shook his head. “What’s wrong with this nigga?” he bent down and said into Silk’s ear. Then he stood back up, grabbed a fistful of Silk’s hair, and pressed the nose of his 40-caliber on top of her head.
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br />   “How ’bout I push this bitch wig back then!” Troub roared.

  “An eye for an eye then, nigga!” Smooth shot back, pressing his gun harder against Riq’s temple—but Riq had other plans.

  “Agh!” Smooth scowled. The blow came from out of nowhere. Smooth released the hold he had on Riq and grabbed his side with his free hand as he screamed in agony. There was no way Smooth could have anticipated the concealed knife that Riq had been inching out of his front pocket as Smooth and his brother went back and forth with their word play. Now free, Riq spun around with the intent of finishing what he had started only to be met with a spiraling bullet that was wildly released from the barrel of Smooth’s P89.

  By the time the first shot ripped through his left cheek, the second one was already finding a resting place. The third consecutive shot was the one that slammed into his chest plate and knocked him to the ground. Everything happened so fast, Troub didn’t have time to react. It seemed as if everything was fast forward, while he was moving in slow motion. It wasn’t until he felt the breeze of a bullet whizzing past his head, followed by another one ripping through the flesh of his right shoulder, that he realized he was also under attack and snapped out of his Matrix state.

  The impact of the bullet wound to the shoulder caused Troub’s gun to fly across the room as he hit the floor. Despite the puncture wound he endured, Smooth was in combatant mode. Seeing Riq fall, he wasted no time redirecting his assault on Troub. He knew he was losing a lot of blood, but between the coke he had sniffed and his adrenaline pumping, he felt invincible.

  Smooth struggled to stand. He fell against the barn’s door and caught himself just in time before he fell back down. He applied pressure to the stab wound. “Man the fuck up!” he said to himself aloud.

  He looked over to where Silk was strapped down and noticed Troub on the ground. He hadn’t even realized he hit Troub. It never crossed his mind until just then that when he was shooting in the direction of Troub, he could have mistakenly shot Silk. All that mattered was that he hadn’t. Smooth took a deep breath then released himself from the wall and sluggishly made his way over to Silk.