by Ca$H
“Dayum, ma! You done got right, yo,” he praised.
“Thank you. Uh, are you and that girl Kayundra still together? I know that was a long time ago but…”
“Nah, I go to Morehouse in ATL now. I’m just home on spring break,” he said.
“Oh. Well, you were always one of those intelligent thugs,” she smiled.
Rah never considered himself a thug. He just made it do what it do, but he let Tasha’s comment stand.
“Where you been, besides in some niggaz dream?” he asked.
“Nice. I like that. My family moved to D.C. I’m visiting a cousin. Say, wasn’t that CJ over here a minute ago?”
“Yeah, that was my guy. Sup? You tryna holla at him?” Rah asked, correctly reading the interest in her tone.
“I would like to,” Tasha was saying, but Rah had averted his attention to Tamika returning from the ladies room.
Tamika sashayed past a cluster of dudes holding bottles of bubbly up, tilting them down, and pouring champagne down into chick’s mouths. He saw Tamika wave the offer off. Then he saw one of the dudes grab a handful of her ass as she passed by him.
“Oh shit!” Rah said, just as Tamika slapped fire from ol’ boy.
Bam! Dude punched Tamika dead smack in the face, knocking her on her ass!
Rah left Tasha standing there. He ran up to dude and hit him square with a two piece combination that dropped him to one knee. Whop! An uppercut put him on his back.
Crack! Somebody smashed Rah over the head with a champagne bottle. Whop! A punch to the jaw further dazed him.
Star screamed from the dance floor. The dude she was dancing with was from Little Bricks also; he peeped the ruckus and ran over to help Rah and Tamika. Star was now jumping up and down screaming for CJ. Once CJ ran over and saw that Rah was involved he put two niggaz on their asses instantly.
“CJ!” Tamika cried out.
CJ saw Tamika on the floor, mouth busted, and he went ballistic up in there! When the crowd saw that CJ was involved every Little Bricks nigga in the club started swinging on niggaz. The shit got ugly quick ’cause the dudes they were into it with were from Orange Projects, and those niggaz ain’t pussy.
The DJ was on the mic asking niggaz to chill, but he shut the fuck up and ducked after champagne bottles started whizzing by his head.
Club security couldn’t restore order. The spot quickly turned into an all out brawl. Newarks finest were called and ran up in there thirty deep, dressed in riot gear.
Popo started snatching cats up at random, putting ghetto bracelets on them, and loading them up in paddy wagons to go to jail. Niggaz with warrants on them was tryna hide, jump through windows, whatever to avoid arrest. CJ, Rah, Tamika, and Star were safely whisked outside by a bouncer who was from their hood.
Outside they watched popo load dudes and chicks into paddy wagons. Those that weren’t being arrested shouted insults at the boys in blue. Tamika saw the dude that had grabbed her ass being put inside a police van.
“There that nigga go, CJ!” she pointed.
“Yo, drive my car home. I’m going to jail,” said CJ passing his car keys to his girl.
Before anyone could stop him, CJ ran over to where the dude was being put into the van, handcuffed. CJ hauled back and knocked dude the fuck out!
“Bitch, nigga! That’s what you get for puttin’ ya hands on mine,” he spat and kicked the dude in the face right before the startled cops grabbed him and slammed him on the ground, face first.
“Oh hell to the muthafuckin’ naw!” yelled Tamika. She tossed Star CJ’s car keys and handed Star her purse, then she ran over and jumped on the cop’s back who had slammed CJ on his face.
“Punk muthafucka!” she wailed, punching him in the back of his head.
He dumped Tamika over his shoulder onto the ground and cuffed her up.
“You ain’t have to do the sista like that!” yelled someone out the crowd.
“Y’all bitch ass cops stay on some Rodney King bullshit. We’ll burn this bitch down!”
Rah realized that he needed to keep his head so that he wouldn’t get arrested next. It took Star’s pleading to keep him cool because he wanted to ride for his man.
“No, Rah, we gon’ have to bond them out of jail,” Star pleaded.
They heard mad sirens getting closer so they decided to bounce. In the mad rush to leave before more of Newark’s finest arrived, Rah lost Star, who was in CJ’s whip. He figured that she would know to meet up with him in the projects.
Rah was about a mile from the crib when a black Suburban pulled close beside him at a traffic light.
“Dayum!” He wasn’t strapped, he had left his bangers in ATL, not expecting to encounter any drama while home visiting.
Rah pulled off, running the red light, but the Suburban was still side by side with him. He stepped on the gas. So did the driver of the whip in pursuit.
The passenger window of the Surburban came even with Rah, and the window eased down. Boc! Boc! Boc! Boc!
Rah’s body jerked and fire exploded in his left shoulder and in his neck.
Boc! Boc!
He couldn’t breath.
His life flashed before his eyes in a blink of time.
Then he lost control of the steering wheel and the Tahoe smashed into the side of a building.
Boc! The shooter inside the Suburban squeezed off one final round before the vehicle raced away.
FOUR
“A’ight. It’s about to pop off in the streets! You bitch niggaz want bloodshed, I’ma show y’all not to fuck wit’ mines! Y’all on some rah rah shit? I’m wit’ it. Y’all blazed my man…bodies gon’ drop fa dat!” CJ spewed to the walls of his bedroom while slipping on his Timbs.
Star and Tamika’s mother had posted CJ’s and Tamika’s bails early that morning. CJ had just found out that Rah was in ICU, clinging to his young life.
He mashed out and went to the hospital to check on his man. Big Ma and LaKeesha were sitting in the Intensive Care Unit’s waiting area. When Big Ma saw him she turned her head away in contempt. There had been a time when Big Ma treated CJ like a son, but that time had come and gone. The final straw had been when CJ hooked up with Tamika.
“It’s not your fault about Rah,” LaKeesha whispered. “You know how Big Ma is quick to judge.”
CJ nodded.
When he was allowed in to see Rah, CJ shedded a tear for his dawg. Rah’s head was bandaged and swollen like a pumpkin. Tubes ran from seemingly every part of his body and plugged into machines. He was in a coma but at least he wasn’t flat lined, thought CJ, pulling for Rah to come through.
“Them niggaz gonna bleed soon,” he whispered into Rah’s ear.
CJ had been watching and plotting for the past week. Tonight it was going down.
The rain pelted hard against his bedroom windows as he strapped up for ghetto retribution. First, he pulled on a pair of black fighter pilot pants, then a black T-shirt and a black hoodie. He stepped into a pair of black jump boots, and pulled on black leather driving gloves. Next, CJ opened the duffle bag that sat at his feet when he plopped down on the bed. He pulled out a choppa and a banana clip, and two boxes of AK-47 shells.
Tamika, CJ’s Mom Dukes, and his lil sister Brianna stood in the doorway watching him. CJ paid them no mind; he was methodically pushing shells into the banana clip. Once the clip was full he locked and loaded the choppa, put it inside the duffle bag, and swung it over his shoulder.
“No, CJ, please don’t go and do nothing crazy!” cried Tamika.
“Man, I’m not tryna hear that shit!” he snarled.
“You wanna end up in prison for life?” his Mom Dukes asked, hoping to dissuade him.
“If that’s the price I gotta pay to avenge what them niggaz did to Rah…it is what it is.”
“Don’t you care about me?” cried Tamika.
“I care about Rah, too.”
“If you go out and kill someone how is that helping Raheem? He still gon’ be in ICU,” Mom Du
kes interjected through her tears.
“Niggaz gonna know, if they touch my dawg I’ma touch back…hard!”
“He shouldna jumped in the fight, he just made things worse!” said Tamika, making CJ hot. He sat down the duffle bag and grabbed her roughly by the face with two hands, pulling her face within inches of his.
“Fuck you mean? He was tryna help yo’ ungrateful ass! What da fuck did Rah ever do to you? Huh?” CJ gritted then pushed her away.
Tamika fell across the bed sobbing.
“Don’t you go blaming her, she can go to the club butt ass naked and that still don’t give a muthafucka the right to touch her!” Mom Dukes defended Tamika.
CJ knew that his Mom Dukes was right and he hated to see his shorty crying, but there was nothing no one could say to stop him from unleashing that choppa on Orange niggaz tonight. “I hear you, Ma, but it ain’t even about that. You and Tamika can save y’all breath, niggaz finna feel my heat. And if my nigga dies, I’ma turn Orange Projects into Iraq,” he vowed, grabbing the duffle bag and heading out the bedroom.
His Mom Dukes and Brianna blocked the doorway. Tamika was hanging on to his leg, begging him not to go. CJ shook Tamika off of him and forced his way past the two human barricades. He encountered Eric in the hallway.
“Rah is good peoples, yo. Can I ride with you on this?” Eric asked in a serious tone that defied his age.
“Naw, lil soldier, sit this one out.”
“A’ight, be safe, man. And come back home.”
The rain continued to pour down from the night sky. The wipers on the fiend’s hooptie that CJ had rented were a little faulty, but CJ could not be deterred from his mission; he just hoped Tavaras and Nam was out grinding in the rain.
CJ had heard on the ghetto wire that Tavaras was the nigga who had dumped on Rah. Tavaras’s man, Nasir, owned the Suburban that had been seen by Star following Rah from the club. CJ had peeped the cut in Orange Projects from where Tavaras and Nasir hustled.
Not much was moving in the projects due to the streaming rain, but CJ saw two or three niggaz up in the cut as he drove by. He stopped up the street and got out, choppa down at his side. With his back pressed against the building, CJ was moving in silence as he crept closer to his prey.
Now in murdering range for the choppa, and ducked down behind a car, CJ yelled to the four people he saw posted up in the cut. “Y’all niggaz know Raheem?”
“We don’t know nobody! Fuck is you?” Tavaras yelled back as he watched his man, Juice, serve a female fiend.
CJ popped up like a jack-in-the-box.
“I’m my brothaz keepa!”
The choppa spat in murderous rapidity.
There was no time for the prey to react. A slug took a whole side of the chick’s face off. She dropped like a Raggedy Ann doll, twisted. Nasir went down next as a hole appeared in his chest, then a gaping hole appeared in his back when the large AK-47 shell exited his body.
That left Tavaras and another dude who had been involved in the fracas at the club a week ago. Tavaras looked down at his man, Nasir, while reaching in his waist for his strap and trying to get his legs to move. But he was temporarily paralyzed by fear.
CJ ran toward them in a crouch, squeezing off revenge from his hip. Boc! Boc! Boc! Boc! Tavaras caught two to the body and fell dead with his strap in his hand. The last dude, Sedric, had his strap out. He fired back at CJ while tryna run for his life. His .380 sounded like a cap gun compared to the choppa.
CJ sloshed through mud chasing him.
Nigga, you ain’t gettin away. Boc! Boc! Boc!
End of chase.
Eric opened the door to let CJ in before he could even knock or use his key. CJ’s lil brother had been looking out of the front window repeatedly until he saw CJ come home safely.
“Sup, yo?” he asked.
“Everything’s gravy,” CJ assured him.
When CJ entered his bedroom and flipped on the light switch. Tamika was sitting on the edge of the bed crying softly into her hands. She looked up from his muddy boots to his sweat drenched face.
CJ looked into her puffy eyes.
“What did you do, CJ?” she asked.
“Hollered at them pussies for Rah,” he confessed.
“CJ, what does that mean?” she sniffled.
“It means what it means, now let it rest at that.” CJ said forcefully. “Stop crying and be a soldier for a nigga. I’ma need you to put the choppa up for me, not at ya Mom Dukes crib. What about ya cousin Nee Nee or her sister Danyelle?”
“Let’s give it to Star,” Tamika suggested.
“Aight, shorty, let’s roll.”
Tamika stood up ready to do what had to be done to protect her man. Denying him wasn’t an option. Her love made her willing to catch a case for him.
“Where my Mom Dukes?” CJ asked.
“Gone in the streets.” They both knew what that meant.
“Is Brianna in her bedroom?”
“Yep.”
CJ went into his lil sister’s room; she was in bed crying. He sat down on her bed and kissed away her tears.
“Shorty, you gotta be tough, okay?”
“Okay,” she sniffled and smiled.
“Shit ain’t gon’ always be happy, Bri. That’s just keepin’ it real with you. But you don’t have to worry about your big bruh. I can take care of myself, and all of y’all too. A’ight?”
Brianna nodded.
“One day I’ma move us all away from here. Would you like that?”
“Will I still be able to come visit my friends?” she asked.
“Yeah, pretty girl.”
“Okay, we can move then.”
“A’ight, gimme a kiss.”
“Muah!”
Before bouncing, CJ gave Eric money for groceries in case their Mom Dukes stayed out getting high for a couple of days. Eric would hold the crib down and make sure Brianna went to school each day, even if he skipped school himself. The Bricks turned boys into men at an early age.
Like CJ, Eric and Brianna didn’t know either of their fathers. That’s why CJ stepped up and always made sure that his younger siblings were a’ight. His attitude was…I’m the man of the house; it’s always been that way. I’ma grind, slang, and flip until me and my whole fam is good. I’ll lay my life on the line fa mines! Nah, ain’t neither of us got no pops…Mom Dukes is on drugs…but we still gon’ be a’ight, I’ma see to it!
CJ had Tamika to stash the choppa at Star’s crib. Then he returned the hooptie to the fiend he’d rented it from. He dropped some work on the block then him and Tamika copped a room at a motel in South Orange where they laid low for a minute.
They went to the hospital to check on Rah three days later. He was still in a light coma but doctors expected him to come out of it soon. Rah had caught a slug in the shoulder. Another bullet had ricocheted off the car door, entered through the side if his neck, and lodged in his throat. He also had head injuries sustained from when his Tahoe wrecked.
CJ spoke to LaKeesha and Big Ma, who sat at the hospital with Rah for hours everyday. LaKeesha spoke back, but Big Ma would not.
Big Ma looked at Tamika like she wanted to hit her upside the head with the Bible she clutched while rocking back and forth in the plastic seat outside of ICU.
“Hi La wassup?” said Tamika ignoring Big Ma’s undisguised animosity.
LaKeesha was tripping, too. She rolled her eyes.
No this bitch didn’t! thought Tamika. They acting like I shot Rah! I’m the same bitch this hot-in-the-ass ho used to affectionately call her big sister. Now, she wanna act sideways towards me? Pregnant bitch ain’t never liked me no way!
Tamika gave LaKeesha her ass to kiss and followed CJ into ICU.
“Sup, yo? Nigga, you gotta open your eyes and prove to everybody that niggaz like us are built to last. I don’t know why you tryna front, I believe you just like having muhfuckaz worried about you.” CJ chuckled, talking to Rah. “Fa real, fam, I know you gon’ pull through. I’m not
even stressing about that. Tamika right here with me, we both praying for you, kid. One.” He tapped his chest.
“Hey, Rah. I just wanna tell you that I’m sorry for how I acted towards you that night. Get well, okay?” said Tamika. She bent down and planted a kiss on his cheek and a tear slid down her face; she truly felt bad, and her remorse made CJ feel better because Rah was his peeps.
Four bodies means heat, so CJ continued to lay low for another week then he had to get back on his grind. The block accepted him back without change. The coupla dudes that he had hit off with some work, so that he would still have some grip coming in while he was laid low, paid him what they owed. There were whispers that CJ had wet those niggaz over in Orange Projects so nobody on the block in Little Bricks was gonna test his G. Common sense told them that they could get it too.
CJ was back in his usual spot grinding. He looked up and saw his Mom Dukes approaching.
“CJ, I need to holla at you,” she said as she walked up.
“Let me handle this first!” he said, agitated because she was distracting him. He needed to really be on point because of that thing he had done. Besides, he had told her a thousand times not to come on the block looking for him.
CJ served the two fiends that were waiting to cop, while Miss Wanda, waited impatiently with her arms folded across her chest.
“Sup?” asked CJ after he had handled his business.
“I need three hundred dollars to pay the utilities bill,” claimed his Mom Dukes.
Before CJ could respond Kayundra walked up.
“What you need, yo?” he asked, thinking that she wanted to cop.
“Nothing. I came to ask if Raheem is getting better. I heard about what happened.”
“Fuck you inquiring about my nigga for? You wanna cop or not?”
Kayundra shook her head.
“Kick rocks then!”
“Dang, you don’t have to clown me,” sighed Kayundra, who didn’t look geeked up today.
“Bitch you is a fuckin’ clown! Push on!” barked CJ.
