We come this far, I’m thinking. We come this far and we ain’t going no further less we willing to take some chances. That’s where it’s at. Don’t get something for nothing, so I goes back to the car and tell the fellows what’s going down. They don’t like it neither, but they put it on me. Mike says, It’s your ass out here. You do what you think is cool. I look at them and look at my gun on the backseat. I want that sucker but the cat said no. We too close to getting over to turn back now, so I say, Shit. Youall drive on back to the restaurant. Ima take care of business. I say it like I mean it and I did but I ain’t gon try and bullshit you, Bruh, I was scared. When the car lights get halfway down the block, I wants to run after it. I wants to get in with the fellows and call the whole thing off. But they rolling away and I goes back inside the booth and wait.
Didn’t have to wait too long. They must of been watching from one the windows in the project cause soon as Michael and them gone a few minutes I see this shadow come out from around the side of a building. Then this shadow whistles and waves for me to come over. Hey, Bruh, I got as much heart as the next dude but I’m not liking nothing that’s going down. My boys is gone, my piece gone, and I got this fat wad of dough in my back pocket. Now, somebody I ain’t never seen in my life is whistling and waving me over to a place I ain’t never been and it’s black as Sambo’s ass over there by them buildings. I looks around and don’t see nothing. I’m having second and third and fourth thoughts about the whole mess. These niggers might be setting me up. Take my money and what I’m gon do about it? The whole trip’s feeling real shaky right then. Pittsburgh’s a long way off and I’m wishing I was back in the Burgh digging TV with my lady, but this cat’s waving me cross the street and I come this far and Garth is depending on me. The crew’s depending on me. I got to take the chance. I follow the dude. He don’t say a word. Just walks real slow, checking every now and then to see if I’m behind him. It’s around one building and through another, then back where there’s garbage cans and around to another building with steps up the side. Tried to keep track of where he was taking me but the point of going round and round like that was to make sure I’d never find my way back again. Had to keep following the dude cause after a while I didn’t know where the fuck I was.
We went up some steps and knocked on the first door. Standing there in the dark, a funny thing happened. I started thinking about my clothes. For some fool reason that’s what I was thinking of then and now I can see my leather jacket and blue jeans and red boots. I can see the zippers up the side of the boots, the fancy stitching on the jeans. Wondering if I’d look good dead in that shit, probably.
The dude still ain’t said word the first. I’m up beside him and he knocks. I hear Marcus’s voice and that helps a little bit. Chains start sliding loose on the other side of the door. Then I see Marcus’s face and I feel a whole lot better. Seen Marcus before in Pittsburgh when he blew in to see the Twinkies, so I knew who he was and I felt better cause if they was gon take me off it wouldn’t be Marcus doing it. He get some his thugs for the heavy work. I ain’t over yet but I start relaxing some, checking out where I’m at.
It’s a little project house. Marcus shuts the door and I think we alone till a woman’s voice come from one the inside rooms. They go back and forth about something. I figure it’s probably the woman’s pad and Marcus use it for business. No way Marcus be as big as he is in dope and living in no stomp-down project apartment.
We in this tiny little kitchen. Marcus don’t waste no time. He gets out the dope. Says it’s good stuff. Says it take a five cut.
The “P” is in pill bottles. It’s “P” cause it’s pure heroin. Marcus had all his shit in a case, like a tape case. You know. Just a brown case with snaps. The cuts in plastic bags. A mix of quinine and milk sugar. A ring of measuring spoons in the case with the P and the cut. A scale too. Nothing fancy. The kind of stuff you get in a dime store or a supermarket. Ring of metal spoons. Dime-store scale. Marcus had the shit hooked up in five minutes. Mixed me a light street bag. A eighth spoon P and cut.
I shot it. It checked out good. Prime shit. Real nice.
Marcus threw in a ounce of cut for free. The dude was being fair. Better than fair. Good price on the dope, and he just gimme the other stuff for nothing. I’m digging Marcus more and more all the time. He’s good with his hands. While he was hooking me up he talked real friendly.
Have you seen so and so in Pittsburgh. How’s William and Charles. How’s my sweet niece, Tanya. What’s happening on the set. Stuff like that. Like he’s an old friend been knowing me all my life. Like family. I’m thinking, Yeah. Yeah, the cat’s digging me and I’m really into something. I’m in the family business. Marcus talking, being sociable, but he let some things drop. Marcus play a real deep third base. Never gon let on too much. But he let me know they been keeping track of me. Watching how I handle myself. Marcus talk like my uncle or something. Don’t get hooked, Rob. If you want to be the man you got to stay cool. You could be the one take Billy Sims’s spot. I’m listening to every word. And it’s sweet. My dream’s coming true. Ain’t nothing in the way. I can see myself rising straight to the top.
Marcus says, I’ll front you. You do right and you’re on your way. The big time. I want to jump up and holler. Marcus saying the very same thing I’m thinking so it got to be true. He tells me to sell the shit and bring him back the money right away. Flip it. Turn it back to dope. You know. Flip money. Bring it back to him for more dope and flip it again and flip it again and I’m standing there in somebody’s jive little kitchen a rich man counting all the money I’m gon make.
We got two thousand and that will turn seven thousand on the street. Chunky can get us seven thousand dealing the shit and then we come back to big D and buy more dope and it’s the big time. Fat city. I’m tripping on the good times we gon have.
There’s this table where Marcus was working and a sink full of dirty dishes. Two chairs. Them bargain-basement kind with plastic seats that pop open and got dirty cotton inside. One them undersize project stoves and a project refridge. The woman’s calling Marcus again. I’m feeling good but this apartment is hurting. It’s greasy-looking and the lights too bright. I goes in my back pocket and pull out the stake. Old money. Lots of tens and fives and twenties in a rubber band. A fistful of wrinkled-up money we been saving off our jobs and shit. I slip it on the table for Marcus. He smile and don’t even count it. He smiles a little Uncle Ben smile and I know I’m grinning back. I can see the sun. I can see me rising straight to the top.
I call Michael and them. Tell them meet me back at the booth where they dropped me. See, that tripping round the project wasn’t nothing but a trick to get me lost. The phone booth right outside Marcus’s place. Walked out the front door of the apartment and there it was.
Did I say Mike’s car? Wasn’t Mike’s car that time. Got that wrong. Was Sowell’s car. Triple blue Chevy Impala. Dark blue vinyl top, baby blue outside, blue interior. Tape deck, wire wheels, and all that kinda stuff. Sowell liked to go first class. He knew how to spend money. So the fellows come back and I gets in and we’re on our way. Isley Brothers on the stereo. The album with lots of slow songs. What’s it called. I can’t remember. I can hear the songs though. Sweet, slow stuff and everybody’s happy. Everybody’s feeling good. Talking up dreams. What we gon spend our riches on. Passing round a jug of Thunderbird. Getting real happy. Hey. What’s the word. Hey, what’s the price. You know, being silly and dreaming up on new cars and new pads and how we gon keep our number-one ladies in fine apartments. How they gon lay up in there all perfumed and nice waiting for us and we the only one got the key. Goodtiming and laughing and mellow all the way back to Pittsburgh.
Sammy the only one who’s a pain in the ass. He’s bugging everybody to let him shoot some the dope. C’mon, man. Gimme some, man. That’s all he wants. Couldn’t care less about no women and apartments. Sammy wants him a fix. Wants to get high. His uncle was right on. You couldn’t trust that fool with noth
ing. He was my man but he couldn’t carry no dope around the corner without getting into it. You hook him up in Detroit you never see Sammy again. Be done O.D.’d. Be looking for a fix in junkie heaven or junkie hell or wherever a junkie go he leaves here.
When I look back it seems like that ride was the best time. We was happy. We had our dreams. Everything went downhill after that. The roof falls in when we get back to Pittsburgh.
Sunday morning when we finally drive in. Early. Early morning. Sun just breaking through. No traffic. We got off the Turnpike at Monroeville and came in on 22. Rode up the back way to East Hills. Nobody out in the street. Everything quiet and still. We’s all still up. Been on the road a day and a half but nobody ready to go to bed yet. We still too high. We still tripping on that Superfly fantasy. I mean we on our way, ain’t we? We got the dope. Marcus in our corner. The Twinkies in our corner. No hitches. Our shit be on the street next morning gobbling up money. So we still high. We all ready to test the dope now.
Except Sowell. Sowell don’t never shoot up. Says he’s tired from driving and drops us at my pad. We make him take Sammy home. Sammy’s mad but Mike and Cecil don’t want to be bothered with Sammy. Sowell splits and we lay at my house. Mike had left his car parked outside so there’s a way home when people ready. We sat around and got high. Divided the dope into street bags. Mixed in the cut. Finished fixing about half of it. Then we had to figure where to stash it. Took it over to Sowell’s cause he never been in no trouble. His place be the safest. Like I said before, Sowell was in it for the money. He didn’t hang out like the rest of us. You’d see his car up on the set but he just be dropping by. Like a businessman checking his store. Cause that’s all he wanted to do. Make that quick money. Sowell wasn’t in the life. He worked every day. Dope money was something extra. So we took it over to his place, then Michael dropped me back home and I slept like a baby till evening.
Had nine half-spoons of dope at my place already. Stuff I was selling for Sims. Could of gone out and sold them Sunday night but Tanya come over. We trying to get it back together. Had a light falling out early in the week. Needed a little time together get things mellow again. So Tanya slept over my place and I didn’t do no Sunday work. Not on the corner, anyway. We be making mellow love and I wasn’t thinking about selling them nine half-spoons. Monday morning soon enough. I’m king that night. Got a fine lady beside me all brown and warm and being special nice cause she knows she was wrong, knows the little falling out was her fault and she’s trying to make it up. Got Tanya beside me and the dope ready to go. Monday ain’t kicked my ass yet. The roof ain’t caved in yet so I’m King Rat. I’m thinking in just a few hours the world’s gon open her big legs and say, Come on. Come get you some. Come on and take it all if you want it.
Monday morning I hear this knocking. Tanya’s sleep and I’m still half drugged. Think I hear something, then again I’m not sure. I rolls over and say fuck it to whatever it was. Then I hear them pounding again. Somebody at my front door.
What you want? Ain’t got no clothes on. Talking through the door.
You got a yellow Cadillac out here. It’s blocking the driveway.
No. Shit no. I’m pissed off cause somebody bugging me over nothing. Waking me up when sleep was feeling so good. But once I’m up, I’m up. Hear Tanya in the bathroom. Figured I mize well get rid of Sims’s shit early. Then I’d help cover Chunky’s back while he dealed our stuff. Washed up. Got my clothes on. Called me a jitney. Done forgot all about that yellow Cadillac.
When the jitney blows I step outside into the hall. My building was on the corner, 3332 East Hills Drive. I had the first apartment on the ground floor just inside the front door. Soon as I step in the hall I hear shotguns pumping. Once you heard that sound you never forget it. I’m in the hall and I hear them. Half a dozen shotguns pumped. All of them pumping and aiming at my chest.
Halt.
Nine packs of dope in my pocket so I never stop. Can’t let them find that shit on me. All I can think is I gotta get rid of this dope and from my door I jumps straight out the door of the building. Zoom. I takes off. Flies through the air till I hit the front door. Then I leap down the steps. Flying again when these cops catch me. Grab me right out the midair.
Hustled my ass back into the apartment. Then they tear the place up looking for dope. They find some reefer in Tanya’s purse. Funny thing is, they ain’t searched me yet. Them nine packs make a fat package and I’m wearing tight jeans. Kind with straight pockets in the front, more like slits than pockets. For decoration cause you can’t get nothing down in them. You know, like two watch pockets in front with stitching to match the stitching down the legs and on the back pockets. The kind of jeans they was wearing then. Tight-assed and tight-legged, so the dope’s bulging in my back pocket. They searching and I’m standing in the middle of the room with my hand over my ass trying to hide the shit. Seemed like anybody could see it poking out back there. But they didn’t search me for the longest time. Tore up the place looking for dope and I’m standing there with nine bags stashed in my pocket plain as day. I was looking for a chance to break away and flush the shit down the toilet or throw it out a window. But the cops was too close on me. A million of them. They had the place surrounded. Pump guns in the hallway and patrol cars all up and down the drive. Then I remembered the voice waking me up. Must of been them trying to trick me out the house. Cops ain’t shit. Playing Dick Tracy games. Can’t find dope when it’s staring them in the face. Finally, one searched me. I was tired of patting my ass anyway. Arrested me and Tanya. Took us down to No. 5. Jammed me up over the nine bags. Tanya ain’t had nothing but a joint in her purse so they let her go. Wasn’t ten o’clock in the morning of the first day of the big time, and I’m jammed up in the slammer.
Now this is weird. Real weird. Mike finally came down and got me out of jail that day and later on while we in the bar talking we can’t figure out why the cops busted me. And add to that the cops was talking about Detroit. One kept asking me, Where’s the shit you picked up in Detroit? We know you copped in Detroit. Now how in hell the cops know about Detroit? We ain’t hardly back yet and they talking about the run to Detroit. Don’t make no sense at all unless somebody who made the run snitching to the cops. Didn’t nobody else know about it.
Cecil and Mike figure it had to be Sammy. They want to go and off the nigger right away. They was mad and they thinking Sammy ain’t shit anyway. Nobody but me liked him. Lots of people just looking for an excuse to waste the dude. Cecil and Mike was mad as I ever seen em. They was probably right, too. Who else it be but Sammy.
Me, I’m mad too, but I’m shook up. I been in jail all day and worrying. We so close and now it starts to raining shit on our big play. I tell them guys cool it. Wasting Sammy ain’t what it’s about. All our money tied up in this dope and we got to take care of business. The cops is probably watching me. They know something’s up. It’s a bad scene all round. Election time and the set’s tight. They busting people to look good for the voters. Be’s like that every election so it’s risky to do business. Ain’t no sense going down on Sammy. Just make things tighter. I say cool it. I say keep the shit stashed at Sowell’s a week or so till I ain’t hot. Till election’s over. We can wait. A week or two won’t change nothing. We waited this long so let’s take our time and do it right. That’s what I’m trying to get across and the fellows see my point but they’s still pissed at Sammy. Leave Sammy be. He ain’t nothing. Anyway we ain’t even sure it was him.
Who else it gon be? Wring that punk’s neck.
Yeah. Simple-assed Sammy lucky he didn’t walk in the bar that night. Funny thing is, Sammy ain’t opened his mouth. Cops busted me that morning cause the roommate of one my old girl friends dropped a dime on me. Never knew till much later. Till I was in the joint. That’s when I found out what really happened. See this girl I used to hang with. She was a trifling bitch. Had to put her down and after that she’s always bad-mouthing me. Putting my name in shit every chance she gets. According
to her, I’m the worst cat in the world. Number one on the Ugly list. Well, she talks that kinda trash all the time. Robby this and Robby that and Robby ain’t no good. Her roommate listening to that mess all the time and one day in the grocery store she sees Tony and Tony knows all us and knows we was going to Detroit and the chick asks him, Where’s Robby? She ain’t seen Robby in a while. Like she’s my friend and shit and maybe want to give me some pussy. Tony don’t make nothing of it one way or another. He says Robby’s in Detroit this weekend. Just a casual conversation in the A & P, you know. But the bitch she knows she got something good. She’s scheming. She been out on the set and figures we ain’t driving to Detroit for no picnic. Bitch calls the cops and sets me up.
That’s why the cops knew about Detroit. That’s why they staked me out. Figured they was on to a super bust. Well, them nine half-spoons they found wasn’t what they was hoping for but it was enough to get me jammed up and we had to keep our shit off the street two weeks. And them two weeks blew the whole scheme. But I ain’t to the weird part yet. See this girl. What’s she trying to do? She don’t even know me except what she’s heard from her roomie. She’s just taking it on herself to do her friend a favor. Then look what happens. I’m here in this motherfucking slammer today cause that bitch dropped a dime. Don’t know what would have happened if she’d of minded her own business. Maybe we would have sold our dope and flipped the money and sold some more. Maybe we’d have made it big. Got to the top. Niggers see us and say, “Those dudes made theirs from the curb.” Maybe I woulda been Superfly for a day. Who knows? What did happen was the bitch blew our tip before it even got started good. By holding back that dope it spoiled, and then we didn’t have nothing. No money, no dope, no jobs. Nothing. We was stone broke and didn’t have no choice but to rob us some money. So we did. And Stavros got killed, and here I am. All on account that bitch dropped a dime.
Brothers and Keepers Page 17
