Blow

by K'wan

  “What you think about that dope shit ya man was kicking?” Prince asked Daddy-O.

  “Man, you know Scatter be talking out his ass. That shit was like the seventies or eighties when that shit was popping. Once that freebase came around, it was a wrap.”

  “I don’t know, man, you see how old Blue on it, and I know fo sho he was moving that D back in his day,” Prince said.

  “Yeah, that mutha fucka is still sitting on paper, but Blue been in and out the game since the sixties,” Daddy-O reminded him.

  “Maybe I should holla at Diego about it?”

  “Prince, you can do what you want, but you know he ain’t gonna wanna hear about setting up no dope spots in the projects. He’s too stuck on the fast paper that comes from crack and coke. It’s a quick turnaround with minimal hassle for his lazy ass.”

  “True,” Prince said. Daddy-O was right. Diego was a nigga who was set in his ways and didn’t like to deviate. Dope was a gamble worth taking, but Diego wasn’t gonna go for it, and Prince didn’t have the paper or connect to try it on his own. Their conversation was broken up when E came across the street.

  “What’s good, son? Where y’all headed?” E asked.

  “’Bout to see who’s up the block,” Prince told him.

  “Yo, you think that little nigga with the nicks of haze is out there? I’m trying to get right.”

  “He should be,” Prince shrugged. “Come on.” The duo had now become a threesome as they headed up the block.

  When they crossed 104th street, the age range went up a bit. Project veterans from several different eras could be found on this corner hanging around like their names still held weight. Daddy-O and Prince called the corner The Hustler’s Boneyard. Most of the cats who hung on this corner were washed up in the game, but still held on to the fleeting memories that had once defined their lives.

  “Young Prince, what it do?” a retired hustler named Oscar called out. He was wearing a pair of leather shorts and a black tank top. Back in the day Oscar had made a pretty penny on the streets, but several bullets and multiple prison terms had forced him into retirement.

  “I can’t call it, man.” Prince shrugged his shoulders. “I’m trying to be like you when I grow up.”

  “Never like me, baby, always better. You remember who told you that. Daddy-O,” Oscar turned his attention to Prince’s partner and fake jabbed at him. “You still out here sitting niggaz on their asses?”

  “Hey, man, I do what I do,” Daddy-O said modestly. Though he was much younger than Oscar and the others, most of them respected him as one of their peers. Daddy-O was nice with his hands and had been knocking grown men out since he was a shorty. Had life been kinder, he could’ve had a successful career as a boxer, but the streets had claimed his heart along with his dreams.

  “Spoken like a true G,” Oscar said, sipping something dark from a plastic cup. “Man, y’all niggaz remind me of me and my crew back in the days. Me, Black, and Greg used to have all the bitches and all the money.”

  “Yeah, y’all made a few dollars out here, but me and my nigga got you beat on the hoes. We knocking ’em out the box left and right.”

  “Boy, you must’ve fell and bumped your head. I had more hoes than Wilt and twice as much game!” Oscar declared in a booming voice.

  “Que pasa, fellas, what’s all the yelling about?” a short Hispanic cat said, coming out of the bodega. He was dressed in a pair of black linen pants and a loud orange button up. The offensive color pattern looked as if someone had broken open a magic marker and flicked it at him. His hair had begun to thin in the front, but he still rocked it in a close fade, struggling to hold on to the memories of having a full head of hair. With a pencil mustache and dreamy eyes, the man wasn’t a very intimidating sight, but when you had that kind of power you didn’t have to be. Diego controlled the cocaine trade around the neighborhood, therefore the wolves were at his call. One of the most vicious wolves trailed him like a shadow.

  Manny was a man of few words and few enemies. Probably because he had killed most of them off. Like E, he had been a part of the old regime, but unlike E, Manny knew how to make himself useful to the new one. If you ever wanted someone dealt with in true straight-to-DVD fashion, you called Manny. He’d blow your head off at your mother’s house, flee to PR, then sneak back into the country when the heat died down. Even with the heightened homeland security, there were still ways for niggaz that had been doing it long enough.

  Prince gave Diego a pound/hug. “Wasn’t ’bout nothing; we just out here clowning with Oscar.”

  “Seems like you niggaz do more clowning than grinding. Take a walk with me to the liquor store, Prince.” Diego steered Prince north on Columbus Avenue, speaking softly into his ear. Manny brought up the rear, toking on a Newport, with Daddy-O at his side and E a few paces back. They had gone about a half block before Diego looked over his shoulder and stopped short.

  “Fuck is you going?” he asked E.

  “Huh?” he asked, confused.

  “I don’t recall asking you to come along.”

  “Come on, D.” Prince tried to speak on E’s behalf, but Diego wasn’t trying to hear it.

  “Nah, fuck that, Prince. I know that’s ya man, but I don’t like this sneaky little mutha fucka,” Diego said honestly.

  “Diego, why you acting like that, fam?” E asked, as if he didn’t know he wasn’t one of Diego’s least favorite people.

  “E, don’t play stupid with me. You might have Prince fooled with this underdog shit, but I know you. I was there when you was fucking with niggaz from up the block, and I know how you move. Nah, poppy, be on ya way.”

  “Yo, you be on some bullshit!” E said a little more heatedly than he meant to. As soon as he saw Manny move he regretted his words.

  “You feeling brave?” Manny hissed. He was so close up on E that spittle rained on the shorter man’s face.

  “Yo, go ahead with that, Manny,” E said, raising his hand to try and keep some distance between himself and Diego’s pet sociopath. He never saw Manny move, but he knew he was in trouble when pain shot up through his arm. Manny had grabbed E about the wrist and twisted until the bones threatened to snap.

  “Fuck is you stupid or something?” Manny asked, slapping E viciously in the back of the head. “Don’t even raise your fucking hands to me!” This time he swung from underneath the stooped man and slapped him in the mouth. Blood flew from E’s lips and dotted the concrete.

  “Chill, Manny!” Prince moved to break it up, but Diego held him back.

  “Cool out, poppy. I know that’s ya man, but don’t draw lines in the sand,” Diego said seriously.

  Prince looked into Diego’s eyes and saw the threat beneath the words. There was no doubt in his mind that if he put himself out there for E, his business with Diego would be done, not to mention that he stood a good chance of winding up on his shit list. Prince wasn’t afraid of Diego, but he held no illusions in his mind about what the man was capable of. He might take out a few foot soldiers, but that would be about as far as it went before Diego’s soldiers crushed Prince’s crew. E was cool, but not worth risking his entire team over. Angrily, Prince stayed where he was and watched Manny slap E up.

  The beating only lasted a few seconds, but it seemed like an eternity for E who was on the receiving end. Manny hadn’t yet hit him with a closed fist, but he slapped the shit out of E every time his face opened up. E’s face was so on fire that even after Diego had called Manny off, he still felt like he was being slapped.

  “E, you a’ight?” Prince asked, trying to help him keep his feet under him.

  “I’m good.” E jerked away from Prince. He spat a wad of blood from his mouth and just stared at it as if he wasn’t sure if it was his or not. He hadn’t meant to be so harsh with Prince, but he was uptight at Diego and Prince by association. He knew Prince’s hands were tied in the matter. E was just getting a good slapping around, but if Prince tried to step in, Diego would look at it as betrayal a
nd surely send the death squad for his protégé.

  “Stand that nigga up so I can tag his ass again,” Manny taunted as he danced around throwing phantom punches.

  “That’s enough!” Prince shouted.

  “What? Nigga, fuck you, who you think you’re talking to? I’ll kick your black ass too!”

  Anger danced through Prince. It was bad enough he had to sit and watch E catch a bad one, but he would be damned if Manny would come at him sideways. Diego’s boy or not, Prince was gonna whip his ass.

  “Okay, okay,” Diego stepped between them. “No need for two of my best guys to be going at it. Manny,” he turned to his bodyguard. “You’ve proved your point, so chill. If you and Prince wanna tear each other up, you’ll do it in the ring, not on the street like two common fucking punks.” No matter how heated they were, both men knew better than to argue with Diego. They’d let it go for now, but a reckoning was sure to come of the incident.

  “E, let me walk you to your building,” Prince offered, momentarily forgetting about Manny, who was still glaring at him.

  “I’m good, P, word,” E told him. He cast angry eyes over to Diego, who was watching Prince. If E had a pistol on him, he’d have gunned Diego and Manny down, but he had foolishly come out unarmed. It was a mistake he wouldn’t make again.

  “Dawg, you sure?” Prince asked.

  E let his eyes linger on Diego and Manny for a second or two longer before answering Prince. “Yeah, man. I know how it is,” he nodded at Diego. “Go handle ya business. Me and homeboy will settle up sooner or later.” E licked his wounds and slunk back to the other side of the projects.

  CHAPTER 5

  S ticks sat on the bench where Keisha had previously been grilling, watching any and everyone. Not long ago word had come down about Gene getting robbed by two unknown men, and he wasn’t happy about it. Gene was a good kid whom Sticks had taken a liking to, so he took it quite personal when the robber broke Gene’s jaw. His little man was laid up in the hospital getting his shit wired, and somebody would have hell to pay because of it.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” Danny asked, noticing the murderous look in Sticks’s eyes.

  “Ain’t nothing, just trying to stay on point,” Sticks said dryly. Danny was a part of their team, but he wasn’t one of Sticks’s favorite people.

  “Man, y’all tripping. Them niggaz ain’t gonna come back around here knowing that we’re onto them.”

  “And how the fuck do you know? You got the inside track?” Sticks asked coldly. His unnaturally black eyes sent a chill down Danny’s spine.

  “Hell nah, I’m just saying. These niggaz out here know that we ’bout that homicide. They ain’t gonna try it again,” Danny boasted.

  “Dig this.” Sticks sat up. “Whoever moved on Gene knew exactly when and where to get him, so that means they’ve been watching him, which also means that they know who he’s with and don’t give a fuck.”

  “Man, I better not find out who it is, cause if I do I’m gonna dumb the fuck out!” Danny declared. Sticks just looked at him and went back to surveying the projects.

  A few minutes later Shakes walked up. She was decked out in a one piece spandex suit and a pair of crunchy Reebok classics. “Yo, Sticks, let me get with you for a minute.”

  Sticks looked around before getting up and walking over to Shakes. She whispered something in his ear to which he just nodded. Sticks handed her a small nugget of crack wrapped in foil and headed back to the bench.

  “Let ya boy know something,” Danny said, knowing that Shakes probably had a lead on whoever the robbers were.

  “Just be cool; I got this under control,” Sticks said, pulling out his cell phone to call his brother.

  “That shit wasn’t called for,” Prince said to Diego after E had gone.

  “Says you. That nigga know I don’t fuck with him so why would he even try to tag along. Fuck him, Prince. That kid is rotten, and you need to stop fucking with him.”

  “That’s my peoples,” Prince defended.

  Diego looked at him sadly. “If that’s ya peoples then ya got a real short career ahead of you.” Prince gave Diego a confused look, so Diego decided to explain, which was something he rarely did. “Prince, that nigga E is rotten, no good to the game. He’s a bottom-feeder, the kind of mutha fucka that will ride with you for as long as you’re useful, but when the shit hits the fan he’s gonna vanish. See, he talks that street shit and even tries to act the part, with them simple-ass Spanish niggaz he keeps around, but you and I know he ain’t built like that.”

  “Nah, man. E is straight. He was getting money with niggaz on 106th for the longest.” Prince continued to defend E.

  “Yeah, and when they all got knocked where the fuck was E? That was probably the only nigga that skated off without a scratch.”

  Prince thought about it for a minute. Damn near fifty people in total went down when the police rushed the Dominicans, but E managed to be out of town on the day it happened. There were speculations about E’s convenient absence during the bust, but Prince had known him for years and couldn’t see it.

  “Nah, I think you got him wrong.”

  “And you’re a good judge of character all of a sudden?” Diego raised his eyebrow. “Look I ain’t even about to start on you and your fucking trigger-happy-ass stooges.”

  “Call us what you want, but we command respect in our fucking hood,” Prince said seriously.

  “You hear this nigga, Manny?” he asked his shadow and was answered with a chuckle. “Let me ask you something,” he turned back to Prince, “what the fuck have y’all niggaz done over here to command anything?” Prince made to answer, but Diego cut him off. “Son, you out here making a lot of paper for a nigga your age, but you and your crew are still green to a lot of shit. Think about how reckless those little mutha fuckas are. The guns, the fights, the traffic, all that shit makes you hot. If you ever wanna be somebody in this game, you gotta run a tight house, poppy.”

  Prince’s first instinct was to remind Diego who had set his house in order as far as the projects went, but he didn’t. He was tight, but he wouldn’t give Diego the satisfaction of showing it. With niggaz who had big egos, you had to cater to them. But ego or not Prince saw their open conversation as an opportunity to put his bid in.

  “D, I hear what you’re saying and you know I value your advice, but I got this,” Prince said. He saw Diego’s eye twitch and continued hurriedly. “With all due respect, I’m out here with these niggaz everyday, so I know their strengths and weaknesses. I know who I can give rope to and who I can’t. D, have I ever come to you with short money or letting my team’s bullshit spill over onto yo shit?”

  “Prince, I see you going somewhere with this. What’s good, poppy?” Diego asked, finally.

  “I want in,” Prince said flatly. Diego opened his mouth, but Prince held his hand up. “My dude, I’ve been out here getting it up for the team for a long time, but sometimes it feels like I’m running in place. Man, shit is sweet, but it could be sweeter if you let a nigga ball.”

  Diego looked at him with a crooked grin. “Prince, if I didn’t know any better, I’d think you weren’t happy with my family. Is that what you’re telling me?”

  “Hell nah, man. You know I fucks wit you, hard body.” Prince assured him. “I’m just asking for a little creative freedom. Look, we can do it like you did with the boy, Dante.”

  Dante, like Prince, was once one of Diego’s crew bosses that eventually earned his freedom, so to speak. Diego allowed Dante to operate independently on Amsterdam Avenue. He would be the boss of his turf and those under him, but he could only buy coke from Diego at about three dollars higher per gram than everyone else. To top it off Diego also enforced a street tax that had to be paid once a month. Diego called it paying homage, but robbery was robbery no matter how you said it. The upside was that even with the street tax, you still had the freedom to get your weight up.

  Diego shrugged his shoulders. “Dante was
a special case. Prince, why you wanna break from the family? You’re twenty-two years old and running damn near the whole projects. You got money and respect. Don’t I take care of you?”

  “That’s the point, D; I wanna take care of me. Son, what we got is love so it ain’t gotta change; I just wanna have a little more freedom to make some change. A nigga don’t wanna live in the projects forever.”

  “Okay, okay,” Diego clapped his hands together. “You want more power; I’ll give it to you. I’m trying to muscle these niggaz from 93rd and Amsterdam out on some weed shit. When I knock these niggaz out the box, I’ll let you take over the crack houses. That’ll be your little piece of the rock, just make sure my money don’t get funny.”

  Prince looked at Diego. “D, that’d be cool for someone just coming in, but at the end of the day, it’s still your shit. I’m knee deep in this, so I need room to move around. I was thinking that maybe we could work something out for the Columbus side of the projects?”

  “Columbus?” Diego asked in disbelief. “Prince, you know I can’t do that.”

  “Come on, D, I grew up on that side. Who better to hold it down than me?” Prince reasoned.

  “I feel you, Prince, and had you asked for any other block we could’ve worked something out. I make too much money on that side to give it up. Nah,” Diego shook his head. “You can eat off my plate for as long as you like, but you ain’t getting your own fork. That’s my hood.” Diego said, finally.

  From the corner of his eyes, Prince could see Daddy-O looking to him for a sign. Manny must’ve felt the tension too, because he moved closer to the two men. Staring into Diego’s eyes made Prince feel like an invisible force was trying to drive him to his knees, but he was his own man and wouldn’t bend. Still it didn’t make sense to put himself on Diego’s shit list. After all, he was still the boss.

  “Don’t feel no way about it though, Prince,” Diego’s face softened. “Back when I was your age I couldn’t wait to grow up, until I got old and wanted my youth back. Come on, man.” Diego threw his arm around Prince’s shoulders and tried steering him into the liquor store. “Let’s go in here and get some champagne. Tomorrow we’ll talk about getting you set up on 94th.”