by Rio
“Lil Mikey. Lil Mikey, wake up.”
Instinctively, I dipped my hand underneath my pillow and curled my fingers around the butt of my Glock before opening my eyes to investigate the voice.
I let out a sigh of relief when I saw that it was Kisha. She was standing beside the bed in a black lace Victoria’s Secret bra and panties set. She had on the Christian Louboutins I’d gotten her last week, and she was balancing a palate-teasing breakfast tray in the palm of her hand: biscuits drenched in thick meaty gravy, scrambled eggs with cheese, hash browns, and a tall glass of milk.
“Good morning, bae. Get some food in your stomach so we can get goin’. We need to be out of here in the next thirty minutes.”
“I’m cool,” I said, pushing the tray back at her. I looked at the red digital numbers on the bedside clock, 7:15 a.m. “Just roll me a blunt, baby. And give me a kiss.”
“You need to eat something, Mikey. You barely ate anything yesterday.”
“I’ll be a’ight.” I sat up and fingered the crust out of my eyes.
“No, you won’t.” Kisha planted the tray on my lap. “Eat.”
“Nuh uh.” I sat the tray aside, swung my legs over the side of the bed, and ran my hands up her soft black thighs. “I’m not about to force myself to eat when I ain’t even hungry… unless you gon’ let me eat some of this.” I kissed the front of her panties, inhaling the mouth-watering scent of her pussy.
“Boy.” She leaned down and kissed me on the lips. “Eat your breakfast, okay? I might give you a little snack before we leave.”
“Better give me somethin’, all that muhfuckin bread I done blew on you.”
“So what? I’m wifey, ain’t I? You’re supposed to take care of me. That way I can take care of everything around us.” She slapped me gently on the cheek. “Now eat.”
I smacked her on the ass and watched it jiggle as she walked out to the sitting room. We were in a Lakeview suite, the most expensive suite at the Magnificent Mile’s most lavish hotel, yet somehow Kisha managed to keep me entranced more than the room’s panoramic views. Her sensuous walk held me spellbound. She sauntered the way I imagined an angel would, a perfectly imperfect angel of African descent.
Needless to say, I struggled with an early morning erection while devouring the warm breakfast. Suddenly I was glad that I had gotten away with the cash and drugs. Kisha had started dancing at Arnie’s shortly before that horrible day last week, and thanks to the money, she hadn’t danced there since; which was indeed good because I hated having a stripper girlfriend. I wanted to be the provider, the man, the pants-wearing bread-winner. And now I was just that.
I finished eating, took a shower, and put on the black Tom Ford suit Kisha had rented for me to wear to the funeral. She had my blunt ready and my tie in hand when I stepped out of the bathroom.
“Scrilla and his cousin Rose just got here with Shay,” she said, slinging the black silk tie around my neck. “Rose wants a whole brick this time, and I think your brother said he wants another one.”
“Fuck you mean you think he said that?”
“I couldn’t really hear him with his lips glued to Shay’s neck. They probably ran a train on her last night.” Kisha twisted her face in disgust as she pushed the blunt between my lips. “No more threesomes with her. Ugh.”
I smiled and filled my palms with her soft derriere. “You love me?” I asked, gazing into her sweet brown eyes as she lit the blunt.
“I’ll love you when I get a ring,” she retorted. “Till then, I’ll only like you sometimes. Is that good enough?”
“As long as till then you keep bringin’ me some new pussy sometimes, I ain’t got no issue with that.”
“You tryna get slapped?”
“I love you, Kisha.”
“That ain’t what I asked—” she started, but I lifted her by the waist and playfully tossed her onto the large white-blanketed bed. She giggled merrily, and for a moment I contemplated getting a taste of her juicy womanhood. But then Scrilla and Rose walked in.
Unlike Scrilla, who was brown-skinned, short and a little chubby, Rose was dark and taller, with an athletic frame and an ice cube chilling behind each of his eyeballs. They were swagged out in True Religion blue jeans and Gucci everything else. Scrilla had a big white McDonald’s bag folded over in one hand.
“Why y’all ain’t dressed for the funeral?” I asked as I crossed the room to a white easy chair. My Mauri shoes were standing atop my two thousand dollar Louis Vuitton suitcase next to the chair. Kisha’s black Valentino dress was draped over the arm of the chair beneath my box of Gucci cologne.
On the seat of the chair was my new 9mm Glock, fully-equipped with red laser sighting and a 50-round SGM drum magazine.
“Nigga, we is dressed,” Scrilla said. “I’m goin’ G’d up to folks’ funeral.”
“Straight up, G-ball,” Rose added, typing something on his iPhone 5.
Simultaneously, I picked up the Glock, lit the blunt, and threw Kisha her dress. She caught it and put it on quickly… and I caught Scrilla and Rose staring at her as she shimmied into the dress.
“You should wear something respectable for the old man,” I said to Scrilla. I sat down in the chair and put the Glock on my lap, studying Scrilla and Rose’s expressions.
I sensed bad news.
Scrilla opened the McDonald’s bag and canted it toward me. It was filled with rubber-banded stacks of cash.
“You bring the slabs?” He asked.
“I told you last night I had ‘em with me. Is that sixty racks?” I sucked in a bunch of smoke. Kisha squatted in front of me and started stuffing my feet into the gator-skin Mauris.
“Yeah, it’s sixty. Counted it twice,” Scrilla said. He laid the bag on the foot of the bed and sighed. “Man, lil bruh… we don’t think you should go to the funeral. Shit might pop off if some Vice Lords show up at a funeral full of GDs, you feel me? ‘Specially since Pops got killed in a Vice Lord neighborhood. That’s why them lil niggas got shot up on Ogden the other day. Shit, that’s why most of the shootings that done happened in the past week been in yo’ hood.”
I dropped my head back and blew out a perfectly circular ring of Kush smoke. Scrilla’s suggestion that I not attend our father’s funeral made me grind my teeth in anger, but I held it in like the next lungful of smoke. Pops had been a Board Member, the highest rank given in the Gangster Disciple Nation. Yesterday his wake had been packed full of GDs from all over the Midwest, and I had been the only Vice Lord.
Scrilla and Rose were also Gangster Disciples.
“Baby,” I said to Kisha, turning my head as she sprayed me with the Gucci cologne, “grab those two bricks out the suitcase, and start countin’ that money.”
For a while a grim silence filled the room. I sat there in the soft white chair and smoked my blunt watching Kisha as she began counting the cash on the bed. I wondered if my brother thought my hood was soft or something, like we were afraid to show up at a funeral full of the opposition. I didn’t give a fuck if every gang in the city showed their faces there, I was still going.
“Pass that good shit, nigga,” Scrilla Man said. He walked over and got the blunt from me. “Just for the record, if something does pop off, I’m knockin’ heads off for you. But I think it’ll be better to avoid that kinda situation… unless you’re tryna do forever in the joint.”
I stood up and started removing my suit piece by piece, holding the Glock and opening the suitcase. I left the suit scattered across the floor and pulled out a brand new True Religion outfit—a white t-shirt and baggy blue jeans. I put on the outfit, added a gray pair of Louis Vuitton sneakers with a matching belt and visor cap.
“Shit,” Rose said, “that nigga ain’t gon’ need our help. You see dat drum? What’s that, a fifty?”
“Hell muhfuckin yeah, nigga, and it’s filled all the way up,” I said, buckling my LV belt. I knew that Scrilla Man and Rose wore Gucci because they felt the double G symbol represented Gangster, as in Gangster Di
sciple. So I wore Louis Vuitton’s LV symbol for Vice Lord, and all my niggas on 15th and Homan had done the same.
Scrilla tapped my shoulder and passed me the blunt just as Shay came sauntering into the room wearing a short black strapless dress and the six-inch Louboutin heels I’d bought at the same time I bought Kisha’s heels. Shay was flipping through a stack of hundreds, fifties, and twenties.
“Here’s your money for that Kush,” Shay said, handing me the cash. “Fifty-five hundred. If you can hit me with another pound, I’ll have it gone tonight. My lil bro want one, too.”
“I gotchoo.” I was already counting the bills.
“It’s sixty thousand,” Kisha interjected from the bed. She dropped the two kilos—which were wrapped in clear cellophane and stamped in the center with the letters KR—into the McDonald’s bag and tossed it to Scrilla.
“I take it you’re still goin’ to the funeral,” Scrilla said as he glanced from the pistol in my hand to the brand new Louis Vuitton duffle bag on the other side of the easy chair. “Gangbanging ass nigga.”
“Hell yeah I’m goin’,” I said assertively. “Pops wouldn’t have it any other way. I’m ready to die right there in front of him if I have to.”
Kisha and I packed hurriedly. Ten minutes later, we followed our guests out of the Hilton suite.
~Chapter 17~
“You’re gonna need some more dope soon, and I know just the person to contact. This girl I met at the strip club introduced me to him the night I started dancing there. I think his name is King-Royce or somethin’ like that; a Latin King wit’ connections to the Costilla Cartel. She said Royce had been sellin’ bricks to the Breeds for fourteen racks apiece. You’ll make a killin’ wit’ those prices.”
Lying back in the passenger’s seat of my Monte Carlo with my fingers interlaced behind my head while Kisha steered the new chrome 26-inch rims through the west side streets, I was trying to hide the fact that I was still angry about the GDs not wanting me at my father’s funeral.
I sat up and glanced around the street—we were soaring down Independence Boulevard—then said, “Ain’t nobody sellin’ bricks for no fourteen racks. Can’t even get half a brick for fourteen.”
Kisha sighed and sucked her teeth. “Haven’t you heard of the Matamoros Cartel in Mexico? I watched an episode about their war with the Zeta Cartel on Gangland. The Matamoros drug cartel is now considered to be the number one trafficker of heroin and cocaine in South America, and a lot of people believe the Matamoros Cartel is the Costilla Cartel. If King-Royce is plugged with them, then he probably is selling kilos for fourteen thousand.” She turned to me with a reluctant expression on her face. “I, uh… have his number somewhere in my locker at the strip club. I can drop by and get it if they haven’t cleaned out my locker yet. Or I can call the dancer who introduced me to him. I think I still got her number in my phone.”
I shrugged my shoulders and lit a Newport. “I don’t give a fuck. Just get me to 15th and Homan so I can check on my lil nigga Tyrone. He just got out the hospital last night.”
Kisha dialed a number on her smartphone and a few seconds later she said, “Hello, is this Lacresha?”
**********
There were over twenty teenaged gangbangers posted up on 15th and Homan when Kisha parked the Monte Carlo behind my nigga Tweet’s old school Cutlass; the red 1969 Oldsmobile had black rally stripes, black leather interior with red stitching, and a matching set of black 30-inch rims that hurt my pride a little as I stepped out to a barrage of TVL handshakes. The “ballers” of the clique—Tweet, Zo, and Roddy—embraced me first. Then came the young niggas, like Dre, Shorty Hustle, and Joe-Joe.
“Here you go, Joe,” Joe-Joe said as he handed me a wrinkled and folded knot of cash. I had given him three ounces of crack four days ago for him and his crew to get rid of, and he owed me $3,300.
“How much is this,” I asked.
“Thirty-three hun’ed,” Joe-Joe said. “Sold the last of that shit the other day. Been sellin’ Kush sacks and boy since then. Ain’t shit gettin’ sold right now, though. We just whooped one of the Breeds on Sixteenth. They talkin’ about comin’ back on gunplay.”
Shaking my head, I looked to my right and smiled at Tyrone as he came walking up the sidewalk with his arm in a sling. I watched him and he watched me, while everyone else admired and talked about the new rims on my Chevy.
“Damn nigga, you ridin’ on sixes now?” Tyrone said with a grin.
“You and Joe-Joe get in the car,” I said, handing him the cash Joe-Joe had just given me. “Do whatever you wanna do with that. I got somethin’ else for you, too.”
“You don’t owe me a dime, bruh. I did that ‘cause I fuck witchoo,” Tyrone said as I opened my passenger’s door and slid the seat forward so they could get in.
Suddenly, the piercing sound of screeching tires interrupted the serene street. A white Lincoln came barreling down Homan and two young niggas with dreads and dark faces were hanging out the passenger’s side windows with assault rifles gripped tightly in their hands.
My Glock with the fifty-round drum was folded into my seat; Kisha was scrolling down her Facebook page on her phone; Tyrone and Joe-Joe were just getting situated in the backseat.
I grabbed the Glock, ducked into the backseat, and aimed at the rapidly approaching Town Car just as the dread-headed gunmen opened fire.
PHOP PHOP PHOP PHOP PHOP PHOP PHOP PHOP PHOP PHOP PHOP PHOP
The gunshots from their assault rifles were so loud that I hardly heard the boom of my Glock as I started shooting holes through the rear window, aiming at the shooters and ignoring Kisha’s frantic screams.
I dove to the floor as they sped by. The pinging sound of bullets ripping through my car frightened me a little, but I rose as soon as they passed and stood beside the open passenger door. I was holding the gun sideways and squeezing off shots at the Lincoln until it made a left on 16th and disappeared.
I looked at Kisha, saw that she was okay, and then checked on Tyrone and Joe-Joe; they were good, too.
But the same could not be said for Luke and two other TVLs.
They were stretched out on the sidewalk, bleeding profusely from multiple gunshot wounds.
~Chapter 18~
With eight fresh bullet holes in the side of my car, I had no choice but to show up at my father’s funeral in Kisha’s white Expedition, which wouldn’t have been so bad if not for the hot pink Hello Kitty interior. Kisha had stayed home with Tyrone and Joe-Joe; she’d been too shell-shocked to attend the funeral.
I sat in the front pew between Momma and Treecy during the service, flicking my eyes around at what seemed like a million Gangster Disciples and fighting back tears every time I looked at the casket. Scrilla Man was sitting next to Treecy, crying with a straight face.
Halfway through the service, Momma fell against me and started sobbing. Groaning and repeating “No” over and over again until her voice became a small whisper. I wrapped my arm around her fragile body and pulled her close, and we stayed that way until it was time to leave for the burial.
“Walk Momma out to the limo,” I told Treecy.
“Daddy’s gone,” she replied weakly. “He’s really gone.”
I nudged the two of them toward the aisle, but they were too distraught to walk alone, so I walked them to the tall oak door, opened it, and stepped out into the sunshine with them.
The first thing I noticed was the single CPD Suburban that was slowly driving past on Roosevelt Road, sticking out like a sore thumb amid a crowd of 400 GDs, 100 TVLs, and eighty or ninety members of my father’s extended family.
“Go and tell that old nigga I said bye,” Assata muttered, dabbing the tears from her smooth brown cheeks with a Kleenex. “I’m not strong enough to tell him myself.”
“You’re strong enough to do anything, Ma,” I encouraged.
She shook her head no. “Not today, Mikey. Not today,” she said, and started toward the limo with Treecy.
I lit a cigaret
te and was taking my second pull when I looked over and saw Scrilla Man standing next to me.
“We gotta find out who that girl was, lil bruh. The bitch that shot yo’ lil guy Tyrone. She gotta get murked for this shit. Let me hit that square.”
“We’ll find her,” I said, handing him the cigarette.
There wasn’t much conviction in my tone. I knew that we didn’t have a chance at finding the girl without knowing her name. Shit, I couldn’t even find my own damned Illinois State…
“ID!” I blurted suddenly. “It was my mothafuckin ID!”
Scrilla Man’s expression became quizzical. “What?” He said.
But I was already jogging urgently toward Momma and Treecy.
“Treecy! Momma! I stopped them just as they were about to get in the black limo. “The girl who shot Tyrone, did she have on a pink dress? Dark-skinned wit’ short hair?”
“Yup,” said Treecy. “That’s exactly how she looked.”
Momma nodded her head in agreement.
~Chapter 19~
It never took much liquor to get Kisha drunk.
The shooting had rattled her nerves severely, and now she was sitting at her kitchen table with Shay, Tyrone, and Joe-Joe. They were playing a game of Spades for shots of Ciroc, and Kisha and Shay were taking a beating.
“I quit,” Kisha said, throwing in her hand. “I’m way too drunk for this shit. Shay, roll up another blunt. I’m about to go outside and see if that girl done made it here yet. She was s’posed to meet us on Homan before them crazy ass niggas got to shootin’.”
Tyrone shook his head in disbelief. “I just cain’t believe they came through bussin’ like that. We been beefin’ forever, but this the first time it came to gunplay.”
“Don’t even trip, Joe,” Joe-Joe said as he picked up the half-empty Ciroc bottle. “We got choppas on deck, too. Wait till the hood cool off, I’m choppin’ niggas down on sight.”
He turned the bottle up to take a sip but Shay snatched it out his hand before it made it to his lips.
