Bonded by Blood

by Cash

  Persia offered him five hundred dollars if he’d help her straighten things out with Q.

  “Tell him I’ll drop the assault charges against him,” she added.

  “You got the money with you?”

  “Yeah, but you gotta call him right now.” Persia looked inside her purse for her cell phone. When she looked up, she was staring at a burner.

  “Empty that purse, bitch! And come off those jewels—all of ‘em.”

  B-Man rented a motel room for a week with part of the money he took from Persia. The rest he smoked up, the jewels, too. When the money ran out, he was back to having no where to stay, sleeping in his Chevy drop. Somebody had stolen his ’64 the week before.

  Today that crack gorilla was on his back large as hell. He was desperate to come up with a lick, but wasn’t shit working out. Bed-Stuy claimed that he wasn’t fuckin’ with the steel no more. B-Man knew that the nigga was tryna fake him out. He had the feeling that Bed-Stuy just didn’t wanna fuck with him no more. It was all good. Fuck dat nigga! B-Man told himself.

  Bed-Stuy was feeling the same way about B-Man. Fuck, he think I’ma let his crackhead ass rest at my spot? Shid, ain’t no way, duke! He was already a sheisty-ass nigga before he got on that shit. Ain’t no way I can fuck wit’ son no more. Really, I need to slump that nigga before he try some dopefiend shit. Nigga might get cased up and flip on a nigga. One thing’s for certain and two things for sure—a nigga can’t put nothin’ past a crackhead. Word! That crack done made that nigga turn on his own brothers. What da fuck he care ‘bout me? Shid…nothin’! Yeah, I’ma slump his ass, Bed-Stuy decided.

  B-Man had been sleeping in his Chevy drop for the past two and a half weeks. Shit was so bad; he had been renting the drop out to young trap boys for a couple of rocks an hour. He hadn’t bathed in more than a week, and the funk had begun to insult even his own nose. The only things he still had, besides the Chevy drop, were a cell phone and a burner. The young trap boys had offered to buy the burner, but he hadn’t sold it because if he sold his gun, he wouldn’t be able to jack anybody. He felt his luck begin to change when he received a call from Bed-Stuy.

  “What’s poppin’, son?”

  “Shit. What’s up wit’ you, shawdy?”

  “Got this sweet lick set up. You wit’ it, B?”

  “Fo sho’. Do I know the nigga?”

  “Nah, I don’t think so. Check it, son. Fall through my crib so we can chop it up.”

  “I’ll be through there in ‘bout an hour,” said B-Man.

  “One,” replied Bed-Stuy, ending the call.

  B-Man checked his Desert Eagle. He only had four rounds in the clip. That would have to do. He put one round in the chamber and slid the burner back under the car seat. He got out, locked the doors, and went inside the Moreland Avenue crackhouse where he usually did business.

  “Yo Tone, let me get an eightball on credit. I gotcha later on tonight, shawdy,” B-Man said to one of the young trap stars that ran the crackhouse.

  “No money, no dope. You know da rules, pimp.”

  “Damn, nigga. All the money I done spent up in this bitch, you gon’ act like dat?”

  “Don’t take it personal, pimpin’—house rules.”

  “What, you don’t trust a nigga?”

  “Trust?” laughed Caesar, Tone’s partna. “Nigga, in God we trust. Er’body else gotta pay up front!”

  “Check it, shawdy. Hold this as collateral.”

  B-Man held out his cell phone.

  “Nigga, I don’t want that shit. Anyway, dat bitch probably ‘bout to get cut off!” Tone clowned him.

  B-Man fought back the urge to snap on these half-pint wannabes. He wanted to remind the quarter kilo-buying young jits that his brother had enough cocaine to bury them and their crackhouse under! Had he had the Desert Eagle with him, B-Man might’ve took their shit.

  Calming himself down, B-Man assured them that the cell phone was pre-paid, and good for another month.

  “I’ma get my phone back, man.”

  “Gone give him four and a half,” Caesar said to Tone. “If you don’t come straighten your face, we takin’ your whip—wherever we see you.”

  These niggas must think I’m pussy, B-Man said to himself. Later for them, though. He picked up the eightball of crack that Tone tossed on the floor at his feet.

  “Y’all don’t give me no credit!” complained a smoker named Tweety Bird.

  “Naw, bitch, ‘cause you don’t know how to pay your debts,” Tone checked her.

  “Well, can I suck your dick for a dime sack?”

  “Hell no! I just got my dick sucked an hour ago by a fine ass bitch.”

  “What about you, Caesar?”

  “Fuck, no! Your headgame is wack! You da only crackhead ho I ever met that don’t know how to suck a dick!” Tone cracked up.

  B-Man dropped a fat chunk of crack on the pipe. He had the other end of the pipe in his mouth and was putting the lighted torch to the bowl end, about to take a blast.

  “You gon’ let me hit it, baby?”

  Tweety Bird slid next to him on the floor, where he sat with his back against the wall.

  B-Man unzipped his pants with his free hand. Tweety Bird stepped to her business. Tone and Caesar bent over with laughter when they heard her exclaim, “Dayum! This junkie ass nigga got a big donkey dick!”

  Bed-Stuy patiently waited for B-Man to show up. His mind was set; he was gonna do what he had to do. He planned to play him the same way he had played his man, Universal Sun, up in the Boogie Down.

  Bed-Stuy and Universal had been best friends since elementary school. They had done petty crimes together, coming up. When they were older they started jackin’ niggas; mostly dope boys. One day they had slumped a dope boy and his wifey during a robbery. Po-po came with major heat, cause wifey was a white chick from a prominent family. Bed-Stuy got worried that Universal might flip on him if they got connected to the murders, since Bed-Stuy had been the triggerman. When a dope boy named Caprice put out an open hit—worth four and a half ounces of crack and ten thousand dollars—on Universal becauseUniversal had been robbing his crack houses, Bed-Stuy figured he might as well collect on the hit since he planned to nod Universal anyway. He’d never have to worry about a dead man flippin’ on him.

  Bed-Stuy told Universal that he knew of a sweet lick. A stash house where nobody lived.

  It was so dark outside that Universal couldn’t see that the house they were about to run up in was abandoned. When they kicked down the door, Bed-Stuy, who was behind Universal, quickly raised his arm and squeezed the trigger of the burner in his hand. Universal slumped to the floor, twitched two or three times and it was a wrap. Bed-Stuy collected on the hit then moved to the “A”.

  Now, as he awaited B-Man’s arrival to his crib, he anticipated running the same game on him. He had already chosen the vacant house where he would do what he felt he had to do.

  The pipe had B-Man so preoccupied that he hadn’t realized that more than an hour and a half had passed since he started smoking the ball. The clock on his cell phone told him that he was running late; he’d told Bed-Stuy he’d be there in an hour. That was at nine o’clock, it was now ten-thirty. He took one last hit of the pipe and told Tweety Bird she could have the last hit left.

  “I’ll holla at y’all in a few,” he promised Tone and Caesar, heading for the door.

  “Naw, pimp, that stays,” Tone stopped him, removing the cell phone from B-Man’s waist.

  When B-Man stepped outside into the winter’s night air, he was dripping with sweat and his mouth was dry. He licked his lips a hundred times before he reached his whip.

  When he pulled up in front of Bed-Stuy’s apartment on Jonesboro Road, he parked, reached under the seat and got his strap. Outside the car, he slid the Desert Eagle in the back of his waistband, where it was hidden by his jacket.

  “What up, B?” Bed-Stuy said, opening the door for B-Man.

  “Same ole shit,” B-Man responded.

>   Bed-Stuy gave him a pound. “Damn, duke stank like a muthafucka!” he said to himself, stepping back away from B-Man.

  When B-Man went to sit on the couch, Bed-Stuy hurriedly said, “Let’s go sit in the kitchen, yo.”

  He didn’t want B-Man sitting his smelly ass on his couch. The kitchen chairs were made of plastic, he could easily wash the smell off of them.

  Bed-Stuy handed B-Man a glass then brought out a bottle of gin. B-Man, who was already paranoid from the crack he had smoked, was watching Bed-Stuy’s every move. He declined the gin. Hard liquor would fuck up his crack high, would throw it all the way to the curb. He didn’t want that.

  “You got a beer?”

  Bed-Stuy got a beer out of the fridge and handed it to him.

  B-Man drank two beers while listening to bed-Stuy explain about a stash house, somewhere out in East Point, where there was supposedly a lot of drugs and money stashed.

  “And ain’t nobody living there, to keep an eye on it,” Bed-Stuy pointed out. “No pit bulls, nothin. The shit gravy.”

  “Whose spot is it?” asked B-Man.

  “One of them New Orleans niggas.”

  Hurricane Katrina had fueled the migration of thousands of Louisiana hustlaz to the “A”.

  “Who put you up on the lick?”

  “A lil’ bitch that moved down from BK. Nigga took her by there, tryna show off that shit. Ma say it’s at least fiddy of them birds up in that bitch. Plus mad fetti.”

  “Aight. When we gon’ hit it?”

  “Tonight, son.”

  “I’m wit it,” said B-Man, finishing off a third beer. “Let me go take a piss and I’ll be ready to do this.”

  “That’s what I’m talkin’ ‘bout, son,” smiled Bed-Stuy.

  This nigga must think I’m a fool, B-Man was thinking as he pissed. If the money, and them thangs is at a house where ain’t nobody there, what he need me to go wit’ him for? It ain’t even no jack, it’s a simple burglary if it’s like he says. But the shit ain’t on the up and up ‘cause we ain’t never did a lick the first night we spoke on it. Fuck naw!

  B-Man stepped out the bathroom with the Desert Eagle in his hand. Bed-Stuy was sitting at the kitchen counter when he came back into the kitchen. As soon as he saw the look on B-Man’s face, and the burner in his hand, Bed-Stuy reached for his own burner.

  Five shots rang out in the small kitchen. B-Man stood over his dying partna, his Desert Eagle aimed down at him, but empty of shells. He had got the jump on Bed-Stuy; had squeezed off four shots, two of which caught Bed-Stuy in the chest. Bed-Stuy managed to squeeze off a single shot before he had tumbled over, but it was just reflexive, it had no aim, and missed B-Man by two feet.

  B-Man didn’t realize that his clip was empty until he pointed the Desert Eagle down at Bed-Stuy’s head and heard the click when he squeezed the trigger. He saw that Bed-Stuy’s own burner was lying on the floor, two or three feet away from. He bent down and picked it up, aimed it down at his once-robbing partna.

  “Yeah nigga, you thought I was slippin’. Never underestimate a Dirty South nigga!” Blocka! B-Man shot Bed-Stuy point blank in the forehead and didn’t even blink when his man’s brains oozed out onto the floor.

  He hurriedly searched the apartment but found only five stacks, some lightweight jewels, and a couple of burners. He stuffed it all in a pillowcase and dipped. When he got back to the crackhouse on Moreland Avenue he paid Caesar and Tone and got his cell phone back. Then he bought another four and a half grams and left to go get a motel room, Tweety Bird in tow.

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  Spring stiff-armed winter to the side much in the way Q was doing the competition; never forcefully, just with a subtle, natural way of exerting it’s season to reign over the others.

  Q’s street lieutenant was young Vashon. The boy had watched closely and soaked up everything since they cliqued up. He had a mind like a sponge when it came to drug business. He had been no more than an average student in school, but in the streets, Vashon showed the potential to become valedictorian.

  “I’ma be the youngest kingpin, big homie,” he vowed.

  Q had copped Vashon and Jaid a three-bedroom condo not too far away from where he and Corlette rested at, and the two couples were constant companions. Q sold Vashon his Corvette and Vashon had it tricked out and sitting on all black rims. His girl Jaid usually pushed the Tahoe. Shawdy was holding him down like a true thoroughbred.

  Her only demand of him was that he not bring drugs, around her and her son. Vashon had no problem with that at all he had been schooled not to shit where he slept, anyway. The last thing he wanted to do was endanger his girl and his step-son.

  The only other demand Jaid placed on Vashon was one that was a lot more difficult for Vashon to honor. She demanded complete faithfulness.

  “If you say I’m the one you want then it shouldn’t be hard to do,” she’d said. “Now if you ain’t ready for this just let me remain living with my mama; we can still kick it and neither of us won’t lay no claims on each other. But if we move in together I’m not putting up with no cheating nigga. I ain’t playing, Vashon. The first time I catch you, I’m leaving, and I’m not coming back. I put that on my son’s life.”

  “I feel you, Jaid,” he’d said, hugging and kissing her. “You ain’t gotta worry about me creepin’ on you. You’re the only girl I’ve ever wanted, for real, shawdy. But you gotta stay true to me, too.”

  “Oh, I’ma do that,” she’d vowed.

  So far they both were keeping it thorough, which for two hood-raised, young teenaged lovers, it was something to be admired. For Jaid, faithfulness wasn’t hard to maintain. Though she’d had a baby at a very, young age she had never been promiscuous. Vashon was only her third lover and she truly hoped that he would be her last. Niggas tried to push up on her whenever she went anywhere without Vashon. Especially, when she visited her peeps in the projects, or when she was at GED class. But she was too in love and committed to Vashon to do anything more than say hello to another nigga.

  For Vashon, faithfulness wasn’t quite as easy to maintain. Now that he was getting’ to the money, and his swag was magnificent, shawdies wouldn’t let him breathe. They stayed up in his grill tryna get him to cut something with ‘em. What kept him from falling weak to a young nigga’s natural lust was the recollection that when he was busted, none of those hos had any talk for him. When he was at the strip club with Q, ballin’—all the variety of grown ass pussy was tempting as fuck to a young nigga. But Vashon, who had an analytical mind far more advanced than his age, thought about the consequences versus the rewards. One night of pleasure could cause him to lose his girl for a lifetime. At the end of the day a shot of pussy wasn’t worth the consequences.

  Q was exposing him to all levels of the game, preparing him for the day he graduated from under his tutelage. Q wasn’t the type of selfish nigga most muthafuckaz in his position usually were. He wanted to see his lil’ nigga doing big things. Q’s way of treating Vashon earned Vashon’s complete trust and loyalty.

  Q had begun to play the background more and more lately as he became comfortable allowing Vashon to handle things. Of course, Q still remained the HNIC, but niggaz didn’t see him so much these days. Naturally, street niggas underestimated Vashon’s age as well as his gun. But a few incidents that left those who violated leaking, convinced the streets that Q’s young protégé wasn’t to be trifled with.

  The formidle duo were together in Q’s new big boy Benz, bumpin’ “Street Life” by Rick Ross. Q was smoking a blunt. The windows were down, allowing fresh air to carry the smell of the purp away because Vashon didn’t get high. Q had just spent a week on Saint Thomas island with Corlette, treating his boo boo to a little R & R.

  “That nigga Twin s’pose to get out soon,” Vashon told Q, after catching him up on the past week’s business.

  “DeShawn?”

  “Yep. That’s what I heard.”

  “I thought he caught a dub for an aggravat
ed assault?”

  “I thought so, too. But niggas say he gave that time back to them crackers; got his shit overturned on appeal,” explained Vashon, letting Q know to be on point. “We gon’ have to deal wit’ dat nigga, big homie. You know he gon’ want some straightenin’ for his twin getting slumped.’

  “I’ma handle it; I been waiting on this day,” Q said with morbid anticipation.

  “Put me in the game, coach,” Vashon begged for some gunplay.

  “Sit this one out, lil’ soldier. Me and Khalil gon’ handle it; this one is family biz.”

  “I ain’t family?” Vashon looked hurt.

  “Fo sho. You know you my lil’ brotha from anotha.” Q gave Vashon a pound. “But I need you to hold down the streets while I handle this. Feel me?”

  “Yeah, I feel you, big homie. You know I’ma play my position, whateva is best for da team,” Vashon responded with sincerity.

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  Q checked his safe and saw that it was sitting on swole; he could get out Of the game now. It made sense to get out before the inevitable fall came. Fazio was hating on his rise, threatening to take him to war because he was getting’ crazy cake and wouldn’t shop with his ex connect no more. Besides money, Q had a wifey that he truly adored and could trust. Maybe it really was time to get out.

  Corlette couldn’t have been happier when Q told her that he was thinking about getting out of the game. She had found out last week that she was pregnant, but she hadn’t shared the news with him yet because she wasn’t sure if she wanted to have the baby. For one, the loss of Alize had hurt so deeply, Corlette knew that she could not endure the death of another child. She believed it would always remain a possibility as long as Q was in the game. Life had already proven that the violence that hovered over a drug dealer had no mercy on the innocent lives of children. Corlette knew that she was too devoted to Q to leave him. If the violence that surrounded him claimed her life, so be it. She’d rather die with him than live without him. But she could not bring another child into this world and expose it to the unpredictable violence that was a part of their lives.