The Game Don't Change

by Mazaradi Fox

  POW! POW! POW!

  “Come look for that!”

  “Yo, DeMarco, let’s get outta here before somebody calls the boys.”

  DeMarco wasn’t trying to hear that. He walked in the door of the house Money identified for him and shot some old man and his bitch, then walked right out like nothing happened. He hopped back into the car with Money, hitting the corner doing almost one hundred miles an hour.

  “Money, slow this shit down! We good; the hard part is over. Now let them come look for us.”

  * * *

  Chief got a whiff of what was going down and came to DeMarco’s block mad as fuck because DeMarco hadn’t told him.

  “Yo, my lil’ nigga, why didn’t you put me on? I would have sent my niggas through there. Not saying you couldn’t handle it, but I always told you there’s a way of doin shit.”

  “I feel what you sayin, but those niggas don’t know who they fuckin wit. This won’t be the first or the last nigga I put a hole in.”

  * * *

  That evening, one of DeMarco’s workers got shot going to the store. He ran back to the block like he was on a track team.

  “Yo, DeMarco, some nigga in a black Pathfinder shot me in the leg!”

  “Which leg?”

  “My right leg, can’t you see?”

  DeMarco pulled out his gun and shot him in the other leg.

  “Now take stupid to the hospital.”

  Money and Chief didn’t realize DeMarco was on a whole other level; he had plenty of money, so that made him even more dangerous.

  * * *

  For the next few days, DeMarco was all over the streets doing his homework, trying to find out anything he could about the old niggas that came to his block. One night he and Tammy were leaving Lefty’s house when she got the word that the baby mother of one of the old dudes was in the salon on the boulevard getting her hair done.

  It was a hot summer night and there were people everywhere. DeMarco parked his car by the side of the salon and grabbed his nine out of his stash box.

  “Hold on, DeMarco, let me do it.”

  “Girl, chill out.”

  “No, I’m serious, they would never suspect a girl walkin up in there.”

  DeMarco and Tammy were hanging out hard, so he knew she was serious.

  “Okay, cool. Listen, when you go in there, walk right up on her and give her ass the business. You gotta make sure you don’t give anyone else eye contact—”

  Tammy jumped out of the car before he could finish talking. DeMarco thought to himself, This bitch is crazy. Tammy was definitely his kind of chick.

  She walked right up to the girl, who was sitting in the second chair and let off five shots like she was a professional. Tammy hit her in the chest, neck, and head. Everybody dropped to the floor and stayed there. For good measure, before leaving, she fired one more shot into the ceiling and walked out.

  “Come on baby, we out. Let them talk about it.”

  “So what happened?”

  “It happened. That’s what happened,” Tammy said, lighting up a blunt she had rolled on the way down there. DeMarco knew from that night on that she was Bonnie and he was Clyde.

  After they pulled away, Tammy looked over to him and said, “And by the way, I’m four months pregnant.”

  DeMarco couldn’t believe what he’d just heard, but in his heart, he loved Tammy and he told her so. She definitely had to keep their baby.

  “Listen, we gonna take a trip to the Poconos for a few days and let the smoke clear.”

  “Okay, baby daddy, whatever you wanna do,” she agreed.

  * * *

  Late that night, they took the trip and got there about 6 in the morning. Both of them so exhausted, they lay across the bed and went to sleep with their clothes on.

  DeMarco woke up after a long sleep and saw Tammy sitting in a chair smoking a blunt like nothing ever happened.

  “Wassup, girl? You up early.”

  “Clyde, what you talking about early? Do you know it’s 3 in the afternoon?”

  DeMarco sat on the couch next to her and laid on her lap smoking a blunt. He looked up at her, thinkin about his next move.

  “Come on, boy, pass me the blunt . . . The blunt!”

  “Ain’t you pregnant?” He wasn’t letting his child come into this world unhealthy.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Chief called a meeting at their usual spot. The whole team pulled up one by one. He wanted to put everything in proper perspective.

  “DeMarco, check this out, my nigga. You are gettin too much money to be out here chasin ghosts. You let niggas chase you and that’s the bottom line. Word is, niggas don’t even know who slumped shorty, so in other words that’s a free one.”

  Chief was the nigga who knew everythin and had all the bosses scared of him.

  “And for the rest of you niggas, if crack is sold on any other block or crack spot, we want in on it. When it comes to beef shit, let me handle that.”

  * * *

  One night, DeMarco and his crew were in the gambling spot. DeMarco must’ve won about $30,000. Lefty walked in while he was talking shit about a bet. DeMarco had kind of fallen back from Lefty because he started putting shit in the game by selling his own work. Since he didn’t fuck with Lefty like that anymore, he left the spot to hit the gun stash.

  He jumped into his drop-top BMW, with his top shooter Murder, heading to the projects where Lefty kept the guns. The two of them went inside the apartment and took all the guns stashed there, but they noticed that the .44 Bulldog was gone.

  “Yo, I bet my life that he had that .44 on him. That’s why he was acting cocky like that.”

  “You right, DeMarco, I think he mad because you ain’t fuckin with him no more.”

  As they were walking out of the building, they noticed Lefty and some Spanish chick pulling up. When Lefty got out of the car, Murder pulled out his .357 long.

  “Nah, Murder, I got this.” DeMarco walked up to Lefty. “I’m sayin.”

  “You sayin what, nigga? You ready to die?” Lefty reached for the .44 at his waist, but before he could get it out, DeMarco shot him in the leg, just to teach him a lesson of why not to fuck with the boss.

  * * *

  Over the next couple of months, DeMarco started fucking with Lefty’s homeboys Sholomy and Rye. Car after car, chain after chain, you name it, them boys had it. Pretty soon the niggas in the projects started getting jealous of DeMarco and his crew. For one, he wasn’t from over there and the niggas they grew up with were fucking with him. To top it off, he had babies by two of the baddest chicks from over there. He was the go-to man.

  One night while DeMarco was over there parked in his truck, he peeped two niggas with black Champion hoodies standing in front of the building looking suspicious. He cocked his nines and put one in each pocket.

  One of the guys said, “I see you, outlaw.”

  DeMarco looked at both of them and smiled while shooting them in their stomachs, then he took their guns. He went into the building and walked upstairs to link with his man Capone. They were somewhat the same: both of them were wild and had baby mothers from Baisley, but didn’t live there. The two together were nothing to play with. He also had a Spanish homeboy from over there named Nut that was like O-Dog from Menace II Society.

  * * *

  One early morning, about a week later, DeMarco woke up and thought he thought he was dreaming. He put a pillow over his head and thought to himself, Let me try this again. When he removed the pillow, he discovered he wasn’t dreaming. He couldn’t believe his eyes—his son and daughter were laying there with him. He jumped out of bed, picked them both up, and walked into the living room. There he saw LaLa, Tammy, and K sitting at the table sipping on some E&J Cask & Cream.

  “Yo, what the hell is going on?”

  “Shit, what you thought? I wasn’t gonna find out?” LaLa said with a big smile on her face.

  DeMarco was stuck; he had to sit before he fell down with the kids
in his arms. He had a lot of chicks, but he never imagined anything like this before. He sat there for a minute; it felt like when the judge had sentenced him to eighteen months in Tryon.

  “Well, you gonna say anythin?” LaLa asked. When he didn’t respond, she continued: “Since the cat got your tongue, I been heard that you got my best friend pregnant; you know the streets talk. When I called her, she kept it real with me. Not saying it didn’t hurt, but I love her so much, I want the same thing for her that I want for myself. At the end of the day, I’m a real bitch and real bitches do real things!”

  Tammy sat there quietly because she knew she’d been dead wrong to get pregnant by her best friend’s man. For a minute, DeMarco didn’t say anything either because he knew he was dead wrong too. He just sat there looking at them. Then, he said, “I’ll be right back, I gotta run to the car real quick.”

  * * *

  As soon as he got to the car, he pulled out the blunt that he stashed behind the glove box. He sat there thinking about how he was the don of all dons. But he snapped back into reality when he realized that he was now responsible for two lives. When he went back inside, they were laughing like nothing ever happened.

  “Okay, everybody into the living room,” DeMarco ordered. “You too K, you probably ran your mouth too.”

  K was always around Tammy and she was the type of chick who believed in God and felt like the truth would always set you free. Not saying she didn’t do her dirt, but that’s how she was.

  “Check this out, since everything is out in the open, I’m just gonna let y’all know that I love y’all both to death. I’m gonna take care of my kids and buy both of y’all a crib and a whip in two weeks.”

  Tammy and LaLa just looked at each other and smiled.

  * * *

  DeMarco had been laying low for a minute since he shot his cousin and what happened in the salon. One day, he decided to finally go to the hood and check on his other cousin Money. He pulled up on the block and saw Money sitting on the porch with like ten niggas.

  Money heard loud music and knew it had to be DeMarco, because he was the only nigga in the hood with a system like that. You could hear it from blocks away.

  DeMarco rolled his window down. “Yo, Money, wassup?”

  “Shit, you tell me, where you been at, son?”

  “A nigga had to take a break,” DeMarco said.

  Tonya was sitting on the porch with an ice grill like she wanted to kill DeMarco with her bare hands. They jumped into Money’s car and headed to the projects.

  “Yo, DeMarco, there go your man Rye right there hollering at that chick.”

  “Pull over,” DeMarco said.

  As soon as they stepped out, all eyes were on them. DeMarco and Money were strapped up, so they didn’t give a fuck.

  “Damn, DeMarco, where you been at? You pulled a Makavelion us,” Rye said, surprised.

  “Come on, let’s go upstairs.”

  Shortly after, DeMarco followed Money and Rye to one of Sholomy’s chick’s cribs.

  “Yo, what the fuck is that?” he asked.

  “Oh, that’s Kong, my pitbull.”

  “I’m saying, what’s good over here?”

  “Same ol’ shit, you know we always gonna get that cash.”

  “Yo, show DeMarco how we play.”

  “Excuse me, y’all gotta get up for a sec.”

  Rye pulled out close to $60,000 from under a cushion.

  “Okay, I see it’s like that. I’m sayin, how many niggas y’all got workin for y’all?”

  “Not too many.”

  “Word? And y’all still gettin it like that?”

  “If you want to come over here with us, it’s up to you, DeMarco. The ball is in your court.”

  DeMarco knew that Money had Merrick on lock and didn’t want to step on his toes; he just felt that there were too many workers selling two-for-five’s and he didn’t really press it because they were all from over there.

  “How much do they pay their workers?”

  “I think thirty off a hundred.”

  “That’s it? Cool, we just gonna put ours in fifty-fifty and we gonna give them fifty off a hundred. That’s how we gonna kill the game and sell weight only to those we fuck with.”

  “So as of now, I need y’all to come with me outside and show me who is who.”

  * * *

  Within two weeks, they had the projects on lock too. All the young niggas were fucking with DeMarco and his team. Dice games, chuck-a-luck parties, fucking all types of bitches, and shoot-outs, you name it; shit was feeling like Queens again!

  DeMarco had chicks all over the projects and even had bitches from 40 coming to Baisley—and 40 and Baisley projects hated each other. DeMarco had keys to all of the chicks’ apartments like he was the rent office.

  DeMarco was driving down the block when he saw Sha Dilly, a dude he knew. He stopped and rolled down his window. “Yo, wassup, shorty?”

  “Ain’t shit, just came from a dice game across the street.”

  DeMarco had a weakness for rolling dice because he hardly ever lost. He had one of the best arms in Queens. “It’s money in the bank?”

  “Hell yeah!”

  “Hold on, let me park.”

  “Yo, DeMarco, if you got somethin on you, keep it in the car because the boys been riding hard,” Sha Dilly warned.

  “Good lookin.” DeMarco put both of his nines under the seat and closed his door.

  As they crossed the street, DeMarco heard the door close in back of the building. Being that it was dark out, he couldn’t see well. As his eyes adjusted, he saw a nigga in a black mask with a shotgun in his hand. What saved DeMarco’s life was that he had the heart of a lion. He threw shorty on the ground and kept walking toward him. “I’m sayin, if you gonna bust that shit, bust it.” He just kept both of his hands in his pockets, repeating, “Bust that shit, bust it.” He heard a voice coming from under the mask say, “Yo, this nigga crazy!” He automatically picked up on it and thought, Oh, this nigga.

  The dude finally let off two shots and ran.

  DeMarco checked his body to make sure he wasn’t hit. He flew to his car and grabbed his two nines with the extended clips. No questions asked, he walked back across the street, straight to the dice game.

  “All you muthafuckers, get on the ground!”

  DeMarco took his black skully off, then ordered the others to take off everything and fill it up with their shit. Niggas were scared to death. One even tried to run. DeMarco shot at him and the guy immediately stopped in his tracks.

  * * *

  The next day, that shit was the talk of the projects. DeMarco reasoned that since everyone would think he was going to lay low, it would be the perfect time for him and his crew to be outside early in the morning to catch anybody else trying to sell product.

  A chick from across the street walked past DeMarco and his crew.

  “Come here, shorty, take this $200 and let me walk wit you.”

  Shorty didn’t know what was going on, but she wasn’t about to turn down the cash. DeMarco noticed a few niggas standing in the doorway of the building. He pulled his shit out and let off fifteen shots at them.

  “Pussy asses, don’t run now!” DeMarco said under his breath.

  Shorty was scared senseless even as her pussy got wet—she couldn’t believe how calm and smooth he’d done that.

  DeMarco ran with both of his guns, showing them he meant business. He told his crew to meet him in the park.

  “This is how we gonna do this since these niggas want to play with the kid. We gonna do twenty-four-hour shifts and whoever we catch out here hustlin, we straight up takin they shit. I’m gonna bring some of my niggas from Merrick over here to hold y’all down.”

  DeMarco, Murder, and Capone had all the bitches on their dicks. They would go from apartment to apartment fucking those chicks. DeMarco even got caught in a staircase getting head from his man C-Black’s mom. Shit was off the hook. Niggas used to come back and tel
l his crew all types of shit, sell them guns, and do packs for them. What made DeMarco that nigga to them was that he took care of his whole team. They all had cars, motorcycles, big jewels, and a lot of money, which brought the shorties. This made niggas talk shit, but they were scared to death of DeMarco and his crew.

  They had niggas so scared, they started calling the police on them. DeMarco was the type to be out there for two to three months and then suddenly disappear. He got the word that little niggas were talking saying that LaLa’s and Tammy’s babies’ father was robbing and shooting mad niggas.

  DeMarco, Murder, and Capone were on their way down the hill when the cops pulled up on them in a blue van. One officer looked over to DeMarco and commanded them to stop.

  “Where are you going? Show me your IDs and please step out of the vehicle.”

  DeMarco got out and went into his pocket like he was going for his ID, then took off running. One cop went after him and the other pulled his gun on Murder and Capone.

  DeMarco knew Baisley projects like the back of his hand. As he entered building four, he slammed and locked the door. He hurried to his man Nut’s house to stash his guns and laid low until the police left from in front of the building.

  The cops were so mad that DeMarco got away that they beat the dog shit out of Murder and Capone and locked them up.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  “Yo, Sholomy, what’s the word, man?” DeMarco asked.

  “Ain’t shit. Over here at my son’s house.”

  “You must’ve not heard what happened.”

  “Nah, talk to me.”

  “Those soft-ass niggas from across the street called them boys on us.”

  “Say word!”

  “Yeah, they locked up Murder and Capone and I had to take flight on them boys.”

  “That’s crazy, that’s how they playin? Yo, DeMarco, just lay low until I come out.”

  Sholomy came outside like two hours later and called back. “Yeah, DeMarco, where you at?”

  “I’m at the low spot.”

  “Okay, cool, meet me in the hallway.”

  DeMarco opened the door, peeked out and then stepped into the hallway.

  “So I’m saying, DeMarco, what you wanna do?”