Gutter

by K'wan

  “My sister works at the DMV, so I was able to get you a temp plate,” Louie said, pointing at the orange sticker in the back window. “Just make sure you snatch it out when you dump the car.”

  “I got you, cuz.” Gutter gave Louie dap and pulled out of the parking lot. When he pulled up next to the truck, Danny was already reaching for his hammer. “Easy,” Gutter said, rolling down the window. “Follow me. We’re gonna park the truck, and then I want you to drive this muthafucka.”

  “A’ight, G,” Danny said, putting the car in gear. “Where we going?”

  “To bust on some slobs.” Gutter mashed the gas pedal and pulled out.

  Danny grinned as he tailed the Honda to the B.Q.E. The crew was dropping bodies throughout the five boroughs, but Gutter mostly pulled the strings. If he was about to ride out, it must be a big fish. Danny didn’t care either way. As long as he was getting a chance to earn his stripes, he was wit it.

  “YOU KNOW I don’t be doing this kinda shit,” C-style said, undoing her bra.

  “I know, baby, but moms ain’t go to work today,” Rob said, planting kisses on her now exposed breasts. C-style was a slim girl, but had just enough of everything in all the right places.

  “A’ight, but hurry the fuck up. I don’t want nobody to catch us and start spreading rumors about me being a ho, you know it ain’t that type of party.” She turned to the staircase wall and braced her hands against it. Had it been anybody else there was no way in hell C-style would’ve agreed to have sex in a stairwell, but she had a soft spot for Young Rob’s handsome ass. She wasn’t sure if she’d ever been in love before, but what she felt for Rob was the closest thing to it.

  “Baby, I’d put lead to any nigga who ever called you out your name,” he said, slipping her sweatpants down passed her waist.

  “Hold up.” She looked over her shoulder at him. “You got a condom on?”

  “C, you know I ain’t got nothing. We got tested at the same time, remember?” he reminded her.

  “It ain’t about catching nothing, Rob, but I ain’t trying to end up no damn teenage mother like the rest of these bitches.”

  “Don’t worry.” He kissed her passionately. “I’ll pull out when I cum.” Before C-style could protest further, Rob was inside her. Rob was so thirsty to get it going he didn’t take into consideration that she was still mostly dry, so it hurt when he first entered her, but once her juices started flowing, it was all good.

  Rob humped away like a man on a mission while she tried her best to keep from skinning her face against the concrete wall. Though Rob was well hung and C-style enjoyed their little fuck sessions, he had a lot to learn about tact. He wasn’t trying to make it pleasurable for her, just working to get his nut off. She made a mental note to herself to talk to him about it as soon as she got a chance. Before C-style could even tell him to slow down, she felt Rob’s body go stiff and him dump out inside her.

  “Oh, hell no!” She pushed him off her. C-style looked between her legs and saw semen running down her thigh and into her sweatpants.

  “My fault, ma. That shit got so good I couldn’t hold it.” Rob was leaning against the wall with his pants around his ankles. His dick was swinging freely with leftover cum dripping from the tip.

  “Rob, you are so fucking irresponsible. I told you I don’t want to get pregnant!” she barked, taking a sanitary wipe from her bag and trying to clean up the mess he’d made.

  “Damn, why you tripping. It’s not like I wouldn’t be there for you if you got pregnant. I’d handle mine,” he assured her.

  C-style gave him an angry look. “Rob, how the hell you gonna handle anything when all you do is run the streets with the set? You ain’t even got a job.”

  “I sling stones for mine, baby, you know what it is,” he said proudly.

  “Rob, your ass is too smart to be so stupid. You think you can play the block forever?”

  “Nah, not forever. Just until I get my cake up. Fucking with Gutter we all gonna be rich.”

  “Fucking with Gutter you’re more likely to end up dead than rich,” she said seriously. “Rob, you know I love the big homey too, but he’s gang-banging on a whole ’nother level.”

  “So, what you trying to say? You don’t think I can hang?”

  “Rob”-she touched his face-“I’m not saying that at all. What I’m saying is to get where Gutter is, you’ve gotta be willing to go to hell and spit in the devil’s face. When I look into your eyes I see life and promise, when I look into his eyes I don’t see anything.”

  Rob sucked his teeth. “Whatever, man. One day you’re gonna see that your man is just as down as anybody else, you watch.” He pulled his pants up and started walking down the stairs.

  “Where are you going?” she asked with an attitude.

  “I gotta meet the homeys,” he called over his shoulder. “I’ll get up with you later, ma.”

  C-style stood in the staircase not knowing whether she should be mad at Rob or herself. He had pulled a typical nigga move, getting his then leaving her without so much as a hug or a kiss, just to go be with the set. Being down used to be fun, but that was before the killing. Gutter promised to bring prominence back to the C-nation, but all he’d brought was death. She and Rob were both down with the movement, but it was Rob’s determination to prove himself that scared her. She knew how Gutter and Pop Top broke in their shooters and knew that Rob couldn’t handle that kind of pressure.

  HOLLYWOOD STEPPED out of his smoke-gray Chrysler 300 Limited. The vehicle resembled a Bentley, but the design was more squared. He fitted it with whitewalls, but left the factory rims on it. He would always tell people that the factories on that particular car gave it nobility. Hollywood had what people would call refined taste. He liked his cars plush, his women seasoned, and his money new. This is what pulled him from between a young girl’s thighs to the block.

  Hollywood gave himself the once-over in the vehicle’s tinted reflection. He ran a manicured hand down the waves that rippled through his dark hair. The laces of his Nike Airs looked as if they had been bleached, while the cuffs of his jeans were perfect. After adjusting the collar on his smoke-gray blazer, he stepped off the curb.

  He saw B. T. and a few of the other homeys congregating in front of the store. The timing couldn’t have been better. B. T. owed him some money through one of his girls. She had swung an episode with the Crip, but he couldn’t pay all of the money. After dropping Hollywood’s name, and agreeing to repay the rest, she let him rock. Now, it was a week later and B. T. didn’t have Hollywood’s bread. The set was the set, but this was business.

  Hollywood adjusted the pistol tucked in his pants, near his kidneys, and headed in their direction. As he passed the bus stop, he was confronted with a vision. The young girl was brown-skinned with hair that tickled her shoulders. She had nice round breasts and a shapely ass. She was reading a copy of Section 8 over her glasses.

  “Hey, baby girl,” Hollywood said, easing around the advertisement to stand next to the girl.

  She glanced at him with a look of disgust on her face. After looking up and down at him, she snorted and went back to her book. Now someone in the know might’ve taken this as rejection, but Hollywood always dug deeper than the surface. The fact that she had even bothered to look him over meant that she was considering it. That was incentive enough for him.

  “I didn’t mean to come between you and your reading, but I’m a lil lost at the moment,” Hollywood lied. “I just wanted to know if you could point me to building Two Fifty-nine?”

  “I ain’t from around here.” The girl had a soft voice.

  “A blind man could see that. You came from heaven right?” Hollywood flattered her.

  “Yeah, right.” She blushed.

  “True story”-he eased closer-“I’d be thankful for the directions, but I’d be thrilled with a moment of your time.”

  The girl looked Hollywood over once more. She found him very attractive, and from the looks of his gear, he was ge
tting some type of money. The bus came and went, but the girl remained. After about ten minutes, Hollywood was letting her into his car with instructions to wait for him. Then he stepped back across the street to handle his money.

  “Damn, you don’t play,” China said, slapping Hollywood’s palm. He was a brown-skinned cat with slanted eyes. Originally from San Francisco, China was the product of a black whore who had the misfortune of having the condom break while turning an Asian trick.

  “You know how it is, man. I gotta stay one step ahead of the competition,” Hollywood replied. “Sup, B. T.?”

  “Ain’t nothing,” B. T. said. His beady little eyes kept going from Hollywood to the car. If you looked closely, you could still see the scar on his head from when Lou-Loc had pistol-whipped him. Though he never said it out loud, he wasn’t sad to see him go.

  “Say, I need to holla at you, T,” Hollywood said.

  “So, talk.” He shrugged.

  “Dig, you and one of my ladies came to an understanding over some paper, and she says she ain’t seen it yet.”

  “Oh, I told shorty I’d square up with her.” B. T. brushed him off.

  “Yeah, I dig that. Thing is, you ain’t made no moves to settle the debt.”

  “Yo, you stunting me over a few dollars?” asked B. T., sounding a bit hostile.

  “Listen, man,” Hollywood said, hooking his thumbs in his belt. He kept his hand close to his gun. “You know I don’t do nothing but count money. Them few dollars you skipped with don’t mean shit. This is about principle. Pay to play, cuz.”

  “Damn, kid. All that shit you slinging in the hood and you shorting bitches,” China clowned.

  “Fuck you,” B. T. snapped, “and for damn sure fuck that bitch!” He tried to give Hollywood his coldest stare, hoping it would rattle the pretty boy. It didn’t.

  “Yo, I think you need to watch your tone, cuz,” Hollywood replied, removing his shades. No matter how flashy Hollywood was, there was nothing sweet about him.

  “Fuck y’all bitch-ass niggaz arguing about?” Pop Top came out of the store, breaking the tension.

  “Ain’t nothing,” Hollywood said, never taking his eyes off B. T., “just a little dispute between the homeys.”

  “B. T. owes Wood some paper and he stunting on the debt,” China confessed.

  “Why don’t you mind ya muthafucking business?” B. T. turned on China.

  “Them stitches in the side of your head ain’t taught you nothing.” Top nodded toward the scar Lou-Loc had given him shortly before his murder. “Either pay, cuz, or go head up for it, but ain’t gonna be no extra shit. That goes for both you muthafuckas.”

  B. T. sized Hollywood up and weighed his options. True, he owed the girl some money, but he wasn’t really feeling how Wood was coming at him. He had been down with the set longer, so he figured his seniority should’ve been respected in that right, but Hollywood was about his paper. He reasoned that he could take Hollywood in a fight, but if he lost he would’ve been embarrassed as well as wrong. Reluctantly B. T. reached into his pocket and gave Hollywood what he owed him.

  “Now, was that so hard?” Pop Top patted B. T. on his back. “Y’all niggaz always going at each other instead of dropping these dead rag chumps. You got the young boys showing you up.”

  “I heard Hook and them dropped some brims the other night?” China asked.

  “Square biz,” Top confirmed.

  “That nigga Gutter got this shit like the Wild West. Soon we ain’t gonna have nobody to bang on,” Hollywood joked.

  “Some niggaz know how to hold a grudge.” Top shrugged.

  “Shit, he fucking up our paper.” B. T. snorted. “Police running all up and through the block and shit, how we supposed to sling?”

  “Same way you been doing it. With caution,” Top said. “Gutter gonna keep riding for his nigga until he gets it out of his system. I know it’s hard on y’all, but that’s how the homey wants it.”

  “Man, fuck that,” B. T. spat. “That nigga been dead how long? I’m trying to get money, fuck that ol’ mourning shit.”

  “Watch ya mouth, cuz.” Top glared at him. “That nigga you wolfing ’bout is a ghetto legend. I know you still salty over that ass-whipping, but you had it coming. Learn when to shut the fuck up!”

  B. T. was uptight, but he didn’t say anything. Awhile back he and Lou-Loc had a dispute over his relationship with Satin. The end result was him getting pistol-whipped and stripped of his rank on the set. He had tried to have the assassin murdered, but his people were sent back in bags. Before B. T. could make a second attempt, someone blew Lou-Loc’s brains out.

  “Well”-Hollywood popped his collar-“I’d love to stay and chat with you fellas, but I got some new pussy to sample. Nice doing business with you, B. T.” Hollywood winked at him and went to join the young lady waiting in his car.

  chapter 4

  “LOOK AT this shit,” Ruby said, slapping a copy of the New York Post down on the table. Highlighted in the corner was an article about a gang-related shooting in Harlem. “Three more soldiers gone. These crabs is getting out of hand.”

  “Relax,” Supreme said, tearing into a piece of chicken. “Their little run is gonna come to an end soon enough.” Supreme was a chunky cat who wore his hair in braids. The sleeves of his red shirt were rolled up slightly, advertising the iced-out watch on his right arm. He commanded a small army of soldiers from Hillside, Queens, that had been called in to lend aid against the rival set. Supreme and his soldiers had proven to be efficient killers, and were respected even by the Crips.

  “I don’t see it,” she continued. “We’ve been dancing in place for damn near three years and we’re still getting our asses kicked. Then that stupid little fuck Cisco stirs up all this shit. ‘Once Lou-Loc is gone, Harlem will be wide-open.’ Bullshit. What we went through with him was like a light slap on the ass compared to what Gutter is putting down. He took that shit way personal.”

  “Yeah, I gotta give it to him. Gutter turned out to be a real headache,” Supreme confessed. “What I wanna know is, how the hell he got back up when Scales and them laid him out?”

  “That’s what a lot of people wanna know,” Ruby said, pushing a strand of red hair from her face. “No one expect him to live, let alone be running around shooting muthafuckas. Shit, even the big boys are scratching their heads about this one. I heard a rumor that their thinking about calling in some help. Some of us are gonna find ourselves without a set to run.”

  “Fuck it.” Supreme wiped his hands on a napkin. “We put him down once, we can do it again. Ain’t nobody gonna come in here trying to tell me how to conduct my shit. When I put a bullet in that muthafucka, they’re gonna give me a promotion.”

  Supreme had already begun putting a plan together to get at Gutter. He had successfully murdered several key players in the Crip army and he reasoned it would only be a matter of time before he snagged the prize. After dropping some money on the table, he and Ruby exited the restaurant.

  Supreme smiled proudly as he held the door for Ruby. She was hard as hell, but she still had it. Ruby was the color of a Hershey’s Kiss, with a body straight off sticky pages. The tight shorts she wore exposed just enough ass cheek to make a man do a double take. In addition to being set leaders, she and Supreme were also fuck buddies.

  The sun was beginning to set, but Jamaica Avenue was still buzzing with activity. People were either going in and out of stores, or just on the strip stunting. Supreme smiled proudly as he followed Ruby to her car. No sooner than he walked around to the passenger side, a gray Honda skidded to a stop beside them.

  “Say, Blood, you looking for me?” Gutter asked, aiming his.40 caliber over the roof of the car. When Supreme turned around, Gutter shot him once in the face and twice in the chest.

  Blood splattered on the car as well as a shocked Ruby. Seeing Supreme get splattered stunned her, but it didn’t last long. She pulled her.380 from her handbag and returned fire. The back window shattered, but she
didn’t hit Gutter or the driver. Ruby walked around the car and looked over what was left of Supreme. As she watched his life drain into the gutter she vowed that there would be a reckoning.

  NIGHT HAD fallen and the fiends had come out to get their blast. In the depths of the jungle you cop whatever you needed to escape whatever troubles you had. They readily sold their souls for a temporary release. Even with the increased police patrols, business was still able to be handled. B. T. and China sat on the bench, passing a blunt back and forth watching it all.

  “These niggaz is a trip,” China said, taking a toke of the blunt. “How can you know crack is gonna fuck your life up, and still smoke it? These people ain’t got no scruples.”

  “Man, fuck these niggaz,” B. T. said, spitting on the ground. “They can get as high as they want as long as I got a fat pocket.”

  “You’re a sick dude.” China laughed him off. “Say, what was that shit wit you and Top earlier?” Being fairly new to the set, China didn’t know B. T.’s story.

  “Fuck that nigga,” B. T. replied. “He riding a dead man’s dick.”

  “Everywhere I go I hear about this Lou-Loc cat,” China said, passing the blunt.

  “Man, he wasn’t nobody. If he was so muthafucking hard, them brims wouldn’t have aired his ass out.”

  A fiend walking up on them broke up their conversation. She was a Hispanic girl with a pretty, round face. The effects of drug abuse had begun to make her lose weight, but she still had a very nice shape. Her eyes held a look of hunger that both men understood.

  “What’s up, fellas. Got some coke?” she asked, wiping her nose with her sleeve.

  “Bitch, you better go see them lil’ niggaz like everybody else,” B. T. snapped.

  “Come on, B. T. Don’t do me like that, you know we go way back.”

  “Marisol, you better get the fuck away from me.”

  “We can work something out,” she said, touching his knee.