The Day the Streets Stood Still

by JaQuavis Coleman

  “It’s okay. He’s upset and by all rights,” BG said, calling off her guard. “I can get a new phone, that’s nothing.”

  “I’m sure you’re fuckin’ happy to see that kind of shit since you always hated her,” Sean growled at BG before he turned swiftly and stormed toward the door.

  “This ain’t got nothing to do with me not liking her! I’m trying to protect you! I’m always the one looking out for you, Sean! Remember that shit! None of these niggas out here care about you like I do!” BG screamed at his back. “You’re the only one who can’t see that Sunny is going to ruin you,” BG whispered as she turned back toward the table and began bagging the heroin for distribution. “That bitch is your Achilles heel.”

  Sean busted into his condo door with the force of a tsunami. His little worker Freddie jumped up from the couch where he had been posted up while Sunny was locked in the bathroom.

  “Ki . . . Ki . . . King,” Freddie started with widened eyes. He never got to finish his sentence. Beans was on him within seconds with his hands clamped down around Freddie’s skinny neck.

  “You little nasty m’fucker! You wanna be out here fuckin’ niggas wives . . . you little dirty dick bitch,” Beans gritted, then he slammed his one of his fists into Freddie’s face so hard everyone in the room heard the bone in the center of Freddie’s nose crack. Freddie’s nose began leaking like a faucet, but Beans didn’t care, he hit the frail body boy again. This time Freddie’s jaw cracked and his body folded. Freddie couldn’t fight back, scream, kick or anything. He was in too much pain.

  “You crossed the king, m’fucker! Huh! Huh!” Beans barked, his hands clamped tightly around Freddie’s scrawny neck again. Sean stood there looking on, his chest pumping up and down unnaturally.

  “Lift his ass up,” Ak growled, cracking his knuckles. Beans loosened his grip on Freddie’s neck, but right after, Beans drove his knee into Freddie’s balls. Freddie was coughing and gagging uncontrollably as he tried to get his lungs to fill back up with air.

  “Lift him up I said! Let me get a piece of this little bitch nigga,” Ak growled again. Beans pulled Freddie’s weakened body up off the couch and brought him to face Sean. Sean’s eyes glinted with rage and his jaw rocked. Sean pulled his Glock from his pants and raised it.

  “Please . . . please! No! It wasn’t my idea. She begged me to do it. She begged me,” Freddie gurgled and cried with his hands up in front of him. Freddie’s word hit Sean like someone had landed an open-handed slap to his face. She begged me to do it, kept playing over and over in Sean’s head. Sunny begged him to fuck her for drugs. The truth was too hard for Sean to accept.

  “What, nigga? Whatchu say?” Sean growled bringing the butt of his gun down on Freddie’s forehead.

  “Aggh!” Freddie screamed as his skin split and instantly a wide gash opened up on his head. Beans let go of him and Freddie crumpled to the floor, but Sean wasn’t finished with him. Sean brought his gun up and down on Freddie’s head and face at least fifteen more times, until there was so much blood the boy’s entire face was completely covered. Freddie could barely keep his head up and two of his teeth lay next to him on the floor. Sean was completely out of control now.

  “Yo, King . . . you gon’ kill this nigga,” Ak said, trying to call Sean off. Sean looked up and saw that Sunny had closed and locked their bedroom door. He knew then that Sunny was fully aware that he knew what she’d done with Freddie.

  “Take this m’fucker out of my house before I spill his brains all over my expensive furniture,” Sean wolfed, out of breath from beating Freddie so badly.

  “You gon’ be a’ight here . . . you know . . . ?” Beans asked, nodding toward the bedroom where they all imagined that Sunny was probably cowering.

  “I’m good. I’ll catch up to y’all niggas later,” Sean said as he tried in vain to straighten out his clothes and clean himself off. “I’ll take care of her alone.”

  “A’ight. Holla if you need anything. I’ll take care of this little dirty nigga right here,” Beans said, lifting his foot and kicking Freddie in the stomach for extra emphasis. “Get this bitch nigga out of here,” Beans demanded.

  Sean’s crew scraped Freddie up off the floor and dragged him from Sean’s condo. Once they were all gone, Sean flopped down on his couch with his gun next to him. He needed a minute to collect his thoughts before he dealt with Sunny. He didn’t even know what he would say to her at that point. Sean felt angry enough to kill her, but he also felt devastated inside. For the first time in his life since his mother’s death, Sean felt a deep sense of grief, because he knew that whatever he had tried to build with Sunny was now dead.

  Sean felt stupid for trusting her. He had offered Sunny everything. He had saved her from her abuser and given himself to her even after he knew half the city had already had her. Sean loved Sunny from a place deep within, but he was starting to believe that she never loved him and never would. The more he thought about her betrayal, the more his anger crept back up on him. Sean got up from the couch, stormed toward his bedroom door, leveled his gun at the doorknob and fired. The lock flew off and the door jumped open.

  “Aghhh!” Sunny screamed, dropping her needle and ducking down on the side of their bed. “Please don’t kill me, Sean . . . I’m . . . I’m . . . sorry,” Sunny cried out as she balled her body up on the floor, using her hands to protect her head. Sean stood over her brooding with his gun in hand. He could’ve blown her brains out right there, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

  Sunny was sobbing uncontrollably and Sean was dying inside. He could literally feel his heart breaking apart in his chest.

  “Why, Sunny? Why?” Sean asked her through his teeth. “You wanted to go back to being a ho for drugs? You never wanted what I had to offer you? I gave you everything, but you ain’t want the good life,” Sean said, his voice unsteady with pain evident behind his words. “I guess once a fiend-ass ho always a fiend-ass ho,” Sean said cruelly. He wanted to hurt Sunny as much as she’d hurt him.

  Sunny uncurled her body and although she was trembling like she was sitting on a block of ice, she looked at him with tears streaming from her eyes.

  “Sean, I never meant to hurt you. I didn’t ask to be like this . . . it’s just the way I am now. Somebody like you will never understand,” she cried. “I’m a drug addict, Sean. Once an addict always an addict. Once you start . . . you can’t stop. You have to believe that I love you. I always have, but you can’t save me. Nobody can save me from this shit. It calls out to me every morning and every night. Even if it goes away for a little while . . . it always comes right back. Once you use that first time you’re gone forever. I’m gone forever,” Sunny said through wracking sobs. “I’m gone forever.”

  “That’s bullshit! You can stop if you want to, Sunny! You’re fuckin’ weak! You don’t want to stop! You wanna be out here fuckin’ other niggas and selling your pussy for drugs! You’re fuckin’ weak!” Sean boomed wanting so badly to choke Sunny until the lights went out in her eyes. He was fighting back his own tears now. Sunny let out a long whelp of sobs as Sean’s words cut her like a knife.

  “You wanna see how fuckin’ weak you are? Huh? Huh?” Sean gritted. He bent down and picked up the needle full of heroin she had dropped.

  “You’re the only one who can’t fuckin’ stop,” Sean said as he extended his own arm.

  “No, Sean! No! Don’t do it!” Sunny screamed trying to scramble up off the floor to stop him. “Don’t do it!”

  “I’ma prove it to you that these drugs ain’t more fuckin’ powerful than me or you!” Sean growled and in a flash, before Sunny could stop him, he plunged the needle into his vein and slammed down on the back until the drugs blasted into his arm. Blood squirted everywhere because Sean had hit the vein wrong. Sean’s eyes popped open wide as the drugs and the pain hit him at the same time. He didn’t feel the pain for long though.

  “Sean! No!” Sunny belted out. She was too late. Sean’s knees went weak and his body folded to
the floor with a hard thud. His eyes were closed, but he could feel all of his problems seemingly fading away. His mother, Fox, and Big Mama showed up in his head right then. They were all smiling and laughing and telling him they loved him. Sean suddenly saw himself lying on a bed covered in one hundred dollar bills and music was playing all around him. He felt damn good for the first time in a long time.

  “Sean! Sean!” Sunny screamed, slapping his face and splashing water on him. Sean’s eyes fluttered open and he realized he was back in his condo. That first high euphoria was gone just as fast as it had come.

  “Sean, why did you do it? There’s no going back now. There’s no going back,” Sunny cried hysterically, laying her head on his chest. She knew that Sean had just made the worst mistake of his entire life.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Fall 2008

  “Hurry up and hit me off, Sunny. I got a meeting with BG and I’m already late,” Sean growled, flexing his fist in and out trying to get his veins to pop up to the surface of his skin.

  “You need to start a new line, Sean. This vein is dead,” Sunny replied, pressing down on his arm looking for a new place to shoot.

  “You keep saying that. This like the tenth new line you started on me. I can’t be all tracked up or niggas gon’ notice shit like that. I can’t be seen like that,” Sean griped. Finally Sunny found a ripe vein without having to find a new place in his arm to inject the heroin.

  “Hold still,” she complained as he fidgeted. With the precision of a registered nurse, Sunny punctured Sean’s skin with the tip of the needle. When she got a tiny drop of blood to back up into the needle Sunny knew she was in the right place. She pushed down on the plunger slowly and loosened the rubber tie on his arm so the drugs could get through faster. Within seconds Sean’s head fell forward and his mouth hung open, proof that he was flying high at that moment.

  “You be bringing that good shit home, boy. You in another world right now,” Sunny said as she prepped her own hit. “But I thought the rule was never get high on your own supply,” she said, laughing afterward. Sean was too high to even know what she was talking about. Sunny hit herself next and fell backward on the bed and enjoyed her temporary high. Life was good in Sunny’s opinion. After all she still had her man and he was an endless supplier of the heroin in the whole city.

  Sean rushed into the warehouse, late again. BG was sitting in a folding chair with her arms folded and her lips poked out. Beans, Ak and Ty were all there wearing looks of disgust too.

  “What up!” Sean called out, his voice sounding a bit too cheery for his usually cool, calm and collected personality. Everyone turned toward him and then they all looked at one another and started shaking their heads. Once again their boss seemed to look and act out of character. BG and his crew had all been noticing a drastic change in Sean over the past year and a half. He was always late for meetings now, which used to be a pet peeve for him before. Sean was always usually well groomed to the point that even his fingernails were filed evenly. Now, his hair was overgrown, his nails were chipped and dirty underneath and his skin looked ashen. The most remarkable change though, was Sean’s clothes. He was once the best dressed in the city, wearing only the finest designers and the sharpest styles. Now, he donned the same old clothes he’d been wearing for days, he hadn’t purchased any new styles and the worst violation for a clean-cut dude like Sean, was the fact that now he wore his clothes so wrinkled and disheveled it was like he’d just rolled out of bed and come outside.

  “You’re mad late,” BG gritted, standing up and scowling at Sean.

  “Yo . . . I’m here right,” Sean retorted, scratching his nose and flexing his neck like something was biting him on it. He was sweating like he had just come from the gym. BG squinted her eyes at him and looked at him carefully. The drastic changes with Sean were glaring now, but BG didn’t say anything.

  “A’ight, so let’s get down to business,” Sean said, clapping his hands together and rubbing them against one another real fast.

  “What’s up with this nigga lately? He be acting real jittery,” Ak whispered to Beans. Just then Sean started scratching his nose again and shifting his weight from one foot to the other like he couldn’t keep still. He had the dope itch and jitters worse than any other time he could remember.

  “Acting like a fiend if you ask me,” Ak whispered again. “I ain’t never see this nigga look so dirty and he scratching like a corner fiend.”

  “Everything is already ready to go to the distributors . . . no thanks to you. You took an advance on your cut last time so here is the balance of what’s left of your share. You need to pay your people out of that,” BG said sternly, pushing a small stack of cash toward Sean. He looked down at the money like it was a pile of garbage or poison.

  “Nah . . . this stack look mighty small,” he complained, backhanding the sweat off his forehead. “This ain’t even half the take off that shipment. Once I pay these niggas that’s gon’ leave me with shit.”

  “Yeah, because you took an advance on your take or did you forget that too?” BG snapped, glaring at Sean in disgust. Sean couldn’t remember what he did the day before aside from getting high, much less remember how much money he’d taken in advance.

  “I don’t remember . . . but you know what, I take your word for it BG. Also . . . I need to take a brick for a private deal I got going on. I’ll bring you the cash after the transaction is made,” Sean lied, reaching down for one of the neatly wrapped bricks of heroin. He had been taking a lot of their supply lately and BG had definitely taken notice. BG stepped over and put her hand on top of his to halt his motion. Sean paused and looked at her evilly.

  “What private deal? We makin’ private side deals now?” she asked through her teeth. Sean flicked her hand off of his.

  “Yo, BG. You better know your place. You better remember who the king is,” Sean warned her, sniffling back the snot threatening to fall from his nose. It was already time for another hit and his body was letting him know. Sean felt like little bugs were crawling on him and he knew it was that urge to get high coming back. He needed to get out of there as fast as he could with the drugs.

  “Nah, Sean . . . you better know your place. A lot of shit with you ain’t adding up these days, but the one thing you’re not going to do is fuck up the business,” BG replied, snatching the heroin from under his grasp. “All these bricks are accounted for. If you want to work side deals you need to find side supply. Ain’t no more walking away with unaccounted for bricks because that’s like walking away with half of my money,” she said authoritatively. Her security team moved in around her.

  “A’ight . . . that’s how we playin’ it? A’ight,” Sean said, flexing his shoulders and neck and then scratching his nose.

  “This nigga definitely gettin’ high,” Beans grumbled under his breath. “That’s fucked up. The king let his bitch take him down.”

  Sunny jumped up out of her sleep to the sound of loud banging on the condo door. Sean was in a dopefiend sleep, which meant the entire place could’ve collapsed around him and he would’ve stayed asleep.

  “Sean! Sean!” Sunny shook him vigorously. “Sean! Somebody at the door,” Sunny urged.

  “What?” Sean growled at her, barely able to move his arms to push her away.

  Just then, the loud banging turned into loud crashes. Sunny jumped up.

  “Sean, somebody in the house!” Sunny screamed, trembling. She had been attacked one too many times to just sit there and let it happen again. Sean finally got a little of his bearings, but before he could even sit up, he was staring down the barrel of a gun.

  “Police and sheriff’s department. We came to remove you from the premises for failure to pay mortgage on this property. Your lender sent notices and now there is a court order to vacate . . . today,” the fat white policeman said with a Southern drawl.

  “Y’all niggas need to come up in here like y’all raiding and shit,” Sean grumbled, covering his naked body with the
comforter.

  “Give us a minute,” Sunny pleaded. “We have to put on some clothes.”

  “One minute,” the officer mumbled. When he was gone Sunny turned toward Sean.

  “What the fuck, Sean? You haven’t paid the bills?” she asked in a harsh tone. “All that money you been making and now we gotta leave all of our shit behind with no notice?” she scolded.

  “Pay the mortgage? Pay the fuckin’ mortgage? How? We been spending every fuckin’ dollar getting high!” Sean snapped at her as he slid into his pants. His tone was accusatory.

  “You just collected money three days ago! It can’t all be gone,” Sunny screamed.

  “Shut the fuck up, Sunny! You don’t know shit. I wasn’t able to get the H from BG that night, so I have to buy the shit . . . You think the money gon’ last the way you fuckin’ suck me dry to get high every ten fuckin’ minutes?” Sean shot back. He grabbed some of his designer clothes and shoved them into his Louis Vuitton duffel bags and suitcases. He grabbed his watches and jewelry too. He had been maintaining their habits off of his cash reserves so he still owned a lot of precious jewelry and clothing items . . . for now.

  “Where we gonna go?” Sunny asked on the brink of tears.

  “To a hotel until I can figure shit out. I’ll fix it. I’ll get us another place or I’ll make a deal with the bank on this one. We ain’t gon’ be in the streets that’s for sure,” Sean promised as he slid his last pack of heroin and his works into his jacket pocket. Sunny twisted her lips like she didn’t believe him.

  After a month of being holed up in a four-star hotel room with Sunny, Sean was finally out of cash and drugs. He had already pawned all but one of his Rolex watches and had sold his furniture from the condo. The money from those transactions was gone too.

  Sean showed up at BG’s newly opened restaurant looking for her, his appearance so disheveled and dirty that BG’s security team didn’t even recognize him.