The Cook Up

by D. Watkins

  “You be safe with those thugs, okay! I’m so scared! You too cute to be around them anyway.”

  I spun around and kissed her forehead. “I’m chilling for like a hour or two. I’ll see you later, babe,” I said, pecking her forehead again.

  “I love you!”

  “Love you too!”

  I pulled up in front of the club and parked by a fire hydrant. The line rapped around the side of the building. Dudes in sweaters and Aldo shivering next to girls in shinny-skimpy skirts and high heels. I knew the bouncers and the promoters, which meant a bunch of things, like I didn’t have to freeze on line. I didn’t get patted down. I didn’t pay to get in and we already had a couple of tables. I was one of the last from my crew to arrive. Nick stood on the couch wearing the two watches with a bottle of champagne in each hand. He had another tucked in the back pocket of his jeans. Dog Boy nodded in a stupor, LT nudged me when I reached our section and said Dog Boy had been asleep in there all night. The place was packed with thugs and model types. They girls were pretty but they weren’t Soni. Nick leaped off of the couch when he saw me. “Yo, you gotta meet Ronny, my nig!”

  Ronny was Nick’s new connect, a forty-something wild Jamaican with big sleepy eyes and balding dreads. I didn’t know him well, but I heard he chopped a guy’s head off down Lafayette back in ninety-something. Who knows if it was true or not, but his clout was real and he’d probably kill Nick if he messed up his money.

  “Ronnie, this Dee, man, he my bro.” Nick grabbed us both. “We all gotta link, man, this real family shit!”

  Ronnie extended his hand. “Me hear you ’bout your business. We should rap soon, brudda.”

  I gave him a firm shake. “No doubt, Dread.”

  The club thickened, other crews showed up; east Baltimore was everywhere with some cool dudes from west and couple of Cherry Hill cats. We were packed in, sideways walking and squeeze-through room only. I was trying to push through to get Dog Boy so we could slide. I reached the VIP section and said, “Yo, let’s blow this spot! It’s too hot in here!”

  “Looooooooooook, Dee!” he said, pointing to the other side of the club.

  Nick was fussing with a dude. I fought through the crowd and got close enough to see Nick hit the dude in the head with a Cristal bottle. The dude’s knees buckled and hit the floor. Another guy picked him up before he fell and held his limp body up. Nick woke him up with two more blows across his face and then put him to sleep with an upper cut. The kid looked finished but east Baltimore wasn’t. A collage of every block and crew from my side of town united on this guy’s head. I pulled Nick away from the melee. Timberland boots, Nike Air Force 1s, flowerpots, pint glasses, and everything else crushed his body. It was a modern lynching. His complexion was blood; I wasn’t sure if he was dead or not but I bet he wished he was. They brought his limp body out on a stretcher. It took me and Dog Boy to drag Nick to the car. Everyone cheered at the body. I wondered where his friends were. And if he was dead, who would be charged with the murder? What in the fuck was wrong with those guys? What in the fuck was wrong with me?

  “Yo, nigga, let’s hit Norma’s!” screamed a half-drunk Nick, pulling away. I locked on his drunk body and flung us to the ground. He popped up before me and dropped his gun. Dog Boy grabbed it. “You actin’ dumb, bitch! Chill!” he yelled, tucking the gun in his dip. The whole police department was on Eutaw now, right in front of the club. I hit the automatic start on my car. “Come on, man, we gotta roll!” Nick was squatting in the alley shitting. Dog Boy approached him and he spit some red and green shit right in his direction.

  “I’m not gonna leave ya fat ass—come on!” Dog Boy yelled at Nick, trying not to step in the shit or the throw-up on the sidewalk. Nick headlocked Dog Boy and they circled. “You wannnn fight boy, come on! You think you grown?”

  I jumped back out of the car and threw a wide haymaker at Nick’s jaw: one blow stretched him out. His own pile of shit and throw-up broke his fall. We dragged his fat body to the back of my car.

  “Never again!” I yelled. “Yo really smell like shit in my car! I just got this detailed!”

  “What you wanted to leave him, Dee! Damn, he drunk!” said Dog Boy, rubbing his neck.

  “Fuck you. I’m taking my girl and her mom to the movies tomorrow! They don’t wanna smell this shit! I don’t wanna smell this shit!”

  Dog Boy tried to say I was overreacting. I turned the music up over whatever he was talking about. I hoped that kid didn’t die. Everybody knows Nick; what if they finger him? Everybody knows us; what if it’s me? One drunk night could ruin everything. And I wasn’t even drunk.

  THE OTHER BALTIMORE

  Dude, you ever heard of Radiohead?” asked Tyler, pushing in a CD and enhancing the volume.

  “Naw, I only listen to rappers and R & B singers who dress like rappers,” I replied.

  Dog Boy laughed and said, “Dat’s real shit, bro bro! Real shit! ”

  “Tylerrrr, why you do this? Like ain’t you rich or something?” Dog Boy asked from the backseat.

  Dog Boy had a beef with some dudes from the Jefferson side of Madeira Street. They shot at him twice and he put some gun work in too. I kept feeding him money and tried to keep him around me until it cooled off but he was eager to get back out there.

  “Because this is America, Dog Boy, and Americans are responsible for making money all of the time,” Tyler replied.

  Tyler was a natural. He was never short and didn’t know how to make excuses or complain. I used to roll with him sometimes when he made his drop-offs to stressed Hopkins kids, skinny art students, and the church boys at Loyola who liked to party. He was really smooth too. We’d stop at a bar, he’d introduce me as a college buddy, and then exchange a shake where he’d extend a hand full of work and draw back a fist full of cash—done. Tyler didn’t come out for anything under five grams, never gave credit, and he didn’t need to, because his clients had money and privilege.

  They weren’t like mine. Tyler and I always joked about how if he and a customer got caught in the middle of a transaction, they’d be diagnosed as junkies and sent to rehab, but the same cop could catch me and I would be headed to jail for the rest of my life on kingpin charges. Dog Boy and I were taking wild risk in a world that gave Tyler zero consequences, and we both knew it all boiled down to one thing—skin color.

  Tyler’s sales were all in bars, shops, and restaurants that I’d never been to. Colorful places full of hip patrons with black-framed specs and vintage leathers. I learned about six nice food spots that I took Soni to just by making drop-offs with him. Chilling around Tyler showed me a side of Baltimore that I didn’t know existed.

  It also showed me how segregated Baltimore really was. I grew up in a neighborhood where everyone was black except for the liberal teachers and housing police. Our city could basically be split up in to two categories—black and white.

  The Black Baltimore was all about Grey Goose vodka, Hennessy and Pepsi, crack sales, making money and running to the outskirts of the city, playing basketball, paying forty dollars to get into parties with fifteen-dollar drinks, cookouts, corner stores, being harassed by cops, pit bulls, dirt bikes, church, and staying in black areas.

  White Baltimore, which in most cases is only two miles away from these black areas, is all about Ketel One or Stoli vodka, Jack Daniel’s whiskey and Coke, sniffing coke, labradors, eating outside, free entrance into clubs where you buy one drink and get another free, barbecues, free-range chickens, playing Frisbee, jogging, being loved by cops, and staying in white areas.

  The only things that connected the city were the Ravens and me and Tyler getting all that dope money from both sides.

  Tyler was also doing well in school. He had multiple exit strategies, ways to flip all of the money he made into something legal. He always talked about investing, traveling the world after he graduated, and then coming back to start a business in L.A. or someplace warm.

  “Dude, are you going to Scarface it to the bloody en
d?” he asked me one day.

  I didn’t really have a plan but real estate seemed easy—buy a property, rent it out, stack the money, and sell it.

  Tyler’s parents lived in Roland Park, an elite area of the city, but they also owned the brownstone in Bolton Hill that he lived in. It was split up into four units. He lived in one and they rented out the rest. I loved that neighborhood and thought I could probably do the same. I had a bunch of cash put up, and being the Donald Trump of the ghetto seemed like a pretty prestigious gig.

  1046 WEST LOMBARD

  A pack of nurses surrounded Mr. Pete. He was trash talking as usual with that sideways smile. They giggled like schoolgirls as he hit them with a joke after a compliment followed by another joke. I admired from a distance until he spotted me.

  “Young boy, get over here!”

  I stepped to him; the nurses took a walk so that we could handle our business.

  “I’m taking your advice, Mr. Pete, and starting a business!”

  “Tell me something good, young blood,” Mr. Pete replied, sitting up in his chair, fully alert, proud and anxious.

  “I’m gonna buy one of those apartment house joints and rent the units out, like a Donald Trump type.”

  Mr. Pete told me to never call myself Donald Trump because Donald Trump is a dumbass. He said that Trump was born into money so his success was guaranteed, whereas I’m from the gutter so I’m expected to stay. He then said Trump’s casino went bankrupt.

  “How a casino go bankrupt? That’s the only business where people just give you their money, right?” I asked.

  “Cuz he’s a dumbass! I just told you that, pay attention! You a young black genius. Poisoned by many buckets of lead paint but still a genius, don’t forget that!”

  Mr. Pete then told me that real estate was the move. He said America is all about owning land.

  “You’ll always be treated as a second-class citizen until you own some land, boy, and as you can see, I’m a first-class nigga!”

  I’m a sponge around Mr. Pete, I just absorb game.

  “Get a real estate agent, boy, and check out this li’l bar on Lombard Street by Hollis Market. A lady named Lonnie own and I heard it’s for sale. That would be a great way for you to enter the game!”

  “I’m on it.”

  I was all gassed when I left the clinic and hit Soni up to tell her the news.

  Ring ring ring…

  “Hey, Dee, wassup.”

  “Baby, you know a real estate agent? Mr. Pete put me on to this bar on Lombard Street and I’m going to buy it!”

  “Wow, Dee, wow. That’s just what the black community needs, another liquor store!”

  “Naw, because mine will be different. It will be black-owned, black-operated, and I’ll be giving out black jobs to black ass people, so chill your black ass out!”

  Soni laughed. “I’ll text you the number to my aunt’s agent and a list of things I need from Whole Foods. Bye!” Whole Foods. Whole Foods was the reason I needed to keep making money with their twenty different types of apples that all cost five dollars apiece and had exotic names like brands of weed.

  I called the agent, left a message, and headed to the market. She didn’t call by the time I was finished grocery shopping, so I drove over to the property.

  The bar Mr. Pete directed me to was set in between two other bars but that didn’t bother me. Streets taught me how to deal with competition. The awning was dated and dusty. It read “Stadium Hideaway” in big crusty black letters. A few tough guys and some heroin addicts lingered around the front and up and down the side street. I walked past them and went in. Bulletproof glass and forty-ounce posters were everywhere. There was another door covered with black tint. I pulled the handle. A middle-aged, light-skinned woman cracked the door. “The lounge is closed, baby, but you can buy some drink to go, though.” I told her I was good and stepped. The agent called me back and introduced herself. Her phone voice exploded through my receiver: “Hello, Dee! I’m Joan!”

  She said that we could check the place out tomorrow. I said I saw enough and I wanted to own it.

  “We can definitely put in an offer, Dee!” she yelled. I had to pull my cell away from my ear. She told me that the place was $150K and asked me if I had a loan. I really had enough cash to buy the place outright, but I thought I’d inquire about a home loan so that I could build some credit. Pete said I needed credit.

  “Call my mortgage broker. Her name is Sherry Lass. I’ll shoot you her info!”

  I knew it was after hours and most offices would be closed but I called Sherry and left a message on the voice mail because I wanted to be the first person she heard in the a.m. My heart pumped. This felt right, maybe the first right thing I felt since the first time I met Soni.

  NO DOC ZONE

  Sherry Lass called me at nine a.m. sharp the next morning sounding like she just downed a gallon of espresso—asking for my FICO score and for pay stubs and what type of down payment I had. I swear all of these middle-aged businesswomen suck on bottles of energy all day. I told her I didn’t have anything but a bunch of cash my grandparents left me in their will, which was a super lie, but I guess she bought it because she invited me up to her office out White Marsh, which was about a twenty-minute drive from the city.

  I gave her my Social Security number over the phone and Joan had sent her the property info so I fried an egg and headed her way. Her office was in a park of offices that looked like a housing projects for businesses. Take away the logos on the doors and every space would be identical. Her spot was called United Capital Mortgage Brokers.

  “You must be Dee!” she said when I walked through the door. Sherry was a pint-sized white woman who could fit in my pocket—she wore a blazer, a brooch, and a pack of thin gold chains. Her hair was blond and she seemed to be in a rush, a familiar rush. The kind of the rush I liked—the kind that only comes with that hustler’s spirit.

  “Your credit isn’t great but it isn’t bad, hon; I’ve seen worse. Question, you have an unpaid Macy’s account from 1993. How did you have a Macy’s account in 1993? Weren’t you like a baby?”

  “I don’t know, can you fix it?” I asked.

  “Sure, Dee, now where do you work and how much can you put down?”

  I told her that I didn’t have a job, and that’s why I was starting a business. She left the room, huddled up with some of her coworkers and came back.

  “Dee, we are mortgage brokers, not a bank. That means we have relationships with hundreds of banks that offer all types of nontraditional loans. You qualify for a no doc loan.”

  “No doc loan?” I said. “What’s that?”

  “Well, Dee, it’s a special loan for people who don’t really have a job or credit. The fees are higher but I can get you into that property.” She got up and closed the door. “Now the other option is me getting you some pay stubs and tax records from a friend. That costs a little but it can be done. What do you choose?”

  My brain told me to get away from this lady—her plan sounded like a federal indictment waiting to happen—but my gut said she was cool and instinct had brought me that far, so I said, “The no doc loan sounds cool. Let’s do it.”

  “The rate is going to be a little high but pay the mortgage on time and I’ll refinance you in a year. Now it’s going to be about seventy-five thousand dollars down, and the liquor license comes with the store. Can you swing that?”

  “Yeah. Should I go grab it now?”

  “No, Dee.” She laughed. “You don’t need it until settlement! I’m going to like working with you, hon!”

  MURDERLAND

  Get up and get your phone, Dee! Long Face or Teeth or whatever that boy name is keep calling!” Soni yelled, digging my cell into my chest.

  I woke up, grabbed my phone, and dialed him back. “Dee, we out front, come out.” I love my friends because they are my friends, but I hate them for that reason too. Who pops up in front of your crib and calls until you come out? Really. I threw on a sweat
suit and headed out to meet the goons. Most of the people in my building were young and white. They never said hello, they just looked at me with tight smiles. I was raised to only speak to people who speak to me. I ignored everyone in the building because they ignored me, and it was pretty peaceful.

  My homies posted up directly in front of my building in a black Jeep that I never saw before. I knew these were my friends because the windows were pitch black but cracked—weed clouds floated out. There was no tag on the front of the car.

  I hopped in the back.

  “Yooooooooo, what’s up, bro!” screamed Mac. Long Tooth pulled off. Hurk removed his hood and peeked around from the passenger seat. “Surprise, nigga!” He laughed. “Dee, Mac wanted to see you first—he fresh outta Jessup and ready to put that work in!”

  Mac was Hurk’s cousin and the real life O-Dog from Menace II Society—America’s worst nightmare: young, black, and just didn’t give a fuck. A real shoot-first, ask-questions-later type, nice with his hands, and known for knife work too. A few years back a group of dudes in white tees sprayed champagne all over the club—some hit our section. Mac whipped out a six-inch blade and turned all of their t-shirts red. I remember the whole section staggering and dripping out of the main entrance while Mac laughed hysterically, cleaning the knife on his denims.

  “Man, you need a nigga hit, call me, we get rey lock this whole town on some Anthony Jones shit, nigga!” screamed Mac, spilling his Tanqueray on the Glock planted in his lap.

  “Man, y’all dudes hot as shit! Riding around with dark-ass tints, guns and no front tag! Drop me back off!” I laughed.

  Long Tooth circled the block and said, “Lemme ride down the jets real quick and grab some money, we can hop in your car and head out the mall. It’s new dope dealers out!” I definitely agreed.

  On the ride down, Hurk told me that he shot at some dudes that was talking shit about us last night and needed ten thousand dollars from me so that he could hide down south for a minute. I’m pretty sure no one said anything about me because I hadn’t even been outside, but I couldn’t wait to give him them money just so he could go away. That $10K could potentially put him and his BS out of my life forever. He wasn’t my brother anymore, and definitely didn’t care about my well-being—I couldn’t wait to buy him out of my life. Me, Troy, and Tyler had a nice safe thing going and I didn’t want to mess that up.