by Wahida Clark
Everybody watched the truck turn the corner. They were so entranced by the truck that the late-80s Buick Regal now riding past was not noticed until the guy standing up and out of the sunroof snapped them back to reality with the first release of bullets from the TEC-9, as he was squeezing the trigger in their direction.
Everyone hit the ground. A woman’s shrill screams could be heard. The Regal slowed, then sped off after about thirty rounds had been spent.
Making sure the coast was clear, some guys jumped in their cars to give chase but the Regal was long gone.
As BoBo got up to survey the scene, a young woman by the swings behind him started screaming. A crowd quickly gathered around her as she held her four-year-old son’s limp body in her arms. His small T-shirt was covered in blood. Others had scrapes and bruises from diving on the pavement. BoBo was furious! He figured it was no doubt Alpo was behind this. He had some big balls to pull this after leaving his name. BoBo barked out a few orders to his guys. They left before the police came.
Through all the commotion, someone called BoBo’s name. He turned to see Jamal of all people.
“Hey, homie. Looney around?”
“You got that money you owe, muthafucka?” BoBo yelled.
Jamal’s face went from a smile to a confused look of fear. “N-n-n-n-naw. I told Looney—”
BoBo punched him in the mouth, knocking him down. He tried to get up and another guy hit him. They both kicked him repeatedly. He curled in the fetal position to protect his head and face.
“Stay your fat ass from ’round here and get that money. Fat muthafucka!”
BoBo and the guy left Jamal lying there dirty and bloody.
“Daddy, can you buy me a Barbie Jeep?” Charisse asked.
“For your birthday. Okay, baby?” BoBo told her.
“Okay, Daddy,” she agreed, smiling.
“Don’t believe that shit ’til you see it, ReeRee,” Carla told her.
“Don’t be telling her that. And what I tell your ass ’bout cussing ’round her?”
“Nigga, you her daddy, not mines.”
His phone rang, stopping the argument between them.
“Damn, nigga! Where the fuck you at?” he yelled at Looney. He had seen his number on the caller ID. “Meet me at Jihad’s crib. Niggas done shot up the park.” He hung up.
“Where you finna go?” Carla asked.
Not in the mood for her games, he left without answering her.
There was a large crowd in front of Jihad’s house, everybody talking about what had happened. Looney pulled up shortly after BoBo. He got out of his truck and walked over to where BoBo stood. Without warning, he drove his fist straight into BoBo’s jaw, catching him off guard.
“Yeah, nigga! Didn’t I tell you to let me handle mines?” He swung again, this time missing, but barely.
“What the fuck is up with you, nigga?”
“You didn’t have to do Jamal like that. That was my business.” Looney got into his fighting stance.
Everyone was in shock. These two were inseparable. Both were certified killers and here they were duking it out. No one wanted to get involved by breaking it up.
What started out as a boxing match soon turned into a wrestling event. They swapped moves. Looney would slam BoBo, followed by a few blows to the body. BoBo would work his way back to his feet, slam Looney and return the blows. Neither of them was in any shape for fighting. In fact, had it been anyone else, a pistol would have surfaced.
“Break it up, y’all. Y’all ain’t even fighting no more,” one of their comrades told them since they were too tired to do anything else.
“You give, muthafucka?” Looney managed to say in between breaths.
“Fuck you, nigga! We can go to the death!” BoBo said back. He kneed Looney in the ribs.
This only made their wrestling last a few more minutes. Pride and ego were their only fuel.
“Man, grab Looney’s ass and I’ma grab BoBo. This shit is over with,” a high-ranking member of their gang suggested.
They separated the two.
“You ain’t did shit, nigga!” BoBo said as he looked at the scratches and scrapes he had acquired.
“Stay out my business, homie. Worry about these niggas whose hoes you fucking,” Looney rebutted.
“Y’all cool out,” someone said from the crowd.
“Naw. Fuck this ho-ass nigga!” BoBo snapped.
“Ho? Ho? Nigga, you see a ho, slap a ho.” He began walking toward BoBo.
A guy jumped in between them. “Whoa. Y’all gone head-on. Clean up and chill out. I’ll handle this situation.” Business had to be taken care of and this guy held just as much rank among the Stones as they did.
“I got your ho,” Looney said as he was walking off.
“Give it to me then.”
“I’ma see you in the streets. I put that on my mama!”
Everybody knew his mother had passed away when he was younger. His putting it on her was like notarizing a copy. Knowing how Looney was, it sounded like he had just given BoBo a death threat. Seeing that it was Looney, it was more of a promise.
“I’m telling you, you better keep the ice on it or it’s gonna be swollen tomorrow.”
“That shit is cold.”
Not wanting to go home and let Serena see him with his face swollen with cuts and bruises all over, BoBo went where he knew he could relax and be attended to: LaLa’s apartment. Serena would think he had gotten beaten up, the way he looked. His pride and ego would not allow that to happen. LaLa knew how the streets were and would look at him no differently. She tended his wounds silently.
LaLa was BoBo’s type of woman. She had proven to be very streetwise. Serena seemed to be none the wiser to their affair. She would call sometimes when they were in the heat of passion. LaLa would take the call, see that it was her and come up with a lie so fast it sounded like God’s honest truth. BoBo would even look at her twice.
BoBo loved Serena but she was not a challenge. She did what he said, when he said, where he said and how he said without asking why. She was a good girl and good to come home to. All other women just fulfilled his need for sexual variety.
LaLa was there for him. Wounds, bruises, whatever. After she nursed his body, she sought to satisfy him sexually. She eased him on his back gently and placed delicate kisses on each part of his body, removing the clothing she had not already. Pulling off his boxers, she smiled. She held his now hard dick. “I’m glad he wasn’t injured.” He looked down at her and smiled also. Getting head was his favorite sexual desire.
She put her all into this blowjob. Not wanting him to come too soon, she applied pressure to the base of his dick as she sucked it, not allowing any blood flow for the moment.
Still holding it, she squatted over him and let him fill her pussy. Its tightness was consoling. Tired and exhausted, he fell asleep a few minutes after his orgasm.
LaLa, grabbing her cordless phone, went to the bathroom. She soaped up a towel and cleaned up the stickiness from between her legs. Locking the door and turning on the faucet, she went by the tub and dialed. “Yeah, this me. Call me when you ready.” She then disconnected the call. She sat there and thought for a moment. Taking a deep breath, she gathered herself and went back into the bedroom. She took a towel with her.
“What the?” BoBo said, jumping up from feeling the warmth of the towel.
“Ssssshhhhhh. It’s just me, baby. Get your rest.”
He lay back down. She joined him as he went back to sleep.
“So it’s favoritism going on? That’s what y’all saying?”
“Naw. It ain’t like that.”
“Why y’all niggas scared, then?” Andre asked angrily. “I got violated for the same thing. I’ll be goddamn if this muthafucka slide! And that’s on my mama!”
“Hold on now, shorty. Calm down,” said the older guy who was trying to reason with him.
“Well, check this out. If that’s how y’all gonna play it, then let me tell you
how I’ma play it. If y’all don’t violate him, I will.” Andre started to walk off. “Let’s ride, y’all.” Rooster and a few others walked off.
“Your ass is crazy!” Rooster said, laughing.
“Man, fuck them old muthafuckas. It’s our time and they in the way.”
“Yeah. That’s what I’m talking about,” yelled Rooster, banging on his chest.
They went and got into Rooster’s beat-up ’84 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme. Just as Andre was about to turn up the radio, his phone rang.
“Hello.”
Almost as quickly as he answered it, he ended it.
“Hey. Drop me off at the crib. I’m onto something.”
“Damn, baby. I thought he was suppose to be your guy?” Tracey said.
“Fuck that bitch-ass nigga! He gonna get his. That’s on my mama!” Looney said, hitting his fist into the palm of his hand. He was still upset. Every time he moved, the soreness kicked in and he would get mad all over again.
Tracey tried to comfort him. She rubbed and kissed him. When he heard his phone ring, he practically tossed her to the side to answer it.
“Hello?… Aiight.” He pressed END and got up to leave.
“Where you going?” Tracey asked.
“Not now, Tracey,” he said, aggravated by her question. “I’m taking your car,” he informed her as he left.
“Bitch!” Slap. “You still fucking with that hook-ass nigga, huh?” Slap. Slap.
“Alpo. Baby, please stop. You’re hurting me,” Tasha pleaded.
“Hurting you? Bitch!” He punched her in the eye, making her fall to the floor. “I’ll kill your ass, ho. You wanna floss my shit for that hook?”
Tasha stood up holding her eye. “Alpo, I’m sorry,” she cried.
“Alpo, I’m sorry,” he mimicked her. Suddenly, he reached out and grabbed her by the throat. She wrapped her hands around his, trying to pry them from around her neck.
As she gasped for air, her life seemed to pass before her. How in the hell did he always find out? she wondered. The lack of oxygen plus the fear of not knowing how far he would go had her blacking out. Alpo’s phone rang, luckily for her. He released her to answer it. It was a quick phone call.
“Bitch, have your shit packed and ready to go by the time I come back,” he ordered as he left.
Smoking cocaine-laced marijuana joints always made Carla a hard person to deal with. She sat on the couch with a large amount of cocaine sitting on the table in front of her. She estimated the value at over twenty thousand dollars if sold wholesale. After she broke it down to smaller quantities, it would be worth even more.
Many times had she broken down packages for BoBo. After all, she was the one he trusted. Tonight she was breaking down a kilo into eight balls, quarter-ounces and ounces. There were also four and a half ounces of cooked cocaine that he wanted bagged up into dime bags. It was a tiresome job they used to do together.
As the poisonous fumes of the two drugs she’d mixed together burned and inhaled their way into her bloodstream and found their way to her brain, good thoughts and bad thoughts battled in the core of her mind.
The nerve of BoBo bringing this shit over here. Why he couldn’t keep it over there with him and that bitch? She too good to take a chance on the police kicking her doors down and hauling her funky ass to jail?
BoBo loves you. You just too difficult to deal with sometimes. You ran him off.
Oh, so it’s all good when he wants some ass or his dick sucked, huh? He comes over here, fuck us, then go and lay up with that bitch. Hmph.
Stop it! Soon as he comes over here, who really is all over who? Huh? Who is so quick to put they mouth on his ho-stick? We have to give him a chance. He really is a good man. He just needs a good woman. It’s obvious he trusts us.
Bitch, please! If he trusted our ass, we’d be looking at stacks of money like that bitch he lays up with has and not this shit. We set niggas up for this muthafucka! Sometimes it seems like he gonna shoot our stupid ass too. Look at us. Sitting here, getting high.
Shut the fuck up! BoBo loves us! That’s why he get mad when we don’t do right.
Both of y’all bitches shut the fuck up! Damn! Y’all blowing our high. Let’s just get high and forget about BoBo. We should be thinking of a way to kill that muthafucka. Fuck him! Go get that weed pipe and put a piece of that rock cocaine on it. Let’s see what muthafuckas be going crazy for. Plus it’ll shut you hoes up so we can relax.
Carla, already in flight, leaned up to grab a piece of rock cocaine. The voices in her head were starting up again. She got up to get her weed pipe. Before they could start their heated argument, her phone rang.
“Hello.”
* * *
The ringing of her phone caused LaLa to take a deep breath. She reached over to grab the receiver, then turned back toward BoBo so he could hear. “Hello,” she said in her sleepy voice. She nudged him, acting like she was lying on his chest. “What? Right now?” she said loudly, jumping up. “I mean, well, where you at?… Naw, boo. I was ’sleep.” She was now shaking BoBo, who got up lazily. She motioned for him to get up. “Why the fuck would I have a nigga over here? Look, don’t start. Bring me something to eat… I don’t know, anything… Aiight, in a minute.” She hung up before the dial tone came through the receiver showing that her caller had hung up.
“Who the fuck was that?” BoBo asked.
“My man! You gotta go.”
“Go? Fuck that nigga!”
“No! Fuck you! He paying the bills. All you giving up is dick.”
BoBo looked shocked. Never before had a female spoken to him like that. Seeing the look on his face, LaLa cleaned it up a little.
“Look, baby, we both know what this is. No attachments, right? I mean, I never say nothing when you go home to Serena or any one of your other hoes after taking your frustrations out on my pussy. Leaving me with a wet spot in the bed and a funny walk, now do I?”
He could only laugh. She was right. Bold and up front, but right.
“Come on now, BoBo. I done stalled his ass already. Don’t fuck up mines. Please.”
He got up and got dressed. Before fixing his pants, he turned to face her. With his manhood in his hands, he told her, “Come give little BoBo a kiss good-bye.”
“Come on now, BoBo.”
“You want me to leave, don’t you?”
She jumped off the bed and knelt before him. She replaced his hand with hers. She placed a long kiss on the tip of his limp member, which was now awakening. She put it in her mouth and gave it a couple of quick up-and-downs, ending with one slow, long suck as she exhumed it all the way from the back of her throat.
“Gone ’head and finish,” he told her.
“Uh-uh. I already gave you more than a kiss. Now go,” she told him, smiling, as she stood up.
She leaned up to kiss him. He tongued her with a fury while palming her cotton-covered backside.
They walked to the door.
“Make sure you tell that nigga me and lil’ BoBo said hi. Give him a kiss soon as he come through the door.”
She laughed.
“I’m serious!” he said with a straight face.
“Boy, bye.”
BoBo left out the building with his head in the clouds. He was the man and no one could tell him different. He exited the building and fished for his keys to activate the automatic starter on his two-month-old Chrysler 300C. The sound of it starting was music to his ears as he made the trek toward the corner. He never parked directly in front of her building. Not even if space was available. Seeing his car parked around the neighborhood was common but he did not want to bring any links between him and LaLa.
Lurking in the dark shadows, someone crouched aiming a .22-caliber semiautomatic pistol. The assailant was creeping fast between the cars parked adjacent to BoBo’s.
Empty shell casings hit the pavement faster than BoBo’s body did as two of the projectiles entered his skull, a couple his neck and a few his back.
As he lay on his back, looking into the sky, his executioner’s face sent his heart into cardiac arrest. The face had been familiar to his vicious life. He had departed before the .22 spit one more bullet to his frontal lobe. Whenever the ambulance came to pick up his carcass, it would be leaving the scene without its sirens blaring.
The executioner took off into the night.
A month after Beau Bodine aka BoBo was laid to rest, the mystery of his murder still lurked with many assuming what had happened. The police were backlogged with unsolved murders just like his. It was just added to the piles on homicide detectives’ desks.
Word on the street was a better source of information, but had proven to be inaccurate. Many fingers pointed in Andre’s direction. On the night in question he had received a phone call while he was riding around with the guys from the park after swearing to handle his business on BoBo if nobody else did. A call from a local neighborhood female made him put his plans on hold. She had alerted him that her mother had left to go work her night shift at the nursing home and the coast was clear for him to come over.
Some fingers pointed in Looney’s direction. A lot of people had witnessed their brawl and heard what they were sure was a death threat from him to BoBo. His leaving out of the house after his quick phone call, then switching cars, even had Tracey doing some pointing his way. He was never one to tell his business. Not even to BoBo. Since they were at odds, Looney was left to go for self. Little did Tracey know that her 2002 Honda Accord was not only very good on gas mileage but also equipped with electronic hiding spots he had installed in it for the purpose of transporting his dope, guns, and/or money. On the particular night in question his new connect had let him know that he was ready to meet at their agreed-upon location for a transaction to take place.
Alpo did not know he was figured into the equation. The move he had pulled earlier on the day in question was definitely gangsta! A little bird had informed him of his girlfriend’s infidelities and with whom. They say that all black people are related and his messenger was a cousin who lived by Eckersall Park and who sought revenge for BoBo’s slapping him and putting out a laced blunt on his chest. Alpo was pissed off about his girlfriend and the fact that she had disrespected him, not only with another man but with a rival at that. He had no intentions on killing either Tasha or BoBo. He wanted them to know though that Alpo was not to be fucked with. A call from a schoolteacher he was also having a relationship with had saved him from torturing Tasha to death accidentally.
