Backstage: Street Chronicles

by Nikki Turner

  In my mind, Cassandra’s dark chocolate skin looked less pretty and less soft. I imagined her crying. Her face still looked sad. I imagined her shaking and reading her Bible.

  “In other news, the funeral for twenty-eight-year-old Cassandra Brent was held today. She was the former assistant to Nicholas Michaels, the owner and president of Hustle Hard Records. Here, Mr. Michaels is seen with his current assistant who is also rumored to be his current wife as of four days ago. It has been reported the two eloped and will have a more formal ceremony in a few weeks. As a gift to the Brent family, Mr. Michaels paid all expenses for Cassandra Brent’s funeral. Apparently, Cassandra was the ex-girlfriend of famed label owner Bernard ‘Breeze’ King. Her death appears to be a suicide by an overdose on medication prescribed by her doctor. The young lady was being treated for AIDS.”

  Nick clicked the remote and the reporter’s voice came to a stop. The television went black. He sat at the edge of the bed rubbing his forehead. Teardrops slowly dripped down his cheeks and he remained silent. I kneeled on the bed and positioned myself behind him, the white down comforter cushioning my knees. Massaging his shoulders always relaxed him. I knew he was feeling guilty about the way he screamed at her when he fired her. I was feeling guilty myself. I knew what she was doing with giving information to Breeze was wrong, but still I felt like I got her fired. Nicholas and I got married on paper but planning a big ceremony was too hard to think about. That’s why it would be in a few weeks rather than a few months. Neither of us wanted the elaborate planning. It seemed selfish in light of the recent event. The sadness was heavy. That’s why Nicholas paid for the funeral. I mean, it’s not our fault she died. However, that knowledge didn’t make any of us feel better. It’s a weird thing when someone dies. Your family and friends seem to love you more than they ever did. And the people you violated somehow feel like they violated you. At the funeral, I even saw Breeze crying.

  Chapter 9 | My Day

  I kept calling Kessy but she wouldn’t answer. I let the phone ring eight times every time I called. Where could she be? This was the morning of my wedding and my best friend was nowhere to be found. My strapless knee-length gown was fitting quite snug on my behind. I’m glad the designer made sure I got a girdle built in to this thing. It made my tummy look flatter than what it was and gave my bottom a boost. White was a good color on me. I looked cuter than I did on prom night. I had a professional do my makeup and she made my face look like a model for beautiful skin. My hair was pinned in a French roll with diamonds and pearls attached to the bobby pins. Sophisticated. That’s how I looked. Where was Kessy? She said she would be here early.

  “Mom, have you seen Kessy?”

  My mother was sitting in the living area of the mansion we rented for the ceremony. She barely looked at me over the rim of her martini glass. I don’t know why I asked her. She was only smiling because she knew her daughter was marrying someone with some money. I think she had the the surgeon paste her smile there just for this purpose. She could care less about Kessy.

  I spotted Rob on his way into where my mom was sitting, coming from the dining area.

  “Hi, Rob. Have you seen my friend, Kessy?”

  His tux matched Nick’s except his had a teal cummerbund. Nick wanted to wear a vest.

  “No, I’m sure she’s around though.”

  He held my shoulders as if to tell me to relax. His voice lowered to a whisper. “I just wanted to say thank you for not saying anything about, you know, that whole situation.”

  At this point I couldn’t care less about him and Brooke. Couldn’t he see how frantic I was? I couldn’t even look at him. I was looking around and trying to peer over his shoulder.

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t think it would help any of us if I did. So, umm, if you see Kessy, can you let her know I’m looking for her?”

  How could she not be here? I knew she should have spent the night here with me. Why did I want to be alone? I don’t want to be alone now! Was I the only one looking for her? I didn’t want people to see me before the ceremony but what could I do? I needed her. I went outside where the ceremony would be held. Nick stood in the front row of the white fold-up chairs talking to Kessy’s parents. It looked like all the guests were present. Even Fingers had on a suit with Lakaya as his date. I don’t even know how that happened! The whole crowd held their breath and looked at me in surprise when they saw me running toward Nick. All the chatter ceased. The white lace train was pulling at my hair. It was long and dragging on the grass behind me. I was the only one moving.

  “Nick!”

  He saw the fear in my eyes. I stopped running. Nick didn’t say a word. He was still about ten feet away and he looked worried and shocked to see me. Kessy’s mother’s eyes were opened wide. The former model put her hand to her mouth and tears rolled down her face. Then I heard a familiar male voice come from behind me. It wasn’t me the crowd was watching.

  “Worried, are we?”

  I turned toward the voice and saw Breeze at the top of the garden stairs I ran down only seconds ago. He had a gun to Kessy’s head. Her face was bloody and her lipstick smeared. Mascara ran down her face and her teal halter dress was ripped and speckled with blood. Her legs were shaking and the scratches on Breeze’s face showed there had been a struggle earlier.

  “So, Nick, this is your plan? You send these two little hoes to cheat me out of my contracts? Nice to see you, Fingers!”

  I closed my eyes knowing Nick didn’t know what Breeze was talking about. I took a deep breath and turned to see Nick looking confident.

  “I never cheated you out of anything. You tried to cheat me for years. Who and what is this about?”

  Nick walked toward me slowly. How could he be so confident? It’s like he knew Breeze wouldn’t shoot. I wished I could explain it all to him. I wish I could tell him how sorry I was.

  “Yes, go stand by your woman, Nick! Cassandra told me about the intern who told you about Fingers. Never did I think this ho right here was her. She’s good, Nick. I give you that.”

  For the first time since the police took my father away, I felt helpless. There was nothing I could do to take control of the situation. I was scared. Not just for Kessy, I was scared for us all. Since Cassandra left, Breeze hadn’t been able to sign anyone worth listening to. He tried to drop a record himself and it flopped.

  I finally spoke.

  “Nick has nothing to do with this. And really neither does Kessy. I’m the one who told her what to do. If you came here for anyone, you came here for me.”

  Nicholas’s head tilted to the side when he looked at me. My eyes were getting red and telling him this is all my fault. My mother stood on the side in the background, shaking her head as if this was some regular bull her daughter was always involved in. Kessy’s mom was crying hysterically and her husband held her, rocking her like a baby.

  “You can’t protect him. I know he sent you. You were at my house. You sneaky little ho! Acting like you just wanted to watch. All of sudden this dude ain’t taking no phone calls from me, calling me gay and whatnot. You got Cassandra fired and then Nick signed Fingers. I’m not stupid! I see what happened! You got me, Nick!”

  His laugh was that of someone who had surrendered their mind a long time ago. His light skin was now burning red. It was like the devil was coming to life. Nick’s breaths were deep and calm. He was familiar with the scenario. His eyes showed he remembered how I got my job. He stepped forward.

  “You’re right, Breeze. I shouldn’t have sent them to you for information. It was wrong. But does it really need to go this far?”

  “No, Nick, don’t.”

  I couldn’t let him take responsibility. He had nothing to do with it. I was dead wrong. He knew it and still tried to protect me. How could I have done this? How will we get past this? Can we? Will any of us get past today? My head started to hurt. I couldn’t think of a solution.

  Breeze shoved Kessy toward Nick and me. He still held the gun and kept it directed
at us. I hugged Kessy and whispered, “I’m so sorry.”

  She whispered back to me, “He raped me.”

  The tears flowed from her caramel face like a waterfall. It was now me who was shaking. What did I do to her? I closed my eyes to stop the tears.

  It all seemed to happen so fast. The police officers came rushing in. There was one loud shot. I looked up from Kessy’s shoulders and saw Nick fall to the ground holding his chest. I fell to my knees over Nick’s body. The police grabbed Breeze and put him in handcuffs. Kessy’s sobs were louder and I heard my own breaths. My husband, Nick, lay in my arms shivering.

  “Don’t worry. It’s okay. I still love you.”

  Those were the last words of Nicholas Michaels. The tears flowed freely from my eyes. I begged God to give Nick back to me. I cried, I screamed. I didn’t want to let go, but Nick already had. My face was red and swollen. My heart was broken. I couldn’t stop shaking. The paramedics tried to pull me away. It was then I realized what love was. He loved me. I loved him but not enough. I put myself before him every time. Now, I lost him and to some degree a part of myself.

  My name is Sakia “Saks” Sands-Michaels and I am president and CEO of Hustle Hard Records. My record label is one of the most successful independent labels there are. I sit at the top. This was the story of how I got here.

  My Mic Sounds Nice …

  Check One …

  GUN MUSIC

  by Nikki Turner

  Chapter 1

  hat’s the point?” Crook questioned, shaking the dice in his palm. The corner of Clinton Avenue and Clinton Place was feenin with young hungry wolves packed together, everybody on their own grind, but prepared to come up off the back of anybody weak enough to fall victim. The six men in the circle were huddled together like a football team, watching the dice careen across the broken pavement, money scattered all around six-two.

  “Yo, the fuck is my point?” Crook echoed, staggering back slightly from the E&J he had consumed.

  “Nigga, if you don’t know, I damn sure ain’t gonna tell you,” the tall slim hustler fading his bet hollered back.

  “Just shoot the fuckin’ dice.” Crook straightened up to his full height, pulled up his sagging pants, and grilled Slim hard. Slim was taller than Crook’s five foot eight by several inches and out-weighed him by a good forty pounds as well, but Crook wasn’t fazed one bit. He was already heated because he was losing the two hundred dollars his girl Sheena gave him to pay the electric bill, and now that he was down to his last fifty, this dude was trying to front on his point?

  Crook could see the bulge in Slim’s waist, which made Slim smirk like he was safe. Crook wasn’t strapped because he had intended to pay the bill and return home, but he got caught up.

  He turned to a heavyset cat to his left and asked, “Yo, what the fuck is the point?” He growled, getting madder at himself for even forgetting what he needed to roll to win his money back.

  “Don’t tell him shit,” Slim snarled, silencing the fat cat. “If he don’t know, tell him to come off the fuckin’ bet.”

  Crook crouched and kissed his closed fist before letting the dice tumble over and against the brick wall. Five-two.

  The circle let out a collective holler at Crook’s bad luck.

  “Five-Deuce! Come up off that, broke ass nigga,” Slim chuckled, referring to the money under Crook’s scuffed up left Tim boot.

  Crook let his anger assess the situation. This cat had shined on Crook for the last time. It wasn’t enough that he had taken Sheena’s two hundred, talkin’ slick the whole while, but Slim wasn’t even from Clinton Avenue. Out there flossin’ in his new GS300, wearing the new Carmelo Jordans that Crook wanted but couldn’t afford. Above all, it was the way Slim thought his gun could speak for him that made Crook decide, not only wasn’t he getting the fifty underfoot, Slim was leaving broke as Crook now felt by his presence. The whole thought process took less than a second, and before Slim could react, Crook’s fist cut through the air with lightning-fast intensity and landed squarely against Slim’s jaw.

  Crack!

  Slim stumbled from the blow, dazed but ready to shoot, except Crook didn’t give him a chance to get his shit off. Lefts and rights came back-to-back like a swarm of killer bees, stinging Slim into bloody submission. When he slumped against the wall, it was over.

  Crook snatched the gun from Slim’s waist, yelling, “Oh, you was gonna shoot me, mu’fucka?! Huh?! You was gonna shoot me, bitch?!”

  Then the pistol-whipping began. Crook smashed Slim mercilessly until he crumbled to the pavement, beaten and disfigured. Even then Crook wouldn’t stop. He had blacked out in a tyrannical spaz. To Crook, Slim represented all that was wrong with his world. Fake-ass niggas like Slim had it, while live niggas like himself starved and struggled.

  “Bitch-ass niggas, this is Crook!” he bellowed between stomps. “Muthafuckin Crook!”

  The whole corner watched in amused shock, because wolves loved blood as long as it wasn’t any of theirs. But Crook was making the spot hot! So it wasn’t mercy that saved Slim, but their own greed, because they knew if Crook killed this nigga, police would sweat the block for weeks.

  “Yo, Crook, chill! Chill! Po-Po comin’!” someone yelled, even though there were no police in sight. Crook snapped back to reality, then went in Slim’s pockets, taking his money, white gold watch, and of course the Carmelo Jordans off his feet. Grimy.

  “You wasn’t rockin’ ‘em right,” Crook hissed, giving Slim one last kick to the face, which sent his two front teeth flying. Then Crook dipped, taking the alleyway behind the old houses and stores that lined the block and disappeared in the shadows.

  Two hours later, Crook sat in the staircase leading up to his and Sheena’s apartment. The place smelled of fishy urine and fried chicken, but Crook didn’t smell it; he couldn’t. His whole body was numb from what was left of the half ounce of coke on his lap. The tip of his nose glistened from the fish scale devouring his senses. He was fucked up and loving the fact he couldn’t feel anything but the cool sensation of nothingness. The comfort zone of escape that sniffing coke had become to him.

  His life was in shambles, just like the raggedy clothes he had on. The dingy Def Jam University jeans and soiled G-Unit hoody had been his attire for the last three days. His Tims were scuffed to the point that they were on the brink of bursting at the toe. He was a smart nigga that had made a lot of dumb decisions, and now it seemed that he was continuously paying the consequences. He could’ve stayed in school and made something of himself, but he chose the street, yet, he wasn’t a hustler. He couldn’t come up in the game because he had a habit and no one trusted him with any substantial amount of weight because he’d crossed all that had extended their hands in the past. Cats had beat him, shot him, and stabbed him, but he always returned shooting, stabbing, and beating, scar for scar, so the money niggas figured he wasn’t worth the trouble.

  He was a stick-up kid, but he wasn’t focused or patient enough to hit any major licks, so he stayed lickin’ petty. Then he’d get high, buy Sheena and the kids shit, pay a few bills, and with whatever was left, he got higher. But if anything else, Crook was an emcee. The nigga was that rose growing through concrete that Tupac mused about, because he was that nice. All he wanted to do was rhyme and he tried everything to get on, he just couldn’t get right. Regardless, it was in his blood like lava, bubbling to get out, and it was moments like this, filled with pain and anger that made it explode.

  Crook shit be like dope to your bloodstream.

  Fuck when doves cry have you ever heard a thug scream!

  From all this pressure so muthafuck it whatever

  Somebody gotta die when I grab my Beretta.

  He gripped the pistol in his lap like a vice and pointed it at the world, pushing the lyrics from his soul through the rage and frustration.

  So when I run up on you with the Tech

  Crying help is just a waste of breath ‘cause all I’m leavin’ is scars.


  But I’m doin’ you a favor, ‘cause dyin’s easy muthafucka,

  It’s livin that’s hard.

  He imagined a gun pointed at his every problem, embodied in a laughing shadow that his cocaine-mesmerized mind had conjured up in front of him. Then he realized that the shadow was his own, and his every problem was inside of himself. It was then when he put the gun to his temple and trembled for a reason not to. Look at you … Look at you, you ain’t shit. Fuckin’ nothin’, a nobody mu’fucka. So broke you gotta rob a nigga for his kicks just to rock?! Go ‘head … Do it, coward. Who gonna give a fuck? Who, huh, who?!

  His thoughts chided him, but his heart answered with one word.

  Sheena.

  He closed his eyes tight against the hot tears threatening to run free, just thinking about the only person he had, who stuck by him no matter what. Just on the strength of her commitment, he felt like he should pull the trigger and free her from his bullshit. But the love he felt, and the glimmer of hope it represented, made him lower the gun, take a deep breath, and head upstairs to their apartment.

  Crook lumbered up the stairs, wondering what he would tell Sheena. He had been gone since four P.M. and now it was past eleven and the electric bill wasn’t paid. He knew she would flip, so he prepared himself for it. Crook slid the key into the door and entered their small one bedroom home. Every time he entered that place, he was reminded of how much he hated it. It was so small, it felt like a prison cell. It didn’t matter that Sheena kept what little they had in immaculate condition, there was only so much you could do with flea market furniture and meager means.

  “Vic, I’m in the kitchen, baby,” Sheena called out, greeting him. He could hear the water sloshing from the dishes she was washing.