Payback Ain't Enough

by Clark, Wahida

  She had me all hyped up as I scanned the room.

  “Stay with me now. The brother with the light eyes, that’s Born Mathematics. He’s the opposite of Cisco. He’s low-key, ruthless and will be much harder to get to. He screens everybody in his camp, and he digs more into your background than a mortgage underwriter. He got mad bodies under his belt. Cisco may be the nigga we go after first. I think he’s gonna be real easy. All you gotta do is feed his already bigass ego.”

  Then my cousin’s head popped up, and she snatched off her shades. “Oh shit! Oh shit!” she kept saying.

  “What?” I asked, noticing that several people were squirming in their seats just like Sharia was.

  “I don’t believe this,” she said as she hurried and put her shades back on. “Where the fuck did Boomer come from? If he’s here, then where is Big Choppa? Word on the street was Born killed him,” she added in a little over a whisper.

  Suddenly, a titter rippled and roared through the church. There was now lots of mumbling going on among Detroit’s underworld.

  “Why is everyone trippin’? And who is this big, black, fat nigga that got all of y’all in here all squeamish and shit?” I begged her to tell me. I needed to know the nigga causing all of this commotion.

  “Boy, that’s Big Boomer. Big Choppa’s muscle. Oh… my… God. I thought he was dead. So, where is Choppa? This is gonna be good,” she squealed, sounding like all she needed was some popcorn and a soda so that she could watch her favorite movie.

  I watched him go up to the casket, toss a black rose on top of it and just like that, his big, fat ass was gone. Real smooth, I thought to myself.

  “There’s Briggen. That’s Forever’s brother,” she said and damn near broke my rib with her elbow.

  Yeah, that was him. Forever talked about him a lot. I used to tell him that I couldn’t get with two brothers falling out over the same pussy. That shit made no damn sense to me. The code is supposed to be MOB: Money Over Bitches. I had to crane my neck because people were all around him. I felt like I knew him already. He was the dude I saw in the pictures which were obviously outdated. This guy looked like a much-older, sterner and darker Forever. He turned and looked directly at me as if he knew who I was and what I did to his brother. Damn. That shit creeped me out and caused the hairs on my neck to stand up. I felt that I saw all that I needed to see for the day. I was ready to bounce.

  BRIGGEN

  When I entered the church I was instantly turned off. All these niggas we hadn’t seen in years were packed in here like sardines. It’s funny how when a nigga is out on these streets you can hardly find a loyal nigga. But drop dead and everybody is your best friend.

  I wiped my feet on the rug and proceeded forward. All I could hear were voices coming at me saying, “Sorry for your loss,” “Hang in there, soldier.” And the most famous of them all, “He’s in a better place.” How the fuck is dead a better place?

  People were patting my back and rubbing my arm. I didn’t even stop. I kept my cold demeanor and kept it moving. I looked around to pinpoint where the family was sitting. I saw my mom being comforted by my little cousin.

  I began walking down the plush red carpet to make my way to the casket when I became overwhelmed with grief. Each step became a struggle. My heart sank into my stomach at the thought of the figure that lay before me being my little brother, the same one I taught to ride a bike and to tie his shoes. I flashed back to the last civil conversation we had in which we promised to never let any of this hustling shit come between us. A promise neither one of us kept. The same game that had given us so much had taken everything back.

  When I reached the casket and peered down at him, a lump formed in my throat and all that tough shit went right out the window. My soul began to ache as tears formed in my eyes, threatening to run down, ignoring the dark shades I had on. I grabbed the handkerchief from my pocket and caught them just as they were about to fall. I took a deep breath before I attempted to make my peace.

  “You free now, little bruh.” I put my hand on top of his. “On my son, the nigga who did this to you won’t live.” I said a quick silent prayer. When I turned around, all eyes were on me like I was going to go off. I headed toward my mother and sat down. It was almost time to start the services, or as I like to call them, “the theatrics.” Here you had a so-called man of God about to speak good over a man who never stepped foot in a church, killed niggas as if it was legal and sold more dope than a little bit. A bunch of bullshit if you asked me. But hey, it’s the American way. My mother clutched my hand tight as the organ started to play.

  SHARIA

  I was not expecting a jaw-dropping moment at Forever’s funeral. But instead of one moment, I got two. When Boomer walked in, that was my first moment. Him and Big Choppa ran Memphis and the surrounding cities, and they were working on taking over the ‘D’. But the Feds finally ran down on them a few years earlier. They even rounded up Choppa’s two daughters. Everybody thought that Boomer and Choppa got taken out by Born, but now that Boomer was around, I’m sure Big Choppa had to be somewhere nearby. Where there’s smoke there’s fire. Boomer showing up at Forever’s funeral? I can only attribute that to one thing. He wanted niggas to know that the HNIC was alive and well, and was getting ready to do business as usual. I had to find that out for sure before we moved in on Cisco, because if Choppa was back, that was our man. Hell, that would be a dream come true. From what I knew, Cisco was peanuts compared to Big Choppa.

  Seeing Briggen for that brief moment was my second jaw-dropping moment. I couldn’t remember the last time I saw him. When he looked over in our direction for that brief moment, I felt totally naked. I couldn’t tell if he recognized me or not. He was that good at wearing a poker face and having a poker game attitude, if there was such a thing. However, seeing him only magnified the love-hate thing I had for him. We had a little history.

  Calvin, whose street name was “Briggen,” was a ladies’ man—more like a ladies’ magnet. Once you start fucking with him you get pulled in… for life. I don’t know any other way to explain it, or rather, him. Don’t get me wrong. He was a good-hearted person, and he definitely looked out when you were on his team. But being on his team came at a price. It was all about business, and you had to get in line with the many ladies. He didn’t keep a lady; he had ladies. Briggen couldn’t just have one lady. Like most sorry-ass Negroes, he had to have several at a time, whether you liked it or not. When he was done with you or felt the relationship served its purpose, he turned into a different person. I thought I could be the one to change him, but instead, he ended up fucking me right out of my livelihood and destroyed my life in the process. He took my club, the one thing that I built from the ground up with my very own sweat and blood and dared me to do something about it. But I promise you, when it comes to Briggen, Payback Ain’t Enough.

  “Let’s go, Dark. You movin’ too slow,” I snapped at my cousin.

  “Why you buggin’ out all of a sudden?” he asked. “Oh, I know. Seeing your ex stirred up some old feelings, huh? I told you he still had you open.”

  “Fuck you, Dark. Ain’t nobody got me open, but the dolla dolla bill.”

  “Yeah, right. If that nigga would have come over to you and said let’s go, you would have left me in the dust.”

  I didn’t have a snappy comeback for my cousin’s remark. Simply because if that would have happened, I don’t know what I would have done.

  JANAY

  “Carter, get dressed. You’re going to court. I’ll be back in ten minutes,” Pittman, the guard, announced.

  I pulled the blanket off my head and looked at the green fluorescent numbers on my clock. It said 2:07 A.M. I stuck my head over the side of the bunk and looked down at my cellie, Esther.

  “Esther,” I whispered.

  “What, Janay?” she whispered back.

  “Did she say for me to get up and get ready for court?” I asked as if it were a dream.

  “Yes!” she snapped, which als
o meant, leave her the hell alone.

  I sat up, snatched the blanket off me, swung my legs around and jumped off the top bunk. My feet hit the cold concrete, and I quickly stepped in my bunkie’s flip-flops and sat on the cold, steel toilet. I was warm and toasty under my blanket and didn’t want to get up and pee in the middle of the night. Now my bladder felt as if it was about to burst. After I relieved myself, I hit the silver flush button on the loud toilet and then went to my cell door. Something I did countless times here in the Fed’s holding facility in Detroit.

  “Crystal!” I yelled for my sister. Her cell was on the same tier but all the way at the opposite end.

  “Shut the fuck up!” some unknown voice yelled back.

  “Disrespectful bitch! It’s two in the damn morning. Folks got to work in the morning.” I recognized Miss Anthony’s voice.

  “Fuck y’all! Y’all do the same shit!” I yelled right back at them bitches. “Crystal! They woke me up for court!” I announced.

  “Me too. Do you know what for?” she asked.

  “Naw, man,” I told her, but as I started getting ready, I said to myself, “It’s probably to slap some new charges on us.” But I couldn’t tell her that because she was just adjusting to the fact that we were in here. She was such a wimp.

  Later on, we rode about thirty minutes to the Jackson courthouse, hands and feet shackled. We both were on pins and needles from the moment we got dressed and stepped on the bus. “Nay, what do you think they are going to do to us?” my sister asked me.

  “How would I know, Crystal? I know just as much as you.” And that was the truth. When the Feds ran down on us a little over two years back, we had a dead body lying on my living-room floor and were the daughters of Kingpin Big Choppa, who was on top of the FBI’s most wanted list but was nowhere to be found. And because of that, they held us as bait. They were still holding us, thinking it would bring him out of hiding, or we would give them all of the information they needed to put a tight seal on the case that they built around him. But we didn’t know shit. Hell, he hadn’t even sent us a letter. When my daddy up and disappeared, he did so without a trace. My thoughts were that they were getting desperate and frustrated and now I was sure they were bringing us to court to slap more charges on us.

  “I swear, Nay, I can’t take this. If they throw more charges on us, I don’t know what I’m gonna do. We already don’t know if we ever gettin’ out of this bitch.”

  I understood where my sister was coming from.

  When we arrived at the courthouse, they unchained every one of us that was on that prison transport bus. Men and women. My sister and I were put in a holding cell with six other ladies. We remained in the freezing cell until after lunch. By that time I was mentally drained and way beyond aggravated.

  When they finally escorted us into the courtroom, it was as if I walked into a different world. It was soundproof, quiet and plush. I saw our attorney Jack Brunswick and then did a double take. I had to be hallucinating. My father stood there in a navy blue pin-striped suit, and a shiny bald head with a tan. When Crystal started screaming I knew that my daddy was real.

  “Daddy!” we screamed as my sister and I started to dash toward him, but the marshals grabbed us both as if we were about to shoot the place up. “Please, let me speak to my father,” I begged. A marshal grabbed us by each arm, lifted us up and took us to the opposite side of the room.

  “Nay and Crystal, it’s okay,” my daddy said. It sounded so good to hear my daddy say my name.

  “Daddy?” was the only word that I could babble. I still couldn’t believe it was him. My dad looked as if he had lost a hundred pounds. I knew he had cancer, but would he be dying within the next month or so? I thought as every scenario ran through my brain.

  “Your Honor, I need to have a word with my clients. Please, consider that this was all done in haste and at the request of the government. They wanted to get this over with as soon as possible. Especially since, you, the presiding judge on this case will be going on vacation,” Jack, my daddy’s attorney and friend of over thirteen years, said.

  “Five minutes, Mr. Brunswick,” Judge Silverstein said as she banged her gavel. Her bright red hair was piled high on top of her head and wrapped in a bun. She looked to be around fifty as she peered over the top of her wire-rimmed glasses at me and my sister. I had heard that for a white judge she tried not to be an asshole. “Your clients can have a reunion outside of this courtroom on your own time. Not the court’s time.”

  The second she said that Crystal and I jumped up and made a mad dash over to our father. He grabbed us both and all three of us were crying. I missed my pops so much and always prayed that I would be able to see him again.

  “Okay,” Jack said interrupting our family reunion, “let me bring the girls up to speed.”

  As Jack ran down all that was going on, my mind began to run wild. I was right. The Feds didn’t want us; they wanted my dad. They had been watching his operation for years. So now here he was turning himself in, in exchange for freeing us. I wasn’t comfortable with that at all.

  “Daddy, are you sure?” I asked him. “What if it’s a trick? And what about your health?”

  “Yes, he’s sure, Janay,” my weak-ass sister snapped at me. No one paid her any mind though.

  “I’ll be fine. Hell, I’m damn near sixty-eight. I ain’t got much time left. I lived my life, and for that I’m grateful. I can’t be selfish. Y’all are young and damn sure don’t need to be sitting in some damn jail cell for the next twenty years.” He moved in closer and put his lips to my ear. “I just want you to carry on the legacy. I owned the game, and I want my baby girl to remind them niggas out there of that. You hear me?” His words resonated in my head.

  So that’s what this is all about. My daddy wants me to take over that which he built. Damn. I just can’t get out from under his wing. Ever since I was seventeen, I knew how to cut, cook and serve dope. Even though I was thrilled at the possibility of getting out of prison, I wasn’t saying to myself, “Hooray! I am so looking forward to getting back into the dope game.” I was tired of the shit. We had our run. So much for not being selfish. If at age sixty-eight he was on his way to prison, then what’s the point of me carrying on his legacy?

  CHAPTER FOUR

  BRIGGEN

  “I know that this is a lot to have come down on you all at once, but Calvin, it is what it is,” Rudy, my attorney said, as he sat across from me. A week has passed since Forever’s funeral, and I had finally made it to his office.

  “So, what are my options?” I asked, as if I had many to choose from.

  “The indictment is definitely coming down. She’s a snitch for crying out loud,” he proclaimed as he took the stack of papers fanning them in my face.

  “Then why haven’t the muthafuckas locked my ass up?” I challenged Rudy.

  “Trust me, it’s coming. Plus, remember, you pay me to prolong some things as long as I can.”

  “I understand that. However, can you assure me that I can get a bond? If not, I’m telling you, me and my family are out of here,” I promised him.

  “I don’t see any reason why they shouldn’t grant you a bond,” he assured me. “Look, Calvin, you’re worried about the wrong thing. That’s my job. And after careful scrutiny of the indictment, I do think we can find some holes in it. But that’s my job. Let me do what you pay me to do.”

  I got up and walked out of the office, mad as fuck. I worked at keeping myself out of all equations, then all of a sudden, I was at the top of the list on an indictment. I didn’t know how I was going to tell Shan, or if I should tell her at all.

  SHAN

  I looked over at my son taking a nap on the couch. Anthony was only eighteen months, and here I was pregnant again. If Briggen didn’t get anyone to help me, I was going to have to walk away from overseeing our day-care center and the motel. Shit, he could sell them both for all I cared. Well, not the day care, because I did drop off Anthony sometimes. But having a
child was like having three businesses. Add that to having a husband and taking care of the house, and that shit was overwhelming. I was tired simply at the thought of it all. I already didn’t have a life. Outside of Briggen, and with this new baby on the way, combined with him and his mood swings and Nick telling me that Briggen was out there hustling hard, I couldn’t see any relief.

  “Shan, the boy is asleep. Go!” Keeta, Briggen’s cousin, hissed as she was pushing me out the door. Her daughter was babysitting while she and I went out. I was on my way home to get my shoes and matching bag.

  “I’m going, damn,” I said as I got shoved. Who pushes a pregnant lady?

  “Then hurry up. And don’t get all the way home only to call me up to say you aren’t going. I didn’t do all that work on you for my damn health,” Keeta warned.

  I laughed. “You call this work? I look like a damn clown,” I teased her. My nose was starting to spread across my puffy, pregnant face.

  “Bitch, please. You ready for a cover shoot. Just pick the magazine and I’ll make it happen,” she bragged.

  Earlier we went to Neiman Marcus and I found this cute little short trench dress by Gaultier. I got it for $2,700. I had to have it because I had the perfect platform bootie sandals and Céline bag already at home to match. I brought the sandals, and Briggen had given me the bag last summer.

  I already had the dress on, Keeta did my makeup, which I don’t even wear, and I put on these long-ass, thick, fake eye-lashes which had me looking like Betty Boop. I didn’t even recognize myself. Briggen talked me into cutting off my locks, so I was wearing my hair short and permed and Keeta had just styled the hell out of it.

  “Shan, I’m not playing with you!” Keeta yelled out the door.

  “Girl, just keep an eye on my son. I’ll be back,” I said, jumping into my whip.