True to the Game I

by Teri Woods

  Once the girl realized she’d been recognized, she hurried away.

  “Bitches are so desperate,” said Bev.

  “She straight played herself,” said Tina.

  “I know. Did you see them haul her ass out of here?” asked Gina.

  “So embarrassing,” said Tina, shaking her head.

  Bev was savoring the gossip. “Wait til I get back in the hair salon. You know, she the one who is supposed to have the baby by Quadir, but don’t say nothing.”

  “We won’t.” Tina and Gina gave each other a knowing glance.

  Gena was across the room greeting everyone. She finally saw her cousins, Bria and Brianna. Quadir was busy introducing his friends to Gena’s friends, trying to hook everybody up. Gena couldn’t believe the number of people surrounding her.

  “Tonight’s the night,” whispered Rik.

  “Rich Green?” asked Qua.

  “Yes.”

  Quadir was thoughtful. “You know Jerrell isn’t gonna like this.”

  “I know, let him bring the noise. He started this shit. He’s been fucking up my pockets for the longest. Enough is enough. He pushing every motherfucker I know not to buy coke from me. You know how many bricks I can’t get rid of because of him?”

  “You, what about me?”

  Quinny Day showed up at their table. “Yo, this was really nice, man. I can’t stay for dessert, but I just wanted to let you know this was real smooth, Ock.”

  “Where you got to go, Quinny?” asked Rik feeling a heavy weight of frustration just seeing Quinny’s happy face.

  “Nowhere. I just got to meet this girl. She’s going back to Connecticut and, you know, I’m just saying good-bye to her tonight, if you catch my drift.”

  “I hear you, player,” said Quadir.

  Rik spoke up. “When you gonna have my money, Quint?” He’d given Quinny two keys three weeks ago and was starting to wonder when he was going to get paid.

  “Nigga, I got you. Don’t sweat that shit, baby. Be cool. I got you.” Tyrik just shook his head, watching Quinny mingle himself away in the crowd. Wasn’t nothing he could do with the boy. Quinny Day never had his money. If he weren’t Lita’s cousin, he’d have had him knocked off.

  “Why do I continue to even ask that motherfucker for my money? Do you know what he owes me? Them motherfuckers Lita’s related to are a trip.”

  “Rik, I want to get out of this shit,” Quadir said.

  “Out of what?” Rik had no idea what his mentor could be talking about.

  “The game. This shit is too much for me. I want to sit at home instead of hustling out here in these streets.”

  “I know that’s right. The motherfuckers is passing out time like it’s government cheese.”

  Qua turned to face him. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. Cherelle calls the house and she follows me around. The bitch is a fatal attraction.”

  “You played it real cool, though. You didn’t even blink when you seen her walking over to you.”

  “Shit, I wanted to run my ass the fuck out of this motherfucker, but Gena’s nosey-ass girlfriends would’ve had something to say.”

  “Those bitch-ass girlfriends she got. How do you take it? I done fucked almost all of them.” Qua’s eyebrows went up at the revelation and Rik warmed to his subject. “The only one I was really fucking with though was that Veronica bitch, and she tried to baby trap me, man.”

  “Yeah, right. I heard.”

  “I admit I was sweating the girl back in the day, but sis wouldn’t give me no play, then I got a little paper. You know, became the man, and who do you suppose was on my dick?”

  “Veronica.”

  “I been playin’ that bitch ever since.” The brothers clinked their glasses and drank. On the table sat two bottles of Dom and one bottle of Remy XO.

  Gena took advantage of a lull in her own conversations to look around. The Malibu Dining Room was fabulous. The only thing missing was Sahirah. Her pretty face, her small frame, and her warm smile. If only she was there with her. She’s the one that pulled over Rasun that day in Harlem. If it hadn’t been for her Gena wouldn’t be standing there, portraying the perfect queen of the crack stars. “Sahirah,” she mouthed. I miss you so much, she thought. Not a day would pass without Sahirah being in her thoughts. She held her glass up, and there was Sahirah with her. A toast for old times, thought Gena. She toasted to the memory of her best friend.

  “Hey, Gena. Happy birthday,” Black said, trying to figure what she was staring at.

  “Hi. Where’s Pam?”

  “Home with the kids. Where’s Q?”

  “See him? He’s over there, at that table in the corner,” she said, pointing as Black brought Rik and Quadir into view. As soon as he had left, she heard someone singing, “It’s your birthday, happy birthday, it’s your birthday.”

  “Charlie tuna, you’re so crazy.”

  “Yo, Gena. You think you can hook me up?”

  “Hook you up how?”

  “I’m trying to see your girlfriend.”

  “Who?”

  He suddenly noticed her wrist. “Goddamn! That motherfucker is all that.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “You playin’ with this piece right here. This is some real high-powered shit. Damn, let me step the fuck back!” She stood there laughing and smiling as Charlie gassed her head up. Finally getting back to the point of why he stepped to Gena, he asked, “Are you gonna hook me up or not?”

  “Hook you up with who?”

  “Baby, it don’t matter. Give me a quiet one. Y’all women got too much mouth these days, always yappin’. Give me one that don’t talk.”

  “What? We’re not supposed to talk?”

  “Yeah. When somebody says something to you.”

  Charlie spotted a girl who attracted him. “Hook me up with her?”

  Gena smiled. Charlie had chosen Bev from LeChevue and she never shut up. “Beverly.” Gena took her girlfriend’s hand and made a complete introduction. She left them there to talk as she walked over to Quadir. Coming up behind him, Gena put her arms around him, bent down and started licking his ear. “I’m ready to go home,” she whispered.

  They began to say good-bye to everybody who’d come out to get a free lobster and champagne meal. Qua told her, “I’ll be back. I’m going to take care of the bill so we can go home.” Gena turned to see Andrea watching her slink into her to-the-floor mink.

  “You leaving?”

  “Yeah, we’re going on home.”

  “I know you’ve had a happy birthday, and the shit ain’t until tomorrow.’’

  “Yes, this is true.” She jingled her bracelet for Andrea. “Qua really surprised me. First the bracelet, the outfit, and to top it off, dinner with all our friends. This was enough.”

  “You’re so lucky.”

  “I’m blessed.”

  Rik was just hanging up the pay phone outside the dining room. “Yo, check it out.” He pulled Quadir over to him. “Rich Green is no longer a member of the life force as it exists on this earth.”

  “Dead?”

  “Through the heart and through the head. Nigga said since he fucked his baby mom, he shot him in the dick too.”

  “Damn.”

  “Quadir, don’t look so sad, ’cause the nigga was plotting. Always riding around the same corners, all damn day and night. Trust me, the boy Rich had a list. Junie was locked up with my brother and told him everybody was on the list. Shit, the nigga’s list was so long, by the time the Junior Mafia finished, it wouldn’t be nobody left.”

  Quadir said good-bye to Rik and shook hands with a few other brothers before finding Gena. Getting into the car Gena looked at her man. “I can’t believe you did all of this for me.”

  “Gena, tonight was nothing compared with what I have in store for us. This is just the beginning.”

  THE CHEDDAR WILL BE BETTER

  Qua sat in the living room of his secret hideout, and placed the counting machine on the table. Pulli
ng a chair, he organized all the money in the safe. He plugged the counting machine into a socket, sat back, and watched it do its job. Two hours later the total was looking him in the face. Got to be a mistake, he thought. But, there was no mistake. He was speechless. The machine totaled his money at 17.2 million dollars. “I’m a millionaire,” he said to the fish in the tank. He had an idea but had never counted the money that was in the safe. He wanted to jump, shout, knock himself out!

  Then he sat down and began counting it again. The total was the same. He ran his hands through the bills, stuffing them into his pockets, his shirt, his baseball cap, in his jeans, all hundred-dollar bills.

  In front of the mirror, seeing all these green pieces of paper falling out of his clothing, he thought to himself, All that money. Drug money! There’s a lot of paper in the ghetto.

  Quadir sat back and looked at all the stacks of money surrounding him. The years of hustling had paid off. People spend their entire lives working to retire and still don’t have shit. Quadir, on the other hand, had hustled for five years, and could retire at the age of twenty-five a millionaire, never working an honest day in his life. He sat down on the sofa in the sea of money scattered around him. It made him nervous. For the first time, he saw his wealth and for the first time, he saw what he really was: a drug dealer. He knew it was wrong. All that he did for the hustle was a constant reminder of his own greed. Down to his last 200 kilos of cocaine, he didn’t want to purchase any more. For $3,800 a kilo, who wouldn’t? But with seventeen million staring down your throat, why? He was not thinking of finances. He was thinking about the Junior Mafia. He knew that it was a matter of time before he was a direct target. Things were getting real complicated in the streets. The police were downright dirty. They would stick you up, set you up, and give you a case.

  The brothers were just as bad. Everybody had guns. Everybody. Even little kids had guns. Your life meant nothing. It was all about money, who had it and who didn’t. Not only had Quadir beat the odds, but also lived to tell about it, not owing any debts and not owing any favors. That in itself was a task, as most of Quadir’s friends were dead or in jail.

  He thought of Tony Santero and the Cartel. He thought of Barranquilla, Colombia and Carlos Escobar. He met Tony’s uncle, Carlos Escobar, only once. Carlos was so captivating, even with his intense dislike for the United States. Quadir totally enjoyed his conversation. The man had everything he wanted and desired at his fingertips. Tony’s mother was an Escobar. She married a Santero and had three sons. Two of the sons and her husband were killed in a boating accident on the Panama Canal in 1968, when Tony was a little boy. She and her only son then moved with her brother, Carlos. Carlos raised Tony like his own son. He turned over some of the family affairs to Tony, who took on the responsibility of serving the United States. Through governmental and diplomatic contacts, Tony was free to serve countries. Carlos had two brothers and three sons all of whom controlled and shared the Colombian drug profits.

  After Quadir understood the trade game, he understood who had the power. It definitely was not the brothers. The brothers got caught up too, but not just them. It seemed like everyone was getting high. The upper class, not just the poor, contributed and depended on it. He thought of the sisters who were out there using and selling their bodies for a gusto, the brothers and sisters who were robbing their own mothers and grandmothers. He thought of his financial destiny: matches torn in two. He thought of the seventeen million dollars. Shit was too good to be true.

  How could he stop? How could he tell Tony? What would he say? What would he do? For three weeks, Quadir continued business as usual. Dropping his price down to ten thousand dollars a kilo. Everybody and their mother was trying to see Rasun and Reds, who had basically taken over the Av. Quadir couldn’t figure it out. Seemed like out of nowhere, not only were they selling his shit, but also buying shit from him and doing their own thing. Rik and Forty were tearing up the drug game down Richard Allen. After the death of Rock, Rik and Quadir paid out two hundred thousand dollars to have five members of the Junior Mafia assassinated. Within the past three weeks in the city there had been twelve drug-related murders, all of which directly involved the Junior Mafia.

  Quadir was tired of the small circuit. He was tired of the drug game. He wanted to not have to walk or drive so fast. He didn’t want to look over his shoulder or peek around corners. He was ready to take his money and sit back, enjoy life.

  Finally, Qua paged Tony and sat back and waited. An hour later, Tony Santero was telling him that he would be there in three more weeks.

  “That’s what I was calling to speak to you about.”

  “Is there something wrong, Quadir?”

  “It’s like this. I’m not going to re-up.”

  “What? What the hell do you mean, retire?”

  “What I said, Tony. I’m done, man. I’m finished. I can’t take it anymore. This shit is really starting to get to me. It’s like, every day and every night, I got people chasing me down. Gimme this and gimme that. And then there’s the Junior Mafia. They been knocking off my family.”

  “Well, kill them back,” Tony said, not understanding.

  “Everyone is going for self. Things are changing. They are losing honor. Everybody’s snitching now, and then there’s Gena. I’m not spending any time with her. I want to retire alive.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I know. That’s one nice-looking girl you got there. She’s real nice, man. You know I would love to fuck her.”

  “Yeah, but you can’t, so why feel it?”

  “See, that’s the problem with you black guys. You don’t like to share, do you?”

  “I’ll share some pussy with you, Tony. Just not that pussy.”

  “Well, are you sure that’s what you want to do?”

  “Yeah, I’m positive.”

  “Well, how can I say this? Um, you can’t do nothing, man; you can’t lie to me. But, if you’re really stopping and you want out, then fine, okay. Give me five million dollars and you are free to go.” Five million rolled out of his tongue behind the Colombian accent, as his voice grew stern. “And, remember, you’re retired. I find out that you’re lying to me, you know you’d be betraying me and my family. You know I’ll know what you’re doing?”

  “Tony, on my life, you took care of me and you helped me. I would never cross you. Why not two?”

  “No, for you, four million, Quadir, and no less.”

  “Three.”

  “Four.”

  “Three and a quarter.”

  “Three and a half and that’s it.”

  “Okay, three and a half it is.”

  “Take it to the Princess docked at the harbor. Give it to my cousin Sancho; take his number.”

  Breathing easier, Qua thanked him.

  “Keep in touch, Q, and remember what I said. You’re retired.”

  Quadir separated three and a half million dollars, and put the rest back in the bags and locked it in the safe.

  Gena was glad to be out of chemistry class and drove straight home. She marveled at the sight of Qua’s keys on the vestibule table. “Quadir, are you here?”

  “Yeah!”

  “Where are you?”

  “Down here!”

  “What’s up?”

  “Come here, baby, we got to talk.”

  She joined him in the playroom, wondering what was up, and walked into his arms.

  “I’ve been thinking lately, Gena. You know, I haven’t been home a lot lately. I’ve been so busy taking care of business that I haven’t been taking care of you.”

  True enough, thought Gena, taking a seat. So, he’s finally fessin’ up about the bitch Cherelle.

  “I talked with Tony today. I told him I was done. Finished. Out of the game. The coke I got, I’m going to get rid of, and then that’s it.”

  Gena couldn’t speak, her mind racing to compute the implications of his retirement from the game. Did I push him too far? Did I demand too much? Will they let him retire? Where wil
l all that shopping money come from, if he stops? She kept her cool and listened to him.

  He slipped a small baby-blue box out of his pocket. He opened it and showed her the contents. “Will you marry me, Gena?” He took the ring out of the holder and slipped it on her finger.

  “I have never seen a diamond this big before!”

  “It’s ten karats.”

  Gena was in shock. She couldn’t believe he was coming at her with marriage.

  “Gena, you haven’t answered my question. Do you want me to get on one knee?”

  “Qua, please,” she smirked. “You would get on one knee?”

  He bent his knee to the floor before her, and said, “Janel Louise Scott, will you marry me?”

  “Quadir, please get up. You’re going to make me cry.”

  “Not until you answer me, not until you say you’ll marry me. You’re all that matters to me, and I want you to be my wife.”

  His face told her this was not fun and games; he was serious. “Yes, Quadir Montell Richards, I will marry you.” She got down on her knees with him and put her arms about him.

  The ringing phone broke the reverie. He smiled, watching her run upstairs as he picked up the phone.

  “Hello?”

  “I need some money for your daughter, Quadir,” said a female voice.

  “Look, don’t ever call my home again,” he said as he slammed the phone down. It immediately rang again.

  “Hello.”

  “Don’t fucking tell me not to call there, motherfucker. You got a child that you don’t do shit for,” said the girl.

  “Look, Cherelle, if you need something for the baby, I will send it to you. I will call Rasun and he can bring you whatever you need.”

  “No bitch, you bring it. Rasun didn’t fuck for this baby, you did.”

  “Who you think you’re playing with?”

  “Who am I talking to? Ain’t nobody else on the goddamn phone.”

  “I told you if you need something, then page me. I’ll see to it that you get it.” He hung up as the phone rang.

  “Bitch, stop calling my motherfucking house.”