by Cash
Three days had passed since Kamora and I slumped Bryon and Sharena, but their bodies had just been discovered in the house the night before. Inez read the story thoroughly. “Now Delina will know how it feels,” she remarked unsympathetically.
I believed that my pop’s execution had turned Inez’s heart just as cold as mine. I tossed twenty bands on the table. “That’s just a little something for you and Tamia.”
“Thank you. Where is Ava?”
“She’s at the nail shop getting pampered. Can you believe she tried to get me to go along and get my shit done, too?”
“What!”
“Close your eyes and try to imagine that! I’m too G’d up.”
“That’s too funny.” Inez laughed.
Just then, Tamia and Bianca came busting into the house. When Tamia noticed me, she came and sat on my lap. “What’s good with my little sister? You getting your cute on today, I see,” I said. She was rocking pretty pink Coogi leggings with some fresh white lady Air Max’s that matched her pink and white long Coogi sweater.
“Yep, and the haters can’t stand my pretty girl swag,” she bragged.
“Oh my god! I think I’m going to throw up.” Bianca gagged in jest. Then she looked at me, rolled her eyes, and walked off.
Inez mouthed, “Never mind her.” I hunched my shoulders. Oh well, I couldn’t be mad at Bianca for catching a ‘tude with me over what I did to her father.
“She’ll get over it,” Inez said aloud.
“What are y’all talking about?” asked Tamia.
“Grown folks shit,” I responded in a playful tone.
Inez sent Tamia to her room to do her homework and to allow us some privacy. Once Tamia was out of earshot, Inez asked if I had wiped Byron’s place down real good before leaving. “I told you my hair fibers are what tied me to that thing I did with your father in Kentucky,” she said.
“Relax, I took care of all of that.”
“Are you sure?” Worry was etched on her face.
“Chill. You know I stay on point,” I reminded her, but knew that she was just double-checking because she didn’t wanna see me cased up.
Leaving Inez’s crib, I turned on the radio in my car and listened to the latest on the growing murder rate in the city. There was a mention of Byron and Sharena’s murders, but no mention of any suspect. I soaked up everything being reported, making sure I was not a suspect in the case. Satisfied that I was not, I pushed in a Jeezy CD and headed out to Swag’s studio in Roswell.
I was buzzed in after ringing the bell twice. The strong scent of exotic weed filled my nose as soon as I stepped inside. They had to be smoking that loud. A dozen niggas along with just as many dimed up chicks was up in there partying. Swag was seated on a couch getting dome from a bitch in front of everybody. Lil Mama had no shame! I smirked and accepted a blunt from a shawdy with a platinum colored weave that hung down to her ass. “What’s your name, Lil Daddy?” she asked, eating me up with her eyes. I peeped shawdy’s physique; she was built like Ciara the singer, but I still ain’t give her the satisfaction that I’d trick off with her.
“They call me Trouble.”
“Do you rap?” she inquired, eyeing the icy chain and urn piece around my neck.
“Nawl, I wrap niggas up.”
“Okay, nice meeting you,” she said and jetted off in search of a rap dude.
When I saw that Swag was done getting his dick sucked, I went over to him with a smirk on my face. “’Sup, unc? Nigga, you act like you’re still in your twenties.” I laughed.
“Shit don’t change,” he said, rolling up a blunt.
“I see. Y’all doing it up in this muthafucka. Naked bitches everywhere. You living the life, fam’. For real, you need a reality show because this shit right here is made for TV.”
“Oh, I’m working on that. That’s why I was out in LA,” he said. “Yo, you still fuck with Criminal?”
“Yeah, me and bruh eat noodles off the same fork.”
“You’re not GF, are you?”
“Nawl, but I contribute to their campaign. Why?”
“Nothin’. I just can’t see you being down with that because like your father, you’re your own man.”
“Fa’ sho’ but those are my niggas. I mean, it don’t matter to me what set a nigga represents. If he’s real, he’s real. I fuck with GF like that because of Criminal.”
“I feel you. Call bruh up and tell him to come out here. I wanna get that nigga on this track with TI. He’ll fall through in a minute.”
I hit Criminal up and told him the business. He was in the middle of a transaction but promised to come to the studio when he was done. Two hours later, he came through with a couple homies. They all knew Swag, so it was like a reunion.
Not long after Criminal arrived, TI and his man’s showed up. To paraphrase something Jay- Z said about another rapper, TI came through like hurricanes do. And the bitches damn near fainted. Swag introduced him to me. I dapped him, but I ain’t no groupie nigga.
“This Youngblood’s son?” TI asked Swag.
“Yeah, that’s him,” Swag said.
TI didn’t say another word, he just raised his arm and saluted me. I returned the salute. The rest was understood.
TI was straight business. He ignored the groupie bitches and stepped into the recording booth. When he spat his verse it was clear to all of us why he was known as the King of the South. I wondered if Criminal would be able to hold his own following the sixteen bars TI had just dropped.
Criminal was no slouch. Plus, he had real street stories to draw from, and his delivery was unique and flawless. My nigga spat pure venom. “Mob shit!” chanted his fam’.
He made us all proud. This was bruh holding his own with TI. Swag did the last verse and he kept it turned up. The song was sure to be a hit. I didn’t leave the studio until three in the morning. Then I had to get up at seven to catch a 9:30 a.m. flight. Inez and I were taking my sisters to New York to Christmas shop.
Ducats weren’t an issue. My bank was in order. I had been doing licks for years and stacking my money. Tommy Gun had paid me off for the forty-six blocks I had hit him off with months ago. Plus, I was still collecting taxes from Ladell, and a dozen other niggas.
In New York, my sisters purchased so much shit we had to get it shipped to Georgia. The last thing I bought them was the platinum chains and urns that they wanted. Juanita had promised to send some of our pop’s ashes, but the bitch was procrastinating. “If they’re not here soon, we’re flying out to Las Vegas and taking them from her ass,” I promised Inez.
She was with it. She was biting at the bit to get her hands on Juanita. And I was biting at the bit to get back to the ‘A,’ because shopping with four women will exhaust a nigga.
When we got back home, we all drove to South Carolina to visit Grandma Ann in the new facility that Inez had gotten her moved to. Grandma looked better, but her mind was still gone. That spoiled my holidays and visiting Big Ma and Laquanda’s graves further darkened my mood.
My only relief was to go out and look for a few of Zeke’s people. On successive nights I murked a coupla niggas Zeke fronted work to.
A day later, gunners caught me riding down Ralph McGill and tried to ambush me. They murdered my whip but failed to assassinate me. Although this time I did not walk away unscathed. I had caught a slug in the shoulder and another in my left hip. I was on the shelf for a minute but not long. And even wounded, my gangster remained official.
CHAPTER 26
Things quieted down a lot in the city over the next few months as I recuperated. But with winter fading away, I knew that things were about to get turned up again. Things remained the same with me. I was still pressing niggas and plotting on my enemies. So far Zeke had managed to outrun his fate, but hunting him down and spilling his every thought on the pavement remained a priority. It was no longer about the street taxes he refused to pay—now it was personal.
I rode in the passenger seat checking out the hood as Ava drove. It sudd
enly struck me that some sort of tragedy had occurred on damn near every block we passed. More than a few of those tragedies had my hand prints all over them. I could picture the bodies sprawled out on the pavement leaking blood in the gutter. I had no remorse for those who had been in the game. No apologies because my murder game had been wittier than theirs. My regret was for taking the lives of a few people who posed no threat to me. I looked to the sky and hoped that if there truly were a power greater than me, He would understand. I guess Big Ma’s years of uttering gospel had seeped through, if only just a little bit.
The skies opened up and the angels began to cry. I wondered which of the raindrops that pelted down on the windshield were Big Ma’s tears.
Something on my old block caught my attention. Two teenagers were beating a woman. “Stop the car, shawdy!” I shouted. Ava hit the brakes and I was out the car in an instant with my banger already out and down by my side.
“Back the fuck up off of her!” I barked. I didn’t recognize either boy.
“Nigga, mind ya own goddamn business and stay the fuck up out of mines before you get a beatdown, too,” threatened the biggest of the pair.
I raised my arm so that the Glock was pointed at his dome. All of the bass drained from his voice. “Man, this junkie ho stole—”
BAP! I slapped him in the mouth with the banger.
“That’s my mama, bitch ass nigga! I don’t care what she did; don’t you ever put your hands on her again. Understand me?”
BAP! I split his eye. He fell down on the ground next to Shan. His man tried to jet, but I shot his legs out from under him. He fell on his face screaming like a punk ass nigga.
I turned my attention back to the one that I had cracked across the head. “You think it’s gangsta to beat up a fiend? Nigga, show me where your heart at?” I spat dead in his face.
“Put that gun down and I’ll whoop yo ass, too!” He snorted.
My knuckle game was nice, but niggas in the Dirty didn’t fist fight. “You got some balls, huh?” I sneered.
BOC! I shot him between the legs.
“Now you got a pussy!”
He fell, clutching himself and yowling in pain. I snatched Shan up off the ground and pushed her into the backseat. By the time I hopped in the front, Ava was back behind the wheel, ready to zoom off.
Inside the car was silence. I was mad at myself for coming to Shan’s rescue, but I told myself that I had done it for Big Ma. “You need to get ya life right,” I grumbled.
“Who the fuck are you talking to?” Shan said.
“I should’ve let them niggas beat you to death!”
“Next time do that! Nigga, if you see me in a fight with a bear, help the bear!”
“Oh, now you wanna talk shit? Ava, pull over. I’m putting this bitch out in the rain.”
“No, Trouble.” Ava drove on.
“Stop the fucking car!” I yelled.
“Wait. Let us at least get out of the neighborhood in case someone called the po-po.” She was thinking for me.
When we reached a safe area, she pulled over to the curb. “Get out!” I gritted without turning around in the seat to look at Shan. She was straight pitiful. I could not believe I had come out of her womb. What my pop had ever seen in her was a mystery to me.
I heard the back door open, and then I felt my chain being snatched off my neck. It dangled in Shan’s hands as she ran through the rain. Though I now had a permanent limp, I ran her down in less than ten strides, but when I tried to take my chain back, she held on to it for dear life. It was as if the chain represented her only way to get some crack. Still, it did not mean as much to her as it meant to me. “Let it go!” I tussled with her. Her grip was strong and desperate. I yanked it away and the urn slipped off the chain and clunked onto the ground. The small lid popped open and my pop’s ashes spilled out and washed away in the rain. I fell to my knees and tried to save whatever hadn’t spilled out. When I reached for the urn, Shan kicked it away.
My mind snapped.
I pummeled her with both fists. She was curled up on the ground whimpering under the assault. I felt nothing but rage. I snatched my banger out and pointed it down at her. You ugly little bastard. You’re gonna end up on death row just like your daddy. I should’ve flushed your ugly ass down the toilet. I’m glad they executed his ass. All of the insults she had hurled at me drummed in my head. What she said about me didn’t matter. It was the way she spoke and felt about my pop that festered my hate. Now she had committed the ultimate disrespect to his memory. I looked down at her with no pity. “You ain’t shit!” I said. “You hated my pop because he was a nigga wit’ principles too strong for a rat like you to live up to. He didn’t do shit to you . . . you violated him! He should’ve murked your ass when he had the chance, and saved me a bullet!” I spazzed.
I was about to pull the trigger when Ava’s cry made me hesitate. “Nooo, Trouble! Don’t do it.” She held on to my arm.
“Let me go, shawdy. This bitch don’t deserve to live.”
“She’s your mother!”
I wasn’t tryna hear that fuck shit. Ava clung to my arm so that I wouldn’t do it, but my mind was set. I slung her back and forth, trying to shake her loose. She would not let go. Finally, I threw her to the ground. My moment had come. I was about to put Shan out of her misery, once and for all.
Suddenly, Ava did the only thing that could’ve stopped me from slumping Shan. She crawled on top of her and covered her body with her own.
I took my finger off the trigger and tucked the banger back in my waist. Rain poured down on us all. I picked the urn up off the ground and saw that it was empty of my pop’s remains. “Just tell me why you hated him so much?” I snarled as I looked down at Shan.
She didn’t respond.
“You’re pitiful. I don’t have to murk you, you’ll smoke your own damn self to death,” I said with disdain.
“Get up, shawdy. I’m not gonna shoot her,” I told Ava.
“Promise me,” she demanded.
“On all that I love,” I avowed.
I understood why Ava had protected Shan’s life with her own. She had lost her mother to cancer at a young age; mothers were sacred to her. “You should’ve let me put that bitch out of her misery.” I drove off, leaving Shan in a downpour of rain.
“You don’t really feel that way. Because if you did, you wouldn’t have done what you did when you saw those boys beating on her.”
“Whateva, shawdy. All I know is that I hate that slimy ass bitch,” I said.
“Don’t talk like that. She’s still your mother, regardless. I would give anything to have my mother here with me. It wouldn’t matter if she was a crack head, a drunk or a two dollar whore—as long as I could go to her sometimes and just lay my head on her lap. I’d cherish those moments,” lamented Ava.
I felt the same way about Big Ma. If I could just lay my head on her lap everything would be all right. But no matter how I tried. I could not feel that same love for Shan. I hated her more than Ava was capable of understanding.
“You should’ve stayed out of the fuckin’ way and let me kill that rat ass bitch,” I said as I recalled that Shan had tried to prostitute Laquanda.
CHAPTER 27
“Umph ump umph!” Inez shook her head in disgust when I told her how my pop’s ashes had been spilled and washed away. “That woman is a hot ass mess!”
“I’m telling you, if Ava wouldn’t have done what she did, I was gonna push Shan’s little ass ponytail all the way back.”
Inez laughed, and then said seriously, “I’m glad that you didn’t. If for no other reason than it would’ve caused Poochie to roll over in her grave.”
“Fuck that, I was gonna put Shan in a grave of her own,” I said, firing up a blunt.
We were inside a hotel suite in Las Vegas, not far from where Juanita resided. Inez had accompanied me there on the airplane. We stayed up most of the night talking. In the morning, we rented a car and drove to the address we had for Jua
nita. On the way to her house, I called to speak with her, but I did not let her know that we were in town. I just wanted to make sure she was at home.
I was still on the phone with her when we pulled up to her crib. “I gotta call you back,” I said in a hurry and hung up.
Juanita stayed in Summerlin in a large stucco home with a cobble stone driveway. The luxuries my pop’s CD royalties provided her were obvious. The lawn was as tight as a fresh hair-cut with a sharp razor line. A Benz was parked in the driveway and one of those new Cadillac trucks. I knew that Juanita had become a psychologist and made a sweet check of her own, but intuition told me that what I was looking at came from my pop’s dough. When I made the comment to Inez, she replied, “You damn right. This trick out here ballin’ and don’t want to do anything for you or his other children. That’s what burns me up!”
I had to tell Inez to pipe down as we approached the door. She regained her composure, and rang the doorbell with a fake smile plastered across her face. I chuckled at her Dr. Jekyll, Mrs. Hyde antics because she was looking like a madwoman moments ago. Finally, Justice answered the door looking as nerdy as he sounded on the phone. All he was missing was a pair of suspenders. This little soft looking nigga can’t be my pop’s son. We need to take this shit to the Maury show, I stood there thinking.
“May I help you?” he asked. He didn’t recognize me. We had only met once, right after my pop was executed.
“‘Sup, lil nigga? I’m Lil T, your brother.”
He looked at me with nothing in his eyes. There was no bond between us. “Mom, Little T and some woman is at the door,” he called to Juanita. She came to the door right away.
Instantly, I knew how she caught my pop’s eye. Her appearance screamed Basketball Wives. “Terrence Junior, what on earth are you doing way out here? Inez, is he running from the police?” she asked, looking alarmed.
“No, he’s not. May we come inside?” Inez scoffed.
“Yes, but I’m afraid you can’t stay long. I was about to go to the gym with a friend.” She stepped aside and let us in.
Justice was watching me like he thought I might steal something.
