by Cash
I felt no remorse as the poison attacked her system, and she lost control of her bowels. It was with a smile that I left the bitch stinkin’. “For you, pop,” I said, touching my chain.
Back inside my room at the hotel, I celebrated by sparking a blunt and poppin’ a bottle of Ace of Spade. Pop, it’s almost over. I done slumped them all except Lonnie, but I got a plan for that ass, too.
Only death could stop me.
CHAPTER 39
Inez wanted a blow by blow account of Delina’s body’s reaction to the poison.
“You’re kind of sick in the head. Did you know that?” I half-joked, sitting next to her on the living room sofa.
“No, I’m not. I hope that bitch suffered before she died because what she did was foul,” Inez said.
“She suffered—take my word for it,” I said.
“No, I want to hear what happened,” she demanded. So I described every moment from the second I entered the basement window until Delina took her last breath.
Inez’s eyes showed that she was pleased. “She got just what that ass deserved. Snitching ass bitch.”
“Inez, you’re too gangsta.” I chuckled. “Now let me tell you something that I’ve been meaning to tell you for a few weeks.”
“You and Kamora are getting back together?” she asked hopefully.
“Nah. It’s something altogether different and I’m not sure how you’re gonna feel once I tell you.”
“Boy, will you quit blabbering and give it to me straight—no chaser.”
“A’ight. Fat Stan didn’t spray up your crib that day. We were both wrong about that.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yep,” I replied. Then I told her how I knew for certain.
The implication wasn’t lost on her. She said, “I thought for sure he had done it.” And just for a split second I saw a look of regret come across her face, and then just as quickly it was gone.
“I have to tell you something also,” she said, “but you have to promise not to say anything.”
“Let me hear it first.” I wasn’t making any blind promises.
“No. You have to promise, otherwise I’m not telling you.”
“A’ight. I promise.” I relented because the suspense was making my head hurt. Then, when Inez told me the business my head was pounding.
Inez had taken Eryka to have an abortion.
“Don’t you dare question her about it,” Inez said.
I covered my face with both hands and fought to control my anger. “Who was she pregnant by? Just tell me the lil nigga’s name,” I demanded with a scowl on my face hard enough to shatter glass.
“She won’t tell me, and it really doesn’t matter now.”
“Where’s her hot ass?”
“Upstairs asleep and you’re not going up there. She already feels bad enough. Shit happens. I’m going to get her on the pill because that grandmother of hers doesn’t have a clue. The way she leaves those girls alone all the time, it’s a wonder both of them don’t have two or three babies running around. I’m going to ask for custody,” said Inez.
Tamia and Chanté came bouncing down the stairs, so we hushed.
“Hey bruh-bruh,” they both said in unison.
“Hey back. What y’all up to?”
“Watching movies,” said Tamia. She plopped down next to me and hugged my neck.
Chanté sat on my lap and bit my nose.
“Oww!” I yelped and feigned a frown. But their affection brightened my mood.
“Ma, what’s wrong with Eryka?” Tamia blurted out and a real frown enveloped my face.
Inez hunched her shoulders like, “I don’t know.”
Which she and I knew was a lie.
The next day I met Criminal at his new house out in Rockdale. The luxuriousness of his five-bedroom three-level home spoke volumes about how well he was doing. Every room was furnished in expensively fine taste.
After showing me around, Criminal led me into the den where Hadiya served us lemon pepper wings and a huge platter of potato skins along with a bowl of Kush and a bottle of Patron. Then she left us to speak privately.
“So, how do you like my spot, bruh? This is a long way from the hood, ain’t it?” said Criminal.
“Yeah, it sure is. You got it poppin’, fam’. Then that joint you did with Swag and TI just dropped and it’s raping the charts. Bruh, you gettin’ ducats hand over fist.”
“I told you I was gonna put the game in a choke hold. Every young nigga in the city wanna be down with GF now because they see we’re not bangin’, we’re gettin’ rich. Yet and still it’s been proven that we’ll escalate the city’s body count if niggas wanna take it there.”
“Yeah, that was some straight vicious shit y’all did to that Mexican, Martinez. That shit made the world news.”
“Yep. If niggas don’t bow down we’ll make them famous,” boasted Criminal.
I took a second to format my words before verbalizing them. I didn’t want my dude to take what I was about to say the wrong way. “Bruh, I got nothin’ but love for you. And I salute your rise to the top, but I wanna see you remain there. Shit like y’all did to that Mexican will bring in the Feds, so turn it down a notch,” I advised.
“Bruh, I’m untouchable.” He popped his collar, exuding tremendous arrogance.
That shocked me because Criminal had to know that no one was untouchable. In 2003, when we were both just becoming teenagers and were just two little bad ass niggas, BMF had the ‘A’ on fiyah. Big Meech’s name was on the tongues of everyone from middle school on up. No crew had ever done it like BMF before or since. But the Feds smashed them. They took Big Meech and them down hard.
Nobody is untouchable, I thought.
Criminal changed the subject to one that interested me the most. He had located some of his GF homies who were on lock at Macon State Prison with Lonnie. My ears perked up.
“These niggas are straight killas, and all three of them are serving fresh life sentences and won’t even be considered for parole for thirty years. So they don’t give a fuck. I’m about to hit one of them up and let you talk to him,” said Criminal.
“How are you gonna hit him up?” I asked without thinking.
“Bruh, everybody in the chain gang got contraband cell phones these days. Those niggas are living good in there, fuckin’ country ass CO bitches and all type of shit.”
“Yeah, I heard.”
Criminal called up his people on lock like those niggas were out here on the streets. He spoke to his man for a minute, and then passed the phone to me.
“’Sup,” I said.
“’Sup bruh-bruh. Since Criminal fuck with you I know you’re official. Plus, I got other homies out there who speak good about you. Check this out, that nigga who snitched on your pop was hard to find at first because he don’t go by Lonnie anymore. Dude is Muslim now and they call him Hakeem. He’s a real quiet dude who hardly talks to anyone. Now I know why.”
“Yeah, he’s afraid a big ass skeleton might fall out of his mouth.”
“I know. I pulled him up on the Internet on my cell phone and found out that what you say is true. He sold your pop out. Don’t worry, bruh-bruh, we’re gonna smash his snitchin’ ass for you. The Muslims are gonna be real mad, and they’re real strong at this camp, but fuck them. A rat can’t hide under a kufi and a prayer rug.”
I muttered in agreement.
“We’re gonna dead the nigga for you. You have my word on that. Ask Criminal, my word is my bond. They call me Assassin.”
“A’ight, fam’, what will I need to do for y’all?” I asked because I understood that it would cost a steep price. But I was willing to pay whatever. Lonnie was the last name on the list of those who had betrayed my pop and I wanted him dead.
“Fifty stacks for me. Give it to Criminal, and he’ll get it to me. My nigga Third Ward wants twenty bands, and he wants you to cop his mama an Altima. The third nigga that’s gonna ride is KK. He also wants twenty bands and he wa
nts you to smash the nigga who put his twin brother in a wheelchair. Criminal knows who the nigga is. Once you handle all of that, have Criminal to holla back.”
What Assassin and them were asking of me was not a problem. Ducats were no issue at all, and neither was smashing a nigga. By now killing became second nature to me.
The next day, I brought Criminal ninety stacks. Fifty for Assassin and twenty apiece for the other two. Inez took Third Ward’s mama to purchase that Altima he wanted her to have. Then with Criminal’s help, I went hunting the dude that paralyzed KK’s twin brother.
I didn’t find him right away, and meanwhile I was also still trying to find Zeke and Soldier Boy. I hadn’t forgot about those bitch ass niggas. Big Ma, Laquanda and Ava had not died in vain! But they were nowhere to be found. My gangsta had sent them into hiding and rumor was that they were cliqued up together.
Months passed with no luck on finding either of my prey. I hadn’t seen my son in a week because Kamora hadn’t been answering my calls. I decided to just pop up over there unannounced.
I drove over there planning to surprise her, but the surprise was on me. As I pulled up to the curb in front of her house, she stood in the doorway locked in a deep kiss with a nigga. I scowled and took out my cell phone. I aimed it at them and snapped three pictures. They were so into the kiss they never even noticed me.
“That’s why the bitch has been acting so funny style lately,” I said to Inez after recounting what I saw.
“Wow!” That’s the only response she could think of. “Well, I hate to be the bearer of more foul shit, but this is something that you absolutely need to know. She got up from the kitchen table where we were sitting and went upstairs. A few minutes later, she sat a small notebook-like thing down on the table in front of me.
“What’s this?”
“Eryka’s diary. She left it over here and curiousity got the best of me,” admitted Inez.
She opened Eryka’s book of secrets and flipped the pages to what she wanted me to read.
What I read floored me, but I held my cool because in an hour or so I had to go twist a nigga’s shit so I needed to be on point. I checked my emotions.
“I’ll deal with this soon, and that’s on all I love,” I said, handing the diary back to Inez. Then I stood up and hugged her goodbye.
I walked out to my truck with a face of granite and a heart of stone. I drove over to what used to be Simpson Road and parked across the street from where I was told my target would be.
I pushed everything else to the back of my mind and concentrated on tonight’s mission. The nigga that had crippled KK’s twin had been located. An hour later, he appeared from inside the building.
The nigga fit the description that I had been given perfectly. He was tall with a funny shaped head and he wore his hair in a short afro. He was sagging real low as he walked to his gray Expedition. His jeans were down to his knees and his belt was pulled tight around them. With every step he had to reach down and hold up his pants. So there was no way that he could run when I approached him with my banger out.
“This is from KK,” I informed him as I opened up his chest with six shots from my nine.
CHAPTER 40
A week later, Criminal called me out to his house. We sat in the den chopping it up. I mostly listened and let Criminal talk. My mind was preoccupied with other things.
“’Sup fam? Why you all silent and shit?” he asked.
“I’m good, bruh. I’m just thinking,” I said.
“Well, I got something that’ll put a smile on your face. Here, check this out. Assassin and them got that nigga Lonnie early this morning and they recorded it and forwarded the video to my phone. Push the play button. Those niggas handled that shit.”
He handed me his Android. It was already set to the video. I pressed play and watched a real live murder of a rat. Three dudes with torn sheets covering their faces entered a cell. One of them shook Lonnie awake. “Get up, nigga! Get the fuck up!” He dragged Lonnie out of his bunk. I could see the fright on his face.
“Asalaam alaikim!” he cried.
“Alaikim my ass. Nigga, Islam can’t protect a rat!”
“Yeah nigga, it’s time to pay the piper,” added another of the masked attackers.
“Youngblood’s son, Lil T, sends his love,” the third one taunted and shoved a long shank into Lonnie’s chest. He screamed like a bitch.
“Shut up and die, snitch muthafucka!” The three of them stabbed Lonnie over and over again until blood covered the cell. They put the lense right up to his face, so that I could see that his mouth was slack and his pupils were dilated. He looked dead to me.
The video faded to black. I hit replay and watched Lonnie’s bitch ass get smashed four more times. “Your homies are some real niggas. Do you think they’ll get away with it?” I asked as I handed him back his phone.
“It don’t even matter to them, bruh. They’ll probably never get out anyway. And if so, it would be thirty years from now. A nigga can’t see that far.”
Before I bounced I had Criminal forward the video to my phone. I planned to watch it with Inez before erasing it.
After Inez watched the video I saw that she was crying. “Rest in peace now, baby,” she said, clutching onto the big urn with my pop’s ashes in it.
I hugged her and felt the same relief. I had gotten them all in revenge of my father. “I kept my promise to you, pop. No way could I have stopped until that bitch nigga was dead.” I proudly touched my chain.
“What now?” asked Inez.
“I got some other things to handle. Then I’ma put Atlanta in my rearview mirror. Before I do, though, I’ma give you money for Grandma Ann’s care and for yourself and my sisters. Because once I do what I gotta do I’m out. Just remember that I love y’all.”
Inez didn’t try to talk me out of what she knew I had planned. She understood what principles meant to a real nigga. Because she had loved Youngblood, the realest of the real, and she had nurtured his son to be just as official.
CHAPTER 41
Summer had come and was on its way out again. I still hadn’t been able to hunt down Zeke or Soldier Boy. If either of them were still in the city they had fallen all the way back. I’d gone by the strip club where Erotica had last worked, but she too had gotten ghost.
Not being able to hunt down Zeke was tormenting me. That bitch nigga had sent Big Ma and Laquanda to awful deaths—I longed to stand over him and set his body ablaze. Soldier Boy was gonna get got too. Ava’s death would not go unpunished even if it took a lifetime.
If the rumors were true that Zeke and Soldier Boy had joined forces, why were they hiding? Why not come after me with everything they got? I’m just one muthafuckin’ nigga. Like Biggie said, “Let’s make the beef cook!”
I guess those pussies were afraid of hard dick.
Since I couldn’t find those two hos I decided to deal with something just as personal, first. I knew that after I did this shit I would have to bounce from the A for a while, so I began falling back and spending time with my sisters and with Trey.
I didn’t let on to Kamora what I had peeped her doing in the doorway that night. Later for that—I had it captured and saved in my phone.
Near the end of August, Shan died from a cancerous brain tumor. “I guess the guilt from what she did to my pops was so strong in her mind that it ate her alive,” I said to Inez.
“Are you going to pay for the funeral?” she asked.
“Fuck no! And I’m not attending it either.”
I don’t know who paid for Shan’s funeral, but I suspected that Inez did out of some sense of obligation to Big Ma. My suspicions were based on hushed phone conversations I observed Inez having over the next few days leading up to the service.
I still had no desire to attend Shan’s funeral, but somehow I found myself at the viewing, staring down in the casket into my biological’s mother’s thin face. The cancer had eaten away at her, and in death she looked skeletal and much dar
ker than she had been in life.
A wig sat on her head as crooked as a tam. I reached inside the casket and straightened it.
I closed my eyes and let our battles play in my mind like an urban movie. So many emotions rose up in my chest at once. Anger. Hate. Disgust. Pity. And finally sorrow.
I recalled earlier times when I was a little boy, before the thing that happened with her and my pop. Back then I called her Mama, not Shan. Back then there were trips to the park or a day at the circus. A dollar for ice cream or some change for candy. Kisses on my knee when I had fallen down, scraped it, and ran in the house crying. And when a teacher spanked me in the first grade, the woman in the casket had come up to the school the next day and turned that classroom out.
“You had to love me back then,” I whispered to her in a voice strained by years of pain.
I had loved her too . . . back then.
I could not forgive all that happened since, but I understood. Shan’s anger had been guilt turned inside out and directed against me because I was my father’s splitting image.
I reached inside the casket and took her cold, bony hand in mine.
“Rest in peace . . . Mama.” I wanted to cry but a tear would not fall.
“It’s almost over. I’ma miss the hell out of y’all, but I’ll be in touch and I’ll be back when the streets calm down. It’ll probably be crazy for a year or two . . . you know how that is,” I said to Inez as we stood outside of my truck in her driveway.
