The System Has Failed

by Ms. Michel Moore

  “Shut the fuck up, nigga! Ain’t nobody trying to hear that bullshit,” Terrell angrily yelled back across the room at Elon as his legs shook uncontrollably. “You gonna pay for all that shit you blowing out your grill!”

  From the cover of the ivory-colored china cabinet and still out of harm’s way, Terrell’s mother sucked her teeth, knowing that she was 100 percent right all along about Joi’s twisted intentions toward her son. “See, baby, I told you so! I told you this lowlife female ain’t about nothing but some money and can’t be trusted!” Simone let her feelings be known after hearing what’d obviously taken place between Elon and Joi. “Look at her dumb ass! Standing all over there trying to look like her fake behind don’t know what’s going on. She just like her sneaky, shady dead mama: not shit!”

  “Shut up, Ma,” Li’l T demanded as he glanced over, noticing Joi positioned in a corner near his mother. Trapped between the kitchen and bedroom doors, she remained motionless as she heard the allegations of what Elon claimed to have done to her, not to mention the last bombshell he dropped saying Shauntae was dead and he was her killer. “You don’t know what the hell you talking about! Joi ain’t nothing like that, so shut up!”

  “Both you and her shut the fuck up, and let’s get this party started.” Elon brought a sudden halt to the family disagreement before it really got going. “Nigga, you shot my brother, and now he’s about to die!”

  Terrell felt a dark cloud loom over him, and his head started to pound. As a huge amount of sweat poured from the embedded worry lines across his forehead, Li’l T saw a flash of Kamal’s face almost touching his. I ain’t scared of shit! And I ain’t scared of you! You the reason my life is so fucked up! I’m crippled because of you! People think I ain’t a man because of what you did! He shook his head and tried to contain himself. The image reappeared this time, making him raise his gun a few inches higher than he was already aiming. The trigger was pulled. He let off three rounds into the stainless-steel refrigerator. “That fool was coming after me, so fuck him and you!”

  The distinct smell of gunpowder filled the room as a speechless Joi and an evil-minded Simone watched on in disbelief at Terrell’s fury and rage. Taking hold of the arm of the couch, Li’l T pulled himself up as if he were attempting to stand.

  Elon, eager not to be outdone, returned fire, turning Simone’s perfectly decorated home into a makeshift shooting gallery complete with her expensive furnishings serving as targets. Bam, bam, bam, bam. He came closer with each shot that echoed inside the house. “Donte is dead and so is you,” Elon bellowed out with deliberate certainty. Bam, bam, bam.

  Scared to death but still out for self, Simone felt that if she and Li’l T were lucky enough to make it out of this bullshit he’d got them involved in, there was no way in hell she was gonna put up with the likes of Joi being forced into her life. Without hesitation, the greedy mother wasted no time doing what came naturally to her and every other Detroit resident: self fucking survival, by any means necessary. In the midst of Terrell’s vengeance concentrating on doing the unthinkable, standing on his own to get to Elon, Simone crawled over toward Joi, who was still in some sort of an emotional trance, not moved by the intense noise and chaos that was taking place before her eyes.

  This little sneaky bitch got me and this game all fucked up if she thinks I’m gonna let my son be played by some ghetto project trash! She can join Monique and that smart-mouth sister in hell as far as I’m concerned! Simone got closer to her son’s girlfriend as delusional thoughts took over her mind. Big Ace was so worried about one of them remembering something about the day he killed they mama, shit, he gonna owe me big time for this one! And after my son kills his other son, then maybe he’ll respect my gangsta and realize I didn’t give birth to no ho-ass baby after all!

  It was back on. The bright sparks and earsplitting gunshots continued to engulf Simone’s home. Cursed with a violent streak since birth, Simone stretched out her arms, yanking Joi by her wrist. With malice embedded in her heart, the devious mother then shoved the young, naive girl into the middle of the gun battle. Before Terrell knew what was happening, Joi’s body had gotten struck by several rounds. Removing his finger from the trigger, Elon was the opposite, not caring who would ultimately suffer pain from his wrath. He continued to shoot, emptying his entire clip.

  “Joi! Joi! Damn, Joi.” Terrell dropped his gun to the carpet after taking a bullet himself in his lower calf. As the love of his young life fell to the ground with blood gushing from the huge hole in the side of her upper torso, tears flowed from his eyes. Placing his hand tightly around her throat in an attempt to stop or at least slow down the flow of the bright red, warm blood, Terrell cried out in anguish. “Nawwwww, Joi! Nawwwww!”

  Simone was content, almost giddy with the outcome of her malicious act as her son swooped up a dying Joi in his arms, trying to convince her to live. No better for the ho! She showed no signs of remorse that the normal human being would feel upon witnessing a sight that was this heinous. Quickly realizing that Elon now had the advantage over her child and her, the scheming mother wasted no time making another harsh snap decision. Now on to the other problem. Simone grinned, not waiting for Elon to make the next move. His ass!

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Hell yeah! I hit that crippled buster in the leg and that silly chick of his.” Elon’s eyes grew wide after seeing Terrell drop his gun and fall to the ground. “I ain’t new to this, young blood. I’m a hundred percent true to this! So brace yourself and say your prayers.” He walked toward the doorway separating the kitchen and living room. “And goddamn! Tell that female to go ’head and die already. Nigga, I just hope you don’t get to whining like her when I send you on your way!”

  Holding Joi in his arms, Terrell listened to the muffled sounds of her gasping for air as she seemed to be gargling blood. With the moaning almost coming to a halt, Li’l T let go of Joi’s body, laying her on the carpet. He assumed that she was dead and that he would one day see her on the other side. Terrell zoned completely out now, having nothing to lose. Licking some of Joi’s warm blood off his hands while smearing the remainder on his face, he stopped fighting his father’s never-ending presence.

  With the distinct overwhelming, dry stench of death circulating in the room, mixed with sweat and gunpowder in the midst of the heavy, serious adrenalin rush of two individuals intent on creating more mayhem, Simone crept on her stomach near the leg of the dining room table with her gun still in her hands. What the hell is he doing now? He crazy as his fucked-up, twisted daddy! She shook her head, witnessing her son’s bizarre yet familiar behavior. I guess I’m on my own now, ’cause he done lost it! Simone scanned the room as she noticed that Elon’s footsteps were getting closer and closer to where she was now taking cover.

  “All right, ya pussy! It’s on now, big boy! So how ’bout it?” Elon disrespectfully spit a thick, nasty glob of saliva on Simone’s kitchen floor and laughed. Revenge was about to fill his mouth. “Now you limp-leg faggot, can’t walk, can’t run, probably can’t fuck, it’s about that time! Look at you shedding tears over that slut bucket. You oughta be thanking me for putting you out of ya misery!” His grin widened with each step as his gun pointed directly at Terrell, who showed no signs of being worried about meeting his Maker.

  “Your punk ass better kill me, ’cause if you don’t, that’s your and your father’s life I’m gonna take!” Li’l T vowed with his hardened face dripping with Joi’s blood. “There ain’t nowhere ya gonna be able to hide!”

  “Is that right?” Elon replied, still holding his pistol.

  “Try me if you want to,” Terrell said, glancing over at Joi’s body. “But on everything I love, I’m gonna kill you!”

  “Is that dumb-ass idle threat supposed to scare me or something?” Elon asked as he spit once more, keeping an extremely suspicious eye focused on a very prideful Terrell, who was making it perfectly clear that he had nothing else to lose. “Because if it is, you might wanna keep that shit
moving!” Seeing that Terrell was fearless in the face of death angered Elon even more. He wanted to get the hard-dick satisfaction of having Li’l T at least beg for his life. “You and your little friends should learn that if y’all gonna run with the big dogs, there’s big-dog consequences to the game! Me and my brother run these Detroit streets when it comes to trees, and not you or nobody gonna stop our flow! So take the lesson with you on ya way!” With a smile of satisfaction, Elon squeezed the trigger.

  More gray smoke surrounded the room as the mirror on the wall fell off, shattering into a thousand small, sharp pieces. Another round was let loose, resulting in a hand-painted vase crashing into the side of the doorframe. Two more rang out. The dishes in the china cabinet broke, and the oversized picture window was shot out. Three loud screams of violent death once again overtook the household. When the smoke cleared and it was all said and done, the room grew eerily silent. Terrell’s muscular body slumped over on top of Joi, who was passed out cold but still struggling to live.

  Simone, who was full of arrogance because she’d just proved her loyalty to her son by pumping Big Ace’s son full of several slugs from her .44-caliber revolver to save his life, slowly got up off the floor and made her way over to her deranged-looking offspring.

  “Fuck that boy, Terrell, and all that delusional bullshit he was blowing out his grill!” She grabbed her son’s bloody face as he stared off into the far distance like a zombie on crack. “Look at him now! He ain’t jack shit but another dead-ass motherfucker in the D! And his daddy was talking all that family crap to me! Fuck ’em all!” Simone smiled as she went to get a towel to stop the heavy bleeding from the bullet wound in her child’s leg. “Me and you can rule this goddamn city and shit! Between all the connects I got and that crazy-ass attitude and that trait you got in your bones of not being worried about getting killed, we can make some major bread!”

  “Huh?” Terrell finally spoke, panting in a heavy tone as his mother shook him back into reality. “What you say?”

  “I said since now Stuff is out of the way, those other two suckers you run with ain’t got nothing coming.” Simone got up off the floor after wiping the blood from her hands on Joi’s T- shirt, showing no remorse for the innocent young girl her son loved.

  “Out of the damn way?” He gave his mother a strange, bewildered look at what she was doing and what she’d just said. “What in the hell you mean out of the way?”

  Simone acted as if what she was saying wouldn’t mean shit to her son, since it obviously meant less than nothing to her. “Yeah, from what I assume from whatever happened out by his house, Drake said it didn’t look good for your little friend. So one plus one, he’s probably dead just like this tramp and ol’ boy over there.” She casually pointed across the room at Elon.

  “What?” Li’l T felt a rush of indescribable rage take control of his entire being.

  “Yeah, baby. I’m glad I pushed this two-timing skank when I did! No better for her ass! Cheating on you like she did with Big Ace’s son and God knows who the fuck else. I told you a million times over that them project bitches ain’t shit. Never was and never will be.” She giggled in a roundabout way. “I don’t know why they always step the fuck outta line.”

  Terrell, in denial, couldn’t believe his ears and snapped. Acting as if his legs weren’t physically immobile, once again he raised himself up, using the arm of the couch as a makeshift crutch. With his weak, underdeveloped legs trembling from the force of the weight of the top half of his body, he miraculously stood. “What you say?” As his upper lip curled over toward the side just as Kamal’s used to when he was on the verge of committing one of his many unspeakable acts of violence, the teenager tried taking a step then fell back to the floor as his wobbly legs gave in. “Stuff is dead, and you pushed Joi? Is that what you fucking said?” Full of determination and fueled with rage from his mother’s statements, he reached up for the chair, attempting to stand once again.

  Before Simone could reply to her son’s questions, Drake busted in the front door with the look of despair on his face. “Naw, man! Hell naw!” He squinted as he saw a female and a male sprawled out on the floor, in their own individual pools of blood, both presumably deceased. “Terrell, tell me you didn’t.” Drake threw his hands up.

  “Damn, Drake,” Simone answered for her son, brushing her pants off. “You’s about a dollar short and a fucking dime late. Me and my baby done handled the situation now!”

  “Why didn’t you call the police when I told you? Maybe you could’ve avoided all this mess. Who are these two anyway?” Drake quizzed as he kicked the gun out of Elon’s hand just in case he wasn’t truly dead. He made his way to Terrell’s side. “What happened in here?”

  Seeing that Drake had her son preoccupied with a mini interrogation of what exactly had jumped off, Simone bent over to pick up Elon’s cell phone, which was ringing. Ain’t this some fly shit? After seeing it was Big Ace’s number, she eagerly answered while resting her shoe on Elon’s back. “Yeah, hello!”

  “Yeah, hello,” he yelled into Simone’s ear, causing her to pull the flip phone back from her face. “Who this?”

  “Don’t tell me after all these years you don’t know my damn voice,” she cooed with amusement.

  “Simone?” Big Ace raised the tone of voice even higher with each word. “Is this you? Where in the hell is my fucking boy at? Put him on the line!”

  Simone smiled, pressing the heel of her shoe down harder into Elon’s back before answering Big Ace’s questions. “Dang, G! Yeah, it’s me. You don’t have to yell and shit. Your son is here at my damn house. Ain’t that where he said he was going when he was selling all those wolf tickets at the hospital?”

  “What, bitch?” Big Ace screamed at her.

  “Nigga, you might wanna watch how the hell you speak to my pretty ass,” Simone suggested to the rude Big Ace.

  “Look, you dumb bitch, put Elon on the phone and stop playing games with me,” Big Ace demanded, still yelling. “His brother just died, and your crippled-ass son is at fault. You lucky I don’t come over there and kill both y’all sorry asses!”

  “Boy, you and what damn army?” Simone snickered, applying more pressure to Elon, her new footrest. “If you come out to my crib with that bullshit, you gonna get the same damn treatment this buster over here got.”

  “Say what?” Big Ace asked.

  “Yeah, you heard me.” She was on top of the world. She glanced over at Drake, who was still talking to Terrell, as the piercing sounds of police sirens seemed to be getting closer. “Your ‘wanna go for bad’ kid over here dead as a motherfucker!” Simone teased. “I guess he the real sorry ass, not me and my son. You talking that crap about checking me and Terrell, well, checkmate on your punk ass. The game is over. I stay winning.”

  “Dead?” Big Ace bellowed into the phone. “I know that ain’t what you said!”

  “Tsk, tsk, tsk,” Simone callously continued, ridiculing his loss. “I guess that’s me and my seed two, your family zero!” After hearing the line go dead, Simone could only assume that Big Ace was on his way over. Oh, well. That’s on his black ass! Shitttt, instead of coming over here fucking with me and Li’l T, he needs to be planning a double funeral! Maybe the people can hook him up with a two-for-one special!

  Chapter Sixteen

  Holding his head up with no shame, Terrell seemed not to sit still as he practically burned a hole through Simone’s face with his eyes. With his legs vibrating and his heart racing, the angry teenager’s hands opened and closed repeatedly as they itched to deal with what his mother had said pertaining to Joi’s injuries. Throughout the rambled and jumbled conversation, Drake finally found out that Joi was Li’l T’s girlfriend and also the daughter of Monique, whom he vividly remembered from back in the day. Then as if that revelation weren’t enough, he found out that the other body was the son of Big Ace, also a veteran from back in the day.

  After Terrell divulged that unsettling news to his surrogate fa
ther, Drake had some information of his own as the police sirens got closer. He disclosed to the shocked Li’l T that his supposed cohorts, Yankee and Wahoo, had double-crossed him and murdered Stuff. It was more than the young man could stand. Finding out that they were both now dead gave him no comfort. Terrell clenched his fists and pounded them on the floor in denial.

  Flashing lights, along with the screeching sounds of several police vehicles swerving into the driveway and in front of Simone’s house, halted any more confessions of incredible bullshit for the evening. Knowing there would undoubtedly be plenty of questions, accusations, and blame to go around, Drake decided to go out and try his hand at informing the authorities that he, Terrell, and Simone were going to come out peacefully, and of course, aid them in any way they could. Upon hearing one of the cops yell, “Police,” from the front grass, Drake looked at Li’l T, who once again appeared zoned out and focused on Simone.

  “Listen, Terrell.” Drake leaned in to make sure he was being heard. “I’m gonna go outside and explain to these folks what’s going on in here. In the meantime, get yourself together, because the shit is really about to hit the fan.”

  “Fuck the damn police,” Simone blurted out.

  “Naw, Simone, fuck you and all that foolishness you always feeding him.” Drake shook his head. “Now, Terrell, you always claiming you a grown-ass man. Well, this is part of walking the walk, facing up to the hard times as well as the good. So even if this bullshit kills you, be a man for just one fucking minute. Ya hear me?” Drake headed toward the door to deal with the law. “Be a man for one minute, and after that don’t nothing else matter!”

  No sooner than Drake exited the door, he was grabbed by the police and immediately handcuffed then searched.