Resurrection

by Treasure Hernandez

  At 20, he was in a position to be the king of the streets. The North Side belonged to him. He had managed to save $50,000 while hustling under Joe. It wasn’t much, but it was more than the average hustler had in Flint.

  He needed to come up with a plan. He already had the connect. Joe had made sure that he was in line with a supreme coke supplier, so that wasn’t an issue. The problem was Fredro didn’t deal in small quantities. He supplied Jamaica Joe kilos in bulk, and Malek’s money wasn’t long enough to cop the usual twenty-five ki’s. Fredro was giving up the goods for ten stacks a ki, but that price came along with the agreement that he would buy the same amount each time. Malek needed $200,000 more to make the deal happen, which meant he had to flip and re-flip his money in order to fuck with Fredro.

  Malek looked in his bathroom mirror and saw Halleigh enter the room. She walked up behind him and wrapped her arms around his body, resting her face on his toned upper back.

  “Hey, you,” she greeted with a sincere smile. “How you feel?”

  “I’m good,” he replied as he turned around and kissed her on the forehead. “Just thinking about everything. I just can’t believe I’m about to bury my man in a few days. That shit is fucking with me, Hal. You don’t know. Joe been like family since the first day we met. I should’ve talked him out of throwing that party. He would still be here if I had been smarter.”

  “I didn’t know Jamaica Joe that well, but I’m sorry that his death is hurting you, Malek. I do know that his death ain’t on you, though. You can’t control anybody else’s destiny. If you could, none of this would’ve ever happened to us.

  “I just want you to be okay. I want us to be how we were before all this bullshit sent us in different directions,” she said. “Do you think we’ll ever get back everything that we lost? I mean, time is something that you can’t make up for. Two years have passed us by. We haven’t spoken or touched one another.

  “I’m not the same person that I was at seventeen. Do you think you can learn to love the new me?”

  Halleigh was right. She didn’t know Jamaica Joe that well, definitely not the way Malek knew him. Malek knew that he would’ve been sitting in the jail cell probably doing football numbers, if it weren’t for Jamaica Joe, who, out of the kindness of his heart when he didn’t even know Malek, had his own lawyer defend Malek on the stickup that he had ended up catching a case for.

  Malek also knew that Jamaica Joe had validated him when he put him on making him a major player in the drug game almost overnight. Yup, Malek knew that he would’ve been broke, forgotten about, in jail, and always referred to as the dumb muthafucka who fucked up his shot at NBA riches.

  “I don’t have to learn to love you, Hal. You a part of me, so I can never stop caring for you. We’ve got some issues that we need to work through, but we gon’ be all right. I’ma make sure of that. I’m not the same person either. We all grow. Whether we grow for the good or bad is up to us. I’m about to be the king of this shit, believe that. All you gon’ have to worry about is making your man look good, a’ight. Stand by your man and everything will be good for us.”

  Malek went into his room and into his safe. He pulled out two rubber-banded stacks of money and tossed them to Halleigh. “Go buy yourself some new gear. I don’t want you in nothing some other nigga bought for you. Make sure you get a dress to wear to Joe’s funeral.”

  Halleigh accepted the money. She had no desire to go to Jamaica Joe’s funeral, but she knew that she had to go. Halleigh knew that the average person would never understand what it was like to not want to go to certain events out of fear constantly wondering if you were gonna run into someone who had paid to fuck you. That was the main reason she didn’t want to go to the funeral. But she also knew that Malek expected her to go, and she didn’t want to disappoint him.

  She wanted to be at Maury’s funeral to pay her respects and be there for her girl, but she knew Malek would never allow it. She had been down with the South Side for so long, it was going to be hard for her to adjust her loyalty. She was never loyal to Manolo or Sweets, but her girls were all she had, and she had grown to love them both. They had been her sisters. Just like Malek was connected to Joe, she was connected to them. Mimi and Tasha were the ones who’d helped her make it through their pimp’s controlling and viciously abusive ways. They had also helped her make it through her drug addiction, which she had used as an escape from the emotional bondage that prostitution had held her in.

  More importantly, they had helped her and helped themselves literally escape from the clutches of Manolo, their pimp. Now they were off-limits to her, and she couldn’t help but feel like a traitor. She at least wanted to say goodbye to her girls.

  “Malek, I know you don’t want me to be around Tasha or Mimi, but I really need to go back and get some of my things. I don’t need to bring my old clothes, but there are some personal items that I’d like to keep,” she stated.

  Malek looked at her skeptically.

  “I promise it will be quick. I just need to pick up a few things,” she said, trying to reassure him.

  Malek agreed, and an hour later, he was driving her out to the suburbs of Flint to the apartment that she’d shared with her friends.

  When Malek pulled up to the apartment complex, Halleigh saw that Tasha’s car was parked in her normal spot. She looked over at Malek and said, “I’ll be right back.”

  “Take your time and make sure you have everything you need. There’s no coming back here after today,” he stated seriously.

  Halleigh nodded and took a deep breath as she exited the car and entered the building.

  She used her key to enter the apartment. It was silent inside as she made her way back to Tasha’s room. She knocked lightly before entering. “Tash,” she called out.

  Tasha didn’t respond. Her back was toward Halleigh, and she was curled up in a fetal position on her bed. Her hair was all over her head, and she stared blankly at the wall in front of her.

  Halleigh walked over to her bed, sat on the edge of it, and stroked Tasha’s hair lightly. “Tash, I’ve got to talk to you about something, and I don’t have a lot of—”

  “She’s dead too,” Tasha interrupted.

  “What? Who?” Hal asked in confusion.

  “Mimi’s dead,” she stated through her cries. “She was with Maury when he got killed.”

  Halleigh’s mouth dropped open. She whispered, “No, Tasha, please tell me you’re lying.”

  Tasha didn’t respond.

  “Tasha! Please!” she begged, hoping that the news wasn’t true.

  “Halleigh, she’s gone! They’re both gone!” Tasha stated. “We’re all we got.”

  Those words made Halleigh feel ten times worse than she already did. Tasha needed her, yet Halleigh was here to tell her that she was letting go of everything and everyone that reminded her of her past.

  “Tash, we need to talk,” she began. She tried to swallow the lump in her throat, but it wasn’t going away. “I can’t stay here, Tash. I have to move on with my life, Tasha. Malek doesn’t want me to—”

  “Malek? Hal, my brother and our friend were just killed. I have been here for you since the day I met you. You mean to tell me, just because you back with that nigga, you gon’ act like I don’t exist? You are like my sister.” Tasha stood up from her bed.

  “Tasha, it’s not like that! I love you. You’re my girl. I just can’t afford to lose Malek again.”

  “The world doesn’t revolve around Malek, Halleigh!”

  “My world does! I met you in a whorehouse. You were the madame that was supposed to help my pimp keep me in line! Malek doesn’t understand how you helped me. He doesn’t want me around anybody that is down with the South Side. I have to respect it, Tasha. He’s my man, and I love him.”

  “So fuck me and everybody who gave a damn about you when he left you for dead?” Tasha yelled, with one hand on her hip as she stared incredulously at her friend. “Fuck me, fuck Mimi. Fuck Maury too, Halleigh?
My brother loved you. I’ve never seen him look at a chick the way he looked at you. Fuck him, though. Fuck that he came here to look after your skinny ass!”

  “That’s not fair, Tash!”

  “No, you’re not fair, Hal! And you know what else? I been sitting up here trying with everything I had to block some shit out, saying to myself, ‘Nah, there’s no way that Halleigh could do me like that.’ But I guess I was wrong! Your nose is so far up Malek’s ass that it doesn’t even bother you that he murdered Maury and Mimi! Right, bitch? Tell me I’m lying and I swear on everything, I’ll lay your ass out right here!”

  Halleigh felt the tears coming to her eyes. “Tasha, what are you talking about?” Halleigh asked, a twisted and confused look on her face.

  “Tasha, stop with the bullshit. You know what I’m saying is true, and that’s why you ain’t been around and that’s why you running off! The cops told me what was up, and I played shit cool and covered for Malek’s ass. Why? Because that’s how I do for my people! And because I never in my wildest thoughts would have believed that Malek would do some shit like this!”

  Halleigh burst out into tears.

  “Halleigh, enough of the crocodile tears and all that fake shit!”

  “Fake? Tasha, this ain’t fake! You . . . I . . . I mean, I know you are hurting and going through it, but you’re talking crazy. And I’m dealing with a lot of conflicting shit too, and I don’t even know what is going on.”

  “Halleigh, you wanna know what’s the fuck is going on? Yeah, whatever! But I tell you what; you walk outta here, and I’ll know what was up and what went down, and you won’t have to say shit. And if you stay, then I’ll be on my knees apologizing and forever grateful. But understand this: if you leave after all I done did for you, then it’s on! On the life of my brother and on the life of Mimi, it’s on!”

  Halleigh was feeling beyond stressed out. She shook her head and stared at Tasha. Then she left the room and went into the one that she had once occupied. All of her things were as she had left them. She grabbed a small laundry basket and placed some of her items inside, including a few of the pieces that Maury had purchased for her while she was in New York.

  She wouldn’t tell Malek why they were important to her, but she had to have them. Maury had helped her rebuild her self-esteem in a way that Malek couldn’t. See, she looked at Maury as a neutral person who didn’t judge her or come down on her, and in the process, he helped to validate her. She was eternally grateful to him for that. With Malek, he didn’t judge her or come down on her for anything, but he was someone that she’d loved and known and had history with. So, in her mind, she never really knew if Malek’s actions toward her were stemming from a genuine place in his heart or out of pity for her.

  More tears came to her eyes when she looked at the picture of herself, Mimi, and Tasha that sat on her nightstand. She wiped them away, took a deep breath, and picked it up. “Mimi,” she whispered as her fingers graced the faces in the picture. “God, please take care of my girl.”

  Honk! Honk!

  The sound of Malek’s car horn made her jump. She put the picture in the basket and took one last look at her room before turning out the light.

  Tasha was waiting in the hallway, leaning against the wall. With her arms folded in front of her, she looked defiant.

  Honk!

  “I’ve got to go,” Halleigh stated reluctantly.

  Tasha nodded and said, “It’s on, bitch! I should whup your ass right now! Hmm.”

  “Take care of yourself, Tash,” Halleigh stated through her tears. She took her house key off her key ring and held it out for Tasha.

  “Get that shit out my face before I wear your ass out,” she replied, slapping the key out of Halleigh’s hand.

  Halleigh left the house in tears and in shock and walked back to the car.

  “You a’ight?” Malek asked. He noticed that she had been crying, and he reached out for her hand.

  She gripped it tightly. “Let’s go,” she whispered as she looked up at the apartment building.

  Malek put the car in gear and pulled away from Halleigh’s past. “Halleigh, what’s up? What’s wrong? What happened in there?”

  Halleigh slumped in her seat and blew some air out of her lungs. “I don’t know . . . she talking crazy. It’s like I go from Manolo and one controlling situation to another. Like she don’t want me to leave, talking about if I leave, then it’s on. ‘It’s on, bitch!’ ” Halleigh said in a mocking tone. “I mean, I can’t believe her.”

  “Halleigh, it’s done! You outta here and you ain’t looking back.”

  Halleigh didn’t respond immediately to Malek.

  “You trust me to take care of you, right?”

  Halleigh hesitated, and then she looked at Malek and said, “Malek, you know I trust you, you know that. But I wanna ask you something, and I need you to be straight-up and completely honest with me.”

  “Definitely,” Malek responded.

  “Malek, did you kill Mimi and Tasha’s brother Maury?” Halleigh asked with a frown and a concerned look.

  Malek cut his eyes at Halleigh, trying to figure out how she could have known that. He was also wondering just how he should answer her, so he kept quiet. His hope was that through his silence, Halleigh would get the answer she was looking for.

  Halleigh asked again, “Malek, did you kill Mimi and Maury?”

  Malek reached forward and turned up the volume to Jay-Z’s American Gangster soundtrack. But he made sure not to answer Halleigh’s question.

  Chapter Three

  “Manolo’s money is my money, and you fucked up Manolo’s money. So that means you fucked up my money!” Sweets bitch-slapped Tasha, sending her to the floor of the beauty salon.

  Tasha had reached out to Sweets, asking him to meet her at the hair salon. Her hope was that if she were to meet him in a public place, he wouldn’t spazz out on her. But with the loss of her brother and one of her best friends, she was really going through it, and she decided to return to the one thing that was familiar to her: selling pussy.

  Sweets held his foot to Tasha’s throat, completely cutting off her air. “Where the fuck was you?”

  As Tasha was about to pass out, Sweets finally relented. He grabbed her by her hair and dragged her out of the hair salon and into his waiting Yukon Denali. “Get yo’ ass in that truck!”

  Tasha got in the truck, and Sweets got in the backseat with her and instructed his driver to take off. He reached in his waistband and pulled out his 9 mm and pressed the barrel of the gun against her forehead.

  “Bitch, you better start talking, and you better make that shit good!”

  Tasha was so nervous that she was about to wet her pants. At that moment, she was second-guessing her decision to want to reach out to Sweets and Manolo.

  “Sweets, I know how it looks, but as soon as I could reach out and say what was up without getting killed, that’s exactly what I did. Officer Troy is a dirty muthafucka and snatched up me, Mimi, and Halleigh, and threatened to lock our asses up and to kill us if we didn’t get down with what he was gonna do.

  “We didn’t know exactly what he was plotting, but now I know what was up. Halleigh and her snake ass had been down with Malek from the North Side, and she put Malek up on how Manolo was moving. Malek worked it out with Officer Troy to rob Manolo, which was all part of Malek and Jamaica Joe’s plan to take over the South Side. Malek promised Troy way more than he could turn down, so Troy went with the it.

  “Then I find out people is dropping like flies. Mimi got hit, and my brother got hit, but meanwhile shit is looking good for Halleigh. So I put two and two together, and I find out that Malek done murked my brother and Mimi, and that’s when I knew what was up.

  “I said fuck Officer Troy and his bullshit threats, ’cause I knew that I was next to get killed. So it was either I get killed by officer Troy, I get locked up by officer Troy, I get killed by Malek, or I risk my life and reach out to you and Manolo and tell y’all w
hat’s up and try to get back on this madame grind! You feel me?” Tasha said all in one breath. Trying to come across as convincing, she was rambling nonstop like a chickenhead. But that was because she was nervous and because she knew that her life was seconds from being snuffed out.

  Still holding the gun to her head, Sweets squinted his eyes as he looked at her.

  “Sweets, tonight I can get this ho shit back on and poppin’! I’ll sell my pussy and I can get that chick Keesha who been trying to get down with Manolo from day one. Come on, just let me get this money for you, Sweets.”

  “Bitch, I should throw your ass out this moving car right now ’cause you playing me for a bitch-ass nigga.”

  “Sweets, I’ll get Officer Troy on the phone right now. I’ll put him on speaker, and you’ll see for yourself that I ain’t lying.”

  Tasha was lying through her teeth, but she was desperate and she just hoped like hell that Sweets didn’t call her bluff because, if he did, she knew that he wouldn’t hesitate to pop her ass.

  Sweets, eyes still on Tasha, lowered his gun.

  Tasha exhaled.

  “So Malek is really trying to be Frank Lucas, American Gangster in this bitch?”

  “Sweets, his ass is so lame! He running around like a gangsta, and meanwhile half the city done ran up in his girl that he’s treating like wifey. And this nigga ain’t never even screwed Halleigh yet? Bitch ass!”

  Tasha’s words made Sweets chuckle to himself.

  “That nigga must be waiting for me to bend his ass over and lay some pipe to ’im,” Sweets said in a sinister tone. His dick actually began to swell at the mere thought of being able to do a tender young enemy like Malek.

  Tasha, like everybody else, was disgusted with Sweets and his homo-thug behavior. But she would much rather see Malek get raped and killed by Sweets than to see herself laying dead in the streets at the hands of Manolo or Sweets. In fact, she knew that Sweets would be the one to avenge the death of her brother and Mimi, who was like a sister to her. Like she had told Halleigh, It’s on!