Girls from Da Hood 12

by Treasure Hernandez

  “Stop putting these little niggas on and we wouldn’t have these problems, mane. Them boys ain’t thorough enough.”

  “The streets period ain’t thorough enough anymore,” Teezo responded, pushing his all-white Chevy Avalanche through the Memphis streets. “Shit, I remember when a cartel was a family. Now you can’t even trust your family.”

  “True that,” Javier said, shaking his head. “Speaking of that, have you talked to Jo about how he fucked your bitch?”

  He grinned at the uncomfortable look that crossed Teezo’s face. He’d caught his cousin Jo in bed with his main chick Tamera two weeks prior, and his attitude about family hadn’t been the same since. It was funny to Javier because he had seen Teezo mess with other girls firsthand behind Tamera’s back, some of them were her friends. Yet, the moment she did it to him, he couldn’t handle it. It got so bad that he almost put a bounty on his own relative’s head, but Javier talked him out of it.

  “Man, fuck that nigga,” Teezo huffed. “He wasn’t real to begin with. He fucked my bitch.”

  “Mane,” Javier shook his head, “the way you were fuckin’ around on her, I don’t think anybody even knew you had a bitch.”

  “Here you go, Mr. Captain Save-A-Ho.”

  “I’m just sayin’, my nigga, it ain’t hard to make a bitch act right,” Javier told his friend. “All you gotta do is keep her happy and make her feel special. Oh, and stop sticking your dick in everything that has a pussy hole.”

  “That’s asking for too much already!” Teezo joked and laughed. “Man, fuck all that. What’s up with you and that joint from last night?”

  Truth be told, Javier hadn’t stopped thinking about Maria since he left her standing stuck on stupid. He felt bad for calling her stupid, especially since she looked so embarrassed already. He wished he would have gotten her number because now he didn’t know when he would get to see her again. Why did he want to see her, though? She was a prostitute. For all he knew, she was feeling him out for his money the whole time they were talking. Still, he didn’t think that was the case. Instead of telling Teezo the truth, he shrugged his shoulders.

  “We went our separate ways,” he stated simply.

  “We went our spate ways,” Teezo mimicked. “Old soap-opera-sounding-ass nigga. If I were you, I woulda took her home and tore all in that pussy!”

  “Nigga, you gon’ fuck around and catch something the way you just fuck anything.”

  “These hoes shouldn’t be so easy then. Shit, at least I’m not one of these niggas that gotta pay a joint for some pussy. Ain’t no bitch bad enough for me to pay to suck my dick.”

  “You’d be surprised,” Javier said, but his words went up in the air as they pulled into the driveway of the beat-up white house.

  There were only two cars in the driveway, but that wasn’t suspicious. Teezo hated when there was a lot of traffic at any of the traps because the one thing they didn’t need was too many eyes on them. The neighborhood was quiet, as usual, besides a couple of kids playing, riding their bikes up and down the street. The trap house was privately owned by a woman Javier paid to purchase the house. That way, the true ownership couldn’t ever trace back to him. Teezo blessed the cracked concrete with each step he took in his True Blues as he made his way up to the front door of the house.

  Javier’s senses were telling him that something was off, although everything seemed normal. When they walked up on the house, there were no sounds coming from it, which was strange because usually, the young niggas would be on the game hooting and hollering about who was cheating. Without thinking, he pulled his gun out and let it rest at his side, waiting for Teezo to open the front door.

  “These niggas tripping!” Teezo said as soon as he was through the threshold.

  He and Javier stood in the doorway peering around at the house. They saw nothing and heard nothing.

  “Yo,” Javier said and halted Teezo with the back of his hand. “Look.”

  Teezo’s eyes followed Javier’s finger, and he instantly drew his gun when he saw what Javier was pointing at. There was a small pool of blood stained in the carpet on the living room, and the wetness of it told them it was fresh. The two men began communicating in low voices to each other.

  “I’m about to go check downstairs,” Teezo informed Javier, who had taken steps to go check the kitchen.

  “A’ight, mane.”

  The floor of the old home squeaked louder in the silence under Javier’s feet with each step he took. Something stank, and it wasn’t the odor of the house. Something had happened in the house, but there was no sign of life to confirm or deny it. Whatever it was that was amiss, Javier wouldn’t rest until he figured it out.

  “Mmm!”

  He heard the noise the moment he entered the kitchen. Javier turned and aimed his gun, releasing his hand from the trigger just in time.

  “Mmm! Mmm!”

  Javier had found Bentley, the young light-skinned kid who was in charge. He was hog-tied in the kitchen with the rest of Javier’s young soldiers. The only difference was that Bentley was alive; the others weren’t. Javier removed the duct tape from around Bentley’s mouth, and then untied him. He needed answers.

  “Who did this?” he asked.

  “Mike-Mike and Laron.”

  “Mike-Mike and Laron?” Javier didn’t try to hide the shock in his voice. “Why?”

  “They had beef with Teezo.” Bentley’s voice sounded weak and frail. “Said he been paying them pennies to do a Ben Frank job. I tried to give Teezo a subliminal when I called him, but he was too irritated to catch it.”

  “What did they want?”

  “The coke, the money in the walls downstairs, and Teezo.”

  “Downstairs?” Javier jumped up thinking that he had been a fool to let his brother go to the basement alone.

  He ran out of the kitchen and made his move to the basement—but it was too late. The sound of gunfire erupted like fireworks on Independence Day.

  “Augh!”

  Javier was halfway down the stairs when he heard Teezo grunt in pain. A loud thud followed, like he’d fallen to the ground, but Javier couldn’t see him. In order for him to have eyes on the action, he would have to go to the bottom step and look around the corner, but if he did that, he was sure to be made. He didn’t know exactly how many people were in the basement, so his best option would be to let his ears be his eyes.

  “You greasy mothafuckas,” Teezo’s voice grunted. Javier heard the quick movements of somebody else in the basement, and then another thud, like Teezo had been hit in the face. “Umph!”

  “I thought Javier’s niggas was more boss than this. Shit was too easy!”

  “Grab the coke, Laron, and see how much money that nigga got on him. I’m tryin’a get a bottle when we leave here. I don’t even know why we brought these fuckin’ face masks. We ain’t even use ’em.”

  “Mane, Mike-Mike, we hit a gold mine! It has to have been fifty stacks in the wall!”

  “It’s lit!” Mike-Mike replied. “Let’s go drop this shit off so we can put a bug in Javier’s ear that the spot got hit before we got here.”

  “And him?”

  Javier was sure they were talking about Teezo, and Javier could still hear him groaning on the ground. That was good. It meant he was still alive, but for how long was the question. He raised his gun preparing to go in, guns blazing.

  “Fuck ’em,” Mike-Mike answered after a few moments of thinking. “That’s a fatal blow to the stomach. Let him bleed out. Bitch-ass nigga. Let’s go.”

  The two men rounded the corner . . . only to be met by the nose of a gun pointed in their faces. They were caught like deer in a pair of headlights. Javier was the last person they expected to see.

  “On the wall, scum,” Javier’s voice drenched with malice. “Drop ya guns—now!”

  Laron was in front of Mike-Mike, and that was the moment that Laron learned that Mike-Mike was never really his friend. He pushed Laron into Javier, causing him to pu
ll the trigger and catch Laron in the chest at close range. He was dead before he even hit the floor. Mike-Mike tried to push past Javier to get up the stairs but was caught in the back of the head by the butt of Javier’s pistol. Mike-Mike refused to go down without a fight. He tried to aim his weapon, but Javier kicked his wrist and made him drop it.

  Thump! Thump! Thump!

  The gun bounced down the stairs, and that left Mike-Mike defenseless to deal with the Grim Reaper himself. Javier was so angry at the blatant disrespect that he tucked his gun back in place and proceeded to beat Mike-Mike with his bare hands.

  “You come in my spot and kill my little niggas? Huh?” Javier yelled in Mike-Mike’s face as he plummeted it with his fists. “Mothafucka! You thought you was gon’ rob me, little nigga?”

  Javier stomped Mike-Mike’s head into the hard wooden stairs so viciously that his body began to thrash. Not caring about the seizure he’d sent Mike-Mike into, Javier continued his ferocious attack until the kid moved no more. Javier’s fresh white Adidas now had streaks of blood on them, and he wished he could bring Mike-Mike back to life just so he could kill him again. His chest heaved, and he held on to the rail of the stairs waiting for the adrenaline rush to calm down, but a call from his right hand told him there was no time for that.

  “Javi!” Teezo’s voice was weak. Life was leaving him with each second that went by. Javier appeared by his side and scooped him up in his arms. “Get me to the hospital, nigga.”

  “Nah,” Javier huffed sarcastically, helping Teezo get his footing, “I’ma take you to the mall.”

  “I can’t believe that little mothafucka shot me!”

  “Now maybe you’ll listen to me when I tell you to stop putting these little niggas on so quick.”

  Chapter 5

  “You need to leave that boy alone, Maria! He ain’t gon’ do nothing but hurt you! Oh, Dios mio!”

  “Mommy!” Maria ran around her small bedroom, throwing clothes in the overnight bag she had on her shoulder. “I’m a big girl, I can handle myself!”

  Mary Calico sighed heavily at the fact that her daughter just wouldn’t listen. The two women were in Maria’s small bedroom, and that night, the bright pink wallpaper seemed dull. Mary stood in the bedroom door with her hands on her hips. She was staring at her twenty-one-year-old daughter as she bustled around the room getting ready to leave yet again. Her hands were on her hips, and she was prepared to block her daughter from getting out. That night, Maria even went as far as to take down the family photos that were taped to the wall and put them in her bag.

  “Y-you’re not coming back?” Mary asked softly.

  “Sir and I are moving in together, Mommy. We’ve been together for a while now.”

  “It’s only been a few months, though, mi amor. I just don’t think that’s a good idea! How well do you really know him?”

  “I know he loves me, Mommy.”

  “Love?” Mary scoffed. “What do you even know about love? And why are you worried about love? What about college?”

  “Mommy, what are you doing?” Maria said with an exasperated tone. “Come on, stop playing. Sir is outside waiting for me.”

  “‘Sir is outside waiting for me. Sir is hungry, I have to buy him some food. Sir doesn’t have any gas in his car, I need to go pick him up.’ Don’t you see? You’re losing yourself behind a no-good-ass man! You’re supposed to be being a role model for Marisole, and instead, you’re chasing dick! ”

  Maria turned on her mother and put her hands on her hips. She looked in her mother’s face and ignored the pain there and just focused on her words.

  “What would you know about what a good man is? Before Daddy died, he treated you like shit! So don’t tell me anything about what a bad man is when you lived with one for twenty years!”

  Mary gasped and put her hand over her heart like Maria had stabbed her there. She couldn’t believe the words that had come out of her oldest daughter’s mouth, but she was more hurt that Maria didn’t look like she regretted her words. Instead, she just continued packing her things. When Maria was finished, she used her shoulder to brush her mother out of the way so she could get by. As she walked to the front door of the small one-story house, she saw her little sister Marisole standing in the hallway by her room door.

  “Maria, are you coming home later?” Marisole asked. “You told me you would help me with my math homework, remember?”

  “I’m sorry, mi amor, I have to go now.”

  She had completely forgotten that she had told Marisole that she would help her with her eighth-grade algebra assignment. The look of disappointment on Marisole’s face wasn’t even enough to keep Maria from walking out the front door. She grabbed Marisole and pulled her into a hug, planting a soft kiss on her cheek.

  “I’m sorry, sis,” she said pulling away. “Mommy will help you. I have to go now.”

  If Strawberry would have known that was the last time she would see her mother and sister, then maybe she would have been more sensitive when she left. But if she knew that five years later, she would be in a hospital bed fighting for her life, she would have never left in the first place.

  “Stay with us, Maria!”

  “Her vitals are dropping! She’s lost so much blood, we need to do a blood transfusion now!”

  Strawberry felt as if she were moving faster than light. She didn’t know where she was, and she didn’t recognize the voices speaking around her. Every time she tried to open her eyes, they rolled to the back of her head. Everything around her was a big white blur, and her body was in more pain than it ever had been. Maria was sure that she was about to die, and if that was the case, hell was sure to welcome her. She hadn’t done anything good or worthwhile in her life. Everything had been for the sake of money, money that wasn’t even hers to keep.

  It’s over. I’m about to die. I didn’t even get to tell Mommy that I was sorry. Strawberry didn’t have any fight left in her. Her mother’s smiling face flashed behind her eyelids, and that was the last thing she saw before she gave up.

  “We’re losing her! Get her in the room now! We need to find somebody in this hospital who has the same blood type as her. Go! Go! Go!”

  * * *

  Javier sat in the lobby of the ER of Baptist Memorial Hospital waiting to hear how Teezo’s surgery had gone. His friend had lost a lot of blood by the time he finally arrived at the hospital, and Teezo was going in and out of consciousness. The doctors had taken him for emergency surgery as soon as they were told that there was a gunshot patient. Javier told them that he wasn’t leaving until he was sure his friend was all right, so he’d been waiting for over an hour. He was sitting with his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands trying to force himself to stay awake.

  “Mr. Jackson?”

  Javier looked up when he heard his name being called and hurried to his feet when he saw that it was a surgeon.

  “My name is Doctor Nola,” the tall, white man shook Javier’s hand. “The bad news is that your friend lost a lot of blood and will need to stay overnight. But the good news is that it looks like the gunshot wound was only a flesh wound. Terrance is expected to make a full recovery.”

  Javier let out a big sigh of relief and shook the surgeon’s hand again.

  “Can I go back and see him?”

  “He’s out like a light right now, and the nurses are doing a few more tests, but once they are finished, yes, Terrance may have guests.”

  “OK, thank you for everything, Doctor Nola.”

  “My pleasure.”

  The surgeon walked away, and Javier prepared to sit back down and wait until he was able to go back and see his friend, but he was almost knocked to the ground by a doctor and two nurses. They were running while wheeling a patient whose blood had drenched the white hospital sheets of the bed.

  “Stay with us, Maria!”

  The name instantly caught his attention, but he just knew they couldn’t be referring to the same person that was at the club last night.
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  “We’re losing her!” The blond female doctor shouted. “Get her in the room now! We need to find somebody in this hospital who has the same blood type as her. Go! Go! Go!”

  * * *

  “Maria?” he asked himself, feeling his feet move faster to keep up with the doctor and nurses. He got a good look at the woman on the bed, and although she had been knocked up pretty badly, he recognized her. “Maria! What happened to her?”

  “Beat up by her pimp. Again!” Maria was pushed into a room that the doctor wouldn’t let him get through. “I’m sorry, sir, I can’t let you back here.”

  Javier strained his neck to get another look at Maria and saw how lifeless she looked. She was hooked up to a heart monitor, but her heartbeat was only beating faintly. He had to do something. He looked at the doctor’s name and held the door with his hand so she couldn’t shut it in his face.

  “That’s my friend, Doctor Lawson,” Javier told her. “My name is Javier Jackson, and I have type O blood. If she needs it, take it from me.”

  “We don’t have much time, Doctor Lawson. She’s going to die if we don’t move now!”

  Doctor Lawson looked at Javier, and then back at Maria. All the times that the girl had come to the hospital bruised up and hurting, no one had ever poked their nose around, claiming to be her “friend.” Especially not Javier Jackson. She recognized his name and face as the man who’d made generous donations to the hospital over the past years, and as skeptical on how he and her patient were connected, still, the look of genuine concern in Javier’s eyes made her believe him, so she made a split-second decision.