by Hood Rich
It didn’t take long for me to find the hole that he’d gotten the bricks from. I leaned forward and stuck my hand into it, feeling around while roaches crawled out of the wall in a frenzy. I felt downward until my hand came into contact with what felt the same material the other bricks were wrapped in. I pulled one up and looked it over, and sure enough there it was, another kilo of meth I assumed. I took the brick and threw it out of the cabinet. Then, I felt deeper into the hole and was able to toss out another four bricks before I felt around and saw that there were no more. I crawled backward and stood up. I took my shirt and popped it out. Three big ass roaches fell off of me and scattered to their escape. I grabbed the four bricks and tossed them in the bag before running to the back of the house where Paper and Jay was.
I got there just in time to see Jay placing a bundle of cash into a pillow case. He was laying on his side with his safe open in front of him, filling up the pillowcase while Paper held his pistol on him.
“Hurry up nigga.” Paper growled.
Blood gushed out of Jay’s knees. The hole looked like it had gotten bigger. I could smell clearly now that he’d shat himself.
He tossed in the last bundle and handed the pillowcase to Paper. It looked chunky. “Here, man. It’s all in there. Now can one of y’all please drive me to the hospital?” He groaned, out of breath.
Paper tied the pillowcase in a knot and tossed it to me. “Hold this, bruh, and go open the backdoor.” He cocked the hammer of his pistol and lowered it to Jay’s face.
I grabbed the money and shrugged. I knew what Paper was about to do and I guess I had to make peace with that. It was the life that we were in. After all, Jay knew who he was and that would’ve never worked. So, I took everything and opened the backdoor just like he asked me to. As soon as I pulled the door open, I heard the shots.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Paper was running toward me and we hit it down the back stairs to the backyard and down the alley, running as fast as we could until we made it back to my car.
That night, Paper and I counted out $100,000 and separated the ten kilos of dope. The last four that I had pulled out of the wall were not meth. They turned out to be pure Colombian cocaine. So pure that the coke looked as if it had a light pink tinge to it. The only thing I could think of was that we were about to get money.
Chapter 9
Four months later, and in the month of December, me and Paper had the trap rocking so hard that it was normal for us to have a line of addicts in the backyard waiting for us to serve them. On top of that, we’d turn Paper’s trap into a straight smoke house, where we allowed for fiends to come inside and smoke until they ran out of money. In addition to that, they were able to mingle and fuck the other hypes as long as one of the two of them were still buying our product. I made sure that we supplied everything too. I had bags of glass pipes and chars that were basically scrubbing brillo pads. I had lighters, alcohol pads and even ashtrays. Plus, I kept something booming out of the speakers from the old school, so the fiends could relax and take a load. Shit, we even supplied them with condoms when it was time for them to do the do.
The money was coming fast, and it was plentiful. I got into this phase where I was barely spending anything on myself because I felt like my sisters had been deprived of so much, so I took to spoiling them and making sure that they had the absolute best of the best. Every weekend I’d make sure that I took them on shopping sprees where I’d spend about three gees apiece on each of them. Keyonna took a major liking to everything Prada and Christian Louboutin, while Kesha was crazy over Gucci and Steve Madden. Neither one of their tastes bothered me. I just wanted to make sure that they were happy and kept money on their debit cards.
Keyonna turned eighteen the following Spring, and months prior to her eighteenth birthday she kept on begging me to buy her a Jeep. She’d already gotten her driver’s license and maintained a 3.5 grade point average that made me proud. So, while I already knew that I was going to get her whatever she wanted, I made it seem like buying her a Jeep was out of the question. For about three weeks before her birthday all she did was mope around the house with a long face. She refused to give me her normal hugs and kisses and did all that she could to avoid me. It literally killed me to endure those three weeks because I missed her displays of affection. Keyonna was my first sister and the first person in this world I’d learned to protect even before myself. Our bond was strong, and for three weeks it seemed nonexistent and that crushed me, to say the least.
On the morning of her birthday, I woke her up with a big smile on my face, after pulling her sleeping mask from her eyes. “Get up, baby sister, it’s your birthday and I want you to roll with me today. Here.” I handed her a small bag from Zale’s. “Open it.” I leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead. “Happy birthday.”
She sat all the way up and pulled down her Prada duvet, wiping the cold out of her eyes. “Thank you, Rich, but I’m still mad at you,” she said looking into my eyes with her twin-like hazel ones. She sat the bag on her lap and crossed her arms.
I frowned. “Dang, you ain’t even gon’ look and see what I bought you?” I asked, feeling some type of way.
Kesha came into the room with her toothbrush inside of her mouth. She took it out for a second. “She still made because she wanted a Jeep for her birthday and she overheard you telling Andrea that you couldn’t afford one this year, but that you’d make sure that she was good for her nineteenth birthday.” She stuck her toothbrush back into her mouth and allowed it to do its job.
Keyonna rolled her eyes. “So, what Kesha? Damn, you always gotta run your big mouth. Ain’t nobody said nothing to you, and you’re damn right I’m mad. A girl only turns eighteen one time. My sixteenth birthday sucked. I didn’t even have a cake. Now I have to wait all the way until my nineteenth one to be happy. It’s just not fair. It isn’t.” She lowered her face into her hands and started to sob loudly, shaking her head.
Kesha shook her head and removed her electric toothbrush once again. “You got that girl spoiled, Rich. For real, she’s way too soft and thinks she’s supposed to get everything that she wants.” She sucked her teeth. “Keyonna, if you weren’t so damn spoiled you’d look in the bag and find the keys to your Jeep that you don’t deserve, freaking diva. Its parked in the front of the house, if you must know.” Kesha walked out of the room with her toothbrush whirring inside of her mouth.
Keyonna took her hands away from her face. Her eyes were bugged out of her head. “What? Is she serious?” she asked, coming to her knees in the bed, grabbing the bag and reaching inside of it before throwing all of the jewelry boxes to the side and pulling out the Mercedes Benz’s keys. “Oh my God! You didn’t Rich! I know you didn’t buy me what I wanted for my birthday!” She jumped out of the bed and hugged me briefly before running out of her room and to the front window where she pulled the curtain back and screamed so loud that it hurt my ears. “Ahh!” She unlocked the front door and pulled it open, running down the stairs and into the sunlight. She stopped in front of the pink 2019 Benz truck that was laced with the black and pink Faccio rims that had Prada’s logo all over them. She looked over her shoulder at me and dropped to her knees, crying into her hands again.
I walked over to her and pulled her up, wrapping my arms around her small waist, hugging her to my body. “Never doubt me, lil’ sis. I love you way too much to ever let you down. I know you had a rough first sixteen years in life, but I promise to make the rest better from here on out.” I kissed her forehead while she sobbed underneath me. “Let’s go take it for a spin.”
She shook her head. “I love you so much, Rich. I swear with everything that I am. I love you with all of me.” She hugged me tightly then popped the doors of her truck by use of the remote on her key chain. I watched her open the driver’s door and get behind the wheel. She looked all around the truck, crying, then put the key into the ignition and turned it on. “Come on, Rich. I want to take my first drive inside of it with you!”
she hollered, and I almost melted.
I jumped inside, and she pulled away from the curb.
***
Later that day, I felt that Kesha was feeling some type of way, because after me and Keyonna got back, she seemed to be more quiet than usual. So, I asked her if she would take a ride with me and she agreed to. As I pulled from in front of the house I turned to her and asked her what was good.
She took a tuft of her long, curly hair and placed it behind her ear. She looked so much like my mother that at times it scared me. “Rich, at times, I feel like you love Keyonna more than you do me, and I hate feeling that way because you two are all that I have. I mean, besides Andrea.” She swallowed and looked over at me, pursing her lips. Doing so caused her deep dimples to appear on each cheek.
I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach by a heavy-weight boxer or something. “What makes you feel like that, Kesha, when you should know that it isn’t the case? I love the both of my princesses the same.” I reached and turned on the air conditioner and adjusted one of the vents so some of the air blew directly onto me. I felt real hot all of the sudden.
Kesha shrugged her. “I don’t know. I guess I just feel like you make more of a fuss over her than you do me. Then, she’s always all under you and you guys spend more time together than we do. And for my birthday last month you got me some pretty nice things, but it wasn’t a truck. That’s huge.” She exhaled. “I guess I understand a little bit. I mean, she is more beautiful than I am, and I’m more of a tom boy, real quiet and stuff. You probably relate more to her being a sister than you do me.” She was quiet for a moment before looking out of my passenger’s window.
I must’ve been quiet for a full two minutes. I was shocked and didn’t know what to say. I started to replay me and Keyonna’s relationship over in my mind, then compared it to the one I had with Kesha. I was less than halfway started before I confirmed that she was right. I favored Keyonna more than I did her and I didn’t even realize it. “Damn, I’m so sorry, Kesha. I didn’t even realize what I’ve been doing. I need you to know that I love you just as much. You’re my heart, lil’ sister, and I’m going to get better at splitting my love and time down the middle between the two of you because you should never feel left out. You hear me?”
She nodded and then blinked. Tears fell down her cheeks, then she was crying full on. “I miss our mother so much, Rich. I don’t think I can go through this life without her. I feel so lost and so unloved. She was our rock. Now what do we have? I’ll never be pretty enough to have anybody love me as much as she did.” She covered her face again and broke into a fit of tears.
I pulled up to a stop sign and threw my car in park, leaned over and pulled Kesha to me, rubbing the back of her head while she cried into my chest. “Baby, it’s going to be okay. I love you just as much as mama did, and you’re one of the most beautiful women ever created. You are an angel— perfect in every single way. Never forget that. Do you hear me?”
She nodded once again while she cried harder into my chest.
I don’t know why or how I wound up at my mother’s grave, but somehow, some way, me and Kesha wound up there with her standing in front of me with my arms wrapped around her frame and my chin on her shoulder, kissing her soft cheek every so often.
Prior to us standing and overlooking her grave, I’d watched Kesha lay a golden rose on top of the grave and kiss her head stone. “We have to be something, Rich. We have to find a way to make our mother proud. She battled so many demons and was unable to give us the life that she wanted to because of them, so it’s for us to make it happen. It’s why I’m going to be a doctor. I want to save those that can’t save themselves.”
I held her tighter and kissed her cheek again. I loved my lil’ sister so much. “Kesha, I’m gon’ make sure that you’re able to be anything that you want to. All you have to do is the schoolwork and I’ll take care of everything else, I promise.”
She looked up at me and smiled. “I believe you too, Rich. I know you got me. I just get jealous sometimes because Keyonna is so forward and she isn’t so afraid of you rejecting her when I am. Every time you say no to me it makes me feel so alone. I wish I had her moxie.” She exhaled loudly.
I laughed because I knew what my sister was getting at, even though she was afraid to say it. An hour later we pulled up at the Mercedes Benz lot, and three hours after all of the paperwork was finished, she was able to drive off of the lot in her own Mercedes Benz coupe. It was a good thing that I was cool with the owner, and that he dabbled with that meth from time to time because I didn’t have a problem with him taking all cash, even though it proceeded ten thousand, when usually they’d flag the money and call the authorities. But this day turned out to be a good one. I was able to make both of my sisters happy, and that in turn made me happy.
***
Later that night, at about two in the morning, I was rolling from Paper’s house on my way back to Andrea’s when I rolled past the alley that came right before I entered onto our block and saw Aaliyah running out of it with blood all over the front of her short, Burberry dress. She was looking over her shoulder before she fell onto her knees and got back up, running full speed with something in her hand.
I slammed on the brakes and threw my car in reverse, pulling backward until I was in front of her. “Aaliyah! Aaliyah!” I hollered but figured she couldn’t hear me because of my passenger’s window being rolled up.
She was still running, looking backward.
Finally, I got out of the car. “Aaliyah!”
She froze in place and screamed out loud before looking forward and seeing that it was me. She shook her head. “Help me, Rich! Help, please! I swear I didn’t mean to!” she hollered, looking as if she were about to have a nervous breakdown.
I waved her over. “Come on, man, you good. Hurry up.”
She looked down the alley again, then ran over to my car and waited for me to open the passenger’s door for her.
Chapter 10
I swallowed hard as the rain began to pour with thunder roaring in the sky. Within seconds I was drenched as Aaliyah stuck her head out of my car with tears running down her face.
“Is she dead, Rich? Please tell me she me isn’t.” She cried.
Now the rain began to come down so hard that it was difficult for me to see in front of me. My clothes were matted to my skin and my socks felt like they were filled with water. The Air Max did very little to shield me from the elements. I reached my hand out and placed two fingers to the light skinned woman’s neck and waited to see if I felt a pulse. Her midsection was bloodied. Aaliyah had already admitted to me that she stabbed the woman three times in the stomach after they’d fought there in the alley behind our houses.
I shook my head and looked over my shoulder at her. “She gone, Aaliyah.” I stood up and jogged to the car. “What you want me to do?” I asked, not really seeing a solution. Old girl was dead. The only thing we could do was leave her right there in the alley and allow for somebody to stumble across her the next day and call the police.
Aaliyah’s eyes were wide open in fear. “She’s dead? Aw shit. He gon’ kill me too. That was his bottom bitch. She was showing me the ropes. He gon’ know that I did it. What am I supposed to do?” She whimpered.
I took a deep breath and looked her over closely, noticing how bad she was shaking. I understood that she was incredibly afraid of this dude and I still didn’t even know his name. I jogged around the car and got into the driver’s seat, closing my door, taking time out to gather my thoughts before turning to her like two minutes later. “Look, Aaliyah, ain’t nothing we can do about that because ol’ girl dead. We just gotta get away from this area and see what happens. I’mma put you up in a motel until we can get some things figured out, okay?” I reached over and pulled her wet hair off of her cheek.
She shook her head. “I ain’t got no money for a hotel. I wasn’t even out here that long before all this stuff happened. She started to smack me around rig
ht away, like she couldn’t wait for Ken to drop us off. I don’t think she liked me,” she said, looking into her lap and shaking her head.
I threw my car in drive and pulled off. “Don’t worry about it because we ain’t taking you to no hotel. I’mma put you up in this motel over on twenty-fifth and Wisconsin Street. They only charge about forty dollars a night. I’mma book you for a full week so you can gather yourself.”
She sat back in her seat and looked out of the window. “Thank you, Rich. I swear I’mma pay you back, somehow, some way.”
* * *
Aaliyah came out of the bathroom of the Super Eight Motel with a small bottle of Patron. She took it and placed it to her lips, swallowing it in large gulps before plopping down on the bed and running her fingers through her hair. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
I sat my phone on the night stand after texting Andrea that I’d be home in like an hour. I told her I had some business to handle and then I would be on my way. After that was done, I got up and sat on the bed next to Aaliyah, just as the first tears began to slide down her cheeks. I placed my arm around her shoulder and pulled her to me. “Aaliyah, its gon’ be alright. I ain’t about to let nothing happen to you. You gotta trust me on that. Now, I don’t really know how that fool Ken get down, but I ain’t feeling him already. I know you got a good explanation for murking ol’ girl in that alley, so let me know what’s good and we can go from there.”
She nodded, then wiggled her shoulders, coming from out of my embrace and standing up to pace the floor. “Meeka hated me ever since Ken brought me into his stable.” She exhaled loudly. “Rich, I don’t want you judging me and shit after I tell you a few things, and I don’t need your sympathy either. I been figuring things out on my own ever since I was sixteen years old. Ain’t nobody ever did nothing for me, that’s the first thing you gotta understand. You feel me?” She looked up and into my hazel eyes.
