Trust in No Man

by Cash

  The busta ass nigga, who’d claimed he’d fucked Fiona, too, laughed with them. I started to slap his wannabe ass. Instead, I asked Fiona if she’d ever fucked him.

  “Hell no!” she screamed, and the busta dropped his head.

  Me and Fiona got in the car and dipped. She asked where my truck was, and I told her the same shit I’d told Cita. I was resting it.

  I pulled into a Starvin Marvin and sent Fiona in the store to get some rolling paper.

  “You got some weed?” the dumb bitch asked.

  “Why else would I need some papers?” I asked.

  As soon as she went inside the store, I pulled off and left her ass.

  I checked my wrist and realized it was time to pick Cheryl up from school. In fact, I was running late.

  Cheryl got in the car oozing attitude. She didn’t ask why I was late. She didn’t say shit, which for her was a first.

  I wasn’t gon’ kiss her ass, so I dropped her off at the neighbor’s crib who watched Eryka in the daytime and dipped. I didn’t even go inside to see my baby girl. Shit, I can act ill, too. Besides, I had too much shit on my mental agenda to be going through drama with a bitch. It wasn’t like the world was gonna end ‘cause I was late picking her up.

  The next day I went and got tatted and then picked up my truck from the paint shop later that evening. My whip was phat! The money-green paint job was slammin’. I traded in my rims for a new set of dubs they were selling,and when I pulled off the lot, I felt like I was pushing a brand new whip.

  I dashed by Shan’s to show off and to drop her some loot for Lil’ T; they were going to White Waters amusement park with some more people Shan knew. I stayed and played catch football with my son for a minute, but Shan spoiled our fun, crying about Lil’ Terrence getting his clothes dirty. Leave it to Shan to ruin the simplest fun for a nigga.

  I’m convinced the bitch just hated to see me happy. That was probably why hos closed their eyes when they kiss a nigga—they couldn’t stand to see us happy.

  So, I bounced from there and went to find something to get into.

  My dawg Lonnie wasn’t home, so I decided to pay my sister a surprise visit, hoping her nigga wasn’t around. Toi wasn’t home either, so I got on the Interstate and headed back to the hood.

  While I was in route to the game room, Cheryl paged me but I ignored the calls. I’d teach her ass about trying to catch an attitude with a nigga.

  At the game room I shot a few games of pool and spit flava at a honey named Inez. I was just shootin’ the shit, really, ‘cause Inez was this nigga named Fat Stan’s baby mama.

  Inez was 100 percent eye candy. A real dime with that attitude like she knew it, too. The kind of bitch that’d make a nigga kick off in her ass.

  I wasn’t no hater, but keep it real. Fat Stan didn’t deserve Inez.

  She was more than his fat ass could handle. She looked just like that sexy actress, Stacy Dash. On the other hand, Fat Stan was bigger and uglier than the Notorious B.I.G. However, like the late Biggie, Fat Stan did have some game for a bitch. But with Inez it was mostly the loochie that kept her down for him.

  Big Boy wasn’t no major baller but he stayed on the grind and clocked decent figures, most of it finding a way into Inez’ purse. I guess Inez figured it was wiser to fuck with Fat Stan and get all of his cheddar than to get with a boss hustler and only get small pieces of his.

  See, a nigga didn’t have to look good to get the flyest bitch; all he had to do was get money and respect from the streets and a fly ho would be down.

  A bitch, though, she had to look good to lock down a balla, ‘cause to street niggaz, it was all a show: Who pushin’ the flyest whip? Who rockin’ the most bling? Who holdin’ down the baddest bitch?

  Ugly bitches didn’t stand a chance with a boss hustler, unless she sucked mean dick. Then she might get him to make a booty call, but never would she get showcased in public.

  Anyway, I knew Fat Stan from way back in YDC. I only knew Inez from seeing her around. Yet, I was up on her situation with Fat Stan. I knew that Inez had that killa pussy. Meaning, Fat Stan would kill a nigga over Inez. Now, the creed of the streets dictated that a nigga was out of bounds if he brought the ruckus to another nigga about fuckin’ his bitch, ‘cause a nigga couldn’t fuck what was really his. But some niggaz didn’t respect the creed, or, perhaps, it was that some bitches got pussy so good a nigga lost his perspective. Whatever, it was well known that Fat Stan would heat a nigga up about his bitch.

  Occasionally, niggaz would test him when his heater went warm, but he always met the challenge. So, any nigga with love for life avoided Inez like a modern-day plague. But it had already been documented that I didn’t bar death. So when Inez got all up in my grill like a dentist, I did what any real nigga would do. I took her to the crib and dicked her down.

  Lying in my arms, Inez told me that Fat Stan had caught a nickel in the state pen while I was convalescing from being shot. So he’d been gone about four months and already Inez had her legs open. I was laying there thinking: Bitches ain’t shit!

  A nigga be going all-out to give them the best jewels, gear, bling and shit and then as soon as he took a fall, those hos disrespect by fuckin’ another nigga before their man could go through classification and get a prison number.

  The game was mad crazy. Damn near everything about it was disloyal. That was why a hustler has to put money over bitches, M.O.B., and he couldn’t love them hos, ‘cause they damn sho’ didn’t love us. They loved what we represented, ghetto fame.

  “What did Stan fall fo’?” I asked, both of us butt-ass-naked.

  “He copped out to an aggravated assault. They dropped a dope charge and another assault,” Inez told me. She didn’t have to tell me that Fat Stan’s agg’ assaults were on niggaz who’d tried to holla at her, I knew the deal.

  I asked, “You gon’ stay down for him while he’s on locks or what?”

  “I’ma look out for him and take his daughter to see him while he’s in there, but he already knows I’ma be kickin’ it with somebody until he gets out,” Inez explained.

  “He’s cool with that?” I asked.

  “He ain’t got no choice but to be cool with it. He gotta do five years. I ain’t no nun, and I ain’t gonna lie to him.”

  “True dat,” I said. “But Fat Stan mad loco about you. I can’t believe he just accepts it like that. He strikes me as the type of nigga who tries to control his bitch from the pen.”

  Inez propped her head up with her hand. “Let’s get one thing straight, nigga!” She said, “First of all, I ain’t no bitch. Don’t get it twisted ‘cause I’m in bed with you. It’s just sex and ain’t but four niggaz ever got it from me. If you’re gonna play me like that, you won’t be gettin’ no more.”

  “Damn, shawdy! Don’t get bent, I didn’t mean it like that. You know a nigga just used to talking like that. Nah mean?”

  Inez accepted my half-apology and told me not to disrespect her in that way again. I guess she was used to handling Fat Stan, but I was on another level, wasn’t no bitch gonna handle me. How the fuck she gon’ demand respect when her nigga was doing a bid and she was doing my dick? I can’t respect that! I bit my tongue for the time being, I’d show my weight later.

  I told Inez about Cheryl and Eryka, Shan and Lil’ T, letting her know that I wasn’t no pussy-whipped nigga like Fat Stan. She was cool with it, but she claimed not to fuck two niggaz at the same time.

  “You ain’t never cheated on Fat Stan?”

  “Nah,” Inez swore, but I didn’t believe her.

  “For what?” she said. “Stan might not be the best looking nigga around, but he treated me with respect and I didn’t want for nothing.”

  “So that’s what you’re about, huh?” I stared straight into the bitch’s eyes so she wouldn’t get my words twisted. “Well, I ain’t no cake daddy like Fat Stan. All I’ma give you is the same thing you give me, sex. When it’s time to get your hair done and your nails fixed and go on shoppi
ng sprees, it ain’t gon’ be Youngblood’s money in yo’ grip.”

  “Have I asked you for some money?” Inez asked with a hint of indignation.

  “I’m just letting you know, shawdy.”

  “You don’t have to let me know that! ‘Cause I don’t want no money from you. Some female must’ve really played you for some big loot, ‘cause you’re paranoid as hell.” I laughed.

  “Never,” I popped. “I’m way too clever.”

  Inez told me that if she hadn’t learned anything else from fucking with Fat Stan, she had learned how to hustle and make her own loot.

  “What you know ‘bout hustling, shawdy?” I said.

  “I know that loose lips sink ships,” Inez said without hesitation, surprising the fuck out of me.

  I liked her style.

  “What else do loose lips do?”

  “Do you really wanna know?” Her voice grew as husky as mine.

  I felt her hands caress my scars and then her tongue followed. I gently pushed down on the top of her head, but she wouldn’t go down. Fuck it. Some hos tried to front like they didn’t suck dick, but they all did it.

  It was just a matter of time.

  I didn’t force the issue. Inez’ pussy was good enough to please a nigga, minus the brains. I climbed between her legs and gave her some more of this thug passion. In no time at all, she was bucking up against me and screaming, “I’m cumming!”

  She was one of those bitches who made a lot of sexy moans and faces when she came and since I laid mad pipe, I had her face twisted and her moans plentiful.

  The next morning, I dropped Inez off at her crib and told her to page me later.

  “You know where I live,” she said.

  I assumed she meant she wasn’t gonna page me and if I wanted to see her again, I’d come by her crib.

  Whatever.

  A week passed and Inez hadn’t paged me yet. I was calling her bluff and I guess she was calling mine. I wasn’t gon’ front, though, I was thinking about her, especially because Cheryl was gettin’ on a nigga’s nerves.

  If it wasn’t one thing or the other, it was everything. Our daughter was almost four months and Cheryl still hadn’t lost any of the weight she’d gained while pregnant. I told her if she didn’t go on a diet, she was gonna end up looking like a sumo wrestler. Still, she ate up everything in sight.

  She no longer was show-off material, so I never took her out anywhere, and I didn’t like fucking her anymore. So I was mad as fuck when Cheryl told me she was pregnant again.

  We had a heated argument. I threw a roll of money at her and told her to either get an abortion or forget about me. She was crying like a fat baby when I walked out.

  Cheryl’s mother paged me later that night pleading her daughter’s case. I wasn’t tryin’ to hear that shit, though. So I ended up cussin’ Cheryl’s mother out. She told me they’d see me in child support court and slammed the phone in my ear.

  Fuck it, I wasn’t gon’ let them vex me. But neither was I gonna let them play tug-o-war with my daughter like Shan did with Lil’ T. I had no love for Cheryl’s moms, so I wouldn’t hesitate to go thug-style on her ass. How the fuck she gon’ step in and try to regulate shit between Cheryl and me when her ass was seldom seen?

  Lonnie kept telling me to let it ride, Cheryl and I would get an understanding once I accepted that she just wasn’t gettin’ an abortion.

  I wasn’t feelin’ him, though. Shit! What a young thug nigga need with three kids?

  I looked in the rearview mirror at my reflection and thought about some ill shit Jay-Z said on one of his records How stress would give a young nigga an old face.

  I probably would’ve gone by Cheryl’s crib and blasted her and her mama, took my daughter and got ghost if Rich Kid hadn’t paged me and told me he needed me to do some work for him.

  I had no beef about providing for Eryka. I loved my lil’ girl and I owed her whatever I owed myself and my son Lil’ T.

  My beef with Cheryl was about the seed growing in her stomach. I could already tell there was nothin’ between Cheryl and me no more, at least on my end. So, I wasn’t feelin’ her having a second child by me.

  I couldn’t really explain why the feeling I’d once had for Cheryl had disappeared like a crackhead’s dreams. Before Eryka was born, Cheryl and I got along good, and she stayed lookin’ fly. Now, she had turned into a lazy, fat chickenhead, hardly ever getting her hair done and always accusing and nagging me.

  I thought back to when Cheryl had first found out she was pregnant with Eryka, and how she’d swore she wasn’t gon’ be trippin’ on me like most young hos be trippin’ on their baby daddies. Now, Cheryl was doing the very shit she’d sworn she wouldn’t do. I began to think this second pregnancy was a trap, Cheryl’s way of handcuffin’ a nigga.

  If having Eryka had turned Cheryl into Miss Piggy, what would she look like after having another baby?

  I wasn’t tryin’ to imagine myself in a fly whip with a fat baby mama on my arm. Fuck dat! A thugged out, young nigga in a fly ass whip deserved a fly ass bitch on his arm.

  I put Trick Daddy’s CD in the deck and turned up the volume while I drove to meet Rich Kid.

  As usual, Englewood was jumpin’, niggaz on the grind, bitches tryin’ to come up, lil’ kids watchin’ and learnin’, po-po one step behind and the Rib Lady servin’ ‘em all.

  I found Rich Kid parked up by the basketball court, sitting on the hood of his whip, a black Viper. The whip was tricked out, 20 inch rims and all, reflective of Rich Kid’s ghetto fabulous status.

  Two of his street soldiers stood guard, silently protecting the hand that fed them. I didn’t see his watch dog, King, the big ugly nigga who was usually at Rich Kid’s side 24/7. That was unusual.

  Though it was almost sixty degrees outside, niggaz were playing ball and a huddle of niggaz were shootin’ craps nearby.

  “He’s cool,” Rich Kid said to his two soldiers, stopping them from patting me down. “Whud up?” he said to me.

  “That’s what I’m here to find out?” I said, skippin’ the small talk.

  We walked a few feet away from the others and I listened as Rich Kid talked in a whisper. I didn’t ask a question or say a word ‘til he finished explaining why he had wanted to holla at me.

  Then, all I said was, “I’ll handle it. You can count on it.”

  A day later, I was riding with Lonnie, explaining to him what Rich Kid wanted me to do. If Lonnie ever turned rat, the goods he had on me could send me away for life, but Lonnie was one hundred percent real. I wasn’t worried about him ever flippin’ on me. I trusted Lonnie with my life. Therefore, I didn’t worry about him betraying my secrets.

  Though Lonnie had never been put in that predicament with me, it was well known in the hood that he’d kept his mouth shut when the heat came down on him and some other niggaz, years before. Keepin’ it real wasn’t a badge of honor for Lonnie, it was just the way he lived.

  I witnessed it with the way he treated his girl, Delina, and her children. Even the way he treated Delina’s smoked out ex-boyfriend and the way he handled the beef between me and Shotgun Pete.

  Sadistic torture couldn’t get Lonnie to turn rat. So I had no reservations about letting him know what was on my agenda, especially when I wanted his opinion on the matter. Otherwise, I just played by the rules of the streets and kept my business off my lips. But this was one of those times I wanted to hear Lonnie’s opinion.

  He said, “I guess you’re changing your steelo from stickup kid to hitman?”

  “Nah, dawg. Really, the two go hand-in-hand.”

  “Not really,” Lonnie disagreed. But I didn’t see it that way.

  I told him it was all a hustle. The same toilet, different shit. I was down for any hustle involving the gat, as long as the pay was proper and I could control the risk. Besides, I was itching to blast the nigga, Rich Kid, wanted eliminated this time. Not to mention I hadn’t added to my freezer stash in a while. I had no targets to rob at the
present, and Lonnie didn’t have anything scoped out. So Rich Kid’s offer was sweet music to my ears. It would take time to get the drop on the target and catch him alone and vulnerable. But like I said before, when a mafucka wanted you dead bad enough, wasn’t no escaping it. The only unknown was will the nigga who pulled the trigger get away with it or not.

  Lonnie didn’t say it directly, but I got the impression he wasn’t feelin’ my hitman steelo. It could’ve been that Lonnie didn’t agree with my cleaning up Rich Kid’s mess all of the time. I knew that my dawg had little respect for niggaz like Rich Kid, who would put a hit on a nigga in a minute, but wasn’t apt to pull the trigger themselves.

  Lonnie wasn’t a hater, but his respect went out to the street soldiers more than it went to the nigga behind the scene calling the shots.

  I was my own man, so Lonnie didn’t try to change my mind about doing hits for Rich Kid. Instead, he was kind of short on words.

  Still, he said, “If you need me to watch your back, just holla when it’s about to go down.”

  I knew he’d ride with me outta love, not for the cheddar to be made for the hit. Though that somewhat confused me, ‘cause a while back when I was fresh out the pen, Lonnie and I had settled a beef for a kid named Freddie.

  Same toilet, different shit.

  I just figured Lonnie didn’t like or trust Rich Kid, ‘cause the nigga Rich Kid wanted me to slump was King, his ever present right hand man. Lonnie reasoned that if Rich Kid would have King whacked, I could one day end up on Rich Kid’s hit list. Maybe.

  But I wasn’t worried about down the road, the future. A street nigga wasn’t got nothing but today. Nor would I give Rich Kid a reason to want me dead, as King apparently had done.

  The way it was told to me, King had quit Rich Kid’s crew and started his own. He’d also taken along a dozens of Rich Kid’s young soldiers and had them working traps that competed with a few of Rich Kid’s. A major violation and dis’.

  I assumed that Rich Kid feared that King was building his weight up and then would make a power move to knock Rich Kid off of his throne.