by Kelly, Marie
“Um,” I said and looked around, wondering if he was mistaking me for someone else.
“Oh, what a sweet little boy,” the man said and tapped TJ on the hand.
“Please don’t do that.”
I had a thing about random people putting their hands on my son. Too many people thought it was okay to touch children just because they thought they were sweet—especially rubbing their cheeks—that shit was nasty!
The older man threw his hands up in surrender. “I didn’t mean any harm. I apologize.”
We locked eyes for a few seconds, and then I looked away to stare out of the window again, hoping that somehow, I would find my answer on what to do next.
“Are you not eating?” the older man asked, causing me to look at him again.
“I’m not hungry.”
It was like as soon as I said that, my stomach decided to show that I was telling a lie. Truth was, I was starving after not eating anything since yesterday afternoon. There wasn’t enough money to feed both of us, so I just got something for TJ to eat and drank water. Embarrassedly, I put an arm around my stomach, hoping that would stop the begging for food noises it decided to voice.
The man slowly stood to his feet and walked away without saying anything to me.
I looked to see if TJ was almost finished eating, so we could hurry up and leave this place. There wasn’t anywhere else for me to go, but I didn’t want to sit around all these people anymore.
A tray was suddenly placed in front of me, making me jump. I looked up and saw that it was the older man. He took back the seat in front of me and just sat there staring.
“Eat,” he simply said, and all pride that I had left fell from my body, and I immediately dug into the food.
I was so hungry that I couldn’t eat it fast enough, but seeing people looking at me like I had lost my mind made me slow up some.
The old man just sat there silently watching us eat with a smile on his face. I had no idea why he bought me food, but I was grateful for it.
When we were finished, the man leaned forward and placed his elbows on the table.
“I can see that you are hurting, young lady,” he lowly said, and I looked away as the tears stung my eyes.
“What is your name?”
“Kanada,” I said just above a whisper because I was scared that my voice would show that I was on the verge of crying.
“I’m Grant.”
I simply nodded to acknowledge what he said.
“I go to a local church, and you should come. No matter what it is, God will find a way.”
My eyes found his again, and he smiled at me.
“I don’t even eat McDonald’s, but the Lord led me in here, and I know that you were the reason.”
He then grabbed my hand and said, “Let me pray for you.”
I looked around again to see if anyone was looking at us, and then I looked back at him when I heard him start to pray.
“Heavenly Father, I bring Kanada to you right now. I don’t know her, but you do, Lord, and you know her story. I pray you touch her, let her know that you are with her, and she’s not alone. Bless her son, and I pray you will do a miracle in her life. Protect them, Father God, and whatever it is, turn it around for the good. In Jesus mighty name I pray… Amen.”
I quickly pulled my hand out of his and dropped it on my lap.
He then went into his pocket and pulled out a pamphlet before handing it to me.
“This is the church I go to. You should try and come one day.”
Then he went into his pocket again and handed over a fifty-dollar bill. “I don’t have much, but you can have it.”
I looked at him with tears in my eyes. “I can’t take this.”
He didn’t know me from anywhere, and I didn’t know why he was helping me, but I couldn’t take his last money from him.
“You can, and you will. I will be good, just take care of yourself and try to come to church.”
Reluctant, but thankful, I took the money from his hand. He reminded me to come to his church before finally leaving the building.
“Who is that, Mommy?” TJ asked.
I didn’t even have an answer for him. Instead, I just cleaned away our food and quickly left because a few people had started to stare at me.
With the fifty-dollars, I went to the store to get a few things for us to eat and drink and put a little gas in my car before driving to a park.
TJ and I played in the park until it started to get cold and dark.
We brushed our teeth using a bottle of water, and then we got into the back of my car to sleep. TJ curled into me, and I brushed my hands over his curls.
“I’m sorry, baby. Mommy will get it together soon,” I whispered to him and prayed that I was right.
Alvaro ‘Wrath’ Ramsey
The smell of bacon caused my eyes to pop open. Stretching and cracking the muscles in my neck and back, I looked over at the clock to see that it was early as hell.
“What the hell is she doing up this time of morning?” I groaned to myself then moved the blanket off my body and sat up in my bed. After stretching again with a yawn, I pushed my feet into my sliders and got off the bed.
Once I fixed the blanket back, I took up my phone to send my brothers a message as I made my way to the bathroom to deal with my hygiene.
Me: Meet at the spot for 11.
I put my phone on the counter and started to brush my teeth.
By the time I was rinsing my mouth with Listerine, my brothers had texted back.
Surge: A’ight, bet.
Guns: Say nothing.
I then sent a message to Legion. After Surge told me his hit went wrong, I needed to check on him.
Me: Bro, u gud?
Legion: Yeh, I’m straight.
Me: Let’s meet later, I need to fill u in on sum shit.
Legion: Bet.
After texting to confirm a time and place to meet, I hopped in the shower.
Once I was dressed, I sent Brittany a message to let her know that I would come by the house to see them soon and headed down to the kitchen.
“Ma, what you doing up so early?” I asked my grandmother and then I kissed her cheeks.
“Oh, boy, you know I can’t sleep. Plus, I was up praying.”
Ma was my father’s mother who lived with me. When I was younger, I practically lived with my grandmother after my mother died because my pops was busy running the streets and wanted us far away from it.
My mother died shortly after giving birth to Guns. The pressures of motherhood got to her, which led her to drugs, and she overdosed. I remember her telling me she was going to the store, and I never saw her again. Her mother was absent in her life since she was young, so the only grandmother I had was Ma.
So, after all the years she spent looking after us bad asses, it was only right that I looked after her. She tried to refuse, but I wasn’t having it any other way. I sold her house and made her move in with me about three years ago.
Grabbing a piece of bacon, I looked at her, and said, “We have a chef for this. Why do you always cook? You’re supposed to be resting.”
Her living with me was supposed to be relaxing—which is why I hired staff to cook, clean, and wash our clothes—but Ma was hard-headed as fuck.
“Boy, I don’t eat from people! You know that!”
Ma was always complaining and saying she didn’t know where those people’s hands had been and refused to eat anything my chef made. I found it funny, but I learned to stop trying to make her a long time ago.
“Where is my great-grandbaby?”
“At home with her mama, but I’m going to see her later.”
We discussed a few things before I went to my office to deal with some things for my businesses, and then it was time to head out to meet my brothers.
Pulling up at the trap house on 226th St, Jamaica, Queens, I saw that my brothers’ cars were parked out on the street.
Going inside, I dapped up the workers
and headed to the back where I knew my brothers were.
“Nigga, shut your still going through puberty head ass up!” Surge yelled over to Guns before falling out laughing.
Those two were always cussing each other out.
“Fuck you, son! Bitches love to suck my dick!” Guns threw back and flipped Surge his middle finger.
“Have your balls even finished dropping yet?”
This time, I chuckled as I walked in, making my presence known.
“Isn’t it too early for this shit?” I asked while slapping hands with Surge first and then with Guns.
“It’s never too early to let this little nigga know he’s not grown.”
I simply shook my head at their goofy asses and took a seat around the table that they were counting money at.
The three of us were old fashioned and liked to count money by hand without using machines.
“What’s the word? Have you heard anything else on the streets?” Guns asked, referring to the hit we did a few nights ago.
Although it took no time to find the niggas in that townhouse—since they were out there bragging like they had already taken us out—nobody knew who they worked for or who paid them to get at us.
I shook my head, and said, “Nah. Nobody is talking, but it’s all good. Whoever it is will try again. That, I’m sure of.”
“Or maybe it was just one stupid motherfucker who thought they could take over,” Guns tried to reason.
“Or maybe it’s Trojan. You know that nigga was there the night Legion got shot, right?” Surge said, and I breathed out heavily while pinching the bridge of my nose.
See, that was the shit I didn’t understand. Why was Trojan now a factor after all this time? That nigga hadn’t shown his face in almost a whole year, and now, all of a sudden, he seemed to be every-fucking-where. I knew deep down inside that he was taunting me, but for what, I didn’t know.
Plus, another question that kept playing on my mind; was it Trojan alone or two sets of people at our heads?
“Do you think those niggas were paid by Trojan maybe?” Surge asked as if he was reading my mind.
“I wondered that, but then I also thought about why he would do that, only to show his face anyway? Why get some out of town motherfuckers to do it when he has a crew?”
I could maybe understand if Trojan was hiding and was using outside niggas to throw us off, but the nigga was in plain view—it made no sense.
Blowing out hot air, I rubbed a hand over my head and cracked the muscles in my neck after.
“I say we hit up Trojan anyway,” Guns said with a shrug. “He’s got a daughter. It would be nothing for me to find her. I heard she works in a bank or some shit.”
I looked at him as he took the blunt from behind his ear and fired it up.
An all-out war was something I was trying to avoid, especially when I had no idea if it was one or two groups we were up against. Shit wouldn’t be good for business either. The last thing I wanted was blood on my streets and Feds on my ass.
“Nah. Let me figure some shit out, Guns. For now, just watch y’all backs.”
Going to war with Trojan without knowing who else I was up against would leave us open to whoever those niggas were working with. Until I knew for sure, I wasn’t going to act first.
“For now, we going to switch some shit up. Call a meeting, Guns.”
I still didn’t feel good knowing those niggas had too much information on us about our family. For now, I had increased security at my house and Brittany’s, and I had doubled up on the guards who watched over them. The only information those niggas had was on them, my businesses, and things outside of our empire, but I wasn’t going to take any risks. There was no telling what they knew from what they didn’t.
Guns had a funny expression on his face as he looked at me.
“What’s wrong with you?” Surge asked him, and he quickly fixed his face.
“I know you wanna clap back, and I would normally be the first to say yes, but we gotta make sure first, Guns. Trust me.”
I put a hand on his shoulder to calm him down after I realized that look was because he wanted to do something. My little brother stayed ready and willing to kill some niggas.
He nodded, and we went back to counting the money before a knock on the door interrupted us.
I looked at the monitor on the wall and saw that it was our soldier, Pac. I told him to come in, and he poked his head through the door.
“Sorry to interrupt, but Cookie is here,” he said, and I thanked him.
I quickly stood to my feet and left the room to go and see her.
“Wrath!” Cookie turned to give me a big smile.
“What’s up, young lady? How you been? I’ve not seen you for a few days?” I said and took a seat on the edge of the sofa in front of her.
“I know. I wasn’t so well.”
“And why didn’t you come to find me, Cookie?”
She sighed. “I’m not your responsibility, Wrath.”
Cookie was an older lady from around the way. She was strung out on that stuff, but aside that, she was a cool lady. For some reason, from the moment I met her, I had this urge to look out for her. I had offered many times to help her get clean, but she refused.
As I looked at her aged face, I could see that she was a looker once upon a time, and the drugs had her looking older than she was.
Cookie was secretive, so I had no idea how old she was, when her birthday was, or even if Cookie was her real name. Whenever I would ask her, she would change the subject or shut down on me for some reason. But if I had to guess, I would say she was in her early fifties.
Her hair—that could have used some grooming—was always kept in a messy bun on the top of her head. It was jet black, and judging from the size of the bun on top, I would say it probably stopped just past her shoulders. Her chocolate skin looked a little grey, which I put down to the lack of nutrition and too much drugs, and her eyes were yellow instead of white. She had bags under her eyes, thick, shapely lips, and she was still very much in shape for an older woman.
Probably had all the niggas going crazy when she was younger and clean, I thought as I watched her fidget under my gaze.
Cookie’s story was one that had me understanding why she was the way that she was. She had lost her family many years ago, and unable to deal with the stress of it, she turned to drugs to help her deal with their absence. It made it easier for her to forget. Sometimes when she did speak about them, I could hear guilt laced in her voice. For what, I didn’t know because I didn’t know how they came to be gone other than they were no longer living.
I often asked myself if something ever happened to Keke, how would I cope with it? Or would I cope with it at all?
“Oh, I have something,” Cookie happily said, cutting my thoughts short as she dug into the backpack she was wearing.
She pulled out baseball cards, and my eyes widened in shock.
“Damn, Cookie, where you find these?”
They were NY Yankees baseball cards from 1998 world champions that I wanted when I was about ten years old, and my pops wouldn’t get them for me because I had a fight at school.
Excitedly, I took them out of her hand and checked them out.
From I could remember, I had always wanted those cards. Every time I remembered and went to look for them, something came up, and I would forget.
“Damn! And they’re signed too?!” My eyes lit up when I saw that.
“You know me, I know people.” Cookie smiled at me. “They’re for you.”
I looked at her and smiled. “Thank you.”
Getting up off the edge of the sofa, I told Cookie to give me a minute then headed to the room in the back.
As soon as I entered the room, I chucked the baseball cards to Surge.
“Yooooo, where you get these from?” he asked, eyeing my stuff.
I chuckled. “Cookie.”
“Damn, I swear she gives us the best shit.”
&n
bsp; I nodded to say he was right and then took some money off the table and a couple of baggies too before heading out of the room and back to Cookie.
“For you,” I told her as I handed over the money and baggies.
Although I would rather see Cookie clean, I would prefer that she got her supply from me. I never took money from her because I knew she didn’t have any, and I didn’t want her out there doing all types of things to get some. Instead, she started getting stuff for us that she thought we would like. For the past six months that she had been doing that, she got it spot on.
“Wrath, how many times do I have to tell you that I don’t want money from you? You give me enough.”
“And how many times do I have to tell you to hush it up and take it?”
She looked at me like she wanted to slap me—a look that only a black mother with some bad ass kids could give—and I chuckled.
“Thank you, Wrath.”
“Look after yourself, Cookie, and remember, if you need anything, you come find me. I don’t care what.”
I looked her right in the eyes, so she knew I meant it, and she nodded. I didn’t know who Cookie was or who her family was, but, for some reason, I just felt like I needed to look out for her in place of her family. She seemed like a good woman outside of the pain she was carrying, so I felt like her family would have been just like her.
With one final wave, she walked out of the door.
My cell started to ring, and I pulled it from my back pocket. It was Brittany.
“Hey, Brittany.”
“Um, Alvaro, is there something you need to tell me?”
“The fuck is you talking about?” My face twisted.
What shit is she on now?
“I’m talking about the fact that a detective approached me about you.”
I gritted my back teeth and clenched my fist.
I’m gonna kill that motherfucker!
“What did he say to you?”
“He just asked me if I knew who my baby daddy was and if I loved my daughter enough to pick her over you. Should I be worried?”
I had some things set in motion for this bitch ass detective, but he had just accelerated that exponentially.
