10 Crack Commandments

by Erica Hilton

  Butter was in a state of shock. This was the first time he ever heard Lil Nut say anything negative about a woman. In fact, Nut had never used the word bitch in his presence.

  By now the woman was in tears and began to whimper loudly. Butter held her head down on the couch, placed a pillow over her head, and fired three bullets into her through the pillow.

  They all drove in silence once Nut and Butter returned to the car. No one uttered a word. Butter dropped off the two runners first.

  “All I know is this shit’s gotta stop. No more credit for no one,” Lil Nut said.

  “Nut, we got some loyal customers who do pay their debts,” Butter said, trying to reason with him.

  “Fuck that! Now we just lost a gee from that punk-ass nigga that we ain’t never gonna get!”

  “Yo, man, we stack bread every week. A thou ain’t shit for us,” Butter said.

  “Nigga, bread is bread, no matter how you slice it. I ain’t in the business to be giving that shit away!” Lil Nut was furious. “Yo, let me explain something to you. I’m in the drug game to stack paper and then get out. All these motherfuckers owing us bread it’s gotz to stop. I’m not gonna be hustling backwards. Not for you or anyone! My pops taught me better than that. Milton probably spinning in his grave over this foolishness that’s going on. I gotta be rockin’ niggas’ to sleep over kibbles and bits. I didn’t get in the game for this, Butter. I’m not going to be doing this shit for all my life. From here on out, it don’t matter who you are, male or female, if you cross me over my paper, I’m sending you to the other side. No questions asked.”

  “Is that why you had me do the girl?”

  “Charge that shit to the game.”

  “What about all these years you saying that your parents taught you not to disrespect women? I always admired you for that.”

  “Butter, that’s old school. It’s 1989. Like I said, male or female, it don’t matter to me no more. I’m tired of being nice to motherfuckers. My name gonna start ringing bells and niggas gonna start respecting me one way or another.”

  Butter’s beeper sounded off. He checked the number and it was Tamia calling 911.

  “Shit, that’s Tamia calling me 911. She probably don’t want shit,” he said.

  Lil Nut didn’t see the logic. “Why would she page you 911 if she don’t want nothing?”

  “Because she always doing that thinking I’m out with another chick,” he said with a frown on his face because the beeper was going off again.

  Lil Nut didn’t reply. He just wanted to get back to Butter’s apartment, pick up the product, distribute it to the runners, and go home. He was still pissed.

  They pulled up and parked in front of the projects up the hill. Before Lil Nut and Butter could get out of the car, Tamia came running out to the car, hysterical.

  “Why the fuck you ain’t answer my pages?” she screamed.

  Tamia was only five feet two and Butter was five eleven. Tamia jumped up and down, swinging at him. Lil Nut simply leaned up against the car and watched. What he was waiting for was Butter to put his hand on Tamia.

  “Chill out! What the fuck is wrong with you?” Butter blocked the blows Tamia threw at him.

  “These motherfuckers came up in the apartment and robbed you blind! They took everything!” she screamed.

  “What?” both Lil Nut and Butter yelled at the same time. They took off running toward the building. Once inside the apartment, they saw that it was ransacked. Lil Nut went straight for the closet in the back room where he stashed all the crack they had cooked and bottled. It was gone, every last bit of it, as well as the money in the shoeboxes.

  “Fuck!” Lil Nut yelled.

  Butter was searching the apartment as well. He had his own personal stash, and it was gone too. He sat down on the floor with his knees bent. He rested his elbows on his knees and put his head in his hands.

  “Y’all motherfuckers left me here, and these bitch-ass niggas came up in here and robbed us!” Tamia continued to shout. Because of her light complexion her face became flushed red.

  Butter simply ignored her. He was used to her bitching. However, Lil Nut was furious, and all Tamia’s shouting did was throw more lighter fluid on the fire. Out of nowhere Lil Nut snatched up Tamia and slammed her against the wall.

  “Who was it?” he asked in a low whisper. Tamia looked into his expressive eyes that she always thought were pretty, and quickly looked away. His eyes no longer held beauty. Lil Nut palmed her face and made her look him in the eyes.

  “Who did it?” he asked again.

  “I don’t know, Nut! Get off of me! Butter, you better come get your boy!” she yelled.

  But Butter was still sitting on the floor with his head in his hands.

  “How these motherfuckers manage to walk up in here and take all my shit, and you not see who they are?”

  “I didn’t say I didn’t see what they looked like. I told you I didn’t know who they were.” Tears began to fall, because she realized Lil Nut was really crazy.

  “Maybe you do know who they are. Maybe you set us up,” he said, breathing his hot breath in her face.

  “That’s bullshit! Why would I do that?” She tried to break free of Lil Nut’s strong grip, but to no avail.

  “I don’t know, but I will find out, and if I find out you had anything to do with it, you a dead bitch!” He shoved her to the floor next to Butter.

  Tamia bumped into Butter when she fell to the floor. Butter looked up at his friend. He’d done it again. He’d disrespected a woman. But what Butter didn’t realize was that the beast within Nut was starting to rise.

  Lil Nut stormed out of the apartment and down the stairs. As he practically jumped down the two flights of steps, he pulled out his two guns. He kicked open the front door of the apartment building and stepped out into the courtyard. Lil Nut put his gun to the head of anybody who looked suspicious. He was losing control.

  As Lil Nut terrorized the complex, Butter managed to stand to his feet.

  “Butter, how could you let your boy disrespect me like that?” Tamia asked through her tear-filled eyes.

  Butter simply walked into the bedroom and closed the door.

  ***

  Lil Nut closed the door to Butter’s Beamer. Butter had let him borrow the car to go see the connect. It had been two days since the robbery, and he and Butter were no closer to finding out who stuck them for their money and product. Tamia was still insisting that she had nothing to do with the robbery, but Lil Nut didn’t believe her, and he made Butter keep an eye on her.

  After all that had happened, the business still had to be run, and bills needed to be paid. But Butter had no money left. Lil Nut was a little smarter than that, though. He had a little nest egg stashed away in a wall safe at his apartment, but it wasn’t enough to start the business back up from scratch.

  Lil Nut took a deep breath and walked up the front steps of the three-family building. Before he could ring the bell, Hector opened the door for him. Lil Nut stepped inside, knowing the routine. He raised his hands and Hector proceeded to search him. Lil Nut was then escorted into the back room where Luis normally was. Sure enough Luis was sitting in his usual spot on the sofa.

  “My friend! How are you?” Luis greeted Lil Nut with a smile.

  “What’s up?” Lil Nut asked without a hint of humor showing in his eyes.

  “Why so serious?” Luis asked.

  Lil Nut didn’t respond. Instead he sat next to Luis. Luis waved Hector and another bodyguard out of the room.

  “What brings you here today, my friend? Don’t tell me you finished already?”

  “No,” Lil Nut said, not making eye contact with Luis. What Lil Nut was doing was contemplating, thinking things over, which he had done for two days. He was coming to Luis to ask for credit. H
e wanted to get some cocaine on consignment, and pay him back when they sold all the product. He had never asked Luis, or anyone for that matter, for credit before in his life.

  “Luis, listen, we got robbed. Everything that we had, the loot included, is all gone. I wanted to ask you for a favor,” Lil Nut said, finally looking Luis in the eyes.

  Luis simply stared at Lil Nut, waiting for him to continue before he spoke. Luis knew there was more, so he waited quietly.

  “I was wondering if you could spot me a couple of bricks and I will pay you back,” Lil Nut said.

  Luis simply smiled and reached for a cigar. He took his time, wet the cigar, and then lit it. Lil Nut waited patiently for Luis to speak.

  “Hmm . . . credit. You want me give you two kilos of my coca?”

  “No, not give. Front me the two keys,” Lil Nut corrected him.

  “Ahh, front, sí. So you want to get credit and when will you pay me back?” Luis looked at him.

  “I don’t know exactly when, but I know it will take me a little over thirty days to get you all your bread,” Lil Nut assured him.

  Luis burst into a roaring hearty laugh. Lil Nut just looked at him. He didn’t see the humor in what he just said.

  “Listen, my friend, if I give you credit on two kilos, you will pay me in two weeks.” He held up two fat fingers.

  Lil Nut’s eyes became wide. “Two weeks? I can’t guarantee that I’ma sell two bricks in two weeks,” he said.

  “Oh, but you need me. It’s only business, my friend. It’s up to you.” Luis shrugged his shoulders and reared back on the sofa. He laid his head back and blew smoke from the cigar into the air. His huge stomach sat up like Mount Everest.

  Lil Nut sat there thinking about the proposition.

  “A’ight, Luis, two weeks.”

  “No problem, my friend. Hector!” he called out.

  Hector opened the door almost immediately. “Get our friend dos,” Luis said.

  When Hector came back with the brown paper bag, Lil Nut stood. Hector handed him the bag.

  “Listen, my friend, two weeks and two weeks only. I will come looking for you, and will find you. Do you understand?” Luis was serious.

  “Yeah, no doubt,” Lil Nut answered as he walked toward the door that Hector held open for him.

  Lil Nut and Butter packaged the product at Lil Nut’s apartment. After Lil Nut put the last Ziploc bag filled with crack vials into the duffel bag for storage, Lil Nut walked into the living room where Butter was watching TV. Lil Nut sat on the couch.

  “Yo, let me ask you something,” Lil Nut said.

  Butter looked over at him, giving him his undivided attention.

  “How much money is out there on credit?”

  Butter looked back at the TV for several second as he calculated the numbers in his head. “’Bout twenty-five,” he answered as he looked back at Lil Nut.

  “Twenty-five what?” Lil Nut sat up. “I know you ain’t telling me we got niggas out there owing us twenty-five thousand? Please tell me I ain’t hear that!”

  “I’m saying, yeah, give or take a few hundred.”

  “Get the fuck outta here!” Lil Nut jumped to his feet. “You killing me, Butter! That’s bullshit! You fucking with that weed and that shit got you fucked up. You fucked up the work by giving niggas credit. I thought you had shit under control. That’s why I let you do you.” Lil Nut paced. It took all he had in him not to snap Butter’s neck in two. Over the years he had desperately tried to control his temper, but under the circumstances, he knew he wouldn’t be able to hold on for much longer.

  “The shit is ridiculous, Butter!” Lil Nut yelled.

  “Yo, man, come on. I’m good to our customers. That’s why they keep coming back. I give them breaks because they’re loyal. We blew up like this because I treat them with respect,” Butter said, defending his actions.

  “You must be smoking crack. They crackheads, Butter! Ain’t no loyalty in a crackhead, nigga! You out here respecting a drug addict, and they raping me for my paper! They ain’t committed to nobody but that glass dick!”

  “We gon’ get the money back, man,” Butter said sadly. The way Lil Nut was degrading him was starting to make him feel like less of a man.

  “Nigga, you shot out! That shit’s a rap! We will never get that loot back. But you gonna wear this one.” Lil Nut pointed to him. Butter looked at him with confused eyes. “Yeah, you,” Lil Nut confirmed when he saw the question in Butter’s eyes. “You gonna get out there with the rest of them little niggas and grind to get this paper up. We got two weeks to pay back the connect, and frankly I ain’t gonna let you fuck up the work. My life is on the line, and I ain’t fucking with them Dominicans like that,” Lil Nut stated with authority.

  “So you got the shit on credit?” Butter wanted to know.

  “Yeah, I did.” Lil Nut walked over to the window and looked out. “And ain’t you or nobody else gonna stand in the way of me paying it back.”

  There were several minutes of awkward silence.

  “I wanna know who the motherfuckers that owe,” Lil Nut said as he turned back to Butter. “Do you even know who owes?”

  “Yeah, but some of my customers are straight cats. They ain’t no real crackheads.”

  “They smoking crack, they crackheads. Let’s roll out, ’cause somebody gonna pay me my cash, or they gonna pay with they life.” Lil Nut walked out of the living room.

  Butter knew that Lil Nut was serious. He also knew that one of his customers was law enforcement. He had made a deal with the officer. If Butter gave him crack when he wanted it, the officer would make sure that no heat was brought down on the operation.

  What am I gonna do? Butter wondered. What he definitely wasn’t gonna do was tell Lil Nut about that particular customer. But what he knew he had to do was get on point with the figures, because Lil Nut was about his business, and he wouldn’t be caught slipping.

  ***

  Two men sat at a card table in a bedroom. One was speed balling, shooting up a mixture of cocaine and heroin. As he concentrated on carefully pushing the drug into his vein, the other man held a butane torch to the end of a crack pipe. The smoke from the melted crack swirled around in the bowl like a tornado.

  Suddenly the bedroom door busted open and hit the wall behind it with a bang, startling both males. They jumped to their feet. Lil Nut stood in front of them holding two semi-automatic weapons.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” the man with the needle still stuck in his arm asked.

  “Coming to collect on a debt,” Lil Nut said nonchalantly.

  Neither of the two men said a word. They both looked at each other. They knew they owed money, and Lil Nut was not the only one they owed to.

  “Well I ain’t got it. It’s on you, homeboy. You just gotta do what you gotta do,” the vein shooter said with cockiness.

  Lil Nut shot the man in the groin. The man grabbed his crotch and began to yell in pain. Lil Nut shot him again, but in the neck this time, silencing him. The crack smoker released his bladder as he stood there, watching his friend die. He breathed heavily, but never said a word. His eyes were fixed on the gun that Lil Nut held.

  Lil Nut simply riddled the crackhead with bullets before turning and leaving with Butter on his heels.

  For three days Butter and Nut rode around strong-arming the people who owed them for their money. Several were roughed up, and in total three were left dead.

  “Nut, man, we gotta ditch the car. By now I know somebody knows we been busting off and put a call in to 5-0,” Butter said.

  Lil Nut sat stone faced, looking straight ahead.

  “Nut? You hear me?”

  “Ditch the car then, and we get another one,” he said matter-of-factly.

  Butter sighed, because he was the o
ne who would have to steal the car. He would much rather get one of the young boys to do it. But he knew Lil Nut wasn’t gonna go for that.

  “Something ain’t adding up,” Lil Nut said.

  “What?”

  “The cats that we went to see for the loot, well the bread ain’t adding up right. We already collected forty-one hundred, and with the jokers that are dead and the one other cat we got to see, that debt equals nine hundred, so that would mean that one cat owes twenty grand. Please don’t tell me one cat owes twenty grand by himself,” Lil Nut said, finally looking back over at Butter. “I know you ain’t that stupid to let one motherfucker owe us twenty gees!”

  Butter began to get uneasy. He adjusted himself in the seat and kept looking straight ahead. He frowned and pretended to be counting. But Butter knew he had to come up with something fast.

  Before he could respond, his beeper began to vibrate. He snatched it up and looked at the number. “It’s Tamia. She paging me 911. Maybe she knows something. I better call her back,” Butter said quickly. As quickly as he possible he pulled the car over to a payphone.

  He fed the phone box with coins and dialed the number from the beeper.

  The caller answered on the first ring. “What do you think you’re doing?” the caller asked.

  “It’s not me. I told you this shit was gonna come back and bite me in the ass,” Butter said, watching Lil Nut watch him.

  “Well you need to take care of that problem, and fast,” the caller said.

  “Officer Ryan, I can’t do this anymore. You gonna have to give me something. He ain’t slow. He already knows something don’t smell right. This nigga gonna kill me if he find out.” Butter tried not to show on his face that the conversation was of some concern since Lil Nut was watching him like a hawk.

  The officer told Butter where to meet him, and that he would take care of Lil Nut. Butter didn’t want to do that to his friend, but with the warpath Lil Nut was on, Butter knew it was just a matter of time before he became a victim of Lil Nut’s killing spree.