by Erica Hilton
“Hey, Ma.”
“Nut, what you doing up this early?”
“I’m over here stressing.”
“Stressing? About what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well where’s Melissa?”
He paused. “Ma, we broke up the other day. She walked out on me. What happened to good women like you?”
“Now don’t go blaming that girl for y’all breakup. I was a good woman to your father, but he was also a good man to me. You can’t have one without the other. I told you to let her go a long time ago and you wouldn’t be feeling no pain. I’m sure she’s feeling just as sad and lonely. Why don’t you come over here and spend the day with your old momma?”
“I would, but you know I don’t travel on New Year’s Eve, but I’m going crazy in this house.”
“Well take a walk around your neighborhood and sort out your thoughts. You can’t be cooped up in the house all day. It’s still early. Ain’t nothing lurking outside this early.”
“Ma?”
“What?”
“I love you.”
“I love you too, baby.”
Nut hopped in the shower, and as he rinsed off, he decided to take his mother’s advice and take a walk around his neighborhood. The crisp air was exactly what he needed to clear his mind.
After getting dressed he headed out. There was a small playground a few blocks from his house, and that was his destination. With his hands stuffed deeply into his pockets, he tried to clear his head.
Sitting on a nearby bench, he watched a white couple play on the swing with their small daughter. Nut thought it was too cold to have a child out on some metal swing, but they were jumping around and acting all jolly like the cold didn’t affect them. White people were weird. Sporadically the father’s eyes darted back and forth to Nut. Nut turned away because he didn’t want to intimidate anyone. He knew how it looked. He was a black man in a predominantly white neighborhood in a kiddie park without any kiddies.
The father gave one more suspicious glance, and Nut knew it was time to leave. He walked to a nearby corner store and decided to call Butter and curse him out for not picking up his telephone, and for not beeping back Peter last night.
“Yo, nigga, where the fuck you been?” Nut asked.
“I been chilling. Why? What’s up?”
“Nah, Peter said he was trying to get in contact with ya ass all day yesterday.”
“What the fuck that nigga talking about? He came through yesterday and dropped off five joints. He’s supposed to come through and pick that shit up.”
“Word? What the fuck going on with that stupid nigga?” Nut was pissed. He didn’t know what Peter was trying to pull, but Nut was going to bust his ass once he got his hands on him.
“I don’t know what’s up with him, but you better watch him. Make sure his count is right. That nigga was a little too happy yesterday,” Butter stated, recalling his visit with Peter. “He might either be on that shit, or shaving off the product and cutting small deals on the side.”
“You think that nigga could be getting high?”
“I don’t know. Anything’s possible. But as I said, he could be stealing too. You never know. He coming through your crib and telling you a story about me for what reason? Either he smoking that shit and it has his mind going crazy, or he’s guilty of something. You feel me?”
“Yeah, I feel you. Check it, when he comes through in a couple hours I’ma put pressure on that nigga and squeeze out the truth. You know I’m not one to fuck with.”
“True, true.”
Nut hung up and put pep in his step. He couldn’t wait until Peter came through so that he could get to the bottom of his actions.
***
Melissa had camped out all night in a borrowed car, waiting for Nut to leave the house. At first when he kicked her out with only the clothes on her back she told herself that she wouldn’t beg him to help her. But then reality sunk in and she convinced herself that she’d earned everything he bought her. She washed his funky socks, ironed his heavy jeans, cooked, cleaned, sucked his unfaithful dick, and never refused to fuck him when he wanted to be fucked.
When Nut left on foot with his car parked directly in front of her former car, she sat still, thinking that he was only going to the local store. After twenty minutes without him returning, she wondered if he had a bitch in neighborhood and was knee-deep in pussy. She wouldn’t put that past him.
Melissa used her house key and crept back into the apartment. It was filthy. She didn’t want any of her clothes, but her jewelry was important. Her livelihood depended on it. As she ran around her former apartment looking for her valuables, her heart nearly stopped when the front door was kicked in and a succession of loud noises followed.
Oh my God, they’re gonna kill me, Melissa thought as the gunmen came in and tackled her to the floor.
***
Nut couldn’t wait to get home so that he could wait on that stupid motherfucker Peter, but he slowed his quick pace when he heard the sound of sirens as he approached his apartment.
“Are they at my motherfucking crib?” Nut screamed. His heart began to thump loudly. “They are at my motherfucking crib! What the fuck is going on?”
Nut dipped in the cut and watched the commotion from across the street with the other bystanders. His apartment was completely sealed off as numerous police officers, under cover detectives, DEA, and FBI all littered the scene, which was being treated as a crime. There wasn’t any need for Nut to stick around. Besides, he was the only black man standing in the crowd. Just as he was about to bounce, he saw a figure in the back of one of the squad cars. Within seconds he realized it was Melissa.
What the fuck was she doing in the back of the squad car in front of his house? Nut was boggled.
Nut arrived at his mother’s apartment within ten minutes. He hopped out of the cab and raced upstairs. Just as he entered, his beeper began going off with numerous unknown numbers all paging him 911.
“Ma, you won’t believe what just happened.”
Julie heard the panic in her son’s voice and jumped to her feet. Her first thought was that he was shot.
“What? Are you hurt?”
“Ma, they just busted my crib.”
“Who did?”
“I don’t know. 5-0 and the feds.”
“What? How they get on you?”
“Ma, I don’t know what’s going on. And they had Melissa.”
“Melissa? How they had her? Is she snitching?”
“I guess so . . . I don’t know. I don’t know shit. All I know is that they had her in the back of a police cruiser.”
“Nut, that don’t sound right,” Julie began. She wished she could have said more, but she didn’t have any insight on the matter. All she could do was ask questions. “But you don’t keep nothing in your apartment anyway. Right? They didn’t get shit, did they?”
Nut hung his head low.
“I usually don’t, but Peter came through yesterday with eight bricks.”
“What!” Julie screamed. She smelled a rat. Eight bricks would ensure that her baby spent the rest of his life in prison. “You know I told you not to trust that slimy bastard!”
“You thinking what?”
“I’m thinking that he set you up to get knocked off.”
“But why? What would he gain by getting me locked up? I’m the hand that feeds him. Nah, I think this has to do with Melissa. What the fuck was she doing there?”
“Did she know you had those things?”
“No. But I’m sure she’s mad that we broke up.”
“Nelson, listen to yourself. You can’t see the forest from the trees. Your nerves are bad right now. Sit down and think this through. You’ll see the truth once you calm do
wn.”
Nut knew she was right. He went into his old room and lay down on the bed. He just needed five minutes, although he couldn’t quite get a handle on his concentration because he felt that any second the police would kick in his mother’s door with an arrest warrant.
He went over the situation a million times in his head. Who’d have something to gain if he were locked down—Peter or Melissa? He kept coming up empty. In his mind neither one of them had a motive. He decided to call Butter and tell him the news, and also tell him to get rid of his beeper and not to talk over the phones.
The phone rang and was picked up, but Nut didn’t hear anyone on the other end.
“Hello?” he asked.
“Yes, who’s this?” an unfamiliar voice asked.
“No, who’s this?”
“Who would you like to speak to?” the voice asked. Immediately Nut knew. His heart sank as he slammed down the phone. Butter had got knocked.
He had his mother call his aunt’s house just to see if any strange events had occurred there. He wanted to know if Peter had gotten knocked too. Lorene picked up. His mother chatted with her briefly about the soap operas and then hung up.
“It’s Peter,” Julie assessed. “You and Butter’s cribs get knocked, and nothing happens to Peter.”
“I think you’re right,” Nut replied. His didn’t have a clue how or why, but all he was thinking about was when. When the fuck would he get his opportunity to murder his cousin? “You better prepare yourself to break out your black dress. I’m about to rock your nephew to sleep.”
“Fuck ’im,” Julie replied.
9
“Shoulda been number one to me, if you ain’t gettin’ bags stay the fuck from police (uh-huh). If niggaz think you snitchin’, ain’t tryin’ listen. They be sittin’ in your kitchen, waitin’ to start hittin’.”
—“Ten Crack Commandments,” Notorious B.I.G.
1992
Nut was a nervous wreck on lockdown inside his mother’s apartment. He never went back to his crib after New Year’s Eve. By now the news of Melissa’s and Butter’s arrests were flowing through the grapevine. The gossip mongers were having a field day. Nut purposely didn’t shut off his pager just to see if Peter would beep him to a known number. That call never came. Peter left word with Skinny Lorene that when he heard about the two houses getting busted, he jetted out of town in fear that he would get busted too. Of course neither Nut nor Julie believed one word of his alibi. And Lorene wasn’t any help. He kept asking her where the fuck her son ran to, but she said that she didn’t know, and didn’t want to know.
Just to make sure, Nut finally emerged from hiding and went on a stakeout in areas he knew Peter frequented. After days of looking for him, Nut found zip zero.
***
“How did she look? How’s she holding up in there?” Nut asked his mom a few days later.
Nut couldn’t wait for Julie to sit down. He had a slew of questions, and he couldn’t get them out fast enough.
“Hold on. Let me take off my shoes and get comfortable, and I’ll tell you everything you need to know. It’s a lot.”
Nut had sent his mother to visit Melissa and Butter. They were both being housed at M.C.C. in lower Manhattan, right off the Brooklyn Bridge. The feds had them, and that only made him more fearful. Everyone knew that the feds had a 98 percent conviction rate.
Finally Julie sat down and began. “You know I always said that I liked Melissa, but now that I’ve gone to see her, I’m mad at myself for not seeing how much she truly loved my son. You once asked me why she wasn’t as good to you as I was to your father. I’m about to say something that might sting a little, but it’s the truth. And I always speak the truth with you. That girl is ready to give up her whole future because she loves you. They’ve been begging her to snitch on you, and she refuses. They told her that they know those drugs in that apartment weren’t hers, but since she was the only one caught in the house with the drugs, and because the apartment was in her name only, unless she testifies against you and says that they’re yours, she’s facing a life sentence.”
Julie shook her head at the mere thought of being behind bars for life. “Now as much as I loved the ground your father walked on, and he was my husband and the father of my only son, I would have never made that sacrifice for him. Never in a million years.”
“Damn, Ma. Why you gotta put it like that? Don’t you think I feel bad already?”
“I know you do, but I’m just saying. That girl has an education and could have had a bright future. I mean, she doesn’t even have any kids. And the way things are looking for her, she won’t ever have any. Life means she will die behind bars.”
“You talking like I need to turn myself in.” Nut’s round, expressive eyes hooded over in anger. He didn’t like the way the conversation was going.
“That’s your choice. But I will say my piece. That girl didn’t have one dollar in those keys. She never sold drugs or controlled your drug money. She was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. You made your own choice about which road you wanted to take in life, and I supported you in your decisions. You compared her to me. Now I will compare you to your father. Your father wouldn’t have allowed me to spend one day in jail over some shit he created.”
“Awww, come on now, Ma. That’s not fair, and you know it. What am I supposed to do? Just turn myself in and say let her go? I didn’t set her up. I didn’t even ask her to come back there. What the fuck was she even doing there? Did you ask her that? She’s probably lying anyway. What if they’re using her and all of this is really a game? What if she’s not really locked up, and they just placed her there to feed you the bait? She could be in some witness protection program or some shit!” Nut knew he was reaching, but he couldn’t wrap his mind around the guilt trip his mother had laid on him.
Ignoring his conspiracy theory, Julie said, “She needs a lawyer, a good lawyer. Who do you know that would have a shot at getting her as little time as possible, maybe twenty years? I hope you do plan on paying for her lawyer?”
“Of course I’m going to pay for the lawyer.” Nut was spent. He felt like he had the world on his shoulders. “Get in contact with Jacob Sheinberg and see how much he charges for a case like this. He’s good, Ma. He’s represented so many niggas and got them off. I’m telling you he can get her off too. She’s innocent.”
“OK, I’ll give him a call in the morning.”
“What about Butter? What he say?”
“Butter don’t really know anything. All he knows is that Peter dropped off five bricks and the next day the police were kicking in his door. They also got one hundred fifty cash of his stash.”
“What the fuck was he doing with his stash where he rest his head? Didn’t we learn our lesson the hard way back in the day? He’s a fucking knucklehead.”
“I don’t think you’re one to be name-calling.”
Nut couldn’t believe his mother’s slick mouth. He wondered if she always spoke like this, just not to him.
“So I guess that means I’ma have to pay for his lawyer too?”
“He said those boys are trying to lean on him hard. They’ve already offered him a sweet deal if he turns you in. So if I were you, I would come down from my throne of pointing fingers and playing king, and dig into my pockets and play Santa Claus, because if you don’t, you’ll be spending next Christmas behind bars.”
***
The new year came in on a lousy note, but Nut figured that it could have been worse. He could be the one locked away in a cage. Life went on. He still had a business to run, and with lawyer fees, he was scrambling to make it happen. He needed to keep Melissa and Butter optimistic about their futures, as well as keeping their books fat. His mother was the go-between for him, and she was becoming just as expensive. Not only did he cover all her bills, but he al
so had to hire her a driver to take her wherever he needed her to go. She said there wasn’t any way she was standing on anybody’s corner hailing a taxi. And the train and bus were out of the question.
It was all worth it, though. He made sure his mother went to visit both Melissa and Butter weekly to get any and all updates. Melissa’s lawyer wanted fifty-five thousand dollars just to retain him. And he told Nut that it would cost another two hundred grand if the case went to trial. That wasn’t including if he needed to hire any experts or fly any witnesses in from out of town.
Butter’s attorney wasn’t as costly, but he wasn’t cheap either. He charged Nut a thirty-thousand-dollar retainer fee, and was urging Butter to take a plea bargain. If Butter took a plea of twenty years, he’d be out in eighteen. Butter told Julie that he didn’t want to gamble with a life sentence. The deal wasn’t on the table yet, but his lawyer, Allen Shapiro, was hoping to negotiate that with the prosecutor. If he was successful, then Nut would owe Shapiro an additional ten grand.
All his years of hustling were going down the drain on this one case. He’d spent year after year trying to save money to go legit. Now he needed all that money to pay for lawyers, and he was pissed. And if he thought that nothing else could go wrong, he got a double dose of bad news when he ran into Remy at Willie Burgers on 145th and Eight Avenue.
“Yo, Nut, man, you gonna live a long time, my nigga,” Remy said and gave him a pound. “I’ve been trying to holla at you for weeks now. I know you’ve been getting my pages.”
“Yeah, no doubt, but you know my man got jammed up. And I’m not fucking with that number no more. It’s hot.”
“I heard all about that. You know I know. But I needed to get at you, ’cause it was an emergency. I asked Ria if she had another number on you, but she said nah.”
The name stung. Nut’s mind raced on the fact that Remy knew he knew Ria. They’d never made their relationship known. Nut tried to play if off.
