The Holy City
Chapter 12
Marcus always expected some type of heat from the detectives sooner or later; but from two stash houses getting raided, the pack workers getting caught up, and Mikey’s arrest, it seemed as if the police were getting some type of inside information. Marcus weren’t quite sure what was going on, but he was going to put his finger on it and get to the bottom of the situation.
Mikey had been sitting in Cook County Jail for the past three weeks without bond. Mikey was still on probation from a previous dope charge he caught a couple of years back, so he was being held without bond. Mikey had done time before at the county jail, so he knew the proper procedures to go through once he made it to population.
In Cook County Jail, there’s certain individuals who’s in charge of the gang operations in each division. Every time Mikey went to the county, he was the one over whatever deck he was on; he would get a high slot that everyone there respected. Of course the reason behind that was because they knew about his reputation from the streets; everyone knew about his reputation from the streets. By him being a part of the IVL nation and his involvement with Marcus’s personal crew, which made everyone know that he was not to be fucked with.
Whenever someone came on the deck that holds rank, they were informed on everything that’s going on behind the walls; every time, that’s being said about important figures in the inside and on the outside world. Sometimes guys in jail knew more about the shit in the streets before it even went down.
“Count time! Count time! Everybody go to their assigned cells until count is over!” the two correctional officers insisted as they started their roll calls.
In Cook County, the COs knew the type of shit that went down; most of them were crooked officers, so they were either getting paid for their services or they just didn’t give a fuck.
“All right, good count, fellas . . . ,” the COs said as they were leaving out of division eleven’s D block. “Get ready for yard call!”
“Aey, lord, remember dat nigga I was tellin’ you ‘bout . . . ,” Mikey’s cell mate said.
“Yeah, what about him?”
“Every time I see dat nigga, he claims that he gotta holla’ at'chu ‘bout something. He say it got somethin’ to do wit’ what’s goin’ on ova’ there on Avers,” his cell mate explained.
The first time Mikey was informed about somebody trying to get up with him, he ignored it, thinking that it wasn’t important. When he found out that it had something to do with the block that he hustled on, it made him eager to see what was going on.
“Come on, let’s go to the yard so you can show me who this dude is.”
As the two inmates strolled through the dorm on their way to yard call, they were constantly stopped by other vice lord brothers, whom they shook up with and had small conversations with.
The yard scene was always sectioned off with different groups. You had guys playing full-court basketball, lifting weights, and different gangs would call meetings amongst their mob to make sure everybody was on point for when it was time for the deck to get sent up (gang war). The moment Mikey and his cell mate stepped foot on the yard, at least twenty Insanes, conservatives, and other vice lord brothers gathered up around Mikey to discuss different issues. In the midst of all the different conversations that were going on in their circle, an older guy walked up to join the crowd.
“Hotrod, wassup, man?” Mikey said, recognizing the older guy immediately. Hotrod was one of the three pack workers that caught a charge while working over on Avers. They greeted each other by shaking up.
“Man, I been tryn’a get up with’chu ever since I heard about what happened,” Hotrod claimed as they proceeded to walk off from the crowd. Mikey got a light to his roll-up cigarette as they continued to talk.
“Yeah, they jus’ moved me from division nine a couple weeks ago . . . ,” Mikey said while exhaling a puff of nicotine smoke. “I know these muthafuckas gon’ have me sittin’ in this bitch for a minute ‘cause of this probation shit, but it’s cool. I know soons I get a bond I’m getting’ the fuck on. You know if y’all had a bond we would’ve been came and got y’all niggaz.”
“You know that goes without being said, my nigga . . . ,” Hotrod said as they shook up once again. “I heard it’s been getting’ heated out there since that shit happened to us.”
“Yeah, them people been sweatin’ the block hard lately. But'chu know that shit was bound to start happenin’ sooner or later.”
“I been meaning to ask you have you heard from that nigga Dirty Red since he been out?” Hotrod asked curiously.
“Hell yeah . . . !” Mikey said while handing Hotrod the short to his cigarette. “That ma’fucka came ova’ to the block talking’ ‘bout he ready to get back to work. At first I was like, hell naw, but after he kept sweatin’ me to let him work, I ended up letting’ him get back out there.”
Hotrod shook his head in disbelief while taking the last few pulls off the short (cigarette) before throwing it to the ground. From his reaction, you could tell something was wrong.
“Look, man, the police was tryn’a get all us to talk.” Hotrod stopped them both in their tracks while he explained. “I thought all of us was gon’ stay solid, until the police came and got Dirty Red out of population in the middle of the night and took’em to PC. Next thing I know he was being released.”
“Some’nt told me that nigga turned sour,” Mikey stressed to himself while listening to Hotrod carry on about Dirty being a snitch. Mikey knew it was some truth to what Hotrod was telling him because of how the detectives tried to get him to rat.
Their conversation was interrupted due to the police rushing everybody back to their dorms because of a brawl on the yard that involved a group of Latinos. Mikey shook up with Hotrod for the last time after handing him a few roll-ups and letting him know to send over a kite if he needed anything else.
Mikey then walked back to the dorm and immediately got on the phone to send word through one of his females from the ‘hood who knew how to get in touch with Marcus. Through limited conversation and talking in codes, Mikey was able to get his point across clearly.
It was the spring of ‘95, two months before Chris’s graduation from the eighth grade. Chris was barely passing his classes. He’d do just enough to stay eligible for the basketball season. Chris weren’t interested in doing schoolwork at all, but he was having his best basketball season thus far.
When Chris would be at home, if he wasn’t in the backyard playing basketball with his neighborhood friends, he would stand in front of the house, hoping to catch Marcus pass through the block so he could beg to ride around with him. Every time he attempted to ask in the past, Marcus would blow him off with excuses. The reason behind him making excuses was that he never wanted anything to pop off while Chris was with him. Marcus stayed strapped, so he never worried about shit happening to him when rotating by himself or with his guys.
After an hour of Chris sitting on his front porch, fooling around with some girls from off the block and a few of his buddies, just as he planned, Marcus came flying toward their block in his newest toy—a four-door black and gray 500 1995 Benz with twenty-inch Loren Hart rims with the loud sounds of MJG and Eightball’ hit record, “Lay It Down,” blasting through his four twelve-inch subwoofers.
That car was the latest model that Mercedes-Benz came out with at the time, and Marcus was the only young black person in the city with one at the early age of twenty-one. The Benz was a big change from his last attraction, which was a ‘93 mint green drop-top Mustang 5.0 with eighteen-inch gold Dayton’s and neon lights underneath the car that came on at night. Every car Marcus ever had that was expensive had the loudest sound system in the ‘hood, if not the entire city.
Chris and his friends stood up off the porch, staring and nodding their heads at the sounds of MJG & Eightballs, “Lay it down! Lay it down! You hoes lay it down . . . !” When the car got close enough for Chris to notice that it was his brot
her driving the Benz, he immediately raced to the curb to flag Marcus down. Marcus slowed up in front of his mother’s house with one arm rested on the window seal and one hand on the steering wheel, nodding his head up and down to the sounds of his music.
“Wassup, lil bro!” Marcus said while adjusting the volume to a lower level with a remote control that came with the Alpine face-off.
“Man, when you get this ma’fucka!” Chris yelled out with an astounded expression on his face as he checked the Benz out from front to back.
“I jus’ picked it up not too long ago. I had been ordered it a couple months ago. You prob'le the first person that seen me in it.”
“And I’mma be the first to ride with'chu too.”
“Nah, nah, you know I got moves to make.”
“Come-on, man, jus’ hit a few blocks wit’ me. I’m bored as hell,” Chris sympathized his way in the car, not taking no for an answer.
“Damn! You jus’ gon’ leave yo homies standing’ there?” Marcus asked, looking over at Chris with a smirk.
“They’ll be a’ight . . . ,” Chris responded as he waved his hand, referring to his friends. “Aey, y’all, I’ll be back!” Chris yelled from the passenger seat. His group of friends was so busy analyzing the car that they didn’t respond back. Marcus then eased off, replaying “Lay It Down” from the beginning, turning it all the way up. “We doin’ dis shit once again fa you fake-azz niggaz, lay da fuck down bitch . . . !”
As they drove through a few blocks in the neighborhood, Marcus could see the excitement that ignited Chris as he rapped along to his favorite rap song, noticing all the attention Marcus was getting. Everybody that knew Marcus, and those that didn’t know him, threw up the deuce sign in acknowledgement while staring at the Benz drive by like it was a spaceship that fell out the sky. Marcus even drove through Twenty-first Strip and saw Spoonie standing outside on Homan. Marcus blew the horn and threw up the deuce to Spoonie, only to get an unpleasant nod in return with an expression of disbelief on his face.
Marcus knew if Steve not only see his new Benz but also see Chris rotating blocks in the ‘hood with him, he wouldn’t have heard the last of his mouth. It wasn’t that Steve didn’t want Chris hanging with Marcus. It was for safety purposes. In the ‘90s on the streets of Chicago, if you were joyriding through different ‘hoods in a nice car and you wasn’t a made man, anything was bound to happen. Marcus knew he had to travel outside their neighborhood into a neutral area to be in a safer zone.
As they continued to ride the city, Chris could tell they were headed in the direction of their Grandmother Emma’s house on the near west side of the city.