Capital City

  “No! He’s like my little brother! And he was down here trying to get with any girl he could.”

  “Yeah, so how come you don’t fuck wit’ nobody like that?” I ask. Damn, what da hell is wrong wit’ me? But I gots t’ know. The shit is startin’ ta bother me.

  “Because I tell them that I’m already involved with someone. I’m not a loose girl, running around with a bunch of guys. But if a guy asks me to go to the movies or something, I’ll go, as long as he knows that it doesn’t mean anything more than that.”

  “And what about with me?”

  I can tell she’s grinning, even though she’s not facing me. Her cheeks are rising. I can see them from the light shining off of the television. “What about you?” she asks me back.

  I chuckle at the shit and fall back on the bed. Carlette gets up on the bed with me. I dip my head between her nice-sized titties. “What time is it?”

  She leans over me to look at her clock. “Nine o’clock.”

  “So we can still catch a movie, huh?”

  She kisses me. “Mm-hmm.”

  I kiss her back. “Fuck it. Let’s go then.”

  I wake up Sunday morning, still over Carlette’s crib. I look over at the clock. The shit says 8:32.

  “Carlette?”

  “Huh?”

  “I’m ’bout t’ roll.”

  I get up and start putting my clothes back on. Carlette stretches. She turns over on her back to face me. “Hold up.”

  “Naw, you don’t have t’ walk me out or kiss me or nothin’.”

  She stretches some more, under the sheets with no clothes on. “I had fun last night,” she says, smiling.

  “Yeah, me too. That Universal Soldier shit wasn’t half bad. And oh, the sex was jus’ what a nigga need after a date.”

  She smiles at me. “Chauvinist.”

  “Naw, that’s for old white men an’ shit.” She laughs. “Boy, get out of here.”

  I grab her 2Pac tape off of her stereo cabinet. “Yo, let me check this out.”

  She waves for me to take it. “Go ’head.”

  I walk to the door, putting my black hat back on and slipping the tape into my pocket. “Yo, I’ll holler at’chu when I get in.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Shank

  Daddy’s home. So? You say that like that means something to me. You been gone a mighty long motherfuckin’ time for you ta be comin’ home talkin’ dat ‘Daddy’s home’shit.

  Damn, this nigga 2Pac is getting personal as hell with “Papa’z Song.” I been listening to his tape all this week, Strictly 4 My Niggaz. I mean, I know how he feels though. I ain’t never known my pop either. All I know is that he was in Vietnam, in the war. And he hated white people. But fuck him! I’m here now. I don’t need that motherfucker—unless he got some money.

  I went and bought this Maya Angelou book, too, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. That’s a long-ass title, but I bought it because it was the only book I ever saw on my mother’s shelf. Plus, the whole country been talking about some poem Maya Angelou recited for that presidential function. It seems like every time I turn the TV on they’re still talking about it. And that shit was last month! I mean, that poem must have been powerful like a sawed-off shotgun, huh? Or a MAC-10?

  I ain’t tell Carlette I bought it though. She’d probably get all excited and shit because she’s been talking that Black Man education shit to me lately. I think that Black Panther book been going to her head. I mean, every nigga knows we need to kill these white motherfuckers . . . But I don’t see niggas doing it.

  Anyway, this book was the only one that my mother had. But I never saw her reading the shit. It just sat on her shelf right next to her Bible, haunting me, because I always wondered why she had it. I mean, if she had a bunch of other books, then it wouldn’t have had the same effect. And as far as the Bible? Man, every nigga, I think, got a fucking Bible. We the most religious people on this earth.

  Like when I was riding home from Carlette’s crib Sunday morning, a bunch of church women got on the bus. I was sitting up in front because I was too tired to walk to the back. Then one of them well-dressed-ass church women sat beside me.

  “Young man, do you know Jesus?”

  I mean, she was sweet and all that, but I just got up and moved to the back. That shit is just like them religious people who pass out that Watchtower paper with white people all over it.

  Your God can’t look like your enemy! I don’t know who said that shit, but Professor Griff had it on his second album. Showbiz & A.G. fuck with that political stuff too, “Runaway Slave”:

  And you surely don’t catch hell ’cause you an American, ’cause if you was an American you wouldn’t catch no hell. You catch hell ’cause you a black man!

  Yeah, that’s from Showbiz & A.G., sampling Malcolm X. They slow the shit down, but you can still tell it’s Malcolm. Nobody talks like Malcolm. But he dead now, and Farrakhan ain’t been saying much lately.

  It’s almost twelve o’clock noon on Thursday. I’m supposed to meet Butterman at Super Trak by one. Money been rolling in like a motherfucker! I’m about to ask this nigga for a raise. I want a G a week. I hop off the bus and cross the street to find this motherfucker Butterman already here at Super Trak, sitting inside his GT.

  “Yo, man, why don’t I jus’ pick you up from ya spot instead a meetin’ down here all da time,” he says as I hop in.

  “For what? You wanna gi’me some ass?”

  He grins. “Naw, Joe, I’m jus’ sayin’ that it would be more convenient.”

  I ain’t saying shit to that. Maybe he’ll stop sweating me. “And I hope you ain’t got that damn 2Pac tape t’day. I’m ti’ed of hearin’ that crazy shit he be talkin’ ’bout.”

  “Why is it crazy?”

  “Look, that ma’fucka sound mad at the world, Joe.”

  “And you ain’t?”

  “How? I mean, we got shit goin’ on, you’n. We paid da hell up! And it ain’t like that nigga 2Pac ain’t got no money. That nigga ’bout t’ be in his second movie when that Poetic Justice movie comes out. And he got two tapes out already. So why is he still talkin’ shit?”

  “’Cause shit is still messed up for niggas.” You rich-ass ma’fucka! Hell, you know about problems an’ shit! I’m thinking.

  “Yeah, whatever, man. That nigga crazy t’ me.”

  We ride up Georgia Avenue to go meet these silly-ass niggas he got working for him. Yo, I swear to God, if I wasn’t working for this nigga myself, I’d rob his ass blind. You’n is a punk! That’s why he got me working for him in the first place.

  “Yo, yo, Shank! See you’n right there?”

  He points to this tall, stringy-looking nigga to my right, walking up Georgia.

  “Yeah.”

  The stringy nigga turns right, walking down a side street.

  “That’s Bean, the nigga dat tol’ me t’ watch my back.”

  I hop out of the car in traffic. “Shut da fuck up!” I holler at the cars blowing their horns at me. Punks! I jog down the street and catch up to you’n. He turns down an alleyway like a stupid-ass victim. “Yo, you got da time on you?” I ask him. I say the shit like I just happen to be heading in the same direction. He stops and looks down at this gold-plated watch. I steal his ass with a right hook to the jaw. Goddamn, he hit the ground already! I hate that shit! I ain’t had a good fist fight in years.

  Butterman rolls the GT inside the alleyway with us. We’re around the trash Dumpsters in back of these Georgia Avenue stores. “Yo, wake that nigga up, Shank!”

  I search him down first and pull out a compact. 45 semi-automatic. Damn! I’ve seen one of these in a handgun book. It has one of those wooden-ass handles, looking pretty as hell. I toss the .45 inside the car with Buttennan. I start to smack this motherfucker until he comes back to the world. The nigga looks up at me in a daze.

  “Yo, you’n, what’s all dat shit for?”

  “It’s for talkin’ dat trash, nigga!” Buttennan shouts from the car. r />
  Joe named Bean turns toward him.

  I take out my .38 and slam the butt into his face with my safety clip on.

  “Shit, man!” the nigga hollers like a bitch.

  I slam him with my gun again and he starts to struggle. I kick him in his head with my Tims. “Pussy!” I stomp him, kick him, pistol whip him.

  “Goddamn, Shank! That’s enough, man! Fuck that nigga, Joe!”

  I take my gun off safety and aim it at his head.

  “Yo, man, be cool, Shank!” Butterman is yelling.

  My heart is roaring like thunder. I feel my hand on the trigger. Blood is rushing through my arms. I feel hate. And I feel like killing this nigga.

  Butterman is whispering now. “Be cool, Shank.” It must be some witnesses in the area.

  The string bean nigga looks up at me in defeat. He doesn’t even beg for his life. Fuck him! He’s a pussy anyway! I click my gun back on safety. I walk to the GT and hop inside in silence. Butterman jets down the alley and turns left, away from Georgia Avenue.

  I settle down, picking up the .45 from the floor. I hold it in my hands. It’s heavy, hard, and powerful. Niggas will hear me with this. Niggas will fear me and respect my ass when I have to use it.

  “Gotdamn, man! Was you gon’ shoot you’n?”

  The car has stopped in a driveway. We must be at least twenty blocks away from the scene. This neighborhood looks like Maryland. It has a bunch of open space with grass and trees.

  I yell, “Fuck dude, man! You’n gave up. He was ready t’ die. He didn’t even fight back.”

  “Fight back? You was beatin’ his ass, Joe! How da fuck was he gon’ fight back?”

  Butterman is sweating and looking nervous. Pretty motherfucker’s a bitch. I knew he was. I look him in his face. “Yo, man, what’chu hire me for?”

  “Yeah, but damn! I mean, he had already gotten da point.”

  I frown at him, pissed the hell off. “Look here, ma’fucka, Joe lucky he still breathin’. I put my life on’na line e’ry time I smash a ma’fucka, man. Now he’ll think twice before he thinks about gettin’ revenge. That’s how you gotta do a punk. That’s why niggas is scared’a the white man. But if I ever go up against ’im . . . I’m gon’ kill his ass.”

  Butterman sits with nothing to say. I guess he’s trying to get his heart out of his throat. Poor, punk-ass nigga. He probably wants to go back to his mommy now. So fuck it! Let me get my raise. “Yo, I need a G a week, you’n. And I know you got the money, so don’t run no game about da ends not meetin’ on me.”

  He nods his head, slow-like. “Aw’ight. That’s cool.”

  Aw, you punk muthafucka! I know it’s cool! I’m thinking.

  He says, “Aw’ight. If that’s the way it has t’ be done, I got another stop fa us t’ make.”

  We ride down North Capitol Street and make a left to get to Florida Avenue. We pull up in Northeast, around H Street. This the other side of Northeast from where I live on Rhode Island. New York Avenue kind of separates the north and south sides of Northeast. And this south side is jive-like rougher than my side. But I grew up in Southeast anyway. So fuck these punk niggas over here!

  A bunch of motherfuckers sit strategically on steps and corners. And yo, this shit don’t look like the place to try no hero stunts. So if this nigga Butterman is thinking about Clint Eastwood movies, he got the wrong damn scene. But we’ll see what happens. Fuck these niggas!

  We hop out and walk toward another alleyway behind the H Street stores this time. I got my .38 inside my belt and my .45 inside my leather jacket. When we get around back, some chubby brown dude with a goatee walks out toward us, smiling like he’s invincible.

  “Hey, Butter-bitch. I ain’t think you was gon’ bring ya ass around here no more. I heard ya bamma ass got shit rollin’.”

  I recognize one of his boys.

  He speaks to me, all like he on my dick. “Yo, Shank. What’s up?”

  I nod to him, but he walks over to shake my hand. “Yo, we cool and all, but I ain’t out here for shakin’ hands.” I look to Butterman. “Yo, go ahead and take care of what’chu got t’ do.”

  Dude with the goatee looks toward me. “What? Y’all got’chall own shit, right? We ain’t got no biz’ness here. I heard y’all niggas got a New York connection.”

  I look to Butterman. “Yo, what’chu got t’ talk to dis nigga about?” Shit gets tense. The nigga that knows me turns away. I guess he realizes that’ll kill his punk ass.

  Chubby Goatee says, “I’m sayin’, me an’ B ain’t got no biz’ness.”

  He’s bitching now. I guess he’s realizing that I’ll kill his ass too. Punks! And they got at least ten motherfuckers around the corner.

  Butterman smiles. “Yo, you’n, e’rything cool. I just wanted to know if you wanted to buy some weight from me.”

  Goatee hunches his shoulders and raises his eyebrows. “Ah, well, we’ll see, man. I mean, I got my connections already.”

  I turn around and catch another motherfucker eyeing me, as if he’s sizing me up. “What, I got a fat ass or somethin’, you’n? Fuck is you starin’ at?”

  “Ay, man, stop that Rambo-type shit, shaw’. We ain’t got no beef wit’chall. It’s enough money for e’rybody in’nis shit,” he says.

  I start to walk back toward the car.

  Butterman says, “Yeah, so Max, beep me if you wanna buy some weight. Aw’ight?”

  “Yeah, I got’chu.”

  Butterman follows me out of the alleyway and back to the street. We hop in the GT and make a right turn onto H Street. We’re heading back toward North Capitol now.

  Butterman smiles. “Yeah, Joe, you’n tried to carry me before. Punk-ass nigga.”

  That’s dumb shit, I’m thinking. “Yo, you’n, you should’na done’nat dumb shit, Joe. And if you would’a tol’ me what we was about t’ do, I woulda said ‘Naw’. Now, the only reason them niggas didn’t shoot us is because dey was caught off guard. And I knew one of their trigga-men. He went to Anacostia wit’ me an’ Bink. But now them niggas is embarrassed. So you done made us some unnecessary enemies.”

  “Yeah, but Max and his boys ain’t really got no back. That’s why they stay over here in Northeast. I can roll wherever I want, ’cause I’m cool wit’ e’ry-body.”

  “Not if them motherfuckas pass da word that you tryin’a be a big boy. Then we gon’ have e’ry crew in D.C. ready to fuck us up for steppin’ out like dat.”

  “’How? I mean, that shit is jus’ between us and them.”

  “Yeah, and we got about six ma’fuckas, and two of ’em is pussies.” Not including ya punk ass, I’m thinking. Damn, this nigga stupid!

  “Steve’ll be down.”

  “I ain’t talkin’ ’bout Steve. I’m talkin’ ’bout Otis and that new ma’fucka Pervis you got workin’ for us.”

  “Pervis is gettin’ us sales in Maryland. And like I told’ju before, you’n, biz’ness ain’t always about havin’ a bunch of roughnecks on ya squad.”

  “Yeah, well, I hope you know what da hell you doin’, ’cause you just made situations more heated, man. I’m tellin’ you now.”

  “We aw’ight, man. Fuck Max.”

  We get back to Steve, Rudy, Otis, and Pervis. Pervis rides a green 300 ZX Turbo with gold-chrome, five-star hammer rims. Smooth-looking car. But he still a bitch.

  “Yo, we got like five sales set up fo’ t’night,” he says.

  Motherfucker’s rocking to some go-go music, blasting from his car. He’s wearing some blue suede shoes and slacks, with a long black leather coat. Nigga look like he’s trying to be a black gigolo.

  Butterman says, “Yeah, well, first things first. I wanna count at least five Gs, right now.”

  They all pull out knots. Butterman goes through his regular routine of counting the money inside of his car.

  He hops back out and walks over to us. “‘So we got how many sales?” he asks Steve.

  “We got three right now, but we got prospects for two more.”
r />   Butterman looks at me, then Pervis. “Ay, Pervis, I thought you said we had five.”

  Joe giggles like he’s high. And I don’t trust his wannabe-hip ass already. I’ll fuck him up! All Butterman has to do is give the word. But I feel like busting Pervis up anyway. And then I’ll take his car . . . Punk!

  “Aw, man, them niggas is sold, Joe,” he says, facing Steve.

  “Dey ain’t have no money, man, Steve answers. “They could’a been da poleese or anything, you’n.”

  Pervis frowns and looks nervous. “Aw, man, you actin’ paranoid.”

  I look at Butterman to give me the okay to bust Pervis up. But he doesn’t.

  He heads back to his car. “Yo, wait here wit’ dese niggas while I go get da shit, Shank.”

  I nod and take a seat on the steps of the house we’re in front of. An old, ragged man walks up to us, fiending. “Yo, man, go see dem Jamaicans. We ain’t got no small-time shit ova he’e no more,” Rudy tells him.

  “Huh?”

  “I said, we ain’t got shit for you, man!”

  “Oh.” The old man turns and heads off, wearing some dingy-ass jeans and a dirty old wool coat.

  “Yo, you betta watch how you talk about them Jamaicans, Joe,” Pervis tells Rudy. “Them niggas’ll fuck ya ass up. Them Jamaicans don’t be bullshittin’, you’n! I ’member I was in New York one time, in Queens, and these ma’fuckas rolled around the corna in jeeps, like twenty deep, and started sprayin’ niggas.”

  “So how come you still livin’?” Steve asks him.

  “Oh, ’cause was watchin’ from this window an’ shit. I was ova dis girl crib, gettin’ me some pussy.”

  Steve smiles at Otis and Rudy. “Yo, this nigga be lyin’ more than me, you’n. He a lyin’ ma’fucka, Joe. Nigga prob’ly never been to New York.”

  “Aw, man, you crazy! How you gon’ tell me? I got cousins all over New York.”

  Rudy looks at me and smiles. “Yeah, da nigga got lies all over his mowf, too. You know, Shank?”

  I nod to him. And Rudy’s the roughest motherfucker out here, besides me. “Yeah, I know,” I tell him. “And sometimes niggas get fucked up for lyin’. Ain’t that right, Steve?”