Capital City

  “Yo, man, Bink said you got skills on’na wheels, G. So what’s the deal? Let me hear some rhymes on time.”

  This boy grins. I guess my attempt to rhyme to him sounded stupid. But fuck it! I got young’un smiling, right?

  “I ain’t really thinkin’ ’bout shit but killin’nese Northeast niggas so we can stop lookin’ like punks out here. I mean’nis punk shit ain’t sittin’ too well wit’ my conscience. You know what I’m sayin’?”

  I turn the volume down a bit so I can hear him dearly. “Yeah, I hear you. But we gon’ get ’em niggas when the time is right. They ain’t really tried nothin’ yet.”

  “That’s because we been fuckin’ hidin’!”

  I don’t say anything to that. I mean, I guess he got a point. But I don’t want us to be no sitting target. And I still got money out here to make. So, you know, you have to do what you have to do sometimes to stay in business.

  “Pride can get a man killed earlier than he really wants to die,” I tell him. I didn’t make that saying up or nothing. I’m just quoting what I heard Georgie say in his barbershop three years ago. Red was talking this same old tough guy shit Shank talks, and Georgie was trying to school him.

  “Some people are meant to die to set examples,” Shank says back.

  I chuckle. “Oh, yeah? Well, like, damn near two hundred and fifty niggas set examples already in 1993, and it’s jus’ turnin’ May an’ shit.”

  Shank smiles. “Yeah, we tryin’a break last year’s record.”

  I shake my head and say nothing. Fuck it! I guess he’s straight-up crazy!

  * * *

  I cut up the cocaine and deliver it to my workers on Missouri Avenue. Then I jet back to the crib and call up Red’s girl Keisha to see if he can have visiting hours again yet.

  “Yay’ah, but I ain’t goin’,” she says.

  “Nobody asked you da go.”

  “’Cause I’m ti’ed a gettin’ my hopes all up fa his ass and den—”

  “Look, I just want Li’l Red when I go.”

  “He fuck around an’ disappoint me all da time, shaw’. It’s jus—”

  “Would’ju shut da fuck up! I jus’ want Li’l Red t’mar.”

  Blang!

  Damn! She hung up on me. I call her ass right back.

  “Den come an’ get ’im den!” she shouts into the phone.

  I shake my head and smile into my dresser mirror. Keisha goin’ crazy. For real!

  * * *

  I got Little Red in the car with me heading down I-95 to see his pop in Lorton in Virginia. I didn’t need to get a haircut this Thursday. I looked into the mirror like the Fonz this morning and said, “Fuck it!”

  We go through all that identification bullshit before they lead us to the maximum security telephones. Damn! Red done fucked up on them visits where we could sit across the table with him. Now we have to look through this thick-ass glass window and talk through these telephones like they do in the movies.

  “Yo, li’l man? Say ‘what’s up’ to Papa,” Red says to his son. I got my ear and Little Red’s ear up to the receiver.

  Little Red says, “Hi,” shyly into the mouthpiece. He’s not even looking at Red.

  “Yo, B, tell ’im t’ look at me when I’m talkin’ to ’im, man.”

  I try to get Little Red to look through the glass window, but he doesn’t want to. Then he climbs down from the phone table and starts crying.

  Red looks on like he’s stone crazy. “Ay, what’s wrong wit’ my son, man? What the hell Keisha been sayin’ to ’im?”

  I shake my head and hold Little Red at my side. “Keisha givin’ up, man. She losin’ it.”

  Red nods. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, B.”

  I look into his hardened face. His hair been cut down so low that you can’t tell the color. But he still looks like a reddish-brown Hulk. This nigga is huge like shit! I won’t have to worry about nothing when he gets out. I mean, with Red and Shank . . . yo, that shit is gon’ be the bomb!

  “How much money you got?” Red asks me, snapping me out of my dream.

  “Almost a hundred Gs in’na bank, and, like, fifty at da crib.”

  Red’s eyes pop open as he cheers up. “Yo, dat a work! Now, listen up, B.” He looks serious again with his nostrils flaring. “Leave dat street shit alone, man, and jus’ lay low until I get out, ’cause crime don’t pay.”

  I look at him, confused. I jus’ know he ain’t say what I think I heard. I look at the phone like something is wrong with it.

  Red frowns at me. “Yo, stop playin’, you’n. I’m serious.” I don’t say nothing. I’m hoping Red sees that I’m not trying to go for this craziness. I mean, every time things gets a little rough, niggas start running. Just like Wes did already. But I know Shank is still down with me. Joe will die fighting for his. Fuck this running away shit! I ain’t stopping until I make a million. Then I’ll probably want ten million.

  Red says, “You hear me talkin’ t’ you, man?”

  “Huh?”

  “The shit don’t pay, B! I mean, you got money, so chill ya ass out and take a vacation or somethin’ for a while until I get outta here.”

  I frown back at him. “It don’t pay? How da hell you think I got paid, Joe? I mean, what da fuck are you talkin’ about, Red? Them damn Muslims been gettin’ to you back there or somethin, nigga?”

  Red just stares at me. “Put my son back on’na phone.”

  I try to lift Little Red up, but he struggles against me and starts crying again. This shit ain’t looking cool at all. Little Red’s starting to act like a little spoiled girl out this joint.

  Red is still staring at me when I look back at him. “Would you want your only son doin’ some sissy shit like that to you?”

  I look into Red’s serious-ass eyes. It damn near looks like he wants to cry with his son.

  Damn! I’m gettin’ butterflies in my stomach now. This visit ain’t turnin’ out the way I was thinkin’.

  “Look, man, you gon’ do what’chu gon’ do. I’m outta here.” Red gets up and walks to his left. The guards take him back and he disappears.

  “Come on, man.” I pull Little Red by his hand. He’s still wiping tears from his eyes.

  * * *

  We head back up I-95 and listen to the radio. That Levert jam comes on, “Bring Back the Good Old Days.” I guess Red is right. I mean, life was a whole lot simpler when we used to go to the go-go at Crystal Skate, the Panorama Room, Southern Coliseum, the Black Hole, and the East Side. We’d book girls and just fist-fight them jealous niggas and shit. But now niggas are fucking lunatics.

  I get back to the crib and call up my girl. I’m keeping Little Red with me tonight. I got him in my living room playing that Sega game. I don’t play it much myself, but I know he’ll get a kick out of it.

  Toya says, “Hey, baby. So you gon’ pick me up from the airport at around four o’clock, right?”

  “You can’t come no earlier than that?”

  “No, J, ’cause I have a lot of things to do before I leave Tuesday morning.”

  “Oh, yeah?” I’m sitting here looking at a photo that me and Toya took last summer. “I miss you, girl.”

  “Awww, baby, I miss you too.”

  I smile. “What I tell you about that?”

  “About what?”

  “Makin’ me sound like I’m your son or somethin’.”

  “What? Well, look, boo, if you don’t like me talkin’ sweet to you, then you gon’ get tired of me this summer, ’cause I missed your curly-headed ass a lot.”

  My dick gets hard at hearing this shit. I wish she was home tonight.

  “You think ya mom gon’ get mad at you stayin’ over here this summer?” I ask her.

  She sucks her teeth. “I mean, J, I’m a grown-ass woman. I’m still gon’ see my mom every chance I get.

  But, like, we been goin’ together for almost four years now. And my mom likes you.”

  I smile. “I hope she do.”


  “Yeah, but hey, baby, I’m about to run out with my girlfriends.”

  I snap to attention. “Where y’all goin’?”

  “We goin’ out, man! I mean, this my last week in Atlanta until August. And I’on know why you askin’ me that. I need to be askin’ your hot-ass where you goin’.”

  I laugh.

  “Yeah, keep on laughing.”

  “I ain’t goin’ nowhere t’night. I got li’l Red wit’ me.”

  “You do? Awww, see how sweet you can be sometimes, boo.”

  “Yo, stop callin’ me dat shit. I know this other guy name Boo. And dude ain’t doin’ too well upstairs, you know?”

  She giggles. “Baby, you know how my mom got me doin’ dat.”

  “Yeah, well, we gon’ have to stop all that shit right here.”

  She laughs. “Okay, but I have to go. Love you.”

  “I love you too.”

  “I know you do, baby. But I love you more.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  She chuckles. “Bye.”

  “Aw’ight.”

  I hang up and slide down onto my brown-carpeted floor with Little Red to play Sega Genesis in the living room. “How come you ain’t look at your father t’day, man?” He hunches his shoulders. And fuck it! Life is rough sometimes like that. He’ll grow out of it. Red ain’t gon’ be in jail forever. That nigga gon’ be out in just eighteen months probably.

  CHAPTER 10

  Butterman

  I’m speeding down Fourteenth Street Northwest to pick up my girl. I’m already running late, and four o’clock ain’t exactly the best time to be driving to the airport on a weekday with all this damn traffic downtown.

  A taxi tries to cut out in front of me from my left. I move up and block his ass off.

  “Hey, can I get by, man?” He looks like an angry Ethiopian and he has an accent. But fuck him!

  “Naw, man, I’m in a hurry!”

  He nods his head at the middle-aged white couple in his back seat. I guess he thinks they’re more important than me. But his ass is wrong! My baby’s coming home today! Nobody’s more important than her.

  I jump on 395 South, heading for Virginia, and turn right onto the National Airport exit. I think Toya said she’s flying Delta. She has a cousin that works for one of them airlines. Dude pretty cool. But I keep forgetting if the shit is Delta or Continental.

  I ride past a few pickup spots and a million taxis and stop at Delta. I spot my girl immediately. And she don’t look too happy. She’s wearing off-white corduroy shorts and a matching knitted vest. Her gold is shining against her pretty, dark skin and her hair is pinned up in one of those high-ass French rolls. She’s wearing gold loop earrings. She has the chiseled face of a model, and she’s shaped like that track star, Flo Jo, but without them He Man type muscles. I wouldn’t like that shit.

  I blow my horn. I jump out and lift up the trunk.

  Toya walks over and starts throwing her suitcases in like she’s trying to break them.

  I stare at her like she’s crazy. “What’chu doin’?”

  She doesn’t even look at me. “You should’a left earlier, ’cause you know damn well that I hate waiting at these airports.”

  I smile and grab some of her bags to put in my back seat. Toya filled my trunk up already!

  “I tried, Toy, honest.”

  “Yeah, I bet you did.” She hops in on the passenger’s seat and closes the door.

  I slide in, close my door, and drive off. I peep over at her. She’s looking all gorgeous. She looks even sexier when she’s pissed.

  She stares straight ahead and says, “J?”

  I’m licking my lips at her playfully. “What?”

  “Could you stop staring at me, please? God! I mean, I got enough of that from all these damn skycaps tryin’a help me with my bags.”

  “Did’ju give your phone number t’ any of ’em?” I ask her. I’m just joking with her.

  “Yeah. He gon’ pick me up later on tonight.”

  We both start laughing. Then Toya says, “Yup, I can tell we gon’ have a hell of a summer, ’cause you pissin’ me off already. And now I gotta live with you.” She shakes her head with a smile. “Mm, mm, mm. What I get myself into now?”

  I suck my teeth and grin at her. “Girl, you crazy! You get breakfast in bed every day with me.”

  She can’t help but smile at that shit! “Yeah, right,” she says.

  We roll back up to Fourteenth Street. An old, bummy white woman in dirty brown pants and a yellow T-shirt approaches cars from the middle of the road with a sign in her hands, begging for money.

  I read the shit: PLEASE GIVE TO THE POOR AND HOMELESS.

  Yeah, right. She out her mind! Poor and homeless? She white!

  Toya is watching her too. “Even white people got it bad sometimes,” she comments.

  I frown at her as I drive off past the green light. “You crazy! She prob’ly got rich-ass relatives that don’t like her no more. She prob’ly married one of us when she was younger.”

  Toya grins at me. “Now, you know you ain’t got no damn sense.”

  I’m smiling, saying nothing. All I’m thinking about is what we gon’ do once we get back to the crib.

  * * *

  I lift myself up, loving her smooth, dark body with every stroke. And she’s talking some good shit to me.

  “I miss you, baby.” She digs her nails into my hips. “Uh, J! I missed you! I missed you!”

  Goddamn! I can feel this nut in my fuckin’ toes!

  Toya is gripping me like shit! “Give everything to me, baby. Oh, I feel you. Yes, J! Yes!” She got one hand running wildly through my hair now.

  I’m grabbing onto the edge of the bed, past Toya’s head on my pillow. She’s wrapping her flexible legs around mine while I cum. And we sweating like hell in here!

  Toya says breathlessly, “We gon’ have ta take a long-ass shower, baby.”

  We’re both on our backs and breathing like we just finished a marathon.

  I smile. “Yeah, well, we gon’ have ta chill for that shit, ’cause I’m tired den a ma’fucka.”

  She giggles. “You should be.” Then she grabs onto my joint and starts to rub up and down on it.

  I stop her and pull her hand away. “Yo, come on, don’t do that. You tryin’a give me a heart attack in here?”

  Toya just smiles.

  We end up taking a shower together—after we go at it two more times. We dress and freshen up and brush our teeth and put deodorant on, and all that other shit before we head to LaToya’s mom’s crib in Suitland, Maryland.

  I’m taking the Beltway to Suitland. That white boy Snow’s reggae song “Informer” comes on the radio. Toya pumps the volume up.

  “This the joint, baby! And I can’t wait to go to the go-go. I was drivin’ the chicks on my floor crazy with Rare Essence and Junk Yard. I was like, ‘Y’all ain’t hip? Well, I’m gon’ have to get’chall up on this shit. This the D.C. shit, shawdy!’”

  I just grin at her. She’s in here making a clown out of herself, dancing around in my thirty-thousand-dollar ride. I guess she’s happy as hell to be back home. I mean, she ain’t been back here since Thanksgiving last year. I’ve been down to Spelman to see her seven times since then. But I don’t know why people talking all that stuff about “Black Atlanta.” I mean, it may be a whole lot of wealthy niggas moving down there and all, but it was boring like shit down there to me. Especially after hanging out in Brooklyn, New York. But I guess New York got enough niggas. So a lot of them want to get the hell away from there. I mean, it makes sense. New York is crazy anyway.

  “Why you all quiet, J?” Toya asks me. She turns the radio back down for my answer.

  “Man, I’m jus’ thinkin’ ’bout the difference between New York and Atlanta.”

  Toya frowns. “Oh, it’s like night and day, baby. Night and day.”

  We get to her mom’s house in Suitland. It takes me out how this neighborhood is all spread out and shit. It lo
oks like the country in some parts of Suitland. Especially where Toya’s mom lives. It reminds me of some parts of South Carolina where my peoples live.

  We walk up the wooden patio steps. Toya opens her mom’s new yellow-and-white screen door. She looks back at me and raises her brow. She takes a deep breath. “Well, here we go, J.”

  As soon as she opens the door with her key and we walk inside, her brown and round mother raises up from her black leather recliner. It sits in the living room in front of their twenty-seven-inch floor-model TV.

  We all smile at each other and say hi. Two of Toya’s girlfriends are here, and NeNe. I get nervous for a minute, thinking that NeNe’s sister might be up in this joint. But I heard she married now, so I doubt it.

  “Ha-a-a-ay, y’all!” Toya squeals.

  Time for me ta sit down and chill. You know damn well how women get when’ney ain’t seen each other for a while.

  It sounds like a circus in here. They’re talking about how they missed each other and how dark Toya got, and if she’s been eating well and a whole bunch of other girl talk. I watch television with a grin until NeNe grabs my hand and leads me outside and onto the wooden patio. I look down at her for an explanation.

  NeNe’s looking cute as hell out here with her sandy brown self. She got on some hot pink lipstick and a matching skirt and earrings with a rayon shirt that has touches of hot pink in it. She even got a new short and jazzy hairstyle. I’m ashamed of what I’m thinking right now.

  “What?” I ask her.

  She sucks her teeth and sighs. “Wes, that’s what.”

  I smile, confused. “What about ’im?”

  She throws her right hand on her hip. And this shit ain’t doing me no damn good! I feel like jumping her bones out this joint!

  “Why did I go to the movies at Union Station last week, J, and some ol’ bitch gon’ jump in my face over him, you’n? I was like, ‘Oh, no! Let me find out Wes’s ass been fuckin’ around on me.’”