I smile at her and close the bathroom door. “You gon’ be a rough-ass mom!” I holler out to her.
She laughs. “Shut up and come on!”
After we get dressed, we jump into my 3000 with nowhere to go yet but out.
“So where we goin’?” I ask her.
She’s putting lipstick on in my mirror. “Umm, Kilimanjaro’s or something.”
I look at my clock. It reads 10:37. It’s dark. And . . . I fuckin’ forgot about my plan! Oh my God!
“Yo, we can’t go to Kilimanjaro’s tonight. Let’s, like, go to a club in Baltimore or somethin’,” I tell my girl. I know I have to take her somewhere. She got me all dressed up, looking good, and smelling good with her favorite cologne—Obsession For Men by Calvin Klein.
She looks at me evilly. “What? Look, J, I ain’t come back home to go hanging out in no fuckin’ Baltimore! What the hell is wrong with you?”
Goddamn! I done messed up again! Over some pussy! But hell, this my girl! This is Toya. She ain’t just any shot of ass! This my future wife out this joint.
“Well, let’s go out t’ Maryland somewhere then,” I tell her.
“Like where?”
“Umm, Classics or Oak Tree.”
She nods her head. “Okay, that’s cool.” She leans back into the bucket seat.
“Aw’ight. But yo, I forgot to make a phone call,” I tell her.
I pull the car over at a 7-Eleven and beep these niggas. The pay phone rings right back. They must’ve been right next to a phone somewhere.
“What’s up?” Steve says.
I ask him, “Yo, how come y’all niggas ain’t beep me earlier?”
“We was waitin’ for you.”
“What da fuck? I mean, y’all wanna do this or what?”
Steve hollers back at me, “Shit! How come you ain’t call us earlier? It’s ya plan!”
Yeah, he right. He right. It’s my fault for getting some ass. “Aw’ight, yo. We gon’ chill off that shit then ’til another day. But what I want y’all to do now is go park out at the Oak Tree at about two thirty and wait until it closes. Then I want y’all t’ like, walk through the crowds with ya pieces but not with the Uzis. Aw’ight?”
“Aw’ight. But let me ask you a question, B. What da hell is we gon’ do that for? I mean, do you know if these niggas are gon’ be up there or somethin’?”
“Look, man, as long as I’m still payin’ y’all, don’t ask me no fuckin’ questions! Now, just be up there!”
I slam the phone down and walk back to my thirty thousand–dollar ride and my million-dollar girl.
“What was that all about?” she asks me.
“Nothin’. Let’s roll.”
* * *
The Oak Tree is slammin’ like shit tonight! I’m sitting here drinking with my boy Spoon at the bar. This boy done cut all his dark curls off. I guess he been watching too many Onyx videos. I’d never cut off my hair. Toya wouldn’t let me anyway.
“Yo, B?”
I take a sip of my rum and Coke. I’m only sipping this drink so I won’t get drunk tonight. “What?” I ask Spoon. “If I gave you a million dollars, would you let me fuck ya girl?”
I smile. “Fuck you and Robert Redford.”
Spoon is watching my girl dancing by herself to our right, under the DJ booth on the dance stage. They’re playing that “Whoomp! There It Is!” song. I laugh. Shank hates that song with a passion. “Them ma’fuckas should be lynched for makin’ some wack-ass shit like that,” he told me.
“What’s so funny?” Spoon asks me.
“Nothin’, man. I’m jus’ trippin’ off that Indecent Proposal flick,” I lie to him.
Spoon smiles with glassy, drunken eyes. “Yeah, but it wasn’t as good as I expected. I wanted to see dude bangin’ ’er, you’n.”
I take a strong look at Spoon’s yellow ass. He’s out here looking like one of my cousins, wearing black slacks and a rayon shirt with his chest open like them Italians do in old disco movies—John Travolta and Dance Fever type shit.
“Yeah, I forgot’cha ass was into that ol’ kinky shit. Now stop starin’ at my damn girl.”
He laughs at me. “The darker the berry, the sweeter the juice for us yellow niggas, man. You know what time it is,” he tells me with a grin. Spoon’s fucked up already! I might have to drive Joe home tonight.
“Oh, yeah? Well, stop sweatin’ my berry and go find ya own, ma’fucka.”
Spoon just laughs louder. Then he gets real quiet for a moment.
“Hi, Spoon.”
A warm body leans up against my right shoulder. I flinch and see that it’s my girl.
“How you doin’, Toya?” Spoon says. He peeks at me and smiles. “We was jus’ talkin’ ’bout’chu.”
Toya smirks at him and takes my hand, dragging me onto the dance floor. “You can’t have me, Spoon. And nice haircut.”
“Would you let me cut my hair like his?” I ask her with a grin.
She answers me without hesitation. “Of course not.”
I laugh while she slips her hands around my waist on this crowded-ass dance floor. “So why you jus’ tell him that his cut is nice?”
She smiles. “I was being sarcastic, J.”
That slow Intro song comes on, the one that they remade from Stevie Wonder’s “Ribbon in the Sky.”
I look down at my girl and smile. “Yo, you told them to put this on?”
She smiles back at me. “What do you think?”
“Well, you know I’m too tall for this slow-draggin’.”
“Shut up and bend ya knees then.”
I chuckle. I look around while we dance. A lot of guys are taking peeks at me. But none of them look like they got no vendetta against me. People always looking at me: faggots and shit, jealous niggas, girls. And it’s just because I’m pretty. But I doubt if them Northeast niggas is thinking about me being at a party tonight. I’m probably after them more than they’re after me now. I mean, I could probably ignore them and just go back to making money. But then again, if they punk me out, then customers that we’re selling ounces to might start to take me for a sucker.
It looks like I have to do what I have to do. I’m not planning on being run out of my business. One hundred grand ain’t gon’ last forever. I have to keep my shit going.
My girl Toya is running her nails through the back of my hair and making my dick hard.
“What are you thinking about?” she asks me with her eyes sparkling from the disco lights.
“Makin’ late-night love to you, baby.”
She grins. “Just because we did somethin’ earlier don’t mean you gon’ get it all the time.”
I lean back and look deeper into her eyes. “So you tellin’ me dat I’m on some kind of schedule or somethin’?”
She giggles. “You just might be.”
I frown at her and shake my head. “Man, that shit is crazy.”
We walk outside at the end of the party. The crowds are flowing out into the parking lot. I’m out here trying my hardest to get Toya back to the car and out of here as quickly as possible.
I spot Steve dressed in all black to my right. I look around and spot Boo further up in the crowd to my left. We nod at each other. But I don’t see Otis nor Jerry out this joint.
If I could’ve had Shank, then I could have left these niggas the hell home and just took him with me. I been beeping young’un all night and day and he hasn’t answered me. I bet he forgot his beeper or something. Shank ain’t like the idea of having one anyway.
“Come on, let’s get up out of here, Toya.” I got my girl by her arm.
She pulls away from me. “Wait a minute, J. Let me holler at my girlfriend right quick.”
“Ha-a-a-ay, Toy-Toy!” this tan-skinned girl named Sharon screams. She’s damn near tall as me and dressed in blue leather. They run up and hug each other like sisters.
I just sit here in the crowd and shake my head. I mean, girls always act like they have to go through all this extra
drama-type shit when they see each other, like it’s a ritual. I’m surprised they didn’t see each other inside the party earlier. But it was kind of packed in there.
I move through the crowd to where Steve is. “Yo, where Otis an’ Jerry?”
Steve looks past me in the direction of my girl. “Oh, dey, like, headed over there somewhere.”
Bap! Bap! Bap! Bop! Bop!
Bow! Bow!
“Owwwww!”
“Shit!”
Fuck is goin’ on? Niggas are running like elephants and zebras! I push my way through the crowd to get back to my girl. “Toya!” I’m shoving guys and girls. “Toya!”
I make it through and spot Sharon holding her side. I look down at it, seeing blood running through her leather outfit and into her hands. “Oh, shit! Where Toya at?”
Sharon bends over, screaming hoarsely, “Oh my God! Oh my God!”
I look past her, stop, and look with my chest heaving and my heart pounding.
That ain’t my girl right there. It’s jus’ some bitch dressed like her. It ain’t my girl. It’s not Toya!
I kneel down with my heart in my throat and tum her over.
“Ahhhh, shit!”
I’m dreaming, God! Now make me wake da hell up, pleeease!
Tears are running out my eyes. All I’m hearing is wild screaming. All I see is blood all over my girl. I lean down to her head. “Oh, Toya. Baby.”
I’m dreaming, right? I’m fuckin’ dreaming! This shit ain’t real! It can’t be!
I can feel my stomach turning and my dry-ass open mouth. It feels like I’m about to throw up. My hands are trembling over my girl’s blood-soaked back. And my heart is burning inside my chest.
I can’t hold it back! I can’t hold this shit back! “Toy-yaaaaah!”
CHAPTER 11
Shank
Off and on. Trenda number two. Now, what’cha gonna do when I flow?
Yeah, the Trends of Culture came off! Them motherfuckers went for theirs.
I’m out here on Eighteenth Street and Rhode Island Avenue Northeast, about to catch the E2 bus to meet these niggas up on Missouri Avenue in Northwest. I still ain’t figured out what to do about this crazy motherfucker Rudy. But I made the right decision about not trying to cut Butterman short. He been on my dils-nick lately. He’s been taking me everywhere with him, like I’m his new bitch of the week.
But oh, his girl is hy-y-y-ype as shit! She badder than a motherfucker. And she damn near black as me. I guess that nigga Butterman got a thing for jet-black niggas or something. I mean, his girl Toya is, like, one of them dark-skinned, executive-looking bitches that people talk that “You look good for a dark-skinned girl” shit to. What? A black bitch can’t look good or something? Cicely Tyson always looked good to me. She reminds me of my mother.
I think that’s why my girl Carlette is so much on my dick too. Her and Butterman just want to know what it feels like to be a “real-ass nigga” like Wes kept talking to me about. Both Butterman and Carlette are them half-breed-looking niggas. And the sun won’t help them. They would probably get red and shit, like white people.
The E2 bus finally pulls up. I jump on, pay my dollar, and walk to the back. Two older niggas are back there sitting in both of the corner seats and talking shit to one another.
“Aw, man, Riddick Bowe is fightin’ nobodies. I mean, who da hell is a Jesse Ferguson?”
“Don’t sleep, shorty. Ferguson almost knocked out Holyfield.”
“Naw, that was a . . . Bert Cooper from Philly. And shit, dat dere was a damn fluke. But I’ma tell you what: Bowe needs t’ fight that boah Lennox Lewis that kicked his ass in’na Olympics. See now, him an’ Rock Newman are hidin’ from dat boah.”
“Naw, he need’a fight Mike Tyson. That’s who he need to fight.”
“Huh? Aw, man, dat damn prison done fucked Mike’s head up, slim. I read in Jet magazine that Mike say he don’t even think about fightin’ no more. All he think about is prison bars and shit.
“Now, that’s fucked up. ’Cause that damn girl done messed that man’s life up. And she know damn well she wanted to give him some pussy that night. But what happened is that the shit ain’t go down right. Mike jus’ wanted some pussy, but that girl went up there expecting to get more than that.”
“Mm-hmm, yeah, ’cause they say she tryin’a sue him now.”
“You goddamn right she tryin’a sue ’im! That girl knew who she was dealin’ wit’ when she went up in dat hotel room. Shit! That damn girl said, ‘This Mike Tyson. This nigga got some money, and I’m gon’ go up here and give him some pussy.’ And that shit ain’t even right, man. It ain’t even right.”
Dude that just finished talking got one of those shaggy-ass beards. Other dude is clean-shaven. Both of them are brown and wearing T-shirts. But Shaggy-beard ain’t finished talking yet. He looks about forty, and the other dude looks about thirty.
“What it is is that nigga mentality, man,” Shaggy-beard says.
I’m sitting here listening to these motherfuckers now. They’re talking loud enough to make it easy. I’m sitting right up in front of them anyway.
“I mean, man, we da only race that bring each other down and degrade each other like we do. We say that word ‘nigga’ all day long, man. Little kids sayin’ it. And then we get mad when the white man says it. I mean, it’s the same goddamn word. But then you get them brothers talkin’ ’bout they done turned it into somethin’ positive. You believe that, man? I mean, we done got so used to degrading one another, man, that now we wanna lie to each other about it and call it positive.
“You don’t hear no white people callin’ themselves honkeys or rednecks or no shit like that. Crackers. Naw. We da only race of people on earth that do it. That’s why these young’uns are out here killin’ each other t’day. They don’t know who they are, where they come from, or where they goin’. All they know is ‘I don’t like that nigga ova dere. I’m gon’ shoot ’im.’
“I mean, these kids really hate one another, man. And some of ’em’s parents ain’t no damn betta. You tell a lady t’day, ‘Ma’am, I think ya son is involved in some shit. And I’m just tryin’a let you know befo’ he go and do something stupid.’ And you know what these simple-minded-ass parents tell you t’day? ‘Don’t worry about my goddamn son! He ain’t ya damn problem!’
“See dat? And it’s that simple kind of shit that’s bringin’ the race down every damn day, man. Every damn day.”
Other dude don’t have nothing else to say. But Shaggy-beard still talking.
“An’ney won’t do dat shit t’ da white man. Talkin’ ’bout how goddamn tough they are. But the white man make ’em into pussies when he gets to ’em.”
Both of them get off the bus at the Fort Totten Metro station. Now they got me thinking. I got my pretty, wooden-handled .45 inside my belt now, and I did fuck up a white man. But for seventy fucking dollars when I’m getting paid a thousand a week to bust up niggas if I have to. I mean, no motherfucker gon’ pay you to kill no white man! No fucking body!
Who you gonna shoot wit’ dat, homie? And why does ya gat say, “Niggas only?”
That’s that Lench Mob song. And then 2Pac says, “You love t’ shoot a nigga but’cha scared t’ pop a cop.”
Yeah. Them rappers talk that shit. But now it’s this young dude in Texas about to get the death penalty for poppin’ a cop. I mean, niggas know what time it is when it comes to them fucking police officers, man. Especially white ones.
I read in that New Dimensions newspaper that Carlette reads that this nigga Terrence Johnson been in jail for like fifteen years for shooting these two white cops who were kicking his ass out in P.G. County when he was fifteen. That shit was back in 1978. They waited for you’n to turn sixteen so they could charge him as an adult. Now they keep denying his parole. And he a light-skinned pretty-boy with light-ass eyes like Butterman. I bet them faggots ripped his asshole to pieces in jail. I mean, that motherfucker was only sixteen! That’s why niggas don’t shoot c
ops. It ain’t no damn mystery!
I walk up on these niggas chilling on Missouri Avenue, and guess what the hell they’re talking about.
This big, bug-eyed nigga named Jerry that Butterman hired is talking. “Yeah, so if a nigga gon’ die, Joe, he gon’ die. I don’t even see why ma’fuckas are afraid of death. I mean, you gon’ go when you go, Joe. It’s as simple as that. So I’m not all upset for killin’ niggas. I figure they gon’ die anyway, if not by my hands, then by another nigga’s hands or a bitch wit’ a knife, or even cancer out dis bitch.”
Typical. These niggas are crazy! And here I am hangin’ wit’ dese losers.
They all quiet down when they see me in their midst. “Yo, show ’im the paper, man,” Steve says.
Otis gives me this folded newspaper. I read this shit inside the box:
THREE KILLED IN RIVAL GANG FIGHT
Well, I guess I don’t have to worry about Rudy no more. But damn he got some sixteen-year-old shot the fuck up too! See that shit? I did make the right decision, huh? Then again, it’s still gon’ come a time when we gonna have to rumble with these Northeast niggas or somebody else. And I ain’t even up for that shit no more. I’m having nightmares and all kinds of shit.
I’ve been faking Butterman out like I’m down though. I’m just waiting for him to ask me to kill somebody. That’s when I’m gon’ sting him for some real-ass money. That five thousand dollars I got saved up ain’t nothing compared to what Butterman is making. Rudy was right about that.
“So what’chu think, Shank?” this other nigga Boo asks me. Him and Jerry are both some bammas to me. I mean, Boo supposed to be in one of those halfway houses. They got all kinds of paperwork on these niggas.
Me? I ain’t never been caught for shit! Not even for Oak Hill Youth Center. And guess what? I’m gon’ keep my sheet clean. These motherfuckers ain’t a damn thing to me. Fuck these niggas! They just wasting their lives out here.
I give the paper back to Otis. “Fuck it, man. It ain’t us.”
“It might be us next if we don’t get them first,” Jerry says. “It’s the law of the jungle, man.”