Capital City

Otis frowns at him. “What jungle? And we ain’t no fuckin’ gang. We jus’ niggas out here tryin’a get money. This shit ain’t no L.A.”

  I’m thinking, Maybe this nigga Otis had the right idea all along. I mean, not to be a pussy like him, but just not to get in no unsafe situations either. Hanging with these bammas will get me killed. You don’t see Butterman all out with these motherfuckers. Butterman would rather hang out with some bitches, or Bink, or even Wes.

  Wes told me they went down to South Carolina for a birthday party. Now, I know damn well that yellow-ass, Richie Rich–type nigga wouldn’t take any of these damn fools down there to see his family. I wouldn’t want to go to no shit like that personally. Them light-bright niggas would’ve thought that I was a black Satan down that bitch.

  Jerry shakes his head. “Otis, you’s a bitch, man. I mean, when I was up in D.C. Jail, you’n, I jus’ had to show ma’fuckas that I wasn’t to be played with, that’s all. So whether you gettin’ money or not, you jus’ gotta show niggas. In jail is the real deal, man. You ain’t shit if you ain’t been up yet.”

  Boo nods his head like he believes this shit. “Yeah, that’s the sho’nuff, you’n. That’s your real test in’nis game.”

  “And takin’ a bullet if you have to, too,” Jerry says. “I got hit in my arm once, and right here in my stomach.” He lifts up his blue Champion shirt and shows us his shiny-ass skin that’s healed over a bullet scar. “That shit went in and out, man. Jus’ ran to the crib and wrapped the shit up and kept goin’ at it.”

  Steve ain’t saying anything. And I’m acting like I ain’t paying no attention too.

  Boo says, “Jail ain’t all that bad, for real, Joe. I mean, at least you know, like, niggas ain’t out there tryin’a kill you an’ shit.”

  “You crazy, you’n!” Jerry yells at him. “Ma’fuckas gettin’ killed like shit in D.C. Jail.”

  “Ain’t that shit in Southeast?” Steve finally asks Jerry.

  Jerry looks at him like he don’t believe Steve just asked him that question. Then he smiles with this ugly-ass face of his. “You ain’t never been ta jail, have you, Steve?”

  “Fuck no!”

  We all start laughing at the shit.

  Jerry says, “That’s how you become a man, Joe. I’m tellin’ you.”

  I shake my head, frowning. These niggas are out dey fuckin’ minds! I mean, the more I listen t’ dis crazy shit, the more sense I make. Steve’s not going for this jail-talk either.

  Jerry looks to me. “Yo, Shank, I know you down, man. Now tell this boy, you’n. Real niggas die on the trigga like men, right? Like that part in that movie Colors.”

  He’s talking about that scene where them two niggas face off and waste each other at the end.

  I look Jerry in his bugged-out-ass eyes. All four of these motherfuckers are waiting for my answer like students. They really expect me to be crazy. And if I act crazy, I can fake all these suckers out for when I make my sting on Butterman.

  “Ay, man, y’all muthafuckas are crazy! Real niggas don’t die! We multiply out dis bitch! I’ll kill all them niggas by my fuckin’ self! I’on need shit but a MAC-10!” I grit at these niggas like I’m a straight-up lunatic. “Fuck this! I’m outta her’!”

  * * *

  I’m riding down Georgia Avenue on one of those double 70 buses, feeling good like shit. I know any day now Butterman gon’ ask me to take somebody out. Then I’m gon’ take the money and jet. I’m gonna hook up with my cousin Cal, head to New York, and do whatever the hell we dream about. And fuck Butterman! He ain’t gon’ come after me. I read it in his eyes. He needs niggas like me just like the white man needs his army. In fact, he told me that shit when I first met his ass.

  I got his stupid-ass runners believing I’m crazy now. I even got Butterman faked out. All I have to do now is wait it out.

  “Hey, bus driver! Drop me off at da nearest liquor store!” this wino yells. Dude is yelling from the back of the bus to the front of the bus. We up near that fire station on Georgia and New Hampshire.

  Yo, I have to laugh at this shit. Niggas are crazy. But I’m not trying to be one, now. I feel like a “Black Man,” like them Muslims talk about. I feel saved by Jee-zus! Yes, lawd!

  I’m lunchin’ like hell, I know. But I don’t feel it no more, man. I feel free as a bird now.

  It’s sunny outside. Girls are starting to wear that sexy summertime gear. Muslims out here selling them Final Call newspapers with suits and bow-ties. I got a girl that’s on my dick. I mean, Carlette loves me like shit! And I got rhyme skills to boot.

  Yeah, fuck that going-to-jail or getting-shot-the-fuck-up shit. Me and Carlette gonna celebrate tonight. We gon’ go see that Indecent Proposal flick all the way up in Wheaton, Maryland, somewhere to get away from D.C. I already saw that movie, but Carlette’s been asking me to go with her so she can see it. I mean, it’s Friday anyway. Time to get out.

  * * *

  “So how come you all energetic and smiling tonight?” Carlette asks me. I’m walking with her handin-hand to that Wheaton Theater that got like eleven movies playing. We ate dinner at a seafood place earlier. I’m spending good money on Carlette tonight. She has that Shirley—I mean, Whitney Houston hairstyle (because fuck white people), looking cute as hell. Niggas are up in here looking envious as hell.

  “I got one of the finest-ass girls at the movies t’night,” I tell her.

  She’s smiling like shit. I got her ass blushing.

  “Unh-uh. What do you want from me, Nell?”

  “What’chu talkin’ ’bout?” My pager goes off for about the fifth time tonight.

  Fuck Butterman and them bammas! I’m busy until tomorrow. Butterman wouldn’t answer me if he was out with his damn girl! This her first Friday night back home from Spelman down in Atlanta. I know they’re probably going out somewhere. So whatever you’n got to tell me can wait until tomorrow.

  I got a life, too, muthafucka!

  Carlette frowns. “God, who keeps pagin’ you?”

  “Yo, let me get’cha keys so I can put dis joint in ya car.” She gives them to me. I jog over to the car and throw my pager under the seat. I’m tired of the shit going off myself. I should have left this pager home anyway.

  We head for the theater. I buy a big-ass bag of gummy bears inside. Carlette wraps her arms around me in the refreshments line. I look around while she hugs me. And yo, it’s a buncha girls in here with boyfriends staring at me and shit. I mean, I do look geared-up with my gold-and-white Tommy Hilfiger shirt, black Boss jeans, and my all-white Nikes. But I think girls are staring just because I have Carlette with me. It fucks me up how girls be all on a nigga dick when he’s with another pretty girl. Even ugly dudes.

  “Would you sell ya wife for a million dollars?” Carlette whispers to me while the movie is playing.

  I smile at her. “Hell yeah.”

  “Unh-uh. No, you didn’t say that.” She looks surprised, but she’s still smiling.

  “Yes, I did,” I whisper back to her, grinning.

  “So you would sell me, huh?”

  I look into her eyes and my heart feels like it jumped. “Yo, what’chu . . . what’chu tryin’a say?” I ask her. Damn! I had to strain to even get that shit out of my mouth.

  She looks away from me and back to the screen.

  “Nothin’.”

  * * *

  “So you wouldn’t marry me, Darnell?” Carlette is drawing across my stomach again while we lay on my black satin sheets. It’s about one thirty in the morning and we just finished “making love” earlier.

  “You think I wouldn’t?”

  “I’m asking you.”

  I’m thinking about it. I guess I never really thought about marriage that much before. You know what I’m saying? I was just getting ass. And it ain’t like I’m twenty-five or nothing. I don’t even turn twenty until October 4. Carlette even older than me. She turned twenty-one in March.

  I open my mouth to speak. “I prob’ly would, you know.” r />
  I guess I can’t tell her yet that I’m gon’ be breaking out to New York, and I might need her to drive me to Philly. She’s even staying in D.C. to work and be close to me instead of going back home to Ohio this summer. But she says she has to do an internship down here anyway.

  She doesn’t respond to my answer. She just squeezes her body into mine, like she’s trying to melt into my smooth black skin.

  “Darnell?”

  Aw, shit, I hate when she does this. Here comes another Joker’s Wild. Watch!

  “Huh?”

  “How come you never asked me to go with you?”

  Oh. That wasn’t that bad. “I ain’t think you wanted no boyfriend.”

  “Why?”

  “Because, you know, you a college girl and all.”

  She gets quiet on me. I guess my answer satisfies her. “I had a boyfriend from back home when I first met you,” she tells me.

  “Oh, yeah? Well, why you tellin’ me dat now?”

  “I want to be honest with you. And I mean, I chose you over him.”

  Oh, shit! You hear that shit? I’on know if I wanna hear no more of this. She might leave me for another ma’fucka too.

  I can’t help it. I have to ask her. “Would you do that same thing to me?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I wasn’t in love with him.”

  I smile. “So what’chu sayin’?”

  She pauses. “Umm, no lie, Darnell, I thought about you all night when I first met you. I couldn’t even sleep that night.”

  I chuckle. Get da fuck outta here! I’m thinking. That shit sounds like game. “I only said a couple words to you.”

  “But it was the way you said it.”

  “What, rough and like—”

  “Like you meant it,” she says, cutting my words off.

  I smile. “I did mean it.”

  “That’s why I liked you.”

  I shake my head and grin, just listening to her.

  “See, like, a lot of guys are sneaky and don’t say what they mean. But you . . . I mean, you come right up front with it.” She giggles and looks up into my face. “Even when you talk about . . . fuckin’.”

  I laugh like shit. But I need her to promise me a favor before we mess around and get too cozy in here. “Yo, umm, seriously, right. Would you do me a favor?”

  “Anything.”

  I lean up and nod back and forth from my pillow. “Aw’ight. Well, I might need you to drive me to Philly one of these days.”

  She sucks her teeth and smiles, facing me. “Is that all?”

  “But it might be jus’, like, anytime in the day or night.”

  She doesn’t say anything.

  I look into her empty face. “So?”

  “What?”

  “Would’ju do it?”

  She pauses again while I wait for her answer. This answer is important to me, because when I jet, I’m not trying to ride on no bus. At least not from down here. I’ll just catch that New Jersey Transit line in Philly.

  “Yeah,” she finally tells me.

  I squeeze her into me. “Beautiful.”

  “But why would you want me to do that?”

  “I’d have to write you about it. Jus’ trust me, okay? Like your pop says, ‘Have some faith.’”

  She kisses me and smiles. Then she lays her head back against my chest. “Okay. Only for you.”

  * * *

  “Yo, where was you at last night, Shank?” Butterman is talking in a scratchy, drawn-out voice from his car. His eyes are bloodshot. He looks fucked up, like he was smoking and drinking all last night. We pull around on Fifteenth Street Northeast, up near Monroe. It’s quiet back here, one of those grass-and-tree residential areas.

  I’m wondering whether Butterman found out where I live. But I doubt it. Joe’s too busy to be checking up on shit like that . . . I hope.

  I look into his bloodshot eyes like I’m salty at him for even asking me. “Why?” I have to treat him as rough as I usually do. I can’t have him getting suspicious. Smart niggas will do that when you start overacting. So I’m gon’ just play this shit by ear.

  “I was pagin’ you, man. Me an’ Steve, last night.”

  “An’?”

  Butterman looks at me like I’m going crazy. “The fuck you mean, nigga? Where da hell was you at?”

  I reach down into my belt and pull out my .45. You’n done pissed me off for real! “Yo, Joe, you don’t talk t’ me like you talk to them other niggas. I’ll do ya ass right here. But I thought we was cooler than dat.”

  Butterman just sits still in a white Polo shirt as if he’s in a daze. He’s not even looking at the gun in my hands. “My girl got shot last night, man.”

  I’m still playing it by ear. I ain’t got nothing to say until he tells me the whole story. I’m just waiting for him.

  “We was up at da Oak Tree last night, in Maryland. I had them niggas up there checkin’ shit out in the parkin’ lot in case I might have some problems.”

  He stops and shakes his head. “Stupid-ass Jerry wolfs off at the mouth to some guy he had beef with a while ago. Dude boy jumps out and starts poppin’. Jerry shoots him in the chest—so he told me—and then Otis fires on him too.”

  Otis? Get da hell out of here, I’m thinking. But I keep my cool and let you’n tell me the rest of the story.

  “So once this nigga gets hit, he starts sprayin’ bullets like a wild man. Muthafucka hit four people. My girl got hit in her spine. Bullet ricocheted and punctured a kidney. Dude in the ambulance said that she was prob’ly dead before she hit da ground.”

  That’s fucked up! I really feel for this nigga now. Ain’t that a bitch? But I’m still sitting quiet with my. 45 in my hand.

  This motherfucker starts laughing with tears running out of his eyes. “Yo, man. Like, I was plannin’ to get them Northeast niggas last night, Joe. Fuck around and banged my girl and forgot about da shit. You know, pussy can do that to a nigga. But the deal is, them niggas wasn’t there. I mean, I could’a been cool wit’ my girl, man. Just me and her.”

  Yo, Joe is breaking the hell up now. His face is turning all pink. He’s wiping his tears with the bottom part of his shirt. But I’m still cool. This might be my shot right here.

  “And, like, man, if you would’a been wit’ me, Joe, it jus’ would’a been me and you. Just like my boy Red used t’ be. Just me and you, like that, Shank.” He crosses his fingers to me.

  Yo, I think he sniffed some blow last night now. He has that spaced-out-ass, crazy look about him. I can’t even stand to look at him. But it might be time to make my pitch, while he’s weak and not thinking straight.

  I ask him, “So what’chu want me ta do?”

  He rocks his head in circles like Stevie Wonder. I mean, this nigga lunchin’ hard! “What da fuck can we do? We can’t bring my girl back. We can’t bring her back, Shank.”

  Now! I look into his eyes like I’m ready to kill something.

  “See? If ya ass would’a took care of them niggas when’ney first tried that dumb shit on us that Saturday mornin’, then things would’a been settled by now.” And I prob’ly would’ve been down to do the shit back den. “But naw, you wanted to lay low, and all that did was make you fuckin’ nervous. I mean, you had us runnin’ around lookin’ like bitches, man. I told’ju dat shit, you’n!” I pause and let him feel my words. I know he’s ready to kill some motherfucking body! I mean, his girl got shot because of these niggas.

  He’s calming down now. He’s getting himself back together. I guess I just had to snap him out of this punk shit! But he’s still a punk. Pretty muthafucka!

  “Mm-hmm. And if we would’ve gotten them niggas by now, my girl would still be livin’,” he says to me.

  I can’t let him go now. I got him! “So what’chu want, man? I’m ready ta smoke these niggas now,” I tell him. I do feel mad. So it ain’t like I’m faking. Toya was pretty as shit. And black like me.

  Butterman looks at me
. “When?”

  “T’night, ma’fucka! No more waitin’. But yo, man. You tol’ me, man.”

  Here it is! Let’s pray for this shit!

  I look into his eyes like I’m a mad man. “You tol’ me you was gon’ pay me extra when I killed. And I ain’t no damn fool, you’n. I wanna be able t’ say I had a motive and I got paid for it! You hear me?”

  He looks straight back at me. This shit is as tense as you can get. But I can’t back down now. This is it! Do or die!

  Butterman nods to me. “Money ain’t no problem. I brought some with me. Look under your seat.”

  I lean down and pull out a brown leather carrying bag.

  “It’s ten grand in’ere. Go ’head and count it.”

  It’s a fucking Uzi in this bitch with an extra cartridge, too! I look up at Butterman.

  He forces a smile through his tortured-looking pink face. “I know you been ready ta fuck niggas up. So I figure I come strapped when I see you. I bought them joints yesterday.”

  I nod back at him and finish counting the money. He has it in hundreds, fifties, and twenties. Each thousand is wrapped inside of rubber bands. But it’s fifteen of them instead of ten. Maybe you’n is trying to test me.

  My heart is racing like shit to pull this sting off. I feel like I have to say more to make it work. And I can start by lying to him with some punk-ass loyalty.

  I look at him innocently. “Yo, it’s more than ten grand here, you’n.”

  He smiles out the front window. “I just wanted to see somethin’.”

  “See what?”

  He bites his bottom lip and looks into my face. “If you can count.”

  That’s bullshit! We playin’ a fuckin’ game in here! I’ve seen this nigga outsmart ma’fuckas again and again.

  I can’t lie now. I’m nervous. But I’m not showing it. I can’t. It’s me against him. Brains against brains. Nigga against nigga. Light against dark.

  “I figure your girl is worth more than fifteen Gs,” I tell him. I’m gon’ try another angle to get out of this hole. I got to. He’s making it too motherfucking easy. That’s how you mess up.

  He nods his head. “Is you in it for the kill or for the money?”

  “Fuck you talkin’ ’bout?” I yell at his ass. “What da hell you in it for? What, am I supposed to do the shit because it’s jus’ some shit to do? Ya ass is makin’ all da money. Why can’t you give me thirty grand to keep you in business, nigga? ’Cause see, I’m the only real nigga you got now. Them other stupid niggas gon’ get’chu taken under. And I’m the only reason you was able to keep ya shit this long, Joe! Niggas wasn’t afraid of you. They was afraid’a Shank!”