Capital City

  “Binnnnk! What up, hopps? What a nigga know?”

  Bink slaps hands and gives one of those arm-to-chest hugs with this chestnut-colored New Yorker wearing flyass Karl Kani gear and tan Tims. Bink’s crew and dude’s crew all greet each other and give each other pounds. I stand cool and wait for my introduction.

  Bink says, “I’m holdin’ down’na fort and hosin’ down the women, general.”

  New York dude laughs like hell and turns to a few of his boys, pointing at Bink. “This my ma’fuckin’ nigga, G! Shit, how long we been knowin’ each other, Bink?”

  “Ah, ever since ya sister wanted me to be her boyfriend.”

  New Yorker giggles. “This ma’fucka be trippin’, yo!” Then he looks to a darker-complexioned dude wearing some off-white-colored gear and Tims.

  “Yo,” he says back to Bink, “this my man Ted. Him and my sister gettin’ married next month. They had a little girl two months ago.”

  Oh, shit! I’m thinking. We fucked up now! This nigga Ted don’t look like he think it’s funny.

  Bink says, “Aw, man, ’dat shit is cool I mean, I’m not gon’ cry or nothin’ like that. But she said we was gon’ get married though, man. I mean, she promised me, Mark.”

  Bink drops his head like he’s really hurt by it.

  These niggas start cracking up out here. I didn’t know Bink could act! This nigga be lunchin’. Even this dude Ted is laughing.

  Bink shakes dude’s hand. “Naw, for real though, congratulations, man,” he tells him.

  His boy Mark looks to me. “So this ya boy that wants the quarter? Butterman, right?” he asks me.

  “Yeah, this my main man in D.C., Mark. Me an’ him be havin’ girl competitions,” Bink answers before I can.

  Mark reaches out to shake my hand. Then he pulls me into one of those arm-to-chest hugs. “If you in wit’ my boy Bink, then you in wit’ me, G.”

  “Aw’ight, I’m hip,” I tell him.

  He looks me over and then back to his sister’s fiancé. “Yo, Ted, Butterman looks like Puerto Rican Mike. Don’t he?”

  “Word! He damn sure do. You got any ’Rican blood in you, G?” Ted asks me.

  I shake my head and smile. “Naw, man, I’m pure nigga.”

  Mark looks to Bink and smiles, then he looks back to me. “Yeah, well, if ya ass get caught up in Spanish Harlem, them ma’fuckas damn sure gon’ start speakin’ Spanish to you, G. And yo, dey got some mad-fly bitches up that ma’fucka, hopps. On’na real!”

  “Yeah, ’member that time we had that Puerto Rican in Manhattan, Mark?” Bink asks.

  “Yeah, and she sucked both our dicks.”

  Bink grins like a kid. “Man, it was a good thing I went first, ’cause you messed around and pissed the bitch off.” Bink turns to me. “Yeah, B, this nigga was grabbin’ da whore by da head, talkin’ ’bout some ol’, ‘Deep throat! Deep throat!’”

  Mark laughs. “Yeah, G, I was havin’ Vanessa Del Rio flashbacks.”

  By now I’m thinking, All this shit is real cool, but I’m ready to get what I came for and get da hell outta here. I’m tired as hell, and I have to drive all the way back to D.C. We finally go inside the guarded brownstone and make the transaction. Then we end up hanging out in Brooklyn until daybreak.

  I drive back home with my 3000 cruising on sixty. Bink falls to sleep. I’m probably gonna have to sleep for two days to get my head back in order.

  I drop Bink off when we get to Silver Spring and let his boys drive him back to Southeast in their 4Runner. I walk into the crib, crash onto my bed and check my answering machine.

  “J, this is Mom. I thank you for participating in your cousin’s wedding last month, but you really have to come out to more family functions because a lot of people are asking about you. Now, I don’t know what it is about your father and you, but you two really need to stop acting like children and love each other like you know you both do. Now, we have a family get-together next month in Florida, so I’ll call you back on it. Okay? And Jeffrey, we love you, but you have to love us back. Love is not a one-way street.”

  Beep!

  Yeah, fuck that shit! They all living in a fantasy world. That light-skinned family garbage don’t change nothing. I went to my cousin’s wedding because I didn’t want to break my promise to him. We used to be tight when we were young. But now . . . fuck him! He got into that light-skinned shit too. He was always asking me, “Why do you associate with them?” talking about Red and my boys whenever he came up to visit from South Carolina. Man, fuck him! And that girl he married looks white to me.

  “Hey, baby, this is me. I see you’re not in again, and I didn’t leave a message the first two times I called because they were just to say hello. But now I’m starting to worry what girl’s house you’re over. I mean, I know we love each other and all, but wish you wasn’t out runnin’ in the damn streets like you do. Young black men are dying, you know. Anyway, call me when you get my message, okay? Bye-bye, baby.”

  Beep!

  I’m smiling like a damn kid. That’s my girl! I love that damn girl!

  Fuck it, I’m thinking about going back down to Atlanta. I haven’t rolled around on her smooth-ass dark skin in weeks. And we squashed that weak shit I was talking that other night. I mean, I was trippin’ off of that weed, that’s all that was.

  I’m probably gonna sleep all day today. Then I have to get with that boy Shank and set everything in motion. And the last thing I have to do is get with Wes.

  Man, that nigga Wes a hard nut to crack. I have to find out what he’s searching for. I mean, I should just get him some pussy. I need to hook him up with a pretty-ass girl to keep him preoccupied. Then I can get him on my squad. Wait a minute! Damn, that sounds like a good-ass plan!

  All niggas love some pretty-ass pussy. And Wes does stare at them. I amaze myself sometimes. Now all I have to do is catch you’n at a party.

  Shank

  I had to rob this junkie today for some spending money. I wasn’t thinking about the motherfucker, but this nigga kept bragging to his homey on the bus about how he was going to spend some two-hundred-dollar unemployment check on some smack, some brew, and some bitches. Fuck that shit! He was asking to get robbed. You know what I’m saying? So I simply got off the bus with his ass and stuck my gun to his face and pistol whipped him.

  It’s getting to be that time of the month again to pay the rent. And that motherfucking Butterman keeps giving me the run-around about hooking up for this put down on the enforcement tip. I’m gonna be like Frank Nitti: executing all punks and suckers! Matter fact, let me beep this nigga right now.

  I run outside and up to Rhode Island Avenue to use a pay phone. Some dude is on it already. I look down the street and start to walk to the next one. Two high-school-looking girls walk out in front of me with a little tan-skinned boy. He’s wearing a down coat and some boots. Young’un looks cool as hell, a young hustler about five. All of a sudden, one of these bitches trips him on purpose.

  “Yo, what da fuck you do that for?” I ask the bitch. That shit wasn’t right!

  She turns and looks up at me with this goofy-ass grin. I guess she’s surprised that I said something to her about it.

  Little shorty gets up and only whines a little as he brushes the cement pebbles off his hands.

  “’Cause he bad,” the girl tells me, still grinning like a sneaky bitch.

  “Oh, so I guess trippin’ his li’l ass is gon’ make him good then, huh?”

  The other girl faces me too now. I don’t think she knows what happened. “What’chu do?” she asks her friend the bitch.

  “Oh, I jus’ tripped him ’cause a how bad he be ackin’, shaw’.”

  “Why you do dat, girl? He ain’t do nothin’ t’ you.”

  “I mean, he aw’ight. He ain’t even hurt. Look at him. He took it like a man.”

  I walk by to use the telephone while these young-ass girls continue to argue about the shit. Now see, when that little motherfucker grows up mean as hell from
people fucking with him, everybody gon’ wonder why, just like when my mom used to talk that dumb shit to me.

  I remember when we went downtown when I first moved here. It was a parade or something going on at the mall.

  My mom was dragging me by my arm. “Come on, got’dammit! Walk ya li’l ass up!”

  I didn’t even wanna go to that shit. I had some new army men toys and I wanted to stay home and play with them. I mean, you know how it is when you a kid and you get some new toys. You don’t care about shit else but playing with them motherfuckers. But here my damn mom was, dragging me around the street, fucking my clothes all up while all these people looked on and shook their heads.

  She looked down at me and pointed with her free hand. “You see dat white man ova dere on’nat horse?”

  I looked to see one of those horse-patrol cops wearing a helmet, a black leather jacket, and shiny badges.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Well, if you keep actin’ up, I’m gon’ get him to lock you up and take you away, you hear me? Now, do you wanna be locked up in a damn cage, boy?”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  “Well, you betta walk ya ass up den.”

  I hated her fucking ass! But at the same time, she bought me stuff, fed me, and was always in my face, so I just got used to her. I ain’t never cry because crying was punk shit, you know? But I mean, that evil shit has an effect on you. That’s why I don’t let nobody fuck with me now. Matter fact, she the only one that can do that shit and get away with it. I guess it’s because she’s my mom. I was about to kick her ass though that time when I had to beat the hell out of Julius. But I ain’t got time to be thinking about that. I have to beep this motherfucking Butterman.

  I beep him on the pay phone and wait. It’s a good thing some of these phones still got the numbers on them. I remember the city had a policy where they were trying to ban the shit, and a lot of the phones didn’t have numbers to call back.

  This short, older guy with a trimmed beard walks up to use it.

  “Yo, Joe, I’m waiting for a call,” I tell him.

  “I’m not gon’ be but a minute.”

  “I ain’t got no minute, man. Seriously. It’s another phone down the street.”

  “Now, why should I have to walk—”

  I reach inside my jacket where my gun is. Joe shuts the hell up and walks. Then he turns back to say something: “What’s wrong with you young brothers today, man?” He must be asking one of those rhetorical questions because he turns back around and keeps walking up the street. And fuck him! Ain’t shit wrong with me besides my rent.

  The phone finally rings after waiting for like five minutes. I counted to ten three times already, and if it’s not this motherfucker calling me back, I’m gon’ rob his ass when I catch him.

  “Yo, it’s B.”

  “Yeah, this is Shank.”

  “Where you at?”

  “Rhode Island Avenue Northeast.”

  “What hundred?”

  “What, you comin’na pick me up?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Aw’ight, meet me out in front of Super Trak.”

  “Yeah, I know where that’s at.”

  “How many minutes?”

  “Gi’me fifteen t’ twenty. I’ll be drivin’ a 3000.”

  “I gi’ you thirty, jus’ make sure I’m not waitin’ for nothin’.”

  “Naw, you not gon’ be waitin’ for nothin’, Joe. I got a job for you.”

  “Aw’ight den. Bring the noise.”

  “I’m out.”

  We hang up. I look east down Rhode Island Avenue to see if one of those 80 buses is coming. Yeah, here comes an 82.

  I jump on the bus and pay my dollar. I didn’t wanna tell this motherfucker where I was. That shit would be too close to home. I mean, he wouldn’t know it anyway, but you can never be too careful. I don’t know Joe like that.

  I get down to Super Trak and wait for a white Mitsubishi 3000 GT. That smooth ride comes rolling around on my left from the west side of Rhode Island. Out jumps some tall, light-skinned dude with a curly-headed templetape and a thin-ass mustache. He’s wearing one of those cowboy-looking coats with the leather strings and shit hanging down. He ain’t that tall, but he’s tall enough. I’d steal his pretty ass with a left-hand body blow, an overhand right, and a left uppercut. I’d stretch his ass out like I’m Terry Norris. But fuck that, you’n’s about to put me down with some ends!

  He stretches out his light-ass hand. “What’s up?”

  “Biz’ness. And that’s a nice-ass ride.”

  He looks back at it and smiles. “Yeah, I had t’ fuck ’er a few times before she hopped on my dick, you’n. But she aw’ight now.”

  I smile. So this ma’fucka’s a comedian, I’m thinking. “Yeah, well, we ain’t gon’ talk here, right?” I ask him, cutting through the bullshit.

  “Naw, let’s roll out”

  He opens the passenger door. I slide on in.

  “Who you think gon’ win the Super Bowl this week?” he asks me as we pull off.

  “Dallas.”

  “You don’t think the Bills can pull this one out?”

  “Hell no! Once a choke, twice a choke, three times a fuckin’ choke.”

  Now I got Joe laughing. That’s good. It’s always good to make niggas laugh. It makes motherfuckers feel comfortable.

  He pops in that new Dr. Dre tape, The Chronic. “You hip to this shit, man?”

  “Yeah, I got it.”

  “Yeah, this shit is slammin’,” he says, bobbing his head like a bamma.

  We ride east up Rhode Island Avenue toward my crib. I wonder where da hell he goin’, I’m thinking. “What’chu got a run t’ make?” I ask him.

  He looks at me with light brown eyes. “Naw. You got anything else you gotta do t’day?”

  “Nothin’ but signin’ ’nis ma’fuckin’ contract I’m thinkin’ you gon’ gi’me.”

  He smiles. “Aw’ight, what we gon’ do is ride up to Baltimore and back while I break everything down to you. You cool with that?”

  I nod to him. “Yeah.” But I’m glad I got my .38 on me with an extra clip in case Joe tries some stupid shit on me. I’m not trusting him too well. I might have to kill his ass.

  He nods back to me. “Aw’ight, for starters, I’m gon’ give you a gran’, and then five hundred dollars a week with bonuses when you have to beat down a nigga.”

  “That sounds good.” Damn good! I’m thinking. But he’s still talking.

  “See, it’s just like with a nation. You know what I’m sayin’? You always gotta have a military.”

  I nod my head, paying more attention to this Dr. Dre bass than this bullshit this motherfucker talking.

  “But I’m mainly gon’ have you travelin’ wit’ me and things to make sells. ’Cause see, we gon’ be comin’ in contact wit’ a lot of hard niggas lookin’ to rob somebody. You know what I’m sayin’? ’Cause we jive-like sellin’ ounces now.”

  I start paying more attention when I hear him say “ounces.” This nigga selling weight. I might have to ask for a raise. But I don’t wanna get greedy until I see how much he’s pulling in.

  I nod my head and smile. “Ounces, huh?”

  “Yeah.” He looks over at me with those light brown eyes and grins. I’m thinking, This ma’fucka prob’ly got a million bitches. He says, “I heard you got a rep for killin’ niggas.”

  “Who tol’ you dat?”

  “I jus’ heard the shit on the street.”

  “Oh, yeah?” I ain’t kilt no muthafucka yet, but I ain’t tryin’a tell him that, I’m thinking. It sounds like people are out here lying on my gun. Ain’t that a bitch!

  “I heard that people are scared’a you,” he says, still grinning at me.

  Yeah, dat’s why I ain’t have t’ kill none of ’em yet, I’m thinking. But I just nod my head and put my black shades on.

  He says, “What do you think about when you kill somebody?”

  What da fuck
is wrong wit’ dude? He keeps stressin’ this bullshit! “What do you think about when you sellin’ niggas drugs?” I ask him. He’s getting on my damn nerves! He sits quiet and smiles at me like a bitch.

  He says, “Oh, I see your point, all the shit is biz’ness, huh?”

  I don’t respond to the shit. I look out the window at a state trooper giving some unlucky motherfucker a speeding ticket on this Baltimore-Washington Parkway we’re cruising on.

  “You don’t talk much, huh?” this pretty nigga asks me.

  Yo, I’m gettin’ tired of this bitch-ass nigga already. I’m gon’ have ta pull his skirt up like Onyx.

  I frown at him. “You s’posed t’ be givin’ me da rundown, right?”

  “Yeah, you right. But I guess it ain’t much left I can tell you.”

  Tell me how much money we gon’ be makin’, ma’fucka. “How many ounces you got?” I ask him.

  “Oh, we got a few. A li’l somethin’-somethin’, you know?”

  Okay. Now the ma’fucka wants to get secretive. “How many people gon’ be runnin’ wit’ us?”

  “We got four, not including us.”

  “Hard niggas?”

  “Two of ’em is, but the other two are sociable. You know, you always gotta have a mix of different-type niggas on your squad, jus’ like a basketball team.”

  I nod, but I don’t agree with that dumb shit. Fuck that bamma-ass soft nigga shit!

  He says, “Yeah, so you get a little bit of diversity goin’ on, you know?”

  “If you say so. But soft pussies always get you taken under,” I tell him.

  “That ain’t always the case, you’n. Sometimes hard niggas can ruin your shit. And they always gettin’ locked da hell up, you know?”

  Yeah, like ya man Red in jail now, ma’fucka. That’s why you out here gamin’ me, I’m thinking. But fuck it, I need the money.

  Butterman gives me a grand and tells me I got my first day off “to think things over.” Do you believe this motherfucker? He act like he some kind of corporate executive or something. But it’s cool. I’m gonna go and chill over Carlette’s crib up at the Howard Towers Plaza. I’m gon’ get a phone put in my crib. I can buy me some Karl Kani gear and other hip shit that comes out. And I’m gonna buy a big-ass grub! Yeah, I’m in!