BURY ME A G, #1

by Tranay Adams

  Faison released his hand and wiped it on his shirt while staring him in the eyes. Chevy shook her head and rolled her eyes. “Chevy, I need to holla at chu,” he looked back to Tiaz, “inprivate.”

  “Babe, give us a minute, okay?” Chevy said to Tiaz. He nodded and kissed her hard and passionately, intentionally trying to get under her ex’s skin. He then shot daggers at him before walking off.

  Faison stepped to Chevy once Tiaz walked off. “How dare you bring some nigga around my son that I don’t know shit about? He could be a fucking pedophile for all I know.”

  Chevy blew hard and gathered her wits before speaking. “You’re right, Faison. You’re absolutely right. I should have let chu meet Tiaz before I brought him around Te’Qui. You got that. I’m sorry. ‘Cause had it been you bringing some bitch around my baby I hadn’t met, Lord knows I would have been on your head. But chu can’t blame me, though, especially with the way you’ve been acting lately.”

  “Regardless, Chevy, you should have made it so I met him.”

  “Once again I’m sorry, but that’s the last time I’m apologizing. If you’re expecting me to beg for your forgiveness, forget it.You’ve done worse. You and I both know that.”

  “Whatever, Chevy.” Faison went to help his son light the big rocket.

  Chevy watched Faison for a time, then she went back to join her family on the porch. While everyone went inside of the house, she and Tiaz stood out on the porch wrapped in one another’s arms. They looked on as Te’Qui lit the end of the big rocket and watched it shoot into the air, exploding in beautiful bright colors.

  Faison watched Chevy and her new man from a far seething inside, clenching and unclenching his fists.

  This nigga’s gotta go. He tryna snatch my family right from under my nose but I ain’t having it. Not now not ever. I’m Te’Qui’s father and I’m Chevy’s man. Homie is either gon’ see himself outta the picture or he gon’ see his ass dead, straight like that.

  Chapter 15

  The next day

  Tiaz lay in bed with the satin sheets partially covering hisnakedness, smoking a cigarette and watching Chevy get dressed for work. They’d just finished having sex about twenty minutes ago. She had expected it to be a quickie, but the romp ended up lasting far longer than she’d expected. She was late for work so she didn’t have time to shower like she’d planned.

  She’d propped her leg upon the tub and cleaned where it counted with a wet, soapy washcloth. She hated half ass bathing, but it would have to do until she made it back home. Once she had gotten dressed and smoothed the wrinkles out of her uniform, she put on her Timex watch and stepped before the dresser mirror. She dipped her hand into a jar of Pro-style and rubbed the gel together in both hands before applying it to her hair. Once she was done, she brushed her hair back into a neat bun.

  “Love, you look sexy than a mothafucka in that lil Rent-A-Cop uniform, make me wanna take ‘em down one more time before you leave.”

  Chevy smiled as she slipped on her jacket. “Uh uh, I’m not fucking with chu, you already got me late for work as it is.” She picked up the bag containing her laptop and her lunch bag. She leaned over beside the bed and kissed him before heading out of the bedroom. Once he heard the frontdoor close, he saw Te’Qui come out of his bedroom. Tiaz watched him as he smoked his cigarette, he went into the living room and then he came into his mother’s bedroom.

  “My momma went to work?” Te’Qui asked Tiaz and he responded with a head nod. Te’Qui plopped down on the end of the bed. “Good, now show me that hustle that’s gon’ get me that chain.” He rubbed his hands together greedily.

  Tiaz grinned and mashed his cigarette out in an ashtray on the dresser. He rolled out of bed as naked as the day he was born. Te’Qui looked away not wanting to see his flaccid fuckstick. He picked his boxerbriefs up from off the floor and stepped into them, one leg at a time. “Come on, I’ma show you how to get this money.”

  “Aye, you mind showing Wicked, too?”

  “Yeah.” Tiaz nodded. “I like Wicked, I fucks with the lil’ homie.”

  “Cool.” Te’Qui ran out of the room to retrieve his friend.

  Fifteen minutes later...

  Te’Qui and Baby Wicked sat at the kitchen table. The young knuckleheads’ eyes were glued to their teacher as he stood before them with a brick of cocaine. Tiaz’eyes shifted back and forth from Te’Qui to Baby Wicked as he spoke, square dancing from his lips.

  “This is a kilo of uncut cocaine. Y’all lil’ niggaz know how hard it is to get a brick of uncut coke? Damn near impossible. Most of the shit out here has been stepped on so much that it ain’t even coke anymore. Its bullshit, watered down.” Tiaz sat the brick on the table and partially unwrapped it. He then grabbed a butcher’s knife out of the block of knives on the kitchen sink. “See, Hollywood will put chu under the impression that a kilo is already a powdered substance, but that’s bullshit.” He stabbed the butcher’s knife into the white brick, cracking its surface. “Bricks of white are as hard as your mothafucking head. Some cats use grinders and shit to avoid the lumps and clumps in it. But me I use the handle of a knife.That’s how my pops used to do it.” He took the Joe from his lips and beat the exposed part of the brick down with the handle of the knife until it was a powder. Then he smoothed some of it out with the butcher’s knife. “Yeah, see there? Shit is powdered, no lumps or none of that shit. I’ma start y’all off with an ounce. You’ve gotta crawl before you walk, feel me? Y’all slip on these gloves.” He smacked a box of latex gloves on the kitchen table. “I’ma show y’all how to cook this shit up.” While the boys busied themselves putting on latex gloves, Tiaz turned on one of the burners of the stove, twisting the dial so that the blue flames were at the height he was pleased with. Afterwards, he got a coffee pot and a box of bacon soda down from the cabinet. He sat them down at the kitchen table along with a couple Gemstar razors and a spoon. He then put the coke and the bacon soda into the coffee pot, adding the amount of water he desired.

  “Y’all lil’ niggaz paying attention?” he asked, watching the water fill the pot.

  “Yeah.” The juveniles answered in unison.

  “Smooth.” He replied, sitting the pot on the burner. “Now, we gon’ let this shit boil for like five minutes.” He adjusted the dial just a little bit and stepped back, watching the white mist manifest inside of the coffee pot. When it was time he grabbed the ice tray out of the refrigerator and picked up the coffee pot, dropping a few cubes inside of it. He rotated the pot counter clockwise as he added the cubes.

  “Why are you putting ice cubes in it?” Te’Quiasked.

  “To reduce the temperature, lil’ nigga, pay attention,” He told him as he held up the pot and motioned youths over. “Now look, y’all see that cocaine in there? It’s starting to form into a rock.” He carried the pot over to the sink and added some cold ass water to it. Once the coke had frozen to a solid rock, he scooped it out and sat it down on a plate. After letting the crack cool off, he grabbed one of the Gemstar razors and showed the boys how to cut the shit up.

  “Alright, B-Dubb, you give it a try.” Tiaz told Baby Wicked as he stood beside Te’Qui. He watched the little nigga follow instructions until he had a small mishap.

  “Slow yo’ roll, homeboy,” Tiaz snatched the cigarette from his mouth and turned to him. “You putting too much bacon soda in that shit. You gon’ run the fiends off.”

  “My fault, OG.”

  “Don’t wet it.” He took the coffee pot from him. “Practice makes perfect.”

  It took a couple of tries but Te’Qui and Baby Wicked finally got the hang of cooking coke into crack. Afterwards, he showed them how to weigh it, chop it and bag it.

  Tiaz didn’t find anything wrong with having taught Te’Qui how to cook up drugs. The way he saw it he was teaching the youngling a trade. He could remember when he was around his age and his big homie had taught him some hustles. He was thankful back then because had it not been for him he would have starved out
in those scandalous streets. He thought of it as him giving back to the community. He was providing a service at a very small fee. He was teaching the boy how to get it on his own so that he wouldn’t have to ask a mothafucka for shit. Hell, should the day come where he and Chevy parted, he was sure that his surrogate son would use his lessons to take care of home. With that in mind he felt like he had did his good deed for the day.

  “Fuck we gon’ sling this shit at?” Baby Wicked asked Tiaz. He was sitting at the table beside Te’Qui chopping rocks from a tan crack cookie.

  Tiaz shrugged. “Shit, this ain’t my hood, I don’t know.”

  “Where ever we hustle at it can’t be in the 20s, if my uncle Savon catches me, he’ll peel the skin off my ass.” Te’Qui added his two cents as he bagged up rocks.

  “I know where we can get money, its enemy turf but we’ll be strapped up.” Baby Wicked said.

  “Man, I don’t care, as long as it’s nowhere around here.” Te’Qui replied.

  “Man, if y’all ever get knocked with this shit...”

  “We already know, so don’t worry. I’m notta snitch and Wicked ain’t either.” Te’Qui interjected.

  “Alright,” Tiaz rose to his feet, ruffling Te’Qui’s head as he passed him.

  ***

  Te’Qui rolled on the handlebars of Baby Wicked’s Huffy as he peddled. The wind whipped through their hair and disturbed their clothes as they rode through the ghettos of The Bottomz. They went on tour through the 20s, the 30s and settled in the 40s. The 40 Avalon Gangsta Crips territory to be exact.

  Baby Wicked brought his Huffy to a skidding halt. He dismounted his bike and Te’Qui hopped off the handlebars. Baby Wicked stashed his bike inside the yard of an abandoned house with boarded up windows and tall dead grass the color of hay. He came out of the yard and met back up with Te’Qui, surveying his surroundings. The youngsters knew that they were dead ass wrong for attempting to hustle on enemy turf, but the allure of the almighty dollar was just too strong.

  “Alright,” Baby Wicked began. “I got the strap, I’ma hold it down here. You post up across the street.” He pointed across the street to the corner. “Don’t worry, the fiends can smell a nigga with work on‘em, they’ll come in droves tryna cop this shit. That paper will come flowing in like pouring springs. Trust me, this smoker by the name of Yuckmouth used to stand right there and hustle until he died of a circulatory overload; poor bastard.” He shook his head in shame. He then checked the chamber of his chrome thang. Seeing that it was fully loaded, he closed it and tucked it in his waistline. “Gon’, Blood, I got chu. Let’s break the bank out here.” He gave Te’Qui a complex handshake and ended it by snapping his fingers two times.

  Te’Qui jogged across the street to the corner. He posted up keeping an eye out for crack heads and any possible threats. Besides the chirping of birds and cars passing by every so often, the block was particularly quiet. About an hour had passed and not a crack head had come through looking for a blast. He looked across the street at Baby Wicked and he shrugged. He looked up into the sky, closed his eyes and blew hard. He spat on the ground. The footsteps coming from his left brought his attention around. A haggard looking crack head wearing a beat up strawhat and worn sandals that displayed his yellowish toenails and ashy feet approached him. Strawhat tilted his head back and scratched his nappy chin hair.

  “You holding, youngsta?” he asked.

  “Dimes,” Te’Qui told him.

  “Gimmie three of them thangs,” The old head passed him three wrinkled bills and he passed him three tan rocks wrapped in plastic. The man put the crack into his pocket and shuffled away.

  Te’Qui looked at his homeboy.He grinned and gave him a nod. It seemed like after the first customer copped, the crack heads were coming back to back. He sold all of the rocks he had on him as well as the ones Baby Wicked had. The boys had to head back to the house to get some more work. They cooked, chopped, and bagged up the work at Te’Qui’s house.

  Two hours later...

  It was 3 o’clock in the afternoon. The boys were posted back up on the block. The crack heads were coming like clockwork. Te’Qui had money stuffed inside of all of his pockets, even the small pocket above the big pocket of his jeans. With the first batch of rocks, he’d made Tiaz’s cut of the profits, now it was him and his homeboy’s turn to eat.

  He had just sold a couple rocks to a husky, light skinned crack head missing four front teeth. The crack head walked away and he held up four fingers, signaling that he had four more rocks to get off. Baby Wicked smiled and nodded his head. He then pointed down the street. Te’Qui followed his finger and found a youthful looking cat that was bopping up the block, eating a bag of sunflower seeds. His head was hidden beneath a navy blue hoodie that was zipped up to his neck. The gold chain that hung down his chest held to a bust of Riley Freeman from The Boondocks cartoon. The chain swung from left to right with each step that the young man took. He moved forth with a waltz that oozed swagger and confidence.

  Te’Qui frowned when the young man stopped before him. He could tell by theway he dressed and carried himself that he wasn’t there to cop. It dawned on Te’Qui that if he wasn’t a crack head then he had to be from Avalon Gangsta Crips; the gangsters turf that he and his right-hand were hustling on. The young man took the time to finish eating his sunflower seeds before speaking.

  “Y’all lil’ niggaz know who’s hood this is?” he asked calmly as he reached back into his bag of sunflower seeds. When Te’Qui didn’t respond, he continued on, “Avalon’s. This is our hood and ain’t nobody getting money ‘round here that ain’t brethren. Y’all lil’ niggaz are stepping on our toes, clogging up the mula pipe line. There’s a steady flow of traffic that comes through here to cop and y’all are snatching them up before they even reach our trap. I’m here to tell you that y’all ain’t hustling over here no more.As of this moment, this shit is shut down.”

  “Man, fuck outta here,” Te’Qui waved him off. He turned his back on the young man and went about his business of waiting for the crack heads to come cop.

  “Te’Qui, what’s up?” Baby Wicked hollered from across the street.

  “This funny ass dude talking ‘bout we can’t hustle over here no more.” He hollered back. He spoke as if the young man wasn’t behind him.

  “Man, fuck that nigga.” Baby Wicked’s face twisted into anger, it had been a minute since he’d shot someone and here was his chance to break that spell. He was going to run up on the young man and if he popped some fly shit then he was going to lay him the fuck down.

  The young man looked over to Baby Wicked who was jogging toward him from across the street. He noticed that the youngster had his hand hid behind his back. The young man shook his head in pity of the younger boys, saying, “Lil’ dumb mothafuckaz.” He whistled and a black Nissan Pathfinder bent the corner coming to a screeching halt before Baby Wicked, stopping him in his tracks. The baby face hoodlum went to lift his .38 and a MP-5 emerged from the backseat window. Clutching it was a bronze skinned man with evil eyes and a blue bandana covering the lower half of his face.

  “Drop the gun lil’nigga before I blow your guts all over that fence behind you!” The bronze skinned man barked with authority. His husky voice and the sight of the powerful machine gun sent chills up Baby Wicked’s spine. He swallowed hard and tossed the .38 special aside.

  Te’Qui’s heart quickened and he panicked. He didn’t know what to do. Before he could come up with a resolve he felt the barrel of cold steel press against his dome. His eyes darted to their corners and found the young man behind a black revolver. He closed his eyes and swallowed hard, thinking that this would be his last day on earth.

  “A hardhead makes a soft ass.” The young man shook his head. “Y’all are young and don’t know no better, so I’ma give y’all a pass. Stay the fuck from over here. I’m giving you a fair warning. You hear me?” Te’Qui noddedyes. “Good.”

  Crack!

  The young man struck him acro
ss his dome with the pistol and he crumpled to the sidewalk. He gritted his teeth in pain and rubbed his aching head. The young man tucked his banger into his waistline and casually walked toward the Pathfinder, eating the sunflower seeds.

  “I’m Maniac and that’s the homie, Time Bomb.” Bronze skin nodded to the young man who had just hopped into the backseat and slammed the door. “Y’all remember the names. If I see y’all punk asses down here again, I’ma come through and lay this whole fucking corner down. You got that?” Baby Wicked nodded yes. “Alright then.” He pulled the MP-5 back into the Pathfinder and told the driver to pull off. As the Pathfinder drove off its passengers shouted out Avalon and threw their hood up out of the windows.

  Baby Wicked picked his pistol up and ran over to his homeboy. He helped him up to his feet and examined him for wounds. “Are you alright, Blood?” he asked.

  “I’ll be okay.” Te’Qui assured. “Bitch ass nigga hit me in the head with his strap.”

  “He didn’t take the money and the work, did he?”

  “Nah, I still got it all.”

  “Come on. Let’s get back to the house.” He draped his arm over his shoulders and ushered him across the street.

  Chapter 16

  Tiaz was sitting on the couch holding the telephone to his ear with his shoulder while preparing a blunt. He was dressed in a black beanie and camouflage army jacket. His feet were propped upon the coffee table and the flat screen was on. Love and Hip Hop was on the screen, but he wasn’t paying it any mind. His attention was focused on the conversation at hand.

  “Yeah, man, I casted the line and some mothafucka bit, took the bait right off the hook. Fifteen cents, it’s all profit, Crim. It’s all profit so it’s a win, win situation. Feel me? Nah, do your thang, I’ma have this broad roll me out there.” He licked the blunt closed and sealed it closed by sweeping the flame of his Zippo lighter back and forth across it. Once he was done, he tucked the Zippo lighter into his jacket pocket and took a few pulls from the blunt. Its tip glowed ember each time he sucked on the end of it.