Charm City Part 1 (Welcome to Bodymore Murdaland)

by S. L. Walker

  My brown leather knee high boots clacked on tile classroom floor when I entered class. Steve gave me a sexy smile and motioned me to come to his desk while other students were still getting seated. I quickly looked around for Raven and didn’t see her as I walked to his desk.

  “You look good, how was your Thanksgiving?” He asked, looking at the outfit I knew he would like. He smelled like sweet peppermints and the tight black sweater he wore showed off his large shoulder muscles. I melted.

  “I took your advice and went to see my dad,” I told him.

  “That’s good, Eve. We can talk more about it later. Here’s that book you asked me for,” he handed me what looked like a library book on biology. I curiously took it but asked no questions.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Now go ahead and be seated for class,” he smiled. I was turned on by the secret between us and walked away as soon as Raven walked into class. I hadn’t talked to her since our last squabble. She gave me a quick wave as she spit her gum into the trashcan. She took her usual seat next to me but I noticed our vibe was completely off and neither one of us wanted to start the conversation first.

  “Long time no see,” I decided to say.

  “Yeah, it’s been awhile,” she said, uninterested in me. I ignored her coldness and opened the book he had given me. In the front page, there was the note I given him with an answer. He had written on it:

  I would love to see you again. We can get together after class one of these days this week. I’ll keep you posted.

  I read his scribble over about 20 times in my head before I noticed Raven side eyeing me and I quickly shut the book. I was so happy I wanted to squash whatever beef I had with Raven, but Raven’s mind was elsewhere. She was quiet and acted interested in class which she never does. Steve had begun to start class so I tore a piece of paper out of my notebook and wrote Is everything okay and handed it to her. She wrote back Yeap and handed it back to me. Raven wasn’t a one word kind of girl, so it bothered me that her response was so short. I decided to leave her alone and keep my gaze on what I was really interested in.

  Professor Heart.

  RAVEN

  Eva was trying hard to be my friend again, but my thoughts were on what Deon had going on and Zara’s secrets. I didn’t even walk out with Eva or met the girls for lunch. Instead, I decided to go smoke off campus at a small park. I knew I’d be questioned about it later, but that wasn’t anything I was worried about right now.

  Even though there wasn’t a cloud in the sunny sky, it was touching 55 degrees and breezy. The park was pretty empty, which wasn’t a surprise since it was so cold out. My pager went off 411-11. That was Angel asking me where I was. Anytime we all paged each other with double digits. No reason behind it, was just easy for us to know who we were. I was 22, Tori 33, and Eva 44. I found a garden bench and sat on the edge of the cool black steel. I lit up my blunt covering the wind from blowing it out.

  “I thought I’d find you here,” a voice sounded right behind me. I turned around quickly about to throw my blunt away thinking it was a teacher or someone.

  I instantly rolled my eyes.

  “What are you doing here, Zara?” I asked, looking behind her to make sure she was alone. Only a young overly tanned Caucasian lady with her dog jogged by.

  “We need to talk, Raven. I don’t like being ignored,” she walked up to my face.

  “I don’t care what you don’t like. Unless you are going to explain to me why you were there that day and who you work for, we ain’t got shit to talk about,” I stepped in her face too.

  “Sit down,” she pointed to the bench I was standing next to. I was standing so close to it that if she would have pushed me, she could have made me sit. “If I tell you this, you have to promise me you will tell the girls everything. Clearly you are deeper than you should be, and you are going to need their support. It’s not right they don’t know and I do. Eva already hates me, I don’t want the other girls to hate me, too. I respect you guys. You guys had my back and didn’t even know me. Do we have a deal?”

  I sat down to show her we had a deal. I didn’t want to tell the girls a damn thing, but she was right. I took another puff of my blunt and she sat next to me.

  “Can I get some of that?” She pointed to my blunt. Since she was about to probably tell me more than what she wanted to, I gave it to her. She took a puff and blew the smoke out letting the wind take the rest of it.

  “My pops isn’t exactly an investor,” she looked at the ground and shuffled her feet at the small rocks. “He does have his hands in a few investments, but he sells anything from weed, guns, and even some stolen artwork,” she said, taking another big puff of the blunt and looking at me for my reaction.

  “What?” I couldn’t believe my ears.

  “He’s been doing it since I can remember. I think even before I was born. That’s why we move so much,” she sighed, passing me the blunt. I took it from her and relit what the breeze blew away. “Anyway, when my mom passed away, my pops got depressed and wasn’t running his business the way he usually did. Money was slow and he was losing clients. Some of his guys had even quit on him. Disappeared. So one day I told papa I would help anyway I could if it helped him feel better. He laughed at me of course but that same day his best runner was nowhere to be found and he had a few pounds of weed to deliver. No one knows what my pops looks like, he goes by one name and always has someone else doing his runs for him.”

  Zara chuckled.

  “What do they call him?” I asked, absorbed in her story.

  “They called him the man with the soup,” she chuckled.

  “What?” I laughed too.

  “Cus he had his hands in so many different things, like soup,” she took the blunt from me as I handed it back to her.

  I laughed again shaking my head, more intrigued than ever and amazed at her life; at her dad’s life. Now, I didn’t feel so bad for being caught up in my own bullshit.

  “He told me everything to do and that he would be in the corner watching the whole time. He gave me my first gun that day,” she said.

  “You have a gun?” I asked her.

  She nodded, “Uh huh. I have three guns. Papa taught me how to shoot when I was 10. But, that’s another story.”

  “So that’s how you got started doing runs?” I asked her.

  “Yeah, it was a piece of cake. The guys were cool. They were surprised that I was running, but it didn’t take away from them getting their product and us getting our money. My pops was afraid they’d hurt me and take the product and go, but they got in their car and drove off,” she shrugged.

  “Wow,” I said.

  “My pops gave me a nice chunk out of what he sold and told me I could buy whatever I wanted,” she reminisced. “I remember I bought a new dress and shoes, and got my hair all done, bought a pink razor scooter and put the rest away.”

  “And you’ve been doing that ever since?” I asked her, still waiting for her to get to the point of why she was there that day. She took her last puff of my blunt before giving it to me.

  “Not exactly,” she looked down at the ground and sighed.

  “My dad had me do a couple more runs for him after that. Simple runs, with less than $10,000 drops. All weed. One day I was meeting with a regular. I had never seen him before, but he was a loyal customer to papa. Quick drop. In and out. I remember having a bad feeling that day. I almost didn’t even want to do it. I had even asked papa to send someone else. Everyone else were already on other runs and he said he would be there watching like he usual was,” she said.

  “What happened?” I asked, knowing something had to have gone wrong.

  “They tried to kidnap me,” she said.

  I gulped.

  “It happened so fast. They took one look at me. Grabbed the product and snatched me up with it. Like it was nothing,” she remembered.

  I frowned, throwing my blunt on the ground and putting it out with my foot.

  “It h
appened so fast, I screamed. I kicked one guy in the balls, the other I scratched his face up. They threw me in the back of their truck like I was luggage. I tried to reach for my gun in my pocket, but it had fell out on the floor. They didn’t even see it, I was kicking and screaming so much, I didn’t know what they were trying to do but I refused to let them tie me up or anything. Next thing I knew guns were flying into the van.”

  My mouth dropped open as I imagined the chaos.

  “It was hell. The driver was swerving, like something you see in the movies. I ended up dropping to the floor while they were busting back at my pops and landed right by my gun. It took me two seconds to let off on them,” Zara became animated as she went back in time. She stood onto her feet.

  “You killed them?!” I asked, standing up too. She looked around. We were still alone in the park. The brisk air and smoke coming from her mouth as she talked reminded me of how cold it was. I was so caught up in her story, I had forgotten.

  “I don’t know. They both fell back. One wasn’t moving and the other one was too busy crying over getting shot. I opened the van still moving and leaped out. I didn’t care if there were cars or anything coming. Luckily, we were on this back road so weren’t really any cars but my pops was right there behind them. He let off on them again and then stopped to grab me from the ground. I had a broken arm and shit,” she yelled.

  “Fuck,” I said still in shock.

  “So, my pops vowed that I’d never have to do that again,” she said.

  “Fuck” I said again. Zara was a real bad ass.

  She sat back down. “We moved to DC after that.”

  “Did your dad ever find those guys?” I asked her, sitting next to her.

  “I don’t know. But knowing him, he probably did. I don’t ask those kind of questions,” she told me.

  “So, if your dad vowed you wouldn’t be running for him again, why were you there that day for the drop?” I asked sitting down too.

  “He needed me. He said I could drive my car if I did and that this was the last time he’d ask,” she told me. “Raven. Why are you still working for Treach?” She looked at me confused. I scratched my head in frustration, forgetting that I had my own battle but if she was willing to open up and tell me everything. It was my turn to do the same.

  CHAPTER 13

  Angel dodged Sam today for the sake of not being the talk of the center after yesterday. She went to the supply room at least three times to avoid him. Finally she came back to her desk with a note written on ripped notebook paper that said Hey, I keep missing you, I guess see you Friday. Angel only worked a few days out of the week now due to the Holidays coming up. She crumpled up the letter and threw it in the trash just as Nancy came speeding around the corner. She did a quick smile at Angel and kept walking past. Angel was trying not to worry about Sam or Nancy. She wanted to get the girls together. Everyone was becoming so distant. As soon as she saw Nancy disappear around the corner, she instantly picked up the desk phone and paged everyone.

  $$$$

  Raven looked down at her pager while she was being harassed by DJ who had stopped her on her way home. 177337 2177-----11 (Meet tomorrow- Angel). Raven put her pager back on her hip.

  “He wants to see you before you do this drop,” DJ told her, still with the paper in his hand he had been trying to give her.

  “Who said anything about me doing a drop?” Raven said with a scowl and kept moving towards her bike. DJ followed her.

  “Look, I don’t know what it is about you that Treach wants so badly but he gets what he wants. So if I were you I‘d just do it until he’s over it,” he stopped in front of her so she couldn’t walk any further, handing the paper out again to her. “Take it,” he insisted.

  Raven hadn’t noticed before, but DJ had light hazel eyes. His nose was small bringing out the definition in his full lips and straight teeth. He almost had a Larenz Tate, the actor, look to him. Sucked in by his cuteness, she took the paper and walked off. DJ watched her storm away and hop on her bike. He had to give it to her, she had attitude and he kind of liked that. He put his cold hands in the pockets of his black puff jacket, fixing his black beanie over his ears and walked the opposite way.

  Raven didn’t even bother to open the paper. She really wanted to throw it away, but decided to give it to Deon. She knew giving the paper to Deon would piss him off, but at this point, she didn’t want to start anymore conflict. If Deon said he would handle it, he would handle it. She was happy to see his car in the driveway and quickly hopped off her bike, throwing it to the ground and running towards the house. She stopped when she heard muffles from the garage. It was Deon’s voice. She backtracked and put her ear closer to the garage door to see who he was talking to. There was another male voice with him.

  “Are you sure Canon is gone be down, cus Canon be actin’ all loyal and what not,” said the other male voice with a heavy Baltimore accent. She couldn’t make out which friend it was.

  “Canon hates Treach,” Deon said harshly.

  “Yeah, but that fool love money, though,” the other voice said. Raven put her ear closer.

  “Okay, so Timmy, Hollywood, and Avis are the only niggas we got right now to put Treach down?” Deon sounded frustrated. “Yeah, at least that I know of that won’t flip,” the other voice said.

  “How we gonna beat Treach with five mothafuckas, West?” Deon sounded even more frustrated. Raven’s eyes widened. She could picture Deon pacing back and forth and wondered what the hell was going on. She didn’t want to barge in because she knew she’d never find out what Deon was planning.

  “We are just gonna have to keep recruiting. We need to hurry before he tries something with my baby sister,” Deon said forcefully. Some rattling went on in the garage. She kept her ear close to the cold garage door.

  “Trippin',” West agreed. More rustling went on and Raven could hear the garage door open to the house. She jumped back and rushed to the front door and walked in greeting the both of them. Deon was dressed in his school football jersey with a long sleeve thermal underneath and sweats. In his hand he had a small duffle bag. Following him was West. She had never seen him before. He was stalky with broad shoulders, same height as Deon and also looked like he played football, but instead wore an oversized black hoodie and black baseball hat. He had a freshman goatee going on and a large diamond earring in his left ear that didn’t look fake like some her of her male classmates.

  “Aye wassup, Vee,” Deon greeted her. He back handed the duffle bag to West.

  “Hey, where you going?” She asked him, still in front of them. West looked around as if not to be in their business.

  “Out real quick,” Deon was about to move past her.

  “I need to talk to you,” Raven stopped him. She pulled out the folded piece of paper from her pocket. She looked at West who still was trying not to pay attention. She didn’t care if he knew. Clearly he was a part of whatever was going on. Deon took the letter from her and opened it. It was Treach’s handwriting. He could spot it a mile away.

  Drop Sunday 2— 4040 West St. Paul

  (smiley face)

  The smiley face pissed Deon off so much he could’ve burned a hole through the paper.

  “Who gave you this?” Deon asked her sternly, handing the note off to West who took it and read it, too.

  “DJ, he delivered it to me after school,” Raven hesitantly replied.

  “DJ huh?” Deon bit his lip in anger and looked back at West. They seemed to share the same language with each other without saying a word. West pocketed the note. “Let’s dip,” Deon motioned for West and moved past Raven.

  “Wait! Where are you going? Don’t do anything stupid, Deon! Please!” Raven followed to the car after them. Deon hopped in the driver seat and West the passenger seat, ignoring Raven. Raven’s eye’s teared.

  “We need more man power and we need them now,” Deon reiterated to West who shook his head in agreement. He took out a gun from the small black bag Deon ha
d handed him. They screeched off out the driveway. Raven walked back in the house slamming the door in frustration.

  What did she just do?

  Raven didn’t hear Deon come home that night. Her dad’s car was in the driveway but not Deons'. She had even opened his bedroom door the next morning and his bed was made as if he had never even slept in it. She knocked on her dad’s door to his room, but he didn’t answer, she then could hear her dad’s voice mumbling from the living room. He sounded as if he was on the phone.

  “Thanks, no I’ll let you know if I hear anything,” he said. She walked around the corner to the living room and saw her dad pacing back and forth as he hung up the phone. He was still in his pajamas and looked as if he hadn’t slept all night either. He almost jumped when he saw her standing there.

  “You okay, dad?” She asked, afraid to come closer to him, afraid of his answer.

  “Have you talked to Deon? He didn’t come home last night. There are no accident reports, he’s not in jail, and he’s not answering his pager,” her dad said, walking up to her as if begging for her to tell him something, anything. She couldn’t help but remember Deon telling her not to get dad involved no matter what.

  “He was here yesterday with a friend. It looked like he was going to practice,” she lied.

  “What friend?” He asked, now more in her face.

  “I don’t know, some other football looking guy,” Raven shrugged her shoulders. She wanted to panic. She wanted to breakdown and cry and tell her dad everything. She was scared, more scared than she had ever been. Deon had never not come home before or at least tell them where he was. Even if he had to lie. Making people worry was not his thing.

  “Fuck,” her dad said and hopped back on the phone.

  “Dad, maybe he’s with a girl or something,” Raven tried to ease the situation. She knew that wasn’t true, but if anyone would find out what happened, it would have to be her now. Her dad put his finger up to her to be quiet.