Carl Weber's Kingpins

by Ms. Michel Moore

  “Please, Kenya. Help. I need you.” London reached out her hand to her twin.

  “Oh, so now you on the floor, huh? What the fuck is wrong with you? You going way too far for me. And what’s the deal on this bullshit?” Kenya held up the papers she was holding.

  “Help me, Kenya.” London barely raised her other arm. That was when her twin noticed a hole, almost the size of a quarter, in London’s upper shoulder blade. The hole was bleeding.

  “Damn!” Kenya panicked and threw the papers she was holding on the couch. Instinctively, she quickly glanced to the right and saw the broken window on the far right side of her living room. “A stray bullet must’ve came through here. Damn white people in this neighborhood ain’t no better than us.”

  “For some reason, my shoulder is hurting so bad, Kenya. And I think the baby is about to come. Will you call an ambulance for us?”

  “Us.” Kenya rolled her eyes and said nothing, knowing that her twin sister was referring to that grimy, trouble-making bastard in her stomach.

  “Yeah . . . Or can you call O.T. back and see what’s taking him so long?” London screamed out in agony as she took short breaths “Argh!” She had to be in shock and delirious if she did not even realize that she had been shot. “I love my baby, l love my baby,” she whispered in between panting and desperately trying to catch her breath.

  As the blood soaked through her shirt, London kept rambling on about her and Storm’s baby. Kenya was pissed, agitated, and cold. One part of her wanted to do the right thing and immediately get her sister some medical attention. However, the other part wouldn’t allow Kenya to do it. Look at this silly-ass backstabber. She’s lying there like shit’s all sweet. With a revengeful demeanor, Kenya stood there, indecisive, contemplating what move to make next. Tragically, her twin was bleeding to death on the floor in the middle of her condo living room, her big belly ready to pop.

  “Why did you have to fuck my man? That shit was foul. Huh, why?” Kenya barked, really expecting to get an answer in the middle of everything that was happening.

  Hearing ambulance sirens in the distance, London mistakenly thought they were for her. With all her power, the pregnant female struggled to get off the floor. Staring at the papers on the couch, Kenya felt her fury take over. With her foot, she pushed London back down on the floor and held her there.

  “My baby, my baby, my baby,” London kept repeating while holding her stomach.

  Kenya saw her sister’s body start to shake. Obviously, she was in excruciating pain. London’s voice got loud as she yelled for someone to help her. Not wanting anyone to overhear her twin’s desperate cries for help, Kenya went over to the CD player and turned on some jazz. The music drowned out the noise, and Kenya grinned with satisfaction. After getting down on her knees, Kenya helped a confused London take off her track pants. Then she spread her twin’s legs wide open. With no medical knowledge about pregnancy to speak of, except for what she had gleaned from watching shows on television every week for four years straight, Kenya saw that London was correct. She wasn’t lying and wasn’t pretending. The baby was indeed coming, and in fact, it had already started crowning.

  “Where’s Storm at?” London asked, tossing her head from side to side. “He said he wanted to be here to see his son being born. Is he here?”

  “What?” Kenya snapped, wanting nothing more than to smack her face. “Storm said what?”

  “Can you call him for me?” London was in a daze as she pushed and pushed. “Storm! Storm! Storm!”

  Her constant pleas for her man made Kenya even angrier. “Shut the fuck up,” Kenya ordered. Then she took a deep breath, took one of her socks off, and stuffed it in London’s mouth. “Chew on this and stop calling my man. He don’t want you to be the mother of his baby. That’s my damn job.”

  Five minutes later she delivered London’s baby on the living-room floor. Just as the ultrasound had shown months earlier, it was indeed a boy. Storm’s newborn son had a birthmark on his lower backside, which affirmed the fact that he was a Christian, which was Storm’s government last name. Kenya, amazed that she’d successfully delivered the infant, laid the crying baby on London’s stomach. She stood to her feet and quickly disappeared into the kitchen. After opening the drawer near the sink, Kenya searched for and finally found a huge razor-sharp butcher knife with jagged edges. She grabbed a few clean dish towels off the rack and an old bread twist from the junk drawer, then, filled with spite, Kenya headed back to a suffering London.

  Slipping in and out of consciousness from losing so much blood, London was barely aware of what was going on. Now Kenya, the same person who had deliberately taunted London less than an hour ago, dropped the dish towels next to London, then leaned down over her with the knife and the twist in her hand and lifted the newborn up. She wrapped the bread twist tightly around the blood-filled umbilical cord and deviously smiled as she thought about Storm. Then she glared vindictively at her reflection in the shiny side of the butcher knife as she cut the umbilical cord, severing all ties the baby had with London. Kenya held the baby up as she reached for the dish towels.

  “Where you going with my baby?” a weak and drained London muttered as the gunshot wound on her shoulder blade continued to bleed. “Let me hold him. Let me hold my baby,” she begged as she started gagging on her own blood.

  “Your baby?” Kenya questioned, wrapping the crying infant in the dish towels. With no regrets, she stood up, the baby in her arms, and then sat down in Storm’s favorite chair. She rocked the newborn in her arms as she watched her sister struggle to hold on to life. “You must have made a mistake. This is my baby, mine and Storm’s. This is our son.”

  “But we’re family. We’re all we got. I love you, Kenya. Please don’t do this. I love my son. I love him,” London whispered, proclaiming her love for her sister and her baby. Seconds later, sadly, she took her last breath.

  “Say you promise,” Kenya replied nonchalantly as she looked down at the floor and ignored the fact that her twin sister had just died in front of her eyes because she had chosen not to get her any help.

  Kenya rose from the chair and turned the music up a few more notches in an attempt to mask the sounds the frantic neighbors made as they knocked loudly on the front door. Obviously, the neighbors had realized her brother-in-law was the gunshot victim and were trying to alert the family. Kenya, who had obviously lost her mind, returned to the chair and rocked and hummed to her now deceased twin sister’s newborn son while she patiently waited for his daddy, Storm, to return home so they could be one big, happy family.

  “Don’t worry, little one. Your real mommy’s here with you,” she whispered to the newborn, though she had callously allowed her twin sister, the infant’s mother, to die right before her eyes on the living-room floor. Yet Kenya seemed coldly unaware of what she’d just done.

  She continued to rock back and forth, with London’s defenseless newborn tucked in her arms, and after some time, the knocks at the front door stopped. As the smooth sounds of jazz flowed throughout the room, Kenya cried as she stared down at her nephew, Storm’s son.

  Then she spoke. “Despite what anybody says, you belong to me. I deserve to have had you, not that man-stealing bitch over there.” She nodded toward London, still feeling no remorse. “Storm loves me. Not her, me. Even though I can’t have no babies, he loves me. And you gonna love me too.” With her blood-covered fingertips, Kenya traced the tiny outline of the baby’s lips. “Look at you,” she said softly to the innocent and defenseless infant. “You got those big brown eyes just like my gran used to have. And look at all that wavy hair.”

  The last track on the CD finally played. When the music stopped, Kenya snapped out of her strange trance and squinted her eyes. When she saw her twin sister with a bullet hole in her shoulder and a messy combination of blood and afterbirth between her still open legs, reality hit her like a ton of bricks. Quickly leaping up from the chair, Kenya laid the infant, still wrapped in the dish towels, down
on the couch and peeked out one of the front windows. The crowd of people was still there, and the man still lay in the driveway. Damn. Who in the hell got hurt? She quickly released the drapes she had nudged aside when she saw the crowd of people move out of the way so an ambulance could get through. But who gives a sweet fuck? I got my own bullshit to deal with right about now.

  Interrupting Kenya’s selfish thoughts of “me, me, me,” Storm’s son started to wiggle on the couch. Momentarily thinking clearly for the first time since smacking the dog shit out of London, Kenya knew she had to get the infant, whose umbilical cord was still attached, some much-needed medical attention. Leaning over London’s still body, Kenya broke all the way down as she checked for a pulse. “Oh my God! What did I just fucking do? I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” she sobbed as she held London’s limp hand, knowing a piece of herself would forever be missing. She trembled as she spoke. Though she had just apologized in one breath, Kenya’s heart turned to ice with her next breath, and she snarled, “I didn’t mean it. I promise I didn’t. But why did you have to keep that baby? Why? Why? You knew that shit was foul. You know he didn’t rape you. You wanted that dick.”

  Of course, there was no movement from her twin sister. No acceptance of Kenya’s erratic excuses and no begging to hold her newborn. No whining about having to abruptly drop out of school and, lastly, much to Kenya’s delight, no calling out for Storm. Letting her grip on London’s hand go, Kenya glanced over her shoulder at the now whimpering infant.

  You . . . you fucking little bastard! Spitefully, with her hair practically standing on top of her head, she focused all her attention on the small bundle of joy, which was the source of all her problems and pain. You the one that made my sister stab me in the back and Storm act a fool. A trust fund for your punk ass, a life insurance policy, for real? All that for you? After I been riding with that nigga and all his gangsta bullshit! Oh, hell naw!

  Coldly staring at the guiltless baby, blaming him for the troubles of the world he had just been born into, Kenya was back in a trance. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the shiny, jagged edges of the blood-covered butcher knife she’d used to cut the umbilical cord. Still on the floor, she crawled around London’s body, then snatched the wooden handle up and clutched the knife tightly in her hand. With the blade facing the baby, Kenya continued her insane rant, this time aloud. “Why did you have to be a boy? Why? I wanted Storm’s firstborn son, and you robbed me of that,” she mumbled, standing to her feet. Slowly walking toward her tiny nephew and stepson to be, Kenya once again totally zoned out. “If it wasn’t for you, life would still be perfect around this bitch. But you fucked that up for me, didn’t you?”

  With each step she took, the once self-proclaimed Detroit Boss Bitch Diva became more and more out of touch with reality. Finally standing over the naked, wide-eyed baby, Kenya let the pointy tip of the knife, which she normally used to cut chicken and beef, press down on his birthmark, which was located exactly where Storm’s was. I should just slit your damn throat, you little troublemaker. You straight foul. Noticing again that his brown eyes looked like her beloved gran’s, Kenya felt chill bumps race down her arms. I just wanna be happy. I want things back the way they were for me and Storm.

  Letting revenge win over family loyalty, Kenya still had no remorse in her heart for what she had just allowed to happen to London and, worse than that, for what she was about to do to London’s newborn, Storm’s illegitimate seed.

  * * *

  Before Kenya could recount any more of the gruesome tale, her friend leaped to his feet. Brother Rasul turned away, shaking his head. He had known Kenya long before she turned into the monster she obviously had become. “Kenya she was pregnant. That was your sister. Damn! Are you serious? Tell me you ain’t take that baby’s life too. Kenya, where is the baby now? Is he with Storm?”

  Wiping the flood of tears from her face with her hands, she frowned. Then she pointed toward the front door of the house. “Naw. I already told you, ‘Fuck Storm.’ That little bastard is out there in the car.”

  Slowly turning back to face Kenya, Brother Rasul thought he might’ve heard her wrong. “He who . . . ? Who’s in the car?”

  “The baby. He’s out there.”

  “What! You have a baby in the car out there?”

  Brother Rasul wasted no time racing to Kenya’s vehicle. After flinging open one of the rear car doors, he saw amid the piles of clothes a car seat holding a still sleeping, blameless newborn. He carefully removed the baby, car seat and all, and took him inside.

  After sitting the car seat on his dining-room table and pulling back the blanket, Brother Rasul was overjoyed to find the wavy-haired infant alive. “All praises due to Allah.” He was relieved that at least the child had been spared Kenya’s still unexplained rage that had left her twin dead. “Okay, Kenya, like I said, does Storm even know what has happened or what? I know he does after all this time.”

  “I don’t really know for sure, but fuck him. The last time his lying ass called, he was down at the hospital, seeing about his fake brother and leaving me shady messages.” Her arrogance rising, Kenya started to behave like she was the victim. “He can kiss where the sun don’t shine. His brother can too. He didn’t like me from the jump. So yeah, he can die in his sleep.”

  Brother Rasul stared at the tiny baby, wondering what he was going to do, as well as what he was willing to do, to help Kenya out this time around. Besides being her confidant since day one at the strip club, he had killed a hit man to protect her, had helped arrange her man’s release from a drug lord’s house, and had just vouched for Storm getting credit on the strongest package in his city. Brother Rasul had done all that in the spirit of friendship. However, Kenya leaving her twin sister, her own flesh and blood, for dead and then kidnapping her twin’s baby was over the top, even in the crazed street life they both led. This was some kind of awful. It haunted him and always would.

  * * *

  Snapping back to his present-day reality, Brother Rasul realized chills were still running down his spine. He moved away from the window. Always a strong man, physically and mentally, he suddenly felt broken. There was nothing he could do to change what his friend had endured months earlier. He knew he should have followed his first instincts. He was a born leader, taught to protect his queen. He shouldn’t have encouraged Kenya to do the right thing. He himself had driven her from Detroit with that baby in tow. And now, after a bizarre chain of events, she was dead. He couldn’t help but blame himself. Her death was on his hands and heart.

  Dealing with the cold, hard facts, he grimaced at the memory. He’d been forced to ship two bodies home to be buried. Not only Kenya’s, but her deceased twin sister, London’s, as well. Deep in his faith, Brother Rasul had then done what he felt was best. Not only for himself, but for the one who, he would soon discover, was an orphan—London’s infant. After receiving the devastating news that the infant’s father, Storm, had also been murdered at the hands of “the family,” Brother Rasul wanted to man up. It was in his nature to do so. A man of convictions, he knew the baby deserved a chance at having a normal childhood and life. Wanting to be a part of something that was good and pure, he changed his life and how he moved.

  Trying his best to hide his utter devastation over Kenya’s untimely demise, he sought out his ex-girlfriend, Fatima. Somehow they managed to patch up their differences. After a short time of him proving to her that she was his true soul mate, they got married. With that in place, everything would be perfect. They could give their newly adopted son, Kalif, a proper upbringing. Brother Rasul paid an enormous fee to have documents falsified to make them his legal parents.

  Eerily, as the small baby grew each and every day, Brother Rasul could see something cold in the boy’s eyes. It was something that sent chills down his spine. Fatima was as nurturing as any mother could be to a child, but the boy was having none of it. Kalif was only six months old when they first noticed something was different, but they tried to ignore it
. However, it seemed like Brother Rasul had been here before. Ironically, the boy was the spitting image of his biological father, from his birthmark to the way his nose was shaped and the expression on his face when he was pissed. There was some sort of sinister glare in Kalif’s eyes when he drank his bottle or got his diaper changed. Even his shit smelled like trouble.

  The religious couple prayed five times a day and twice nightly. They hoped Kalif would grow up to be nothing like his evil, drug-dealing, “get paid by any means” father. But unfortunately, the adoptive parents knew this infant’s gangster-minded bloodline ran deep. Brother Rasul, Fatima, and strange as it may seem, even little Kalif knew his ultimate fate. He was born into utter madness and would probably die that way, just like his confused mother, his evil-tempered father, and his deranged aunt. Some things happened by sheer chance, while others were dictated by circumstance. It seemed that Kalif was destined to one day grow up to be a menace to all he came in contact with on the treacherous streets of Detroit. But only time would truly tell.

  And soon it did just that.

  Chapter 3

  “I told you he needs to be on medication. Matter of fact, I keep telling you that, and you keep acting like I’m the one who’s crazy.”

  “Look, Fatima. First of all, lower your voice when you speak to me, whether I’m in your face or not. And secondly, I know these days people just shove pills down their kids’ throats as some sort of solution. Making them be zombies and making their systems corrupt, but—”

  “But nothing, Ra. This boy needs help. The kind of help that not me, you, or praying can give. We’ve tried that for years. You see how he behaves. The things he says. The way he acts out at school. It just ain’t right.”

  “You’re acting like he’s some kind of monster. That boy prays five times a day, just like me. Sometimes six. And he is Hafiz. You know how rare that is,” Brother Rasul said, coming to his son’s defense. Although it was no great secret that his oldest boy was getting a little out of hand, he knew medication was not the answer.