by Renta
“Yes, I see your philosophy, but darkness—explain that?”
I smiled wickedly. “While the child is in the stomach, it’s dark in her womb. The child can’t see—now when He separated the Heavens from the waters. It was the process of a woman’s water breaking, the child slipping from her womb, and letting there be light,” I said comically as our food arrived.
She laughed with me, but I could see the wheels spinning in her head.
***
~Jazzy~
As I sat with my legs spread wide open in this harness, I felt cold—lost—confused! The doctor turned to me with an empathetic smile. “You don’t have to do this, Jazmina.”
“Let’s just get this over with. I can’t take the chance of the gamble,” I said, as tears cloud my vision.
His nurse looked at me in understanding, or maybe pity—either or, she said nothing. As he prepared the anesthesia, I shook my head at the doctor. “No, Doctor Lewis, I won’t be needing that.” A confused look was shared between them.
“Jazmina, I can’t allow—”
“This is my fucking body! If you don’t want to do the procedure, bring someone that will!” My emotions spilled out of me like lava from a volcano.
“You’re right, Jazmina, it’s your choice. Just lie back and—”
As he went into his rant about the pressure I’d feel on my abdomen and blah—blah—blah—I laid my head back as my child cried through my eyes. Something cold slid into my garden as a poem by some cat named ‘Lamar Ridge’ echoed in my head.
‘Love Can Sometimes be Blind’
“What made you do it, was it too much to bare?
I thought you loved me—wanted me
But now, I know you didn’t care
Late nights I felt it—your pain—your pleasures—your hurt
I could feel when you shed a tear
I even heard the words as you spoke to God as you prayed for deliverance from your greatest fear
I’m part of you, that’s why you always sick
I loved you with all of my small heart, that’s why when you did anything wrong to your body, I’d give you a gentle kick
I knew when you and daddy had sex
I’m the reason your pleasure was so great—I’m also the reason your moods swung, the times you didn’t want to talk—didn’t want to be touched—didn’t want to text. I even knew the time you and the other man met
But mama—I wouldn’t have told daddy your secrets, we all have faults
So, mama—please stop thinking these bad things—I can read your thoughts
Today you told Daddy you were going to Granny’s house confirmed my greatest fear
I guess it’s because that talk you had with the doctor, you didn’t know I could hear
On the way to the clinic, you silently wept
Vowed to never tell Daddy about me, so your secret will be solemnly kept
“Mommy, I love you,” I screamed, as you sat on the table and savagely shook
I felt the pain as you fell asleep and the doctor yanked me out with his hook
“Mama, why?” I cry, as I lay on the floor as an embryo and begin to close my eyes
Right, as I take my last breath, I realize that in the events of my demise, love can sometimes be blind.”
***
~Assata~
Again, I stood on Free’s porch under the radiance of the stars and moon, the silence was thick. The silk sleeveless Tulle Oscar Delarenta mini she had on looked transparent under the pale light. Her nipples saluted ya boy, as I tried to etch each and every detail of her face into my memory, as it framed by the matching silk scarf that only allowed a peek of her hair to be displayed.
“Hard-headed,” I whispered.
She looked at me confused. “I told you to wear your hair down, but you're just as classy.” In the same movements, I made the first time. I wrapped my arms around her waist and pulled her close, “I thugs with you, Free, for the first time in life, a nigga wishes there was more than twenty-four hours in a day.” I kissed her lips prepared to make my exit.
“L.A.” She grabbed my hands and placed them on the back of her thighs—bare skin! Her hands guided mine up under her dress, my dick rocked up as they slid over her curves and silky skin—all over her ass cheeks.
“L.A means no in Swahili. La, Satta—don’t leave—since you remember so much. You’ll remember, you told me to surprise you,” she whispered in my ear before turning to give me her tongue.
Surprised was putting it lightly—as I tongued lady. I was still trying to figure out where her panties went. Her dress was up to her waist and she was as naked under that mu’fucka as Eve was before she ate the fruit!
Chapter Thirteen
All Work—No Play—Well?
~One Day Later~
The family fell into the dilapidated building like roaches in the dark. Red and burgundy flags were tied around faces, necks, and wrists. Piru, Blood, and some Weatley Court gangsta’s were on deck. Nobody knew the reason why they were summoned to the spot, but when a ten-sixty was called, niggaz had betta show up. After the last of the squad poured in, the doors shut and goons stationed themselves around the room—piped up. Everything from SKs, M4s, and .40s were locked and loaded. As they stood in the center of the madness Assata, Goose, and Pain stared out at the killas in assessment.
Goose, not being from these parts, wondered how they were gonna react to what was about to transpire. He knew just because a nigga could shoot a banana didn’t make him a gorilla. Assata aimed his burna in the air and fired off three shots into the roof of the warehouse. Dawgs and civilians alike clutched their heat, yet the shots had its desired effects.
“Dig, you niggaz, listen up. This ain’t no mu’fuckin’ party! Every one of you boyz know what’s poppin’ in a few days, and ain’t no bitching up now. We ain’t leaving nobody behind. Nan nigga we come with get left unless he’s dead! Death is the only option for fuck ups. Anyone of y’all got that pussy of just scared to die—any weak links—get tha fuck out, Bleed! Now, if you in—” He allowed anticipation to make love to the room. “We’ll be filthy rich, if we fail—” He looked around at the fifty-six men present. “We holding court in the streets, but—failure is not an option. I’ve planned this shit for a minute and trust is all we need. Follow instructions as they are given and by this time next week, you boyz will be somewhere counting your share of paradise. But first, we gotta get that bag!” He turned his eyes to Goose.
Goose stepped forward. “Before we smash out, I need you, fellas, to sit tight for a second. I got a show y’all may enjoy.” He turned to Kamika and wrapped one arm around her waist. She stiffened at the feel of the barrel of the pistol, he poked in her back.
***
~Detective Winslet~
I was the only female present amongst a room filled with lions and crocodiles. Pretty peculiar, but I tried not to look as jittery, as I felt. Something just didn’t feel right though, but now I had a lot to report. There was something big going down in a few days, and we were about to see what it is. That was my thoughts before I felt the bad side of Goose’s gun dig into my back. I stiffened with a sharp breath as he leaned into my ear.
“Bitch, I suggest you stand still and don’t give the slightest indication you’re not enjoying the show. Or you’ll be found somewhere full, spoon-fed the whole clip,” he whispered harshly.
A door opened at the side of the room, Tomorrow and Pain dragged in an unconscious, naked man with some type of cloth over his head. I watched as Assata sat a chair in the middle of the room and they went about tying the man to it. A sick feeling filled my stomach once they secured him to it. Pain pulled the cloth away, and acid rushed up my throat, but with every ounce of strength I could muster, I forced it back down.
The man with the dusted lines that approached me at the block party, now sat strapped to the chair, beaten within an inch of his life. There was so much blood—so much. Oh my God! What had I gotten us into? Pain walked over to us wit
h what looked to be an Israeli AK. Goose stepped from behind me with a gold tooth smile etched on his face.
“Enjoy the show, shorty.”
I glanced at Pain, the look in his bottomless eyes told me, he knew—he knew, I was a cop, but more importantly, that I’d committed treason!
***
~Assata~
I watched big bro take off his shirt, his dreads hung wildly. I was curious to know what he was ‘bout to do with this law boy. He fucked me up when he showed me the stack of pictures of the pig and Kamika. There was pictures of Kamika in a black Dodge Charger with the cock sucker, Hunter that had been sniffling ‘round the hood. Her at some typa Academy Graduation. Her being a fuckin’ cop, period! After bro saw the big boy in one of the pictures, he recalled seeing him at the block party. He said, he was sweating shawty, but I bet it was all staged.
The bitch played my dude, now I was ‘bout to— fuck! Big bro just pulled out a pretty ass long scalpel with a gold handle. Lost, I looked over at Pain. He flashed me all thirty-two gold teeth and used two fingers to point from his eyes too big bruh as if to say watch. Tomorrow walked over to the boy with a tin bucket of water in his hands. As he pulled his arms back for the dash, you could hear the ice cubes clinking together inside of it. Using a hard arch, water and ice punched dude into consciousness.
As though, he was drowning, he struggled in the chair speaking gibberish. The only coherent words were four that I’d heard a lot in life.
“Please—don’t—kill—me!”
Goose gave him an evil sneer, as he rubbed his hand back and forth over the sharp blade. Me and bro have ridden dirty a million times in the past. I had never seen him with no knife. He was a killa fa sho, but had he spilled over into the waters of a lunatic? He turned and made eye contact with us before.
“The other day I was maxin’ at my people’s crib, and some of the spookiest shit happened! I got a package without a return address,” Goose said allowing his eyes to scan the crowd. He made eye contact with as many people as he could before he resumed his speil. “That may not sound like no big shit, huh? Well, this when shit gets ugly, fam—I’m not from here. Nobody outside of the squad knows me or most of y’all.”
I watched as bro ran the sharp blade over his open palm. A thin red line opened up. The sight of blood surprised me because he hadn’t used any pressure to the gesture. That was indication that the blade was dangerously sharp. Me and Goose’s eyes met in a deadly clash, and even though, I still didn’t understand his angle, I knew his intent was death.
“Nobody knows my government outside of my brothers. I know neither of them gossips like bitches.” He nodded with an evil smirk on his face. “As I opened the pack, I’m thinkin’ this ain’t gonna be good news. Low and behold, picture after picture of not only me and every nigga of the block, but also this fat fucker,” He said, as he slapped the fat part of the blade across homies face, blood squirted instantly. Goose grabbed a handful of the fat dude’s afro and forced him to look at him. “It took me a minute, but once the pieces snapped into place, it fucked me up! This the same nigga I been seeing ‘round the block coppin’ work from us. The same nigga I stepped to for hawkin’ a bitch. This nigga is in several of these pictures. This dick sucka is coming out a precinct in what I found out to be in Fort Worth. Long story short, the sucka is an undercover snake that’s been put onto us somehow.” He turned his attention back to dude and shit got crazy.
“No—no, you’re wrong—you’re—oh, Saint Joseph—help me! Somebody—plea—please,” he cried, yet Satan had no sympathy for tears and with a meticulous control Goose cut through homies sternum down through his stomach.
The blade was so sharp flesh was still in place, but in slow, live motion. Blood oozed from the wound and just at the bottom of the slit near where the duodenum was located, his insides snaked onto his external. Goose laid down the blade, Tomorrow handed my brother what looked like a syringe. We watch as he took the cap off and pushed the injector just a bit so that an unknown liquid shot from it. Goose smiled like a child who’d discovered Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. Fat boy was in a daze, as he watched his interior slowly, but surely easing from the confines of his body.
“This shit right here—” Goose held up the needle like he was a salesperson, promoting a new invention. “I found this shit on the black market. It’s ‘pose to calm you—slow your blood flow to give you precious moments to spare. Its origins date back to World War II. It was given to soldiers that had been maimed to give them just a little bit more time to live until help came.” As he injected the serum, all you heard was fat boy releasing a soft cry that sounded like his soul escaped in a whoosh of breath.
Then he relaxed noticeably, yet still, amongst the living—he was somewhere far off inside a euphoric nightmare. The shit that happened next was something outta a scary movie. One of the homies brought in what looked to be—dog food! Goose took the bag from dude, then kneeled before the fat boy and before our eyes, fam opened dude up, careful to push his split intestines back inside of him. He began to infuse dude with the dog food. By now, a few cats had tossed their lunch.
“Aww, man—dude fucked up mentally, dawg,” One cat moaned in between regurgitating his breakfast.
A quick look at Pain told me he was thinking the same shit I was. Big bro missing a few screws, but this boy right there was a weak link, and it was better to eliminate the potential of a problem rather than have to deal with it later on down the road when we’re too deep in the mix to press rewind.
“He gotta go,” Pain whispered to one of the homies.
I watched as he took Pain’s place by the law bitch. Pain and another homie escorted, Mr. Weak Stomach outside under the pretense of getting some fresh air. Seconds later, three gunshots sung him to sleep and from that point on if niggaz felt some typa way, they held their tongue and their vomit.
I turned my attention back to Goose just in time to see two white Pitbulls brought into the room. These bitches were beautiful, but their growls and snarling teeth revealed the hunger within them.
Goose smiled. “Catrina—Heaven, sit,” he demanded.
Both dogs obeyed while licking their chops—never taking their eyes off of big boy. Their noses were in the air as if they could smell their meal.
Bro turned his eyes to Kamika. “I bet y’all wondering why I brought my bitch here tonight, huh? Well, this is why, she’s been next to me—next to y’all—and as far as I know, she is down by law,” he snickered at the inside joke. “Yet, just like everybody else in this bitch, she has to walk through fire to prove that shit!”
I turned my eyes to lady—her eyes were filled with fear and confusion! Yet, the one thing that couldn’t be denied was—she knew, we knew. She knew it was do or die at this point.
***
~Winslet~
“Oh my God! He’s going to kill me, I just know it!” I thought as my eyes blurred, but for the sake of my life. I blinked away what would surely be the death of me.
“Come here, baby,” he called to me.
My feet were tons of cement, or maybe pounds of it because as much as I tried to will them to move, they just wouldn’t comply! In frustration, I looked to Goose to tell him exactly that. The look he gave me triggered my body, suddenly I stood before him as if I was having an out of body experience. He palmed my face and looked deep into my eyes. His hand limped across his face as blood dripped off of his hands—staining my face. An officer’s blood! He pulled his gun off his waist, glared at me, and allowed evil to slip from his lips.
“You got two choices—you can either put him to sleep or join him in eternal rest,” he said, so low I could barely hear him.
He noticed the reluctance, then aggressively grabbed my wrist and forced the gun in my hand. I entertained the thought of using it on him, but a quick glance around me ensured, that act would be suicide. In a harsh whisper, he forced me to commit cold-blooded murder.
“You can either put a bullet in his head or deal with every
nigga in this room, taking turns fucking and sodomizing you before I put one in your head! Nobody knows who you are, but they will if you don’t get active. Now, put him out his misery,” Goose demanded.
I glanced behind me at the present members of the organization—then to Tony. We had been through a lot together. I was the reason he was here—in a warehouse in the country on his deathbed—death-chair. What—the—fuck—ever. Yet, and still, he was dead either way, by my hand or not. I swallowed the lump in my throat and stepped to my shit. I stepped back a few steps and aimed the cannon at my longtime friend. His eyes were unfocused—dazed. He stared at me, but recognition didn’t set in until tears blurred my vision, and my hand started to shake. I mustered every hurt—every betrayal—and when Hunter’s face replaced Tony’s.
“Ka—Kamika—Winslet—d—don’t—please!” My heart cracked down the middle because it was Hunter’s face, but Tony’s voice. A solitary tear tumbled from my left eye as resolve snuck into my being and right as he attempted to plead again, the pistol jumped in my hands. Once—twice—over—and over and over—click—click—click, until it was empty.
“Psst—Psst—sic him, girls,” Goose said.
Two white blurs raced past me, and snarling turned to moans of pleasure as they tore into his stomach. The sound that could be distinguished above the beastly feast was—click—click—click—click.
***
~IceBerg~
“Oh, Papi-Chulo—oh yass,” she moaned, as she reached her peak.
Belle rolled off me and laid within our essence, attempting to catch her breath.