by Ashley Snell
Free drowsily looked up at the worn apartment building and then over at Six. “How long you been staying here?”
“About two years now,” she replied. “I couldn’t afford the condo,” she stated, referring to the luxury high-rise condominium that she and Free had shared before his arrest.
Six exited the car, and Free looked toward the backseat and said, “Big Lou, I’ll be right back. Let me get her settled.” He got out of the car and put his hand on the small of Six’s back as he followed her up to her apartment.
“What are we going to do?” Six asked Free. She was dead broke, and now that Free was home, she needed him to take care of her like he had always done.
“We gon’ get money like we always have. You don’t have to worry about anything, Six. I’m home now,” he said as he caressed her hair.
“I know, but you don’t know how hard it’s been for me. I’m living in this fucking hellhole. I am struggling to pay the rent, and my bills are piled up to the ceiling!”
“What happened to the money we had stacked up before I went in?” Free asked.
“Your lawyers are what happened, Free,” Six replied.
“How much we got left?”
“We ain’t got shit left. It’s about two thousand dollars in my account,” Six whined.
“Two stacks! You blew through a hundred Gs in three years?” Free questioned.
“Why are you yelling at me? I told you your lawyers were expensive.”
“I’m not yelling at you, ma. I’m just trying to understand why you hurting so bad. You ain’t working? You couldn’t get a gig?”
Six crossed her arms and replied, “Of course I got a job, Free. I wasn’t just sitting back spending your dough. I’m working at the strip club, but that only goes so far.”
Free’s eyes widened in disapproval. “The club? You been shaking your ass for dollars while I’ve been locked up, showing all these niggas what belong to me?” he asked angrily.
“I’m bartending, Free, so calm down! What else was I supposed to do? I needed money, so Sparkle hooked me up with the bartending thing. Don’t make it a bigger deal than what it is,” Six defended, her voice raised a bit out of frustration.
“Damn, Six! I just got out of the joint today, and you already in my ear about some cash. Let me get my head together first. I never knew you to be the type to gold dig.”
“Gold dig?” Six exclaimed. Her hands shot to her hips, and she scrunched her face in confusion. “Free, whatever! Your ass has been behind bars for the past three years, and not once have I thought of stepping out on you. I had the opportunity to say fuck you and move on to the next nigga, but I didn’t. Yeah, I’m trying to find out what’s up on some money. I’m broke. Niggas is knocking down my door asking for the rent… The world didn’t stop when you went away. I still had to survive out here on my own.”
Free turned his back to her and headed toward the door.
“Where are you going?” she yelled.
“To the block,” he replied shortly. He was obviously steamed and wanted to get out of Six’s presence before the small argument escalated. That’s how they were…hot and cold…on and off…love and hate…their relationship wasn’t one that had been pulled out of the pages of a fairy tale, but at the end of the day, all they had was one another. Despite the petty fights their love ran deep.
“You just got home. Your boys on the block are more important than me?”
Here she goes with that shit, Free thought to himself. Without answering, he left the house to clear his head. He was well aware that he needed to get on his grind. He still had an unsettled debt to pay, but the last thing he needed was Six stressing him out more by bitching over cash that he didn’t have. He knew that she was high maintenance, but she would have to be patient until he came up with a hustle plan that would make him rich but wouldn’t send him back to prison.
“You good?” Big Lou asked as Free got back into the car.
“Yeah, I’m good,” he replied as he pulled away from the curb.
The liberated feeling that Free felt as he maneuvered his way through the city streets was better than anything that he had felt in a long time. The subwoofers in the car were on point as the two men pulled up onto Big Lou’s block.
Big Lou and Free exited the vehicle to approach Big Lou’s house. A familiar face called out to Lou.
“Big Lou! Hold up a minute, man,” a voice yelled from up the street.
Free noticed a familiar face jog up the block toward them. Ronnie was the local weed man in Detroit. He got his supply from Big Lou, who had a crazy weed connect out of New York.
“Look at this mu’fucka,” Big Lou whispered to Free. Ronnie’s pants hung below his waist, and it was obvious that he was still wearing yesterday’s drawers. The dingy color of the supposed-to-be white fabric and the dirt underneath his fingernails symbolized exactly how dirty the nigga was. His yellow gap-toothed smile and balled-up Force Ones were a dead giveaway to his grimy tactics. He kept looking behind him and from side to side as he approached. “This bum-ass nigga,” Big Lou mumbled as he shifted his stance. “What up, Ronnie?”
“Yo’, Big Lou, I need to holla at you about something, man,” Ronnie replied as he continued to look from side to side.
“What up, fam? Time is money, nigga—talk,” Big Lou stated.
Ronnie eyed Free suspiciously and then said, “Can we step inside or something? This a private matter, you know?”
“Nigga, you know Free. What’s good?”
“No disrespect, Free. I just need to holla at Big Lou on some private shit, you know. I mean, I heard about your beef with them Russians, and I’m not trying to be associated in that shit, you feel me?”
Free looked at Ronnie with a calm expression on his face and stated, “I don’t know what you talking about. Handle your business though, bruh.”
“Nigga, get the fuck out of here with all that privacy bullshit. Get at me when you ready to talk,” Big Lou stated harshly as he and Free stepped up the sidewalk and sat down on the porch.
“What is up with your people?” Free asked as he made him self comfortable on Big Lou’s porch, positioning himself so that he could see the entire length of the city block.
“Man, I ain’t want to be all in your business, but word is out about you and that Russian cat. Niggas gon’ be scared to fuck with you for a while. Word is you owe that mu’fucka like a mill or something.”
“Niggas talk too much about shit they don’t know, nah, mean,” Free stated with apparent anger in his voice.
“What really happened? What did you do that got those Russians gunning for your head?”
“You remember the day I got locked up?” Free asked.
“Yeah, you was driving up to New York, but got pulled over by a cop. I never understood why you took them mu’fuckas on a high-speed chase. You was playing with them pigs,” Big Lou stated with laughter in his voice. “Those crackers chased your ass all the way up Interstate 75.”
“I didn’t have a choice. I had fifteen keys in the car with me,” Free admitted. He had never told anyone the true story of what had happened that day.
“And you only did three years? Free, you snitching?” Big Lou asked, knowing that the excessive amount of cocaine that Free had was enough to have gotten him a life sentence.
“Hell, nah. Come on, fam, you know me better than that. They ain’t catch me with the bricks, just the pistol I had. I shook the police so I could get rid of the product. I tossed that shit. That type of weight would’ve put me under the jail. I didn’t have a choice.”
“What does all this have to do with the Russians?”
“It was their weight. Claude is out of a hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”
“Damn! A hundred fifty?” Big Lou asked in disbelief.
“A hundred fifty,” Free confirmed. “I just got out, and I know he’s waiting to hear from me. I got to have something to offer when I call him, though. He gon’ be trying to speak money, and th
at’s something I don’t have right now. Six is stressing over money, and I got this shit on my mind.”
“Yo’, you know I got you, fam. Whatever you need…well, not whatever, nigga. I ain’t got a hundred fifty, but whatever else you need, I’m with you.”
“Good looking out,” Free said. “What I really need to know is how much the bricks going for?”
Free sat back on his best friend’s porch and watched as Big Lou’s block made money. Free could tell that a lot had changed since his reign had ended. The entire operation looked sloppy. Whoever was running things hadn’t trained his people well enough. These niggas is making transactions on street corners, and they keeping the work on ’em. Don’t nobody stand on corners no more, Free thought, disgusted at how off their hustle was.
“This cat named Brick got the joints for twenty-five a pop.”
“Damn, a quarter a key,” Free replied in disbelief. He had never paid more than 16.5 per kilo, and he didn’t intend on starting now. He came to the conclusion that Brick was definitely overcharging. “He’s taxing niggas like that?”
“Man, Brick the only one in the city that got ’em. There was a drought on the streets after you got hit. You know them Russians weren’t fucking with none of us, so nobody could get their hands on work. Brick came through a couple months into your bid and took over. He had them for sale, and even though his shit ain’t as good as the Russians, it was all we had to choose from. He knows he’s the only one in town with the weight so he charges whatever he wants.” Big Lou sat back in the white porch chair and smiled at Free. “You trying to get back on?”
Free shook his head and replied, “Hell, no, you know I ain’t working underneath nobody, and I’m not paying no outrageous prices for the work either. I’ll find another connect.”
“Well, you might have a hard time getting anything off in Detroit. That nigga Britain is nutty as hell. If you ain’t down with him, you ain’t eating. He got all these niggas around here shook. The only niggas that’s really getting money like that is Brick and his people. He’s spoon-feeding everybody else.”
“Fuck Brick. Ain’t no man gon’ stop me from eating, nah. mean?” Free asked as he thought about how badly he needed to come up. Just as the words came out his mouth, a caravan of expensive cars came rolling down Big Lou’s block. Benzes, Lexuses, and Escalades rolled slowly down the street. Loud music was coming out of the custom speakers of each vehicle, and each car was sitting on its own set of twenty-two inch rims. The windows of the cars were rolled up, and the faces of the men that sat inside were hidden by the dark tint.
“What is that all about?” Free inquired, nodding in the direction of the cars.
“That’s Brick’s young goon squad. Those are the only people that he keeps close to him. They ride around once a day to make their presence known.”
Free knew that they were trying to stunt. They were riding high, and they wanted everybody in the city to know it. Once again, Free shook his head. Brick was running a drug ring that was destined to get him and his crew put in a federal prison. They had two qualities that were bound to get you locked up. They were flashy and stupid. Niggas riding around in one-hundred-thousand-dollar cars did nothing but draw attention to the already hot block where hustlers stood on corners alternating crack sales. A couple years back, I would have stuck those flashy niggas up, he thought to himself.
“You fucking with him?” Free asked.
Big Lou stood up and opened the screen door to the house. “Hell, nah. That drug shit is dead right now. A nigga like me values his freedom. You ain’t seen the news?”
Free shook his head and then got up to follow Big Lou into the house.
“This shit has been all over the TV for weeks now. Brick got into some shit. One of his workers got nabbed a couple months ago. Dumb mu’fucka gon’ try to venture out and do some side hustling. The nigga ended up selling to an under-cover narc.”
“Damn,” Free commented.
“You ain’t heard the most of it… Watch this shit,” Big Lou said as he turned on his forty-inch plasma. CNNs Nancy Grace appeared on the screen, and her voice filled the room.
“According to federal prosecutor Brant Stallworth, the government has a witness that can give in-depth testimonies regarding Britain Adams’s involvement in an international drug ring. Britain Adams has a street alias of ‘Brick,’ and he has a loyal following of young men who have terrorized the city of Detroit. Allegedly, since his position as kingpin three years ago, the violent crime rate has skyrocketed in the area. He is charged with several counts of murder, distribution of a controlled substance, and extortion. If convicted, Britain Adams will be facing a life sentence in a federal penitentiary.”
Big Lou turned off the television and shook his head in contempt. “The worst part about it is that the key witness is one of the cats he kept in his inner circle, so he knows every thing. I’m talking names of the connect, stash spots, where bodies lie…the whole nine.”
“Sound like your man Brick don’t know who’s who in his own camp,” Free stated. This nigga Brick set himself up. You always supposed to know who you got in your circle, he thought.
“Word on the street is he got a fed in his pocket that can tell him where they holding the witness. Only thing is he can’t do anything about it. They got the scope on him tough. The nigga can’t take a shit without the feds knowing about it.”
“Sound like his days are numbered,” Free said as he shook his head from side to side.
“Looks that way, don’t it?” Big Lou agreed.
For the first time Free realized that the drug game was dried up. The clientele was there, but Brick had made it too hot for anybody to do anything. He looked at Big Lou and then said, “I’ma get at you later, fam.”
They slapped hands, and Free prepared to leave. Before he walked out of the door, Big Lou called out to him.
“Yo’, Free!”
Free stopped walking and turned to face his friend.
“Let me know if you need me.”
“Thanks, man, I’ma get at you.”
Nighttime had fallen quickly, and Free was mentally exhausted from trying to come up with some type of plan. He was riding through the city streets when he noticed the flashing red and blue lights behind him. He pulled over to the side of the road and placed his hands on the steering wheel. He didn’t want to give the cop any reason to jump stupid, so he waited patiently as he approached the window.
“Alfree Woodard,” the officer announced smugly. Free already knew who it was. He recognized his voice. It was the same detective who had locked him up three years ago. He had some type of personal vendetta against Free.
“Detective Wade,” Free acknowledged as he nodded, still keeping his hands on the wheel. He knew that Wade wouldn’t have a problem putting a bullet in him, so he made sure that he didn’t make the wrong move.
“It’s kind of late for you to be out here, ain’t it?”
“Just running to the store for my girl,” Free replied. The detective laughed slightly and repeated, “Running to the store for your girl.” His demeanor turned hostile as he continued. “Cut the bullshit, Free. I’m watching you. I’m here waiting for the opportunity to send you back to prison.” With those words Detective Lonnie Wade walked back to his unmarked squad car and drove off, winking at Free before he was out of sight.
“Fuck!” Free yelled out as he hit the dashboard. He knew that the detective’s eyes would be on him for awhile. If he made any type of attempt to reenter the drug game, the detective would send him back to prison, and this time it would be for the long haul. How am I going to come up with this money?
Six felt guilty about the argument that she had started with Free. She knew that he was a good man. He had always treated her with respect and showered her with material possessions. Damn, I shouldn’t have gone off like I did. I know if he’s got it, I’ve got it. I got to stick by his side right now and let him know that I’m here.
Six was consumed by
her thoughts as she prepared a romantic atmosphere for her man to come home to. She was so used to him spoiling her, and now that he couldn’t, she was upset. She knew that she was going to have to let Free know that she was there through whatever. He had carried her for so long and only stopped because he had been arrested. She knew that it was her turn to be strong for her man, and that is exactly what she planned to do from that point on. She looked at the clock that read 4:30 A.M. and felt her heart sink. She didn’t even know if Free planned to come home. The empty knot in the bottom of her stomach had her sick with uncertainty. He had never stayed out all night before, but they both had said things that should have never been spoken, and she knew that he was feeling the exact same way that she was…guilty. She lit every candle in the house and turned out the lights, creating a romantic ambiance in the tiny apartment. Then she showered and slipped into a black Victoria’s Secret camisole and matching thong. Turning on the song that she and Free fell asleep to every night, Six sat back and listened as Biggie kicked his lyrics to “Me & My Bitch.”
But you was my bitch, the one who’d never snitch
Love me when I’m broke or when I’m filthy fuckin’ rich
Six’s eyes watched the clock and as each minute passed a little bit of her heart broke even more. Free was her best friend, and she needed him to know that she was down for him. She knew that Free wasn’t the type of man who would be down for long. He would pick up the broken pieces; she would just have to give him time. She was stressed and had blown up out of frustration, but in the back of her mind, she knew that he would take care of her. She balled up on the couch and stared at the front door. I hope he comes home.