by Brick
Jake then pulled out the shotgun he had hidden against his back. “’Cuz, nigga, I ain’t feel like it. Plus, I knew you wouldn’t.”
So Jake and I moved in circles, talking shit to niggas we used to work and kill with, getting our hidden Glocks and knives ready. Now that Blackout was gone, them stupid fucks only had themselves to look after and ain’t know what to do now.
Smirking, I rolled my shoulders then I dropped my bloody hand as I joked. “Well, nigga, now I’m shot ’cuz you wanna go down like a punk ass, when you don’t even have to play yourself like that. You suppose to trust in a nigga, have my back. So damn, man, what you got to say about that shit, preacha? Huh, bro?”
Laughing, Jake glanced around at the niggas and broads that pointed their weapons at us. He shrugged. “All day every day, I got you covered. My bad for my mindset, just wanted to kill some niggas and to see Dame’s dead body. Good look, bro.”
“Shoot them niggas!” one cat whispered.
Inching away, some other dude muttered, “Nah, that’s Trigga and Jake.”
That nigga knew what was about to go down.
Jake held out his hand, and we slapped palms twice then three times.
“Oh yeah, though I walk through the valley . . . ”
Pain dug into my side and shoulder while Jake spat out his Bible verses. Meanwhile, the new bloods started trying to figure out what to do before others came up with more Glocks.
As my eyes roamed the place that used to shelter me, I saw my moms and pops dressed in all-white looking down on me from the upper walkway of the entryway with pride. It look like they whispered, “Thank you,” to me, while my pops glanced at my Glock and told me what to do.
Blood dripped in my eyes and made me blink, glancing back toward them. My baby sister stood between them, dressed in all-pink, bows in her hair. In her arm was a teddy bear, one that matched Gina’s old bear.
I knew what was about to go down, and I welcomed it with a sharp laugh. “You know how I do it, but check it, we may die tonight, but you all coming with us. E.N.G.A., niggas!” I yelled
Jake let out a roar, pulling his guns and letting out rounds. “E.N.G.A.”
We fell backwards, both of our Glocks aiming for every nigga that ever turned on us, every nigga that blindly followed Dame and hurt good people in this house. Then I glanced at Jake as he followed me to the back. I picked up the trip wire that lay in water, debris, and furniture, then chucked the deuces at every stupid nigga in the house that tried to fuck with us. Niggas had to learn—You don’t take Trigga out, Trigga takes your ass out.
Then, like that, the Trap was on fire. Dame’s kingdom was no more. Every nigga that was part of that house died where they stood as the house exploded then burned down while the sun rose.
Ray-Ray
“You gotta keep driving ’til you get to Exit 235, then you get off on the exit and keep straight, across to Frontage Road.”
I looked at the kid sitting on the passenger side of the car Trigga had pushed me in. I couldn’t really tell if it was a girl or a boy. He was dressed like a boy but at times had very girly features. I followed the directions the kid gave me, but the fear in my heart made my hands tremble against the steering wheel.
“If Trigga don’t make it, you gotta say you my mama. You gotta say you twenty-one, and say I’m seven, but I’m really nine,” Ghost said.
The words “if Trigga don’t make it” kept playing through my mind. I could tell the kid had been schooled on this for a long time. There I was, a kid my damn self, responsible for another kid. At least for the moment I was.
Traffic was light, and I was thanking God that my high had come down enough for me to drive right. Didn’t see a cop anywhere in sight at first, and when I did, I had to wonder if they were rushing to where we had just left.
“You know Trigga is my daddy? That bitch-nigga Dame killed my mama. I was hiding in the walls when he did it. Saw him do it. So, I’m glad Trigga killed that faggot.”
My eyes widened. I looked at the little kid again. He didn’t look like Trigga. Damn. Trigga had a nine-year-old kid? I tried to do the math in my head but didn’t really know how old Trigga was to begin with, so I couldn’t really count up the figures.
“You don’t look like Trigga,” was all I could manage to say, my voice still shaky from emotions and the tears.
“Well, Trigga is my new dad. Dame really my daddy, but Trigga be taking care of me and shit.”
I glanced at Ghost then back at the road. I knew it was fucked up, but I was glad to know Trigga wasn’t his daddy. And now that I really looked at the kid, he did look like his father. He had on a hoodie like Trigga, but those light eyes, that skin tone, and those thick lips were all Dame.
Ghost pushed the hood back from his head, and long curly black hair fell around his shoulders.
“I ain’t no boy either, I’ma girl. But my mama dress me like a boy, so if Dame saw me, he wouldn’t try to sell my pussy.”
My eyes widened. He was a she and had seen way too much already at nine years old. I said a prayer that her mental wasn’t too fucked-up, and that she could have a normal life. I couldn’t believe Ghost’s language. She was talking like she was a hood misfit just like me. And, really, she was. I didn’t know what else to say to the kid.
My mind was all over the place. Is Trigga okay? Is he alive? Is Big Jake alive? Would they make it on the plane with me the next day? How did I take this kid with me without any questions?
I got off on the exit she told me to. The light was green at the next stop, so I kept straight across to Frontage Road like directed. The area looked familiar to me because my mama and daddy used to run down this way, Clayton County, Zone 3. Dame had control over Zones 1, 3, 4, and 6. I wondered what would happen to them now.
We passed the Farmers Market and a big billboard for a gun range.
“When you see the sign for Pink Pony South, you gon’ turn in there then get out and close the gates behind you. Then you gotta park the car all way round the back in the big garage,” Ghost told me.
I saw the big pink-and-white sign that said Pink Pony South. It had an actual pink pony on the sign. It was an old strip club. Trigga’s safe house is an old strip club. It looked deserted. Weeds and tall grass made it seem inhabitable, and there were big cracks and potholes in what used to be the parking lot. The building itself looked like it was about to fall apart.
I turned in then got out of the car to close the gates behind me, just like Ghost had told me.
When I got back in the car, she said, “That’s gon’ let our contact know we in there.”
Her soft voice told me she was just a baby, but her mouth told me she had been tossed into the wild and had adapted.
I moved the car around back and did just what Ghost said to do. She got out with me and showed me where and how to move the blue tarp so I could get to the garage. I was shocked at the big car shop/garage that sat behind the place. It showed that Trigga had always wanted to get out of the game and had been working toward it.
Once done, I parked the car inside, and Ghost walked me up a flight of rickety stairs that led to a door with the faded letters VIP on it. She punched in a code on the door and then used a key to unlock it.
While the outside looked like it was about to fall to pieces, the inside was the exact opposite. It wasn’t extravagant, but it reminded me of the lobby of a luxury hotel or a loft. There was a kitchen with all-black accessories with a bar laden with liquor. A big 70-inch flat-screen TV sat against a brick wall. The floor was stained cement, and plush furniture with different earth-tone colors sat around. The stripper poles were still there along with the stages, but it just looked like a part of the décor.
Ghost hopped on the sofa, turned the TV on, and grabbed the PS3 Controller. She was comfortable, right at home, but I was scared shitless.
I dropped the backpack Trigga had left me and sat at the bar to look through the contents. I pulled out a silver box with my name on it and opened it. T
here was my birth certificate, social security card, cash, and my mama’s locket that she had on the day she died. Inside was a picture of me, her, and my daddy. Trigga must have gone back the day they had killed them. Tears burned my eyelids.
I pulled out passports, one for Jackson Hawkes, and one for Chasity Orlando. I cast a quick glance at Ghost. Her real name was Chasity. Then I pulled out the one for Gina, and my chest got heavy. Her smiling face looked up at me and made me remember those rare occasions that she genuinely smiled in that house. She was supposed to make it out with me. We was supposed to run away from this place together. I was so pissed at myself, mad that I didn’t rush to try to stop her.
“But who are you to try to take away her shot at peace and freedom, Ray-Ray?”
I looked up and saw my mama.
“Sometimes death is better than life. Some of us . . . we get tossed into the game and the only way out is death. That’s our freedom, ’cuz we don’t have to worry ’bout this shit no mo’. So you wouldn’t have had the right to take her freedom away from her. Don’t you see how she wasn’t free with that nigga? She would have never been free without death.”
I kinda understood what my mama was saying, but I wanted to tell Big Jake that it was possible Gina was carrying his baby, and never got the chance to.
I wiped my eyes and pulled out Trigga’s passport. Kwame Kweli. I would have never guessed that was his name. He was a killer, so I just wasn’t expecting a name attached to the motherland.
“Oh, God, please let him and Big Jake make it out. Please,” I found myself pleading, in a muttered whisper, and crying.
I thought back to the way shit had gone down back at Dame’s. Every last one of them niggas got what they deserved, even Sasha. As I was running through the basement to get to the car, I saw her fate. She was laid on top of a table, a pipe stuck down her throat and one shoved clear up her rancid pussy. I figured Jake or Trigga did that for Gina.
“That was for Gina, bitch!” I had said and spat on her lifeless body.
I was glad Pookie got his too, but nothing gave me more satisfaction than cutting Dame’s dick off. He used his dick as a weapon, so I was more than happy to disarm him.
I didn’t know how long I had been sitting at that bar praying and crying when I heard Ghost’s soft voice.
“Ray-Ray.”
I slowly looked up at her through blurry vision. “Yeah.”
“Is Trigga coming?”
I swallowed hard, the lump in my throat threatening to choke me. “I don’t know.”
She looked down at her Jordan-clad feet then back up at me. “Will you make me something to eat? Can you cook? Trigga can. I like his fried bologna sandwiches best. Can you make me one?”
I smiled down at her and nodded. “Yeah, I’ll make you one.”
She smiled. Her smile was innocent. She still had that about her, and in that moment, I wish I had the same.
“Make sure you toast the bread like he do and burn the meat on one side, and don’t forget the mayo,” she said.
“Okay.”
She skipped back over to the red sofa.
It didn’t take me long to fix her sandwich. I made it just how she wanted it, and she ate it, saying, it was almost better than Trigga’s.
For the rest of the night neither Ghost nor I slept much. After showering and nursing my wounds as best I could, I would doze off then jump awake at the slightest noise hoping it was Trigga and Big Jake. It never was.
I changed channels on the TV to see that the news of Dame’s kingdom falling had already been reported. They showed his mansion up in flames and were reporting that there were no survivors. My lips started to tremble.
Ghost looked at me then dropped her eyes. In that moment I felt in my heart what I didn’t want to accept. Ghost walked over and crawled on the couch with me. She pulled the covers up to her chin, and I felt her tears drip on my arms.
“Trigga coming,” she said, her little voice trembling. “He said he wasn’t gon’ leave me and stuff, so he coming. You just watch.”
I held her tight. She was a little girl, and so was I. The game had stolen everything and everybody away from us. We had no one. I didn’t want to accept that, but my life was what it was.
The next morning Ghost and I woke up to a coded knock at the door. She skittered to the door and knocked in code to whoever was on the other side. Once she was sure it was safe, she opened the door, and in walked two females in black suits that hugged their curves. I knew who they were because I’d seen them with Anika.
“You two ready?” one asked, while the other one stood guard at the door.
Her voice was buttery soft. It didn’t seem like she was anyone’s bodyguard, but I knew she could kill a nigga with her eyes closed.
Ghost and I nodded and grabbed our shoes and hoodies. I made sure to grab the backpack.
As they led us to a black Lincoln MKZ, I looked at all of the cars and trucks passing by, hoping that Trigga would be in one. I even asked the guards to wait a few more minutes, trying to keep the last little bit of hope alive, but after fifteen minutes they said they couldn’t wait anymore, that they had to take us to the airport.
For the first time I looked up and saw the big sign for the Airport Hotel, rooms twenty-five dollars a night and up. I couldn’t help but think it was a ho trap. Dame’s hanging body flashed in my mind, and I gave a slight smile through my pain. The devil was dead.
Once at the airport, I expected people to ask me more questions, since I knew I looked young as fuck, but nobody asked me shit. Ghost and I walked through security and to the Delta gate without as much as a glance from anyone, except the occasional dude looking at my ass in the shorts I had on, or someone glancing at the bruises I couldn’t hide.
When the call came to board first class to London, me and Ghost didn’t move. We didn’t move until they made the last call for boarding, still hoping that Trigga and Big Jake would somehow show up. We finally stood and walked toward the attendant, and then Ghost pulled on my arms and pointed.
For a second we both got happy when we saw a guy with locks and a hoodie walking toward us. From a distance he looked like Trigga, but the closer he got, the more our reality settled in. The tears I had been holding in rolled down my face as I handed over our first-class tickets and boarded the plane.
Epilogue
Ray-Ray Three Months Later
London had been good to me and Chasity, who still wanted me to call her Ghost because Trigga had given her that name. We were living in Dalston, in a borough called Hackney. It was one of the places Trigga’s contacts had showed us, and I liked it right off the rip. I had even gotten a job at the café around the corner.
I was in the kitchen of our flat when Ghost asked me, “Diamond, can I go across the way to Joslyn’s for a tea party?”
Ghost had made friends easily, while I mostly kept to myself. I really didn’t know what the hell I was doing. I kept praying that everything was all a dream, that I would wake up free to be a kid again and not be an adult before my time.
It was hard. Every day was hard. My ID said I was twenty-one years old, but I was still just sixteen. Although I had more money than I knew what to do with, I didn’t want to be flashy, still scared shitless that nigga Dame had eyes even over here. I didn’t know who was still on his team and who wasn’t.
This nigga haunted me in my dreams. Most nights I’d wake up screaming, seeing him in my bedroom. Everywhere I looked, even though I knew he was dead, I would see his scowling mug. One day when me and Ghost were at the neighborhood park, I swore I saw that nigga standing there plain as day. I grabbed Ghost’s hand, and we hightailed to my job just so he wouldn’t know where we lived. The nigga still had a hold on me even though he was dead. I could hear him laughing at me in my head. For the most part I cried when Ghost wasn’t looking.
Me and Ghost were learning as we went along. For a while, neither of us would go outside unless it was to get some food, but I was smart enough to know people
would start to talk if we both just stayed cooped up in the flat, so we started to go out more and sightsee. We always made it home before nightfall so we could lock up. I was paranoid. Didn’t trust nobody.
“Yeah, I guess that’s okay, but don’t stay too long.”
“Okay, I won’t. Thanks, Diamond.”
She had stopped calling me Ray-Ray about a week after we’d settled in.
“You’re welcome,” I told her, putting the last of the dishes away.
I listened to her lock the door after she left. I made sure she was gone before I grabbed the black backpack. There were times I would pull out Gina’s, Big Jake’s, and Trigga’s pictures, and sit them all on the table and talk to them, just to let them know I hadn’t forgotten about them. That day was one of those days. I never wanted Ghost to see me doing that shit though. I kept feeling that I had to be strong for her.
After I sat all of their pictures on the table, the backpack fell on the floor, and a cell phone fell out. I’d seen it before. Had kept it charged with the hope that one day Trigga would call.
I picked it up and looked at the screen. It vibrated in my hand, alerting me to a text.
Li’l shawty, just in case I don’t make it, wanted you to know that you still got fam. The Nigerian Queen,
Anika. She yo’ peoples. Ya aunt. Had been looking for you since your folks got it, and when she saw Dame had you, she started planning on ways to get rid of that nigga. To make a long story short, me and her hooked up because she’s my uncle’s woman. I’ll tell you about that shit later if I can. May not ever see you alive again but needed you to know this.
I kept reading the message over and over, making sure I was reading it correctly. I have an aunt? Anika? The woman I had openly admired when I first saw her? The woman Dame had beat my ass for because I was staring at her too hard? I couldn’t wrap my mind around it.
I would have been sitting there the whole day just reading it over and over again had a knock not come at the door. It was a coded knock, so I knew it was Ghost. I knocked in sync three times, then four, then two, and she responded in kind.