by Noire
“Get a fuckin’ job!” she would scream whenever he grabbed a mic and started blasting his beats. Fiyah would be all up in the living room acting like he was on a stage. All the little Catholic saint statues that Aunt Milena collected would be his audience. They’d sit there staring back at him like his flow was the shit for real.
Eva found a job in midtown working as a receptionist for a printing company. They processed blueprints for architects, and since she was straight outta high school with no skills or nothing, the pay was shitty but it beat having nothing at all.
Sometimes Eva felt like a burden in her house. Don’t get it wrong. Aunt Milena never did or said anything to make her think that, and Eva and her had a good relationship, but always in the back of Eva’s mind she felt the need to pull her own weight. She wasn’t Aunt Milena’s child—she was her niece. Milena didn’t owe Eva shit. She’d taken her in and helped her get clean because Eva was her brother’s only child and Milena loved her. But still…Eva had a mother out there who shoulda been doing all the stuff that Aunt Milena was doing for her. She felt guilty when Fiyah got screamed on for not working and bringing money into the house, when it was his house. Eva and Rosa were taking food out of his mouth. And even though Fiyah never once complained or nothing, Eva made sure that each week when she got paid she gave Aunt Milena the majority of her check. She tore off some to send to Mrs. Threet for her son, she held back a little bit for a MetroCard, and she broke Fiyah off a few ends, but the bulk went straight to her auntie.
Eva was at work sorting through the mail one day when her cell phone vibrated in her pocket. It was her old friend Sherri from Brownsville, the one Eva had introduced to heroin when she was twelve. They had reconnected a couple of years back through their boy Reem Raw, not too long after Eva had moved up to Harlem and gotten clean.
Reem and Sherri used to go together back when they were kids, and when Eva ran into him in Harlem he’d given her Sherri’s telephone number. That same day Eva had reached out to Sherri to apologize for dragging her into her drug-induced nightmare, and Sherri had forgiven her. Sherri’s grandmother still cursed when she heard Eva’s name, but Sherri was still her girl.
“Yo. Your moms is in the hospital.”
Eva’s heart stopped. As bad as Rasheena had done her, there was still a place inside Eva that had love for her mother.
“Jahden tried to kill her. He burnt her ass up. That niggah made her strip naked, then he poured boiling water all over her.”
“No…” Eva moaned. A hot wave of pain rolled through her body.
“That ain’t all he did neither,” Sherri said. “That twisted motherfucker dragged her outta the house and made her walk up and down Mother Gaston Boulevard. Butt-naked and burnt up.”
Tears fell from Eva’s eyes and she couldn’t even speak.
“Now, I know you might not give a fuck about your moms, Eva. And you got a lot of good reasons to tell her to kiss your ass. But you her only family and I thought you should know.”
Eva ran out the office and jumped on a train heading uptown. By the time she got up to Harlem she had killed Jahden a thousand times in her head, and in a thousand different ways.
Fiyah was feeling good as Eva walked up to their stoop. He’d just dished off some electronic items he’d stolen from a store on 125th Street, and had used the money he’d made to buy some jewelry. He jumped up the moment he saw the look on Eva’s face and the tears in her eyes.
“What happened?” he demanded, looking down the block suspiciously, like Eva’s troubles were right behind her. “What the fuck happened?”
Eva fell against his chest crying. He could see she wasn’t bleeding or nothing, so he just held her and let her get it out.
“R-r-rasheena—” she finally managed. She started crying again and Fiyah’s eyes narrowed in concern.
“What’s wrong with her? She cool?”
Eva shook her head and Fiyah looked scared. “Tell me what happened,” he said, and Eva repeated to him what Sherri had said to her.
“Can you ride with me down to Brooklyn?” Eva asked him. “I just wanna go see her and make sure she’s all right.”
Fiyah couldn’t tell her no. They’d always been down for each other, even when they were doing dirt, and he knew if the situation was reversed Eva wouldn’t be able to tell him no either. They were cousins, but they were also friends. Where one rolled, the other rolled too.
They didn’t tell Milena where they were going. She wasn’t feeling Rasheena at all, so she probably woulda said the bitch had finally gotten what she deserved. Eva ran into the apartment and changed out of her work clothes and into a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. She dug into the back of her closet and came out with the burner that India had been carrying the night she was murked. Eva wasn’t sure if they were gonna run into that bastard Jahden, but if they did she wanted to be ready to pump a cap in his ass if he came at her.
Eva went into Fiyah’s room. He had put on a hoody and was tying a bandana around his head. “I got a gat,” she said, showing him the .22 that she had slipped into her purse. “Just in case Jahden rolls up on us.”
“Girl, what the fuck you doing with that little-ass gun?” Fiyah asked. “Is that shit loaded?”
She nodded, passing it to him.
He checked the chamber, then looked at her and shook his head. “You the last one who needs to be packin’, Eva. We get caught up in some shit out there and your crazy ass will prolly mess around and shoot me.” Fiyah grinned and pushed the gun down in the back of his waistband. “Let’s bounce.”
They rode the train for an hour, then got off and took a city bus up to Linden Blvd where the hospital was. But when they got there Eva was told that Rasheena Patterson had signed herself out. Against her doctor’s orders.
“Where you think she went?” Fiyah asked.
Eva shook her head. “I don’t know. Probably back to the house. With no family or no money, where else could she go?”
They hopped on a bus heading toward Powell Street, and even before they got to Eva’s old building she could see lights on in Rasheena’s apartment. Eva started sweating and feeling sick just looking at the place. Sherri had told her that Jahden was selling big-time drugs now, and going in that apartment would be the closest she’d been to duji since the night she’d fled. A barrage of terrible memories made her stomach turn mushy and fear dried up all the moisture in her mouth. Music was blaring throughout the hallways and Eva and Fiyah gave each other a long look before climbing up the stairs.
Fiyah banged on the door three times. There was a round hole right above the keyhole where Jahden could pass his product out without opening the door.
Fiyah banged again, and Jahden said, “Whassup!”
“It’s Eva,” she squeaked.
Just the sound of his voice had her shook. But when he opened the door and Eva looked into the eyes that she’d seen floating above her face as he humped her young pussy a hundred times, her fear was gone and rage was in her instead.
“Yo, where my aunt?” Fiyah said, pushing his way inside. Jahden was caught off guard by the sight of them. There were about seven motherfuckers up in there. Drinking, smoking crack and heroin, and hanging out. Eva scooted inside behind Fiyah, and looked around for her mother.
Rasheena was stretched out on the raggedy sofa. That thing was so pissy and bug infested that Eva had stopped sitting on it when she was about ten.
“You okay, Auntie?” Fiyah said, crossing the room toward her.
Eva was stuck in one spot.
Rasheena was covered in bandages. Her body looked swollen. Bloated like a dead fish. There was a nasty smell coming off her that made Eva want to throw up, and she took a step backward without thinking.
Rasheena tried to say something, but she could barely talk louder than a whisper.
“You need to be in the hospital, Ma,” Eva said. She looked at Jahden and her anger just came jumping out of her. “You grimy, stank-ass old bastard! They oughta lock your pervert
ed ass up. Look what the fuck you did to her. And you was stupid enough to let her sign herself out of the hospital?”
Eva was feeling large because she knew Fiyah had a tool, but she wasn’t prepared for what happened next. Instead of Jahden jumping bad and trying to shut Eva down, Rasheena drew forth all her strength and told her daughter what the fuck she could go do to herself.
“Mind your fuckin’ business,” Rasheena muttered. Her voice sounded like the graveled path of hell. Eva could tell her mother was in a lot of pain, but she was still the same old evil, crazy bitch that she had always been. “Get the fuck up outta my house telling me what to do,” she rasped. “Who told you to bring your fast ass back up in here anyway? Jah show this trick where the door—”
There was a loud, horrible noise and Eva thought her heart had been kicked in.
But instead, it was the front door.
Everybody seemed to move at once except Eva and Rasheena. Eva stood frozen in place and Rasheena lay frozen on the pissy couch.
“Police!” Eva heard a male voice say. Narcotics officers dressed in dark blue swarmed through the apartment like roaches under a bright light. “Get your asses down on the ground good people, and don’t nobody fuckin’ move!”
Eva was miserable as hell.
The cops called an ambulance for Rasheena, then tossed the rest of them into a white van and transported them over to the 73rd Precinct. The precinct was only a few blocks away, but the ride seemed like it took a whole year. Fiyah stared at Eva the whole time. They’d found the gun on him that she had taken off India. Eva didn’t know what was gonna happen, but it was all her fault that her cousin was in this predicament, and she felt like a stupid-ass little kid for putting him there.
This wasn’t the first time Eva and Fiyah had been in this precinct though. They’d gotten knocked a few times when they were minors and out there stealing shit like the world was theirs. But the whole time the cops were taking their fingerprints and processing them in, Eva was racking her brain trying to figure out what she should do on this bust. Did she ’fess up and tell the cops that it was her piece? Or was Fiyah gonna do the unthinkable and snitch on her and tell them himself?
Eva didn’t know what to think, but when they led them past each other to take their mug shots, her cousin whispered, “Keep your fuckin’ mouth closed.”
So that’s what Eva did.
She was surprised like hell when they unlocked her cell six hours later and told her she was free to go. She’d never gotten out of jail this quick before.
“Why am I getting out?” Eva asked the question like they was trying to trick her or something.
The female officer shrugged. “We know who was dealing drugs in that house. That’s who we came there for, and that’s who we got. Besides, your name was on the lease, so we won’t charge you with intention to buy.”
Eva got excited. “Well, what about my cousin? Fuego Perez? He used to live there too. Me and him came in together and I can vouch for him. He wasn’t copping shit because he don’t do no drugs.”
The officer shrugged again like she could give less than a damn.
“Perez ain’t going nowhere except to Central Booking and then on to Rikers. He had an illegal firearm on him. We’ll be sending it to ballistics to see if it’s dirty, but even if it comes back clean, possession carries a mandatory one-year sentence under New York law.”
Eva was devastated. Fiyah was going to jail. All because he loved her and Rasheena and wanted to look out for his family. Milena was about to be straight pissed off. Fiyah wasn’t gonna be getting no job and bringing home no money for real now. Her son was about to spend a year on Rikers Island, and the only person they had to blame was Eva.
Rikers Island
Fiyah Perez lay on his jail bunk listening to the drum-beat that was playing out in his mind. He nodded his head as the tempo picked up and moved his lips as he spit his fire lyrics to an imaginary crowd. Jail was a muhfuckah. The judge had slapped him with a year, but his public defender said he would prolly be out in like eight months. His heart grew cold as he contemplated surviving his term of incarceration. Eight months was like forever on The Rock they called Rikers Island. This wasn’t his first time dealing with the penal system, but it was the longest he had spent on lock. It was also the first time he was in for something he wasn’t really responsible for. Every other time he’d been knocked he had been just as guilty as charged.
But Fiyah wasn’t sitting around having no pity party behind that shit. Evita was family. She was blood. And besides, she was a girl. What kinda sherm muhfuckah would snitch on a female? Nah, that wasn’t him. This eight month bid was gone get done and get the fuck over with, and then he’d be back on the streets of Harlem scrambling for money and pushing his music even harder than before.
During his first month on The Rock Fiyah tried to do all the things he’d heard about on the streets: mind your own fuckin’ business, keep ya fuckin’ mouth closed, and watch ya fuckin’ back.
But jail was just like the streets. There was always gonna be some come-up niggah who had to try you. Some kid who needed to make a name for himself. Or even some weak dude who had been flipped like a bitch and was being used as a pawn. Fiyah would see cats like that all the time. Bitch niggahs on their knees bobbing and slobbing down on some other man’s joint. Slurping on that dick muscle like it was natural and shit. He didn’t understand it. Some punk in the cell across from him had actually dropped his towel in the shower one morning, then bent over and opened his ass up wide for a big Italian cat. The big dude had gone in hard, right there in front of everybody, talking sweet shit to the gay dude like he was up in a soft wet pussy instead of some niggah’s stank hairy asshole.
Fiyah vowed that kinda shit would never happen to him. He would die before he let some jailhouse plumber lay his pipe up in him. Fighting for ya manhood was an everyday thing in prison, and Fiyah had no problem with that. He was just as street as they came, and when some shady shit came his way, he handled himself like the G he was. He’d swung hard on the first fool who looked at him funny and didn’t stop swinging until four or five cats pulled him off. He had six fights in his first three weeks on The Rock. If he wasn’t earnin’ a rep he was damn sure perfecting his technique.
“Yo, man,” some Puerto Rican cat from Brooklyn told him after he’d come out of the hole for the third time. “You need to get with the Latinos, ese. These fuckin’ goons in here they stick together yo, ya know?”
Fiyah had shook him off. “Nah, I’m straight, homes. I don’t fuck with nobody but me.”
“Okay.” The cat shrugged. “But you see that big guy King Brody right there?” He pointed to a huge brown-skinned inmate who was about six-four and looked like he’d been lifting weights for decades. Fiyah had seen the cat on the streets of Harlem plenty of times before. He was a predator, and almost everybody knew about his rep. “Watch and see don’t he brody your shit. He’s a taker, man. Whatever he wants he strong-arms and he gets it. He got the COs on his dick. He brodied my cellie for his sneakers last week. Got ’em on his feet right now. He brodied another guy I know for his watch this morning. You better get some protection, man. You can’t survive in here without it.”
Fiyah had eyed the big guy they called Brody. He looked fresh and relaxed at all times. The COs didn’t fuck with him and he had inmates hopping left and right at his command. Fuck the bars, Brody moved like a man who had power. And Fiyah knew how fast power could corrupt a muhfuckah. He didn’t know when Brody was gonna decide that he wanted something that Fiyah had, but he knew it was just a matter of time before he did.
Determined to do his little bid and get back to his low-level crimes to support his lifestyle and his music, Fiyah wrote songs night and day. Eva had brought his songbook to him on her first visit and having it in his hands was almost like having his freedom.
Since he was a nonviolent offender he was able to sign up on a work detail. His job was to sweep and mop the tiers along with nine other in
mates, and that was cool with Fiyah because it kept him moving.
The whole time he was pushing his broom he was also working on his grind. He chanted dope lyrics and spit the kind of shit that illustrated what was really real on the streets. A couple of cats would check out his flow game as he swept or mopped past their cells, and pretty soon inmates were lining up to check out his rhymes every time he walked by.
Fiyah loved the attention. He appreciated it when people dug the words that he strung together so artfully that they felt big enough to move mountains. There was always a slick reggaeton beat playing in his head. And although most times he laid his rap down in English, some of his songs were a fusion of English and Spanish verses that fucked everybody’s head up, including Fiyah’s.
It was in this manner that he spent his time and counted down the days until he would get off The Rock. Eva visited him every Saturday, and she brought him more notebooks when his old ones were full. With the money she earned from her little job she also kept his commissary tight, and Fiyah knew it was partly out of love and partly out of guilt.
“This shit is all my fault,” she said over and over again. Each time she went off in that direction Fiyah would wave her off. The truth was, coming to jail had given him a lot of time to get serious about his music grind. It had taken his perspective from being just a simple street rapper to wanting to get a contract and cut his own CD, and it had given him the space he needed to tap into that creative pit in his belly and bring forth his best quality rhymes.
“It’s cool, Evita” was the most he would say. He didn’t wanna get into that mode with her, even though she was right. This was Eva’s problem that she had made his, but some shit was just better left undiscussed, and that’s how he felt about this bid. “Just take good care of Mami and Rosita, yo. I’ma be straight on this end.”
And everything woulda continued to be straight too, except that some crazy dudes from his tier had cornered Fiyah going into the showers one morning and decided it was his turn to go bottom up.