Being back in Jamaica was cool and everything. I had been trying to stay out the spotlight because it had been years since I lived here. But shit was getting hectic now; money was getting tight. I had started out fucking with the ganja, but truthfully, there wasn’t no big money in it. It was just chump change compared to what I was used to making. So it was time to put some big plan into motion, and I already got some niggas in mind.
After eating some breakfast, I decided to meet up with my big homie Gio around the way. I’d hadn’t been to McGregor Gully since I got back to Jamaica. But my niggas still frequented the area and had a stronghold on everything that went on around there. So that was where I was headed today.
I jumped in my car and headed out. Money was on my mind, and there was nothing or no one that was going to stand in the way of that. I was a boss that was used to four or five cars at a time, multiple houses in different cities. This poor shit, living dollar to dollar or depending on Mom Dukes to send money from the United States, was not for me. I was a grown-ass man, and I was going to get rich by any means possible.
As I cruised through the slum of the Gully, it saddened me to see how people were still living even after all these years. What made it worse was the fact that these politicians would come out here close to election time and would offer fake-ass promises, give out a few jobs, distribute a few bags of flour and sugar, and hand out a few dollars, just enough to grab the attention of the poor people. In return, the people would go out and vote for these dishonest politicians, thinking that a better life was going to come for them if they voted. The truth was, after the election was over, the politicians disappeared, along with all the promises that were made to the people. See, this was the reason why the community was so fucked up. There was no money coming in, and all the youths could do was turn to a life of crime, killing, raping, and robbing their own people in order to survive.
On my way, I drove past a few niggas. They were young, so more than likely, they didn’t know me. I cruised to the address of my partner. I spotted him and others sitting outside a cook spot that he had. It was really a front for all the other shit he had going on.
I pulled up, then tucked my gun in my waist before I exited the car. See, the Gully was not a nice place and was definitely no place to be without a strap. I walked up to the niggas sitting outside. I noticed they were playing dominoes and talking shit to one another.
“Yo, what’s up, niggas?” I said as I approached.
“Yo, Father, bless up,” Gio said.
“What’s up, mi linky?” my nigga Leroy said. Shit, I was happy to see Leroy. He was one of my riders in New York. He had got less time than the rest of us ’cause they really didn’t hear him discussing anything on any of the tapes. He had got ten years, while the rest of us had got fifteen or more.
“Trevor, my nigga, what’s good, dawg?” I said. We exchanged daps.
“Yo, boss man, we’ve been waiting on you so we can figure out our next move,” Gio said.
“Shit. Let’s get to it, then, niggas. We got shit to do.”
“Yo, let’s go to the back. Yo, Camille, hold the front down,” Gio said.
After he said that, I saw a sexy, dark chocolate chick walk to the front. “All right, boss. I have it under control,” she said as she sashayed past me, hips swinging to the sides and ass bouncing up and down. She looked familiar, but I couldn’t recall where I knew her from. Our eyes locked for a quick second before she disappeared.
Damn. Who the fuck is that? I thought.
“Yo, Father, you good? You look zoned out still.” Gio tapped me on the shoulder.
“Yeah, I’m good, nigga. Yo, is that shawty yours?”
“Who? Camille? Hell nah, nigga. You don’t remember her?” He laughed.
“Nah. Her face looks familiar, but it’s been so long, I can’t call it.”
“Come on. We need to handle this business first before you start worrying ’bout pussy.”
Shit, that nigga was tripping. I had been gone for years, and other than the bitch he had brought to the house a few nights ago, I ain’t fucked nothing else. Yeah, I was worried about getting this paper, but I planned on smashing bitches in the process.
I entered the room in the back, where I immediately spotted cameras. I noticed that they surrounded the entire building and also were focused on the street. I loved how this nigga had the shit set up. You could see everything that went on up front just by watching the TVs.
“Yo, what’s the pree, Father?” Gio said.
“Yo, my niggas, y’all already know we on some money pree. Not no little bit of money, but enough money where we can live comfortably out this bitch. Y’all know how the system out here work more than I do. So we need fi put we head together and come up with the perfect plan how to get this money. The weed business too slow right now, but if it pick up, den we can dabble in that also. My main focus is the coca. Me ’ave a few connects in Miami that’s willing to fuck wit’ me on it, but the ting is how to get it to them without customs intercepting it—”
“Father, I love this idea, but mi ’ave one betta than that,” this younger nigga, Dee Lo, said, interrupting me.
“And yuh is?” I quizzed.
“Yo, a my nephew dis, Father. ’Im cool still, and ’im know ’im ting.”
“Cool. What idea you ’ave that is betta than the one I’m talkin’ about?” I asked in a cold tone.
I didn’t like that the little nigga didn’t have the sense to shut the fuck up and wait until I was finished with what I was saying. See, these niggas must be sleeping on me, ’cause my accent ain’t as raw as theirs, or maybe ’cause they felt like I wasn’t one of them since I’d been gone so long.
“No disrespect still, mi genna, but coke money is good, but di scamming money is way betta,” Dee Lo replied.
The entire room got quiet as the little young head spoke. I looked at him. Whatever he was saying sounded foreign to me. Since I’d been back, I’d heard niggas talking ’bout this scamming shit here and there, but I had no idea what the fuck it was, and I didn’t even care. Shit, I was a drug dealer and a killer. I didn’t scam people. However, since this nigga felt the need to bring it up, I decided to see what the fuck he was talking about.
“Scamming money? Nigga, I’m tryin’a build a ‘millions of dollars’ empire, not some five grand and bullshit-ass change.”
“Father, trust me, the youth know him ting,” Gio said. “Di scamming ting is the big thing now. Why you think you see all these big houses and big foreign cars popping up? A nuh drug money. Mi ’ave a brethren that make over six million in one week. One week, Father, by just using his phone. A Mobay and St. James niggas dem a eat off of it. A just now town niggas catching on. I mean, we can push di coke and start fuckin’ wid di scamming ting too. A rich, we a try get rich.”
His words were spinning around in my head. Over six million in one week. That shit seemed a little suspicious, but I knew my nigga knew his math, and we’d been rolling so long that I trusted his judgment.
I nodded slowly. “A’ight, my niggas. Y’all have me interested in dis shit. I’m fresh to this shit, so how does it work?”
“Yo, the Africans started this shit many years ago,” Dee Lo informed me. “Is like you buy a spreadsheet from a connect in America or Canada. On it are names of people and their phone numbers. It’s mostly rich white people. You have somebody on di team that will make the calls, informing the person that they win thousands of dollars, maybe millions, and that they’ll have to send money first to process the amount they about to get. You can tell them the processing fee is anywhere from a hundred to five thousand US dollars.”
I frowned. “Yo, this sound like bloodclaat fuckery to me.”
“Yo, I’m a telling you, it’s the business now.”
“So you tellin’ mi, people in America are so fucking stupid that they willin’ to send money to a fucking stranger in hope that they’re going to get thousands and possibly millions?”
Dee
Lo shook his head enthusiastically. “Hell yeah, my genna. That is exactly what we saying. Because of dem stupid asses, we can be rich young niggas.”
By the time the meeting was over, I was feeling optimistic. I had a few thousand US dollars that I had stashed away. It was time to hit the niggas up in Miami. I was ready to get shit started. They also had me sold on the scamming shit. So before I walked out of Gio’s back room, I called my sister in New York and told her that I needed four brand-new laptops shipped down to me. I also copped a few new phones, which I would use for the scamming thing. The only thing I needed now was a chick to pick up the money at Western Union. This was the hard part, because I didn’t know too many bitches down here and definitely none that I could trust....
After I got off the phone, I walked out to the bar area, and there was that sexy bitch Camille sitting down, pretending like she was so occupied on her phone.
“Yo, shawty, lemme get a shot of Patrón,” I said to her as I took a seat at the bar.
“My name is Camille,” she said with a slight attitude.
“My bad, Camille. Can I get a shot of Patrón?”
“You sure can.” She got up, poured a shot of Patrón, and placed it in front of me. “That will be a thousand.”
I handed her a five-thousand-dollar bill. “Keep the change,” I said and winked at her.
She went back to doing what she was doing before I walked in. I took out my phone and texted my nigga in Miami, letting him know that we needed to link ASAP.
“Can I get you another drink?” Camille asked me a while later. Her sexy voice echoed in my head.
“Nah, gorgeous. But how ’bout yo’ number?”
“Excuse me?” She looked at me like she was shocked.
“Yo, B, stop playing games. I wan’ yo’ number.” I spoke with my raw Jamaican accent, which was still mixed with an American accent.
“No, I don’t want to give you my number. Sorry, baby,” she said and then walked off.
I wasn’t tripping. I knew her ass was just being careful. I took the last sip of my drink and got up from the bar. Walked out to join my niggas.
“Yo, my niggas, I’m out. I hit my nigga up, so soon as he link, things will start rolling. Also gonna check out some laptops,” I announced.
We exchanged daps. Then I jumped into my car and left out. As much as I liked being around the niggas, I didn’t feel too safe in the Gully. Niggas were just too grimy there, and I had learned the last time around that I couldn’t trust nobody....
Chapter Three
Camille
I’m so tired of living in this slum, I thought as I walked home from work. Even though it was evening time, Kingston, Jamaica, was still burning up from the hot sun.
I had been busting my ass lately, working long hours at the bar and going to various parties on the weekend and doing dance competitions. I competed against other area dancers. Lately, I’d been killing the game and winning most of the competitions, which had earned me the privilege of saving over fifty grand. However, that was a far cry from what I needed to get a nice place somewhere uptown. While the Gully would always be my home, things were starting to get out of hand. With area dons beefing with other areas, people barely wanted to be out and about after dark in the Gully. Many nights when I left the bar and walked down to my lane on Robert Avenue, I prayed to God.
Shit didn’t seem like it would get any better anytime soon, ’cause it seemed like even the police were scared of coming down here. I often heard the police commissioner talking ’bout how he goin’ to clean up the area, but that was just a bag of shit. Crimes had been going on down here even before I was born. Plus, the way the police were lately, they were more criminal than the dudes.
I held tight to my little purse as I walked down the street now. I had a little knife in it that couldn’t do much damage, but I planned to stick it as far as I could if one of these boys ever tried to attack me. I was dead-ass tired; feet was hurting and everything. I was not goin’ to complain, though, ’cause Gio had given me the job, even though a lot of other bitches had been lined up to get it. I knew Gio from when we were growing up. He moved to America but came back a few years ago, when they dipped him.
I was almost at my gate when I heard a vehicle coming up behind me. I heard the car horn honk, but I kept walking. In Jamaica, most times it was best to just hold your head straight and just mind your own business. The car pulled right in front of me and stopped.
“Yo, what the bumboclaat you doing?” I yelled, not giving a fuck who the driver was or what the repercussions were going to be for me cussing at him.
The driver’s door opened, and I quickly dug into my purse and grabbed my ratchet knife. I was ready to fight for my life or die fighting.
The tall, dark, dreadlocked dude that was in the bar earlier stepped out of the car and asked, “Yo, you good?”
“Yo, what is wrong wit’ yo? Why you cut me off like that?”
He was smiling like this shit was a joke, but my ass was angry as fuck. My heart was racing because I hadn’t been sure if I was about to be raped, robbed, or shot.
“Yo, chill out, shawty. Get in. I’ll take you home.”
“You pull in front of me, and now you thinking I’m foolish enough to get into a car with a stranger? This gyal is no fool. I’ll walk home. Matter of fact, my house is two houses down, so I don’t need a ride.”
“Yo, Camille. That’s yo’ name, right? Why you playing hard to get? Yo, I see you and I like you, so what’s the problem?”
I stood there looking at him. I knew who he was. I remembered us growing up together. He was, like, three or four years older than me, but I remembered him. I didn’t when I first saw him, but while he was back in the office area, I asked Jimmy, the bar boy, and he gladly let me know that this was the nigga that was making big moves in America and who had got torn off by the Feds. After his time in America, they had deported him to Jamaica. So yes, he looked good and all, but he had just got deported, so I knew his ass ain’t got shit, and I barely got anything, so what the fuck would I want with him?
“Listen, Donavan, or Gaza, as they call you. I’m not looking for no man, and you is wasting my time. Mi tired and need to go home, so no disrespect. You look good and everything, but I’m not interested.” I started walking off on him. This nigga was obviously wasting my time, and I was hungry and about to be angry.
“All right, shawty. Remember, though, I’m not giving up. I’ma make you my woman.” Without saying another word, he jumped in his car and pulled off.
Who the fuck this nigga think he is, telling me he is not going to stop until he gets me? I thought. Shit. He really got me fucked up if he thinks I’m one of these licky-licky Jamaican bitches that is frightened for a Yankee bwoy. Shit, he better ask his niggas. Camille is the real deal. . . .
When I reached my house, I noticed my best friend and partner in crime, Sophia, was sitting on my verandah, waiting. Oh shit. I had forgotten I told her to meet me at my place.
“Yo, my girl, you too wicked. Why you tell me say, you walking down the lane. You ’ave me sitting out here with all these mosquitos tearing my ass up.”
“My girl, I’m so sorry. I was almost at the gate when a bwoy pull him car in front a mi. Trust mi, you don’t know how mi vex.”
“A which bwoy that, and what he wanted?”
“Gyal, is a bwoy from foreign name Gaza. Him grow up round here, but he went to America since he’s young. He just get dip, and now he’s back in the place with Gio and him crew. ”
“Really? How I don’t know ’im?”
“He left ling time before you move round here.”
“So what he want with you?”
“The bwoy is looking me,” I muttered through my teeth.
“So nothing is wrong wit’ that. It’s not like you ’ave a man. Shit, it’s been a while since you get any dick.”
I whipped my neck around and looked at this bitch. How the fuck she just going to say that shit?
&nb
sp; “Gyal, you really serious right now?” I said.
“Like a heart attack. Bitch, it’s time you start fucking again. Omar gone fi ’bout a year now. He’s not coming back, boo boo.”
I hated that she would bring up my ex, Omar. He was the one that had taken my virginity, and we’d gone steady for ’bout six years. I had thought everything was going good between us. That was until I saw posted on his WhatsApp a picture of him and a girl and someone congratulating him on his marriage. I’d never forget that Saturday. It was like my world had stopped at that moment. I remembered running from my house to Sophia’s house. When she’d come to the gate, I couldn’t even speak. I had just stood there and had started crying and had shown her the picture. Being that she was my bestie, she’d led me inside her house and had me lie down. I’d stayed in that position until the next day. Just the memory of that shit hurt my soul. Up to this day I hadn’t laid my eyes on Omar to ask him how he could do me like that....
“Hello, bitch. Back to earth,” Sophia said.
“Yo, sorry. Was caught up thinking ’bout Omar and the shit he pulled.”
“Bitch, let Omar go suck his stinking pussy mother. I hate that bwoy with a passion.”
Sophia was not joking when she said that. After the shit went down, she’d gone to war with him on WhatsApp, IG, and Facebook. I think Omar had ended up blocking her, and since he had never made it back to the area, he didn’t have much to worry about.
“I hear you, my girl, but after all di shit I went through wit’ Omar, I’m not sure I’m ready to date another man so soon.”
“Bitch, you know who you are? You is Camille, the rassclaat best dancer in town and country. When gyal see you, they salute you. You better boss up and take what’s rightfully yours. Stop worry ’bout a dirty, no-good-ass bwoy. Omar fi dead long time.”
I looked at her and smiled. I swore I didn’t know what I would do without her. Some people in the community said she was messy and stayed in drama, but I saw it differently. Sophia was originally from Tivoli Gardens, and she was just real. She didn’t bite her tongue and would tell you exactly what was on her mind. Trust, this bitch was not scared.
Finessed a Dope Boy's Heart Page 20