by Ivory B.
Jessica lay on the floor curled up with her daughter holding her swollen face wondering what Stanks had gotten her into. Only ten minutes had passed but it seemed like an eternity to her. She was broken out of her nightmare when Nice’s phone rang. “Y’all niggaz posted up? A’ight.” After Los heard Nice confirm his team was posted up outside of Stanks’ peoples house he looked over at Jessica and spoke. “Call him right now.” Los said in an even tone. “Call Daddy and tell him he got company,” Los sneered with a hint of humor in his voice, although Jessica ain’t find shit funny about her situation. Jessica reached for her phone and dialed Stanks number with shaky fingers.
Stanks was waiting in the abandoned building he had Buju stashed in getting antsy. His brother was supposed to have returned by now. He wanted to hurry and call Los back to do this money drop and he needed his brother for this part of the plan. His brother would be lying in wait ready to kill anything moving out there once the money was delivered. Stanks really had no intentions in letting Buju go not after pulling grimy to this extent. Deep down he knew he would have to deal with a little retaliation but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle. He had been knee deep in beef in the past and the fact he was still standing was a testament to his gangsta. When his phone rang he thought it was his brother until he noticed it was his Baby Moms.
“Jessie what?! I told you I’ll be there in a min…” “Sean! Some people here to see you,” Jessica whimpered through quivering lips. Stanks was caught off guard and was at a loss for words momentarily. “Jess don’t open that muthafuckin door!” Stanks barked in an amped tone. His voice could be heard through the phone. “They in here already Sean! What’s goin on? I’m scared.” Stanks paced from one side of the room to the other. “It’s simple nigga, my manz for ya bitch and daughter. How you wanna play this out Playboy? It’s your call,” Los said loud enough for Stanks to hear. “Sean what did you do? What did you do?” Jessica cried becoming completely undone. To her horror Stanks hung up the phone on her. She looked at the phone stunned before looking up at her captors with defeated eyes. “He hung up, he hung up” she cried still not believing that the man she bidded with, bore his child, held down with commissary for the whole time he was down would just leave her for dead. Los looked over at Nice and without a word Nice picked up his cell phone, dialed a number and said one word “Go.”
Shanks’s brother was rushing out of his mother’s house to meet back up with Stanks at the abandoned building. All he had on his mind was how he was going to spend the money he was about to make from this lick. He never noticed the two hoopties sitting directly across the street with the engines running as he looked down at his phone noticing his brother was calling yet again. “Impatient ass nigga, damn I’m coming.” Is all he got out before the windows rolled down on the two cars across the street, Blaap! Blaaap! Blaap! Boom! Boom! Was all he heard before he felt the sting of hollow tips ripping through his body shredding his flesh on impact.
The quiet working class neighborhood filled with residence in bed getting ready for a hard day’s work the next morning was rocked awake by the sounds of semi automatics and the boom of choppers being let off. Bullets burst windows and ripped through the house siding and front door. It took less than five minutes for the house to be riddled with close to 60 bullets. The shooting suddenly stopped and the sound of screeching tires was heard along with the blood-curdling screams of Stanks’ mother from inside the house.
Her husband of 27 years was shot multiple times as he slept and it didn’t look good, he didn’t look like he was going to make it. While their teenage grandson lay in bed screaming from gunshot wounds to both his legs. The worse of it all was finding her son’s body on the front porch riddled with bullets. A mother’s instinct spoke volumes and something told her that her troublesome son from the day he was born had something to do with this. As she heard the blaring sirens approaching her house and saw neighbors pouring into the street to see what was going on, she knew she only had minutes to do what she needed to do in both warning her son and saying goodbye to him. She ran back into the house to call Stanks.
Stanks was pacing the floor back and forth threatening to fall right through the rickety floor boards. His thoughts were interrupted by his ringing phone. He picked up when he noticed it was his parents house calling thinking it was his brother. “Yo where the fuck you at…” “What did you do? What the hell did you do Sean?! My baby dead! And so are you to me, I know you had something to do with my house gettin shot up. Boy I don’t know what typa mess you into but from now on you dead to me!” his mother cried in hysterics before hanging up. “Shit! Shit!” Stanks shouted swinging his fist in the air as if he had an opponent right there in front of him. “Fuck!” Stanks shouted. “This shit is all ya fault. You had it! You had it! All you had to do is front me some more work? It wouldn’t have hurt you one bit. But you had to try and play a nigga in front of a buncha hoes. Talkin bout I need to stand on my own two like a man. I just got out; you know how I used to get it in! You know how much paper I used to touch!” Stanks yelled at Buju who was in and out of consciousness bleeding profusely.
Los looked down at his watch. “Call him again,” he told Jessica without doing so much as raising his voice. Jessica quickly pressed redial and to her dismay Stanks sent the call straight to voicemail. She dialed a second time losing all her composure and sobbing as the phone rang right into voicemail again. “He won’t pick up,” Jessica cried. “Bitch I don’t care what you gotta do, you betta get that nigga on the phone. Use telekinesis, mind zap that nigga, I really don’t give a fuck you betta get that nigga on the horn,” Jah demanded. Jessica cried and tried a third time which turned out to be a charm because he answered. “Sean! Please don’t hang up,” Jessica rambled off through tears. Los knew time was running out for his boy he knew he had to do something drastic.
His father had once told him the quickest way to bring a man to his knees is to play love against him. Love, especially the love of a child was like a liability to a man in the game and that’s exactly why he didn’t have any kids. “I’m tired of playin wit this pussy,” Los growled. He cocked his hammer back reached down and snatched the little girl out of Jessica’s arms. “Oh my god! No! No! Please wait don’t take her! Let him go, Sean let him go! Pleeeasee! Ahhahahaa!” Los snatched the phone away from her. “This shit ain’t a game! This shit right here is war, ain’t no rules to it nigga this lil bitch can get it too. An eye for an eye, you body my manz I body ya seed. So again I’ma ask you how you wanna play this out nigga?” Jessica became hysterical she heard the seriousness in his voice. Anger took over her entire being and she flipped. “Muthafucka you ain’t neva did shit for my daughter! You sorry ass bastard! They gonna kill my baby. My baby! Let him go, please just let him gooo,” she sobbed folding over holding her stomach feeling defeated. The love she once had for Stanks was gone and if he were here right now she would body his ass for these dudes.
Guilt, sorrow and pain ripped through Stanks’ heart. He knew he could never live with knowing something happened to his daughter. Deep down he loved both his baby moms and daughter enough to give his own life. He had to face the fact that he was fucked. He had no idea that the dudes Buju started messing with were this damn ruthless. “A’ight, a’ight damn, don’t do nothin to my daughter,” Los could hear the sound of defeat and emotion in his voice. “I’ll let him go. I’ll drop him off at a spot. Then I’ll call you to let you know where he at.” “For your sake he better still be breathing,” Los said before hanging up on him. He let the little girl go immediately after. Jessica reached out and grabbed her daughter hugging her close to her heart.
Stanks looked over at Buju who was tied to a chair slumped over. He knew this was going to be a hard task carrying Buju by himself down two flights of stairs and into a car. His brother was supposed to help carry him but that wasn’t going to be happening. He shed a few tears for the loss of his brother as he untied Buju’s body and dragged him towards the front door of the ap
artment. Once he was outside of the dilapidated abandoned building. He opened the back door to the car and pulled him inside all along the bullet inside of Buju traveled with the movements causing more internal damage. Stanks hopped into the driver’s seat shaking. He was so spooked it was as if these niggaz was popping up everywhere and he wouldn’t be surprised if they showed up there. That’s why he wanted to get the hell out of dodge and fast. He drove around aimlessly trying to think of a good spot to drop him when he spotted a bodega at one of the corners. He pulled up to the side of the bodega where the dumpster was and dumped Buju there. After dumping Buju’s body by the dumpster amongst the trash he hopped back into his hooptie and drove to the only place he knew he would be safe right now; to the nearest police station to turn himself in.
He knew people in the streets would want to get at him for this, so turning himself in was the smartest and safest thing to do. Besides, prison was more like home to him. Being back on the streets was more like a vacation. He had been out in the world for only a matter of 3 months and had caused enough murder and mayhem to last a lifetime. The one thing he realized while being out was that the game had changed. The younger thugs had come up and gotten colder, more ruthless. Where there used to be truces called on Sundays and families being exempt from beef didn’t exist any longer. These niggaz will shoot ya grandmamma coming out of church in her Sunday’s best and take beef shit to your mama’s doorstep. It had become easy to concede that he wasn’t built for this no more. Once he was outside the police station he called Los to tell him where he could find Buju then ran inside to turn himself in.
Jah rushed out of the apartment with Nice to go and find Buju while Los and Real stayed behind. Once they found the address it didn’t take them long to find Buj, Jah couldn’t believe how they did his boy. Buj was left out like the days trash clinging on to life. They rushed him to the nearest hospital where doctors started working on him feverishly. Jah called Los and Los could hear the pain in Jah’s voice when he told him they found Buj but it didn’t look good. Los and Real left the apartment immediately rushing out the door to join them at the hospital. Buju had survived but that night would forever change his life in so many ways. He had lost so much that night including his ability to walk.
The Aftermath
Two weeks later Los was going to the hospital to check on his boy. He along with the whole crew had been up several times to visit Buju only to see him knocked out on pain medications. Los would just sit there with him even though he wasn’t awake. Although, Los would never admit it he was starting to feel the weight of everything pressing down on him. He had to help put one of his closest friend’s baby sister away and that wasn’t easy. Financially he made sure both the young ladies that lost their lives that night funerals were paid for. The money wasn’t the issue but actually having to make decisions about the service was the hard part. Buju’s mother was still hospitalized from sustaining brain damage from the attack. While Buju was laid up in the hospital a couple of floors from his mother in and out of it paralyzed from the waist down. And Buju’s older sister was too traumatized and despondent to deal with anything. Most of his family was in Jamaica and were coming for the funeral so Los had to make arrangements. This came with the territory of him being the type of person people ran to when things went wrong but who was he to run to though? The one person who should have been by his side holding him down was nowhere to be found and it was starting to make him think that maybe he had things all wrong about Lucky.
“Oh wow, look who’s up from Lala Land,” Los said poking fun at Buju. “Los what up?” Buju said smiling. Los took a seat in a chair beside Buju’s hospital bed. “Ain’t shit, I’m tryna see what’s good wit you. I been in here every other day and this the first time I caught you up.” “Yeah, I passed on that medication today they got me on. I can’t keep my eyes open on it.” “I feel you but follow doctor’s orders son we wanna see you home soon,” Los said looking at Buju with concern. Buju’s expression became solemn. “Guess who came to visit me yesterday?” “Who?” Los asked interested. “My momz; they wheeled her up here.” “Word? Oh man I’m happy to hear that,” Los said genuinely happy to hear his mother was doing better.
Buj stared off into space for a long while as they both sat in silence. “I don’t think I can do this funeral this weekend but I know I have to, I don’t even have to ask if you going cause I already know the answer.” Los flashed him a quick guilty smirk before he shifted uncomfortably knowing this had to be hard for his manz talking about his sister’s funeral. “Yo back in the day when we first came here from J.A. My momz was pregnant at the time with my lil sister,” Buj got chocked up with the mention of his sister. “And she didn’t have her papers. You know how my father used to get it in. He used to hustle; he fucked around and got knocked had to do 4 years leaving my momz out here with no family that was going to help us. She couldn’t get a job cause she was here illegally and she didn’t know shit about welfare until our neighbors told her about it. But even then she was too scared to go down and get help because she was scared they might deport us. So my mom got on her grind. She sold damn near anything valuable in the house and copped some coke. She learned how to cook that shit up, break it up and sale it. Pretty soon she was pumping more than all the dudes in the neighborhood. My momz was a straight hustla she was selling plates of food out the house and crack.” Both men chuckled lightly at Buju’s last comment. “She did this all while my father was locked. We went from barely making it to having a nice apartment, nice car and my momz wasn’t ever stressin about shut off notices for the bills. Through it all she held my Pops down making sure he always had money on his commissary. Once my Pops touched back down he took over the hustle and my momz fell back and started focusing on her dream of owning her own restaurant. Then my father got caught up again and deported this time. My momz was struggling once again; slaving over a stove in someone else’s restaurant while trying to take care of three kids. Then you know the rest, I got older started visiting my father back in J.A and started making money. Hooked up with you and the rest is history. And I bought her that restaurant she always wanted and I copped her that house she always dreamed of. After all that you know what she told me? She told me that when she saw her baby girl get shot in the head and her only son shot in the back and dragged away…she had to ask herself was it all worth it? The hustle, the game, she passed on to me…she finally realized that it wasn’t.” Los looked at his boy who was getting choked up on his own tears. Buju looked over at Los and stared him in the eyes. “I’m done son; I’m out,” Buju’s voice cracked and he lost his battle with his tears. Los shook his head understanding totally. He had figured Buj would want out of the game and to be honest Los was happy he was throwing in the towel.
“Take a bow bruh, we done had a long run. We came, sought and concurred, we did it all. You leaving the game a rich man with ya freedom but most importantly with ya life, there ain’t nothing better than that. Don’t let this shit get you down son,” Los said pointing to Buju’s legs. Buju shook his head in agreement. Los hopped to his feet and walked over to the bed to dap Buju out and give him a manly hug. “Hold ya head mah nigga.” Los started to walk away when Buju called after him. “Thanks for coming for me, that was real shit right there.” Buju’s eyes started misting up again, knowing just how close he came to his demise if it weren’t for Los. “Ain’t no need for that, just hurry up and get better so you can come home. One,” Los said. “Yeah, one,” Buju said watching Los walk out of his room.
“Smith let’s go!” a guard called through the cell bars. Stanks had been locked up ever since he turned himself in. His last night of freedom had changed his life forever. He had lost his brother and wasn’t even allowed to attend the funeral. As far as Jessie it seemed as if she wasn’t rockin with him anymore either. She’d changed her number and never responded to any letter he sent her. He had something for that bitch though when he got out. The next time he saw the free world would be in another t
wo to three years he was speculating. The D.A had agreed to cut him a deal and bring his charges down from attempted murder to aggravated assault if he could tell on a few niggaz from his block in exchange. Shooting Buj was the only crime he had been charged with. He hadn’t admitted to the two bodies and the assault on Buju’s mom. Hell no! He wasn’t stupid, he wasn’t trying to get the death penalty; all he wanted was some time off the streets until shit cooled down because as of now the streets were hotter than July. The two bodies he pinned on his brother and he didn’t feel no type of way about it, his brother was dead and gone so it really didn’t matter is how he justified it. Today he was getting transferred from jail to state prison until his next court date where his sentence would be given to him with the deal being considered. Stanks had not a care in the world Philly would see him in a few years tops.
The C.O. cuffed him and led him to the front of the jail where he was checked and logged for transport. Unlike many first timers who looked spooked this was like second nature to Stanks who boarded the small blue bus with the words state correctional facility on the side. After all the inmates were herded on the bus and chained to their seats the bus was on its way from the city of Philly out to the sticks of Pennsylvania. Stanks had been on red alert since his arrest, giving any nigga he came across the side eye, especially anyone with dreads. He screwed his face up at the Russian dude who barely spoke any English as he was seated by a guard beside him on the bus. Stanks felt immediate pity for ole boy, he didn’t look like he would last two weeks in the pin before he was somebody’s bitch straight washing and ironing another man’s t-shirts and boxers. The man looked absolutely shook and he could only guess this had to be his first time going to prison. “Ayo why y’all sit this sucka as cracka next to me?” Stanks sneered as the guard walked away towards the front of the bus to take his own seat.