Heaven and Earth

by J. M. Benjamin

  As Earth rode past the next two blocks, she just shook her head. Both Third and Prescott and Third and Stebbins were blocks that had lost some legendary street icons to either the system or cemetery. Earth had read in the papers how Rodney Mac, who was originally from the Old Projects, and Opie from Prescott, had received life in the feds while Ronnie and Eric Mac had received lengthy sentences. All brothers and cousins. Earth could only imagine what their family must have been going through.

  The death of Shap from Stebbins was very tragic and emotional for many remembered Earth, including herself. Shap’s mother, Ms. Elsie, and Earth’s mom were close, so Shap was like family to her. His death in 1991 had triggered off a riot on Third Street after he had been struck and killed on his motorcycle by a speeding driver. It was said that the Stebbins Place hustlers caught the driver, who was West Indian, pulled him out of the car, and retaliated. Earth couldn’t help but laugh, remembering getting into a beef with one of the younger Carters from the block. It was Hassan, a cousin to the Carter family, who had squashed the altercation. It had just dawned on her that her friend Hassan Carter had been locked up for nearly twenty years for murder when he was only a teenager.

  Earth crossed the intersection of Third and Grant and wondered if after all these years the Hawthorne family still owned the house on the corner. It was because of some of the younger Hawthornes that Grant Avenue was such a popular spot. As Earth rode past Spooner Avenue, she saw two luxury vehicles parked back to back on the corner and knew they had to belong to the female duo Paulette and Niecy. They were two chicks in the game that Earth had always admired and respected. They reminded her of herself and Heaven. Unsurprisingly, the next block was flooded with young dealers doing what they do. Third and Muhlenberg had always been full of hustlers on the rise recalled Earth. Melissa had told her about a young legend named Hollywood being stabbed and killed at Chez Maree, a local club on the North Plainfield side of Watchung Avenue. Earth knew Hollywood was the cousin of her childhood friend Money Kev.

  She had heard about the death of Rashaun who was the brother of her friend Obie. Melissa had also told Earth about how the murder rate in Plainfield had tripled its initial record within the last year due to gang and drug-related incidents. Earth was not in the least bit surprised, though. For the past seven to eight years, that had been the case all throughout New Jersey and the rest of the East Coast. Drugs and violence had always gone hand in hand, even before Earth had been born, but what amazed her was how the West Coast origin of Bloods and Crips gangs was so heavily adopted on the East Coast as of lately. Earth knew that what she and Heaven were involved in was far from being righteous, and she never tried to justify her lifestyle but felt that the sudden uprising and embrace of gang affiliation was the leading contributor to the rapid demise of black youth.

  Now reaching Third and Plainfield Avenue, Earth stared ahead at the small housing projects known as the Old Projects, a.k.a. “The Bricks.” Although she was from the New Projects, many of nights Earth recalled hanging out in the smaller development where her homegirl Lisa Silas was from. Besides, most of Earth’s family had lived in the Bricks when she was a kid, including her mother’s mother. She had one of the largest families, if not the largest, in her hometown. Last names like Benjamin, Bennett, Banks, Spann, Best, Sterling, Casey, and Darby dominated her city and made it seem as if she was related to the entire Plainfield.

  Earth reminisced on how she use to go night swimming at the Plainfield Avenue Pool with some of her cousins, skate in the tennis court, and just hang out in the field and basketball court watching the older heads getting their hustle and dice game on. Even back then, Earth knew that she would grow up and get money. Her project was known for selling crack when she got into the game, and the Bricks was known for dope, so Earth hustled back and forth selling them both. It was in the Bricks Earth had befriended ghetto superstars like Bisquit, Al-Mateen, Amazing, Path, and Devine, who Earth had heard through Melissa had recently been caught by the feds in New Mexico. From what her cousin Wanda Best had told her when they were down in Clinton, her younger cousin Azzie controlled a great deal of the project’s flow until the feds had run down on him after a female agent went undercover to set him up.

  Earth was tempted to ride around her old stomping grounds but thought better of it. She knew there was a possibility she’d get caught up if she ran into some of her old street colleagues, especially her peoples Biggs, who she had heard had come home and turned it up in the game. Knowing she wouldn’t hear the end of Melissa’s mouth, Earth hooked a left onto Plainfield Avenue. Coming under the bridge, she then bucked a right onto West Second Street where the projects she had been born and raised in were located. The first thing she spotted were the two telephones that sat on the corner. She smiled. The two phones had been there for as long as she could remember. The numbers remained the same since she was a kid. Earth wondered if they had been changed after all these years. She came up on the first two buildings of the housing projects, 544 and 540. She remembered the buildings being the only two that no one ever tried to hustle out of until a brother a few years younger than her that resided in the 540 building entered the game and turned it up.

  Earth noticed all the heads in the middle section of her projects where buildings 536 and 532 were located. Once upon a time, one of her childhood friends controlled the majority of money flow that came through there, but after a big raid in the town, he was convicted of being responsible for supplying nearly thirty drug houses. After he served his time, Earth heard he had given up the game. She didn’t recognize any of the new faces but was sure that they had to have been the younger brothers and cousins of the pioneers of the New Projects. It had always been that way, thought Earth as she came up on the building she had been raised in and hustled out of. Seeing 528 and 524 known as “the front” brought back many memories for her. She had lived in building 524. Her living room window faced the outside of the front. Earth would stare out the window for hours, watching her young cousins Pete, Squirm, and Raheem compete with other money getters like the Godley and the Smith brothers while raking in numerous dollars daily. Earth laughed to herself remembering how the older hustlers complained over how hard her cousin Squirm, the younger of the two brothers, hustled. She watched as he hustled circles around some of the dealers and their workers. By the time Earth had gotten into the game, her two cousins had already taken their hustle game to another level and started getting paper down in the dirty. The last Earth had heard was that her cousin Squirm had served time in the feds and had written a few books that were published while Pete had retired from the game completely.

  Passing Second and Elmwood Place, Earth glanced to her left and noticed a dice game going on in the middle of the block where building 120 and 116 were located as she rode by. At one point, everybody had hustled in the area known as “the back.” Two of Earth’s other longtime friends and project legends were from building 120. She knew they had to be hood rich by now or else close to it. As for building 116, that was once the building of all buildings, remembered Earth. It was the one the duo Krush and Wajdee had on fire. The two had dominated the early and mid-eighties around the projects. They were passing out packages to any and everybody back in the day as if it were government cheese. Earth couldn’t help but think about how they, along with others, were major contributors to why the Second Street Housing Projects had been deemed the Crack Capital of Plainfield.

  Reaching the corner of West Second and Liberty Street at the bridge, Earth slowed down, then zoomed past and up the street headed for Melissa’s Meadowbrook Village. Earth couldn’t believe they had converted the once-roughest housing projects in town into condos. These were the same projects where a black female officer was gunned down in the back in the early eighties, which had been the final incident that caused the city to evict residents and condemn the vicious development. When Earth had gone off to prison, the area was abandoned, so this would be her first time seeing the reconstructed area.


  A lot had changed in the town based on what Melissa had been telling her. It was hard for her to imagine the once-known money-getting block Arlington Avenue was no longer a place you’d see a heavy traffic flow of addicts and fiends. Aside from the projects, they were the deepest hood in town. That was one of the few blocks Earth had actually been cool with the majority of the hustlers. She had gone to school with many of the younger hustlers.

  As she got closer to Melissa’s house, Earth thought of how her good friend Chuck’s cousin Termite, who should have been the first Shaquille O’Neal before Shaq emerged, was killed, all over a beef that erupted over the decrease of the price of heroin. She shook her head as she reminisced about the frivolous deaths over the past twenty or so years since she’d been in the game. Now on West Front Street making her way to Melissa’s, the track “I’m in Love with a Stripper” by T-Pain came over the radio. Instantly Earth thought of Keya. She changed the station immediately. Keya was now a thing of the past. Melissa was now the present and possibly the future, thought Earth as she crushed through the downtown area of Plainfield.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Heaven waited for the Caucasian woman to back out of the parking space in her Chrysler 300 so she could park. Heaven admired the pearl-white luxury car as the woman pulled out. She herself had wanted one of the Chryslers, but so many people had purchased them that she had changed her mind. Besides, people in the hood were referring to them as the poor man’s GT Bentley, and for one, she was far from being poor; two, she already had a GT. So why settle for less when you can afford the best was her logic. It was not Heaven’s intent to go to the Jersey Garden’s Mall in Elizabeth today, but when she had gotten a call from a girlfriend of hers from Newark named Rashida, placing an order for some work, she decided to do a little spending afterward. Rashida was from Chancellor Avenue in the Weequahic section. She was one of the few females Heaven had known that was getting a nice piece of dough in the game.

  Heaven had met Rashida at a club in East Orange called Bogie’s back in the early nineties when she and Earth used to frequent the spot back when it was the Sunday hot spot. The two of them had somewhat met after practically going head to head in a dice game up in the club. Later that night when everyone had switched locations from Bogie’s to the White Castles on Elizabeth Avenue in Newark, Heaven had noticed the white 5 series BMW with the chrome BBS rims pulled into the parking lot. At the time, Heaven also had a white 5 series Beamer with gold BBS rims, so the similar whip caught her attention. Curious about who the owner was, Heaven watched as the driver-side door opened and the same female she had just previously been involved in an intense dice game materialized. Also recognizing Heaven, Rashida approached her and complimented Heaven on her spotless BMW, and Heaven then returned the compliment.

  Later, Heaven found out that the true difference between the two luxury vehicles was not only the color tone of their rims but that she had owned hers and Rashida’s belonged to her boyfriend. That night, the two had exchanged info and Heaven had thought nothing else about it, until one day Rashida had called her out of the blue. She had explained to Heaven how her boyfriend had been locked up and she needed to make some money to bail him out. After discussing it over with Earth, Heaven let Rashida come to New Brunswick and hustle up enough paper to bail out her man. Rashida and her man had long ago broken up, but she and Heaven remained friends. This is why Rashida remained loyal when she got into the game for herself, vowing to only deal with Heaven and Earth as her connect.

  Heaven parked her X5 BMW SUV and made her way inside the largest mall in New Jersey. Six outfits, three pairs of footwear, and a leather jacket later, she was exiting Jersey Garden Mall. As Heaven made her way to her truck, she disarmed her alarm, and as she did, a voice caught her attention.

  “Excuse me, miss, are you about to pull out?” the baritone voiced asked.

  When Heaven turned to see who the owner of the deep voice was, she saw a handsome bronze complexion peering out at her from the silver Dodge Magnum wagon sitting on twenty-four-inch chrome slippers. She was all too ready to give whoever it was behind her attitude because she was not in the mood for any lame pickup lines or come-ons, but something in this man’s face told her that his motives were sincere. He was simply looking for a parking space.

  “Yeah, I’m on my way out,” Heaven replied softly.

  “A’ight, that’s what’s up.”

  Heaven couldn’t help but notice the Magnum driver looked as if he had just come from the barbershop. His dark, deeply rooted wavy hair was lined up without flaw and seemed to overlap at the same time like an incoming tide of an ocean. His shape-up was razor sharp to a tee as his jawbone was lined with facial hair that ran into his neatly trimmed goatee.

  Sensing that she might have been staring far too long, Heaven snapped out of her daydreaming state and made her way to her Beamer truck. The man’s smile only confirmed what she had thought she was doing, which was admiring him.

  “Nice truck,” he complimented.

  “Thank you,” Heaven responded closing and locking the hatch back. She then made her way to the driver’s side of the X5 and stepped in slowly. She could literally feel the handsome, brown-skinned brother’s eyes on her voluptuous backside and wanted to give him an eyeful. She was tempted to turn around and catch him in the act as a means to embarrass him, but she didn’t take him for being the type of man to be easily embarrassed. Instead, Heaven waited until she was in her truck before looking back. She pretended to be adjusting her rearview mirror when the Magnum driver’s face came into view. To let her know he was checking her out also, the Magnum driver flashed another smile intentionally.

  Although occasionally Heaven enjoyed a flirtatious moment, especially with someone who was nice on the eyes, she knew it was time to put an end to the charade. The way things were going in her life, the last thing she needed was to add a man to the equation. She had no desire to pursue or let any man pursue her at this time in her life. With that on her mind, Heaven started up her truck and began pulling out. Once she backed out, she waited until the Magnum pulled in before she drove off. Just as she passed by, Heaven noticed out of the corner of her eye that the Magnum driver was trying to get her attention. She pretended not to see him and kept going. Out of force of habit, Heaven took one more glance out of her rearview mirror. When she looked, there was something vaguely familiar about the Magnum driver standing there in the middle of the parking lot. Heaven had noticed it before but brushed it off. Now she was certain she and the handsome brother had crossed paths before, but she couldn’t put her finger on where.

  Chill cursed himself for slow rolling on pushing up on the attractive light-skinned sister. Normally, he would’ve made his move right off the bat with someone as fine as the X5 driver, but something about her made him move with caution. He could tell that she was feeling him and that the chemistry was there, but there was just something that prevented him from acting on it. Someone as bad as her, pushing a BMW truck, had to have a man he figured. Still, there was no denying what had just taken place. He made one last failed attempt to acquaint himself with the beautiful female stranger, and now she was gone. He hated letting the woman slip away so easily, but as he made his way to the entrance of the mall, his only thought was that if it was meant to be, then it would be.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “E, I’m starving. Let’s go get something to eat,” Melissa suggested as she lay seductively on her side in the nude next to Earth. She and Earth had just ended a sexual frenzy moments prior.

  “All that eatin’ you just did and you still ain’t full?” Earth joked. “Babe, you greedy. I’m full after all of that pie I just ate,” Earth continued jokingly in reference to the oral pleasure the two of them had previously performed on each other, sliding her hands between Melissa’s legs.

  “E, you nasty,” Melissa chimed, mushing Earth upside the head. “Stop,” she then said, removing Earth’s hand, knowing if she let it stay what would come next. “I’m for
real. Let’s go to the Waffle House. Please,” she begged submissively.

  “Damn, Mel,” Earth griped, addressing Melissa by the nickname only she called her. “We just can’t order no pizza or something? I don’t feel like getting up and getting dressed. I just wanna chill with my chick, sex you up, puff on something, get some rest, then wake up and do it all over again,” Earth said with a devilish grin plastered across her face, reaching over to grab Melissa by the inner thigh for a second time.

  “Tsk! Get off me,” Melissa pouted, attempting to pull away with attitude.

  Earth smiled. She knew Melissa was fronting. Earth knew that Melissa loved when she touched her like that. After all, it was her spot. Most of the time, that’s all it took to turn Melissa on and have her inner thighs moisten.

  “Oh, you don’t want me touchin’ you now?” Earth asked teasingly.

  “No!” Melissa replied in a failed attempt to give Earth more attitude.

  “So you don’t want me touchin’ you like this?” Earth rhetorically asked, finding her way to Melissa’s clit, as she began to massage it with two fingers.

  “Sss! E, stop,” Melissa purred. “You know that’s my spot.”

  “It is?” Earth whispered, fully aware as she continued gently massaging Melissa’s G-spot. Melissa now lay flat on her back with her muscular legs spread eagle while Earth explored her sex. She moaned in ecstasy as she felt the wetness of Earth’s lips on her breasts as Earth furthered her probe. Earth’s breathe tickled Melissa’s flesh, sending chills through her entire body as she accelerated her pace of fondling. Earth was driving Melissa wild. She was now licking her own lips and caressing her own breasts while Earth made her way south, kissing, licking, and sucking on her midriff. Each time Melissa felt Earth’s teeth gently press down on her flesh she flinched, unable to control her reflexes, causing the muscles in her clit to contract.