Capital City

by Omar Tyree

  I try to hold in my smile, but I can’t help it. I’m not really thinking about what she just said. I can easily get Wes out of that. But I’m still trippin’ off the fact that I’m standing here on my girl’s patio thinking about banging her little cousin. This shit is messed up. For real! I’m lunchin’ like shit out this joint!

  NeNe frowns at me. “That shit ain’t funny, man.”

  “I know. I’m jus’ lunchin’ on it, that’s all.”

  “Well, what is his problem, you’n? I mean, he think he like dat or somethin’ now?”

  I finally get rid of my smile so I can game NeNe back up for Wes. “Naw, Wes ain’t even about that, shaw’. For real. Knowin’ you, you prob’ly went up there and ran ya mouth off before you even knew what was goin’ on.”

  “That’s right, you’n! I mean, how you gon’ feel if some bitch jus’ come up t’ ya man? I mean, some guy jus’ come up t’ Toya, shaw’, talkin’ ’bout some ol’, ‘Let me speak to you for a minute.’ And oh my God! Then this bitch gon’ look me in my face like I’m crazy!”

  I’m smiling at her story now. That shit happened to me plenty of times in my whore days. For real! I had, like, three and four different girls stepping to me at once. But I bet Wes ain’t know what the fuck to do! I just ignored them jealous girls when it happened to me. But the key is never to take no girl that you just banging someplace where your real girl or her girlfriends might spot you.

  I ask NeNe, “What she look like?”

  “Some ol’ wanna-be-hip, light-skinned chick, you’n. Bamma-ass bitch.”

  I nod my head. I know who she’s talking about now. She means that girl Candice from up U.D.C. But I ain’t trying to screw Wes up no more. That nigga been good to me. He helped me to get my dough in the bank. And I got just the thing to say to NeNe to patch things back up for him.

  I look into her dark eyes. “Now, see dat? That was his old girl I was tellin’ you about when I first hooked’chall up. Now you done went all on a tangent when it wasn’t even about that.”

  “Well, I ain’t know who she was.”

  “Did you let Wes explain it to you?” If I’m right, she probably went crazy and didn’t want to listen to nothing Wes had to say. I mean, all girls get like that when they catch you.

  NeNe pauses and smiles up at me. “You know I didn’t, you’n. I was mad like shit. I jus’ told his boy t’ ride me da fuck back home.”

  I got her now. All I have to do is tell Wes what to say.

  I shake my head at her with a sly grin. “Mm-hmm. See dat? Now you prob’ly got that boy all lonely an’ shit now, over some dumb shit.”

  She laughs. “Aw, you’n, stop playin’. It ain’t like we broke up or nothin’. I jus’ cut his ass back for a while.”

  “You been takin’ his phone calls?” That’s the other thing that girls do when you fuck up. I mean, they don’t even wanna hear your damn voice.

  She smiles and giggles it off. “Hell naw, you’n! And Joe been callin’ me like shit. I had my aunt tellin’ ’im I wasn’t there.”

  Now I have to get her emotions back into it. I grab her left hand with my right. “You still like ’im?”

  She smiles and starts squirming like a kid. And yo, I’m pretty good at this.

  “Yeah, man, you know I still like him.” Now she all bashful.

  “Aw’ight, well, what’chu do is talk to him when he calls, but you make him beg for a couple of days before you let him come see you.”

  “Aw, young’un, you want me ta play ya boy like a bamma. That’s messed up.” She’s cracking up now.

  I’m still holding her hand to let my plan sink in while she laughs. “No, I’m sayin’, that’s what Toya used to do to me.” And she did, too. “And after that”—I lean over to whisper—“we made love like fuckin’ Martians was comin’ and it was da end of the damn world.”

  NeNe breaks my hold and runs down the patio steps, cracking up. “Awww, Joe! Y’all niggas be lunchin’ like shit, man!” Then she calms down and thinks about it. “But you know what? I’m gon’ do that shit. Watch me.”

  We smile at each other and walk back inside the house.

  By now everybody has plates at the table except for me and NeNe. NeNe runs to the kitchen to get her a plate. I follow in behind her.

  * * *

  “I’m so tired, J. I just don’t know what to do wit’ myself.”

  Me and my baby Toya are riding back home to our plush-ass Silver Spring apartment. My car clock reads 1:34. My baby been up since five o’clock this morning. Or yesterday morning now. No wonder she tired.

  “Don’t worry about it, girl. I’m gon’ carry ya ass out the car, up on the elevator and t’ da bedroom. Then I’m gon’ take your clothes off and turn the ceiling fan on and put on some Whitney Houston.”

  “Whitney Houston? You mean some Intro, Shai, or Silk or somebody. I’on listen to no Whitney Houston.” She stops and stares at me with her head pressed back against the leather Mitsubishi bucket seat. “J, who you been listenin’ to Whitney Houston with? You know I’on like no Whitney Houston.”

  Aw, shit! After all that game I ran to hook Wes back up, now my shit is in trouble.

  “I like Whitney Houston,” I tell my baby. But I do like Whitney a little bit. I’d like to fuck her.

  Toya looks away from me and out her side window. “Mm-hmm. You slippin’, J. And I think I’ll carry myself to bed and take my own clothes off.” She looks at me again. “And you know what, J? If I get horny tonight, watch my ass go and take a private li’l shower.”

  I bust out laughing to play things off. Latrell is the one that likes Whitney Houston. But I can get out of this though. This shit ain’t no big problem.

  * * *

  Goddamn! It’s Friday and Toya ain’t rolled over and spread them legs for me yet. I mean, she won’t even jerk me off. This shit is killing me!

  Then, she fucked around and got a job yesterday at Banana Republic. She don’t start until next Monday. But I mean, how in the hell is my girl just gon’ come home and get a job in two days? I just can’t understand it. I mean, it’s many niggas that need jobs. She could use my money. Toya don’t need no job. She just walks out the house and catches buses around the city—she wouldn’t let me drive her—filling out applications, and just gets a damn job like it’s nothing.

  Yo, I think it’s a conspiracy going on now. These white men don’t want us niggas to have jobs! I mean, he’s working us the hell over.

  I roll down to Missouri Avenue to talk to my crew. Bink finally ready to hook me up with that Virginia connection, but I think I’m gon’ chill out for a bit like Red told me. Plus, I’m gonna have to hang out with my girl for these first couple of weekends anyway.

  I hop out of my 3000. “What’s up, what’s up? So what’chall niggas think about my girl?” I rode past and stopped for a minute on Wednesday to show Toya off to these niggas, showing Steve what a real woman is supposed to look like. Then I drove Shank home to Super Trak again.

  Toya said Shank was the coolest. Shit! Tell me something I didn’t know. She said that I shouldn’t even know the rest of these niggas. I played the shit off like they was just a bunch of boys on my tip. I’m just glad she ain’t said nothing yet about me getting out of the business. She usually does. But I guess she’s used to it by now.

  “Oh, man, she was bad as shit from my view. But since she ain’t get out da car, I’on know if she phat t’ death or not in’na body,” Jerry says first. This big, monster-looking nigga always the first to say anything. He reminds me of Biz Markie. But Jerry looks meaner than Biz. He got that wild-man, killer look with a high, raggedy-ass temple-tape. Joe needs a comb.

  “Yeah, ya girl is beautiful an’ all dat shit, B, but we got some bad-ass news for you, you’n,” Steve says, looking gloomy.

  I look at him in confusion. “Hell you talkin’ ’bout?”

  Steve looks to Boo, who’s reading a newspaper, folded in half. “Give ’im the paper, man.”

  I take it from
him.

  “Read the story in the box,” Steve tells me.

  Otis is just standing to my left, kicking dirt around on the sidewalk.

  I start to read it:

  THREE KILLED IN RIVAL GANG FIGHT

  They got Rudy, Rudolf Williams, twenty-three, of Northwest. And Kevy and shit! Kevon Daniels, sixteen, of Northwest. And some other young’un I don’t know from back Northeast. I guess it’s one of Rudy’s cousins. But what the hell was Kevy doing with them niggas?

  I look up with my heart racing for Kevy. “Why da hell was Kevy wit’ ’em, man?” I ask Steve. I know Otis wouldn’t answer me. And Jerry and Boo never met Kevy.

  Steve shakes his head against the silence. “You cut ’im short, man. I guess Rudy caught up to ’im and told ’im he can get paid wit’ ’em. I mean, li’l niggas want cake too, Joe.”

  “Damn, man! I told Kevy to call me if he needed some fuckin’ money, you’n! I told dat nigga dat shit!”

  Nobody answers me. And when I look around I notice that my main man is missing. “Where Shank?”

  Boo speaks up. “That nigga broke off like he was mad at the world. And, like, at first we was sittin’ around talkin’ about how it is in jail an’ all, right. Then Shank jus’ started buggin’ out on niggas and broke out.”

  “What he say?”

  Boo backs down and Jerry answers. “He was sayin’ shit like, ‘Y’all niggas is crazy! Real niggas don’t die!’” They all start laughing as if they had been talking about it earlier.

  Jerry is shaking his head. “Yo, you’n, dat boy been listenin’ t’ N.W.A. too long.”

  “All dat rap shit,” Steve says.

  “Aw’ight, aw’ight, cut da bullshit,” I tell them. “So what he do after that?”

  Jerry fills me in. “Man, he walked up to Georgia Avenue, caught the 70 bus and rolled.”

  “Aw’ight, yo, y’all niggas stay together tonight in case something is up. Aw’ight? Steve got da beeper, right?”

  “Yeah, I got it.” Steve shows me the pager I got for him hanging on his pants pocket.

  I move back to my car in a hurry. “Aw’ight, is e’rybody packed?” I ask them over my car hood.

  “Yeah,” Jerry says. He looks around at the rest of them. “You packin’, ain’t’chu, Otis?”

  Otis looks startled. “Naw, man, I got my shit at da crib.”

  “Well, go da fuck home and get it den!” I holler at him. “And I want e’rybody dressed in black.” I peel two hundreds and four fifty-dollar bills and throw them across my hood to Jerry. “I want e’rybody dressed in black. Even if y’all gotta go and buy some black shit.”

  “Aw’ight!” Jerry says, counting the money with a smile.

  I make a hard U-turn and head back up to Georgia Ave. Then I think better of that and head for Kennedy Street instead. Them Northeast niggas might ride up and down Georgia today, still trying to fuck with us.

  But wait a minute! Rudy ain’t with me no more, and Kevy ain’t either. Maybe this beef is off with us. I’m gon’ page Max to see what time it is. He probably knows who these niggas are.

  I jump out and beep Max and sit by a pay phone on Kennedy. This short, stocky guy named Cap walks up on me. I turn around on him about to reach for my. 32. But damn! I didn’t even bring it out of the house today. You can tell I ain’t no killer. But fuck it, I’m a businessman anyway. I put this shit together!

  “Yo, man, you can’t be walkin’ up on a nigga like that, you’n,” I tell this nigga Cap. He lucky Shank ain’t with me. I’d get Shank to pistol whip his ass for that dumb shit!

  “Yo, ya boy Shank was ’round here wolfin’ at the mouth last week, you’n. You should tell dat nigga t’ chill, Joe.”

  I look at Cap sternly. He should know better than to say some dumb shit to me like that. Shank will bust his ass up if I give him this message! But since I’m in Cap’s turf by myself, I figure I have to play it off real easy.

  “Yeah, well, what it is that we on’na move with this crew from back H Street and back Benning Road. So my whole crew is kinda jumpy right now, you know? He ain’t mean it to be personal.”

  Cap nods his head. “Aw’ight, but chill dat nigga out though, you’n. Chill dat nigga.”

  “Aw’ight den,” I tell him, trying to brush him away from the phone before Max calls back.

  The phone rings right after Cap makes it around the corner.

  “Yo, it’s Max. Who beeped me?”

  “Yo, it’s B, man. I need to talk to you.”

  “Well, well. If it ain’t Butter-bitch himself. I heard some niggas got’chu on the run now, Joe. What’s up?”

  “That’s what I’m askin’ you.”

  “You askin’ me what?”

  I watch a white-and-blue D.C. police cruiser drive by on Kennedy, heading toward North Capitol. “Who dese niggas is?”

  “What? Aw, ma’fucka, I ain’t forget that night you an’ ya boy rode around her’ tryin’a punk niggas, you’n. It jus’ might be my crew that’a finish ya punk ass.”

  “Yo, for real, you’n, the beef is off. I ain’t even tryin’a get in no dumb shit, man. I mean, it’s all about da money, G. It’s all about da money.”

  “Yeah, you should’a thought about that shit before you started tryin’a play big boy!”

  “Yo, man, it—”

  Click-click! Damn! He hung the hell up on me! Muthafucka! Goddamn! I’m sweatin’ like shit!

  Aw’ight, I’m cool. Shank said that shit was stupid when we carried Max and them! Now we might have two damn crews after us. But to hell if I’m gon’ hook up with Rudy’s cousins and them. I don’t even know them niggas!

  Okay. Okay. Okay. I’ll beep Shank from another phone and figure out what we gonna do. I mean, Shank been ready to do these motherfuckers anyway. So I’ll just buy us some Uzis, MAC-10s, Tech 9s or whatever, and get a lemon to run back Northeast and spray up every-fucking-thing!

  I ride down to New Hampshire Ave and use a pay phone to beep Shank. I wait for fifteen minutes, but this nigga doesn’t call me back.

  Goddamn, Shank! Where da fuck you at, you’n?

  Damn! You know what? I’m right across the street from where I got my first shot of ass from that pretty-ass girl Shaneeka. Shit! Bring back the good old days. But I think it’s a little too late for that now. I done fucked up big time! And it’s worse when you selling weight, because rumors get around to a lot of greedy niggas that end up after your shit.

  Damn, Red! I might be ready t’ die before you get out.

  * * *

  I got everything ready now, automatic assault weapons, extra shells from my boy Tee, and a lemon from this used car lot. I just gave dude five hundred dollars under the table for this rusty blue Chevrolet instead of stealing one. He didn’t record the shit, so he don’t care.

  Now I’m just sitting in my living room waiting for it to get dark. It’s almost seven now. I’m not doing no drive-by in the daytime. I’m planning to jump out right where these niggas live and spray every damn thing while they’re out there chilling. The best time to hit niggas is on a Friday night before the clubs open.

  “If they wanna fuck wit’ me, then I’m gon’ fuck wit’ ’em.”

  I turn around from the couch when I hear a key in my door. My girl walks in wearing all green today, with shopping bags in her hands. Her hair is done in a long bob. I just look away from her and back to the TV.

  She walks into the bedroom wearing some black clog shoes. Now she’s going into the bathroom. She comes back out and walks into the kitchen. I’m listening to her every step because I don’t have nothing else to do. She ain’t even giving me no pussy to calm my nerves down.

  “What’s wrong with you? I mean, you need some that damn bad?” She’s standing over me now with orange juice in a tall, clear glass.

  I’m flipping this remote control through all these damn cable stations that don’t have shit on that I wanna watch. So I turn back to BET videos.

  “I ain’t thinkin’ ’bout that,” I
tell her.

  She stares down at me anyway. “Well, what’s wrong, baby?”

  Damn! She looking good as hell in here. I pat my lap for her to sit down. She does. Then she starts to run her hands under my shirt.

  “I’m sorry about how I been treatin’ you, baby. But you can’t be slippin’ and cuttin’ up on me. And that was the first night I was here, too.”

  “Yeah, I’m sorry.” I ain’t even in the mood to game her. I’m just enjoying this shit while it lasts. I got things to do in a few.

  She kisses me on my chin and starts to snuggle into my chest. “You want to, baby?”

  “Why now?”

  “Why not?”

  I just smile. But this foreplay is feeling good!

  Toya pushes me down with my back against the length of the couch. She climbs on top of me and unsnaps her bra. And fuck it! I know what time it is now.

  * * *

  Toya throws a towel across my naked chest. “Get’cha yellow ass out of bed and take a damn shower! Hurry up, J. Come on!” Toya’s in here running around like a squirrel. We went at it strong as shit. I’m tired as hell now.

  “Look, Toya, I don’t feel like goin’ out tonight. Let’s jus’ order a pizza or somethin’ and chill.”

  She stops what she’s doing and looks down at me, stretched across my bed, as if I’m crazy. “You gots t’ be out’cha damn mind, boy!”

  “Oh, now I’m a boy?”

  “If you talkin’ that kind of shit you are.” She runs through my closet and pulls out a royal blue silk outfit of mine. And it’s wrinkled all the hell up. “Yeah, this outfit is like dat.” She throws it on the bed, where it’s still dry.

  “Here, wear this.”

  I frown at it. “Toya, now, that ain’t even ironed.”

  “Well, get up and iron it then, dammit! Look, I’m not playin’ with you, J. Now if you not gon’ take me out, then let me know now so I can call up my girlfriends.” She’s looking serious as hell right now.

  I get up from the bed wearily. Toya then pushes me into the bathroom.

  “Stop acting like a damn kid! Now take ya ass a shower and come on!”