Larceny

by Jason Poole

  Sonya

  “So, where do you live?” Jovan asked.

  “Why, aren’t we getting a little too personal?” I said, giving him a sexy smile.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m just starting to feel really comfortable with you, and I could sit here and talk to you all day long,” Jovan said as he leaned back in his seat, studying my body language.

  “Well, since you don’t look like some kinda stalker or anything, I guess it wouldn’t hurt to tell you where I stay. I live on Connecticut Avenue in a condo called The Saratoga.”

  “Nice place, ain’t it?” Jovan said.

  “You’ve been there?” I asked him.

  “Yeah, a few years ago. A friend of mine had a nice condo there. Do they still have those marble bathrooms?”

  “Yeah, they do.”

  “That spot reminds me of a hotel in Vegas.”

  “Yeah? Which one?”

  “The MGM Grand.”

  “I’ve never been there.”

  “You’ve never been to Vegas?” he said.

  “No, silly, I mean I’ve never been to the MGM Grand. I went to Vegas a couple of years ago.” I hoped Jovan didn’t ask me who I went to Vegas with. That would be the start of many lies, so to keep from lying, I shifted the conversation in another direction.

  “So, since I sat here and told you all my business, now it’s my turn to ask the questions,” I said.

  “Hold up,” he answered. “I’ve got one more question.”

  Jovan

  With our shoplifting spree over, it was now time to drop Mal-Mal off and go try to sell our goods to the hustlers on Ninth and I and Orleans Place. On our way back, Bilal had a look of unhappiness on his face. I wondered what was wrong. We had just stolen about a hundred dollars worth of shit, so why the fuck was he mad?

  “Hey, what’s wrong, nigga?” I said to him.

  “Whatcha mean what’s wrong?”

  “Man, you look like you just lost your best friend.”

  “Naw, nigga, I got something on my mind, and for future reference, I ain’t never gonna lose my best friend. My best friend is right here, and he ain’t going nowhere. Ain’t that right, Mal-Mal?” Bilal said, looking at his brother.

  Mal-Mal looked up at his older brother, all smiles, and said, “Yeah, Lal, we best friends for life. I can’t wait ’til we get rich, get our big house, go to the movies, the park, play games, and eat candy all day.”

  “Naw, little nigga, you ain’t gonna be eating no candy all day, but we is getting our house and all that other stuff.” Bilal grabbed a hold of Mal-Mal’s head and said, “I love you, Mal-Mal.”

  “I love you too, Lal.”

  As I looked at them expressing their deepest love to each other, I began to think about my big brother, and the pain grew deep in my heart. All I could do was block it out and hold it in until the day I would be able to release it.

  Bilal was only fifteen years old, but he took life very seriously. He knew that he had to do something to be able to raise Mal-Mal like he wanted to. He looked at me deep in my eyes, and from the way he was looking at me, I knew that whatever was about to come outta his mouth was to be taken seriously. Bilal was a grown man trapped in a little boy’s body.

  “Hey, Jovan?” Bilal said.

  “What’s up Lal?”

  “Look, man, you know it ain’t nobody but Mal-Mal and me. You know he’s my life and my only love, right?”

  “Yeah, Lal, I already know that.”

  “Can you promise me something?”

  “Yeah, what’s up?”

  “Promise me that if anything was to ever happen to me, you’ll look out for Mal-Mal.”

  At that moment, I didn’t know that my promise would mean taking on such a big responsibility so soon, but we were friends, and all I could do was be loyal to our friendship.

  “Yeah, nigga, you know Mal-Mal’s my little man,” I said. “Sho’nuff I’ll look out for him.”

  “Thanks. You my only true friend,” Bilal said with all sincerity.

  As we continued to walk down H Street, we saw Ms. Cookie coming in our direction. She looked clean. She wasn’t scratching or nodding, but she was getting very skinny.

  “Hey, Mommy!” Mal-Mal yelled with a big smile on his face.

  “Mal-Mal, my baby,” Ms. Cookie said. She grabbed her youngest son and hugged him as if she hadn’t seen him in years. Mal-Mal was happy to see his mother. It wasn’t often that he saw her in a healthy state of mind.

  “Hey, Mal-Mal, you wanna go over to Aunt Gloria’s house with me?” Cookie asked him.

  Bilal interrupted with the most serious look I’d ever seen. “Naw, he a’ight. He ain’t trying to go nowhere.”

  Ms. Cookie immediately snapped, “Look here, Bilal. This is my son, I carried him for nine months to bring him into this world, so I can take him wherever the fuck I want to!”

  “Lal, I wanna go with Mommy over to Aunt Gloria’s house,” Mal-Mal whined.

  Lal didn’t want Mal-Mal to go, but he could see that Mal-Mal missed their mother, so he said, “Okay, Mal-Mal, you can go; but Cookie, let me tell him something first.”

  “Go ahead, but make it quick,” Cookie said while coldly looking at her firstborn as if he were her archenemy.

  Bilal took Mal-Mal’s hand and whispered in his ear, “Look, Mal-Mal, when you go over Aunt Gloria’s house, be good.”

  “Okay, Lal.”

  “And if Cookie tries to leave you over there, don’t cry, ’cause I’ll come and get you tomorrow, okay?”

  “Okay, Lal.”

  “I love you, li’l nigga.”

  “I love you too, Lal.”

  “You my soldier?”

  “Yeah, for life.”

  Then he hugged and kissed his little brother and said good-bye as if it would be the last time he’d ever see him.

  “I wish your ass would stop acting like you his father. You ain’t his daddy,” Cookie said to Bilal.

  “Well, when you start acting like a mother, then I’ll start acting like his big brother; but until then, I’m his father and his big brother,” Bilal said, giving his mother a hard stare.

  Before Ms. Cookie could cuss Bilal out, I interrupted and said, “C’mon, Bilal. We got something to do. See you later, Ms. Cookie.”

  “Bye, Bilal. Bye, Jovan.”

  Sonya

  “Okay, what’s your last question?” I said curiously.

  Before Jovan opened his mouth, I could see that the expression on his face became very serious. His eyes had a mixture of boldness and bashfulness. He sat back in his chair, crossed his left leg over his right, put his left hand under his chin, and asked the question that would change the whole tone of our lunch date.

  “Well, I know this is a little too early, and if I’m in any way outta place, I expect you to let me know. Also, if you feel the slight bit of discomfort, I would like to apologize beforehand.”

  After hearing him apologize, I became anxious and curious as to what he wanted to know. “Okay, Jovan, go ahead shoot your shot.”

  “My question is, do you have a man?”

  At that moment, I was unbalanced, and I knew that my future friendship with Jovan would depend on my answer. Although I hadn’t been seeing anyone, I did have a very serious relationship two years ago. Even though it was over, I knew that I was still in love with this man. But shit, that was over two years ago, and life must go on. Besides, I was tired of playing with my pussy all the time. I needed some good dick. I needed someone to hold and cuddle me, someone to make passionate love to me while fucking my brains out at the same time. Even though my vibrator did the trick at times, in reality, I still needed the flesh. Bad as I wanted to tell Jovan this, I couldn’t. He’d just have to stick around to find out for himself.

  “Well, this is kinda awkward for me to tell you this, but I’m gonna give it to you in the raw,” I said. “No, I don’t have a man, although it would be nice to have one. I haven’t had a man in over two years, and to be honest with yo
u, my body hasn’t been touched by a man in over two years.”

  Jovan raised his eyebrows, and I wondered what he was thinking. Then I remembered that I said I hadn’t been touched by a man in two years, so I retracted and said, “And no, I’m not gay. I don’t go that way.”

  “I didn’t say that,” Jovan said, smiling.

  “I know, but in case you were thinking that, I just had to put that out there.”

  Jovan

  Bilal and I were headed over to Ninth and I and Orleans Place when all of a sudden something came to my mind. First of all, this was Bilal’s neighborhood, and I didn’t know any of the hustlers out there. Although my pops and my uncle Howdy had a vicious reputation for being stick-up boys, I was still a little skeptical about going around there.

  “Hey, hold up!” I yelled to Bilal.

  “What’s up? What, you scared, nigga? Ain’t nothin’ gonna happen to you,” Bilal said.

  “Nah, I ain’t scared of nothing.”

  “Then what’s the hold-up?”

  “I just gotta go pass my grandma’s house for a minute.”

  “A’ight, we need to go put this food up anyway,” Bilal said.

  We walked over to my grandma’s house, went in, and had something to eat. For some reason, every time Bilal came over, Grandma always offered him something to eat, and Bilal never declined.

  While Bilal was downstairs eating, I went upstairs to my pops’ old room.

  Now, I’d been creeping in and out of Pops’ room, going through his shit since I was nine years old. You could tell Grandma never went in there ’cause everything was always in its place. I knew where Pops hid one of his guns—the third shoebox to the left. I went into that shoebox and got the gun, but when I picked it up, I never realized that it was that fuckin’ heavy. This was the first time I had ever touched Pops’ gun. When I was little I never touched Pops’ shit, I always just sat there and looked at it. Pops had a pretty-ass nickel-plated .357 Magnum with a rubber grip, which most gangstas called a bulldog. I looked into the revolver and saw it was loaded with six bullets.

  I heard Bilal’s voice from downstairs. “Hey, c’mon, man. We got things to do.”

  I tucked the bulldog down my pants and tightened my belt to make sure the heavy-ass gun didn’t fall out.

  “Okay, man, here I come,” I called down to Bilal.

  I put on my sweatshirt and changed my coat to the heavier one Pops had gotten me. It was a blue North Face ski coat. Bilal loved this coat, and since he only had one thin-ass jacket, I told him I’d give it to him.

  When I came downstairs and Bilal saw me in the North Face joint, the first thing to come out of his mouth was, “Man, you’re an Indian giver.”

  “No I ain’t,” I said to him.

  “Man, yes you are. You said you was gonna give me that coat a long time ago.”

  “And I’m still gonna give it to you.”

  “When?” he asked, not believing me.

  “Soon as we get back I’ll give it to you and you can wear it home, since my other coat is over in Southeast.”

  “Thanks, Jovan. You the only friend I got besides Mal-Mal.”

  All the other kids around here were scared of Bilal, mainly because he was poor and the fact he always stayed in fights because people would tease him about Ms. Cookie.

  “Hey, Grandma, I’ll be back, okay?”

  “Okay, baby. Don’t be out all night. You know I gotta take you home so you can go to school tomorrow,” she said.

  “All right.”

  As Bilal and I were walking down the street, he said, “Damn, man, why can’t you just move over here and go to school?”

  “Man, Moms won’t let me.”

  “Shit, I don’t see why not.”

  “I think it might have something to do with my pops. I dunno.”

  “Whatever! Anyway, man, we’re about to get paid. We can sell these belts for ten dollars apiece.”

  “What makes you think we’re gonna get ten dollars when they only cost fifteen?”

  “Shhhit, watch me work and we can sell the cologne for five dollars a bottle.”

  “Now I can see that, but the belts, I dunno.”

  “Okay, nigga, like I said, watch me work.”

  Bilal, for some reason, had hustling in his blood. He was determined that we were gonna sell those belts for ten dollars. On the other hand, I wasn’t too much on the hustling tip, mainly because my peoples took care of me. We wasn’t rich or anything, but my moms did have a job as a waitress at the NCO Club on Bolling Air Force Base and plus, whenever Pops came through, he would drop off a few dollars.

  Even though Bilal didn’t know I had the bulldog on me, our positions were set. He had the goods, and I had the protection. When we reached Ninth and I, the first person we saw was Fat Jimmy. Bilal knew Fat Jimmy from his moms. She used to deal with Fat Jimmy right after Bilal’s pops was killed, but when Fat Jimmy realized that Ms. Cookie was only dealing with him to keep her habit up, he left her alone. That was what led Ms. Cookie onto the streets. She no longer had a man that could keep her with a steady supply for her habit, so she started going out stealing and tricking, selling her body to anyone who had some good dope.

  “Hey, Fat Jimmy!” Bilal yelled as he saw the fat hustler pass bags of dope to one of his customers.

  “What’s up, man?” Fat Jimmy said. “Who dat, Li’l Bilal? What’s up, youngin’? I ain’t seen you in a while. What, you looking for your moms?”

  “Naw, man, she’s over at my aunt’s house.”

  “Then what the fuck you doing on the strip, little nigga?”

  “My man and me got some Pierre Cardin belts we trying to sell.”

  “Some belts?” Fat Jimmy asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Are they leather?”

  “Yeah, man. Brand new joints, all different colors.”

  “Let me see ’em then.”

  Bilal opened his jacket and showed Fat Jimmy the belts.

  “Damn, youngin’, where y’all get all these fucking belts from?”

  “C’mon, Jimmy, what kinda question is that?”

  Fat Jimmy smiled at Bilal. “That’s right, young nigga, you’ve been taught well, just like your father.”

  Even though Bilal’s pops was a dope fiend, he still had a lot of respect in the hood. He was known as a cold-blooded killer. It was rumored that he used to rob a different bank every week. When people compared Bilal to his pops, he would get a real sense of pride, as if he one day would be reincarnated into his pops’ image. That shit used to pump Bilal up.

  “Who dat with you, Bilal?” said Fat Jimmy while watching my every move.

  “Oh, this is my man Jovan. You probably know his pops too,” Bilal said, pointing to me.

  Now, I wasn’t too happy running around braggin’ on my pops and uncle, ’cause I knew they used to terrorize this hood back in the day. For all I knew they could have robbed Fat Jimmy.

  “Who your pop, youngin’?” Fat Jimmy asked me.

  “My pops’ name is Winkle,” I said to Fat Jimmy.

  “Who, Winkle Price? Howdy’s brother?”

  “Yeah, man.”

  “Yeah, I know Winkle and Howdy. We used to go on capers together back in the day. How’s your pops doing anyway?”

  “He’s a’ight.”

  “He still on the run for that bank robbery?”

  “Nah, my pops ain’t on the run for no bank robbery. He outta town on business,” I said, defending my pops.

  Fat Jimmy looked at me as if he realized he had let the cat out of the bag. It was obvious I didn’t know about my pops’ legacy in the gangsta world, so he quickly switched the conversation from my pops to my uncle.

  “How your uncle Howdy doin’?”

  “You know he down in Lorton max doin’ fifteen to forty-five years.”

  “Yeah, I know. I got word he down there doing hard time. Youngin’, you come from a vicious family; both y’all do, and I can just imagine how y’all gonna turn out.
Give me one of them belts, Bilal. Let me see if they fit.”

  Fat Jimmy tried on all the belts, but he was too fat to fit them, so we ended up selling him three bottles of cologne for five dollars apiece.

  “A’ight, Jimmy. Thanks, man,” Bilal said.

  “Anytime, youngin’. Whenever y’all get some shit, come see me first.”

  “Okay, we’ll do that,” Bilal said. “C’mon, Jovan, let’s go over to Orleans Place and see if we can get rid of the rest of this shit.”

  Bilal and I walked from Ninth Street over to Orleans Place. When we entered the alley, there were so many customers I couldn’t believe this spot was pumpin’ this hard. Orleans Place was a powder coke strip. It attracted all kinds of people from prostitutes to politicians, and the man behind all this who would benefit and become a multimillionaire was Ray, a young, big-lip kid with a three-point jumper outta this world. Later in life he would become the biggest snitch in Washington, D.C.’s history.

  Bilal and I approached our second customer of the day. He was laid back in the cut, watching over all his workers as they ran back and forth through the alley, handing him bundles of money. When I say bundles, I mean it. This dude was collecting so much money that he’d call one of his lieutenants over every time he got like ten thousand and tell him to put it up.

  I would later find out that this lieutenant’s name was John. Now, John was Ray’s cousin, and he had just as much or maybe more respect than Ray did. John was like an enforcer-type dude, something I admired. It was rumored that he didn’t play no games, and if you crossed him or anybody down with him, then you’d be dealt with immediately.

  Bilal knew John from him coming around with his pops back in the day, and John also liked Bilal. He knew that Bilal was the only one taking care of Mal-Mal like a man, and he respected him for that. Bilal used to ask John if he could hustle for him, but John always lived by strong principles. Even though he knew Bilal needed money to take care of Mal-Mal, he still kept to his word that he would never employ juveniles in this drug game. Instead, he’d get Bilal to run a few errands to the nearest carryout or something and give him about twenty-five dollars for it. Shit, twenty-five dollars just to go get him a five-dollar fish sandwich. John was a good dude.