by K'wan
“Both of y’all cool out,” King interjected. “I got the word earlier about what happened at the precinct, so I know neither one of y’all rolled over, Cain. If you had, I’d have put you to sleep personally the minute you hit the block. I know better than most how Ashanti is built, so I would never question his loyalty. Neither would Lakim. He’s just making a point.”
“Well, he’s pointing in the wrong direction,” Abel added. “Instead of arguing over Ashanti’s loyalties, we need to find out what happened to him.”
“You can ask him yourself.” Dee pointed to the curb, where a taxi had just pulled up. Ashanti and Fatima got out of the backseat.
When Ashanti walked up, he noticed that all eyes were on him. “What’s popping?”
“You,” Lakim said, giving him a look.
“Ain’t I always?” Ashanti matched his stare.
“ ’Sup, Fatima? You good?” King asked, noticing that she looked a mess and her clothes were filthy.
“Hey, King. Yeah, I’m straight,” Fatima told him. Her voice sounded tired.
“Baby, go upstairs and get some rest. I’ll call you when I turn in for the night.” Ashanti kissed her.
“OK, but let me talk to you real quick.” She led him off out of earshot of King and the rest.
“What’s good?” Ashanti asked.
“Ashanti, you know I love you, right?”
Ashanti gave her a look. “Fatima, that’s always what the chick says on Maury before she reveals some crazy shit.”
“Ashanti, stop being silly, because I’m serious. I love you, and I would go to the ends of the earth with you, but this is some deep shit you’re tied up in,” Fatima said.
“I know, and I’m gonna get it worked out. The homie Animal got a plan.”
“Animal? Ashanti, the way I hear it, every time Animal has a plan, somebody dies or goes to prison, and I don’t want either of those for you or us.”
“Fatima, ain’t nobody dying or going to prison,” Ashanti assured her.
“But how do you know? Tomorrow isn’t promised, and the chances get slimmer when you decide to go to war with somebody who runs the entire city.”
“What am I supposed to do, tuck my tail and run?” Ashanti asked.
“No, baby, I’m not telling you to run, I’m telling you to pick your battles. Listen, my father might be locked up, but his name still holds weight out here. I could have him reach out to the Clarks and work something out,” Fatima offered.
“I don’t need your daddy to speak for me, Fatima. I’m a man, and this is gonna be what it’s gonna be. I just need to know if you riding with me or not,” Ashanti said.
Fatima looked at him lovingly and ran her hand down the side of his cheek. “Ashanti, I love you more than anyone I’ve ever been with, but I’m young, and I want a life that doesn’t involve living like a hunted animal or marrying my future husband in a prison visiting room. You know I would do anything in this world you asked of me, but please don’t ask me to die for you unnecessarily.” She kissed him on the lips as if it would be the last time. “Goodbye, Ashanti,” she told him, and disappeared into the building.
Ashanti stood there for a while, breathing in and out slowly. It felt like someone had punched him in the stomach and knocked the wind out of him. Since he’d hooked up with Fatima, his life had revolved around her, and the thought of her leaving him made him weak in the knees. Nobody had ever told him that love was supposed to hurt. On shaky legs, he walked over to rejoin his crew.
“Isn’t that touching?” Lakim said sarcastically.
Ashanti cut his eyes at Lakim. “My nigga, it’s been a long night, and I’ve been through a lot. I’m really not in the mood for your bullshit.”
“We were just out here discussing what you may or may not have been through today. You care to fill in the blanks?” Lakim asked.
Ashanti knew Lakim was testing him, but he was too drained to play the game with him. “The short version is, I’ve been through hell and back, and I’ve come to the table with an offer from the devil.”
“Offer?” King asked, not understanding what Ashanti was talking about.
Ashanti nodded his head. “Indeed, King. So much has gone on that I don’t know where to begin, but I’ll give you the short version. If you down for it, we might be able to negotiate a cease-fire with the Clarks.”
“Cease-fire?” Lakim jumped in before King could respond. “Nigga, we gladiators, and there are only two ways out of the arena: on a stretcher as a corpse or on the shoulders of your comrades in victory.’ ”
“I know all about being a gladiator, La, but I also know math,” Ashanti said. “For every one of Shai’s men we take down, they take five of ours. When we ain’t losing cats to bullets, we’re losing ’em to the system because of all the dirty cops and politicians Shai’s got on his payroll.”
“So what, you saying you scared or something?” Lakim asked.
“I wouldn’t know fear if it smacked me in the face, so you talking to the wrong one about that, homie.” Ashanti turned to their leader. “King, look at who we lost already. Dump is in the system, Meek is in the ground, and Shorty is in pieces. All for what, because Shai was disrespectful at the club? Not only are Shai’s goons on our asses, but so are the police. All these murders got us hot, and we can’t even cross the street without getting pinched for something. I can’t speak for y’all, but I’m ready to get back to the business of making money.”
King couldn’t deny that Ashanti had a point. All he wanted to do was talk to Shai and maybe do some business, but alcohol and egos came into play, and everything went to the left. King James never wanted an all-out war with the Clarks, but he had to do something after the slight at the club so as not to look weak. One thing had led to another, and the next thing he knew, he was losing soldiers and money left and right. In his heart, he knew that they had slim to no chance at beating the Clarks without decimating their own whole operation, but he had gone too far to turn back and not run the risk of looking soft. If he had it to do all over again, he would’ve done things differently.
“I know you ain’t actually considering what this nigga is saying?” Lakim asked, noticing the contemplative look on King’s face.
“Lakim, just chill. I ain’t even said nothing,” King said.
“You ain’t gotta say nothing, I can see it on your face.” Lakim was getting tight. “Who the fuck is you to come around here talking about negotiating shit?” He turned on Ashanti. “We put you on the team, and you getting too big for yourself. Lil’ nigga, this is our army!”
Ashanti had finally had enough. “Check this fly shit. I’m getting a little sick of your mouth, dawg. You a stand-up nigga, and I’d never disrespect you by suggesting anything less than that, but I think it’s you who is getting too big for himself. King James is the head of this, he feeds the pups, and for that I’m grateful, but it’s me who holds the leash on these dogs in the streets. Never forget that.”
“I don’t think I like how you’re talking to me.” Lakim puffed up.
“Then that makes two of us, because I don’t like how you’re talking to me, either, blood,” Ashanti said, matching his tone.
“Bang bang, anywhere gang.” Cain stood next to Ashanti. He didn’t draw his weapon, but he kept his hand close to it.
Sensing the tension building, King James stepped between them. “Knock it the fuck off. It’s bad enough we going at niggaz in the streets, but if we start turning on each other, we don’t stand a chance. Y’all dead that.”
Ashanti was reluctant, but he extended his fist to give Lakim dap. Lakim just stared at him, seething. Eventually, he pounded his fist and mumbled an apology.
“Ashanti”—King draped his arm around him—“it’s been a long and trying night for all of us. Why don’t you take it down and come see me in the morning, and we’ll talk some more, a’ight?”
“No doubt, King.” Ashanti gave him dap. As he was leaving, King had a question.
“As
hanti, what makes you so sure Shai is even willing to let it go?”
Ashanti thought on it. “I’m not, but it’s worth a shot. I got an insider working on putting it together.”
“You’ve been keeping quite a few secrets these days, huh?” King asked.
Ashanti just smirked. “Never let the left hand know what the right hand is doing. I’ll see you later, my G.” He headed toward the Ave.
Abel followed, but Cain lingered, glaring at Lakim.
“Fuck you looking at, ugly?” Lakim asked harshly.
“Nothing, man, just thinking that you have a very unique face.” Cain grinned wickedly before going to join his brother.
“Fucking weirdo,” Lakim said, watching Cain walk away. He caught up with Ashanti and Abel. The trio huddled together at the curb like they were scheming.
“Why don’t you leave them little dudes alone? What is it that you have against Ashanti lately?” King asked. When Ashanti first joined their team, he and Lakim were close, but as Ashanti got older, they seemed to be growing apart.
“Nah, sun, shorty be feeling his self a little too much for my taste, and it irks me,” Lakim said. It was half true. His real beef with Ashanti was that he was growing up and growing out. King had started delegating more and more of the street responsibilities to Ashanti, including things that Lakim used to handle. King called him pulling Lakim off the streets a promotion; they were upper management now and didn’t need to play the block so heavy, but to Lakim, it felt like he’d had his power stripped. It was to the point where even the soldiers were deferring to Ashanti, and Lakim didn’t like it.
“Ashanti has his hang-ups, but he’s a good soldier, one of the most solid cats we got with us. That kid is an important piece of this puzzle,” King told him.
“He still needs to stay in his fucking lane,” Lakim spit.
King’s cell phone rang. “Peace,” he answered. “Oh, what’s good, Pam?”
TWENTY-FOUR
“NIGGAZ ALWAYS FLEXING FOR NOTHING,” Ashanti said as they were walking down the block. He was going to go home and sleep, but the confrontation with Lakim now had him wired. So Ashanti suggested they go get hero sandwiches before he dipped.
“I don’t like that dude . . .” Cain chimed in.
“. . . never did,” Abel added.
Ashanti knew the twins were upset when they started finishing each other’s sentences, as if they were one person instead of two. “I ain’t stunting Lakim. His bark is worse than his bite.”
“Well, all I know how to do is bite . . .” Cain said.
“. . . Fuck barking,” Abel continued.
The three of them walked to the twenty-four-hour deli and placed their sandwich orders and got some junk food. Cain told the man behind the glass to add two forties of Old English to their items.
“Yo, I swear I think y’all are the only two niggaz I know who still drink fucking forties,” Ashanti told the twins.
“You bugging, this here is the food of the gods.” Abel put the bottle to his lips to take a swig, but Cain stopped him.
“Ain’t you got no etiquette?” Cain asked his brother. “This is for the brothers who ain’t here.” He poured some of the beer out onto the curb before taking a sip.
“Word up.” Abel tipped his forty, spilling beer before taking several deep gulps. He then extended the bottle to Ashanti.
“I’m good,” Ashanti told him.
“Stop acting like I’m offering you crack. It’s just a lil’ drink,” Abel said.
“For the fallen comrades,” Cain added.
“A’ight.” Ashanti accepted the bottle. “This is for Shorty.” He poured a few splashes out. “Rest in peace, lil’ homie.” He turned the forty to his lips and drank deeply.
Ashanti, Cain, and Abel slow strolled back toward the projects, passing the beers back and forth. Ashanti, who claimed not to like beer, knocked out half of Abel’s forty and was working on Cain’s, too. He didn’t know if it was the alcohol or exhaustion setting in, but he felt like he was walking on clouds. When he rounded the corner, leading back into the projects, he collided with a kid they called Dub. Dub was a fat black cat, with a face that only a mother could love, but he was working with a few dollars, so chicks overlooked him being facially challenged. Around his neck, he wore a thick chain with diamond letters that spelled out his name. With him was a cute Spanish girl named Sarah who lived in the next building. Dub wasn’t from the hood, but he was always over there to see her. Ashanti was about to offer him an apology, but Dub spoke first.
“Damn, watch where you’re going, shorty,” Dub said with an attitude. When Ashanti bumped into him, he accidentally stepped on Dub’s brand-new white Nikes and left a scuff across the toe.
“My fault,” Ashanti said.
Dub examined his sneakers and turned his angry face to Ashanti. “I just got these muthafuckas, and now they’re ruined.”
“I said my fault. What the fuck do you want me to do, clean them with a toothbrush or something?” Ashanti asked sarcastically.
Dub glared at Ashanti murderously. “You trying to be funny?”
“Let it go, baby. It ain’t that serious.” Sarah tugged at Dub’s arm. Unlike her boyfriend, she knew who Ashanti was and how he gave it up.
“Word up, listen to your girl, my G,” Ashanti told him. He was buzzing from the beer, but sensing a potential threat, his brain started sobering him up.
“Fuck all that.” Dub pulled away from Sarah. He stood toe-to-toe with Ashanti, whom he had by at least an inch or two and easily one hundred pounds. “What you trying to say?” he pressed Ashanti.
“Check yourself before you wreck yourself,” Cain sang in a half-drunken voice.
“What, y’all gonna jump me for your man? I ain’t no sucka, I’ll scrap with all three of y’all.” Dub started taking his jewelry off and passing it to Sarah to hold.
Cain stood at attention, hand inching toward his gun and ready to end Dub if Ashanti gave the word. Abel had stealthily positioned himself to Dub’s left. As if by magic, a retractable baton appeared in his hand. From that angle, he could crack Dub’s skull and probably kill him with one swing. It was moments like these that they had trained for. In battle, they moved as one unit, attacking like a pack of synchronized dogs.
Ashanti saw his pups ready to attack. “Stand down,” he told them. Like a set of bookends, Cain and Abel took two simultaneous steps back. “I’ll bang with any nigga, big or small. I got this.” He stared up at Dub defiantly. “You really wanna go there?”
In answer, Dub swung on Ashanti. Ashanti had been expecting it, so he was able to easily duck the blow and rock Dub’s flabby stomach with a combination of punches. Dub tried to grab Ashanti and throw his weight on him, but Ashanti slipped the hold and clocked Dub twice in the side of the head. The fat man tripped over his feet and crashed clumsily to the ground, trying to figure out exactly what had just happened. The fight was clearly over, but Ashanti wasn’t done.
Ashanti jumped on top of Dub and delivered two punches to his exposed face. “See, you couldn’t just leave with your bitch.” He punched Dub in the face again. “You wanted to be a fucking tough guy, but look at you now, pussy!” Ashanti continued to rain on Dub until a blue-and-white police car skidded to a stop at the curb.
“Rollers, nigga. Let’s dip!” Abel pulled Ashanti off Dub.
“Hey, stop!” one of the cops yelled, swinging the car door open.
“Fuck you, toy-ass cops!” Cain yelled, and hurled his forty at the patrol car. The bottle smashed against the car’s windshield and drenched the cop in malt liquor.
“Come the fuck on!” Abel pulled his brother by the shirt.
Cain stumbled forward, ready to make his great escape when he had a thought. “Let me take care of that for you.” He snatched Dub’s jewelry from Sarah’s hands. “Good looking out,” Cain called over his shoulder as he disappeared into the night.
• • •
Zo stood on the corner, fishing around in his p
ocket for change and cursing up a storm. When he’d left the church, he had two very important phone calls to make, with the second one to Porsha to let her know he was OK. When Zo tried to use his cell phone, he realized that the battery was dead. Through pure luck, he had managed to find one of the last functional pay phones in New York City, and he placed his calls.
Porsha was relieved to hear that Zo was safe, but that relief quickly turned to anger when she started asking him to go into detail about his whole ordeal. Zo told her about the police picking him up, but he lied and said it was drug-related. He knew she could smell the lie through the phone. Things took a turn for the ugly when she offered to come pick him up and he declined. It was bad enough that he’d left her hanging in the middle of the night when he was only supposed to be going to the store, but now he was telling her that he wasn’t coming back, and the best excuse he could give her was “I’ll explain it to you when I see you.” She had hung up the phone on Zo twice already, and he was trying to call her a third time to explain, but he was all out of change.
“Fuck!” Zo kicked the pay phone. He was going to have to work his ass off to make this up to Porsha, but first he needed to make sure he’d remain free long enough to even make the attempt.
The girl he had spared at the motel was returning the favor by trying to put Zo away for the rest of his days, and he didn’t intend to sit by and let that happen. She had to go. Finding her was Zo’s biggest problem, but it proved to be far easier than Zo imagined. It was a shot in the dark when he called the precinct, impersonating Detective Brown, telling the half-asleep desk sergeant that he’d misplaced the address for the witness in the Jenkins murder and needed him to have someone pull it from a file on his desk. The sergeant put Zo on hold. The whole time, Zo kept looking up and down the block, thinking they had seen through his ruse and were tracing the call. Every car that passed he thought was an undercover, ready to pounce on him. A minute later, the sergeant came back to the phone and rattled off the girl’s information. He was asking the detective how he was feeling after being caught up in the explosion, but Zo had already hung up the phone. The sergeant would likely be fired and, with any luck, brought up on charges when his blunder was discovered, but that wasn’t Zo’s problem; the girl was.