Byron considered himself more polished nowadays, however. He wouldn’t dare take things that far with these older people, unless they did something to really make him think that doing such was necessary. He hoped they wouldn’t. In light of his company, and the fact that they’d be staying in his grandmother’s house for at least three days, Byron went ahead and came up off of some money so that Juan and Knight would sleep at the house and make sure that everything was okay. These may have been older people in comparison to the three of them; however, they were not old people in the least bit.
“I hope these niggas ain’t fucked up,” Byron said. He pulled his Bugatti into the backyard of the small house, parking it in the shade of a few trees, before walking up to the back door. Upon letting himself in, he could smell the weed. It was coming from the dining room. He looked at the kitchen and immediately raised his voice. “Niggas, y’all betta clean this shit up!”
Byron crossed the kitchen and walked into the dining room. Immediately, he found Juan and Knight sitting at the dining room table. Both of their heads were turned toward the television, watching the BET channel. Byron shook his head, slamming his fist on the top of the wood table. Instantly, Juan, who was dressed in shorts and a wife beater with his tall, tattooed body showing, looked across the table. He stood up. Then Knight, who was heavier and darker, turned around, standing up as well. He was dressed in a white t-shirt and some gray boxers.
“What the fuck y’all niggas been doin?” Byron asked, looking at the both of them. “Y’all checked on the company or what?”
Juan and Knight looked at one another. “Nigga, did you go check on them when you got up or what?” Juan asked.
Knight shook his head. “Naw, nigga,” he answered. “You slept in the room next to them. I thought you woulda checked on them since you was right there. Nigga, I’m all the way in the front room, on the couch and shit.”
“Nigga, before we fell asleep, I told you to check on them when we got up in the morning,” Juan said. “Nigga, you fuckin’ stupid. You know how deep I sleep, and how hard it is for me to wake up. Why the fuck would I even be checkin’ on them if I’m the one doin’ the drivin’ and shit? Your ass was supposed to check on them when we got up.”
“Ladies!” Byron yelled, getting both Juan and Knight’s attention. “What the fuck y’all niggas waitin’ on then?” he asked, looking confused. “Why the fuck y’all ain’t checked on them? Swear to God, if y’all niggas let them get away, you gon’ be sorry. You gon’ be in a worse off place than these niggas we out here lookin’ for.”
Quickly, Juan and Knight turned around. Byron followed. The three men walked into the short, bedroom hallway. They turned to the right, where the spare bedroom had been. Byron still found it eerie how he was using the house. This was the very room he would sleep in as a child when he’d come and spend the night with his grandmother. Now, to get his money back, he had to resort to using it as a dungeon of sorts.
Byron had long arranged for the door to have a lock on the outside, meaning that anyone trying to get into the room would need a key – also meaning that someone could be locked into the room. Juan grabbed the keys from underneath the almost-antique, corded house phone, setting on a wood table against the hallway wall, in the shadows of a vase full of fake flowers. Upon unlocking the door, the three men found the older couple still in the room. Their eyes were wide and full of terror, particularly the woman.
Byron pushed past Juan and Knight. “Get y’all dumb ass out the way,” he told them. Byron stepped into the room and looked around. His grandmother had mental health problems years before she actually passed away. During that time, she’d been crazy enough to nail her windows shut. And the old lady didn’t do a bad job at it, either. Even Byron, with his strength and muscles, couldn’t pull the two windows in the bedroom open.
“Good morning,” Byron said, smiling. “Well, I guess I should say, Good Afternoon. I get my times mixed up sometimes.”
“What do you want with us?” the woman asked, dressed in nothing but her bra and panties. She’d pulled the bed sheet up over her body, clinching it around her chest. “Why are you holding us here?”
“I told you why,” Byron said. “Your little stepson, Tramar, and his buddy, a little nigga named Jackson, have some money that belong to me. And I be damned if a nigga just let them keep it. Don’t you worry…I’m not gon’ kill y’all, yet.”
“Young man, you won’t get away with this,” Tramar’s father said. He, too, had been stripped to just his boxers and t-shirt. Holding his wife, the two of them sat up at the top of the bed, against the headboard. They wanted to jump and fight for their lives so badly; however, they knew that all three men in this bedroom doorway were armed with guns. They had nothing but their fists, and those would not be enough. “You know what’s at the end of this road. I don’t know why you young black men nowadays insist on embracing this shit. You won’t get away with this…you…”
As the father was continuing on with his lecture, Byron quickly hurried around to the side of the bed. Within the flash of an eye, he had slapped the older man across the face with the back of his hand. His wife Vivica screamed. Quickly, she covered her mouth as her woozy husband struggled with the dizzy feeling that had just overcome him. The side of his face stung unmercifully. He gripped his face, wondering if the couple of fake teeth at the back of his mouth had come loose. Something just did not feel right.
“Shut the fuck up with all that whining,” Byron said. He turned around and walked confidently back over to the door.
In a fit of rage, Vivica could no longer take it. She was willing to risk her life if she had to. Not thinking clearly, she decided that she’d try to make a run for it when Byron had begun having a conversation with Juan and Knight in the hallway, further away from the door. From where she sat, and with her angle to the hallway, she could see straight to the doorway and into the dining room, meaning that the three men were standing to the side.
“I’mma go,” Vivica whispered to her husband. “I’mma go.”
Quickly, Tramar’s father grabbed his wife’s arm. “No, they might hurt you again,” he said softly.
“But I can run faster than you, Greg,” Vivica said. “And you know it.”
Vivica jumped up and darted out into the bedroom hallway. Like an animal finally breaking out of its cage, she rushed around the dining room table and into the kitchen. It wasn’t long before Byron, Juan, and Knight were following behind her. Vivica ran up to the back door, having knocked tables and chairs into the way behind her out of reflex. Those objects definitely caused Byron and his boys to have to slow down.
Vivica toyed with the back door lock. Just as she was about to push the screen door open and feel the light of day in the backyard of the house, Byron’ gripped her upper arm. In one swoop, he’d pulled her down to the ground, causing her to hit her head on the couple of steps that separated the kitchen from the back porch. Vivica kicked and screamed, causing Byron to laugh. He liked when a woman would squirm with him, especially when that woman was thick in all of the right places such as the one on his floor.
“Stop it,” Byron said. “Stop it! You ain’t gotta be this way.”
Byron turned to tell his boys to get something to use to tie the woman up. However, just as he was turning his head, his eyes opened wide. The woman’s husband was standing in the dining room doorway, behind Juan and Knight. He firmly gripped one of the dining room chairs and was holding it over his head. Before any cautionary words could spill out of Byron’s mouth, Tramar’s father had slammed the chair across both Juan and Knight’s heads. The men immediately ducked down, toward the floor as they grabbed their throbbing heads.
“Y’all niggas betta stop actin’ weak and shit and get that old nigga in his place,” Byron said. “Stop fuckin’ around! Get that nigga before he get over here! Stop fuckin’ around niggas!”
Still only dressed in sleeping clothes, Juan and Knight tackled Tramar’s father. Juan pushed him down
by slamming into his chest. Knight grabbed his feet, holding him in place. Byron then watched as his two boys punched the man in the face, watching his head go side to side with each blow. “That’s right!” Byron cheered on. “That’s right. Beat that nigga’s ass.”
Byron then turned his attention back to Vivica. “So, that what y’all’s plan, huh?” he asked, smiling. He reached out and slapped her thighs, watching them jiggle for a couple of seconds after he’d already pulled his hand away from them. “Huh? Y’all was gon’ try this little thing when them niggas came to the door?” Byron glanced back at the true pummeling Tramar’s father was taking on the dining room floor. Now, his body almost looked lifeless. Nonetheless, Knight and Juan continued mashing their fists into the man’s face, his head simply going side to side with each blow.
“Fuck you!” the woman yelled, sounding very proper and educated in her tone. She then broke down into tears. “Why don’t you just let us go? Why? We don’t even know anything about whatever you got goin’ with Tramar. Swear to God we don’t.”
“I never said you did,” Byron said. He cupped both of her breasts and used his hands to flop them up and down. “But that don’t mean you can’t be helpful in helpin’ me solve this shit. That’s all. All you gotta do is cooperate and everythin’ in gon’ be just fine…well, that is if the niggas bring me my fuckin’ money. That’s all I want is my money…and, well,” Byron lowered his hands from Vivica's chest to her private parts, “maybe some of this pussy, too. That shit looks good as fuck, Miss Plump, if you know what I mean.”
Vivica kicked her feet. However, it wasn’t long before Byron had pulled his gun out of his pocket. He pressed the barrel into Vivica’s head, causing her to freeze up that very moment. Her eyes opened wide. Tears streamed down her cheeks. She looked up at Byron, begging.
“Bitch, shut up!” Byron told her. He slowly stood up and began to undo his belt buckle. “Shut the fuck up!”
Byron then realized he was in front of the back door. There would be a possibility one of his neighbors in the house next door would see. Instead, Byron told Vivica to stand up and walk into the dining room. With the gun pointed at her, Vivica did just that. Byron smiled as he watched her thick body walk softly past him. He couldn’t help but to notice how good she looked, like a lot of women, in a matching bra and panties. Not being able to resist the temptation, Bryon slapped Vivica’s ass cheeks as she walked into the dining room. She jumped, scared for her life, as she cried out her husband’s name. Knight and Juan were still giving it to him, and they showed no signs of slowing down. They seemed to be just as angry as they’d been a couple of minutes ago when they first started. Blood gushed down the back of Knight’s head as a huge, red bump slowly developed on the dome of Juan’s.
Byron shook his head, knowing that he wasn’t ready to be dealing with a dead body just yet. “A’ight, niggas!” he said. “A’ight. I ain’t say that y’all had to kill the nigga. He done taken enough. Ease up off him and shit, maybe save some for tomorrow.”
Breathing heavily, Knight and Juan stood up off of the dining room floor. Once they’d backed away from Tramar’s father, Byron and Vivica could see the damage.
“Damn,” Byron said, the words practically slipping out of his mouth. “Shit, that’s bad.”
Vivica screamed before she dropped to her knees and gently gripped her husband’s body. Both of his eyes were blackenedd and bruised to the point where they were swollen shut. His lip was busted. His nose looked as if it were broken. The sides of his face were bruised from the impact. Thick trails of tears rolled down the side of his head as groggy speech spilled out of his mouth.
“Baby, are you okay?” Vivica asked, in a frantic way. “Baby?”
“Baby my ass,” Byron said, pulling Vivica away from her husband. “Come on with me. I gotta get this nut off.”
Vivica resisted, trying to pull out of Byron’s grip to get back to her husband on the dining room floor. However, her efforts were not enough. Byron was too strong. Even with her squirming, he was able to pick her up and throw her onto the bed. “All I would need is twenty minutes with this sexy, thick thing,” Byron said to Juan and Knight out in the dining room.
In the spare bedroom, Byron watched as Vivica tried to stand as far away from him as she could. He wanted so badly to slide his pants down and over his feet and watch the woman bend over. He moved forward, toward her, only wanting to have a look. Vivica screamed, only stopping when Byron slapped the back of her head as if she were a doll. Numerous things ran through Byron’s head, including how he would keep this woman around if Jackson and Tramar didn’t come through with the money.
“There you go,” Byron said, seeing how Vivica had quieted down. “There you go. All I wanted to do was look at you a little bit. That’s all. Why you gotta be scared of a nigga? Just let me see what that body look like in its entirety.”
Byron pulled out his cell phone and began to take footage of the distraught woman. He could only imagine how good she would look once she’d calmed down and realized that he would only want to pleasure her, not hurt her. However, even through the lens of his phone's camera, her body looked good. And he was going to share it with the world to send a message to Jackson and Tramar.
***
When Sharli got home from doing her friend Marquisha’s hair, up on the north side, on Thursday afternoon, she was definitely surprised to see her Uncle Thomas sitting in the kitchen. After all, it was still fresh on everyone’s mind the ass beating that Charityhad given Uncle Thomas’ girl, who went by Luscious, in this very kitchen. In fact, the fight had even gone outside of the kitchen as Charity had literally dragged the chick across the backyard before sending her back to Uncle Thomas’ vehicle parked out on the street. Just as Sharli was about to speak to her big, tall uncle, her aunt Charity butted in.
“Nigga, fuck all that!” Charity said. “You got some nerve coming over here and actually asking me to my fuckin’ face if I would apologize to that hoe.”
“You ain’t got to keep callin’ her a hoe,” Thomas said. “That’s my girlfriend, Charity. And I know y’all done had your differences and shit, but that don’t mean you need to call her a hoe.”
“Nigga, where you meet her at?” Charity asked. “Huh? Where you meet the bitch? Tell me to my face that she ain’t no hoe with considering where you met her hoe ass, and I will admit, maybe, possibly, that she ain’t one. First, tell me, and Sharli, since she standing here now, where you met your little nasty mouth bitch at?”
Thomas smiled, holding his hands up in the peaceful gesture. He really didn’t want to answer the question. After not being able to take his younger sister’s scowl any longer, he answered the question. “At the club,” he said.
As ghetto and hard as she wanted to be, Charity stood up. The rag on her head moved in the air as she moved her kneck to the side, holding up her thin arm with her index finger pointed at him. “Naw, nigga,” she said. “Don’t try me. What kinda club?”
“Strip club,” Thomas said. “But what the fuck that got to do with you apologizing to her for embarrassing her the way you did in front of them kids the other day.”
“She was beggin’ for it, nigga,” Charity said. “And that’s why you know she got that video of her fuckin’ some other nigga online. Or, at least, that’s what I heard. But I’m sure you won’t never wanna admit that.”
Not being able to deal with much more of the drama, Sharli pushed her way through the kitchen. She quickly swerved around the dining room table and headed upstairs to her room. In the peace and quiet of her small room upstairs, she closed the door and lay back on the bed. She shook her head as she was unsure of how much longer she’d be able to take coming home to find her family fighting this way.
These thoughts then brought about thoughts of her cousin, Ayana. Sharli remembered that she was supposed to call her. And she wanted to do something with her, in some way, to kind of make up for her having to come over and see some ghetto mess go down when she was just
supposed to be coming over for a visit.
Sharli had picked up her phone with the intentions of calling Ayana. However, she’d been distracted by seeing that she had numerous Facebook notifications she needed to catch up on. Being addicted to social media, partly because she liked being connected and knowing what was going on, Sharli logged onto her Facebook account. After scrolling through numerous posts from friends she’d gone to high school with who were now in college, to friends she’d grown up with who had just gotten out of prison, Sharli came to a post that was a friend of a friend. It was a post by this guy named Juan who Sharli had always found kind of cute. He was tall, which was just what she liked. And he was a little rough around the edges.
Sharli looked closer at the post, seeing that its title was: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU OWE A REAL NIGGA MONEY.
Sharli snickered, thinking that she was about to see a comical YouTube video that some niggas down in the hood had created to prove a point about something. However, she found it to be the complete opposite. Sharli clicked on the link and saw that it led to World Star. At this point, she leaned back, thinking that she was about to see two dudes fight it out in a real bloody way, like savages. However, once again, Sharli was wrong. Rather, she quickly saw an older woman screaming and backing away from a darker-skinned man, based on the arms she saw in the video. Sharli’s face crunched up, not because she hadn’t seen anything like this before; rather, because she realized that she recognized the fact that the woman was being held against her will.
When It All Falls Down 2 - Strapped Up: A Chicago Hood Drama (A Hustler's Lady) Page 4