by K'wan
“Ladies,” Jah said in a voice that was almost that of a man, but still had a childlike squeak to it. “What’s good?”
“You.” Yoshi looked up at him.
“So I’ve heard.” He smiled. “What y’all doing?”
“Sipping on something light.” Rhonda showed him the bottle.
“What’s popping, Rhonda? How’s my nephew?”
“Bad as hell. Between him and your stupid-ass brother, I can’t even get my mind right.”
“I heard y’all got into it earlier.” Jah placed a Nike on the stoop.
“This nigga be on some bullshit, yo. All I was trying to do was have an adult conversation with him and he starts flipping out.”
Jah just looked at her. He knew his brother and he knew Rhonda. He had seen them go through the motions for years. Rhonda would do or say something stupid and Paul would lose his temper. They would go through it at least once a month. Jah didn’t think it was right for his brother to put his hands on Rhonda, but you’d have to know Rhonda to understand it. She knew all the right buttons to push to get a rise out of him and did it on a regular basis. Her theory was, as long as his attention was on her instead of anything or anyone else, she was happy, even if it meant slapping her ass around. Women like her were under the misconception that if a man didn’t knock her upside the head every so often, they were either weak or didn’t care.
“Anyway.” Jah waved Rhonda off. “What y’all sipping on?”
“A little Henny.” Yoshi raised her glass as if toasting the air.
“Let your boy get a li’l of that.” Jah reached for the empty cup that was sitting on top of the bottle.
“Nigga, please.” Reese snatched the bottle away. “You hustle, go cop a bottle. We chipped in for this.”
“Word, a nigga can’t get a drink?” Jah screwed up his face.
“Reese, stop acting like that.” Yoshi snatched the bottle from Reese and handed it to Jah. “You know Jah is peoples.”
“Yeah, my little brother done came through and got us right plenty of times,” Rhonda added.
Reese sucked her teeth, but knew better than to say anything to Jah. Even though he was young, Paul’s baby brother was one of the hood’s most dangerous cats. Jah poured a shot into his cup and toasted Rhonda and Yoshi. Reese raised her glass, but he ignored her. Turning the cup upside down, he downed the fiery liquor. He made a funny face, then tossed his empty cup into the street.
“What you know about that dog, nigga?” Rhonda laughed.
Jah wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I don’t know how y’all can drink this shit twenty-four seven. Give me an ice-cold forty and I’m good.”
“This here is for grown folks,” Reese said, swirling ice chips around in her cup.
“Then what the fuck are you doing with it?” Jah spat, drawing snickers from the people. Reese just rolled her eyes.
A lot of people couldn’t understand why Reese didn’t like Jah, but they knew just what the beef between them was. The previous summer, Reese found herself at the ass end of a crush on an older cat from the neighborhood. He wasn’t known as one of the more high-profile cats, but he kept himself fresh and had a nice ride. More importantly, he carried himself like a gentleman more often than not. After some coaxing, Reese found herself in the staircase of the projects giving him head. Jah happened to be coming down the stairs and busted them. He demanded that Reese bless him, too, but she refused. Jah, being young and still having that mentality, went and ran his mouth. Unfortunately, the word got back to the kid who was claiming Reese as his shorty. Needless to say, the relationship ended badly. Reese had cursed Jah as a big-mouth little boy and things hadn’t been the same since.
“Jah, I know you holding. Put it in the air.” Rhonda tapped his pocket. She knew Jah was a notorious pothead and could often be found holding some of the best weed in town.
“You know how I do it,” he said, pulling out an already rolled White Owl. “This that shit right here.” He dangled the blunt in front of Rhonda and snatched it back when she reached for it. “Easy, shorty. We ’bout to get ski high off that Diesel.”
“Damn, nigga, that shit is hard as hell to score. Jah, how come you always seem to get your hands on shit that no one else can?” Yoshi asked.
Jah gave her a perfect smile, equipped with dimples. “It pays to know somebody who knows somebody. Jah get you what you need, boo.”
“Nigga, stop trying to mack and light the weed!” Rhonda broke the mood.
The four of them sat on the stoop, passing the blunt of potent weed and talking shit. Though Jah was definitely gangsta with his, when he was in good spirits he was a funny dude. Even Reese managed to unscrew her face and laugh at some of the off-the-wall shit he said. The strange thing about weed is its ability to bring people together. If you got high enough in the right company, you could forget what you were pissed about in the first place. At least until you came down.
When the blunt was about three quarters of the way done, Jah’s eyes took on a funny glare. He was fixed on the dice game as if he was just noticing it. Yoshi and Reese seemed oblivious to it, but Rhonda knew what time it was. He was scheming.
“I’m about to get up outta here,” he said, stepping off the stoop.
“There you go, on your bullshit already,” Rhonda said.
“Nah, I’m just going to see if I can come up right quick,” he said oh so innocently. With his small frame and funny voice, Jah seemed harmless enough, but he was full of shit. Rhonda knew he was about as harmless as a baby viper. Bidding the ladies good-bye, Jah bopped toward the corner.
“That nigga is always scheming.” Reese said when he was out of earshot.
“You know how he do it,” Rhonda said.
“That li’l nigga can get it,” Yoshi added. Rhonda and Reese both looked at her as if they had heard wrong. “What y’all looking at me like that for? He can get it.”
“Yoshi, you need to quit. You know that little boy ain’t even in your league,” Rhonda said.
“Yeah, I know. But I might still fuck him one day. There’s something about that little bad-ass muthafucka that turns me on.”
Yoshi’s observation of Jah was broken up by the heavy bass of a car stereo. A red Hummer coasted slowly down the block, rattling windows in its wake. The windows were tinted so heavy that you couldn’t see who was in the ride. The girls didn’t need X-ray vision to recognize one of the hood’s most infamous stars, Don B.
Don B.’s was a true rags-to-riches story. He was born and raised in the Drew Hamilton projects, on the Eighth Avenue side. As a youth, he had distributed more cocaine and slugs to niggaz on the street than the police. Over the years, he had been shot seven times, stabbed twice, and even strangled while he was locked up. Through it all he had managed to deny the grim reaper his due time and again. People would always joke that with all the shit he had lived through, God must’ve put him on earth for a purpose. The running joke had come to reality when his record label, Dawg Food Entertainment, managed to secure a multimillion-dollar distribution deal with Sony. Don B. had two singles on the Billboard charts and was fast on his way to becoming a star.
“Now, there’s a nigga who can get it.” Rhonda licked her lips. “Don B. might not be the handsomest muthafucka, but his money is way long.”
Reese sucked her teeth. “He ain’t all that.”
“Bitch, stop acting like you wouldn’t fuck him. All he’d have to do is drop a few dollars on you and say the word, and you’d probably suck his whole squad off.”
“Rhonda, you must be fucking crazy. There’s no way in hell I’d suck his whole team off for no paper. Maybe him and his right-hand man, though.” The three of them burst out laughing. Their jovial moment was shattered when shouting reached the stoop. They turned their attention back to the dice game just in time to see Jah pull his hammer and blast some kid in the chest. While the rest of the players took cover, Jah snatched the money off the floor and vanished.
Reese just
shook her head. “I told you he’s always on some bullshit.”
* * *
Forty minutes after the shooting, the police escorted an ambulance through the cramped block to load the wounded man and cart him off to the hospital. They tried asking anyone if they had seen or heard anything, but only drew blank stares. Figuring it’d be easier to talk to a female than it had been a male, the two uniformed officers walked over to where Rhonda and her friends were sitting.
“Evening, ladies,” the dark-skinned cop said, tipping his hat. “We were wondering if we could ask you a few questions.”
“We ain’t seen shit…” Yoshi began.
“… Ain’t heard shit…” Reese picked up.
“… Don’t know shit,” Rhonda finished it off.
“How the hell do you girls expect us to do our jobs when no one wants to help out?” the white cop asked. “The only way we can protect these neighborhoods is to get these animals off the streets.”
“Your job.” Rhonda chuckled. “That the funniest shit I heard all day. The only time you muthafuckas even come through this block is to harass niggaz and collect bribes. Fuck outta here wit that job shit!”
“You’d better watch your mouth, miss,” the black cop said.
“And you better watch your ass, Tom,” Reese added. “How the fuck can you sleep with yourself knowing that the people you work with don’t give a fuck about the people you live with? That shit ain’t never made sense to me.”
“Listen, sis,” the black cop began, switching up his tone to make himself sound more down. “Ain’t nobody trying to give you a hard time, we just wanna catch the punk muthafucka that popped shorty. Now, we know y’all be on this stoop twenty-four seven, so don’t act like you don’t know what happened.”
The dark-skinned cop kept his face serious and his eyes sincere. He talked a good one about wanting to protect the neighborhood, but all he really wanted was a gold shield and possibly some sergeant’s bars. He looked at Rhonda’s face and seeing her bottom lip begin to quiver, he thought he might’ve been making some progress. That all changed when she doubled over laughing.
“You hear this nigga?” she asked Yoshi, slapping her on her exposed thigh. “If I didn’t know any better I might’ve taken this muthafucka seriously. Nah,” she said, turning back to the cop, “we don’t know nothing.”
“You know we could run you in for obstruction of justice.”
“Yeah, and spend all night doing paperwork,” Yoshi said. “Why don’t y’all take that stupid shit down the block? Maybe one of them bum-ass bitches from Seventh will tell you what you need to know for a case of Pampers.” Yoshi clutched her stomach, laughing at her own joke.
The white cop wanted to slap the pretty light-skinned girl to the ground and throw his dick in her mouth to see how funny she thought that was, but there were too many people watching. “Come on, Ed.” He tapped his partner and started back in the direction of the squad car. Before getting in, he had one last jewel to drop. “You know, one day you might need to call on the law and you better pray to God I ain’t the one to answer the call, bitch!”
“Go lick out ya mama’s ass!” Rhonda shouted.
“Remember Louima!” Yoshi added. They stood there ranking on the cops until they had finally cleared off the block. No sooner than they pulled off, Teddy’s Benz came creeping down the block.
“Look what the fuck the cat drug in.” Rhonda nodded toward the car.
“Ain’t that the fat Gerald Levert–looking nigga you fuck with?” Yoshi asked Reese.
“Yeah, that’s that nigga,” Reese said, fronting like she didn’t wanna hop off the stoop and run to the car. “Let me see what the fuck this nigga wants.” Reese slowly made her way in the direction of the Benz. Teddy pulled up by the fire hydrant and kept the engine running. Usually he would’ve hopped out to holla at her, but this time he chose to stay in the car, only making Reese angrier.
“Oh, that’s the kind of shit you on, Ted?” she barked, but got no answer. “Fuck do I look like…?” The rest of Reese’s sentence died in her throat as the tinted window rolled down and it wasn’t Teddy behind the wheel, but his wife, Penny. Not really sure what to do, Reese paused.
As Reese stood there trying to figure out what her next move should be, a soda bottle came flying out of the car window. Being that Penny was sitting, making the throw an awkward one, Reese was able to sidestep the bottle. When the glass hit the ground, Reese smelled that it wasn’t soda or beer in the bottle, but bleach. “Stay away from my husband, you fucking hood rat!” Penny shouted before peeling through the red light.
6
Paul got off the bus and adjusted his backpack. He hated taking the long ride from Harlem to Long Island City, Queens, but it was a necessary evil. After hitting the corner bodega for a six-pack of Corona and a Dutch Master, he began his nine-block hike. He could’ve stayed on the bus for another ten minutes and gotten off closer to his destination, but Paul enjoyed walking. It allowed him to clear his mind and take in the feel of the area.
During his walk, he observed the sights and sounds of the foreign land and couldn’t help but think how different Queens was from any other borough. Though Queens was a part of New York City it was only so in name. It lacked the grittiness of Brooklyn or the historical feel of Harlem. The bowels of Queens were more or less like the neighborhoods of any other city, but the farther out you went, the more it was like being in the suburbs.
Marlene owned a three-bedroom brick house in Long Island City. He walked through the little iron fence and up the driveway to the varnished front door. After taking a moment to listen, he let himself in. On the outside it didn’t look much different than the other half-dozen houses on the block, but the inside was laced. Big-screen televisions, marble floors. Marlene had gone all out with the decor.
He placed his bag by the front door and removed his shoes. Marlene had this thing about tracking up her floors and was quick to bark on violators of the no shoes rule. Descending the few steps past the foyer, he made his way to the kitchen. Everything in the kitchen was steel, giving it a hospital/cafeteria feel. Taking a beer from the box, he placed the other five in the refrigerator and headed into the living room.
The dim lights shining on the white furniture highlighted the fabric’s specs of gold. The fifty-inch television was on CNN, but the sound was muted. Crossing the plush living room, and passing through the glass doors, Paul entered what Marlene liked to call her sanctuary. It consisted of a desk, a small television, and an entertainment system. The soft sounds of Faith Evans hummed through the speakers as he passed them. Jasmine filled the air, with a hint of chronic underlying. As soon as he smelled it, he knew what time it was. Marlene only smoked when she was stressed. On the Italian leather recliner, dressed in a bathrobe, with her hair freshly wrapped, sat the lady of the house.
Her copper skin glowed under the light of the candles, which were the source of the jasmine fragrance in the air. She was sitting with one leg dangling over the side of the recliner and the other propped to expose just enough of her shapely thigh to cause a slight bulge in Paul’s jeans. Though she rarely ate meat anymore, she had ass and hips that could’ve only been born of pork. Marlene was fine as wine and twice as sweet, generally.
She and Paul had met right after he was released from prison. He had been picked up for having weed on him and she was the public defender assigned to his case. The prosecutor wanted to send Paul back to jail on a parole violation, but Marlene convinced him otherwise. Since the police had illegally searched Paul and whipped his ass in the process, she threatened to go public with it. After what had happened with Louima and Diallo, the city didn’t need any more bad press. The charge was knocked down to a misdemeanor and a fine.
Paul was so grateful that he offered to take Marlene to dinner as a way of thanking her, since he didn’t have to pay for her services. Normally, Marlene wouldn’t have dreamed of dating a client, but there was something about Paul that moved her. He had a thug’s e
xterior but the poise of a true gentleman. As Marlene got to know the man behind the case file, she found herself falling for him. Nearly two years later, she found herself a star defense attorney for a high-profile firm, and madly in love with the man she’d saved.
Paul crept silently over to the recliner. Marlene had her head back and her eyes closed, but he knew she wasn’t asleep. She was probably just waiting for him to take the initiative, as usual. Marlene often subjected Paul to these subtle tests. He didn’t know if it was to piss him off, or because she was really that insecure. Whatever the case, Paul dealt with it.
Leaning over the back of the recliner, Paul placed a kiss on her heart-shaped lips. She cracked a smile and kissed him back. Her lips tasted like honey and her breath smelled of mints. Yes, Paul was truly a lucky man.
“I missed you,” she said, casting her soft brown eyes up at him.
He snaked over the arm of the chair and sat beside her. “I missed you, too, sweetheart.” Paul took the joint from the ashtray on the end table and relit it. After taking two long tokes, he handed it to Marlene. “So, how was your day, counselor?”
She expelled a thin puff of smoke. “Jesus, I don’t even know where to begin. We got a case today involving a young man who had been accused of murdering another guy over some drugs. When I questioned him, he admitted to shooting the other boy, but claims it was in self-defense. He and the other boy were arguing over who had the right to hustle on that corner. Things got a little heated and he reached inside his jacket, that’s when my client shot him.”
“Damn, was the other kid strapped?” Paul asked.
“Yeah, they found a gun on him.”
“So, what’s the big deal? Shorty was just trying to protect himself.”
“Yes, it’s easy to look at it like that on the streets, but in a court of law it’s a whole different ball game. To them its not a boy trying to protect himself, it’s a drug-related shooting. If I can’t convince them otherwise, they’re gonna try and fry that kid.”