by T. Styles
Ryan glared his way. “Why you playing him so close, drunk?”
Spyrit frowned. “What, nigga?”
Ryan moved in so that he could breathe on him to add disrespect. “If Wyld got a problem with me he a grown man. Let him say it to my face. Until then, fuck off.”
Silence.
“Is everything okay, guys?" Anna questioned from the living room after seeing the aggressive stances they held for one another in the kitchen. “Because today should be a happy occasion not a negative one.”
Ryan walked into the living room, looked down at her and touched the side of her face. “Everything is fine. And our situation is nothing for you to worry about. You a new mother. Relax." He looked at Spyrit. “But this nigga right here blowing me so I’m gonna grab the beer out the trunk. I need a drink. I'll be back in a second.”
Wyld reentered the living room just as Ryan was leaving out the front door. “Where he going?” he pointed.
Spyrit shrugged, in a sour mood at Ryan’s attitude. “To get the beer I guess. Personally I wish the nigga just get in his ride and keep pushing down the road.”
Wyld fanned the air and kissed his wife on the cheek. He hadn’t touched liquor or drugs since he was a kid but didn’t care if others partook.
As he gazed down at her it was as if he had fallen in love all over again. “Don’t worry about cooking tonight, Anna. I’m having the seafood spot you like bring over your favorite. I want you to—”
Bullets came crashing into the windows behind the couch, where Anna and the baby were seated. Wyld knocked his wife to the floor as Spyrit released the .9mili tucked in the back of his jeans, opened the front door and dodged outside to protect and serve.
Ryan was firing at a large grey SUV with super black windows speeding away from the scene, so Spyrit joined him in his efforts and bust off at the vehicle with him.
The beer cans were shot up and lying on the ground, fizz spilling over the grass.
When the truck was away from the scene Ryan and Spyrit reentered the house and what they saw was horrific. The couch was covered in blood while Wyld held his dead infant in one hand, his deceased wife in the other.
CHAPTER FOUR
Wyld
“Stay On Them Knees And Take Care Of My Cousin.”
Wyld was dressed in all black, customary for the funeral he attended in which he facilitated the lowering of an adult sized black and gold casket into the damp ground, followed by an infant size matching one. Wyld sat behind the driver seat in the middle of a traffic stop, dazed, stomach thick with guilt because of the lifestyle he led.
Drug dealers didn’t deserve peace, he told himself. So he paid for it with his wife and child’s blood.
He was inconsolable as he tried to move back into a normal life that didn’t include his precious Anna and his newborn son.
Anger scrabbled from his gut and rushed toward his finger as he gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles were paper white. Why them? They were innocent.
The moment of their murders played on repeat in his mind until he was awoken by hateful words from the driver who’s parked car was trapped behind Wyld’s as he banged on his window. “Wake the fuck up, nigga! And move your car, you’re holding up traf—”
The Driver was quickly interrupted when the door came flying open. Wyld pushed out into the street, knocking the man to the ground. Squirming on top of The Driver he used his keys to dig into the soft tissue of the man’s face.
Believing Wyld had gone mad, The Driver did everything he could to escape his fury and hide within the safety of his car. Each attempt ended in vain as Wyld dropped his keys on the ground and wrapped his hands around the man’s neck tightly, before squeezing to stop his airflow.
Onlookers with cell phones clasped in their hands recorded it all forgetting their first responsibility as citizens to save the man. It was certain that The Driver had failed at life and would be sent to meet his Maker, until someone touched Wyld’s shoulder softly.
When Wyld turned around he was staring up into the eyes of a woman who felt familiar although vaguely. “Please don’t,” she said softly, although her hands trembled. When he looked at her fingers on his flesh she moved it quickly for fear he would choke her out next. “The cops.” She looked around the block. “They’re coming so you have to leave now.”
Wyld’s senses seemed to be restored when he heard the sirens clearly and loudly. Grabbing the bloody keys off the ground he stood up, preparing to dip to his car to escape. But his movements were stifled, body weighed down with hate and loss at the same time.
“Let me drive you,” Amelia pronounced. “Please. I don’t mind.”
He blinked a few times, dropped the bloody keys in her hand and walked briskly toward the car, with Amelia behind him.
When the homemade vegetable soup was cooked Amelia brought it over to Wyld in a red porcelain bowl. He was slumped on the sofa, elbows on his knees, bloody fingers clasped together, gaze toward the floor. “I use to eat this everyday when I wasn’t feeling well.” She smiled. “It always—”
“I don’t want no fucking soup.” His focus remained on his bloody knuckles. “I don’t want anything.”
“But you need to eat.”
“I said I don’t want it, ain’t you listening?” Wyld pushed the soup to the side, got up and stomped toward the back of the house, slamming the door.
Suddenly there was a knock and she considered asking Wyld what he wanted her to do but realized it may not be the smartest of moves. Besides, she knew of the wife he loved and lost and wanted to be a helping hand not a burden by bombarding him with a million questions.
So when she saw him in the street after leaving her Narcotics Anonymous meeting she dropped it all to help him, including the pass she needed to catch the bus and go on with her life. But Wyld was the secret motivation she used to get her life together and she had to help him.
The first thirty days was the hardest as she tried to kick the crack habit that kept her mind hidden from reality. Pain and cravings were her only friends and not even imagining his face would help during these times. When the thirty days were over that’s when she began to imagine her life with him, a man who she was certain didn’t know she was alive.
At first the secret pretend games were personal but after awhile she believed them so much she told a few of the patients that she had a man waiting on her and once clean they would be married. Operating the law of attraction as best she could, although unknowingly, her heart told her this was the truth.
But with the passing of 90 days and then 120 she came to reality that she was alone. And then she saw him as she waited for the bus. On top of another man doing everything possible to take his life. Amelia had gotten her chance and she was not giving it up if he would have her.
Taking a deep breath, she stepped over the bags of trash on Wyld’s living room floor, because he hadn’t cleaned, walked toward the door and opened it wide. “Who the fuck are you?” Ryan asked glaring her way. His eyes were icky and she felt sick.
She opened her mouth to respond but she was stuck. First off she knew him all too well. He was the same man who served her dope many times before she was clean. She looked downward and cleared her throat, hoping he wouldn’t recognize her former dope addicted face. “I’m well…a friend of Wyld’s. I’m…I’m helping him out that’s all.”
Ryan shook his head and crossed his arms over his chest. “He always did keep a bitch in the bag. I shouldn’t even be surprised.”
“Like I said, I’m just a friend.”
His laugh grew louder and he gripped his dick. “With that pretty mouth and them fat lips you probably suck a stick real good don’t you?”
“Excuse me?” She was worried he remembered their dope-dealer-crack-head relationship but at the same time was insulted. It wasn’t like she was in the trap house anymore so why did he treat her so callously?
“I asked you a question, bitch? Can you suck a dick or not?”
She
was about to close the door in his face when he removed the hand from his penis, reached out and ran his dry thumb across her bottom lip, wiping away her gloss. “You stay on them knees and take care of my cousin, pretty lips. He in for a rough life so he’ll need all the help he can get.” Ryan laughed hysterically and walked away.
CHAPTER FIVE
Ryan
“Why You Gotta Keep Time With That Nigga?”
Fifty four year old E.M. stood in the kitchen over a black cast iron pan filled with sizzling fried chicken. A thin veil of sweat draped her honey brown forehead but was respectful enough not to roll into her eyes, making it difficult to prepare her prize deserving chicken.
Her large 120 pound white mop-like Komondor dog sat near her feet, hoping that a piece of meat would drop on the floor from the dog gods.
A few bops away from her, at a small yellow table built for four sat Spyrit and Ryan chewing portions from the last batch.
Nicknamed E.M. because she was ‘Everybody’s Mother’, in actuality she had no children of her own. Her womb had rotted many years back after catching a case of syphilis that silently and sneakily stole her chances of birthing a child.
Ever.
But the handicap didn’t mean she wasn’t loved.
Each of her surrogate sons had their personal reasons for caring for E.M. and no matter what went on in the world, or what foul they ran in the streets, her doors remained open. On any given night it was nothing to stop by her house only to see her floor littered with so many thugs their bodies hid the green carpet fibers underneath.
But it was the 3 Heart Boys who held the combination to E.M.’s soul. She would drop it all for them if they needed her with just a call. From bail money to advice she was up for the challenge. She was so special that outside of Wyld she was the only person alive who had the code to the safe under the floorboards in Wyld’s room.
The Heart boys each had different reasons for loving her so much.
Wyld adored her because when his mother died in an apartment fire she took him into her home and nurtured him daily. He literally stayed with her for 13 years of his manhood. And although he sold drugs and kept money on him at all times she never asked him for a thing or judged. So he gave her everything she needed and more. Unlike his aunts, Ryan and Spyrit’s mothers who were both strung out, roaming the street.
Spyrit loved her for another reason. Despite having his own crib in a run down tenement in Baltimore city, E.M.’s house was always cozy and inviting. Her home smelled of baked apple pie constantly and her wisdom was always on point, no matter the subject, something he needed in his confusing life. Spyrit and his girl Quaykiesha, who stayed with him a lot, spent 70% of their time over E.M.’s although Quaykiesha hated it terribly.
Ryan’s reason for loving E.M. was the hardest for most to understand. Taking comfort in disrespecting women on the regular, he was enraged when some years back E.M. threw him out after he fought with one of her surrogate sons over a female who neither of them owned.
Always the rude one, he felt it well within his rights to point a gun in E.M.’s face in an air of defiance. Expecting her to be frightened he was shocked when she clutched the barrel with the meaty part of her hand yanked the weapon and slapped him in the face.
“Get the fuck out of my house, Ryan!” She directed him. Her breath was so hard it warmed his face as she showed him where he got her fucked up. “And don’t come back here again. Ever!”
He moved as if he wasn’t leaving but several of her surrogate sons took a few steps behind E.M. for support. Whether mental or physical.
He left the premises but instead of heeding her warning the next morning he was washing her blue Honda Accord before mowing her lawn without saying a word to her.
E.M. hung in the doorway, arms crossed over her body as she watched him work diligently and quietly, as the surrogate sons laughed at him for kissing her ass to get back into her good graces.
He didn’t care what they thought. He needed that woman in his life and he was prepared to kill for her.
She shook her head, a low smile covering the bottom part of her face. As she watched his young muscular body she realized Ryan was incapable of mouthing the words sorry, so she accepted the acts as an apology and allowed him back into her heart and home. Despite many of the sons warning her against it.
To date she’d never had a problem with Ryan other than her new boyfriend Dick, who Ryan hated so much he contemplated killing him under the cover of night. The only thing stopping the felonious act was the love he had for the old woman.
When E.M. dropped the final piece of chicken on the paper towel covered rack to drain the grease she placed a hand on Ryan and Spyrit’s shoulders. “Now that should hold you over for the night.” She looked down at them. “Have as much as you want.”
“You outdid yourself this time, E.M.” Spyrit said as he grabbed his glass filled with spiked ice lemonade. “I’m stuffed but bet I sit here and eat until I pass out.” He took a large drunk sip.
“Anything for my boys, you already know.” She exhaled. “Now I have to get dressed.” She gazed at the clock on the wall. “I’m gonna be late.”
“Where you goin’ this hour? Sit down. It’s too late.” Ryan frowned as he chewed a wing from the fresh batch, fingertips burning in the process.
She placed her hand on her hip and looked down at him. “Do you really wanna know? Or are you just trying to fight?”
His frown grew deeper. “E.M…where you going?” His nostrils flared.
She laughed. “Dick’s coming to pick me up to see that new Denzel Washington movie. I shouldn’t be long.”
Ryan slammed the wing on the plate. “Why you gotta keep time with that nigga? Don’t you see what he’s doing?”
E.M. sighed. “Son…you have the wrong impression of him.”
“No I don’t.” His fist came slamming down on the table, rattling it all. “I know his type. And the only thing he wants is the money Wyld be dropping on you.” He pointed at her. “I ain’t stupid.”
“Dick has a successful antique business. He doesn’t need my money.”
“I still don’t trust him,” Ryan persisted.
“Leave her alone, man,” Spyrit said as he snatched one of the extra buttered corn muffins from the yellow pan on the table. “You know he treats her right.”
“Thank you, honey,” she said as she winked at him. “If Ryan had it his way I’d die an old lonely bird. Now like I said, I have to go.” She touched them again and walked into her bedroom, closing the door behind herself.
“One day I’m gonna kill that mothafucka,” Ryan said pointing a stiff finger at Spyrit’s nose. “And I’ma take my time too. On some Taliban shit. Remember I said that.”
Spyrit waived his hand. “I heard you been spending a lot of time with Kante’ lately. Is that true?”
Ryan picked up a corn muffin and bit half of it. With his mouth open and full of food he said, “So you stalking me now? All in a nigga’s business like you my bitch or something.”
“I’m trying to figure out what a crack head and a former dope boy got in common.”
Ryan dropped the muffin. “People going around saying my mother bought me. You ever hear that story?”
Spyrit frowned. “Your mother bought you?” he chuckled loudly. “Are you crazy, nigga? My aunt ain’t buy your ass. She just couldn’t take care of you because of the drugs.”
“Answer the question.”
“Did Kante’ tell you that?”
“No…he just be on some other shit. That’s why I only met with him a few times. About something else.”
“Well I suggest you stop hanging around him because the crack dust rubbing off on you. And you stop doing that now. Before I forget, finish telling me what happened when you went by Wyld’s crib.”
Ryan looked up at the ceiling and scratched his head. “Oh yeah…so I go over there to check on the nigga and he already got a broad at the spot. He just buried his wife and a new bitc
h answering the door and everything.” He chuckled.
“It’s probably not even like that.”
“How you know what it’s like?” He glared. “I’m telling you what I saw. Not only did he have a bitch over there but like I said she answered the fucking door. It seemed serious to me.” Ryan looked away as if reflecting. “And for some reason I know I’ve seen her before but I can’t put my finger on where.” He sighed. “Wyld better be careful with these street muppets though. They deadly out here.”
“To tell you the truth it don’t matter if he do got a broad over there or not,” Spyrit said. “Whatever he doing to get himself together I support that shit fully. What we need to be doing is trying to convince him to give us a few stacks for our new business idea.”
Ryan laughed heartily. “When are you gonna realize that nigga don’t fuck with us? He got all the money in the world in that safe in his crib and do you think he would break us off a few stacks?” Ryan sat back in his chair. “Nah, instead he lace E.M. up every week and throw us a few dollars but only if we give him a good reason. Like we animals! He even took me off the blocks. What type shit is that?”
“You weren’t showing up, Ryan. Niggas got robbed five times under your administration.” He paused. “Even then he would give us anything we asked for.”
“THEN WHY WE FUCKING BROKE?” Ryan yelled as he stood up and paced the area next to the table. “I want long money. I’m sick of this minute paper that don’t do shit but make a nigga mad when it’s gone. Where is my bitch to answer the door? Why he get to have it all? He can help us get right if he wanted and I’m tired of asking. That nigga owes me.” He pointed at him. “And I’m five seconds from taking mine.”
“What that mean?”
“It means I want to get paid.”
Spyrit took a deep breath because he had to be careful about what he said next. Not only was Ryan sensitive but ever since Wyld embarrassed him on the block he hadn’t been the same. “We just gotta get our business plan together like he said and—”