A Kingpin's Obsession: Ajoni's Story

by London Starr

  *2016 Metropolitan Penitentiary in Union City, Georgia*

  King

  For the last eight years, my home has been the top of an iron bunk out of two hundred in a massive white room. At noontime, the inmates are released into the yard for three hours to get some sun and exercise. I always spend the first hour of recreation time in the empty dormitory, staring up at the ceiling only a few feet from my nose. I am always remembering the last woman that I made love to and wondering what she looks like now. It is the only thing that keeps me sane while caged up like an animal.

  Today is no different, except for when I hear, “Calen Kingsley, get your shit! It’s still too many of you bastards in here and it’s time for one of you to go!”

  I sit up slowly, knowing my intentional good behavior and prison-overcrowding has finally paid off. I smile down at one of many hated guards that think he keeps the general population in The Pen from getting completely out of hand.

  Correctional Officer Hankin, the most despised of them all, is standing beside my bunk with his hand out, holding a folded paper sack, royal blue shirt, sneakers, and dark jeans stacked on top of each other. The clothes look a lot like the ones I was wearing when the cops took me and my crew from my drop house on Teamon Avenue in the middle of the night, and gave us all a double-digit sentence a few months later.

  I used my time in here wisely, to get a GED and even some therapy. That was not what I wanted to do, but I had nothing else better to do. Plus, I knew being a model prisoner that took every chance to be rehabilitated would look good on paperwork if my chance for early release ever rolled around. It should not have; I am supposed to be doing ten years to the door.

  I then start to worry that I will get stuck in here for a few more days. There is no way in hell I will fit the extra forty pounds of muscles I have gained into the old clothes the guard is waiting impatiently for me to take from him, whether I can wear them or not. Waiting for the woman that has been holding me down over the years to bring me more clothes could work against me. If either takes too long to get here, the warden will revoke my chance for freedom and give it to someone else.

  I hop down to the floor in front of Hankin, grab the clothes from him anyway, and toss them up on my bed or he will let it all fall to the floor. I am not sure if I can stop myself from killing him if he disrespects my colors like that, and The Pen is not up to state code for cleanliness; neither is Hankin for that matter or I probably would have kissed him—if I could bring myself low enough to lock lips with another hard leg—but I got nothing for any man, unless he is moving my product, putting money in my hands, obeying my orders, or getting the hell out of my so I can get to the cockpit found only between a woman’s legs.

  Hankin does none of that and is too damn ugly. He is a tall, white man with heavily-freckled, pasty skin, and yellow teeth under blonde, greasy strands of hair combed over his bald spot, all on a chubby body that makes his khaki guard uniform a damn disgrace. His nasty disposition that comes from abusing his power over the inmates is his worst trait. Still, the thought crosses my mind to kiss him anyway; he just said the sweetest words I have heard in seven years, three hundred and sixty-four days.

  During that time, I made sure to keep a low profile—at least as far as the officials that run The Pen know. The charges that landed my ass in here have them thinking that they know what really happened between Ajoni, me, and my lieutenants during her initiation into my crew that live by a different set of laws; mine. Before anything could happen between me and Ajoni, I had to wait for her beautiful ass to wake up. X and Leek had damn near knocked her into the middle of the next week with bitch moves.

  I returned the favor on her behalf; after I laid Ajoni down on the brand new king size sleigh bed that I bought and had moved inside my warehouse especially for her birthday, then I went back outside and put X’s and Leek’s asses to sleep for hitting her, and left them lying in the dirt taking a nap beside Leek’s car.

  At least they only had to deal with my fists, and took their ass whooping like men like I taught them to a long time ago. I wanted to empty a clip into both of their chests; they did not have orders to touch Ajoni in anyway, but you never dead loyal members of your crew because they are too loyal unless it is absolutely necessary.

  “Hankin, I got something for you!” another corrupt guard named Simmons yells, as he enters the double doors of the room carrying another stack of folded royal blue clothes and shoes. I want to hope those clothes are for me, but my luck has probably already run out from getting released early.

  Hankin turns around and approaches Simmons. They meet in the middle of the main aisle between the bunks neatly lined up on each side of the room, and start to whisper to each other. Hankin then looks back and nods at me.

  Since they are not going to stop talking until they are ready to, I reach for the shirt on my bed and pull it down, to see if it really is the one from eight years ago and three sizes too damn small. As the folds open up, a whiff of my Aspen cologne enters my nostrils. If I had a heart, it would sink to the pit of my stomach with disappointment. Instead, my anger rises.

  “Fuck,” I hiss under my breath, and nearly rip the damn shirt in half, but that would be disrespecting my colors. Instead, I swallow my temper. Now is not the time to lose my shit, not when I need one of these shady ass guards to let me make a call.

  I toss the shirt back on the bed and turn around in time to see Simmons pass the other stack of clothes to Hankin, who spins on his heels and starts walking toward me.

  “Hold up, Kingsley. It seems someone knew your fat ass needed some bigger clothes to wear home,” he jokes.

  I smile. My anger dissipates with my next breath. I ignore his bullshit insult, letting the satisfaction of almost being free settle over me; it is finally time for Ajoni to fix what she broke eight years ago.

  Hankin walks in between the bunks, stops beside mine again, and holds out the thicker stack of folded clothes. I reach for them. He snatches them back out of my reach.

  “I was looking forward to seeing you squeeze in those clothes from Mecca County,” he sneers. “I had them sent here especially for that reason after you got here. All the gangbangers seem to spend their time pumping iron in here, thinking the bigger they are the bigger the threat. I knew you were no different.”

  I begin to mean-mug his ass, wondering why in the hell he would go through all the trouble to have my belongings shipped here. They were supposed to have gone missing from Mecca County Jail’s inventory along with the three thousand dollars that I had on me after I got shipped here. I called Lea Pennington to pick up my belongings and take them to my house since I would be in here for awhile; she was one of the two chicks I used to fuck recreationally who was known for having the best head game in Mecca, but she did not take her slow ass to the jail in time.

  I charged the money and the clothes to the game since there seemed to be more crooks on the right side of the law than wrong these days, and there was not a damn thing I could do about it. Not being able to do anything about it did not go down well with me, but I dealt with it since I did not know who took my shit. Now, I am sure Hankin probably got his hands on my three grand too, kept it for himself, and is a dead man walking.

  He does not know that he will be paying it back as I deem fit when he extends the clothes into the air again. I snatch them from his hand while he rakes his eyes over me. There is anger and something else in them. It does not take me long to figure out what that extra emotion is—lust. Hankin’s decrepit ass has been wanting to toss my salad since I got here and he is probably mad that I am leaving before he could make a play.

  I begin to laugh, and find it damn near impossible to stop. “Hankin, I thought your fat ass took this job just for the power trip. Damn sure wasn’t for the exercise, but I’m starting to see just how corrupt you really are. Now go watch someone else get dressed. I’m not your type, and you sure as hell ain’t mine.”

  He gives me a crooked smile, to match his personali
ty.

  “Don’t get too cocky, Kingsley. You haven’t left here yet, and I still have power over your ass until then.”

  Since he has a point, I stop laughing and suck air through my teeth, trying not to put my fist through his mouth just because he has the upper hand and things of mine that do not belong to him. I would take his ass out if we were in the streets, where he would be in my territory. He would never leave it, unless someone uncovered his body from a deep grave behind my warehouse where I made Ajoni my woman.

  “You think you run something Hankin, and I’ll do you a favor and leave you here behind these prison walls with that misconception.” He has to go home at some point though.

  Hankin twists his lips, drops a heavy elbow on the top of the bunk opposite mine, and crosses his feet stuffed in standard-issue black boots for The Pen.

  “Misconception is a mighty big word for a lowlife gangbanger that likes to hold down women that can’t fight you back while you take their virginity. Tell me something, did your father take yours in the same way when you were little?” he asks with contempt in his tone.

  Rage floods my chest and squeezes my lungs until I can barely take air in. Hankin just called me a victim and a rapist in a long-winded way; two things I am not and will never be.

  “I do the taking Hankin, and have always run shit where I come from.”

  “Exactly and that’s why your ass will be right back in here soon, and I’m letting you go get some fresh air.” He starts to grin and dips his head to whisper, “But I’ll be waiting for you when you fuck up again. Maybe I’ll visit your fine ass in the shower and let my boys guard the door while I hold you down. Now let’s go on one more power trip together with me driving.”

  Hankin then straightens up and walks into my personal space until we are nose to nose and I can smell the cigarette smoke on his breath.

  “Get your ass in those clothes in the next two minutes or your early release will go to someone else that doesn’t fucking deserve it. Disobey me and I’ll make sure your black ass never gets the chance to leave here again.”

  He turns around and walks away. I watch him go, finding it impossible to breathe with my chest swelling up with more anger. Only rushing up behind him and gripping at least one of his necks with both hands then squeezing it until his body needs a toe tag will make me feel better; but I am not stupid, and can always kill his ass after we both get out of here.

  I turn around and hurl the new pile of clothes and shoes with the tags still on them onto the bed then snatch my shirt over my head. It is one part of a bright yellow surgical scrub suit with my prison numbers ironed on the right side of my chest.

  Having to give Hankin a temporary pass for his disrespect and get dressed in a hurry because he says so makes my temper rise to nuclear levels. I stop undressing, bow my head, and check myself —or I will still wreck his ass and mine in the process, possibly end up spending the rest of my life in here for capital murder instead of being free to find Ajoni. If Hankin had tried me like that anywhere else but here, I would have killed him right out in the open, just to make a statement.

  Before I got locked down, I used that tactic of show and prove on the regular to take Mecca from a weak ass drug dealer named Mikey that did not deserve the title kingpin. He cried like a bitch before I capped his ass on a Westside sidewalk in the middle of the night in a housing project. I then had his body dropped in the trunk of a stolen car, buried him behind the warehouse, and left the car wiped clean in the nearest junkyard. I hated Mikey; he sold bad dope. If you do not have quality product, keep that shit to yourself. What is the point in killing off your customers?

  Of course, I had to deal with the witnesses that lived in the projects after that, but that was not hard. I just gave all sixty of them incentive to keep their mouths shut. Junkies take their payment in the form of their habit happily. Since I could not have a bunch of potential people that could grow a conscience one day running around, I gave them all the bad dope of Mikey’s they could hold. Most of them overdosed eventually. The ones that survived became loyal customers of mine.

  The twenty upright citizens that lived in the projects were another matter entirely; they wanted money and a brighter future for themselves somewhere else. They got it, and all had moved of the projects by the middle of the next week with their kids.

  ‘Show and Prove’ also works when I need to let someone know I am not to be fucked with. I had plans to use that strategy again, to expand into the eastside of Atlanta, and eventually infiltrate the whole city. Being the head of a legitimate cartel is what I was aiming for, except a smooth, pale-skinned eighteen-year-old with a beautiful face and a coke-bottle shape on a lean frame fucked my world up first. She did not even have to face me in a courtroom to do it either.

  Now, the only territory I have taken over for the last eight years is The Pen. In here, I quietly give orders to inmates, with access to mules on the outside that carry my drugs in during visitation and make sure most of my dirty work is done by someone else in here. Someone has to make sure that nothing happens without my say-so while I am here, and after I am gone. I need loyal eyes and ears everywhere. That reminds me of how disloyal Ajoni is, and how I only have two minutes to get dressed or miss the chance to make her right her wrong done to me.

  I yank the royal blue Aeropostale shirt off the bed then over my head, step out of my white canvas shoes to put on the Coogi jeans and Air Force Ones. I do not bother tying them up, instead stuffing the shoelaces in the side of my shoes. My fit and the shoes are a little too snug for my liking, but I deal with it until I get home.

  The double doors at the far end of the room clank together behind me. They do that whenever someone is coming in or going out. I do not have to look back to know it is Hankin coming to see if I have given him reason to keep me here.

  I shove my prison clothes and shoes in the paper sack, and then ball it up before stepping into the aisle to walk toward him smiling. I battle with myself to not wipe that cheesy ass grin off his face or make him die with it permanently etched there.

  “I see you can take an order, boy,” he mocks as we get closer to each other.

  “I’m pretty sure you were taking orders long before I got here, Hankin,” I state dryly and walk past him to the exit. I just wonder if his boss is wearing a sheet over his head or over his lap when they have their meetings and Hankin bows down in one way or another.

  “I’ll be waiting to give you even more orders when you get back,” he whispers behind me.

  “Do me a favor and hold your breath while you’re waiting,” I utter, with no intention of ever coming back here. If he dies now, he will save me the trouble of having to find out where he lives to kill his ass for stealing from me, but nothing worth having ever comes that easy.

  I enter a shiny, tiled hallway leading to six other cell blocks, the yard, rec room, infirmary, and cafeteria one way. The only way out of Cell Block A and The Pen is in the other direction.

  I turn toward a six-inch thick iron door with a scanner in place of the knob. Only the guards that supervise the cell blocks have swipe badges for it. I stop and place my back against the wall, making sure Hankin does not have the opportunity to breathe on me while swiping his badge. A buzzer sounds above my head, signaling the door will be opening. When it slides inward, we walk into a small room with iron chairs on one side. I let Hankin take the lead.

  He stops at two small panels of glass in the wall on the opposite side of the room. “Calen Kingsley for release, Felicia.”

  A slim, brown-skinned female in a correctional uniform with braids in a ball on the top of her head sits at a desk behind the glass, swiping at her nose. She then glances up, reaches up, slides the window open, and sticks her hand through it.

  “Give me your damn uniform,” she orders in a bitter tone. I raise the paper sack up and place it in front of her face. She snatches it out of my hand and throws the bag into a pile that is already in the corner of the office, then rolls her eyes at me.


  “It’ll take about fifteen minutes to process you out, Kingsley. Have a seat. If any red flags come up in the database while I’m preparing your release paperwork during that time, your ass will be putting that uniform back where it belongs, on your damn back… fucking criminals.” She shakes her head and turns her attention back to the computer in front of her and begins typing. I breathe in deeply, trying to keep from snatching her rude ass through the glass. If I ever decide to put my hands on a woman, she will definitely be the first.

  Hankin takes a seat behind me. I choose to stand at the window with the lesser of the two evils in the room and let my mind replay the memories of what happened at the warehouse between Ajoni and me, as it often does.

  ***

  After I knocked X and Leek the fuck out, I ordered Slade to stay outside and wait for them to rejoin the living. Raw went to the store without having to be asked to get ice, Tylenol, and a soda for Ajoni. I went back in the warehouse to sit with her.

  While she was unconscious, I covered her up with brand new, black silk sheets, took off my shirt with X’s and Leek’s blood in it, and just watched her sleep. When she woke up, I planned to make her feel better, then make love to her. She would join the crew as Queen.

  Or so I thought.

  Raw finally came back, sat a bag of ice, a bottle of Tylenol, and a Pepsi on the table that I had pushed to the far end of the room with candles burning on it and takeout from a Chinese restaurant, and then he left. I emptied out a couple of pills in my hand and carried them along, with the soda and a piece of ice back to the bed. When I rubbed the ice over Ajoni’s swelling cheek, she moaned in her sleep then opened her eyes that were too light to be called hazel and were glazed over with pain.

  I was damn glad she woke up finally and I did not have to worry anymore if she was going to wake up at all. If she did not, X and Leek would not either.

  She cringed and slid away from me on her back, to the edge of the bed.

  “King, take me home,” she begged. I knew she was scared as hell, so I reached for her with both hands, intending to comfort and help her. She swatted my hands down, knocking the ice, pills, and soda onto the bed, and sat up on the other side of it.