Sun & Shyne: Growing Pains

by Sa'id Salaam

  ****

  Killa made a sizeable donation to an Atlanta mega church on his way to the airport. It was a bit much but he was sure they would appreciate it. To his dismay, there were no direct flights to New York leaving anytime soon. He couldn’t just sit idle in the airport for six hours so he bought a confusing array of connecting flights to Newark, New Jersey. In the end, he would arrive at the same time as if he waited for the direct flight.

  He kept a car in Newark but didn’t want to waste extra time going to retrieve it. Instead, he rented a car for the drive to Long Island.

  “Easy, Killa…” Killa warned himself when he noticed how fast he was driving. He eased his foot from the gas pedal and slowed down.

  The last thing he needed was to get pulled over by some cop. Usually that would lead to a gunfight but today he was totally unarmed. To ease his mind, he began to recite some of God’s attributes to himself.

  “Most Gracious, Most Merciful, Most Loving…,” he said, feeling himself become at ease. It works every time because only in the remembrance of God do hearts find rest.

  Killa pulled into the driveway and jumped out before putting the car in park. It rolled into the back of Christi’s rental as he raced to the door. He stuck his key in the door but it was pulled open before he could turn it. Sun smiled up at his father then stepped aside so his sister could have him first.

  “Daddy!” the girl squealed and jumped into his arms. She buried her face into him and broke down into sobs.

  “I’m here, baby girl,” the father assured his child. He held her and rocked until she got it all out. Once she regained her usual cool, he sat her down.

  “Sup, yo,” Sun said, offering his hand. He and his father exchanged pounds and man hugs the way men do. Christi was last to get a hug from her adopted stepdad. After an hour or so of small talk, she removed herself so the father could be with his children.

  “Daddy…,” Shyne began, then inserted a pause, indicating a serious question was to follow. “What happened to mommy?”

  “Well…” Killa began with a pause of his own. He contemplated how much to tell them before he decided on whole story. Most of it, anyway, since they didn’t need to know their mother killed his oldest son.

  The story removed most of the air from the room along with all sounds as the children processed and reconciled what they’d just heard. The thought of their mother killing someone blew their little minds. If they only knew.

  “So…we have brothers?” Sun finally asked of Rico and Xavier. Technically, Xavier was a step but where they do that? He was as much his as the ones he skeeted.

  “I don’t want no brothers!” Shyne huffed. Their mother killed her mother and she wanted nothing to do with them. Never mind that Yolo had killed their mother as well. The girl could be unreasonable at times. Killa wondered where she got that trait from.

  “Well…” Killa said since that was all he could say. “I’ll read you guys a bedtime story.”

  “We’re ten years old, Pop!” Sun reeled, as if that was too old for bedtime stories. He wasn’t too old for hugs, so he hugged his father’s neck and kissed his cheek. “Night, Pops.”

  “Night, Sun,” Killa chuckled in amusement. “What about you, you too old for bedtime stories too?”

  “Actually, I have a story for you,” Shyne said. She then turned on the laptop and told all that she knew about Mr. and Mrs. Stevenson.

  Chapter 19

  “Wow! Killa said to himself as he followed Shyne’s turn-by-turn directions to the pedophiles’ palace. The girl’s details and descriptions were so vivid that they made him feel like he’d been there before.

  Killa had no plans to harm the couple tonight. No, tonight he just wanted to see where they lived and scout out the area. That’s why he hadn’t brought his bag of tricks along. Besides a small 9mm, he was unarmed.

  The only problem was that Killa grew angrier and angrier with each second that ticked away. His children had escaped harm but the laptop was filled with images of abuse of other children that made him sick to his stomach. They’d pulled him from the bed in the guestroom and into his car. Along with the porn, he’d also discovered a network of pedophiles. There were names and addresses of sick fucks of every race, religion and age group. Killa decided that he’d pay each and every one of them a visit. Sounds like a Killa Season 3 to me.

  “I’ll just say hello,” Killa convinced himself as he sat in front of the Stevensons’. To prove it, he left his pistol and got out the car. He made it up the walkway quickly in long, angry strides. He didn’t even slow down when he reached the door. Instead, he just put his shoulder down and ran through it.

  “Jared, someone’s in here,” Mrs. Stevenson whispered urgently to her sleeping husband.

  “Just go back to sleep,” the lazy man replied. Intruder or no intruder, he didn’t feel like getting out of the bed. By then, even he’d heard someone rushing up the stairs.

  He sat up just in time to see Killa enter their bedroom. The father was so mad that his face looked like one of those monsters in a Sci-fi movie. Killa threw a brutal right hook that broke the man’s face into pieces. He then fell back onto his pillow, sound asleep.

  “Help, hel-,” Mrs. Stevenson shouted until Killa put her in a WWF wrestling hold.

  She kicked her pudgy legs and clawed at his forearms when he cut off her air. The deep gouges drew blood as she fought to stay alive. She lost that fight when her brain went too long without oxygen.

  “Your turn,” Killa said to Mr. Stevenson as he dropped his wife to the floor.

  He then pulled the man off the bed so that he’d have room to work. The jolt woke him up but that wouldn’t last long. Killa took position over him and commenced to stomping him to death. Actually, he stomped him well past death because it got good to him.

  When he snapped out of it, his pants were covered in blood and brains up to his knees. He noticed the scratches on his arms and knew his DNA was under the woman’s fingernails. However, it didn’t matter since Shyne had told him where a gas can was.

  Killa quickly stripped out of his clothes and tossed them on top of the pile of dead pedophiles. He then entered the ensuite bathroom and rinsed the blood away from his body. Assuming that the couple wouldn’t mind, he wrapped one of their bath sheets around his waist.

  The can of gas was exactly where his daughter said it would be. Yolo was right, the child needed help. Now wasn’t the time to think about it, though. He had a fire to start.

  “It’s gettin’ hot in here…” Killa sang as he poured the gas on the couple. He had no say in who goes to hell or not, but the couple was going to burn tonight.

  Most of the five gallons of gas went on the bodies, then he poured a thin trail down the hall and down the stairs. He ended the trail on the eye of the electric stove. A twist of the knob and he was on his way towards the door.

  “Ten, nine, eight, seven, six…” he counted down as he sat in his car.

  The eye lit the gas trail and fire followed it up the stairs. A bright orange flash in the window brought a smile to his face and was also his cue to leave, so he left.

  Christi was sitting in the living room when he returned. She opened her mouth to speak then noticed that he wasn’t wearing anything except a towel wrapped around his waist.

  “Don’t even ask,” Killa said as he rushed by.

  “I wasn’t going to,” she laughed to herself.

  If living with Yolo had taught her anything, it was not to ask.

  ****

  “Huh?” Christi asked when she saw Yolo’s bedroom door ajar.

  She hadn’t so much as touched the doorknob since she came home. Even Killa slept in the guestroom to avoid the shrine. She cautiously approached and gasped when she saw Yolo sitting Indian-style on the bed. She then rubbed her eyes to make sure she’d seen what she thought she saw, but hadn’t.

  “I miss her,” Shyne croaked. The entire front of her shirt was wet from her tears. “I miss my mommy.”

&nbs
p; “I miss her, too,” Christi whimpered and walked inside. She sat on the bed and noticed the tiny book in Shyne’s hands. “What’s that?”

  “A diary. My mom’s diary,” Shyne replied, flicking the open lock. She’d found it under her pillow right next to a fully loaded forty caliber pistol.

  “Ha-have you read it?” Christi wondered.

  “No. You think I should?” Shyne asked her older sister.

  Christi looked upwards as if the answer was on the ceiling. “Yes,” she replied after a moment of thought. “Just not yet. Not until you’re older and can understand whatever might be in there.”

  It was a good answer, too, because the ten-year-old certainly wasn’t ready for the contents of the book. It was full of secrets and dark stories that could only be called Yolo 4: Diary of a Mad Woman.

  ****

  Killa changed clothes twice, checked his email three times and checked his hair one last time. He couldn’t find anything else to stall with, so he finally gave up trying to. He let out a deep sigh and stepped from the guestroom. Christi was watching Asad and the twins playing video games when he arrived.

  “Come on, guys,” Killa said in a tone that excluded all, except the twins.

  Christi picked up a book while Asad stood to leave. He and Shyne shared a quick hug before he left.

  “Shotgun!” Sun called out when they reached the car. Little did he know, there really was a shotgun underneath the passenger’s seat.

  “So!” Shyne shrugged and got in the backseat. Her mother had always let her ride up front so she didn’t mind letting him ride up next to their father.

  “Where we going?” Shyne asked when Killa turned onto the expressway.

  “To the city,” he said as if that explained it. The last time they’d gone to the city, they’d lost their mother and it had taken months for them to get back home. Killa felt her and added, “I have some people I want you two to meet.”

  “Can I turn on the radio?” Sun asked as he turned the radio on.

  “Sure, why not?” his sarcastic father quipped since he’d already turned it on.

  “Ooh! That’s my jam!” Shyne declared. The little girl raised her hands, closed her eyes and began winding her little bottom in the backseat. “Turn up! Turn up!”

  “What the…” Killa shrieked and swerved when he saw her. “Hold the wheel.”

  “Wait, Daddy! I was just playing!” she swore, trying to scoot away from getting popped.

  “I’m telling Asad,” Sun vowed.

  “So! Asad ain’t my daddy! Daddy’s my daddy!” Shyne spat, scrunched her face and moved her neck. “But don’t tell him, okay? Okay?”

  “That’s better,” Killa said as he flipped to the news station.

  “President Donald Trump has just signed an executive order reinstating slavery. Last week he officially ordered women not to speak until spoken to…”

  “Asshole,” Shyne muttered from the backseat. Sun’s eyes went wide knowing that if he’d heard her, their father had heard her as well.

  Killa did hear her but she was right. Dude was an asshole so what else was there to say? The next story really caught his ear.

  “The bodies of a Brentwood couple were found badly burned in a house fire. The couple was originally identified as a Mr. and Mrs. Stevenson, but were not. In fact, they were the Grubs and were wanted by the police in Kansas City for suspicion of several counts of child molestation.”

  Sun turned around and looked at Shyne. She looked at him and then they both turned their heads and looked at their father. Killa stared straight ahead and kept on driving. It was he who’d taught them that there was no such thing as coincidences in life. Everything that happened was written before it took place.

  ****

  The playful mood turned somber the second they crossed the bridge into the Bronx. Two of the places they never wanted to go again in life were The Bronx Zoo and the projects. They both blew their breath loudly when Killa turned up the hill onto University towards the projects. Once again, Killa wrote his name on a piece of paper and stuck it in the window.

  “Come on,” he ordered when he got out and noticed that his children hadn’t budged.

  “Man,” Shyne groaned and unbuckled her seatbelt to get out. Her daddy felt her pain and bit his tongue as he led them into the building.

  Sun looked at his sister like ‘you see this shit?’ at the awe and respect that their father was shown. He came through like the Pope, nodding and waving. Killa once again led them into a pissy lobby and then into an even more pissy elevator. Once they got off, they walked halfway down a hall before stopping in front of an apartment’s door.

  Killa took the opportunity to warn and prepare his children for the grave danger ahead. “Here, put these in,” he said, passing both Sun and Shyne each a mouth guard. “Now, bite down,”

  “We about to fight?” Shyne asked. She wasn’t scared, she just wanted to know.

  “No, but brace yourselves,” he advised as he unlocked the door with several keys.

  As soon as they stepped inside, they were rushed.

  “Oh my God! Look at these two!” Killa’s grandma shouted and snatched her great grandkids into a deadly grandma’s hug. All the air rushed from their little bodies while their little feet dangled in the air.

  Killa smiled happily as Xavier and Rico emerged from a back room. They, however, weren’t smiling, though. Both felt some kind of way about their grandmother hugging the next kids; especially since they were the kids whose mother had killed their mother.

  “You guys look just like your father! Especially this one,” she squealed, grabbing Sun’s face. “X, Rico, come meet your…,”

  Xavier and Rico turned their noses up and walked out of the apartment. Killa looked at his Grandma Diedra, who shrugged since she didn’t know either. They both decided to let it go for now in hopes that it would all work itself out later.

  Killa sat back and listened to his loved ones get acquainted. Of course, that led to Grandma wanting to cook for her babies.

  “Can we go outside?” Shyne asked, so sweetly that neither knew she had something up her sleeve.

  “Stay in the courtyard so I can see you from the window,” Grandma Diedra replied.

  “Okay,” Sun and Shyne sang like twins do.

  “Now you, Mister!” the grandmother said as she turned towards her grandson. He’d gladly accept the chewing out instead of one of her dangerous hugs. Luckily for him, a commotion from outside interrupted her. “Damn kids out there fighting again! All they do is fuss and fight.”

  Killa knew it was the truth since he’d grown up there. He’d also done a lot of fighting himself in that very same courtyard. Everyone loves a good fight so he stuck his head out the window to get a peek. He got a peek at his twins fighting his older sons.

  “Damn it!” he growled and rushed from the apartment. The battle was in full swing by the time he reached the courtyard. Killa took a seat and watched like everyone else.

  Xavier was fourteen and Rico was twelve to Sun and Shyne’s ten. All had been trained by the legendary Karate Joe, so it was a good fight.

  “Yo! They getting it in!” Little Villain said, passing his blunt to Killa.

  “I got a yard on the little ones,” Killa offered, but Grandma Diedra had made it down with her belt.

  “Break it up! Get upstairs!” she fussed, popping and chasing her great grands around.

  This was the start of a real sibling rivalry.

  Chapter 20

  “Where we going now?” Shyne fussed when their dad turned left instead of right towards Long Island.

  “To say goodbye to your mother,” Killa replied, killing all protest. The mood in the vehicle had become morbidly stoic as they rode to the North Bronx Cemetery.

  Killa’s feet felt like they were encased in cement as he walked through the tombstones. He’d personally filled enough of the graves to have his own wing in the cemetery. His heartbeat thundered in his ears as they reached the graves
of the two women he loved.

  “Go on,” he said, pointing towards their mother’s headstone.

  Sun instinctively reached for his sister’s hand as they inched forward.

  “Hey, Mommy,” Shyne offered with a weak smile. No tears came because her mother had prepared her for this day. Her smile widened as her mother’s voice rang in her mind.

  “Shyne, be a lady. Shyne, don’t be a hoe. Shyne, take care of your brother. Shyne, know your worth. Shyne, Shyne, Shyne…”

  Sun smiled too as his mother’s admonishments reverberated in his thick skill as well.

  “Sun, don’t be no bitch! Sun, don’t be no snitch! Sun, fuck friends! Sun, bitches ain’t shit, so find you a lady. Sun, take care of your sister. Sun…”

  Killa realized at that moment that he wasn’t alone. Losing the two women that he loved at one time had been a major blow but he still had his children. He let out a sigh in hopes that they would one day all get along. Before parting, he pulled out his phone and took a picture of the twins as they stood at their mother’s grave. That way, if anyone ever decided to write a book about them they could use it as the cover.

  ****

  Two sets of children meant that Killa had to continue to maintain two separate households. Rico and Xavier lived in the Bronx with Grandma Diedra while Christi held the twins down in Long Island.

  Killa is as Killa does, so he popped in regularly between making the world safer one murder at a time. He did his best to remove child molesters, crooked cops and other assorted scumbags from the planet.

  Fifth and sixth grades flew by with minor issues. There was always someone who didn’t believe that shit stunk until Sun or Shyne beat the shit out of them and made them smell it. Everything was pretty much the same until everything began to change.

  ****

  “Good morning, Christi, Shyne,” twelve-year-old Sun greeted as he came into the kitchen with his sisters.

  “Morning, Sun,” Christi replied while Shyne just rolled her eyes and sucked her teeth.