by Ca$H
“…if you can’t afford an attorney the state will appoint—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah! Yady, yady, whooptie, whoop!” CJ mocked.
Miss Wanda came flying through the throng of onlookers that had quickly gathered.
“What the fuck are y’all doing to my muthafuckin’ son?” she screamed, looking like a wild woman.
“Ma’am, are you Wanda Jeffries?” asked one of the detectives on the scene.
“Wanda Marie Jeffries! Yeah, that’s muthafuckin’ right! Now, you need to tell me why the fuck y’all are lockin’ up my son!”
“He’s being arrested for four counts of murder.”
“What? Murder? My baby ain’t never hurt a muthafucka in his life. We’re God fearing people,” she said, sounding crazy because her foul mouth contradicted her. But she was lying to try to save her son from going to jail. Some in the crowd snickered, but they all could respect that.
While Miss Wanda was out there giving the cops hell, Eric was on point. He was inside the bathroom flushing weed and coke, tossing his Mom Dukes crack pipes out the window, assisted by Brianna.
“Ma’am, we also have a search warrant for your apartment,” the detective was saying to Miss Wanda.
“Uh, no the hell you don’t! Y’all bastards got me fucked up. Try searching my shit. I’ll spit in one of y’all’s muthafuckin’ face! Watch and see!”
Meanwhile, Tamika stood there crying as CJ was being put in the back of the police car.
“Don’t cry, shorty. Love is love,” CJ called out to her. But the tears poured.
The lyrics drummed so loud in her mind, it was like Badu was inside of her head singing, what you gon’ do when they come for you…
When the police car took her man away Tamika fainted.
SIX
CJ had been in jail for almost two months. His bond was a million dollars so he wasn’t going anywhere. All he could do was sit tight and wait for the DA to play his cards. CJ had already gotten Tamika to pay thirty stacks to a hard-hitting lawyer as a retainer. That was half of his trap, and he would have to cough up the other half along with his whip if he had to go to trial. There’s no price on a niggaz freedom, so CJ wasn’t sweating the attorney fees.
Tamika had gotten the choppa from Star and disposed of it the way CJ had instructed her to. She had paid the lawyer from his stash and was holding down the rest, checking on his peoples and the whole nine, up until a coupla weeks ago. Since then, she hadn’t visited him and she would no longer accept his calls. That’s the shit that had him stressin’.
Tricia, his jump off, was troopin’ as best as she could for him. That was all and well but he knew that he was fucked in the game if wifey had gone sour on him.
In jail, CJ was keeping to himself; he knew the play, somebody might try to slide up to him and get him to reveal something that they could run and tell and turn State against him. He wasn’t going down like that. Speaking of which…
“Say, son, them Orange Project niggaz hit ya man up, huh?” asked a fool who had just come on the tier yesterday.
“I don’t know what you speaking on, yo,” CJ tried to cut him short.
“Naw. I heard what happened and—”
“Yo, black, fall back a’ight.”
“Damn, son, it ain’t like that. I was just—
Whop! Whop! Whop! A three punch combination silenced the fool and sent him to medical to get the gash over his eye stitched up. CJ wasn’t playing with those niggaz on the pod, he viewed every last one of them as potential rats.
He was on the phone with Tricia when a guard came to inform him that he had a visit. CJ thought, Finally this bitch done got back on her square. Assuming that it was Tamika.
When he stepped into the visitation booth and saw Rah on the other side of the glass, CJ was all smiles.
“Dayum, yo! How you be, fam?” He saw that Rah’s neck was heavily bandaged and underneath both eyes were still slightly discolored.
“I’m making it, fam. How you?”
“I’m maintainin! Yo, fam, why you sound like a frog?” CJ chuckled.
“A bullet damaged my throat, vocal cords, and some other shit,” Rah tried to explain.
“Fuck dat, you alive and gettin’ around. That’s all that matters, yo.” CJ said, speaking through a small screened hole.
“Word. Yo, Kayundra said hello.”
CJ looked to the ceiling. “Dawg, don’t let me find out you hittin’ dat. Dayum!”
“Go easy on her, fam. She’s gettin’ herself back right. Anyway, she drove me down here to see you.”
“On what, a stolen bicycle?” asked CJ being sarcastic.
Rah shot him a look.
“A’ight, son. Whatevea,” CJ continued.
“Fa real though, we in a rental. She had to drive ’cause I can’t yet.”
“I hear you. Just get well, nigga. You ain’t gotta come down here, I’m good. You know how ya boy do it.”
“Only death could keep me from checkin’ on you, dawg. You know how it is with you and me,” said Rah. “Yo, what you need me to do for you?”
“Just get well, fam. Oh, there is one thing I need you to handle.”
“Name it and it’s done.”
“Go by Tamika’s and tell her that I said to get her ass down here ASAP!”
Two days later, Tamika showed up; Rah had delivered CJ’s message. She was looking as fly as usual but CJ was too hot to appreciate her looks today.
“I wish I could get to yo’ shady ass! I would stomp a mad hole in that ass!” was the first words out of CJ’s mouth.
“Naw, baby boy, you need to save that for that weave-wearing bitch that’s been creeping down here to see you,” Tamika shot back.
“Fuck you talking ’bout, shorty?”
“Nigga, don’t play yaself, you busted! And you don’t even have the little jump off in check ’cause if you did, she would’ve lied for ya ass!”
“What you talkin’ about, Mika?” CJ needed to know before he ’fessed up.
“Tricia, muthafucka! Yeah. I bumped into her down here two weeks ago. Asked the ho straight up who she was down here to see, and the bitch had the nerve to say, ‘our man’!”
CJ couldn’t say shit.
“I’m sorry, yo,” he finally said.
“Trust, you are gonna be if you don’t handle your business. You better make that ho come to my door and apologize for disrespecting me. Then you better cut the bitch off. Holla at me when you do, playa,” said Tamika, and then she bounced.
Tamika was at home listening to Star go on and on about Diamond Rick’s diamond dick game. They were smoking a blunt just kicking it.
Knock! Knock! Knock!
Tamika went to the door and looked out the peep hole. Star’s nosy butt was right on her heels. Tamika saw who it was, opened the door, and stood there with her arms folded across her chest.
“I came to apologize for disrespecting you. I will never do that again, ever. CJ loves you and does not want me. I’ll fall back,” said Tricia.
“Make sure that you do,” Tamika closed the door in her face.
Star cracked up.
Now that wifey was back on board CJ wasn’t stressin’ shit. He knew that the DA couldn’t have shit on him. Just the other day they had him in the interrogation room tryna run the good cop/bad cop routine. CJ just laughed at them and told both cops to eat a dick. It was the third time they had tried to come at him with some bullshit to get him to confess. CJ would die and go to hell before he would admit to four murders.
Bright and early the next morning a guard came to tell CJ to pack up his belongings.
“Sup? Where I’m going?” CJ asked.
“Home. All charges against you have been dropped.”
CJ played it cool but inside he wanted to dance, shout, and do the Holy Ghost.
Rah asked Kayundra, “What made you start using drugs?”
“A man,” she answered succinctly.
“Who?” he delved further. “And why would a dude wanna get his
girl hooked on drugs?” He could not see that with bifocals.
“Remember Red who lived a few buildings down?” replied Kayundra in a tone filled with shame and regret.
“Used to hustle with that old head dude, Shep, who caught a bid for killin’ some dude at the bodega up the street?”
“Yeah, that’s the Red,” she confirmed.
“I thought he hustled. I didn’t know that he got high, too.”
“I didn’t either when I first started kicking it with him.”
“That nigga like thirty-five, what you see in him?” asked Rah.
“Okay. I’m not trying to lay a guilt trip on you but here’s the truth: When we broke up while you were in juvie I was still in love with you. I always believed that we would get back together, because up until then you had been my only boyfriend, you know that.”
Rah nodded.
“Then you came home all mad at me because I had been talking to a few boys. But honestly, I hadn’t had sex with no one else. You wasn’t trying to hear that. Then you go with Tamika and that right there crushed me. So I was like, you know what, I don’t need no man, for like two whole years. Then Red started checking for me, and he was much older than me, so he knew how to run his game. I fell for him, I can’t lie, he had me open.”
“Did he?” Rah chuckled.
“For a minute. Still, I would always think about you. Then I heard that you had gone off to school, and it hurt me because you didn’t even tell me goodbye,” Kayundra said, her eyes watering and her voice breaking up.
“I apologize, fa real.”
“It’s okay.” Kayundra tried to smile. “Anyway, long story short: I caught Red getting high two or three times. He told me that it was something he only did occasionally to get away from the stress.” She laughed at the lunacy of it.
“I wasn’t buying it and he knew that I was about to stop dealing with him, so he tricked me on drugs as a way to hold on to me,” she concluded, crying in shame.
Rah held her as Big Ma waddled by on her way to her room.
“It’s a’ight, shorty.” Rah comforted Kayundra. He asked where Red was at now.
“He’s dead. Somebody killed him shortly before you came home.”
“Good fa that nigga. Was y’all still together?”
“Nope. By then my habit was way out of control. You saw how bad I was that night. Red was the rare smoker who never let crack take him all the way down. My problem was, besides being stupid, I don’t do anything halfway. I go all out.”
“I wanna see you go all out getting ya sparkle back,” Rah told her.
“I am,” she promised. I want you back, too, she thought but was afraid to say.
Tamika was so bored she wanted to scream. Malcolm had called asking her out to lunch but she nixed that. She hadn’t accepted anything from him since her Mom Dukes warned her about playing with niggaz emotions. She was about to call her big cuz, Danyelle, and see what was up with her when she heard someone knocking on the door.
“Mama, get the door!”
“Okay, you don’t have to scream.”
A minute later, her Mom Duke came to her bedroom and said, “Tamika, someone is here to see you.”
“Why are you being all dramatic, Mama? It can’t be nobody but Star’s tired behind,” figured Tamika, getting out of bed and going out into the living room and getting the best surprise ever. CJ was standing there with a blunt in his mouth and a bottle of Remy in his hand.
Tamika screamed and ran and jumped in his arms, raining kisses all over his face.
SEVEN
CJ chilled for a week, figuring that popo would be watching him hard since he had escaped from their grasp. The streets told him Cujo, a dirty ass white detective, had been rollin’ through the projects hard ever since he touched back down.
CJ knew how Cujo got down. He would plant drugs on a nigga, go to court, and give false testimony, even murk cats, rumor had it. CJ was not tryna run into that dirtyass cracker and get set up. But he had to get back on his grind. He had wifey and fam to provide for, and his trap was leaking.
Niggaz surrendered his old spot on the block, and CJ got back on his grind, though he was being extra alert. The first two days that he was back out there getting it up, he was paranoid as fuck. By the third day it was back to normal. He stayed out hustlin’ until three in the morning. CJ was tired as a dog when he walked into his building. That’s how he got caught slippin’.
Two hooded men snatched him up, threw his ass inside a van, and drove off.
A half hour later, he was pulled out of the van and forced inside a dark basement at gunpoint. His abductors had already taken his strap that was tucked in his waist.
CJ didn’t know what the fuck was going on, but he knew that the niggaz with the bangers pressed to the back of his head and the middle of his back probably wasn’t anyone out to avenge their Orange Projects homeys. Nah, that type of revenge would’ve come in a quick burst of bullets. Street niggas didn’t take hostages, they bodied ya ass and mashed out.
In the darkened basement, they pushed him down into a chair.
“Fuck is you muhfuckaz?” he asked.
“Shut ya face before I shoot you in it,” one of them barked.
A garbled voice belonging to neither of his two abductors said, “We know you killed those four boys over in East Orange, but we probably won’t be able to prove it. But we know the spot you hustle from, we know where you live, and where your girlfriend lives. If you don’t cooperate with us we are going to nail you for something, even if we have to plant some kilos on you. Understand?”
“I understand I have the right to an attorney.” CJ said, not with the bullshit.
“Oh yeah?”
Pow! CJ’s ears rung from the noise of the gun, fired inches from his head.
“My boys won’t purposely miss the next time. Now listen up. We’ll allow you to sell all the drugs you want and no one will bother you. We’ll stop investigating those four murders, if you’ll help us bring down a rogue cop.”
“Man, get me the fuck out of here, yo.”
“You wanna go back to jail? We’re the ones who got you out. If you don’t cooperate you’re going back. Four murder charges, CJ. Four!”
“Like I said, get me the fuck outta here.”
“So you’ll rather go back to jail? What do you care about a cop? A white one at that. Cujo, we want him.”
CJ, like everyone else in the hood, hated Cujo. But he hated snitches even worse.
“Tell ya mama to set him up.”
“Oh, he’s a tough guy. He can do a bid. But what about your mama? Can she do a bid? Can that pretty lady of yours do a bid?”
“We’re all built to last,” spat CJ defiantly. He didn’t give a fuck about Cujo but snitchin’ was snitchin’. It was death before dishonor with CJ. Unlike most niggaz, he didn’t just say that shit, he lived it.
They continued tryna break him with threats and offers. But you can’t turn a real nigga into a bitch. If they flip, it was in them all along. CJ wouldn’t flip, and after a while they gave up.
A lamp came on in the basement and Cujo stood up from a couch holding the voice distortion device he’d been speaking into. He smiled and said to the two cops who had abducted CJ, “I think we’ve found our man.”
“Fuck you mean, cracker?” gritted CJ.
Cujo laughed.
“This cracker is about to help you become the next Akbar Pray.”
Every hustala, young or old, in Newark had heard of the street legendary Akbar Pray. His legend was synonymous with hustlaz like Nicky Barnes, Frank Lucas, and such made men who at one time had the game on smash from coast to coast.
Cujo fired up a cigar and said, “Just hear me out, CJ. I think you’ll find our offer impossible to refuse.”
Rah had recovered from his near fatal injuries well enough to return to school. Summer classes were due to begin and he needed to attend in order to make up for having missed the spring quarter. He also needed to get bac
k to ATL and get his hustle back on.
He looked around the living room and saw the only people that mattered to him in this world, the people that he would miss; the ones who were motivation for him to get that degree. They were all present, fawning over LaKeesha’s newborn baby boy, whom she named after his father, who was still locked up in New York on the island.
Big Ma, whom Rah loved and wanted to make proud, was anxious for him to go back to school. “Newark and these projects is bad news,” she had explained her anxiety the other day.
Rah thought he had her fooled but Big Ma had seen it all, she was hard to hoodwink. She knew that he was into something down in Atlanta, she just didn’t know what. The night that Rah was shot he’d had $5,000 on him. The hospital had turned the money over to Big Ma while Rah was in a coma.
When Rah was well enough, Big Ma asked him, “Where did you get all this money from?” returning it back to him.
“Oh, that belongs to CJ.”
“Raheem, look me in the eye and tell me that you are not down in Atlanta selling drugs or involved in anything else illegal,” she demanded.
“Naw, Big Ma. I ain’t doing nothing like that. I told you, this money belongs to CJ.” Rah lied, though it tore him up to do so to her face. He felt like a fake.
Big Ma hadn’t been fooled; she’d seen the lie in his eyes. Rah’s conscience made him a terrible liar.
I’ma make it up to you, Big Ma, he thought now as he watched her rock back and forth in her favorite chair.
His attention shifted to LaKeesha. Rah was concerned about her. Since being home he had peeped that she was no longer focused on her goals, her focus was on niggaz, particularly her baby’s daddy. “That’s all good, but don’t give up on your dreams,” he had recently told her, but he didn’t think the advice had registered. He needed to set a good example for LaKeesha, who had just handed the baby to Kayundra.
“Hey, little bitty baby,” cooed Kayundra, rubbing her nose against the baby’s tummy. “You going to grow up to be handsome, sweet, and smart like your uncle Raheem, aren’t you?”