Pitbulls In a Skirt 2

by Mikal Malone

  “I guess no one wants to live,” he chuckles. “I’ll give you credit for having heart while it still beats. You made a major mistake by not taking Black up on his kind offer. 5!” he continues before getting safely back into the van.

  The first group of men holding the weapons unleashes into the side of the buildings while the others jumps out and run inside the units. A full fledge war begins.

  Emerald City Squad

  “We all dropped the ball on this shit.”

  Yvette and her ten crew members were standing in the hallway in Unit B when they heard…tat…tat…tat multiple times. The sounds followed by light crashing noises resemble rocks falling off of mountains.

  “What was that?!” Nassir yells. “Sounds like Mac tens!”

  “What the fuck?!” Derrick responds standing up in the hallway, Doc’s lifeless body still lying on the floor.

  “It sounds like a whole rack of ‘em too,” was the last thing Nassir says before his head is blown clean off his body.

  After Nassir is killed, bullets fly over their heads and against the hallway walls like rain going in the opposite direction. The force of the bullets cause the walls to crumble with extreme ease.

  “Run!!!!!!” Yvette screams as they take off toward the far end of the hallway. “Go to the last apartment on the left!”

  All of them run for cover while the guns continue to do major damage to the building. When they get to the apartment, they rush inside and the men move a heavy China cabinet placing it in front of the door. The door was already open and no one was inside but them.

  “Move to the bedroom in the back! They must be firin’ from the field.” They do as she says closing the bedroom door behind them. Once inside, everyone sits on the floor.

  “What’s goin’ on?” Mercedes asks out of breath ducking as low as possible. “It sounds like the National Guard out there.”

  “It’s gotta be Black,” Yvette responds shaking her head. “I knew this was a set up. What was I thinkin’?!”

  “Don’t blame yourself, Yvette. We all dropped the ball on this shit,” Kenyetta consoles.

  “Ya’ll must’ve pissed the wrong nigga off,” Chris adds still not believing what was happening. TAT…TAT…TAT…TAT, continues to sound off in the background.

  “I knew that nigga was plannin’ somethin’ else,” Derrick adds. “I shoulda hit him in Tyland like I planned!”

  “Don’t beat yourself up, baby. We didn’t have time to plan. Everything happened so quickly,” Mercedes replies.

  “Did ya’ll see Nassir’s head get blown off,” one of the young soldiers asks. He was visibly shaken and in shock. “One minute he was talkin’ and the next minute his head was gone.”

  “Don’t think about that,” Mercedes tells him. “We have to focus.”

  “I…I gotta tell ya’ll somethin’” Kenyetta says preparing to tell them about Black. “I…’”

  “Kenyetta, this don’t have nothin’ to do wit’ you,” Mercedes cuts her off. “So leave it alone. Aight?”

  Kenyetta is surprised that Mercedes doesn’t want her to reveal her secret about dealing with Black, and sneaking him inside. She decides not to speak about it and nods in agreement.

  “I’m not tryin’ to give ‘em Emerald,” Yvette says plainly. “I can’t give these niggas our home.”

  And then they hear a voice which says, “By now you know we not fuckin’ around. The next move is up to you.”

  After they listen to what the stranger was saying on a bullhorn, fear washes over them.

  “You think they really gonna let us go?” the young soldiers says hopefully.

  “No…this may be it. I don’t care what he says, they never gonna let us leave outta here alive,” Yvette advises softly.

  “Baby, don’t say that shit,” Chris tells her. “We gettin’ the fuck outta here!”

  “Chris, even if me and the girls do walk out, they gonna murder us the moment our feet hit the concrete. They can’t let us leave here alive. Trust me. Black knows the only way to keep Emerald if he takes it, is to murder us. Otherwise we comin’ back fightin’.”

  Kenyetta and Mercedes look at one another and drop their heads.

  “Why don’t ya’ll go ‘head,” Yvette tells the soldiers and Chris. “We gonna stay. It’s us they want not ya’ll.”

  “You lost your fuckin’ mind!” Chris tells her.

  “Yeah, you must be trippin’ if you think I’m leavin’ my shawty and ya’ll in here alone. If we in it, we in it together!” Derrick tells her.

  Silence fills the small room while gun fire gets louder outside the apartment.

  “I can’t believe its gonna happen like this. I mean…I always knew I’d die in Emerald, but I always thought it would be more peaceful. Like in my sleep or somethin’,” Mercedes says looking around at everyone.

  “At least you thought about dying,” Kenyetta responds. “I figured I’d live forever.”

  Chris wraps her arm around Yvette and holds her tightly. “If you die at least you’re dyin’ wit me.”

  “You really love her don’t you?” Mercedes asks.

  “Wit’ my life,” Chris responds looking at Yvette.

  “I can feel it,” Mercedes says. “I’m so sorry, Chris…for unleashin’ on you. And I apologize for the smack.”

  “You smacked, my baby?” Yvette asks.

  “Yeah…she got one out on me. But it’s cool though. That shit don’t even matter no more.”

  Mercedes grips Derrick and Kenyetta and Mercedes hold one another. The sounds of machine weapons grow closer.

  “They in the building, ya’ll. They lookin’ for us. They know we here,” Mercedes tells them.

  “Well I hope they ready for a battle, cause I’m not givin’ up easy,” Yvette tells them. “I got five bullets, how many ya’ll got?”

  “Eight…six…ten…two…nine,” they say.

  “Well…that sounds like enough for a hell of a fight,” Yvette assures them.

  All of a sudden she starts laughing.

  “What’s so funny?” Mercedes asks.

  “I’m just remembering when you and Derrick use to go at it all the time,” she giggles. “I thought ya’ll were gonna kill one another. And now ya’ll all bunned up and shit.”

  “I know right,” Kenyetta cosigns.

  “He use to get on my fuckin’ nerves!” Mercedes says looking into his handsome face. “Now I can’t live without him.”

  “I hope so,” his tone is soft but the implication of her infidelity looms. “But I never hated you,” he continues looking at Mercedes bruised but beautiful face. “I knew from the moment I saw her, that she was the one. Everybody else saw it too that’s what was fuckin’ me up,” he smiles. “You everything to me,” he says seriously. “You my soul mate. And if I got any say so in the next life, I’ma choose you again.”

  There wasn’t a dry eye in the room. Yvette stands up and holds out her hand. One by one everyone gets up and places their hands on top of hers.

  “Emerald city in life and death,” Yvette says.

  They repeat after her, “Emerald city in life and death!”

  “If I gotta die, I rather die with ya’ll. I’m goin’ out wit’ some real ass niggas,” she looks around at them.

  “We proud to go out wit’ you too,” one of the soldiers say.

  As they say their goodbyes, Black’s men reach their floor with orders to kill them without questions asked.

  Unit C

  “In war there are always casualties.”

  In Unit C, Black’s kids had already killed ten men and had taken control of the stash houses. Because Wallace, Lando and Neo didn’t get a chance to relay Mercedes’ message about the kids being possibly dangerous, the soldiers’ guards were down and they paid with their lives. And now that Black’s men had arrived to take the children home, they were free to go, escaping any wrath.

  “Everything’s clear,” one of Black’s men, who’s holding a machine gun says to the child. H
e remains in the doorway of the stash house, his foot props it open. “I’m ready to take ya’ll downstairs. Get your mother.”

  As they spoke, men on Black’s squad came in and out of the apartment removing drugs and money.

  “I’ll get her now,” Lance, Black’s son says. “They ready, ma. We gotta leave. They got the van parked out front.”

  His brother’s push pass him and enters the hallway. They’d had enough excitement for the day and just wanted to go home.

  “You ready, ma?” Lance asks his mother who’s in a daze.

  “I don’t wanna leave your brother,” Shade says. “Nathan’s still in here some where.”

  “You heard what they said…Auntie Shannon was killed. Nathan might be dead too. We gotta move on, ma. In war there are casualties,” he says with conviction.

  “Lance, I know. You don’t have to tell me that.” She says sternly.

  “If I ain’t gotta tell you, what’s up, then?!” the kid shouts. “You actin’ like you don’t get it. Dad would flip if he saw you actin’ like this!”

  With the mention of Black she pulls herself together and stands up.

  “I’m coming,” she walks behind her children to the van.

  Her heart was broken because her sister was dead and her child was missing. But she knew she couldn’t blame anybody but herself, and that hurt worse. She felt the burning sensation rising in her nose forcing her to cry. But if she showed emotion, Black would certainly punish her in the worst way. Although he reserved violence for the children, he didn’t spare his women if they showed signs of weakness during dire situations.

  Instead of crying she sat quietly in her seat reciting her son’s words, “In war there are causalities.”

  She added her own words and said, “even if the causality is my own son.”

  The Community Center

  ““Wake up young man. Everybody got guns.”

  The community center is jammed packed with people displaced from their homes in Unit B. Hope was in their hearts that soon, the fiasco would be over and they could return home.

  Nathan opens his eyes and realizes he’s sitting in a hard plastic orange chair. One of the tenants covered him earlier with her jacket and when he jumps up, he pushes it off. Happy the child was doing better, the tenants smile at him slightly.

  “You aight, lil nigga?” Lando asks when they see him standing.

  “What happened?” he says although he remembers.

  “You shot my man that’s what happened. And if you try some shit like that in here, you won’t be gettin’ back up.”

  “Why you do that anyway?” Neo questions him.

  Nathan thought for a minute about what he was going to say and remembers his conversation with Wallace.

  “Cause I was mad,” he says pouting.

  “Mad about what?”

  “I was mad that…that…they killed my aunty,” he says sadly. “I wanna go home,” he cries. “Please take me home.”

  “You ain’t goin’ home no time soon so you might as well get use to it,” Neo tells him looking out the window. “None of us leavin’ here tonight.”

  “Where you learn how to shoot anyway?” Lando interrogates.

  “My dad taught me.”

  “Ain’t you too young to be holdin’ a gun?”

  “I guess…but my dad don’t think so.”

  When Lando walks toward the window to look out too, Nathan rushes toward them and removes the gun out the back of Neo’s jeans.

  “Put your hands up!” he warns.

  Neo and Lando turn around throwing their hands up in the air. The sad expression on the child’s face is replaced with satisfaction.

  “Sorry…but I gotta go,” he tells them.

  “Son, why don’t you put that gun away,” one of the elderly men says. “You’re gonna hurt somebody or yourself.”

  “Fuck you,” he yells. “What you think I’m playin’ or somethin’? I’m not playin’ wit’ ya’ll! I’m leavin’.”

  “Son…put the gun down,” the man begs him. “I don’t want to see you hurt.”

  Scared that the man would tackle him and take the weapon, he shoots him in the shoulder. Everyone gasps in disbelief.

  “I coulda killed him,” he says moving the barrel of the gun around the room. “I coulda killed him but I didn’t. I’m a sure shot. See,” he says as he fires into a picture of Stacey and Dex on the community center wall. The bullet went straight into her head. “See, if I wanted to, he’d be dead. All I wanna do is go home. That’s it.”

  “Aight, lil’ man,” Neo says holding his hands in the air. “You got it.”

  In the back of the room, a man who’d brought his own weapon sat next to his wife quietly. Not even she knew he was toting.

  But when she looks at her husband, and sees the handle in his hand she says, “Don’t honey. He’s just a child.”

  Many thoughts ran through the man’s mind, including not being able to defend his wife of thirty years. He hated how a disability he gained in the war, forced them to live in the worse conditions…Emerald city, a project. His wife who could barely read and write took odd jobs cleaning homes for rich people in Maryland just to make a little more money than what the government gave them on his disability checks. He felt worthless.

  Despising how his life had turned out, and how the young people had taken over Emerald City turning it into an even worse nightmare, he decides to take it out on someone.

  “Pete!” his wife screams when he stands up, fires and shoots the child in the chest. His body falls to the floor.

  “OH MY GOOOOOOOD!!!” someone cries out. Everyone looks at the man and then the slain kid.

  Neo and Lando rush the man taking his weapon. They didn’t want him unleashing on them next.

  “Sorry old, man,” Lando says gaining access to his 9 mili. “But I’ma have to get this up off you.”

  The man sits back down without a fight. Besides, he did what he wanted, make someone pay for his failures.

  “Why, baby? Why?” his wife cries softly. “He was a baby.”

  “You saw that boy’s eyes, Estelle. If he lived, he would’ve been nothin’ but a stone cold killer.”

  “Who are you? ‘Cause I don’t know you no more!” she says before getting up to sit at another seat far away from him.

  “Thanks, old man,” Neo says to him after taking back his weapon from the dead child. “That lil’ nigga was crazy anyway. You did everybody a favor. Don’t worry, we didn’t see nothing. Right everybody?”

  No one says a word because they already know the unspoken rule. Keep your silence and keep your life.

  “He wasn’t the only one crazy you know?” one of the older ladies says. A few people gasp.

  “What you talkin’ ‘bout?” Lando asks.

  “I’m talkin’ about you. The both of you! All of you Emerald City bangers are just as crazy as that child! Where do you think he got it from?”

  “Whateva!” Lando brushes her off.

  “Look what ya’ll helped them killers do to our homes. Look!” she points with her wrinkled finger toward the door. “We livin’ like we’re in a foreign country. Locked up and afraid of our own people. You young boys don’t give a shit about what you’re doing to our generation or your own.”

  “I’m not tryin’ to hear that shit,” Neo laughs. “If anything we protectin’ you right now cause if we weren’t here, who knows what would happen!”

  “Wake up young man,” another man says. “Everybody got guns. Don’t you see?”

  “You’re destroyin’ us,” another female tenant adds. “You’re destroyin’ your own people. You better than this. I know you are.”

  “Look…in case ya’ll didn’t fuckin’ notice, I’m in here with you. I’m on your side,” Neo explains.

  “You’re selling drugs and killing your own people, you might as well be out there with them. You’re on money’s side.”

  The preaching was becoming unbearable to Neo and Lando and they w
anted out. If things didn’t end soon, they could honestly see themselves killing somebody else.

  “Listen…what’s done is done! Ain’t nobody ever teach me nothin’! I mean, how many of ya’ll ever did anything for me besides tell me to get away from your front door? When I was a youngin’ comin’ up in dis fucked up project, nobody ever did shit for me. I had to go out and make moves to feed my family. And now you wonderin’ why we this…and why we that. Take a look around! The blame is just as much yours, as it is ours!” Lando tells them.

  “So you blamin’ us now,” an old lady asks.

  “I’m blamin’ anybody who blamin’ me. You think I wanna be livin’ like this? Fuck no! But I’ll tell you this, I’m willin’ to do what I gotta do and I don’t give a fuck who got somethin’ to say ‘bout it.” Lando continues.

  “Son…we did our work already,” she says to him softly. “It’s because of us, you ain’t got to do this no more, but you choose to. We marched for civil rights we spoke up for our freedom. You just choose not to take advantage of it. We did what we had to so that you all can have a part of the American dream. So stop blamin’ everybody else and start lookin’ at yourself.”

  “You know what…sit your old ass down and shut the fuck up. I’m through talkin’ to ya’ll.” When they didn’t sit down quick enough he pulled out the man’s weapon and cocked it back. “Do I gotta ask you again?”

  Everyone sits down and Lando looks out of the window. What the woman said weighed on him and he was angry. Sure he didn’t want to live the lifestyle he was but he didn’t see any other alternative.

  As he stares out the window, he sees ropes dropping down the walls of Emerald. Then he sees one man after the other sliding down it. There were many men.

  “Cut the lights off,” Lando yells.

  “They in the back now!” Neo warns.

  Everyone starts making noise.

  “Shut the fuck up before they hear us,” Lando tells them. “I’m not fuckin’ around!”

  Everyone grows as silent as possible. When the lights go out, Neo and Lando continue to peek out of the blinds. They fear Black has stepped up his operation, and was not letting anyone leave Emerald alive. Now the seriousness of the situation had finally set in...for both of them.