Huey answered the door on the first ring. “What’s up, dog? You in trouble?”
He drew his Sig Sauer .40 from his waistband and cocked it, looking past me out the door. His eyes widened when he saw my Impala riddled with holes and then he did a double take when he noticed the baby in my arms.
“Where’d you get the kid, man? What’s goin’ down wit’ you? Somebody after you? You ain’t kidnap this kid did you?”
He looked at me with more concern than my own mother would have shown. Tears welled up in my eyes and I took a deep breath to clear them away and compose myself. From behind him I saw Iesha looking at me with critical eyes. Even at eight months pregnant she was just as beautiful as she’d been when I’d first met her back when I was ten years old. And I still loved her. Her eyes told me she didn’t reciprocate the emotion.
What’s this evil nigga about to get my man involved in now? They seemed to say.
I felt terribly self-conscious and foolish.
“Look, man, maybe I shouldn’t have come. This is my shit. I’ll handle it. I didn’t mean to disrupt your evening and bring all this drama to your doorstep. My bad.”
Huey held my eyes with his and it was evident that he was dismissing everything I was saying. He could tell that I needed help.
“Go upstairs, Iesha. Me and Snap have some things to discuss.”
“Don’t let him talk you into no dumb shit! I don’t want to see you wind up like your brother.”
It was the wrong thing to say. Huey’s head whipped around like someone slammed the brakes on too fast in a speeding car.
“What the fuck did you just say to me?”
Iesha’s defiant eyes drifted to the floor and she started to stammer, clearly afraid.
“I-I was just saying…I love you and I just don’t want to see anything happen to you.”
“Go upstairs, Iesha. Now!”
His fierce stare pushed the pregnant young girl out of the room and up the stairs. This relationship couldn’t be healthy.
“What kinda trouble you in, my brother? Who did that to your car?”
I took a deep breath and slipped slowly to my knees as the weight of the evening, of everything I had to tell Huey before the night could end, overcame me. Huey lifted the child from my hands before my face hit the stained and tattered wool carpet.
“Scratch… Scratch is tryin’ to kill me. He’s tryin’ to kill me and the baby and…and I don’t even think he’s human.”
Huey’s eyes clouded over with that murderous rage smoldering just beneath his icy cold front. His hazel eyes darkened and narrowed into slits and his deep gravely voice came out as a hoarse whisper.
“Then we gotta do that White nigga first. If that fool wants to try and take you out then he’s gonna have to deal with my black ass. And I swear I’m gonna split that devil’s wig!”
— | — | —
Chapter 19
“…Everlasting good and evil do not exist! From out of themselves they must overcome themselves—over and over again.”
—Friedrich Nietzshe
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“So who’s the kid?”
Huey was standing above me holding the child. I must have passed out or something because I was laying on the couch looking up at him. I cupped my head in my hands as I rose to a sitting position.
“I must have been out of my fucking mind.”
Huey sat down next to me cradling the baby in his lap.
“So who is he? Where’s his parents?”
“I don’t know how to even begin explaining all of this.”
My head was still in my hands, refusing to look at Huey until I had the right words.
“Why don’t you start by telling me where you got this kid so I don’t think you’re some kind of child abductor or kidnapper or something with some perverted interest in babies. ’Cause then I will have to kick ya ass up out of my house.”
Huey’s voice lowered again to that gravely rumble, letting me know that he wasn’t joking.
“That baby…is Jesus Christ.”
“Fuck did you just say?”
Huey grabbed me by my shoulder and jerked me around to face him.
“I know this shit is going to sound off. I don’t know, maybe I just flipped out or something. Maybe I’m losing my mind. I mean, I was all set to blast them, both of them, the kid and his mom, then I got like this hallucination or revelation or something. I don’t know, dog. I don’t know.”
Huey leaned in closer, his voice softening.
“What did you see?”
“I saw Scratch’s face and— and he didn’t look human. It was like he turned into a demon right in front of my eyes and shit. I thought I saw his face tear away, burn away like the celluloid in those old movies that would get too close to the projector bulb and melt. And Yo, underneath his face, there was this other face. Satan’s face. A grinning devil. Then I looked down at this baby in my arms and I’m tellin’ you dog, it was Jesus Christ. There was no doubt in my mind that I was holding our savior in my arms about to blow his damn head off with Satan standing right at my side urging me on. It was like this moment of clarity, you know, like when you’re high and you ain’t makin’ no sense and then suddenly the fog clears and you can think straight. That’s what it felt like, like the fog had cleared and I could see everything for what it really was. And yo, Scratch ain’t fuckin’ human, dog! He’s some kind of fuckin’ monster. I’m tellin’ you, dog. He ain’t human!”
Huey was staring at me as if he was trying to decide whether to believe me or not. He looked down at the kid for a long time before he looked back up at me. His mouth kept opening and closing as he struggled to decide what to say.
“I don’t know, dog. That’s some deep shit. I mean, I can relate to Scratch being a devil and all that, I been telling you that all along, but not like…literally. Not like from hell, Prince of Darkness, Lord of Lies, and shit. That’s some other shit you on right there. And this little crack baby? Jesus Christ? I ain’t no Christian, but don’t that seem a little off to you? Jesus Christ showin’ up here? This ain’t exactly Jerusalem.”
“Yeah, that’s the part I can’t figure out. Why here and why me? But if none of this shit is real then why is Scratch tryin’ to kill me?”
“’Cause you fuckin’ shot at him, fool! ’Cause you don’t want to work for him no more. ’Cause he figures somebody from one of the other gangs flipped you and now you’re out to take him out. Or he thinks you went crazy after all the killin’ he’s had you doin’ for him and he’s afraid of you. Either way he figures you’re too dangerous to have around now. He’s got to kill you.”
I looked down at the baby. It was looking up at me intently as if it had something it wanted to say to me.
“I don’t know why I should care even if this is Christ. He ain’t our savior, never was. He saved the Jews and damned the Black man as far as I can tell. I mean, fuck has he ever done for my Black ass? Christ or Satan, fuck is the difference? Niggas still gettin’ fucked over either way.”
“Fuck do you mean by that?”
“I mean God don’t give a fuck about niggas.”
“Come on now, you know I hate when you talk that shit. You can say all you like about that white Christian god, but the black god, Allah, he loves the Black people.”
“Yeah, and look how he shows it.”
“So, what you sayin’?”
“I’m sayin’ there ain’t no way you can believe in no God of the Black people. Not how fucked up shit is for us. Look how we live brother! “
“I’ve heard all this before, Snap. You’re starting to talk in circles.”
“But you ain’t listening. You ain’t feelin’ me though.”
“Snap, my brother, did you ever hear that poem about the man walking through the sand arm in arm with God and as he takes each step he sees his life unfolding before his eyes. Then he looks back at the footprints in the sand and realizes that at the hardest times there was only one set of footprint
s. The man asks God why he didn’t walk beside him in those hard times and God replies that there are only one set of prints because during those hard times God carried him upon his shoulders. Have you ever heard that poem?”
“God ain’t never carried Black folks and we have the bleeding callused feet to prove it! It seems to me that during the hardest times it was us who carried God!”
“Man, that’s just your pain talkin’.”
Huey waved a hand at me dismissively. I grabbed his hand in mid flight.
“That’s exactly what’s talking. Pain! Pain I shouldn’t ever have had to deal with if God truly loves us.”
“So, then if you don’t love God and you don’t believe He loves you and you don’t think you owe Jesus anything, then why even bother trying to save this little mutherfucker? Why fuck around and get yourself killed over him if it’s like that? Why don’t you just body this kid and try to get back in Scratch’s good graces?”
“’Cause Scratch is the devil. He’s fuckin’ Satan, dog. And I don’t care how fucked up God is, I know his plan has got to be better than what that mutherfucker has in store for us.”
“Well, then you must still have a little faith in your heart after all. ’Cause if you ain’t got no reason to love God then you’d have just let Scratch have this little bastard, but you didn’t. You saved him. There had to be some reason for that.”
“Man, I was just pickin’ the lesser of evils. I ain’t sayin’ I got it all figured out. I don’t know what the fuck is goin’ on truthfully. But I know it’s something much bigger than me and somehow I’ve been chosen to play a part in it. What I need to know now is what we gonna do about Scratch? Ain’t like he can’t figure out that I was headed here. Where the fuck else would I go? So, what do we do?”
“True that. He’s gonna be right on your ass. We can’t sit around here waiting for him to roll through here with every nigga he can find and do my crib like he did your car. If you ask me we should do just like I said and bring it to that mutherfucker first. This shit ain’t gonna rest until one of ya’ll is dead. You know that. So, if you don’t want it to be you, then you’d better take some action and I mean with the quickness.”
“Then that’s how we playin’ it then. Let’s take your car. Bring the kid with you.”
“We’d better take my car ’cause yours is tore down. How the hell did he put that many holes in your ride and you walk away with just that little nick in your ear?”
“I don’t know. Maybe God was on my side.” I smirked and rolled my eyes sarcastically.
“Whatever, dog. Let’s just get ghost before Scratch shows up.”
“But what about Iesha? We can’t just leave your pregnant woman here for Scratch to find. You don’t even want to know the type shit this devil does. All that Satanic voodoo shit he’s into. I don’t want to think about what he’d do to Iesha if he caught her here alone.”
“Man, I got a shotgun in the kitchen, My Mom is on her way home too and you know she don’t play that shit.”
“Bro, call your mom and tell her to meet Iesha at my house. Why take any chances?”
“What makes you think Scratch won’t be checking your crib?”
“I know that’s the first place he’ll check, but by the time they get there Scratch will have already come and gone. Now let’s move.”
We herded Iesha into Charlotte Turner’s avocado green ’78 Monte Carlo and threw the shotgun with a box of shells on the seat as they slipped into the back of the car. Iesha glared at me murderously as she scooted onto the backseat next to the Mossberg pistol grip pump, but remained silent. I had no words to console her or change her mind about what I was. She already knew that I loved her, but she had chosen Huey. What more could I say? Don’t worry, I’m not gonna get your man killed like I did his brother? Somehow it just didn’t seem like the appropriate sentiment.
I noticed a small vehicle sitting down at the end of the block with the headlights off and all my alarm bells went off at once. A massive dump of adrenaline hit my bloodstream like a shot of nitro and my hand reflexively went to my holster. Huey saw it too and he already had his Sig out and in his hand. He turned the Monte Carlo’s headlights on and illuminated the block. It was the red BMW sitting there with its windshield starred with bulletholes. I passed the baby to Iesha and motioned for them both to get down on the car floor.
“Get the fuck down!” Huey hit the accelerator so hard that my head whipped back against the seat. I shook it off and reached onto the backseat for the shotgun. Iesha handed it to me along with the shells. Her skin touched mine and sent a chill through me. God I loved her!
“Hold on!”
We whipped a U-turn that rolled us up onto the neighbor’s yard and demolished a withered row of bushes. From the red Beemer came the stuttering report of automatic weapons fire, cracking and smashing through telephone poles, windows, windshields, ripping up the Turner’s ailing porch and thunking into parked cars like coins in a wishing well. He was sweeping the entire street with the weapon rather than just aiming at us and destroying everything in the rifle’s arc as it swung our way. He was tearing the whole block apart with it as the bullets chased us through our frantic turn back out onto the street and down to the corner. The BMW’s lights flashed on and it began to accelerate as we made the left onto Ambrose St.
“Get that fucking shotgun ready!” Huey commanded as a sinister smile broke the surface of his face. “I got an idea.”
We could hear Scratch turning the corner as we passed my house and I noticed that all the lights were out.
Where’s Mom and Grandma?
Huey hit the gas and we rocketed toward Duval Street. By this time I had the shotgun on my lap jamming shells into it while dropping most of them onto the floorboards.
“You got that shit loaded yet?”
“Yeah, it’s loaded.”
“Then get the fuck out!”
“What?”
“Get the fuck out and blast that fool when he turns the corner!”
Huey whipped the car into a three hundred and sixty degree turn leaving a donut in the street. He leaned across me and opened my door.
“Get the fuck out!”
I dove from the car and sprinted to a parked car just three car lengths up from where Huey had stopped the Monte Carlo. The BMW rounded the corner leaving half the rubber from its tires on the road. Its brakes squealed and the tires smoked when Scratch spotted the Monte Carlo sitting there in the middle of the street waiting for him. The BMW fishtailed and side-swiped three cars before coming to a halt. I rose from behind an orange Toyota and unloaded both barrels into the driver’s side window. Blood splattered the inside of the vehicle and I felt a great weight lift from my shoulders as I watched the blood pour from the driver’s side door in thick sheets that glistened like oil in the scant light. Then I saw something that enraged me so much that I grabbed the shotgun by the barrel and beat the tricked-out Beemer with the butt of the rifle. There was only one person in the car and it wasn’t Scratch. Even with his entire face and upper torso pulverized and flayed open by the buckshot, I could still recognize the face of one of Scratch’s most faithful soldiers— Yellow Dog.
Yellow Dog was perhaps the closest thing Scratch had to a true friend in the game. He looked almost like a white boy himself. He had red hair and freckles and skin the color of buttermilk, yet his features were decidedly African. Thick lips, wide nose, and hair that was thick and wooly despite its rusty hue. Both his parents were Black but very fair skinned. He had always wanted my job and I guess he had gotten it. I always knew he wouldn’t last long as a hitter. Yellow Dog was a money man, a street accountant. It took a different type of calculation to be a killer. You never rushed in, especially when it came to taking out another killer. Who the fuck does a driveby from halfway up the block and waits until his marks are in the car with the motor running before he fires? Amateur. He hesitated and so he’d gotten his ass capped. But Scratch was still out there somewhere looking for me and
the baby. He could keep sending his soldiers at me one at a time until he finally popped me or he could come at me with everything he had. He had an entire ghetto full of desperate killers to pull from. We had to get that son of a bitch. It was the only way to put an end to the madness.
Yellow Dog’s decimated corpse slipped forward and struck the steering wheel with what remained of its face. The horn blared loudly and lights began going on in the surrounding houses including my own, which was just a few doors away. Doors and windows opened abruptly as the neighborhood awakened to the smell of sulfur and blood more familiar to them than the aroma of hot biscuits and morning coffee. Another brother was dead because of Scratch and I had once again acted as the instrument of his death.
“Mourn that house nigga later. We gots to get ghost before the police get here!”
Huey was right. In the grand scheme of things Yellow Dog was just spilled milk. It was more important now that we didn’t get caught standing over his body with a smoking gun in our hands. The police had gotten into the habit of not turning on their sirens when they responded to a scene so there was no way of knowing how near or far they were from us. But there was little doubt that they were on their way. Huey was already turning the Monte Carlo around and opening the door for me to get in when I saw my mother come to one of the windows wrapped in her robe and wiping the sleep from her eyes. Her eyes locked with mine as I slipped into the car beside Huey and he hit the accelerator. Our eyes remained locked as the Monte Carlo charged down the street not breaking until we disappeared around the corner. I slumped back into my seat and covered my eyes with my fists.
“Damn.”
— | — | —
Chapter 20
“Be careful, be courteous, obey the laws, respect everyone, but if someone puts his hands on you, send him to the cemetery.”
—Malcolm X
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Yaccub's Curse Page 27