“I feel you,” he claims. “Do you need anything?”
“Nah, I’m straight,” I reply. “Everything is in order.”
“Are you sure? You don’t have to be modest.”
“Nah, seriously, I’m all right, but good looking out though.”
“No problem,” he replies. “Anything I can help you with, just holler. Later Cash, I’m out.”
“Alright later,” I reply.
After shaking hands, he starts walking toward the car and I begin walking up the steps.
“Just holler if you need me!” he yells as he opens the car door.
I go inside the house and plop onto the couch. I’m furious. These young jacks just played me, and on top of that, this little punk motherfucker, who I used to stop motherfuckers from chasing home, in so many words just told me I can’t come back out here. Never in all my years on the street have I been disrespected like this. Ten years ago, this never would have happened. I guess the game has changed.
CHAPTER 2
A couple of days pass. They’re not working from my stoop anymore. They moved about seven houses down. The block stays so crowded. It’s nothing like the way I used to have it. I mean, I sold a lot of cocaine out here, but it was a little more discreet. These young niggas act like this shit is legal. I guess there’s no quiet way to sell 100 bricks a day.
As for the Mayor, I’m really getting tired of him. I see him every morning before dropping Love off to work. Every morning, he has a slicker remark than the day before. That money has really gone to his head. He thinks he’s untouchable, and he truly thinks his young goons are ready for war.
“Listen baby, I’m driving my own car today,” says Love.
“That’s cool. I have a few things to handle anyway.”
“Let’s go out the back door,” Love insists.
We proceed out the back door and get into our separate cars. Love pulls out of the yard first. As she slowly drives down the alleyway, I can’t help but notice the rust spot that’s beginning to form on the trunk of her 1986 Honda Accord. As soon as I start back rolling, I’m going to buy her a brand new car of her choice.
When I get to the end of the driveway, the first thing I see is the blue Intrepid. Please let him keep on going, But unfortunately, he stops and rolls down his window. He then gestures me to roll my window down.
Here we are, blocking up the street as the cars behind us are blowing their horns. As I look into his car, me and the passenger lock eyes. He just sits there nodding his head up and down with a crooked- tooth grin. This kid is ugly. If it weren’t for his big pop eyes and his raggedy yellow teeth, you wouldn’t be able to see him. His skin is pitch black, and his big bald head makes him look like an alien.
“Yo, pull the fuck over! Ya’ll blocking the motherfucking street up!” Yells a man in the car behind Junebug.
Before I know it, the Intrepid’s back door flies open. A short kid jumps out with a 44 magnum in his hand. All the horn blowing stops.
“What the fuck did you just say?” the gunman asks as he points the gun at the driver.
The driver is shook. He’s trying to speak, but he’s tongue-tied. “I, I, I,” he stutters.
“Shut the fuck up, punk!” the young kid yells. “Do you know who the fuck is driving that car up there?” he asks while pointing to the Intrepid.
“N, n, no,” the man stutters.
“That’s the motherfucking Mayor! Don’t ever yell at him! Do you hear me?” The driver doesn’t respond. This makes the gunman furious. “Motherfucker, do you hear me?” he asks. He then grabs the door handle of the Lincoln Continental, opens the door, and drags the man out.
This is an older man, about 50 years old. The gunman appears to be about 17 years old. The man is old enough to be the kid’s grandfather.
“Go up there and apologize to the Mayor!” the kid shouts.
The man nervously walks to Junebug’s car. He keeps his eyes on the gun- toting teenager the whole time. “I apologize,” he mumbles. You can see the embarrassment in his face, but it’s the fear in his heart that makes him swallow his pride and do what he has to do to make it out of this situation. “What do you want me to do to him?” the teenager asks. “Nothing. Let him live,” June bug replies. “Pop, watch your mouth when you come through here!” Junebug yells as the man walks back to his car and sits patiently.
I feel sorry for the man. These kids have no respect. They really think they own this town.
“What’s up Cash?” Junebug asks.
“Nothing much,” I reply.
Junebug can tell by the sound of my voice that I’m not too happy about what just happened.
“Let me get out of here before my goons hurt something,” he laughs. “I’ll kick it with you later!”
“ Alright later,” I reply.
As we’re pulling off, he yells out the window. “You need to get out of that dinosaur!”
“What?”
“That dinosaur,” he repeats. “That old ass Benz you’re in! They changed the shape. That’s not a good look for you!”
All the passengers laugh as Junebug takes off.
These guys are really getting under my skin. It takes a lot for me not to say something to them. Mainly I think it’s the respect I have for Dre, but I don’t know how long that’s going to last. My patience is really getting thin. I’ve only been home for a few days, and I’m already fed up with them.
I decide to spend the entire day with my boys. When I pull in front of Desire’s house, I notice Slim sitting on the porch. As I’m parking, he limps over to the car and sticks his head in the window. He has tears in his eyes, and his mouth is white like he’s dehydrated.
“Your boys not here, man,” his voice drags. “They left with Desire.”
“Where did they go?”
“I don’t know man. They left over 20 minutes ago. I think they went school shopping,” he adds.
“What’s the matter Slim?”
“Bang Man, Pop fucked up man. I’m sick. I need my medicine. Please look out for me, Big Time,” Slim begs.
“Damn Slim, she getting the best of you.”
“Getting? She already got the best of me,” Slim admits. Slim looks pitiful. His pain is showing in his face.
“Get in man! I’ll take you there.” His eyes light up.
Bang Man, thanks! I don’t think I could have made it all the way over there. My bones are aching.”
“Slim, you need to slow down. How many bags do you do a day?”
“In one day?” Slim asks. The look in his eyes lets me know he’s fumbling for an answer.
“Yeah, one day,” I reply sarcastically.
“Uh, uh, I ain’t sure man,” he answers foolishly.
“What do you mean, you’re not sure? How many bags of dope do you use in one day?”
“Big Time, that’s personal.”
“Personal? I didn’t know nothing was personal when it came to us. At least it wasn’t when I left.” He just offended me. Back in the day, we never kept secrets.
“Bang Man, you right.” He lowers his head in shame. “I’m just embarrassed to tell you,” he admits.
“How many?”
“Nine,” he mumbles.
“Nine! Damn, Slim! You doing nine bags a day?”
“Yeah,” he answers with shame.
“So you spend $630 a week on dope?” He nods his head up and down.
“I was doing more than that,” he admits. “I was up to 12 bags a day. You see, I was working with some jitterbugs on the block. Being that I had access to all the dope, I was getting high just because. Before I knew it, I had a 12- bag- a- day habit.”
“Turn right here,” Slim instructs.
“So what block were you on?”
“I was across town,” Slim replies.
“What happened? Why did you stop?”
“Oh, I got knocked off and them punks left me in jail stinking,” he explains.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah!
My bail wasn’t nothing but $500. All the money I made them; they let me sit on that punk ass bail. They played me like a dope fiend.”
Like a dope fiend? He must not be aware of who he is right now.
“Make the right,” he blurts out. I then hand him $30.
“Here, get three,” I insist.
“Bang Man, good looking out, I owe you a million.”
Slim jumps out and follows the small crowd into an alleyway. At least 20 other customers are forming a line at the beginning of the alleyway. Besides that, 50 others are swarming the block. As far as clientele goes, this block has to be running neck and neck with Dre’s little brother’s block. Cars are double-parked everywhere. Lookouts are standing on every corner. Every customer I watch go in comes right back out almost instantly- all except Slim.
I’m beginning to get nervous until five minutes later when I see Slim limping out of the alleyway of the house next door.
As he sits down in the seat, he’s wiping his arm with his handkerchief. When he notices me watching, he quickly unrolls his sleeve. Slim always wears long-sleeved shirts no matter how hot it is. It could be 100 degrees and he still wouldn’t wear his arms out. He has to hide the tracks that are all over his arms. Slim doesn’t have a clean spot anywhere on his arms. He’s been shooting dope ever since the early 70s.
He can’t even look me in the face. I guess he’s too embarrassed. The stupid look on his face reassures me that he has already shot his dose, not to mention him nodding. He can barely keep his eyes open.
“Yo fam, clear this up!” the young boy yells to me as I pull off.
“Shut the fuck up,” I yell back to him. The nerve of this nigga talking to me like I’m one of these dope fiend motherfuckers. I look over at Slim. He’s in the middle of one the biggest nods ever.
“Damn Slim! Is that shit that good?” I ask.
“Bang man, this the best shit around,” he says slowly with a dry voice. The dope is really starting to settle in. “This that Block Party. Ain’t nothing touching this! On a scale of one to ten, this is an eight.”
“Block Party?” I ask. “Don’t they have that across town?”
“Yeah,” he replies. “The kid got two spots.”
“Oh, you know him?” I ask.
“Yeah, I know him!” Slim shouts. “Everybody knows the Mayor! I used to work with him.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, I taught that boy everything he knows. I’m the one who told him to stop struggling with that coke and get some dope. The same thing I told you. Ask him; he’ll tell you. Bang Man, that young boy blew up overnight! I used to go over to New York with him. Man, let me tell you, he wasn’t picking up no more than 28 grams, and it would take him all week to sell it. That’s when I told him, young blood you playing with this shit, you are wasting your time. If you get caught, you gonna get the same time as the big boys, so you might as well play like the big boys. Them crackers ain’t playing; they giving out football numbers. Leave this coke alone. It ain’t working for you.”
“He started off buying seven dollar bags, you know, that tabletop shit. He’d buy the bags for seven dollars and sell them for ten dollars. Next thing you know, he hooked up with somebody. I don’t know who, but Bang Man, that motherfucker blew up right before my eyes. He went from Dre’s little brother to the Mayor!” Slim shouts.
“So you really do know him?” I ask.
“Yeah I know him!” Slim answers. “I even know where the stash house is, unless he moved it.”
“So what’s up with the kid? Is he cool?”
“Yeah, he’s cool. If he wasn’t cool, you know I wouldn’t fuck with him,” Slim adds. “He reminds me a lot of you when you were younger.”
“Oh yeah?” Shit, he ain’t nothing like me!
“Yeah! He’s strictly business,” says Slim.
“What about them niggas he be with?”
“Who, his goon squad?” Slim asks. “Them young boys crazy!”
“Are they really that wild or what?”
“Yeah, they definitely that wild!”
“Them motherfuckers know who to play that shit with,” I shout.
“Nah, Big Time, them boys don’t care about nobody. I never seen them back down from nobody, not even the police. The Mayor controls them boys’ minds. All he does is point the finger and they do the rest. I seen them shoot motherfuckers broad daylight 2 o’clock in the afternoon in front of everybody- no mask or nothing. I remember he used to always tell them: Do whatever you want. I have enough bail money, to bail us out for the rest of our lives, and my lawyer can beat any case.”
“So he thinks he’s untouchable, huh?”
“Yeah,” Slim replies. “As of right now, he hasn’t been touched. Only one nigga had the balls to try him. Do you remember Crazy Rob?” Slim asks.
“Yeah, I remember him. He got killed a couple of years ago, right?”
“My point exactly,” says Slim. “Bang Man, Crazy Rob had just come home. He came around there and tried to extort the Mayor. Word on the street is he told the Mayor he wanted $25,000 or else. He had a whole crew backing him, a bunch of killers. They set up a meeting place. When they met up, the Mayor had a surprise for them. One of them boys snuck up on him and shot him in the face eight times. Police found his body in the cemetery. He was laying there ass naked. Bang Man, them boys ruthless!”
“Did anybody get caught?”
“Yeah, they tried to charge two of them but they beat it. They got the toughest lawyer in the state. That’s why them boys run around here like that. They think they’re on top of the world.”
“I just hope when I put my thing down, they just stay out of my way,” I shout out.
“When are you coming back?” Slim asks.
“I’m not sure yet. Right now I’m just keeping my eyes open and my ears to the street.”
“Bang Man, don’t take too long. I’m ready to eat!”
“Slim, you know if I eat, you’ll eat.”
“Bang Man, I know you’ll take care of me. You always do.”
I pause before speaking again.
“Slim, I just want one more run. I’m not going to make a career out of this shit. Three months, that’s it. Ninety days. Whatever I don’t get in 90 days, I’m never going to get.”
“Bang Man, now you’re talking. I just hope you stick to the script.”
“I will.”
“Yeah, that’s what your mouth say, but you know how it goes. Once you start getting that fast money, it’s hard to stop,” says Slim.
We both sit quietly, no music playing or anything. We’re just riding with no destination. I don’t know what Slim is thinking about, but I can tell he’s deep in thought. I can tell by the way he’s picking his raggedy teeth, the few he has left. He’s missing the front four teeth in the top row and the bottom row. The ones he has left are brittle and brown from decay. He always picks his teeth when he has something on his mind.
Me, I’m reminiscing about back in the day, before I went away. If I hadn’t gone to jail, I probably would be rich right now. I was making so much money, I didn’t know what to do with it. I just wish I had someone in my corner to teach me how to manage my money and invest in something legal. Then I wouldn’t have to hit the streets now. I would have been straight, out of the game. But you know the saying “You have to learn how to live with regrets.”
Slim interrupts. “Bang Man, I’m sitting here thinking about the old days. It’s all fucked up now! If I would have saved just one third of the money that done went through these hands,” Slim says with a frustrated tone as he lifts his ashy, mitten-sized hands before his eyes and stares at them in disgust. “Boy, I was rich! But I was living the fast life. $2,500 suits, Alligator shoes, three Caddies at a time. Look at me now! I ain’t got a pot to piss in.” He sits there nodding his head with tears forming in his eyes. I never seen this side of Slim. I guess he’s living with regrets too.
“Bang Man, whatever you do, don’t end up like me. Do something
with your money. Don’t end up 60 years old and broke. Look at me. I’m broke! I’m too old to work! I can’t collect Social Security, cause I ain’t never worked nowhere. I’m fucked up. All the money I done made, I’m going to die broke. Huh! Huh!” he chuckles. Ain’t that something?”
“Slim, don’t worry, I got you. Just stick with me. We’re going to blow. Just trust me. All you have to do is just ease up on the dope and I’ll handle the rest.” Slim continues to pick his teeth. I know he has something serious on his mind. I know him too well. I can read him like a book.
“What’s up?” I ask. “What’s on your mind?”
Slim doesn’t say a word; he just looks me in the eyes. I see 60 years of pain, suffering and stress in his face. At 60 years old, he looks like he’s 80. They say the streets will do that to you.
“Bang Man, I got something to tell you.” He pauses for half a minute. He doesn’t look at me. He keeps his eyes straight ahead. “Big Time, I’m fucked up,” he whispers.
“Fucked up how?” I ask.
“I’m fucked up, fucked up.”
“Slim, what the fuck are you talking about?”
He pauses again.
“Bang Man, I got that thang,” he mumbles.
“That thing? What thing?”
“The monster. AIDS man,” he admits.
My heart drops. AIDS? I don’t know what to say to him. I fumble for words.
“Big Time, please don’t look at me different,” he begs.
“How can I look at you different?”
“You the first person I ever told this to. Desire don’t even know. Promise me you won’t tell her.”
“Slim; don’t ever disrespect me like that! Have I ever told any of our business? How long have you had it?”
Block Party Page 3