“Hello…. Okay, but I told you to sell at twenty-one, I’m just finishing up here. I’ll be there shortly.
I assumed with the comment he was a Day-trader, which also explained his lust for gambling.
The two might not be related, but they positively could be associated.
“Okay gentlemen, I gotta go.” Mr. Wilkes said getting up from the table.
He pulled out two wads of hundred dollar bills, threw one toward
Priest and the other toward me.
I sat there with my mouth open staring at the bills.
Priest scooped them up like jacks. He had his money counted, and in his pocket, by the time Mr. Wilkes said his goodbyes “Okay Priest, I’ll call you tomorrow. Maurice, I’ll check on you next week.”
Who the fuck was he calling Maurice? Before I could get a word out, Priest kicked me again.
As Mr. Wilkes exited Priest got up from his seat and sat across from me.
“What’s up with you baby brah? What were you trying to do, wake the ole boy up?” Priest said completely confused.
“Well, to be honest, it didn’t seem like he gave a damn.”
Priest looked dumbfounded at my comment.
“You still don’t get it, do you? Your right he doesn’t give a damn what you're doing for him is just like what I’m doing. It’s like placing another bet. When I brought you in it was like mentioning another game he’s not in on. But you ask him all those questions were like explaining him his odds. Just take the bread. Next week inquire it’ll be like giving him the score after the first quarter. Then gets some more money you know what I’m saying.
“So basically what, we're just shaking him down?”
“Yeah but without the shake. Do I have to quote Uncle Bird for you? A fool and his money will always part, and a wise man will always be a part of it. Now before your food gets cold, you can bless me with my twenty percent.”
I handed Priest three hundred dollars and pocketed the rest.
My waitress came over and poured another round of coffee.
“So Mr. Badass, you still got an attitude?” she said with a smile.
“I had a rough night Sharice, but your sweet disposition starting to smooth it out.”
We exchanged smiles, and I was beginning to notice just how attractive she was when my eyes caught an evil looking stick figure coming through the door. The stick figure had his hands behind his back and venom in his eyes and was slithering toward my booth. It was Tyreek.
I had forgotten all about him and his suspicions of Priest. With his hands behind his back. I knew Priest had a pistol on him and I’m sure Tyreek knew too.
I thought maybe, Tyreek was trying to get the drop on him. For all, he knew Priest, and I could have been plotting his assassination. But I knew he had too much poultry in him to pull a trigger in public.
His paranoid mind probably had him posturing for leverage. Priest was unsuspecting writing down numbers.
Although I felt right about my guess, I wouldn’t have bet my life on it.
I got out of the booth smiling and approached Tyreek with my hand extended.
Priest turned to see who I was greeting. When he saw who it was, he turned right back around.
Priest thought absolutely nothing of Tyreek. He could have marched in with dynamite strapped to his chest and Priest’s reaction would have been the same.
I stood there with my hand out for a minute to bait his bluff. “What’s happening Reek you gonna leave me hanging?”
Tyreek paused for a second, nostrils flaring. He shook my hand firm and businesslike.
His hands were so clammy if he had a pistol he would have dropped it.
Seeing the indifference Priest had for him, he gave up his charade. He swallowed the lump in his throat and dropped the hidden empty hand to his side.
I made a matador move and offered him the seat next to me inside the booth.
This way he couldn’t get out unless I got out.
It could also cause him to react like a panicked cat in a corner. I would have to be diplomatic. I widened my grin and tried providing a sense of welcome.
“Have a seat. Hey, Priest, you know Tyreek.”
Priest stopped writing, looked up gave a slight smile, nod, and wink. Then went back to writing.
I knew he would be cool; Priest gave respect where he got it. Plus he was always pleasant with fresh money in his pocket.
Tyreek still had this look on his face like he was about to erupt.
Sharice came over and offered Tyreek a cup of coffee.
Sharice remembered him from before and matched his evil look.
Tyreek silently declined the coffee, which was probably a good thing, if he would have said yes Sharice might have poured it in his lap.
Tyreek’s silence was enough for her to respond.
“I’m sorry I didn’t hear you, did you want some coffee or not?”
If looks could kill there would have been a double homicide.
Priest was oblivious to it all, jotting down numbers.
Tyreek ended the standoff by never breaking his stare and pronounce every word.
“No thank you!”
Sharice rolled her eyes and walked away.
I tried to lighten the mood, still flashing a smile.
“So what brings you here my dude?”
“I came to see if you took care of that thing for me.”
“I haven’t got to it yet like I said before these things take time.”
Priest was still jotting down numbers, and Tyreek was still glaring at him.
“Guess what I heard?” Tyreek said still looking at Priest, who never looked up.
“What?” I responded.
Tyreek paused before his answer like he always did. He probably was playing a drum roll in his head. He answered just when I started not to care about what he had to say.
“I heard Steel came home last week.”
“I hate to disappoint you Reek, but we know that his party was last night.”
Tyreek was now smiling from ear to ear.
“But did you know Rico and his crew are talking about buying the bar for him?”
Now that got Priest’s attention. He popped his head up and dropped his pen and looked at Tyreek like he had dynamite strapped to his chest.
Tyreek was thrilled to have gotten Priest’s attention.
“What bar are you talking about?”
Tyreek took his customary pause for his mental drum roll.
Priest looked puzzled.
“Oh, you all ain’t heard?” Tyreek said trying to sound shocked.
He paused again.
“Quit stalling Reek! What bar?”
Tyreek’s excitement was uncontrollable.
“Slim’s man! You know what bar I’m talking about!”
Slim’s was the Bar. It was where Priest worked; it was his office.
“Who told you that?” Priest said to Tyreek in disbelief.
“I thought it was common knowledge, besides Rico owes Steel big time for not snitching. And Steel wants the bar.”
Priest was now perplexed by tapping his pen on the table. Tyreek watched with glee.
“I don’t think Slim is going to sell. He’s had that bar since seventy-
one.”
Tyreek sucked his teeth at my comment.
“Oh, he’ll sell it. Picture him turning down an offer from Rico.
Steel and them they don’t give a fuck about that old school shit.”
I looked over at Priest, and he sat there dumbfounded.
I was tripping too, but not as much. Slim’s bar was his sanctuary.
He had a lot of ways grown up there and had known Slim his whole life. Priest’s Uncle Bird and Slim had been friends for years.
Back in the days, they ran together like relays.
Bird and Slim were in the rackets together. They had the game sewn. They were the envy of anyone involved in crooked endeavors.
Without fathers in the home,
Slim and Bird were our role models.
Although they tried to keep our noses clean, telling us to stay in school, don’t do drugs. They wound up being our heroes.
While other kids played cowboys and Indians, Priest and I would play Bird and Slim, running from the cops and chasing off chumps.
Slim and Bird bought the vacant lot and built the bar. Slim ran it while Bird operated his bookmaking racket from the same booth that was now Priest’s office. The bar was like our childhood playground; sword fights with pool sticks, jumping from bar stools.
All of the people there knew us and treated us like we were their
sons.
Priest and I spent endless days of horseplay with an assortment of hustlers who schooled Priest and me to the streets from the inside out.
It all came to an end when Uncle Bird’s cigarette addiction caught up with him. He developed lung cancer. At about the same time Priest and I were starting to deal in corner crack sells. When
Uncle Bird found out, he and Slim took us to the back of the bar and beat the shit out of us.
After our fragile asses and egos healed, he groomed Priest for the rackets. When he passed away, Priest inherited his hustle, the Cadillac
Seville and most of all the jewels of knowledge from a man who lived every day of his life like there was only a day left. I looked at Priest still tapping his pen and looking toward the ceiling. I saw the hurt and confusion in his eyes. Tyreek was grinning.
It took everything in me to fight off the urge to kick his smiling teeth down his throat and watch him choke on them.
Tyreek stuck his chest out.
“All right my dudes, I gotta go. I’d love to sit here and shoot the shit with y’all, but I got business to take care of, Moses, please take care of that thing for Priest and me you should get some rest, you don’t look so good.”
I got up to let Tyreek out of the booth. Priest was still in a zone.
We sat in silence for about twenty minutes.
There was nothing to say, any comment I could think of would just be making light of the situation.
We both knew Tyreek wasn’t lying. He was scared to death of Rico and his clique. Tyreek would never in a million years misrepresent their intentions with lies or speculation. From a distance, it seemed like Priest had two options, stay and he would have to kiss Steel’s ass.
Like the answer to a riddle, that was out of the question. Uncle Bird used to tell us that sometimes you had to put your pride in your pocket, which was becoming easier for me. Although Priest had big pockets, there was no way his ego would fit.
Priest got up to leave. When I asked where he was going, he just shrugged his shoulders.
August 12th, 1996 II
For the second night in a row, I hadn't slept. I was wide-awake at eight o’clock and looked and felt like a zombie. My mind filled with the problems that occurred over the last few days; there were Tyreek and Tasha, Priest and the Bar, My mother and Melody and Mr. Wilkes. To top it all off, it was still raining.
My mother uses to tell me that sometimes life happens all at once, and when that happens, you should take each thing one at a time.
With that thought, I fished in my wallet and reeled in Mr. Wilkes’s address. He lived on the other side of town. I was going to have to get in the wind if I was going to get there by nine o’clock.
I washed my face, threw on my trench coat and grabbed the key to the van.
I hit the raining streets heading around the corner to the minivan. I prayed that my camera was there.
The mini-van was an excellent vehicle for surveillance slightly tinted windows nondescript.
I was happy to see that my camera was there. I turned the ignition and was on my way.
I darted through the lazy traffic like a mouse in a maze; back and forth like a tennis match I was switching my eyes from the road to the clock on the dash,
These sleepless nights were starting to take its toll. Racing across town was the only thing keeping me awake. I was nodding off at red lights, only a chorus of honking horns kept me from falling asleep.
Gradually the concrete sidewalks turned into manicured lawns, streetlights were now gigantic oak trees, and zombie-eyed city dwellers replaced with smiling suburban joggers. I tried to ride and read each address with ease to avoid looking lost.
My once heavy eyes were now open wide gazing at the gorgeous mini-mansions with tall gates and spirally shaped driveways. It caused me to think of the people from around my way; while we dwell in hell, living out longshot lotto dreams, the people out here had pinched their pennies and carved themselves a nice slice of heaven.
It was a brown brick mini-mansion, large glass windows with a rainbow-colored flowerbed right beneath.
I saw the side door opening.
It was Mr. Wilkes; he went toward the back of the house out of sight, and then pulled out of the driveway in a big silver Mercedes.
When he pulled past me, I noticed some movement from the front curtain.
The next thing I saw was a black Acura shoot out of the driveway like a rocket. I had started the van.
I planned to let her get a few yards of tailing distance, but at speed, she was going the yards turned into miles. I tried to yo-yo trick the distance between us, but I couldn’t keep pace.
I followed onto the main street filled with small business and storefront with newly planted trees up and down the sidewalk.
The car parked in front of a meter, I took a space one car back from her.
I waited with baited breath for my first glimpse of the speed demon. I could see a woman getting out of the car.
She loaded the meter with an arcade full of quarters, went to the trunk and took out a gym bag. She slammed the trunk looked both ways to cross the street that’s when I saw her. It was like everything just stopped. The wind stops blowing, the clouds quit crying, and we all agreed with each other, and I voiced what we were collectively thinking by whispering aloud. “Goddamn!”
She was wearing a T-shirt and jeans, and she was beautiful, indeed a caffeine fix for my tired eyes.
I saw her run toward the health club. I thought about following her in but decided to wait out her workout.
Since the rain had stopped the humidity had the mini-van feeling like a sauna I took off my trench and leaned my seat back. I started to think how it would be to live out here, have a house on the hill, loving wife. Raise two or three kids and try to teach them the lessons I’ve learned. I drifted on this dream for what seemed to be a moment when I heard a faint voice getting louder.
“Hey…. Hey…buddy if you’re gonna park here and sleep your gonna have to put more quarters in!”
I looked up with blurry vision at the traffic cop outside my window.
I jumped up, and my eyes darted to the clock on the dash it was
12:15pm.
I looked up to check on Mrs. Wilkes’s car.
“Hey, buddy! I’m giving you a chance, you’re either going to feed the meter, or I’m going to write you a ticket.”
“I’m cool; I was just leaving,” I answered back.
The cop looked puzzled like he never considered my option of leaving.
I headed back toward the city. These sudden sleeping spells were going to have to stop. I felt a vibration on my hip and checked my pager. The screen read: Mo meet me at the bar, Priest.
Knowing the problems Priest was presented with I hurried and made quick work of the trip from the burbs.
I walked into the bar; there were hardly any patrons; just a couple of old school cats I had known since I was a kid. The jukebox speakers were singing the Stylistics “Stop, Look, Listen.” Dimples were in the corner doing a crossword. Our eyes met, we both smiled.
I looked over at Priest’s booth he was sitting there with two young white guys.
I figured I’d let him take care of business, so I went to grab a drink at the bar.
The bartender was Big Walt, a short, stocky old school cat. He was bald, sleepy-eyed and
always had his face fixed like he was pissed off.
He had a sandpaper scratchy voice that sounded hard as gravel.
“What’s yo drank?” Big Walt said like he was asking me for the first and final time.
“Cognac, no ice.”
Big Walt brought my drink back. I tipped him a bill for his service.
He gave me his trademark show of gratitude by sucking his teeth and winking at me at the same time.
Seeing the two guys with Priest had gone, I walked over and slid into his booth.
“What’s up with them?”
“Don’t trip, It’s August, that means schools almost in.
Those were my college boys. College football, pro football, baseball this is my prime season.” Priest responded with pride.
“What’s the deal, man? The A.S.A.P you hit me with had me thinking you were in deep shit.”
“Naw, everything cool. I want you to be with me when I talk to Slim. I’m gonna try to convince him not to sell the bar.”
“Well, what do you need me for?”
Priest looked shocked. “You know moral support, sentimental value. Here he comes.”
I turned to see Slim approaching. Priest and I stood to greet him.
Slim was tall. He was wearing a blue jogging suit the top unzipped. Around his neck were two gold chains, one a gold S. the other a diamond flooded filled B, his commemoration to Bird. Slim wore a long mustache that ran to his chin, a close haircut to camouflage his receding hairline, pearly white teeth and a toothpick glued to his lips.
We all smiled.
“My boys! How ya’ll doing?” Slim said.
“Slim can we talk to you?” Priest asked gently.
“Sure, just give me a moment.”
Slim looked concerned.
Slim walked over to the bar and talked with Big Walt.
I glanced over at Priest; he was deep in thought I assumed he was preparing his speech. Slim waved us in his direction. We followed him toward his office.
The hallway leading there resembled a haunted house, with cracked paint and squeaky floors, but when you stepped inside it was like the Taj-Mahal. The office was huge; covered with thick plush carpet, a wine colored leather sofa, three-seat bar and sixty-inch television with hidden speakers everywhere. The walls decorated with Ernie Barnes paintings and a large framed picture of
Moses Scriptures Page 3