Hood

by Noire

  Egypt crawled behind him, switching place with Zena.

  “It’s not that bad,” Zena whispered as Egypt went past.

  She swallowed hard, then gripped Dreko’s sweaty ass and parted it the way she’d seen Zena do it. His asshole was puckered wide open and she wanted so bad to stick her whole damn foot up in it. Instead, with one last glance toward the fish scales waiting for her on the dresser, Egypt held her breath and delved inside of him with a stiff tongue, the sweat that was beading on his ass mingling with the tears falling from her eyes.

  She plunged deeply inside of him, then eased out. It was worse than anything she had ever imagined. His ass muscles gripped down tightly on her tongue each time she withdrew, like he was squeezing it and trying to suck it back in. Egypt had heard of tossing a damn salad but this was a disgusting oral ass-fuck, which was ten times more depraved.

  “Oh shit…” Dreko shrieked, fucking back toward her face. His hole was soft and wet. “Ummmmm, yeah baby. That tongue is so damn good!”

  Egypt figured she must have been doing it right because it wasn’t long before Dreko lost his head. He grabbed his own ass cheeks and bent over at the waist and almost knocked her down as he bucked his sweaty behind backward.

  “Get up in there,” he yelled. “Get up in that shit!”

  And she did. Egypt fucked him until her tongue was sore, and moments later Zena caught his spillage in her mouth as he busted a hard one, gripping his own ass and slobbering as he came.

  The fact that she participated in these sexual nightmares disgusted Egypt. She dogged herself half to death in her lucid moments. She hated everything about her life and needed to stay high just to keep from killing herself.

  But no matter how bad Egypt felt about what she was doing with Dreko or doing to Lamont, she couldn’t stop smoking. The crack jones was on her and she needed those rocks like she needed water and air.

  Sackie had been shocked to find her rolling around in bed with Dreko and his sister. When he found out they were getting high together he was furious and disgusted with both her and Zena. He was the one who stayed in closest contact with Mont, and Egypt had been beyond embarrassed when she broke down and got on her knees and begged Sackie not to bust her out. “What purpose could it serve?” she had asked him. The only thing telling on her would do was weaken Mont and hurt him real bad. How much shit did he think one man could take?

  “Sackie said Hood is going to court in about two weeks,” Zena said one morning. “You gone be there for the trial?”

  They had been up trading favors with Dreko all night long, and Egypt still had the aftertaste of his sex-slick body coating her tongue. She hunched her shoulders and frowned. “I don’t know. Maybe. He might not even want me there. I ain’t wrote a letter or been on a visit in like five months, Zena. Mont probably so mad he don’t even wanna see me right now.”

  “He wants to see you, girl. He loves you. It could be five years and he would still wanna see you.”

  Egypt gave her a doubtful look. “I don’t know about all that. What inmate you know ain’t gone be crazy mad after not hearing from his chick in five months? Damn! I can’t even believe it’s been that long! It seems like I was just up there with him yesterday…” She rubbed her nose and sniffed. Mont wouldn’t even recognize her if he walked through the door right now. She’d done a whole lot of crackhead shit while he was gone. She’d hit a desperate phase when Dreko first started withholding vials from her, and one night Egypt found herself feening so hard that she’d gotten in the car with an old white man looking for a trick. She had been out on the street getting blasted for three days straight, and when she realized the white man didn’t wanna fuck her, she was happy to climb in the backseat and let him eat her stank, cheesy pussy until he was satisfied.

  It was amazing, even to her, the kind of twisted spin that drugs had put on her life. A life that had once held so much promise. Just thinking about the possibility of Mont finding out had her shook and craving another high.

  “Well whatever you do,” Zena told her, “just be on your game if he gets out. Don’t let this pipe fuck up what y’all got.”

  Egypt sat back on the bed and crossed her legs. The sheets they had just tumbled in were so filthy it was hard to make out the original color.

  “I don’t even know what we got no more, Zena. Maybe all them years we were loving each other were just a kiddie lie. Mont wouldn’t even want me like this, and I know it. I gotta get straight for me and for him too. I can stop smoking, no problem. I just need a little more time.”

  Zena looked at her friend with a load of guilt in her heart. She felt so bad about what her and Dreko had done to this girl. Both of them with their greed and their lies…all the unprotected sex and the drugs, the whole disease thing that had never been spoken about…they were killing her.

  But no matter how much guilt Zena felt, her denial was far stronger. To confess that she had something so foul crawling through her body was more than she could do for anyone. She just couldn’t admit to that thing she carried in her blood and had passed on to her little girl. She’d taken Andreka back to the hospital to be retested like they told her to, but she’d never gone back to get the results. It just wasn’t something she was ready to claim or even to speak on. Not to Sackie, not to Dreko, not to Egypt…not even to herself.

  Chapter 25

  Niggas better let me be!

  I’m tryna live it to the fullest till they let me free

  I know they comin with the bullets,

  God bless me please,

  Hope you can oversee my greed, true indeed, true indeed…

  THE TIER WAS still dark when Hood rose from his bunk. The typical sounds of a jailhouse in the predawn were in the air. His cellie snored, farted, then rolled over in the top bunk. A broom-fucked new jack cried softly in the cage next door. The pleasure groans of a dick-jacking wet dream came from a sleeping inmate who’d been locked down without a woman for far too long.

  Down on the cold floor, Hood rose up on his arms and began his daily regimen of push-ups. Today he would do one hundred and eighty reps. Ten push-ups for each day that he’d been confined on the Rock awaiting trial for attempted murder.

  His arms, shoulders, and legs had grown thick with muscle. Perspiration covered his skin as he raised and lowered his own weight. The exercise was for his body, but the gangsta lyrics he silently spit were strictly for his mind. For the past six months he’d fought hard to keep both in tip-top condition.

  Hood rapped softly as he psyched himself up for the drama he was about to face in court that day.

  I’m from the ghetto I’m so hood!

  I keep metal in my hood!

  What’s good? What’s good?

  Cuz my name is HOOD!

  Is you keeping it hood? We will creep thru your hood!

  Carry heat if we should

  I would cuz I’m Hood!

  This nigga right here is so damn hood,

  I pull the trigga for the figures if you sell tan goods!

  I ride like I’m Suge, big nigga with no help!

  The only thing big is the sig by the belt nigga!

  I let ’em burn like a cig when I pop the guy…

  Let ’em fry, plus I got a buzz like I’m kinda high!

  I’m that kinda guy you don’t wanna mess wit,

  I roll with the best click, before I fold I’m letting the text spit,

  In the same place till his face split!

  Face it, I spray, then I cock again…squeeze…

  Till I see him bleed, stiff with no oxygen

  Left in his body!

  After the first hundred push-ups he grunted with exertion. His arms burned like fuck and his body begged him to quit, but he pressed on. This was the best part. Pushing with his mind regardless of what his body told him to do.

  He heard his cellie stirring on the top bunk. They’d come to an understanding early on, but niggas in jail would still test you if they could. Hood could hear him moving around
above him, but he kept his mind focused on completing the next push-up.

  His cellie was down with Razor, one of the baddest niggas on the tier. They were the type of inmates who went around bragging about all the cats they had buck-fiffed or caught in the kitchen or the shower and put to sleep.

  But Hood wasn’t impressed. Some dudes came in the joint and immediately set out trying to earn a rep for themselves. But G’s like Hood walked through the doors with their stripes. Hood didn’t have shit to prove to nobody. There were plenty of dudes in here from around his block. Nigs who thought just because they had rolled together under Xanbar out on the streets that they was automatically supposed to click up in the joint.

  Hood wasn’t for it. The quickest way to get ten years in the joint was to come in for ten months and start fuckin around with ya boys. Yeah, when you rolled alone without the protection of a crew you were sure to get tested. But Hood was cool with that. It usually took him less than five minutes to change a nigga’s mind, no matter how big the cat was.

  And even though his reputation had gotten to the Rock before he did, Hood reinforced that shit his first day on the yard by walking up to the baddest cat he could find and going hard to his ass. Hood fought dirty and he fought with extreme cruelty. He’d swing a blade, a tray, a chain, a shank, or even another nigga. Didn’t fuckin matter. He was an animal behind these bars. He had the mind of a beast and went all out at the first hint of static.

  Taking a quick break from his push-ups, Hood glanced up toward his cellie. The cat was a stick-up kid from the Bronx who couldn’t stop talking about who his team took down and which niggas they punked out. That was some real good shit to work with on the outside of the tier, but the rules for Hood’s cell dictated that the nigga had to stay up on his bunk in the mornings until Hood gave him the nod.

  Hood chuckled to himself as his cellie swung his legs over the top bed. If that bitch got down off that bunk he’d ring his fuckin neck like he was a bird. C’mon, baby, he begged silently. Get down so I can lock my fuckin hands on you. You’ll never get your ass back up.

  I’m on now, niggas can’t ignore me!

  Still holding the block down

  Hand around my forty!

  Really though,

  Fuck who you punched and slammed

  Who you slumped or jammed

  Just as long as they don’t touch ya man!

  His cellie had stayed on the bunk, showing him the proper respect, and two hours later Hood had eaten breakfast and was riding the prison bus and being transported to King’s County criminal court to stand trial. Every bit of anger he’d bottled up over the past six months had come down to this moment. A lot had gone down on the streets since he’d gotten knocked, and all kinds of shit had filtered through the prison walls. Reem had stopped through on his way home after touring for his latest album. His boy had signed with a major label and his shit had blown up sky high. He couldn’t stay on the visit long, but before he left he stacked Hood’s commissary and then kept it topped off for months.

  Sackie had kept up the letters and had visited him a few times too. But everybody else had fell the fuck off. Dreko, Lil Jay. Even Egypt. During Sackie’s last visit Hood had wanted to know why.

  “She’s aiight,” Sackie lied to him with a shrug. He’d promised Egypt he wouldn’t tell on her. But he wanted to tell his boy. He really did. His guilt just wouldn’t let him. “I see her sometimes. She’s doing aiight.”

  “She ain’t been out here in five months, yo. That don’t sound aiight to me.”

  “Man,” Sackie shook his head and changed the subject. “Dreko is large as fuck these days. He’s ruling supreme in Brownsville and in Ocean Hill now,” Sackie had told Hood during his last visit.

  “But the cat is still wild, Hood. He got a real brutal army working for him. A bunch of young boys, and they been pushing up on some good dudes. Stepping on all kinds of toes. They took over Cypress Arms, you know. The whole shit too. Put entire families out on the street. Shit, with Chaos upstate and Xan took down, it’s Dreko’s world. You only get to live in that shit if he say so.”

  Hood had thought hard on Sackie’s words. He could see Dreko riding hard and living large. He’d had big dreams of flamboyance and that nigga had always craved a throne. But still. They were brothers and that meant Dreko was supposed to hold shit down until Hood got back on the streets.

  “Don’t worry about nothing,” Dreko had told him during his first and only visit five months earlier. “You just make it to court and I’ll have a chauffeur waiting outside to bring you home, baby.”

  He spent three hours waiting in the bullpen. Beside him sat a cat who was praying softly under his breath. Moving his lips and begging God to guide the course of his trial. Hood almost laughed. The details of his case didn’t press him out at all. Shit was simple and it would go down the way it went down.

  But when he entered the courtroom and looked around, it took him a second to take it all in. The place was packed. The red-headed cop who had beaten and arrested him was sitting right up front, waiting to be called. The dude Hood had popped was sitting at the prosecution’s table, face shining and suited up. Bald head gleaming and dressed like a fuckin banker. Sackie was there, and so was Lil Jay. Egypt was missing, but way in the back row was a real familiar face. Dreko. Sitting there with a bold grin and G’d the fuck out. Shine and floss. Nigga was prepped. Giving Hood a confident look that said, don’t sweat shit, homey. I got you.

  That one look wiped any beef Hood might been feeling about the last six months clean. Hood sat there chilling as the big-headed nigga he’d popped got up on the stand and caught a case of amnesia. He could smell the fear coming off the cat as he swore on a stack of bibles that he didn’t say half the shit them prosecutors claimed he’d said. Then he lied like a muhfucka when the prosecutor asked him in an exasperated voice if his attacker was present in the courtroom and sitting at the defendant’s table.

  “Nah,” the big dude said, shaking his head. “That ain’t him. That is definitely not the dude who shot me. I woulda remembered if it had’ a been him.”

  With no other witnesses, the state’s carefully constructed case was reduced to mere crumbs and Hood walked free, just like Dreko had promised he would.

  They hugged and dapped outside the courtroom and then Hood stood back so he could get a good look at his homey. The nigga had changed gears, that was for sure.

  “Look at you, son!” Hood nodded at Dreko’s sharp attire and his platinum jewels. “Walkin round here styling like Jigga or somebody!” He noted the fresh teardrop tattoos in the corner of Dreko’s eye and the shiny grill affixed to his teeth. “Nigga got tats and a goddamn grill. C’mere, homes. Lemmee see what that mouth jewelry be talking about.”

  Dreko grinned wide and Hood’s blood ran cold. The nigga had a gold project scene on his damn teeth. High buildings on either side of two tenements. And a big number one smack on his right front tooth. In platinum.

  “Aiight,” Hood said still smiling. He was in transition mode so he forced himself to chill. For now. “So you the number one nigga on the streets these days, huh?” he said smoothly. His grin never wavered. “Damn, son. You musta been grinding triple time while I was on lock.”

  Dreko laughed and clapped Hood on the shoulder. “Yeah, I been holding shit down, baby. But not just for me. For us. Me and you, ya heard? That’s why I couldn’t make it out on the Rock to check you out the way I wanted to. Just like you was prolly stompin niggas out and running shit on the tier, I was out here on the streets lookin out for both our interests. We brothers, yo, and I been busy building us an empire.”

  Dreko laughed again, a heartless laugh. He was glad his boy had finally hit the bricks. What good was having all the riches of the world if he couldn’t floss them shits right up in Hood’s face?

  “Just wait till you see what ya boy been up to. I made some moves and instituted some changes while you was gone, my nigga. Fuck all that living in the back of Fat Daddy’s shop. I
t got burnt down anyway. I got a real crib waiting on your ass. Entire buildings. We got bitches, shine, whips, cheese, the whole nine. It’s about us, nigga. Us.”

  They rode back to Brownsville in Dreko’s rimmed-out white Range Rover and Hood felt good to be back home. He was amazed at how much the game had changed in just six short months, though. And Dreko hadn’t been lying when he told him he had amassed a goldmine. The boy had mad holdings. Just the sound of his name had niggas on the streets shook.

  “This ain’t no me thing,” Dreko kept reminding him. “It’s an us thing, nigga. Just like it’s always been.”

  Yeah, his boy was big, and his crib proved it. Dreko had told the truth. He had taken over the two tenement buildings called Cypress Arms. The one he had moved them into had eight apartments in the joint, and he’d run all eight families out into the street too. He’d stuck his lil army of younghead thugs like Buddah, Flip, Barry, Waffle, and Donnie up in seven of the apartments, with his own crib sandwiched right in the middle and protected from penetration. The other building was where he ran his drug operation. It had a count room with a steel safe twice the size of Xanbar’s, and it was more heavily guarded than Fort Knox.

  “Man, who the fuck you think coming after you?” Hood asked incredulously when he saw the security measures Dreko had employed. Dun duns at the door, sentries on the fuckin roof, double steel doors, triple deadbolt locks, and bullet-proof glass in all the windows. “You been out there fuckin around with the goddamn marines?”

  “Pretty close,” Dreko admitted. He walked through the crib with his gat out, going from room to room clearing that shit. “Niggas is snakes out there, man. It’s a war going on out on those streets. A muhfuckin war, homey. This is where you rest, baby. I hope you satisfied with it.”

  Hood’s suite had been hooked up with a big screen, high definition, plasma television and a phat water bed. A real bearskin rug was on the floor and satin sheets and a cashmere spread was on the bed.

  “Hey man, where my baby at?” Hood asked. He’d finished looking around the apartment and there was no doubt his friend had changed their lifestyle for the better. Dreko had been living in the lap of luxury, and almost every damn thing they’d ever dreamed about having as kids, he had either bought, stolen, or built it up in the crib.