Hood

by Noire

  Hood nodded then squirted spit through his teeth and thrust his hands in his pockets.

  “Man,” Lil Jay complained, “shit ain’t the same as it was when the niggas of old days was running the Ville. Xanbar and Kraft and them down-ass cats. Remember how we used to do it up in Fat Daddy’s shop? These niggas out here now ain’t no gangstas, money. They just crazy. Niggas so scared of this one muthafucka they do anything they told. Pussies runnin on pure fear. Even me. That’s why everybody was so glad to see you back on the street.”

  “Fear?”

  Lil Jay laughed. “Nigga you know. Why you think so many dudes was out here living the shook life when you came down off the Rock? Ya boy’s a fuckin psycho! If Sackie fried up in that crib then your partner was prolly the one who lit the match. He gave a fuck about his own baby being up in there. That’s how that nigga be. He ain’t nothing like you, Hood. Just cause he’ll kill a nigga don’t mean he fit to run no street business. There’s rules for everything you do man, even out here. Dreko just ain’t never followed none.”

  Then Lil Jay added quietly. “He better watch his head though. There’s a whole lotta cats who wanna see that shit get rocked.”

  “Then why ain’t none of them niggas step up then? Dreko ain’t been hiding nowhere. He been playing this game right out in the open. Just like always. What the fuck them niggas been waiting on?”

  Lil Jay laughed bitterly. “We been waiting on a street savior man. Somebody ten times badder than Dreko to ride in and save all our shook asses. Shit. You don’t know? We been waiting on you.”

  Ten minutes later Hood was back on the streets. Back on his hunt.

  He’d run across a lot of young D.W.I.T. soldiers on they grind, and since Dreko wasn’t nowhere to be found he knew his boy was traveling light. He prolly had two, no more than three gorillas rolling with him. That would put the battle odds at roughly four to one. Light shit. Hood could come out way on top.

  He walked all the way through Baller’s Paradise with no luck. Dreko liked to get his dick sucked in the back rooms, but hadn’t a soul seen him come through the door tonight. Crossing Livonia Avenue, Hood zipped toward the Stank Mic and stepped inside the vestibule fifteen minutes later.

  “What it be like?”

  Reem Raw was coming out of the main lounge. He dapped Hood with love, then looked at him and grinned.

  “What’s good? You ready to shit on the mic tonight? We got some good—”

  The fury on Hood’s face stopped Reem cold.

  “Yo, nigga, what up? You got a fuckin problem?” Reem swirled his fitted cap around backwards and touched his piece. “Well tell ya boy where it at! We can take care of that shit real quick. Just gimme the name. Tell me who it is and ya boy is straight airing that ass.”

  “Dreko been through here?”

  Reem snorted, “Dreko?” A sinister mask fell over his face. “Man, I’ll bite that bitch snitch if he ever sticks his grill anywhere near here. You gunning for that nigga then he’s as good as dead. But I’ll tell you what,” Reem said, craning his neck as he signaled his boys who were standing on point in the main lounge, “Why’on’t you bless the stage for me and stank up the mic right quick. Lemme send one of my crews out on that mission for you. Me and my boys’ll take care of that little problem you got on ya hands, man. We’ll do it for free, too. No charge. All love.”

  “I’m good,” Hood said, dapping his boy then heading for the door. This fury was way too big to pass off. Hood was getting this one in for himself.

  Back on the streets, Hood’s rage was reignited. He swung back past Baller’s Paradise again and this time he saw a white Range Rover parked outside. “Yeah, nigga,” he growled, pulling up beside it and double-parking. Inside, the music was banging and the lights were low. Waitresses in T-shirts and thongs walked around in high heels, serving drinks. Ballers chilled in booths running game, and strippers worked the poles selling that used gushy.

  Hood walked through the club moving like a panther, gun in hand. Dreko was nowhere to be seen. Hood had just ducked into the hallway that led to the back rooms when Black stepped in front of him, grinning.

  “’Sup, Hood. What you know good, boss? Ya boy a lil busy right now, man. He gone need a few minutes.”

  Hood nodded and turned away, then whirled back around and cracked Black square in the temple. Twice. That nigga folded like a card table. Hood stepped right over him and swung the door open, and what he saw froze his heart.

  Dreko’s back was to him. He was standing spread-eagle against the wall, naked. He was deep in the pat-down position, but there wasn’t a cop in sight as he moaned out loud and his body trembled.

  Hood stepped inside then cursed in surprise, and Dreko glanced over his shoulder.

  Their eyes locked and both men froze.

  Hood stared as the buttons on the chick’s skirt and blouse clanked against each other, her neck jutting like a pigeon’s as she tongued and licked outta Dreko’s ass, tossing his salad for all she was worth.

  “Shit!” Dreko screamed. He whirled around and almost knocked her to the ground. Hood cocked his pistol and Dreko was on the move. Hollering, he snatched the female up by her hair, holding her against him and using her body as a shield.

  “Wait muthafucka!” he yelled. He kicked his pants aside and cursed again. Yoking the woman, he kept her close, his head directly behind hers. He pressed his back to the wall as he inched toward the door.

  “Hold up, man! Let’s talk, my nigga! Lemme tell you about this shit!”

  The woman reached back and grabbed Dreko around the waist. She hugged him close to her, defiance in her mad eyes.

  “You put that gun down, Lamont!” Marjay demanded. Her face was sweaty and one of her breasts jiggled as it hung outside her shirt. “I will whip your ass! This boy been helping me! He gimme everything I need so you just leave him alone!”

  Hood was blinded. “Mama,” he muttered. She stood there glaring at him and looking just like Moo used to look with that little red dot beneath her eye.

  Pain was on him as his eyes shifted to Dreko. “You grimy fuckin bitch. Nigga you gots to die!”

  Hood aimed to fire, but there was nowhere safe to hit him. Everywhere he could have tagged Dreko, his bullets would have also struck Marjay. But when the sound of gunfire boomed in the room, it wasn’t because it came from Hood’s gat.

  The round hit him from behind, in the top of his left arm and below his shoulder, spinning him around.

  Hood went down to one knee. He turned and fired with his right arm extended. He dropped Black with one shot. But before the doljah hit the ground Dreko was out the door backward, still gripping Marjay in front of him.

  Hood pulled himself up and staggered out the door behind them. The music was loud and his arm was dead. He let it dangle as he ran, following Dreko through an exit door.

  “Hold the fuck up!” Dreko begged him, one flight up. He was going up the stairs backward, close-yoking the now terrified Marjay. He ran up another flight, still begging. “I been taking care of this bitch all because of you! If it wasn’t for me she’d a been dead by now!”

  Hood chased him, mindless. Marjay yelped and hollered as she struggled to keep up with Dreko. Her titty jiggled. Her feet back-pedaled. His forearm dug into her throat. Hood took another flight, and then another, and was almost on their asses.

  Dreko burst through a doorway at the top of the sixth flight of steps. Blood streamed down Hood’s useless arm and dripped from his fingers. He felt the cool breeze sweep down the stairs even before he made it to the top. The door slammed just as he reached it. He pushed it open and stepped out onto the roof, then aimed his gat again.

  “Man!! Can you put that muthafuckin shit down so we can talk about this!?!” Dreko was pissing scared. Breathing hard. Stink sweat ran down his naked brown body and glistened under the moonlight. He wiped his eyes in Marjay’s hair, then gripped her tighter with his left arm and held out his right hand, pleading. “C’mon, Hood. We brothers, man.
We always been brothers. We can talk about this!”

  Hood fired.

  Dreko yelped, taking a bullet straight through his palm.

  “Yo what the fuck is you doing?” he screamed. He backed up, shaking his bloody hand. “She’s just a bitch man! Just another fuckin bitch!”

  Hood moved closer and aimed again.

  “Don’t fuckin shoot me!” Dreko cried out. He gripped Marjay and crouched behind her, bending his knees. “Man, just don’t shoot me!”

  Hood fired again.

  The bullet whizzed past Marjay’s head.

  “Bitch!” Dreko ducked down much lower and cursed.

  Hood glimpsed his silhouette and fired again. Dreko flinched. The round passed through Marjay’s thigh and sank into Dreko’s right shoulder.

  Marjay screamed and they both went down on the pebbled rooftop bleeding. And then Hood was on Dreko’s ass. He stuck his gat in his pocket and smashed his fist into Dreko’s nose, breaking it.

  Blood ran from both men as they fought on the roof like wild animals, both of them wounded but both still fierce.

  It was hard fighting a naked man, but Hood put in work.

  Dreko did too. They threw down with a death wish.

  Dreko fought to drag Hood over toward the edge of the roof, than grabbed the front of Hood’s jacket and slung him over the low railing. Hood sailed clean over, but with his good arm locked around Dreko’s neck the momentum carried his boy over with him too.

  They struggled briefly on the narrow ledge. Ignoring his wounded hand, Dreko clutched Hood in the chest and tried to push him over.

  Hood held on tight to the metal rail and stomped down hard on Dreko’s bare foot. Then he lifted his leg high and thrust his boot deep into his boy’s groin, sending his dick and balls way back toward his asshole.

  Dreko shrieked like a kicked dog. He grabbed for his dick and went down, his sweaty feet slipping off the edge of the roof. His knees scraped against the side of the ledge and he lunged for the pebble-laced tarpaper in desperation. Panting, he braced himself on one elbow and grasped Hood’s limp arm with his good hand, then held on and tried to save his grimy, useless life.

  “Please, man,” Dreko begged. His eyes were wild and scared. Fear ran off him in stink, sweaty waves.

  Hood grunted in pain, his dead arm now alive with agony.

  “H- h-hold on,” Hood panted. The weight of his boy almost pulled his shoulder out of its socket but there was no way in fuck he was letting go of that metal railing. “Just hold on, man…”

  Grimacing against the fire burning in his shoulder, Hood lifted his right leg and swung it over until he was straddling the rail with a foot on both sides. Then he slid his right foot between the bars and hooked the toe of his boot halfway back in.

  “Don’t let me go,” Dreko grunted in a voice trembling with fear. Sweat dripped from his body as he gripped both the edge of the roof and Hood’s injured arm. “Don’t fuckin let me go.”

  “I won’t,” Hood promised.

  Squeezing the railing between his knees with just the strength in his legs, Hood released his hand-hold and slid his fingers into the front pocket of his hoody. He came out holding his gat and he pressed that shit right against Dreko’s forehead.

  “Yo!” Dreko cried out, his body straining as his legs dangled six stories above the pavement. “Man what the fuck is you doing???”

  For a brief second Hood wondered the same thing. The platinum grill in Dreko’s mouth glinted as his boy grimaced in fear.

  He slid the barrel of his tool down between Dreko’s eyes, and over the bump of his nose. Hood pressed that shit dead against Dreko’s trembling lips, then raised it up and slammed it down hard, cracking the cold metal against the glimmering number one on his left front tooth.

  “What you doing?” Dreko screamed through a mouthful of blood and broken teeth. His words came out sounding like he was sucking a dick, but Hood still heard his boy loud and clear.

  “I’m doing what it takes,” he spit down at him.

  And then he fired.

  A million years seemed to pass before Hood heard the sickening thud of Dreko’s body as it slammed into the concrete down below. And then Marjay was screaming and dragging her leg across the pebbly tar and making horrible noises that touched his soul.

  “I’m coming, Mama,” Hood muttered. He unhooked his foot and let himself fall down onto the roof side of the railing. “Just chill out, Mama. I’m coming.”

  And at the End…

  No Regrets!

  THE HOMETOWN CROWD was wildin as Reem Raw ripped the mic in an outdoor area of Van Dyke projects known as “The Hole.” Touring was some exhausting shit. Twenty-four cities, a sweat-drenching show almost every night…the schedule was brutal, but who would ever give it up?

  The crowd was throwing up a mad chant for the Bottom Half Boyz. Reem had blessed the projects with this complimentary performance of his latest chart topper and people were hanging all outta their windows trying to be a part of it.

  “Yeahhh,” Reem said as he grinned into the screaming crowd. “Brownsville! We home, goddammit. Been all over the world, but I can sure tell we back home!”

  A sick beat dropped from the mounted speakers and Reem’s chart-topping single, “No Regrets,” kicked in hard.

  Reem laughed as the crowd started illin.

  “We ’bout to give y’all something spectacular, ya dig me? Reem Raw! Robb Hawk! Hood! Speedy! Yeah! You know how we do ours!”

  His Bottom Half Boyz were flowing with the crowd on the edge of the stage. Security was having a hard time keeping niggas back, and chicks was giving up that groupie love as they flung phone numbers and love letters up in the air like crazy.

  Reem broke in and kicked the first verse with his distinctive, born-for-the-mic voice.

  Tears I shed for the years I bled,

  Thought I’d die in the slums when I took my pledge!

  Hell is waitin tell Satan he can book my bed,

  Looked Death in the face and he shook his head!

  Wasn’t ready for me.

  So now I’m here, y’all ready for me?

  Screams of love flew up from the crowd and rose into the air. The folks who were hanging out of their windows had a bird’s eye aerial view of the show and were spittin that brutal shit right along with Reem.

  Peep the scene! Niggas wanna be the king!

  If they think they seeing Reem’s flow? Need cre-a-tine!

  Homey, step ya strength up, press the bench up,

  Yes, I’m the shit! Can’t cover the stench up! Yep!

  Shit! What a gift God graced me with!

  So the number one spot, they gotta place me in, my nigga!

  So make room, let the race begin!

  I’ll meet you at the top, my foundation is the block!

  Then the whole crew cut in with a hook that was so banging and uplifting that it had become a ghetto national anthem in housing projects and urban centers all over the nation.

  No regrets cause life is sacred! Never let go of what you put your faith in! Times get hard, gotta keep your patience! Hold on till your dream comes true and embrace it! Face it!

  The crowd was getting crazy swole. People were streaming over from Brownsville Houses, the Plazas, Riverdale, Tilden, Marcus Garvey, Seth Low, and Langston Hughes. Everybody who was close to the stage was straight wildin out. They were amped up and starstruck at the sight of their local boys who had made it out of the hood and done it up real good.

  A tall, shapely young sistah stood quietly in the midst of the chaos watching one performer in particular. She’d arrived extra early to make sure she had a front and center spot. Every so often some crazy chick screamed real loud in her ear, or bumped a gangsta booty up against her hip, or elbowed her in the back as she got her freak dance on, but the pretty, chocolate-skinned sistah didn’t seem to mind.

  It had been a long time since she’d seen him. Fourteen months, to be exact. She tucked her small purse under her arms and allowed
her eyes to get full on him. He looked good. Better than ever. She’d seen him grow from a boy into a man, and she couldn’t be prouder of him for achieving his dreams. She had purchased the CD he was featured on, so she knew the second verse was his. She smiled as he grabbed the mic and banged up the stage.

  Count the bars! Can’t count the scars!

  And I plotted a better plan when I found my flaws!

  Now I put it down of course, so I’m crowned the boss,

  Do what I feel, so fuck it if it’s frowned upon!

  Now I got my craft mastered,

  On tracks I spat acid,

  Check my past hits I smashed the last bracket!

  I’m in a whole ’nother league/whole ’nother speed,

  With my man on the stand that’s a whole ’nother breeze!

  The crowd was loving him. How could they not? He’d been working toward this dream his whole damn life. Lyrics had always rushed through his head. His lips had always moved. Trying not to lose his words, he used to say. Well, by the way the crowd was responding to him, the words he spit today had come straight off the pages of his life. He hadn’t lost a single one.

  Trip? Please! I can show you the highlights!

  I shoulda did me, I can see it in hindsight,

  Shoulda went left when everybody done flew right!

  This is not just a song it’s the soundtrack to my life!

  I do it for my niggas, they can shine in my light!

  Ticket out the hood? They can fly on my flight!

  Yeah! No regrets! Just living my dreams!

  Reem, Hood, Hawk, Gita, and Speed, ya’nah ’a ’mean?

  Oh, they was feeling him. She smiled as he strode around the perimeter of the stage skimming hands with the fans who loved him so. She tried to step back as he neared her, but the dancing crowd pushed her right back out. Their eyes met and she inched out her hand. His fingers skimmed hers and they both knew. He hesitated just for a moment, then moved on. Giving up the love to the screaming fans who were dying for his touch.