“Hey ma, I forgot to give this to you.” he said, but she didn’t answer.
He saw her watching TV in the lazy boy chair. He walked over to her to give her the card.
“Here, I hope you…” Damien paused as he saw her eyes dilated and her mouth open. He glanced down and saw the hypodermic needle still in her arm.
Damien’s heart dropped as he stared at her lifeless body. Darlene had overdosed and died five hours ago. Damien in his short years alive have seen and done some horrible things to people, but nothing could have prepared him for this sight or the guilt of knowing he supplied his mother with the heroin that killed her. In a state of shock, Damien simply turned and walked back out the door.
10
Suicidal Thoughts
December 1993
After spending all day making love to Remo, Stacy was on her way back home to her apartment with Damien. Stacy had made up her mind to break things off with Damien and hook up with Remo. Damien won’t care anyway, she thought. He’ll be able to run his little hoes in and out as he pleases now. Stacy finally made it home and had her story of going shopping with her cousin Larissa all ready to tell Damien if he was there.
As she came in with a couple of bags in her hands, she could tell Damien was home already. She sighed as she prepared to deal with his immature ass. Stacy walked into the bedroom and saw Damien sitting on the edge of their bed with his Glock 19 in his hands. Damien had the most dreadful expression on his face that Stacy had ever seen. Stacy’s heart started to beat repeatedly. Oh my God, does he know?, Stacy nervously thought.
“Damien, what’s wrong?” Stacy fearfully asked.
Damien stared at her silently as a tears poured from his eyes. Stacy’s heart was now dancing in her chest. Did he follow me? Oh my God, he’s gonna kill me! Run fool! But Stacy was too scared to move.
“I killed her,” Damien said softly.
“You killed her? You killed someone?” Stacy asked, confused but relieved that he didn’t know about her.
“I killed her. It’s my fault,” Damien said, as if he was still trying to process what he had seen.
“Baby, you’re not making any sense. What happened?”
“My mother’s dead, and it’s my fault.” Damien said as he held his gun in his lap.
“Oh my, it’s your mother? When?” Stacy asked.
“I killed my mother on her birthday. What kind of son does that?” Damien asked her.
Stacy was even more confused. “What happened, Damien?”
“I gave her the dope, and she overdosed in the living room.” Damien said as more tears came from his eyes.
Stacy was in shock and didn’t know what to say as tears started to roll down her face, too. “It’s going to be okay, baby.”
“It’s going to be okay? I killed my mother, you stupid bitch!” Damien snapped. “How is it going to be okay? I should just blast myself. Fuck it, I’m going to hell anyway.”
“No, Damien you can’t do that.” Stacy said even more terrified then before.
“I’m a piece of shit. That ain’t hard for anybody to tell. I was giving dope to my mother, killing niggas in the streets, robbing niggas, and selling drugs? My mother should have gotten a fucking abortion.” Damien said laughing to himself.
“Damien please just put the gun down and talk to me.”
“Talk about what? Talk about how I found my mom dead with a needle in her arm? What is there to fucking talk about?” Stacy moved closer to him. “She didn’t love me like she did when I was younger. I had to get her high just to get her to say she loved me.”
“That’s not true. Your mother always loved you.”
“I knew she was gonna die sooner or later. Do you know why I started giving her drugs?” he asked her. Stacy just shook her head. “I gave it to her so she wouldn’t be out there fucking some nigga just to get a hit. You know what’s it like to hear your mom fucking some nigga? Getting a train ran on her in the next room.” He said her but Stacy couldn’t say anything.
“No you don’t because how could you? I just wanna fucking blow my brains out so I don’t have to think about this shit no more.” Damien said as he turned the gun on himself and started down the barrow.
Stacy’s heart started beating rapidly. “No! Damien you can’t do this! It’s not gonna bring your mother back! She wouldn’t want you to do this to yourself.” Tears streamed down his face. “No one is ever gonna love a nigga like me.”
“I love you, Damien. Are you gonna hurt me, too?” Stacy asked without thinking. Damien looked at her as he cried.
“You love me?”
Stacy walked toward him. “Yeah, I love you. I can’t live without you.” She reached out and took the gun from his hand slowly.
Damien leaned his head on her stomach and begun to sob through tears.
“It’s okay. I’m here for you.” Stacy said as she hugged him.
Damien’s face rubbed against her chest as his tears ran down her breast. His lips kissed her neck and he pulled the straps of her dress over her shoulders. Stacy didn’t know how to react and allowed him to continue to undress her until she was naked. He leaned her back against the bed, pulled down his pants, and pushed his dick into her vagina.
“I love you.” Damien said as he began to make love to her.
Damien equated sex with love in a twisted way. Stacy lied silent and still as Damien was on top of her pumping away. He was still crying as he sexed her.
Oh my God, this nigga is crazy. His mother just died, and he’s having sex with me? He was giving his own mother heroin. What kind of twisted shit is that? Stacy was now caught in deeper with Damien than ever before.
Dwayne arrived at Bishop’s home in Teaneck, New Jersey, that was just down the street from Christopher Wallace a.k.a. The Notorious B.I.G.’s home at the time. His house was in an upscale community, and it was a six-bedroom, and four-bathroom house. It was the kind of home Dwayne wanted to have someday. It was a long drive from Harlem, and Dwayne was tired from clubbing the night before. Bishop was having his monthly meeting with his business associates. Da Untouchables under Bishop’s leadership had a cocaine and heroin operation that was worth over 30 million dollars a year.
At twenty-seven years old, Dwayne Smith was a seasoned drug dealer who had been hustling since the age of ten. Starting off as a corner boy in the Taft Projects, Dwayne learned the tricks and consequences of the game at an early age. Witnessing the birth of the crack epidemic in the 80’s, the money was fast and easy, with fiends coming back day and night for a hit. Even though Dwayne lost his older brother and some peers to the game, he never thought about getting out. Contrary to popular belief, there is not an easy way out once you’re in this life. It’s either hustle or die, and that’s exactly what Dwayne did as he rose to a mid-level drug dealer in Da Untouchables.
Benjamin ‘Benny’ Carter, Clifford Allen, Dwayne, and a few other lieutenants sat in a back office in Bishop’s home. Bishop ran his operation like the Italian Mafia. Everybody was held accountable for the turf they worked. Bishop was the King of Harlem, and everyone feared his wrath so respect was always shown.
“The FBI is still trying to make a connection between us and the Russian arms dealer that sold us those Uzi’s a month ago.” Benny said to Bishop. Benny was the one who made shit happen. He was a leg breaker and extortionist.
“They arrested Yuri weeks ago. Do you think he’ll give them anything?” Bishop asked him.
“No, Yuri knows if he says anything it will be a death sentence for him. The Russian Mafia would feed him to the dogs.” Benjamin assured him.
“Good. So who are these Haitian mutha’fuckas I keep on hearing about in Spanish Harlem, Future King?” Bishop asked Dwayne.
“We don’t know much about them yet. There’s some Haitian niggas slanging rocks to the fiends on 116th street.” Dwayne said to him.
“Are they a threat?”
“Naw, they’re small time, but they’re taking advantage of the crack sales an
d we don’t.” Dwayne knew that selling crack was a very lucrative area that Bishop wasn’t interested expanding further into.
“I gotta a nigga in Brooklyn that can hook us up…”
“Ya know what I like about you Dwayne?” Bishop asked interrupting him.
“Naw.” Dwayne answered.
“I like that you’re always looking for a way to expand business, but there’s no long term future in selling crack. Crack fiends are fast money, but they die too quick. Besides, dope fiends live longer and keep on coming back for more.” Bishop picked up his glass of brandy and took a drink. “But I love your hustle, and that’s why I call you the Future King.” Dwayne gave a half-hearted smile at Bishop’s comment.
“So how is your young gun doing?” Bishop asked Dwayne.
“Ah, his mother died a few days ago. A drug overdose, and the funeral’s tomorrow.”
“Give the young gun my condolences. What was his mother’s name?” he asked him.
“Darlene Ruffin.”
Bishop got an unusual look on his face. “What’s the young gun’s name again?” he asked.
“Damien, why?”
“I should send some flowers to the funeral. Well, if there’s no more business to discuss we’ll meet again next month.”
Everybody got up from the table and walked out of the room. Bishop sat in his chair and picked up his glass of brandy. He stared at it, and then took another drink. What are the odds of him being here in my life again after all these years? Bishop asked himself as he drunk his brandy.
As Dwayne walked through the foyer, he saw the lady of the house, Vanessa Wells, Bishop’s woman to be more accurate. Vanessa was an upscale woman. She was conceited, vain, voluptuous, and thick in all the right places. Her breasts, her ass, and her face were flawless. Her light-skinned complexion revealed her French heritage, but her body was unquestionably African in origin. She wore a strapless black Armani dress that contoured perfectly to her hourglass frame.
Vanessa was the black Erica Kane of the hood. She wasn’t the average round-the- way girl. She was a dime piece with supermodel features. Vanessa was raised in the suburbs of Savannah, Georgia, and moved up to New York after high school to attend NYU and became a business major. She also modeled part-time for print ads and was featured in Jet magazine as the beauty of the month. She not only wanted money and the finer things in life, but she also wanted to control her own future. Vanessa had always had an attraction for thugged out men. She found the danger and excitement they bring intoxicating, and that made the sex even more explosive.
So when Bishop met Vanessa at a runway event for fashion designer Andre Leon Talley, he was immediately captivated by her beauty. Vanessa had no idea she enchanted the most dangerous man in New York. She knew being a rich man’s wife was not enough for her, and being with an older rich man didn’t excite her much. She ignored his gifts and dinner invitations for days, but that made Bishop more determined to have her. Finally, his persistence and luxurious gifts piqued her curiosity as to who he was. When she decided to take him up on his offer, she learned of his true profession as the CEO of the Harlem underworld.
Becoming his wifey was easy as Vanessa decided to get what she could from Bishop and move on. She soon learned that once you become wifey in the game it’s literally until death do you part. She felt trapped in a world she knew very little about, with a man who was more dangerous than she ever knew. It wasn’t until she saw Dwayne and saw how smart and sexy he was that she started to see a way out of Bishop’s world.
Damn she looks good. Why does she look at me like that? She knows damn well Bishop would kill us both, Dwayne thought as he walked by and his eyes meet her green eyes and all he saw was sex. He knew better then to speak to her; nobody did or risk catching Bishop’s wrath. Vanessa always loved to push the envelope anyway.
“Hey, you just started working for Bishop not too long ago right?” Vanessa asked him as she stepped in front of him. As much as he wanted to he couldn’t ignore her.
“Yeah, I mean no, I’ve been working for him for a while now.” Dwayne said nervously as he looked around to make sure nobody saw him talking to her.
She smiled, “Why are you so nervous?”
“I’m not. I’m just…I was in a hurry, that’s all.” He said.
“Well don’t let me stop you. Your name is Dwayne right?”
“Yeah, that’s right.” He said with a little more swagger in his voice.
“I guess I’ll be seeing you around more often then, Dwayne?”
“Yeah, I guess you will.” Dwayne smiled as he couldn’t help but take in her beautiful breast in her low cut dress, but then he walked towards the door.
He’s never been so drawn in by a woman. She was obviously feeling him, but he knew he couldn’t cross that line with her. He couldn’t get her face out of his head despite knowing all this.
11
Me & My Bitch
February 1994
After Damien’s mother’s funeral, he started to act as if things were back to normal again. He acted as if nothing had happened. The only thing different now was that he treated Stacy like his property. He wanted to know where she was and who she was with at all times. It wasn’t like before when didn’t care as much, but to Damien it was his way of expressing his love for her. This made it harder for her to slip away and be with Remo.
“So when am I gonna see you, Stacy?” Remo asked her over the phone.
“I don’t know. He’s checking up on me all the time now. He’s even got me a beeper, and if I don’t call him back within five minutes he’s pissed.” “This nigga is buggin’ out huh?”
“I told you what he was gonna do to himself the night I came home. He’s not wrapped that tight for real. I wanna see you so bad, Remo, but I’m scared now. What if he’s following me or catches us together? There’s no telling what he might do to you.” Stacy said to him fearfully.
“Calm down, ain’t shit gonna happen to me. Listen, dude just lost his moms and he’s trying not to lose you too. I don’t know how I would react to losing my mom either. So in the meantime just lay low. I’m not going anywhere.” Remo confirmed.
Stacy closed her eyes, “I’m sorry about this baby.”
“Don’t be. I’ll see you soon. Keep your head up.”
“Okay, I’ll talk to you soon.”
“A’ight, peace.”
“Bye baby.” Stacy said as she hung up the phone.
Later that day, Stacy was going shopping with her cousin Larissa at the mall. Larissa was the same height as Stacy, and had the same golden-brown complexion as her. People often confused them for sisters in school. Larissa wore her hair in long braids that came down to the middle of her back. They rode downtown in Larissa’s blue Ford Escort.
“So explain to me why you’re still with Damien’s crazy ass again?” Larissa asked Stacy.
“Larissa I told you that he was gonna blow his fucking brains out.”
“Okay, and? Ah, you still would’ve had Remo right there waiting for you.” Larissa said sarcastically.
“That’s cold. He had just lost his mother. He found her body, for Christ sakes.”
“Okay, so you did the right thing. It’s been three months since that happened, so why are you still with him?” Larissa asked as she pulled into the parking garage.
“Larissa, Damien scares the shit out of me. He’s so unstable. If I left him he’ll probably come find me and kill my black ass!”
“Even more reason for you to get the hell away from his crazy ass.” Larissa found a parking spot and they got out of the car.
“It’s not that easy, Larissa.”
“I don’t know why you be messing with all these thug ass niggas anyway. Sure they got money and all, but they also come with other problems. You live with that nigga, and what if the cops decide to raid his place while you’re there? You know you’ll go to jail too.”
“Damien doesn’t keep anything at the house. I moved in with Damien ‘cause h
e was making money, and hitting me off with it on the regular.” Larissa smirked. “And look how good it turned out?”
“Well how was I supposed to know this nigga was crazy? Hell, I had him wrapped around my finger.”
“And now he’s got you on lock down.” As if on cue Stacy’s beeper went off.
“Ha, look who it is.” Larissa mockingly said.
Stacy shook her head, walked to a public payphone, and dialed Damien back.
“Hey baby, what’s up?” Stacy said to Damien on the phone.
“Nothing. I just wanted to see if you were okay ma?”
“Yeah, I’m good. Larissa and me just got to the mall.”
“How long are you gonna be?”
“I don’t know, you know how we are when we go shopping.”
“Yeah, I guess so. Don’t spend all day out there. I’ll be home by seven or eight a’ight?”
She sighed, “Okay baby.”
“I love you.”
“I love you too.” Stacy said as she hung up the phone.
Larissa rolled her eyes at Stacy. “So how much time on leave did he give you?”
“Shut up. He just wanted to know if I was okay.” Stacy said to her.
“Whatever, so are you gonna keep seeing Remo?” She shrugged her shoulders and then said, “I guess until he gets tired of waiting for me.”
“Damn, was the dick that good?” Larissa inquired.
“Girl, he had me speaking in tongues.” Stacy said as they both laughed.
The rest of the day was spent shopping at the Louis Vuitton store and in Macy’s. Stacy had a shoe fetish that she couldn’t deny. If there was a new pair of Gucci shoes or Louis Vuitton boots, Stacy had to have them first. If she was going to be Damien’s prisoner, she might as well spend his money, she thought to herself.
Stacy treated Larissa to a pair of stunning red Gucci boots and a matching red shoulder bag. It was the least she could do for allowing her to vent her frustrations with Damien to her. They walked through the mall with bags in their hands. Larissa and Stacy were alike in many ways when came to their taste in clothing, music, and food. The one major difference they had was in men. Stacy always had a thing for roughnecks, while Larissa preferred her men more career-minded. Larissa worked as intern at publishing company downtown and dated a senior editor on her floor.
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