by K'wan
Masks and artifacts from different cultures cluttered most of the living room in apartment 2, and what space they didn’t take up held books that you were more likely to see in a history professor’s office than a street nigga’s crib. The thing most people didn’t know about Animal was that he was far more than just a street dude: he was also a very deep thinker. He attacked the streets with the same passion he used attacking his books, always paying attention and never moving on a whim. When Animal handled business, he did it with tact, but his lifestyle was another story.
“At least you know I’ll never catch a cold. Come on, the goons are on the other side.” He led Tech through a huge beaded archway that led to apartment 3. The building manager was a fiend, so Animal persuaded him to rent out the two apartments for a few ounces. Once he got the keys, he knocked the walls down and connected them. The manager got pissed, but Animal didn’t give a fuck, and most people knew better than to argue with him when his mind was set to something.
When they passed through into the second apartment they were engulfed by weed smoke. Hard faces and red eyes looked up at Tech through the mist. Brasco and the young boy Ashanti were flicking away at PS3 joysticks, manipulating the moves of some of the leagues’ all-time greatest players on the wide-screen television. From the look on Brasco’s face, he was getting the short end of the stick. The way Ashanti kept laughing, it would only be a matter of time before Brasco lost his temper and wanted to fight; he was a hothead like that. Sitting in the corner was Nefertiti, the joker. His dreads bobbed up and down to the music Animal was playing, while he crushed pretty green buds of sweet sticky on an album cover. They were all crew, but these were Animal’s dogs, so Tech let him hold the leash.
“Fuck is you doing?” Animal snatched the album cover from Nefertiti, spilling the weed on the floor. Animal gently brushed off the cover and inspected it for damage.
“Nigga, that was that bomb sticky.” Nefertiti sprang to his feet.
Animal sneered at Nefertiti, causing him to step back cautiously. “Do I look like I give a fuck about them crumbs when you’re using my autographed copy of Waiting for the Sun to break them up on?”
“What kinda gay-ass shit is that?” Ashanti spoke up from the crate he was sitting on. He was an undersized fourteen-year-old who had the voice of an old man.
“Gay, do you know how much pussy Jim Morrison was getting when The Doors were popping?” Animal schooled him.
“You do be listening to some cocksucker shit,” Nefertiti snickered. When he saw the fire that had been lit in Animal’s eyes, the smirk faded.
“What you call me?” Animal tossed the album cover to the ground.
“Chill, blood—” Ashanti began, but Animal cut him off.
“Mind ya fucking business, Ashanti,” Animal snapped, before turning his attention back to Nefertiti. “You trying to call me a faggot, son?”
“Animal, chill, I wasn’t calling you nothing.” Nefertiti raised his hands in surrender. Even though they were like family, he had a deep fear of Animal, as most people did. When he was off his meds it wasn’t unheard of for him to become violent. Nefertiti had been with him when Animal had stabbed a kid with an ink pen for making fun of the way he wore his jeans.
“Animal, cool the fuck out,” Tech said, trying to step in, but Animal wasn’t trying to hear it.
“Nah, big homey, he wanna be calling muthafuckas out so ima make him back that shit up.” Animal pulled a small black gun from the back of his belt. “Talk cocksucker shit now, blood.”
Nefertiti looked to his crew, who had abandoned their video game and were watching the scene unfolding in apartment 3. “Dawg, chill out.” His voice had dropped to barely a whisper. Animal’s face twisted into a horrible mask as he pulled the trigger, squirting Nefertiti in his face with water. When everyone realized that Animal hadn’t put Nefertiti’s brains on the far wall, they all fell over laughing.
“Nef, you was straight shook.” Animal squirted him twice more.
“Check his pants to see if he shit on hisself,” Brasco added his two cents.
“Man, fuck all y’all.” Nefertiti wiped his face. “That was some bullshit, Animal. What if I had been strapped and popped you by accident?”
“You wasn’t gonna shoot shit, because you ain’t got ya gun on you, and that’s part of the problem.” Animal squirted him one last time for good measure. “Yo, Nef, how many times I gotta tell you about leaving ya gat in the crib?”
“Come on with the lecture,” Nefertiti said, trying to get out of it, but he should’ve known better.
“Fuck a lecture. I’m trying to tell your stupid ass of something that could save your life in the future. Son, you can’t be running around shooting and doing shit to people and then think you can be a civilian when you feel like it. This army,” he motioned toward their collective, “is constantly at war, and as soldiers we carry it as such. You can’t give out wrong and then not be prepared when it’s your turn for karma to come back, and trust that it will. All of us gotta pay forward tomorrow what we did yesterday: it’s the natural law of things.”
“I can give a fuck about tomorrow as long as I can eat good today, my nigga. As long as the streets still talk about me after I’m dust, I don’t give a fuck about nothing else.” Ashanti might’ve been the smallest and thus the least imposing of the crew, but he was arguably the most bloodthirsty.
“I know that’s right.” Brasco gave him dap. “They’re always gonna remember the legends, and that’s what the fuck we gonna be, legends!”
“Spoken like some true riders.” Animal put Ashanti in a playful headlock and faked punches at Brasco. “You see this, my nigga?” he addressed Tech. “This that real street love right here; fuck what you read in a book or seen in a movie. We several bodies, but we share one heart. We kill and we die as one. These little niggaz will tear the chief of police’s head off if he tried to come at me wrong, because they know I’d do the same for them, and that’s how family give it up.” He walked over and stood directly in front of Tech. Whatever he’d been sipping had his eyes glassy, but his words were solid. “When you family, you untouchable.”
“Word,” Ashanti, Brasco, and Nefertiti said in unison.
Tech studied his young homey for a long moment. He knew Animal wasn’t testing him but searching for approval. He had shaped his little crew into a formidable little team and their names had been ringing in the hood before any of them could legally buy a drink. Animal and his young killers were destined for either greatness or death; anything less was unacceptable. Tech had taught him that, and he’d passed it on to his l’il ones, as Jah had passed it on to him. Thinking on his old mentor took him back to the night Animal had come to his attention.
Tech had never been a heavy drinker, but that night he was trying to go over the top. Jah would’ve been twenty-three that day. It had been a little over two years since he’d been killed, but the wound on Tech’s heart was still fresh.
Tech sat perched on a bar stool in the Lenox Lounge, throwing back shots of 1738 like it was going out of style. It had been Jah’s drink of choice just before he died. Tech was never sure exactly who had turned him on to it, but he swore by it. Most of the cats in Harlem knew Tech and what he was about and as a result they gave him a wide berth, but not everyone exercised such caution. Two such cats were Bump and Eddy, who were sitting in the back of the lounge, plotting. They were two pissants who weren’t worth their salt, but they were determined to be recognized as heavyweights. When they saw Tech stagger from the bar, they saw it as an opportunity.
Tech was so twisted that he never even saw the two haters following him up the block. He was fumbling in his pocket for a light for the blunt that dangled from his mouth when he heard the familiar click. “Damn,” was all he could say, because he knew he had been caught slipping.
“You know what it is, so turn around real slow,” Bump ordered.
“Be easy.” Tech turned slowly. “Y’all can have this little bit of jewelry, j
ust take it easy with those hammers.” He kept his hands in the air and his eyes on his assailants. The fact that they weren’t wearing masks would normally have been unnerving, but Tech could tell that the robbers weren’t killers. He knew their faces, but not their names. It didn’t matter. Harlem was too small for him not to bump into them again, and when he did, it was gonna get ugly.
“Ain’t no fun when the rabbit got the gun, huh?” Bump taunted him.
“Come up off ya shit,” Eddy barked. He tried to look hard, but Tech could smell the fear rolling off him.
Tech began emptying his pockets onto the curb, but kept his eyes on Bump. He might not have known his name, but he knew his face and would make it his business to see it again on different terms.
“Fuck you looking at.” Bump pointed the gun at Tech’s face.
“Man, stop talking to this nigga and let’s get outta here,” Eddy said, picking up the contents of Tech’s pockets. He knew they were making a mistake by running up on Tech, and initially wanted no part of it, but Bump wouldn’t be swayed, so he had to ride with his homeboy.
“I know you ain’t eyeballing me?” Bump cocked the hammer. Outwardly he was trying to act hard, but inside he was scared to death, and it was that that made him angrier than Tech’s glare. Without warning, Bump slammed the gun into the side of Tech’s head. “Don’t be muthafucking looking at me!”
Spots danced before Tech’s eyes, but he didn’t lose consciousness. He tried to stagger to his feet, only to have Bump kick him back down. “Did I tell you to get up, pussy?” Bump taunted him.
“Man, we got the shit, let’s just go.” Eddy danced in place.
“Yeah, why don’t you take your friend’s advice,” Tech said, struggling to control the urge to rush the gunman.
Just the sound of his voice made Bump flinch, which sent him over the edge. “You trying to tell me what to do, like I’m some pussy?” Tech ignored him. “Nigga, you hear me talking?”
“Let’s go,” Eddy tried, futilely.
“Nah, ima do this nigga,” Bump declared, surprising the hell out of Eddy.
“Man, I didn’t sign on for no murder,” Eddy told him.
“Shut the fuck up and stop crying!” Bump shouted. He turned his crazed eyes back to Tech. “Yeah, I’m gonna bust ya head for every cat you ever blasted on in the hood, bitch nigga!” Just as Bump added pressure to the trigger, a bottle shattered against his head. The gun went off, shattering the car window just over Tech’s head. Bump tried to right himself but was met by a blur of motion.
A frail little boy dressed in a dirty hoodie rushed Bump, fists striking him like flashes of lightning. When Bump tried to turn the gun on the little boy, he sank his teeth into the shooter’s forearm and held on for dear life. Eddy tried to help his partner, but Tech tripped him up. The little boy shook his head violently, trying to tear clean through Bump’s arm. The boy fought the good fight, but Bump outweighed him by almost a hundred pounds. He slammed the little boy viciously into the wall, dazing him. Bump’s arm was on fire and he couldn’t feel his fingers, but they were still able to find the trigger of his pistol.
Most children, and even grown men, would’ve been terrified staring at their own demise, but not the wild-haired boy. With Bump’s blood staining his lips and chin, he stared up defiantly and said, “Go ahead, nigga, set me free. I ain’t long for this world nohow.” Before Bump could grant the boy’s death wish, his head exploded in a mass of crimson.
The little boy stared at Bump’s body curiously as his life drained into the gutter just off the curb. A few feet away, his partner lay in a heap. His neck was twisted almost completely around, and his eyes stared lifelessly into space. Standing in the center of the carnage, holding Eddy’s still-smoking gun, was Tech. The little boy’s face was a look of curiosity; Tech’s was one of disappointment. Not only disappointment from allowing himself to get caught up there, but he also wished he could’ve inflicted more punishment before Eddy and Bump died.
Then the little boy picked himself up off the ground and stepped out into the light, allowing Tech to get a good look at him. His long hair had a nice texture, but it was matted and dirty, much like his clothes. It was obvious that he wasn’t doing well. The more Tech stared at him, the more he realized that he knew the boy. He was the little brother of a kid name Justice, whom Tech knew by association through the Harlem underworld. The last he’d heard, Justice had caught life on a murder beef.
“Yo, you Jus little brother, right?” Tech asked. The little boy nodded. “What’s ya name again?”
The little boy pondered the question before answering. “These days they call me Animal,” he wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve, “though I can’t imagine why,” he said sarcastically.
Tech looked over at Bump’s body and remembered how the boy had attacked him. “A’ight, Animal, I’m Tech. Son, I know you seen me around ya brother, but you don’t know me like that, so why the hell would you rush to save me like that, knowing you could’ve got blasted?”
Animal shamefully lowered his head when he spoke. “I didn’t get that dude to save you: I’ve been planning on killing these muthafuckas for three weeks.”
Tech was confused. “Why?”
Animal stared at Tech quizzically before answering, “Because they kept fucking with me. Bum-ass-nigga this, dirty-muthafucka that.”
“So you wanted them dead because they snapped on you?”
“Not just because they were snapping on me, because they needed killing. Fam, to most of y’all, this concrete jungle is a playground, but to me it’s home. When you live in the jungle you have to live by its rules; the strong get to make it to tomorrow while the weak become food. I can’t be nobody’s food, man; you don’t know what that shit is like.” Animal turned away so that Tech wouldn’t see him on the verge of tears.
Tech’s mind momentarily took him back to a place he had long tried to forget. “Yes, I do,” he said solemnly. In Animal he saw what Jah must’ve seen in him all those years ago, and even if his mouth had yet to say it, he already knew what had to be done. “Don’t worry about it, my nigga,” he draped his arm around Animal’s frail shoulders, “you ain’t never gonna have to worry about being nobody’s food again.”
“This nigga is high.” Ashanti’s squeaky voice brought Tech out of his daydream.
“Nah, I was just thinking about some business,” Tech lied.
“This dude is always thinking. Fuck calling you Tech, you the Scientist,” Nefertiti joked.
“That’s why I’m in charge, baby boy,” Tech shot back. “But check it, y’all little niggaz ready to earn ya keep,” Tech addressed the youngsters.
“All day,” Brasco assured him.
“Then put that muthafucking joystick down and pay attention. Y’all remember the white boy I had y’all sitting on downtown.”
“Yeah, the nigga wit’ the haze,” Nefertiti recalled.
“That’s the one. His ass is a five-course banquet and y’all are the guests of honor. Y’all gonna get a few stacks apiece and all you find, all you keep when you rush this pussy. I need this to go down ASAP, y’all understand?”
Nefertiti made a funny face.
“What?”
Nefertiti could feel Animal’s cold stare on him, but he was too afraid of Tech not to speak. “I’m saying . . . ah, me and fam,” he nodded at Animal, “was supposed to crash the listening party tonight.”
“What listening party?” Tech wanted to know.
Animal flashed Nefertiti a dirty look before answering Tech. “Ain’t about nothing, man. Them niggaz from Big Dawg is supposed to be having a little prelistening party tonight at Mochas and we was good if we wanted to roll through. I know how you feel about the boy Don B., so I didn’t bother to drop it on you.”
“You’re damn right I feel some type of way about that muthafucka, and any nigga up under him ends up living on borrowed time,” Tech said venomously. Though Don B. had had nothing to do with Jah’s murder, Tech still held h
im responsible for the events that caused it. Jah had been working as a bodyguard for an up-and-coming rapper named True when those cats were trying to come for his head. At the time, it seemed like the coolest thing in the world to young Tech, but it had all turned out to be bullshit. The dudes who were after True had finally caught him slipping, and Jah had ended up going along for the ride. Tech felt that if Jah hadn’t been dealing with Don B. and True, he might still be alive.
“Them niggaz is getting wild paper,” Nefertiti said.
Tech turned on Nefertiti. “We getting paper, too, dawg. What you trying to say you ain’t eating?”
“Nef, shut the fuck up ’fore I smack you, B,” Animal warned him. “Tech, I respect what you saying, but I don’t see the harm in taking this nigga’s hospitality if he keeps offering it. Everybody in the hood knows I ain’t no fucking rapper, so he’s wasting his time chasing me.”
“Animal, it ain’t even about that. It’s about the kinda karma that nigga got on him: you don’t want no part of that, little brother.”
“Tech, I can handle it. Trust in your brother, man.” Animal’s mind was apparently made up.
Tech exhaled loudly. “You know what, do what the fuck you wanna do, Animal. You can go party with them shifty-ass niggaz if you want, but make sure these knucklehead muthafuckas handle business before you get to partying; feel me?”
Animal paused for a minute and just stared at Tech. He knew that he wasn’t trying to play him, but he didn’t like to be talked down to in front of Ashanti and the others. In their eyes, he was just as much of a boss as Tech. “Man, you be too uptight sometimes. Y’all niggaz get ya shit,” Animal told his crew.
“Where the fuck y’all going?” Tech asked.
Animal tucked his gun into his pants and slipped a track jacket on to conceal it. “You said you wanted a nigga dead, so we going to kill him, big brother,” Animal said sarcastically and slipped out the door. The others sat around exchanging uncomfortable glances for a few minutes before following Animal out of the apartment, leaving Tech alone with his thoughts.