by Michel Moore
“That’s good. Don’t let these fools front on you.” Old Skool made her feel much better. “When you get dressed Zack wants to talk to you.” Tastey gave her a worried look, hoping her job wasn’t in jeopardy. “Girl, don’t worry. He ain’t bugging about that bullshit. He said you wanted to talk to him about some stuff you had on your mind.”
“Oh yeah, damn, I did. I almost forgot!” Tastey was relieved. She didn’t want to lose her job. She needed the money and, besides, she had no other friends except her girl Raven and the rest of the club family. Emotionally drained from dealing with Ty’s over-the-top antics, she decided to be done for the night. She pulled her hair up in a ponytail and put on a track suit and her sneakers. She was getting herself prepared to meet with Zack.
Tastey made her way into Zack’s office and took a seat on the couch. He was on his cell phone, talking a lot of shit as always. After a short while of listening to him boast about this, that, and the third, she got up and started to look at all of the different framed pictures he had on the office wall. There were a few of girls and some of cars, but most of them were nightclub shots from way back when. Judging from some of the outfits he and others had on, he must have been collecting them for a long time. In some of them, Zack’s pimped-out-ass was even sporting a Jheri curl and bell-bottoms. As she walked along the wall, one picture shockingly jumped out at her. Tastey moved in extra close to get a better look, thinking her eyes might’ve been playing tricks on her. “Oh fuck naw, oh shit!” Her sudden outburst caused Zack to glance over at her and start to wrap up his conversation.
“What’s up, baby girl? Sorry about that. You know how I am when I get to runnin’ my mouth. I damn near forgot you were here you were so quiet.” He was making his way toward her as he was talking.
Tastey made sure to move away from that particular picture so he wouldn’t ask her any questions about her reaction to it. “Don’t worry. I kept myself busy looking at all your pictures, especially the ones where you’re busting that curl!” Kenya was laughing at Zack, trying to play off a bad feeling that was stirring inside the pit of her stomach.
Playing the role, he started acting like he was fixing his curl in the mirror. “You don’t know nothing about this! I was Grand Daddy Caddy, Macaroni Tony!” Zack teased before getting down to the reason for their meeting.
After they sat down and got themselves together it was time to get to it. Zack thought it would be better to let Tastey start and get whatever it was that she wanted to say out in the open before he broke on her with his game plan.
“Okay, this is what I was thinking.” She adjusted her body in the chair, praying his response would be positive. “What if we had feature dancers and showcases every week here? You know, some shit where the top moneymakers got put on full blast? I was talking to Old Skool and she told me she used to be a feature dancer at different spots around the city.” Tastey took a break in the presentation she was making, to try to peep Zack and see if he was buying into her new hustle.
“That’s what’s up! I’m glad to see you’re thinking of more ways to make the club and yourself extra revenue.” Zack had to make sure to give Old Skool some extra cash and some of his dick that she always craved. She had perfectly laid the groundwork out for his plan and he was overjoyed. This was just what he needed to hear. Zack could manipulate Kenya into thinking that it was her idea and he came up with his part of it at the tail end, spur of the moment. “I think we can do that and even a little bit more.”
Zack told her to get relaxed and pay attention to what he was about to say next. This was going to be the part of the plan that would make or break the whole deal. “All right, Tastey, here’s the real thing that I’m talking about. I got a gravy-ass hookup with a couple of cats out West in L.A. and down in Texas. And we got sorta what you would call a partnership. You see, I got my hands on a lot of, should we say, product, and they’re interested in helping me get rid of it.” He was rubbing his hands together as he spoke, hoping to lure Kenya on his team. “First, we can do some smaller things in Ohio and other places closer to home, then move up to a bigger scale.”
“Are you talking about moving cocaine, raw, or trees?” Kenya was attentively sitting straight up in her seat, taking in all her boss had to say.
“Hell naw! Now just what the fuck you know about all that?” Zack was more than amazed that she had come on him just like that, flat out with it. He was both shocked and relieved all at the same time. The expression on his face told it all.
Tastey could see that he was staring at her strange, so she took over the conversation. “Come on, Zack, you act like I don’t be around people. You must think I’m not from the hood. Who the fuck ain’t got a head in their family? And, shit, weed is the third creation. Everybody knows God made the heavens, the earth, and then the ‘trees.’” Tastey held her hands open and looked toward the sky like she was smiling up at the Almighty Himself.
“Girl, you know you a fool!” It was then that Zack knew that his plan would work out perfectly. The scheming pair talked for close to a hour before Brother Rasul came to the door informing him that a guy was out front looking for him needing a face to face. He was claiming his business was very important and extremely personal, meaning that what he had to say was for Zack’s ears only.
“Okay, partner, let me go up front and see what all this is about and I’ll talk to you tomorrow, cool?” Zack reached over and grabbed Tastey’s hand, shaking it, signifying they had a deal. “Be easy, baby girl, and clear your mind, you about to make some major paper.”
As Zack and Tastey left out his office, he saw Old Skool sitting at the end of the bar and blew her a kiss as he stroked his dick. She knew that she would get paid tonight in more ways than one. Old Skool then told Tastey to have a good night as one of Brother Rasul’s team walked her out to her car. Seeing something stuck underneath her windshield wiper blade, she took the half-folded paper out. Quickly realizing Ty had left the note, Kenya angrily balled it up and threw it out the window without so much as reading one single solitary word. Fuck him and all that drama he be bringing with him! As she pulled out the parking lot still thinking about the picture she’d seen on Zack’s office wall, she drove home for the night.
Zack
“Young Foy, my nigga. Man, when did you come home? We missed you in the D.” Zack gave his man a play and a short hug. “You did a real little bid this time around didn’t you? Do them crackers up north know they done let a straight-up fool loose?” Zack laughed so loudly that some of the girls were alarmed thinking it was more trouble like what had jumped off earlier.
Young Foy was tall and had the build of most career inmates. With a hood mentality, he was a straight-up troublemaker, no doubt. If anything was being sold on the far west side of town he had a piece of the action, even if he had to strong-arm his way on the ticket. The seasoned criminal’s temper was on a hairline trigger much like Kenya’s. He would fly hot on that ass at the drop of a dime before you knew it. However, being in and out of prison never seemed to stop him from having his ear to the streets. Young Foy, although 100 percent thug, was always spitting rhymes and singing. He needed to get into show business and stop running in the streets before he got killed like most of the dudes he’d come up with. All he needed was a chance and someone to bankroll his dream.
“Hey, guy, I wanted to stop by and check on you. See what you had popping for a brother. You know a nigga fresh out and trying to come back up.” Young Foy was running his game down. Playas in the hood knew he was a man of his word when it came to getting that money. “Let a nigga get some work! You know I straight need it!”
“I tell you what.” Zack’s mind was beginning to work overtime; besides, he knew when it came to Young Foy he’d have to cut him in or cut it out all together. “Stop by in the next few days and I can most def put you on. In the meantime, welcome home!” Zack dug in his pockets, respectfully pulling out two hundred-dollar bills, giving them to Young Foy.
“All right b
et, bet, good lookin’.” Young Foy then paused remembering the other reason he’d made a trip to see Zack as soon as he touched down. “Damn, dawg. It almost slipped my mind your boy Stone was locked up with me. He wanted me to make sure to come by and tell you that he needs you to come see him and shit as soon as possible.”
“Yo, why didn’t he just call the phone or drop a nigga a few lines? Do he need some dough or something?” Zack quizzed.
“Come on, killer, what I look like, Ms. Cleo?” Young Foy saw one of Zack’s phat-ass freaks walk by and that was all she wrote for their conversation. He was on ho patrol. “Man, I’ll holler. Just go get with dude! He acted like it was urgent.” And with those words he was out.
Old Skool came over to Zack and put her arms around him. She couldn’t wait to get to her house and get her hands on Zack’s dick. “Hey, it’s almost three, let’s have Brother Rasul shut it down.”
Zack agreed, kissing her on the lips. “Yeah, okay. Let’s be out. After all, I owe your ass a little something-something and you know I hate owing a nigga.” Old Skool gave him a yard of tongue, while he ran his hand across her thirty-six DDs. “We’ll see you in the morning.” Zack patted Brother Rasul on the back as they left for the night. He trusted him with his club and his life.
Chapter Eleven
London
London had been back in school for just a few days when she and Fatima decided to go ahead and really start the organization they’d been discussing for months and months. After plenty of late-night talks they each found out they’d both had drug addicts in their families or, in London’s case, Amber. They both came to realize that drugs were tearing down neighborhoods and tearing families apart. They stayed up long nights after studying, coming up with a lot of key points that they wanted to cover in their meetings.
“I think we should make sure to focus on kids who don’t get the food they need because their parents are on crack.”
London was writing down both her and Fatima’s ideas.
“Girl, I think we should try to shine the light on all the crime that senior citizens are subjected to by addicts trying to get money to cop.” Fatima was on a roll with things to add on also.
London started to think about her friend Amber and came up with the last thing to put on the list. “Why don’t we try to make the main focus on the youth, like kids in between nine and nineteen? If we can try to catch them, maybe we can make a difference. Tell them about another way to make it out the hood. Look how many of us are up here in school and can’t look out or protect our little brothers and sisters from the dope man.”
Fatima looked at London like she had just invented apple pie. “That’s it! For real, for real. I think we just found our hook.” Both girls were hyped up but decided to get some rest and get ready for a busy day.
Morning came quick enough, and the girls hurried to get dressed. “You ready, Fatima?”
“Yeah, almost, give me ten more minutes.” London heard her say that and immediately thought about Kenya. She was always good for telling Gran that same line almost each and every morning.
Fatima grabbed her dorm room keys and the two were off. After a short walk across the campus, they cut across the football field, finally ending up at their destination. The girls made it to the school’s media outlook building in what had to be record time. They were going to print out fliers to post all over the campus. London hoped that at least they would get ten or eleven people to show up at the group meeting that would be held on the weekend.
The day soon arrived and the girls were excited. “It’s three o’clock. We have thirty minutes before everyone starts to get here. I’m so nervous.” London was walking back and forth from the window to the door.
“Girl, we got this. I been hearing a few people talk about the fliers in class and in the computer lab.” Fatima seemed to always know how to calm her friend down. “Just get up there and do the damn thang! Your ass is good at talking shit!” Fatima smiled as she hugged her roommate.
The meeting was about to start and, to the girls’ surprise, it was standing room only. They had the dorm conference room packed to capacity with students. Some of their faces they knew on sight, and some of the people London and Fatima didn’t even know attended the university.
“That flier must have been all kinds of powerful!” Fatima whispered to her soon-to-be partner in raising some hell.
London shook her head, agreeing. “I know, but I really think it just hit home with a lot of us. Let’s get it started.”
Fatima looked at London and knew her girl was gonna be definitely on point.
“Hello, everyone. My name is Amia London Roberts. I’m a freshman here and I have a few issues that trouble my mind at night. Hell, sometimes during the day.” London had sparked some of the crowd’s interest in what could be bothering such a pretty and well-spoken young lady. “It’s my neighborhood at home. It’s my little cousins and their friends, the ones who used to look up to me for guidance and even sometimes protection. Let me clarify: not protection from the physical side of the street, but the mental. The seemingly never-ending cycle of being hungry because Mom sold all of the food stamps for the month. The embarrassment of having to wear dirty or worn-out clothes to school, that is, if you ever had the encouragement to go.” London was truly on top of her game and the entire room was hyped. “Look, I know many of you come from what we call ‘the hood.’ I bet you have brothers and sisters you worry about while attending school. We were lucky. Most of us had somebody in our lives. That one person who unconditionally cared about us and helped us, sometimes made us, make it through the tough times. All I’m saying is that just like we had that one shining beacon to guide us, it’s time we stood up and let them pass the torch to us.”
The crowd was on its feet. Fatima looked over to London and decided that she would not even speak. She knew that London would be the group’s number one spokesperson from here on out.
The meeting went on for nearly two hours as each and every person gave their own story and personal account of what their issue was. Each one seemed to be worse than the last. At the conclusion of the first meeting, they decided on a name for the newly formed organization. It would be called People Against Illegal Drugs.
In short, PAID was formed and was officially ready to raise some hell for the youth. In London’s words, it was time for change and the time was now!
Tastey
“Life is good as hell!” Tastey was feeling herself as she fell back on the bed in her hotel room surrounded by stacks and stacks of dough. Sure, most of it belonged to Zack, but a small cut of it was hers. She’d been stashing dope in the bottom of her dance bag for a little over a month now and getting paid. That meeting in Zack’s office that night was paying off big time for her. Tastey had been stacking her loot from hustlin’ and living off the tips she made from dancing. Her girl Raven went on the road with her from time to time whenever she could get a babysitter, so it was double the fun. The two of them would fall up in whatever strip club in the circuit they had to make a delivery to and practically take over that bitch. New girls, fresh meat as they were called, always made much more money than any of the regular girls on the roster. Tastey and Raven both were sexy as hell so snatching all the money wherever they went was never a problem. They knew how to give a nigga his money’s worth. They were true showstoppers.
Zack, on the other hand, was starting to get nervous. Things were soon going to come to a screeching halt when his used-to-be longtime friend Stone got released and came home from prison, and he knew it. Stone stayed deep in Zack’s pockets on an old debt Stone would never let him forget. As Zack sat down behind his desk, he looked at the pictures on the wall. One in particular stood out. It just so happened to be the same one that had jumped out at Tastey months earlier. It was like it was somehow calling out to him. Zack had had no idea whatsoever what Stone had wanted was so important that he had to send word by Young Foy to come see him in person. He often thought back to that day he
fucked up, causing Stone to want to kill him dead. It would come to haunt him daily.
It was close to a three-hour ride up north to the penitentiary where Stone was housed. Zack went through all the normal procedures that it took to visit a friend or loved one. “Damn, this is some degrading bullshit!” he said out loud.
The guards just went on with their jobs. They were used to every type of verbal assault known to man or beast. Finally he got in and took a seat at a table. He then waited for what seemed like hours. The gate at the prisoner entrance finally cracked and Zack saw his old friend Stone bend the corner. Stone was looking hard faced, but that wasn’t anything new to Zack; matter of fact that was how he originally had gotten that nickname: being stone-faced. They had grown up together in the same neighborhood and Stone barely smiled then either so Zack really made nothing of it at that point. As Stone got close to the table, he sat down. Obviously having something serious on his mind, he didn’t bother or waste time even giving his boy any love.
“What dude, no dap, no love, what’s up?” Zack was confused by this time. Each and every time his boy would do a bid, which was often, he would always accept his calls or send him some money on his books. He’d constantly looked out for him and his woman no matter what.
“Man, I ain’t gonna even front with you or spend no time with all that yang, yang. Dig this here! You know a young cat named Ty, a small-time car-thieving motherfucker from DLA area? He ’bout twenty or twenty-one.” Stone’s face, being as it was, showed no signs of emotion as he spoke.
“Yeah, I know him. He ain’t ’bout shit,” Zack eagerly chimed in. “I know his bitch-ass wasn’t showing no form of disrespect to you, was he? Because we stumped his ho-ass out awhile back for some bullshit.”
“Naw, not him! It’s you, playa! You the one violating!” Stone was mean mugging Zack like a motherfucker by this time, wanting to damn near smack the fire out his mouth. “See that little punk was locked up here for a minute, doing a short stay. Ol’ boy was talking mad shit about you: your boy Brother Rasul and that rotten cat house your slimy-ass run with Old Skool.”