by Marcus Burke
“If you wanted trouble you picked the right one, playa. Bring yo dumb ass on.” Smoke flashed me an evil smile and motioned his arm out the door as he stepped up into the car. I looked at the woman holding the twins and in her eyes I saw fear. The boy and the little girl were now both playing tug-of-war with her keys that had been pulled from her purse. I could tell she was scared for me and she was scared for her babies. She kept sneaking glances at me and Smoke. He jumped into a defensive stance and said, “You gonna run? Motherfucker, you think shit’s sweet. Fucking bitches in other niggas’ beds? Playing a nigga like you don’t owe me?” He motioned out the door.
His hands were shaking, but I don’t think he was nervous. He stood there and I sat looking at his shaking hands and I didn’t answer him. The baby boy was laughing with the set of keys in his hand while the baby girl was deep in a cry. The mother grabbed the boy’s chubby cheeks and said, “Listen, everything is not yours. You need to share.”
I was caught, there was nothing to say, no way to escape. Smoke stepped toward me and knelt down so we were eye level as I sat. He looked me in the face, elbowed me in the mouth, and snatched me up out of my seat by the collar and walked me down off the trolley. As he did, the crying baby pointed at us and screamed out. The mother snatched the keys from the baby boy.
The doors closed. The trolley pulled off.
Smoke pushed me into the back of his boy Kendrick’s gold Chevy Caprice. Beezy was in the back with me and Smoke. Tunnetta and Aldrich were up front with Kendrick, looking scared as shit. There was no music playing, all I could hear was the car squeaking with the bumps and turns in the road and an occasional siren. Nobody said anything. I could feel the sting from my busted lip and Smoke kept his arm around me like we were buddies. Beezy kept smiling at me with his bubbled-up eye, looking proud of himself, like I wouldn’t slump his punk ass again if Smoke wasn’t breathing down my neck. Tunnetta looked at us in the rearview mirror and this was when Beezy started to get cute.
“Fuck you looking at, nigga?”
Then Beezy cocked his fist and punched me right in the eye.
“Sucker!” He laughed and smacked me again in the back of the head. I lunged at him and Smoke tightened his grip and laughed, “I wouldn’t do that.”
I looked at Aldrich and he looked like he wanted to cry as we pulled into the parking lot of Kelly Field and Kendrick tossed the car into park. We all got out and started walking off and once we made it behind the track, I knew they were taking me into the woods. I wanted to shit myself or scream out for someone to help me, but I didn’t. In a weird way I felt a certain peace about being in no-man’s-land as we walked into the brush. We followed a hiking trail until we made it onto a clearing and we all stopped. Smoke pushed me and I stumbled but kept my balance. I turned around and everything went Christmas Eve silent as everyone scattered away from me. I looked at Smoke and he had his pistol pointed right at me. I felt lightning in my blood. I couldn’t run or do anything. All I said was, “I got your money. If you just take me home I can give you your money.”
Smoke shook his head. “I’da took the money a while ago, but that’s before you decided to fuck a bitch in my bed, lose my money on some ol’ humbug shit, then punch my brother. Nigga, I oughta shoot your stupid ass.”
I farted a few times as I stood there and everyone else tried not to call attention to themselves. Smoke lowered the pistol and jogged at me and all I remember was seeing him swing and a flash of blue steel, I felt a sharp thump and everything went dark. I opened my eyes and I was down on the ground and I was leaking blood from somewhere on my face. Tunnetta was screaming and I heard Smoke yell, “Shut that bitch the fuck up.”
I saw Aldrich’s black Adidas try to run away, but Kendrick grabbed him. He said, “Slow down, brah, we ’bout to dip,” and Aldrich didn’t try to fight him at all.
A black and a blue pair of Timberlands walked toward me and I looked up a bit. It was Beezy and Smoke. Beezy leaned down and started patting at my pockets. I rolled over and put my bloody hands out in front of me. Then Smoke kicked me in the ribs.
“Move and I’ll pistol-whip ya ass again. Say anything. Say one motherfucking word about this and I’ll fucking kill you. I try to put you on. Teach you some game and this is how you cut. You lucky today, I’m feeling led by God’s shining light. I’m ’bout to hit Bible study, nigga. Mama can’t always save ya lil’ ass.”
He kicked me again, and then Kendrick grabbed Tunnetta, who wouldn’t stop screaming, and started walking her and Aldrich back toward the car. I swung my arms trying to fight, but I felt like I was underwater and I wasn’t moving fast enough. Beezy found the weed in my sock as Smoke took out a joint of his own and sparked it. Beezy handed my weed to Smoke and Smoke said, “Oh, you got work now? Guess we’ll call it even then, buster. See ya at Bible study.”
Smoke and Beezy walked back toward the car and I stayed on the ground. It felt safer there. I closed my eyes and heard footsteps again. I looked, and it was Beezy patting me down.
“And gimme my girl’s phone.”
Again, I stayed down.
It was just my luck to stumble out of the woods and see Reggie shooting around at the basketball courts as I tried to regain my balance. He was the only person I wanted to see until I actually saw him. I had dirt all over me. My face got hot and I put my head down and limped toward the courts. All bloodied up like I was, there was no way of denying something had just happened to me, but I didn’t feel like explaining myself. My right hand felt full of loose glass shards. The skin under my left eye was puffy like a ketchup packet when I touched it and the swelling made it hard to see. My whole body felt road-rashed and everything was either tingling or warm and numb. The cut on my forehead was beginning to feel like a glob of Jell-O and the blowing wind made it sting. I glanced up at Reggie and he stared me down as I limped over, but he didn’t say anything. He met me at the picnic table and sat down across from me. Sweat-burning water ran from my eyes, but I wasn’t crying.
I sat sideways on the bench of the picnic table with my body facing the basketball courts away from Reggie. In the corner of my eye I could see the sides of his lips wiggling. I could see his bunched-up cheeks restraining that smile, that I-told-you-so expression. I looked down at the grass trying to stare at the brown dirt.
I tried to sneak a glance at him and he saw me and looked me off, shifting his gaze onto the empty basketball courts.
“So is that what’s been having you hiding out? An ass whooping? I just seen them all pull away. Might as well just come on with it.”
I turned around in my seat, my back to Reggie. I was still stuck on that initial grin I saw on his face. Somewhere inside of himself he thinks this shit’s funny. He’s been all over me about tightening up and cleaning up my act, and I been telling him I got my shit under control and not to worry. But the blood in my mouth, on my hands, face, and shirt tells a very different story. All I wanted was some ice and a blunt, I wasn’t in the mood for a Reggie-sermon but I felt one coming on anyway. He took a joint from his pocket, sparked up, and passed it to me.
“So what happened, Dre? How is it I see Kendrick and Smoke and them dipping out of the parking lot and a few minutes later you come out the woods looking like a basket of bruised berries. They jumped you?”
I tossed my hand up. “Nah, they ain’t jumped me. Smoke gun-butted me across the face and then Beezy bitch-ass-punched me in the eye and ran my weed while I was on the ground. It’s all good, though. Smoke said we even for that old debt. So I got off, kinda. I took the whooping and I got the money to pay you for the bud they up took off me. They only got me for half an ounce.”
I looked over at Reggie and he stood up. His nostrils belled out and his narrow cheeks flexed. He had on a white wife-beater and it looked a size too small for him. He looked down at me and balled his fists and his muscles bulged. A large vein wiggled across his forehead.
“Wait. That nigga took something up off you that belonged to me. No bet. Ain’t n
o letting that shit slide, Andre. Especially when it comes to Smoke. Fuck the money, he ain’t ’bout to be running around here bumping his lips, ’bout blazing up my trees or anything else. Cool fucking haircut too, nigga.” He giggled but didn’t smile. “I been waiting for a reason to ride.”
Reggie shook his head at me and turned around and started walking away toward the parking lot. He called back, “Let’s go.”
14
Aftermath
We stormed off and got inside Reggie’s Jeep and as we rode there was a glazy red distance in his eyes, his mind was made up. I thought we were ’bout to flash on the block, jump out, and roll on Smoke and his crew, and I was down for the action, but instead he took me over to some apartment off River Street in Mattapan.
We didn’t knock. Reggie had a key.
“Who?” called a mousy voice as Reggie turned the key, pushed the door open, and we walked into the dark hallway of the shotgun apartment.
“Fuck else gotta key, Jasmine?” Reggie said as we walked up the hallway to the living room.
“Nigga, you need to knock. Scarin’ a bitch half to death.” Reggie flicked on the lights and he pointed at her.
“Andre, this is Jasmine, and she talk too fuckin’ much.” He gave her one of those charged-up glares and she sat up on the couch, took off her head wrap, and started brushing down her hair. It smelled like she’d freshly cocoa-buttered her long rum-brown legs. She looked at me and her forehead twisted into a puzzle of wrinkles. She tossed her hand over her mouth and kicked her feet into her slippers.
“Eww, nigga! What happened to your friend?”
“Lil’ tussle … nothing that concerns your business. Now stop asking questions.” She gazed down at the floor and looked away. Reggie walked into the living room and sat on the couch, put his pistol on the glass coffee table, and started unleafing a Backwood. I stood in the doorway watching. He tossed the tobacco in the little bin beside the couch and paused to look at Jasmine.
“Do me a solid—clean him up.” He opened the bottle of Johnnie Walker Red that Jasmine had sitting at the shiny gold foot of the coffee table. She groaned like she was annoyed, stomped toward me, and grabbed my good hand and pulled me toward the hallway. Reggie didn’t look at her, he just started breaking down a neon green bud.
“Rude-ass nigga,” she snapped under her breath as we walked down the dark hallway of closed doors.
Even though Reggie talked to her like she wasn’t shit, I knew he didn’t feel that way. Reggie never seemed impressed by a bad bitch, he had a gang of ’em, but Jasmine still intimidated the fuck outta me. She was one of the fat-booty flat-stomach broads—way out of my league. I stood in the doorway and slick-eyed Jasmine. She stood there in the mirror, tiptoeing around the bathroom looking for something, giving me a moment to glance her up and down, acting like she ain’t seen me watching her donkey-stiff booty until she finished braiding her long jet-black hair into a ponytail. In the good light I could see that she had green contact lenses in her eyes. Her hair looked soft and wavy. I wondered if she was one of them stuck-up black girls that claim she got Cherokee or some other kind of Indian in her blood. She opened the medicine cabinet and the mirror swung out and I caught a good look at myself. The white part of my right eye was pepper red and underneath bulged up plum purple. My forehead looked bad. The blood was crusting, but I could tell the cut was deep and very much still open.
She slammed the cabinet closed and turned on the faucet and let it run until I saw steam coming off the water. My upper lip was all swollen. It didn’t really hurt, it mostly felt fat and numb.
“Sit down, lil’ nigga.” She shifted her juicy hips to the side, reached up into a closet, and pulled out a washcloth. She tossed it into the steaming soap water and came over and knelt down in front of me. She rung out the rag and swiped the cloth over my face. My entire head throbbed and burned. I winced and balled my fists, scrunching my eyes and clamping down my jaws, trying not to squirm or look like a bitch. I opened my eyes and she smiled at me with her round spaced-out dolphin teeth.
She held my chin. “So you at least whoop the niggas you was beefing wit’?” She grinned.
“Yeah,” I mumbled as she paintbrushed the rag over my face.
“Mmmm hhhmmm.” She bunched her lips to one side of her face. “If that’s true, I bet you left ’em wishing they never messed wit’ you.” It wasn’t until she laughed and smacked a handful of Vaseline onto the cut on my forehead that I realized she was being sarcastic, playing me out completely. “You gonna need some stitches for this gash up here.”
I shrugged my shoulders and said, “Nothing a few Band-Aids won’t fix.” I looked away as sharp pains lightning-streaked across my face.
I heard boots stomping up the hallway and Reggie appeared in the doorway smoking a blunt.
“Is he gonna make it? Shit, you doing surgery back here?”
Jasmine rolled her eyes and pouted her lips.
“Yes. He’s fine, but that cut on his head is big. Butterfly strips ain’t fixing that. Take him to a hospital.”
Reggie took a long drag from his blunt and blew a few smoke circles.
“Just put some tape and gauze on it and get him one of my old T-shirts.”
She looked away from him, jilted. She stood up and walked out of the bathroom and Reggie smacked her ass, and Jasmine smacked Reggie’s hand away and they both laughed as she walked off. It was like watching a magician at work the way Reggie had mind control over Jasmine. Even though she acted like she was aggravated about all of his demands, it didn’t stop her from listening and doing exactly what he said.
“Here.” Reggie handed me the blunt and the bottle of Johnnie Walker and I took a gulp and coughed. My chest burned as I swallowed and took a drag from the blunt. Jasmine came back with a gray V-neck T-shirt and handed it to me. I put it on and held still as she put a few butterfly strips and some gauze and tape on my cuts. I sniffed her fruity perfume as she bandaged my face. Reggie tapped his hands on the top of the door frame as Jasmine finished cleaning me up. He passed the bottle back and I took another swig and heard a baby start crying. She stood up and arm-barred Reggie out of her way and swaggered up the hallway.
“Y’all loud-asses woke up your son,” she called back to us.
Reggie looked at me as I stood up, he chuckled and shook his head, but I could tell he wasn’t amused. He took a big gulp from the bottle as we walked back to the living room. My head was beginning to spin and my vision bounced a bit whenever I moved too fast. I heard a door slowly squeal open and then I heard little feet smacking against the hardwood floor and I froze. I looked behind me and saw a little boy in just a diaper baby-waddling toward us, his arms in the air, the light from the bathroom glowing through his little baby-thin ’fro.
“Da-da, Da-da, Da-da, Da-da.” Reggie stopped and turned around. He smirked at the little boy and knelt down and the boy fell into his arms. He picked him up and suctioned his little body against his chest. He walked past me into the living room and sat the little boy on his lap and took the pack of Backwoods out and tossed ’em to me. I took one out and started to unleaf it. He picked up the little boy and placed him one cushion away on the three-seater and I sat on the love seat on the other side of the room. The little boy sat grinning at Reggie and he took another swig and pushed his pistol out to the side and started breaking up some green. I heard Jasmine’s slippers sliding up the floor and she popped into the doorway, hand on hip, neck crooked to the side, in her meanest ghetto-girl pose with the screw face on heavy.
“Umm, no. Y’all ain’t ’bout to sit here smoking in front of my son.”
Reggie tossed his hands in the air like he was innocent and opened his eyes all wide, waving at me, mocking her, “Andre, I think she wants me to put away my gateway drugs.”
Reggie busted out laughing and swigged down the last sips of Johnnie Walker. I grinned, but didn’t really think it was my place to be cracking up like Reggie was. I figured she wasn’t wrong and put the lea
f back inside the pack of Backwoods. Reggie’s eyebrows arched at me and his broad nose scrunched in and his forehead wrinkled up stiff. His eyes narrowed to slits and he growled, “Gimme the bag.” No questions asked, I slid it over to him.
He opened the bag and took out the leaf and started rolling a blunt and Jasmine stood in the doorway watching him. I glanced at a neutral spot between Reggie, the floor, and the coffee table, and we all watched him. I don’t know how babies can tell when something’s up, but the baby boy stayed put and watched Reggie with us too, until the tension got too stiff and his little lips started to ripple and his eyes pinked up as tears wiggled down his cheeks. The little boy’s face twisted like he’d tasted something sour, and he reached out for Jasmine and bawled out.
“Ma-ma, Ma-ma, Ma-ma.” The little boy bounced on his butt. “Up. Up. Up. Pick … up.”
Jasmine glared at him.
“Dammit, Reece, stop it!” She groaned again and stomped over to the little boy. His fingers waved out for Jasmine. “What! Reece, your little ass should be in the bed anyway.” She picked him up and walked back over to the doorway, balancing Reece on her hip. I looked at Reggie and he flicked his lighter and inhaled the blunt and blew the smoke right at Jasmine. She shrieked like a hawk about to attack and tossed Reece on the couch next to me and charged at Reggie. Reggie stood up and stopped her charge, snatching her by the throat and shoving her back in the direction she came from.
Reece crawled over and grabbed onto my arm and started wailing, “Ma-ma, Ma-ma.” He alternated loud moans and screams and drooled all over my arm but I didn’t have it in me to push him away. Jasmine popped back up off the wall.
“You ain’t shit-ass nigga, you gon’ hit me? You gon’ die by that.”
I looked at Reggie and maybe it was the Johnnie Walker but from where I was sitting on the couch Reggie looked like he’d grown an entire foot. He took two big stomps across the room and swung his open palm at her face.
“Shut up, bitch.” It sounded like he’d popped a can of rolls.