Team Seven

by Marcus Burke

  “Mmmmmm,” Jasmine sighed deep. He’d hit her so hard she could only hum and hold her face as she rested on the floor balled up like a fetus, Reggie standing over her. “You need to get yo ass in the motherfuckin’ bed.”

  Images of Reggie jumping my father back on that Christmas Eve seven years ago flashed in my head. I don’t know if it was the liquor, the shock, or hearing screams and cries, but as I sat watching Reggie and Jasmine fighting, and as Reece clung to me screaming, drooling, and nibbling away at my arm, my heart broke for him. I reached out and hugged him to my side and patted the top of his head until Reggie walked back to his seat. Jasmine wasn’t behind him. Reece whimpered into my shirt and Reggie looked up and his face softened. He lit the blunt back up and hit it a few times, then he stood up to pass it to me and snatched Reece up and sat him on his lap. He kissed him on the forehead and bounced him on his knee.

  “Mama hurt, Dada. Mama hurt.” Reece tugged at his sleeve.

  “No, Mama bitch. Mama bitch, baby,” he said in a baby voice as he laughed and bounced him on his knee.

  I could hear Jasmine in the kitchen tearing through the pots and pans, clanking glass together. It sounded like she was looking for something or just breaking things. I smoked the blunt and watched Reggie as he bounced his son on his knee. In all the days I’d kicked it with him I’d never heard him mention having a son. I’d never even seen Jasmine riding in his car, and for whatever reason, knowing Reggie was somebody’s daddy made me realize what responsibilities he was talking about that day at Kelly Park. It’s like I’d drifted off into a trance and forgot what had just happened. I just sat watching Reece bouncing on his knee until I heard fast footsteps up the hall and Reggie bounced his knee up extra high and shoved Reece to the side and hopped to his feet. I thought he was about to hit me for some reason, so I tossed my hands over my face but he wasn’t worried about me. He grabbed the empty Johnnie Walker bottle from the table and flung it into the doorway. I heard the glass shatter. He lunged at the door and I stayed in my seat, looking at Reece reaching out at the door.

  “Bitch, you lost your fuckin’ mind. I’ll fuckin’ kill you dead before you cut me.”

  “Get … the … fuck … off … of … me,” Jasmine struggled out the words as I could hear the skidding squeal of her skin dragging up the hallway. She screamed until he tossed her in a room and shut the door behind them. The walls were thin but they muffled their words and all I could hear were muted bumps and thuds. Reece howled with his eyes closed, kicking and screaming up at the ceiling. I stood up and walked over to him and picked him up as he sobbed and balled his hands into my shirt, shaking his little fists, gnawing at my upper arm.

  “It’s okay,” I told him, even though I knew it wasn’t. I bounced him side to side and hushed him until the swaying became too much and I started to feel sick and I put him down. He rolled back and forth on the couch, shrieking out to nobody. I sat as he maneuvered himself off the couch and started crawling toward me as I heard a hallway door open and slam shut.

  Reggie’s hand waved in the door to the living room, “Let’s go.”

  I looked into the little boy’s tender face, stood up, walked into the unlit hallway, and left the apartment without saying anything to Jasmine. The lock clicked behind us, but then the door creaked open a crack and I looked back into the dark slit but I couldn’t see Jasmine. Reggie tossed his hands out at his sides. “In the fuckin’ bed,” he said matter-of-factly and the door slammed shut. I followed behind him outside. He never looked back.

  When we got out to the street I could feel the liquor swaying my steps. Reggie was a few steps ahead of me and he wasn’t walking too straight either. In my head, all I could see was that little boy’s crying face, and all of them Team Seven niggas huddled up stomping out my pops. It’s like I was fading in and out. We got to the Jeep and I gripped the door handle and thought to myself that it probably wasn’t the best idea to drive anywhere. But then I remembered that it was about nine thirty and Bible study was probably in full swing and I had to be somewhere. Where really didn’t matter.

  I got in the car and figured maybe a little more weed would mellow Reggie out. Plus, after the way he just did Jasmine, I wasn’t really trying to get in his way. I ain’t have a clue what he was thinking or where we were going. He stomped the gas as the tires burned rubber and we pulled off down River Street.

  We cruised over to ODB Liquors, he hopped out and left the Jeep running, then came back with an eight-pack of the sweet-flavored Backwoods and a fifth of Johnnie Walker Black. I really didn’t think I could take any more drink, but we sat outside the liquor store and Reggie rolled a blunt and when he passed me the Johnnie Walker, I drank it and passed it back.

  The blunt burned slow and at first the Johnnie Walker went down warm and smooth but it gradually began twisting my stomach up more and more with every sip. I hit the blunt a few times but Reggie mostly smoked it and I slouched in my seat feeling wavy as hell, hardly able to sit up straight. I closed my eyes and wondered what exactly had him tripping. As we sat in silence, I began to doze off when Reggie started the Jeep and tossed the roach out the window. He popped the clutch and the Jeep lurched forward and started rolling backward into traffic. He shifted into first gear and we roared out onto River Street as he rolled down all the windows and the breeze howled through the Jeep.

  I looked over at him and there was electricity in his narrow glare at the road that felt unwrapped and very dangerous.

  “So what are we going to do about this shit?” He didn’t look at me.

  “What, the trees? I told you I got the money to pay you for the trees.”

  Reggie giggled real high-pitched like a baby playing.

  “Try again, pussyboy, this time answer me like a man with a dick between his legs. I mean what the fuck are you going to do about getting robbed and beat like a bitch in your own neighborhood?” He swung his fist at me and I flinched back but he didn’t hit me. Instead he held his fist in front of my mouth like an announcer holding a postgame interview.

  “I’m saying we can go see him.” I looked over his way.

  His eyes were pasta-sauce red, and mine were probably worse. He turned on Jam’n 94.5 and the Friday Night Throwdown was on. The DJ was taking requests, and some girl from South Boston called in and requested Notorious B.I.G.’s “Mo Money Mo Problems.” He turned it all the way up as we pulled up to a red light. He glared at me.

  “You fuckin’ right we gon’ see that nigga. Nobody takes Reggie’s shit. Reggie’s shit is Reggie’s shit.”

  “I gotchu. I gotchu.” I nodded my head.

  “See, I told you to stop fuckin’ around. I told you to tighten the fuck up, and now look at this shit. Ain’t no bag of money big enough for me to let Smoke walk around talking ’bout them Team Seven niggas is soft. I’m on the verge of greatness, Andre. I’m not to be fucked with. ’Cause see, I don’t give a fuck. I come from a long line of pimps and hustlers, and my mama was a sorry ho. It’s all gravy, I beat the game when I graduated high school. Get it? I can’t lose. I’ll cash it all in right fuckin’ now and I’d still die a winner.”

  The light turned green and we pulled off. I kept my eyes locked on the road as Reggie started speeding up and slowing down right before we almost rear-ended the car in front of us. I grabbed the overhead handle and put on my seat belt.

  “Aww, you scared—you want me to take your punk ass home?”

  I sat up and rubbed my hands over my face as I asked, “I’m saying ain’t you tryin’a go see Smoke and Beezy and them niggas?”

  “Say it like you ain’t about to take a shit on yourself.”

  “Let’s go see them niggas.” I clamped my jaws.

  “Real recognize real, and I was wrong about you.” He smacked me in the chest and grabbed a handful of my shirt and pulled me toward him. “You afraid to die, nigga?” I looked into the yellowy-red glaze in his eyes. “Fucking answer me!”

  He punched the dashboard and yanked the steering wheel
as I braced down on my hurt hand and fell against the passenger-side door as the Jeep swerved on two wheels across River Street into oncoming traffic. He jerked the wheel back and we bounced back down onto four wheels and a horn blared and brakes squealed and I tossed my arms over my face as the bright white headlights fogged my vision.

  “Yeee-haaaa,” Reggie screamed as he jerked the wheel back again and we swerved back onto our side of the road and hopped the curb.

  “You scared?” he asked me as he stomped the brakes. “You scared, nigga? I said, are you afraid to fuckin’ die?”

  My heart was beating so fast I thought I would yack on myself if I said anything more than “Nah” and shook my head.

  He tossed his head back and began laughing again, his Adam’s apple pulsing up and down. He grabbed a joint from his pocket, sparked up, and gulped at it a few times, “ ’Ight, ’ight,” he coughed and we pulled off. “We’ll see.”

  He passed me the joint and his face went no-bullshit stiff. He mashed the gas and we sped off the sidewalk. He kept asking me if I was afraid to die and swerving in and out of the right lane. I was pouring sweat and felt on the verge of puking.

  We got to the intersection of River Street and Blue Hill Avenue, and I looked at the bridge to Milton. We stopped for a moment, letting the radio play. Then he peeled off and we rolled up over the bridge into Milton and he swerved the car a few more times and I tossed my hand in the air like I was at school and Reggie was my teacher.

  “Stop the car,” I waved my hand. “I wanna get out—stop the car,” I said.

  He pulled off to the side of the parkway, stopped, and smiled at me.

  “I knew you was a pussy, just like that nigga Smoke. Get the fuck out.”

  I stepped out of the Jeep and wobbled a bit but gained my balance, Reggie swerved off and it felt good to be alone on the sidewalk. I started limping home. I felt no pain. Johnnie Walker had me feeling warm and ready for war with whoever was in my way when I made it to the block. Can’t be a bitch forever. I started muttering “Fuck it” to myself as I walked up the parkway toward Verndale. I began playing out fight scenarios in my head, and they all went the same way, I walked up onto the block and coldcocked the first asshole to say some dumb shit. Smoke, Reggie, Beezy, Pop, Aldrich, I ran through ’em all. But when I actually got to the corner of Verndale, I sobered up quick. The block was thumping, I heard bass, I could hear girls laughing. I couldn’t see in a straight line but I could tell there was a lot of people chillin’ on the corner of Lothrop.

  I gathered myself a bit, then started walking as regular as I could manage. The first person that laid eyes on me had to be Sade Fulton’s bucket-head ass. The trickin’ ho was all leaned up on Big Maal against the side of my front porch, and there was kids from school everywhere. From the corner my crib looked like the community YMCA more than it looked like there was any type of Bible study going on. Smoke was bold. After him and Beezy jumped me and took Reggie’s weed, instead of trying to get lost for the night, him, Kendrick, Tunnetta, and Aldrich actually showed up for Bible study. The story was, I’d never shown up at the barbershop and Beezy was sick in bed fighting off a cold. According to those in attendance, my mother worried herself sick, not because I wasn’t at Bible study but because Smoke coached Aldrich and Tunnetta into keeping straight faces as they told my mother that they hadn’t seen me that afternoon.

  It was a plan as flawed as my ability to hustle. I later heard that my mother got to the end of her opening prayer when Miss Myra rolled up into Bible study, drag-walking Beezy behind her, and she was pissed, and Beezy was bruised. I’ve heard many versions of what happened next and the only consistencies among the accounts I’ve heard are that Miss Myra walked into Bible study and tried to hem up Smoke. He restrained her—everyone makes certain to mention that he did not hit her—he held her wrists and kept her from punching him. Fights scare away the girls, fighting always scares away the girls, so they ran outside and the dudes stuck around to see what was about to happen, which made some of the girls come back inside. At some point Beezy admitted that I punched him in the face, and he coaxed Tunnetta’s simple ass into telling my mother I took her cell phone but that I gave it back before I ran off into the train station, which was the last place anyone saw me. This is where, I’ve pieced together, I reenter the equation. Sade Fulton peeped me walking around the corner and I saw her run inside my house, and knew she was about to go up there and dry-snitch, but she did me one better and straight up ratted me out. Sold a nigga upstate. She walked into the middle of the chaos and yelled, “Andre’s limping up the street looking fucked up like shit. I mean messed up. Sorry, Miss Battel.” And everyone stampeded back out of our house and Nina was one of the first to make it outside. She looked at me and when our eyes met and she sprinted off the porch toward me the liquor probably made my limp look worse. She got to me and looked like she was going to cry.

  “What the hell happened to you? You look a whole mess.”

  I didn’t answer her. I looked up on the front porch and saw Smoke, Tunnetta, and Aldrich standing there, and I locked in and started walking toward them. Smoke smiled at me and I could tell he wasn’t scared at all. Out came my mother, Miss Myra, and Beezy from the door behind him and I stopped. The three of them started walking toward me and Nina. The five of us formed a pentagon huddle. Nobody was smiling.

  “You punched Beezy in the face and stole some young lady’s cell phone,” my mother accused more than asked me.

  “Did Beezy tell y’all he punched me in my eye too? Did Smoke tell you what he did? Everybody snitching tonight, huh?”

  I blame the Johnnie Walker—I should’ve stopped talking then, but I didn’t.

  “How you gon’ be hugged up with the same nigga that split my head open, literally?” I said to Nina. Her face hung loose and then she cupped my chin.

  “Smoke hit you?” she asked me.

  I nodded my head. “I ain’t do this all to myself.” I looked past Nina up at our front porch. Aldrich and Tunnetta were walking toward us with a crowd of who’s who from the hallways trailing behind them, everybody had come out for Bible study. I think it was the Kool-Aid and the chicken that roped niggas initially, but that’s beside the point. Aldrich and Tunnetta got to where we were all standing, and my mother and Miss Myra stood next to each other arms folded wearing Grinch faces. I made eye contact with my mother and I remember feeling consumed with embarrassment, shriveled by her glare. I looked around and Sade Fulton and Keyona Lawson and the whole Hot Girls crew were looking at me, Big Maal and Tito and them BRC cats were standing behind them. Mr. Watson pulled up in his Range Rover and hopped out, looking confused. I looked off past him and saw Smoke and Kendrick slinking their way back up the street. They strolled together until they passed Chucky Taft’s house and Kendrick cut down a side alley heading toward Blue Hills Parkway and I watched Smoke as he walked by himself.

  D-roc and Buggy were posted up, blasting their music and spitting game to the girls surrounding them on the corner until they saw Mr. Watson pacing around and asking everybody questions. They turned down their music, I could tell they smelled the trouble in the air because they all piled into Buggy’s car and pulled off. As they rounded the corner I heard tires squeal and I looked up the street and saw Reggie peeling rubber over the hill. Him and Smoke were heading right at each other. Reggie pulled his Jeep to the side of the road and hopped out and walked up on Smoke and a stillness fell over everyone as we just watched as they stood face-to-face.

  Mr. Watson called to my mother, “Ruby, I don’t know what’s going on but it looks out of hand. I’m calling the police.” No one responded to him as he took out his cell phone, dialed, and held it to his ear. We all watched, frozen and breathless, as Reggie and Smoke stood exchanging quiet words that none of us will ever know. It wasn’t until they started yelling that everyone started squirming. Reggie pulled his pistol first and Smoke yelled, “Fuck you gon’ do with that?” and pulled out his pistol too. Reggie held his pistol w
ith his finger on the trigger with his arms folded, Smoke held his by the handle down at his waist like it was a nightstick. Again, not looking very nervous.

  Reggie took a step closer and gangsta-growled, “You got five seconds to pay me my money and say you sorry or I’ma start letting off out this bitch.” Smoke didn’t seem moved. Instead he took a step back and said, “Nigga, put your little toy gun away.”

  My mother and Miss Myra couldn’t hold still any longer. They started running off up the street toward them and we all hurried behind them.

  Reggie laughed a long evil laugh and said, “Toy?” then took a step back, raised the pistol to chin level, and pulled the trigger. I remember seeing a flame leave the gun and in the night it shot a party popper of sparks into Smoke’s face and exploded mounds of skull and strands of brain out the back of his head. One of Smoke’s feet stomped forward and the other one fell back as his body jerked to the side and dropped to the ground. Everyone started screaming and running toward them. My mother and Miss Myra got there first. Miss Myra fell on top of Smoke screaming out “No!” over and over again. My mother fell next to her and Miss Myra held Smoke’s bleeding head in her lap and my mother hugged her shoulders. Smoke’s blood was all over both of them.

  Reggie ran back to his Jeep and cleared everyone from the street when he sped off pedal to the metal, daring anyone to stand in his way. I couldn’t run anymore. I fell to my knees and started throwing up violently all over myself and all I could hear was the commotion. I heard Nina crying, and it didn’t occur to me until she wiped the blood leaking from my forehead that she’d been standing right beside me the whole time. I crawled to the curb and sat down and the entire block was awake and outside. I could see the suntan ladies already huddled up, gossiping as ambulances arrived and the jakes slowly started to filter onto the block. I didn’t know where Reggie had sped off to, but I could tell he was in the area, I could hear his bass thumping. I heard male voices off in the distance yelling, “Hey, hey, sir, please drop the gun. Sir, please drop your weapon.”