Our soldiers pop off a few shots and cheer.
At last, Profit’s brown eyes shift to me. “I’m not choosing any sides or even saying that I speak for anybody else but, for me, this war won’t be over until we murk every last one of those pitchfork muthafuckas.”
More gunfire and cheers, but I zero in on his comments about choosing sides. Only one person would have asked him that. I cut my gaze over to Bishop.That knot in my throat now tastes like acidic bile.
Bishop glances away first, mainly because he knows that I never would.
I tune back in to Profit’s speech just as he removes his own piece from his waist, kisses it, and then holds it up to the sky. “All is well until we see our brothah in the sky.” With that he fires off his pistol.
In solidarity, I remove my gat and then empty it into the clouds. Seconds later, Mason’s gold casket lowers into the ground while one of our soulful Flowers sings “His Eye Is on the Sparrow.”
The feelings tripping inside my chest paralyze me. I feel like a coward for not saying a few words during the ceremony. Truth is that I can’t. I don’t trust myself not to get up there and submit to my inner bitch and start balling my eyes out. I can risk muthafuckas looking at me sideways. I’ve never been no weak, crying bitch and I’m not starting now.
I never aimed to be on top. I rocked my flag to prove that I was as good as my brother and Mason. Now that I wear the crown, I’m not about to let any muthafucka knock me off.
Mason would be disappointed if I did.
For a brief moment I close my eyes and allow the words of the song to tear up my heart. A memory of my and Mason’s first kiss plays behind my closed lids and I experience that same rush of heat sweep through my soul. I remember dropping my towel and then pressing my wet body against him. The wonderful feeling only lasts for a moment before it’s replaced by a bottomless ache that keeps threatening to drag me down. My knees are seconds from buckling, when a strong arm wraps around my shoulders and holds me up. When I open my eyes, it isn’t Bishop’s arm, but Smokestack’s. He even breaks me off an encouraging smile, but it does very little to lift my spirits.
The song ends, and then a processional line of VL soldiers march by the casket to toss in their gold flags before leaving the grave. Though my casts are off, I’m pimping a black-and-gold cane as I leave the gravesite. Smokestack doesn’t let me get too far.
“What? You don’t have no love for your cousin Smokestack no more?”
“All day, every day.You know that shit,” I spit out our usual routine and then push up what I hope is a smile. “I’m sorry for your loss,” I tell him.
“Thanks, Willow. The same back at ya. How you holding up?”
“I’m still standing.”
“True dat,” he says, looking me over. “But how are you feeling? You look as if you could use some sleep.”
“Me and sleep aren’t exactly seeing eye to eye these days,” I acknowledge. “There will be plenty of time for that on the flipside of the grave.”
“Don’t talk like that.” His attention shifts over to the golden casket.
“Sorry,” I say. “That was insensitive.”
“It’s all right.” He pauses for a moment. “I don’t know if you two ever had that talk, but given this new situation, I don’t think that I’d be considered a snitch now if I tell you that my boy had serious feelings for you.”
That damn knot in my throat grows as heat rushes up my neck.
“Aw, shit.” Smokestack cocks his head. “Are you blushing?”
“Nah. Nah.” I shake my head and look around to make sure no one is ear hustling on our convo. From across the way, Bishop and his new crew are hugged up tight and whispering.
“Anyway,” Smokestack says, producing a cigarette and lighting up. “I always thought that in the end, you and Mason would put the guns down long enough to do the right thing.”
The memory of Mason fucking me against the bathroom door flashes through my mind. It was the first time I truly felt like a woman. Already I miss the way our bodies snapped together as if we were one.
“Wait.” Smokestack cocks his head the other way. “Y’all hooked up, didn’t you?”
The heat on my face becomes an inferno and all I can do is stare and wordlessly bump my gums.
“I’ll be goddamn.” Smokestack’s chest gets all swoll as he brags, “My boy closed the deal.”We share a beat of silence. “I’m glad. I’m sure that you made him really happy.”
For two hours. That was the total time of our intimate relationship. I press my lips together, determined to keep the details of my and Mason’s short relationship to myself. It’s the only real treasure that I have.
Smokestack’s gaze jumps over my shoulder toward Barbara. Judging by the longing in his eyes, he really wants to talk to her, but even I’m getting a little frostbite from her cold-shoulder. “Love is a bitch,” he says, sucking in another drag of his cigarette. “We all learn that shit the hard way.”
I bob my head as he shifts his attention back to me and tries to catch my gaze. I hate to deny him this bonding moment, but the game is watching me and I can’t fuck up now.
Smokestack checks out where my gaze is swinging and comments, “Feeling the weight of that crown, I see.”
“Something like that.”
“Heavy, ain’t it?”
“Nah. I’m just finding enemies where I least expect it, that’s all.”
“That’s what it means to be king or queen of the jungle.” He pauses for a second and then asks, “Bishop?” Smokestack blows out a long stream of smoke and then offers it to me for a puff.
The question hangs while I accept the cigarette and drag on it gladly.
Smokestack bobs his head as if he understands my silence. “Brother or not, it ain’t easy for a man to be answering to a woman. That’s keeping the shit one hundred.”
Anger flares through me as I lean forward and hiss, “I’m so fuckin’ sick of hearing about niggas’ paper egos and glass dicks, I don’t know what the fuck to do.”
“I hear what you’re saying, but let me ask you this: Why the hell do you want this shit anyway?”
“Oh give me a fuckin’ break.” I roll my neck away.
“What? The question is legit.”
“The fuck it is. Are you going to walk over there and ask Bishop that shit—or any other nigga that’s dreaming and conspiring to blast me off the throne? You’re standing there saying that I gotta prove myself to you, too?”
“A’ight. Toss a little water on that fire, baby girl. I ain’t tryna get on your enemies list. I’m in your corner on this,” he assures me.
Now I hold his gaze tryna evaluate whether that’s true. “What? You don’t trust me now?” He looks amused and offended.
“Sorry, Smokestack, but if my own damn momma walks over here right now, I’m gonna be lookin’ at her sideways, too.”
He smiles. “Smart girl. No wonder my boy was crazy about you.” He winks and then meanders off toward Profit.
Jealous, I stand there and watch as father and son huddle together for their shared time of grief. As if to stab more knives into my heart, Bishop struts his ass over to the family to pay his respects. Clearly, Profit isn’t giving him as much grief as he’s giving me over the loss of his big brother. Soldiers are clocking this shit and whispering. Lines are being drawn and sides are being picked.
I’m not sure if I’m hearing my name fall off everyone’s lips or I’m just imagining it. Either way, I’m ready to bounce. While waiting inside the limo, I make myself a drink. Minutes later, Dribbles climbs into the caddy. Her large blue eyes are drowning in an ocean of tears. However, when our gazes meet, she pushes up a smile.
“Hello, Willow.”
“Hey,” I croak through my tightening throat. I shift in my seat and watch as she closes the door behind her.
“I’ve been meaning to talk to you, but you’re a hard woman to nail down,” she says.
“Yeah. Well, I’m sorry about
that, I have a lot on my plate lately.”
She nods and then struggles to continue the conversation. “Look, I’ve heard that you and Mason—”
“From who?” I snap, defensive.
“From Profit,” she answers. “He tells me that . . . well, that Mason had some strong feelings for you—”
Damn. Did everybody know but me?
“—and I sort of remember you always hanging out with him and your brother . . . well, I guess, what I’m tryna say is that . . . I really appreciate you always being there for my son. After I got myself cleaned up, I tried to talk him into leaving this crazy life out here, but the street has always been a part of him. It was all he ever knew—all most of us knows.” She blots her eyes with a kerchief. “When I left here, I thought I was at least saving Raymond from this madness, but the struggles of a woman tryna raise a man—a black man at that—isn’t any easier in the streets of Atlanta. Now—” She looks out of the tinted windows of the limo toward her son. “Profit has the fever and I’m afraid that one day I’m going to get another phone call.” Her hands fall so that her tears roll freely down her face.
Though I feel her pain, I can’t help but be annoyed with all the waterworks.Tears ain’t never brought anybody back—then again, neither have bullets.
“But you can get out,” Dribbles whispers softly before turning her gaze back toward me. “It’s not too late for you.”
My annoyance quickly flows to anger and suspicion. “So who sent you—Bishop or Profit?”
“Baby girl, nobody sent me. I’m talking to you woman-to-woman. Take this shit from someone who has been in your shoes.” She glances back out of the window and this time, I know she’s staring at Smokestack. “Love can’t survive out here. The streets don’t have a retirement plan.You either end up like my son Mason or his father Smokestack—dead or in prison.”
I let that public service announcement hang in the air for a moment, but then decide to come at her direct. “But Mason’s father isn’t in prison—is he?”
Stunned, Dribbles stares and blinks at me.
“Cousin Skeet was his father, wasn’t he?”
“Who told you that? Mason?”
“I doubt that Mason had a clue. So . . . was he the father?” I watch her shift in her seat for a while before answering.
“No.”
I blink. “But Smokestack said that Mason’s mother used to deal with Cousin Skeet.”
“She did—and she did have a kid by him, but it wasn’t Mason. It was his older brother.”
Now my world is spinning. “Mason had an older brother? Who is he?”
17
Momma Peaches
I’m going to die in this hellhole. The shit is hard to accept, but I wish death would come the hell on. I’m an old woman . . . and I used to think that I’d done seen about all there was to see out here in these streets. I was wrong. I ain’t never been in no bullshit like this. Sure, I’ve been behind bars plenty of times for big shit as well as small shit. But this right here? It’s blowing my mind. I’ve been reduced to pissing and shitting in a bedpan, sipping on one glass of water a day and eating food that tastes like sawdust. I don’t know what day it is and I’ve lost track of how long I’ve been down here.When it’s hot outside, it’s an oven in this bitch and when it’s cold, the room turns into an icebox. I’ve been sick for so long, I done forgot how to be any other way. Painful stomach cramps and violent vomiting, I can’t take my body aching and my head throbbing like this too much longer.
I can’t.
I don’t know if anybody is out there looking for me or if my ass is S.O.L. All I know is that I wish my crazy-ass sister would either let me go or put a bullet in my dome. I’m tired of being haunted by images of Cedric lying in a pool of his own blood. His handsome face so much like his father’s, and my first love, Manny. He’s dead because of me—because of my shit. Whatever this shit is.
I’ve always known that Alice and I hadn’t ended things on a good note. I had deliberately cut her out of my and Terrell’s life. Yes, she was his biological mother, but after that bullshit with Mason, I had to cut her off. But what else could I have done? I had put up with so much shit. Enough was enough....
For weeks after Alice’s second son, Mason, disappeared while she was high off crack,Alice’s face was splashed all over the news. Majority of the city’s opinion was that she’d sold her six-month-old baby for a couple of rocks. After all, her precious rocks were on the table with her passed out on the sofa when I walked in and the baby was gone. I never liked jumping to conclusions, but one plus one will always equal two.
Not to mention, I had to deal with my own soap-opera drama back at my own crib. I came home straight from that bullshit to find my husband digging out my so-called best friend and neighbor, Josie. It wasn’t like I had shit twisted and thought that my man was faithful. I learned the hard way that a dog is always going to roam—but to stick his dick in bitches that close to home. Nah, I wasn’t having that shit. His ass had to go. Fuck all the money and bullshit that he was slinging in the streets. A bitch gotta stand for something or she’d always fall for anything.
Josie was lucky that all she got was a bullet in the ass. Fo’ real. She gave everyone on Shotgun Row a real thrill when she ran naked out my front door, hollering, screaming, and bleeding. Isaac wrestled me to the floor because he knew that when I finished with Josie’s ass, he was next.
“Peaches, Peaches, calm the fuck down,” he barked.
“Fuck you, muthafucka! I hate your grimy ass!” Under normal circumstances, Isaac’s big muscly ass could’ve had my ass in a choke hold in two seconds, but my rage had my one-legged ass on equal footing. This nigga was sweating and putting in work to pin my ass down. Finally seizing my shooting hand, he lifted it up and banged it against the door frame, crushing my fingers and damn near breaking my wrist.
“Aaargh, fuck nigga. That shit hurts.”
“What the fuck, Peaches? You know that bitch don’t mean shit to me.”
Disgusted with his lying ass, I hock up a loogie from the back of my throat and spit that shit dead in his face. “Punk-nigga!”
Muthafucka backhanded my ass so hard, I swore I saw my own momma giving birth to me. “You done lost your fuckin’ mind,” Issac roared.
I was pretty sure that his ass was about to haul off and hit my ass again, but at that very moment, a shot rang out.
We froze and glanced up.
Terrell stood in the doorway with my .38 firmly gripped in his hand. Behind my nephew stood his best friend, Kyjuan, holding another piece that he must’ve gotten from the front room. Both aimed at Isaac.
“Get the fuck off her,”Terrell said in a menacing voice that defied his age.
If Isaac was surprised by the change in events, it didn’t show in his face. In fact, he eyeballed the two boys hard while he calculated his odds on the situation.
Fuck. I struggled on whether to give the command for them to blast his ass or intervene. That’s how pissed my ass was.
Isaac must’ve come to the calculation that Terrell wasn’t playing because suddenly his hands came up and he eased his big ass off of me. “All right,Terrell.You’re right. Shit got a little out of control in here. I wasn’t tryna hurt your Aunt Peaches.”
Terrell’s aim and gaze didn’t waiver. “Momma P, you want us to shoot his ass?”
I sat up and then scooted the hell out the way.
Isaac tossed me a curious look, concerned that my ass hadn’t told the boys to put the guns down.
I took my time, feeling on my busted lip while weighing my decision. Finally, my senses came back to me. I couldn’t have these little boys commit their first homicide before they finished the first grade. “Nah. Don’t shoot him.”
Though he didn’t show it, I knew Isaac’s ass was relieved.
“Y’all go on back outside and play,” I told them. “Put the guns back in the table drawer in the living room.”
They didn’t move.
�
�Go on now,” I shouted, agitated.
They lowered their weapons, but took their time creeping from the door.
“Took your damn time with that shit, didn’t you?” Isaac growled.
“Don’t start. It ain’t too late for me to call them back and tell them to shoot your cheating ass.” I sat there and glared at his ass while my heart ripped its way out of my chest.
Isaac heaved out a deep breath while he figured out a different way to come at me. “You’re right. My shit was foul. I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking. That shit is squashed. Word is bond on that shit.”
Lie. Lie. Lie.
I shook my head and fought my emotions. Before I knew it, Isaac had squat down next to me and tried to pull me into his arms. “Get off me.” I shrugged him off. “You really picked a bad day for this shit,” I told him as my troubled thoughts circled back to Alice and Mason. Before I knew it, tears were rolling down my face.
“Fuck,” Isaac said, stunned. He had never seen my ass cry before.
Hell, even I couldn’t remember the last time I did that shit.
“What’s really up with you, ma?” Isaac gathered me back into his arms, but that time, I didn’t have the strength to fight him off. I unburdened myself onto those strong shoulders. It was a good thing, too, because the phone started ringing off the hook from reporters. Frankly, it looked like those nosy muthafuckas were more interested in tearing up my family than actually helping us find Mason.Alice’s and my long-ass record had police—people who didn’t even know us—concluding that Alice more than likely sold her baby for crack.
After reading Alice’s account of the last time she’d seen her son— I believed that shit, too. She claimed some chick she blazed with, Dribbles, could back her up, but reporters hadn’t been able to locate anyone by that name. Clearly, Alice was just pulling shit out her ass.
For the days that followed, I squashed the shit between me and Isaac . . . temporarily. I told myself that we would pick up that bullshit after we found my nephew, but after two weeks, the media no longer cared about a crackhead’s missing black baby. The phone calls stopped, the media vans disappeared, and the police moved on. Shotgun Row was happy to see the attention leave because their presence was affecting niggas’ pockets, but my thirst for justice and answers had only gotten stronger.
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