Rain walked worry free directly up the block, passing one dilapidated row house after the next, and squadrons of zombie-like junkies, all promising her they could direct her to the best dope on the block. She ignored all of them, until she found building 215.
A few young boys, drug dealers, sat scattered about on the stoop, corners and curb side, all surrounding areas of the fragile, decrepit homes as the quasi organized group, mounted at strategic level, visual, to ward off law enforcement or rivals getting the jump on them.
The ruffian looking group of young hard heads became heedful and took notice of the unfamiliar dark figure approaching them, and became on guard. The youngest dealer, no more than thirteen, with a clear chip on his shoulder and blood lust gumption to prove himself to the older boys in his crew, spoke first while pulling out a black baby Eagle 9 mm.
“Who the fuck is this gump rolling up on us and shit?”
Face hidden by her gray hoodie, undisturbed by their presence, Rain secured her finger on the trigger of her own gun, purging forth. In a uniformed show of force, five of the hoppers stood grim-faced, fortifying her from entering the building.
The young dealer, frenzied by the moment, pointed his weapon upward, directly toward Rain’s face and growled.
“Nigga, you bout to get a hit on that body if you don’t back the fuck up. What the fuck you want yo?”
Calmly, Rain removed the hoodie from over her head revealing her face. They recognized her instantly, some of them. The ones who didn’t know her knew she was not someone to fuck with from the mean, wolf-like scowl that riddled her face. But the black tear drop below her eye was unmistakable mark of a veteran killer.
Either out of ignorance or stupid youthful vigor, the wiry man-child still felt compelled to stand his ground and shrugged. “Oh shit, this a dope fiend dyke bitch yo.”
Huge mistake. Unknown to the boy, his crew behind him faces turned flush, as they stood in stunned silence, knowing their young brethren made a fatal miscalculation by calling King Dayvid’s twin sister “a dope fiend dyke bitch.”
In a deathly sense of urgency, the leader of the crew nervously informed the boy while lowering the uninformed arm with the weapon in it. “Yo, Frog, fall the fuck back, that’s people right there yo.”
The boy still had a fight in him and was ready to question his boss, until he caught a glimpse of indisputable fear on his face, and gulped when he saw the rest of his crew walking as quickly as possible away from the scene, ensuring they had no part of it. Rain stared down upon the little boy with her savage, grim eyes, and then proceeded up the concrete stairs. But the thug in her just couldn’t let it go, Street Law.
They watched the tall girl stop short, then turn around and waved to the both of them to come up the stairs towards her. They obediently followed her instruction, as the older boy pushed the boy called Frog hastily from behind, putting him involved in the mix. Standing before her, both boys eyed the ground, fearing to look her in the eyes.
“You know who I am?” Rain demanded to know.
Without hesitation, the older boy lifted his head and answered in a timid solemn tone. “Yeah, you are one of the Porters. King Dayvid’s sister.”
The young boy suddenly realized the magnitude of his mistake and began to lose control of his legs and his bowels at the mention of the Porter name and King Dayvid.
Rain grew disgusted at the sight of them, and honestly wanted to shoot them both in the face to release the raging angst already in her. She opted against it, and curled her lips and ordered, “Run what you got in your pockets yo.”
Both boys didn’t hesitate to follow her orders, searching desperately in each of their pockets handing her mounds of money. When they finished, Rain growled at them both and said, “This block is off limit to y’all for twenty four hours. Now get the fuck outta here and take this lil bastard with you.”
The young boy never saw it coming, as Rain lifted her foot and kicked him square in his chest. Backwards he fell head first off the stoop. The older boy didn’t even bother to help him up off the ground and took off running, waving to his whole crew to leave the block.
Rain watched their retreating backs, then noticed all the drug addicts, stood idly by, all eyes glued, watching the entire while. She looked at the marsh of money in her hand and tossed it upward in the air, then watched them scramble with the reflexes of a cat, submerging upon the fallen cash.
CHAPTER 2
When Rain got to the second floor, the door to Miss Jackie’s apartment was already opened, welcoming her in. Miss Jackie was a sharp individual, very aware of what was happening in her surroundings. She had to be. She was in a war zone.
The wood floor squeaked, a sign of age despite their flawless appearance. Rain felt a sense of calm as she closed the door behind her. Miss Jackie was the only person alive that could tell them about their earliest childhood and fond memories of their parents.
Not long after her parent’s death, Miss Jackie took it badly and turned to drugs. Strung out, Rain and her siblings always respected her, no matter how low she got. No matter how many times she came to them for money, they honored her request without question. Clean for the past decade thanks to Rain, Dayvid, Fallon and Autumn, who sent her to a drug treatment center out of their own pockets, and been clean ever since.
The aroma of fresh coffee wafted the air as she entered the sparse, yet clean lived room. The apartment was silent and Miss Jackie was in her room, giving her time to settle in, without disturbance or questions. That’s what she admired about her old friend, who they put in and allowed her to take over the apartment when she was homeless and they bought their first house in Baltimore County. They paid up her rent for up to a year at a time, until she got off of drugs and on her feet. They did this because she held a special place in their hearts; she was their mother’s best friend growing up. She knew how to play her position and minded her own business.
When Rain unlocked and entered the back bedroom, she closed the door behind her and locked it. She glanced across her old bedroom that she still maintained and occupied from time to time for well over ten years now, and found it exactly as she left it last.
The room smelled sweet, floral, like lavender and jasmine from the plug-in. A glow from the outside lamp peeked through the blinds and offered the room a hint of light. After she surveyed the bedroom, satisfied everything was still intact, she counted off five steps, and used her foot and tapped the floor. Slowly, and ever so gently, she unfolded the throw rug, exposing a floor safe with an invisible fishing reel type trip wire attached to it. Lightly following it along the base of the wall, and under the queen-sized bed she detached it from the hand grenade it was rigged to.
Rain circled the combination lock to the safe. 16 left, 24 right, 7 left, the birth date of her 3 siblings, that her and Dayvid both knew and used in case something happen to each other. She reached in and pulled out the guns first, seven of them, all brand new and automatics. Next she pulled out box after box of ammunition and fresh clips. At the bottom, was stacks upon stacks of neatly fresh one hundred dollar bills and counted each wrapped fold, five thousand per, as she tossed them on the bed. Twenty in all, she had a smooth $100,000 at her disposal.
She stood up and scanned her eyes over the contents on her bed, when she realized, for the first time, how tired she was. She had been up for well over 72 hours straight. The events of the long, horrible past days wore on her badly. She sat and lay back on her pillow, too tired to remove the blocks of cash and guns— gun in hand, finger on the trigger, she stared up towards the ceiling, recalling the fateful events. She was calculating and plotting her next move, but her eyes were too heavy, brain too fried.
Her body ached. She wanted to sleep, but her mind couldn’t stop racing and wanted to wash the day away. Seated on the side of the bed, the very side of the bed where she used to sit and watch all the crime unfold before her eyes. Wanting, needing, and craving that money. She began to question, was it all worth it. Part of her
felt responsible for putting her family in the situation they were in, and felt dirty. Was money and greed worth her younger siblings, possibly spending the rest of their lives in prison? Everything seemed like a haze, so surreal and she began to drift back to the old days with all her siblings and what led them to the position they were all in today and what made the Porters.
Chapter 3
1998 Baltimore
TWELVE YEAR OLD Rain Porter sat for hours on end in the tidy three-story row house on the west side of Baltimore. Fascinated, studying the local’s criminal activities that bustled around the clock.
In Baltimore the wrecks stretch for blocks in every direction. Shattered windows, buckling walls, sometimes just a façade, propped up by the houses on either side, perfect cover or tons of getaways, in case of emergency. It was like a stage play for her, and the dealers, junkies, prostitutes and police, were all the supporting cast. She had a front seat, and a panoramic view, from her third window, front and back. She took in everything from murders, drug sales, fights, robberies, and police chases. It was there, she learned the games referred to as “ghetto politics 101.”
Mesmerized by the goings on, Rain and her twin Dayvid would wager small bets on which crew had the better product. Seated along the side of the full-size bed in a room Rain shared with her two younger sisters, the twins watched the junkies come and go and tallied the number sold by each crew.
* * *
Almost two years ago to the day, siblings Rain, twin brother Dayvid, Fallon, 9 and Autumn, 7, lost their parents in a tragic car accident on the expressway. Although only ten at the time; Rain became the pillar for her younger siblings, the importance of keeping families together. She had no other choice.
Fortunately for them their Aunt Rachel, who everyone called Nanny, legally adopted them. Sparing the foursome from the foster home system, who nine times out of ten would have divided the four young Porters. Rachel, her mother’s younger sister, was far from the traditional caretaker. She was a natural free-spirit, someone who wasn’t weighed down by the troubles of everyday life and was always herself regardless of the situation living life to the fullest.
Often times, you’d think she was merely a big sister. All the children loved her for that, especially Rain and Dayvid because they could come and go as they please to do whatever scams to earn money to take care of their younger sisters and their household. In a year’s time, they learned a lot from their dear auntie. She passed down to them her unquenchable passion to steal. Aunt Nanny was a thief, plain and simple and she was good at it too. She spent summers up in New York during the old Times Square era, and her cousins taught her the hustle at an early age.
It was only natural that Nanny taught her nephew and nieces, every single one of them, down to the little sisters, everything there was to know about the life of a booster, a pickpocket artist, the game, a short con, a long con, a scam, a grift, a hustle, a bunko, a swindle, a flimflam, a gaffle or a bamboozle. She even taught them how to spot the best marks or suckers, their intended victims. They did quite well as a family team. With all that, and though she had an aunt who took care of them on paper, a show for public and government purposes, Rain still took full responsibility for all of her siblings in every sense , and Nanny never interfered.
CHAPTER 4
A natural introvert, Rain had antisocial behavior with anyone outside her immediate family. Though she still struggled with her sexual identity, she knew for a fact that she was gay, even at that age. Rain was high yellow and wise beyond her years for a twelve year old. She was taller than most girls her age: 5’ 8”, rail thin, flat chested, and looked like a boy. With her braids, baggy clothing, made it virtually impossible to tell otherwise. Intrigued by the thrill she was receiving under the tutelage of her aunt, it became a silent addiction to her, and wanted a bigger challenge, much bigger
She became obsessed with all the commerce of the drug trade and sat for hours, writing down the exact time, day, movement, and drop offs of the biggest drug crew in West Baltimore— who happened to live directly across from them and gained valuable intelligence on them for the past few weeks. The more she watched their mistakes, their weakness and flaws, the more she believed she could pull it off – rob the main stash spot. She knew the rules of Baltimore.
Baltimore was a city where a murder took place nearly every day because too many of the wrong people had guns. A drug deal gone wrong, a perceived act of disrespect, a dirty look….. Anybody could get it. Most of the crime was drug related. Drug gangs killed off people who competed with them. But that didn’t deter her. It actually turned her on even more. In a city of 645,000, Baltimore had as many as 60,000 drug addicts, with as many as 48,000 of them hooked on heroin. More than enough money to go around, and Rain, though only pre-teen, knew even then that she had to have it. After gaining a microcosm working knowledge of the level drug hustle, she determined this logic, “Why waste time hustling and stacking money when you could wait for another man to do it for you…and then rob them?”
By nature, Rain’s personality was very secretive and guarded. No one could ever tell what she was thinking or feeling; happy, sad or angry. This was the very reason people stayed clear of her and was respected by children and adults alike. After finally coming up with a workable plan, she went to the one person she trusted the most, her brother Dayvid.
Dayvid was huge for the average boy his age, most of his life and was a natural born earner and child entrepreneur. His first business was a paper delivery boy in his neighborhood and made a killing because he had a monopoly on it. He was the only deliverer. It was that way because he got up way earlier than the competition and out hustled them.
Only a year later, same occupation, different neighborhood, instead of wasting time delivering papers, he simply waited and extorted each paperboy for half their take. He was now the bully. Rain watched her twin brother Dayvid change before her eyes from a fairly mild mannered little boy, whose only two fascinations in life were video games and earning money, to a tenacious beast who just took other people’s money to buy the video games. By hook or crook, they both simply had to have it; they were one in the same. Once she told her brother about her intentions and plan… he didn’t even bat an eye, he was in!
* * *
It took them 3 days of kicking around ideas until they finally came up with a plan they both agreed upon was the best approach, but it required outside players to pull it off. Because of the countless hours Rain spent on reconnaissance and surveillance, she determined, as in history, the best way to catch a man slipping… pussy.
From Kings of Africa, to the kingpins of Baltimore, pussy was the single most reason that led to the death and the downfall of even the hardest men. This fact, Rain and Dayvid would capitalize on, and knew someone perfect for the job.
CHAPTER 5
The two main crews on Edmondson Street were simply named after their product or color of the top or tape, which sealed their product. Up the block and everything on the corner was run by Lil Dot and his crew who pumped yellow tops.
Lil Dot, only 19 years old, born and breed in Baltimore with a huge Napoleon complex— a personality complex that consists of power trips and false machismo to make up for short height and feelings of inferiority. He ran the spot and had one of the hottest drug locations in all of Baltimore, simply because it was virtually impossible for the police to get the upper hand on them because the easy access getaways of alleys, abandoned units, and the one way in. He had spotters on every roof.
Lil Dot’s crew consisted of boys his age or younger, who were all reckless and dangerous. Lil Dot had a terrible mean streak and was known to bust his gun for even the slightest infraction he deemed disrespect and had the “shoot first ask questions later” mentality. His three obsessions were: getting money, pussy and the hatred for New York drug dealers. Not only was Lil Dot’s biggest competitor, Brooklyn, selling drugs a few hundred yards away from him. Brooklyn was a New Yorker, and they hated each other’s gut, beco
ming silent mortal enemies.
Brooklyn was from Brownsville, Brooklyn, of course, and epitomized New York swagger. Brooklyn wasn’t new to Baltimore; he had been hustling down there since the early 90’s. Like most New York hustlers, his flash and enigmatic personality drew the locals to him. The females couldn’t get enough of him and most males in the city tried to copy him.
His style, his savvy represented both a hustler and pretty boy at the same damn time. His drug game was head and shoulders above everyone. He knew how to make money. Brooklyn wasn’t no slouch either because under his pretty boy looks was a stone cold killer. Brooklyn had the best dope in Baltimore and his package called WMD (weapon of mass destruction) killed many dope fiends who overdosed off of it, making other fiends want it even more. He ran his entire operation from one building, which he used as a stash house that held the bulk heroin and cash and ran the rest from the outside and stashing g-packs (50 half gram vials of cut heroin, worth $1000 wholesale) under steps, in car wells or bushes and was directly across the street from the Porter’s household.
Lil Dot and Brooklyn had more than their share of beef in the past, but for the sake of money, it’s been nothing major. Both knew it would only be a matter of time, because they both had equal addictions – more money, and the block was just too small for the two of them.
* * *
IT WAS FRIDAY, about seven o’clock when Rain and Dayvid spotted Veronica coming out of the Korean Nail Salon on North Ave. Veronica was only twenty-one, but she already was a seasoned jump off to many of the drug boys in Baltimore. She stood five foot three, with thick thighs and an even thicker ass and breast, and had the hoe game down to a science. She was a free agent, and loved spreading herself around and word on the street, from East Baltimore and back, her throat and pussy game brought niggas to their knees. She was all about the paper and got it anyway she could get it, and was known to set up many out of town drug boys for robberies.
The Circle: Rain's Story Page 2