The Cook Up

by D. Watkins

  6. How to front work. He needed to know who he could trust when giving out drugs up front. I’m a big fan of the fifty rule, like you buy fifty grams and I’ll front fifty grams—you fuck up once and I’d never do it again. And you always have to collect because if one person gets away without paying, nobody will pay you.

  7. How to put some money up just in case he got booked. Public defenders will get you sixty years for one baggie. Troy needed real defense lawyers that charge like three or four hundred an hour, not some C student from a fourth-tier law school.

  8. How to develop an exit strategy. I didn’t have the answer to that one yet, but I was hoping we could exit together.

  SHOOTOUTS

  We were at the store. I pissed Hennessy in the alley, posted up by the open sign and spit some sunflower seed shells into a Nantucket bottle. LT was by the lamppost. He brushed his hair until his arms hurt while Dog Boy wore a big-ass money grin that wrapped around his whole head, and it was only right—his corner was bumping around 3K a day. I liked chilling on his corner more than my own. His little crew was funny as hell and full of innovation while all the dudes on my block except for Nick were jaded—always complaining about baby mothers, court dates, Sprint bills, being paid more, and long hours.

  A Ford Taurus circled the block. The dude in the passenger seat poked his head out, “Dog Boy, we good, right?” Dog Boy waved him off.

  “Who is that, Yo?” I asked.

  “Nobody, Dee, just some loser-ass niggas,” he said while a pack of kids rushed the door.

  Mr. Kim walked out front with his broom and yelled, “Only two school kids at a time!”

  Fall, my favorite part of the year, had arrived. Everything’s orange and brown, the weather’s perfect for a jacket or tee, and school is back. Little kids in their neat uniforms were everywhere, wearing clear book bags stuffed with dittos, compositions, and number two pencils. I liked giving them twenties and telling them to stay as far away from these streets as possible.

  “Kim, they late for school, let them take what they want, I got it!”

  Kim laughed and patted my back. “You big big rich man, thousand dollars for you!” The kids all grabbed Little Hug juices and big bags of Takis. Some more students and parents passed the store. Tyra, Dog Boy’s sister, and his niece Muffin, a smaller version of Tyra, bent the corner, both screaming Dog Boy’s name. Muffin spotted me. “Uncle Dee! Gimmie me ten dollars!” I reached in my sock to pull some cash out as that same Taurus whipped into the intersection in front of the store and opened fire.

  Dog Boy knocked his sister on the ground and crawled toward the front door of the store. I laid Muffin under my arm and shielded her from the bullets. Some flew over our heads, and bounced of the wall. The door at the convenience store shattered as Dog Boy made it in.

  “Get down, get down!” we yelled to some kids. LT stuck his arm out of the shattered glass and shot back at the Taurus. Then he covered Dog Boy as they both ran out of the store licking shots at the Taurus. The dude in the passenger seat shot back as they skidded off. LT caught one in the chest that went right through, I lost a little arm meat from being grazed, and a elementary school kid was on the ground shaking next to a big bag of spilled Takis.

  “Get a fuckin’ ambulance!”

  Dog Boy panicked and tried to move the kid’s body but I stopped him. As a kid my uncle Gee taught me not to move a body with a bullet in it because it could bounce around and hit an organ or something. An ambulance pulled up and then another along with some cops and a fire truck. LT and the kid were both rushed to Hopkins.

  Cops had the same questions and got the same answer.

  “We ain’t see shit.”

  IN A TIME OF WAR

  LT was laid up in Hopkins with a big-ass hole in his chest, and I didn’t know if the little kid was going to make it or not. Dog Boy foamed at the mouth and strapped the band on his Tech 9 around his neck. “On my mova I’m killing every nigga wit’ a Taurus, I swear for God!” His veins popped out of his skin when he spoke, his eyes were redder than the blood running down my arm.

  “Go to your sister’s and lay down, I’ma go holler at Nick and I’ll be back down to get you!” I ordered.

  He wiped away his own tears and headed out. “Damn, Dee, they hit you too!”

  “Naw, a small graze, it just knocked a little meat off. Could’ve been from glass or the fall, no biggie. I’m good, lemme go round some soldiers up.” Dog Boy hugged me and dipped.

  I rode up to Madeira to holler at Nick face-to-face. I tried to keep a level head in the midst of all of this even though my chest burned with fear, but my mind spun in circles like a fan, flooding with thoughts, like we can’t be reckless. But what if Long Tooth dies? Long Tooth isn’t going to die but we had to do something. Who the fuck were those niggas? Did they know me? I’m not with this murder shit, I wish Bip was here. I banged a left on Madeira. My shop was closed. Tone’s window was shut and it wasn’t even noon yet. A few people scattered around my car as I parked.

  “Kruger, where everybody at?”

  “Ike Guy, boss! Fucking Ike! But Nick up in Angie’s, can I get twenty dollars?”

  “Damn, man, you see the blood on my arm?” I asked. “What the fuck is wrong with you!”

  “Damn, Dee, sorry, you’ll be okay. You gotta twenty? Can I wash the car later?”

  Junkies always want something. He wouldn’t care if I hopped out the car with my head in my hand, he’d still ask for something—a ten, a twenty, a bite of my sandwich, something. Kruger was no different than the cops in my eyes: they didn’t give a shit about me either, and I learned not to give a shit about any of them. I walked right past his open hands and into Angie’s. Her church music was blasting, as it usually is when she’s cleaning.

  “Nigga I blew your phone up! Fuck you been at!” yelled Nick, his big jaws dribbled straight at me.

  “Almost getting killed! Calm the fuck down! Angie! Go get some alcohol for me!” She couldn’t hear over the music.

  “Angie! Get me some alcohol!”

  “Boy, get you some alcohol what!” Angie yelled, cutting the music off.

  “Please! Get me some alcohol please!”

  “Okay, baby!” she answered from upstairs.

  “My bad, Dee,” said Nick, “and bring a cold rag too, Angie! Please! This nigga all bloody! Anyway, Ike got us for like thirty-five hundred dollars, fifteen hundred pills, Yo. I’m sorry.”

  “What the fuck? Fifteen hundred? Why you running around with that? You out your fucking mind! Nigga, you paying that shit back!”

  Nick said he had a date and couldn’t make the re-up. I was ready to tell him how stupid he was but Angie walked down stairs with a beige hand towel and some peroxide.

  “Ohhh, are you okay, baby? You get Li’l Bo and Tay get a bail yet?”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, Dee. Fat Tay and Li’l Bo got bagged. We gotta bail them out. We need help on this corner, you don’t be up here enough. And I don’t really know what’s up with Block. He ain’t even show up today.”

  I wasn’t trying to hear any of that bullshit Nick was saying. Long Tooth was down and someone really shot me, well, slightly grazed me, but that shit still hurt. I looked down at my phone. Soni and Troy had both called me a bunch of times.

  “Yo, we gotta get ready for war, man. You ready for this, right!” Nick declared, slamming his revolver on the table. “People talkin’ about you and that car, people talkin’ about our block, niggas is comin’ at us. So we gotta do something. I don’t mind paying the money I owe, but we gotta do something.”

  “You right,” I said, giving Nick a pound and heading back to my crib. I ignored my phone for the rest of night, swallowed three Perks, drowned a pint of Grey Goose, and fell out.

  BYE, DEE

  A few days later, I dialed Soni. Her voice was a song—bright enough to light up pitch-dark nights while soothing enough to ease any pain, especially mine. She was as soft and gentle as her voice but still—her words
could move worlds.

  “Hey, stranger! Where have you been?” she said. “I missed you.”

  “Hey, Soni. I wasn’t being a stranger, I was almost shot the other day. Had nothing to do with me, though, well, not really, so don’t worry.”

  “Not really? That sounds stupid! I can’t tell you that you don’t belong out there if you can’t see it yourself, Dee. Get off of my phone, and finish throwing your life away!”

  Click!

  I dialed her back like eight times. I was sent straight to her voice mail eight times.

  Soni was an important part of my life. She’s the one. I had to figure out a way to fix it. I didn’t know who I could talk to for advice, so I called my mom.

  “Long time, son, how are you? Back in school yet?”

  “Naw, mom, I need to ask you a question.”

  She said she had to click over and cancel her other call because she knew it was serious. I never really call or visit. I think about her, but I know that no mom wants a drug-dealing son so I try to keep my distance.

  “Okay, son, what’s wrong?”

  “I like a girl and I think I broke her heart.”

  “Well, Dee, you need to just pray on it. Ask God to lead you in the right direction. I’ma come see you on Sunday, it’s been too long!”

  “Come through the park on Sunday morning, I’ll be out!”

  We said I love you and hung up. Always pray and always ask God. I don’t really know how to talk to my mom. She used to be a seven-day-a-week partying club queen but now she’s a religious zealot and answers every question with a praise or a Bible quote. I understand church guides her, but I wished we could just rap without her busting into a mini-sermon.

  MY RELIGION

  I do believe in God,” I said.

  Fixing my two platinum chains—one slightly longer than the other with two-toned Jesus heads attached to each. I hated when they tangled.

  “Don’t you ever question my religion; Jesus hangs on my neck twice!” I said laughingly to my mom, who stood over me with loud eyes and a twisted lip—her neck was cocked east with the rest of her body leaning west.

  I was sitting on the park bench over Ellwood where I asked her to meet me. Sometimes I wasted Sundays feeding pigeons, blowing weed circles, and trading war stories with some dope fiends from my neighborhood.

  My mom was church ready. She looked royal—fuchsia form-fitting dress offset by a huge purse. Her shoes and Sunday crown matched.

  “I know you believe in God, Dee, so come to church!” she pleaded.

  I’d rather eat used tampons, is what I thought; “I’ll pass” is what I said. I never spent too much time in churches, but I know “Church Folk”—I can’t really comprehend them.

  Church Folk are thirty-to fifty-something, slightly overweight, and programmed to be judgmental. Most are broke but a few are paid, with some middle-class people sprinkled in—the seating chart is donation-based, meaning that the elite sit in the front and the bottom-feeders are lucky if they can peek in through the back window. They all gather for approximately twelve hours every Sunday to praise God.

  God is neither the Kenny Rogers–looking guy that Michelangelo conceptualized, or the Isaac Hayes rendition that emerged from the black community.

  God to “Church Folk” is the Kool-Aid-red robe-wearing, $100,000 car driving, Jheri Curl glistening, central incisor gold tooth having, gator-skin boot sporting with two fists full of gleaming fourteen-karat rings dude—slanging globs of praise and spit from the throne in the pulpit every Sunday, always playing the saint when he’s really more crooked than a meth fiend’s smile.

  Fuck listening to that guy. Most of the fake prophets only focus on profits. Congregation members who struggle to pay their light bills wouldn’t dare ask the church for a loan, and if they did, the only answer they would probably receive is “I can’t give you money but we can pray on it!”

  Multiple hardship stories like this in combination with what I heard about the infinite number of boy-lusting Catholic priests who hang around Boy Scout conventions and in the back of Toys R Us made me question organized religion.

  “Church ain’t really for me, Mom.”

  “All churches aren’t the same, Dee. You need to give mine a chance. I’ll save you a seat!” she said as she hopped in her car and peeled off.

  I didn’t answer. She knew I wasn’t coming just like I knew she wasn’t saving me a seat. Just like me, my mother is a serial escapist, and she just used the church scene to replace the nightclubs—same thing, if you think about it. Flashy cars, money flowing, addictive music, excessive fucking, and respect based on financial status.

  Soni always rapped about how the religions we celebrate were used as tools for implementing genocide, colonization, and the enslavement of people across the globe, but I don’t blame God. The fundamentals of these religious practices are great but the people—the people fuck them up, leaving me to separate myself from them and develop my own understanding of what God is.

  Orgasms, an exotic marijuana buzz, the smirk on my homie’s face when his ten-pound son popped out of his lady’s vagina, the feeling you get when you are starving and the waiter arrives with your appetizer, or the warmth that shoots through you after a good-bye kiss from your love at the airport make the existence of a higher power undeniable.

  We have the power to create our own realities. People who chase and catch their dreams are in heaven while the others who travail daily in a hate-packed existence reside in hell.

  My mom had her heaven and I had mine.

  And in the midst of her trying to bring me to her heaven, I got zero advice on reconnecting with Soni.

  SOME NEW SHIT WILL FIX IT

  I couldn’t stop thinking about Soni, her eyes and her spirit. We could run away and be like the Cosbys or that family from the Fresh Prince, with beautiful kids, good credit, clear healthy skin, and a nice home. I could live off of my street money and re-enroll in college while she finished up and found a grad school. We could be those elite blacks who never forgot where we came from. The ones who come back to the hood to give out books and throw block parties.

  My daydream was interrupted by a call from Tone. He said that Fat Tay had a bail on the drug charge he had got booked for, but I said fuck him. Let him sit forever, it’s time for me to tighten up. I was knee-deep in this shit and I had money, enough money for me to pick and choose who I wanted around me.

  Li’l Bo was still sitting. Tone told me that his girlfriend said they are violating his probation so he might not get bail. I told him she could come by later and get three thousand for the lawyer. Li’l Bo probably had that in his stash, but fuck it—I take care of the people I love.

  Ring ring ring…

  “Block, what’s up? Where you at, dummy?”

  “Down the projects, come get me.”

  “Ten minutes.”

  Block was down at Somerset Homes; a lot of my family and friends were from down there. Driving through those courts brought me back to some of my best moments—Miss Rita’s frozen cups, playing catch one, catch all with my friends, my first kiss with Jasmine, cutting school and smoking jays with Damon and Smoke, dance contests, funky underwear smelling house parties, walking over to Toi’s for a slice of pizza, laughing at how hard we laughed, being a kid. I’ll always love that place. Block was already on the corner waiting for me.

  “Yo, you ready to kill something for real?” asked Block, getting in, slamming my door way too hard. He pulled a .45 off of his waist and flashed it. “Man, they fucked with the wrong niggas!”

  “Yo, watch the door, clown! And naw. We gotta get with Dog Boy later. Relax on that beef shit, man. I’ll figure it out. It has to be done right. LT’s alive, meaning that making money is still the number one thing we need to concern ourselves with.”

  “Won’t be no money if we all dead, but Yooooo! Gee super mad! He heard about that shit, boy, he ready! I promised he had the big sawed-off shotgun on him down here late night!”

>   I knew I could always count on Gee for gunplay, but I wasn’t thinking about war, or why Block wasn’t coming to work, or anything but LT’s health, Soni’s smile, and fucking some money up. I needed to show the hood how much I appreciated them. Greedy dudes who flash money and Benzs without giving back get big gaping bulletholes in their heads.

  I pulled a well-twisted rello from behind my ear.

  “Spark this, we goin’ shoppin.” Block’s eyes lit like the Bic lighter he used to spark the rello. I wasn’t sure if he was more excited over the weed or the new shit I was about to buy.

  Spending money’s great for depression. As street dudes, it’s all we really have. America’s racist as fuck and businesses do everything in their power to keep black people out of the workforce. My cousin Jaquan said he couldn’t get a callback for a job until he started putting Jay as his first name on applications. To make matters worse, our country has laws that force companies to interview blacks, furthering the point that they don’t want to see us make it anyway. We felt like we’d never have great careers or huge homes—the only happiness we find lies in these luxury items we keep buying.

  Soni says chanting will remove my negative energy. I tried to do it with her, it didn’t work—but spending, spending works. Spending’s a way for me to channel that negative energy into some positive thoughts. I had a nice Benz, about fifteen thousand dollars on me in tens and twenties, plus a big-ass empty trunk that needed to be filled up. Life was good. USA Boutique—the hood version of Macy’s at Mondawmin Mall—was the first stop. We call it the hood Macy’s because they carry designer brands like Polo in the big sizes we liked to rock.

  Stores like the Boutique, RudoSports from back in the day, and DTLR made Mondawmin one of the top cash malls in the country. They carried the clothes that clothed the dope dealers. Nikes, Rocawear, Polo, Sergio, Maurice Malone, Sean Jean, Mecca, ENYCE, Guess, Evisu, Hilfiger, Adidas, Boss, Lacoste, Puma, Nautica, New Balance, Prada, Air Jordans, True Religion, Timberland, and a bunch of other shit—I bought it all.