Life

by Sullivan, Leo

  Nina Brown followed me like a lost stray dog.

  “Well, you ain’t the police, that’s for damn sure.”

  I thought I heard her snicker. She saw my fear and somehow found it humorous how I stumbled around back there. The police have a way of scaring the shit out of a nigga, especially when you’re on the run.

  She ran to catch up to me. I was trying to distance myself from the police as quick as possible.

  “Here.” She passed me a brown bag. “You owe me big time.”

  “Nigga, I know you was servin’, cause I can tell. What you carrin a gun fo?” She had to struggle to keep pace with me. Once again I was thinking, hot as it is this woman got on a jacket. “I ain’t stupid.” A police cruiser was headed our way and I was carrying this gun in a brown paper bag like a loaf of bread. The police cruiser slowed. I already made up my mind to run like hell if they tried to pull me over.

  “Nina Brown! Take your skinny ass home before I lock you up!” the police bellowed over the loud speaker in the patrol car. He laughed at her and she threw up the finger at him. The officer laughed and drove off.

  “Asshole! His name is Spitler. I went to school with his punk ass. We were on the same track and field team. He works in the Vice Squad now. You got to watch him, he’s dirty.”

  We continued to walk. Frenchtown reminded me of the old days. Some of the houses were set up on bricks, mingled with a few modern homes. There were a few vacant lots, worn pavements and dusty roads, like Black folks in poverty trying to survive.

  “Look, man, ‘L’, where you from?” The tone of her voice was agitated.

  “Miami.” I lied.

  Her bloodshot eyes lit up like Vegas slot machines. Everybody knows that niggas from the bottom are considered as having been born with a silver coke spoon in their mouths. Like a cocaine cowboy.

  Now Nina Brown was talking a mile a minute about a cocaine drought, how there wasn’t no coke nowhere in town and how she just sold a white boy a piece of soap. “The white boy that was getting his ass whooped back there?” I asked.

  “Yep,” she answered somberly nodding her head like one of them bobble head dogs that people keep in their car on the dashboard. I erupted in jubilate laughter. She continued like it was her sales pitch. “Everybody waiting on Stevey D to come back from Miami, they went to cop some dope. Just let me hold something.” Just then a blue BMW on dubs pulled up with three people sit-ting inside, including the girl that Nina was talking to in the store, Shannon, the Regulator.

  “They from Carolina and they want to buy some dope,” Nina whispered. I guess these were the dudes they were whispering about in the store.

  “Yo, Nina! Stevey D and them ain’t showed up yet?” the driver asked.

  “Wuz up playa?” I said, ducking down talking to the driver. He gave Nina a look, like who the fuck is this nigga. I continued, “I’m Stevey D’s people. I’m from Miami.” Nina took one look at me and caught on. That’s the brilliance of working with a junkie, they got more game than Toys R’ Us.

  “What ya’ll looking for, he got it.” She was the sales representative. The Regulator was in the back seat squirming around like she was going to blow up at any minute, seeing Nina Brown steal her sales commission. I detected trouble from her as she cut her eyes into slants of optic disdain at us.

  “How much you charge for an ounce?” the driver questioned placing his arm out the window showing off his Rolex. He was young, barely into his twenties. Light skinned. I could tell he was a ladies’ man. He had diamonds on his fingers.

  “I charge a grand a piece,” I said and looked around like I was into big things and wasn’t trying to get caught. I continued, “I’ll give you six ounces for five grand.”

  The Regulator in the back seat started nodding her head like she was going to try to blow the whole thing.

  “Is the dope good?” the driver asked.

  “I dropped twenty eight ounces in the water, got back twenty seven.”

  Someone in the car droned, “Damn!” in approval.

  “You sho this Stevey D dope?” the driver asked. For the first time I could see the youth in his face.

  “Look man, I ain’t got all day. All I got is six O’s left. You want them or not?” I said like he was starting to get on my nerves.

  “Lemme see.”

  “Meet me back here in an hour. The spot is hot.”

  He placed the car in gear and looked at his watch. I pointed my finger at the runt in the back seat. “Shouty, let me holla at you for a minute, I got something for ya,” I said digging into my empty pocket. She got out of the car like it was on fire. Thus went her allegiance to them Carolina niggas. As the car drove off, my mind was formulating a plan, mind racing in meticulous thought how I was going to relieve these busters of their bankrolls. I looked up to see Nina Brown, and the runt Regulator, watching me like I was about to perform some great feat, like go into my pocket and break them off something. I hadn’t been in town a minute, and here I was plotting like a disbarred member of the Forty Thieves. The sun suddenly felt hotter on my face, or was it the two pair or beady eyes staring at me?

  “Like, I’ll give ya’ll an ounce to split when I get back,” I said, not knowing where I was going to get dope from.

  “Naw you ain’t!” Nina Brown said with an attitude looking at the runt making her intentions known. “You gonna give me the dope and I’ma give her what I think she should have. Them my customers.”

  “Ninaaa!” the runt shrieked indignantly stomping her feet. Nina balled up her fists. The expression on her face was “take it or leave it.” The runt had no choice.

  I know that if Stevey D and his crew showed up I was as good as dead. Here I was, breaking the law of the land, at least the ghetto’s code of ethics. And believe it or not, the ghetto has one. Never sell dope on someone else’s turf. Not only was I selling dope on someone’s turf, I was using his name. Talk about being on a mission. I loved doing this kind of shit but to make matters worse, I didn’t even have any dope.

  “Meet me here in forty minutes,” I yelled to Nina Brown as I took off walking.

  The Regulator answered “OK” like I was talking to her.

  I remembered seeing a drug store at the corner. I went in and bought six tubes of Oral Gel, some sandwich bags and some candles. I also bought one of them five-dollar scales. They did not have any cooking flour so I found some at the Winn Dixie down the street from my hotel. By then, twenty minutes had already passed. Shit! I was behind schedule.

  In the hotel, I mixed up the ingredients. Melted down the candle wax, carefully blending it with the flour to give it that cocaine texture and added the Oral Gel that would numb the mouth, just like cocaine, if someone wanted to taste the dope. However with a large amount of fake dope like this, there was risk involved. It was too big to stand a taste test. Maybe, I thought. I knew cats that sold keys of this stuff to the feds for major money.

  I liked the fake dope, better known as Dream. It looked good. Good enough to sell these suckers a Dream.

  I changed clothes. Played the part for the occasion. Put on a pair of jeans and a Tommy Hilfiger shirt dug into the mattress and removed five hundred dollars. I put on the big platinum chain I took from the cockeyed Suge Knight-looking lame and looked into the mirror. I felt my heart racing in my chest and heard one of the voices in my head pleading with me not to do this. I smiled and called myself a coward and raced out of the door. I was running late by five minutes.

  As soon as I stepped out into the hotel lobby, I was fortunate a cab was waiting at the entrance. I told the driver to take me to Frenchtown. He turned up his nose, and was about to complain until I shoved a hundred dollar bill in his face and told him all he had to do was drop me off at the gas station and wait for me. If I was not back in fifteen minutes he could keep the money, but if I did come back, there would be more where that came from. He nodded his head like my new partner in crime. Money has a way of doing that to people.

  My palms were sweat
ing, I had the jitters and for a moment I thought about the dangers of what I was doing. You normally do this kind of shit on your own turf, so in the event if something went wrong, you had back up, or at least knew where to run. I was completely alone. My only back up would be my wits and the ability to talk fast and stay calm.

  The cab driver dropped me off. I believe that old white man could sense that I was up to something. I was trying to shake fear like tiny raindrops off of my Black skin. This was some gangsta shit with an adrenaline rush so high I could feel the blood running through my veins like ice cold water.

  Nina and the Regulator were still posted up like watch dogs as I approached.

  “Dude in the BMW been back yet?” I asked.

  “No but Stevey D and his boys back. They driving around like they looking for somebody. I think they’re looking for the BMW,” Nina said fidgeting. I did not know if she was nervous or needed a hit. Probably both.

  I looked to see the black BMW easing up the street, Tupac’s song was blaring from the system, “I Get Around.” I felt the six ounces of Dreams in my underwear in a bag and the gun right next to it, in case I needed to get to it fast.

  The car came to a halt right in front of us.

  “Yo, my man, you straight?” the driver asked. I thought I detected some urgency in his voice, like when you drive from state to state looking for dope and can’t find none.

  I went right into my act.

  “My nigga, check this out!” I peeked into the car, like I was suspicious or something, at the same time I was flaunting the big chain on my neck with the iced out crucifix on it.

  “It’s too many niggas in this car. It’s been some cats from out of town going through here robbing muthafuckas,” I said, with my eyebrows knotted up like they was the niggas. I was making them look like the crooks trying to scheme me. I took a step back.

  “Nina go get my shit!” I was talking about a gun. Nina walked off with a purpose.

  “Noo, noo, it ain’t like that,” the driver said, throwing up his hands in frustration at seeing a sure deal suddenly go bad.

  “Get out!” I heard him demand to his passengers. He also said something about he’d meet them up the street at a gas station.

  I sat in the car, passed him the six ounces and tried to start up a conversation about the police busting cats from out of state. I talked fast and watched as he examined the dope. Six of the prettiest ounces of Dreams you’ve ever seen. He took one out and looked at it closely, too close. Think fast! I had to rely on my mouth and cunning wits.

  “Give me $5,500 for all of it.”

  “Whaaaat!” He snorted, turned from looking at the dope and looked at me. “You said five G’s at first for all six of them.”

  “It’s a shortage of dope, I thought we had more,” I said and watched as he took the dope out the bag. I held my breath. A police car cruised by and we both saw it. It passed us. He continued looking at it, wearing my patience thin.

  “Man, this shit ain’t right!” he screeched. I felt for my gun. “I’ll give you $5,300.”

  I sighed a sigh of relief and looked around and reminded him that the police was hot. I told him to give me the money; said it like he was taking advantage of me.

  He went underneath his shirt and I noticed he wore a money belt. I hadn’t seen one of those things in my life except in the movies. He counted the money and weighed one of the ounces. I peeped the chrome plated Beretta in his waist when he was taking money out of the belt.

  He passed me the money and I put it into my pocket. The only thing I was concerned with was getting out of that car as fast as possible.

  “You didn’t even count the money,” dude said, looking at me suspiciously like maybe a light was going on in his head.

  “I trust ya,” I said, about to get out of the car.

  “Hold up a minute,” he said and reached out and touched me on the shoulder. From then on everything moved in super slow surrealistic motion. Like the world slowed to a small pace. I watched as he went into the bag, broke off a big piece of what was supposed to be dope, bite off a big piece, spit candle wax and flour onto the windshield.

  “Gimme back my muthafuckin money nigga!” The scowl on his face was menacing like he wanted to inflict so much pain on me. I wish that I could have stopped him. I listened to that coward voice in my head that said, I told you not to do it. I shot him. Again … and again … and again. He was not trying to give up his grip. Finally, he stopped moving. There was a gray cloud of gun smoke in the car shimmering. I took his Rolex, money belt and gun. His blood was on my hands, it smoldered in my brain like the stale odor of death in my nostrils. God, I was moving on instincts. The silent rules that were handed down to me in the ghetto, kill or be killed, rang loud in my head. There was no halfway mark. I exited the car in a brisk pace, trying not to draw attention to myself. As I walked across the street, I was nearly hit by a car. I saw an old lady looking out of her window like she knew what I had done. Nina and the Regulator looked at me like I was the Devil himself, cut loose in Frenchtown. I ran across a vacant lot.

  The two dudes that were with the cat that I had just robbed were standing in front of the store. They watched me with dread on their faces. I had blood on my shirt and hands. “Yo, your homeboy said he’s ready to go. They took off running in his direction. I jumped in the cab. That’s when I noticed the police car parked behind the dumpster, the same one that Nina Brown said was a crooked cop. I could have sworn he nodded his head and smiled.

  The cab drove through Frenchtown. It was eerie. The old lady that saw me was now standing outside her apartment watching as people tried to revive the body. Nina Brown was the only one who saw me as the cab passed. Our eyes locked. She mouthed silently, “You owe me.”

  On the way back to the hotel, I had the cab driver stop at a local Radio Shack. I bought a boom box with a cassette player. I got back to the hotel with a feeling of triumph that only a hustler can describe. I counted out my cash, including my stash. I had a little over nineteen grand. I was elated. I had to get mines from the muscle. Lived off the fat of the land, coming up from the dirt. Every day in the news, you hear about barons, rich white men stealing billions from corporate America, people’s life savings and almost never went to prison. I took mines, but it only added up to thousands. I knew if I ever got caught, they would try to take my life. But still, I shared one thing in common with those white men, the elation of greed. To us, a crime wasn’t a crime until you got caught.

  With the money spread out on the bed, I smiled to myself and walked over and turned on the television. There was footage of a high-speed chase, a car driving recklessly with abandon. It was being shown from a police helicopter. I watched, fascinated. It was me, driving like a madman. The newscaster was asking for any information that could help lead to my arrest. For me, that was good news. It meant so far they did not know who I was. Maybe Dre’ did keep his mouth shut and the bust was really meant for Lil Cal. My heart dropped in my chest as the camera showed a snowy picture of Hope and I exiting the mall. The picture had come from a surveillance camera captured from a bank that we passed. It wasn’t a good one, but I could see Hope’s face. Luckily I put on a hat. Shit! I turned off the television just as the station was talking about a shooting in Frenchtown.

  I took a shower and fell asleep listing to the radio. I had not slept in the last twenty-four hours. I dreamed about Hope. She was right there in bed with me.

  Someone was knocking at the door. Soft raps like a bird pecking. I awoke with a start, my mind adjusting to my new environment. I got up, staggered over to the dresser and got my gun. I peeked through the peephole, it was Hope. I flung open the door, half hoping she would jump into my arms. To my surprise, it wasn’t Hope, it was her friend Trina. I guess she could tell by the expression on my face that I was not expecting her. She wore a black mini dress that clung to her voluptuous figure like the skin on a potato. She was stacked like a brick house and knew it.

  “May I come in?�
�� she asked, smiling seductively, displaying perfectly even white teeth.

  I peeked my head out of the door, looking both ways. Bitches were notorious for setting niggas up from out of town. I touched too many niggas that way on the jack tip like that, wasn’t about to let it happen to me.

  “I’m harmless, wanna frisk me?” she cajoled making a mock show of searching herself as her hands manipulated her flesh pushing up her breasts. She wasn’t wearing a bra. Her soft cotton dress with its thin lace shoulder straps and low cut neckline revealed just enough to capture any man’s imagination. Quarter-sized nipples pointed at me.

  “Come in,” I said reluctantly, grilling her with my eyes like she was in violation of something. She pranced in, her plump ass bouncing to a rhythm of its own, straining against the soft fabric of thin material. I could not remember seeing a woman as fine in my entire life. She sat in the chair next to the bed and crossed her long legs, one over the other. Her curvaceous thighs spread for me like an hourglass, accentuated by a small waist. I tried not to stare but couldn’t help it. Her cat eyes dared me. If I had to guess, I would say she was wearing red panties. I saw the tattoo on her right breast. It read, “Thug Misses” in purple and red letters.

  “Wuz up?” I said and walked over and peeked out of the window into the darkness. If she saw the gun in my hand, she paid it no attention.

  Ice Cube once said, “Never trust a bitch with a fat ass and a sexy smile.” That was a song that now held meaning to my life.

  “I thought maybe I could be of some service to you.” The timbre of her voice was melodious like a song.

  “Service?” I quipped, thinking about how much I would pay her to let me cut. Sex that is. With sure sophistication, I watched as she went inside her purse and removed a Black & Mild and freaked it on the nightstand. I continued to occasionally look out the window and at her round thighs.