Life

by Sullivan, Leo

  “Let me cook it for ya,” she offered. “I can make one hundred thousand off each bird.”

  I looked at her like she was crazy. “You must be going to make up some fake dope -Dreams.”

  “No, no Papi. If you whip the dope just right, cook it slow and use just enough baking soda and water you can make three ounces out of one. My daddy taught me that. All the old heads in Brooklyn have been doing that for years. The trick is to cut dime rocks out of each ounce, that way you get more money, three grand instead of the one.” I was listening to this Brooklyn chick talk and I was sucking up game like a sponge. She continued, “By selling dime rocks you keep the federalizes off your ass. They’re only looking for weight. Ain’t no longevity in the dope game, stick and move. Get out within a year.”

  *****

  I sat back and watched her as she attempted to make her magic. I had to see this shit to believe it. In all, she was going to take two birds and make six. I had already decided if she fucked up this dope I was going to kill her. Her face was fixed in heavy concentration. Cooking cocaine was an art, like a delicate trade, and it involved a special skill. Like a chef, every cook has his own technique, as well as formula. That day, I was learning that Trina was a pro at cooking dope. From a glance, you would think that she was fixing dinner.

  “So how did you meet Nina Brown?” I asked. Trina turned and looked at me with cocaine in a pot of hot water. Then there was a knock on the door. A knock that only a hustler and his girl can describe. Scared the hell out of both of us. Quickly, I grabbed my gun. As I walked to the door looking out the peephole, Trina gave me that look that asked, what should I do? Someone had their finger or something over the hole blocking my vision. Police? I turned to Trina and mouthed for her to put the yae away. She scrambled around trying to hide all of the drug paraphernalia. I dashed to the curtain and looked out. “Godamnmuthafuckin¬sonofabitch!” I saw Blazack standing outside the door with his finger over the damn peephole. With him was a posse of niggas from Miami’s notorious set, the Oplica Triangle. “It’s cool,” I said to Trina over my shoulder. To my surprise, she was packing dope in her panties. I walked out of the door into the sweltering heat. Blazack and I ain’t never been close. It wasn’t nothing personal. It was just his demeanor, cool and aloof. Looking at all of them I had to smile. They all looked haggard and wary, like unemployed hustlers. I knew the feeling.

  In the crew with Blazack were Dirty, Gucci, Mad Ball and Twine. All of us at one time or another hustled together, either in Sarasota, my stomping ground, or theirs in Miami. Basically we were tight, but it dawned on me, they could be here to kill me. The last time we were all together like this was at a strip club down in Miami called The Rollez. Coming out of the club, the police took a combined $98,000 from us and we couldn’t say shit. Charge it to the game and they label us crooks.

  “What the fuck you doin wit dat?” Blazack asked, pointing to the gun at my side. “We ain’t drive all this way for you to be stuntin’ wit your gun, wearing that Sunday school suit. What, you preachin’ now too?” he joked, showing a grill full of platinum and diamonds worth enough money to buy poor folks a home. His hair was uncombed and nappy, however he wore it like the urban trend. Short and stocky, with broad shoulders the size of large watermelons, Blazack was a diminutive tank of a man. The kind of man that never accepted defeat under any kind of circum-stances. He possessed the uncanny ability to display human kindness. And like all leaders, he could be very persuasive when need be. Marvin Johnson, a.k.a. Blazack, was a cold-blooded killer, at least by metro’s Dade police department standards. He was rumored to have taken part in at least twenty gangland slayings of rival drug dealers and was currently the number one suspect in a double homicide of his baby’s mother and her boyfriend over a dispute over custody of the child. The only evidence the police could find was spattered blood, no sign of a struggle, no bodies, no witnesses. That was Blazack’s MO. Currently, Blazack’s mother had custody of his three year old child.

  “If I was comin’ for you, you wouldn’t know it until you was all wet up,” Blazack said, continuing to berate me as he pulled up the towel in his hands showing me the eighteen inch double barrel shotgun pointed at my nuts. They all erupted in laughter at the dumb expression on my face as I stepped to the side, moving my balls out of the line of fire if he happened to shoot.

  Dirty was the first to greet me. He was the baby of the crew, 18 years old, and had a heart as big as the Atlantic Ocean. He still had that youthful smile of innocence that the ghetto had not yet stolen from him. Next was Gucci, a fat boy. He loved to dress and eat. He was the kind of man that looked good in his clothes and ladies found him attractive. His loyalty was priceless. He once took seven shots from the police using his body as a barricade on the door during a bust, just so that the rest of the crew could get away. We did. The doctors later said the only thing that saved his life was the fact that he was overweight. Next was Mad Ball and Twine. They fam for real. The last time we were together, they were in the back seat asleep while I drove ten hours in the wrong direction trying to find a town called Stone Mountain, Georgia. When they awoke that morning to find out I was lost, we argued the entire trip. We exchanged dap. Twine grinned at me and asked, “Nigga you find Stone Mountain yet?” We erupted in laughter at our own personal joke. Blazack quickly seized the conversation. He wanted to talk about the snitch Dre’ and then he added, “I got somethin’ I want t’show ya in the van.”

  “Van?” I repeated. “I sent you money to catch a plane,” I said as I followed them to the parking lot to a brand new customized black Chevy van.

  “I had a change of plans at the last moment,” Blazack said to me as he opened the back door to the van. The doors were the kind that slid open. He did this with a wavy show of his hand, as if opening a display case with a choice of doors. To my utter shock, there were two people blindfolded and hog-tied. I slammed the door back, scared that someone might see inside the van. As it was, we were attracting attention.

  “What the fuck are you doing man?” I snapped.

  “That’s Dre’. We found him in Sarasota at his dad’s crib. I had to shoot the old man,” Blazack said matter of factly.

  “Who is the other guy wit’em?” I asked.

  “Oh, dat’s just a guy we hitched a ride from.”

  “Hitched a ride from? Nigga you done kidnapped a cracka!” I said, not believing what I was hearing. “Look man, ya’ll got to get this shit out of here,” I said talking fast, and walking faster, trying to distance myself from that van. I suddenly stopped and dug into my pockets. I had twenty dollars and a diamond bracelet. “Ya’ll wait here. I’ll be right back,” I said and took off into a trot.

  *****

  “How much money you got?” I asked Trina as soon as I walked in the door.

  “Who was that outside?” she asked, ignoring my question.

  “They my boys from Miami. How much money do you got?” I repeated again, this time with a little more urgency in my voice.

  “About eighteen dollars,” she said looking up while measuring cocaine into a pot.

  “Shit!” I cursed.

  “Papi, I bought you an outfit while I was in Brooklyn, used the last bit of the money,” she said apologetically.

  Suddenly I had an idea. “Lock the door, put the chair under the knob, and don’t open it for nobody,” I said heading for the door. Then on second thought, I turned. She was wearing that please don’t leave me sour expression on her pretty face. I walked to the table, tore a piece of paper off one of the shopping bags and filled it with about an ounce of cocaine, pecked Trina on the lips and bounced out the door.

  *****

  I hurried over to Evette and Tomica’s room. Evette answered the door scantly dressed in a white halter top and pink short shorts with a fat pussy print like a big fist in her drawers. I looked around the room for Tomica. “Where’s Tomica at?” I asked. I could see that Evette was easily intimidated by my presence.

  “Sh … sh … she�
��s in the shower,” Evette stuttered.

  “Here’s the bracelet, where’s my money?” I asked as I showed her the bracelet. She pointed at her purse and walked over to it.

  “You got ID in there good enough to rent an apartment?”

  “Yeah, why?” She looked at me like I just hit her with a trick question.

  “Come go with me,” I said and pulled her arm. I could tell by the frightened expression on her face that she wanted to scream. Slightly she resisted and then something washed over her face the way a mouse looks up when the heel of a boot is about to come crashing down on him, or perhaps she recalled the episode at the mall with the cop, or maybe the demonstration in the parking lot when I slapped the shit out of Trina. Whatever it was, Evette was easily persuaded. We walked out of the door with her wearing them little ole shorts.

  My plan was to get Evette to rent an apartment or something until I could figure out what I was going to do with the crew. Dre’ the snitch weighed heavy on my mind.

  I walked fast with Evette in tow.

  “Give me the money,” I said, suddenly stopping in my tracks. She dug into her purse and removed a roll of cash big enough to choke a cow and counted out five hundred dollars.

  “Damn girl! How much money is that?” I asked in disbelief. Evette was a little slow, but she was far from being dumb. She just looked up at me with cloudy eyes and did not answer. I thought about their caper with the credit cards and all that stolen shit back at their room and God only knows what else them two broads had been up to, driving around the country stealing. Evette must have had at least twenty grand in her purse. I grab her by the arm tightly. “Listen Shouty, whatever you do, don’t let these niggas see that money. They’ll slit your throat and take it!” I was taking about Blazack. She looked up at me, swallowed in her throat and looked around like this was a hostage situation. I wondered if she would take off running.

  As we approached the stolen van, loud music was playing. The van rocked from side to side. Blazack was at the driver’s seat smoking a blunt. Something in the back of the van had his attention. He was laughing hysterically. I peeked inside of the van. They were all piled up in there like the forty thieves. Mad Ball had a cigarette lighter out burning the white man on the ass with it. His pants were down around his ankles, booty tooted up in the air because of the way that they had him hog-tied. As soon as everyone saw Evette, the games stopped and catcalls ensued. “Look at the fat monkey on that bitch, looks like she got a boxing glove in her drawers,” someone said.

  I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I lost my composure.

  “What the fuck ya’ll doin’? Stop the dumb shit! These crackas in this town ain’t playin’. This is the capital of Florida. These rednecks gonna give a nigga a life sentence if they catch us with this cracka.” Blazack casually turned, looked at me and blow smoke into my face. Someone in the back of the van snickered at me. Then I heard giggles, the white man yelled again in pain. It was as if I was talking to the five stooges. So I tried my hand at diplomacy. My voice lowered a notch.

  “Listen, ya’ll follow me. We’re going to see if we can we rent ya’ll a place to stay,” I said, nodding at Evette. She looked like she was about to make a dash for it after hearing the horrible sounds coming from inside the van.

  *****

  Five hours later, thanks to Evette and her hot pants, we were finally about to rent a house right off FAMU Campus on Stocky Street. Evette was able to talk an elderly white man into renting an older model four bedroom, two-bathroom home with a nice spacious yard. She flirted and laughed showing him a lot of teeth. With a $1,800 dollar deposit she had the keys and with them was a piece of paper with a phone number on it. The old man really liked her.

  Now the problem was, what to do with the stolen van, its owner and Dre’ the snitch. When I confronted Blazack about it, all he said was, “Dre’ was a wrap,” and signaled with his hand slicing across his throat. I walked away leaving it up to him. My conscience was getting the better of me. Call me soft, but I did not want to see Blazack kill Dre’. He was my dawg at one time, he just went bad. I know that if I tried to stop it, it would be like signing my own death warrant, like I was admitting I conspired with Dre’ to set up Lil Cal. One thing was definitely for sure, Blazack had no problem making people disappear.

  “Yo!” I turned as I was about to get in the car. I handed Blazack the packet of cocaine I had taken earlier from my room. A few of the crew liked to smoke Bunk–that’s weed mixed with cocaine.

  *****

  Blazack drove along in the van with the human cargo. I did not ask him what he was going to do with it, that would have been asking too much.

  I pulled out into traffic with a feeling of utter relief. I noticed Evette watching intently. For the first time I thought I detected a pleasant smirk on her face.

  “Daaamn Shouty, why you looking at a nigga like that?” I asked. Evette made a face. “You’re something else,” she beamed. “You tricked us.” Her voice chimed sweetly as she crossed her long legs, one over the other, hands snuggly clasped between curvaceous thighs, the way a woman does when she’s getting comfortable and looking sexy and unconscious of it.

  “Are you a pimp or something?” she asked. For the first time I gave her my undivided attention. The expression on her face said that she was dead-ass serious.

  “Why you say that?”

  “Cause, first you tricked us by actin’ like you was a college student. Then you beat up that security guard back there at the mall and took our bracelet.” Her eyes leered at me when she said our bracelet. “You jumped on that poor girl in the hotel parking lot, and you just took my money too,” she said in one long breath.

  “I told you I was going to give you back your money,” I said.

  She rolled her eyes twisting her lips to the side of her face, typical Black woman antics. Shyly she smiled, and then burst out in hearty laughter, the kind of laughter that has a soulful melody of a Black woman. It spilled on to me, and I can’t help but smile back at her. “What’s so damn funny?” I asked.

  “You.”

  “Me?”

  “You should have seen the expression on your face when Tomica handcuffed you to the love seat, and you pulled out that big ole dick and started wackin’ off.” She laughed hysterically. I think it must have been all that built up frustration stressing her over the past twenty-four hours. She wiped her eyes and her laughter subsided. On a more serious note she said, “I would have been game for the threesome … twosome even.” For emphasis she uncrossed her legs opening them like showing me the packaged goods. As I drove I had a lot on my mind. A fat pussy was not one of them. Evette sensed my mood and turned away sitting straight forward in her seat.

  I pulled into the hotel parking lot and looked for any sign of anything unusual. This was not the time to get caught slipping. “Go to your room. If Tomica asks you about the money just tell her I took it, and I’m gonna pay it back,” I said.

  “Just give me the bracelet,” Evette suggested, and made a face at me, the kind that says, you ain’t shit. “Go!” I yelled. She slammed the door and stalked off. *****

  I inserted my key into the door. Just as I asked, Trina barricaded herself inside using a chair and the burglar chain. She opened the door and greeted me with a hug and kiss like I had been gone for years. Inside, to my dismay, Tomica was sitting at the table cutting up dope. Her eyes flashed signals that said, let’s keep what happened in my room a secret.

  “What the fuck? What you doin’ in here?” Trina tugged at my arm like a three-year-old trying to get my attention. Soft-spoken, she said, “Tomica’s my homegirl. She’s from Brooklyn.”

  “Ya’ll know each other?” I interrupted, in total disbelief.

  “Naw, well, sorta.” Trina stuttered under the weight of my eyes boring holes through her. She was nervous. “She came here looking for you. I recognized the Brooklyn accent. This bitch is my homegirl. I went to school with her brother Rakim.” Together the two of them giggle
d like school girls that shared a secret. Women. I suddenly had the uncanny feeling that the two of them were talking about me in my absence. I just openly stared at Tomica, wondering just how much I could trust her.

  One thing about this business, there is no room for mistakes, most importantly in the judgment of people’s character. Maybe Tomica was on to the scent of Trina’s pussy. It’s always important to know a person’s motives when they are trying to get close to you. I walked up and inspected the dope. It looked nearly perfect, except for a few air pockets. Trina said that it would take longer to dry. I vaguely heard her as my mind churned numbers, ounces and prices. It was then I realized that Trina made her second biggest blunder of the day. The first was letting the dyke Tomica in the door, the second was the dope was short by my figures. This is important, very important, and not just the financial aspects of it. New acclaimed power is like an iron fist, it is meant to be challenged like all authority. People will seek out its weaknesses, especially women. It’s in their very nature to find the core of a man’s soft spot. I wasn’t having none of that! “This muthafuckin dope short a few ounces!”

  “You took some when you left, remember? Plus, I got all that left over in the plate over there at the sink.” She pointed. There was a pile of cocaine there that I didn’t notice. I shrugged an expression that said, my bad, and turned and walked over to the window peeking out of the curtains. Hustler’s habit. I plopped down on the chair by the window. I was tired and wary. Over the past few days it seemed like things were moving fast, unpredictable, and now I was moving into a realm of the game that I really had no experience in. To top it off, I was in a spot that ain’t never been friendly to niggas from out of town. Now, in a matter of seconds, I turned from flat foot hustlin’, to dope man entrepreneur, pushing weight. The contrast of the two professions is about as different as night and day. For me to be successful it would take the cunning wit of a fox, along with the organizing skills of a crooked preacher soliciting money from his parishioners. There was zero room for mistakes. In the dope game you got leaders and followers, there is no in between. The streets keep the score: who leads, who follows. Caskets and prison cells bore witness to a hustler’s timely demise. All this was in my thoughts as I plucked my last cigarette from the pack, lit it and inhaled deeply. As the smoke filled my lungs, I gazed up at the ceiling reflecting on all the shit that had happened. I exhaled, trying to erase everything from my mind. There was a spider web in the corner of the ceiling. Something about it held my attention. For some strange reason, Hope’s face flashed in my mind, voice echoing, you’ll end up dead or in prison. Suddenly I had an urge for a strong drink.