Life

by Sullivan, Leo

  “Can Tomica have the last of the coke in the plate?” Trina asked casually as if it were a request for a slice of pie. She indeed confirmed my thoughts, the two of them were talking about more than the old days. There can be a lot of wisdom in playing dumb, my stepmother used to say. So I did my part and let her question roll right over my head. I took off my shoes, my dogs were killing me.

  “How long is it going to take ya’ll to finish cutting up the dope?” I inquired.

  “Just about all day,” Trina replied.

  “Tell you what, go to the store and get me a bottle of Hennessy and a pack of smokes, stop by Popeye’s and get something to eat, I’m starving, and you can have some of the coke.” Tomica stood up in front of the chair, eyes flaming with anger.

  “I just know you ain’t finna try me like that!”

  “Try you like what?” I raised my voice. Realizing this dyke was trying to show off for the benefit of Trina’s presence, I prepared to bust her ass if she got out of line.

  “Try me like I’m some junkie, or something.” Tomica sat back down. I was eyeballing her like she went there. On second thought, I had a better idea. I stood taking the gun out of my pocket, along with the diamond bracelet and began to strip down to my boxer shorts.

  “Boo, where are the clothes that you bought?” I asked Trina, as both women looked at me quizzically.

  “Over there on the other side of the bed,” Trina answered.

  I walked over looked inside of the shopping bag, pulled out the expensive two-piece Versailles outfit–a jacket and pants in a beautiful shade of turquoise and gold, strictly a baller’s style. Trina had good taste in clothes. I hurried getting dressed. Afterward, I looked in the mirror and I wanted to salute my muthafuckin’ self. In the background I heard Tomica suck her teeth, hatin’ on a nigga. Bitch! I retrieved the chunky iced out chain I took from Suge Knight’s cockeyed twin back at the hotel. Putting it around my neck, I walked over to the table and began placing the dope into Ziploc bags. I would just have to get someone to cut up the rest later.

  “What are you doing?” Trina asked.

  “What it look like I’m doing? I’m getting out of this joint.” Trina and Tomica exchanged glances. Actually what I was really doing was following the number one code of the game: never shit at where you got to eat. Meaning, never keep dope where you got to lay your head. Never!

  “Gimme the keys to the car,” I said to Trina. She hesitated with a look of despair the way a woman does when she wants to ask a question, but is unsure of her boundaries. She reached into her purse and gave me the keys. I placed half of the powdered cocaine that was at the sink into a bag, and left some. I walked to the door. I could feel their eyes boring through by back.

  “Come here,” I turned, talking to Trina. She walked toward me. If her brown eyes could talk, hers would have plainly begged me to stay. I spoke a whisper against her ear lobe palming her ass through the soft material of the dress. “Dig, Shouty, I’ll be back in a second.”

  “It’s going to take some hours for the stuff to dry,” Trina said in her attempt to get me to stay. I could hear the somber plea in the tone of her voice.

  “If you like, you can give the rest of the powder on the sink to your homegirl.”

  I bent down and pecked her on the lips. She reached up, lassoing my neck with her arms and kissed me like I was a soldier about to go off to war.

  “Baby, don’t go. I bought a nice sexy Victoria’s Secret outfit I wanted to wear for you.” As Trina whispered I looked at Tomica. She was watching us closely. That reminded me of something. I peeled Trina’s arms off of me, reached into my pocket removing the diamond bracelet, and gave it to her. Tomica damn near fell out of the chair when she saw that.

  “Ohmigod! Ohmigod! It’s beauuuutiful!” Trina exclaimed after she saw the price tag and began to do the two-step like I used to see women do at my father’s church when they claimed to have the Holy Ghost. As I walked out of the door, I thought I heard Tomica call my name.

  *****

  Chapter Eleven

  “The Jump-Off”

  – Life –

  Trina’s Lexus Coupe was nice, real nice. The inside was handsomely designed with expensive oak wood and plush butter soft leather interior. The seats felt like I was riding in the cockpit of a jet. Yeah, I could tell her daddy was deep in the game. He spoiled her rotten. I placed the shopping bag of cocaine on the seat next to me, with Jesus on my lap, my hand resting on it in case there was any drama, and my mind on my money.

  As I drove, the air felt crisp and cool. I was on a mission to stack some chips. While driving I counted out twenty ounces, my mind struggling with the mental transition of being a jackman, to not get jacked. Easier said than done.

  *****

  I parked down the street from the house that I rented for Blazack and the crew. I walked in the shadows of semi-darkness and hid the dope underneath a tree in a hole I dug. Afterward, I got back into the car and drove the short distance to the house. There were so many cars parked in the yard and driveway, I had to park in the middle of the street. As I walked up, people were hanging out everywhere. Females lounged out front on the porch. It’s hard to believe that only a few hours ago this place was for rent. Mad Ball and Gucci looked up to see me. They could tell by the expression on my face my mood was not good. I walked inside and saw that the place was jam packed. In the kitchen, I saw Dirty throwing dice. They were gambling, playing Low. He looked at me and said something slick out the side of his mouth, something about how much money did I have, and then he threw the dice. I shot him a look that said, don’t fuck with me. Twine walked up and grabbed my hand. He was smoking a blunt, eyes red, pants hanging off his ass.

  “Nigga, you been killing ‘em huh?” he said checking out my gear and running his fingers over my necklace.

  “Listen man,” I talked between clinched teeth fighting to control my temper. This was becoming a habit dealing with these niggas. I was trying to stop it before it started. “Ya’ll didn’t come down here to party, this is strictly business. Clear these Muthafucka out the house!”

  I knew that there was no way that Twine was going to take orders from me, at least not at this stage of the game, but now was the time to employ my will for the sake of building a team and bleeding this town out of its riches. “Where’s Blazack at?” I asked. Twine pointed at the back room giving me a look like he was trying to read where I was coming from with the attitude.

  I knocked on the door. Heard a voice say come in. I walked into what looked like a gun show. “Damn it man!” I intoned. “Where did ya get all dem shits from?” There were about a half dozen AK47s lined up on the wall, a Mac-10, Mac-11, various handguns, a Thomson submachine gun with a special shoulder holster to hold three thousand rounds of ammunition. On the bed next to Blazack was his trusty double barrel 12 gauge sawed off shotgun, the same one that he pointed at my nuts earlier that day. On the bed was a book titled The Art of War. Blazack just lay there, looking up at the ceiling. He was the most reclusive man that I had ever known. His quiet could be disturbing at times. It gave you the feeling that he was always plotting. I hoped he was not plotting about me.

  Slowly he rose from the bed ignoring my disapproval of his arsenal of guns.

  “I had to use my hands,” Blazack said, flexing his fingers. His hands were huge. He now examined them as if it were his first time really seeing them, their power and strength.

  “What?” I asked, confused as to what he was talking about.

  “He wouldn’t die.” Blazack continued. The scowl on his face was that of a man reliving a bad memory.

  “I strangled dat nigga for damn near ten minutes. He wouldn’t die.”

  “Who?” I asked aggravated.

  “Dre’,” Blazack said clinching his fist.

  “Oh.” The sounds left my lips, with it the grimy reality of who he was talking about. I stared, mesmerized. Once again I wondered about the mystic of life’s greatest mystery–death, and if the peopl
e who kill are haunted by the very souls they stole. There was a glassy look of a madman possessed by demons on Blazack’s face as he examined his hands like they were murder weapons he wished he could discard. I think that to some degree, the dead are still alive, they live vividly in the minds of the people that killed them. At least with Blazack that was the case.

  “Yo, I let the cracka in the van go and tied him to a tree. Someone’ll find him in a few days, maybe. But Dre’… dat nigga ain’t never comin’ back,” Blazack said with malice as his eyes narrowed, giving me the full intent of what he meant. The moment lingered. I was lost for words. I noticed in the corner of the room there was a stick of dynamite and some other kind of explosives. Just when I was about to ask about that rat Muthafucka, his statement completely caught me off guard. I knew what he was hinting at.

  “My nigga, on everything I love, when the shit went down in the hotel with the nigga trying to set me up, I had to out-run helicopters and some mo shit. Hooked up with this broad, if she didn’t help me, I’d be fucked up right now, that’s how I ended up here.”

  “Uh huh,” Blazack said with all the interest of a man watching paint dry. “I talked with Lil Cal’s mom this morning. Told her to ask about you, since you da one that introduced us to Dre’ in the first place.” Blazack left no doubt in my mind his suspicion of me, as well as his loyalty to Lil Cal, death before dishonor. He would kill me in a heartbeat. The feelings were mutual. Our real common bond was only Lil Cal. I knew I would have to accept the dark cloud of treason that loomed over my head. For some reason the dope game is like that. It permeates on paranoia and fear for the lack of trust. Trust is like a good woman forced to go bad, she will always be needed and unfortunately used and abused to serve like hell in the dope game. If there were no trust, there would be no lies.

  I ignored Blazack’s acid remarks. The reality was I needed him as much as he needed me.

  I retrieved five ounces from the bag. His eyes lit up like novas as I passed them to him. Maybe he was thinking about searching me to see if I was I wearing a wire. He hesitated. Through the dark pools of his eyes I read his suspicion of me.

  “What you want me to do wit dis?” he asked, still not touching the dope.

  “Keep ‘em,” I replied, tossing the five cookies to him.

  “Getting paper?” His faced cracked into a sinister grin.

  “Jus a lil sumpin’ sumpin’,” I drawled slyly, as my mind deftly tried to search for the holes in his mental armor, an avenue for my sales pitch in recruiting him and the rest of them Oplica niggas.

  “Dig, playa. I’m tryna build a team right here in Tally. Open up shop, drop some weight, boom dis muthafuckin town and get ghost ‘fo the spot get hot. Nawaimsayin’?” As I talked, in the background I heard JT Money rapping, Bitch shake what yo momma gave ya.

  “I want you to be my lieutenant. I’ll pay you five G’s a week once we get on our feet.”

  I waited for his response. Blazack was a natural born leader. Since his man Lil Cal was gone, he might rather rob than work for another nigga. I was aware that he could take what I said as being disrespectful on the strength of the caliber of nigga he thought he was. He stood all five feet seven, two hundred thirty pounds of brute force.

  “Nigga you got me fucked up!” All that platinum and diamonds in his mouth sparkled for emphasis. I braced myself, felt my hand with a mind of its own inching toward Jesus in my drawers.

  Then Blazack smiled like the sun coming from behind dark clouds. “You damn right I want to be down wit your team.” I felt a wave of relief wash over me. Afterward we sat down and talked. I explained to him how we had to act like niggas on a mission, and to stop the dumb shit, as well as the partying. I didn’t tell him that I had a connection so large they could use the scales for elephants to weigh the dope. In time he would find that out for himself. Trina’s cousin was a major Colombian drug lord of both “Boy” and “Girl” meaning cocaine and heroin. Her cousin liked my hustle. I never looked back. My life would never be the same.

  *****

  That night I drove through Frenchtown. It was dark. Most of the streetlights were shot out by drug dealers for the protection of the night. A lone luminous light shined within the dense fog of smoke and air pollution. Throngs of people moved like cattle to the pulsating rhythm of the ghetto. Every Black section has one. A strip of town where everyone hangs out, flossing in their cars, clothes and jewelry, parlaying their hustle–get in where you fit in. A place where a man could lose his life over the throw of the dice.

  I’ve learned that the element of surprise, if used effectively, is a brilliant strategy in winning over your adversaries. It could also get you shot. I made up my mind days ago that I was going to make my move, boldly. Fuck ‘em! I felt like all hustlers feel when they’re hungry. I needed eat!

  *****

  I finally spotted Nina Brown. She was in a crowd of about two or three hundred people. The scene was rowdy. I heard gunshots in the distance. I was having second thoughts about my plan. Stevey D and his henchmen were a few yards from Nina. They were all sitting in front of the pool hall. He was leaning against a blue tricked out Caddy with a ragtop, sitting on dubs. Back in the day if you had a clean caddy on expensive wheels, you was the shit. Rubbing up against him was a thick redbone. She wore skin tight blue jeans with holes near her ass cheeks. She was fat-to-death, ass for days. I drove up with Trina’s system bumping Dr. Dre’ and Snoop’s joint talking ‘bout, “If your bitch talks shit you know I got to put the slap down.” I hopped out of the car, and boldly walked into the lion’s den. The element of surprise, I had Jesus tucked in my drawers, made sure they could see the bulge. Niggas jaws dropped like old folks with no teeth. Stevey D shoved the girl off his lap. I could tell he wanted to go for his strap. I walked up humbly, and never took my eyes off him. The expression on Nina Brown’s face was that of complete shock, like seeing a dead man walking.

  “Whuz up, yo?” I said to Stevey D. He had on a thick herringbone, a white shirt, a pair of starched Dickies and a pair of black Nikes. The redbone was eyeballing me. From the expression on her face I could tell she could sense something was about to go down. “I told you I was comin’ back ta break bread wit cha,” I said, smiling with more gaiety than I was actually feeling. Stevey D bunched his face, crinkling his nose, the way people do when they smell something foul. He then looked to check both ends of the street like he was going to start blasting.

  “I don’t believe dis nigga,” he said tensely while shaking his head at me. The crowd was starting to circle us. The tension was tight as a fat lady climbing a rope. I felt a glaze of sweat on my forehead. “You got some’tin for me.”

  “Sho’ll do,” I drawled. He laughed and looked around at his crew. They followed his lead and laughed too. He walked up and placed his hand on my shoulder in a friendly gesture, like the spider introducing himself to the fly.

  “Let me holla at you for a sec,” I said, walking to the car. I needed to get out into the open.

  “Yo D, you aight?” one of his peeps asked. He threw up his hand. “Yea, I’m aight.”

  I was parked in the middle of the street with the engine running. We got in the car. “Nice ride,” Stevey D said, rubbing his hands on the oak wood dashboard. I ignored him and hollered out the window for Nina Brown, signaling for her to get in the car. As I pulled off I threw an ounce into Stevey D’s lap.

  “What you want for dis?” he asked, never taking his eyes off the dope.

  “That’s yours.”

  “Mine?”

  “I told you I was going to bless you when I came back.”

  “True, true, true,” he intoned, shaking his head.

  “Bet that up my nigga.” I could hear the delight in his voice. I also knew that my kindness could be taken for a sign of weakness but he had something that I wanted–this town. He extended his fist, I hit it with a mean dap.

  “Let me buy some of that off ya, it’s a drought in town.”

  Ain’t no way
in hell I was going to sell this cat some dope. A hustler’s dream is to have a spot on lock down and be the only man holding. That’s like cornering the entire market of Wall Street, having the only commodity.

  “I’m fucked up right now, I can’t sell you nothing, but when I get on my feet, I gotcha.” He twisted his mouth the way people do when they want to say, “Don’t piss on me and tell me it’s raining.”

  “Tell me, what ya’ll payin’ for a bird?”

  “Nineteen, twenty grand,” he said, throwing numbers at me from his head.

  “Tell you what, the next time I go to re-up, I’ll get you one for $17,500,” I said, thinking about Trina and her whip game, plus I could get them thangs for ten stacks.

  “Hell yeah nigga, I want you to get me three birds!” he said excitedly. “When you leavin’?”