Ties to the Hood

by Aija Monique

  “Look, Tommy, I don’t like the situation any more than you do. I just want to squash the beef so that I can get on with my life.”

  “See, Shun, that sounds a bit selfish to me. It’s like you don’t want to take responsibility for your actions. All involved are supposed to look away and just let bygones be bygones. You may not have killed my nephew physically, it may have not been your idea to take my bread, but yet and still, you participated and led the pack. So I’m confused that you would ask me to just drop all charges and go about my merry way.” Tommy was beginning to think that Shun thought he was born just a few hours earlier. He felt disrespected.

  “Tommy, this meeting is about making the switch, the return of your money. This doesn’t mean it justifies our actions.”

  “No, but it shows that even though you fucked with the wrong man, you expect the issues to be dropped. Actions you and your men took and won’t even stand by them. I do dirt, and that is just the game. I also stand by it. If my crew got wind that I was unsure of myself or feeling guilty about my moves, they would then question my leadership. Some may even rise up and threaten to impeach me.”

  Shun didn’t have time to continue listening to Tommy’s lectures on organized crime dos and don’ts. He really just wanted to see if he would be willing to meet so that he could get all parties involved a date and time. He had yet to break the news to Cyrus and Phil. He knew they would start barking about the idea. Tommy was still rambling about his rules of engagement when Shun interjected.

  “So do we have a deal?” he said.

  “No funny business,” Tommy said sternly and hung up the phone.

  Shun looked at the phone for a minute. He couldn’t help but smirk at Tommy’s arrogance.

  Cyrus

  CHAPTER 32

  Flash

  Cyrus sat in the car pondering over his next move. He popped open his new throwaway phone and powered it up. He couldn’t help but blame the entire fiasco on siding with his brothers back at the force in Los Angeles. Sure, he needed the money, but it was all for not. His firstborn was still taken by his illness. Though having another child was a blessing, he and Casey both knew that the reason for getting pregnant so soon after losing Luke was to fill an empty void.

  Casey had been so depressed he feared leaving her at home alone. Ironically, it was the same fear that choked him now. He felt guilty. He felt angry, and most of his hateful spirit was wrapped in trying to protect his career—and for what? To satisfy the likes of two hoodlums. Childhood friends, yes; but things change. You grow up and learn how to deal with the aches of life lessons and economic hardships.

  There was a life after high school. After Shun and Phil, he too had a bond with his kind. Still, he had fallen just as Shun did. Trying to uphold the law and protect the American people landed him in witness protection and a reassignment that was less than savory. Not even a year later, he was in trouble once more. Same crime, stealing money from a major drug cartel. Now it was time to see if he could walk through fire once more and survive.

  Cyrus nodded off a bit, not realizing how tired he was from all the mental stress. He dialed Dana’s line and waited for her to answer.

  “Dana?”

  “Cyrus?” Dana anxiously answered. Sure, she recognized Cyrus’s voice muffled under the soundwaves of a cheap phone.

  “I’m in trouble,” was all Cyrus could muster before his phone suddenly powered off. Cheap-ass phone must have had a defective battery. Cyrus tossed the phone out the window. Life in Los Angeles was a story in and of its own.

  CHAPTER 33

  Los Angeles Police

  Day’s End

  Cyrus flashed back to the beginning of his shit storm with Los Angeles Police.

  “Drop your gun, Tre!” Jag and Cyrus yelled out into the emptiness of the warehouse.

  “Naw, y’all drop yours.” Tre was shaking and sweating profusely as he pointed the gun at each one of his blood brothers. “You think I’m stupid? As many showdowns we have been through, eight fucking million ain’t enough, Cyrus? Why you have to be so greedy, huh?” Tre was furious. He was also as high as a kite, and he knew that. That was the real reason Cyrus set the bounty upon his head.

  “It ain’t about the money, Tre, and you know it. You have become an extreme liability to the team. You of all people know what we do to dogs that are untamed. We are putting you down. Rules are rules. To die with honor, Tre, is better than being slaughtered by the pigs awaiting our fall.”

  Tre’s head fell back laughing uncontrollably. He began to hunch over, grabbing his belly. Tre caught a cramp and nearly lost his footing. His eyes and gun never left his so-called brothers. “Honor? Don’t feed me the same bullshit we tell all of our kills before taking their lives. We are work for hire. We are assassins, murderers, thieves, that proclaim to be honorable citizens for the greater good. These badges melt in our evil hands, Cyrus. Honor. You want to kill me, then come on. Commmmme ooon!” Tre yelled out, dribbling and stomping around like a drunken sailor.

  “We don’t have to do this, Cyrus. We’re taking this too far,” Jeffrey begged, lowering his weapon to the ground.

  Cyrus lowered his eyes with a look so demented, one would think he was possessed. “I am my brother’s keeper. We are left with no other choice. You see how sloppy he’s been? This is my son’s life,” Cyrus said.

  “He’s our brother!” Jeffrey retorted.

  “No, he’s not. He’s some drug-addicted loose-lip cop that would sell us out in a minute to avoid being brought to justice. He will sell us out, Jeffrey! This is not Tre, don’t you see that?” Cyrus screamed in frustration.

  Jag stood with his gun drawn, expressionless. It was clearly about the money with Jag. He was determined to keep the vows of his pack. Cyrus was leading the charge, and the order was given to take out the trash. The group had no other choice. “Rules are rules,” Jag cosigned.

  “Let’s just divide the money and split,” Jeffrey suggested.

  “See, now you trippin’ too. You know good and well we can’t leave town. That’s our asses for real. Naw, this works out just fine. We walked in and found Tre unloading stolen money from his pickup truck. We confronted him. He drew on us, so we fired. We hang our heads solemnly having taken out one of our own. Case closed. There won’t even be an investigation about this because Tre is hopped up on cocaine and weed. Shit, no one will believe him anyhow. This is his third strike.”

  “Third strike?” Jeffrey looked puzzled as Cyrus spewed the secrets of his brethren. Both Jag and Jeffrey threw Cyrus a questioning glance.

  “Oh, come on. Don’t look so dumbfounded. We needed a fall guy, boys, and Tre just fell into our laps. We told this fool time and time again not to fuck with the drugs. The drugs we take we sell back to the drug lords on the streets for double the money and pardon from police. But, no, our brother had to go and get high, shameless acts of the most foolish and the one with the brightest ideas.” Cyrus waved his weapon and tapped his temple with the tip of his gun, as if trying to knock his sanity back into place.

  * * *

  Cyrus looked off into space as he recalled his last few days with Los Angeles Police. He was as corrupt as they came, but only due to his needs. He felt nauseated about the situation as he remembered how hard his heart had become over money and his son’s death. He fought hard to gain the respect of his badge back. He had once believed in its purpose. He since had to use its power.

  If there was a way to predict the future, would anyone take it? Cyrus contemplated. It was three days of pure hell that drove Cyrus to the dusty city of Bakersfield. A chance for a new start. Instead, he traveled back to the hood, a lifestyle he adopted.

  CHAPTER 34

  Los Angeles Police

  Three Days of Pure Hell . . .

  “911, what’s your emergency?”

  “Yes, it’s Mrs. Cyrus Dunkin. My son. He isn’t breathing. I followed the doctor’s orders. He told me that when Luke got too hot to place him in a cold bath, to try to r
educe the fever. Only he started shaking violently, and now he isn’t breathing. Please, help! Please,” Casey cried out to the dispatcher.

  “OK, Mrs. Dunkin, we’ll send an EMT right away. I need you to try to remain as calm as possible. I am going to need you to do a few things and answer a few questions before help arrives.”

  “OK!” Mrs. Dunkin yelled and sprinted back down the hall to the bathroom where her son lay.

  “OK, what is your son’s name?”

  “Luke.”

  “OK, I want you to tell me if you can still see the rise and fall of your son’s chest. Sometimes in trauma, breathing stops at the fall’s impact, knocking the wind out of the person’s body, or in the event of a seizure, it can be perceived as a person has stopped breathing. I want to make sure he didn’t just stop breathing momentarily or that his breathing is shallow.”

  “Ummm . . . OK, OK, yes! Yes! Thank God. He’s breathing, but it is very slow and rattling a bit.”

  “OK, that’s a good sign. Now, is he still extremely hot? Be careful not to move him. I don’t want you to move him in case there is some trauma around his head area. Is it at all possible Luke could have hit his head?”

  “Oh! No, I never left his side except to run and get my phone,” Casey explained, trying to catch her breath and snap out of her disheveled mind-set. She looked around her son’s head in search for blood. She didn’t see anything present or spilling out from his hair at the present time.

  “Mrs. Dunkin, you there?” the emergency dispatch officer asked repetitively when she noticed the silence that fell over the phone.

  Casey had dropped the phone and ran to the front door when she heard the sirens approaching her quiet suburban neighborhood.

  * * *

  “Hey, did you hear that?” Cyrus blurted with a mouthful of steak burrito. “Turn your radio up. Sounded like my street, man.”

  Jag slammed his greasy taco down on his plate and pulled his radio from his belt.

  “Possible Protocol 112. We need all available cars to West Chester Blvd. 8-1-9 West Chester Blvd. Again, I repeat, we need all available cars at 8-1-9 West Chester Blvd.”

  Both Cyrus and Jag quickly wiped their mouths and leapt from their seats just outside the Mexican Cantina. Cyrus’s heart was beating so fast, he felt like he was going to pass out. Jag was nervous as well. He was a permanent fixture in the Dunkin home.

  Cyrus’s thoughts ran wild as tears sprang to his eyes. These types of calls came in on a daily basis, and he was able to run and execute safely without a second thought. Only this time, it involved his family—and he was scared to death.

  By the time Cyrus rolled up to his home, he saw a gurney being rolled toward the EMT vehicle. Cyrus sprang from his cop car while it was still coming to a rolling stop and sprinted down the street toward his home. There he fell into the arms of his wife Casey as she ran toward him, screaming hysterically and crying for his help.

  “What happened, what happened?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know.” Casey rambled on. “Luke was running a fever, so I called the advice nurse. He told me to run a cold bath. Next thing I know, he’s shaking, and he became unresponsive. Cy, he just stopped breathing,” Casey repeated hysterically.

  “OK, OK. So, no one hurt you guys?”

  “No. Goodness, no.”

  “All right, let’s find out what’s going on. You go with the EMTs. Jag and I will follow,” Cyrus said, trying to be as calm as possible.

  Cyrus tried hard to be strong in front of his wife. In the back of his mind, however, he was going crazy, so fearful that he was going to lose his son. He hurriedly swallowed the lump in his throat and jumped into the car with his partner.

  Cyrus didn’t say a word. He just spun the car around and led the emergency medical transport vehicle to clear the path to the hospital.

  CHAPTER 35

  Los Angeles Police

  Dirt

  As Doctor Helms came out to conference with the parents, the entire police force stood to greet him.

  “What is it?” Cyrus was so anxious he couldn’t stand it any longer.

  “Your son is very sick, Mr. Dunkin.”

  “What are you saying? Is he going to die or something? What is it? What does he need? He can have mine, whatever it is.”

  “Mr. Dunkin, slow down. It’s not that simple. Your son needs a kidney. His kidney is failing, and it has triggered other organs to fail. He is also very anemic, which I find is rare in children his age. He will need a few blood transfusions before we can attempt to do the surgery, if we find a viable kidney. There are many risks with this surgery, and being that we are dealing with a frail three-year-old boy, we need to play this smart. I know this is a very tough call, but we need to make sure that we don’t do more damage than good by stressing young Luke’s body out more than it already is. We don’t want him to suffer.”

  Casey broke down to her knees as she took in the prognosis for her son. Cyrus was furious with the doctor.

  “Are you fucking telling me to just let Luke die without even trying to find him a kidney? Take mine. It’s easy. Where do I sign? I don’t drink. I’m healthy. Why are we just standing around like there aren’t things to be done? How soon do you need this done?”

  “Sir, I know this is difficult, but as I stated before, this is not something that you just sign up for. Your son may reject the kidney, which means we could put him at a higher risk for a complete system shutdown. He could die on the table. I have a few donors that we can check out just to see if they are a match. Typically, we make sure that the blood type and antigens match from donor to recipient. Then we determine the health of the patient in regards to withstanding such a surgery. Right now, I wouldn’t recommend surgery until we first raise his blood count. He is stable for now, but very weak. I can only allow you two to visit with him right now, and then I am going to need you to let him get some rest. We can talk about the cost of all this in the morning if you wish, or we can talk in my office shortly after your visit with Luke. We need to make sure he is medically covered for the surgery, if we find a viable kidney.”

  “No, problem,” Cyrus chimed in. “I’m sure my medical insurance from the job will cover this.” Cyrus held on to Casey for dear life, afraid she would crumble to the floor once more. He leaned in close to her hair and whispered softly, “Everything is going to be fine, hon. Let’s go see Luke. We don’t want him to worry.”

  Cyrus and his wife brushed past the crowd of police officers and walked down the corridor to the secured doors. He was so broken. He had to leave the waiting room abruptly, afraid that his tears would be caught by his fellow officers.

  * * *

  Jag flicked the butt of his cigarette onto the ground and kicked around the dirt a bit. He was so worried that he needed to get some air. Some of the cops began to pour out of the waiting room. It was time for them to hit the streets. Calls were coming in, and the entire force was at the hospital. Cyrus had to admit that though the secrets among cops were filled with scandal, they all came together as one in times of tragedy.

  * * *

  Casey stood over their baby boy in tears just watching the IV drip. It was so quiet. Luke looked so peaceful sleeping in a drug-induced coma. His heart beat was regular, and his blood pressure was satisfactory. After a moment of silence, Cyrus squeezed Casey’s shoulders to encourage her to come with him. It was time to talk with the doctor about the medical procedures to come and the medical bills associated with treatment. Cyrus was confident about the surgery. Luke was a strong and stubborn little boy. At this moment, he was thankful for those traits his son had, because he needed him to fight.

  * * *

  Cyrus and Casey sat down in the hospital financial office to discuss the treatment costs for Luke. They waited about ten minutes, but it felt like hours. Every call that came over the loudspeaker made Casey’s stomach drop. She was so afraid her son would take a turn for the worse just sitting around discussing the tedious tasks of the procedur
al costs. She understood the paperwork, but she was a mother as well, and right about now, the paperwork could go to hell. She just wanted her son back.

  The financial advisor walked into the office and pulled his glasses from his eyes to wipe the sweat from his brow.

  “Shane,” he greeted and sat down to get right to the point. “Now, let’s talk about what we need to do first.” Shane pulled out his huge calculator, a pencil, and a notepad and began scribbling and reciting the procedure from start to finish. “Well, with pretransplant evaluation and testing, surgery, fees for the recovery of the organ from the donor, follow-up care and testing, additional hospital stays for complications, fees for surgeons, physicians, radiologist, anesthesiologist, and recurrent lab testing, antirejection and other drugs, which can easily exceed $2,500 per month, and rehabilitation, we are looking at an easy $292,874 bill. With insurance and possible savings, we can see how much of this we can deduct.”

  Cyrus’s head was spinning. He didn’t hear a word Shane was saying. The numbers threw him for quite a loop. His medical insurance only covered up to $100,000, and his savings were wiped out after the second honeymoon he and his wife took just six months prior.

  “I will get the money,” Cyrus said simply and stood up from Shane’s desk. Without another word, he grabbed Casey’s hand and led her out of the office. It was obvious to Casey that Cyrus was more than worried, but she dare not say anything to set him off. He was a beast at times like these. Cyrus didn’t deal with stress easily. He didn’t drink, but he gambled, and the stress would only send them deeper in debt.

  Cyrus didn’t say a word the entire drive home. He was focused on a plan that would go against every moral code he had, but drastic times caused for drastic measures. Casey was worried sick about Cyrus’s plan of action. It was already bad enough she sat by the phone daily filled with worry.