Jumping back into Jakki’s car, School Boy pulled out the hospital parking as quickly as possible. Knowing he’d tried committing one of the most unforgettable acts ever, he knew his time running wild in the city since a kid had run its course. After driving a few miles he arrived back at Lena’s house. Not sure if his cousin and Lena were dead, alive, or locked up behind bars he knew any of the three outcomes of the late-night robbery gone wrong would ultimately bring people over to the house. Rushing into the living room, he tipped the couch over grabbing the plastic bag containing not only his portion of stolen jewelry, but Lena’s brother’s as well. Almost knocking the bedroom door off its hinges, School Boy stuffed some of his clothes and a few other personal items into a duffle bag. Throwing the bag over his shoulder then grabbing the last few pieces of the chicken his jump off had fired earlier, he left back out the front door not even bothering to lock it.
Walking by Jakki’s car, he tossed her car keys in the back seat landing them next to her and Lena’s purses. Getting into his own vehicle, he drove off once more this time having no deliberate destination. He knew by now his name was mud with his family and probably ringing in the streets. Still in a murderous state of mind, his only regret was not being able to send his uncle on his way. Thinking about calling the hospital just to see what was what, he was startled by his phone ringing. Knowing Jakki was the only one person with the number to his new cell, he braced himself for what she had to say. “Oh I see you made it out alive huh, bitch!” he sinisterly remarked answering the line.
“Yo, who is this?” Maino barked out as his blood pressure jumped even higher.
“What?” School Boy was confused expecting to hear Jakki’s smart yapping mouth trying to come at him sideways not some random man. “Naw, fool, who in the fuck is this?”
“Listen up, whoever you are. Your dumb friend dropped their cell phone after crashing a damn truck through the back of my store. Who cell phone is this? I’ma find out and when I do, I’ma kill ’em!” he firmly vowed thinking about the amount of damage that was done.
“Oh yeah, is that right?” School Boy, not new to the game, played it off not knowing if Jakki and Lena were in police custody and the cops were trying to trick him to incriminate himself. “Dude, I don’t know who or what you talking about. You calling my phone this late on some bullshit.”
Maino reminded School Boy in the manner he’d started the call. “If you don’t know whose phone this is why did you ask did they get out alive? I ain’t no fool, young blood!”
It’d been a long night and School Boy was fed up with the back and forth. Ready to put an end to the conversation and questions in general, he gave the man what he was looking for: answers. “I tell you what, old man, you’ve had a mad helluva bad luck week so I’m about to put you up on some game just on the humble.”
All ears, Maino leaned back against his car as School Boy dry snitched on Jakki Crayton and her girlfriends for breaking into his pill house, then blamed tonight’s robbery on her as well. Since he wasn’t able to successfully murk his uncle, he decided to throw him under the bus as well. “Yeah, fool, my people’s, the Crayton Clan, got it out for you in a bad way. The old man Ruben is the one who sicced his daughter on you in the first place. He the one you need to be talking about killing, player, not me.”
“Say what now?” Maino puzzled out loud as he started to pace in front of the boutique. “Aww, man, why is they messing with me? Tell Ruben and his daughter they wrong as hell for this! This is foul!” He voice grew with every syllable. “We don’t even run in the same circles; not now not ever! My house where I make my ends, now my goddamn store; for what? I ain’t never had no beef with them Craytons; ever!”
“Well guess what, homeboy, the fuck you do now!” With those final words, School Boy was elated he’d planted the seed for a potential windfall of trouble. Powering off his cell, School Boy now had a destination and purpose. Maino had just let him know on the humble that Jakki and Lena must’ve escaped. So on that note, he made a U-turn. Heading toward Jakki’s house in hopes of further settling some family business before he left town, once again School Boy had blood in his eyes.
Chapter 16
The sun was shining brightly through the car’s windshield as Jakki’s mother drove them home. Convinced her husband was stable health-wise and was promised extra security to ensure his safety she suggested to her daughter they both go home to get some much needed rest and to freshen up. Jakki, still dressed in a now dry, soiled skirt, no panties, and two faded hospital gowns, was quick to agree with her, feeling like a walking billboard for filth.
Having been preoccupied with her father’s well-being and the heinous reality that School Boy had tried to end his life, Jakki gave little or no mind to the God-awful fact that Lena had indeed lost hers right in her arms. Sitting back in the passenger seat with her eyes shut, she wished she hadn’t her lost cell phone to check the local news channel Web site updates about possibly a deceased female’s body having been discovered in a botched burglary scene. Even though she and her cousin’s jump off weren’t that incredibly close, Jakki, unlike School Boy had a conscience for actions that harmed somewhat innocent people and bystanders who weren’t totally in the game. They didn’t ask for or welcome the fallout from street life; it just was forced on them. Sadly they’d have to start the sunny morning off by planning a funeral. Wanting to at least contact Lena’s people and tell them what exactly happened the night before when their loved one took her final breath, Jakki knew that wasn’t an option.
Awakened out her emotional trance by her mother telling her to get out of the car Jakki felt a huge sense of relief seeing the front porch of her house. Raising her weary body upward, she climbed out the vehicle practically dragging herself inside the two-story dwelling. Walking by the kitchen door, she saw her mother, who should’ve been exhausted herself, had wasted no time putting water on for some coffee as if they just didn’t have plenty down at the hospital.
“Hey, Mom, I’m going to take a long, hot shower. I feel like a dirtball or something.”
“Okay, dear. I’m gonna fix us a light breakfast to go with this coffee.”
Yeah, now that’s what I’m talking about! Two soon-to -be dead Craytons for the low discounted price of one! School Boy had been parked a block over but could easily see his uncle’s house in between the multiple scattered abandoned homes. With the same amount of inner rage he felt a few hours prior when trying to suffocate the man who raised him as a son, School Boy’s blood started to boil when he saw not only Jakki but, who he perceived to always mistreat and be mean to him, his aunt as well. Both them turncoat hoes gonna pay for trying to turn my family on me! His warped mind kicked into overdrive as he stepped outside his car. Nonchalantly making his way through the debris-filled empty lots, the fire burning in his belly grew. None of them loved me for real anyway. After I do them, maybe I’ll go back by Lena’s and kill that worrisome trick, too! I’m tired of everybody and they fake stuntin’.
Having crept along the side of the house, School Boy solemnly stood outside of Jakki’s bedroom reminiscing, wishing his childhood had been different. Knowing the neighbors wouldn’t pay attention to him being in the back yard he’d grown up running around, playing tag, and having family barbeques in, he felt confident he’d not be interrupted. Peeping through the raised window’s screen, he saw Jakki wasn’t inside her private girlie domain. With ease, he used the same method he’d done years ago when he set her bedroom on fire after being scolded. Not only did he bend the corner of the wire back this time, School Boy snatched the entire thing out the frame tossing it on the direct spot he’d left the broken neck family puppy. Lifting himself up, he crawled his muscular frame through the window landing on the side of Jakki’s bed.
Momentarily pausing he remained motionless. School Boy heard the sounds of the shower water and knew it was time to put his rotten plan into effect. Standing up, he walked over toward the door as quietly as possible avoiding the parts of th
e floor he knew always creaked. Poking his head out into the dim hallway, the deranged soon-to-be killer looked down seeing steam coming from underneath the crack of the bathroom door. He knew his cousin Jakki was famous for taking long showers and would nine out of ten be preoccupied for a while giving him time enough to solve one of his two problems. Having been raised in the household for years, School Boy inhaled taking a strong whiff of his aunt’s fresh-brewed coffee and knew she was either in the kitchen cooking or planted in front of the television watching an episode of The Price Is Right.
Just as he hoped, his aunt had her back to him and was bending down putting some of her beloved homemade biscuits in the preheated oven. A coward, not wanting to see his aunt’s face, he made little noise as his arm reached over to the kitchen countertop. Wrapping his fingers tightly around the handle of a knife, with ease he raised it upward out of the brown wooden block. School Boy’s palms grew sweaty as they always did when he was about to do mischief. Reliving several events as a child when he felt his aunt had treated him wrong, his adrenalin kicked in and his mouth watered for the sweet taste of revenge. With the knife now up over his head seconds from smashing down into the center spine of older woman’s back he cruelly spoke out, “Auntie, you should’ve never treated me like a stranger, like I didn’t belong! I’m a Crayton by blood; you just married into it!”
Getting chill bumps, feeling like someone other than herself was in the kitchen, Jakki’s mother lifted up from the open hot oven door in just enough time to avoid certain death before hearing his salty words ring out. Instantaneously she could feel the intense fury imbedded deep in her nephew’s soul as they locked eyes and he swung the knife once more this time slicing her arm. “Oh my God, School Boy! Why? Me and Ruben never did anything to you! Why? We took you in as our own!”
“Why?” He evilly repeated as she begged for her life to be spared. “More like why not? You never liked me. You took every chance you got to poison my uncle’s love for me; you and Jakki!”
The devout churchgoing Catholic backed up into the refrigerator saying her prayers. Fearing this was the end and she’d soon meet the Almighty Creator, she braced herself to. Before the loving wife and mother could get the first Hail Mary completely out, School Boy’s coldblooded expression of a hunter about to devour his prey was unexpectedly turned to that of a terrified victim. With his eyes now twice their normal size, his mouth fell open but no words of hate spewed from his quivering lips. With the balance of a man who’d drunk an entire fifth of Hennessy straight, he then staggered across the marble kitchen floor dropping the knife he was holding out his hands. Falling face first near the still open oven door and his terrified aunt’s feet, the room grew eerily silent. Jakki, hair dripping wet, wrapped in a towel stood judgmentally over him having that same murderous rage embedded deep in her soul School Boy just had in his. If there was any question as to if they were cut from the same cloth, they ended here, today, on this now bloodied kitchen floor.
In his short amount of time living, School Boy had done more than enough of his fair share of treachery and mayhem to shake hands with the devil in person. The always ill-intentioned thug earned that unvalued right years ago and Jakki had just made sure her cousin was well on his way to hellfire to get his just due. As she and her mother, nursing a small fresh wound, somberly watched their once beloved family member squirm, urinate on himself, then bleed out from the recently sharpened meat cleaver Jakki had just roughly lodged in the rear of his skull, she had a flash back to the day School Boy’s father had been taken out the game of life almost in the same fashion: a female with a blade.
In less than a twelve-hour time span, School Boy, obviously snapped and becoming deranged, had tried to murder all three of his close family members without so much as a second thought. In each case it was only God that spared the trio, not any remorse on School Boy’s behalf. Throughout a mixture of feelings ranging from sorrow, pity, and regret to anger and resentment, a huge sense of relief and satisfaction soon emerged and smiles graced both mother’s and daughter’s faces.
Chapter 17
Jakki had taken total charge of the wilded out situation that’d just unfolded. Having called her uncle to immediately come over to the house, she spoke to him in the living room first before leading him into the kitchen. Upon witnessing his wayward nephew sprawled on the floor, face first, in a pool of dark blood with his eyes wide open, he knew at least his brother’s attempted murder the night before had been avenged by the very person who he and Ruben had fought not to stand at the head of the table: Jakki. Placing a call to a few of the other family members who handled this type of circumstance whenever it’d occurred, the older man consoled his brother’s still in shock wife as his niece calmly made further needed plans to ties up any loose ends.
Of course Jakki was heartbroken that her once favorite cousin lay dead a few feet away and it was by her hand, but so be it. She knew he seemed relentless in his attempt to bring harm to her and her parents, so he had to go. Her only mission at this point was to make sure the family as a whole was good and would not have to suffer through any unwanted contact with the authorities.
After getting OnStar to locate her missing vehicle, Jakki got one of her trusted cousins to drive her to the address she recognized as Lena’s house. Hopefully Lena’s people or worse than that the police wouldn’t be there investigating and she could drive off no questions asked. As she and her cousin bent the corner, they saw School Boy’s car parked the next block over. Telling him to pull over, Jakki boldly walked up the window, which was cracked, reaching her arm inside to unlock the door. Grabbing a duffle bag off the rear seat, Jakki returned to the car using her government-issued Obama cell to call a crooked tow truck they always used to have the vehicle taken to a junk yard that required no paperwork and crushed for scrap immediately. Searching through her deceased cousin’s bag, Jakki felt some of School Boy’s recent sins were paid for after discovering the bag of stolen jewelry.
Fifteen minutes later, Jakki’s prayers were answered as they turned on Lena’s block. There were no people on her front porch crying, no neighbors being nosey acting like they gave a damn, no yellow tape, and thankfully no police. The only thing Jakki saw was her car parked in the front just as OnStar said it was. Wasting no time, she darted to her car, spare keys in hand. Jumping into the driver’s seat she pulled off not even bothering to notice her and Lena’s purses were in the same spot they’d left them in and School Boy, as a last goodwill gesture, had kindly left her car keys as well. Signaling out the window to her cousin that she was good, Jakki headed toward the hospital. Surrounded with a smug feeling of accomplishment, she wanted to be the one to break the news about his nephew’s untimely demise and the circumstances surrounding his death.
Strolling through the lobby, this time dressed appropriately, Jakki pushed the elevator button. As the door open then closed, she thought she saw two of what seemed like familiar faces coming toward the other set of elevators seeing how they’d missed hers. Stepping off on the seventh floor, the proud daughter marched to her father’s room and straight to his bedside where he seemed to be awaiting her arrival.
“Jakki, I wasn’t expecting you back so soon, but I’m glad you’re here.” He reassuringly placed his wrinkled hand on top of hers after laying his cell phone down on top of the blanket. “We need to talk.”
“Yeah, Dad, we do. I have something to tell you.”
“Well sorry, baby doll, it will have to wait for now.” He announced somewhat bursting her bubble, “Something important has been brought to me that needs both mine and your immediate attention.”
“Is it about School Boy?” she confusingly asked hoping her uncle hadn’t beaten her to the punch in delivering the tragic but much needed news. “Because that’s who I wanna talk about!”
“Well yes, and no,” Ruben quickly responded trying to adjust his pillow. “It’s about the pills and cough syrup you put in the family pot earlier this week and whatever foolishness that s
upposedly happened last night.”
“Last night?” Jakki was now even more bewildered about what her father was talking about not connecting the two crimes she’d committed together.
“Yeah, Jakki; last night before you got down here to the hospital to see me; some type of trouble you and that fool nephew of mine done got into.”
“Push the button for the seventh floor,” Maino instructed his partner as the door slid closed.
“I don’t understand why after all this time we’ve been doing our thing Ruben Crayton would want to try to step on our toes. It don’t make sense.”
Maino felt the same way and was just as confused as his longtime friend. “Yeah, you right. None of it makes any sense. Them Craytons ain’t never did business on our side of town and not once, even when I had my whores on the stroll, did they trick on his. Then all of a sudden, boom, here they come.”
“Yeah, Maino, out of nowhere he puts his daughter and them foul skeezers on us.” He stroked his manhood thinking about how the females had spitefully duct taped it and the enormous pain he felt taking it off. “I’m glad you found his number in her phone and reached out. We need to end this misunderstanding before it gets even more outta hand. They dipping in our pockets like it’s their money not ours!”
Maino took a deep breath when the seventh floor light lit up. When he and his partner stepped off the elevator and into the busy hallway, he told him to just fall back and let him do all the talking. “Listen, the way the man was talking earlier, he seemed kinda lost about what was going down. It might’ve been all game and what that fool on the phone said was true, they is coming for our hustle.” Maino grew more courage with each passing steps the duo took. “But whatever the case is, we got an ace in the hole; one that’s gonna stop him and his family dead in their tracks.”
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