Loving a Colombian Cartel Thug 2 (Loving a Columbian Cartel Thug)

by K'Aliyah Knight

  “Nah cuzzo,” they both say.

  “Where’s Popeye?” I ask, about one of my oldest homies. I know he ain’t been on in years, and the nigga is really taking Blu’s abduction the hardest.

  “Man,” Chuey shakes his head. “Jaylen called me this morning. I came through and scooped up Phillip for school. Sometimes he don’t come home, you know how that nigga is. On a die heart mission to find Blu.”

  “He always ran solo.” I shake my head. Popeye can take care of himself, and he knows how to holla if the block gets too hot.

  ~~~

  An hour later, I’m standing in an old shoe factory that we had converted to a construction site. It serves as the place where all my shit gets legit.

  Is family king? Then why the fuck is my closest sisters’ status unknown? The stress of it all makes me take a quick breath. Grab my Glock and grab a duffel bag I go to the vault that’s been built into the warehouse and to fill up with more guns. Lemme go see abut that bitch Tamms. For Rocky, the sky is the limit.

  “Aye cuzzo...” Chuey says, standing at the vault door. “Get active, it’s Pookie.”

  Damn, I ain’t ever been so relieved to hear another nigga’s name. But Pookie is my police informant.

  “Pookie’s people just spotted Blu,” Chuey says, mentioning the police on payroll. “Pookie said they’re heads are turned. So I just sent out 20 goons.”

  I nod. We stepped the fuck up. Pookie got more of the black-and-blue on the team. It’s a beautiful thing when the cops need a gig. Since Pookie is the Chief of police, he has a few of the boys in blue at different levels. So, his street team is getting ready to turn a blind eye.

  Chuey takes the back of my neck with one hand and then Sean’s. “Y'all ready to get our familia?”

  Chapter 7

  ROCKWELL

  “Yeah, maybe Rocky should...” Rita finally gives me eye contact and keeps chattering, “Lil’ mama, can you fit into the restroom, with the kids, too?” Rita looks at me all kindsa crazy as if I don’t even need to answer that. I don’t understand what’s going on. She was just in the restroom for a long time. Came out like she was on a muthafuckin’ mission, in a zone. Now she’s barking orders at everybody.

  Rita stares at me. I remember that look my own mommy used

  to give when I was little. One time she said, “Something bad gon’ happen to you if I give you a command and you don't listen!” My mommy had been angry with me about something.

  “How?” I was being defiant by acting all smart because I was 13 and she had just forbidden Lorenzo from coming over. Now Rita is giving me that look, but still I ask... “Why?”

  “I was never planning on going home, but see how low the plane is going. Ain’t a pilot, but damn. Y'all we aren't near Colombia. Lorenzo didn't say anything about stopping. I just called to confirm. No answer so we prepare for the worst.” Rita doesn't even stop on a one-track mind as is already, digging in her purse.

  “Mommi!” says Toi as Rita pulls out two burners. “Toi, I never taught you. Just Lorenzo and Blu. Rocky, I know Lorenzo taught you, but damn! All y'all, go hide. Now!” she says as the plane’s tires hit the uneven pavement. Lakitha has Lorenza and Junior shoved into the bathroom.

  Toi wipes away tears and slowly makes her way into the small bathroom.

  The ride is smooth, but my stomach is churning all the same. “Gimme a gun.”

  “Rocky, are you crazy? If you die with my grandbabies, Lorenzo will never forgive me. I won't forgive my-damn-self.”

  I look over at Junior, his head is barely peeping out of the bathroom with them all stuffed inside. Lakitha, being the oldest inside of the tiny area, still looks so scared. But her eyes have a determination in them to keep everyone in line, even attitude having Toi.

  “Rita., Gimme a gun. If I can't help you keep all of us safe...” My throat gets clogged as lush green landscape goes whizzing past the windows. The plane is slowing more and more as she hands me one of the Glocks.

  There’s barely enough room, but the bathroom door closes and clicks with a simple lock. The wheels land softly against the ground and my heart sinks even more.

  Just then, the cabin door opens and Fitz steps out. He looks torn between two evils. “I am so sorry but–”

  BACA.

  A clean shot goes through the pilot’s forehead, exists and lodges into the closed cabin door. His body instantly falls back

  “I don’t need no fucking apology,” Rita says. She takes a deep breath and its like nobody just died… Mama Rita turns to me, saying, “Rocky, get ready. You are to stay right behind that chair and when I step off this plane ... If it ain't me getting back on, shoot!”

  I nod confidently though inside I'm a jumble of nerves. Lorenzo took me to a shooting range when I was in college. After a while, I got good. Shit, I was feeling myself. Blasting holes in zombie-like targets. After seeing Raphael and Lorenzo fighting months ago, I now know that shooting some piece of paper is so much different.

  So, I take a position, behind the chair smack dab in the middle of the jet where the entry/exit way is.

  Boc! Boc! Boc! The sound of bullets outside let me know that shit just got real. Maybe it was a second, a minute or even an hour... But my finger held the trigger the entire time. My thighs begin to ache as I crouch low behind the chair in the middle of the plane. I keep peeking up to see the exit way. Seem to me that the guns won't stop going off! They are super loud. Have you ever tuned somebody out? Maybe they talked, talked, talked and that shit was easy to just push past. This is far from that. I hear bullets. Birds chirping. Maybe even a waterfall in the background. We have to be somewhere tropical. Yet, this shit is so intense.

  “C'mon me pretty-pretty, ol’ bitch you wan’ play,” some dude says with a heavy Jamaican accent. Guns go off again, and then he adds, “I’m gon’ kill you, fuck Lorenzo’s bitch, then murk e’erbody in that plane. If you come out nice, me might be nice to you. Just like me friend be to ya daughter, Blu...”

  I gasp.

  “You fucking come out,” Rita says, no emotion whatsoever. “Pussy-ass nigga! Mama got a lot of love for that ass!”

  My heart begins to race. Mama Rita has to be somewhere hiding or the nigga hiding too. Matter fact, there aren’t as many bullets as before so maybe Rita knows how to handle her gat. Maybe she’s even getting strategic, because nobody else is woofing. All I hear is one Jamaican dude.

  “Nah, ol’ bitch! I'ma be the last one standing. Maybe I'll take you all to Tamms, if you be nice. That better than death?”

  “Me putting a bullet in ya asshole is better than death!” Rita responds. She sounds close and crouched low. I peek and lean against the railing that lifts for the door to open. As soon as I do, a shot is fired. I hop back down. My spine is on fire. My ears are ringing and I look at the chair behind me as stuffing from the seat comes shimmying down. That damn close!

  What to do? I saw a bunch of raggedy-ass Jeeps on the unpaved dirt road about 20 yards away. So, I crouch and crawl down the aisle and to my purse. Don't ask me why I'm getting a can of coke right now. Especially when Lorenzo wouldn't let me drink any caffeine while pregnant and I've had this very can for months. I pull it out, one finger on the trigger still and the other hand holding the can. Mind you, I’m shaking so bad, that I might squeeze the trigger and shoot myself in the thigh. I crawl back over to the exit. Right before I can be seen I toss out the can. The gun goes off in that direction, I see a hand, then a nappy mop looking head peeps up and I shoot.

  “Ahhhh, you stupid bitch.” The man holds his ear. Rita stands up and shoots this nigga like he's Queen Latifah on Set It Off! His body goes jerking, dreads flying all around, as she riddles it with bullets.

  Uzi’s and Ak-47s are scattered all around Rita so I know she had slowly picked these Jamaicans off one at a time. There's a dead nigga at her feet. I’m betting it's his AK 47 in Rita’s hands that's bursting off on ol’ boy that had so much to say. Rita empties the gun’s magazine.

  Finally
, his body hits the ground. Blood, holes, and all. Rita pants and cries, “Man, if you and my babies wasn't here, or Lorenzo Junior...I woulda!” Rita’s voice trembles in a much different tone than she’d used seconds ago. “I'm so mad I woulda went out killing these muthafuckas. No thought to it.”

  I hug her close. “Mama Rita, I'm so sorry.” I cry with her.

  She lets me go and starts opening car doors. Front seat, back seat, checking trunks. “Blu!”

  I check with her, even though I’m feeling pessimistic. It's as if we’re in a frenzy and Lorenzo's sister is on her last breath. We hit up the last jeep together. And finally, all Rita’s energy is drained as she leans against the back door after slamming it.

  “I'm sorry...” I try again.

  Rita starts for one of the dead bodies and picks up her two favorite guns that are emptied of bullets. She puts them in her jean waistline and begins to kick the Jamaican’s dead body repeatedly.

  “Stupid-ass bitch, where my baby at! Huh?” she screams, kicking and stomping on his bloody chest with her bloodied boots. Red spots begin to dot her legs, and ol’ boy’s body is making a mushy sound as she beats him.

  “Rita please...” I try. She kicks him so much that she trips and I have to catch her. We both fall into the dried mud.

  “Mama Rita. I'm sorry...”

  “Stop, please stop.” Her tears finally become long sniffles. “Ain't your fault.”

  “It is.”

  “You’re pregnant Rocky. Go sit in the plane. Get some rest. I have to find a town and see if we can get a new pilot to fly this plane. If it will fly!” She looks at all the bullet holes in the front. Luckily, none lodged near the back where the kids are.

  “Mi Bonita, mi Rocky,” Rita finally looks at me. She’s not all angry as before but like the mom, I’ve always known her for. “Go check on the kids.”

  I nod. Something tells me that Rita is more than a mother to 5 kids. More than a RN at Hoover community hospital. I glance at 15 bodies on the way back to the plane stairs. Remembering her words before we left Hoover. Months ago but feels like I heard them minutes ago. She had told me not to trust anybody beside her and Lorenzo and the girls. She said nobody in the house. Chuey and Sean were there. But I felt too uncomfortable to ask if she meant them too...

  It was as if she barely wanted to return to Colombia. Only the twins would make her leave the comfort of home and the beginning of a war between us and Tamms, Italians, and I guess now the Jamaicans.

  What makes me even more uncomfortable? Her willingness to die today. She put her all into keeping us safe. But if it weren't for us, she'd have been on a suicide mission fighting off pure anger for her first-born daughter, Blu, and not strategizing.

  Chapter 8

  RITA.

  My bones feel it each and every time I run, crouch and overtake those crazy Jamaicans.

  God, I just want to hold a bomb and blow us all up. Kill all of them and me at the same time. I feel in my heart that Blu is nowhere around. But besides that, I’m planning for the rest of my family. If not for Rocky and the kids, the bomb would be a good look. And I would be slightly vindicated over Blu's abduction Then I wouldn't have to go back home.

  The sun works down on my back. Shit, shoulda made sure Rocky kept watch at the plane’s entrance. Told y’all I raised her along with my own knuckleheaded kids. Shoulda gotten her earlier since her parents was trying to teach her to be prissy. Lord knows, she fucked with Lorenzo the way she had always kinda shy- flirted with him in the past. I knew she would need to learn a lot. I look back, but the plane is somewhere behind palm and banana trees. So all I can do is hope she has some sense.

  Where the fuck are we?

  We hadn't gone too far. About an hour into the flight the plane's drop took me away from hating Santi. I can’t help but think about that dreadful day when I saved Santiago's life.

  Maybe we’re in Cuba… I've got friends in Cuba. Then again, a bitch like me has enemies anywhere I got friends…

  Twenty minutes later, my mind is on the restaurant that Lorenzo took me to the other day. I love my son more than anything. To be honest, probably even more than my daughters. I know, I know, but lemme just count that on genetics like my father loved my brother and those that came before me. I keep telling myself not to cuss Lorenzo’s ass out if we make it out of this unknown island area. So, yeah the other day, it was just me and my first born, Lorenzo, for dinner at this fancy restaurant. He gave me a diamond necklace. We had chatted about the good old days. I promised never to go hard on him anymore. I promised to embrace the lifestyle he leads. Well, today I sure as hell embraced it while busting on the Jamaicans’. But Colombia…

  A raggedy old truck turned to rust from probably decades of lush rain starts my way. Inwardly I thank God it isn’t raining as I continue through the vibrant green area. Then my eyes narrow, and my hands move next to my waistband. Music drifts through the air, happy Spanish tunes with a certain dialect that reminds me of...

  Cuba.

  The truck gets closer. There are two dudes in the front and one standing on the bed of the truck. The one on the trunk is in a jean shirt; tapping on the roof as he listens to the music. He signals the driver and they begin to pull over. He has a nice smile behind a full beard of scruff. “Aye mommi, que pasa?”

  The smile is gone as realization sets in. Yup, he knows me. And from the narrow in his dark brown eyes, and the purse of his lips, ol’ boy remembers me very well.

  Now lemme take a second to bring that shit back. How the fuck could one person have this much bad luck in one day?

  Dang.

  I know this dude. Stole about 17 kilos of the purest coke for him. Yup, my luck has gone to shit.

  Chapter 9

  BLU

  Patrol had my face black and blue by the time he finished his business. Joke on him because I wouldn't even want to pay that nigga for me if I was Tamms! I couldn’t believe Rocky had married Tamara Sica’s son. Raphael had been a punk. He had a bitch mentality, but when I heard Tamms on the phone with Patrol talking like I was some dice game, I knew she would go no less than hard. Maybe harder than any of these niggas.

  See these nigga’s are motivated in the worst of ways. They’re grimy as fuck and out for blood. And if she’s worse? I’m super dead.

  I step out of the hotel room for the first time in two months. The sunlight is warm against my face. It reminds me of being a kid when summer lasted forever. Then the sunlight burns my eyes and reminds me that I’ve been living like a vampire.

  “Get in,” Patrol, whacks the side of my head, as we stop at a raggedy ass jeep.

  An older couple coming out of their motel room looks at us funny. They stare Like people do when a nigga is beating on his bitch, and you kinda wanna help the bitch but don’t know if she gon’ buck up on you. Yeah, they think I’m that stupid type that runs toward the fist.

  Without uttering a single word, I get in the backseat.

  There’s loud screeching as a Caprice pulls up to the curb and stops on a dime next to . Now my heart stops, just skips each and every beat. That car looks just like my husband’s!

  My heart is on pause. I remind myself to breathe, because it would be a shame if I died of self-induced asphyxiation two seconds before Popeye can rescue me. The driver side door busts open. A Mexican dude with leather alligator boots hops out. He leans back into the car and gives the steering wheel a long honk. It ain’t my Popeye. He starts screaming in Spanish about his woman being in a hotel room with his brother again…

  Patrol looks at me in the rearview mirror, as he reverses out of the parking spot. He gives a hard glare, knowing I had hoped for a hero.

  I pray... ‘Jesus.’ Damn, I stop. Why in the world does my mind instantly go to the crack? The things I would do for drugs. Shit, it had become my god. So how am I supposed to get back to God? How can I ask to see my husband ever again? How can I ask to see Phillip, my beautiful baby, Phillip, my moms, Rita, my big brother Lorenzo, my little sister
s, even Rocky and my nephew. How can I ask so much when a bitch like me had taken it all for granted in the first place?

  But the closer and closer we get to Hoover, passing Chi-Town, I know the devil is near. Fuck the devil. I get to praying.

  ‘Jesus, please, please forgive my sins.’ In my mind, I'm spitting out how good I would be to Phillip. Raise him as a Catholic. Yes Lawd! If God gave me Popeye back... Hell, I ain't even gon’ ask, but God knows my heart. If He wants to, then He can save my life and my marriage. I’ll take it. So, I just pray and have faith. Ain't never had faith like this. Not at the little Catholic Church that me, Lorenzo and Lakitha went to as kids in Colombia. Not even when we moved to Illinois. Not ever!

  Patrol looks at me through the rearview mirror with an evil smile. “Aye gyal, wan’ gimme lickle ‘fore you meet you death? We can pull over to a gas station…”

  I start singing at the top of my lungs, praising Jesus with my entire heart.

  “Bitch, me say you wan’–”

  “Thank you, Jesus,” I must've made up the song. But this is what Rocky would do when we were younger, on a Sunday and we blew off church. Technically, it was really her blowing it off to hang around with us. Our mothers were both RNs and only LaShawn made Rocky go to church without her. I imagine my play-sis by my side and then there's another presence to my left. I feel warm and comforted as I keep singing, “Thank you, Lord.”

  “Shut the fuck up!” Patrol screams.

  “Thank you…” I sing on. Lungs hurt, but I know God loves me and I know I'm not meant to die today as long as God is with me. Warm tears glide down my swollen cheeks and I feel loved. “Thank you, Jesus!”

  Once in The H, the Jeep stops in the middle of Vermont Avenue. Patrol gets out, slamming the door. The glass shatters onto the passenger seat in front of me, but I'm still singing. Can’t even feel the throb of my aching face, because the Lord is here.