Riding Dirty on I-95

by Nikki Turner

He ignored his mother and walked out of the den and into the kitchen. “Man, what's the deal?” C-Note continued his phone conversation with Jus as he opened up the refrigerator.

  “Man, I got this bitch coming over and she bringing a friend. You trying to fuck or what?” his childhood friend asked.

  Jus and C-Note had raised so much hell together. They swindled together, got money together, spent it together, and without a doubt tag-teamed broads together. So without even needing the details on the chicks, he responded, “No doubt.”

  “They want us to take them out and then afterwards, you know what's up.”

  “A'ight.”

  “So, I'ma hit you up in 'bout an hour after I see what the bitch friend look like.”

  “Don't have me coming to see no Skeletor bitch.” They both laughed and began cracking jokes like they always did.

  “I'm at my momma spot now, so hit me up when shawdy get there.” C-Note hung up the phone.

  Lolly walked into the kitchen and put a stack of mail in front of her son. “Hump,” she huffed. “And your brother wrote you, too. You need to be going to see him.”

  “Ma, he know what's up. He da one that said it best: ‘Visitors make prisoners.’ ” He then tore the envelope open to read his brother's letter. His brother, Lynx, had been locked up for a good year and had never written him before, so C-Note knew that this letter was probably going to be an earful.

  “Well, at least write him back,” Lolly said, placing a pen and paper in front of him. “Ain't no need to get up from that table until after you write your brother back.”

  “I hear you, Ma,” C-Note said before adding, “Damn,” under his breath so that she couldn't hear him cursing her. He then started to read the letter.

  What's up, my lil nigga?

  That's right, I said it. You gonna always be my lil' nigga no matter how much bigger than me you get. Well, let me jump straight to the point. Your name has been ringing bells around here on the yard. Word is that you doing major things. I had been meaning to write you for about two weeks now, but I been caught up doing shit up in here. When Ma came to see me this weekend, she told me how you was living. Ma ain't stupid, you know. She confirmed what I already knew. She demanded that I write you and give you a pull up. Before I get into that, I want to tell you thanks for the money slips. Good looking out. The pink slips been looking healthy, and you know a nigga likes that shit.

  When Ma first asked me to write you and give the law to you about the streets, my initial thoughts were that gangstas don't write about the streets, the streets write about us. But after some persistent solicitation (by Ma) and further deliberation (by me), I decided to do it. I know I may sound like I'm preaching to you, but peace, my little nigga. Just be patient. I promise to keep it short, and to the point.

  You probably asking yourself, “Who the fuck this nigga think he is, locked the fuck up trying to tell me how to do mines? What makes him so bona fide?” Peace that, soldier, I feel you! And I'm not claiming to be a guru of the streets. I don't profess to be a master of the game, nor do I hold any “hustla of the year” awards. And as you know, I'm not, or wasn't even, the best hustla in our family. You know that title is held by our father; may he thug in peace. But I am yo' big brother, the one who taught you everything you know and would die for you. I'm also one of the few soldiers that has paid his dues and made his bones in order to obtain what most every street soldier covets. The most elusive street dream. The reason why we lay those bricks and blaze those burners, the holy trinity to the streets: Money, Power, and Respect!

  I'm not going to glamorize, trivialize, condone, nor condemn the type of life that the men in our family have lived. It started out with Grandpa and moonshine. Then our Pops with heroin and PCP This legacy was then passed to me. And now to you. This is truly not what I wanted for you. I wouldn't wish this type of life on my worst enemy. The chances of survival are slim. The chances of maintaining your freedom are almost nonexistent. Some may ask, why do we do it then? In the beginning it is to eat, but then to be totally honest with you, most of us love this shit…. It's a “G” thang

  As for us, we were born with a disease. We contracted it from our mother at birth. Actually it's more of an addiction than a disease. The worst vice any man born with nothing can have: Good Taste! But I'm not mad at her. The game was good to me. You know it. I was driving some of the best automobiles, wearing some of the tightest gear, and fucking some of the finest bitches on the planet. But like they say, excessive amounts of anything is not good for you. The street maxim “Ball till you fall” couldn't have been more true. I literally balled until I fell.

  Remember when you told me that you wanted to be a gangsta and move more weight, and I told you it gets greater later? Well, I can see that later is finally here for you now. So, I can only pass on what was given to me by Pops long ago.

  THESE ARE THE TEN MOST CRUCIAL RULES FOR PROSPERITY AND SURVIVAL IN THE GAME:

  10. Death B4 Dishonor

  9. Kill or be killed

  8. Never trust a shadow after dark

  7. Never talk B-I over the phone

  6. Trust no one! Even down to never letting anyone ride in your backseat! No one can be trusted! No one!

  5. The only way three people can keep a secret is if two of them are dead!

  4. Beware of the cross: crisscross, holy cross, and the double-cross

  3. Protect what's yours by all means necessary

  2. Never use your own product!

  But the last and most crucial rule is the most invaluable of them all. If you can only remember one rule, this is it:

  1. THERE ARE NO RULES!!!!

  Always remember that I am here when you need me.

  Love, Lynx

  PS: Play at your own risk.

  A smile came across C-Note's face as he folded up the letter and placed it back in the envelope. He sat at the table and digested everything that his brother had just spoon-fed him in the letter. C-Note's meditation was interrupted by his greedy, money-hungry momma. Just that quick she had gone from housecoat to a tight-fitting jogging suit.

  “C, I need some money to go to Bingo,” she said, lighting up a cigarette.

  “Ma, come on, I just gave you money.”

  “Well, you only gave me three hundred dollars, and that's gone. I had to buy some groceries and pay the man to come and do the yard since you too busy to do it. And I told you that I want to get a new kitchen set.”

  “So why you asking for money to gamble it away at Bingo, then?”

  “Because I was trying to make it easy on you. That's why I was going to go to Bingo to win the money for my kitchen set and make it easy on your pockets,” Lolly said. “If I was asking you for the money to buy the kitchen set, it would be for a hell of a lot more than some three hundred dollars.”

  C-Note shook his head as he went in his pocket and pulled out his bankroll. “Ma, you don't make no sense,” he said, and gave her a hundred-dollar bill.

  Lolly, with one hand on her hip, extended her other hand out for more money. “You know it takes money to make money,” she said.

  “Damn, I got niggas in the street trying to get me for what's mines, and now my own momma, too. Now, ain't that some shit.” He handed her another Franklin. “I hope this'll do you. And I hope you ain't going out here with that tight-ass shit on either.”

  She tucked the two hundred dollars in her bosom, and as she walked away, she yelled over her shoulder, “And watch your mothafuckin' mouth. I don't know where you get that talk from.”

  C-Note shook his head as he smiled, thinking about his crazy momma as she switched down the hall. He wouldn't trade her for the world.

  CHAPTER 8

  Work on Greyhound

  “Hello, you have a collect call from—” said the automatic recording.

  “Raheem,” Mercy heard Raheem's voice jump in. She pressed five to accept the call.

  “What's the deal, baby?” Raheem said.

  “Nothing much, same
old same,” Mercy replied. She was stretched out on her big king-sized bed. She'd been sleeping alone for the last three months, ever since Raheem had chosen money over her. A week later he had gotten busted on I-95; she was grateful that she wasn't with him. She had gotten a stomach virus the day he was leaving. He needed some work and couldn't wait for the virus to pass.

  “You heard from dude?” Raheem asked.

  “Yup, I just sent you some money that he gave me for you. Did you get it yet?”

  “Naw, it ain't come yet, but I'll probably get it today.”

  “Yeah, you should've got it yesterday, but since you didn't, you'll probably get it today.”

  “So Hyena and them been holding you down, huh?” Raheem asked.

  “They good people,” she commented.

  Hyena was the New York connect that Raheem had been dealing with before he was hauled off to a federal prison. Mercy felt Hyena's name should have been Buck-Eye because of the black patch he sported over his right eye, but the name seemed to fit him. Built like a bowling ball, Hyena was a short, stocky guy who stood at five feet, five inches tall and weighed in at 230 pounds. He wore his long, coal-black hair in a ponytail.

  Once Raheem was behind bars, he hooked up Mercy with Hyena, and from that moment Mercy's chips started rolling in like never before. Hyena arranged for Mercy to transport drugs throughout the East Coast corridor. She handled herself so well that he kept giving her more and more assignments. Hyena loaded Mercy with so much work that she had to recruit Chrissie and a few other good chicks to help her get the packs from Point A to Point B. Hyena only dealt with Mercy directly, though, and Mercy moved the most work because if she couldn't trust anyone else, she knew she could trust herself. She kept her cookie packer job, but trafficking was what really paid the bills. And using plain old common sense with a combination of street savvy and trial and error, she mastered the job.

  “Oh, yeah, I just took seventy-five hundred to the attorney. Hyena gave me five of that, and I put the other twenty-five hundred to it. I'm going to do some lil' odds and ends work so I can give the attorney five more,” she told Raheem.

  “Damn, baby. You looking out for the old boy, huh? You be holding me down.”

  “I ain't got no choice. You know real bitches do real things.”

  “When I met you at the Ambassador, I never knew that you would turn into a real soldier for me. You could have run out on me just like everyone else did when the damn Americas Most Wanted show splattered my pictures all over the country,” Raheem said. “You know I 'preciate you.”

  Mercy had seen those pictures on the TV as well as the pictures of two men he was supposed to have murdered back in New York. Whether Raheem did the murders or not, Mercy didn't know, but now he was sitting in a federal jail trying to rumble with the government to give him liberty.

  “You know I got your back,” she said.

  “All right, ma. Well you know I'ma get at you again real soon.”

  “Stay up, baby” Mercy said as they ended the call.

  Mercy had basically been footing Raheem's whole attorney bill, holding him down better than any of his so-called loyal niggas ever could or would. She prayed that somehow the attorney would find a loophole in Raheem's cases and that Raheem would be released. And once he was, he would appreciate her for what she was and would make her wifey Somehow she managed to make it all work: visits, letters, cards, calls, keeping the commissary stacked, and knocking the lawyer's bill down, all in between her drug runs. Mercy laid in the bed for an hour thinking about Raheem. Before she knew it, it was time for her to go and punch the clock on I-95. She took a shower, grabbed a few things, put them in her Fendi bucket pocketbook and was out the door.

  I swear to God, I don't want to catch no stinking-ass Greyhound with all this work on me, Mercy thought as she headed for the bus station. Last time that shit had me good and miserable the way it hit every single bump in the dag'on road.

  She was catching the express bus to Richmond. She had one more run after this one, and she was hoping to get back in time to go to a big party on Friday night. She continued her thoughts as she approached the Greyhound bus at the Port Authority in New York. She knew she had to play it safe. She couldn't drive with all the shit on her, and Hyena said that the car with the stash box was in the shop. She didn't have time to sit around New York and wait, so she decided to go ahead and leave the driving to Greyhound.

  This was the third time that Mercy had ridden like this with the work taped down to her body under her clothes with a body girdle on top. Something had to give. When she'd been dealing with Raheem, the heroin was just taped and wrapped up like a dick, which she stuck up in her canal. But back then it had only been a hundred or two hundred grams. Dealing with Hyena, the game had been stepped up to a whole new level. More money brought more work. Work that couldn't be shoved up in her pussy.

  Mercy was anxious to get her job done so she could get herself together to go to the party that everybody in town was going to. Since she traveled everywhere picking up money and delivering drugs, she was able to shop at any of those destinations. And she did, big-time. So her outfit was never the problem. The finishing touches—hair, nails, pedicures, and accessories—were the problem. She had to be home in plenty of time for all that.

  As the bus rolled down the highway, Mercy drifted off to sleep as she thought about how much fun she would have at the party and what she had to do when she reached home and was done working. She had managed to get into a comfortable deep sleep when she was awakened by flashing blue lights as the bus started slowing down. Mercy didn't know what the hell was going on, but she immediately reached in her Prada tote bag and put her Air Max on. Once her sneakers were tied tight, she got up out of her seat.

  “Excuse me, excuse me,” she said politely to the people whose elbows or shoulders hung off a little into the aisle as she headed to the rear of the bus. She went into the bathroom and locked the door behind her. Someone must've gave her up. She had to think quickly. She took the drugs off of her body full tilt and looked for a place to hide the packs, but couldn't find anywhere in the compact bathroom. When she felt the bus pull off the road and come to a complete stop, she had no choice but to flush the drugs down the toilet.

  She threw some water on her face and was back in her seat before the police got on the bus. As the police officer slowly made his way down the aisle, checking IDs of the passengers on the bus, Mercy's heart began to beat faster and faster. Trying not to look worried, she buried her head in her book, Whoreson, just to keep from falling apart. She was sure that her name was the one that the police were looking for.

  Damn, what ID should I show him? The real one or my fake one? Mercy thought. If he's looking for me, what name would he be looking for? I know this motherfucker is coming to get me. Somebody had to drop a dime on me. Shit, I knew I shouldn't have taken Greyhound. This shit is too risky.

  “May I see your ID, ma'am?” the officer asked Mercy.

  “Yes, sir,” Mercy answered, handing over her ID, wondering if she should play it cool.

  The police barely glanced at her ID before handing it back to her. Mercy exhaled once he was two seats behind her. But he still had to check the restroom, and she'd been the last one to come out.

  She prayed that the dope hadn't floated back to the top. Then all of a sudden another thought came across Mercy's mind. What was she going to tell Hyena? What if he didn't believe her? Was he going to kill her, or what? She definitely wasn't going to get paid. Her mind raced every which way.

  The police finally exited the bus and she knew she was okay. It was a close call, but at least she had her freedom. Once she reached Richmond, her brain began to operate more clearly. She had to get the dope out of the toilet to make sure that it got where it was supposed to be. She would do everything in her power to keep Hyena from knowing she had lost control of the situation. So she waited until the night crew came on and watched as an old man got on to clean the bus. Mercy followed behind hi
m.

  “Hey, how you doing?” Mercy asked.

  “Fine,” the older black man said. He looked like he should have been retired and not cleaning anybody's buses.

  Mercy didn't want to scare the man, because he was her only chance at getting the drugs. So she decided to turn on her sweet and innocent girlish charm.

  “Sir, I really need your help,” she said, looking helpless. “I was taking my little niece to the bathroom, and she dropped some very important stuff in the toilet by mistake. Is it anyway possible you can get it out for me?”

  “Stuff?” he questioned, with a peculiar look on his face.

  “Yeah, uh, some important papers,” Mercy lied in the most convincing tone she could muster.

  He looked her in the eyes as she continued to pour her heart out. “I'll pay you. I just really need your help.”

  “Pay me?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I'll pay you,” Mercy repeated.

  “Just for getting some paper out the toilet for you?”

  “Well, it's more like some packages,” Mercy said, batting her eyes. “The packages are important, but I'll pay you a hundred dollars.”

  Upon hearing the dollar amount, the man agreed with no more questions asked. “Consider it done. You don't have to worry your pretty little self anymore. I'll take care of it. You just go on out there and wait.”

  “It's five packages altogether,” Mercy informed him as she exited the bus.

  In a matter of twenty minutes, the man came off the bus with five packages in a bucket covered with feces and piss. He then handed the bucket to Mercy. It was absolutely disgusting, but mixed in the feces and piss was something Mercy needed. She set the bucket down and then reached in her purse. She peeled off two hundred-dollar bills and handed them to him. His face lit up.

  “Thank you so much. Thank you, ma'am,” he said as he pocketed the money. “If your niece ever drops anything else down the toilet, my name is Ben, and I'll get it out for you.” He winked as he walked away, a happy old man.