Still Hood

by K'wan

  “Yo, Laz,” Chiba called.

  “In a minute, homey.”

  “Lazy!” Chiba said with a little more urgency in his voice.

  “Damn nigga, what?” Lazy turned around. As soon as he did all he could say was, “Fuck!”

  “DAMN, WHAT WERE YOU EATING? It stinks to high hell,” Monique said, standing off to the side, holding her nose.

  “Fuck you,” Sharon said, balancing against the wall with one hand and wiping slobber from her bottom lip with the other. They had gotten about twenty yards from Sean’s building before she started throwing up.

  “I don’t know why you was trying to chug that shit like you built like that,” Dena said, trying to keep Sharon’s hair from falling into the line of vomit.

  “I can hold my liquor, I just didn’t eat before I started drinking,” Sharon said between gags.

  “I hope you don’t get to the shoot and start playing ya self,” Mo said, looking at the crowd of people across the street. “Look at all them muthafuckas.”

  “Mo, leave the girl alone. You act like you ain’t never called earl,” Dena said, handing Sharon a napkin.

  “I’m good; I just need a minute to get myself together.” Sharon said, wiping her forehead then her mouth.

  “You think it’s any famous people there yet?” Monique asked.

  “I sure hope so, cause I need some things,” Sharon said.

  “Yo sack-chasing ass is fresh off tossing ya cookies, and you thinking about getting up in a nigga’s face? Sharon, ya ass is too much.”

  “Dena, I know you ain’t talking, with the way you was all pressed up on Sean.”

  Dena gave her a disbelieving look. “Wasn’t nobody up on that child-molesting bastard but you!”

  “Y’all bitches knock it off and lets get across the street before these Harlem skanks snatch all the good stock.” Mo started across the street, with Dena and a wobbly Sharon behind her.

  To the two girls from Brooklyn, the St. Nick was a marvel, with its sizeable turnout for the video shoot. Cars were double- and triple-parked along the outskirts of the projects. The police wrote tickets and tried to chase most of the illegally parked drivers off, but with little luck. Dena was just about to step off the curb when a pearl-white Escalade cut her off. The driver was a short man with a box-shaped head and very alert eyes. The man in the passenger seat was handsome, with chocolate-colored skin and dreamy eyes. There were three females lounging in the back, but none so much as gave Dena a second look. When the man leaned over to holla at her out of the passenger window, Dena saw the glint of diamonds.

  “Baby, those feet is way too precious for you to be walking on em like that,” Black Ice said through the partially opened window. “Can I offer you a ride somewhere?”

  “I’m good,” Dena said, stepping around the car and into the street.

  “Sweetheart, you’re colder than a December chill,” Ice yelled out of the driver’s side window.

  “I’ve been called worse,” she said over her shoulder.

  “Sho ya right. But check it, when you decide to get off ya high horse, ask around about me. The name is Black Ice. See about me, love,” Ice said, before tapping Shorty, who eased the car away from the curb.

  “Girl are you crazy!” Sharon almost shouted at Dena. “That was Black Ice!”

  “Black what?” Dena asked.

  “Black Ice, bitch. Next to Don B, that’s the most well-connected cat in Harlem. Ol’ boy was trying to holla, and you blew him off? You’ve gotta be out of ya fucking mind.”

  “Well, excuse me for not being star-struck,” Dena said with an edge to her voice.

  “D, it ain’t about being star-struck. We came out here to bag some ballers, and you blew off one of the biggest fishes in the pond.”

  “Shit, I’d fuck that slick-talking nigga,” Mo added.

  “Who wouldn’t you fuck?” Dena teased her. Sharon was still ranting about how Dena had played herself, but Dena wasn’t listening. She couldn’t front the cat they called Ice was fine, and he was definitely sitting on paper, but if she bit the first time he threw the bait it would give him leverage, and she wasn’t with that. Dena was a girl who liked things her way. She reasoned that Ice, like everyone else, was there for the video shoot, so she would see him again before the night was over.

  “Oh, I know that ain’t who the fuck I think it is,” Mo said, looking at something across the street. Dena followed her eyes and immediately felt her face tighten. Lazy was posted up across the street with some big-booty chick draped all over him. The fact that he could stand her up, but make the time to mack at a video shoot, made Dena mad, but she tried not to show it.

  “That nigga is playing his self. I say we go over there and set it on him and his bitch,” Sharon said.

  “I’m wit that.” Mo began taking off her earrings.

  “Nah, I got this,” Dena said in a calm voice. Wearing a pleasant smile, she began making her way in Lazy’s direction. His man Chiba spotted her and tried to warn Lazy, but he didn’t seem to be catching on. By the time he noticed Dena, she was standing just a few feet away. He had a sick look on his face, but he had no idea how sick he was gonna be when Dena finished with him.

  “What’s good, ma?” Lazy asked, smiling as if he hadn’t just gotten caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

  “You tell me,” Dena gave Becky the once-over and was not impressed.

  Lazy tried to downplay it. “Becky, this is my girl Dena. Dena, this is Becky. I know her from the block.”

  “Oh, so now you just know me from the block?” Becky folded her arms and glared at Lazy, but he never took his eyes off Dena.

  “Yo, why you ain’t return none of my phone calls,” he asked Dena.

  “I was busy and apparently so were you.” She rolled her eyes at Becky.

  “Oh, nah, it ain’t like that. Me and Chiba had to make a run and I lost track of time.”

  “Must’ve been one hell of a run,” Dena said in a very dry tone.

  “Baby, let me just rap with you for a minute.” He reached for her but she jerked away.

  “Nah, don’t holla at me, holla at ya little friend.”

  “I told you it ain’t like that, D,” he pleaded, drawing a chuckle from Becky.

  “What’s funny?” Dena turned her glare to Becky.

  “Life,” Becky smirked like she had a secret and wasn’t going to tell. “Lazy, we still gonna do that, or what?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Did I interrupt your plans?” Dena asked sarcastically.

  “Not really. What we had planned will only take five minutes or so, but you’re his girl, so I ain’t gotta tell you that,” Becky said smugly.

  “I smell an ass whipping on the horizon,” Mo said from the sidelines.

  “Becky, shut the fuck up. Dena, let me holla at you for a minute.” Lazy poorly tried to hide the panic that was creeping into his voice.

  “Nah, I think me and my girls are gonna spin the block and see who’s out. Maybe Stacks and them will let us hang out for a while in their trailer.”

  “Dena, don’t play with me,” Lazy warned.

  “The only one playing is you!”

  “Lazy, I got things to do, so you come check me when your finished with your combine,” Becky said.

  “My what?” He was thrown off by the statement.

  “Your combine, you know, mistress.”

  Dena had to laugh at that one. “The word is ‘concubine,’ you dumb bitch, and I think you’re pointing the finger the wrong way.”

  “Bitch? I got ya bitch.” Becky went to step up, but Lazy pushed her back.

  “Dena, don’t pay this crazy-ass girl no mind, just let me talk to you,” Lazy pleaded.

  “I’m done talking.” She tried to step away, but Lazy gripped her roughly by the arm.

  “Dena, don’t walk away from me when I’m talking.”

  “Nigga, you better open ya fucking hand and let my girl’s arm run out of it. I don’t know how the fuck y’all do in
Harlem, but we gets it popping in the Stuy!” Big Mo stepped up. Lazy thought about it for a minute and released Dena’s arm.

  “Lazy, you can keep ya little project bitch and make some project babies, for all I care, but I ain’t got time for it. Me and my bitches is gonna go see where the real men are at.” Lazy said something else, but Dena tuned him out and headed further into the projects.

  Chapter 16

  JAH EASED ALONG THE EDGE OF THE PROJECTS, trying to draw as little attention to himself as possible. Though he wasn’t still out laying niggaz to sleep, he had made countless enemies over the years. In fact, it was within the St. Nicholas projects that one of Yoshi’s attackers and his crew had met their demise at Jah’s hands. He had tracked Rel and his crew to their stronghold in the projects and murdered them in the most horrible fashion. The media talked about Slick getting his asshole shot out for weeks.

  “Ashes to muthafuckin ashes,” Jah said, flicking his cigarette to the ground. Lost in his own thoughts, he made his way towards 131st Street. Along the way he nodded to cats he knew and mad dogged the youngsters who were out trying to look hard. It amused Jah the way the young boys watched movies and tried to live them out in everyday life. Most of them didn’t have the will or the balls to kill a man, and the few who did lacked the finesse to do it and get away with it.

  Jah was about to enter the projects, when a familiar face caught his attention. Valerie was her name, if he recalled correctly. She still looked the same as she did last summer, with the exception of having lost almost ten pounds. Stress could do that to you. Her boyfriend had been a small-time dealer named Ralph, who ran with Rel’s crew. It had been Ralph who led Slick and Rel to where Jah hung out and a gunfight followed that left young Crazy Eight dead. Ralph had managed to escape, but it was only temporary. On the night that he tried to leave town, Jah had cornered the young man and shot him in the face outside Valerie’s apartment. The police tried to connect her to the murder but were never able to make the charges stick.

  “Too many old memories here,” Jah said, rounding the corner of 131st to enter the projects that way.

  “Break yo self, nigga,” a voice hissed behind Jah.

  His body immediately went rigid, hands hanging loose at his sides. He thought about going for the gun he had holstered at his side, but doubted he would make it before he took one in the back. One thing was for sure though, he wasn’t going down without a fight. At the exact moment he was about to spin he heard a familiar laughter. Turning slowly, his eyes fell upon Tech’s smiling face.

  “Nigga, I could’ve peeled yo shit!” Tech laughed, holding his 9 in plain view, like there weren’t dozens of police out and about in the hood.

  “That shit ain’t fucking funny!” Jah snapped, snatching the gun from Tech.

  “Come on, B, I was only playing. Why you getting so mad?” Tech asked, not really understanding why Jah was so uptight.

  Jah was harsh with Tech, but he hadn’t meant to be. In all the years Jah had been putting it down in the streets, he always prided himself on being on point. Had this been a year earlier, a youngster like Tech could’ve never snuck up on him like that. It just added to his already growing paranoia that being in a relationship was dulling his edge.

  “Dawg, what the fuck took you so long to get here, anyway?” Jah handed him his pistol back.

  “Man, this lil freak bitch came by Mom’s house to break a nigga off, so you know I had to tap that pussy,” Tech boasted.

  “Horny-ass lil nigga.” Jah mushed him playfully.

  “Yo, kid, I peeped mad vics out there. These niggaz is shining and shit, like they don’t know what it is. Yo, we can cake off on the real.”

  “Man, I ain’t trying to stick nobody up out here. For one thing, its too many police rolling, and for another thing, my girl is working the shoot, how the fuck I’ma pull a lick out here?”

  “You right, J, I wasn’t thinking.”

  “You never are.” Jah shook his head. “Come on, let’s go in here and see if we can find Yoshi.” He stepped into the projects and began picking his way through the crowd. It was amazing how people could don their Sunday best and spend all day trying to get their fifteen minutes of fame on someone’s camera, but let there be a rally for something of note, and most cats found somewhere else to be. The logic of people sickened Jah sometimes, which is why he kept his circle so tight.

  “Psst, hey, ma,” Tech called to a trio of young ladies passing them. One he thought he had seen around before, but the other two were new faces. The big girl gave him a second look, but the other two didn’t look his way. “Yo, stop acting like that; all a nigga want is a little conversation.”

  The big girl slowed her pace but didn’t stop. “Shorty, see me in a few years.” As an afterthought she added: “But tell ya man don’t stray too far, ya heard?”

  “Them some wild-ass girls,” Jah laughed.

  “Definitely not from Harlem,” Tech added. “Yo, Jah, ain’t that Yoshi?” Tech pointed to a cluster of people standing off to the side of the building closest to Eighth Avenue.

  At first Jah couldn’t see her through the crowd, but it only took a minute for his radar to kick in. There she was, his vision of perfection, hard at work, applying her craft. One of the girls appeared to be having a bad hair day, and Yoshi was carefully applying glue to the base of the track. She handled her business the same way Jah handled his, with tact and grace. Looking at her angelic face, he couldn’t believe that he had said those horrible things to her earlier, and he intended to make it right.

  “You wanna go holla at her?” Tech asked.

  Jah thought on it for a minute. “Nah, looks like they’re about to start shooting. So, let her handle her business first.” Jah and Tech found perches on a nearby fence and watched intently.

  “YOU HEAR THAT LIL NIGGA trying to talk slick?” Dena giggled.

  “Hey ma, how tired is that shit?” Sharon added.

  “I don’t know, I think if shorty was a little older I might’ve let him eat my pussy,” Mo laughed. “But the quiet nigga wit him could definitely get it.”

  “Who, Jah? Nah, he ain’t ya speed Mo,” Sharon told her.

  “You know him?”

  “I know of him. His brother had a baby with my sister’s best friend, God bless. The looney nigga shot her, then killed himself in jail. The way I heard it all, them niggaz is crazy in that family.”

  “He looks too sweet to be dangerous,” Mo said.

  “Mo, this is my town, so I know the four-one-one on everybody. Now, I ain’t never hung with the boy personally, but let my sister and them tell it, he’s killed damn near as many muthafuckas as AIDS,” Sharon said seriously.

  “I ain’t fucking wit him,” Dena said.

  A pale man shaped like a pencil, wearing a Starter cap with the brim creased way too deep, walked towards them at a brisk pace. He was speaking with a woman who looked to be on the verge of being plump, with red hair. Both of them wore nervous expressions.

  “Judy, how the hell could you let this happen?” Starter Cap said to the redhead.

  “Mark, it wasn’t my fault, I was only doing what I was told. Sid said to make sure Stacks and his people had whatever they needed, and that’s what I did. I didn’t know she was going to drink the whole bottle.”

  “Fucking Gray Goose.” Mark slapped himself in the forehead. “Judy, we’re already three hours behind schedule, and these girls and their fucking egos are driving me up the damn wall. I need a pretty face to put behind the wheel of that Cadillac like fucking yesterday.”

  “Mark, maybe we could just use one of the other girls?” Judy asked.

  “You’ve gotta be kidding me? Ayanna and Peaches are the best eye candy we’ve got out here, and you know neither one of those cunts are gonna wanna compromise. Look, I don’t give a fuck what you have to do; get me a girl to put behind the wheel of that fucking car in five minutes of get the fuck off my set!” Mark stormed away ranting to himself.

  Judy looked arou
nd and saw the people looking at her who were trying to pretend they weren’t. Mark had once again managed to make her feel like less than shit. It wasn’t bad enough that he had made her suck him off to get the position as assistant director on the video, but he made her do most of the work and took all the credit. Judy wanted to fall down on the spot and cry, but she wasn’t willing to give Mark the satisfaction. He was an asshole coke addict who couldn’t keep his dick hard for a New York minute, but Mark Spellman was one of the most sought-after video directors on the coast.

  “Fuck, I gotta get this done,” Judy said, trying to compose herself. She quickly thumbed through the head shots of the girls she had in her portfolio and reluctantly had to agree with Mark. All the girls had body, but none of their faces were really camera-worthy. She scanned the crowd, hoping that God would be kind and send her a blessing, but all she saw were so-so looking females. She was just about to suck it up and turn in her radio when her eyes fell on the Brooklyn/Harlem trio. Judy suddenly had a brilliant idea.

  “Excuse me.” She motioned to the girls.

  “Is this bitch talking to us?” Sharon asked.

  “Ladies, hi.” Judy walked over. “My name is Judy Goldberg and I’m one of the assistant directors on the video.” The girls were all giving her suspicious stares. “Look.” Judy dropped the phony smile. “I know you girls just saw me get my ass chewed out, so I’m gonna shoot straight with you. One of the girls got sick and we need a replacement for the video.”

  “Now you’re speaking my language. Where y’all need me to stand?” Sharon stepped out and did her bad bitch strut.

  Judy scrunched her nose a bit. “No offense sweetie, but we only need one girl, and I was kind of thinking of her.” She pointed to Dena.

  “Me? I don’t know anything about acting,” Dena resisted.

  “Honey, you’re not delivering an Oscar speech, all you’re doing is sitting behind the wheel of the car and bobbing to the music. It’ll take an hour or two tops, and I’ll give you five hundred dollars in cash. But we only got about five minutes to get you dressed and on set, so it’s now or never.”