by Cash
Leaves from the big tree that sat in her front yard occasionally blew down on us.
“We’ll miss you too. I don’t know what I’m going to tell Tamia and them. I know they are going to ask a million and one questions about why you had to go away.” She seemed to be on the verge of tears.
“Don’t go gettin’ soft on me,” I kidded and a tear escaped down Inez’s face. “C’mon now, it ain’t like I’m never coming back, and I’ll see you again tonight before I bounce.”
“Okay.” She dried her eyes with the back of her hands.
I reached inside the truck and drug out a duffel bag full of money and set it at Inez’s feet. “This should take care of y’all.”
“Thank you. I love you, Lil T,” she said and started crying again. She pulled me into her arms and gave me a motherly hug.
Over Inez’s shoulder I saw Tamia waving from the doorway. I waved back to her and flashed her a smile.
Inez finally released me and we said goodbye. “I’ll be back later tonight, but I won’t be staying long,” I reminded her.
“Be careful.”
“Indeed,” I said.
I hopped in my truck and backed out of the driveway. The evening sun was disappearing behind the clouds, darkening the sky into a color of red or what is called “Indian Summer” in the Dirty South. But to me it looked like Heaven was on fire.
CHAPTER 42
As I drove away from Inez’s house, Criminal hit me up. I had spoken to him earlier, but he had been in traffic and unable to chop it up long. Mob shit had the streets under its foot and Criminal’s name carried the weight of God.
“Bruh, where you been?” asked Criminal as soon as I answered the phone.
“Just laying back, staying in my lane.”
“I heard that good shit. But damn, homie don’t turn into no hermit. What you gon’ do about Zeke and Soldier Boy? Don’t let me find out you giving out passes now?”
“Never. Not to them or none other. You know my get down; I just haven’t been able to find those bitches.”
“Nawl? Well, they’re around and they’re thick as thieves.”
“That’s all good. I’ma just put my banger on the shelf and stay out of sight until they think the streets are safe, then I’ma be on their asses like some shit from Friday the 13th.”
“Yeah, that’s what’s up, bruh -bruh. What else is hittin’?” asked Criminal.
“I’m about to bounce out of town for a while and get my head right. You got a pound of loud on deck for me to take with me?”
“Yeah, bruh, that’s nothin’.”
“Can you meet me over at Kamora’s with it? I’m about to go lamp over there with her and my son for a minute.”
“I got you, fam’. Give me a couple hours. It’s seven-thirty now. I’ll fall through there no later than ten.”
“One,” I said and then ended the call.
Kamora was looking good as usual. Since having the baby six months ago she had regained her shape and had gotten thicker in all the right places. Her hair was pinned up with two long bangs encasing her face.
I sat in her living room bouncing Trey on my knee. Kamora sat next to us on the couch smelling all lovely and shit. We talked about getting back together and about Trey and her going out of town with me. Eventually, Trey fell asleep and I carried him back to his bedroom and gently laid him in his crib.
Kamora stood behind me with her arms around my waist. “I miss you, bae. I want you to make love to me,” she said.
“Later,” I promised. “Criminal will be falling through any minute now.”
I took her hand and we walked back into the living room. I sat back down on the couch and Kamora took a seat on my lap. She rested her head on my shoulder and wapped her arms around my neck.
“Bae, can things go back to the way they were?” she asked.
“Is that what you want?” I had never mentioned to her what I’d seen. Could I permanently erase that image from my mind? What was up with her and that nigga now?
“Yes Trouble, I want us to be a family. You, me, and Trey. I want that more than I’ve ever wanted anything. If God would grant me that one blessing I would never ask Him for anything else.”
“That’s something to think about,” I said.
The doorbell chimed.
“That’s probably Criminal,” said Kamora. She got up from my lap and went to answer the door.
Criminal came right in and tossed a Ziploc freezer bag full of loud on the coffee table in front of the sofa. I stood up and dapped hands with him. “’Sup fam’?”
“Nothin’ but Mob shit, running the city like I’m the muthafuckin’ mayor.” He took his banger out of his waist and placed it on the coffee table. Then he sat down on the sofa and reached for the loud. “This that grown man,” he exclaimed.
I sat down next to him and handed him some sticky paper to twist one up. Kamora took a seat in the high back chair across from us and asked Criminal about Hadiya.
“My boo is good. We just found out that she’s pregnant, so life is sweet.”
“Yaay!” cried Kamora. “I’m happy for y’all.”
“Congrats, bruh,” I chimed in.
“Thanks, and I’ll tell Hadiya what you said Kamora.” Criminal licked the blunt and then passed it to me to spark.
I hit it once then passed it back. It tasted like that ‘sho’ nuff.’ Criminal did his thing and then offered the blunt to Kamora. She waved it off. “I don’t smoke anymore,” she said.
I raised an eyebrow.
“More for me,” quipped Criminal.
I excused myself to go take a piss. Five minutes later, I returned to the living room, walking behind the sofa and stopping directly behind Criminal, who was texting someone a message. In the bathroom, I had pulled on a pair of racing gloves. In my hand was a length of fishing line that I had brought along. I wrapped the thin, sturdy cord around Criminal’s throat and pulled both ends with all of my might. His cell phone clattered to the floor, and his hands shot up to his throat. He desperately tried to dig his fingers up under the thin cord that was strangling his bitch ass.
Criminal was gagging and writhing, and his feet lashed around so violently that he kicked over the glass coffee table. I had that death lock on that ass.
While I strangled the life out of him, I snarled. “Bruh, you’s a snake. You fucked my sister and she ain’t but fourteen years old. We were supposed to have been better than that.”
“Arrggh!”Criminal grunted.
“That was a violation that can’t go unpunished.” Beads of sweat formed on my forehead as I went down to one knee and pulled on the fishing line with the rage of a bull.
Criminal clawed at my hands, but I felt the fight in him weaken.
“Die, bitch ass nigga. Die!” I gritted and continued strangling him until his whole body went slack.
I stood up; the underarms of my T-shirt was soaked. The length of fishing line had cut into Criminal’s throat like a razor. Blood ran down his neck. I walked around the couch and stared at him. His body was slouched and his eyes bulged. His tongue hung out the side of his mouth in a grotesque fashion.
The smell of shit and piss overtook the smell of the loud that lingered in the room.
Oblivious to everything else but Criminal until now, I turned and looked at Kamora. Her hand was over her mouth, stifling a scream. Her eyes asked a thousand questions but only two mattered.
“That bitch nigga fucked Eryka and got her pregnant. And it wasn’t enough for him to fuck my little fourteen-year-old sister. Nawl, that slimey ass nigga fucked my bitch too.”
Her other hand went over her mouth and she stood up and started backing away.
“Yeah, bitch, I know.”
My Glock was in my hand now, aimed between her eyes.
Kamora backed into the wall.
I placed the banger against her forehead and retrieved my cell phone from my pocket. It was already turned on, and the picture I had taken that night of Kamora and Crimi
nal kissing in her doorway was set as my screensaver. It covered the full screen of the phone.
I held it up inches from her face.
Kamora stared at the screen for a minute and then she closed her eyes.
“It . . . only . . . happened . . . once,” she claimed as tears of guilt poured down her face. “You were running around with Ava on your arm, treating her like she was a queen—”
“So fuckin’ what, bitch! Ava wasn’t your friend. Criminal was my nigga. Wasn’t you the one who told me that you would never violate me like my mother did my pop? Didn’t you say that real bitches don’t fuck their nigga’s friends? So that makes you fake.”
Kamora cried out, “What about all of the real shit I did? Doesn’t that count for anything? I’m sorry, bae, I truly am.”
“Tell it to God.”
BOC!
Kamora’s head split open like a piñata. Her body slid down the wall leaving a smear of blood. I aimed the banger down at her and said, “Disloyalty is unforgivable.”
BOC! BOC!
I walked back over to Criminal and put two in his head. “The same goes for you,” I spat.
I dropped the banger on the floor next to his body. Then I went to get Trey.
CHAPTER 43
The Conclusion
“It’s over,” I told Inez, keeping my voice low so as not to awaken Tamia.
“Both of them?” asked Inez.
“Yep. Now they can be together for eternity.”
Inez held Trey across her shoulder. She shook her head. “Where will you go?” she asked.
“I don’t even know yet. I’ma just get in my truck, turn on the music, and let it lead me to wherever. You know the po-po is gonna question you.”
“I don’t know shit. I was asked by Kamora to babysit. Criminal had enemies . . . any one of them could have caught him at Kamora’s house and killed them. Don’t worry about me, I’m tried, tested and proven.”
“I know you are.”
Trey stirred and I held out my hands for him. Inez handed him to me and I held him to my chest. “My little nigga,” I said. “Never be slimy.”
I kissed him and gave him back to Inez. No sense in dragging the goodbye out. I removed the chain from around my neck and placed it around Trey’s.
“Like father, like son,” I anointed my seed.
I saw that Inez was about to get all misty eyed again, and I couldn’t deal with all these emotions at the moment. This was why I had chosen to leave without telling my sisters; I just couldn’t handle all those tears.
“Take care of my sisters and yourself too,” I told Inez. “I love you.”
“I love you more,” she replied.
I stepped out into the moonless night bopping toward my truck with the weight of so many sins on my back—some justified and some not. On one hand, I had avenged my pop. On the other hand, I had killed callously, and some of my victims had been innocent. What felt like a pang of remorse shot through my chest. I wondered if Big Ma was behind those pearly gates pleading with God to put his hands on me and soften my heart.
Out of the shadows stepped a dark figure. From behind the huge tree appeared another. Zeke and Soldier Boy held shotguns on me.
There was no sense in me reaching for my waist because for the first time in years I was not strapped. I imagined that this is how many of my victims had felt.
Helpless.
My heart thumped.
“I told you that I bury little reckless niggas like you,” Zeke bragged. His shotgun was aimed square at my chest.
“It’s Judgement Day, youngin,” said Soldier Boy with a wicked grin on his face.
He was right about that, but if these niggas expected to hear me beg for my life they had the game fucked up. Even unstrapped, I still had the artillery that was my father’s blood running through my veins.
It wasn’t that I was not afraid, but courage is being able to stare fear in the face and not back down. The way my pop faced lethal injection.
I looked from Zeke to Soldier Boy, then back to Zeke. Then I said, “What? Y’all bitch niggas must want my autograph.”
I hawked a gob of spit in Zeke’s face.
BOOM!
My chest filled with buckshots and I slammed into the side of my truck.
KABOOM!
Soldier Boy blasted me in the gut.
I slid down the side of the truck and was twisted on the ground. I faintly heard a scream come from the vicinity of the porch.
My mouth quickly filled with blood as more blood leaked out my body onto the cold pavement.
“That’s . . . all . . . y’all . . . niggas . . . got?” I mocked my executioners.
BOOM!
Everything went dark.
THE END
READING GROUP
Discussion Questions
1)Did Cheryl's suicide surprise you?
2)Was there anything anyone could have done to prevent Lil T from taking the path he chose?
3)Was Inez wrong for encouraging Lil T to avenge his father?
4)If Lil T hated Shan, why did he come to her defense when those boys were beating her?
5)Did Inez's loyalty to Youngblood, even after death, seem realistic?
6)Did Juanita's change from part 2 of Trust No Man catch you by surprise?
7)What did you think of Criminal, Kamora, and Ava?
8)Would it have lessened your respect for Inez or Swag had they hooked up with one another?
9)What aspect of Trust No Man 3 touched you the deepest?