by K Elliott
He was confused. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong. I’m not in the mood for it,” she said.
“Wait a minute. What’s up with this attitude?”
“I don’t have no attitude. I mean, Tommy, you always try to act like it’s all about you.”
Summer was really acting illogical. First she was trying to comfort him, then she didn’t want him to touch her. He wondered what that was all about.
“Tommy, you got a life, another life with a woman who damn sure ain’t me.”
Tommy moved to the other side of the room. She was emotional now and he was a little worked up from earlier. He would remain calm and not let his feelings get the best of him.
“Tommy, I just didn’t like you popping up like that. It’s not really a problem,” she said. She knew he was confused because there had never been a problem before. There had never been rules established, but she figured he should have known better, especially now since she was digging Q.
“So what the fuck is up with all these regulations?”
“No regulations, Tommy. It’s just that I think you should respect me.”
“I’ve been disrespecting you?”
“No...”
“What are you talking about?”
“Nothing. Tommy, you wouldn’t understand.”
“You seeing somebody else or something?”
“Of course not,” she said, but she wouldn’t look him in the eyes.
“Okay, what’s the problem?”
“You wouldn’t understand.” She stood and headed to the kitchen, not really wanting anything, but she had to get away. She could not and would not tell Tommy about Q. When she opened the fridge she grabbed a bottle of water then turned to meet Tommy.
“I think it’s another nigga,” he said, grabbing her ass. She pushed his hand away.
“Tommy, I’m not in the mood.”
He frowned.
She loosened the bottle cap, took a swallow, and then made eye contact with him but didn’t say anything.
“What the fuck is your problem?”
She didn’t answer. Instead, she swallowed some more water. Something was different about her behavior, and he couldn’t put his finger on it. Why in the hell was she so damn antsy? He didn’t want to keep arguing. Arguing with J.C., and now this bullshit. He left the kitchen without saying a word, and when he was about to exit her home she yelled out, “Tommy, I’m sorry!”
He looked back and made eye contact with her.
She set the water down on the coffee table then stepped to him, placing her arms around him. “Hey, I’m sorry, teddy bear.” She smiled. “Yeah, you’re my teddy bear.” She closed her eyes, still holding on tight.
He sighed, still wondering what the fuck was up with her. She had never acted like this before.
She reached underneath his shirt and rubbed his chest. It aroused him a little, but, damn, he didn’t know what was going to happen next. She was so damn erratic. “What’s wrong, Summer?”
“Nothing is wrong,” she said, but that was not his feeling.
She kissed him on the jaw and continued to rub his belly. He leaned toward her and grabbed her ass again, and she flinched again.
“Tommy, it’s that time of the month.”
“It’s early.” He had been dealing with her long enough to know just about when her period was due and how long it would last.
“Yeah, it’s kind of early.”
“Oh.”
She shrugged. “Sorry.”
“Is that why you been acting all funny and shit?”
“Possibly. I don’t know.” She released him. “I don’t know, Tommy. I just have a lot on my mind.”
“Talk to me.”
“I don’t know. I mean, I don’t want to bother you with my problems.”
“I’m here for you.”
He met her eyes. They stared at each other for a long time before she said, “Tommy, you have problems of your own.”
“That’s for damn sure, but you listened to me. I have to be here for you. What’s up?”
She walked away. “I just don’t know about this whole writing thing. I mean, have you ever had a dream that you wanted something so bad but you just didn’t know how to acquire it?”
“Baby, you can do anything.”
“Tommy, I’ve failed at everything I’ve tried. I dropped out of college, all my sisters have degrees, and I’m the only one who doesn’t. That’s why I left Texas. I didn’t want my parents to keep pointing out to me that I was a failure.”
“Did they say that?”
“No, but they would say that I was the only one without a degree. Do you know how hurtful that was?”
“No. I mean, I can’t really relate. I’m an only child.”
She walked away, picked up the bottled water and took a drink. “Tommy, I may not be a writer.”
“You can do it.”
“I thought I could write a novel. It is hard as hell.”
“What’s hard about it?”
“I don’t know. The words just aren’t flowing.”
“You can do it. I have confidence in you.”
“Yeah, but when I write, and then I read other writer’s stuff, my shit sounds terrible and corny.”
“I think you need to write the whole book first, then fix it.”
She looked surprise. “What the fuck…Tommy, are you a writer? That’s the same advice I got from this instructor on the net.”
“I don’t write anything but letters to you.”
She smiled. “Tommy, you’re so smart.”
“I wouldn’t say all that, but I have a little bit of common sense.”
She stood, walked toward him and wrapped her arms around him. “I’m sorry, teddy bear.”
They kissed. Afterward, he said, “Could you kill that teddy bear shit?”
***** J-Black was in a gray Dodge Magnum with his Taurus 9mm. He had gotten it brand new, fresh out the box from a crack head. He had given the crack head an eight ball of coke for the gun, but he pistol whipped the man and kept the dope. He lit a cigarette and thought about the money he would receive for the job. This would be an easy job. Once he learned the whereabouts of his targets, he knew it would be a piece of cake. He puffed the cigarette then pulled the Dodge Magnum into a driveway with two other cars. He waited on his targets. They would be driving a gray Tahoe. He didn’t know anybody who lived in the neighborhood. He’d gotten his information from a girl named Tangie who used to fuck Corey. J-Black had pretended to know him and casually mentioned his name in conversation because he knew Tangie’s grandmother had lived in the neighborhood.
“Yeah, I used to like that buster,” Tangie had said. “Yeah. I did time with him.”
“I didn’t know he did time.”
J-Black had to be quick on his feet. “Well, we were in the county
jail together. Real easy going guy.”
“The nigga’s a robber.”
“Yeah, but you know how it is…you can be one way in jail and
then another way on the street.”
She sucked her teeth. “I suppose.”
“I need to know where he lives so I can repay him for the
money he gave me to get out on bond.”
“He lives on Merriman Avenue, at the end of the road in a
yellow house with white trimming. You will see a Volvo station
wagon in the driveway.”
“Thanks, baby!”
***** The Volvo station wagon sat in the driveway along with a green Camry. J-Black wondered whose Camry was in the driveway. He decided to pull out of the driveway and drive to the top of the hill. Maybe he would see the SUV rolling around, or maybe he would see somebody who could tell him where the targets were.
A group of teens were rolling dice under a light pole. J-Black slowed down, scanning the ground for money. There were only a few fives and tens on the ground. Nothing worth robbing for. He wanted to jump out the car and ask about Mar
io and Puff, but he knew that as an outsider nobody would tell him anything. They didn’t know him and this was their hood.
He rolled farther up the street. It started to rain lightly, and when he got to the top of the hill he saw a man walking. J-Black rolled the window down. “Hey. Need a ride?”
“No, I’m good.”
“Do you know a guy named Mario?”
The man slowed down. “Why?”
J-Black pulled the gun and cocked it. “Stop or I’ma blow your
fuckin’ back out.”
The man stopped. He held his hands in the air.
“Where the fuck is Mario?”
“I don’t know.”
“But you know him, right?” Still pointing the gun at the man,
J-Black got out of the car.
“Y-yeah. That’s my homie.”
J-Black smiled. “Call him.”
“I don’t have no phone.”
“What the fuck you mean you ain’t got no phone? It’s 2007,
everybody got a fuckin’ phone, nigga!”
“I don’t.”
J-Black dug into his pocket, pulled his cell phone out and was
about to hand it to the man, then he heard “Big Thangs Poppin’” by TI playing. The music came from the pocket of the man’s sweatpants. “Nice ringtone, player.”
The man didn’t say anything.
“Answer your phone,” J-Black said.
“Hello,” he said.
“Where you at?” A female’s voice blurted out.
“Don’t wait up. I’m gonna be late.”
“Hang that goddamn phone up and get in the car. In fact, you
drive the car.” J-Black got in on the passenger side, gun still pointed at the man.
“What is your name?”
“Ramel.”
“Okay, Ramel. Want you to know everything is gonna be okay as long as you do what I say.”
Ramel looked J-Black in his eyes but didn’t say anything. His expression said that he was trying to see if J-Black was really a killer.
“Motherfucker, if you don’t do what I say, I’ma shoot your bitch ass in the face.” He smiled, then laughed out loud. “How would you like to take one between your eyes?”
“I don’t want that.”
“Your insurance policy paid up?”
“Why?”
“Just don’t want your mama having no fish frys trying to get up enough money to bury you.”
Ramel cranked up the car, then looked at J-Black again. “Where are we going?”
“Going to Mario’s house.”
“Come on, man. What’s going on?”
J-Black slapped Ramel across his ear with the gun. “Nigga don’t question me. Just take me to his house.” He dug into Ramel’s pocket. Three twenty-dollar bills and a five. He put the money in his pocket then reached for Ramel’s cell phone and scrolled through the numbers until he found Mario’s. He dialed the number. When Mario was on the phone he handed the phone back to Ramel.
“What’s good?” Mario said.
“Where you at?”
“I’m with Puff. We about to get something to eat.”
J-Black snatched the phone out his hand, put it on speaker, then pointed, indicating that he wanted Ramel to pull over. When the car was off the road, he handed the phone back to him.
“Ramel, you there?”
“Yeah.”
“You want to get something to eat with us?”
J-Black whispered, “Tell the nigga, yeah.”
“Yeah.”
“Where you at?”
The rain was pouring down hard now. There was no visibility through the windshield. J-Black turned on the wipers and the defogger.
“Tell me where you at?”
“In front of old man Sammy’s house.”
“Okay. I’ll be there soon.” Ramel hung up the phone.
J-Black said, “Okay, this is the plan: when your friends get here, you tell them to get in the car with us.”
Ramel was shaking nervously, but he didn’t say anything.
J-Black put the gun up to Ramel’s temple. “Okay. Is that understood?”
“Yeah.”
A few minutes later an SUV pulled up in front of the house. The men were looking around, as they didn’t recognize the car. Ramel rolled down the window. “I’m right here. Get in the car with us.”
“Okay. Let me take my truck to my mama’s house,” said Puff.
J-Black put the gun up against Ramel’s ribs. “I swear to you I will blow a hole in your side if you do one thing slick.”
Puff went inside his mama’s house.
Mario opened the door and got in the backseat of the car.
Mario and J-Black made eye contact.
J-Black introduced himself, “Just call me Black,” he said.
“What up?”
“Need to get something to eat man. Where are we going?” J-Black grinned.
“I don’t know. I was thinking of this spot down in South Charlotte called Firebird’s.”
“Yeah,” J-Black said. “What do they serve?”
“Steak.”
The cold steel was up against Ramel’s stomach.
Seconds away from death, he had a sister and a little brother and no kids. His mother and father had died in a car crash two years prior. How did this happen to him? He was a good person overall. He had dabbled in marijuana here and there to make ends meet, but he wasn’t a drug dealer, nor had he been a shady character. He wondered how it came to this. How did he become so unlucky?
A few minutes went by and J-Black said, “Yo, what’s up with ya man? What’s he doing in there?”
Mario replied, “He said he was getting some money and probably his gun.”
“Okay, I feel ya,” J-Black said, thinking what that would mean for his mission. “So Charlotte is like that—you have to roll with heat out here?”
Mario said, “Hell yeah.”
“You got a gun too?”
“No, I left mine at home.”
“Do I need to go get one?” J-Black asked teasingly.
“So where you from?” Mario asked.
“Florida.”
“What bring you up this way?”
“My job. I’m a carpenter by trade, and I know there’s a lot going on here.”
“You working?”
“Downtown, on some condos on Fifth Street.”
Puff stepped out the house and ran to the car. When he got in the backseat, J-Black introduced himself.
“I’m Puff.”
Ramel drove away to the end of the street, and when he was about to turn onto the next street, J-Black pulled out some weed— purple haze. “Y’all niggas smoke?”
Mario said, “Hell yeah,” and pulled out some Vanilla Dutch Masters.
J-Black handed him the weed and said, “Let’s blow one.” He smiled. “But we need to go to a discreet location.”
Puff said, “Pull down by the park, on the other side of Merriman Avenue.”
Mario turned the back light on and began to roll the blunt, dumping the purple into the cigar.
“Ramel, why the fuck is you so quiet?” Puff asked.
J-Black nudged him with the gun, reminding him that if he was to do anything stupid his life would be over.
“Just trying to keep my eye on the road and watching out for the police.”
Puff laughed. “J-Black, this is a scary-ass nigga.”
J-Black already knew that. Puff wasn’t telling him anything new.
When they reached the park, Mario had the blunt up to his lips, already smoking. He took two puffs then passed the blunt to J-Black, whose lips sucked up the blunt like a Hoover.
He passed the blunt to Puff then reached across Ramel, hit the child locks and drew the 9mm. Puff would get one toke before J-Black blasted him in the face. His brain exploded, spilling onto the window.
Mario tried to open the door but couldn’t. The locks were on.
J-Black pointed the gun at
Ramel. “Climb in the backseat with your friend.”
“What’s going on?” Mario said.
Ramel climbed in the backseat and fell on Puff’s body.
J-Black needed time to think. He had two hostages and he knew that watching two men was more difficult than handling one. “First I need you to empty your goddamn pockets, Mario.”
Mario pulled out a wallet and some coins from one pocket, and from another pocket he pulled out a chrome .380.
“I thought you didn’t have a gun?”
“I didn’t know you to be telling you my business, man.”
J-Black smiled. “Now you know me. Give me the motherfuckin’ gun.”
Mario passed it to him.
J-Black wondered what to do next. He was a veteran in this line of work but it didn’t get any easier. “Ramel, give me Puff’s gun.”
Mario was shaking and wondering what was going to happen next. “Hey, man, listen. I will give you whatever you want; just don’t kill me. I have a family.”
Ramel handed J-Black the loaded 9mm.
“This ain’t about you,” J-Black said.
“What do you want from us?” Mario asked.
“I want you to tell me where the fuck does Q live?”
“I don’t know where Q lives.”
“Big tall Quentin?” Ramel asked.
“Nigga, you know everybody.” J-Black smiled. “A real fuckin’ resource.”
“No. I don’t know where he lives.”
“What the fuck did you mention his name for?” J-Black said.
Ramel turned to Puff. A few moments ago his friend was enjoying some greenery. Now he was gone. He didn’t want to die.
“So, you going to tell me where the nigga lives?”
“I don’t know where he lives,” Mario said, his legs shaking. “If I knew I would tell you.”
“The window is foggy and it’s starting to smell like blood in here,” Ramel said.
“You think you smell blood now just wait til’ I blast your other friend if he don’t tell me where Q lives.”
“I don’t know where he lives.”
J-Black grimaced. “You think that motherfucker gives a damn about you?”
Ramel said, “I know where his man Country lives.”