Young and Hungry

by Ms. Michel Moore

  Pops was growing weaker by the moment, not only physically, but in his faith as well. Clutching his prayer beads, he closed his eyes. Amir saw his father’s spirit deteriorate as the elderly but still proud man fought to stand on his feet. This horrific sight of death behind what had once been his thriving business was more than any parent could bear to withstand. Wasting no more time trying to figure out who to call that might owe him a favor or two, Amir stepped up, as well as he should. He asked one of his family members who were standing off to the side to go drive the cargo van back around to the alley where they had all congregated.

  Black Tone stood in the alleyway, directing the man while he was attempting to back in. While his back was turned, he suddenly heard a lot of commotion. Instinctively, he grabbed his gun off his hip. On the other side of the alley stood Dre and some of his cohorts.

  Well, I’ll be damned. Didn’t I tell this crazy fool to just sit tight?

  Not knowing what Dre’s next move was going to be, or why he even had shown back up at the scene of the crime, Black Tone paused.

  “What’s up with all that East Side weak-ass bullshit now?” Dre shouted out, throwing up his Ls for Linwood. “N.F.L. all day around this motherfucker, ya heard!”

  Black Tone being confused did not last for long, as all of the random young guys he’d never seen in the neighborhood or running with Amir returned words.

  “East Side until the day we die, nigga! You Linwood pussies don’t want it! We over on the East Side are making that real money and slow fucking y’all hoes! It’s Eagle Hawk Bag our way!” one of them yelled.

  Eagle Hawk Bag? What the fuck? Black Tone held his gun down at his side and let the two crews link up.

  The fighting words from both sides caused them all to whip out their guns. Showing no signs of fear, each group walked closer. When they were within arm’s reach, one took a swing at the other, and the battle was on. No guns were fired; it was just fist-to-fist combat. Seconds into the slugfest, Pops was knocked to the ground by mistake and cut the side of his hand while trying to break his fall. Disrespectfully, all four of the dead bodies were trampled on, as if they were bags of garbage. Amir yelled out, demanded that they stop and for Dre to get the fuck on, but no one listened. Having let Black Tone and others handle his dirty work for so long, the self-proclaimed heroine kingpin had forgotten there were no time-outs in the streets; it was just “nonstop until you drop.”

  Bloodied and bruised, the two cliques finally separated. Vowing revenge and gunplay when they met again, Dre and his boys left the alley the same way they had come in, talking cash shit.

  “Why you didn’t do shit? How you let them wild animals come back here and disrespect my family like this?” Amir looked up at Black Tone, throwing question after question in his face.

  “Hold tight, Amir. Who are these guys? Why they yelling, ‘East Side,’ and throwing up Ethan’s dope brand name like that? Who the fuck are they?”

  In the midst of all that was going on, Amir had almost forgotten about the deal he’d made with Ethan. The deal that he knew was going to infuriate his right-hand man, Black Tone. Not wanting even more trouble and controversy to pop off, he tried to break down to his boy what he had done and the reason why.

  “Listen, Tone, I needed to do something. Last night people were coming and poking around like they wanted to go digging through the store. I tried calling you, but you said you were busy.”

  “Busy?” Black Tone fired back, heated over Amir’s poor choice of words. “What the fuck you mean, busy? My damn grandmother was hurt, laying up in a hospital bed, fighting for her life, and you saying I was busy. Is you crazy or what?”

  “Naw, I ain’t crazy, but I had to protect my family. Like I said, I called you first, but then I had to call in and get some extra eyes and boots on the ground.”

  “Yeah, so? And? What that got to do with why these little motherfuckers shouting Eagle Hawk Bag?”

  Amir tried to slow walk Black Tone away from everyone who was ear hustling, his own family included. “Listen, I asked Ethan to do me a favor and send me some of his soldiers who was not afraid to post up on this side of town.”

  Black Tone was starting to get the picture. He didn’t need it spelled out. His boy Amir had betrayed him, knowing they had an agreement about dealing with Ethan until Li’l Ronnie was made to pay for what he’d done to Granny.

  “So it’s like that, huh? Well, guess what? That ho-ass nigga Li’l Ronnie still gonna die for that shit he did. That’s my word! Fuck Ethan! Fuck Eagle Hawk Bag and fuck all these niggas you got over here on a dummy mission.”

  Amir knew deep down inside he was wrong for the backroom deal he’d cut, but he told Black Tone that with him family always had to come first. Black Tone grinned, knowing that when and if the time ever came to stand tall, Alexis was his family, and she would come first as well.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Amir had made sure the bodies of his loved ones were respectfully laid out in Detroit Live’s walk-in freezer, which was still ice cold. He was trying to keep them as cool as possible. He was torn on what to do next. Pops wanted to follow Muslim tradition and bury his sons as soon as possible, so as not to prolong further the disrespect for their remains. Amir, however, wanted some sort of autopsy performed on all four, or at least a proper criminal investigation. He realized he’d already messed up by removing the bodies not only from the rubble, but also from the entire scene by taking them way across town. He wanted legal justice for what he believed was no accident. Just as one of Ethan’s soldiers had mentioned, Amir had also seen what he thought were bullet holes in one of the bodies when he looked under the tarp as they unloaded the cargo van in which the bodies were transported.

  Black Tone stood silently by, letting Amir run different scenarios by him. Some sounded like he was grasping at straws, while others were surprisingly close to what had truly transpired. Yet considering how Amir had played him about his rekindled alliance with Ethan, even if Black Tone felt the need to put him out of his misery over what had taken place during Mikey’s and Hassan’s final moments on earth, it was a no go. Black Tone was insulted that not once since he’d arrived had Amir even bothered to ask anything about Granny or his stolen money. Amir was out for himself, and now so was Black Tone. Black Tone had decided back in the alley, as he showed mercy and helped load the corpses, that he would keep his friends close and his enemies even closer. After Amir did what he did, he was indeed Black Tone’s foe, no questions asked, needed or answered.

  “Hey, I know you cool with the girl Alexis. The one that claiming she got a baby by my little brother. Where she at? Why she ain’t been around since this shit happen? Any other time she all on his dick, trying to come up,” Amir said.

  Doing everything in his power to remain calm, Black Tone tried his best to play the game and not drop his cards, like Dre had earlier. “Whoa. Slow down, Amir. First of all, that is Hassan’s son. Have you seen the baby? He looks just like your brother spit him out. And secondly, she’s not even in town.”

  “She’s not?” Amir raised his eyebrow, knowing he’d run into another dead end in trying to put together the pieces to the evening before.

  “Naw. She’s down in Miami with some of her friends,” Black Tone lied, hoping to throw him off Alexis’s trail. “I was gonna call and tell her what happened, but that ain’t the type of thing you wanna tell a person over the phone.”

  “Yeah, I guess you right. But you know what else I wonder? I wonder why that crazy-ass brother of hers, Dre, showed up in the alley with them knuckleheads he run with.”

  Black Tone looked at Amir as if he had three or four heads. He couldn’t believe he would be so dumb to even ask him that. “Dawg, are you fucking serious? What the hell did you think was going to happen when you brought some East Side niggas over to where they lay they head at?”

  “Yeah, I guess so. But still that bullshit Dre did was fucked up. Them idiots knocked Pops down and disrespected my brothers.”
>
  “Yo, hold the fuck up. I mean, I ain’t taking sides, but why you keep saying Dre name like he was out there in that alley, banging by himself? Fuck Ethan’s people that was out of pocket and they zip code. They wanted to go so hard, then so be it. That’s on you. That was your call to bring them Eagle Hawk Bag fools into the mix.”

  Amir sat back. Something about the attitude Black Tone had didn’t seem right. He knew Black Tone was pissed about the situation with Ethan’s nephew, but Amir felt like he was taking it too far, and he let him know. “Wow. So after all this time of us doing business, I didn’t know you were with all the territory gangbanging mess. I thought you was bigger than that local bullshit. And besides, truth be told, we is Eagle Hawk Bag too. Where you think they dope coming from?”

  “I am bigger than that, but that walking dead man Li’l Ronnie straight violated. That bitch came into my crib and put his hands on my grandmother! That shit ain’t never gonna be all good with me. Never. And for the record, I thought Eagle Hawk was taking a time-out?”

  “Okay, Tone. I feel you about the boy. But he made a mistake. And we do a lot of good business with his uncle, so . . .”

  Black Tone stood to his feet and towered over Amir. “So what in the fuck you saying, Amir? Be real clear with it, motherfucker!”

  “All I’m saying is maybe you should let all that wanting to kill his nephew go. It’s bad for business. What’s done is done, and you can’t turn back the hands of time.”

  It was as if you could hear a pin drop inside the club. Black Tone did everything in his power not to reach down and choke Amir. After all the shit he’d been saying about how family came first with him and how family loyalty was everything, here he stood, having the nerve to tell him to fall back and forget that a nigga fucked over Granny like she meant nothing.

  “Bitch, fuck business! Your ass over here going on and on about that nigga Dre knocked Pops over in the alley and cut his precious hand on them dead, burned-up motherfuckers back there in the freezer. You got me all the way fucked up around here! You ain’t once asked if my grandmother is okay, if she needed anything, or how I’m carrying it! Instead, you want me to roll over and play dead and be a good ole obedient Negro because Li’l Ronnie’s uncle does good business with us. Fuck all that! Now, turn back the hands of time on that!”

  “Damn, Tone.” Amir tried his best to protest but was stopped by the threat of Black Tone laying hands on him.

  “Naw, dawg. I’m out. You go ahead and rock with Ethan. I’m gonna go check on my real family, and you stay here with yours.” Black Tone callously pointed back toward the walk-in freezer turned temporary morgue before storming out.

  Amir had never seen this side of Black Tone. Deep down inside, he accepted the fact that Li’l Ronnie had to die for principle’s sake, but something about the way his partner in crime had gone so hard didn’t seem right. It was as if he was hiding something. Not trusting anyone until he found out what exactly had happened to Mikey and Hassan, the oldest remaining son of Pops made a call. He had to cover all his bases.

  * * *

  While driving on the freeway, Black Tone, along with the rest of the city, finally got the good news they had been waiting on. In less than twenty minutes the restoration of power would commence. He took the back roads as he drove toward the neighborhood, which was a change for him. Preoccupied with the major disagreement he and Amir had just had, Black Tone knew it would be only a matter of time before they parted ways. They each had a different mind-set on how the business that Amir had been the face of since linking up should now be run.

  He’d taken a nice-size hit when Li’l Ronnie had discovered his shoe box. Although he was not destitute, he knew he wanted and needed to make that cash back up. After getting out of the truck, he walked around to the side door. Wild Child had put his high school wood shop skills to work and had the door barricaded with an extra-thick sheet of plywood. Content with the side entrance, Black Tone then walked around the rest of the perimeter of the house to ensure that there had been no more break-ins or possible breaches.

  At this point he had no idea where Li’l Ronnie was, and he knew he was going to get no help whatsoever from Amir. He was on his own in the hunt for the monster that had attacked his grandmother, and he would leave no stone unturned to find him. Going up on the porch, he noticed Dre and the fellas sitting on the stairs of his and Alexis’s house. Black Tone nodded, showing Dre the same respect they had always shown to each other over the years. Once inside, Black Tone angrily walked down the hallway. As he stepped over the smashed flat-screen that partially blocked his bedroom doorway, his taste for revenge intensified. The damage that Li’l Ronnie had done to his private domain was nothing major, nothing that couldn’t be fixed or replaced. It was the point and principle that Ethan’s wayward nephew felt he could get away with violating someone else’s space that really got to him.

  After picking a few bottles of cologne up off the floor, ones that hadn’t been smashed, Black Tone went into his granny’s room and started to clean up the best he could before he became enraged. Looking in the oval-shaped mirror attached to her dresser, he rubbed his hands together, knowing that he was going to end up in jail or dead soon. It was going to be Li’l Ronnie living on this earth or him. Black Tone knew they both could no longer coexist, not after the pain, fear, and disrespect Li’l Ronnie had brought into his grandmother’s life.

  Knowing nothing would make him feel better than seeing his granny’s face, he locked the house back up and headed back out. As he drove down the street, he stopped in front of where Alexis’s car was parked and signaled for Dre to come to the truck.

  “Your sister is good. I don’t know if she called you or not, but she gonna stay out the hood for a little while, until I make sure shit is all good.”

  Dre agreed as far as Alexis was concerned, but he wanted to know what was up with his boy bringing them East Sides their way. “Yo, dawg. I know you told me to keep a low profile, but if you start letting one of them bitch niggas come over this way and stunt, soon it’s gonna be two, then three.”

  Amir had been right earlier in what he said. Normally, Black Tone didn’t go for all that east-west shit. Everyone was welcome to party and have a good time at Detroit Live as long as they knew how to behave. And any real player that came correct in the city could cop some of that good product he and Amir were pushing. But this time and this day were different. Black Tone was riding with Dre and his decision to bang out all the way. If he wasn’t trying to keep his fronts up for Alexis’s sake, he probably would have put his boots to a few East Side heads his damn self.

  “Don’t worry. I got you on that. I’m sure it won’t pop off again. Besides, y’all was cracking heads.” Black Tone laughed and gave Dre a fist pound. “And as for the situation up there, he lost right about now. He grasping at straws but gonna keep coming up empty if I play his ass right.”

  Dre spoke a little bit more about the info he’d found out about Li’l Ronnie, who had been locked up with him. To Black Tone, finding out that the dude who had been his sworn nemesis for years now had his back, like he was forced to have his, was strange, to say the least. But whatever the case or circumstances that now had them on the same team, he was good with it as long as Li’l Ronnie paid for his sins. As he pulled off and turned off the block, he heard the cheers from people in the neighborhood when they learned they had power once more. By the time he had crossed over out of Detroit, the radio was reporting that the city and its infrastructure were back in operation at 68 percent and growing.

  When Black Tone reached the hospital, he dialed Alexis’s number before he stepped inside and lost his reception, but she didn’t answer. He assumed she must have been asleep from all the pain medication she was given, and he texted her where he was at and what time he’d be leaving the hospital and heading her way.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  “Something ain’t right. I can’t put my finger on it, so I need you to just stay close and tell me t
he blow-by-blow play he makes. I can’t use anybody from this way, because he’ll peep that out way to easy,” Amir said into his phone.

  “No problem. Which hospital?”

  Amir hung up and tried not to think twice about his decision. He knew what he was doing was foul, but he felt like he had no other choice. Tone was his manz. And yeah, he’d always held the club down and his end of their illegal ventures. He was a stand-up guy in Amir’s eyes. Well, up until now, he thought that much was true. Black Tone was putting personal matters over business, and to Amir, they didn’t mix. But Amir was much too blind to see that he had done the same by even bringing Ethan’s guys over to the store to do his bidding. Amir knew Black Tone lived in that hood, and if there was any trouble behind Amir’s selfish, desperate decision, Black Tone would be the one to suffer the fallout. He didn’t care. He wanted what he wanted when he wanted it. Part of Amir wanted to be wrong about Black Tone, but his gut told him he was not. His homeboy was hiding something.

  * * *

  J-Blaze rolled a blunt and sat back in the car Ethan had let him use. The old-school player had told him that no amount of money was too much and that he didn’t care who got hurt in the process. At first Ethan’s anger was maybe an eight or a nine for what Li’l Ronnie had done to the old woman and the rift he’d caused between the connect. But now it was much deeper than money and drugs to Ethan. Suddenly this had become extremely personal. Li’l Ronnie had taken Sable. He had kidnapped her sometime during the late evening and had been holding her hostage. Ethan was fucked up in the head behind his woman being held against her will by her ex-boyfriend, his nephew. Having no filter, Li’l Ronnie had sent J-Blaze the same pictures he’d sent to his uncle, and he had made sure to let his uncle know that.

  Li’l Ronnie had lost it completely. He was threatening to go live on Facebook and expose the entire organization, naming names and the whole nine. Ethan and anyone else who was working an Eagle Hawk Bag should have been worried. If it was ever discovered that someone on the team had betrayed the family and hadn’t fessed up that they knew where Li’l Ronnie was holed up at, they would have to die as well for assisting in his bullshit. Not only was Li’l Ronnie a coward for beating up the old lady; he was now a potential rat with a bounty on his head.