Young and Hungry

by Ms. Michel Moore

  J-Blaze was on the grind for that come-up bread. He had done his homework. As he lit the potent medical trees he’d copped from his peoples, he decided that all the running from here and there that Li’l Ronnie had put him through during the night had finally paid off. He had just left the last place Li’l Ronnie had him go. Li’l Ronnie had claimed he was going to meet up with him there just to talk. Of course, it was a dummy mission, like the others had been earlier.

  Yet it was as if the hustle Gods were shining down on J-Blaze. He’d been driving around in the general area his former friend had told him to meet him at and had had to pull over to take a leak. After ducking behind the gas station wall, he’d been surprised when he peered around the corner while zipping his pants back up. He’d seen Li’l Ronnie leave through the door, jump back in his Benz truck, which he was still driving in, too dumb to hide. J-Blaze had allowed him to pull off and had followed him from afar in the plain, average vehicle, which no one would ever look at twice. Now here he was, posted a few doors down, ready to put in work and make the bounty money his.

  J-Blaze stayed slumped down in the driver’s seat so as not to draw any attention to himself. Keeping a careful eye on the front door of the run-down house, he placed a call to Ethan and told him to get his bread ready to cash out. “I’m seconds away from running up in this bitch, blazing this chopper on his ass.”

  Ethan cautioned him not go inside that fast, because he didn’t want Sable harmed. J-Blaze was disappointed to hear that, but he would do as he was told. In his mind Sable was no more than a used-up tramp who had traded one young, weak-ass slimeball Negro for the next, only an older model. At first Ethan had wanted his blood brought back alive and was gonna make him start back at the bottom of the food chain for jacking off the plug of plugs. But now he wanted Li’l Ronnie dead behind some pussy that he had stretched out in the first place. Ethan wanted the address, saying he wanted to be there when his sister’s son took his last breath. J-Blaze thought that was a tad bit harsh and uncalled for, but once again he did as he was told and texted his boss the info after they hung up.

  J-Blaze had just pressed SEND, as luck would have it, when the front door opened. Li’l Ronnie wasn’t done running. He came out of the house and stood on the porch a few minutes, then jumped in his truck. Faced with the choice of following Li’l Ronnie and catching him slipping out in the street or getting inside the house somehow and waiting for him to return, J-Blaze let him pull off. He hoped he had made the right decision and had not let his “for sure” money out of his sight. After making sure the taillights had turned the corner off the block, J-Blaze jumped out of his ride.

  Making as little noise as possible, he crept around the small-framed house and peeked in any window he could. Not seeing anything but a table, a couch, and a few blue plastic milk cartons on the floor, J-Blaze could tell the house was empty, for the most part. The rear bedroom windows had newspaper covering them, and he wondered if that was where Li’l Ronnie was holding Sable.

  Not knowing how much time he had before Li’l Ronnie returned, J-Blaze raised his gym shoe off the ground and kicked in the flimsy back door. Once inside the house, he aimed his gun in every possible direction, as if he was the police executing a search warrant for a mass murderer. After discovering that all the front rooms of the shotgun dwelling were vacant, he then eased open the first bedroom door. There was nothing in there but what appeared to be old bags of clothes. Just as he was about to open the second bedroom door, he saw a flash from a pair of headlights pulling into the driveway. Assuming his friend had returned faster than he’d thought he would, J-Blaze hid in the corner behind the old piss-stained couch and waited for his meal ticket to come back inside.

  Unaware of what was on the other side of the door to the rented crackhead house, Li’l Ronnie stepped across the threshold, holding a bag in his arms. After closing the door, he headed straight toward the bedroom J-Blaze had not had the opportunity to check out yet. Before Li’l Ronnie’s hand could touch the knob, J-Blaze was on him.

  “Hold up, fool. I’ll take that.” J-Blaze eased his hand around the front of his boy’s waistband and removed his gun.

  Li’l Ronnie was shocked. He couldn’t understand how he had been found. He had turned off his GPS. He had been careful not to meet anywhere near this house. Nevertheless, J-Blaze had peeped out where he was held up at. It was over now. The only thing left to do now was to negotiate his life and his freedom. Not wanting to waste time, Li’l Ronnie went right to it as they walked into the room where Sable was tied to the bed, high as hell and speaking in tongues, as if she was possessed by the devil himself. J-Blazed looked over at her like she was filth. He had no sympathy for the conniving bitch, because she was part of the reason they were all here and things had gotten so twisted in Ethan and his nephew’s relationship.

  Li’l Ronnie started to beg, hoping to change his would-be killer’s mind. “Listen up. You ain’t gotta do this. I know my uncle offered you money, but it ain’t no thang, J. I got the bread on the floor too. Go check out that shoe box over there on the table. I know you want what’s inside. We can split it right down the middle.”

  J-Blaze kept his gun held high and aimed at Li’l Ronnie’s head. He gave a slight nod in the direction of the table, and Li’l Ronnie got the hint that he was to go open the shoe box. Doing as he had been told indirectly, he flipped open the top to the shoe box. Only a few hundred-dollar bills were missing from what was once Black Tone’s stash, and Li’l Ronnie threw out the idea of them dividing the funds equally and J-Blaze just telling his uncle that he couldn’t be found.

  “Naw, nigga. Sorry. Too late for all that. Your punk-ass uncle already on his way. And as for that money, come on now, fool. What the fuck I look like, splitting some money with a dead man? You can’t spend that shit in hell.”

  Li’l Ronnie continued to beg until the moment J-Blaze slow walked him to the front of the house to unlock the door for Ethan, who had come alone and unarmed. Ethan didn’t even want to speak to or look at his blood until he made sure his young pussy was okay. Freeing her from bondage, Ethan had tears forming in his eyes as Sable continued to behave strangely. It was as if she was deranged. After letting her weak body fall back on the bed, Ethan then focused on his nephew.

  “I should kill you myself for all the dumb shit you’ve done. First, you get drunk and embarrass me by getting your ass kicked. Then you almost fuck up the connect by beating up some damn old lady that was already half dead when you went inside the house in the first place.” He looked over at Sable and finally let his tears drop. “Then you follow up all that wild bullshit by taking my woman, my lady, and trying to turn her out!”

  Li’l Ronnie knew this was it for him. He felt he’d been fucked over by his uncle long enough, and if he didn’t say what he wanted to say now, he’d go to his grave regretting it. Now crying as well, Li’l Ronnie started telling his uncle everything he could think of that had been bothering him since birth. For J-Blaze, being forced to hear story after story was like being slowly tortured. The more things the nephew mentioned that he thought the uncle should be held accountable for, the more things in return the uncle brought up to blame the nephew.

  J-Blaze had been up all night and easily grew tired of both of the grown-ass men with shared DNA acting like straight bitches. Li’l Ronnie was on the verge of being a rat, so in J-Blaze’s eyes he had to go. Ethan was so emotionally weak, turned out, and twisted by his nephew’s secondhand ho Sable, J-Blaze felt the old player couldn’t effectively control his own life anymore, let alone lead an army of young, hungry soldiers trying to come up out in the Detroit streets.

  “You know what? Both of y’all straight pussy.” J-Blaze curled his top lip upward, ready to put in work.

  “What the fuck you just say?” Ethan turned to face J-Blaze, ready to warn him to watch his mouth, but he was met with a single bullet, which entered right underneath his left eye and exited through the rear of his head. With fragments of his skull mix
ed with blood splattered on the wall behind where he stood, Ethan dropped to the floor. Within seconds Eagle Hawk Bag was no more.

  Li’l Ronnie’s jaw seemed to be stuck in the open position. While part of him was overjoyed that his uncle, who he felt had messed him over for so many years, was dead, he couldn’t believe the only father figure he knew was gone. Finally, he swallowed the lump in his throat and spoke. “Damn, dawg. Good looking out. I knew you wasn’t gonna let him just kill me. Damn good looking. We can still split that bread and try to link back up with the plug.”

  J-Blaze was amused. He couldn’t believe how dumb Li’l Ronnie was to think he’d ever do business with a weak-ass rat like him. “Dig this, lame. Me and you could never really rock out together. Yeah, you hooked me up with your uncle, but I ain’t jack shit like you or him. I was born to be a boss, not some do boy. So naw, we can’t split my money over there in the shoe box, and naw, we can’t link back up with the plug. What part of you a dead man didn’t you understand?”

  Before Li’l Ronnie could repent for his sins or J-Blaze could send him on his way straight to hell, they both heard Sable—half out of her mind, her arms folded, rocking back and forth as she sat on the edge of the bed—repeating the same bible verse Granny had said before being tossed out of the bed and thrown against the wall.

  “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.”

  Li’l Ronnie turned to look at his ex-woman, whom he still was in love with, one more time. He never had a chance to turn back, as J-Blaze let one round go ripping through the lovesick wanksta’s temple and sent another barreling through his neck. Like his uncle, Li’l Ronnie folded and fell to the floor. Not wanting to leave any live witnesses, J-Blaze went over to the table and filled two needles with lethal dosages of heroin straight from that Eagle Hawk brand. The opportunistic female was already so out of it, she didn’t feel the two pricks in her arm and didn’t fight death when it crept up on her. After running through Ethan’s pockets, J-Blaze snatched up the shoe box with Black Tone’s money in it and Li’l Ronnie’s gun. With a huge smile plastered on his face, he left the dilapidated house and shut the door behind him. Once back in the car, he received a text message that made him smile even harder.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Black Tone left the hospital in good spirits. His granny was doing 100 percent better and was even preaching to him to leave that late-night job at the club alone. She was back to telling him that he needed to find himself a nice girl and settle down somewhere. Granny was back in full effect, and he couldn’t wait to share the news with his best friend, Alexis. Driving to the hotel, he tried calling her cell again. This time she answered.

  “Hey, girl. How you feeling?” he asked, glad to hear her voice.

  “I’m much better. I just got out of the tub after soaking awhile, but now I need some clothes and stuff.”

  “Don’t worry. I told you I got you.” Black Tone didn’t care that she didn’t want him in the same way he wanted her. She was still Alexis. She was still his best friend for life. “I just left from seeing Granny, so I’m on my way. Meet me down in the lobby in, like, ten minutes, and we’ll go pick up some things to hold you over a few more days, until I figure all this shit out.”

  Alexis agreed, and they ended their conversation. She hadn’t stopped thinking about what Anthony had told her, but she couldn’t just turn off the love she had for Hassan, dirty as he had turned out to be.

  * * *

  “He left the hospital and picked some female up at a hotel far from the hood.”

  “Oh yeah? A female, huh?” Amir quizzed, knowing something was going on with Black Tone, his supposed business partner and friend. “What she look like? Describe her.”

  “I dunno. She just look like some bad-ass female from around the way, with dark sunglasses on. She did look like she got a nice fat ass on her when she walked out the lobby, though.”

  Amir told him to trail Black Tone and the female from afar and, when they stopped somewhere, to try to get a picture. After a short ride to Wal-Mart, he parked two aisles over and followed them inside. Trying to remain as inconspicuous as possible, he finally got his chance and snapped a picture. After texting the picture to Amir, he walked around, waiting for a response. Almost immediately he got one. He then texted Amir the address to the hotel and told him he’d meet him back there, just as Amir had asked.

  * * *

  Once back at the hotel, Alexis asked Anthony if he would come up to the room and keep her company. Of course, he obliged, wanting to make sure she was mentally good, considering all the drama she’d been through. As they sat and talked, he informed her that Granny was doing so much better that they wanted to let her go to physical therapy first, then home. He knew he was pushing the envelope, but Black Tone let Alexis know that by the time his grandmother was due to be released, he would have found them another house to live in, somewhere maybe out near the hotel they were at. He felt that with Li’l Ronnie coming to his house so recklessly, there was no telling how many other bastards would try the bullshit. Even though he knew his grandmother would be upset to relocate from the place she’d called home for years, she had no choice but to roll with what he decided.

  Black Tone didn’t have any problem leaving the neighborhood, but the idea of leaving Alexis on the block, possibly in harm’s way, he couldn’t stand. He knew she was trained to be a CNA and could help out with Granny. Holding her hands, he told Alexis he’d make sure to buy a house big enough for her and her son to come and live in with them for as long as she wanted to. Before Alexis could respond to her best friend’s offer, there was a knock at the door. Assuming it was room service with the food she’d ordered, Alexis opened the door without asking who it was.

  “So how was your trip to Miami?” Amir asked after barging his way inside the room.

  “What? Huh?” Alexis was stunned, at a loss for words.

  Black Tone stood to his feet immediately as one of the East Side guys from the alley stepped inside the room after Amir. Trained to go, he pulled out his gun before the uninvited guests had the chance to do the same. “Yo, Amir, what in the fuck you doing here? What you call yourself doing? And why you got this guy with you?”

  Amir knew he’d caught Black Tone off guard and in several lies. He smirked as he sat down in the chair like it was his room, then leaned back and asked Alexis once more how Miami was. Leaving one of Ethan’s lapdogs looking stupid standing up, Black Tone went over to the East Side guy with his gun on both of them.

  “Okay, li’l dawg. You holding or what?” Black Tone was not in the mood for games, and definitely not in the mood to have to shoot someone at such a nice hotel. As he patted him down, the guy shook his head.

  “Look, I swear, big fella, I ain’t got shit. And I ain’t come here for all this. All he told me to do was follow you from the hospital and told me where you was at. I swear, I’m good.”

  With that being said, Big Tone released the grip he had on the guy’s clothes and told him to go into the bathroom and shut the fucking door. He couldn’t risk him leaving the hotel room because there was no telling what other deceptive trips Amir had up his sleeve.

  “So you had me followed, huh? Like some female that be cheating on your ass.”

  Amir had a judgmental expression on his face that Black Tone wanted to knock off.

  “In a way, you are cheating on me. I thought you said this bitch was outta town somewhere and didn’t know what happened to my brother,” Amir replied.

  “Look, Amir, you on some other shit now.”

  “Naw, Tone. It looks like you are. I swear, my father said all you niggas is alike when it comes down to it, and he was right.”

  Black Tone had had just about enough of that bullshit Amir was talking. He’d let it go on long enough. “Look, asshole. You a piece a shit, just like that family of yours. While you sitting here, running off at the mouth, throwing arou
nd accusations, let me keep shit real with you.”

  “Yeah, Black Tone.” Amir said his name real slow, trying to be funny. “Keep shit real with me and tell me what this gutter trash got to do with my family being dead. I know she got something to do with it, ’cause why else would you be hiding her out with your disloyal ass!”

  “Disloyal? Are you kidding me? You got one of Ethan’s soldiers trailing me, and then you had the nerve to bring him up here. You like, ‘Fuck your grandmother and fuck what that fool did to her.’ Your family ain’t no better than mine. Believe that.”

  Alexis was done. She was tired of the entire back-and-forth shouting match that was taking place between both men. She was the true victim, not Amir’s rotten cousins or Mikey’s cowardly ass or even her once beloved Hassan. She was done being quiet and ran down what happened, not leaving out one despicable, disgusting detail. By the time Alexis, with a face full of tears, was finished, Black Tone wanted to rush down to Detroit Live, pull all the burned bodies out of the walk-in freezer, and kill them all over again, especially the cousins.

  Black Tone paced the floor, angry that all of what Alexis had described had happened to her. Amir showed no emotion. He seemed to have no remorse or sympathy for the female his family members had treated like filth. Finally, he spoke.

  “So let me get this straight. My brothers and cousins are dead because this tramp gave up the pussy in the wine cooler, like she been doing, and then all of a sudden found religion? This black nigga bitch that swing upside down, naked, from a pole and probably take four different dicks a night, anyway, wanted to act brand new when it got a little rough?”