Me and My Hittas

by Tranay Adams

“Yeah, well, it makes me sick.” Gouch replied with a mouthful. He glanced over to the lovebirds and found Vayda giving him the finger.

  “Gucci, what have I told you about talking with a mouthful? You know better than that.”

  “My bad, momma,” Gucci said, washing his food down withan ice cold glass of milk.”

  “You should try to find yourself a nice clean girl like your brother.” G-momma told him. “I had a clean one last night, momma, but I dirtied her up.” He retorted, eating scrambled eggs. G-momma couldn’t help but to laugh and shake her head.

  “Gucci, you’re something else.” She told him. Vayda took a seat at the kitchen table and started in on her plate. Pavielle approached Gucci eating a biscuit; he stood over his big brother as he munched. When Gouch looked up and found his baby brother over him, he already knew what time it was.

  “Move; it’s too early to be playing, man.” He told him, wiping away his milk mustache. Pavielle chewed the last of the biscuit up and smacked the crumbs from his hands. He continued to stand over Gouch, staring down at the top of his head.

  “Booby, sit down,” G -momma told her youngest grandson. “It is way too early. Go ahead now. Sit.” She motioned him to his seat, but he ignored her.

  “Nigga, you touch me and I’ma put my foot in yo’ ass.” Gouch told him seriously.

  “Gucci,” G-momma brows furrowed and she stomped her foot. “Watch your mouth.” “Yeah, Gucci, you heard momma, boy,” Pavielle said, cracking his knuckles. “Watch your mouth!” he smacked Gouch upside his head so hard that it echoed throughout the kitchen. Gouch hopped to his feet and they tussled for a minute. Before long, the big brother had the little brother in a headlock and was twisting his knuckles into the top of his head.

  “Ah!” Pavielle said in pain, feeling the knuckles turning the top of his scalp raw.

  “Gucci, stop now, you’re hurting your brother.” G- momma told him, rising to her feet.

  “Don’t worry, momma, I got this fool.” Pavielle said, trying to lift Gouch up off his feet.

  “Gucci, y’all heard y’all momma, stop now!” Vayda finally spoke up. Gouch released Pavielle. The brothers stood facing each other, panting out of breath. Suddenly, Pavielle smacked Gouch across the face and bolted for the front door, laughing all of the way. Pissed off, the oldest of the Hood brothers charged after his baby brother.

  Pavielle made it onto the porch and slammed the door in his brother’s face. Gouch stood behind the black iron screen-door spewing vulgarities and threats. Pavielle made his way down the steps chuckling. Reaching the pavement, he lit up a Newport and took a pull. He fanned out the match and when he looked up he saw Avenue across the street. The former singer turned junkie was dancing and singing. Every so often someone would cross his path and toss coins into the fedora at his feet. Pavielle watched him for a while before calling him over.

  “Yo, Avenue,” Pavielle called out and waved him over. Avenue stuffed the coins and the few crumbled dollars from the fedora into his pocket. He smacked the hat onto his crown and came running across the street in a hurry. He was excited. Nine times out of ten when Pavielle called for him he had a few dollars he could make.

  “What’s up, young blood?” Avenue asked, meeting Pavielle at the black iron-gate.

  “You tryna make some money?” he asked after giving him a pound. “Hell yeah, I’m tryna make some money! What chu got for me, black man?” he rubbed his hands together greedily.

  “Nah, I mean some real mone y, not no five or ten dollars. I was thinking about putting you down with the team.”

  “For real?” Avenue raised his eyebrows, not believing his ears. “Oh, I’m down like four flats.” He gave him a pound.

  “There’s a catch, though,” Pavielle told him.

  “What’s that?” he asked, wondering what the catch could possibly be. “You’ve gotta get cleaned up, pimp. That’s the only way I’m a put chu down.” He paused and waited for a disheartenedexpression but he never got one. “You still fucking with me?”

  “Hell yeah, I’m no fool. Let’s get this money.” Avenue gave him another pound.

  “Alright then, man, I’ma give you like a week to smoke ‘til you choke. But after that, it’s rehab, baby.”

  “I can dig it. And thanks, man. Thanks for blessing me with the opportunity.” “Don’t even worry about it O.G. Here,” Pavielle reached into his sock; from the bulge there you’d think he was hiding an ankle monitor for house arrest. He withdrew a bankroll of one hundred dollar bills, peeled off a bill and handed it to him.

  “Damn, all of this is for me?” Avenue asked, holding the bill up with both hands as he looked it over.

  “Yeah, man, just do me a favor before you run off and spend that.”

  “Anything, my man,” Avenue replied, stuffing the $100 dollar bill into his pocket. “Wax my baby for me,” Pavielle pointed over his shoulder to the black Mercedes Benz 600 parked in the driveway, sitting on chrome 22 inch rims. “I just got her a couple of weeks ago and I haven’t had the time to get her washed up.” “Damn, that’s you?” Avenue whistled at the sight of the luxury car. “She’s beautiful. I’m a hook you up, my guy, I’m a detail her and everything.”

  “Sho’ ya right,” he smiled and gave him a pound. “Everything you need is already in the trunk. You can get the keys and the vacuum from my girl. Go ahead and knock on the door.”

  “Alright then, let me go and get to work.” Avenue said, coming through the gate. Pavielle wasn’t tripping off of giving Avenue a hundred dollars to wax and detail his whip. It wasn’t just because a hundred dollars wasn’t shit to him. It was because the money was going to come right back around into his pocket anyway. Just as soon as Avenue finished waxing and detailing his car, he was going to go right over on 27th and cop his fix from Woo and Big Head. Pavielle was smart like that; he always thought two steps ahead of the rest.

  “What set chu fro m, Cuz?” A voice boomed from the right, putting emphasis on the word ‘Cuz’. The word sent chills up Pavielle’s spine. Anytime he heard it he knew it was time for some drama. Some drama he wasn’t quite prepared for at the moment, seeing as how he had left his strap in the house under the mattress. He cursed himself and was expecting to get gunned down after being caught slipping. If this was to be his last stand then so be it, but he wasn’t going out like a coward. He blew the nicotine from his lungs, flicked the cancer stick and put on his game-face. Balling his fists, he turned around to where the voice came and met the smile of an old friend, O.G Bully. Pavielle smiled back and ran out of the yard like a kid after an ice cream truck.

  “My gangsta is on his shit!” Bully said, embracing his little homie. “All day, O.G,” Pavielle responded, breaking their embrace. He took a step back to get a good look at his big homie. Besides the forty or so pounds of muscle he had packed on and the salt & pepper stubble of his chin and shaved head, Bully still looked the same as he did before he went in. “Damn, Blood, you done got big than a mothafucka, what’re you benching?”

  “About two -fifty,” Bully told him before flexing his 20 inch arms. “These are the only guns Binem will let me walk around with without locking my black ass up again.”

  “Is that right?” Pavielle asked. “So when did they let chu out?

  “Shit, like three days ago.”

  “Why didn’t you call me, Blood? I would have taken you shopping and shit; gotchu some pussy.” “Had to get settled in and shit. Make a couple of phone calls. Go see my P.O. You know how it is when a nigga first get out of the pen.”

  Pavielle nodded his head in agreement. He had never been to the pen himself, but he had plenty of homeboys who had. So he knew the program when first touching down. “Where you holed up at?”

  “With Thangz and her grand momma over on 35th and Jefferson.”

  “You still fucking with Thangz, huh?”

  “What chu mean, Blood? That’s my girl.” Bully and Thangz had hooked up about two years before he went to prison. It was the perfect marriage,
he was slinging for Gangsta and she was crack’s latest victim. One night Thangz had tried to get him to get high with her. He’d turned her down several times but eventually his curiocity got the best of him and he decided to give it a try. From there on he’d gotten hooked and there was no turning back. He seemingly lost everything overnight. Broke and unable to support his habit, Bully picked up his gun and linked back up with his first love, jacking. He was robbing everything moving, even his own homeboys. Niggaz wanted to take his head, but it was Gangsta’s influence that stayed them.

  One particular night, Bully got it in his head to rob a taxicab driver. It was Thangz job to distract him on one side, while he approached from the other with his gun. Everything had seemed to be going as planned until the Indian cab driver swung around with a snub-nose .38, instead of a handful of cash. He shot Bully in the gut and sent him sailing back into the street. Bully took the wrap for him and his lady and winded up doing a nickel for armed robbery.

  “My bad, playa, you got them chips we sent chu, right?” he took in Bully’s gear. He was in a Platinum Fubu Jersey, Jordache Jeans and scuffed British Knights.

  “Yeah, but after a couple of nights at the mo’ with Thangz, a few bottles, and some weed, you know all of that shit gone.” He chuckled and gave Pavielle pound.

  Bully was full of shit; he saved every nickel that was put on his books. He had plans on using that money to cop himself some work and strong arming someone’s block when he came home. At forty-six years old, he still had that goon mentality. He was going to get it how he lived, like he always had. Right there in The Bottoms.

  “I ain’t tripping, though, it was well spent. My girl set a nigga straight. If you know what I mean.” He nudged Pavielle. Pavielle reached into his sock, pulled out the bankroll of bills and handed it to his big homie.

  “Good looking, my nigga, I really appreciate this.” Bully gave his little homie a pound before shoving the bankroll into his pocket. “Listen, you know I’m not really one to be having a brother feeding me. I’d like to get mine like a man, on my own two, you Griff me? I was hoping that chu put a nigga down with the team.”

  “What chu talking about, G?” Pavielle asked, playing dumb. “Come on now, this O.G. I always keep my ear to the streets. Your name is hot up in them pens. Everybody knows about O.G Booby Loc; niggaz say you’re the black Scarface.”

  Pavielle shot Bully a funny look and patted his chest down for a wire. Bully laughed and shook his head. “Fuck you wearing a wire or something?” he asked. “I don’t know nothing about nothing, homeboy.”

  “Man, it ain’t never like that this way. I’d off myself before I turned snitch,” Bully told him. “All a nigga tryna do is eat, that’s all. And I’m a do that regardless of whether you put a nigga on or not. I just thought since we’re peoples I’d come to you first.”

  “Right, are you hungry?”

  “Hell yeah, you know Thangz can’t cook to save her life.” “Come on,” Pavielle motioned for him to follow. “Momma just finished cooking a big ass breakfast and shit. You can fix yourself a plate and we can finish chopping it up.”

  “Two sho’,” Bully replied following Pavielle through the gate.

  Hours later

  “Man, the O.G homie is really a booty -bandit?” Gouch asked Bully. The two of them were sitting at the kitchen table inside the trap house on the corner of 28th and Compton Avenue.

  “Hell yeah, that nigga running around Folsom fucking with them queens and shit.” Bully shook his head. “Saying he ain’t gay ‘causehe’s not the one taking it in the ass.”

  “Blood, a fag is a fag,” Gouch declared. “I don’t care if a nigga is giving or receiving.” “That’s what I said, but when I was locked up a lotta niggaz on the yard thought they weren’t gay ‘cause they weren’t the ones getting fucked.”

  “What up with O.G Birdman?” Gouch asked. “You run across him in there?” Bully nodded his head. “I bumped into Birdman when I was in San Quentin. And let me tell you, the Birdman is as crazy as bird shit now. They were given out them flushots up there and wasn’t none of us fucking with it. But this mothafucka went and got one. Now, at first shit was all good, blood was the model prisoner and shit. He got extra yard time and the warden gave him a coop to raise pigeons in. But as soon as them folks pushed that old bullshit into his veins, Birdman went coo-coo for Coco Puffs. Fool ate three of his own pigeons, stripped butt naked, and ran through the mess hall giving niggaz buckfifties” he swung around an imaginary shank “I mean, this nigga was giving it to everybody; Mexicans, white boys, Asian mothafuckaz, C.Os, even some of thehomies got cut. It took six of them C.Os to restrain the nigga.”

  “Damn,” Gouch said. “I know them C.Os fucked him off.” “Shit, you think they didn’t?” Bullyasked. “They whooped Birdman’s ass for four days and four nights. And all that shit did was made blood even more brazy.”

  “What happened after that?” Gouch asked as he sat up in his chair.“Shit, last I heard before I left he was in solitary confinement. He wouldn’t eat none of the prison food they were trying to give’em. He had acquired a taste for his own piss and shit.” Gouch’s face soured and his jaws swelled as if he was going to vomit. “Yep, they had him evaluated and the state declared him insane. Now he’s at one of them asylums for the criminally insane.”

  “Man, O.G, if Birdman would have never stuck up that pet-store for the bird food that shit would have never happened to him.” Gouch shook his head; he hated to hear about his big homie’s misfortune.

  “Nah, if he would have never gotten caught that shit would have never happened to him,” Bully corrected his little homie. “But what are you going to do, my nigga?” he shrugged his shoulders. “This is God’s plan.” A sharp whistle came from Bully’s right; he looked over his shoulder and found Pavielle tossing him a Saran Wrapped kilo of coke from the doorway. He caught the kilo and balanced it on his hand to measure its weight. He then took a look at it; it was stamped with the image of a Black Jesus Christ.

  “Black Jesus, huh?” Bully said, staring at the holy image. “My little homies done graduated to the big leagues. I’m proud of y’all niggaz, fam.” He looked from Gouch to Pavielle.

  “That’s right there, my friend, is a key of the purest coke to ever touch the twenties; The Bottoms period.” Pavielle said, as he ate out of a 35 cent bag of Flaming Hot Cheetos. “Ain’t no cut on that blonde haired, blue eyed bitch either.”

  “You ain’t gotta tell me, this is the same Spanish mothafucka your uncle used to cop hiswork from.” Bully told him.

  “Peep game,” Pavielle began. “Cook that bitch up and break her down into twenties. That’s how we’re going to rock with that. Smokers start bitching about why they can’t get dimes or nickels, then you send their asses over to the crabs‘cause from what I hear the work they got over that way is boo-boo. Bully,” Pavielle leaned in closer to his big homie. “That monkey isn’t still riding your back is it?”

  “Ah, nah, I’ve been clean since I’ve been down,” Bullyproclaimed. “Five years now.”

  “You ever get…,” Pavielle looked his big homie dead in his eyes. “that itch?”

  “Nah, not even a little bit,” Bully spoke with confidence.

  “Yeah, but what about your girl, Blood? You know she’s still on the pipe.”

  “Yeah, but what the fuck does that have to do with me?” Bully said, glaring at him. “You know, recovering alcoholics stay away from loved ones that still indulge in the bottle,” Pavielle told him. “So I would think with you being a recovering addict and all, you’d wanna stay as far away from users and crack as you can. I’m not knocking how a nigga eat and shit. I’m just saying, Blood.”

  “Listen, man, this is O.G,” Bully told him, pounding the blood gang sign to his heart. “I got this, trust me.” Pavielle nodded his head. “Alright, O.G, no disrespect, but you should know that if you fuck up I’ll do you just like I’ll do any other fool; big homie or not.”

  “I wouldn’t have it
any other way,” Bully told him. “But like I told you, ‘I got this’.” “Alright, follow me to the back.” Pavielle motioned for Bully to follow him. He gave him a quick tour of the small three bedroom house and showed him the weapons he had stashed around the place in case any jackers pulled AKick-Door.

  *** Pavielle flipped on a light-switch and gave life to the mother of all shitty bathrooms. The once eggshell white walls and tiled floor were so filthy that they appeared to be gray. The commode was grimy and had green mole and the bowl was clogged with shit-water. The bathtub was just as filthy, only it was filled with a brown liquid.

  Bully ’s nose wrinkled at the wretched stench coming from the shit-water inhabiting the commode. Pavielle was unfazed though, he had grown use to the foul odor and the disgusting bathroom. It was the second bathroom of the house and it was kept this way to keep mothafuckaz from using it. Pavielle had a damn good reason as to why.

  “What the fuck is that, old bathwater?” Bully asked, referring to the brown liquid occupying the tub.

  “Nah, batteryacid, pimp,” Pavielle answered him. “What’s the first thing the boys do before they raid?”

  “Shit, cut the water off.” “Ri ght, and why? Soa nigga can’t flush his shit.” He answered his own question. “If the boys should happen to run up in this bitch, you grab whatever product you have left and dump it off in here. It should dissolve in a minute or so.”

  “Youz a smart mothafucka, Booby.” Pavielle nodded his head, agreeing with his big homie. He was use to people giving him compliments like that. He had always been street smart and book smart.

  “At the end of your shift you’ll report to Gouch. He’ll swing by here every night after shop is closed, so have that scratch ready. I’ll break you off at the end of the week; that’s every Friday; seven hundred dollars. You do right. You handle your business. And I’ll promote your ass. You’ll move up to a bigger slice of the pie, bool?”

  “Yeah, I can work this shit.” Bully nodded and touched fists with Pavielle.