Me and My Hittas

by Tranay Adams

  Avenue pulled the Mercedes Benz into Gmomma’s driveway. He executed its engine, slid out from behind the wheel, and opened the back passenger door. Standing to the side, he waited until Vayda and Pavielle had gotten out and then shut the door behind them. He then withdrew a cloth from his suit and began wiping the smudges from the foreign whip. Vayda ran into the house screaming to Gmomma that she was getting married. Pavielle couldn’t help but smile as he made his way up the steps, where Gouch sat on the porch flipping through a family photo album, taking pulls of a Newport. The oldest Hood brother made eye contact with his baby brother as he approached.

  “Say it ain’t so, Booby, say it ain’t so. Tell me your not really finna wife that ho?” he song then busted up laughing.

  “Watch your mouth, nigga,” Pavielle frowned and pointed a threatening finger. “That’s the future Mrs. Hood right there.”

  “Tisk, tisk, tisk, haven’t you learned anything being my baby brother? You don’t go and buy the cow when you can get the milk for free.” He shook his head in disappointment.

  “Gucci, what the fuck are you talking about?” Pavielle asked not having a clue of what his big brother was getting at.

  Gouch shook his head again and went back to flipping through the photo album. “2+2 ass nigga,” he said under his breath.

  “Put some bass in your voice, fool. I can hardly hear you.”

  “You’re simple, mothafucka! Simple!”

  “Man, fuck you.”

  He looked him over and said, “You’re not my type.”

  “Anyway, what chu looking at?” Pavielle asked, looking over Gouch’s shoulder. “Photo album, what’s it look like?” he turned the page to a mangled, creased picture of an African American couple. The man in the photograph held an uncanny resemblance to Gouch. Though whereas Gouch was tall and lanky, the man was tall and ripped with muscles. The woman beside him had more of his little brother’s features: narrow face, bowed lips, and slanted eyes. The couple was dressed in black jeans and black leather jackets, with sky blue turtlenecks under them. The girlfriend wore her hair in afro puffs, while the boyfriend wore his in six neat cornrows. He clutched an M-16 in one hand and an AR-15 in the other, while his better half gripped a 12 gauge shotgun.

  “That’s moms and pops, huh?” Pavielle leaned in closer to the picture, smiling. “Yeah, that’s them,” Gouch smiled, admiring the old photo. “Man, momma was fine. I wonder if she was considered a dime piece back in the day.”

  “Yeah, momma was fine.” Pavielle cosigned with a smile. His mother really was a beautiful woman. “But look at pops, Blood. He was buff than a mothafucka. Nigga look just like you and shit.”

  “Blood do kinda look like me.” Gouch agreed, nodding his head. “And your ass look just like momma. All you need are some afro puffs and some lip stick.”

  He laughed.

  “Gucci, tell me again how they were killed.” Pavielle sat down across from him on the balcony. “Goddamn, man, I told you the story a hundred times already.” Gouch rolled his eyes after blowing smoke out into the air.

  “I know, Blood, but tell me again…please.” He pleaded, with his hands together as if he was praying. “Alright,” Gouch gave in, taking another pull of his cigarette. He blew the smoke from his nostrils and flicked the butt like a booger, sending embers flying. “This is the last time I’m telling you this shit, so listen up.” He closed the photo album and Pavielle sat up ready to listen, looking like a kid atschool during story time. “Okay…”

  Gouch went on to tell the story.

  Flashback

  Robin Vines and Joshua Hood were once the members of the defunct Black Panther Party. The party dissolved in 1982, but the couple along with a handful of comrades decided to carry on the legacy through a new movement of their own called The B.P.P aka The Black Power Posse. The posse needed funding, so they went to the drug dealers of the community asking for donations. They figured since the hustlers had been peddling poison in the community for so many years, that it was about time that they contributed to helping the environment that they had helped to destroy. After being told by the dealers to go fuck themselves, the posse picked up ski-masks and rifles and took to robbing them. Every dime the posse jacked went towards funding the movement, which helped the poor families within the poverty stricken environments. The B.P.P was literally stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. So the neighborhood dubbed them as the names of their two leaders suggested, Robbin’ Hood, as in Robin Vines and Joshua Hood.

  Robbin’ Hood left a bad taste in the local hustlers’ mouths, so the dealers came together. They combined their moneys and put out a hefty bounty on the organization; $400,000 dollars for the capture of Robbin’ Hood, dead or alive. The very communities that Robbin’ Hood had sworn to protect and serve turned against them. In just a few weeks six members of the movement was gunned down like rabid dogs in the streets. The city ran red with blood and chaos.

  The streets had gotten so hot that Robin and Joshua had disbanded their organization and sent their two boys to stay with Robin’s parents. The couple became fugitives and went into hiding. While on their hiatus they put their heads together and came up with a plan. They were going to rob the biggest heroin dealer in Southern California, Anthony Philmore a.k.a Cadillac Tony. Tony had over a dozen dope houses scattered throughout Los Angeles, with each one grossing a minimum of $50,000 dollars a day. The man was a low key multimillionaire. Robin and Joshua were going to take their proceeds from the lick and move out to Oakland, where they’d start their organization over from scratch.

  The couple were going to hit the Pueblo Bishops Projects, where Tony did his weekly count of the proceeds he made trafficking heroin. Every Sunday at twelve midnight a carrier would drop off Tony’s take from the dope houses. Robin and Joshua were going to force their way into the apartment behind the carrier, take the bag of money and raid the spot for whatever cash that may be stashed inside. The couple did their homework and rehearsed their plan a thousand times. They had it down pact, so the lick was going to be a piece of cake. But before the couple could put their plan into effect something tragic happened, Robin was gunned down at a phone booth, while placing a call to her parents to check on the boys. Joshua was devastated once he caught wind of his wife’s murder. He was hurting, but he was still going to carry out the mission they had planned. He knew that’s what she’d want to happen. Once Robin was buried he decided to finish what they’d started.

  Sunday night came bringing a storm and hard rain along with it. So when Joshua slipped on his black army fatigues and cap, he draped a poncho over it. He dressed his face in war-paint and loaded his weaponry into a black gym-bag. On his way out of the house, he stopped at the framed portrait of his family sitting on top of the television. He picked the portrait up, kissed it and placed it back down before heading out of the door.

  Joshua lay on the wet roof of a building a few blocks away from the Pueblo Projects. Scoped, infra-red rifle in hand, he picked off the armed guards on the roof of Cadillac Tony’s complex one by one, dropping their mothafucking asses. The armed guards collapsed like a house of cards upon impact of the silenced weapon’s bullets. Next, Joshua drew his hunting knife and started in on the armed guards patrolling the grounds around the heroin dealer’s complex. He moved so quick that he was nothing more than a blur before the guards’ eyes. Before the guards could pull the triggers of their weapons, their throats were slit and they were toppling like dominos. Joshua dragged their bodies to the tenants’ trash bens and dumped them. Once they were taken care of, he hid himself within the shadows and waited for the carrier to arrive. Seeing the carrier about to knock on the nigga he’d came to kill apartment’s door, he sprung into action and pressed his banger into his kidneys. The carrier’s eyes doubled and he stiffened, eyes shooting to their corners. A gloved hand pressed down over his mouth and a deep, raspy voice whispered into his ear. The breath of the voice was so hot it made the carrier’s ear moisten and the hair stood up on the back
of his neck from fear.

  “You s hould know before you knock on that door, that if you alert who’s ever in there to my presence. I’m going to kill you first. Got it?” the frightened carrier nodded yes. “Carry on.”

  The carrier knocked on the door in a specific pattern. A moment later five locks were undone and the door was pulled open. Before him stood a burly Nigerian man, with high cheekbones and a head as wide as a pit bull. He wore a button-down shirt, slacks and Ostrich skin shoes. The holster strapped under his arm held a large caliber pistol. The hulking man was Cadillac Tony’s bodyguard, Bruno.

  Bruno locked eyes with the carrier and could tell something was wrong. He was sweating profusely and he seemed sort of tense.

  “Are you going to let me in before I catch the flu, big man?” The carrier asked, trying to keep his cool. The giant narrowed his eyelids at the man and looked down at his feet. Noticing a second pair of boots behind his, he scowled and went to draw his burner. And that’s when all hell broke loose.

  Joshua shot the carrier in his back and kicked him in his ass. He stumbled towards Bruno with the bag of money and the ebony brute swatted him like a fly. The stumbling carrier created a diversion just long enough for ghetto avenger to open fire on the hulking bodyguard. Bruno jerked violently as an entourage of bullets ripped through his chest. Joshua grabbed him by his tie and pulled him close to use him as a human shield; he had peeped Cadillac Tony going for his pistol when the first shots went off. Cadillac Tony had rose to his feet from the kitchen table, where he was eating fried Jumbo shrimp and French fries, pulling his burner. He tried to draw a bead on his intruder, but couldn’t see him over Bruno’s wide back.

  Bruno’s three hundred and fifty pound limp body proved to be too much for Joshua to maneuver and he found himself pinned between the Nigerian and the carpet. He struggled to free himself from under the dead man, but his efforts were futile. Cadillac Tony ran upon his dead bodyguard’s corpse and leveled his gun at his back, finger fucking the trigger. He fired round after round into the obese corpse hoping the bullets would come out the other end and strike their intended target. But he had no such luck, the fatty tissues of the dead man’s hefty frame had stopped the bullets midway through.

  Click!

  Click!

  Click! Tony’s burner went empty as he pulled its trigger. He quickly discarded it and went to cease the .38 in his ankle holster. That’s when the back of Bruno’s skull exploded as three rounds found their escape. The bullets slammed into Tony’s belly and he fell over onto the floor wincing. His face held an expression of confusion and agony, as he lay on his back staring up at the ceiling. The lower half of his shirt was completely red.

  Joshua freed himself from under Bruno and removed the .38 stashed in his victim’s ankle holster. He stuffed the gun into his waistband and pulled the heroin peddler upon his hands and knees. He then dog-walked that ass into the bedroom, where he was sure he’d find a safe full of money. Joshua parted the clothes hanging on the bar inside of the closet and discovered a black stainless steel safe built into the wall. He smiled to himself thinking of all the cash that might be inside: one million, two million, three million, maybe. He pressed his steel to the side of Tony’s dome and told him to open the safe. To which he replied, “Fuck you, old bitch ass nigga!”

  “Run that by me one more time, boss,” Joshua frowned and listened closely. His victim spat blood on the carpet and repeated himself, “What chu hard of hearing, mothafucka? I said…” that was as far as he got before his brains were blown all over the safe in the wall. Joshua lowered his smoking weapon and abandoned Tony’s body in the bedroom, casually making his way inside of the living room. He could hear police car sirens wailing in the distance, so he had to work quickly. He grabbed the bag of money the carrier had dropped and refilled it with the $100 dollar bills that were scattered over the floor. Once he was sure he had every bill accounted for, he rose to his feet, tying the bag into a knot. When he looked up he locked eyes with the carrier, he was wearing a gold police shield around his neck. His left hand was holding his leaking gut, while his right held a standard police issued handgun. He was glistening with sweat and by the look on his face his wound was showing him no mercy.

  “D.E.A, asshole,” He exclaimed breathing hard as a bitch. “Drop your weapon!” Joshua stood there like a dear in headlights. He was taken by surprise; he couldn’t believe the carrier was an undercover law enforcer. Of all the rotten luck he had. “You hear me, cock sucker?! I said, ‘Drop your weapon! Both of them!’” he demanded.

  The police had just arrived on the scene. Joshua could hear their wailing sirens right outside the door. Surrendering, he discarded his gun and tossed the .38 stashed in his waistband. The agent ordered him to his knees, with his hands behind his head. He complied and the agent approached him with caution. The ghetto avenger eye-fucked his captor as he ascended on him, gun at the ready. He waited until he was three feet away and unsheathed his knife. He smacked the burner from the agent’s grasp and worked his knife in and out of his belly like a dildo, causing blood to squirt everywhere. Joshua stared the dying man in his eyes. Behind a mask of pure hatred,he said, “Sell out ass, mothafucka.” The agent’s pupils dilated and he released his last breath.

  Joshua let the agent’s limp body crash to the surface and spat on his corpse, totally disrespecting it. As he rose to his feet the police came flooding into the apartment, guns drawn. They looked from Joshua to the dead agent at his feet and then back again. Hate and disgust was etched upon each one of their faces. Joshua shut his eyelids and tilted his head back, taking a deep breath inhaling the fragrance. It was the perfume scent of his wife, Robin. She had come to take him away to a place where they could be together forever. He smiled. The police took it as a smack in the face since he had just murdered one of their own, and they fired upon him with extreme prejudice.

  Pop! Pop! Pop! Bloc! Bloc! Splocka! Splocka! Boc! Boc! Poc! Poc! Poc! The cops pumped one hundred and fifty rounds from their pistols, and about a hundred of them ripped through Joshua’s body. He danced on his feet for a time before his hole-filled frame went crashing to the carpet, creating a pool of blood beneath its self. His face held a slight grin as a lone tear slid down his cheek. A ghostly image leaned over his sprawled body and planted a gentle kiss upon his lips. With that, he expelled his final breath and left this life for a better one.

  Present

  “Man, pops went out like a G b ehind his.” Pavielle stated proudly. “When I go out, I wanna go out just like he did; for a cause I believe in; for something I was trying to achieve, you Griff me?” Gouch nodded yes. “We’re going to take the crack game to the next level, where all of my niggaz seeing a million or better. It won’t be no hating, or none of that shit; everybody gone eat.”

  “That’s what I’m talking about.” Gouch gave him a pound.

  “I’m a take it in, Blood. I’m tired than a bitch.” He headed into the house.

  Chapter Twelve

  A month later

  Bully was slumped down in the butter soft leather seat of a silver X5, sitting on twenty two inch chrome rims. He gangster leaned as he pushed the big body down Crenshaw Blvd. Gripping the steering wheel with a jeweled hand, he banked a right onto MLK blvd, nodding his head to Kanye West’s You can’t tell me nothing. He had just left the Baldwin Hills Shopping Plaza. He had purchased a new fit from Men’s Land, a fresh pair of kicks from the Foot Locker, and a bottle of cologne. As of now, he was headed back to the house to take a shower and get dressed for Pavielle’s birthday party. He couldn’t wait for the young kingpin to see the gift he had gotten him. He had made it himself.

  It had been a few months since Pavielle had put him down and he was seeing some paper. All the pretty and fine girls wanted to see him now. Bully was getting more money and pussy than he knew what to do with, but he never let it go to his head. He humbled himself and kept it one hundred how a real gangster is supposed to. He made sure he took care of Thangz. Even though sh
e was a hard up Junkie, she was one of the few besides, Gangsta, that held him down during his stretch. He had a lot of love for the busty smoker, and that hadn’t changed, even when he found out she was turning tricks to support her habit while he was locked up. Though Thangz was a walking corpse she was still his boo. So he had to stick with her and help her put the pieces of her life back together.

  That night

  Detectives Arsenegger and Ortiz sat parked outside of Gmomma’s house, watching the guests arrive for Pavielle’s birthday party. They snapped pictures with hopes of matching the unfamiliar faces, as well as the familiar ones, with the names they had back at the precinct.

  “Pavielle Hood and Black Jesus Arturo in bed together; why aren’t I surprised?” Arsenegger asked no one particular from behind the wheel. He was looking over Ortiz’s shoulder as he snapped pictures of the party guests.

  “Gangsta put up the line between the two of them, no doubt,” Ortiz claimed, snapping the pictures. “Guy gets popped and sets his nephew right up; who else more fit to helm the throne than a direct blood relative, with the business sense and know how?”

  “Keeping it in the family,” Arsenegger added.

  “O.G Booby Loc o’s the man now. He and his crew have The Bottoms sewn up with weight. The little guys can’t even eat. You either get on their payroll, or get filled with some hot shit.” He continued snapping the pictures.

  “I’m going to personally see to it that every G.M.B member and associate is behind the zipper of a body bag. And you can take that to the bank and cash it.” Arsenegger said, looking at the guests entering Gmomma’s house.

  The blue eyed devil was going to make good on his word…or die trying.

  *** Pavielle’s party was as live as the Mayweather Vs De La Hoya fight. G-momma, Vayda and Gouch had put together one hell of a shindig for their loved one’s 26th birthday. All of the homies and a few bloods from other sets came out to show Booby Loco from Outlaws 20s some love. Black Jesus, Bullet and Tango even turned out. There were bottles of Ace of Spades, Rose, and Chardonnay one ice. G-momma and Vayda had prepared a feast fit for a king and his knights. And since it was Pavielle’s birthday, she allowed the guests to put cigarette and weed smoke in the air.