For The Love Of My Sisters

by Shameek Speight

  “Dwayne is dat yuh Mon? Wah is all di noise, it sound lacka someone fall Mon,” a fat man said as he came towards the front door with another man by his side that looks as if he was his twin.

  “Bloodclot mon ah a hit!” One of the men yelled as he sees Muscles aiming at them.

  He pulls out his gun and aims, but before he could get off a shot bullets tore through him and his lookalike, ripping their bodies too pieces and leaving them slumped over dead.

  “You see a Jamaican tank top,” Muscles said while looking at Dwayne, “Is there anyone else in the house?”

  “Nuh mon, di money is right there,” Dwayne said while pointing to four duffle bags by the couch.

  After seeing what happened to his men he was scared shitless, but still had a plan up his sleeve.

  Muscles grab the two duffle bags and Homicide did the same. They heard a noise from the back bedroom and they turn around to see two more Jamaican gunmen running out of the back room with AK 47’s in their hands.

  “Oh shit!” Muscles yelled as he dove to the floor as rapid fire from the AK 47’s went over his head.

  ‘BRRRRRR!’

  Homicide squeezed the trigger of his Mac 10 and watch as lead fills one of the gunmen.

  “Yuh killed mi mon!” The second man said as he squeezes the trigger of his AK 47 hitting Homicide in the arm and shoulder.

  “Ahhhh!”

  Luscious walks up to the gunman and placed the barrel of her 9mm to the back of the gunman’s head and squeezed the trigger blowing a hole in the back of his head.

  “Shit!” Dwayne yelled and tries to run for the door when a bullet crashed into the back on his knee, making him fall to the floor screaming. “Ahhhh!”

  “You lying motherfucker, you said the house was empty!" Muscles yelled.

  “Homicide you alright man?”

  “Yea, I just got hit in my left shoulder and arm. The bullets went in and out.”

  “Luscious grab those two bags,” Muscles picks up the next two duffle bags and bends down and grabs Dwayne by his dreads.

  “Ahhhh, doan kill mi mon!” He pleaded.

  “Shut the fuck up and walk you bitch ass nigga!” Muscles pushed Dwayne in the back seat of the Nissan Altima. Muscles jumps in the driver’s seat with Luscious right next to him, and took off as they heard the sirens getting closer.

  Homicide sat next to Dwayne with his Mac 10 pointed at his head as blood pours out his left shoulder and arm. “I should kill you. Tell me how does the Junkyard Crew drop the weed off to their weed spots? How do the fucking spots re-up? Talk now!” Homicide yelled.

  “It’s in a black van parked on the next block. The keys are taped up under the van on the driver’s side. Someone parks the van and jumps in another car and leaves the van there for one of the men at the weed spot to get and drive back to the house garage and empties it,” Dwayne said fearing for his life.

  “How much weed is in the vans?” Muscles asked never taking his eyes off rode.

  “It tis different fah every spot, some vans ave 200 pounds an some 300 mon.

  Muscles grab his Boost phone that was on his hip and began to talk in the blue tooth. The weed is in a black van on the next block from every spot. The keys for the van are taped under the van on the driver’s side. Bring everything home.”

  ‘Chirp,’ team 4 responds saying, “Got you.”

  ‘Chirp,’ team 5 replies saying, “Got you.”

  ‘Chirp,’ team 3 says, “Got you.”

  Lil Homicide, Tommy Gunz, Velvet and Killer were at the front door with their victim, one of the Junkyard Crew’s lieutenants Slim, with a gun to his head. A Jamaican with a short haircut opens the door for Slim.

  “Slim mon what’s gud?”

  ‘Chirp,’ the man at the door heard the chirping sound go off loud and clear and looks up to see Killer standing behind Slim.

  “Ah a jux mon!” He yelled as he pulls out his .45 and aims it at Killer and squeezed the trigger. Killer quickly pushed Slim into the man at the door, making the bullet crash into Slims skull sending the Jamaican man at the door tumbling backwards holding Slims body.

  Velvet and Tommy Gunz rush the crib running inside while Killer squeezes the trigger of his Mac 10 sending bullets ripping through Slim’s body and coming out the back of the Jamaican man at the door killing him instantly. Inside the house all hell broke loose, there were four Jamaican gunmen shooting at Tommy Gunz and Velvet as soon as they entered the house. Velvet leans on a wall for cover as Tommy Gunz sprays the Mac 10 left to right causing the gunmen to jump for cover, but one didn’t make it in time before bursts of automatic fire rip through the meat of his flesh.

  “Ahhhh!” his scream could be heard over the shooting as he fell backward and dies.

  Killer walks into the living room and a bullet slams into his stomach and he drops his Mac 10 while bending over in pain. The gunman aims at his head to finish the job, when a wound opens were his right eye would have been. Velvet smiles as she saw the gunman’s body slump over. She grabs Killer and pulls him to the wall for cover.

  “Don’t say I never did anything for you!” she yelled while looking at Killer who was leaning on the wall next to her.

  “Shit how are we going to pass those two ass holes?” Tommy Gunz said while leaning on the wall next to Velvet and Killer as a hail of bullets went flying pass his head along with Killer’s and Velvet’s.

  Just then Lil Homicide came through the back door of the house. The two Jamaican gunmen never heard him enter, because of the loud noise from their guns firing. Lil Homicide walks up to the two men and raise his twin 10 mm handguns and squeezed the trigger on both of them simultaneously. One loud boom echoes through the house as the top of both the men’s head flew off. Tommy Gunz peep his head out and see’s Lil Homicide there with two smoking guns raised and the two Jamaican gunmen dead on the floor. To him it looked like a scene out of a movie.

  “Damn fool what do you think you’re some kind of hit man or something?” Tommy Gunz said while laughing.

  “Just grab those duffle bags,” Lil Homicide replied.

  “Damn these fools!” Tommy Gunz said as he opened one of the four duffle bags to see hundred dollar bills stacked up on top of each other. He zips the bag back and closes it.

  “Let’s get the fuck out of here,” all four of them hop in the stolen Nissan Altima and start to pull off.

  “Wait, wait pull over,” Lil Homicide said.

  “What? Why?”

  “You don’t hear the fucking cops coming!” Tommy Gunz yelled.

  “Just pull the fuck over,” Lil Homicide hops out the car and ran towards the black van. He bent down and used his fingers to feel what he was looking for. He rips it away from the duct tape then gets up using the key to open the van door and jumps in. He starts it up and turns on the headlights. He rolled down the window, “Let’s go!” he yelled.

  “With that said, Tommy Gunz took off heading back to the safe house with Lil Homicide tailing behind him.

  Ring! Ring! Ring!

  Nina looks at her cell phone and her brother’s name pops up on the screen, “What’s good big bro?” she said into the phone.

  “Nina I need you, where are you?”

  “I’m at school Muscles, is everything alright?”

  “Nina there’s no time for questions, just come to 245 Anchor Drive in Bayswater. It’s important that you come now, now Nina, now!” The phone went dead.

  Nina never heard her brother sound so scared and worried. She knew something was wrong. She quickly leaves her school and jumps in her beat up Hyundai and takes off. Her school was on Arch Avenue in Jamaica Queens.

  ‘It shouldn’t take me long to get to the address Muscles told me to go to,’ she thought as she flew down Rockaway Avenue. Less than twenty minutes she was outside the house Muscles told her to meet him at. There was no room for her to park her car. There were black vans everywhere along with Nissan Altima’s. Nina double parked and hops out then ran to the house and knocks
on the door and prays that her brother was alright.

  Luscious opens the front door, “Audrina come in.”

  “Luscious where’s my brother?”

  “He’s upstairs in the first bedroom.”

  Nina had known Luscious for a long time. She was a close friend of Muscles and used to be Muscles girlfriend when they were younger. Luscious and Nina used to have long talks about how Muscles will always be a player. They would joke on him for days while getting high. That was when Nina used to get high, but now she was in school trying to become a nurse.

  As Nina enters the house she saw a few faces she knew; Lil Homicide, Tommy Gunz and Essence. A lot of them she didn’t know and never saw before, “What the fuck, is this a party or a meeting?” Nina asked.

  “Just go upstairs Muscles need you now,” Luscious stated.

  Nina ran up the stairs to the first bedroom door. She could hear moaning, which sounds like a man’s moan. She pushed the door open to see Muscles holding a towel on a man’s wound on his chest. The man was squirming and crying as his blood was pumping from his wound at a fast pace. She looked at the man and then the floor to see two more with blood pouring out of them. She knew these two men. ‘Homicide and Killer,’ she said to herself.

  “Nina help, help!” Muscles yelled, “I’m trying to put pressure on his wound to stop the bleeding,”

  “What happened here Muscles?” Nina asked.

  “I’ll tell you later, just help.”

  “I left my medical kit.”

  “Here, I think you can use this,” Luscious said holding her medical kit.

  “I will need your help Luscious, Muscles hands are too big,” Nina replied.

  “They’re too big for what?” Luscious asks.

  “If they have been shot we have to remove the bullets and from the look of it they been shot!” Nina said sarcastically, “Muscles you have to leave me and Luscious in here alone.”

  Muscles looked up at his baby sister and knew she was right he’d only get in the way. Besides he had more things to handle downstairs. “Do your best to help them,” Muscles said as he exits the room.

  Nina quickly went to work. She took out a pair of scissors and cut all the man’s clothes off. She took out three new needles and filled them with a mixer of anesthetic and morphine and shot the three men up so they will sleep and feel no pain. She noticed Homicide had been shot three times, one in the shoulder and the other two bullets hit his arm. The bullets went in and out.

  “Luscious do you know how to sew?”

  “Yes why?”

  “Take this and stitch up Homicide, first pour this antiseptic on his wounds,” then Nina looks at Killer, and could see that the bullets hit him in the stomach. She swiftly uses small metal tweezers to feel around in his stomach until she found the bullet and pulls it out, “Stitch him up when you’re done with Homicide,” she said and moves on to work on the last man.

  She wipes him down with a clean wet towel and seen seven bullet holes in his body with blood pumping out fast.

  “Oh shit, I didn’t know it was this bad,” she said as tears ran down her face. She couldn’t have seen all the bullet holes before, because the blood was covering it. Now she could and didn’t know what to do. “Shit this is my first year in school to be an R.N. I don’t know what to do Luscious, it’s too much.”

  “Do your best Nina.”

  “Why can’t we take him to the hospital?”

  “Nina you’re from the hood and you know why we can’t take him to any damn hospital.”

  Nina knew she was right, she knew what this man did and most likely someone else got hurt as well. Nina wipes the tears from her eyes and went to work, doing her best.

  Chapter 12

  Downstairs Muscles was listening to Essence story on how they ran in the weed spot and one of the members of the Homicide Crew got shot seven times before she killed the gunman.

  “Alright, I need every one to start unloading the vans and put the weed in the basement next to the duffle bags of money. Any guns you used tonight put them in the vans you took. Pull one member from the team that you did the jux with so they can drive the van to the boondocks over on Beach 20th and pour gas in them, then set them on fire. I also need someone to dump the stolen cars next to 40 Projects and burn them as well. Do it now, now!” Muscles yelled.

  Everybody starts to work together to unload the black vans. It seemed like it took forever to unload the weed they had. Muscles used his strong arms and grabbed bags after bags bringing them down to the basement. They placed all the guns they used that night in the vans and one member of each team hops in and pulls off, heading to Beach 20th where they burned the vans and walked to Wave Crest and take the bus home. The same went for the stolen cars they did the job in.

  Nina goes downstairs crying, “Muscles I couldn’t save him, why did you make me do it, I couldn’t save him.” Muscles open his arms to hug his sister as she cries on his chest.

  “I’m sorry baby girl for putting you through this just sit down on the couch. I have to handle this.”

  “Muscles what have you gotten yourself into?” Nina asked while crying, worrying about her brother.

  “I’ll tell you later, but first let me handle this.”

  Just then Luscious came down the stairs. “Do you want me to get rid of the body?”

  ‘No I’ll handle it.” Muscles replied.

  It messes with his head at times. How down to ride Luscious was and how Bones always falls back. Bones had already dipped off the scene while everyone else went home without asking if Homicide was okay. He was supposed to be the one to burn the cars Muscles had used in the jux, but since he left Muscles had to ask Tommy Gunz to do it for him.

  Just then Tommy Gunz and Lil Homicide entered the house, “Yo how’s Killer, my brother and Crazy-K. Are they going to make it,” Lil Homicide asked.

  “Naw Crazy-K is gone, but Nina fixed up Killer and Homicide,” Luscious responded.

  “They’re on drugs right now and will sleep for a day,” Nina said.

  “Yo good looking Nina, anything you ever need I got you, just know we have your back,” Lil Homicide said meaning every word.

  Muscles went upstairs and came back down with Crazy-K’s body wrapped up in a garbage bag. “Yo, do you two still have your hot seats?” Muscles asked talking about their stolen cars.

  “Yea it’s outside in front, we were just going to get rid of it, but I had to drive Tommy Gunz back after dumping your car,” Lil Homicide replied.

  “Alright good, pick up the keys to my Denali on the table over there and you and Tommy Gunz follow me,” Muscles said while carrying Crazy-K’s body to the car. He sat it in the backseat then hops in the car and takes off.

  He watches in the rearview mirror at his Denali tailing him. He drove to a spot next to the airport then hops out the car and goes in the trunk to pull out a red gas container. He opens it and began to pour gas on the inside of the car soaking Crazy-K then he does the outside. He lit a match and tosses it inside the car and watched it go up in flames then he runs toward the waiting Denali and jumps in the backseat.

  “Pull off! Pull off!” Muscles yelled. Lil Homicide steps on the gas and takes off. Tommy Gunz sat in the passenger seat, watching the car burn saying a quiet prayer for his falling soldier. They jump back on Rockaway Avenue heading back to the stash house.

  ‘BOOM!’

  A loud exploding sound could be heard and all three men knew what it was as they sat silent on the ride back.

  Back at the stash house, Lil Homicide parks the Denali and all three men hop out. “Listen let everyone in the crew know not to come by for a few days. I will call everyone soon for their cut of the money. I just need some time to get some things straightened out, but I will need you and Tommy Gunz tomorrow since your brother will be knocked out for a while. I need the extra hands and I trust you two, so be here early.”

  “Alright we’ll be here in the morning, you know you can count on us,” Lil Homic
ide replied.

  “I know that’s why I asked,” Muscles said with a smile on his face and walks inside the house while Tommy Gunz and Lil Homicide hop in their ride and peels off.

  Once inside the house Muscles could see Nina sitting on the couch next to Luscious. Nina was rocking back and forth.

  “Audrina you have to stop acting like you never saw a dead body before. I saw someone get killed, we’re from the same Projects and you’ve seen what I’ve seen, and I’ve seen what you’ve seen,” Luscious stated while wrapping her arms around Nina’s shoulders.

  “Luscious stop calling me by my government name, I hate that. It’s not the dead body that has me all fucked up, it’s the fact that his life was in my hands and I couldn’t save him. I let it slip away.”

  Muscles had heard enough, he jumps in the conversation, “Nina don’t blame yourself, you did the best you could and I’m proud of you. You can’t beat yourself up over it, you didn’t shoot him.”

  “Muscles what the fuck is going on? Why were all those people here and whose house is this? How did that man get shot?” Nina yelled.

  “Listen baby girl, I can only tell you but so much Nina. I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired. I been taking care of you and Sasha for a long time and I’m not complaining, but it’s getting harder and harder, between rent, food, bills and Sasha’s Aids medication it’s hard to keep up,” Muscles stated while shaking his head. He removed the rubber band from his hair, letting his dreads free in hopes it would relieve some of the stress he was feeling.

  “But Muscles, that’s why I’m going to school to be an R.N. and I’m working as a Medical Assistant to help you with the bills,” Nina replied.

  “Nina I love you and appreciate your help, but we still don’t make enough money between the both of us and your school bills alone are high. We have to wait another two years before you become a nurse,” Muscles responded.

  “So what are you doing then?” Nina asked looking her brother dead in the eyes.

  “I’m taking care of my sister’s, that’s what I’m doing,” Muscles replied.

  “But how are you taking care of us?” Nina questioned.