Street Rap

by Shaun Sinclair

  Reece spoke to the crew. “This nigga still don’t want to talk?” They all shook their heads. “That’s all right. He will.” Reece gestured to Hulk. Hulk stood in front of Hardtime and slapped him awake. Hardtime awoke in a stupor. “You ready to talk yet?”

  Hardtime fixed his one good eye on Reece and tried to burn him off the face of the earth with his gaze.

  “Samson, go get my tools,” Reece instructed. Samson left the cabin briefly, only to return with Reece’s “tool kit.”

  “String this punk mu’fucka up, son!” Reece ordered. He was quickly losing it. His nostrils were flared, and spittle formed in corners of his mouth. It was a striking contrast to the neat green suit he wore.

  As Samson slung a rope over one of the ceiling beams preparing to string Hardtime up, Reece ranted aloud. “Protecting this nigga. I can’t believe this shit. Nigga would’ve been sold you out, stupid mu’fucka! That’s all right, though. You don’t want to talk? Nigga, you gon’ die! And her, too.” Reece threw a picture of Hardtime’s mother, taken earlier that day, in his face.

  Qwess was shocked. Reece had gone too far. They had an unspoken code among the crew that family members were noncombatants, especially mothers. Qwess pulled Reece to the side and attempted to check him.

  “Yo, what’s up with this, bro? I thought we had rules?” Qwess hissed. “Fuck is you doing?”

  Reece hissed back. “Fuck that! This is crew business.” The others caught the last part of Reece’s words and repeated them.

  “Crew business!” they yelled.

  Reece stood against Qwess’s chest. “That’s what I was telling you. Shit has changed out here. These li’l nigga is savages. They don’t respect civility, so every now and then you gotta get medieval on a nigga ass. Ain’t that right, Hardtime?” Reece called over his shoulder. “Shit is real in the field. Don’t let a broad draw you back to this. She is gone. All the killing in the world ain’t gon’ bring her back,” Reece reasoned. He turned and prepared his kit.

  Qwess took it all in. The blood, the gore, the hardcore truth of what Reece was saying. Reece kept talking, and it was then that Qwess knew Reece had set him up. He was testing him, going hard to make or break him.

  “You know,” Reece said, as he removed tools from his kit, “a man can’t occupy both sides of the fence. Eventually, it’ll come crashing down on him. So you let me handle this retribution for you, but I want you to witness this and know we treating every nigga involved the same way or worse. This way, you live vicariously through me, as I do the same through you. You think I don’t want to be on stage ripping shit up. Bitches sucking my dick in foreign lands and shit. I do, but I chose my life. I gotta live it. You? You have a chance. This ain’t for you no more.”

  Samson broke up the moment, telling Reece he was ready. Reece and Qwess joined the others. Hardtime was now strung up, hanging from the ceiling by his arms overhead. He was barebacked and still gagged. His legs were tied at the knees and ankles.

  Reece placed his tool kit on the floor, then took his time to snap on a pair of rubber gloves. The sound echoed around the cabin with a loud snap as Reece popped the ends of the gloves. Next, he took out a twelve-inch double-edged blade. He held it up to the light emanating through the windows of the cabin, admiring it as if for the first time. All of the grand gestures were done to unnerve Hardtime, who was barely conscious.

  As Reece walked to him, he began talking to himself. “What a nigga that don’t talk need a tongue for?” he asked rhetorically. Reece snatched the gag from Hardtime’s mouth and pried it open. Hardtime got the hint and clamped his mouth shut, just missing Reece’s hand. Reece struggled with him all the while talking shit.

  “Nigga, what you guarding your tongue for? You ain’t using it, so you don’t need it. I’m getting that!”

  Hardtime shook his head side to side, and suddenly spit blood right in Reece’s face. Samson pushed Reece aside and cracked Hardtime in the mouth, instantly breaking his jaw. Hardtime yelped out in pain, and Reece smiled when he saw Hardtime’s lower jaw dangling.

  Reece resumed his position in front of Hardtime. He gripped Hardtime’s lower jaw and squeezed it as if he was trying to break it in two.

  “Raaaaaaaa!!!” Hardtime’s ear-splitting scream bounced off the walls. For Qwess, it was the sweetest music he had heard in a long time.

  “You got nuts, nigga,” Reece told him. “I give you that.” Suddenly, a more sinister idea popped into his head. He began a low cackle. “Or should I say, you had nuts.”

  Reece unbuckled Hardtime’s pants and pulled them down to his ankles. He stuck his blade next to Hardtime’s exposed genitals. “Last time, nigga . . . Who. Did. The. Hit?” Reece asked.

  Hardtime groaned and sucked up the pain as he maneuvered his head to look Reece in the face. Fuck you, nigga, is what he tried to say. Instead, with his jaw separated, it came out as air. Still, Reece caught the intent of his statement.

  “Nah, you ain’t equipped to fuck nothing!” Reece snarled. He pushed the blade up and sliced Hardtime’s nut sack open. His balls plopped out of the sack and rolled onto the floor. Reece squished them under his alligator shoes. Surprisingly, Hardtime didn’t feel much pain.

  Reece dug into his tool kit again and pulled out a handful of M-80 firecrackers. The others cleared the way. They knew Reece was in torture mode. There was no stopping him now. They had once seen Reece cut a man’s heart out while he was looking at him. The man was dead a full ten minutes before Reece realized it and ceased his torture tactics.

  Reece walked up to Hardtime and gripped his broken jaw again. “It’s up to you how long this last,” he told Hardtime. “Tell me who did the hit and you can float on peacefully. No? Okay.”

  Reece took his blade and methodically carved a hole in Hardtime’s stomach, just underneath his sternum. When he was certain the hole was large enough to accommodate the firecrackers, he carefully placed one inside the hole. After that was done, Reece taped another firecracker to Hardtime’s flaccid penis.

  Hardtime’s eyes grew larger than flying saucers. He vigorously shook his head.

  Reece twirled his hand and cupped his ear like Hulk Hogan. “Huh? You got something you want to tell me? Stop me anytime by telling me what I want to know. Trust me, it only gets worse from here.”

  Hardtime had had enough. The thought of his precious jewels exploding was enough to convince him. Broken jaw and all, he told everything, including who turned Black Vic on to the hit squad: D and his partner, Scar. In pain, words barely decipherable, he gave them addresses, spots to find them, where their businesses were. He even offered them a spare key to Black Vic’s house and informed them that Black Vic was returning the following day. He told them everything he knew to spare his jewels and save his life, all to no avail.

  After Hardtime finished spilling his guts, Reece lit the firecrackers anyway. As the stems sizzled and sparked, just before the mini explosives ignited into a rain of crimson, Reece looked at Qwess.

  “Rest assured,” he said. “This is crew business.”

  Chapter 12

  The following day, Black Vic walked into his home from his vacation. He dropped his bags at the door. He was pissed. He had been calling Hardtime to pick him up from the airport, but he couldn’t get through. In fact, there was no answer at any of his spots. He couldn’t wait to pound the streets and show everyone he was back. Out of sight, out of mind was right. His own crew wouldn’t return any of his calls. He had been calling to get a confirmation on the hit on Reece, but no one took his calls. He wasn’t worried because he knew the Blood Team were professionals, and no news was good news. Besides, Black Vic would know by the reaction on the street when he went out if the hit had been successful or not.

  Eager to pound the pavement, he walked into his room to change clothes and hit the street. He was not prepared for what he found.

  In the center of his bed sat the bald head of his right-hand man, Hardtime. Even in death, his face was grotesquely disfigured from th
e intense beating he had taken. His mouth gaped open permanently from where the rigor mortis had kicked in. It was obvious he had been in tremendous pain at the time of his death.

  Black Vic adjusted his eyes and blinked, as if doing so could make the image go away. It didn’t work. Black Vic regained his composure and slowly approached the bed to get a closer look. That’s when he saw the note attached to Hardtime’s gold bicuspid tooth. The words were written in blood, the message crystal clear.

  It read: Crew Business . . . You missed!

  * * *

  A few days later, Black Vic was driving down Main Street with the top dropped on his Lex coupe. He was in better spirits because he had just had a sit-down with D and Scar. They were aware of the botched hit, and they assured Black Vic that the original hit was still on, and it should be executed in the coming weeks. This was music to Black Vic’s ears because he knew that a pissed-off Reece was hazardous for business, not to mention health.

  Black Vic never anticipated that the Crescent Crew would strike back so hard, so quickly. Vic had lost a major part of his team. To him that was no problem, though. Once the heat died down, he could mold a new squad, probably a tougher squad. All except Hardtime—he was simply irreplaceable. They had been through a lot together, and a part of Vic wanted to kill Reece personally. However, he understood the big picture. It was business, never personal.

  Black Vic pulled up to a four-way intersection right in the middle of the downtown business district. It was noon, and the sun was beaming bright on this early spring day.

  Black Vic scanned his surroundings for something to get into, a possible fling. This time of the year the women flaunted all their assets and were ready to mingle. Not to be disappointed, almost on cue, a motorcycle pulled up on his left side. The driver was huge, but nondescript because of the dark tinted sun visor on his helmet. However, the driver wasn’t what caught Black Vic’s attention. It was the passenger: a very dark-skinned woman with shiny black, glistening legs. She was hunched over with all of her ass-ets tooted up in the air. Her thong was clearly visible, for her shorts barely covered her voluptuous ass from the top or bottom. Cakes busted out of the shorts like bread from a biscuit can.

  While at the light, she raised her visor and eyed Black Vic the whole time, while her main toyed with the throttle on the bike. Women checking him was common for Black Vic, but the intensity was heightened because she was choosing with her man right there. She winked at Black Vic, and he winked back. For a moment, it seemed the two of them were the only people that existed . . . until another motorcycle pulled up on Black Vic’s right side. He saw the passenger of that motorcycle toss something into his car, then speed off through the red light. It took Black Vic a moment to recognize what had happened. Yet it became clear when he saw the dreadlocks flapping out of the helmet of the passenger on the second motorcycle.

  Reece!

  “Mutha . . .” Black Vic swore. On pure instinct, he floored the throttle and gave chase to the motorcycle before he remembered something had been tossed into his vehicle. He frantically searched the vehicle until he found the grenade that had rolled beneath his driver’s seat. He palmed it and prepared to throw it out of the car.

  That’s when he spotted the second one . . . a second too late.

  The grenade exploded inside Black Vic’s hand, eviscerating him and the Lexus.

  Main Street erupted into a ball of flames. When the second grenade exploded seconds later, it blew out the windows of the entire first floor of a bank on the corner. The cop posted outside the bank never knew what hit him. He saw his legs—now separated from his body—go limp in front of him. Initially, he thought it was a terrorist attack, but he recalled seeing two motorcycles speed through the red light just before the explosion. More important, he distinctly remembered seeing dreadlocks flapping from the helmet of one of the riders. This was a hit.

  All of this ran through Officer Cureton’s head as he lay on the sidewalk bleeding out. However, he could only focus on the pain. So much pain. He could faintly hear the sirens in the distance as he finally embraced the peaceful darkness that enveloped him.

  * * *

  Qwess sat in the plush leather sofa in his mother’s den watching the huge sixty-inch screen. He had purchased the TV for his mother as a birthday gift, knowing full well he’d watch it more than she would. This was where Qwess went to gather his thoughts and think things over clearly. It was something about being in the presence of his mother that made everything in his life small by comparison.

  Qwess flipped the channels on the television, and sure enough the same story was broadcasting there as well, the same story that had dominated headlines for the past two weeks.

  Someone had blown up a car in the middle of downtown Fayetteville, and in the process severely injured a city policeman. According to reports, the bank that the car was blown up in front of had unclear surveillance photos of the whole thing. The DA was confident that with those photos, and the cop’s testimony, he could bring the perps to justice.

  Qwess shook his head in disbelief. “This nigga is crazy!”

  Qwess’s phone rang. It was Doe. He answered, “As salaam alayka.”

  “Do you see this shit?” Doe asked.

  “I’m watching it now.”

  “Bro, this can’t be good. I hope this wasn’t him.”

  For Qwess’s part, he knew more. Two weeks ago when the incident first occurred, he remembered Reece two-waying him with a message that read: Qisas. Watch the news. Qwess knew that Qisas meant an eye-for-an-eye in Islam. What Qwess didn’t know is how extreme things had gotten . . . until he watched the news. Again and again. The sheer brazenness of the act had garnered national attention, and before long the feds had descended upon Fayetteville.

  “This has gotten out of hand. Let me call you back. I need to speak with him ASAP.”

  It was two days later before Reece came to see Qwess at the studio.

  “Congratulations!” Qwess told Reece, as he walked in and took a seat behind the console.

  “For?” Reece asked.

  “Your victory. It’s been all over the news.”

  Reece scoffed. “You think that’s it? This shit ain’t over.”

  Qwess thought for sure that the war was over since Black Vic was dead. He was astonished and a little worried when Reece informed him that he intended to hunt down every person who had had a hand in his planned assassination. Qwess was worried because of the look in Reece’s eyes. Qwess had never seen it before. Personally, he thought enough was enough. They should stop there. However, Reece wasn’t having it. Reece reiterated that he intended to take out everyone. One look in his glassed-over eyes, and Qwess knew resistance was futile. It was then he made his decision and offered monetary support—which Reece declined.

  “Again, I appreciate it, brother, but once they’re out the way, money will rain from the heavens like divine confetti.”

  There was too much on Qwess’s mind to dispute with Reece. He had the tour coming up, he had meetings with accountants, label owners, promoters, etc. Plus, he was still mourning the death of his lady and unborn child.

  “All I ask is, be safe, though,” Qwess asked.

  “For sure.”

  Once Qwess made his decision, he began concentrating on the business at hand: prepping for the tour. He met with the “Uncle Tom” from AMG records to discuss their itinerary. At the meeting, Qwess was informed that before they went overseas for the second half of the tour, they would shoot the video. Qwess was gaining momentum on the charts since his party when Shauntay had been killed, so they wanted to capitalize with a video.

  It was not surprising. America had always had a healthy penchant for violence. When word spread out of the tragedy that had knocked on Qwess’s door, people flocked to the stores to buy his albums, either to empathize, or to listen to see if his musings on record were authentic. Bottom line, controversy sells, and Qwess’s record was selling exponentially. So the heads at AMG wanted to capital
ize on this rise and introduce Qwess to the world, not just the Southwest. A video would do that.

  The tour was scheduled to start in three days. Everyone was more than ready. During the time Qwess was stuck in his rut, Doe was proving to be a worthy business partner, as Qwess suspected. Doe had made sure Flame and 8-Ball had passports. He also had made sure that Flame’s money was well taken care of. He even left Fayetteville to help Flame select a house so he wouldn’t become a victim of predatory lending. Ultimately, Doe had personally taken Flame under his wing to make sure things continued to run smoothly. For that Qwess was eternally grateful.

  He and Doe were becoming closer than ever.

  * * *

  It was a little after midnight when Doe was ushered into Reece’s office at his funeral home. Ever since the war broke out, Reece was using the funeral home as a base. Various members of the Crescent Crew rotated guard shifts at the funeral home. However, Samson never left Reece’s side. So he was the only person present with Doe and Reece. When Doe signaled he wanted privacy, Reece dismissed Samson.

  “What’s up, cuz?” Reece slurred. Doe had noticed the stench of marijuana when he first walked in, so he already knew Reece was high. In fact, Doe could never remember Reece being so high all the time. He even suspected he was doing more than weed.

  “Just chillin’, man.”

  Reece slumped down in his leather desk chair, chuckled. “So, what brings you to the dark side, cuz-o?”

  “Just came to see you, man. You know we leave tomorrow. Well.” Doe hesitated. “Check it, man. I’ve been watching the news, man. And I’m worried. The DA seems serious, cuz!”