by K'wan
When his phone rang, he almost jumped out of his skin. He looked at the caller ID and recognized Persia’s bedroom phone number. He really didn’t feel like dealing with her schoolgirl crush at that moment, but it was now more important than ever that he kept her happy and playing his game until he got what he wanted from her.
“What’s good, baby? Everything okay?” he asked, faking concern.
“No, not really. Does that offer for you to pay for my cab back to Harlem still stand?”
CHAPTER 27
The weather had started to change, with the cool days of fall giving way to first snowfalls of winter. It had been three weeks since Persia had ran away to shack up with Chucky, and one day shy of her eighteenth birthday. Running away had been an impulsive and emotionally fueled decision, but in her mind she felt like it was the right one. Persia had always felt like a prisoner in her own house . . . the house that her father had built for her.
Persia loved her mother, but couldn’t take how she tried to control her life, overreacting to everything Persia said or did. She went out of her way to keep up the image of the upwardly mobile black family to their affluent neighborhood, as if their house hadn’t been built by drug money, and demanded the same from Persia, but that wasn’t who Persia was. She was a young girl coming into her womanhood and trying to find an identity, not have one forced on her. What Michelle didn’t realize was that the more she tried to reel Persia in, the more she rebelled. The night that Richard had said those hurtful things to her was the knife that cut the reins and sent Persia off into the wild.
She could have only imagined how she’d looked when she showed up on Chucky’s doorstep, still wearing the cocktail dress and dragging a hastily packed duffle bag. She was a mess, but he welcomed her with open arms. She’d thought they were going to stay at his apartment in Harlem, but Chucky had other ideas. After that first night he took her to a motel up in the Bronx. Persia didn’t understand why they couldn’t just stay in Harlem, but Chucky explained that her parents were sure to be out looking for her and Harlem was the first place they would check. With her being a minor, if she was caught in his apartment, he would go to prison. He needed to keep her tucked away at least until her eighteenth birthday and then they could expose their relationship to the world.
The motel was on an out-of-the-way block deep in the heart of the Bronx. The rooms were small, barely clean, and smelled of old beer. It was hardly what Persia was used to, but beggars couldn’t be choosers, and it had been she who came to Chucky for help. He promised her that they would move to better lodgings the next day and as soon as things died down in the streets he would start looking for a place for them. Just the thought of them moving in together and building a life made Persia giddy. She had had boyfriends in her life, but never a man . . . someone who would take care of her and who she could take care of. She dreamed of the life they would build together, with him being the king of New York and her being his queen.
That first night, Persia and Chucky made love and smoked weed, laced with the crack Chucky had given her when he dropped Persia off. He was glad that she still had it because he was fresh out and needed a hit. This time when Persia smoked the Woo it didn’t hit her ass hard. She still heard the cannons, but the not the whistling of birds. Blasted out of their minds, Persia and Chucky had wild animal sex well until sun up, before crashing in each other’s arms and sleeping until late that afternoon. For Persia, waking up next to Chucky was something she could definitely get used to. After making love twice more, they checked out of the motel room and hit the streets.
Chucky had to make a quick stop through Harlem before they made moves. Persia was surprised when he pulled up in front of Karen’s building. He told her to stay there and he would be right back, before jumping out of the car and going inside the building. Persia immediately caught an attitude, thinking that he was going to see Karen, but then she checked herself. There were dozens of apartments and Chucky hustled on that block, so he could’ve been going to see anybody. Still she kept her eyes glued to the window of Karen’s apartment, trying to catch a glimpse of anything that looked suspicious. Less than five minutes later, Chucky was coming back out of the building and from the look on his face, she could tell that something was wrong.
“Everything okay, baby?” Persia asked.
“I was going to check somebody who was holding some money for me and they weren’t home, that’s all,” Chucky lied.
“Who did you have to see?” Persia asked suspiciously. There was something in Chucky’s voice that raised her antennas.
Chucky turned to look at her, his eyes cold and hard. “Persia, don’t think that because I’m fucking with you that you can start playing twenty questions when it comes to what the fuck I’m doing. If you feel like that I can always drop you back off at your mama’s house.”
“No, I wasn’t saying all that, Chucky. I just see you’re upset and I wanted to know who did it. You know if they upset you then they upset me,” Persia told him.
“Don’t worry, I got it under control,” Chucky told her. “In the meantime, tuck this in your purse for me.” He handed her several neatly wrapped packages of crack.
“Where did you get this?” Persia’s eyes got wide. It was like just holding it in her hand made her want fire up right there in the car.
“There you got with the damn questions again. Just put the shit up until we get where we’re going,” Chucky told her and turned his attention to the road, and tried to figure out a solution to yet another problem. He had gone upstairs in search of Karen, but Sissy said she wasn’t home and she didn’t know where she was or when she was coming back. Chucky knew that Sissy was lying, but there was nothing he could do about it right then and there, short of forcing his way into the apartment. He would have to try to catch Karen on the streets, and if that didn’t work he was going to pay Sissy another visit. This time he would have a gun in his hand.
From Harlem, Chucky took her to the place they would call home for the next few weeks until he got his affairs in order: a run-down house that his aunt and uncle owned, located on the wrong side of Mount Vernon, New York. It was on an isolated block that was neighbored by a church. Like clockwork the bells would ring every night at midnight, waking the whole neighborhood up. Persia was skeptical about staying with strangers at first, but Chucky’s Aunt Letti made her feel right at home.
Letti was an older chick, about the same age as Persia’s mother, but hardly as uptight. She listened to nothing but rap music, wore clothes that were clearly too small for her robust frame, and could drink and smoke most men under the table. Letti didn’t treat Persia like a kid, more like one of her homegirls. Letti was what Richard would’ve referred to as a woman living in her second childhood. For all her flaws, she was a bundle of fun and Persia had grown quite fond of her.
Chucky’s Uncle Malcolm was a different story. He wasn’t Chucky’s biological uncle, but a man Letti had been dealing with for years. From the time Persia had met him, he gave her the creeps. He was always skulking around and looking at Persia funny, and was always looking for a handout. Chucky had broken him off a nice piece of crack the first night they arrived, as payment for letting them stay there, but by the next morning he was back trying to beg for more. Persia reminded him of the addicts she would see wandering Harlem, zoned out and looking for a hit, and he made her terribly uncomfortable.
The first few nights at Letti’s house were like a nonstop party. There were always people coming and going, either to buy drugs from Chucky or share drugs with Letti and Malcolm. Persia would stay up until all times of the night, drinking, smoking, and playing cards or listening to music. But like with all good things, the goods times came to an end when Chucky had to take it back to the streets.
Persia would sometimes ask if she could ride with him when she went into the city, but Chucky would tell her that things were too hot with her parents still looking for her and she should stay in the house. It was okay at first, but Chucky start
ed being gone more and more frequently, sometimes not returning for days at a time. When Persia would ask about his whereabouts, he would give her a sloppy excuse and feed her more drugs.
It seemed like all Persia did was get high and stress over Chucky and it was starting to show. She was losing weight and her hair hadn’t been done in weeks. Being that the next day she would turn eighteen, Persia decided that she wanted to look presentable. With any luck, Chucky would take her out to celebrate. Taking some of the weekly allowance Chucky had been giving her, Persia decided to take the bus to the strip mall to get her hair and nails done. She couldn’t wait to see the look on Chucky’s face when she came back and saw how pretty she looked. He would be breaking his neck to take her out and show her off.
CHAPTER 28
In the weeks after Boo’s funeral, things changed with Ramses and in the neighborhood. Ramses took the death of his friend harder than people expected and became less and less of a fixture on the block. He ran the operation from a distance, delegating the day-to-day responsibilities to his lieutenants.
In a strange turn of events, Ramses had given Omega Benny’s old position. Omega had not only proven himself loyal, but he was far more dependable than his predecessors. When Omega was picking his crew, he brought Li’l Monk in as his right-hand man. They would run it together just as Chucky and Benny had; only they wouldn’t fuck it up.
Chucky wasn’t happy with Ramses’s decision, but he was in no position to raise a stink about it. He had one foot in and out, and everyone could see it. Ramses put Chucky in charge of distribution of product just to let him keep earning. Ramses was still looking at him funny from all the bullshit he’d been involved in, so he was letting him back in slowly. It was an easy job, where all Chucky had to do was kick his feet up and just make sure the right people took the right packages to the right places. It wasn’t long before packages started coming up short or missing and got blamed on one of the people working under Chucky. Li’l Monk had seen more than a few dudes become the victims of vicious beatings because of Chucky throwing them under the bus. It was all so suspect that people who had once respected or feared Chucky were now looking at him funny. The streets were talking and the word was that he was falling from grace.
Li’l Monk and Sophie had slowly begun mending fences. It started with an occasional hello, then elevated to smoking the occasional blunt together. They hadn’t had sex in quite some time, but they were cool. Li’l Monk missed spending time with Sophie and was glad they were hanging out again. It took quite awhile for them to get back to that point because Sophie kept Li’l Monk at arm’s length. He couldn’t say that he blamed her because of the way he’d treated her in favor of Persia. Seeing Persia act the way she did in the club opened her eyes to the fact that they weren’t cute kids with crushes anymore; they were young adults with two different agendas. Li’l Monk never came out and told Sophie any of this; he let his actions do the talking, and simply treated her like he appreciated her. The subject of relationships was off-limits when they talked. They had both decided it would be best to just let things take their natural course with no expectations.
With Chucky’s sporadic behavior and frequent disappearing acts, Ramses leaned more heavily on Li’l Monk. He kept the young boy close to him, running errands or driving him around when he made rare appearances in the streets. Li’l Monk didn’t even have a driver’s license, but he was pushing Ramses’s big truck around town like it belonged to him. Sometimes when Ramses was in for the night he would even let Li’l Monk borrow the truck so he could take Sophie out or joy ride with Omega.
Li’l Monk and Omega had become extremely close, especially since he and Charlie had fallen out. Li’l Monk would’ve thought that his childhood friend would’ve been glad to see him in this position, but Charlie seemed resentful. Li’l Monk did everything: pop bottles, put money in Charlie’s pocket, and took him shopping when he still had a little extra, but it never seemed like enough. All Charlie did was make negative comments about Omega, and talk shit about Li’l Monk being a slave to Ramses. It came to a point where Li’l Monk was going to have to cut Charlie off or break his jaw, so he stopped fucking with him.
Spending extended time with Ramses also allowed Li’l Monk a chance to get to know him better than most. On the streets he wore the persona of Pharaoh’s enforcer and a deranged killer, but Ramses was actually a very quiet man who loved a good book more than he liked going to the club. Of course he could flip the two personalities as easy as a light switch, but the killer was not all there was to him, just like Li’l Monk.
One afternoon Ramses had popped up on the block unexpectedly and summoned Li’l Monk. Li’l Monk was half asleep and partially hung over, but he answered the summons. Ramses was already outside of Li’l Monk’s building when he emerged. He had moved from behind the wheel to the passenger’s seat, meaning he wanted Li’l Monk to drive. Li’l Monk had been around Ramses enough to pick up on certain things without him having to say it.
“You do that thing I asked you to do?” Ramses asked Li’l Monk as they rode downtown. Li’l Monk was behind the wheel and Ramses was leaned back in the passenger seat.
“Yeah, I took care of it, Ramses. I had him drop the money off to Omega,” Li’l Monk told him.
“You know I’ve been trying to get someone to go squeeze my money out of him for weeks and your little ass manages to collect it in a few hours.” Ramses shook his head.
“Maybe it was the way I asked him?” Li’l Monk smirked, looking at the bruises on the backs of his hands from where he had pummeled the dude who owed Ramses money.
“You and those fists remind me of how Chucky was with guns when he was your age. He was another one who used violence as the skeleton key to all the doors of life. A cold world breeds hard men.”
“Huh?” Li’l Monk didn’t understand the statement.
“It’s something a friend of mine used to say. What it basically breaks down to is that the circumstances you grow up in play a big role in what kind of person you turn out to be. People who’ve been handed everything in their life don’t know how to fight, and people who’ve always had to struggle, all they know how to do is fight.”
“I’ve been fighting all my life,” Li’l Monk told him.
“Indeed you have, and it’s been taking you places. Life has changed for you since you started running with my team, just as I said it would. Has it not?” Ramses asked.
“Absolutely, Ramses. You know I tell you all the time how appreciative I am of what you and Pharaoh have done for me.”
“We haven’t done more than what you’ve earned, Li’l Monk. I have to admit, I was a bit skeptical about you at first, considering who your father is, but I see that you are your own man.”
“Thanks,” Li’l Monk said.
“You can’t thank me for something that was already in you. Not for nothing, I’ve been paying attention to how much smoother things are going since I bumped you and Omega up.”
Li’l Monk nodded. “Yeah, Omega is a natural leader. I’m proud of my nigga.”
“Indeed he is, but a good leader is only as strong as his right hand. Omega is charismatic, handsome, and smart. Men like him are easy to put in positions of power, but it’s men like you and I who keep them there. It’s the same way with me and Pharaoh. He rules, but I command.”
“Which one is better?” Li’l Monk asked.
Ramses shrugged. “I guess it all depends on who you ask. Either way, the one with the real power is the one willing to do what other people won’t. Are you one of those kinds of people, Li’l Monk?”
Something in the tone of Ramses’s voice made Li’l Monk look at him. The OG was watching him closely for his response. “Why do you ask? You got something that needs to be done?”
“A little piece of business that I’ve put off for too long,” Ramses told him.
“Say no more. I’ll holla at Omega and we’ll take care of it,” Li’l Monk assured him.
“No. Not Omega, n
or any of your other little homies, are to ever hear of this. Huck is gonna ride with you on this one. It’s personal. Do you understand?”
“You got it, Ramses, just tell me what you need done,” Li’l Monk said, wondering what it was that required so much secrecy. When Ramses ran the whole situation down to him, Li’l Monk found himself dumbfounded. “Are you sure?”
“No, but it doesn’t change the fact that it needs to be done. There’s only one stipulation.” Ramses reached into the glove compartment and retrieved something wrapped in a paper bag and handed it to Li’l Monk.
Li’l Monk cautiously looked inside the bag at the shiny black 9 mm. He looked up at Ramses with a confused expression on his face. “What’s this?”
“The gun that killed Boo.”
CHAPTER 29
Persia looked like a totally different person after getting a wash and set and her nails and feet tightened up. The girls at the shop didn’t lace like they would’ve done at her regular spot in Queens, but they did a decent enough job. She was looking good and feeling better.
It would be about twenty minutes or so before the bus came that would take her back to Letti’s house, so she had some time to kill. She walked up and down the strip mall window shopping, hoping something caught her eye that she could wear for her birthday. She saw a cute dress in the window of one store that was similar to the one Marty had been wearing the night they’d all gone to the club. Thinking of her friends made her realize how much she missed them. Persia had wanted to call Marty and Sarah sooner, but Chucky wouldn’t allow it. He told her that the white girls would likely turn her into her mother and he didn’t need that kind of heat on him, or his aunt’s house. At that moment, Persia didn’t care. She needed to hear a familiar voice.