Project Dreamz

by Natavia

  She sat down and told me to hurry up and get ready. I rushed upstairs to let Deerie know about the vigil they were having for our father. She didn’t answer when I knocked on the door. I turned the door knob, “You decent? I’m coming in,” I warned Deerie. Her bed was made up and the clothes she wore to the hospital were on the floor. She came home with us from the hospital, so I knew she was in the house at one point.

  Maybe she went to school. Naw, she doesn’t like that school. Maybe she wants to be alone.

  I went into my bedroom to take care of my hygiene before getting dressed. My father’s chain, wallet and the ring we picked out for him a couple of Christmases ago sat on my dresser. I put on his diamond Cuban link chain while standing in the mirror. Staring at myself was like looking at my father; I was the spitting image of him. I’ll never be the same again.

  Dream

  It was my only day off this week to catch up on my school work but Naya begged me to talk to Tryst and tell him about Trell. Trell had been staying at our apartment the last few days because he thought the police was after him. I was nervous riding in the cab on my way over to Tryst’s house and his mother didn’t make it any better when she answered the door. According to the time on my cellphone, Tryst had been gone for twenty minutes. His mother came into the living room with a bottle of wine and two glasses. She was an attractive woman with healthy thick hair that fell over her shoulders. If it wasn’t for the bags under her eyes, she would’ve appeared younger like Chrome. She looked like an angel, but her attitude was worse than mine when I was in bitch mode.

  “What are your intentions with my son? He’s too young to play step-daddy to your kids. But since you’re getting him out of the house I can tolerate you for a little bit while he gets dressed,” she said.

  She poured me a glass of wine and I thanked her. If I wasn’t in her house and I saw her outside, I would’ve dragged that silly-ass bitch. She had the attitude of a woman with a legit life as if she wasn’t married to a drug dealer that was from my neck of the woods.

  “How many kids do you have?” she asked.

  “I don’t have any children.”

  “How do you wipe your ass with those nails, chile?” she asked in a joking manner, but the bitch was serious.

  “I don’t wipe my ass, I just shit and go,” I said while laughing with her.

  “You look too old for my son,” she said.

  Bitch, your son looks older than me! This drunk hoe about to catch these hands with her ugly-ass crow feet.

  “I’m only nineteen which is why I’m not drinking your wine because I’m underage.”

  “HA! You little gutter rats are fucking and sucking at twelve these days. You don’t have to act godly with me, chile,” she said.

  “How old are you? You look good for your age, I still can’t believe you’re Tryst’s mother,” I said.

  “I’m thirty-six,” she said proudly.

  “Oh, so you were a teen mom? How did that work for you?”

  Her face dropped, and I was more than satisfied. I excused myself to wait for Tryst outside. I wasn’t a people person like that to begin with and I only tolerated her behavior because she lost her husband. As I left the house, Tryst caught the door.

  “My bad for taking long,” he said.

  His eyes were bloodshot red from possibly crying.

  “It’s cool. What do you want to do? It’s your school’s homecoming weekend, right?”

  “Fuck that game. I can’t play without my father rooting for me. Besides, my school ain’t worth me playing for them. I got caught up in something and they suspended me without even listening to my side of story. Now they want me to come back to talk with them. They want to use me to win the game but I can’t sell myself out that way,” he said.

  He had a set of keys in his hand. The garage door opened when he pressed a button. There were four cars lined up and even a motorcycle. I wasn’t expecting anything less because Chrome had a Bentley a few years ago. Tryst unlocked the door to a G-wagon.

  “I hope this isn’t your mother’s truck,” I said, following him.

  “It belonged to my father,” he replied.

  I climbed into the passenger seat and Tryst asked if I needed help, but I was already inside. He started the truck after we buckled up. A cute little white Beetle pulled up in front us, cutting us off. Tryst slammed on the brakes causing my body to jerk.

  A tall white girl wearing a uniform got out of the car with an attitude.

  “Who is that?”

  “Jonna,” he said.

  “We need to talk!” Jonna said to Tryst.

  “This bitch really thinks I need to kiss her ass,” Tryst said.

  Jonna knocked on the window, telling Tryst to unlock the door or else she was going to throw a rock at his truck. I guess it didn’t matter how you were raised, feeling betrayed will have anybody acting up.

  “Get the fuck off my father’s truck!” Tryst said. He got out of the truck and I got out with him. Jonna knew Tryst wasn’t in the right state of mind.

  “Your mother called my house and told me to come and see you. I thought you knew that!” Jonna yelled.

  His mother called Jonna. Wow, she really is a miserable bitch. No wonder why Trell wants Naya and her friends to beat his mother up.

  “Just get out of our way, damn,” Tryst said.

  Jonna looked at me and I waved at her.

  “Is that your type now?” Jonna asked Tryst.

  “Yeah, that’s my girl,” Tryst said, leaning against the truck.

  “I’m sorry, Tryst, Amanda was jealous of us. I understand that now which is why I had a talk with the principal and your coach,” she said.

  “We can talk later,” Tryst told her.

  “Can you make her leave?” Jonna asked him.

  “Yeah, we’re leaving together,” he said.

  “Well, can I come?” she asked.

  Ohh, she’s dick whipped!

  “We are fittin’ to fuck,” I told her.

  “I’ll beat your ass, bitch!” Jonna screamed at me.

  I got in the truck and Tryst said something to her that made her slap him. He pushed Jonna and she ran to her car. Jonna sped down the driveway and Tryst got back into the truck. He closed the door then burst out into laughter.

  “Damn, I needed that,” he chuckled.

  “She almost got her ass whipped.”

  “I know but she wanted you to catch those hands. That shit was funny, bruh. She never acted like that before. Her friend stood in front the whole school and told everyone I raped her. Jonna knew she was lying, and she sided with her anyway. She thinks because she told the truth about Amanda I’m supposed to forgive her. I’m done with her,” he said. He pulled out of the driveway; we were finally on the road.

  Damn, maybe I’m really not his type. It doesn’t matter, he’s just a friend anyway.

  I don’t know why I was so bothered about Tryst and Jonna. Maybe I was the one who was slightly jealous. What did he see in her? Is he even physically attracted to black girls? Am I too short or maybe fat? I don’t know why those questions bothered me so much. I tried to focus as Tryst headed towards the inner-city of Annapolis, my neck of the woods.

  **********

  Tryst pulled up to Chrome’s corner store. There were two crackheads fighting on the sidewalk over a beer while people walked past them. Tryst’s stomach had been growling the entire ride.

  “There is a soul food spot across the street. Do you want to go there to grab something to eat?”

  “Naw, you know how to cook?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I can burn.”

  “We can go to your crib. I gotta see Trell anyway,” he said.

  Tryst remembered the street and the building where I stayed. He parked in front this time instead of the side.

  “Nobody is going to mess with this truck. They know who it belongs to,” I told him.

  Tryst got out the truck and I followed suit. The neighborhood was crowded, and I hoped
it was peaceful since the kids were outside playing. Chrome’s homeboy Raoul came over to us. He wasn’t too pleased with Tryst coming back to Newtowne.

  “Yo, your father told you not to come back over here. We gotta look out for you now. Why did you bring this lil’ nigga down here, Dream?” Raoul asked me.

  “I wanted to come holla at my brother,” Tryst spoke up.

  Raoul grilled me, and I rolled my eyes.

  “Let me holla at you over here, Tryst. I want you to meet the family,” Raoul said. Tryst told me he’d be up after he was finished talking to them. I wanted to intervene and tell Tryst to be careful because Chrome’s team was vicious.

  “You don’t have to babysit him!” Raoul said over his shoulder.

  Tryst looked back at me then nodded his head, letting me know that he was straight. The girls on the steps in front of my building were eyeing Tryst. I heard a few of them say, “he walks like he has something heavy in his pants.” Most of them were in their late twenties.

  “He looks better than his daddy and his daddy was one fine ass chocolate man. Umph!” one said.

  The bitch I went to jail for was leaning against the fence mean mugging me. Latasha had it out for me because she was once a side chick. At twenty-four years old, one would think she knew better.

  “He’s going to be mine soon, too,” Latasha bragged.

  She wasn’t a bad looking girl nor was she pretty. Men loved her because she had a banging ass body and she was bow-legged. From what I heard, she had been passed around to all the dope boys. I had to stay away from her, so I ignored her and went up the stairs. Bitches was coming outside in their pajamas to see Chrome’s son. Since they were familiar with him now, I just knew one of those bitches was going to try and trap him. I walked upstairs to my apartment door and used my key to get in. Naya and Trell were sitting on the couch kissing. That was another reason why Mother shouldn’t have left the way she did. I couldn’t tell Naya what to do and when I tried, she didn’t listen. She only saw me as her sister and best friend.

  “Cut that out! When are you going home, Trell?” I asked.

  “Probably next week. You spoke to Tryst?” he asked.

  “Yeah, and his mother is really a bitch. Anyway, Tryst is outside but he’s talking to Raoul and them.”

  “Those niggas think they’re someone’s father, especially Raoul,” Trell said.

  “They’re just loyal to your father.”

  “If they were loyal, they’d know who killed Chrome,” Trell said.

  “It just happened, someone will be finding out who did it soon, but everyone is saying he died from a car crash,” I replied.

  “I know but someone shot at him and that’s what I need to figure out. I’m going to kill whoever did it, fuck his homeboys,” Trell replied.

  Tryst came into the apartment and I caught a bad case of butterflies. Being around him changed my mood. He had an old-fashioned attitude that was beyond his age. Despite his attitude-having mother and hood ass father, Tryst was raised right. He went over to Trell and I told Naya to come into the kitchen to help me cook.

  “What if they start fightin’ again?” she asked.

  “Mind ya business. Brothers fight all the time and then they make up. They aren’t like us girls, when we fight we beef forever.”

  “I saw that bitch Latasha hangin’ around the building. You can’t be anywhere near her. We need to get our money up and move. Maybe I should start boosting or somethin’,” Naya said.

  “I got us, so don’t worry. All you have to do is stay in school and I’ll figure out the rest. Graduating is important but if you start stealing and all of that shit, you’ll have a criminal record like me and won’t be able to find a job.”

  “I want to be out of here after I graduate high school so that’s like a year and a half,” she said, and I agreed.

  “I’ll have a better job by then.”

  Naya kissed me on the cheek and I wiped it off because she was tonguing down Trell just a few seconds ago.

  “When are you going to tell Tryst that you like him?” she whispered while I was getting a bell pepper out the fridge.

  “I don’t like him, I just feel sorry for him. He’s a good boy and I would hate to see him turn into his father. Besides, I think he likes white girls. His mother even said it without actually saying it.”

  “Girl, you need some dick,” she said.

  “Bitch, watch your mouth. Grab the noodles out the cabinet, I’m making spaghetti.”

  “Make it spicy, too,” she said while grabbing hot sauce.

  Naya was frying chicken while I made the meat sauce. Our mother worked so much we had to take turns cooking dinner. Trell came into the kitchen and grabbed a piece of chicken off the plate.

  “Go home please!” I said, swatting my spoon at him.

  “This is home,” he replied.

  “You just moved him right in? He doesn’t even go to school,” I said to Naya.

  “His aunt is going to register him Monday at our school and I can’t wait,” she said.

  “Why doesn’t his aunt come around?”

  “His aunt gets high. When Chrome found out, he took Trell away from her but Trell says his aunt is like his mother and he thinks she’ll get clean one day. His aunt’s house is like a trap house so that’s why Trell doesn’t like staying there that much. I feel bad for him, but he hides his pain a lot. I promised him I’d always be his friend, even if we break up,” she said.

  It was heartbreaking because now Chrome is dead and Trell was right back at square one. If only Kimberly wasn’t a bitter bitch, she would’ve taken Trell in as her own child. There was a knock on the door and I told Naya to stay put. When I opened it, I was shocked to see my ex-boyfriend, Rizzo. He smiled at me with a mouth full of golds. Rizzo was a fine muthafucka but he wasn’t any good. Lately he’d been constantly texting and calling me but now he was doing pop-ups. He pushed his way into the apartment when he saw Tryst and Trell sitting on the couch.

  “Chrome said this isn’t allowed, shorty,” Rizzo said.

  “Chrome ain’t here, muthafucka!” Trell said.

  “And you are right which means I’m in charge now and what I say goes. You two got a problem with it?” Rizzo asked them.

  “Yeah, cause you ain’t Chrome,” Tryst said.

  Nooooo, Tryst. What is you doin’?

  “This is your last time around here. The next time I see you, I’m gonna beat your ass like you came out of my nut sack, lil’ muthafucka!” Rizzo said.

  “We’ll see,” Tryst said, and Rizzo chuckled.

  “You must’ve sucked that nigga’s dick or somethin’. Look at him tryin’ to act tough and shit. Around here niggas get kilt, this isn’t the suburbs, this is the jungle! This is my last time seeing YOU. Matter of fact, Trell is welcomed anytime,” Rizzo said. He opened the door then looked back at me to blow me a kiss, “Keep that pussy tight for me,” he said before leaving out.

  “That nigga ain’t about shit,” Trell said.

  “You were fuckin’ him, huh?” Tryst asked me.

  “Nigga, who is you questioning me?”

  “Come on, Trell. Ride with me really quick,” Tryst said, standing up.

  “Aight, let me get my shoes on,” Trell said.

  “You told me to cook you somethin’,” I said to Tryst.

  “I’ll be back before the candle lighting ceremony,” he replied.

  Trell grabbed another piece of chicken before following Tryst out the house. I went back into the kitchen to finish dinner. I was worried about Tryst because Rizzo was Chrome’s hitman. With Chrome being gone, Tryst was exposed to a lot. In other words, he had to man up or men like Rizzo were going to keep testing him.

  Tryst

  “Yo, where we goin’?” Trell asked as I drove towards the town center.

  “To David’s loft. That’s where you stole his gun, right?”

  “Wait, hold on for a minute. What are you going to do with a gun?” he asked.

&nbs
p; “That nigga Rizzo up to somethin’. Plus, I’m gonna need it for protection. They are trippin’ about me chillin’ with Dream. Those niggas are acting like I’m standing on the block. They aren’t gonna keep disrespecting us, bruh. Fuck that!”

  “Ohhh, I get it. You like shorty?” Trell asked.

  “You reachin’, bruh, she’s cool peoples. She cares about me in a genuine way and I care about her, too. That place ain’t good for her which is why I gotta check up on her because of Rizzo.”

  “Now you want to be a hood nigga? Usually I’m down with this type of shit but you don’t know what you’re doin’! You only been to that hood twice and now you wanna carry a gun?” he asked.

  “Yo, I’m just mad at the world right now! I need one, that’s it.”

  “I don’t think you need one but you’re the oldest so I’m down wit’ it even though we still need a rematch,” Trell said.

  I pulled up in the garage and parked on the third floor. Luckily Trell had his key on him. Sebastian called my phone while I was walking towards the elevator, but I declined his call. I didn’t want to hear shit about our school. Trell used his keypad to enter the building then he had to use it again for the elevator. We got off on the floor of our father’s loft and there was a lot of noise coming from the end of the hall.

  “Who else lived with y’all?” I asked Trell.

  “Just us but I haven’t been home since the detective questioned me,” he said.

  We crept up on the door as the noise got louder. Since the door was ajar, I silently pushed it open. There were about ten men inside the loft wearing bullet proof vests in plain clothes but the other ones I knew were the FEDs. They had a few guns in plastic bags and they took some of my father’s money. The place looked like a tornado hit it. My father always talked about the police and he told me the FEDs didn’t just come to pick you up, they investigate you first.

  “What do you see?” Trell asked.

  “We gotta go, now!” I said.

  I ran and Trell followed me. We took the stairs and rushed to the garage. Trell was almost out of breath as I smoked him. I told him to hurry up.