by Erica Hilton
“Yeah, motherfucker! Talk shit now!” Lil Nut yelled.
The only person who stayed was Lite. Lite and Lil Nut went way back, and naturally he assumed his friend wouldn’t harm him.
“So you been slinging for real?” Lite asked.
“Yeah, man. I gotta put food on the table. My pops done lost his mind and started sucking that glass dick,” Lil Nut said as he grimaced.
“I know. I saw your pops the other day and I couldn’t believe that shit. Is that how you got his gun? Did he sell it to you?”
“He ain’t sell me shit. I housed him for it. This my shit. I’m the man of the house.”
“Yo, if that was me, kid, I woulda started bussing after that motherfucker, Lamiek. That fake-ass god snuffed you!”
Lite was always good to amp up a situation, but Lil Nut was on to him.
“Fuck Lamiek. That nigga harmless. How you sound? You want me to kill my man over some bullshit?”
“Nah, I’m just saying—”
“Saying what, motherfucker? You a Judas-ass nigga? I gotta watch my back around you?”
“Nah, it ain’t even like that.”
“Then how is it? You be around that motherfucking Lamiek each day smiling in his face, and now you telling me I shoulda filled his ass with lead.”
“Nah, you know that motherfucker be deserving to get—”
Lil Nut’s patience had run out, and unfortunately, Lite was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Lil Nut’s father’s words, coupled with the taunting from Lite, forced him to pull out the Smith & Wesson. Only this time he started bucking shots at Lite.
Blah-ow! Blah-ow! Blah-ow! The cannon exploded, and once again, people scattered. Lite only wished he’d been that lucky. He caught one bullet in his ankle. Lil Nut didn’t even stay around long enough to see his friend fall. He took off running down the block, back to the safe haven of his home.
***
Over the next few days Fuquan, Butter, and Triny reported to Lil Nut on Lite’s condition. Lite recovered quickly and never told the police who shot him. He simply said he’d gotten hit by a stray bullet, and in that neighborhood his story rang true.
Finally Lil Nut emerged from his home, but he made sure he was fresh to death with his white, red, and blue Fila sweatsuit and white-on-white Adidas sneakers with thick red laces. He’d gone to the shoemaker and had him put silver taps on the bottom of his sneakers so that when he walked he made a tapping noise. He knew he was the freshest kid on the block, and couldn’t nobody tell him shit. He also knew he was a little nigga, and that meant motherfuckers would try to play him, so he was on guard.
As the summer flew by, Lil Nut began to stack some serious paper. He saved close to one thousand dollars. He kept all of his money in an empty sneaker box in the bottom of the closet in his room. Each night after he finished selling off his product, he would separate his boss’s money from his profit. He would count the money lying on his bed at least eight times before being satisfied that the count was correct. Then he would bundle up the money in hundred-dollar stacks and put a rubber band on them.
He reasoned that he now had enough money to give his mother the rent, which was one hundred fifty dollars, plus buy himself a gold rope chain and an Atari. Wednesdays were his only day off, and he decided that he would go shopping then.
“Whaddup, god?” Lamiek asked Lil Nut as he came outside and sat on a parked car.
“Yo, what I tell you about that nonsense? I’m not a Five Percenter,” Lil Nut said.
“But let your boss come ’round and you’re reciting your lessons!” Lamiek was pissed at the hypocrisy. He was also angry that he was no longer the top earner of the crew. With Lamiek doing stickups, he used to be the one who came around with a pocketful of money. But lately it seemed that Lil Nut was making the most money, not to mention that he busted off his gun and shot Lite. Lil Nut was now not only known as a little dude who got paper, but also a little dude who wasn’t afraid to pop that thing off.
“You’re a fraud,” Lamiek said.
“And why do you give a fuck?” Lil Nut asked politely.
“I don’t,” Lamiek responded. “I got my own shit to think about.”
“You? Think? Don’t make me laugh.”
“Go ahead and laugh and I’ll put my foot in your ass!”
Nut tossed his eyes up in the air. “Please. You don’t even believe that shit.”
“Whatever, nigga. Yo, you heard what happened to Butter?”
“Nah, what’s up? Where he at?”
“He in juvie. He got busted in Albee Square Mall trying to snatch a rope chain the other day, and they sent him in. This his third offense. That nigga definitely going down for some time.”
Nut thought about Butter. They’d been friends for nine years, and he hated to see him locked up. But that was what he got for being on that robbing shit. “You was with him when he got knocked?” Nut asked.
“If I was with his stupid ass he wouldn’t have gotten knocked. I know how to do my shit, and it ain’t all sloppy. That dumb nigga Fuquan was with him. Luckily Fuquan got away, but when his moms found out about Butter, she sent him to go live in Bed-Stuy with his pops.”
“Man, you serious? Fuquan is out?”
“Yeah, man. We lost Butter and Fuquan, and Triny went back to Flatbush. Since you done shot Lite, I guess it’s just me and you. For better or worse, motherfucker, till death do us part,” Lamiek joked.
“Yo, since you’re my bitch, whatchu doing on Wednesday?” Lil Nut asked.
“You tell me.”
“A’ight, check it. Come with me down to Canal Street to cop me a gold rope chain.”
“Word?”
“Word. You down?”
“Hell yeah, I’m down. And bring your pistol, ’cause I might come home with a rope chain too.”
“I feel you,” Lil Nut said, but deep inside he wasn’t feeling that shit. He hated motherfuckers who took money when it was so easy to make money. He didn’t know why he hung around with Lamiek other than the amusing stories he told.
“So what size rope chain you gonna cop?” Lamiek asked.
“Depends on what they’re talking, but I want a dookie rope at least this fat.” Lil Nut spread his index and thumb fingers two inches apart.
Lamiek’s eyes grew large from jealousy. “You got money like that?”
“Yeah. Business is good. Each week I’ve been saving my money and only dipping in it to give my moms a few dollars for bills, but other than that I got enough for my chain and I might buy me an Atari—”
“Let me find out you’re rich,” Lamiek interrupted. “So this crack game is paying motherfuckers like that?”
“I don’t know about other motherfuckers, but this is the most money I’ve ever seen in my life.” Lil Nut jumped off the car and began to get animated. He was extremely happy about his riches. “In fact, I’ma get the new Donkey Kong game too!”
“Get the fuck out of here.” Lamiek paused, then continued. “You know I’m really proud of you for stepping up and working for yours.”
The sincere words shocked Lil Nut, and he really didn’t know how to respond. He shrugged his shoulders, hoping the awkward moment would pass.
“Listen, check it,” Lamiek said, changing the subject. “Did I tell you about the time I fucked Alicia’s mother and her pops walked in on us while she was giving me head?”
“What Alicia?”
“Skinny Alicia with the wide gap.”
“Nah, you ain’t never tell me that.”
“Yeah, man. Shit was serious. Her moms was straight sucking the meat off my dick and her pops burst in all angry and shit, and guess what I said to him?”
“What?”
“Guess!”
“Man, finish the fucking story. What
did you say?”
“I said, ‘Man, don’t you knock?’”
Lil Nut and Lamiek burst into laughter. No doubt it was a lie, but funny as hell, because Lamiek made the most serious face he could muster as he delivered the joke.
“And what did he do? I bet he whipped your ass,” Lil Nut said.
“I wish he woulda tried. That nigga went back out the room and knocked!”
“You a fucking lie!”
“True story!”
***
That night Lil Nut worked his usual twelve-hour shift. The fiends came out in droves because it was the first of the month and everybody had gotten their assistance checks. Lil Nut stood on the corner, yawning from fatigue, thinking about his head hitting the pillow. As he went to put his key in his lock, three masked gunmen ran up behind him and shoved a loaded Ruger in his ribs.
“Nigga, run ya pockets!” the husky one said.
Disbelief that he was actually being stuck up delayed Lil Nut’s reaction. Noticing his apprehension, the gunman cracked Lil Nut on the back of the head with the gun’s barrel. The sudden impact instantly dazed Lil Nut and he stumbled forward.
“Don’t make me ask you twice!” The voice was menacing and unrecognizable.
Without further hesitation, Lil Nut dug deep inside his pockets and handed over his the eight hundred dollars he’d brought in that night.
“Open your door!” the same gunman demanded.
Lil Nut tried to face the robbers, but was hit again in his temple with the butt of the gun. His hand immediately went up to shield himself from further blows.
“Why the fuck you want me to open up my door? Ain’t nothing in there but my moms!”
“Open up the fucking door or die now and we’ll open it anyway!”
Lil Nut knew this was all a part of the drug game. He hated to admit it, but he was scared to death. He hoped that they would just come in, take what they wanted, and leave without taking the lives of him and his mother. The nightly news was filled with stories of all the violence and murders stemming from the crack epidemic. Lil Nut didn’t want to be a statistic. And he certainly didn’t want to drag his mother into the mix.
He reasoned that if he did open the door, then they would kill him and go in on his mother, and only God knew what they would do to her. Lil Nut surmised that if they were going to try anything sheisty, then it would have to be in the hallway. He would at least try to fight them off in an effort not to involve his mother.
When the gunman went to manhandle Lil Nut again, he turned around swiftly and punched him directly in his jaw. The dazed gunman tackled Lil Nut and they both fell to the floor, scuffling. The gun dropped and one of the other silent assailants picked it up. All three began to kick, punch, and pistol whip Lil Nut without mercy.
“Hold him down!” the leader screamed. The other two sprung into action and retrieved Nut’s house keys. Once the door was open, Lil Nut was dragged inside. They had to literally kick his fingers off the door jam and pull him inside by his ankles.
It only took his mother a few moments to wake from her deep sleep. When she came into the living room to see what the commotion was, she was shocked at the three masked gunmen and the look on her son’s face.
“Oh, Lord!” she spewed.
“Shut up, bitch!” the aggravated lead gunman shouted, and hit Julie in the face with the butt of the gun. Her petite body went crashing to the ground, making a loud thud. Lil Nut began resisting again, but was overpowered by the trio.
“Look, I’m not playing with your ass,” the lead gunman began. His breathing was erratic from fighting with Lil Nut. “Go and get your stash or I swear to Allah I will put two in your mom’s head. Now test me if you want.”
Through her cries, Julie pleaded, “Nelson, do as they say. Money isn’t worth losing our lives over.”
Lil Nut’s heart plummeted at his mother’s voice. It trembled with fear and he realized he’d put them both in a precarious situation. His young mind couldn’t fully process the grave danger they were in. But he decided to listen to his mother and walked two of the gunmen into the back where his bedroom was. He tried to reach in the closet, but was stopped.
“Nigga, tell me where the shit is. You could be reaching in there for a gun. You think I’m stupid?”
“Nah, I don’t think you stupid. I think you’re dead for robbing my stash!” The bull in Lil Nut wouldn’t allow him to fully bow down, even with guns in his face.
“Yo, say the word and let me lullaby this motherfucker!” the lead gunman said. He looked to one of the gunmen who’d remained silent the whole time. Up until this exchange, Lil Nut thought that the one holding the gun was the boss. But he realized now that it was the other tall, slender guy. The guy shook his head no, and Lil Nut was allowed to live.
The robbers walked away with all of Lil Nut’s money and the money he owed his boss, but not before the gunman hauled off and punched Lil Nut in the balls.
“Now you got a reason to be called Lil Nut!” He burst into laughter as Lil Nut toppled over and collapsed in agony onto his dirty, tiled floor. “Call the cops and you’re dead.”
Lil Nut had no intention of calling any cops. He had plans on finding out who the assailants were so he could kill them himself.
He put that promise on his life.
2
“Never let ’em know your next move. Don’t you know Bad Boys move in silence an’ violence?”
-“Ten Crack Commandments,” Notorious B.I.G.
1985
A year passed since Lil Nut entered the drug game. Now, at sixteen, he was older and definitely wiser. No longer did he keep his stash in a shoebox in his closet. He had his mother open up a safe deposit box at the Citibank up on Nostrand Avenue, not too far from Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Lil Nut stood in the freezing cold weather, fresh to death in a gray sheepskin from Delancey Street, a new pair of gray Clarks, and a Kangol hat. His longing for the rope chains or Atari games were a thing of the past. Lil Nut reasoned that those things attracted the wrong type of attention. And even though he wasn’t a sucker, he didn’t want beef with the local stickup kids each and every day. Speaking of stickup kids, Lil Nut had yet to find out who stuck him up and threatened his mother’s life. He swore on his own life that he would find out who did it, and no matter who it was—friend or family—they were as good as dead.
Lil Nut had a new cause to believe in now. He couldn’t wait until he’d saved up enough money to buy a used Mercedes Benz 500SL. At his young age he didn’t realize, or he chose not to realize that Benzes also attracted the wrong type of attention. Blue Bug offered to sell Nut his for eighteen thousand dollars, but Nut didn’t want to ride around in what the hood all knew was Blue Bug’s ride. He wanted his own ride and his own identity. He now felt that he was too big to be working for a motherfucker who wasn’t much older than him.
As Lil Nut stood on the corner of Pitkin and Dumont Avenues eating a piece of chicken from the Chinese restaurant, he smelled the pungent odor before he recognized the voice. “Take off your motherfucking sheepskin before I put two in ya head!”
The pressure Nut felt at his waist was alarming, but he felt confident that this wasn’t a threat.
“Do it!”
Lil Nut turned around to face his father. He looked at the man’s face and saw his own. Milton was still strung out on crack, which disappointed and embarrassed his son. The two hadn’t seen each other since their altercation over a year ago. The usually heavy Milton had almost withered away to nothing. His smooth chocolate skin was scarred with acne, and his beautiful smile had been replaced with corroding teeth and neglected gums. Milton wore a thin trench coat that was tattered and torn with a Champion sweatshirt, sagging jeans, and a pair of oversized penny loafers without any socks. Yet despite his appearance, he still managed to greet his so
n with a smile.
“Boy, let me feel ya heart beating.” Milton laughed and tucked the small pipe back into his coat pocket. That pipe had gotten Milton high on many occasions.
“You know fear don’t pump through my veins,” Nut said.
“That’s ’cause I raised you to be a man and stand up for yourself.”
“My mother raised me!” Lil Nut yelled, and then stepped closer to his father. The two men were so close that when Lil Nut spoke, spit flew out of his mouth and landed on Milton’s face. “Now get the fuck outta my face before I give you a severe beat-down.”
Unaffected by his son’s outburst, Milton stood stone still. “I heard what happened last year with you and my wife. You take care of that problem yet?”
Lil Nut realized that even though he ran around terrorizing his own neighborhood, his father was a man and had a heart of steel. Nut also realized now that his father only backed down to him last year out of love, and not out of fear.
“How you hear about that?” Lil Nut asked.
“I hear everything.”
“Why the fuck you ain’t come around?”
“I’m always around. You just don’t see me.”
“So you be ghost?”
“Something like that.” Milton took his hands out of his pockets and began to blow inside them in an effort to keep warm. “How long before you take care of that situation? Ain’t right that a man gotta hear about his wife having a gun thrust in her face and the men responsible still breathing. Now I done gave you long enough to handle that. I did that so that you could feel like a man since you want to play like a man. I’m not gonna give you much longer—”
“How the fuck you sound?” Lil Nut exploded. “You not gonna—”
“Your biggest problem was letting motherfuckers know where you keep your stash. You lucky those niggas didn’t R.I.P you and my wife. Now I’m not gonna tell you twice to rock those motherfuckers to sleep!”
Lil Nut couldn’t believe his ears. His father was a stone cold crackhead, and he was barking orders to his son.
“You talking like I know who set me up and I’m giving them a pass! If I ever find out who did this shit to me and Ma, I’ma send them to meet their maker!”