by Erica Hilton
Lil Nut was flattered that his name was ringing bells, but he also knew that those uptown cats were just as ruthless as he was. They’d cut up a nigga and leave him in pieces over that paper. Harlem had their fair share of murders that were getting news coverage, just as much as Brooklyn. Just last week the streets began buzzing about a rich Harlem nigga who had murdered his best friend over that paper. Everyone thought that nigga was foul to kill his peeps like that, but Lil Nut understood his logic. He’d already murdered three of his friends.
“Fall back from that Remy for a while and let me think on him. I’ll let you know my thoughts on whether we should fuck with him or not. Meanwhile, we still got a business to run. Shit, I got bills to pay. My rent so high you’d think I was paying mortgage.”
“Speaking of business, cuz, I was wondering if you could put a nigga on and give me some responsibilities so that I could make some paper,” Peter said.
“Nah, you can’t work for me.” Lil Nut didn’t mince his words. His father told him many years ago to keep his business separated from his family.
“Why?”
“No reason.”
“No reason?”
“Why you looking at me all stupid?” Nut asked.
“Because it’s not like I’m asking for a handout. I’m asking to work for mines. And since you fam and you already got your organization set up, I want to know why I can’t eat too?”
Lil Nut had had enough bickering for one day. He pointed his finger in Peter Piper’s face and yelled, “Nigga, you wanna eat, then make your own plate. I built this here and I run it the way I fuckin’ want.”
Lil Nut didn’t stay around long enough to hear Peter Piper gripe. He hopped into his Benz, revved the engine, and skidded his tires as he sped away. The hood loved a good car screech, and Lil Nut and his crew never failed to disappoint.
Lil Nut casually walked into his apartment after what he called a hard day at work. Melissa was in the back room with their bed covered in books. This was her second year in college, and she was studying to be a child psychologist. Lil Nut figured that with all those books she was reading, she could shed some light on his street dilemmas. But she couldn’t. When it came down to his business, all she managed to do was make him paranoid.
“I see you didn’t get a chance to clean up or cook,” he said.
Melissa hardly looked up from her books. She gave him a glance and then replied, “No, I was busy.”
Lil Nut tossed his baseball cap onto the bed, just inches from her notes. Again she glanced up and then cut her eyes at him. For some reason her actions irritated him. He decided to pluck her nerves by pushing her buttons.
“Melissa, get up!” he demanded. “A nigga out working hard all day to provide you with a roof over ya head, and the least you could do is fix me a fucking plate of food and clean the fuck up this messy-ass house. Damn, what I gotta do? Replace you?”
His words stung. Lil Nut didn’t know how to sensor himself. Melissa jumped to her feet and began grabbing all of her books off the bed and shoving them into her book bag. Frantically she ran around, pushing past Lil Nut in an attempt to clean up the apartment. The last thing she wanted was to be replaced. She had a crackhead mother and no father she knew of, so her future without Lil Nut was bleak. Tears slid down her high cheekbones because her feelings were truly hurt.
Lil Nut hopped on the same bed she’d just gotten off of and kicked off his sneakers. He watched her for a while, in amusement, until his conscience got the best of him. He realized that he was treating the two women that meant the most to him in the world cruelly. He decided to make up.
He got up and began to help her out by washing the dishes. Still the house was quiet, because Melissa refused to talk.
“How you doing in school?” he asked.
Melissa hesitated for a moment because she really didn’t feel like talking, but she responded anyway.
“I’m doing good.”
“Oh, yeah? What you got on your last test?”
“Which one?”
“Anyone. I don’t know. Fuck it. All of them.”
“I’ve been getting mostly Bs and a few As.”
“You can’t get all As?”
She wanted to reply that if he gave her a chance to study, she could, but instead she said, “I guess I could. I just got to study harder.”
Lil Nut liked that answer. Melissa was a good girl. She didn’t know it, but that response was going to earn her a car. She needed a car anyway to get to and from school. Most times he gave her cab money or dropped her off, and then she’d take the train back home. But his girl shouldn’t have to be taking the train. Besides, he was hearing about how mad Queens and Harlem niggas were buying their girls cars. Shit, those Harlem niggas were buying chicks cars when they reached their sixteenth birthday. Melissa was twenty. Yeah, he’d go and get her something this week.
“Yo, tomorrow I was thinking about inviting Butter and them niggas over to see our crib. That’s why I wanted it to be clean.”
Melissa stopped cleaning. “Baby, I don’t think that’s wise.”
“What’s not wise?”
“I don’t think you should let anyone know where you rest your head at. That could be dangerous. Keep your street friends in the streets. Where you live should be your sanctuary. I’ve been seeing so many home invasions on the news lately. And you yourself have heard stories about stickup kids coming in and killing the whole household to get at the stash.”
“I don’t keep any real money here—”
“Then they’ll just kill us quicker,” she interrupted.
“Ain’t nobody dumb enough to try me. They know I will let my thing go in a heartbeat.”
“Baby, these people are good at catching you when you’re vulnerable. I don’t want us to make the evening news. Please, promise me that you won’t let anyone know where we live. And when you drive home you got to make sure you’re not being followed.”
“But Butter is my man! He wouldn’t try to do me dirty. I know where his moms lives!”
Melissa was aggravated. Lil Nut wasn’t hearing her at all. His bullheaded nature was so difficult to deal with. At that very moment she realized that as soon as she got on her feet she would leave him. Yes, she loved him, but she loved her life more.
“OK, Nut. As always, I guess you know best.”
Lil Nut grabbed her in a bear hug and gently kissed her on her neck. He felt her melt in his arms as her tension began to subside. “All right, I hear you. No company. You feel better?”
She nodded and smiled.
“And no more crying like a big baby. I didn’t even say anything to your ass, and you crying like a baby.”
***
Three days later as Melissa walked home from school she didn’t notice all the familiar cars parked outside her ground floor apartment. But she did hear an array of voices from inside as she put her key in the lock. Her heart began to palpitate. Her instincts told her to do an about face and run for her life. But then she heard a hearty, distinctive laugh, and knew that it was her man. Pushing open the front door, she was accosted by a cloud of weed, and a living room full of men. She peered into a sea of unfamiliar faces, and then at her knuckleheaded boyfriend. He had a Corona beer in one hand and a blunt in the other. She wondered when he’d begun smoking weed. Slowly Melissa began seeing Nut change before her eyes, and she didn’t like the man he was becoming. She understood that it was a new era and that he had a lot of pressure on his shoulders, but smoking weed to escape reality just wasn’t like the man she fell in love with. She decided that she’d have to have a heart-to-heart talk with him.
Anger shot through her body as she stood stone still from shock. It was ninety degrees outside and her idiot boyfriend was showing off by having the air conditioner up on full blast with a fire burning in the fire
place. The television was on mute, showing a basketball game, and bottles of beer and liquor littered the sitting area. She should have known not to trust him.
“Whaddup?” Lil Nut asked, acknowledging her.
She didn’t say a word. She just did a beeline directly for their bedroom, and slammed the door. As far as she was concerned, he’d just signed both their death certificates.
After most of the company left, Lil Nut, Butter, and Peter Piper sat around talking shit before the conversation turned to business. Once again Peter Piper tried to get on payroll.
“Motherfucker, do you think I talk just to be talking?” Nut asked. “I said hell motherfucking no!”
“A’ight, Nut. I ain’t gonna ask you no more.”
“Please do me that favor,” Lil Nut replied, antagonizing his cousin. Then he focused his energy on Butter. “So you saying that this kid Remy is where we can make a quick come up?”
“Word up. I think we should give him a chance, feel him out, and take our operation to the next level. If we want to make real bread, then we gotta move weight.”
Lil Nut nodded. “When the next time you gonna get up with him?”
“I’m going to the rink tomorrow night. You should come through and I’ll make the introduction.”
“OK, set it up.”
***
The next night Lil Nut realized that Butter didn’t exaggerate at all when he described the rink. When they pulled into the jammed packed parking lot, all he saw were high-end cars. It looked like a car show. He looked at some of the vehicles, and saw that pretty ladies were pushing the hot whips. He couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw this red-headed cutie pushing a 1990 Acura Legend four door! His eyes followed her as she parked, walked to her trunk, and pulled out a pair of custom skates—white with pink wheels. She then switched her sexy ass inside the roller derby. Lil Nut was amped. He was already having a good time, and the night hadn’t even started.
When he stepped out of his Mercedes Benz 190E 500, he looked down to make sure that his clothes were proper. Within the first five seconds he saw a lot of hotties, and he wasn’t leaving here tonight without a few new numbers. Butter and Peter Piper both rode in his car, and they were just as amped.
“See? What did I tell you?” Butter bragged. “These honeys are top of the line.”
“You ain’t never lie,” Lil Nut retorted.
The three men went inside and Butter and Peter Piper both got skates. Lil Nut didn’t skate, but he did like to watch. He wished that he was coordinated, but he just wasn’t. Instead he stood listening to the music and watching the hot dance moves and tricks being done on the floor.
Out of all the potential women, he couldn’t take his eyes off the sexy redhead. She was skating her ass off, and Lil Nut could tell that she was popular. She skated every song with a new dude. When she skated off the floor to go to the refreshment stand, Lil Nut was right there to greet her.
“What’s your name, shorty?” he asked.
The redhead looked Lil Nut up and down, and replied, “Well, it ain’t shorty. Let me get a Pepsi,” she told the woman behind the counter.
Sassy little bitch, Lil Nut thought. He knew the type. She thought that her shit didn’t stink. She was probably used to getting any nigga she wanted, and most likely she already had a dude. That was how she was pushing that Acura. Despite her miserable attitude, Lil Nut still wanted her.
“My bad. What’s your name, beautiful?”
Tossing her hair over her shoulder, she turned slightly to face him. She wanted to get a closer look at the stranger. She knew almost every person in that skating rink, and she knew he was new. She could tell that he was a dealer just from his gear alone. He was wearing a pair of new Nike sneakers, white-on-white, and a velour white Nike sweatsuit. But that was not what gave away his hustler status. The gold Rolex watch, and gold and diamond chain did that. He also had a certain swagger, a cockiness that said that he wasn’t broke. She decided to give him some play.
“My name is Ria.”
He smiled. “Ria, that’s a pretty name. You got a man, Ria?”
“I might.”
“Well, Ria, my name is Nut, and I’m going to take you from your man.”
Ria giggled. Obviously this guy didn’t have a clue.
“Do you know who my man is?” she asked. Without waiting for him to answer, she continued. “Because if you did, you would know that he pays the cost to be the boss.”
“Well how much I gotta pay to be your lieutenant?” Lil Nut joked and actually got Ria to smile. When the counter girl came with Ria’s Pepsi, Lil Nut reached in his pocket and pulled out a knot of money. Holding it just long enough for her eyes to see the hundred-dollars bills as he flipped to find a twenty, he paid for her soda and told the attendant to keep the change. Normally he wouldn’t have tipped her shit, but he was trying to make an impression. He did. Ria began opening up.
“Where you from?” she asked. “I’ve never seen you around here.”
“I’m from Brooklyn.”
“Oh, we’ve been getting a lot of guys from Brooklyn coming here lately. I hope it don’t get all wild and they have to shut it down.”
“You act like Brooklyn don’t have any class.”
“Don’t play innocent with me. Brooklyn is wild as shit.”
“And where you from?”
“Uptown.”
“And where your man from?”
“He’s from uptown too.”
“What’s his name?”
She hesitated before she replied, “Shue.”
Shue. Lil Nut had heard that name. It definitely rang bells. Word was Shue had a lot of paper. He was damn near a millionaire from what the streets were talking. He was twenty-four years old, and half black and half Chinese. From what Lil Nut had heard about the guy, he bought a large mansion somewhere on the low in New Jersey, and his chick lived with him. Shit. She was a tall glass to fill. Lil Nut wasn’t nowhere near on the level of her man. Well at least not yet.
Lil Nut’s eyes began to scan the room for Butter to see if he’d gotten up with Remy yet. Right on time he saw both figures walking toward him.
“Ria, I got some business to handle. You think I could get your number and call you some time?”
“Well I can’t give you my home phone number, because I live with my man, but I got a beeper. Beep me and I might call you back,” she said flirtingly.
Remy noticed the exchange between Ria and Nut, and he was less than thrilled, but he said nothing. Shue was his man, but he was on a paper chase. He was trying to get as many clients as possible to expand his drug operation. He needed niggas who was buying weight, and from what Remy had heard, these Brooklyn niggas were making it happen.
“Nut, this is Remy. Remy, Nut,” Butter introduced.
Both men exchanged a handshake before they moved to the side and began talking business.
“It’s like this, man,” Remy began, “I got a connect in D.C. that be giving me the lowest number around, and his shit be uncut and powder white. Right now he got a few clients in Oakland, California, B-More, Philly, Detroit, and New York. Through me he got uptown on lock. I want to expand and start fucking with Brooklyn, but not just any nigga in Brooklyn. That’s where Butter comes in. Y’all from Brooklyn, so y’all can maneuver and sell the product without taking the risk I would be taking. Y’all go through me, and then resell it to Brooklyn. Together we can all make a killing.”
Lil Nut was feeling Remy’s logic. He was on board with the plan.
That night when he went home he made love to Melissa, but he was thinking about Ria. First thing in the morning he was going to beep her. And he could only hope that she would beep him back.
***
Lil Nut finally had to break down and hire his cousin. Butter was in D.C. with R
emy, and the girl they’d hired to drive down to D.C. and get the four kilos of cocaine had been put in the hospital by her baby’s daddy, who beat her ass after he found out she fucked his man. Lil Nut didn’t know who to be more angry with—the girl, or her man for putting his hands on her.
“Nut, I need you to get someone here as soon as possible,” Butter told him over the phone. “I’m sitting like a duck with four pies around a bunch of motherfuckers that I’m not really feeling. These D.C. niggas are ruthless. They calling this city the murder capital, and from watching the news each night, they ain’t lying.”
Lil Nut could hear the panic in his voice. He was doing all he could do to get someone fearless enough to drive from D.C. to New York with four kilos of cocaine. If he was less of a man, he would have asked Melissa.
“I gotchu, man. Just chill. Let me call you back.”
“A’ight, call me right back.”
Nut began pacing while thinking, and then, bingo! “You still want a job?” he asked Peter Piper as soon as he got him on the phone.
“Oh, no doubt. I thought you’d never ask.”
“How long will it take you to get to my house?”
“I’m dressed and could leave right now. It’ll take me forty minutes on the train. But if you pay for my cab, then I could be there in fifteen minutes.”
“A’ight, I got your cab money. Listen, is your license clean?”
“Yeah, yeah, it’s all good,” Peter Piper lied.
Just as he stated, Peter was there within fifteen minutes, and ready to work an unknown job. All he knew was that he needed the money.
“I need you to take the Camry, drive down to D.C., and meet Butter,” Nut explained.
“That’s all? I can do that.”
“Let me finish. You gotta drive down there, pick up four bricks, and get them back here safely.”
Peter Piper thought about the job. “How much?” he asked.
“You make five hundred off each brick.”
The prospect of receiving two thousand dollars just to drive was unbelievable to Peter. It sure beat standing on a corner doing hand-to-hand transactions. But Peter Piper needed to be sure he’d see the whole two grand. “Who pays for my gas and tolls?”