by Cash
“This is she. Who is this?”
“Youngblood.”
“Where I know you from?”
“Fa real, lil’ mama, I can’t even remember where we met or how you look. I just ran across your number in my glove compartment and right now I’m too high to try to figure all that shit out.”
“High?”
“Just weed, shawdy,” I chuckled. “I ain’t no crackhead. Anyway, I’ma keep it trill. I live a fast and hard life. Every day I wake up it’s a blessing. Right now I need to hold something soft to take my mind off of the streets.”
“Well, ain’t you got a pillow?” Her tone was real sassy but playful.
“Yeah, pillow-soft leather seats in my whip,” I replied. “What you know ‘bout dat?”
I heard her suck her teeth.
“Check it, lil’ mama. I’m talkin’ motel, weed, Cristal, sex, the whole nine. If you ain’t with it, that’s cool. I’ll get back at you another day.”
“How you gon’ invite me to the motel and you don’t even know how I look? What if I’m a booger bear?”
“You can’t be, ‘cause I don’t accept shawdies’ numbers unless they are tight.”
“What type of whip you got?” Tabitha asked.
“I got a money-green Lexus truck and a black Benz drop, both sittin’ on chrome,” I boasted ‘cause I could tell she would be impressed.
“A’ight, you can come pick me up, but if you’re ugly, I ain’t givin’ you no pussy.”
That was cool with me ‘cause I’ve been called many names, but ugly wasn’t one of ‘em.
Tabitha gave me directions to her crib out in Forest Park. I already had an ounce of weed, so I only had to stop at the liquor store on the way to Tabitha’s crib and copped two bottles of Cristal and a box of Magnums.
Tabitha was waiting at the curb of her driveway when I pulled up in my truck. She looked at me through the rolled-down driver’s window, making sure that I wasn’t ugly before she ran around to the other side and hopped in.
“What you waitin’ on? Let’s go!” She hurried me like she was sneaking off. “I remember you now,” she said as we drove, but I still couldn’t place her face. She looked kinda young.
“How old are you?” I asked.
“You ain’t jailbait are you?”
“Tsssk! I’m nineteen, nigga. Are you jailbait?”
I laughed. “Naw, shawdy, I’m just young in the face.”
Tabitha wanted to stop at Popeye’s before we went to the motel. I wasn’t trippin’ it. Most shawdies were taught to get somethin’ out of a nigga before giving up the pussy. A chicken dinner was a small thing to a giant.
At the motel, we punished our chicken dinners, blew some dro and drank Cristal. Neither of us did much talking. I kept lookin’ at Tabitha, tryna figure out where we had met.
“Why you keep starrin’ at me?” she asked.
“‘Cause you’re a cutie.” That wasn’t a lie. She wasn’t dimed up, but she was honey-brown, with deep dimples that enhanced her beautiful smile. Her build was on the slim side but not skinny. She was ‘bout a seven maybe an eight.
We were sitting on the bed. I stood up and pulled my Roca-wear jersey over my head, tossing it across the back of the chair that was at a table near the bed.
“You ready for some of this?” I popped.
Tabitha tried to act all bashful and shit but ten minutes later, I had her in the buck, long-dickin’ the pussy. Of course, I was wrapped up.
The lil’ ho’s pussy was bigger than a mafucka, sloppy wet but good. I had to play mind games to get her to suck the joystick but then I had to pull her up before she chewed it off!
I hit it again, from the back this time, fell asleep, woke up and smoked a blunt and boned shawdy again.
“Take off the condom,” she demanded.
“Nah, lil’ mama, I don’t roll like that.”
“Please. I can’t feel you.”
“You couldn’t feel a truck in yo big ass pussy,” I mumbled.
“What you say?” Tabitha looked over her shoulder, ass still in the air.
“Nothin’. Just take this dick,” I replied, then I started rough ridin’ the pussy.
This time, I blew the bitch’s back out.
Around nine-thirty, Tabitha woke me up and said she had to get home. I took a quick shower, dressed, turned in the room key and we bounced.
“Can you stop somewhere and buy me something to eat?” she asked, again putting the charge on me.
I chumped her off with Krystal’s and drove her home. She asked me not to pull into her driveway, so I pulled to the curb in front of her house.
As soon as Tabitha’s feet hit the pavement, a pretty mocha-complexioned chic stomped out of the house and down the driveway, stopping a foot from my truck, hands on her hips. Much attitude.
“Deidra! Where yo hot ass been?” the mocha-complexioned chic fussed.
“Mama been calling everywhere looking for you. Yo ass in trouble now!” She peeped in my truck. “And who the fuck is you? My sister ain’t but fourteen years old!”
Suddenly she recognized my face and I recalled hers. We had met one day I’d taken Lil’ T to Chuck E. Cheese. She’d been there with her daughter, who was about my son’s age. I remembered her well now. Her name was Tabitha. I’d gotten caught up in the streets and forgot all about her.
“Don’t I know you from somewhere?” she wondered, still trying to place my face.
“Yeah, we met at Chuck E. Cheese awhile back,” I reminded her. “I was there with my son.”
“Youngblood?”
“Yep.”
“Where do you know my little sister from? With her hot ass!”
“I don’t really know her. I was visiting a friend who lives a few blocks from here. I guess his lil’ sister and Deidra are friends. He asked me to give your sister a ride home since it’s dark out.”
Deidra clutched her Krystal burgers and smacked her lips. “See, I ain’t been doing nothin’!”
I winked at Deidra.
That’s right, shawdy. Ain’t nothin’ wrong with a lie to save your ass. Your secret is safe wit’ me.
Once hot ass Deidra disappeared inside the house, the real Tabitha stood at the curb and we talked for a few minutes.
“Why didn’t you ever call?” she asked.
“I lost your number.”
“It must not have been important to you, then.”
“Naw, that’s not it,” I said. “A nigga just careless with shit like that. Lemme give you my pager number.” I wrote it down on a Krystal’s napkin and gave it to her. “Get at me.”
“I will,” she promised, flashing that same cute dimpled smile as Deidra.
I wondered if she had a big ole coochie like her lil’ sister.
“Thanks for giving my sister a ride home. She is so damn fast.”
Shawdy, you don’t know the half, I thought.
CHAPTER 9
The next day, I met with Murder Mike and Crazy Nine at one of the other stash houses in Hapeville, a small city that was really Metro-Atlanta.
As I’d expected, Murder had six platinum fingernails. He obviously hadn’t counted Born Ruler on his list of bodies he’d stacked. Though dude’s demise was part of a common scheme, I guess he figured it would be frontin’ to claim a body he hadn’t put a bullet in. I could feel him on that. I wasn’t counting the two bodyguards on my mental list, either.
One of the rooms at the stash house was stacked ceiling high with wrapped pounds of hydro weed and ganja, so much weed that I could almost smell it from the street.
Murder told him so, and Crazy Nine sprayed some shit that immediately covered the smell. He gave us props for the D.C. hit, and handed me an envelope full of cash.
For more hours than I care to remember, we compressed pounds of weed and stuffed them up inside of the hollow trunks of cheap ceramic lamps. Then we wrapped the lamps in newspaper and stacked them inside moving boxes, placing a layer of foam between each layer of lamps. We
left out five hundred pounds of ‘dro and one hundred pounds of ganja to be distributed in Atlanta. The rest, I assumed, were shipped to the other three Dreads.
Money was pouring in from the Englewood traps with the weight being sold. The weed was selling like crazy, but I couldn’t tell if Inez’ connection was affected by our taking over the bulk of Atlanta’s weed business. I’d retired Inez from the game, now that she had my seed, but I wasn’t planning on being her cake-daddy, like Fat Stan had been. She already had a job lined up after the baby was three months old.
When I rode through the hood with Murder Mike to check the traps, I’d usually see Cita’s Benz parked in front of her mother’s unit. I pulled my main man’s coat, reminding him that was how the enemy knew where a hustler laid his head, they followed his girl.
“True dat!” he said. And like poof, Cita was seldom seen in the hood anymore.
Murder’s Ma Dukes and his older brother and sister still lived in the projects, but they didn’t know where he and Cita called home. His Ma Dukes was ghetto as hand-me-down clothes. She’d cut a mafucka in a New York minute and her kids could do no wrong in her eyes. I liked her, though.
Murder’s older brother, Bobby, was a crackhead, always trying to sell a nigga some meat he’d stolen from a supermarket in the area. Murder’s sister was two years older than us. She had two kids by two different niggaz, both of ‘em doing time. Her name was Cynthia, but everybody called her Fat Ma.
She’d flirt with me even before I cliqued up in the game with her peeps. I wasn’t trying to go there, though, ‘cause I damn sho’ wasn’t gonna wife her. All she could ever be was my bitch on the side and I wasn’t gon’ fade my main man’s sister like that! Besides, Fat Ma was just trying to fuck with a nigga’s head. She liked older niggaz who were easier to juice than a thugged-out panty hitter and quitter like me.
I was making loot, enough to floss with and buy the type of shit a young nigga from the hood always dreamed of. But I hadn’t come close to getting over the lost mil’. I was so scarred by that shit that I only kept pocket money at Inez’ crib. I had my own spot, but I didn’t keep my stash there, either. I was seldom at my townhouse, so the neighbors would look at me like I was breaking in when I did go there.
I’d still swing by and holla at Poochie when time allowed. She was still doing good, working, going to church and raising her sons. She told me she was thinking about marrying a preacher man.
I said, “If you do, when they get to the part of the ceremony where they ask if anyone knows a reason why y’all shouldn’t be joined together in holy matrimony, I’ma stand up and tell our secrets.”
Poochie laughed and then came back with some holy shit. “My God is a forgiving God.”
I wanted to say: “Poochie, please! Put down that Bible and let’s go fuck up your bed sheets!” But I respected her religious thing. It wasn’t like she was trying to convert me or like we couldn’t talk without her quoting the scriptures. As long as I wasn’t crackin’ for some ass, she wouldn’t push the Good Book in my face.
She’d tell me how smart Lil’ T was and how he had a quick temper like me and Shan. Whenever I was with him I talked to him about controlling his temper and always doing his best in school. The shit was somewhat hypocritical ‘cause I had never liked school and had a hair-trigger temper, but what was I to do, teach my son to grow up to be a robber and a killer like his pops? Nah, it was my duty as his father to point him down the right road. From there, he could choose to go in any direction he wished. I’d still love him unconditionally, but I would never point him toward wrong.
He was a trip, though, always asking a million questions. I’d bring him over to spend the night at Inez’ so he could bond with his baby sister.
Inez’ other daughter, Bianca, had begun staying there, too. Now that Inez wasn’t selling weed anymore, she wanted Bianca to live with her again. She also wanted Bianca and Tamia to get used to each other. They were sisters after all.
I had no qualms with that. I wasn’t a petty nigga. I had nothing against no man’s child. I figured, in time, shortie would get used to me being around. It wasn’t like I had to baby-sit her.
Lil’ T had fun roughing her up, and she got a thrill out of following him around. Tamia, with her precious self, just sucked Inez’ nipple and chilled, unless my sister, Toi, came by and spoiled the baby rotten, holding her all day long.
Yeah, Glen was trusting Toi out of his eyesight now that Rich Kid wasn’t around. I’d told Toi that one day I was gonna tell Glen I shouldn’t have taken our beef so far. Had I known everything that had went down, I probably would’ve handled it differently. It still didn’t justify him fracturing my sister’s jaw, but I understood now why he’d snapped. I told Toi that was some trife shit she had done, and not to be putting me in no predicaments like that no more.
She said, “Crazy ass boy! I tried to tell you to let it go.”
“Let what go, Daddy?” Lil’ T dipped in.
“Let this go.” I grabbed him and wrestled him to the floor. Bianca jumped on my back, laughing and squealing, forgetting she didn’t like me.
CHAPTER 10
Playtime was over and it was back to business. Little Gotti had resurfaced and word was that he and his blond bombshell got popped in North Cackalackie for trafficking much yayo up the interstate. They’d been in custody without bond the whole time we’d been looking for them.
Now they were free on bond, trying to stack as much loot as possible to make up for their losses in case they had to go do a bid. Other people in the street said they were let out on bond to set niggaz up.
Neither Murder nor I wanted to fuck with Little Gotti, fearing he was under surveillance by the feds. Furthermore, if he’d gotten popped in North Carolina, he’d soon be, doing a bid, eliminating himself from our list.
Murder took our concerns and reasoning to Crazy Nine.
A day later Murder said, “He wants us to stick to the plan,” leaving no room for debate.
When Little Gotti and Blondie’s execution-style murders were reported in the newspapers a week later, it was confirmed that John “Little Gotti” Bryant had been a recently turned government informant. Police speculated he’d been murdered to keep him from informing on his supplier. They were also investigating to see whether or not there was a leak in their office. Blondie was referred to as his stripper girlfriend, and it was reported that in the case of her murder, the killer had used overkill.
I guess five to the head could be deemed as such.
So my main man got his seventh platinum nail, and I lucked up on sixty grand and two bricks. I joked that Murder was running out of fingers and would have to start on his toes.
I sold the bricks to a nigga Lonnie knew, blessed my tight man for hooking the deal up and took all the cheddar to my new stash spot. Then it was time to unwind.
Although it wasn’t quite nine, it was already hot as hell. It was mid-summer, so I wore baggy shorts, a wife-beater, blingin’ like The Bird Man with my top down on the whip. I had gotten my hair braided in a fly zigzag pattern by this shawdy in Englewood who usually hooked me up.
I drove the Benz drop to pick up the real Tabitha. She wore loose-fitted Prada shorts and a strapless bikini top, sandals that showed off her pretty feet and a gold ankle bracelet that matched the herringbone around her neck. Long ringlets hung down from under a floppy straw hat.
When she slid into the passenger seat, her sweet fragrance almost put me in a trance. She carried a picnic basket. I took it from her and placed it on the backseat.
We went to White Waters Amusement Park and got on plenty water rides, getting wet and yelling like teenagers. It was good, clean fun.
We chilled later in the picnic area, eating chicken sandwiches, deviled eggs and fresh fruit that Tabitha had put together. Of course, I brought the weed, which we had trouble finding a secluded spot to blow, but we were persistent and it eventually paid off. Before long, we were blazin’ ‘dro, sitting on a huge rock conversing.
We had a few hours to blow before the fireworks show, so we chilled at my crib, listening to music and gettin’ our heads right. I was so high, I had to let Tabitha drive when it was time to go to Stone Mountain.
Shawdy enjoyed the hell out of the display of fireworks. “Wow! That’s sooo pretty,” she kept commenting.
Me? I was trippin’. Every time a firecracker popped, I jumped.
Niggaz might be shootin’ at me!
I felt naked and paranoid without my heat on my waist. It was a good thing I had left my strap in the car ‘cause my paranoia might’ve caused me to Blocka! Blocka! Blocka! the whole goddamn crowd.
“You okay?” Tabitha asked.
“Nah, baby girl, let’s bounce.”
Back at my crib, I found out that dimples weren’t the only thing that ran in the family. Tabitha’s pussy was even bigger than Deidra’s! A nigga needed twelve inches to hit bottom, and I was short about four.
Since I couldn’t hit bottom, I stroked the pussy at an angle, determined to at least beat down the sides. Shawdy moaned and scratched big welts on my back.
Hours later, after dropping Tabitha back off at her house, I headed back to mine. Do You Remember Me by Jill Scott filled the airwaves.
That’s Juanita’s song!
I bobbed my head and turned up the volume.
Damn, I miss you girl.
I wasn’t tryna feel what I was feelin’, so I clicked on the CD player. Jaheim replaced Jill Scott but then that song where Jaheim was singing about a diamond in the rough, a special lady that he let get away, came on and that shit had me missing Jaunita, too.
I hurriedly changed Jaheim to Trick Daddy and rode out.
I told Inez the welts on my back must’ve come from niggaz fouling me on the basketball court.
“Yeah. Just like two plus two equals ten!” she quipped sarcastically and turned her back to me in bed.