Dollar Bill

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Table of Contents

A Novel
by
Joy

 

 

If I Ruled the World
Mama I'm In Love With a Gangsta
Girls From Da Hood 2
(“Wanna Be”)
The Root of All Evil
(Joylynn M. Jossel)
When Souls Mate
(Joylynn M. Jossel)
Wet
(Joylynn M. Jossel)
An All Night Man
(Joylynn M. Jossel)
Please Tell Me if the Grass is Greener
(Joylynn M. Jossel)
World on my Shoulders
(Joylynn M. Jossel)
Me, Myself and Him
(E.N. Joy)
She Who Finds a Husband
Been There, Prayed That
Love, Honor or Stray
Trying to Stay Saved
I Can Do Better All By Myself
And You Call Yourself a Christian
The Perfect Christian
The Sunday Only Christian
Ordained by the Streets
“A Woman's Revenge” (Anthology:
Best Served Cold
)
I Ain't Me No More
More Than I Can Bear
Flower In My Hair
Even Sinners Have Souls
(Edited by E.N. Joy)
Even Sinners Have Souls Too
(Edited by E.N. Joy)
Even Sinners Still Have Souls
(Edited by E.N. Joy)
The Secret Olivia Told Me
(N. Joy)
Operation Get Rid of Mom's New Boyfriend
(N. Joy)
Sabella and the Castle Belonging to the Troll
(N. Joy)

This book is dedicated to my Uncle John Allen Davis

(R.I.P. 2003)

 

 

Damn, I'm missin' you!

My grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Oliver Edwards, who believed in me and supported me without question.

Daddy, what can I say? I'm daddy's little girl. Thanks for telling me how proud you are of me EVERY TIME we talk.

Vickie and the TCP family, who is responsible for my first book deal. There are no words strong enough, and a mere “thank you” would be an insult.

My PR firm, Down to Earth Public Relations (Earth Jallow). We did it! All those years of working for me on the strength of belief instead of the almighty $ finally paid off.

Nick Ross, my son and daughters: MY EVERYTHING. Thank you for allowing me to do me and get the dang on thing done! I love y'all . . . live, breathe, and would die 4 y'all.

And although you had no idea you were inspiring me, Cheryl. Just know that you have inspired at least one person in life, me, and you didn't even know it. Imagine how many others you have inspired. Keep doing you (and keep writing those raps . . . what happened?). It's never too late to get into the game . . . Look at me.

For Trini of Chi/Gary, thanks for being my road map.

Uncle Billy, thanks for your insight and terminology.

Thanks, Sissy, Angie, and Uncle Johnny for always offering me your extra ends toward those printing orders in my self-publishing days.

Thanks, Mom, for everything.

Terri Deal, my hair stylist, thanks for repairing my hair after months of my pulling it out trying to meet writing deadlines.

Where the fuck are my boys?
Dollar thought as he held Cartel and his two partners at gunpoint. The four of them, each with their own degree of fear, stood terrified in the middle of Woody's Garage. Way down under in that place called hell, Satan and his advocates were probably taking bets on whose heart was beating the fastest. Niggaz are always loyal at entertaining the devil and his advocates. This situation was no exception.

Dollar nervously handled the black semiautomatic as he aimed it at the three men. “I swear, not one of you bitches better move,” Dollar said to the men. Not taking for granted whether Dollar's word was bond, the men obeyed as beads of sweat expelled from their foreheads and could be heard hitting the cement ground of the garage like water droplets from a leaky faucet in the middle of the night.

“I bet your punk ass don't even know how to fire that gun.” Tone, Cartel's bigmouth, big Jay-Z lip having partner, snickered. Although scared as hell on the interior, he had to test Dollar. He had to find out if Dollar was pussy in dick's clothing.

“You can probably hardly handle your own dick when you piss, let alone a gun.”

Before Tone's chuckle could completely spill from his mouth, a bullet escaped the barrel of Dollar's gun and whirled past Tone's dome. Dollar just had to fire off a warning shot to let them muthafuckas know that he meant business. The bullet soared through the air, piercing the red can of paint that was sitting on a work shelf behind where the three men were standing. The red paint from the can oozed on the floor in sync with the trail of piss that was now running down Tone's leg. Tone felt the slight breeze the bullet produced as it whizzed by him. It was as if the kiss of death had been blown at him, making him lose control of his bodily functions.

“Now what, you bitch-ass ho?” Dollar said, surprising his own self that he could handle a gun. When he packed the piece, he never had any intention on actually using it. He had never used a gun in his life. Thank God the fear of ignorance hadn't paralyzed him and kept him from popping one off when he needed to. Now he just prayed he didn't actually have to put a bullet in one of these cats. He wasn't about killing niggaz; just taking their paper. That's all he'd ever been about: making dollaz!

A smile crept across Dollar's full lips, a smile that was a cross between a grin and a pout. The right corner of his mouth would slant upward and the left slanted downward. This was his “I'm that nigga” smile.

Not wanting to get too confident, Dollar kept at a couple of arm's lengths in distance from the men. He had seen enough action movies to know that the closer he was to the prospective victims without pulling the trigger, the more chance he had in lodging the bullet in his own skull. The slightest flinch made by any of the three dead men standing ignited a reflex, causing Dollar to simultaneously point the gun at each one of them. Back and forth, from one to the next, the gun steered, Dollar willing himself to keep his hand from shaking. This was not the time to show fear.

Dollar might have been doing a fine job of controlling his emotions, but there was one of his bodily functions that he couldn't control. The steamy stream of sweat occupying Dollar's hand made it a challenge to keep a firm grip on the gun. It soon became the weight of a cannon. Dollar was squeezing his hand so tightly around the handle that his nails punctured through the flesh of the pit of his palm. The stinging from the sweat hitting the open cuts made Dollar feel as though he was holding a fistful of bumblebees that were stinging the hell out of him.

Underneath Dollar's baggy Levi blue jeans, his long legs had a faint tremble. He had to get himself under control. He couldn't lose it. He was too damn close. Actually, he was at the point of no return.

If his victims decided to bum-rush him, Dollar knew he was a dead man. This wasn't no old Western flick where he could shoot all the men in a matter of one point two seconds. He hadn't trained for that John Wayne shit. As a matter of fact, Dollar had never even played cops and robbers. He'd never stood in the mirror as a little boy pretending his hands were a gun, declaring to his reflection, “‘Make my day.'”

Dollar knew, if need be, he might be able to hit one or two of the dudes, but all three? He had to silence the voices in his head. He was starting to scare his own self with all of the negative thoughts he allowed to constipate his mind.

Dollar couldn't help but wonder if Cartel and his dudes could smell the fear rising from up out of his pores. If not smell it, he wondered if they could see it rising like the vapor from a hot apple pie fresh out of the oven. Dollar had on his game mask over top of his timid face, but he still couldn't help but wonder if they could sense that he was just a pup at this robbing niggaz shit. He stood before these unlawful tycoons a virgin to the game, like a pussy that had never been fucked.

“Where the fuck are my boys?” might as well have been tattooed on Dollar's forehead. He gazed over at the door a thousand times, hoping to see them burst through. Through Dollar's actions, Cartel and his partners expected the company of some uninvited guests real soon. Not soon enough for Dollar though.

“You expecting someone?” Cartel finally found the balls to speak through his thick mustache. He sensed that Dollar was a rookie and one false move, or word for that matter, might compel his index finger to become trigger-happy. At the same time, from past experience, Cartel felt that if he petted the young pup on his head a few times, he could find a way to gain his trust and turn the tables.

“Where are your friends when you really need them?” Cartel said in a friendly tone, twitching his nose as if it was itching.

“Shut the fuck up!” Dollar replied. He couldn't focus on the door and engage in a conversation. He wasn't able to multitask.

“Young blood,” Cartel said, pushing his luck. “I been where you at now, literally. I know what it's like to want to have everything with limited options of getting anything. But, yo, you're making a mistake here. I'm not the enemy. I can help you. The little shit you might yank off of us tonight ain't nothing compared to what I can make happen for you.”

Dollar appeared to be comprehending Cartel's words. The only thing better than money was more money. Cartel had Dollar's attention.

Cartel slowly eased his hands down until he had a straight shot of his freshly manicured nails. “All I wanted to do was help you get where I'm at. I still can help you. Like I said, young blood, I been there, so I can't hold this against you. I won't hold this against you. We can do this shit. We can do it together. We can make money together.”

Slowly Cartel's hands dropped just below his chin. His partners prayed he could continue stroking Dollar long enough to go for his piece. All the while, Dollar wondered where his own partners could be. He surmised that maybe they couldn't find the garage. Maybe they were just bullshitting around or arguing or something. The one thing Dollar did know was that by no means had they bitched out on him.

It was very possible that Dollar's partners were lost. Woody's Garage sat way back in an alley off of Cleveland Avenue in Columbus, Ohio, near a housing project notoriously known as Windsor Terrace. The black and orange S
ORRY
W
E
'
RE
C
LOSED
sign was a permanent fixture on the building's entrance door. The garage was regularly closed to unsolicited guests but always welcomed those with an appointment. Cartel, who ran a shiesty hustle out of the garage, had penned in Dollar to meet with him that night. Dollar had driven in from Indiana in order for Cartel to make good on a transaction in the matter of a stolen vehicle.

Cartel was the mastermind behind a car theft ring. Not so much a mastermind as a man who managed to induce some young and dumb thugs into doing his dirty work. For less than a 20 percent cut of the street market value, these wannabe Dons would heist whichever vehicle was Cartel's flavor of the month. The other 80 percent must have gone toward what was known as administrative fees. Little niggaz didn't care though. A quick grand for their misdeed satisfied their adolescent appetites for life's material wants. If they weren't lazy and put in work every week, a quick grand averaged out to $52,000 a year. How the fuck they never managed to make a come up out of the hood on that type of salary was beyond insane. Dollar was determined, though, to get up out of the ghetto and he planned on taking his brother and his mother with him.

Standing there with his gun aimed, Dollar knew the move he had made on Cartel was foul, but a nigga had to do what a nigga had to do. He was sick of the grimy-ass lifestyle he, his mother, and brother were living on the streets of trifling Gary, Indiana. He had to do something. He had to make this move.

Yeah, this shit that's going down right here is for my peeps,
Dollar tried to convince himself. He didn't need to work with Cartel, only his ride or die crew.

As he stood there in Woody's Garage, nervous as all get out, thoughts of growing up in Gary, Indiana spun webs in his head. He didn't want to struggle financially anymore, or see his mother struggle anymore. Dollar thought about having watched his mother leave their one-bedroom apartment for work at six o'clock in the morning and not return until after ten o'clock at night. At one point or another, she had managed to work for every fast food chain in America, as well as a few hole-in-the-wall neighborhood restaurants, just to keep a leaky, cracked roof over Dollar's and his younger brother, Klein's, heads. On most occasions, she would work at two and three joints at a time. Once, she got herself fired from Burger King because she kept referring to the kid's meal as a Happy Meal.

In spite of all the long work hours, Dollar's mother made sure that she did everything she could to see to it that he and his brother did well in school. It didn't matter how late she got in at night; going over homework was a must. Seeing their mother work so hard was probably what kept the two latchkey kids out of trouble the duration of their youth. The last thing they wanted their mother to have to worry about was two bad-ass boys running the streets. She already had to tolerate the white man's franchise all day long.

When Dollar was about twelve years old, one night his mother didn't come home from work as expected. They couldn't afford a phone, so it wasn't like she could have called to give a reason behind her tardiness. Dollar was too afraid to go out and use the corner store pay phone to call the police. He feared the boys in blue might take him and his brother away and put his mother in jail for leaving them alone at night in the apartment.

Dollar unlocked the door and his auntie Charlene barged in like Ms. Sofia from the movie
The Color Purple.

Auntie Charlene ordered the boys to gather some clothes and their toothbrushes because they would be staying with her for a couple of nights. She had always been a stern, no
-
nonsense woman, cussing a sailor under a ship. Thing was, though, she'd never directly cussed at the boys before. Something bad had happened, something bad enough to put fear in Auntie Charlene's heart and a dirty tongue in her mouth.

Once his mother returned home from the hospital, as the oldest, Dollar naturally became the caregiver for both his mother and little brother. Auntie Charlene did her part, too, but she couldn't be therefor them twenty
-
four/ seven. There were occasions when Dollar even had to help his mother use the bathroom or wash up. Around twelve years old at the time, this was probably one of the reasons why Dollar never got overly excited about girls like some boys his age did. He, unfortunately, had been forced to learn the female anatomy through the caring of his mother. This took away any future thrills of trying to grab at little tender nubs and booties, and stealing peeks at bald coochies.