Hittin' the Bricks: An Urban Erotic Tale (20 page)

“I don't know, Ma. But I'ma have a little something for you soon. That's real. I promise.”

She waved him off.

“You're just like that shiftless- ass father of yours. Can't keep a job and full of all kinds of promises that don't help pay the damn rent.”

“I said I'll get you something, Ma! Damn! What's up with this shit? You been riding me ever since I got the fuck home! Eva's been gone all week and I don't hear you bitching about her! I been right here with you and you can't stop fuckin’ with me! What's wrong with you?”

Milena dragged on her cigarette. She crossed her arms and stared at her son with bitter sorrow in her eyes. “It's still about you, huh, Fuego? From the time you was a kid it's always been about you. Did I make you like that? You're a selfish ass. And when you get it in your head that you want something for yourself, nothing and nobody else matters.”

“That ain't true, Ma. I care about all of y all. You, Rosa, and Eva. I'm about to make shit happen for all of us. I promise.”

Milena smirked. “There you go again. I'm through with you and all your tired promises. I've heard them all before and you never deliver.”

Fiyah opened the front door and stepped out. Tonight was
his
fuckin’ night. Not even Milena was gonna rob him of that. “I'm sorry, Ma.” He bounced.

F
iyah entered Bricks like he owned that bitch. Reem had left his name on the guest list, and unlike a slew of other cats who were standing outside begging the bouncers to get in, he had no problems sliding past the velvet ropes at all.

He strolled through the crowd feeling strong and determined. He was tired of running, tired of being scared, and tired of getting his ass kicked. Tonight he was ready to face the music in more ways than one.

Bricks was packed out with ballers and fine honeys. Reem was on the stage emceeing the reggaeton competition, which from the sound of things had already begun. Fiyah scanned the crowd. He spotted ill Nino with his entourage balling in the VIP section, but King Brody's usual booth was empty.

His cell phone vibrated in his pocket and Fiyah pulled it out. He had a text message from the King. It was real short too. Only one line.
Where's the bitch?

Shook, Fiyah looked around, but he couldn't spot nobody. He walked over to the bar and stood next to his old friend Sasha as she waited for an order of drinks to come up.

“Sash, slap me with some Yak, baby.”

She gave him a shot and Fiyah downed that shit in two gulps.

Daddy Dre walked up and patted Sasha on the ass. He nodded toward Fiyah's empty shot glass. “That one's on me, baby.”

He looked at Fiyah. “‘Bout fuckin’ time you got here. Reem thought your PO mighta got hold of ya ass.”

Fiyah nodded. “Oh,
somebody's
gone be on my ass tonight. I can feel it.”

“Then bust your nut real quick and break out. Go stand where Reem can see you. These cats been spitting nursery rhymes all night and my customers ain't handling it well.”

Fiyah moved toward the stage with his balls all up in his chest. This was his moment and all he could do was pray he lived through it. ill Nino was in the house and so were about ten A&R's from various major labels, including Daddy Yankee's. If somebody was scouting for Hispanic talent then they had come to the right fuckin’ joint tonight, because Fiyah's time had arrived.

The new- jack reggaeton rapper on the stage had just finished his set. It was weak and played, and the crowd booed like a muthafuckah to show just how much they didn't like it.

Reem spotted Fiyah waiting, and waved him up on the stage.

“Aiight, show some love for our next performer, a hardbody homeboy fresh off the tiers of Rikers Island! My son, Fuego ‘Fiyah’ Perez! Give it up, y'all!”

Fiyah took the stage and immediately he started earning his name. His shit was so hot that cats watching from the bar started sweating. He waxed lyrical on they asses, every single move, every single gesture, was perfectly choreographed and timed. The audience was feeling him. They was responding. They were practically nutting on his dick.

He spotted Dre standing off to the side pointing at his watch, but Fiyah ignored his ass. Fuck that PO and fuck King Brody too. This was his moment, and Fiyah was busy fuckin’ up heads, to include his own. Then suddenly two things happened at once. ill Nino stood up from his seat in VIP to get a
better look at the wonderment on the mic, and King Brody stepped into Fiyah's frame, surrounded by his crew.

Fiyah stumbled. Just a little bit. But that was all it took to throw him off his well- rehearsed game. But then the beat changed and his game became nonexistent. Ice Mello had barged up on the stage behind him, tryna steal the show.

Fiyah's head whipped around and his mouth fell open. Ice Mello was standing there spitting crack into his own fuckin’ mic.

Fiyah was stung. It was a total bitch- slap. He stood there and watched, helplessly infuriated as Mello moved to the edge of the stage and shit all over his flow. The chicas in the crowd were screaming and pulling up their shirts, and Mello grinned and rapped to their panties as he put on Fiyah with his words, the same thing he had already put on him with his bare hands. A muhfuckin’ beat-down.

Mello's rap game was toxic. It filled the air with his personal brand of funk, and even as he stood there looking and feeling stupid, Fiyah had to admit that shit. The kid was everything
they'd said he was. Larger than life. His flow game was furious, brilliant.

Fiyah stood there on boil, gripping a dead mic. He felt dumped on, like he shoulda been wiping shit off his face. It was reggaeton night. Not fuckin’ hip hop! This cat had violated an unwritten club rule that demanded retribution, so when Mello started in on his third verse for his final kill, Fiyah stole up behind him and power- smashed him over the dome with his fuckin’ mic.

It was the fight of the century.

Fiyah caught a glimpse of Brody and his boys knockin’ people down in the crowd as they moved toward the stage charging toward him. Fuck Mello. These cats were coming to clock his ass out and he knew it. But then a group of pissed- off cats from Spanish Harlem rushed the stage and caused chaos to descend on the club. It took Dre, Reem, and a whole cast of muscled- up bouncers to drag Fiyah off the stage and to protect Mello from the mad reggaeton- loving muhfuckahs in the crowd.

Dre pushed both of them down the hall and out the side door. Fiyah and Mello grilled each other for a quick second, then both of them broke the hell out.

Out on the streets, Fiyah took off running toward home, furious as shit. Mello took off running too. In the opposite direction. Grinning like a muhfuh. Hyped as hell.

T
he crowd was still wildin’ inside Bricks. Spittin’ urban rap on reggaeton night was a good enough reason to toss shit up.

Brody stood guzzling straight Bacardi as he watched Dre and Reem push the two rappers down the hall and out the side door. His eyes stayed locked on Fiyah's retreating back until he was gone from view. Brody twirled a toothpick in his mouth and looked relaxed and comforted by the atmosphere of random violence that was in the air.

He leaned into his younger brother. “Follow that bitch,” he ordered.

“Fiyah?”

“Nah, follow ya fuckin’ dick, stupid ass!”

Bullet boiled. “Man, fuck you. You follow him.”

“What the fuck did you say?”

“I said fuck you, B. I ain't no nervous bitch you can bend over and ass- fuck. You need to chill the fuck out with that shit.”

Brody grunted, then smashed his glass into the side of his brother's head. It was a fast and vicious move that was meant to be disorienting and humiliating, and it worked because Bullet was definitely both. Blood ran down his face and he staggered. Brody slammed him up against a nearby pillar and got up in his face.

“You lucky I dig your fuckin moms, man. Or I'd smash your bitch ass up for real.”

Bullet slumped over in pain and embarrassment as Brody released him and stormed off into the wilding crowd. His eyes burned like deadly lasers into his brother's body. It took all his control not to pull out his tool and blast that psycho- bitch in the back of his dome. Instead, he leaned against the pillar trying to recover as he stared at his brother and wrestled with his mounting rage.

“You gone get done right, son,” Bullet muttered under his breath. “Your fuckin’ time on the throne is ‘bout to be up.”

• • • 

F
iyah was just about to duck into his building when he glimpsed a strange car pull up at the curb. “Muthafuck!” He ran up the stairs as fast as he could, and jabbed at the doorbell, sweating out his panic.

Downstairs in the lobby, Parole Officer Daniels had just come through the door. He paused to finish his cigarette, then flicked the butt on the black- and- white tiled floor and stepped on it. He glanced at his watch, whistling good- naturedly. He was a big man and he moved slow. But he moved all the fuck-in’ time, and that's why he was so good at catching his parolees sleeping. He took the steps up to the Perez apartment and rang the bell. When nobody answered, he rang it again.

Fiyah answered the door with a towel around his waist. His skin looked damp and there were a bunch of old bruises on his face that had started to fade. He had a smaller towel in his hands that he rubbed around his head like he was trying to dry his damp hair.

“Where were you? I called three fuckin’ times.”

Fiyah shrugged. “I was taking a shower, man.”

“For a whole fuckin’ hour?”

“What can I say? I'm a clean cat.”

Daniels looked down at Fiyah's feet. He still had on his socks.

The PO shook his head. “Nah, you're a fuck- up, Perez. A fuck- up. But you only get three strikes, and then I get your ass. If not tonight, then tomorrow night. Idiots like you always violate. I can set my watch to that shit.”

Daniels turned to leave.

“One more thing. The next time you take one of your beauty baths, make sure you answer the damn phone.”

“Can't.” Fiyah shrugged. “Phone's in the kitchen. And it ain't cordless.”

Back in his room Fiyah stepped past the pants and sweaty polo shirt he had just stripped out of in a hurry. He peered out his bedroom window and saw his PO walking out the building. A midnight- black SUV pulled to the curb in front of the PO's car, and the back door opened. Two big feet swung to ground.

King Brody

“Oh shit!” Fiyah ran out the room, grabbing his gear off the floor as he passed. He jetted into Eva's bedroom where Rosa was sleeping, and hopped into his pants. Opening the window he climbed down the fire escape and jumped down to the alley on the side street below. Fiyah pulled his shirt on as he ran, and despite the deadly consequences, he never looked back.

B
ricks had officially closed for the night, although there was a lot of drugging and gambling and fucking going on in the downstairs rooms. Reem walked ill Nino and a couple of his Bottom Half Boyz outside where their Lincoln limo and driver was waiting at the curb.

Reem gave ill some dap. “Yo, that shit was fucked up in there tonight, man. My son Fiyah lost his head.”

“Yeah, but I peeped his game. I know he's nice.”

Reem nodded. “Fiyah got some crazy shit with him, but he just got bum- rushed up there. Don't focus on the fight man, keep your ear on the flow.”

“Oh yeah,” ill agreed. “Ya boy's a contender. But so is his backup singer.”

“Ice Mello? That boy is the hard truth. He spits it like nobody else. I didn't know you was down to tour with another hip-hop artist, though.”

ill Nino grinned. “What? You scared he might throw some shit all over your shine, Raw?”

Reem laughed. “Man, get the fuck outta here. Ain't a rapper out here who can bite off none of this.”

“Cool. Let's sleep on this till I get back next week. In the meantime, tell your little homeys to fall back. This is Harlem, man. Cats get blasted out here over small shit. We wanna keep the battle on wax, not on the streets.”

ill Nino and his entourage got in their whip leaving Reem standing on the street. He chilled there with his hands in his pockets as a few drunken stragglers stumbled down the block and a small army of young promoters handed out flyers to anybody who would take them. A young Puerto Rican kid tried to push one off on Reem.

“After-hours party, homes?”

Reem dissed him. “Man get the fuck outta here.”

F
iyah hid in the shadows and back alleys of Harlem all night long. Fear and rage kept his mind turning. Rage because of Eva and that violating- ass Mello. And fear because he knew King Brody's patience had run out and that meant his time was just about up.

From the rooftop of a nearby building, Fiyah staked out his crib all day long. He needed to get inside and get his shit, but he also knew Brody was watching and waiting for him to show his position so he could take him down.