Hood Misfits, Volume 1 (10 page)

“I think them niggas had another person in on that hit, bossman. When I ran into them other two niggas jawing, they said something else a nigga wasn't able to hear.”

I looked up at Trigga when he said that, and it finally dawned on me. Pookie was still alive because they didn't know he was in on it. I knew where the stash was hidden, but I wouldn't say anything just yet. Pookie was stupid. I knew he wouldn't have moved it. Judging by how silent that nigga had been, he was too scared to risk it. It was a good thing I had sliced his fuckin' face.

“If I find out another muthafucka was in on this shit, and I'ma fuckin' cut out his entrails and hang them around his parents' house to dry. Sick of niggas playing with my shit, my fuckin' emotions. You know how much fuckin' dough I done missed out on because of this shit?”

Before Trigga could respond, Big Jake pushed the door open. “Boss, you betta get downstairs. Sasha done cut one of the new bitches,” he told Dame.

“I'm so sick of this bitch!” Dame roared as he picked up his cane and stormed from the office.

I halfway wanted to run down there just to see him fuck her up.

“It was Pookie,” I said aloud when it was just me and Trigga in the room.

He regarded me slowly. “What, li'l shawty?”

“The other nigga in on the take . . . it was Pookie.”

“And you telling me this why?”

“So you can tell Dame.”

“Why you ain't telling 'im?”

“'Because he told me to stay the fuck out his business.”

“How you know it was Pookie?”

“He was with my mama and my daddy the night they did it. Him, Janky, and Slammer, they was all in on it. Came in the house scared and nervous but was talking 'bout how they had just come up. It was duffle bags full of bricks wrapped in brown kind of duct tape. There was money too.”

I could tell when I told him about the money I had his interest. Nobody had mentioned the money that Dame had been robbed of too.

“How long you been sitting on this shit, li'l shawty?”

“Since I got here.”

Trigga stood and folded his arms across his wide chest. As usual he had a black hoodie on.

“So where is it?”

“The old trap house on Campbellton Road. The other half is at the house on Washington Road, at Janky and Slammer's grandma's house.”

“So them niggas hid the shit in plain sight?”

“Guess so. That's where it's at though.”

“You bet not be playing a nigga, li'l shawty. If I check this shit out, and you bullshitting—”

“I ain't bullshitting. It's there.”

I guess I was feeling bad because Gina had told me some niggas raped his mama before killing her. I had too much pride to say sorry to the nigga, but I could pass him info. She'd also told me he was real young when his mama got killed. She even said she thought he had seen what happened to her when the niggas raped her. I hoped not. Nobody should have to see that shit.

“Why you kill people, Trigga?” I asked him. “Didn't you see your mama and daddy die? Why you kill people like you do?”

He didn't break a sweat. “Why you sucking Dame dick? Didn't you see your mama was your daddy's ho? Why you doing what you doing now? Why you ain't fighting and cutting niggas up no more?”

“So he kidnapped you and made you work for him too?”

“A nigga got debt just like you do, li'l shawty.”

Sasha's screams rent the house. Her cries, begs, and pleas for Dame not to send her to the basement made my flesh crawl. I still shuddered to think about what would have happened to me if I had gone down there.

“Just don't see why you wanna work for a nigga that got the initials DOA carved in his bedposts, headboard, and back,” I mumbled.

Trigga's face turned down in a frown.

“What you say? Say that shit again?”

It was almost like he was demanding it. He moved closer to me so quickly, I didn't have time to think. I thought he was bucking on me because I'd dissed Dame in his presence.

I leaned back in my chair as he glared down at me. “I ain't say nothing.”

“Yeah, you did. What about DOA?”

“All I said was, he has it carved in his bedposts, headboard, and back,” I stammered.

“Yeah.”

Something had changed in his eyes. I could see it just like I could feel his mood change in the room.

There was some shit I wasn't honest about at the start of all this bullshit and li'l shawty's words brought all of that to the surface. Rumors on the street were that I'd seen my parents get popped. As a kid I used to walk around and tell niggas that, when they got too nosy. That shit was lies. Some I told that they OD'd on some product. Others, I added that with the rape story of my moms before I got quiet altogether and silenced my story. No one was able to tell what my backstory was, and on some real shit, it was better that way. The more niggas knew about your business, the easier it was to get your weakness.

For me, the truth was in all the jawin' going on. My parents did get popped the way I told you. Thing was, I saw everything. I ain't just walked in on my mom getting ran through then helped her take those niggas down. No. I was locked in the house for the week they used my mom like their personal bitch. Watched as they tied and gagged her, beat her, made her open her legs by tying them apart, and they ran through her, flipping her to eat her out taking their dirty shirts to wipe her blood and their come away.

Yeah, I saw it all, except that last nigga, the one who got away. I couldn't get free to help my mom until she signaled me. Shit still was in a nigga's dreams every day. Every day I woke up thinking about that last nigga with the DOA tat on his back.

I stood in the middle of the hallway looking at nothing. A blank expression settled in my eyes, and for the first time in my life, in a long time, a nigga wasn't tracking shit. I heard, saw, felt, and smelled nothing.

Ray-Ray's voice finally broke through to my dome, when her hand reached out to shake me.

“Trigga! You straight tripping and acting like a stupid nigga now. Trigga! Wake up!” she screamed at me.

Had I been checkin' for her, like actually seeing her, I would have seen that she was staring at me confused, kinda pissed, not sure about why the fuck I was flipping out, and also trying to keep the other niggas from hearing me.

The sensation of her nails digging in my skin as she shook and gripped my arm had me turning around and snatching her by her throat. I lifted her so high in the air, her feet started dangling as she struggled and tried to kick me. Like, a nigga wasn't himself at all.

That nigga Dame was in my head laughing, over and over. All I saw was his fuckin' face in her, and I slammed her hard against the hall wall. Kept slamming her, until her screams cut through to me.

“You a lying-ass bitch! You lyin'!” I growled then yelled at her, not seeing nothing. I literally saw blackness. Darkness. She wasn't there. It was those niggas that used my mom like a fuck toy.

My fist smashed into the wall, causing pictures to fall. I squeezed Ray-Ray's throat.

She croaked out, “I can show you. I ain't lying. Let me go, Trigga, please!”

Her pleas sounded like my mom, and it fucked me up further. My mom had told me to stay hiding, and I did.
Damn! I fuckin' did.

Ray-Ray continued clawing at my hands, cutting them to where they bled, but I didn't feel a damn thing. A nigga was all the way numb, but I heard her repeating that she could show me that she wasn't lying, so I let go of her throat.

The sound of her falling to the floor like a sack of potatoes had me finally seeing her for the first time. My locks swung around me as I shook my head, and I balled both of my fists and bowed my head in shame. I wanted to say sorry, but fuck! What could a nigga say about choking a shawty up like some scum-ass bitch?

So instead of saying, “My bad,” my priority—no, my obsession—became seeing the proof of what she said. Anger had me heated, which made me point down the hall. “Show me,” I commanded.

Ray-Ray's eyes darted nervously at my Glock, which I held in my hand. Yeah, if what she said was true, a nigga was damn sure going to use it.

She quickly took me to Dame's room, a place I never had stepped into. The moment I did, I wished I had never done so. Shit felt like my personal gateway to hell once I saw DOA carved in his headboard. Blood seemed to suddenly spill from each letter.

The sound of my pops being capped then the grunts and wet thrusts of the niggas digging my momma out echoed in my head. I heard her screams through her gagged mouth. She screamed in a way that said, “Stay hiding.”

I remember seeing her on that bed looking at me with unshed tears. Tears she'd never let fall for these niggas, tears she only let slide down her battered face once she looked into my eyes.

In that moment, shit for me changed just that fast. I turned to walk out the room and zoned the fuck out. Everything was like a tunnel for me. I heard Ray-Ray running behind me and trying to stop me, but it wasn't working. She fell, being dragged by me as I walked on.

She screamed for Big Jake, who must have been coming up the steps. I didn't see him, and I didn't give a damn if I did. In that moment, homie or not, he could have gotten the taste of my fist in his mouth. I just needed to get out of this place, needed to find that nigga Dame.

Pushing through the hallway, it took Big Jake snatching me by my throat then wrapping his arm tight around it, locking me in a choke hold to keep me in place. My fist connected to his face, but he squeezed tighter, causing me to grind my teeth. A nigga was gone. I was ready to take my life and hand it to Dame, just to take his fuckin' ass out, and all I saw on rewind was that nigga over my momma, punching her, laughing his signature laugh, and flipping her to sit her pussy on his face, exposing the DOA tat on his back.

I swear to fuckin' God I was going to end him. His blood was mine. And all this time, like a stupid-ass nigga, I was working for my own enemy, getting close?

I struggled again against Big Jake.
Does this nigga know who the fuck I am? Is he playing me this whole time, making me work for him 'cuz the shit is funny? Yo, if his pops wasn't already dead, that nigga would get it too.

I had learned in the streets that his pops had put a hit out on my pops, because some kid my pops had helped ended up in the pen then tried to take him out, using my pops' name as the reason for it. Nigga lied.

My pops worked the streets as an activist to stop all this bullshit in the streets, 'cuz he came from the same type of bullshit in Brooklyn. So Dame's punk-ass father was hating it. And he was even more upset that one of my pops' street kids had actually got in the pen and almost took him out. Yeah, now that nigga was eating dirt, and Dame was king of DOA. Bullshit!

The sound of doors closing and darkness surrounding me let me know Big Jake had taken us to our private spot in the house. He dragged me and yelled at Ray-Ray to turn on the lights. My mind flipped on rewind again. I needed to be let go right the fuck now.

“No, Trig, man, he's not here. He's with Anika, a'ight. Anika sent a car for him. That crazy bitch Sasha cut up some new trick, so she's sittin' in the basement now too.” Big Jake tried to get me to chill the fuck out, but it wasn't working.

“A'ight, so let me go to find that muthafucka!”

“Bro, listen to me. It's not that time yet, trust me. Every nigga in this house gotta agenda, and now, Trig, a nigga I call my brother, my blood, you do too. You're smarter than this, homie,” Big Jake's voice quietly muttered next to my ear.

I realized that I must have been shouting out everything I was thinking, and that shit had a nigga feeling crazy.

The sound of a door opening then locking, mixed with the click of heels and scent of sugar and bubble gum, let me know that Gina was in the room and back from shaking her pussy at Magic City. A part of me wanted to cap those niggas too for having her underage pussy up in there. Her soft gasp, then the jingle of her purse hitting the ground, seemed to fuck with me too.

“Big Jake, let Trigga go right now. You don't do that. That's not nice. Let him go.”

Gina moved to tug on Big Jake's massive arm, but Ray-Ray pulled her back to stop her.

“Gina, chill. Trigga is on some other shit,” Ray-Ray whispered.

I heard her tell Gina everything, and before I knew it, Gina was sobbing like a baby.

Every nigga had a sob story, and mine was blowing up in my face.

Big Jake's words came at me again as he tried to get me to stop bucking at him. No lie, I knew, somewhere in the back of my mind, that he was right. That just that fast, with the truth of everything, I almost lost my throne. Something Pops said never do. Not unless I want to.

The reality of that all settled in, and I stopped fighting. I lifted my hands in the air so that my guns would fall to the floor. Big Jake cautiously let me go and pushed down on my shoulders to sit me down.

Never in my life had I seen Big Jake look the way he did as he sat in front of me. His usually brown eyes were dark as sin. It almost looked as if the nigga wanted to cry while he sat back on his hunches.

That moment shook me up. I had never had another person care for me since my parents and Mama Lupe. Every person who cared for me had died, and I had stopped caring about them. Now Big Jake was sitting here looking like a nigga who had just lost the only thing that was keeping him grounded in the game, and I can't lie, a nigga felt like shit about it all.

My eyes darted left and right like a crazy nigga, trying to find a way to escape, even as my brain woke up, telling me to get back on my nigga shit. It literally slapped a nigga, telling me that I had one of baddest killas outside of me on my side, and not the nigga who called himself king of this house. I had the respect with true loyalty, and now I was punking out. I needed to get my shit in line.

“You don't want to do this shit, Trig, man, trust me . . . not yet. You remember everything you told me, homie? Remember how we talked about having plan B? About just getting by to get by? Listen, for real listen, bro, every nigga gotta agenda, remember I told you that? Just told you that again. Answer me.” Big Jake shook my shoulders then pulled his own Glock on me, pressing it against my temple.

I licked my lips in that moment and nodded, rapidly responding, “Yeah, yeah, I remember, man. Blood bond, me and you. But you're going to have to put a bullet in my dome to stop me from killing that nigga.”

Big Jake shook his head and kept his gaze on me. “Fuck that! I'm your guard, nigga. I'm not putting a fuckin' bullet in you, unless you try to get yourself killed, like you doing right now.”

The only nigga in this house, outside of Gina, who could make me laugh, ran a hand down his face and stared at me like a pastor in a pulpit. I looked him in his knowing eyes.

Big Jake said, “Listen, you will, my nigga. We all get shots at the motherfucka. Even me. Listen, God makes shit happen in a way we never understand. Yours was to get next to Dame, so was mine.”

Big Jake put his Glock away then pulled out his cross, a necklace he told me his grandmother had given him the day he learned he was going to be drafted in the NFL. He held it tight in his hands and kissed it. “Remember I told you I got shot in the streets, kept me from going to the NFL? Well, Dame was that nigga that ordered it. He wanted me to be his bodyguard, told me to fuck that NFL shit, that I'd make more money working and protect him than I did in the game. I told him naw. He came after my grandma then me. Now I'm here. Every nigga got an agenda. He thought I didn't know he did that shit, but yeah, I did. I made him think I didn't. Big Jake, Dame's pit bull, loyal bodyguard, and protector was my role. But, on some real truth, fuck that shit! Every nigga gotta agenda, even me. ENGA tatted on my arm for life.”

What he told me blew my mind. He'd never told me that part of his story, and I never questioned his truth, just rode with it and felt like I could trust the nigga.
Damn.
I dropped my head and covered my hand over my face. Shit was crazy, too fuckin' crazy, but I was not about to let that Dame nigga break me down.

No tears, no bitch-ass weakness, none of that. A nigga didn't care anymore. Big Jake was right. I needed to get back on my plan, and I needed to follow his own game.

I looked up at the brotha that always held me down when I thought I couldn't trust not one damn nigga in the street and I sat still. “A'ight. Back to the game.”

Pushing my hoodie out my face, I looked around at everyone who surrounded me. Everyone one there wanted Dame dead, and now I was part of that shit.

I glanced at Ray-Ray and remembered what I did. “I didn't shoot your people, shawty, and my bad for how I just did you. Y'all don't have to worry about shit from me. I'm back to me, doing the same shit I started to do. Now my game has just changed.” I pushed up from the chair Big Jake sat me in, and we both gave each other dap.

Gina then said, “So we gon' kill that nigga, right? Piss on his grave and he ain't even in that shit? 'Cuz I got my story too. See, Baby G was never wanted. Was called a mistake baby. So ma momma put me out at sixteen 'cuz she only had me just to try and keep my daddy. So, 'cuz all we did was fight, the streets was ma home. Then Ray-Ray's momma found me and brought me to Dame. That sour cabbage patch-pussy bitch Sasha then played her game and got me sent to the basement. But Big Jake helped me before that, didn't ya?”

Gina gave the sweetest smile. She looked like a normal eighteen-year-old who wasn't fucked with badly, one who looked in love, while she looked at Big Jake.

“Then Dame came down there and watched wit' Sasha as they piped me. So, ahuh, I got my agenda too. You all we got, Trigga. You are. You and Big Jake the only ones that protect me, brought me pretty things, Happy Meals, made me feel safe in this chaos. Don't let him turn you like me, Trig. Please don't. Can we please take him out? Please?”

The love, concern, and loyalty in her voice had a nigga feeling stupid for how I acted before. I had nothing I could say for real outside what I did. All these tears from her was fuckin' with me. I could see Ray-Ray still looking confused and unsure about everything that was going on, which in that moment brought me back to reality.