Hood Misfits, Volume 1 (13 page)

Listening to him was like listening to bees fuckin' in the wind. I couldn't care two shits about his dramatic bullshit and rites of passage. Blood was what I wanted, and if being patient and accepting what I didn't want was my means of getting his blood, then I'd be 'bout that life. So I nodded in respect and relaxed my stance.

I quietly responded, “Yeah, bossman, my loyalty is yours, Dame.”

The harsh slap of a couple of stacks against my chest then raining down at my feet caught my attention. This muthafucka really didn't understand who the fuck he created, but I let him have it. Wasn't shit else I could do. Feel me?

The sound of Dame's office chair squeaking let me know he was sitting at his desk. I casually dropped down into a crouch and picked up the cash he threw at me.

“Claim your pay, and let me sit and think on what to do about that bitch, Pookie. Don't snap his life so quickly; he may be useful to the game. As my right, you need to protect not just me now but this house and what's in it. That means the dolls and my diamond. Like I said, that doesn't mean you can touch my diamond, nigga. Sear that shit in your skull. The dolls you can do what the fuck you want, as usual, but Ray-Ray is mine. Understood?”

My head tilted in a nod while my mind worked the game. Promise, the cat was jealous as fuck. All he could talk about was me touching Diamond. Part of me liked that I shook his foundation, but I knew that nigga. His type of crazy was wrapped around his image. I knew that whatever he was thinking was going to have Diamond in danger. Wasn't shit I could tell him. He had it already set in his brain, so I listened as he set down my new rules as his co-regent.

“As my right, the prince of this house, you need to keep a fresh crib so you moving up. Big Jake will give you the keys to your new spot, and you can stop riding around on that busted bike. I'll get you a better one, plus another new whip. A'ight, your pay is up more than before, and you still my gun, so you doing double time.

“Some major players are coming in soon. I'll have to school you, so you can negotiate and know how to talk to these cats. A'ight, get out my shit. I'll hit you up again later. Welcome to the inner circle, nigga.”

Bitterness settled in my throat the moment my eyes settled on my boss. I saw me taking the Japanese sword he had on the wall behind him and using it to slide through the middle of his throat, working through bone and shimmying it upward to slide through his skull. The game had changed and what I was envisioning was proof that I had watched too much
Ghost Dog
and
Kill Bill
on DVD.

The sound of Dame snapping his fingers while reading a notepad drew my attention.

“Yo, before you go. One of those playas I'm working with are some Russians. Look up krokodil and school yourself on that shit. We might have our hands on that product and will distribute it soon. A'ight, bounce.”

“A'ight, I got you, bossman.” Stepping back, I pounded my fist against my heart then walked out, closing the door behind me.

The sound of him rewinding through the videos let me know he may have said one thing about me, but his growing obsession over Ray-Ray was showing me his weakness and mistrust of me.

Wasn't shit a nigga could do. Pussy always controls the game, once it gets introduced to a leading dick, and most times, that was when that playa starts decaying.

I headed down the hallway from Dame's office. The urge to glance at the letters DOA over Dame's headboard pushed at my mental. I needed to see if I wasn't tripping. I knew I wasn't. Had taken a picture then deleted that shit once he had come back. It was just fucked up how karma could be.

Right now, I was karma's weapon not Dame's. That nigga's approaching death marking me as his reaper was one of two things that kept me going; the other, touching his property.

I rubbed my hands together as I passed some of the house dolls. Sasha's scheming ass was at Magic City, so I didn't have to watch her and make sure she ain't try to put her hands on Gina or other new girls in the house. Sour pussy was evil pussy. It was fucked up how twisted Sasha was becoming. Usually I didn't give two shits what she did, but since Diamond was top bitch, everyone was feeling Sasha's wrath.

“Heeeey, Trigga.”

Feminine echoes around me had me tilting my head up and down. I gave my “waddups” back and moved through the house. Some chicks asked me to bring them back things. I had no issue with these broads, many of whom were around my age or a little older. I'd slow my roll just to make a list of what they wanted and often didn't have time to get on their free days. Or I'd make a note of some product they wanted, which had me going in my pocket.

Cell in my hand doing a quick 'Net search, the name krokodil was nothing new to me, but the fact Dame was asking about it was interesting. Word on the street was, it was a new drug making the rounds overseas. It was called triple K over here and used by kids in the burbs or trailer parks because it was easy to make. Shit was supposed to be so powerful that it ate people from the inside out, turning their skin into sores or scales and shit. I never understood why bitches and niggas would take literal poison. My motto was, if you just wanted to die, then walk in the street and let that shit be done.

The fact that Dame was about to pump this into our neighborhood was bothering me. Heroin addicts would grab anything for a cheap high, and if he brought this poison to the people on a massive scale, many would die quickly and painfully.

Turning the corner, I counted off the cameras visible to everyone. While I was in Dame's office, as he spoke, I had memorized every camera angle displaying on the screens. One of the many perks of Dame trusting me somewhat and his mixture of crazy was that he slipped up sometimes, and this was one. I now knew where every camera was positioned, and with Big Jake being security, I knew he could tell me where the others were. It now made sense why Big Jake had moved me in the house. Certain shit was angled off on the video, where Dame couldn't tell what the fuck was going on.

So, the game was on, and I had orders to play out. Pookie was now on blast, and Dame was letting me in. Bodies were gonna drop real soon, and my only aim was to make sure that Dame was one of them.

E.N.G.A.

The next day I woke up with a mission. I got up before Dame and headed out to his weight room to work out. I had to get my mind off being forced to give up my body and then have to lay in the bed beside him. I was so sick and disgusted, I found myself getting up in the middle of the night to vomit.

Trigga was in the house, but truth be told, I was scared to look for him or ask about him. As pissed the hell off as I was, I ain't want to die. Not unless I took Dame with me. That was my mission—In the next twenty-four hours I was going to start shaking up the house to take it down from the inside out. I just didn't know that Dame had been planning a shakedown too.

“You okay, Gina?” I asked her.

“Yup. I'ma be all right,” she said as she smiled and looked up at me. “You know why?”

“Why?”

“'Cuz I'ma have Big Jake's baby.”

“What?” I jumped up and rushed to her.

I had been sitting on Dame's bed. We had just come from downstairs getting our hair done because Dame demanded it. A chick named Minx came in with her crew and hooked all of us up. Gina said Dame always did that for them because he had to keep his elite bitches, his main product, looking good and ready to sell at any moment.

“Dame think I threw up because he was fuckin' me in my ass, but I took that shit 'cuz I ain't want my baby to get hurt.”

I hung my head when she said that. As usual Dame was on some other shit. It seemed like he wanted to make sure our day was fucked up just because he could. He had roughhoused Gina just like he had done me. Only, with Gina he forced her to take his dick up her ass and threatened to kill her if she screamed. I knew sometimes Gina was a little off in the head, so I figured it was so easy for her to act as if what he had done didn't bother her.

“You're pregnant?” I asked in a whisper, just to be sure.

She nodded then held a finger up to her lips, telling me to be quiet. Then she mouthed the word
camera
to me.

She nodded with a bright smile. “Big Jake say he wanted a son before he leaves this earth. I'ma try to give 'im one. Hope it's a boy like he want. He don't know though. Wanna surprise him on his birthday.”

I didn't want to kill her happy mood, but I had to ask, “But, Gina, how do you know it's Jake's baby?”

She looked at me and blinked slowly a few times. “It has to be, Ray-Ray. It just has to be.” She answered like it would kill her to find out she wasn't carrying Jake's baby.

As bad as she wanted it to be Jake's, there was a big chance that it wasn't. I knew it, and I knew she knew it. Although I didn't know if what she was telling me was a good thing, the fact that a baby growing in her belly was keeping her sane was enough for me to go along with her happiness.

“When is it?”

“What?”

“His birthday?”

“In two days.”

I was just about to say something else when movement at the door caught my attention. I knew it wasn't Dame because he would have simply just come into his room and started to whup our asses. I rushed to the door and looked down the hall to see Sasha walking away. I didn't know if she had been eavesdropping or what. I called her name, but she kept walking like she didn't even hear me.
Bitch.

Although I wanted to choke that ho, I couldn't pretend like I wasn't scared that she had heard me and Gina. My worried looked turned into stone-cold hate when I saw her stop and speak to Pookie as he came up the stairs. If I could have killed the nigga in that moment, I would have.

Pookie caught me looking at him then nodded his head in my direction. Sasha turned around then rolled her eyes and kept walking. I wanted to go and “accidentally” push that bitch down the stairs.

I turned back to Gina and closed the door. “You think she heard us?” I asked Gina.

She shook her head. “Naw, if she had, she would be running to tell Dame now.”

“Whatcha gon' do if he finds out?”

She shrugged and ran a hand through her freshly permed hair, since she had taken her braids down. “I don't know. Just gotta make sure he don't. 'Cuz if he do, he gon' make me get rid of it, like he did with Sasha and a few other girls. He say he ain't in the business of housing pregnant pussy.”

After that, me and Gina didn't speak out loud about what she had told me. We couldn't risk Dame finding out, but I knew as soon as Big Jake found out he was having a baby it would be game time in overdrive. Thinking back, I wish to God I'd kept the memory of Gina's smiling face close to my heart, that I'd hugged and kissed her one last time.

 

 

“We need to get to Decatur,” Dame said to Trigga as they walked into his bedroom. “Got a couple niggas, some cops, high officials we need to holler at.”

I had been laying on the bed but quickly jumped up. I wasn't fool enough to glance in Trigga's direction. It would have been nice to make eye contact, but I valued my eyesight. It was no question that Dame would try to gouge my eyes out just as he had threatened. I was crazy at times, but not stupid.

Trigga and Big Jake had been the only two people Dame would talk to about the new shipment he had coming in. Still, I was confused about why he had brought them to his bedroom. He had never done that before. He walked right to the open double doors of the balcony and took a seat in one of the white cushioned lounge chairs. Gina had left to go do her shift at the club. I was excited to know that she and Jake had found a way to still love each other through the madness of their lives.

“When we need to go do that, bossman?” Trigga asked.

“Now. We need to get a move on because my shit comes in by the end of the week.” Dame grabbed a silver-plated gun from underneath the chair and slipped it into the holster he had on. He always had a weapon somewhere.

As always that nigga was decked out like he worked in a corporate office. He had on grey dress pants and a thick black tee shirt that hugged his muscles. He kept that cane near him, and I couldn't help but wonder why.

Trigga said, “So we just gon' forget about the other shit?”

“What other shit?”

“I told you about Pookie and that lame shit he pulled.”

My head jerked in the direction of Trigga's voice. He stood at the door of the balcony, his arms folded across his wide chest. The black hoodie he had on looked like it was on backwards, but it wasn't. It looked that way because of the skull on the hood that zipped up to hide half of his face.

He had told Dame about Pookie? I mean, at first I had expected him to when I'd first told him that it was Pookie who had pulled that lick with my mama and daddy, but after we had all talked, I thought we were going to take the money and stash for ourselves. I was confused.

My eyes darted to Big Jake, who was standing with a scowl on his face that said something else was on his mind.

“Naw, nigga. We just got other shit to worry about right now. You check on that shit we talked about?”

Although Dame was talking to Trigga, when I turned my gaze back to him, his eyes were locked on me. He snapped his fingers, and I knew what that meant.

I walked over to him expecting him to tell me to sit down beside him, but what he did next told why he had brought Trigga to his room to talk. He pulled his dick out and laid it on his thigh like it was nothing.

Dame snapped, “Do I have to remind you how much a nigga hate to wait for his afternoon dick-sucking?”

I shook my head and barely whispered, “No, Daddy.”

I knew if I had hesitated or said the wrong thing, I risked being thrown over the damn balcony or worse. I wished like hell I'd had some of those white pills Gina had given me before. Or, better yet, that I could have just folded or misted into thin air. To have Big Jake and Trigga stand there and watch me suck this nigga's dick was a crippling embarrassment.

I got down on my knees, and Dame grabbed his dick, then the back of my head, then shoved it into my mouth. He pushed my head so far down, I thought I was going to choke. My throat was burning, eyes watered, and my nose felt like it was stopped up. The fact that I knew he had ass-fucked Gina raw earlier messed with me.

“Breathe, Ray-Ray,”
my mama said.
“Just close your eyes, relax, and breathe. I'ma tell you some weird shit, but it's gon' work and make that nigga come quick.”

I could feel her kneeling next to me. I never thought I'd have my mama telling me how to suck a dick.

“Ball your right fist with your thumb on the inside, and it will make your gags go off. You won't have none. So no matter how this nigga shove his dick in your mouth, you won't choke on that shit,”
she explained.

Just so I could stop gagging, and with the hope that he would come quick, I did what my mama said. So while he sat there talking with Big Jake and Trigga about what he needed them to do, I was stuck sucking his dick like my life was dependent on it, and to be honest, it did.