Paper Chasers (17 page)

Even after saying all of that, I still had more frustration and anger to vent as I slammed my bottle of malt liquor onto the street, breaking the bottle and spilling its contents everywhere. Then I turned around and jogged off to my crib.

When I reached my house I stormed up to my bedroom. I was madder than the devil.

“Mark, what's the matter?” my sister asked out of concern.

“Leave me alone!” I barked at her.

My mother and father also wanted to know what was wrong with me.

“Nothing's wrong,” I yelled as I paced back and forth in my dark room with the door locked.

My father banged on my bedroom door and yelled for me to unlock the door. They could hear me punching walls, crying, screaming, groaning, and slamming things around. I even threw my picture of Jesus Christ against the wall, shattering the glass frame. After doing that, I felt as if I was in a trance. I didn't know if I was starting to calm down or what. What I did know was that I lay on my bed breathing real hard and heavy. As I hyperventilated, I had a chrome .357 Magnum to my temple.

Pull the trigger, Holz,
a sympathetic sounding voice inside of me whispered.
It's OK. Pull the trigger.

I was a split second from ending all the drama.

I didn't have the guts to do it.

“Mark, are you all right?” my sister asked through the door. “Mark, answer me!” she pleaded.

I just lay on my bed with the gun to my head, staring into space.

July 26, 1991—one of the worst days in my life. I didn't wake up until 12:30
P.M
. I wondered if my parents or my sister had tried to wake me to go to the funeral. I definitely knew that none of my friends had come to get me, or maybe they had. If they had, it was way too late now. I had already missed it. It's not that I was trying to disrespect my deceased homies, but I just wouldn't have been able to live through three eulogies.

A triple funeral with three open caskets was scheduled. I tried to block out the thought of the funerals. I knew that everyone would want to know what had happened to me, but hey, I'd just tell them that I bugged out, and that it would have been too much for a brotha to deal with.

I proceeded to the bathroom to take a shower and get dressed. After I was dressed I decided to go get a forty to help take away the guilt of not going to the funeral. As I walked in the rain to the corner candy store, I remembered that Bunny's wake was scheduled for later on in the afternoon. Her funeral was to be held the following day.

Oh well
, I said to myself,
I guess I won't be paying my respects to her either.

Just the thought of Bunny's corpse made me contemplate whether one forty would be enough to take away the pain. Funerals and wakes, and more funerals and more wakes—when was it all gonna end? Going to wakes and funerals was starting to become a full time job for a nigga. It was just too much to deal with.

When I got to the store I purchased a box of Newport cigarettes and I decided that one forty ounce of Old English indeed was enough. I stood in front of the store with my forty in hand. I hugged the forty ounce and I stood amidst overcast skies and a slight down pour of rain. As I was sipping on my beer I looked up and saw three black hearses slowly driving east on Merrick Boulevard. Following the hearses was a long procession of black limousines and cars, all with their headlights on and their windshield wipers going. The procession was heading toward Long Island.

I knew that those hearses were carrying my three friends. This must have been their farewell tour through the neighborhood.

As I stood and watched the seemingly endless procession, I realized that I was standing in the exact same spot where Richie had been murdered. Richie's picture and name had been drawn in a graffiti mural, and I stood in front of his mural as cars continued to drive by. I continued to drink more of my beer. Then I poured some beer on the ground for my dead homies and I proceeded to walk back toward my house. I realized that I would never again see my three friends, so I sadly turned and took one more look at the procession.

“I love y'all niggas,” I said.

For the remainder of that black Friday I stayed by myself. On Saturday I also found myself alone. My loneliness was the result of not being able to hang with the crew. I didn't seek their company because I was embarrassed by the way I had behaved on Thursday night.

The crew, however, stayed very busy. Right after the funeral they had to prepare to go to Bunny's wake. After a short night's sleep, they then had to wake up Saturday morning and go to Bunny's funeral. All of that left no time for socializing.

The time by myself did me some good. It allowed me time to just simply think. It also afforded me some time to pray, which I did plenty of. I attempted to get closer to God, 'cause I figured that only God held the key that would open the door and put an end to all of the madness. I also managed to write more on the elements. But praying did the most for me. It really helped to bring my self-esteem back to a normal level. With my self-esteem functioning properly, I was able to accomplish more of what I wanted to do.

On Sunday I took the initiative of finding the crew an apartment. I went to look at an apartment complex that consisted of co-ops. I spoke with the building manager and he told me that he was having difficulty selling most of the units, so he was willing to rent us an apartment with an option in the lease to buy it outright at a later date.

The co-op was located on Merrick Boulevard, between Baisley and Farmers Boulevards. It was in a nice-looking, two-story, brick building. The apartment itself was huge. There were three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a large living room, and a small kitchen. I was sure that the crew would love it.

Actually they had better like it, because I had already given the manager a huge security deposit on the place, not to mention the lies that I had to tell him. I had to lie about my age and my income. I also lied and told him that I was still working with the utility company. Although I showed him my ID card, which I'd never turned in when I quit, I sensed that the manager knew that I was into drugs. When he asked me to write a check and I told him that I didn't have a checking account, I knew that a red cocaine flag had really been raised. Matter of fact, the manager had to know that I was into drugs, and that's probably why he inflated the security deposit.

“You're twenty-four-years-old with two kids, and you don't have a checking account?” he asked. “Are you sure you're twenty-four?”

I knew he was getting suspicious, so I told a joke in order to lighten the mood. It was a Johnny Carson type of joke.

“Nah, nah,” I said. “See, I don't have a checking account because I'd rather deal with cash or money orders. I mean, I don't want to turn into one of those ‘Rubbergate Politicians.' You know what I'm sayin'?”

“Ha ha ha ha ha.” The white man laughed uncontrollably. “Oh, that's funny,” he added. “Real funny.” Through his laughter he managed to say, “I look forward to having you as a tenant.”

We proceeded to his office where I had to John Hancock all types of papers, including the lease agreement. When we were done with all of the legalities, he handed me a key and told me that I could move in as soon as tomorrow. I was puzzled because I knew that he knew that I was into something illegal, yet he still let me sign a lease and allowed me to take possession of an apartment—no credit check or reference check whatsoever. But hey, I wasn't complaining. Maybe he had illegally pocketed a huge portion of the inflated security deposit. Indirectly, the manager was also benefiting from our drug money. He had to be.

Anyway, later that night I was finally able to hunt down the crew. They were all at Kwame's house.

Kwame always kept the door to his crib unlocked, and basically whoever visited him would just walk right in without knocking or ringing the bell. When I walked into Kwame's crib, I didn't know what kind of greeting to expect. Surprisingly, the crew was happy to see me, and they showed me much love.

“Big Holz!” they yelled.

“What up, my nigga? Where you been at kid?” Kwame asked.

“I've been on the DL for a few days, knaaimean?” I softly replied.

“Here, Holz,” Randy said as he handed me something. “We know you didn't go to the funerals, and believe me, I don't want to remind you of anything, but just take this.”

He handed me pamphlets that were from both sets of funerals. Each pamphlet contained pictures of the deceased and included their birth dates and their death dates. On the inside of the pamphlet there were little biographies of their lives and a passage of words.

“Good looking out,” I said to Randy as I proceeded to read the passage from Xavier's pamphlet. It read:

I stared at that passage of words and I couldn't bear to even finish reading the poem.

“Yo, I'll read the rest later,” I said. I didn't want to get all emotional.

“So, what's up, Holz?” Dwight asked.

“I found us an apartment, that's what's up.”

Immediately everyone started asking me questions. They wanted to know where the apartment was located, how it looked, and what the rent was.

“Here's a brochure,” I said as I handed Latiefe a booklet which contained information on the whole complex. I reminded them that they did actually know where it was located.

“Y'all know where it's at. It's those co-ops on Merrick right near Farmers,” I said.

“Oh. Holz, you mean the Cinderella co-ops?”

“Exactly,” I said.

Dwight and Wiggie both agreed that it would be cool living there. We wouldn't be too far removed from our original ‘hood, yet we would be far enough away where the people we knew wouldn't be able to see us. I would say we were now gonna be about three miles from Laurelton.

I told everyone in the crew how much I had put down for the security deposit.

“Don't worry about paying me back, though,” I told them. “Y'all just worry about buying the furniture, and carpet, and all that.”

They all agreed to lace our new crib with the most expensive furniture that money could buy. Money was no object, especially since Latiefe had just paid all of us. In fact, my money had been handed to me the moment I stepped into Kwame's house. I hadn't yet counted it, but I figured with the loss of Donnie and Earl, there would now be bigger paydays for the rest of us. Paydays were bound to be somewhere in the neighborhood of twelve thousand dollars.

“When can we move in?” Erik asked.

“As early as tomorrow, but it won't make sense for us to move in tomorrow because we don't have any furniture. So as soon as we buy some furniture, we're in there.”

By the time Friday, August the second rolled around, we were living pretty lovely. The recent deaths were behind us and our crew was really starting to reap the benefits from our drug activity. We had moved into our apartment and everyone except Randy, who was still living at home, was settled in.

Our furniture, along with our new carpet, filled our apartment. We had females constantly dropping by the crib. Our telephone rang off the hook. No one could ever get time to himself. There were always people in and out of our place. The scene was always hectic.

For me, I had to get used to the constant influx of people. I considered the true me to be a hermit type of a person—a Michael Jackson recluse type. All the constant coming and going wasn't me. But hey, when the dough was rolling in like it was for our crew, it was hard to maintain the life of a hermit. Plus, we had all just purchased our cars, so I was sure to always be on the go.

Tuesday of last week, our crew went to a used car lot on Hillside Avenue to look at some late model fancy cars. We decided that used cars were the best and safest route for us to go. We had discussed the idea of buying “tag jobs,” but we concluded that tag jobs would be way too risky. Besides, we had money, so what was the sense in buying a stolen car where the vehicle identification number and the title had been altered?

Sure, we could have purchased brand new cars, but we probably wouldn't have gotten as good of a bargain that way. Also, every one of us wanted a different type of whip. So if we went to a BMW dealership, for example, they would have given us a good deal, but that would have been if we were all going to buy BMWs. Plus, we knew by law that big automobile dealerships were required to notify the IRS when cars were purchased with all cash, so we wanted to avoid all of that unnecessary nonsense.

The used car lots on Hillside Avenue had all types of makes and models which were already loaded with the extras. With more than five of us buying, we were guaranteed a bargain. And a bargain was what we got. The moment we stepped foot onto the lot, a swarm of salesmen came flying at us. There was no doubt that their fierce anticipation was due to the fact that we depicted society's image of drug dealers. Salesmen were eager to please us. They let us sit in cars, test drive them, and thoroughly inspect them in any way we pleased.

I took one of the salesmen to the side, opened up a knapsack, and showed him fifty thousand dollars. Then I asked him what he could do for my friends and me. The Arabian salesman almost came in his pants when he saw all of that green.

“Come, come, come into my office,” he said with an accent. “Let's talk business. I'll show you a bargain.”

In his office we sat and talked. I explained to him that eight of us were buying cars.

“We want eight cars of our choice. I'll give you fifty Gs right now if you let us walk with the cars today, and next week I'll hit you off with another thirty Gs. But it has to be any eight cars of our choice.”

“Sure, sure, my friend,” the Arab said. “Pick them out, and you and your homeboys can drive them off the lot right now. I want to do business. I want you to buy car.”

I wanted to laugh in the salesman's face, because who had taught him about the slang word “homeboys.” But on a more serious note, I wondered if I could have gotten a cheaper price. It seemed like he'd accepted my offer to quickly. But it was too late to balk on the deal. I told him that we would be taking the cars that we selected to our mechanic, and if any one of the cars was a lemon, he wouldn't receive the other thirty thousand dollars. He assured me that all the cars on the lot were good cars. So after some legal conversations, we all displayed our driver's licenses and the like. We signed the titles of the cars, along with some other paperwork, and soon after that we were driving off with our new rides.

“Yo, that salesman agreed to my offer a bit too quickly” I said to Randy. “Maybe he low-balled us somehow.”

“Nah, Holz, he didn't snake us. You just have to remember one thing, and that's that money talks and everything else walks.”

As we drove away, we all laid back and donned real hard gangster leans. Our seats were reclined back as far as they could go, and we drove with only one hand gripping the steering wheel. Most of our cars were already equipped with extras, such as dark tinted windows, which was a good thing to have in the ‘hood. It was good because it negated the cops ability to tell if the driver of the car was black or not. Tinted windows also prevented the cops from being able to tell exactly how many people were in the car.

With new rides, now more than ever, we really expected to get pulled over by the cops. Although we hoped that the tinted windows would reduce our chances of getting pulled over, the tinted style was flashy, so it could also increase our chances of getting pulled over.

Some of the other extras included expensive chrome rims, profile tires, sunroofs, ragtops, and spoiler kits. Of course our whips were equipped with booming, booming stereo systems. The only extra that our cars lacked were car telephones. That wasn't a problem because we definitely planned to get them installed very soon.

The coming weekend was sure to rekindle old times. Our friend and fellow crew member, Reggie, was coming home for the weekend. It was his birthday, so the military had given him the weekend off. Also, our other friend and fellow crew member, Claudius, was coming home. Claudius had attended summer school at his college, which was in Wichita, Kansas. He stayed there practically all year round. He had to stay there and practice with his basketball team and lift weights and all of that superstar athlete stuff. Every year Claudius would only receive two weeks off in the summer. I guess it was rough being a big time college basketball star, but with the possibility of NBA riches, I would definitely say it was worth the sacrifice.

So after we'd spent most of Friday cruising around town, showing off our cars, and picking up women, we retired to the apartment and got high. With both Claudius and Reggie in town, we knew that we would be living it up on the weekend, so we didn't want to overdo it until we hooked up with them.

The following day we arrived at Randy's crib and found Claudius and Reggie sitting in Randy's room. Our greetings were very loud.

“Yo, what up, big Claud!”

“My man, Reg! Long time, no see, money. What up, kid?”

Reggie and Claudius both told us and showed us that they were mutually happy to see us and mad amped to be back on the block.

“Got damn, Claudius!” I shouted. “It looks like you keep getting bigger and bigger. How tall are you? You still six-five?”

“Yeah, I'm still six-five, 230 pounds,” Claudius replied.

He went on to tell us how he'd been lifting weights all year and how strict his diet was, which explained his ex-convict looking image.

“Reggie, you getting cock-diesel too, nigga,” Randy remarked.

“Man, Reggie ain't getting diesel,” Latiefe said. “All that bulk is fat. There ain't a lick of muscle on that big, burly Haitian.”

We all started rolling.

“So, what's been going on?” Claudius asked.

“Yo kid, Fourth Crew is large now,” J.P. responded. “Extremely large!” He emphasized his words as he pulled out about two thousand dollars in cash. “Yeah, Fourth Crew phat and you know that,” I said with a big devilish grin on my face.

Then all at once we all started pulling out hundred-dollar bills by the thousands. As Claudius and Reggie looked on in astonishment, the rest of us harmonized our chant.

“Go Fourth, Go Fourth, Go Fourth.”

“Yo, what's up?” Reggies asked with a perplexed look on his face. “What did y'all niggas get into? Y'all pumping?”

“You damn right!” Latiefe said. “We're not exactly pumping per se, but we have hustlers working for us.”

“Yeah, we don't even live on 234th Street anymore,” I added. “We moved because y'all know how everyone can get into your business when you live on this block.”

Dwight then instructed Claudius and Reggie to go outside. When they got outside they were flabbergasted and at a loss for words. They saw all of our cars lined up one behind the other.

We had driven all of our cars to the block in order to surprise them. All of our cars were washed, waxed, detailed, and shining. There was Dwight's Mazda MPV, Latiefe's convertible BMW 325, Wiggie's gold Acura Legend coupe, Kwame's silver Volvo, J.P.'s Jeep Wrangler, Erik's Jaguar, and although I wanted so much to get a Chevy Blazer, I had purchased a sweet Saab 9000. It just looked too good to pass up. As for Randy, he wanted to stay low key and on the humble, so like a fool he bought an inexpensive Hyundai Excel. I couldn't front, though, Randy's ride did slam because of all the extras it had. But in my opinion, he would have been much better off with an Infiniti Q45 or a Lexus because that would have made our fleet complete and strictly official as far as the streets were concerned.

“Yo, this looks like 125th Street out this piece! How the hell did y'all get so large?” Claudius asked as he jumped behind the steering wheel of each whip, acting like a happy little kid pretending to drive his daddy's car.

“Yo, we col' got rambunctious and blew up the spot,” Wiggie, who by the way had yet to show that he was in mourning for his deceased brother, said.

We couldn't keep the car show going for too long because we were on the block. So we got in our rides and drove back to our apartment. We sat down in our plush living room. The white carpet was nice and fluffy. We had a black leather sectional couch which went well with the fifty-inch color TV. We also had the phat CD system and magazines such as
Essence, Ebony
and
Jet
on the glass coffee table.

As Reggie and Claudius toured the apartment and agreed that it was the bomb, they became curious as to where the rest of the cats in the crew were—people like Richie, Xavier, Donnie, and Earl.

The room suddenly became pin drop silent. The mood switched from eat, drink, and be merry to dull, sad, and somber. No one said a word and everyone looked at each other.

Actually I was shocked that Reggie and Claudius hadn't heard the news. I mean I would have thought that someone in their immediate families would have reached out to them and let them know about all of the deaths that had taken place, but apparently they were still in the dark.

“What?” Reggie asked with an insecure smile on his face. “Did they get locked up or something?”

The room remained silent.

“Nah, kid, them cats got mercked,” Erik said.

“What? You mean them niggas is up outta here?” Reggie shouted. “They're dead?” Claudius asked in disbelief. Everyone's silence basically confirmed Erik's statement.

Reggie still wasn't convinced, as he paced the room and waved his right hand from side to side. “Nah, hol' up! Hol' up! Hol' up! They're dead?” The room remained silent. Reggie looked at each one of us. No one blinked. “Get outta here, man! Yo, on the real, y'all shouldn't joke like that. Y'all had me going for a second,” Reggie rebuked.

“It ain't no joke. They're dead,” Erik sadly whispered.

“What the hell happened?” Reggie yelled. “And how come nobody got in touch with me to tell me what was up?”

“You mean Donnie?” Claudius asked. “Donnie, Donnie? The same Donnie that lives next door to me? Slick-Don is dead?”

“Yup,” Erik confirmed.

“Yo, y'all are straight up serious, ain't yall?” Reggie asked again.

“Yeah, Reggie, you know we wouldn't joke like that,” I said. Claudius looked to the ground and shook his head.

“I just spoke to Donnie last month to tell him that I was coming home. Yo, I can't believe this.”

With the closeness of our crew, I understood very well just exactly how both Reggie and Claudius must have been feeling. The two of them started to cry just a little. Everyone in the room was quiet. I guess no one knew what to say. Everyone was taking their individual time out to reflect on our lost members.

“Well at least none of us are in jail,” Randy bloopishly said.

“I would much rather come home and find out that all of y'all are alive and in jail, than to come home and find out that four of my friends are dead!” Claudius responded. “Word! Yo, how did they die anyway?”

“What do y'all want to hear about first? Do y'all want to hear about how we got large, or do y'all want to hear about X and the rest of them?” I asked.

Claudius and Reggie agreed that they would rather hear about our rise from what seemed like poverty to paradise. So in graphic detail we all took turns telling about everything that had happened to us as a crew. We told them about the Mafia-like breakfast meetings we had, and about the crime rampage that we undertook. We also explained to them exactly how our first drug purchase went down. We then explained to them how we paid ourselves and how our money kept turning over.

After explaining and talking about that for almost an hour, I took the initiative and explained how Richie had been killed. I also told them where it happened, why it happened, and who did it. Then I went on to tell them how I had narrowly escaped death. While telling them the story, I showed them the bullet scars that were on my body. By this time my arm was out of the sling and practically back to normal.

“Word! Donnie, X, and Earl were all right next to me,” I continued to explain.

Randy threw in that Bunny too had been killed.

“You mean big butt Bunny?” Reggie asked.

“Yup, that Bunny,” I replied.

“Yo, I don't believe this,” Claudius said. “It sounds like some movie script or something.”