Yaccub's Curse (28 page)

“That’s it for me, man. I’m done with all this gangsta shit. Scratch can kiss my ass.”

Huey glared at me unconvinced. He’d heard it before.

— | — | —

Chapter 15

“…The most hellish aspect of America’s racism is that for generations it has warped and twisted innately good black men, causing the vital vine of black family stability and strength to be poisoned, hacked down by the pity, fear and hatred of black children.”

—Iceberg Slim, “The Naked Soul of Iceberg Slim”

««—»»

The funeral was the following day. The funeral home’s entire parking lot was filled and cars lined the street for two blocks in every direction. The whole neighborhood had turned out to honor our fallen brother. Homies we hadn’t seen in years filed in looking stunned and devastated. There was more leather, fur, and snakeskin in that place than at a Tyson fight. It was like a who’s who of the gangsta elite. Old players from my mom’s and even my grandmom’s generation showed up to pay their respects. They laid lavish wreaths around the casket and some even handed Mrs. Turner little envelopes filled with money. I didn’t know whether that was cool or not. It was the first friend I had lost in the struggle and I wasn’t sure what was appropriate.

Was there even a such thing as thug funeral etiquette?

Young gangstas from West Philly to Mount Airy strolled in half high and drunk, but all looking genuinely sad and remorseful. One of hardest playas in the game was gone. One of their own had passed before his time. Everyone was shocked.

Whenever anyone came over to try to comfort me I turned away from them. I wasn’t deserving of their sympathy. It was my fault he was dead. Darlene and Tina were both there and Darlene was bawling her eyes out hysterically. She had loved him after all. Both my Mom and Mrs. Turner glared at me as if I had stabbed him myself. I felt like shit.

The funeral quickly turned into a side show as people came up and began laying “tokens of esteem” in Tank’s casket, everything from platinum jewelry to money to handguns. It was like they were all trying to out do each other with who could come up with the most lavish gift for the dead. I was almost expecting someone to come up and try to lay a set of rims in there.

Women from the local church arrived and began grieving loudly and hysterically. None of the Turners had ever attended the church and they didn’t know any of the women. They wore gaudy dresses in loud primary colors and huge hats with plumes in them. Their outfits would have given any pimp or player in the room a run for his money. They walked up to Huey and Mrs. Turner sounding rehearsed and artificial as they offered their condolences.

“I’m so sorry for your loss. He was so young. But he’s in a much better place now. All his suffering is over. Now he’s in the arms of the Lord. If you ever need someone to pray with you sister, here’s our phone numbers.”

I got the impression that they attended every funeral in the neighborhood as some kind of bizarre church duty.

Tank was laid out in a black tuxedo with a red cumberbund and bow tie looking entirely unlike he ever had in life. I thought they would have buried him as we all remembered him, with his baggy black Ben Davis pants, his red and white Ecko Red shirt, and his black leather South Pole jacket with that big ugly AK laid across his chest. At least then he would have looked more like he did in life. They even untied his cornrolls and had his hair slicked back and tied in a ponytail. They obviously had some faggot back their dressing up the corpses who thought he was a fucking fashion designer or something. I couldn’t understand how Mrs. Turner could have let them desecrate his corpse like that.

His white shirt was pulled all the way up to his chin to hide the stitches where the mortician had sewn his head back on. The absence of blood in his veins from when they exsanguinated him and filled him with embalming fluid, made his skin look gray and ashen, not the rich gun-metal black it had been in life. Someone, probably the same queen that dressed him, had rubbed moisturizer on his face to try to counteract the effects, which made his skin glisten as if he was sweating. Flowers were everywhere, encircling the body, making Tank look like the centerpiece in one huge floral arrangement. It all looked fake and gaudy to me.

One by one, people strolled up to the casket. I could hear them making ridiculous comments about how natural he looked laying there.

“He almost looks like he’s still alive.”

I never understood why people said shit like that at funerals. What fucking consolation is that?

He’s not alive. He never looked like that when he was on the streets! When did you ever see this mutherfucker wearing a cummerbund with his fucking hair all slicked back like an Italian mobster?
I hated that shit.

There was a man nervously pacing back and forth wearing a tight tuxedo that looked worn in the knees and elbows. He had a purple cummerbund and bow tie that fucking glittered for Christ’s sake! His hair was done up in a greasy Jeri curl like I hadn’t seen since the eighties and he was sweating curl activator all down the side of his face.

He shuffled through some papers that I realized with a wave of disgust were pages of sheet music. Here we were at a funeral and he was treating it like Showtime at the Apollo. I hadn’t noticed it until he began to sing, but the podium where the minister had stood and where this little man now stepped up to sing was in front of the casket. It was off to the side so that you didn’t have to walk around it to get to the casket or anything, but it was still in front. It made it look like the casket was just a prop, part of the background scenery.

The man cleared his throat and began to whale out a somber gospel tune that I, not surprisingly, did not know. He sang with his heart and soul like he was auditioning for
Star Search
, and even played to the audience as if he was expecting us to forget we were all at a funeral and give him a standing ovation. When his song was over he actually looked disappointed that there were no applause. I had to leave.

When I stepped outside Huey was already standing in the parking lot leaning against my behemoth yellow ’72 Impala.

“What took you so long? I thought you’d have been out of there the minute the church ladies showed up.”

“You too, huh?”

“It looks like a fucking variety show in there. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

“Where to?”

“Man, I don’t know, Snap. Just fucking drive. Just get me the fuck away from this shit before I kill somebody.” He sighed and tilted his head back to gaze up at the heavens.

“You want to go down to South Street? We ain’t been down there since we was arrested that time.”

“Yeah, it’s been a few years hasn’t it? Let’s go down there and pick up some bitches. It would feel good to get my dick wet in some strange right about now.”

“I thought things were still cool with you and Iesha?” I asked.

Huey looked at me with his eyebrow raised and his eyes narrowed as if he was trying to decide whether or not I was serious.

“Of course they are. But don’t get it twisted. A man still has to be a man. You love one, but you fuck another. That’s the only way you can deal with a woman’s bullshit sometimes, knowing that you got someone else you can go to, to make you feel like a man again after she’s done breakin’ you down.”

“Is that why you fucked Yolanda behind my back?”

“Why? Is she your woman? ’Cause to me it looks like she’s everybody’s woman.”

“I know she gets around, but that ain’t the point. You my dog. If you was hittin’ it all you had to do was let me know so I wouldn’t feel like I was gettin’ played.”

“Leave it, dog. She’s a piece of ass. Just because you gettin’ it more regular than most of the niggas she deals with don’t mean it’s yours. You need to find yourself a
real
woman. Fuck bangin’ the neighborhood whore. You need to find someone to fall in love with.”

“I did that once. It didn’t work out.”

“Fuck it. Let’s just go.”

We jumped in the car and headed straight for the expressway, blasting a new CD from The Roots as we passed a joint back and forth. We were high as hell by the time we pulled up at Fifth and South.

It was too early in the day for much to be going on down there. The high schools and colleges hadn’t even let out for lunch yet so there was no pussy anywhere. The place was dead. We walked up and down the street looking into the punk rock stores, comic book stores, record shops, and clothing boutiques. We were just about to find a place to eat when I spotted a familiar silhouette on the next block. I sped up my stride without clueing Huey in on what I was after. I didn’t want to hear his shit.

“Damn, Snap. Why you walkin’ so fast? Slow down, bro.”

Huey saw her sooner than I expected him to and he recognized her right away.

“Don’t tell me you tryin’ to catch up with that White bitch? Ain’t that the same bitch you met down here that night the cops popped us like three years ago?”

“Shit, it’s been damned near four years, but I still want some of that.”

I strode up behind her and leaned in close enough so that she could feel my breath on the back of her neck. She sensed my presence before I could speak and whirled around ready to cuss me out. Her face was contorted into a look of outrage.

“Fuck is you doin’? Back tha fuck up off me!”

“Damn, you sound like you’ve dated a few brothas since the last time I saw you. You talk just like a nigga now. You still need a thug in your life?”

Her face relaxed as she recognized me and a smile spread across features.

“Don’t even talk to me,” She said, pretending to be upset, but obviously excited to see me again, “How come you ain’t call me?”

“I got arrested that night and I lost your number. I been hoping I’d run into you again.”

“Well, I still live down here. I’m up and down this street everyday. I wouldn’t have been hard to find if you’d really been lookin’.”

“I’ve been goin’ through some drama. I got locked up. Just got out.”

She didn’t even blink when I told her I’d been arrested. No questions, no complaints, nothing. She probably figured black folks got arrested every day. After all, we were all criminals weren’t we? It didn’t even occur to me that my lifestyle would have justified those stereotypes.

She turned to Huey and smiled flirtatiously. She could have saved all that. Huey ain’t into snowflakes.

“Who’s this?”

“This is my dog right here, Huey. Don’t expect him to be nice to you though. He don’t like White bitches and his brother just got killed so he ain’t in no mood to fake it. We’re supposed to be at a funeral right now.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Bitch, I don’t even know you. I don’t want your fuckin’ sympathy,” Huey snarled, freezing her warm condolences with his vicious blast.

“Let’s bounce, playa,” Huey started to walk off down the street. He stopped at the corner and leaned against a light pole waiting impatiently.

“Yeah, I’ll be with you in a minute alright? I told you he was a hateful muthafucka.”

“You ain’t lyin’. I know he’s had a tragedy and all, but all that wasn’t even necessary.” She looked genuinely shocked.

“I should be catching up to him though. He’s goin’ through some shit right now and I should be with him. Look, let me get that number again and I promise you we’ll hook up this time.”

“I shouldn’t be given your ass a second chance, but you just look so good.”

“Just write your number down on a matchbook or something ’cause I gotta bounce.”

I produced a pen and I couldn’t find a matchbook so she wrote her number on the back of a pack of rolling papers and handed it to me.

“You smoke weed?”

“I sell weed now that my Mom bounced on me. That’s how I’m payin’ the bills while I’m goin’ to college.”

I laughed to myself at the way she tried to incorporate my slang into her dialogue.

“Yeah, well why don’t you sell me a couple dimes so I can get my boy’s head straight?”

“I’ll give you some if you come by tonight.”

“Cool, I’ll be there.”

She slipped me a fat-ass sack of green bud. The kind of shit nobody can get in Philly. The smell alone was starting to get me high.

“Where the fuck did you get this from?”

“My sister lives in Northern California, in Marin County, and her fiancé grows the shit.”

“You a little hustler, huh? Yeah, we’re most definitely gonna hook up.”

I caught up to Huey and we walked around the corner, back to the Impala. We drove over to the State Store on Second Street. State Stores, as the name implies, are run by the State of Pennsylvania and are the only legal place where you can buy liquor in Philly.

We were both still under age so we had to bribe this old derelict into going in there for us. We bought a bottle of M.D. 20/20 and some Tangueray. Then we went to the corner store and bought some orange juice and a couple forties of Colt 45.

We snuck the orange juice and the Tangueray into a movie theatre on Chestnut Street and kicked back to watch Steven Seagal’s overweight ass do some weak Aikido moves while his gut protruded over his jeans and with arms as skinny as a woman’s wrist. We were so high that we were actually enjoying it though.

“Look at that fat mutherfucker. I’d whoop that bitch’s ass!” Huey whooped at the screen.

A fight broke out in the back of the theater and for once we didn’t get involved and make shit worse. We turned our backs on the movie screen to watch two gangs of kids just a few years younger than us threaten each other loudly without throwing a blow. It went on for almost twenty minutes before fists finally began to fly.

“Either start throwing or shut the fuck up so we can watch the damn movie!” an Old Gangsta yelled from the front while his girlfriend—who was decked in fur, platinum, and enough ice to chill a twelve pack— hugged his side.

Once it began it lasted less than a minute. The smaller group was chased out of the theater by the larger group and we all just went back to watching the movie.