Chapter 9
Motion
It had been days since the police wrecked our shit, and I had yet to be inside to pack anything up.
I tried to prepare myself for what I was about to walk into.
As I walked up the steps with a handful of boxes, I unlocked the door, but I don’t think anything could have honestly prepared me for the shitstorm.
It actually looked worse than the last time I was there.
Nothing was where it belonged.
Drawers hung open like they had been left mid-sentence.
Clothes were piled across the living room floor, through the hallway, and into our bedroom.
The couch cushions were sliced open, white stuffing spilling out.
In the kitchen, the cabinet door was left wide open, dishes stacked crooked like they had been thrown back instead of put away.
My eyes moved across the room, taking everything in again. Picture frames cracked, TV damn near hanging off the wall.
I let out a long breath.
“Damn,” I muttered under my breath, looking at all our memories thrown and broken.
This lil’ ass apartment was behind us, but that didn’t mean the shit didn’t hurt. After putting my hair up and turning on some music, I got to work.
I grabbed the first empty box and started with the living room floor. Clothes, shoes, random papers, the police must’ve flipped through looking for only God knows what. Every time I bent down, I found something that belonged in another room.
I got all the clothes from the living room to the bedroom without moving that big ass mattress, made piles of shit that were going to the trash, along with the couch that they sliced open like they were gonna find kilos hiding in it.
Once I had most of those things picked up, I moved to the kitchen, pulling out all my dishes and wrapping them up, when I heard a knock at the door.
I paused for a second, but the knocking kept going, faster, not banging tho. I put the plates I had in my hands down and walked over to the door and sucked my teeth. The door they replaced my shit with didn’t have a peephole. I took a deep breath and opened the door.
It was a woman standing there.
“Can I help you?” I asked, confused. I had never seen her before.
“Umm, yeah…I was just looking for… ummm…”
She paused.
I looked her up and down.
“Girl, I don’t have time for this shit. What the hell do you want?”
I looked over to the entrance, and Bully was pulling in.
The girl stared at me for a second.
“I’m sorry, I must have the wrong door.”
And she quickly walked off.
I shook my head and walked over to the banister, waiting for Bully to hop out.
“Who was that?” he asked as soon as he opened his car door.
I laughed. “I have no clue.”
Bully walked up the steps, and I pushed the door open for him to see inside.
“DAMMNNN! They fucked y’all shit up.”
All I could do was laugh.
“They did.”
“What the fuck did they take?” he asked.
I shook my head. “I can’t tell! It didn’t look like shit was missing, but the shit we had on the table that night.”
“That’s right, he had just re-upped.”
I zoned out for a second, those words shivering down my spine.
But I wasn’t gonna talk to him about that. I shook that feeling off and cleared my throat, cutting into whatever Bully was talking about.
“Well, did you re-up, nigga?”
He smirked. “Yeah, I got you right. You ready to slide out?”
I looked around the place at the lil’ work I did get done.
“Fuck it,” I said, grabbing my bag. “I can hire movers and shit, let’s go.”
We walked out, and I looked around, looking for that woman, but didn’t see her.
We hopped in his car, I got in the back again, and Bully passed me two bags.
“You gonna have to cut and weigh it out back there, everything in there.”
I nodded, and we were in motion.
Bully pulled out of the complex, sent the kite, and passed the phone back to me. I broke one brick open, and the smell hit my nose immediately. I started to break it down piece by piece on my lap while the scale zeroed out.
The car filled with the quiet sound of plastic crackling and the soft tone of the scale, until Bully turned up the music. I got in a lil’ routine, cutting it down, weighing it out, bagging it up, tossing it in the duffle bag.
We were moving slow.
Nothing like the first day.
We hit a few licks, but the rest of the time we were riding and talking. I made plans for movers and checked on my parents. I was about to tell Bully we could go back to the complex when his phone rang.
I looked at the screen, and it said Kronic.
I hit the button and lifted the phone to my ear.
“Hello?”
“Islah?” his deep voice came through the phone, asking.
“Yeah, wussup?”
“You and Bully slide through the hood.”
“Okay, we are on the way.”
We hung up, and Bully looked at me through the rearview mirror.
“Kronic wants us to slide through.”
He nodded, bussed a right, and we were on the way.
The closer we got, the louder everything got. Music was already echoing down the street before we even turned the corner. Bass heavy enough to rattle car windows. When Bully finally swung the wheel and rolled us onto the block, the whole place was alive.
Cars lined both sides of the street as we drove through, niggas posted on the corner. A dice game in the middle of the road. Somebody’s grill was smoking on the sidewalk. People laughing, arguing, music blasting out of a trunk, all seemed to slow down, and heads turned toward us.
Bully drove up the street some more and pulled over. Before he even put the car in park, a couple of dudes were already walking over.
“Wussup, Bully!”
“What’s good!” he responded.
They dapped him up through the window, then looked past him at me.
“Wussup, Ms. Gio?” one of them, who I didn’t know, said.
I smirked but didn’t respond.
Bully turned the car off and looked back at me.
“You ready?”
I exhaled, grabbed the duffel bag, and opened the door.
We stepped out of the car at the same time. As soon as my feet hit the pavement, the whole block seemed to shift a lil’. Not in a bad way, just attention… attention I never had before.
People whispering and staring, but not approaching me.
The niggas that Bully was talkin’ to led us to a house, and I saw Kronic sitting on the porch.
He was a tall, skinny, dark-skinned nigga who grew up on the same block as Gio.
“Killa Kronic!” Bully yelled, getting his attention.
Kronic ended his conversation and met us in the yard. As he dapped up Bully, he looked at me.
He and Bully had a quick, quiet conversation. Kronic patted Bully on the back once, and Bully walked off while Kronic walked over to me.
“You straight?” he asked.
I nodded. “I’m managing.”
He studied my face for a second, then nodded slowly.
“I heard y’all was out catching plays the other day. You know me and Gio go back, you could have came out here.”
I looked around. “You know this is only my world when I’m with Gio.”
He nodded and looked down at my ring.
“I understand that… Let me show you why this is your world too.”
Kronic nodded toward the porch.
“Come on.”
I followed him up the few steps while people on the block kept watching. Not in a weird way, more like curious. Like they were trying to see what kind of woman I was when Gio wasn’t around.
Kronic leaned against the porch railing and looked out toward the street.
“Aye!” he called out enough for half the block to hear.
A few heads turned immediately.
“Y’all know this Gio’s wife, she’s holding it down for him.”
That’s what all he had to say. The energy shifted almost instantly.
A couple of niggas nodded at me with respect. Somebody yelled from across the street, “Free Gio!” And a few others echoed behind him.
Kronic looked back at me.
“See, ya nigga earned his stripes out here. We got him.”
I exhaled with a lil’ smile. I knew my nigga was like that, but seeing it by myself was different.
I took a seat next to a girl and watched the block with everybody else. The girl I was sitting next to got me a drink while Bully passed me a blunt. I decided to sit back and enjoy my break from everything I had going on.
After a while of sitting there vibing, an older nigga walked up on me.
“Aye… you got white on you?”
All eyes slowly started to turn toward me again.
I nodded.
The man held up three fingers, and I dug in the duffel bag, pulling out two smaller packs I had weighed out earlier.
He counted forty dollars and handed it to me, and I handed him a pack. He nodded and walked off with a smile on his face. After that, the doors to the shop were open.
Niggas were flocking to me, buying just to show love to Gio, some even giving me more money, telling me to put it on his books. Some telling me to tell him to keep his head up; it was all Gio, all respect.
At some point, I moved off the porch and leaned up against a car, watching a spades game, when my phone rang. I looked at the screen, and it was from jail.
I moved away from the group of people I was around, taking a lil’ walk as I listened to the robot lady and pressed one. It took a few seconds, but I finally heard his voice.
“Hey, Mamas,” he said low.
Just hearing his voice made my chest ache a lil’.
“Hey, baby, how are you?”
“Don’t worry about me, baby. How are you?”
“I’m good,” I said, looking around, checking my surroundings. “I’m out the hood with Bully. Kronic told us to pull up.”
“Oh, yeah?” he responded. “I like the sound of that. They showing out?”
“They are,” I responded quick. “It’s been nice out here, but I have been thinking about something.”
“What is that, boo?”
I hesitated for a second and then blurted out, “What if you were set up?”
The line was silent for a few seconds.
“Why would you say that?” he finally asked.