9. Trigga #2
My head turned toward the voice. Leaning against the wall near the front of the store was somebody I recognized almost immediately.
Reemo. We weren’t friends, but we’d crossed paths enough over the years while playing ball around the city and seeing each other in the streets that I knew exactly who he was.
More importantly… I knew who he ran with.
His right-hand man was Bashar.
“What up?” I asked.
He pushed himself off the wall.
“Ain’t much.”
Something about the way he answered made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Before I could say anything else, movement caught my attention out of the corner of my eye. Then more movement. I looked to my left, and there were two dudes. To my right, another two.
One came around from behind a parked car while another walked out of the store carrying nothing in his hands. Without realizing it, I’d been surrounded. I slowly looked back at Reemo.
“This what we doing?”
“Depends on how this conversation goes,” he said with a shrug.
My eyes moved around the parking lot again. There were too many of them for this to be some random coincidence. Every one of them was watching me, just waiting. I let out a slow breath.
“So, talk.”
Reemo stepped a little closer. His expression had lost every trace of friendliness.
“You remember Bashar?”
I nodded once.
“Yeah.”
“He told me y’all had some business together.”
I didn’t answer.
“He also told me he was supposed to meet you about some money.”
Reemo studied my face for a long moment before speaking again.
“The last thing my brother told me…” His voice dropped, “was that if anything ever happened to him, I needed to come find you.”
Silence settled between us. Reemo took another step.
“So…” He locked eyes with me, “here I am.”
After his statement, nobody moved, and nobody spoke.
The only sound came from cars passing in the distance.
I glanced around one more time. About nine against one.
This wasn’t a conversation, this was pressure.
And for the first time in a long time, I found myself wishing Trigga was standing beside me.
Reemo looked at me for a long moment before letting out a slow breath.
“I talked to Bashar the day he died.”
I stayed quiet.
“He wasn’t acting scared.”
His eyes drifted toward the pavement for a second before coming back to me.
“He just kept saying something ain’t feel right.”
A knot settled in my stomach.
“He told me he had a funny feeling.”
The words came out slower now, like he’d replayed them a thousand times in his head.
“I asked him what he meant.”
Reemo shrugged.
“He said he ain’t know.”
My expression didn’t change, but inside, my mind immediately went back to Bashar. Back to the last time I’d seen him. He was lying on his living room floor with his lifeless eyes looking up at me. Reemo looked me dead in the eyes.
“I figured he was tripping, but then a couple hours later… my brother was dead. I’ve been replaying that conversation every day since.
I don’t know why he sent me to you. I don’t know what he was trying to tell me.
I didn’t know if he knew something was coming.
But seeing you has been a priority of mine. ”
I let out a slow breath before shaking my head.
“Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Reemo held my gaze.
“I think you do.”
“I don’t.”
I stepped to the side and nodded toward the store.
“Pardon me.”
I started, but I hadn’t made it two steps before somebody stepped directly into my path.
I stopped. Slowly, I lifted my eyes. One of the dudes that was standing behind Reemo looked back at me without saying a word. I glanced to my left. Another one had closed the gap. Then another. A quiet laugh slipped through my nose.
“So y’all really tryna do this?”
Nobody answered. I looked back at Reemo.
“If you’re trying to figure out what happened to Bashar…” I shrugged, “I hope you get the answers you’re looking for.”
The words tasted bitter coming out of my mouth.
“But don’t make me a part of that.”
Reemo took a step closer toward me.
“My brother said your name.”
“And your brother ain’t here to explain why,” I snapped.
The sentence landed between us like a brick. I was losing patience with this pressure tactic that they were trying to put on me.
“You know what? That’s the part that’s been eating me alive.”
“Well, I can’t help you.”
Reemo searched my face one last time.
“I think you can.”
“I can’t,” my words came out firmer this time, “so whatever you heard…” I looked around at the men standing beside him before bringing my attention back to Reemo. “Leave me out of it.”
For several long seconds, nobody moved. Then Reemo nodded once.
“Aight.”
He stepped back just enough for the man blocking my path to move out of it.
“But this ain’t over.”
I didn’t answer, because I couldn’t. As I walked toward the entrance of the store, the only thing running through my mind was the fact that the last person Bashar trusted had just looked me in my face.
And I was the one who knew why he’d never be able to answer Reemo’s questions.
By the time I made it inside the store, I realized I hadn’t grabbed a shopping cart.
I stood there for a second, staring down one of the aisles before letting out a quiet breath and grabbing one anyway.
My mind wasn’t on groceries. It was still sitting outside with Reemo and his gang of niggas.
I pushed the cart down the first aisle without paying much attention to what I was throwing into it.
I grabbed bread, eggs, milk, and a few frozen meals.
I reached into the cooler for a bottle of orange juice before my eyes landed on a package of cinnamon rolls.
My hand stopped as a small smirk found its way onto my face.
Tahari used to tear these things up. Every Saturday morning, without fail, he’d throw some into the oven, and he swore they tasted better than anything you could buy at a bakery.
I used to tell him he had the taste buds of a five-year-old.
The memory made me chuckle to myself. Without even thinking about it, I picked the box up and dropped it into the cart.
I made it halfway down the aisle before stopping.
I looked down at it. For a second, I just stared.
Tahari didn’t live with me anymore. Slowly, I picked the can back up.
Then stood there holding it. The silence around me suddenly felt loud.
Over the last couple of days, everything had changed for me.
There were too many names that had trouble tagging behind them that were circling me.
There was Ryan, Reemo, the ghost of Bashar, and the Ruiz Cartel.
None of it felt like something I could figure out on my own.
My grip tightened around the can before I finally set it onto some random shelf in the store.
A quiet breath escaped me. The weight of everything sitting on my shoulders felt heavier than I wanted to admit.
And whether I liked it or not… I found myself wishing my brother was standing beside me.