Chapter 16
MJ
Iwas lying in my bed tossing my basketball in the air and then catching it.
I could hear the music loud as hell floating through the house.
I couldn’t stand Heather Headley. When I was a young boy, my mother used to always play “In My Mind” by her.
Back then, the song was annoying as hell.
She would run it on repeat, and I never understood why.
To me, the track sounded like a whole bunch of crying.
As I got older, I realized that the song was truly about a woman thinking a man is still hers, but he isn’t anymore.
She had to be bat shit crazy. It took me to grow up to see that maybe, just maybe, my mother played that song on repeat because she could relate to the lyrics.
I sucked my teeth and then rolled over on my side when it sounded like it had gotten louder.
It was obvious that Maliah was going through something.
Suddenly, I thought about the nigga that Pops allowed to come over.
Her little boyfriend. It bothered me that I didn’t know much about him.
I didn’t even know that once upon a time he attended our school.
I had to do some digging on his ass for sure.
I grabbed my phone to check the time. I had to get ready in a bit to go and play ball with some of my boys.
I had four missed calls from Justine. With me being due to leave for college in a few months, I was trying my hardest to create distance between her and me.
I swiped away the notifications and then went straight to the text message thread with my dad.
I didn’t even realize that he had texted me, and it was early as hell when he did.
When you get up, meet me at the shop.
He sent his location, and I saw that this was one of his auto shops that was in the industrial area of Little Haiti.
Basketball with my boys was going to have to wait.
Pops needed me for something, and that was more important.
Finally, the music in the house turned down as I started gathering my clothes.
I walked into my en-suite bathroom and started to get myself together for the day.
I pulled over the gravel and then parked right next to my father’s car. He was riding around simple today in his smoke-gray Durango. I swear that was his favorite car. There were cops parked outside the shop, and that made me jog inside.
“Pops? What happened?” I asked once I saw him.
Cops were everywhere, dusting shit and taking pictures.
“The shop was robbed last night.”
He said calmly as he stood beside me with his hands in his pockets.
“Robbed!”
I damn near yelled. I seemed to be more on edge than he was. Pops nodded at one of the officers when he looked in our direction.
“Fellas. I will be in the back office if I am needed for more questions. This is my son,” he introduced me to the group of men working eagerly around us.
Pops grabbed me by the arm and then pulled me into his office before closing the door.
“What is going on?” I asked as soon as the door was closed.
“This is the second one.”
He walked over to the wall in his office that held pictures of us. He fixed a slanted frame before turning back to face me.
“The first one was about last week. The shop on 25th got hit.”
“Who the fuck robs a damn auto shop? What, they needed rims or something?”
In the privacy of just Pops and me, he let me curse as much as I wanted to. He only wanted me to watch my mouth around the girls.
“The first spot had bricks in it thanks to the foolishness of your Uncle Sha.”
I stood there in shock. I mean, I knew what my father did, but they had a whole warehouse for that. The second robbery in two weeks didn’t sit well with me.
“Are we being targeted?”
I was always outside somewhere. And I was always observant, but I needed to know if I had to be extra cautious. I needed to know if I had to have my head on a swivel when I was outside.
“I honestly don’t know.”
My father always had the answers to everything. And I mean everything. His being unsure was unsettling to me, but I knew that he would get to the bottom of this.
“Was there anything here for them to get?”
He shook his head before responding.
“Na, I think they just tried another spot because of how they lucked up at the first spot.”
“Anything on the cameras?”
He looked at me as if I were asking a silly question.
“The ones at the shop on 25th are broken and ain’t none here. The main warehouse has a full security system, but not little spots like this.”
I just shook my head in understanding. I was observing my dad, and he looked to be in deep thought.
This explained why I haven’t seen much of him lately.
He was out here trying to figure out who was dumb enough to even do something like this.
I started thinking about school. Maybe I should push attending college back a bit.
Pops had this problem going on, and Maliah had brought a nigga around that was sketchy to me.
“Any possible suspects?”
I wondered if Pops had made any headway in his little investigation.
“Nothing solid yet. I looked over the employee list for the first shop, and one person was fired a couple of days before the first robbery.”
“Fired for what?”
Every shop I ever went to, for the most part, the mechanics were cool as hell, and they were older. Most of them gave unc vibes for sure.
“Stealing…”
I looked at Pops with this look that screamed nigga. The corners of his mouth turned upward with a smile.
“I’m already on it.”
I shook my head because all fingers pointed at his last employee. You fire a thief, and then you’re robbed? Shit, that was like on the list of crimes for dummies.
“Do you need my help with anything?”
My father never had me in the streets, but he would keep me in the loop with things like this.
“Of course I don’t.”
He walked over in my direction and then cupped the back of my head before pecking my forehead with a kiss.
It didn’t matter how old I was. My dad would always show love.
I watched as he made his exit. I’m sure to go off and try to make sense of the shit he was going through.
When he left, I was left alone in the privacy of his office.
My father had us all displayed on his wall.
I laughed a bit at this picture from the Christmas that I first shared with him. It was right after my mother had died.
I rubbed my forearm like the ink on it had burned my skin.
I looked down at my mother’s name and then sighed.
The name Paris looked back at me. I sniffled a bit and then pushed my mom to the back of my mind.
Every day, she was missed dearly by me, but after sitting in with a child therapist for most of my adolescent years, I learned how to manage my emotions when it came to losing her.
I was grateful for my dad and my bonus mom for being there for me when I needed them most.
BLEEK
I looked down at the address on my phone and then squinted to see the numbers on the house I was parked outside of.
People were coming in and out of the house dressed in black.
I opened the armrest in my car and then grabbed my .
45. I was dead smack in the middle of Little Haiti, the hood, and I’ll be damned if anything happened to me out here.
When a large crowd made their exit, I got out of my car and started walking across the cracked pieces of concrete that led to the old, worn house.
Once I went through the employee files at the MB’s on 25th Terrace, I saw all the information we had on Bashar Wright, the former employee that Reggie fired for stealing some stereo systems.
The gated door to the main door of the house was already propped open.
Although people were coming in and out, I didn’t want to walk into somebody’s house.
I was here for Bashar and Bashar only. An older woman noticed me standing at the front door, and she walked over carrying a toddler on her hip.
The little girl was holding onto the cheese doodle in her hand for dear life as they made their way over.
“May I help you?”
I’m sure that I stuck out like a sore thumb because everyone around me was dressed in all black, and there I stood on the dingy doormat in some distressed jeans, a shirt, and some sneakers.
“Good morning, mam. I’m looking for Bashar?”
As soon as I finished my statement, she broke down crying. I kind of just looked at her for a bit because the outburst made me uncomfortable.
“He’s uh… he’s” before she could get anything out, the toddler on her hip started crying too.
I took a step back to give them both a moment. That’s when a woman from inside the house came to the door and took the toddler from the older woman. She wiped her eyes and took a deep breath.
“Whew,” she exhaled, “Bashar was murdered. This morning was his funeral, and right now is the repass.”
I tilted my head as I took in the information.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I said genuinely.
She looked me in my eyes while still wiping away the tears that were falling.
“Were you two close?”
I shook my head before responding.
“Not really, he worked at one of my shops, and we haven’t seen him in almost two weeks.”
“Well, this is why. My Bashar wasn’t the type to miss work. He was such a good boy. Now I have to take care of his daughter,” she nodded toward the toddler that was just taken from her.
I heard her, I truly did, but I couldn’t stand it when someone died, and family members came with those damn lies, saying how the person was so good and how they would never do something bad.
This little nigga stole damn radios out of my shop, and I’m sure he had something to do with the missing bricks.
Shit, his involvement is probably what led to his death. The streets never played fair.