Chapter 1 #2
“A nine-to-five won’t help me stack the money I’m trying to stack, Keanu.
I’m not a boy anymore and I’m tired of sticking my hand out to Brandi and Jeff or you each time I need something.
Do you know how that shit feels? Reminding Brandi that I need briefs for my ass? ” He huffed, obviously frustrated.
“You’re seventeen, bro. You’re far from a man.
You’re a kid and you should stay a kid for as long as you can.
That shit runs out quickly. Them niggas you call yourself hugging the block with, they are surviving and will do anything it takes to get that dollar – including you if they see you stacking that bread you keep talking about and they’re not.
You have no idea what comes with this lifestyle or what it takes to maintain it. ”
“It’s simple enough. I haven’t heard you complain once about it.”
I bit a hole in the side of my tongue, drawing blood as my thoughts raced.
Kale didn’t have a clue about shit, but swore he knew everything.
He didn’t know anything about the streets.
His head belonged in the books or between one of them cheerleaders legs but not on the swivel after running across the wrong nigga or the right cop.
Seething, I responded, “What I do is not your fucking business. I bleed so that you’re untouched.
I get my hands dirty so that yours can stay clean.
I deal so that you can dunk the fucking ball and stay the fuck out of dodge.
I’m in the streets so that you can stay in the gym!
My head is in the game so that yours can stay in the books. You feel me, young nigga?”
My chest ached as my eye began to sting from the fire I felt inside.
My engine roared as I pressed the pedal, rushing Kale back to his side of the tracks where he belonged.
I had every intention of revealing his whereabouts to my aunt and uncle in addition to sharing with them his actions and the reason behind them.
“If you want to stack some money,” I gripped the steering wheel as I barked, “then you tell me you want to stack some fucking money and I see to it that you stack as much as you want. My money is falling out of the fucking safe because I can’t get rid of the shit fast enough and you’re out here taking chances for what I can hand you in the blink of an eye! ”
Whoop! The blue and red lights followed by the familiar sound made my aching heart sink into the bottom of my shoes.
Kale’s eye bulged from his head as he whipped his neck around to confirm what we both already knew.
I contemplated trying my luck and fleeing, but the last thing I wanted to do was get Kale involved in what could end up a deadly pursuit.
Cops didn’t always play fair, but I had a better chance of talking them out of a ticket or search than fleeing on the busy Channing streets.
Had we been on the expressway, I would’ve ghosted him the second he hit his lights but running through the streets filled with pedestrians at this hour would only end in tragedy.
“Fuck,” I groaned, “what do you have on you?” The wheels in my head began churning.
Spooked, Kale snapped his neck in two directions without saying a single word. From the front windshield to the back windshield, he continued going back and forth with his eyes.
“Kale. What do you have on you?”
I continued to travel down the street as if the lights weren’t on and the siren wasn’t blaring. Until I made sure Kale was straight, I didn’t intend on pulling over.
“Fuck, man. I can’t go to jail, Keanu.”
The strife and grit that he’d displayed a few seconds earlier had dissolved and the little seventeen-year-old boy that I knew reappeared.
This Kale was the one I recognized. This Kale was the one that I refused to let get himself into trouble.
This Kale was the one I’d never allow to fall short on my watch.
“You won’t. What do you have on you?”
Whoop! Whoop. Whooooooop! Blue lights shined in front of me, causing me to swerve, nearly hitting the curb as I tried to avoid hitting the police car that had pulled in front of me. There were now two laws on us. One behind us and another in front of us. I had no choice but to decelerate.
“What do you have on you?”
Kale reached into his pocket, hands shaking as he struggled to remove whatever was inside. Before he was able to show me what the plastic I’d heard rattling contained, his door was being pulled open as he was being pulled out.
“Get on the fucking ground!”
Simultaneously, I was pulled from my side of the car and forced to the ground as well. Before I could react or comprehend what was going on, cuffs were being slapped on my wrists and I was being led to the hood of the police car that had been following behind us.
“Don’t fucking move,” I heard behind me.
“Do it look like I’m moving, nigga?” I asked.
“Don’t fucking move.”
“I see this motherfucker likes to hear himself talk,” I concluded, tuning him out completely.
It was obvious that he was one of the ones you hated crossing paths within uniform. On the street, they’d have an entirely different demeanor. The badge and gun made them feel superior. With or without my tool I was the same nigga.
I watched as they forced a shivering Kale onto the hood beside me. Seeing his wrists cuffed behind his back broke something deep within me that I don’t think could ever be repaired. The tears that stained his face, and the sound of his low whimpers were daggers to the chest.
“Chin up,” I demanded, “Whatever it is, it’s mine.”
“I’m sorry,” he apologized.
“It’s cool. Big bro got you. Just keep your mouth shut.”
“Okay.”
I watched intently as the flashlights darted across the car. Within a few seconds, a clear baggie was lifted into the air. Dangling it, a chuckle surfaced.
“Well, look at what we have here, Staples,” the cop on the passenger side called out to his fellow officer.
Squeezing my lids together, I groaned inwardly. Even from my position, I knew what the bag consisted of. I didn’t have to be any closer and neither did I need it in my possession to determine its contents.
“Pure cocaine,” one of the police from the other vehicle sang as he slid out. “Pure cocaine.”
I drew blood, gnawing at the inside of my lip. When I reopened my eyes, Kale’s orbs were on mine. Refusing to reveal my apprehension, I smiled in return.
“It’s aight, lil’ bro.”
“Which one of you does this belong to?”
“If you would’ve run the tags before you pulled us out and cuffed us without reading us our rights then you’d know whose it is. Do your job. We’re not going to do that shit for you,” I spoke to the one asking the question.
“You’re going to do well in jail,” he returned, giggling uncontrollably.
“I’m well wherever I plant my feet,” I assured him.
“Brinks.”
My name being called snatched me from my thoughts.
Since the night they’d happened a year and a half ago, the events replayed in my head like a broken record.
That night was one I could never forget.
Not only was it my first offense, but it was the push that Kale needed to keep himself on the straight and narrow and his head in the books.
It had changed the trajectory of both of our lives and as much time and money it had cost me, hearing Kale’s excitement for college and his future in basketball on the line made it all worth it.
The gun and ounce of coke that were found in the car had gotten me sentenced to a year, but with good behavior, a hell of a lawyer, and drug programs, my time was sliced in half.
“Yeah?”
“It’s your time,” the CO informed me.
I stood to my feet while simultaneously scrubbing the memories of the small holding cell and the one I’d stayed in the entire six months from my head.
When I walked out of the doors, I wanted the six months of wasted time to be a blur that was so complex, my mind couldn’t fathom what it must represent.
This was my very first and my very last prison stint.
Every inch of my six-four frame stretched until I heard my bones crackling and popping.
Without haste, I proceeded out of the cell door that was slowly opening to accommodate my new status.
I was officially a free man but until I was on the outside it wouldn’t register.
Through one door after another and then three gates too many, I hit the pavement.
It was identical to the concrete that I’d just walked across to get through the gates, but the shit just felt different.
It was the one that commemorated my emancipation.
“That’s what the fuck I’m talking about.”
Kale’s words hit me dead in the chest. The smile on his face as he beat his chest a few feet away from me caused my cheeks to rise as I shared the same sentiments. Reunited and that shit felt so fucking good.
“Lil’ bro,” I dragged.
“You out that bitch,” he cheered, clapping his hands as he circled the spot he’d just stood in.
He’d entered his first year of college but flew home for the day to make this moment happen.
I could’ve had either Laike, Luca, my aunt, or uncle to scoop me, but Kale wanted this moment. He deserved it, so it was his to have.
After three full circles, his balled fist went up to his mouth as he blew a heavy, unsettling breath into the small space between his palm and fingers. The tears that slid down his face were evidence of the relief he felt seeing me again. Because not everybody made it out.
“I’m out that bitch,” I agreed, “and my stomach touching my fucking back.”
“Then let’s fill it. You ain’t got nothing? A bag? A piece of mail? A letter? Nothing?”
My calendar is marked each day that you’re away. I’m counting down until you come home like you’re coming home to me. Maybe one day, huh? Maybe soon?
The words that I’d remembered like my favorite line of a Jay track surfaced.
“Nah. They can burn all that shit.”