MALI
“Man, what the fuck are we doing here?” I muttered to Scooter as we pulled up to the end of Fern Street in Lake Hill Manor. The houses that blessed the block were nice and massive.
The money he offered me to make this move with him made me second-guess whether this was the right decision.
Then I thought about my brothers who needed things, and this was a way I could provide.
As I sat in the driver’s seat, I pulled a bottle from my coat pocket, quickly removed the top, and took a swig.
Scooter slid a pair of gloves on his hands as he turned to glance at me. “Nigga what the fuck. You can’t be the driver getting drunk and shit.”
My eyes rolled his way as I took another swig. “I’m straight.” I smiled.
“You stay here. If anything looks funny, honk once,” he gritted.
“Scooter, these rich folk are going to lock your ass up. Why are we here?”
He punched the dashboard. “Nigga, let me worry about that. I told you I would break you off. This shit isn’t for me, it’s for my brother.
That little nigga at home hungry right fucking now.
Whatever I have to do to make sure he’s good, I will, so until you can understand what the fuck I’m going through, shut your bitch ass up! ” he barked.
I began laughing. “You better cool your ass down because as much as you’re barking like a dog. Nigga you need me. Just hurry the fuck up!” I shot back.
I watched him get out, jog a few houses up, and into one of the driveways, disappearing.
I glanced at my bottle and took another swig.
For every swig I took, it was for every inch of regret I had trying to help this nigga.
I began thinking about my brothers. If I got locked up, would they resort to the same shit to survive?
I sat back in the seat as I tapped at the steering wheel.
Headlights beamed in my rearview mirror, making me sit up.
It crept up slowly and stopped in the middle of the street.
I slid my hoodie on, pulling at the strings to cover my face.
My fingertips traced the horn as the saliva in my throat thickened, and I scooted down in the seat.
The giggles that echoed with the night’s quietness caused me to ease my head back toward the dark-tinted car and look.
When I saw Symphony get out, I wondered where she was coming from.
Symphony, the girl everyone wanted but no one had the pleasure of getting.
The girl who had my eye since high school, but never noticed me there. The rich, spoiled, soft girl.
The car drove past me as she pranced, disappearing up the driveway. I got so lost in an old high school crush that I didn’t realize she had gone up the same driveway that Scooter had.
“Shit!”
I panicked, trying to decide whether to honk or get Scooter.
Could I be the hero of the night? I thought.
I hopped out of the car and rushed up the block and up the driveway until I reached the house.
When I stood in front of the house that screamed Symphony was beyond my tax bracket, I knew being the hero would be just that and nothing more.
The sounds of screams bellowed from the door.
I moved quickly, rushing to the window to see someone lying on the floor and Scooter with his mask on, gritting something to her, and running off.
Symphony nervously ran to the guy on the floor while grabbing her phone.
Suddenly, Scooter dashed past me, running down the driveway.
“Nigga I told you to stay in the car!” he shouted.
We both hauled ass back up the street to the car. Damn near out of breath, he turned to me as he aimed his gun, “I should shoot your ass. I told you to honk!”
“Nigga you know whose house that was. Huh? Fuck did you go in there for?” I shouted back.
“Business. If the nigga does what’s being asked, everything will be fine, and we will be rich. If not, I got a little security,” he said as he opened his hand to a nice-sized Sapphire necklace.
I didn’t know what to think. I stared at it long and hard. “Nigga you stealing?” I muttered.
“It’s called security. Now drive!” he yelled.
I spotted the lights coming up the small hill, and I sped off.
His breathing decreased as he focused his attention out the window.
I didn’t know if Scooter had been able to accomplish whatever it was, he set forth on doing, but what I did know was that after today, I wasn’t fucking with this nigga anymore.
When I pulled up to the location, where he asked me to drop him off.
He turned to me. “If anything happens to me. I want you to take this and cash it in. Take the money to my shorty,” he mumbled.
I could tell he wasn’t sure what was next for him.
I held the expensive ass necklace in my hand as Scooter disappeared into the night.
As I drove, I began to think about Symphony standing there.
Was this hers? I didn’t know what to do, but what I did know was that guilt instantly started to weigh on me.
“Wake the fuck up nigga!” I heard Scooter’s voice dead in my ear.
My head was spinning, my body ached, and I was bleeding.
I didn’t know what the hell happened. Last, I remember, I was at a fucking party and somehow, I’m sitting in someone’s living room with a funky ass stripper pole in front of me.
When I glanced over, the same girl who stripped at Foe’s party was sitting next to me.
Scooter paced the floor back and forth in front of me and his stripper bitch. “One of you is lying. She said you never gave it to her, and you said you did.”
I did, but I didn’t think the nigga was going to go bat shit crazy and kidnap me.
After that night, Scooter was caught the next morning.
Once I found out what his sentence was, I figured the nigga would forget after five years, but who knew he was getting out early.
Kareem aimed his gun at me. “Better speak up, corny nigga in a fucking turtle suit. I’m—”
“Scooter!” the stripper bitch shouted. “It’s obvious he doesn’t have it. Why go back to jail over something like this? Wherever the money was coming from wasn’t meant for you to have.”
I pointed to her. “What she said.”
I knew that Kareem’s patience was running thin, and so were my nerves.
I was still cruising off the liquor I had at the party, and I knew the longer I sat here, the sicker I would begin to feel.
Kareem wanted to be able to take care of his brother, and I understood.
However, it wasn’t me who was trying to make the moves I should have been making for me and my brothers; yet Xavier was using his basketball skills to pave the way for us, and every time it crossed my mind, I felt like shit.
I stood up, walking toward him, then stopped when the barrel didn’t move, yet seemed like it was coming closer toward my chest. I held my hands up, “I-I ended up losing it. That’s why she never got it,” I said as I slowly stepped back.
Kareem’s eyes narrowed in. I could tell they were mixed with anger and confusion. At this moment, I was willing to do whatever I could to get this nigga off my back. “Nigga what if I could offer you something that would probably put more money in your pocket if you do it right?”
He stopped pacing and looked at me. “Fuck are you talking about Mison? Huh? Or is that the fucking liquor because the whole city knows you’re a fucking drunk.”
I didn’t know whether it was the way he said it or what he said, but it stung.
I swallowed my pride to keep my shit together.
“I’m talking about my boy. He has a cold ass studio.
He knows people who know people, you get me.
What if we can get you in the studio and get you out there? All I got to do is talk to him.”
His stripper bitch stood. “Scooter, you always wanted to be in the studio. Think about it, you can put all your feelings on tracks as you always dreamed of.”
Kareem placed the fist he gripped the gun with to the side of his head. “Respectfully, Flex, shut the fuck up!” he barked. “The more you talk, the more you make me want to shoot your dizzy, pole pussy ass.”
He focused his attention back on me. “Your friend gonna be down or what?”
I knew I was blowing smoke up his ass because Beans wasn’t that easy to convince, but I didn’t give a fuck, I just needed to get out of here. “Yes!”
He stared at me long and hard, then a smile eased on his face. “You hang with them Zoo niggas don’t you?” he asked.
I swallowed deeply because I wasn’t sure if I wanted to answer. “Yeah.”
He nodded slowly. “So, you know that nigga Dio?”
Fuck! The last thing I needed was to get someone else involved in this shit. “Why?”
He laughed. “’Cause I’m the nigga with the gun asking.”
Instead of answering his question, I rushed his ass, slamming him into that stank ass pole. Kareem and I began tussling. The more my body swung around the tiny space, the sicker I felt. However, I wasn’t leaving this muhfucka in a body bag. Gunshots rang out, causing us to stop.
The stripper bitch aimed the gun at both of us, “Get out! She shouted.
“Flex put that shit down!” he barked at her.
“No! You want to go back to jail? Huh? It’s clear we don’t have any fucking money!” she shouted.
Kareem laughed. “Maybe y’all don’t, but he knows what it is,” he pointed at me.
“I gave you something worth a lot of money, and somehow, I ended up in jail, and you didn’t.
Either I get my shit! Or I’m going to make that call, and it’s going to be you behind bars, not me, because I’m not going back.
Better ask them Zoo bitches to help you,” he gritted.
What did he mean by make that call? I said nothing; instead, I hauled ass out the door. I rushed out of the complex and down the street. How the fuck did I end up like this? When I reached the street, the wind howled loudly as if it were giving off its last screams for its remaining demonic hour.
I thought I saw lights approaching, but I didn’t know if it was the delusions of the alcohol or God coming for me.
He knew I had begged him so many times to take me, but he had yet to answer my request; had he gotten tired of me begging, and was he coming?
I didn’t know because before I knew it, everything went dark.