Chapter 7
Khalil
My mama always told me that, in Arabic, my name Khalil meant "friend" or "close companion," but in the real world, I was none of that to anybody. Yeah, I had niggas I hung around with like Tyrell, Devontae, and Harold. Most of the time, they were the people I smoked with, hustled with, and laughed with sometimes. But as far as calling any of them my friend? I don’t really use that word often. I’ve seen too many friendships end badly growing up. Friends set niggas up, leave each other behind when shit get hot, or get each other killed over money, hoes, or straight jealousy. In New York, loyalty only lasts as long as it’s convenient.
The only reason I was standing on the block with this nigga Harold today was that the plug he worked for needed extra hands over at the Pink House projects.
Apparently, since the expansion once Hov and his crew backed off a lot of territory, his plug bit off more than he could chew and couldn’t keep up with the demand.
There I go sounding just like my mother.
Little sayings and riddles she said always stuck with me, whether I wanted them to or not.
My mama was the type to turn every life lesson into some deep ass quote like she was reading from a book nobody else had access to.
Most of what she said to me was wisdom, though some of her words were, however, lies.
I still try not to hold that against my mother because, no matter what, she’s all my little brother Rami and I had.
“Yo, Khalil, I think it’s time we run back to the stash house, turn in what we have, and get a little more product, homie. The block is hot as hell today.”
Harold was excited because making his plug happy was like getting a letter of recommendation from the principal. Harold wanted to be just like his big brother Chase. Chase been in the streets since he and I were playing video games in his mama’s apartment and prank calling people from school.
I knew Harold would be in the streets because he idolized it growing up, and I ended up here right behind him, and that was because I needed money. I’m tired of my mother wiping toilet seats to pay the bills, not because the street life was a dream to me.
“I would go with you, but I have to get back home to my little brother before my mama get off work.”
“Damn nigga, you still babysitting? We're supposed to be out here making money,” He laughed before shaking his head.
“But alright, I’ll handle the shit myself because I’m definitely trying to get this money today.”
He glanced down the street before looking back at me.
“Can you at least walk me over there, though? I can grab a strap and walk myself back, but I’m not trying to fade these corners without one.”
“I got you. That’s on my way home anyway.”
We started down the sidewalk toward the stash house a couple of blocks over while cars rolled slowly past us blasting music with too much bass. The smell of weed floated through the air from somewhere nearby, mixing with the scent of hot concrete and fried food coming from one of the apartments.
Harold stayed close beside me the whole walk. Too close, honestly. But I already knew why.
Harold felt safer around me because I always had a gun tucked into my back pocket. This gun was the one my mama thought she had hidden under her bed years ago.
Back then, she used to keep it in the house because she was scared living around our neighborhood, being the only adult in the house at the time. She’d even shown me where the bullets were one night because she said that if anything ever happened to her, I needed to protect my little brother.
Funny thing was, after a while, she stopped worrying so much and got comfortable with where we were living now. She probably started trusting the neighborhood more once she thought the shootings had slowed down and a lot of crime had moved farther down the street.
But me, I would never trust this neighborhood. Especially with what I would see, running the blocks with the niggas I ran with. The crime didn’t slow down or the shooting. Niggas just got better at hiding crime, and using silencers instead of smoking niggas out loud.
Harold and I hit the back alleyway and then cut through another one to shorten the walk to the stash spot a couple of blocks over.
Harold kept looking over his shoulder now and then while we walked, paranoid about every car creeping past us and every nigga standing outside watching us move through the neighborhood.
I stayed calm. I’d walked these same alleys so many times growing up that I knew damn near every shortcut in the area by memory.
We passed behind a row of apartments with kids still playing outside, even though the streetlights were getting ready to come on soon. The closer we got to the projects, the more crowded the sidewalks became.
We finally got to the old apartment building that mostly housed single mothers living in housing that rented their spots to drug dealers while they shacked up with other families.
I’d heard about niggas doing shit like that my whole life.
Even big drug lords like Hov supposedly had stash spots set up just like this one a while back.
Honestly, it was smart. Police expected trap houses to look abandoned or full of niggas standing around with guns. They usually overlooked apartments where they thought kids lived or women stayed.
Still, I don’t think I could ever trust somebody around my money like that. Niggas get desperate too fast when cash is involved. Personally, I’d probably sleep on the couch in my own stash spot before leaving my work around anybody else.
Once we walked up to the door, Harold started to knock on it.
“Yo, it’s Harold, open the door.” Harold beat on the apartment door a few times while we waited for somebody to answer from inside.
“Yo, it’s Harold, open up niggas!” He continued to beat on the door, but no one answered. Harold then grabbed the door handle, twisting it only to rush in when he saw that the door was actually unlocked and creaked open.
“What the hell,” Harold pushed the door wider and stepped inside slow as fuck now. All that rushing from earlier was suddenly gone.
I stayed right on his trail, trying to figure out what the fuck was going on because something instantly felt off. The apartment was too quiet, and now the only noise coming through the apartment was the TV playing low in the background.
Harold looked around carefully while we moved further inside. I could tell he was getting nervous by how stiff his shoulders looked. My hand slid toward the pistol in my pocket automatically once we turned the first corner.
That’s when I stopped in my tracks because I couldn’t believe what I was seeing in front of me.
“Yo, what the fuck?”
Harold reacted to the several bodies spread across the floor.
There was not one. Not two, but at least five people laid sprawled around the apartment in puddles of blood.
“What the fuck happened here?”
“I don’t know, bruh.” He and I whispered like the killer could still be inside.
“Yo, hell nah!”
Harold almost ran me over when he laid his eyes on the body closest to the kitchen table.
“Nah, nah, nah. Chase!”
Harold dropped down beside his brother’s body, shaking him hard even though it was obvious there wasn’t shit left to save.
I just stood there staring around the apartment, trying to process what the fuck I was looking at. I had seen dead bodies before growing up in this neighborhood. Seen niggas get zipped up after shootouts. Seen addicts laid out on sidewalks. Even been to funerals where mothers screamed over caskets.
But this shit?
This was a massacre. This scene screamed betrayal.
“Yo man, we need to call the cops.”
I finally snapped out of my daze.
“Fuck no, we can’t. I’m eighteen now, and I’m not supposed to be anywhere near guns or drugs. The judge said he is going to send me to Rikers if they catch me in another environment like this, man. Fuck!”
Harold was panicking hard now, rocking back and forth on the floor while holding onto his brother’s body.
As my eyes kept moving around the apartment, something suddenly caught my attention near my feet. Money.
A thick ass stack of cash on the floor beside the couch, almost hidden between two bodies, like whoever tore through this place dropped it by accident during all the chaos.
For a second, everything else around me got quiet.
The blood. The bodies. Harold crying. All that shit faded into the background once my eyes locked on that money.
I had no idea how much it was, but it looked like more cash than I’d ever held in my hands before.
And before I could even stop myself, my mind immediately told me to bend down and grab the shit.
I wasn’t sure how much it was in this stack, but I’m sure it was enough to make my situation better at home.
After putting the money in my pocket, I felt blood on my hand and wiped it against my pants by habit.
“Yo, Harold, we really need to roll, bro. We can’t be here when the police come. Who’s to say no one has called the cops already?”
He sat there on the floor shaking his head, staring at his brother’s body as if he looked long enough, the shit would somehow change.
His hands trembled before he finally eased his brother’s head down onto the floor carefully, almost gently, like he was scared to do any more damage to him than what had already been done.
Harold pushed himself up without saying another word and jogged out of the living room, and I followed behind him in a daze, my legs moving even though my mind still felt stuck back inside that apartment.
Everything that had just happened was replaying in my head over and over again so fast it was making me feel lightheaded.
Once we ran through the back alleyway, passing by feens and hitting corners to put distance between us and the apartment, my stomach suddenly folded in on itself.
I bent over near the side of the building and threw up onto the concrete. My whole body jerked while spit hung from my mouth and sweat gathered across my forehead. I kept coughing, trying to catch my breath, but every time I closed my eyes, all I saw was blood on the floor all across the apartment.
That was some shit I never expected to see in real life, and deep down, I already knew it was going to stick with me for a long ass time.
I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand before leaning against the wall, trying to pull myself together.
My chest was pounding so hard it damn near hurt.
Had I not had that stack of money stuffed deep in my pockets, I would’ve deeply regretted even going over there in the first place.
But every time I thought about the money, I pictured my mama dragging herself out of the house before sunrise every morning to go clean up rich people's homes while we stayed back at ours, missing her all day.
At least now I could help her out some. Even if the money came attached to stomach pain and a memory I knew I’d never forget.