Ducane #3
He passed me the blunt from the ashtray on the desk. I took it and leaned back. I rarely indulged, but today had been one for the books. I earned the Georgia Pie smoke that filled my lungs.
“Alexis is right about the watch.” I took a pull and handed it back to him. “And man, go on with all that sad lovey dovey shit. The plea was never up for discussion.”
“It should’ve been.” He looked at me straight. “Six months in, I was ready to take anything. You remember what you told me?”
“I remember. What about it? I’d tell any of my clients the same thing.”
He passed it back, waving me off.
Six months into the case, Mudd showed up at my office in plain clothes, no entourage, and no energy. Just a man who had been doing the math on what fighting could cost him. He sat across from my desk, looking like he had already decided.
“If they offering fifteen, Cane, I’m out before fifty. I just want to hold my wife again one day. See my grandkids. It’s risky fighting shit I don’t know I can win.”
I leaned forward.
“You want to be away from your family? Another nigga fuckin your wife?...” Mudd scoffed, leaning back.
“Okay, I’ll do you one better, you want your closest nigga fucking your wife, at ya lil man games all on the sidelines at the games and shit, instead of you?
If so, take the deal. But if the thought of another man’s hands on your lady got your chest tight, let me do my job and stay out of my way. ”
I told him that fifteen years was letting them win something they hadn’t earned.
“Mudd, a draw is not a tie. You don’t both win. It’s an L. It’s surrender.”
“I hear you, but Alexis ain’t like that. Be cool, nigga.”
“I believe you believe that, and no disrespect to your wife; I love sis, but the reality is a lot can change in fifteen years. Day 1 to day 1,586 will look totally different.”
“So we fight? Take it to trial, although they claim to have video?”
“They always pull that video bullshit. I’m going to make these crooked motherfuckas do their job. You’ll regret not fighting harder. Don’t do it, nigga. This is how people who don’t think you deserve what you have move.”
I said all of that while sitting with the knowledge that I had done exactly the same thing. Gave up, thinking I’d have time to make it right.
The blunt had burned down to nothing in the ashtray by the time I came back to the room.
Mudd was watching me.
“It’s your turn, Cane.” He put his hand out, and I shook it. “I hope this trip is what you need. Because it’s time. Ya hear me?”
The way he said it gave me chills.
I’d thought about Skye more than I’d ever admit out loud.
I just got good at leaving her where she was.
I went to work. Won cases. Took calls. Showed up for dinners I didn’t want to be at.
Smiled when people expected me to. Then every now and then she’d slip back into my head, and I’d spend the rest of the day pretending she hadn’t.
“Yeah,” I said. “I hear you. Stay out of shit until I get back.”
He sat up and poured two fingers of Gentleman’s Jack into a glass and slid it toward me.
“To not giving up,” he said.
I picked it up.
“To not giving up.”
I tossed it back.
Mudd sat back down. “I need to holla at you about something else I’ve been sitting on.”
“Talk.”
“I’m opening a label. Independent. No majors, no co-signs, just mine.
I need somebody I trust on the legal side.
Not just for the label. For everything. Artist contracts, distribution deals, publishing, all of it.
” He looked at me straight. “I want you as my lawyer. Not the Shane & Simmons bullshit. You.”
“Send me the paperwork,” I said. “I’ll have my team look at the structure. We’ll talk terms when I get back.”
“My nigga,” he sang. “I’ll get the details to you. The quicker the better. We about to take over the world.”
“You know I’m with that. I’ll be on the lookout. But look, I’m about to head out. Stay up nigga. Yo ass bet not be a ward of the state when I get back.”
We dapped up again, and I headed out.
The El Camino was waiting exactly where I left it. I tipped the valet, got in, and pulled back onto the quiet street with Po’d Up Shawty still spilling from the speakers.
I stopped at Whataburger on Merritt and ordered my usual. Within a few minutes I was back on the road, headed home.
It’s your turn, Cane.
Mudd’s words bounced around in my head the whole drive.
It being my turn could mean so many damn things.
A slight anxiety was setting in around the edges of the excitement.
The future had been mapped out for me from birth.
What I’d do. Who I’d become. Who I’d become something with.
It was always supposed to be black and white. Lock step. No deviation.
My whole life had been spent staying inside those lines and losing anyway. Maybe it was time to step outside them on my own terms.
I pulled into my driveway and cut the engine, sitting there for a minute with the bag of food going cold in my lap, thinking about everything owed to me and then some.
I was ready to go collect.