Motherless Child
Rico, age 15
Even in the dead of night, the Birch was never sleeping. There were fiends and Babies on the courts, but no one was paying attention to Fredo and I entering the South Kenton Community Center on the construction side.
Tiny had a lot of muthafuckas fooled. She was pouring back into the Center, expanding it, just like she was expanding her operation. The Babies always had beef with the Tree Streets, but a couple hours before, Lem told us it was officially war. He wanted all the Tree Streets.
Which meant Tiny wanted all the Tree Streets.
We managed to get all the way to Jute Street, but it wasn’t enough. Niggas wanted them eliminated, which meant they were recruiting more niggas for their dirty work.
I knew why they felt so emboldened. Why they, now all of a sudden, knew it could happen, and why now was the time to strike.
We had a secret weapon.
I heard my bro’s voice deep in the empty room and grinned as the tarp cleared and his face was in view.
Peanut had finally ran away from his foster home the second week of the spring semester. He showed up at Set’s crib and said he wasn’t going back there.
But while Peanut was away, in and out of juvie, he not only moved up the ranks of the Birch Babies in there, but also gained both the respect and intel on almost every other prominent gang in the city.
Lem worshipped the ground the nigga walked on, since the OGs did the same. Which meant that Kilo and Remy couldn’t stand him. Not that he gave a fuck.
Peanut raised his arm immediately and aimed at us, before grinning. “My niggas. You know Turkey.”
He didn’t lower his gun until we got to the table that Turkey was sitting at.
Peanut got Turkey put on right after he came back to the Birch, and he and my neighbor lil’ Sean were the last ones added to Set’s crew.
We were solid now, Tiny’s highest earning crew, and niggas twice our age were scared of us.
But Turkey didn’t come around too often, only on the weekends. So seeing him on a weeknight, sitting at a table full of rifles and guns, was interesting to say the least.
“What’s all this?” Fredo asked.
Peanut folded his arms. “You ever wonder what Set be doing when he disappear to Turkey house on the weekends?”
“Nah,” I gritted, tired of hearing of this nigga.
Peanut glossed over my attitude, which meant this nigga was too excited to give a fuck, since any other time, he would jump to his cousin’s rescue.
“Well, he and Turkey here be doing like CIA-level shit. Do the trick, Turkey.”
Turkey smirked as he pulled on a piece of his dreaded fro. “Aight. So we got a AR, a AK, and two Heckler and Koch four-seventeens on the table. Y’all got a phone to time me? I’m tryna beat Set’s score.”
That nigga seemed like a straight nerd. Me and Fredo knew who he was, because of MyRoom and that one time he called Set frantic about beating up a nigga perpetrating, that ended up being Ty-Ty.
Now, Ty-Ty was abnormally tall for his age, and he did learn from the best on how to knock a nigga down, but needing three extra niggas to jump him put him in the lame category for me.
He held his own when he got put on the week before, though, but I still saw the bruise I left on his face in the harsh overhead light.
Fredo, always one to be entertained, took out his phone and opened the clock app.
“Ready? Go.”
This nigga Turkey moved over the pieces of guns that might as well had been puzzle pieces to him. Little by little, the makings of four big ass rifles started to take shape, and in a little over a minute and a half, he’d assembled all four of them.
“Damn,” I whispered, as Peanut clapped loudly and Turkey blew imaginary dust off his hands.
“That nigga a beast! And that’s how we finna be,” Peanut cheesed. “Everything G-Pops teach me, I’m teaching y’all. Starting with this shit.”
“This some next level shit, P,” Fredo marveled, grabbing one of the rifles.
“Lem is serious about getting them slob niggas outta here, and we gon’ need more than glocks and more than Set’s uzis. We need that real deal Holyfield shit. I’m not letting them call Set every time they need to run a blitz. All my niggas gon’ be war-ready, starting with y’all.”
“Riddle me this, Nutty Boy,” Fredo replied, putting down the rifle. “Where we gon’ practice with this heavy artillery? We can’t exactly be shooting in the back of the parking lot.”
“My G-Pops finally gave me the codes to his cabin, so we can practice there when he’s OT. For now, though, assembling and disassembling firearms is what you need to know. Shooting comes later.”
“Niggas around the city got access to guns, but don’t know shit but to shoot–not even aiming. Don’t even be cleaning them muthafuckas, and be wondering why they jam. Don’t even know the difference between a Mac-11 and an Uzi. I got the okay from Big X and Lucci to train y’all up,
since Lem is dead serious about bullying them niggas out they shit.”
“Niggas been in the Birch a hot minute and already calling the shots,” Fredo said, making us all chuckle.
“And y’all gon’ be right there with me.”
“Have a seat, twins,” Turkey said, doing some grand gesture that had me remembering the nigga was a square. Fredo chuckled again, but we took the other seats on the other side of the table, while Peanut sat next to him.
For the next two hours, Turkey explained in detail each gun, the ammo they used, and different specs like kickback, reload, and how hard they would be to get on the street.
Turkey’s granddad worked for the government, so it was easier for him, but Peanut assured us there were other ways to get these guns into our hands.
And only ours.
He didn’t trust anyone. I knew that already, but I didn’t realize how much he only trusted Set’s crew until that night.
He was adamant about the other Babies not knowing shit about what was going on, and included Tiny in that, too.
This was supposed to be all us, and that sounded hella appealing to me.
Fredo had been spending more time with Pooh for whatever reason, but when he’d get back, he’d tell me all about how paranoid he was. He hadn’t been to the Birch in over a year, not even to see Ma. They still talked on the phone daily, and Nan went to see him, but he was nowhere near the hood.
Lem would ask me if I was cool with Pooh, but I kept all irrelevant communication to a minimum with them niggas.
Sometimes, they’d pull me away from the crew to run a skit, and then when Set would hear about it, acted like I was running rogue.
Tiny would sometimes pull me to run with her, coming to the trap to announce it and look right at Set to catch his jaw clenching and shit.
I wondered if they were fucking. He looked just like his uncle, and Pooh swore she was fucking his uncle, too.
I had my own family shit. I wasn’t trying to get played because of bullshit gang politics. Rone, Ty-Ty’s pops, was no fuckin’ help. It was up to me, always.
“You gon’ come to Grant with us next year, Turkey? Or punk ass Parkside by your side?” Fredo asked Turkey as he packed the parts in their cases.
Turkey smirked, like he always did. Nigga couldn’t ever not smile. “I can’t leave my girl, and she don’t need to be nowhere near Grant and these project niggas.”
“Yo girl?! That bitch–”
“Watch it,” Turkey gritted to Peanut.
“Like I was saying,” he continued, “she don’t fuck witcha, none. And all that eyeliner she be wearing, she seem possessed.”
“You fucking with a goth girl?” Fredo cackled.
“Auty isn’t a goth. She said it’s like scene or some shit.”
“That girl got lip piercings on both sides, Fredo.”
“They’re fake,” Turk disputed.
“But that bulldagger one ain’t. She be flipping it up when G-Pops come around. You sure she even like niggas?” Peanut closed one eye as he examined Turk. This nigga was a fool.
“You all in my business. You told them about the girl from your old school you be stalking? What’s her name? Tatiana? You told them you be at all her senior functions?”
“A senior, P?”
“All that shit you talk and you like a female older than you?” I said.
Peanut scowled at me, his playful nature gone in a flash.
“On Baby, Tati ain’t like none of these weird, old ass skanks and tramps that you let follow you around. She not even eighteen, and fasho don’t look at me as a dick and balls. She going places, and is probably the one bitch in the world who I know fasho wouldn’t be on no bullshit.
And I don’t have a crush on her. I follow her around to make sure the world don’t corrupt her, if I am right about her.”
I waved him off. “If she threw it, you’d catch that shit.”
“If she threw it, I’d leave her ass in the dust like every other bitch who look at us like age ain’t nothing but a number.”
“Shit, it’s not,” Turkey jested, trying to lighten the mood, but Peanut wasn’t having it.
“These bitches that’s old enough to get an apartment in they name throwing pussy at us is straight weirdos and sluts, on Baby. What the fuck you got in common with a bitch who pay bills? Seriously? Why they can’t pull no nigga that can do some shit for ‘em? We stuck at Boogie Nights Teen Club,
while they at the actual club. You really don’t think that’s weird?”
“They know what they doing, better than the bitches our age,” I countered. “A grown bitch gotta crib we can go to, a car to take us places, can cook, and can suck the meat off the bone.”
Peanut shook his head so hard it almost came off.
“Hell, naw. You think you got it made, but that shit a game to them. They running game on you that a nigga they age wouldn’t fall for. These bitches are marks, but you gon’ see when a old bitch try to trap you or give you some shit that only a shot can take care of.”
“So you really not feeling ol’ girl like that?” Fredo asked.
“Nah. She just… different. Different from any bitch I’ve ever met, especially ‘cause she older. I’m not stunting no bitches, fam. A bitch even look at me wrong I’m liable to shoot, no matter how old she fucking is.”
“You a nut. Come on and run me home before Renelle send out an APB.”
“Fasho. Y’all coming?”