His Future #2
But just as I never felt the way I’d been feeling, I knew Fredo had never paid anyone any mind. Bitches were always throwing themselves at him, and when he wouldn’t take the bait, the gay rumors started.
Besides one bitch from fourth grade he got a Valentine’s Day card for, he wasn’t out here, not like me.
But, we wouldn’t be one if we both weren’t falling headfirst into bullshit at the same time.
“Regardless, this don’t change shit. I’m not letting them put no more shit on you. I can’t be two places at once.”
“That’s why we split up, gang.” He swerved into a park behind Tower Four and smirked at me.
“No matter what, we gon’ always be straight. Shake out of being a lover boy, nigga. It’s Luney time.”
He hopped out the car as I shook my head, but as usual, the nigga was right.
I was soft as fuck. I was fuckin’ Richard.
I needed to be Luney.
As we made our way to Kilo’s apartment, I shook off all the bullshit I was feeling before. I locked Snow and everything she made me feel away deep in my mind, next to Ma.
By the time Fredo was knocking on Kilo’s door, my eyes were hooded, and I was numb again.
I was ready.
Chyna, Kilo’s loudmouth-assed sister, opened the door, her eyes devouring me.
I told Kisha her ass was no good, but bitches never listen when a nigga tell them they friends are hoes.
“Come on,” Fredo said impatiently.
She moved out the way, eyes still on me. I winked at her as we passed by, making her ass light up like Christmas.
Pathetic.
Set, Peanut, Gee, and Remy were already there, posted up around the living room as Kilo spoke to someone on speaker.
Most of the OGs were locked up or dead, besides Pooh, and the damn Police Chief who made it his mission to lock us all up, too. Big X and Lucci were the head honchos upstate, and everything still had to go through them, even though Big X converted to Islam and was, by all accounts, a model inmate.
“I want they block gone behind my brother, Kilo!” Lucci thundered into the phone. I almost laughed, imagining his big ass huffing and puffing over the phone.
“On baby, you know how the fuck we comin’ behind our fallen soldier.”
“I’ll believe it when I fuckin’ see it, nigga.”
He hung up in Kilo’s face, and for a split second, I saw the fear creep out of his pores.
Lucci and Big X’s reach was far, especially since they had a direct line to Peanut. They were the only people who could get Pooh to make an appearance in the hood, and there was a reason niggas breathed easier when his mark ass stayed where he belonged.
“So you the colonel?” Fredo asked, folding his arms.
Kilo grabbed a blunt from his ashtray and lit up, nodding as he nearly sucked the blunt all the way into his mouth.
“Gee and Set gon’ continue to hold shit down for Tiny, but we breaking up Set’s crew. I need P-Nutty and Luney as my generals, along with Remy.”
He tacked on Remy as a courtesy. I held in my grin, but Peanut snorted, never giving a fuck.
All these older niggas were turnt down compared to us.
Kilo was in his thirties, still chasing skater dreams.
The rest of them were spread out in their twenties, and still couldn’t get shit popping foreal, not until we got on the scene.
And worse, they couldn’t do shit but hate, because not only were we all stamped, but they needed us.
Tiny could have gone to any gang in Kenton talking cash shit to get an army, but it was her connection with Boog and then her connection to Set that had her loyalties tied to us.
The money we made and her needing an army kept us with a healthy supply of guns, but muthafuckas were stupid as fuck, and had no knack for order or structure.
Until my nigga Peanut.
Petty squabbles were rampant, but Peanut got them niggas together, and now, the Babies were something in the streets again. Not yet how it was when Boog was alive, but we was getting there, off the back of niggas who still was in high school.
“Ty and Fade can go,” Set said, sparking up his own blunt.
“And Baby Nitemare,” I added.
“Ain’t that lil’ nigga like ten?” Gee chuckled.
“Got more heart than a lot of niggas,” Peanut gritted, cutting his eyes around the room.
I’d never tell anyone why me or Peanut wanted to keep lil’ Sean close. His pops was notorious in the Birch, but he was still a kid, and if he was under us, we could keep his ass at home with Set’s brother Shad and not out doing these niggas’ bidding.
They liked to put on younger niggas, and have them go on suicide missions. But we tried to keep the ones we knew personally as close as possible.
“Fuck it. But I need muthafuckas’ heads to roll before the weekend is over. I think that bitch Trina is spying for X–”
“She not, and chill on that.” I stood and stretched. “Trina got more heart than a lot of other niggas, too. We’ll have that for you before Sunday.”
Chyna pranced into the room with sodas on a tray. “Y’all leaving already? Wassup with you and Kisha, Luney? I never see you around here no more.”
I didn’t take the soda she offered, shoving my hands in my pockets instead.
“What you mean?” I ask, tilting my head.
She swallowed, trying to look sexy by biting her lip, though it didn’t land. “I mean, I’m not just trying to be in your business or anything–”
“Then don’t be.”
Flustered, she placed the sodas on the table and rushed out the room. In my periphery, I saw Fredo shake his head, but he ain’t like her ass either, so I knew he was holding in his jokes.
“Why you try to play my sister, nigga?” Kilo asked, acting like he was mad.
“He ain’t checking for yo’ fuckin’ sister, nigga,” Peanut gritted, standing with Set.
Kilo stood, too, clenching his jaw at him. I could see the mask falling at rapid speed, now that he was top dog.
But again, Peanut ain’t care about shit like that. He ain’t care about heirarchies, or niggas’ egos. If it wasn’t Set or anyone in our crew, it was up. Fellow gangers included.
“You gon’ let this nigga speak for you, Luney? Lil’ boying you?”
My lips spread as Kilo and Peanut shifted their gazes to me.
My teeth showed as one by one, I felt everyone else’s gazes, even Chyna from behind me, snap to me.
Fredo and I were one, but Peanut was my day one. We’d never so much as had a disagreement, at least not to their knowledge. I let Fredo speak for us, but I was by no means a punk ass nigga.
Not like how Kilo was insinuating.
But usually, when niggas temperature checked like this, you were supposed to go against the nigga lil’ boying you. I was supposed to boss up on Peanut, put the nigga in his place, let everyone know that I was my own man, and didn’t need no one speaking for me.
That’s how niggas like Kilo, Remy, and Gee operated.
Niggas were on top of the Babies, but had no sense of brotherhood. Couldn’t see past their inflated sense of self.
I gave it a year before they got themselves killed like Lem did. Two, maybe three, since I knew they’d be in the Birch while we did all the work. Hiding would buy them time, but they weren’t built to last. Not like my niggas.
“My Ace could never lil’ boy me just by speaking on what he know. You stay dangerous, though. Niggas dropping like flies ‘round here.” I winked at him, before walking out, knowing my niggas were right behind me.
“Stay dangerous? That shit hard as fuck! Couldn’t have come up with that shit on ya own,” Peanut cackled, throwing his arm around my neck as we walked outside the building.
“Come with me to holla at Tiny.”
Fredo sighed, but sped up to walk with Set. “You know I can’t stand that bitch.”
Set chuckled as Peanut led us toward his whip away from them.
“Make a run with me.” He released me as we rounded the back of his car.
The nigga was damn near vibrating as we got in. As the car warmed up, he sparked a blunt, taking long pulls before blowing smoke out of the cracked window.
“You straight, brodie?”
“On my mama if I could get away with it, I would go back up there and kill every one of them niggas, his ho ass sister included.”
He took another long pull. “Nigga just tried you and me, tryna pit us against each other ‘cause he want you under his wing.
Only reason he got me as a general was ‘cause Big X said so. Mark ass, scary ass, jealous ass nigga. Grown ass man, envious of some kids, my nigga. On my mama, as soon as I can, I’m taking his ass out. On God, I am.”
I sat there as I watched Peanut spell out meticulously just how he would end Kilo. After he faced one blunt, he was calm enough to peel out, but he kept the music off, opting to speak instead.
When Peanut got too hyped up, talking about the shit he would do to everyone who wronged him helped.
He’d name names I didn’t know, different feminine names of bitches who didn't exist in our world, but he’d still carve them up, light them on fire, bring them to the last moment of life and let them sit there.
I didn’t know if he shared these fantasies with our other friends or with Set.
When it wasn’t just us, and he’d get like this, he would shut down, listening to music and going mute.
We’d leave him be, knowing all too well the bullshit we carried with us, and trying to get back to a place where we could function.
But if it was just me and him, or if he could pull me away, he’d be the opposite. Talking so fast sometimes, I couldn’t hear him. Barely moving his lips as he spelled out each and every thing he wished he could do to niggas if he could get away with it.
I knew he was working on a plan. Talking out loud helped him create it. Peanut was the type of nigga that would always get his on the backend, even if it took years.
Kilo signed his death certificate trying him like that. All over some shit that meant less than nothing, because he knew he never wanted a nigga like me to break his sister down like only I would.
We pulled up to Sammy’s Burgers, where this nigga ordered enough food for two, before asking if I wanted anything. Bewildered, I recited my order, a double cheeseburger and a chocolate shake, before he paid and handed all the food to me.
“You my Ace, right?”