Chapter 9
The knocking started at eight in the morning and didn’t stop. I was pissed off being woke up out my damn sleep.
I laid there for a full minute thinking whoever it was would get the hint and leave. They didn’t. The knocking just got louder and more frequent like the person on the other side of my door had nowhere else to be and all the time in the world to stand there and piss me off.
I already knew who it was before I even got up. Only one nigga was bold enough to stand there and do some bullshit like that. I pulled myself out of bed with every muscle in my body reminding me what Champ had put on me two nights ago.
My ribs were the worst of it — every time I moved wrong a sharp pain shot through my left side that made me catch my breath.
My jaw was still swollen a little, the cut above my eye had scabbed over, and my knuckles were bruised from the work I’d put in on Champ’s body for five rounds.
I felt every bit of twenty two years old and then some.
I unlocked the door and pulled it open and Gutta was standing there grinning like he’d won something.
“Why.” I said it flat.
“Good morning to you too my nigga.” He walked past me into the apartment without being invited like he had been doing his whole life and I pushed the door shut and stood there looking at him.
“It’s eight in the morning Gutta. And you bringing that shit to my door.”
“I know what time it is.”
“Then you know this is not a normal time to be at somebody crib dude!”
“I got something for you and I wasn’t gone wait all day to give it to you.” He held up the backpack and set it on my kitchen counter and unzipped it and he stepped back. “Open it.”
I looked at him and then looked at the bag and walked over, I looked inside.
Stacks of money. Neat, rubber banded, organized the way Gutta organized everything he touched.
“That’s thirty thousand dollars,” he said. “That’s all yo money back.”
I stepped back from the bag. “Where did this come from?”
“Does it matter?”
“Gutta. Come on mane. Answer the question.”
“Street.” He matched my tone exactly. “You went into that cage two nights ago with thirty thousand dollars of debt over your head and you fought like your life depended on it because it did. You put Champ on his ass and you got your forty thousand. You stood on yo word and you paid Tavarus what you owed him. Now, you got nothing left to show for any of it.” He pointed at the bag.
“That’s yours. You fought too hard not to be able to enjoy your own winnings.
All you need to know is that is the money you earned. ”
“I’m not taking money from you.”
“You not taking it from me. I’m giving it to you. Different thing.”
“That’s the same thing.”
“It really ain’t.” He zipped the bag back up and picked it up and held it out toward me. “Stop being lame nigga and take the bag.”
I looked at him standing there with his arm extended and that expression on his face that he got when he had already decided how something was going to go and was just waiting for everybody else to catch up.
I had seen that expression my whole life.
I knew what it meant. He wasn’t leaving without me taking this bag and arguing with Gutta was something that never ended the way I wanted it to.
I took the bag.
He smiled. Not the big overly dramatic smile he did when he was showing off. The real smile that said he really wanted me to have this shit. Small and genuine, the kind that showed only when something actually mattered to him.
I grabbed the back of his neck and pulled him in for a big ass hug and we held it for a second.
This was my fuckin’ brother and this was the realest shit a nigga ever could have done.
I had already counted that money out and here he was, giving it all back to me.
Me and Gutta didn’t need speeches. Never had.
When I stepped back he was already moving toward the door.
“Get dressed,” he said.
“For what?” I asked. This nigga never planned shit ahead of time, but always expected me to jump up.
“We got somewhere to be.”
“Mannn, it’s eight in the morning and my whole body hurt like a muthafucka still.”
“I know. Get dressed anyway.”
—
When I made it outside, Gutta drove me to the other side of town to a stretch of abandoned apartment buildings that had been empty for years.
The kind of place the city forgot about and nobody came to unless they had a specific reason to be around that muthafucka.
We pulled around the back and I could see two of Gutta’s runners posted up outside a ground floor unit with their hands visible and their eyes scanning everything.
I looked over at Gutta.
He was looking straight ahead with that flat expression he wore when he was in business mode.
“What is this,” I said.
“You’ll see.”
We got out and walked to the unit, one of the runners pushed the door open and stepped aside. I walked in first.
The three men from my alley were zip tied to chairs in the middle of the empty apartment.
Wrists behind their backs, ankles secured, heads up because they had heard us come in.
The one whose nose I had broken at my building had two black eyes and dried blood still caked around his nostrils.
All three of them looked at me when I walked in and I watched what happened in their faces when they realized who I was.
The one in the middle, the one who had pressed the gun to my temple.. he kept his face the straightest. But even he couldn’t keep that fearful look out of his eyes completely.
Gutta came in behind me and stood near the door.
“My men snatched them up when they were leaving the warehouse last night,” he said. “A couple of hours after we walked out. They been here since.”
I stood in the middle of that room and looked at all three of them and let the silence sit for a moment. My ribs were still screaming from the fight but I barely felt them right now. Gutta did exactly what needed to be done without me having to explain shit to him. Yeah, I was still on that.
“Back up,” Gutta told his runners and they stepped away from the men and gave me the room.
I started with the one on the left. Untied his wrists from behind the chair, stood him up and he came up swinging.
I let him swing because that first one missed and then I took over.
I put three punches on him that sat him back down on the floor, then I picked him up and did it again until he stopped trying to get up.
I beat his ass so damn bad, he was visibly dizzy.
Then I moved to the one on the right and did the same thing. No weapons. No anger on my face because real violence didn’t need a face. It was just work that I put in on the asses.
The one in the middle — the one with the gun — I saved him for last.
I untied him, waited til he stood up and he looked at me straight which I respected even then.
“You put a gun to my head,” I said.
He didn’t say anything.
“You came to my house. Where I sleep. You brought yo bold ass to my shit and put a gun to my head.”
Still nothing.
“I want you to know something.” I rolled my neck and felt it crack. “Tavarus can’t save you fuck niggas. My business with him is done, but you niggas are a whole other story.”
I worked him over for damn near ten full minutes and when I was done he was on the ground with the other two. I knew they’d heard what I have done to niggas in the streets, but still made it their mission to try me. I straightened up and rolled my shoulders. I looked at Gutta.
Gutta stepped forward and looked down at all three of them.
“Y’all hear me,” he said. Not loud or extra, but his voice was stern.
Gutta never needed to be loud. He was killer by nature.
“We know where you stay. We know your people. We know your mamas address, your baby mama address, we know your kids school. That’s not a threat — that’s just letting you know how close we can get if you play stupid.
Let this shit go.” He crouched down so he was level with the one in the middle.
“You go back to Tavarus, you tell him his money was paid and business is done but if he think about being on some fuck shit in the future, shit will go sour, quick.
“I’ll take the silence,” Gutta said and walked toward the door.
I looked at the three of them on that floor one more time and shook my damn head. Them niggas was only hard when they had another nigga giving them orders. Lame ass, fuck niggas.
Then I walked out.
—
Gutta took me to Waffle House on the way back across town because I hadn’t eaten.
The nigga woke me up out my damn sleep, so this was the least that he could do.
My body needed something after what it had just gone through on top of the lingering pain that I already had.
We took a booth near the window and I ordered enough food to feed two people.
As soon as the food made it to the table, I started eating before Gutta even finished ordering.
We didn’t talk about the apartment. Didn’t need to. This was regular shit to us.
“So Simone texted me this morning,” Gutta said over his coffee.
“Already?” I asked, I didn’t think Simone would be entertaining this nigga. I mean, he’s chased her for years.
“What you mean already. You saw how she looked at me. You saw that damn kiss too. We been talking since that night.”
“I saw how yo ass was pressing her hard and she finally got wore down.” I joked.
“Same thing.” He was smiling again. That real one. “I told her we’d probably be over this way this morning.”
I looked up from my food. “You told her to come here?”
“I told her we’d probably be over this way.
If she happened to show up that ain’t got nothing to do with me.
” his ass lied. I knew by his tone that he’d told that girl exactly where to come and when.
He was a sucka for that shit. Sprung ass nigga.
Would probably never even get the pussy from her in this lifetime.