15. Elijah Montclair
Elijah Montclair
“Ya’ll niggas got me out of my bed on a Sunday morning, for what?
This better be some good news. Niggas popping up on me early in the morning like this, so I hope it’s some money on the line.
Ya’ll got some money for me?” my dad talked shit, as he made his way into the living room area, where I was sitting with my twin brother Elias to the right of me.
That mindset is what caused my parents to divorce.
It was a nasty divorce too because my mama wanted to file for full custody of us.
Although our pops sold dope, he also knew how to clean his money up, so coming in court, he portrayed himself as this successful, legitimate businessman, that had more than enough money to take care of his children.
My parents ended up with joint custody, so growing up, we would spend half of our time with our mom, and then the other half with our dad.
When we went with our mom, it was love, and nurturing.
When we went with our father, it was business almost. We knew he loved us, but he would show us tough love.
He didn’t want us growing up being soft.
He turned my brother and I into real men, handed us the key to the streets when we turned twenty, and we’ve been running shit since then.
I’m not going to sit here, and act like he gave us the key to the city, and we did a perfect job running it.
Nah. We’ve fucked up along the way. In fact, we were already on thin ice with my pops.
He felt like this was the most fuck ups that the Montclair organization has ever had, and he just told us the other month that if he didn’t see any progress in us, that he was going to shut the entire organization down if we didn’t get it together.
He felt like me, and Elias were playing with what the Montclair men had built before us.
He felt like we just weren’t running the organization in the same manner that the men before us ran it.
Niggas went around Miami making jokes about our product, saying that our shit was weak.
They claimed that it wasn’t what it used to be back in the days.
He told us that before he allowed us to run this shit into the ground, he’ll shut the entire organization down.
As much as I didn’t want to pull up on him right now, and share this fucked up news with him, we had to.
Something like this has never happened before, so Elias, and I felt stuck.
Niggas came and took our fuckin product.
Without product, we couldn’t move weight.
We couldn’t pay our supplier. That was a gamble with our lives, and me and my brother weren’t ready to die.
“Why this the kind of shit that you gotta be on with us, pops? Damn, we can’t just come over and talk to you? Why it gotta be about money all the time with you?” Elias was the one to respond back to our pops.
“Nigga, quit it with that motha fuckin whining. Sitting there sounding like a little bitch. I blame ya’ll mama for that shit.
She wanted to make ya’ll soft, but I did everything in my power to make sure that ya’ll didn’t go that route.
What’s going on? What ya’ll want to talk to me about? How’s business doing?” he shot.
This was just this man’s personality. He couldn’t help but to be tough all the time.
I don’t think my pops ever hugged me or my brother.
His version of showing us love or affection was knocking us in our chest, telling us to keep it up.
He wasn’t going to pull us in for a fatherly hug and let us know that he loved us.
Like I said, we got that love from our mom, not him.
He stood there, looking like he could be our triplet.
In his late fifties, but the nigga looked good.
He was in the gym heavy, and it showed as he sat on the arm of the couch shirtless, with just his pajama pants on.
His muscles were huge. He had a bald head, and I swear his head even had muscles in it.
I knew that he wasn’t going to like this conversation. No lie, I was scared. He just might find a belt and try to beat us with it. Better yet, this nigga might get a gun and try to kill us. This was the worst news that we’ve ever had to bring to the table.
I turned my head to look at my brother, and he sat his goofy ass there, scratching his head, and I knew that meant that he wanted me to tell it.
I made a whole fuckin plan with him on the ride over, telling him that he would start it out, and I would jump in.
I guess he changed his mind, so here I was, prepared to tell this man the worst news.
“We had a drop last Thursday. Big drop. Probably one of the biggest drops that we’ve had in months.
Me, and Elias were looking forward to this drop because we lost a lot of our corner boys, so we figured with this re-up, we could get new niggas in and wouldn’t have to worry about the ones that we lost. Pops, only like two minutes into the drop, a van swarmed in, niggas came running through the yard, busting their guns.
They stole our shit, and killed our men—”
“What? Motha fucka, what?” he barked, quickly getting up from where he was seated, and he walked over to both Elias and I.
He stood right in front of us, and I knew that the moment I finished with the story, he was going to nut up on us.
“They took our shit, man! Killed our men too!” I repeated that shit, and I promise I saw steam coming from out of his head.
This nigga drew his fist back, and he punched the shit out of me. Knocked me right in my left eye, immediately making my vision get blurry. Elias tried to back up on the couch, but our pops swung, knocking that nigga in his eye too.
“Niggas came to the drop, killed your men, and took your product is crazy. That’s the equivalent of letting a nigga strip you of your clothes, bend you over, and fuck you!
Them niggas came in and treated you like two hoes!
Who the fuck did this shit? They still alive to talk about it?
Please tell me that you two dumb motha fuckas aired that shit out! ” he roared.
When we didn’t answer him, he was smart enough to know that we didn’t air shit out, and we didn’t get our product back. This man went crazy on us, swinging his fist, and beating the shit out of us with just his hands alone. I was leaking blood from my mouth, nose, just about any place on my body.
“Who did it?” he roared, leaning into us because at this point, me, and Elias were on our ass on the floor.
“MBM,” Elias responded, blood dripping out of his mouth as he answered.
“Oh, hell nah. Ain’t no way ya’ll my motha fuckin sons.
Ain’t no way ya’ll carrying the Montclair bloodline on ya’ll backs.
Didn’t ya’ll just come to me a couple of months ago about issues that ya’ll were having with these niggas?
Ain’t these the same niggas that had one of their men come out to ya’ll corner, set up shop, and make serves?
That happened over a year ago, and ya’ll got these dudes being able to walk around and tell about it?
And what the fuck you mean when you say you lost some of your corner boys?
How do you lose corner boys?” I was hoping that he wasn’t going to bring that shit up, but he did.
“Them niggas just stopped coming into work. I haven’t seen them, but I know Dolo took them niggas up under him. That’s the kind of green ass shit that a nigga like him would do,” I was the one to answer.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen my dad look at us like this. You could see the disgust all in his eyes. It’s almost as if he was embarrassed that we were his sons.
“And them same niggas that he took probably gave him the hit on where the drop would be, and that’s why they were able to run into ya’ll shit, air it out, and take your product.
Ay man, this shit is embarrassing. When you running an organization, you have plenty of jobs, but the biggest job of all is to protect the fuckin drop.
Goofy ass niggas, you knew that ya’ll lost corner boys that got picked up by Dolo.
Ya’ll know that they were sitting on information about when and where the drops take place.
Ya’ll were supposed to switch up the fuckin location man.
That’s the kind of shit that you were supposed to have already known! ” he snapped.
My brother and I didn’t say anything. We would have been crazy to interrupt this nigga while he was talking.
“My great granddaddy built this organization from nothing. On his fuckin back. When the niggas before us was running it, they died with their names being well respected in the streets. The Montclair organization was powerful, and I handed it to you dumb ass niggas, and ya’ll going around making a mockery of this shit.
I won’t let ya’ll destroy this any further.
Shop is closed. Effective immediately. Go ahead and round up all your niggas and let them know that you don’t have any more work for them,” he finished, and that shit broke my heart.
I damn near started crying in here. I didn’t cry with the beat down, but listening to my father say that he was closing shop down, and we were no longer running it, that’s what damn near brought me to tears.
“Pops come on. We can fix this shit—”
“Motha fucka, fix what? There’s nothing to be fixed.
You don’t come back from shit like this.
You let them niggas take your men, run up inside your drop, kill every nigga standing, and then take your shit.
Them niggas are breathing! They can walk around and speak on this shit.
You cannot fix that. I hope… I really hope that ya’ll dumb asses wasn’t stupid enough to call Eduardo and tell him about this,” he went on to say.
Eduardo was our supplier. He was based in Colombia.
“Nah. We ain’t tell him yet,” Elias responded. My dad was so disgusted that he just stood there, letting out a sarcastic laugh, as he shook his head at us.
“Goofy ass niggas. What ya’ll going to do when it’s time to pay up?
Ya’ll have no product, which means ya’ll not about to make any money.
If you not making money, then you can’t pay him.
This man under the impression that ya’ll are about to push his shit out on the streets and then come back for more like ya’ll usually do.
Talking about you can fix it! Ya’ll aren’t in a position to fix shit right now.
The only position you two niggas are in is to get killed.
You, and every nigga that’s moving weight for ya’ll.
Get the fuck out and go tell your mama that you love her.
I might not ever see you niggas again after this shit,” he spat, and then he walked away.
He was one cold ass person. Heartless. He sounded like he didn’t give two fucks if Eduardo got a hold of us and killed us.
“We gotta get our drugs back, nigga. At this point in the game, if Eduardo gone kill us, at least let us go out killing Dolo first. We let him slip through too many cracks. We let him disrespect us too many times. We can’t go out like these pussies that pops trying to make us out to be,” Elias said to me.
I didn’t even have a response. I was angry. I was tired. I was feeling so many different emotions right now. I couldn’t say what the next move was going to be right now. I had to really process what our father just took away from us.