4. Riot St. James
Riot St. James
“I’ll be back. Ima stand outside,” I announced to my cousins, standing up, putting my hands inside the track pants pockets that I was wearing, ready to cut through them, so that I could stand outside on the back patio.
“No. Sit your ass right here. The last time we all went out together, and you stepped away to use the restroom, your ass was beating a bitch ass, and you had to go to jail for it,” my cousin, Janiyah snapped on me, reaching her hand up, so that she could pull my arm, and prevent me from leaving.
My natural reflexes were to snatch my arm away from her and slap this bitch down for pulling on me like that. I didn’t do that though. I did snatch my arm away from her and look at her ass like she was crazy.
“Chill the fuck out! I’m grown. I don’t need a bitch telling me where the fuck I can and can’t go. Fuck wrong with you?” I snapped.
I only went so hard because Janiyah was the cousin that swore she was my mama.
She was older than me by one year, so with that, she felt like she was the boss of my some.
She’s been this way since we were kids. I just had to snap on her ass yesterday because we all went over to my grandparents’ house for dinner, and there she was, trying to run some shit, boss me around, telling me what I needed to be doing, now that I was free.
Don’t get me wrong, everyone had been getting on me since my release date, telling me that I needed to watch my temper, change my lifestyle around, and things like that, and I’ve taken everything into consideration that everyone had been telling me, even though I still planned to live my life the way that I saw fit.
I didn’t like the way Janiyah came at me.
You would think that after the way I had to snap on her yesterday that she would stop trying to tell me how to live my life, but I guess not.
“Niyah, chill out. You don’t gotta keep policing her like that. Every time she make a move, you don’t gotta treat her like her actions going to land her on a prison bus. Let her vibe. Go Bean,” Ari defended me, so that I wouldn’t have to continue doing it.
I cut through Ari, Janiyah, and my other cousin, Zaria.
Janiyah and Zaria were sisters. They were my auntie Erica’s daughters.
Like I already mentioned, Janiyah was only a year older than me, while me and Zaria were the same age.
My auntie Katrina was the baby, and she didn’t have any children.
I was going to be just like that. I’ve known since I was a kid that I’ve never wanted any children of my own.
I love children though. I’m good with kids, but I knew that with the life that I was living, I would be reckless, and foolish to bring kids out into this world.
I hated that I had to step outside, but it was too much going on in here.
The artist, Elani, I actually fucked with her music, and I planned to stream some of her songs once I made it back home.
Prior to tonight, I’ve never heard of her.
According to Ari, she was a new artist that just started putting out music about six months ago.
Since I was locked up, I didn’t get the chance to find out about her until now.
Because my cousin was in the club scene, working as a bottle girl, Ari knew just about everybody.
Elani had invited Ari out to the event tonight, telling her to bring whoever.
I had no intentions of coming out with my cousins.
My mood has been down since yesterday, and that’s why I wanted to stay in the house tonight.
I felt like I was floating. Crazy because I was free, no longer locked up, so you would think that I would be on a high from that, but I wasn’t.
Yesterday, after leaving the kick back at my grandparents’ house, I tried hitting Gold.
The first time I called him, my call went straight to voicemail, so I got in my head, feeling like the nigga might have blocked me or some shit.
I called him right back, and he answered that time, but when he did, he answered on the last ring.
I felt like Gold was giving me the runaround.
He told me that he was out of town, handling business, and that he would hit me when he made it back to the city.
I’ve worked for this nigga in the past, while he would be out of town on business, so I didn’t understand why shit was different this time around.
Because I wasn’t confidant that the nigga was going to call me back when he made it back home, I ended up texting him this afternoon, reminding him to hit me back, and instead of texting right back, he just liked the message.
I was in my head terribly. To be gone for a year from the streets was a long ass time.
The world kept moving while I was locked up.
With Gold’s organization, I knew that all kinds of plays were made, people were replaced, and new positions were filled.
I wasn’t sure if he’d given my position away.
Right before I went in to do my time, I had just gotten in good with Gold, and he was moving me around the organization, which was good because it’s almost like he was taking me up under his wing, preparing me for something big.
He had me working as a transporter. Basically, I was responsible for moving product and money from different traps.
If I wasn’t doing that, then he would have me in different trap houses, where I was responsible for holding product, breaking down dope, and distributing it to runners.
With the position that he’d put me in, I was making good money, but right before I could reach my full potential, I let that bitch at the club take me out of my body, quickly ending the money train that I was on with Gold.
Before I’d gotten locked up, I had money tucked away at Ari’s crib.
I came back to a few bands. My cousin didn’t touch my money.
Although it was a few bands, I knew that I couldn’t live off that shit forever.
I needed to get back to work, but the way Gold was dodging me, giving me the runaround, I didn’t know if that was going to happen anytime soon.
That shit was heavy on my mind, as I finally made it outside, and I stood on the back terrace.
I walked over to the glass railing, that ran along the edge, and from here, I had the perfect view of the water.
Not too far away from me, there was an infinity pool, and I stared at that for a little bit, knowing that a lot of money had to go into creating that pool.
After staring at that for a little while, I looked ahead of me, falling in love with the Brickell skyline. This was the kind of shit that I wanted to hustle hard for. I wanted to trap so hard, put so much time in the streets that these kind of views could be the norm for me.
There was only a few other people standing out here with me, since the party was inside.
I stood, with my hands in my pockets, deep in thought, when the sound of someone walking up on me caught my attention.
I turned my head around, so that I could see who it was, and it was Elijah.
He was a member of Dem’ 9 boyz. Out of all the people that could have walked up on me, it just had to have been his ass, and that’s why I rolled my eyes when I saw him.
He found it humorous that I’d rolled my eyes at him because he laughed, and he posted up on the railing, facing me.
“Why it gotta be all that? Why every time I come around you, you gotta be so mean to a nigga?” he asked me.
A couple of years ago, when I turned nineteen, my cousins threw a party for me at the club.
No idea why they thought that I would want to spend my 19th birthday at the club, being as though all that club shit that people do, I have never been on that.
I didn’t drink, nor did I smoke. I didn’t even like people like that to want to have a big party at the club, but they threw one anyways, and it was open to the public.
That was the first night that I met Elijah.
He’s been trying to shoot his shot with me ever since.
I just wasn’t interested. I wasn’t interested in him, or any other nigga for that matter.
The thing is, he wasn’t an ugly dude. Him, and his twin brother Elias were both very handsome.
Beautiful chocolate skin, and they both had long locs in their hair that they kept maintained.
A hood nigga, which is exactly what I saw myself with if that day ever came that I settled down.
Other than that, there wasn’t anything about him that made me want to take him up on his offer.
I would prefer a nigga that wasn’t always in the middle of some shit. Him, and his crew stayed in some bullshit, and someone in his circle was always getting killed, so I would just rather stay far the fuck away from him.
“Because you act like you don’t understand what no means,” I shot, taking my eyes off the beautiful view for a second, so that I could stare at him.
I had to look up at him as I talked to him because he was much taller than me. Granted, damn near everyone was always much taller than me, but Elijah was super tall, almost like a basketball player. Even with me snapping on him, he was smiling, unfazed by my rant.
“I ain’t even come over here to fuck with you like that. I didn’t know you were home. I saw your cousins, so I went over there to talk shit with him, and I asked them about you. Ari told me that you came outside. You good though?” he wanted to know.
“I’m fine,” I responded, keeping my answer short, and not telling him the truth.