Chapter 17
Tavion ‘Tank’ Briggs
Confessions From My Cousin
I’ve always boasted on being able to pretty much do anything, saying how my pop- pop had instilled a lot of lessons into me, but nothing could fix this. All I could really do was be there for her and offer myself to her in any way that she was going to need me.
When Dionne hit me the other day, I thought that she was calling me to let me know that she was about to head back to my crib.
I didn’t think I was going to answer the phone to her screaming, telling me that someone had killed her dog.
When she called me, I was still at the shop, but I dropped everything that I was doing, so that I could head to her.
When I got there, the cops were there, and they were questioning Dionne, along with the workers at the pet care spot.
I saw the video of the man that had come, and requested the dog, and I’d never seen him before in my life, and neither had Dionne.
I even heard the audio, and that was some freaky ass shit because it did sound like Dionne’s voice from the footage that we saw.
With all this modern-day technology, there really is no telling how they were able to do that shit.
When Dionne and I got back to her condo, she asked me if I believed that Renee would have something to do with this.
I had to tell her that Renee’s brain wouldn’t go that far to pull some shit off like this.
Renee was a hood bitch. She didn’t know shit about getting someone to come to Dionne’s condo, and take her damn dog, so I quickly winged her out.
Dionne told me that she wasn’t beefing with anyone, and she didn’t know anyone that would want to kill her dog.
She brought up her ex-nigga, which was the married man that she was fuckin around with, but she winged him out too, saying that he was the one that bought the dog for her, so he wouldn’t go to these extremes to have Bagel killed.
I was fast with my questions, asking her when was the last time that she saw that nigga, and she was stumbling with her story. I don’t know if she was still shaken up because of the shit that had gone down, but the shit that she was telling me about the last time that she saw him wasn’t connecting.
I was deep in thought, thinking about a lot of shit, when my business phone started ringing. It was Chris, the head manager at my Pure 24k location in Miami hitting me. He’d closed the store tonight, so I’m sure he was just calling to give me an update on how everything went.
“What’s up?” I answered for him, putting the phone to my ear.
“We’re leaving now. Closed successfully.
Ay man, I don’t know where you found this Favor cat from, but he’s probably the hardest working nigga that we got here.
He be busting his ass. He stayed back, helping me close the store.
We were stocking the shelves, and he helped us wrap that shit up fast,” Chris told me, and that made me smile because I was scared to put Favor on when he came to me, asking for a job.
I just knew that niggas would come home from prison, and feel like something was owed to him, and that’s how beef tended to start. Favor didn’t come home on none of that shit though. He was putting in major work, coming in on time, and he didn’t slack off, simply because he knew me.
“I like that. Yeah, train that nigga up, show him all the ropes because when I open this new location, I’ll make him the manager there if he keeps it up.
I got history with Favor. I grew up with him.
Nigga used to be heavy in the streets. Did some dumb ass shit a few years ago, and he went to prison for it.
He came home, and it was hard for him to find a decent paying job, so he asked if he could work for me, and I put him on.
Glad to see the nigga doing his job,” I responded.
“Oh yeah. He doing one hell of a job. You real for giving him a chance,” Chris let me know.
He then went on to tell me how smooth the closing process was today, and that he would be back first thing tomorrow morning. We wrapped our conversation up, and the second one phone call ended, my personal phone was ringing.
Rico was hitting me. I accepted his call, putting it on speaker, sitting the phone on the table.
“What’s good?” I answered.
“Shit. You home? I need to talk to you about something,” he replied, and through his voice, you could pick up on the heaviness of it. I could tell that something was bothering Rico since the football game.
Rico and his team have lost games before, but he’s never been this mad about it, and he’s never shut down like this.
When we all saw him after the game, he came out with blood shot red eyes, and he didn’t even want to talk.
I could sense that he was battling something deeper, and I knew that whenever he was ready to talk about it, he would hit my phone, and here he was.
“Yeah. I’m here. You good?” I asked.
“Man, it’s a lot. I’ll tell you when I get over there. I’m about ten minutes out,” he let me know.
“Aight. I’ll be here,” and like that, he hung up.
I finished doing what I was doing on the laptop, and in exactly ten minutes, the doorbell was ringing.
I got up, slipped my slides on, and I walked through the house, going over to the door, and Rico was standing on the other side, with his hands in his pockets, hoodie over his head, looking like he’d just lost his best friend.
I reached my hand out, slapped it up with him, and he came inside. He looked down at the floor, seeing a pink pair of Chanel sandals, and he looked back up at me.
“Somebody here?” he asked.
“My girl upstairs in the room, sleeping,” I told him, and he smiled.
“Nigga, for as long as I’ve known you, I have never in my life heard you refer to a woman as your girl. So, that fine ass dark skinned woman that you were with at my game the other night, that’s you?” he asked, and I laughed.
“You saw her, right nigga? Why wouldn’t that be me?” I asked him, and this time, he laughed.
“You right. Let’s go out back and talk. The shit I gotta tell you is heavy,” he told me.
I led the way to the back. I took the lock off the sliding door, and I decided to walk over to the gazebo.
It was a high-top table over here, and I took a seat in one of the chairs, and Rico did the same.
He removed his hoodie from his head, showing off his fresh braids.
There was a faraway look in his eyes, as he looked at everything, but me.
I wasn’t going to rush him to talk. I would let him share what was heavy on his mind, whenever he was ready.
With a sigh, and running his hand down his face, that’s when he eventually looked me in my eyes.
“I fucked up. I fucked up bad, and I’m in the middle of some deep shit,” he started. I didn’t say anything because I wanted him to just go ahead and get it all out.
“I don’t even know where to start. You remember that nigga Tobias that I used to tell you about? The one I played ball with in high school?” he asked.
“Yeah. The hating ass nigga that got hurt, right?” I asked, remembering who he was talking about. He nodded, letting me know that I was right.
“I saw him last year at a house party that I went to. Nigga was mugging me the whole night from across the room, talking shit, saying how the Hurricanes were sorry. He had been trying to get a reaction out of me the entire night. I could sense that I needed to get the fuck out of that house before I put my hands on that nigga, so I went on the porch. The dudes Toby, and Jax that pulled up to grandma’s house the other day were on the porch.
I’d come to the party with them. As I’m on the porch, Tobias came outside, bringing the bullshit out there.
Next thing you know, me and this nigga started fighting.
It was a real-life street fight. He was picking up shit, trying to kill my ass with it. Toby put a gun in my hand and….
His voice just trailed off.
“You killed that nigga?” I asked it in a harsh whisper.
When I asked him that, he looked me deep into my eyes, but he didn’t say anything.
His silence was everything though. I stood up from the chair, putting my hands behind my head, thinking about the possibility of this shit one day coming out, and my cousin going to prison for murder. That shit would break me down.
“Toby and Jax made me leave. They handled it. Them niggas in the streets, so they were able to get someone to come and clean the body up and—”
“Man, I don’t trust that shit! That nigga knew what the fuck he was doing when he put that motha fuckin gun in your hand!
If it was just a fight, it should have stayed a fight!
You ain’t never been in the streets, Rico!
Nigga, I have. I know when I’m standing next to a fuckin snake, and that’s the vibes that I got from them two niggas in that car when they pulled up, looking for you.
That Toby nigga had me feeling like I was looking in the eyes of the devil!
What’s the coincidence that you go with them niggas to a house party, and a nigga that you were once beefing with in high school is there, ya’ll end up fighting, and a gun is put in your hand to kill him?
Man, that shit sound like a set-up, and a trap to keep your ass in fuckin line with them.
They not going to just clean up a dead body and not expect nothing from you in return.
What the fuck them niggas want from you?
” my voice roared, angry as hell because I called this shit the other day when I saw them.
I felt it in my gut that something wasn’t right.