Family Over Everything (5 page)

It was one in the morning as Day'onne and Menace walked through Mt. Pleasant smoking marijuana and rapping Tupac lyrics. Both of them were dressed in their usual basketball shorts and
V-neck T-shirts. As they walked closer to their destination, Day'onne passed Menace the blunt as he continued to rap some of the lyrics from Tupac's “I Get Around.”

“Finger tips on her hips, as I dip, gotta get a tight grip, don't slip, loose lips sinks ships. It's a trip. I love the way she lick her lips, see me jocking. Put a little twist in her hips, cause I'm watching!”

“I don't know why you singing that part, bro. You know damn well you don't get any,” Menace joked.

“Yeah, okay. Yo momma ain't say that last night,” he replied as Menace passed the blunt back to him.

“Chill out with all that.”

“Don't get mad! But for real, is you ready to do this?” Day'onne asked before taking a long, deep pull of the blunt.

“Yeah, but you saying it like this the action; all we doing is buying guns!” Menace laughed as they walked up to a back door before knocking on it.

When the door finally opened, a big black man that went by the name Looney appeared in the doorway.

“What's up, little ones? What y'all here for?” Looney asked, scratching his potbelly.

Day'onne crunched his nose up in disgust. Looney, whose belly stuck out and hung low, was completely shirtless. His dark skin was decorated with even dark blotches. Day'onne almost vomited at the sight of him. “We here for some guns.”

“Take a step into my office then, boys,” Looney said as he moved out of the way and welcomed them into his basement. They were greeted by a fog of marijuana smoke, causing both of them to gasp for air. In the basement, a group of Looney's team sat around, smoking blunt after blunt. When the group noticed the two young boys, they began to clown them.

“What the hell y'all young asses doing in here? Ain't it past y'all bedtime?” Looney's right hand, Joker, joked.

Day'onne scowled at Joker, causing him to taunt them even more.

“Am I supposed to be scared of you? Take y'all little asses home!”

Day'onne and Menace ignored him as Looney led them to a nearby corner. Lifting up an orange milk crate and placing it onto a table, he sorted through the crate before pulling out several .9mm handguns.

“Pick which ones y'all like,” Looney said before backing away.

Day'onne studied each gun, focusing on the structure and style of them. Staring at a gold-plated .9mm that had an “L” carved on the handle, he picked it up. He instantly fell in love with the feeling of the heavy metal in his hands.

He knew with that gun, he'd have more power over people's lives than he did before.

“I want this one,” he said firmly.

“You think you can handle that, boy?” Looney joked.

Eyeing him with a frown and a demonic look on his face, Day'onne remained quiet and nodded.

“Alright, that'll be a buck. You take care of that. I only had one like that,” Looney said, taking the money out of Day'onne's hands.

Menace, on the other hand, chose a black-and-chrome .9mm with a silencer attachment. After paying Looney, the two boys were on their way.

A couple of days later, Day'onne and Menace stood in Menace's living room, dressed in all black and each carried a duffle bag. That night, they were on their first mission. They had spent the last two weeks plotting against a drug lord in Pittsburgh that went by the name of Jewels.

Jewels was a major drug dealer in the game and had been in the
industry for over a decade. If they got away with robbing him, they'd have more than enough money and drugs to start their new careers as drug dealers.

“You ready, bro?” Menace asked, twisting the silencer onto his gun.

Day'onne nodded, placing his gun into the pocket of his hoodie.

“Yeah, remember, Menace, this dude is not like the ones we usually rob. We have to be in and out. Shoot now, ask questions later, okay?”

“I already know, let's do this.”

Walking out of Menace's apartment, Day'onne and Menace went over their plan one last time before disappearing into the night. They walked up Penfort Street and placed their hoods over their heads. It was three in the morning and the street corners were still filled with hungry hustlers. Some hustlers were shutting down for the night, while others were just opening. Day'onne watched as a pearl-white BMW pulled up by them and a brown-skinned woman climbed out of it and staggered into the street and yelled obscenities to no one in particular. She had on a dirty, skimpy dress that hung loosely off of her gaunt body. As they walked closer to the woman, she looked straight into Day'onne's eyes, causing his heart to get caught into his throat.

Noticing the familiar light, slanted eyes on the woman, he realized that it couldn't be anyone else other than his biological mother.

“Hey, baby, want to have a good time tonight? I'll suck your dick,” Relisha said in a drunken slur.

Reaching into the pocket of his hoodie and grabbing a hold of his gun, he clutched it as he tried his best to fight back his tears.

Even though he'd never seen his biological mother a day in his life, this woman before him had to be her. He'd heard stories of his mother being not only a cocaine addict, but also a prostitute.
And from the seldom nervous feeling that arose from within, Day'onne knew this was the infamous Relisha.

He clenched down on his jaw, trying to suppress his anger. It took all the strength in his body for him not to pull out his gun and shoot her.

“Get the fuck out of here you, dirty bitch!” Menace spat harshly.

“Well, forget y'all too, then!” she yelled as she turned and walked away.

Day'onne continued to walk toward his destination with Menace following behind him. He wanted to run the opposite way and fall into Relisha's arms and cry, but with a glare on his face and too much pride in his heart, he gritted his teeth as he turned his attention back to the task at hand.

As they walked toward one of Jewels' major drug houses, he looked over at Menace and said, “Here we go, bro. You sure you ready?”

“I was born ready. Let's do this.”

As they approached the back door of the house they were targeting, they saw a small group of hustlers dressed in all black, guarding it. Jewels' watchmen stood on high alert and carried huge shotguns, on the lookout for anything suspicious.

Hiding behind a bush, they squatted down and pulled out their guns. Taking a deep breath, Day'onne nodded to Menace before standing to his feet, raising his .9mm and pulling the trigger. When one of the workers fell to the ground, both of them stepped from behind the bushes and continued to fire their weapons.

Caught off-guard by the sudden attack, the small group was too slow to retaliate. The bullets were coming at them fast and each person was dropping like flies.

Day'onne and Menace continued to fire at them until each and every one of them were down. Moving closer to the door, they
looked at the bodies they'd riddled with bullets. Neither felt any remorse as they pumped more bullets into them, making sure they were permanently silenced.

Walking into the drug house, both of them stayed low on their feet with their guns raised.

“Yo, Cash, is that you?” one of Jewels' workers, Vince, asked before taking a long pull of his blunt.

Vince, who'd been one of Jewels' workers for a couple of years, sat at a table smoking and drinking. He was too drunk to notice the two young thugs in front of him. Day'onne aimed his gun at him and pulled the trigger.

Brain matter and blood splattered everywhere on Day'onne and Menace, causing their stomachs to turn. Ignoring the blood, though, they then placed their guns into their hoodies, pulled the duffle bags from over their shoulders, and started to stuff anything they could possibly lay their hands on, into the bags. They packed everything from stacks of money, to cocaine bricks into the duffle bags until they were filled to capacity. Once they were done, they turned to leave until they heard someone running down the basement steps.

“What the fuck is going on, man?” Vince's best friend, Cash, yelled.

Startled by the sudden outburst, Day'onne and Menace threw the duffle bags over their shoulders and ran out of the back door. As Day'onne ran out of the basement, he didn't notice his .9mm fall out of his hoodie's pocket.

Before Cash could grasp the situation, Day'onne and Menace had already disappeared into the hot, summery night.

My struggles,

A young black man misunderstood and judged because of the color of my skin.

My struggles,

Build up pain and blinded by rage.

My struggles,

Blind insanity, imagining perfect pictures of my family and I,

But it isn't perfect at all.

My struggles,

The simple understanding of not knowing my struggles,

So you couldn't understand my hunger for success.

My drive.

Determination.

My struggles,

Northview Heights.

The place where I was born and raised.

The place where I endured my hurt.

Pain.

My struggles,

The place where I saw too many things happen beyond my young age.

My struggles,

Northview Heights.

The place where I had millions of memories that could make or break me.

My struggles . . .

Deion sat at his desk at school, writing in his journal. He reread the short poem he had just written, slightly dissatisfied. He had spent all afternoon trying hard to come up with the best scenario to start a novel, but it was to no avail.

“Mr. Jenkins, what do you have there that is so important for you not to pay attention in class?” Deion's tenth-grade literature teacher, Ms. Younger, asked, folding her arms across her chest and raising her eyebrows.

Deion glanced around the classroom, noticing he was the only student left.

He was so drawn in by his writing, he didn't notice that the bell had rung.

“Oh, I'm sorry, Ms. Younger. I was . . .”

“Let me take a look at that,” she said before grabbing the notebook off of his desk and interrupting him. Deion watched as she silently read the poem to herself. Ms. Younger was a Caucasian, short woman with piercing blue eyes. She had long brown hair that was cut into professional layers. As she delicately held his notebook in her hands, like it was an infant, he continued to gaze at her, loving the sight of her smooth, white skin.

When she closed his notebook, he asked with concern, “What? You don't like it?”

Remaining silent, Ms. Younger bent down next to him, wrapped her arms around his shoulders, giving him a hug. “Wow, Mr. Jenkins! You have a gift! Where did you learn how to write like that?”

Side-eyeing her, he skeptically replied, “I don't know. But you really liked it?”

“Yes! You need a bit of work and practice, but you're definitely on your way. I'm very impressed, Deion.”

Her words caused him to flash a bright smile.

“Thank you. I'm trying to write a book, but I can't. It's too hard.” He shrugged.

Stepping in front of his desk and kneeling down, she grabbed Deion by his arm and glanced into his eyes. “Never say you can't do something, young man. You can do it. I refuse to believe that the sky is the limit when there are footprints on the moon. Deion, God has blessed you with an amazing gift and in due time, you can let the world know. For you to be this young and writing like this, imagine how talented you'll be years from now.”

“You're right but where do I begin, Ms. Younger? How can I write a book?”

Tapping her freshly manicured nails against her slim chin, she snapped her fingers. “If you stay three days a week after school, I can help you.”

Nodding, he stood up and thanked her.

“You have to promise me a few things, Deion.”

“What's that?”

“That you'll try your best and don't let that brother of yours influence your decisions.”

“I promise, Ms. Younger. I promise,” he said before walking out of the classroom.

When Deion walked into the cafeteria, he pulled out his music player, plugged his headphones into his ears and got lost in the ballistic lyrics Tupac spat to him. He bobbed his head to the music as he opened his notebook and went to work. He wrote and wrote and wrote.

The loud, obnoxious teenagers around him didn't faze him at all. He blocked out his surroundings and got lost into the imaginary world of his writing, making love to the paper with his pen. He allowed all of the pain he had built up in his heart to pour out onto the paper. Just as he was finishing his poem, he felt someone tap him on his back.