Authors: Clever Black
Naomi answered and saw Martha standing before her with a face full of
tears. Tiva had called from Mercy Hospital in Saint Louis and had
given her the news and she ran out of the theater room up to Naomi’s
room. No words were spoken as Naomi leaned into Martha and hugged her
neck tightly.
“I want in,” Martha said as she rocked Naomi’s
body. “I can’t let nothing else happen to my family.”
“We got hit tonight,” Naomi said somberly.
“I heard. But you heard what
I
said, right? Let me in,
sis.”
Naomi led Martha back into the master suite where Kimi and Koko were
standing in the center of the room fumbling their hands. They’d
called their father’s phone, Dawk, Bay and Tiva’s phones
also, but neither picked up. Seeing Martha trailing their mother let
them know something serious was going on because no one inside the
bedroom had even notified her. The look on Naomi’s face told
her daughters that they’d better not ask what happened again
and they should leave immediately, only their legs wouldn’t
allow them to do so; they had to know.
“Get everybody together,” Naomi told Kimi and Koko as she
walked towards her desk. “Call Regina, and Mary and have
everybody wait for me in the theater room.”
DeeDee entered the bedroom while Kimi and Koko were headed out, his
presence only adding to their anxiety. The twins knew something
serious had gone down, they just didn’t know who was involved,
nor could they ever imagine the scope of the tragedy. They left to
fulfill their mother’s request, rounding up the family in order
to sit and wait on news they were sure was more bad than good.
“Who told you two?” Naomi asked as DeeDee locked the
door.
“Tiva called me. She said Bena undergoing surgery for a bullet
to her skull. Doss, Doss was killed instantly, Naomi.”
DeeDee stood with his head bowed. “Junior said an ambulance
pulled alongside the Suburban and opened fire. They were gunning for
the jeep.”
Naomi sat down at her desk and crossed her legs and looked towards
the floor. “Who would have the ability to touch us in this
manner, DeeDee?” she asked as she rubbed her forehead in
anguish.
“We’ve all but wiped out Carmella’s crew,”
DeeDee answered somberly. “My first hunch would be the Somalis,
but they would have had to have had help. How would they know to hit
us on this day? We weren’t even operating. Doss was only
looking into the night club he planned on opening.”
DeeDee’s cell phone rung at that moment and he answered. “How
are you, il mio amico?” Mendoza asked.
“Not good, my friend. This is a big deal.”
“Tiva called me. I know everything. Me and Francine are flying
out of Montana in the morning. That thing? Now’s the time.”
“You sure?”
“I’ve made a miscalculation, Doss. This has to end soon.”
“We’ll talk when you get here,” DeeDee said before
hanging up the phone. “The Cernigliaros will be here tomorrow,
Naomi.”
Naomi only nodded. “I have to tell the children. How,”
Naomi said as she covered her heart with her hand. “How in the
world can I tell the family this news? What, what will I say?”
“Me and DeeDee will stand with you,” Martha said. “And
anything,
anything
you need me to do to set things straight
I’m on board. I don’t want to hear no objections, and I
have to know everything you two know—and I’m not taking
no for an answer.”
“Nobody’s going to deny you, Martha. We’ll bring
you up to date later,” Naomi responded calmly through her
tears. “I’ve lost my husband, and Bena is barely clinging
on to life.”
“Everybody responsible for this calamity will answer
eventually,” DeeDee said lowly.
“They will, DeeDee. But now isn’t the time. Let’s
go tell the family the bad news.” Naomi said as she eased up
from her seat, grabbed a couple of medium-sized gift-wrapped boxes
and led the way down towards the theater room.
*******
“What’s going on?” Dimples asked as she walked into
the theater room with Tak and her son, Tacoma following. “Kimi
what’s going on?”
Kimi and Koko couldn’t hold back their tears after gathering
everybody together; there relentless crying had the family on edge.
Mary kept asking her nieces what happened, but they honestly didn’t
know, and Kimi and Koko weren’t going to speculate. They sat on
the front row dabbing their wet eyes as the rest of the family
speculated on the contents of the impromptu meeting.
Walee was on the row behind Kimi and Koko. He didn’t have a
clue what this meeting was all about, but it wasn’t right in
his eyes. He sat quietly with his arms around Spoonie and Tyke, who
sat on either side of him fidgeting their hands and crying in
silence, their tears brought on by Kimi and Koko’s incessant
weeping.
The family was all trying to figure out the reason for the meeting,
the young five all shedding tears, when Naomi, Martha and DeeDee
entered the room. DeeDee sat on the second row beside Tyke while
Martha went and sat beside Mary. Naomi went and stood before the
group, her eyes scanning the room, looking down upon her family,
knowing very well their lives would be forever changed in just a few
moments.
Kimi and Koko eyed their mother as she stepped forward and handed
them each a box. “Doss, umm, Doss wanted Kimi and Koko to have
these gifts.” Naomi said aloud, silencing the family and
forcing their eyes to the front of the room where she stood.
Kimi and Koko eyed one another confusedly before they opened the
boxes and discovered they each had received a number eighteen
Oklahoma Sooners jersey with their names on the back engraved in
diamonds. Koko smiled over her gift as she wiped her tears. Kimi
looked up to her mother and thanked her lowly.
“He really wanted to you two have those, Kimi.” Naomi
said through a smile.
“Where is he?” Koko asked as she began heaving.
“Family,” Naomi said as she eyed the group.
DeeDee began welling up at that moment. When Martha leaned forward
and hid her face and began heaving, Mary began crying; she now sensed
that this meeting was bad—all bad.
Twiggy sat to the back of the room by herself praying, praying that
what she felt in her heart was only an assumption, but when she heard
Naomi say aloud, “Doss was killed tonight in Saint Charles,
Missouri,” she screamed aloud, as did others in the family.
Spoonie and Tyke stood up and covered their lower faces. Regina was
stunned to silence. Martha screamed aloud at that moment. “Bay!”
she yelled.
“What? What happened to Bay?” Kimi asked. Bay was Kimi’s
heart. To hear her sister was involved unnerved her severely. “What
the fuck going on?” she blurted out.
“Bena is in the hospital undergoing surgery,” Naomi
answered in frantic state of mind. “She was shot alongside you
all’s father tonight, but she’s still holding on!”
“I knew it! I knew it! I knew it! Oh my God,” Koko cried
as she leaned forward, her eyes squinted and her mouth wide open.
“They was never going to Chicago!” she screamed as she
fell forward out her seat, dropped to her knees and planted her head
to the carpeted floor.
Kimi sat in silent disbelief. Naomi saw her wobbling in her seat and
ran and grabbed her before she passed out. “Bay gone die,
momma? Who shot my daddy?” Kimi asked as sweat mixed in with
her tears.
Seeing her family is disarray drove Naomi over the edge. She hugged
Kimi tightly, raised her right fist and yelled aloud, “God,
give us strength!”
The entire family broke down at that moment inside the theater room;
everyone was shocked, saddened and afraid of the future as reality
hit home. Doss was dead, and Bena was near death. Walee went and sat
in the corner and covered his eyes as he leaned back in seat, his
body heaving uncontrollably and his heart numb. DeeDee had a tight
grip on Spoonie and Tyke, who hid their faces in his chest.
Twiggy felt every ounce of the family’s pain. Having lost all
of relatives, she’d experienced unbridled tragedy, but she
wasn’t as close to her father as Naomi’s children were to
Doss. Her heart truly went out to the family as she eyed Martha,
knowing full well her friend would surely enter into the family’s
outside business from this day forth.
Siloam thought back to the day Serena and Kevin died. This matter,
however, was far worse. The ramifications would last a long time,
maybe forever even, because everybody loved Doss. And if Bay were to
die—Siloam could go no further with her thoughts. She had to
get up leave the room. She ran through the house, out the front door,
only wanting to scream to the top of her lungs because she was hurt
that the family was hurting all over again because she knew their
history—their full history.
Regina could relate to her cousins’ pain also. The day she
learned Ne`Ne` had been killed came flooding back on her; she knew
the pain all too well. She got up and tried to console Walee, but he
brushed her away. “Let me deal with it, Dimples,” Walee
said painfully, trying to be strong. Regina didn’t budge,
however, she wrapped her arms around her cousin and just sat with him
and cried.
“What were they doing in Missouri?” Mary asked through
her tears.
“That’s not important, Mary.” DeeDee remarked,
choking back tears.
“I’m not talking to you, DeeDee! I want an answer from
Naomi as to why Doss and my niece were shot? Where’s Dawk and
Tiva?”
“Dawk and Tiva are fine,” DeeDee responded.
“Again! I am not talking to you, DeeDee!” Mary cried.
“Naomi, what’s going on?”
“This isn’t the time, Mary.” Naomi said as she
soothed Kimi and Koko.
“It’s never the time,” Mary said as she stormed out
of the theater room. “Living here is no different than Ghost
Town!” she screamed.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Naomi screamed at
Mary. “You pick now to condemn the family for something someone
did to us? You judge us?”
“I’m not judging anyone, Naomi! But you’ve been
hiding things from the family for years and this is the end result!”
Mary said as she extended her hands outwards towards her heartbroken
family. “If only we would’ve known from the beginning! If
we would’ve known, it wouldn’t be so devastating! I knew
what Martha was in Ghost Town! Knowing doesn’t ease the pain,
but it helps,” Mary said from the top of the stairs. “It
helps. We’re all family here. We deserved better, sister. This
was fair to no one,” Mary cried as she left the room.
*******
“
Toodie y Q-man sigue con que mierda mierda. Que ha ido a
parar aprender aún fucking con que la gente de San Carlos.”
(Toodie and Q-man still with that fuck shit. They gone learn soon
enough to stop fucking with them people in Saint Charles.) Pepper
said as she and Simone sat side by side on their sofa inside their
apartment in Fox Park watching the news.
The news report was a short one describing the murder of a unnamed
man, and another person, a female, was reportedly in critical
condition. Pepper and Simone didn’t know of Toodie’s
plans on this night, but they knew she was the one who’d set up
the hit, because getting back at the people who’d killed her
sister Phoebe and Carmella was all she talked about since she’d
been released from jail three weeks earlier, and when Q-man and a boy
out his crew came down from the Ap and clicked up with her and Dead
Eye and Big Bounce, both friends knew something was about to go down.
Pepper and Simone had been steering clear of Toodie and her bunch,
only wanting to get money as Malik was the fire connect. Toodie had
asked Pepper to jump back on her team, but she refused, telling
Toodie she was now doing her own thing. Pepper was no dummy. She knew
Toodie resented her for not jumping on board, so she was always on
guard. As she sat watching the news, Pepper was hit with an ominous
feeling all of a sudden—one that told her she had better make a
move and do it quick.
“
Se ha ido de este hit, Peppi. Nos han ido a la herramienta
y a ser listo para lo que sea.”
(They gone hit back for
this, Peppi. We gone have to tool up and be ready for whatever.)
Simone said as she put her feet up on the table.
“Like the fuck we is,” Pepper said as she hopped up from
the couch, knocked Simone’s legs down and ran upstairs.
Pepper sensed the Grim Reaper’s sickle coming for her on this
night. She saw flashes of her and Simone getting shot up in the
living room by Toodie and Q-man while sitting on the couch and was
propelled to act. Whether it was a severe case of paranoia or not,
Pepper wasn’t the one to test fate.
Simone followed Pepper upstairs, and when she entered her room, she
saw Pepper grabbing stacks of money out of a shoe box and placing her
Glock .17 into her waistband. She seemed to be in a hurry as she went
about her room grabbing jewelry, cell phones, extra gun clips, a sack
of weed and a few under garments.
“What you doing, girl?” Simone asked Pepper casually.
“What it look like? I’m gettin’ the fuck from
‘round here for a while. Niggas is gone be going buck wild
after this one and I don’t want no part of that shit. Go get
your stuff!”
Simone merely eyed Pepper as she walked around her room, making sure
not to leave anything of value behind. Pepper had a nice wardrobe
consisting of the best name brands going from shoes to shirts, but
she could easily replace those, her life, however, was the only one
she had and she wasn’t about to play around with it.
"Simone!
Consiga su mierda o estoy sin mojar tu asno!"
(Simone! Get
your shit or I’m dipping without your ass!)
Simone threw her hands up and eased over to her room and gathered up
her twelve gauge and bullet shells along with her money stack and she
was all set to go. She returned to Pepper’s room and saw her
sliding a clip into a Heckler and Koch MP-5 submachine gun.
“When you get that?” Simone asked.