Chapter Two
What the fuck is beyond the grave?
That was the thought in Slug's mind as he stood, watching the casket of his great-aunt being lowered into the ground. He had come up with his mother from Goldsboro, North Carolina, to pay respects to a woman he had never known. In the process, he would congregate with a family he hardly ever saw.
Most of his kin had stayed in various parts of New Jersey. Only Slug's mother and her brother had moved down South, where Slug was born and raised. Although his mother was from Jersey, Slug was strictly Dirty South, tried and true. He wasn't one of those Southern dudes who secretly admired dudes up North for their style or accent. He was proud to be from Webbtown, as they called it in the Dirty South.
Nothing about Jersey excited him. It stunk for one thing. The smell hit him in the face as soon as he stepped out of the car at his aunt's house. Slug looked around at all the weeping faces gathered at the grave. The only faces he knew were his mother's and his Aunt Elsie's. Some of his cousins were sho' nuff fine, which kept the service interesting, but he was searching for one face in particular: his cousin Freddie's. He hadn't seen Freddie since they were twelve, the year he stopped coming down South for the summer. And even though he and Freddie spent half of each summer fighting and the other half arguing, every winter Slug looked forward to seeing his cousin Freddie, not knowing that Freddie was in Plainfield doing the same thing. But once Freddie turned fourteen, he fell upon the game he would eat off of: females.
Freddie was born in a petite one bedroom, in an apartment of a building that sat over a corner store on Chancellor Avenue and Leslie Street in the Weequahic Way section, and lived there until his mom met a man and moved out to Plainfield. He was just five years old at the time. There, he watched as man after man came into their crib and filled his mother's head full of false hopes and dreams to get what they wanted from her: sex.
He felt helpless when it came to his mother and was affected by what he had witnessed throughout the years growing up. He had also learned something about words and the impact and influence of them. A light switch was turned on and it was then that he discovered the power of the mouthpiece.
It was out in Plainfield, in the Second Street housing projects, that Freddie perfected his craft in macking the ladies. He started to become the very same type of man he watched take advantage of his mother; but he believed he was better than them. As he got older, places like Hugo's and St. Mary's in the small city were feeding grounds for him. He started out small time with females who financed his wardrobe in exchange for the fuck or the most romantic time of their lives. Once comfortable with his new lifestyle, he advanced to females with good credit and nice cars. He became a player.
Slug, on the other hand, got introduced to the dope game. He used his stomping grounds in North Carolina as his school of hard knocks. When he took to the streets the two lost contact. But when Slug heard about the funeral, he decided to go check his fam out. Besides, it was getting hot in the Boro for him.
Slug checked his watch, realized the service was well underway, and wondered if Freddie was even coming. But a few minutes later, a money green Acura pulled up. Slug squinted against the sun, and once the driver emerged, he smiled to himself. It was Freddie. He knew that bop anywhere. He had gotten taller. He was almost as tall as Slug, who was six feet three inches. He walked around the car and opened the passenger door, helping a female out of the car. As they approached, he saw Freddie fidgeting with his tie and he laughed to himself because he knew Freddie hated ties. Whenever they had to go to church down South, Freddie's mama almost had to beat him to make him leave his tie alone. He always said it felt like a noose around his neck.
“I told you we was gonna be late, Freddie,” Simone scolded him through clenched but smiling teeth.
“Shit, she ain't goin' nowhere,” Freddie replied playfully.
Simone nudged him hard in the ribs. “Boy! Have you any respect for the dead?” she whispered harshly.
Freddie was about to reply until he saw the brown-skinned brother in the navy blue suit. He had to fight the urge to yell, “My nigga!” across the crowd. “Oh shit, Slug,” he said and made his way over to where Slug was standing. He embraced his cousin like a long-lost sibling.
“My nigga, what da deal? I didn't know you was comin',” Freddie exclaimed, trying to be quiet; but the love in his voice resonated. Just then, his mother shot him a killer look.
“Ain't nothin', cuz. I wanted to surprise you, yo,” Slug replied. “Look at you, nigga, got all tall and shit.” Slug glanced over at Simone standing next to Freddie's mother. “Who dat? I hope she ain't fam,” Slug teased.
“Not yet, but she will be. That's my fiancée,” Freddie proudly boasted.
“Fiancée? Get the fuck outta here. You gettin' married?” Slug asked, full of surprise.
The word “married” floated to his mother's ears. She turned around and whispered, “Eric.”
Slug cleared his throat.
“Yo, we better chill 'fore Aunt Ann have us in coffins,” Freddie joked.
“We'll holla after the funeral.”
* * *
After the funeral, the majority of the family went to Freddie's mother Elsie's house to eat. Her small two-family house off of Johnson Avenue was packed with good food and hungry people to eat it. Not to mention drinks that flowed freely, making Freddie's Uncle Jerome say, slurring, “Now, I know somebody died, but who died?”
“Great-aunt Rosa,” a voice reminded him.
“Who?” Uncle Jerome stammered as he staggered.
“Great-auntâ”
“I heard what you said, but why they call her great-aunt? Old ass. She leave me any money?”
“Nah.”
“Well, did she ever give me any money?”
“Probably not.”
“Then, what the hell was so damn great about her?” he commented, drawing a little drunken laughter as well as a little divine displeasure.
Freddie and Slug were out on the porch catching up on old times when Simone walked out onto the porch. She stood on her tiptoes to kiss Freddie. “Here you are. I've been looking all over for you.”
“Aw, shit, cuz. Let me find out shorty got a leash on you already,” Slug joked, making Simone and Freddie laugh.
“No,” Simone replied, “but your mother is looking for you to take pictures, and she said to put your tie on.”
Freddie looked down at the mangled tie draped over his neck. “Well, tell her you can't find me.”
“No, I ain't gonna lie to your mama. Just come on.”
“Well, damn, can I meet your fiancée or what, cuz?” Slug asked. Simone had been busy helping out, so they still hadn't met formally.
“My bad, fam. Simone, this is my cousin Eric.”
“Slug,” he cut in.
“Nigga, your mama named you Eric. And, Eric, this is Simone.”
“Hello, Eric.”
“Slug, shorty. And I must say, if you getting married, I'm glad you picked a sho' nuff stallion. Turn around, mama, let me see what you workin' wit.” Slug chuckled half jokingly.
Simone looked at Freddie with a nervous giggle, but Freddie put her at ease. “Don't pay this country-ass farmer no mind, babe.” Then he turned to Slug. “A'ight, nigga, don't make me whup yo' ass out this piece,” he said, faking a jab.
Slug threw up his mitts in mock defense. “Just 'cause you almost as tall as me don't mean I can't still beat yo' ass, young'un,” Slug remarked.
“Still? Nigga, when?”
Simone saw that they were in their own world, so she respected her man's space. She kissed him on the cheek and said, “Don't forget your tie.” Then she dipped back into the house.
“Cuz, I don't know about you, but fuck a picture. Show me what this pissant city is all about. Where the pussy at?” Slug asked. “Or do shorty got you wearin' a screw-off dick.” They both laughed.
“Nigga, if you only knew,” Freddie replied. “Come on, let's roll out.”
Chapter Three
Freddie cruised through downtown Plainfield in deep thought while Slug rode shotgun. He still couldn't shake the close call back at the barbershop. All he could think about was how things could have gone left and he could have been the one on the barbershop's hair-filled floor instead of Cream. Just when he thought he had closed all of his player doors, something came back to bite him on his ass. Now here it was: he had unnecessary beef over a chick he barely got $1,000 out of in money and merchandise.
He shook his head in disgust as he reflected on how low budget of a stripper Cream's chick was. He recalled the one night he posted up at Liquid Assets in South Plainfield for hours and held her down, so she wouldn't get robbed or sweated as she exited the club at the end of the evening. He watched as she went to the back room at least a half dozen times and paraded around the room trying to make her paper. Despite the wall-to-wall crowded club, he noticed how the other girls out-danced her to get major bread tossed their way. When she had told him she had made less than a G that night, he knew she wasn't about her business. She later proved to be a liability rather than an asset. She would up catching feelings for Freddie and called herself stopped dancing, thinking he would respect her more and there could possibly be something solid between them. She received a rude awakening, after Freddie cut her off like an umbilical cord. He snickered as the image of her pleading with tearful eyes for him to be her man invaded his thoughts.
“Man, what the fuck is this?” The sound of Slug's country drawl brought him back. Freddie peered over at his cousin. He chuckled as Slug skimmed through the CD cases scattered between the seats of Freddie's Acura. “D-Block, D-Block, Kay Slay, Kay Slay, Kay Slay, Jay-Z, Jay-Z, Biggie! Nigga, where the 'Pac? Face? The real shit?”
“Real? You just said it: Biggie!” Freddie answered as he drove through Newark.
“Man, fuck Biggie! 'Pac!”
“A'ight, watch yo' mouth, country-ass nigga. Up North is Biggie land, yo,” Freddie replied.
“Well, do y'all got Thug Passion? Or are y'all still drinkin' Alizé?” Slug joked.
“Nigga, I'm 'bout to take you where you can get all the passion you want. You wit' Freddie, cuzzo. Lay back.”
“Then let's get it crunk then.”
And crunk they got. Freddie took him to the livest clubs in the Union County area and the rawest strip clubs. They even went to Plainfield to the Gentlemen's Club, even though Freddie had beef with Cream, who was from the area. But he was feeling too good to give a fuck. He hadn't seen Slug in so long. It was good to see his family and catch up on the last few years.
* * *
At the Gentlemen's Club, Freddie's name rang bells like Sunday mass so he got the VIP treatment. He broke Slug off with a private lap dance in the downstairs part of the club and a side shot of head from one of the strippers from his hood on the low, before they rolled out pissy drunk at one in the morning. Freddie was slipping in the worst way because the liquor made him forget about Cream as they walked across the street to Jay Cee's Lounge to order what Freddie felt were some of the best dinners in town. But aside from having good food and plenty of liquor, it was also a good spot to get caught slipping, and Freddie knew that. Fortunately, the last place Cream and Dante expected Freddie to be was on Richmond Street in their neck of the Crawford, so their slip made his slip irrelevant. Freddie greeted a few dudes he knew standing outside Jay Cee's and introduced Slug to his two homeboys Wajdee and Dance at the door as they entered the bar.
“Yo, son,” Freddie said in between bites of greasy chicken wings, “what you into down there?”
Slug sipped his fruit punch while eyeing one of the bartenders. “You know how cuz get down. Gotta trap the scrilla. Shit hectic now though. Seem like e'rebody and they mama catchin' cases or snitchin' to come from under.”
Freddie nodded. He understood because Jersey was the same way. That was one of the main reasons he stayed away from the dope game. “Damn, shorty down South thick,” Slug chimed in reference to the bartender.
“That's Tawanna.”
“Well, I wanna,” Slug joked.
“You shot the fuck out, cuzzo.”
“If you say so. But seriously, cuz, I'm tellin' you, shit is sweet down in the Dirty. I just need the right connect to get it poppin' proper,” Slug added, looking at Freddie with a gleam in his eye.
“What?” Freddie asked, really questioning the look while wiping the grease off his hands. “Nigga, I ain't no connect. I don't fuck around.”
“But you know who do. I'm sayin', cuz, I came to see you, true. But I also came to see what you could do for me. Put a nigga down with some peeps,” Slug suggested, lighting a Newport.
Freddie did know a few heavyweights, but he didn't deal with them on a regular basis, and he didn't want to run his cousin up on a snag. But he knew of one connect who was definitely straight. Only problem was he was really trying to phase him out of his life.
“Man, wit' the right connect, I could lock the Boro down,” Slug boasted. “I got a team of young'uns, and all they do is grind sun up to dinnertime. Shit, if we had a connect . . .” Slug said while blowing smoke straight up in the air and savoring the taste of chicken in his mouth.
“What happened? Caught a case?”
“Nah, cuz, a cross,” Slug snarled wickedly. “I put the cross down on some bitch-ass niggas.”
“And now you want me to hook you up wit' another one?” Freddie asked, thinking Slug must be crazy.
“Naw, cuz, you fam so I'll keep shit official. Just them Miami boys tried to play me, so I showed 'em how Webbtown get down.”
Slug began to explain what had been going on for the last few months. Three niggas named Mo Mo, Tyrone, and Black came from Miami on the strength of their cousin Bird, who lived in the Boro. But Bird got killed a week before they were to come through with the weight. Since Bird and Slug was tight, they stepped to Slug at the wake and asked him to hold them down. He agreed.
They started him off light, with an eighth of a kilo, and it was gone in an hour. Needless to say, they were feeling Slug's grind, so they gave him another, which he did the same thing with. They then hit him off with half a brick, which Slug got rid of in three days, in straight twenties and fifties. The Miami niggas felt they had a gold mine, so they went back to Florida and came back to hit Slug off with a whole bird. In the process of moving it, one of Slug's young'uns got hit with the eighth cut up in twenties. On top of that, Slug used some of the Miami cats' money to bail him out. They grumbled, but decided to charge it to the game. But the grumbling got louder and started to get on Slug's nerves.
* * *
“Yo, Slug, this shit ain't no game. What up wit' dat paper on that big eighth?” Money growled. Slug was vexed because the nigga had jumped out the car with a gun in his belt, purposely visible, and Slug was talking to two chicks in Green Acres at the time. He was already tired of these niggas paging him constantly, so he decided right then to dead these niggas on their paper.
“Mo Mo, chill, dog. Slug don't even get down like that. I'ma have your paper, my word. But I do need another one of them twangs and I'll grind it for free to straighten my face on what I owe.” Slug tried to sound as lame as he could in order to rock the nigga to sleep.
Mo Mo's greed and his thinking that he was a real killer made him reply, “A'ight, yo. But I'm telling you, Slug, you better not fuck this up.”
“I ain't man. I got you, yo, I got you,” he repeated, but Mo Mo didn't know what “I got you” meant in that context. It meant “you beat.” The two girls, Donesha and Li'l Monica, giggled because they knew what he meant.
“You better,” Mo Mo concluded before bopping back to his Navigator like he had put his gangsta down.
An hour later, Slug had another whole bird and the better half of the last kilo they had given him. That's when he stopped returning their pages and the Miami boys heard that now he was flossing paper, their paper.
“Y'all seen Slug?” Black asked in West Haven, trying to scare up a few of Slug's young'uns. It wasn't like Slug was hiding either. He was everywhere, all the hot spots, saying shit like, “Fuck it, buy the bar out. It's on them Miami niggas!” He was straight clowning them in the club.
Girls would see Slug driving around town and joke, “You better be careful, them Miami niggas lookin' fo' you!”
“Here I go.” Slug would smile. But he got tired of their threats.
So one night at Leo's Liquor House, when he heard “There go them Miami cats, Slug,” he decided to take it to them. Full of Hpnotiq and Hennessy, feeling like the Incredible Hulk, he went outside with 9 mm Rugers in both hands.
“Y'all niggas lookin' for Slug? Here go Slug!” He commenced dumping shells on the Black Navigator. They tried to fire back but Slug didn't take cover; he just stood square blazing until he had shot Tyrone, giving him a permanent bag, and made Swiss cheese of Black's Navi. They finally skidded away, trying to tend to their leaking friend in need of emergency medical attention.
After that, every time Slug saw them niggas, he was headhunting. In clubs, at hotels, at the waffle place, even at red lights, until finally them niggas bowed out.
“Fuck it, Slug. Keep that shit, yo.” They sent word to Slug, and just as fast as it had begun, it ended. Slug watched them niggas, but he saw the pussy had come out of them and he let it go.
* * *
That was where he was now, without a connect. Freddie sat back and listened to Slug's story, knowing he wasn't bullshitting. Slug had always been wild, that's how he got his nickname: Slugger. In his younger days, two older cats had tried to take his bike and he beat them both into a coma and landed himself in juvenile detention for eighteen months. He was thirteen.
Freddie knew Slug was serious, but he didn't want to get involved with the dope game.
“Nigga, I ain't askin' you to get down, just put me on and I'll break you off e'er month,” Slug proposed.
Freddie stared out into the club. It sounded sweet, but he wasn't sure he wanted to have his name mixed up in it, period. “Dig, Slug, let me thinkâ” He was cut off by his cell phone ringing. “Hold up,” he said, answering the phone. “Yo.”
“You busy?” the sultry voice inquired.
Damn
. He should've known it was her. Even through the loud music he recognized her voice.
“Well?” she teased. “You must be if you ain't answerin'.”
“Naw, yo.” Freddie looked at Slug, who pretended not to be listening. “I'm just chillin'.”
“So you pistol whippin' niggas in barbershops now?” She giggled.
Freddie chuckled and finally realized where he was. “What? You followin' me or somethin'?”
“No, but they are. I was kinda worried about you so I just called to check on you,” she replied. “Where you at?”
“Jay Cee's,” Freddie answered.
“You got somethin' to prove?”
“Naw.”
“I can't tell. You all up in they hood, like it's sweet and them negroes is vexed wit' you.”
He didn't want to say he was drunk and forgot, so he explained, “My cousin up from down South, so I wanted to show him a good time.”
“Hmm hmm hmm,” she hummed knowingly. “Let me guess. You took 'im to the Gentlemen's Club. Ain't you tired of them stank heffas yet? Or are you tryin' to fuck all of 'em?”
“Naw.”
“Then, are you tryin' to fuck . . . me?” That was what kept Freddie open on her. She spoke her mind and pulled no punches.
“I'm sayin' . . .” Half of him wanted to say no, the half that was his heart and belonged to Simone. But his other half, which was his dick, was already rock hard.
She giggled. “Nigga, quit frontin'. We both know what you wanna say. Tell your cousin I said hi and bye. I wanna see you, boo.”
“Where you at?” Freddie glanced down at his watch, seeing it was approaching 3 a.m.
“Where you think? Where I'm always waitin' for you.” He didn't respond but she anticipated his state of mind. “I'll leave the door unlocked for you but, um, hurry up. I already started without you.” She ended the conversation with the sound of her kiss that Freddie imagined on the head of his dick. Freddie hung up.
“Nigga, that ain't wifey, yo,” Slug teased while laughing, then bellowed, “Booty call!”
Slug didn't know the half. She was the only female Freddie couldn't bring himself to cut off. She was the type of mistress every nigga wished they had: fine and a freak who asked no questions and had no expectations. Plus her paper was long. She was booty call heaven!
“Don't worry about Slug, cuz. I ain't no cock blocker. Go 'head. I'ma go back 'cross the street and try to get that bitch in the thong to welcome me to the city.”
Thong?
“They all got on thongs, yo.”
“Exactly. Country niggas got horse dicks, nigga!” Slug laughed.
Freddie laughed with him but refused to leave Slug in the east end alone. “Alone?” Slug smirked then opened his suit coat to reveal a nine tucked into his shoulder holster. “You heard what the fuck Dr. Dre said in 'G Thang,'” he spat, believing Freddie to be familiar with the popular West Coast rap song. “I don't go nowhere without Nina.” Slug added.
“Nigga, you brought that shit way up here?” Freddie asked, full of surprise.