Nate and G were sipping on something that had been poured into Styrofoam cups. When I crept up from behind, Nate's sneaky eyes looked over G's shoulder. By then, I was already next to him with my Glock pointing at his head.
“Long time no see,” I said. “Now, tell me. What the fuck happen to my mama and to my money? And if you got any of my dough on you, I'll take it.”
G smirked, then looked at Nate. “Man, I didn't think you had this kind of shit in you. Did you really try to play me like this? After all I did for you while in prison, nigga, this is how you repay me? And for this chump?”
Nate said not one word, but I spoke up. “I got your chump. He's comin' real soon. Now answer my questions, fool.”
“G, somethin' tells me that you'd better answer the almighty Prince,” Nate said. “I've never considered him as no chump, and I think you may have underestimated my li'l nigga. As for prison, that was a long time ago. I saved yo' ass plenty of times too, but I'm not sure if I will be able to save you today.”
“You's a dirty motherfucka,” G said to Nate. “And if you think you will not pay for this shit, you're sadly mistaken. Do you know how many niggas know that I'm over here? If I don't show up tonight, they gon' come lookin' for me. I can't believe you've injected yourself in this shit, my friend, and your decision to do so will be costly.”
Nate chuckled, then looked at me. “He's talkin' too much shit. If you're not goin' to handle yo' business with him, I will. Hurry up, 'cause I got a job that I need to get back to.”
I was straight up feeling Nate, and shame on me for feeling as if he didn't have my back. This nigga had it and then some. I hadn't ever met nobody like him before, and it felt good to have him on my team. I turned my gun to the side.
“Hold up!” G said, moving a few inches away from me. His forehead was filled with hot beads of sweat already. “I'm not yo' man, young blood. You need to know right now that I was not the nigga who killed yo' mama. If you let me walk out that door alive, I'll tell you what the fuck happened, fasho.”
“Go,” I said. “You got one minute to speak, then I'll decide if I'm gon' let you walk.”
“I need to know for sure. I'll take you to the nigga who did it, but I need your word that you won't kill me.”
“Got it. And as long as you take me to the nigga who did it, I'm good,” I said. “Now speak.”
He hesitated for a few seconds, then his snitching ass spoke up. “I got a call from yo' stepfather, tellin' me thatâ”
I got antsy, and pushed the tip of the gun against his temple. “That nigga ain't my step daddy. Clear that shit up!”
“I mean Raylo. Raylo ... he knew where we could get some extra cash. Said that he'd give me twenty-five grand if I played along with his plan. At first, I didn't know what he'd done to yo' mama, until he told me that they'd got into an argument and she got jiggy with him. He slapped her so hard with his gun that she fell backward and hit her head on the edge of the kitchen table. He thought she was unconscious, and he left her on the floor to chill out. Then, when the nigga came back, he realized she wasn't breathin'. He panicked and didn't want to go to jail. He had to dispose of her body, and from what that fool told me, he cut up her body, and put it in a plastic bag. He never told me exactly where it was, but insisted that it was somewhere in the house. So, this was an accident... .”
Tears welled in my eyes as I listened to G. “Accident? Nigga, you don't cut up nobody's damn body by accident! What the fuck are you talkin' about?”
G was trembling all over, trying to calm me, but couldn't even calm himself. “I mean the initial blow was an accident. Now, that nigga was wrong for what he did to her body. I told him that, too, and he should have just said somethin' to you ... somebody about what happened. Now we're all in too deep and I never thought it would come down to me possibly losing my life by the hands of a Street Soldier. We don't need to go out like this, do we?”
“Maybe so. But you need to keep tellin' me what's up. Where the fuck is my money?”
G moved his head from side to side. “Prince, I know what I'm sayin' to you doesn't minimize yo' pain, but shit happens.”
I pushed his temple again with the gun and he squeezed his eyes together. “You're right. Shit will happen if you don't get to the point and tell me what the hell happened to my money!”
He sighed. “The money ... You'd have to get most of that back from him. I can't tell you what I spent my dollars on, but we can make some arrangements for you to get some of it back. I will make sure that you do, and if you allow me a little more time, I may be able to get you more than what you put up. So, think about it. Do we have a deal or what?”
“I don't make deals with snake-ass niggas like you, G. And while you may have told me some of the truth here today, I just don't believe that you will follow through with what you're saying. Somethin' about your words don't ring true to me and I think that, given the opportunity, you would get out of dodge and make sure Raylo is in a safe place, too. No way in hell I'ma let that happen.”
G moved his head from side to side and stamped his foot hard on the ground, trying to make his case. “You have my word! And anyone who knows me, they know my word is bond! Let's stop wastin' time and go get the nigga who is responsible for this. It's time to put this shit to rest and I know you will feel so much better. Once I put yo' money back into your hand, we can wash this situation down the drain.”
I stood, looking back and forth at Nate and G. Nate was biting into a crunchy apple, waiting for me to respond. I was speechless, torn, on the ropes about what to do. The gun was shaking in my hand, but the anxiousness that I felt to shoot him wasn't there. I cocked my neck from side to side, trying to get out of him all that I could. “Who ... who the fuck is Monroe? How in the hell did he fit into all of this shit?”
“Monroe? I ... I don't know nobody named Monroe.”
“The fool who lives in Kansas City. I found his name, number, and addy on my mama's dresser. Who put it there?”
“Ray did. He knew you'd be snooping around and he wanted to throw you off. The brotha in Kansas City, his name wasn't Monroe. It was Carter. Raylo paid him to tell you that your mama had been there, but he had never met yo' mama. See, that nigga had to cover his tracks. He got all of us involved in his shit and we're the ones who have to answer for this, not him. I say let's all go get that motherfucka and make him pay. If you kill me, you'll be killin' the wrong man. I just did what I was asked to do for a little bit of change that wasn't much to brag on. So think about it, Prince. Is it gon' be me, or him? All I ask is that you not do somethin' you'll regret.”
I was speechless, again, and slowly lowered my gun. I was so damn upset with Raylo that I had lost focus on dealing with G. I wanted to run out of there and go blow that nigga's brains out, and I knew that killing G would definitely bring more heat my way. How much heat was the question? Did I want to continue living my life on the run, running from niggas who had fucked me over or made bad decisions to help out someone else? I wasn't so sure. I was skeptical, and at least this fool had told me the truth. Or, had he? There were always two ... three sides to every story, and no matter how I looked at it, this fool had poked his nose where it didn't belong. Nate interrupted my thoughts.
“Wait a minute,” he said, walking closer to us and taking another bite of his apple. “You mean to tell me that all of this was an accident? Raylo didn't try to kill Shante?”
G nodded. “That's exactly what I'm sayin'. You and I both know that accidents happen all the time, but he shouldn't have asked me to get involved in this. I can't take that shit back, but again, I can hand the man you really and truly want over to you on a silver platter.”
After that, Nate moved so quick that I barely had time to think. He snatched the gun from my hand, and before I knew it, he had the tip of the gun against G's temple. Without a blink, Nate pulled the trigger, splattering G's brains right there in the kitchen.
“Accidents do happen,” Nate said, watching G's heavy body drop to the floor. Nate looked at me, standing there, stunned. “Too much talkin' and not enough action. Get out of here and let me clean up this mess. You already know the play. You ain't seen nothin', you don't know nothin', and you ain't heard nothin'.”
I was frozen ... still in shock about what Nate had done. I wanted to ask him what was up, but decided to do as I was told. Of course, that was a first. As I made my way to the door, Nate called my name. I turned around.
“What's up?” I asked.
“He was the nigga who I went to jail for. This shit was personal and it was a long time comin'. As for Raylo, you go do what you have to do.”
He reached out to give me my Glock back, and I eased it from his hand. “At least you kept your word to him and didn't shoot him, huh?”
“Yea ... yeah,” I stuttered. “But my word ain't shit.”
“Mine either,” he laughed.
I left, thinking about all these so-called people known as friends. You could sholl find yourself fucked up, and it was evident that beefs among niggas could last a long, long time.
Feeling unsafe, I didn't want to go back to my apartment right now. Instead, I drove to the hotel where I had planned to stay the night, just in case somebody came looking for me. Of course, I didn't want to be found, especially since I now knew for a fact that Raylo was my man, and I suspected where he was. After I handled my business with him, I planned to chill for a couple of days to let the dust settle.
While in the hotel room, I glided my fingers against my Glock, then aimed it at the mirror. I pretended to shoot, then laid the gun on the bed. I closed my eyes, thinking about what Raylo had done to Mama. If what G said was true, I couldn't believe he'd cut up her body like that. What kind of animal was he? How could he do that shit to a woman he claimed to love? Was this the kind of man Mama allowed to be in our lives all this time? This shit was mad crazy, and some damn women just didn't know what kind of shit they were getting themselves into.
I watched the clock tick away, then popped up. This had been one crazy-ass day, but it was now time for me to handle mine, like Nate had handled his. I hoped like hell that no one would get after him, but Nate was good at covering his tracks. He had me fooled, thinking that he'd turned over a new leaf. I felt him, though, and when business had to be handled, it just had to be handled.
My gun was in my possession and I flipped my black hoodie over my head. It was cold as hell outside, so I eased my hands into a pair of black leather gloves, rubbing my hands together. I got in my car, thinking about Mama, my future, and about the only chick that I could honestly say I ever really loved, Miss Poetry. My mind flashed back to the first day I'd met her and how brave and sassy she was. I thought about her truly trying to be there for me, and she was one person who definitely had my back. Sex with her was the best and no chick had ever taken me to the level she did. I couldn't get the thought of me pushing her to the ground out of my head. How dare I just offer her a simple “sorry”? After tonight, I didn't know what was going to happen. G, as well as Raylo, had some connections that would surely make me, and possibly Nate, pay for what had gone down and what was about to. I could face either death or possibly jail time after this. It didn't look good for me at all, but I had to stop to see my Poetry, just in case I would never see her again.
I parked in front of her grandmother's house, seeing Poetry sitting on the porch. It was dark outside, but I knew it was her. She was on the swing with some papers and a pen in her hand. I walked up the steps and she folded the papers, putting them next to her.
“What you writin'?” I asked, sitting next to her on the swing.
“I was writing you a letter,” she said. “I hadn't gotten far with it, but I was preparing myself to send it to you in prison.”
I looked down and clinched my hands together. “Don't burn no bread on me like that. You don't know what's goin' to happen to me.”
“I don't, but I'm preparing myself for the worst because your mind is so far gone that you won't listen to anyone right now. I wish you would just listen!”
“I'm sorry that you don't understand what all of this is about, but I didn't come over here for you to talk me out of what I'm about to do. I just wanted to tell you that I was sorry, again, for hurtin' you, and that I appreciate everything that you've done for me. I ain't ever had nobody in my life like you, Poetry, and all of this was really new to me. But I told you from the beginnin' that I had some deep shit goin' on. Relationships had no place in my life. I hope you see, now, why I felt that way.”
“But why keep living that way, Prince? Why must you keep doin' the same things over and over? At some point, you have to be willing to make some changes. You say you want a better life, but you keep traveling down the same ol' path. All I wanted you to see was that you had a different path to choose. I asked you to take that route with me, but you don't want it. I'm not going to keep worrying myself about this, and if your mind is made up, then you go ahead and do what you gotta do. I love you and I wish you all the best.”