Tales from da Hood (24 page)

“Do you think them fights be for real?” Dodo asked. “I think that whole shit is a setup. They pay them to scrap on here, I bet.”

“Shit, they could pay me and I'd be on there straight knocking mutherfuckers out,” Casey said.

Just then the basement door flew open and Danny Man flung himself inside. He stood in front of Casey and Dodo in a pair of dirty athletic socks. The pockets of his pants were still inside out. Snot and tears ran freely down his face and he was out of breath.

Quizzically Casey looked at his younger brother. “Man, what the fuck is wrong with you?”

“They—they took my—my Jordans and my—my money. They j-jumped on me and r-robbed me. I-I told them that-that you was my brother and they said they did—didn't care!”

“Who?” Casey asked as he jumped to his feet.

“It was Tom-Tom and Rell. They grabbed me by the corner store and took me in the alley and jump—jumped on m-me. They—they used to go to my school. They always be up—up on the—the corner starting stuff with people, trying to take people money and stuff.”

Casey picked up the saucer of coke from the coffee table and snorted a healthy portion as he began to pace back and forth.

“You know these niggas, Casey?” Dodo asked.

“Nall, it sound like some shorties. I don't give a fuck though. Danny Man, where these niggas from? Where they be at?”

“They from the other side of the Avenue. They either be up at the store or they be right there at the playground up at the school or up at the park.”

Dodo looked at Casey and noticed that the cocaine had Casey's eyes wide open. “So what you want to do?”

“What the fuck you think I want to do!” Casey exclaimed, a little too amped. “Man, we finta fuck these niggas up and get my brother his shoes back! Don't nobody take nothing from us! We finta push on these marks! They think we some hos! I'm finta get my shotgun! Let's go!”

“Hell nall, man,” Dodo said. “We ain't finta ride with that bigass
shotgun. Give me a minute to go get my pistol. Danny Man, you go put on some shoes.”

While Danny Man went to get some shoes, Dodo slipped out of the basement and made his way home to get his gun. Casey sat back down on the couch and snorted the remainder of the cocaine. When he was through, he dug through a pile of clothes by the washing machine and found a black hooded sweatshirt. He snatched the hoodie on over his head. When he heard a car horn honk outside, Casey ran out the back door of the basement, almost knocking down Danny Man.

Heavy, cold raindrops had started to fall as they rushed over to Dodo's car, an ancient, beat-up four-door Chevy Caprice. Dodo slid out from under the steering wheel to the passenger seat and motioned for Casey to come around the vehicle to the driver's side. Danny Man got in the backseat, and Casey climbed behind the wheel.

“Casey, you drive just in case we get pulled over 'cause you got a license and I got this missile.”

Casey rocketed the car out of the driveway and fishtailed when he hit the street. He straightened the car up and sped up the block.

“Man, slow this mutherfucker down,” Dodo snapped as he braced himself against the dashboard. “You gon’ get us popped off driving like that. That's the reason that I let you drive, so we could look halfway legit.”

Casey slowed down, just a bit. “Let me do this here. I drive the way that I want to. Nigga, we on this business. And I am the one with the license so let me milk this cow.”

“I ain't trying to hear that shit. Like I said, slow this mutherfucker down.” Dodo turned around to Danny Man. The younger boy was still sniveling. “Danny Man, what these dudes look like?”

“Tom-Tom he kinda tall. He like almost y'all height. He lightskinned
with a short Afro. He think he cocky. Rell, he about my height and my color. He got on a Bears jacket and he got a fade. Rell kinda brown-skinned and skinny.”

Dodo turned back around in his seat in time to notice that Casey had started speeding again. He just shook his head. That's that fucking coke got this nigga speedballing, he thought. The car was half a block away from the traffic light in front of them when the signal turned yellow. Instead of applying the brakes in preparation to stop at the inevitable red light, Casey stomped the accelerator. He was still several car lengths away when the signal turned red. Still gunning the old car, Casey barreled into the intersection. They broadsided the rear flank of a Chevy Blazer, causing the small SUV to flip over as their car careened off in the opposite direction.

Casey had time to brace his arms hard against the steering wheel before they slammed into a light pole. The steering wheel slammed into Casey's, chest causing him to pass out. Dodo's knees hit the dashboard and his head slammed into the windshield on impact. Out for the count, he sprawled against Casey. Only Danny Man's legs were visible in the backseat—he was upside down.

Danny Man righted himself in the backseat and looked around. His eyes fell on his older brother's unconscious form. “Casey! Casey! Wake up, Casey!” he yelled as he shook him from the back.

Casey began to come around. He drew in a breath and pain exploded in his chest.

“Ahhh,” Casey cried out. “I think my ribs is broke!” He noticed Dodo leaning against him for the first time. “Oh shit, Dodo! Get up, Dodo! Dodo get up!”

Danny Man looked over the seat at Dodo. “Casey, his bones is sticking through his leg, look!”

The bone in Dodo's left leg was easily visible and the cuts on his head and in his face had begun pouring blood. Casey reached over
and pushed the driver's door open. It protested but gave way. He stifled another scream.

In the rear seat, Danny Man was panicking. “What? What? What's wrong, Casey?”

“My goddamn wrists hurt like hell! Shit, mutherfuck!”

Grimacing in pain, Casey pushed Dodo off him and rolled his body out of the car. As he stood and looked around, he got his first view of the Blazer he'd collided with—it had flipped over several times and came to rest against the curb. The occupants of the truck had spilled out in the street.

“Casey, what is we gone do?” Danny Man whined. “Is Dodo dead? What is we gone do, Casey?”

Casey leaned in the car and took a good look at Dodo. He saw his friend's chest and stomach rise and fall. “Nall, he ain't dead,” Casey announced. “I can't carry him and I know he can't walk on that drumstick in no type of way. I don't know what the fuck we gon’ do.”

Cars had begun to slow down and stop in the rain. Casey heard sirens in the distance, making up his mind for him. He turned to his younger brother. “C'mon, Danny Man, we got to get the hell up out of here.”

“What about Dodo?” Danny Man asked.

“Them people that's on they way can do more for him than we can. We outty five thousand.”

FOURTEEN
YEARS LATER
Dodo walked up to the guy sitting on the hood of the old car. He looked at his old friend Casey and could easily tell that he was high. Casey's shirt and jeans were name
brand, but filthy; his shoes were run over and greasy-looking. His beard and hair were both matted bunches of nappy hair. A thin line of drool had escaped from the corner of his lips and was attached to his knee.

“Yo Casey,” Dodo said. “Casey, w'sup, man?”

Casey came out of his nod and looked up at Dodo. He jumped back like he had seen a ghost.

“Casey, w'sup? It's me, Dodo.”

“Dodo, that you, man?” Casey asked, his voice scratchy with heroin. “My nigga, Dodo.”

Casey lifted his arms and gave Dodo a big hug. Because of his unwashed smell, Dodo broke off the hug quickly.

“Dodo, my nigga. How you doing? Hold on, you ain't come over here for no rocks or blows, did you?”

“Hell nall. Why you ask me that?”

“Nall, I just was gon’ show you who got the bomb on that diesel and I know who got some butter on the cracks. I'm a diesel man myself, but I don't discriminate when it's free.”

Dodo took a seat on the car hood beside Casey. “I don't fuck around with that shit. W'sup with you, though? What you doing out here?”

“Man, I'm hustling.”

“You hustling?”

“Hell yeah. This shit is sweet. I ain't got to do nothing but sit out here and watch for the law and call out the name of the dope who I'm on security for.”

“Don't look like you would have been able to call out nothing the way you was nodding when I walked up.”

Casey laughed until he began coughing. “Gimme a square.”

“I ain't got none, really. I was on my way to the store to grab me some rollups when I remembered that somebody told me that I could probably find you over here. Who you out here working for?”

“One of these fucking shorties. I don't care who I get down with as long as I get a wakeup blow in the morning, a lunchtime blow, a go-home blow, and twenty dollars a day. What you finta do? You bout to set you up a crew and get down out here?”

“Selling dope? No thanks. Nigga, I'm just out the damn joint and I ain't finta do nothing that can send my ass back.”

“I heard that shit. Well, this ain't it for me. I'm just biding my time until I can hustle me up a few dollars so I can get me a few grams of my own and then I'm off and running. Getting some of that big dope money. Since I already blow myself I know I can put the best shit out here on the streets 'cause I'll be testing it myself. Once I get me a nice piece of dough, then I'm out of here. Probably go get clean and then go out to the coast or something. Spend the rest of my days walking me a big pretty dog on the beach with some pretty-ass white wife.”

“Sounds like you got it all planned out. Me, I don't think I managed to think that far ahead, Casey. Right now I'm just enjoying my freedom.”

“Got to have a plan, man. If you fail to plan, then you plan to fail, baby boy. But look, let me get back over here and start yelling out this name for these niggas. We'll be getting off soon and they'll try to dock my pay if they don't see me yelling out that name. When we get a chance we need to hang out.”

Both men stood and Dodo managed to suffer through another of Casey's funk-laced hugs.

“Take it easy,” Dodo said as he walked away.

“Dodo!” Casey called out.

Dodo stopped. “Yeah?”

“I thought you was gon’ try and come at me when you got out 'cause I couldn't carry you, man. I broke one of my wrists and bruised my ribs up. I couldn't pick you up and you was in bad shape. The best place for you to be was still there when the ambulance came.”

Dodo looked at Casey for a long moment. “It's all right. I survived, didn't I? Ain't nothing I could do to you that would be worse than what you doing to yourself, so don't worry about it. Like one of the enlightened brothers in the joint used to tell me, the universe has a way of balancing itself out. I'll try to get back this way and holler at you. Take care of yourself.”

Casey grinned, revealing several missing teeth. “I'll do that, Dodo. Love you, baby boy.”

AS
DODO APPROACHED
the corner store someone called out to him. “Dodo, w'sup, nigga! Hold up for a sec!” shouted the driver of a creamy white Cadillac SRX. “Hold on for a minute, I'm finta swing around and park.”

Dodo looked at the hybrid SUV, but he didn't recognize the driver or his voice. Cautiously he stepped up on the curb in front of the corner store and waited for the driver to park his vehicle.

The driver whipped into a U-turn and glided the car into a no-parking zone in front of the store. The driver climbed out of the car and came around to the sidewalk, smiling all the while. The heavy-set man grabbed Dodo's hand and gave him a handshake hug.

“What's happening, nigga?” the man asked. “It's good to see one of the old-school fools out here on the bricks. You looking good, too. All healthy and shit. Nigga was lifting some weights in the joint.”

Dodo stood there looking at him blankly.

“Don't tell me that you don't know who I am,” the man said. “Nigga, look at me. You tell me you don't know me?”

“My fault, homie, but I can't even lie, I'm clueless.”

The man laughed. “Damn, it's been that long, huh? I know that I gained some weight and grew some face hair, but look at me. Take a good look.”

Dodo started shaking his head slowly, and then recognition crept into his eyes. “Danny Man? Casey's little brother.”

“The one and only. I'm all grown up now.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” Dodo commented as he glanced at Danny Man's huge potbelly. “You done grown out, too.”

Danny Man laughed as he rubbed his large stomach. “Nigga, that's that good living. Steak and lobster, living like a mobster. I see you lost yo hair up in that place, huh?”

Self-consciously Dodo rubbed his head. It was shaved clean, but a close observer could see that on top no follicles would ever grow again.

“Yeah, twelve years in the joint will do that for you,” Dodo said.

“You'd probably lose more than your hair in there.”

Danny Man rankled a bit at the slight insult, but just as quickly he let it go. “You ain't even got to act like that. Nigga, you just did all that time, you a real old gee now. We need to be celebrating that you back among the land of the living.”

“You look like you on your way to go celebrate now,” Dodo observed. “What you all dressed up for?”

Danny Man looked down at his tailor-made white linen suit and matching white shoes. “Tell me I ain't killing them with this here. I'm on my way to my boy's engagement party. He finta propose to his lady on a cruise on Lake Michigan and everybody that's coming got to wear all white. Yo, have you seen Casey in the coupla weeks since you been out?”

“Actually, I just came from over there hollering at him. What happened to that nigga?”

“Well, you know, Casey always liked to put something in his
nose. He started getting a little money on the heroin side and the next thing I knew he was putting more of it in his nose than out on the streets.”

Dodo raised an eyebrow. “Hold on, hold on. You said that I been home for a coupla weeks. How did you know that?”

Making a sweeping gesture with his arms, Danny Man said,

“This is my hood. Ain't shit I don't know about. I know while you was in the joint niggas was coming in there talking about DM. I'm DM. Ain't no more of that little Danny Man shit. I'm that nigga now. This is my shit around here, and I always know what's happening.”