For the Strength of You (5 page)

Teck eased off the brake and slowly took off down the highway.

When they got to the mall, he handed her a thousand dollars. “Don't lose your damn mind,” he warned. “The ten-dollar spot got some cute shit. You ain't been shopping in Rich's and Belts, so don't start now.”

Before Fe-Fe could get a hold of herself, she'd planted a kiss on Teck's lips. He tapped her on the ass as she stepped out of the car.

“Buy some Tiger underwear.”

Fe-Fe stayed in the mall for two hours. When she came back to the car, Teck was sleeping.

“Wake up, sleepyhead,” she said. “Look at what I got.”

“Show me when we get home. A nigga's hungry right now.”

Fe-Fe grabbed Teck's arm and smiled as they started to pull off.

They stopped off at a local chicken and rib shack for some food.

“So, you gonna be my friend?” Fe-Fe asked as they ate.

“As long as you stay off that stuff.”

She held her head down.

“Keep your head up, Fe-Fe.” Teck took his hand and lifted up her chin. “It's up to you to stay clean and let the past go. But I'ma do my part and you do yours . . . okay?”

“Yes.” She nodded her head.

When they got back to Fe-Fe's house, she couldn't wait to model the clothes for Teck. As she opened the front door, she saw that the mail had come. She took it out of the box, and the first letter she saw was from the county health office. It had to be the results from her AIDS test. She grabbed it and ran into the bathroom, using the excuse of how bad she had to pee, so that Teck wouldn't suspect anything.

Carefully, she tore the test results open. She wondered if she would be punished for her fucked-up life. She took the letter out of the envelope and read it slowly:

“Thank you, Jesus!” she shouted at the top of her lungs.

“Fe-Fe!” Teck banged on the bathroom door. “You okay?”

“I just got my AIDS test results.” She snatched the door open. “Negative, boo! Negative!”

She jumped in his arms, hugging him for dear life, while shoving the paper in his face. Glancing at the results, he said, “You making my dick hard, baby.”

Massaging his hard on, she smiled. “Why don't we see what we can do about that?”

Teck carried her into the bedroom. He laid her on the bed and then stood up. He cut the radio on, and the D.J. was playing H-Town's classic, “Knockin' Da Boots.”

“Damn . . . you look good, Fe-Fe.” He got down on the bed and climbed between her thighs, biting her nickel-sized nipples through her shirt.

“Mm-hmm,” she purred. “Teck, just be my friend. That's all I'll ask of you. Please, don't lie to me or try to play me.”

“So, we a team?” he asked, biting her nipples harder.

“Yes,” she moaned, nodding her head.

He rolled to the side and unsnapped her bra. Her heavy double Ds practically smothered his face, but he was enjoying every minute of it.

They fucked hard and long and called out each other's names as the sweet smell of sex filled the room. Each time he nutted, she would pull the rubber off and lick him like a kitten. And yes, he made sure she got her nut too.

He fell asleep as he lay behind her in the spoon position. Fe-Fe felt like a queen laying in Teck's arms, but deep in her heart, she felt it wouldn't last.

The move to Atlanta was good for Tammy. Anshon missed her during the two months she'd been gone, but he and Monica were together every day, so he didn't feel so bad. Tom-Tom was still missing, but word on the street was that he was seen riding through Redwood Village apartments. Anshon knew it was only a matter of time before he would catch up to him.

“Hey, baby,” Anshon greeted Monica, who lay across the floor, studying for her college finals.

“Hey, sugar sweets,” Monica said, rolling on her back. “You just gettin' here?”

“Yeah. I missed you.” He pushed her schoolbooks to the side and lay on top of her.

“Mmm . . . I know your girl gets the best,” Monica hissed.

“Don't play me, mami,” Anshon said in his best Latin accent. “You know what I give you is better than what my girl gets.”

Monica mushed Anshon on the side of his head. “Don't play with me!”

Anshon laughed as he started feeling between her legs.

* * *

Over at Fe-Fe's, Teck was sweeping the kitchen floor as Fe-Fe stood at the stove frying some chicken.

“What time tomorrow will the new furniture be here?” she said over her shoulder. Not only was she excited about the new digs for her crib, but she was even more excited about her new life. It wasn't every day that a crackhead was given a second chance. As far as Fe-Fe was concerned, Teck was that nigga.

“The furtniture'll be here in the morning, baby,” Teck said, dumping the dust pan into the garbage. “At least by ten.”

The sound of Teck calling her “baby” was the sweetest sound Fe-Fe had heard in a long time.

Leaning up against the counter, Teck pulled out a wad of cash he made that day and started counting it. Afterward, he handed it to her and said, “Put that away. Send half of it to your cousin for your sons, and the other half, I want you to open up a bank account.”

Fe-Fe couldn't believe her ears. She finished cooking the chicken and fixed Teck a plate of food. After they had dinner, she led him by the hand into her candlelit bedroom.

“Teck,” she said, kissing his pecs slowly, laying with him on the bed and sucking on his nipples, “I swear you the best man I've ever had. I never had nobody to care about me.”

He rolled on top of her. “Don't worry about that no more. Just know that I care about you. Now enough of the sentimental shit. I wanna hear this headboard bang against the wall!”

Fe-Fe fell out laughing, and before Teck knew it, she'd rolled him over and slid between his legs, took his dick into her mouth, and was slowly gettin' her eagle on. He let his head roll back and in between seeing stars, he could swear that her tongue felt better than a hot and wet prison washrag coated with melted Vaseline.

* * *

“Yo, Shon, what up?” Teck called Anshon on his cell phone, trying to set up a time to re-up. “You got a li'l freak in the secret Bat Cave or what?”

“Naw, I don't fuck with freaks. But since you tryin' to find out what my dick's been up to, I been chillin' with that li'l shawtie, Monica, from the club. Wassup wit' you?” Anshon asked.

“Doin' my ting-ting. Dawg, tryin' to re-up, na'mean?”

“I feel you, but yo, Teck . . .” Anshon hesitated. “I ain't tryin' to be in your business, but you know you can't get high off your own supply.”

“What the hell you talkin' about?”

“This shit you got goin' on with Fe-Fe. Yo, you ain't on that shit, is you?”

“Maaaaannn, hell naw. Fe-Fe is clean, dawg. Have you seen her lately? She lookin' good as hell, her gold tooth shinin'. Don't sleep on Fe. Fuck what dem niggas in the street sayin'.”

“A'ight, I'll call you later. We can meet up about five or six this evening.”

* * *

Tom-Tom sat in his beat-up and rusted trailer in Buck Adams trailer park, laid out on his couch smoking a Newport, playing with his dick and watching TV. Nothing was going right. He had no money, his food was getting low, and Anshon had a price on his head.

He put his dick back in his pants, sat up, and started snorting a line of coke. Slowly but surely, Tom-Tom was falling off. He either had to come out of hiding or die.

He couldn't believe what was happening to him. How did the little boy that he helped raise become the one to have a price on his head? After all, Tom-Tom was the one who taught Tammy the game, and she passed it on to Anshon.

“I made you, ma'fucker!” Tom-Tom yelled out as his high started to take effect.

“I'm the fuckin' star!” Tom started thinking about Tammy. “Cripple bitch!” He took his index finger, held his right nostril closed, and snorted a line of coke with the open one. Thoughts of Tammy raced through his mind.

After Tom-Tom left Tammy, she had called him and cried for a month, begging him to come back. But he couldn't. How could he when she had risen to the top of the game and refused to move over?

“Together?” he said to her the day he got out of prison. “Bitch, is you crazy?”

“But how can I give all this up?” she cried. “I've worked too hard. Look, baby, I got two female drivers to run the D.C. line, and all you basically have to do is chill and watch the dough roll in.”

“Naw, you think I'ma let a bitch lead me around in the game? You done lost your mind? I'm the one that put you on. Know what? Fuck it and fuck you!” It was not that he didn't love Tammy, but his heart couldn't take the way she ran the game without him. A quiet, red-head, freckle-faced, two-dollar waitress was slangin' dem thangs better than he could've ever imagined, and to make matters worse, everybody that she was sellin' to wanted to keep it that way.

That's when Tom-Tom hooked up with Teck and Wallo. He'd heard through the streets that they were stick-up kids, the Dirty-Dirty's version of the old DMX, robbin' niggas and bragging about it. He hooked up with them and came up with a plan: snatch Tammy's cash and force her to start over. Then he would regain the hustle and the bitch, Tammy, would fall back into her place.

But he never imagined that the robbery would go bust and Tammy would be shot in Redwood Village parking lot. So, the combination of Tom-Tom, Teck, and Wallo stayed on the low, until the night in the pool hall. That was supposed to be their coming out party. They just never expected that Doughnut was such a crazy motherfucker.

“I swear to God, I'ma kill that bitch!” Tom-Tom said, laying his head back and watching the ceiling. “I'ma kill her!”

An hour later, Tom-Tom was coming down from his high. He looked out the window and then it clicked. He knew just what to do to teach Tammy a lesson.

He walked outside to the shed in his backyard and took out three bottles of lighter fluid along with a box of matches. “I'ma teach this bitch not to ever fuck with me!”

He jumped in his car and drove over to Tammy's house. Once he got there, he remembered that the gate was controlled by a numeric code, but Tom-Tom was sure that Tammy hadn't changed, so he punched in their daughter's birthdate. The gate popped open.

He drove up close to the house and pulled his car around back. He took the lighter fluid and started to splash it around the foundation of the house.

“This bitch thinks that she runnin' shit! I'll fix her. Sleep well, ya mute-legged bitch!” Tom-Tom sneered, convinced that Tammy was in the house. “Sleep all night and burn in hell.”

By the time Tom-Tom was done, he'd emptied three bottles of lighter fluid. Then he stood back, pulled a Newport from behind his ear, and lit it. He took a drag and flicked it onto the grass. The fire blazed instantly, giving Tom-Tom little time to take off.

* * *

Anshon and Monica lay across the floor after two hours of hard fuckin' when his cell phone rang.

“I hope your bitch-ass sister's dope-dealin' house burns to the ground, and I hope she sleeps well in it!” a sinister voice said.

Anshon repeated those threatening words in his head. The number appeared on his caller ID as
UNKNOWN
, and he kept trying to put it all together.

“Oh, shit! Monica!” Anshon said. “My sister's house! I gotta go check on her house.”

Monica was in a panic watching Anshon throw his clothes on. “What's wrong, baby?”

“Nothing,” he said, zipping his jeans. “I gotta go check on my sister's house.”

Anshon jumped in his car and called Teck. He didn't get an answer. Then he called Wallo.

“What up, Anshon?” Wallo yawned. He'd been out runnin' trains all night.

“Nigga, get dressed and meet me outside. I think that fuckin' Tom-Tom has done something to my sister's house.”

Wallo rolled his eyes in his head. He prayed that Tom-Tom wasn't turning out to be like Doughnut's crazy ass. “A'ight.” Wallo took a deep breath. “Come through.”

Anshon picked up Wallo and headed up to Tammy's. When he got there, all he could see were blazes of fire and smoke. The firemen wouldn't let anyone get close.

“Goddamn!” Anshon threw a punch in the air. “My sister could've been in that bitch!” He turned to Wallo. “I know it was that bitch-ass faggot, Tom-Tom!”

“Let's go kick his ass!” Wallo said, pissed off that Tom-Tom would do some dumb shit like this. “Let's go get Teck first.”

“Where he at?” Anshon asked, jumping back in his car.

“Where else? Fe-Fe's.”

Anshon and Wallo practically flew to Fe-Fe's. They told Teck the story, and he rolled out with them.

As the screen door was still swinging against the frame from Teck leaving, Fe-Fe's heart started to race as she thought about what they might do to Tom-Tom. She prayed that they all came back home alive.

* * *

Tom-Tom was in his kitchen, paranoid from the coke he had snorted. He kept looking out the window and thinking that the police were coming to arrest him.

“This is some fuckin' bullshit!” he muttered to himself, heading back into the living room. He stopped in his tracks, heading back to peek out the kitchen window. He hoped that Tammy's death would make the news.

“See you in hell, bitch!” He laughed, walking back into the living room. He flopped down on his sofa and kicked his feet up on the armrest and closed his eyes.

He was dozing off when he heard a car pull up outside. His heart skipped a beat as Anshon, Teck, and Wallo shot up his door. He jumped from the couch and took cover.

“What the fuck!”

Wallo walked over to Tom-Tom and threw him on the sofa. “Stupid ass!”

Tom-Tom tussled with Wallo.

“Yo,” Tom-Tom stuttered. “I–I didn't do nothin'.”

Anshon and Teck broke them apart. Tom-Tom wasn't a small dude, and one on one he would have fucked Wallo up. But Tom-Tom knew he was about to get jumped if he overtook Wallo, so instead Tom-Tom tried to make a break for his .38.

Teck punched him in the jaw as Anshon came from behind and put a chokehold on him.

“Calm down, nigga!” Anshon hissed in his ear.

Tom-Tom continued to struggle with Anshon as Teck and Wallo started raining blows to his face. Anshon wrapped his leg around one of Tom-Tom's and tripped him up. When he was on the floor gasping for air, Anshon pointed the 9 mm to his head.

Tom-Tom rolled to his back as Wallo kicked him in the ribs. Blood ran freely from Tom-Tom's busted lip. As Teck went to pick up Tom-Tom and throw him across the room, he peeked four bottles of lighter fluid and matches.

“Bingo!” Teck said, pointing to the evidence.

“Man, I ain't—” Tom-Tom tried to speak but was cut off by Wallo's left foot to the side of his head.

“Shut up, fuckin' snitch-ass lame!” Wallo yelled.

“Strip!” Anshon said, kicking Tom-Tom in the leg. “Get naked, punk!”

“Fuck you!” Tom-Tom shot back. “You ain't no killer!”

Anshon smiled then nodded at Teck, who started to put some duct tape around Tom-Tom's wrists and ankles.

Tom-Tom started to struggle but ceased when Wallo pulled out a box cutter and put the blade to his throat. Once his ankles were tightly taped and the same for his hands behind his back, Wallo then used the box cutter to cut his clothes off.

“Don't cut the lame!” Teck said as Wallo nicked Tom-Tom for the third time.

Tom-Tom was scared now. He was butt-ass naked and couldn't do shit.

“Hold the fuck still!” Anshon said to Tom-Tom as Teck pulled out a Magic Marker and wrote
DEAD NIGGA
on Tom-Tom's forehead.

He started to cry and mumble. Wallo planted a boot in his stomach then kicked him in the head.

“Now you gonna know what Cain felt like. Pick his bitch ass up!”

Tom-Tom pleaded with Anshon. “Yo, man, chill. I'll leave town. I'll do whatever, man. . . . Yo, Anshon!” he shouted.

Anshon ignored him.

“Man, please!” Tom-Tom shouted, falling to his knees. Snot ran from his nose as he started to crumble. “Please, man. I didn't mean to do it.” He sobbed.

“Look, I raised you, Anshon. I taught Tammy the game. She stole my shit. Teck, Wallo, tell 'im. Tell 'im.”

“Shut the fuck up!” Wallo shouted.

Teck answered by kicking him in the mouth.

“I got something for your ass!” Anshon said, running back to his car. He remembered that Monica had left her overnight bag in his car.

He went in the bag and pulled out a big electric curling iron. When Anshon returned back to the house, Tom-Tom snickered. He thought Anshon was going to come back with a gun and kill him, but he never expected a curling iron.

Anshon walked in and picked up the lighter fluid, then he walked over to Tom-Tom, who Wallo now had in a chokehold. He took the lighter fluid, poured the whole bottle on top of the curler, and shoved it up Tom-Tom's ass.

Tom-Tom started to scream as Anshon started pushing the curler further into his asshole. Teck grabbed an extension cord from the floor, swung it in front of Tom-Tom's face like a pocketwatch, and threw it to Wallo, who plugged the iron into the socket. Tom-Tom shitted on himself.

The curling iron was making snap, crackle, and pop noises up Tom-Tom's ass. He dropped his head, slob sliding out the side of his mouth, and he fainted—never to wake up again.

“Die slow, ma'fucker!” Anshon said as he, Teck, and Wallo headed out the door. “And that's on the strength of my sister!”

* * *

“Boy, what happened to you?” Fe-Fe said, looking at Teck's ripped and blood-splattered jacket. Too afraid to know what had really happened, she retracted her question. “Ain't no need in tellin' me.”

“No matter what happens,” Teck said to Fe-Fe, flopping down on the bed next to her, “always know that I really care for you.”

“Boy,” Fe-Fe said, feeling the lump rising in her throat, “be quiet.”

“Hey, Fe,” Teck said after a few minutes of silence. “I got something for you.” He went in the bedroom and came back out. “Here.” He handed her a diamond bracelet.

“Oh my Lord! Teck,” Fe-Fe squealed. “Jesus!” She started hugging him tight. “What happened to the box, baby?”

“I . . . I don't know,” Teck stuttered. “Just accept the gift, Fe. Damn.”

“I'll take this gift if you can take mine.”

“What?” Teck smiled, watching Fe-Fe unbuckle his pants.

“This,” she said as she started giving him head.

“Damn,” Teck mumbled. “I should've given you this bracelet a long time ago.”