Hood (17 page)

Niggas better let me be!

I’m tryna live it to the fullest till they let me free

I know they comin with the bullets,

God bless me please,

Hope you can oversee my greed, true indeed, true indeed…

THE TIER WAS
still dark when Hood rose from his bunk. The typical sounds of a jailhouse in the predawn were in the air. His cellie snored, farted, then rolled over in the top bunk. A broom-fucked new jack cried softly in the cage next door. The pleasure groans of a dick-jacking wet dream came from a sleeping inmate who’d been locked down without a woman for far too long.

Down on the cold floor, Hood rose up on his arms and began his daily regimen of push-ups. Today he would do one hundred and eighty reps. Ten push-ups for each day that he’d been confined on the Rock awaiting trial for attempted murder.

His arms, shoulders, and legs had grown thick with muscle. Perspiration covered his skin as he raised and lowered his own weight. The exercise was for his body, but the gangsta lyrics he silently spit were strictly for his mind. For the past six months he’d fought hard to keep both in tip-top condition.

Hood rapped softly as he psyched himself up for the drama he was about to face in court that day.

I’m from the ghetto I’m so hood!

I keep metal in my hood!

What’s good? What’s good?

Cuz my name is HOOD!

Is you keeping it hood? We will creep thru your hood!

Carry heat if we should

I would cuz I’m Hood!

This nigga right here is so damn hood,

I pull the trigga for the figures if you sell tan goods!

I ride like I’m Suge, big nigga with no help!

The only thing big is the sig by the belt nigga!

I let ’em burn like a cig when I pop the guy…

Let ’em fry, plus I got a buzz like I’m kinda high!

I’m that kinda guy you don’t wanna mess wit,

I roll with the best click, before I fold I’m letting the text spit,

In the same place till his face split!

Face it, I spray, then I cock again…squeeze…

Till I see him bleed, stiff with no oxygen

Left in his body!

After the first hundred push-ups he grunted with exertion. His arms burned like fuck and his body begged him to quit, but he pressed on. This was the best part. Pushing with his mind regardless of what his body told him to do.

He heard his cellie stirring on the top bunk. They’d come to an understanding early on, but niggas in jail would still test you if they could. Hood could hear him moving around above him, but he kept his mind focused on completing the next push-up.

His cellie was down with Razor, one of the baddest niggas on the tier. They were the type of inmates who went around bragging about all the cats they had buck-fiffed or caught in the kitchen or the shower and put to sleep.

But Hood wasn’t impressed. Some dudes came in the joint and immediately set out trying to earn a rep for themselves. But G’s like Hood walked through the doors with their stripes. Hood didn’t have shit to prove to nobody. There were plenty of dudes in here from around his block. Nigs who thought just because they had rolled together under Xanbar out on the streets that they was automatically supposed to click up in the joint.

Hood wasn’t for it. The quickest way to get ten years in the joint was to come in for ten months and start fuckin around with ya boys. Yeah, when you rolled alone without the protection of a crew you were sure to get tested. But Hood was cool with that. It usually took him less than five minutes to change a nigga’s mind, no matter how big the cat was.

And even though his reputation had gotten to the Rock before he did, Hood reinforced that shit his first day on the yard by walking up to the baddest cat he could find and going hard to his ass. Hood fought dirty and he fought with extreme cruelty. He’d swing a blade, a tray, a chain, a shank, or even another nigga. Didn’t fuckin matter. He was an animal behind these bars. He had the mind of a beast and went all out at the first hint of static.

Taking a quick break from his push-ups, Hood glanced up toward his cellie. The cat was a stick-up kid from the Bronx who couldn’t stop talking about who his team took down and which niggas they punked out. That was some real good shit to work with on the outside of the tier, but the rules for Hood’s cell dictated that the nigga had to stay up on his bunk in the mornings until Hood gave him the nod.

Hood chuckled to himself as his cellie swung his legs over the top bed. If that bitch got down off that bunk he’d ring his fuckin neck like he was a bird.
C’mon, baby,
he begged silently.
Get down so I can lock my fuckin hands on you. You’ll never get your ass back up.

I’m on now, niggas can’t ignore me!

Still holding the block down

Hand around my forty!

Really though,

Fuck who you punched and slammed

Who you slumped or jammed

Just as long as they don’t touch ya man!

His cellie had stayed on the bunk, showing him the proper respect, and two hours later Hood had eaten breakfast and was riding the prison bus and being transported to King’s County criminal court to stand trial. Every bit of anger he’d bottled up over the past six months had come down to this moment. A lot had gone down on the streets since he’d gotten knocked, and all kinds of shit had filtered through the prison walls. Reem had stopped through on his way home after touring for his latest album. His boy had signed with a major label and his shit had blown up sky high. He couldn’t stay on the visit long, but before he left he stacked Hood’s commissary and then kept it topped off for months.

Sackie had kept up the letters and had visited him a few times too. But everybody else had fell the fuck off. Dreko, Lil Jay. Even Egypt. During Sackie’s last visit Hood had wanted to know why.

“She’s aiight,” Sackie lied to him with a shrug. He’d promised Egypt he wouldn’t tell on her. But he wanted to tell his boy. He really did. His guilt just wouldn’t let him. “I see her sometimes. She’s doing aiight.”

“She ain’t been out here in five months, yo. That don’t sound aiight to me.”

“Man,” Sackie shook his head and changed the subject. “Dreko is large as fuck these days. He’s ruling supreme in Brownsville and in Ocean Hill now,” Sackie had told Hood during his last visit.

“But the cat is still wild, Hood. He got a real brutal army working for him. A bunch of young boys, and they been pushing up on some good dudes. Stepping on all kinds of toes. They took over Cypress Arms, you know. The whole shit too. Put entire families out on the street. Shit, with Chaos upstate and Xan took down, it’s Dreko’s world. You only get to live in that shit if he say so.”

Hood had thought hard on Sackie’s words. He could see Dreko riding hard and living large. He’d had big dreams of flamboyance and that nigga had always craved a throne. But still. They were brothers and that meant Dreko was supposed to hold shit down until Hood got back on the streets.

“Don’t worry about nothing,” Dreko had told him during his first and only visit five months earlier. “You just make it to court and I’ll have a chauffeur waiting outside to bring you home, baby.”

He spent three hours waiting in the bullpen. Beside him sat a cat who was praying softly under his breath. Moving his lips and begging God to guide the course of his trial. Hood almost laughed. The details of his case didn’t press him out at all. Shit was simple and it would go down the way it went down.

But when he entered the courtroom and looked around, it took him a second to take it all in. The place was packed. The red-headed cop who had beaten and arrested him was sitting right up front, waiting to be called. The dude Hood had popped was sitting at the prosecution’s table, face shining and suited up. Bald head gleaming and dressed like a fuckin banker. Sackie was there, and so was Lil Jay. Egypt was missing, but way in the back row was a real familiar face. Dreko. Sitting there with a bold grin and G’d the fuck out. Shine and floss. Nigga was prepped. Giving Hood a confident look that said, don’t sweat shit, homey. I got you.

That one look wiped any beef Hood might been feeling about the last six months clean. Hood sat there chilling as the big-headed nigga he’d popped got up on the stand and caught a case of amnesia. He could smell the fear coming off the cat as he swore on a stack of bibles that he didn’t say half the shit them prosecutors claimed he’d said. Then he lied like a muhfucka when the prosecutor asked him in an exasperated voice if his attacker was present in the courtroom and sitting at the defendant’s table.

“Nah,” the big dude said, shaking his head. “That ain’t him. That is definitely not the dude who shot me. I woulda remembered if it had’ a been him.”

With no other witnesses, the state’s carefully constructed case was reduced to mere crumbs and Hood walked free, just like Dreko had promised he would.

They hugged and dapped outside the courtroom and then Hood stood back so he could get a good look at his homey. The nigga had changed gears, that was for sure.

“Look at you, son!” Hood nodded at Dreko’s sharp attire and his platinum jewels. “Walkin round here styling like Jigga or somebody!” He noted the fresh teardrop tattoos in the corner of Dreko’s eye and the shiny grill affixed to his teeth. “Nigga got tats
and
a goddamn grill. C’mere, homes. Lemmee see what that mouth jewelry be talking about.”

Dreko grinned wide and Hood’s blood ran cold. The nigga had a gold project scene on his damn teeth. High buildings on either side of two tenements. And a big number one smack on his right front tooth. In platinum.

“Aiight,” Hood said still smiling. He was in transition mode so he forced himself to chill. For now. “So you the number one nigga on the streets these days, huh?” he said smoothly. His grin never wavered. “Damn, son. You musta been grinding triple time while I was on lock.”

Dreko laughed and clapped Hood on the shoulder. “Yeah, I been holding shit down, baby. But not just for me. For
us.
Me
and
you, ya heard? That’s why I couldn’t make it out on the Rock to check you out the way I wanted to. Just like you was prolly stompin niggas out and running shit on the tier, I was out here on the streets lookin out for both our interests. We brothers, yo, and I been busy building us an empire.”

Dreko laughed again, a heartless laugh. He was glad his boy had finally hit the bricks. What good was having all the riches of the world if he couldn’t floss them shits right up in Hood’s face?

“Just wait till you see what ya boy been up to. I made some moves and instituted some changes while you was gone, my nigga. Fuck all that living in the back of Fat Daddy’s shop. It got burnt down anyway. I got a real crib waiting on your ass. Entire buildings. We got bitches, shine, whips, cheese, the whole nine. It’s about us, nigga.
Us.
”

They rode back to Brownsville in Dreko’s rimmed-out white Range Rover and Hood felt good to be back home. He was amazed at how much the game had changed in just six short months, though. And Dreko hadn’t been lying when he told him he had amassed a goldmine. The boy had mad holdings. Just the sound of his name had niggas on the streets shook.

“This ain’t no
me
thing,” Dreko kept reminding him. “It’s an
us
thing, nigga. Just like it’s always been.”

Yeah, his boy was big, and his crib proved it. Dreko had told the truth. He
had
taken over the two tenement buildings called Cypress Arms. The one he had moved them into had eight apartments in the joint, and he’d run all eight families out into the street too. He’d stuck his lil army of younghead thugs like Buddah, Flip, Barry, Waffle, and Donnie up in seven of the apartments, with his own crib sandwiched right in the middle and protected from penetration. The other building was where he ran his drug operation. It had a count room with a steel safe twice the size of Xanbar’s, and it was more heavily guarded than Fort Knox.

“Man, who the fuck you think coming after you?” Hood asked incredulously when he saw the security measures Dreko had employed. Dun duns at the door, sentries on the fuckin roof, double steel doors, triple deadbolt locks, and bullet-proof glass in all the windows. “You been out there fuckin around with the goddamn marines?”

“Pretty close,” Dreko admitted. He walked through the crib with his gat out, going from room to room clearing that shit. “Niggas is snakes out there, man. It’s a war going on out on those streets. A muhfuckin
war
, homey. This is where you rest, baby. I hope you satisfied with it.”

Hood’s suite had been hooked up with a big screen, high definition, plasma television and a phat water bed. A real bearskin rug was on the floor and satin sheets and a cashmere spread was on the bed.

“Hey man, where my baby at?” Hood asked. He’d finished looking around the apartment and there was no doubt his friend had changed their lifestyle for the better. Dreko had been living in the lap of luxury, and almost every damn thing they’d ever dreamed about having as kids, he had either bought, stolen, or built it up in the crib.

“Where’s E staying at, man? I need to check her out.”

“At Sackie’s,” Dreko said. “She moved in with Zena after her crib burned down. I hear she’s doing pretty good over there too. Yeah man, them two chicks done got
real
tight.”

I led a sinister past,

But y’all fag niggas livin a laugh,

And I went straight to war, never been in a draft!

HOOD RAN INTO
a couple of his old partners on the way to Sackie’s house. He could have hopped in the fresh g-ride Dreko had waiting for him, but it was nice outside and he wanted to walk. His mind was full of Egypt, but he forced himself to pause for a few minutes to show his boys on the street some love. For some reason these cats seemed extra happy to see him. Yeah, most of them was glad he’d beat his charge and was back on the outside, but it seemed like there was more to it than that.

“Hood!” Vandy ran up on him near Dumont Avenue. Vandy was a down nigga who had spent a lot of time spittin bars with Hood and Dreko in Fat Daddy’s place and Hood had real affection for him.

“Damn, man,” Vandy said, showing him love. “When they let your ass out? You’s a sight for street eyes, baby! Let me guess. Dreko rolled up on that nigga you popped, huh? I bet that cat got up in that courtroom and couldn’t remember shit about shit.”

“I don’t know how it went down, but it’s all good. That nigga shoulda took that heat round like a G instead of snitching like a little bitch. If he didn’t like what I put on him then he shoulda strapped on his tool and come gunnin instead of conspiring with them blue boys. I woulda respected that.”

Vandy walked along beside him as he moved through the projects and headed toward a row of tenements on the other side. “Yeah. You always been that kinda guy. Everybody know you a cold nigga, but you righteous too. Got some street honor in you, man. But the game done changed. Niggas ain’t standing up like that no more. These days you can’t trust no fuckin body. Nobody. Everybody is scared. Cats who used to be down from the sandbox is now sliding knives in each other’s backs and killing women and kids. Shit is crazy out here. There’s a underground war going on in Central Brooklyn. You remember Miss Baker, right?”

Hood thought back to those cold days of his youth. “Hell yeah. I got crazy love for that old lady. How she doin?”

A look of disgust crossed Vandy’s face and he shook his head. “Not too good. She got burned out of her crib, man. One of her granddaughters used to be in my class, man. Diamond. The fine one who used to fuck with that guy Bop from the Plaza. Diamond had just stopped smoking when she got killed, man. Her
and
her three kids are gone. Miss Baker was in the hospital, but Diamond and her kids got trapped on the top floor and she tried to throw ’em out the window to save ’em but they still died. Diamond got burned up real bad and she died too. It was all messed up, man.”

The good vibe Hood had been riding was suddenly gone.

“Damn,” he said as they crossed the street together. “Miss Baker is good people. That lady used to feed me and Moo when nobody else would even open the door and take us in. I remember Diamond too. She was real cool. That’s some fucked up shit.”

“Yeah it is. They got burned for calling the cops, ya know. Miss Baker was just trying to keep her apartment. You know she’s always been real involved in the community and shit. She started telling people they didn’t have to move out just so the drug dealers could move in. They got some neighborhood watch shit going and started calling the cops whenever they saw a trap boy. The cats who did it got popped robbing some narcs, but that shit still cost Miss Baker, though. Her whole fuckin family.”

“So where she staying at now?”

Vandy lifted his chin, pointing up toward Mother Gaston. “I heard she’s over in Seth Low, man. I don’t know exactly what building, but I think she got a sister or somebody who lives over there.”

Hood veered left, slightly changing directions. He couldn’t wait to see his girl, but he needed to make a quick stop first.

“Aiight, later Vandy. Get at me, son.”

Vandy nodded, then called out at Hood’s back. “You watch yourself out here, man. Shit ain’t like it usta be! Especially on the borders. Dreko fucked up and stepped on Reem Raw’s toes, homey, and some major beef is about to spark off.”

Hearing Reem’s name froze Hood in his tracks. Dreko was playing with some dangerous shit. Reem was a powerful capo on the borders of East New York, and had been Hood’s loyal friend for a lot of years. He had grown into a hard-body G with a street team twice as large as Dreko’s. Not only was he popular and well known all over the map for his music, he was also promoting shows and bringing in other big-name rappers to his club. He rolled heavy with Freedom Moore, and was in on all the hot sets. He’d bounced over to Jersey for a quick minute and put in some work but had returned to Brooklyn with a vengeance, and he definitely wasn’t the kind of guy Dreko wanted to be fuckin with.

Later,
Hood told himself, thrusting his hands in his pockets and cutting across the pathways between the project buildings. He’d deal with Reem and his boys later. Right now he was gonna check on Miss Baker, then pay a little visit to a fine-ass chocolate honey that he had missed like hell.

One of the cardinal rules of project living was to keep ya damn mouth closed. It didn’t matter what you witnessed or what you knew. If somebody came around asking questions the answer was always the same. “I don’t know shit,” or “I didn’t see shit.”

Hood approached building 320 from the left side, looking around. There were a crew of thick-booty young girls in tight jeans, fly earrings, and colored contact lenses standing around in front of the building. They were listening to music, gyrating their hips, and licking big red lollipops. Hood knew better than to roll up on them with a bunch of questions. Instead, he skirted around them and headed for the small playground where several kids sped around on Big Wheels and scooters.

“Hey little man.” He stood in front of a young rider, blocking his path. “You know Miss Baker who stay in 320, right?”

The little boy nodded, his eyes big and his nose crusty.

Hood went in his pocket. “Can you take this dollar up to 4F and give it to her for me? The other dollar is for you.”

The kid shook his head, no. “She don’t stay in 4F. She stay in 11B.”

“Yeah,” Hood said, holding out both bills. “That’s right, I forgot. She sure do.” He squatted down and put the bills in the boy’s hand. He was about seven, older than Moo had been, but he still tugged Hood’s heart anyway. “Tell you what. You ain’t gotta give Miss Baker nothing. You keep both of these dollars, okay?”

Minutes later he was standing outside of apartment 11B and knocking on the door. When it opened he stood there facing an old woman whose eyes took him in with a quick glance and judged him even quicker.

“What do you want?”

“I’m Lamont. Miss Baker here?”

She looked Hood up and down and her lips turned down in a frown. Hood had been surprised when she opened the door without even asking who it was, but now gazing down the nose of the .32 that had appeared in the hand she’d been hiding behind her back, he could see why.

“Let me tell you something, motherfucker,” she said, leaning partway out the door with her gat trained dead on him. “Don’t let the gray hair fool you because I don’t give a damn who you be. Get the hell away from my door and leave my goddamn sister alone. She’s the nice one, you hear? Not me. I ain’t running from none of y’all low-life, drug dealing bastards. I will blow a hole in your fuckin stomach so quick you’ll shit out your breakfast before you hit the ground. Y’all caused us enough trouble. Fuck with me, and the next mama to bury her child will be yours.”

“I’m sorry,” Hood said quietly. His lifted his eyes from the gat and looked at her with sympathy and sincerity in his face. “I came to tell Miss Baker that I’m sorry about Diamond and her kids. I’m Marjay’s son. Marjorie Jones from Van Dyke was my grandmother. Your sister knew me all my life. She used to help me and my baby brother out before he died. She fed us. Took us in out the cold. I heard about the fire and everything and I wanted to come by and see how she was doing. That’s all. You ain’t gotta shoot me because I didn’t come for no trouble. I came with love.”

The woman narrowed her eyes slightly. She looked him over real good, but never lowered her aim a single inch. Hood stood there quietly, wondering if the old lady was gonna just say fuck it and pop him. Finally, her gaze softened like she could sense he was legit. She nodded and backed up a little.

“Angelique!” she hollered over her shoulder. “You got some company!”

The apartment the women shared looked like it should have been in a private home instead of a pissy project building. It was clean and neat, and pretty curtains fluttered at the windows letting the sunshine in. Miss Baker’s sister walked down a short hall and Hood took a seat in an antique armchair and relaxed. He smelled fried chicken and macaroni and cheese cooking in the kitchen. It reminded him of how good Miss Baker’s house had made him and Moo feel during those cold, homeless days.

“Monty!” Miss Baker seemed to flow into the living room and Hood stood up with a big grin on his face. Over the years he’d seen her off and on, and the fact that he was a street hustler had never stopped her from treating him like a son.

“Miss Baker,” he said as she took him into her arms and hugged him like he was still a desperate, hungry ten-year-old.

“Look at you!” she exclaimed beaming at him. She touched his face and smiled. “You grew up real nice, Monty. You sure did. After everything you and Moo went through, just look at you now. How’s Marjay doing?”

They sat side by side on the sofa, and for Hood, a cloud seemed to darken the room at the sound of his mother’s name.

“I don’t really know. I just got home a minute ago. I guess she’s straight.”

“I heard they had you out on Rikers Island. That’s no place to be, baby.”

Hood lowered his head a little bit and nodded, then changed the subject. “I came by because I heard what happened. To your crib. To Diamond and her kids.” He looked into Miss Baker’s eyes. “I just want you to know that I’m sorry. None of that shoulda happened to you. Your family has been good to a lot of people around here, and I’m just sorry something so bad happened to folks who are so special.”

Miss Baker’s eyes filled up with sorrow. “It
was
bad, Monty. I still have horrible nightmares about Diamond where I can just hear her and those little babies screaming out for me to help them and I wasn’t there…” her voice trailed off but her pain was so raw and intense that Hood could actually hear those screams in his soul. “But,” Miss Baker seemed to push through her grief as she forced herself to brighten up, “none of us get through this life without our share of pain and loss. God takes who He will, when He will. What’s important now is that those who are left living seek His favor.”

Hood nodded, but only because he knew she expected him to.

“Look,” she said, taking his hand. “I know you had it hard as a kid, you and Moo. I did an awful lot of praying for you boys when you were little, and I loved you for trying so hard to be grown up and brave for your brother. But I’m too old to bite my tongue, and the stakes are too high for me to keep silent. I know exactly what it is you doing on them streets, Monty, and we both know it’s wrong. You’re not a helpless kid anymore. You don’t have to sell drugs to feed your brother, so there’s no excuse for what you’re doing. Do something else, Lamont. Find another way of life for yourself. I see what drugs have done to our community, and that’s why I help as many people as I can, because we all have to fight it.”

Miss Baker squeezed one of Hood’s hands between both of hers and leaned close to him. “Monty, you be careful, you hear? There are consequences for everything we do in life, and sometimes they can be really harsh. You watch yourself because that poison can slide off your hands and sink down into your soul if you ain’t careful. Doesn’t matter if you never smoke it, sniff it, or shoot it up. Just touching it can kill you. Your mama wasn’t no fool and she wasn’t weak, neither. Her heart just got so crushed that she couldn’t find her way clear. She was a good, clean-living woman trying to raise her boys all alone, but that poison didn’t care about none of that. It still got her.”

She reached into her pocket and took out a business card, then placed it in his hand. “Diamond might be gone, but me and my sister have devoted our lives to helping other folks who find themselves in a bad condition. You wouldn’t believe how beautiful our people can be when they stop killing themselves through diseases, drugs, and alcohol. Give this to your mother when you see her—or to anybody you know who might be looking for help but just can’t find their way. Tell them they can call on me, okay? Night or day. And if they’re really searching for healing, between me and my trigger happy sister Ree-Ree who answered the door, we can help them find it.”