Hood (3 page)

“Knock,” Moo demanded. He was cold. Starving too. He woulda done anything to get through that door and get next to some heat. “C’mon. I’m f-f-freezing, Mont. Just watch. Aunt Pat gonna be n-n-n-nice this time.”

Lamont shrugged, then knocked on the door and waited.

He knocked twice more. Three, five times, no answer. He could hear them moving around on the other side of the door. He heard the refrigerator open and slam closed. A chair scraped across the floor.

He sighed and took his brother’s small, cold hand. “They sleep, Moo. Let’s go.”

“No,” Monroe said, snatching away. He lifted his soggy little foot and kicked the door hard. He kicked it twice, then banged on it with his frozen fists.

“It’s Moo, Gramma!” the small boy pleaded, tears in his eyes. “Moo! Out! Here! Let us in, Aunt P-P-Pat!”

No answer.

The child sobbed, sagging against the closed door. “Please, Aunt Pat. Let us in. We tired and it’s really really really really cold out here!” Grimacing, Monroe pummeled the door again, swinging his hands as hard and fast as he could, and when that became too painful he used his elbows then went back to kicking again.

Finally a door opened. Behind them.

“Boy.” A scratchy, cruel voice filled the hall as their grandmother’s neighbor poked his big gray head out the door. “Quit banging on that damn door ’fore I let my dogs out on ya ass. Can’t ya take a hint? Don’t nobody want you ’round here. Now get goin’ wit’ all that damn noise.”

Minutes later the boys were back outside. The wind had picked up and tiny pellets of hail were pinging down all around them.

“Here,” Lamont said. He held his torn mitten out to Monroe. “Put both your hands inside.” Moo obeyed silently. His face was drawn and his four-year-old eyes looked about forty.

Lamont’s look was also grim. He wrapped his arm around his baby brother and together they headed back out into the streets.

Y’all niggas got a problem…

How do you think you gone solve ’em?

Not like that!

A USELESS SUN
shone in the sky. It gave off no heat and the bright day was just as cold as the bitter night before it had been. Corner boys were out grinding and making that trap, while Dreko stood in the lobby of his tenement building getting warm and taking a break from his lookout duties.

He slouched his lanky frame against the wall and stared out through the glass door with his hands in his pockets. The lock was busted and the handle had been broken off. The frigid wind whistled in sharply, sliding through the narrow gap where the doorframes failed to meet.

Dreko sniffed, then spit a big gob on the floor. He’d had a nasty taste in his mouth since last night when that stupid white bitch had tongued him, slobbering his own cum back down his throat. Rage rose in him just thinking about it. They’d had to pull him off her ass up in Baller’s Paradise ’cause he’d been ready to dead that bitch. If he ever caught her stupid ass out here in Brownsville again, he would.

He was a big nigga. A menace. Already he stood taller than some grown men and he had bulk on his muscles and a nice long dick. And he was just going on thirteen. He had a foul temper too, and was known to bust muhfuckas in the head with little provocation. Especially if there was some doe involved.

A deep scowl creased his face as his stomach growled, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten since the night before. His moms had gone to work already, taking his brother with her. All the food in the house had been locked up in her bedroom. Even the damn refrigerator had a lock on it. That bitch had problems with him, and she didn’t even trust him around his own brother.

She was constantly trying to turn little Drew against him, telling him all kinds of crazy shit that wasn’t true. She walked around the house silent and cold, and at night she took Drew into her bedroom and locked the door behind them. He knew she kept a knife in there, but it wouldn’t help her ass if he ever decided to bust down that door.

She treated him like he was something dirty, and just last night she’d told him if he couldn’t take his ass to school and keep his nasty hands off other kids, then he could raise, clothe, and feed his damn self. And that’s exactly what he was doing working as a lookout for Xanbar and his crew.

Dreko peered out the glass door and down the block. He was supposed to be out there with Lil Jay, taking turns as lookouts on the corner. He sneered as he watched white boy Sackie Woodson run out to a car and make a transaction. Him and the rest of the crew were out there trapping hard, and Dreko wanted to be a part of that.

Instead, Xan was holding him back. Like he was a herb. Dreko glanced at his watch. He should have been back outside about fifteen minutes ago, but fuck it. If Lil Jay got cold enough or got bad enough, let him come inside this fuckin building and get him.

Dreko stared out the doorway watching people hurry up and down the street, their heads bent against the wind. Every now and then somebody walked past him either coming in or going out the building, but he never moved. Instead, he made ’em walk around him. Even the old ladies.

For the third time, a pair of raggedy-ass boys caught his eye as they walked past. One cat was older than the other one, who was really just past being a baby. Dreko stood up straighter and watched the way the bigger boy held the lil dude’s hand and pulled him down the street. The whole time the cat had his eyes on prowl. Every chick who passed by with a purse was a potential victim. Dreko could see it in his sharp, intense face. The kid was eyeballing the hero shop and the storefronts too. Thinking on something to steal, Dreko knew.

There was something about the cat that intrigued him, and braving the cold Dreko threw his hoody over his head and stepped out of the building so he could watch as they moved on down the street.

“Lil bitch,” he muttered under his breath as the bigger cat pushed his brother up against a wall like he was warning him not to move. That fool was gone get straight knocked. How the fuck he thought he was gonna steal something and get away while he had a youngster running beside him was crazy. Dreko woulda never brought his little brother out on a lick. Besides, he had gotten knocked enough times to know how to get down and how not to get down. And not behind no petty-ass purse snatching shit like this kid was scheming on neither. He’d been a real stick-up kid, and sometimes he didn’t even have to use a gat to get what he wanted.

But he had gotten cool on all that shit. It was too risky and it didn’t pay enough to be worth it. These days he schemed up grand plans of one day ruling the entire Brownsville drug trade, but for now he had to be satisfied with all this low-level action. He’d hold down his little lookout post for now, but as soon as he gained Xanbar’s confidence he’d be inching up to a corner grind so he could make that trap and start kicking up that doe. Hell yeah, the boys in blue had swooped down and fucked with him a time or two, but lookouts didn’t carry no product so eventually he’d landed back on the streets. Shit, he was still a youngster. Not a lot the courts would do to a cat like him unless he straight popped somebody. And still…even then they had to catch him before they could do something about it.

Dreko watched the lil cat with the desperate eyes for a few seconds more. Punk-ass. Muhfucka needed to leave that purse snatchin shit to the winos and the fiends and get himself a job on a lookout station. He stomped his feet a few times, then blew into his icy hands and headed back inside of his building. On the way in he bumped into a youngster named Berry.

“Yo, nigga. Don’t you owe me something?”

The level of fear that came into the nine-year-old’s eyes would’ve been heartbreaking to anyone else.

But Dreko didn’t give a fuck.

“Look, muhfucka. The next time your moms feening for that pipe and you beg me to get one of my boys to spot her, you better come back with my money, you hear?” Dreko grabbed the kid’s shoulders and turned him around, pushing him deeper into the building and toward the back stairs. He was about to get him some and Lil Jay was just gone have to fuckin wait.

It was quiet on the back stairs as Dreko slammed the frightened kid against the wall. The little boy shook his head, then shrank down to the ground with tears in his eyes.

“I don’t wanna…”

Dreko smacked Berry real hard on top of his peasy head, then yanked him to his feet by his jacket.

“Yo shut the fuck up and quit whining!” He unbuckled his belt and zipped down his pants. His dick was already hard and straining.

“You know just how I like this shit. So get up on it and do it right.”

Fat Daddy was in the barbershop getting toasted up.

A hefty, barrel-waisted man with a tight goatee, he had a chocolate dutch in one hand and a Corona in the other.

“Fuckin kids,” he said glancing out the wide window of his shop. His boy Felton had a customer in his chair, and so did his seventy-year-old uncle, Chop. “This the third damn time they been past here today. Seen ’em out there a couple of days last week too. Little muhfuckas. Need to have they ass in school.”

Felton looked up and stared. He was edging up Kraft, who was second in line to Xanbar, the neighborhood’s most brutal drug kingpin.

“Butch, you know who them kids is. Them is crazy Marjay’s boys. Miz Jones keep ’em now. Whenever evil Pat let her.”

Kraft laughed, looking out the window. He was a handsome cat, muscled up with an even row of pearly teeth. “I know them lil niggas too. My lil sons usta fuck with the big one over in Van Dyke projects. They’d knock him down and take all the little change his granny give him to go to the store.” He chuckled again and shook his head. “He got smart real quick, though. Got good with his hands. Nigga started fightin back and fightin real dirty too. He stabbed Beano in the arm and head butted Ike so hard he broke a bone over his eye. He put some shit on that long-faced nigga Bally too.” Kraft rubbed his freshly trimmed goatee. “The kid is small, but he nice. I might hafta give him a job…train him up to be one of my trap boys.”

“Oh, yeah?” Fat Daddy mused, his eyebrow raised. He followed the boys with his eyes. Kraft had more trap boys than a little bit. Most of them had been kids sitting in Fat Daddy’s chair just yesterday, and today they were the same niggas who would shoot him in the back for a wrinkled dollar bill.

He watched as the two boys walked back and forth, up and down the street. He swigged from his bottle as the older boy pushed the younger one up against the wall of a building like he wanted him to stay put. The kid gazed at the pedestrians real hungry and desperate-like, as if he was searching for something to steal. Fat Daddy took a long pull from his stick and sucked it deep. He was still holding it in when he opened the shop door and let in a blast of frigid air.

“Hey you! Brang yo ass over here boy!”

The older kid looked up and grilled him, then moved forward, placing himself between Fat Daddy and his young brother.

Fat Daddy narrowed his eyes. “Don’t gimme no fuckin looks, son. Get it over here.”

The kid didn’t move.

“All right,” Fat Daddy shrugged and made like he was about to close the door. “I was gone give your little brother a sandwich but I guess he ain’t hungry.”

The littler kid took off. He broke free from his brother and ran toward Fat Daddy so fast it caught him off guard.

“Whoa, hold up there lil man,” he chuckled. “Don’t knock Fat Daddy on his ass. That sandwich ain’t going nowhere.”

“I’m hungry,” the little boy said without shame. His face was narrow and he had a familiar little funny-colored mole under his left eye. He was just a baby, but he looked Fat Daddy right in his eye. His brother caught up with him and cursed and tried to pull him away, but the kid wouldn’t budge. “I’m hungry.”

Fat Daddy took the small boy’s arm and pulled him inside the shop, knowing his big brother wouldn’t let him come in alone. He led them past Kraft, Chop, and Felton, and into a small kitchen behind the shop.

“Come on back here. Hungry ain’t no good thing to be. But you gone hafta work for your food, boy. Around here we scramble hard. Don’t shit come free.”

In the back, the little one stared at a pot of stew on the stove with big, greedy eyes.

“Uh-uh,” Fat Daddy checked him. He handed him a roll of paper towels and a bottle of window cleaner. “Grab that broom over there,” he told the big boy.

He took them back into the shop and was about to put them to work, but stopped when he saw who was sitting in his chair.

He smiled at his little girl, then bent over and smoothed her dredlocks. He kissed her forehead. She looked so small sitting in his big barber chair with her legs dangling above the floor.

“Hi, Daddy,” she said grinning. Egypt was a tall, bright-eyed child. Chocolate brown with glasses and a slight overbite. She was a daddy’s girl and Fat Daddy spoiled her rotten. Gymnastics, dance class, piano lessons, he drove her out to Canarsie and signed her up for every damn thing under the sun, whether them white folks wanted her in their classes or not. Her mother had died from a blood clot when she was three days old and there was nothing too good for his little girl. She mighta been a motherless child of the ghetto, but she sure had herself a daddy. One who adored her and protected her and gave her everything her sweet little heart wanted.

But spoiled or not, Egypt was a smart girl who had grand dreams of a future that just tickled the shit outta her father. Almost from the time she could talk she declared she was gonna be a doctor someday, and she’d broken every single doll baby Fat Daddy had ever bought her, just so she could tape bandages all over them and make them well again.

“Who’s that?” She looked curiously at the two strange boys, then grinned and nodded at the bigger boy.

Fat Daddy looked at the kid and was startled by the expression on his face. As cold, wet, and hungry as the boy must have been, he was looking at Egypt like he’d just discovered the eighth wonder of the world.

“Nigga say ya damn name,” Fat Daddy urged him. “When a female wanna know who you be, you better make yourself known.”

“I’m Lamont. This my brother, Monroe.”

“Moo!” the four-year-old piped up. “My name Moo.”

Fat Daddy nodded. Lamont’s eyes had never left Egypt’s face, and for once the outspoken little girl had nothing to say. The way she stared at the boy with her mouth open had Fat Daddy wondering if something invisible was going down between them.

“All right.” He stepped between them and shoved Lamont toward the door and thrust the broom in his hand. “Break that shit up.” Then he muttered, “Lil nigga.”

With one last smile at his baby girl, Fat Daddy sprayed some glass cleaner on the towel for Moo, then told Lamont to get to sweeping.

“Slide that broom all up in the cracks between them stations, too. Make sure you get deep in the corners and don’t you miss not one goddamn hair.”