Life Without Hope (32 page)

I retrieved five ounces from the bag. His eyes lit up like novas

as I passed them to him. Maybe he was thinking about searching

me to see if I was I wearing a wire. He hesitated. Through the dark

pools of his eyes I read his suspicion of me.

“
What you want me to do wit dis?” he asked, still not touch-

ing the dope.

“
Keep ‘em,” I replied, tossing the five cookies to him.

“
Getting paper?” His faced cracked into a sinister grin.

“
Jus a lil sumpin’ sumpin’,” I drawled slyly, as my mind deftly

tried to search for the holes in his mental armor, an avenue for my

sales pitch in recruiting him and the rest of them Oplica niggas.

“
Dig, playa. I’m tryna build a team right here in Tally. Open

up shop, drop some weight, boom dis muthafuckin town and get

ghost ‘fo the spot get hot. Nawaimsayin’?” As I talked, in the

background I heard JT Money rapping,

Bitch shake what yo

momma gave ya

.

“
I want you to be my lieutenant. I’ll pay you five G’s a week

once we get on our feet.”

I waited for his response. Blazack was a natural born leader.

Since his man Lil Cal was gone, he might rather rob than work for

another nigga. I was aware that he could take what I said as being

disrespectful on the strength of the caliber of nigga he thought he

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was. He stood all five feet seven, two hundred thirty pounds of

brute force.

“
Nigga you got me fucked up!” All that platinum and dia-

monds in his mouth sparkled for emphasis. I braced myself, felt

my hand with a mind of its own inching toward Jesus in my draw-

ers.

Then Blazack smiled like the sun coming from behind dark

clouds. “You damn right I want to be down wit your team.” I felt

a wave of relief wash over me. After ward we sat down and talked.

I explained to him how we had to act like niggas on a mission, and

to stop the dumb shit, as well as the partying. I didn’t tell him that

I had a connection so large they could use the scales for elephants

to weigh the dope. In time he would find that out for himself.

Trina’s cousin was a major Colombian drug lord of both “Boy”

and “Girl” meaning cocaine and heroin. Her cousin liked my hus-

tle. I never looked back. My life would never be the same.

*****

That night I drove through Frenchtown. It was dark. Most of

the streetlights were shot out by drug dealers for the protection of

the night. A lone luminous light shined within the dense fog of

smoke and air pollution. Throngs of people moved like cattle to

the pulsating rhythm of the ghetto. Every Black section has one.

A strip of town where everyone hangs out, flossing in their cars,

clothes and jewelry, parlaying their hustle–get in where you fit in.

A place where a man could lose his life over the throw of the dice.

I’ve learned that the element of surprise, if used effectively, is

a brilliant strategy in winning over your adversaries. It could also

get you shot. I made up my mind days ago that I was going to

make my move, boldly. Fuck ‘em! I felt like all hustlers feel when

they’re hungr y. I needed eat!

*****

I finally spotted Nina Brown. She was in a crowd of about two

or three hundred people. The scene was rowdy. I heard gunshots

in the distance. I was having second thoughts about my plan.

Stevey D and his henchmen were a few yards from Nina. They

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were all sitting in front of the pool hall. He was leaning against a

blue tricked out Caddy with a ragtop, sitting on dubs. Back in the

day if you had a clean caddy on expensive wheels, you was the shit.

Rubbing up against him was a thick redbone. She wore skin tight

blue jeans with holes near her ass cheeks. She was fat-to-death, ass

for days. I drove up with Trina’s system bumping Dr. Dre’ and

Snoop’s joint talking ‘bout, “If your bitch talks shit you know I got

to put the slap down.” I hopped out of the car, and boldly walked

into the lion’s den. The element of surprise, I had Jesus tucked in

my drawers, made sure they could see the bulge. Niggas jaws

dropped like old folks with no teeth. Stevey D shoved the girl off

his lap. I could tell he wanted to go for his strap. I walked up

humbly, and never took my eyes off him. The expression on Nina

Brown’s face was that of complete shock, like seeing a dead man

walking.

“
Whuz up, yo?” I said to Stevey D. He had on a thick her-

ringbone, a white shirt, a pair of starched Dickies and a pair of

black Nikes. The redbone was eyeballing me. From the expression

on her face I could tell she could sense something was about to go

down. “I told you I was comin’ back ta break bread wit cha,” I

said, smiling with more gaiety than I was actually feeling. Stevey

D bunched his face, crinkling his nose, the way people do when

they smell something foul. He then looked to check both ends of

the street like he was going to start blasting.

“
I don’t believe dis nigga,” he said tensely while shaking his

head at me. The crowd was starting to circle us. The tension was

tight as a fat lady climbing a rope. I felt a glaze of sweat on my

forehead. “You got some’tin for me.”

“
Sho’ll do,” I drawled. He laughed and looked around at his

crew. They followed his lead and laughed too. He walked up and

placed his hand on my shoulder in a friendly gesture, like the spi-

der introducing himself to the fly.

“
Let me holla at you for a sec,” I said, walking to the car. I

needed to get out into the open.

“
Yo D, you aight?” one of his peeps asked. He threw up his

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hand. “Yea, I’m aight.”

I was parked in the middle of the street with the engine run-

ning. We got in the car. “Nice ride,” Stevey D said, rubbing his

hands on the oak wood dashboard. I ignored him and hollered out

the window for Nina Brown, signaling for her to get in the car. As

I pulled off I threw an ounce into Stevey D’s lap.

“
What you want for dis?” he asked, never taking his eyes off

the dope.

“
That’s yours.”

“
Mine?”

“
I told you I was going to bless you when I came back.”

“
Tr ue, true, true,” he intoned, shaking his head.

“
Bet that up my nigga.” I could hear the delight in his voice.

I also knew that my kindness could be taken for a sign of weak-

ness but he had something that I wanted–this town. He extended

his fist, I hit it with a mean dap.

“
Let me buy some of that off ya, it’s a drought in town.”

Ain’t no way in hell I was going to sell this cat some dope. A

hustler’s dream is to have a spot on lock down and be the only

man holding. That’s like cornering the entire market of Wall

Street, having the only commodity.

“
I’m fucked up right now, I can’t sell you nothing, but when I

get on my feet, I gotcha.” He twisted his mouth the way people

do when they want to say, “Don’t piss on me and tell me it’s rain-

ing.”

“
Tell me, what ya’ll payin’ for a bird?”

“
Nineteen, twenty grand,” he said, throwing numbers at me

from his head.

“
Tell you what, the next time I go to re-up, I’ll get you one for

$17,500,” I said, thinking about Trina and her whip game, plus I

could get them thangs for ten stacks.

“
Hell yeah nigga, I want you to get me three birds!” he said

excitedly. “When you leavin’?”

“
I don’t know.” I replied, knowing you never tell a man your

comings and goings in this business, unless you want to come

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home one day and get touched.

I bent the corner and parked at the same spot I picked up

Stevey D.

“
Yo, my nigga, I got a couple stones, I’ma do a little hustling

with Nina Brown,” I said, but actually I was letting him know I

was getting ready to open up shop in his town. He said it was cool,

but I could see larceny in his eyes. He knew that if I gave him a

whole ounce I must have been straight.

“
Where ya’ll going to be ser ving at?” he asked. I turned to

Nina Brown in the back seat. She was cleaning the brillo out of

her stem, a cocaine pipe made out of a car antenna.

“
Where you want to ser ve at?” I asked her.

“
We gon’ be at my house,” she replied.

“
Aight,” Stevey D said, nodding his head. “You got a beeper

number?”

“
When you wanna holla at me, get in contact with Nina.”

He walked away. Nina jumped her musty ass in the front seat

next to me smelling like burnt motor oils and some mo’ shit.

As I pulled off she asked frantically, “What you doin’ drivin’

Trina’s car? What did you do to her?”

I turned to Nina with a dead serious expression and said,

“
She’s in the tr unk of the car.”

“
WHAT?!” Nina screeched. “Hell naw, lemme outta this

bitch!”

I laughed so hard it hurt my sides. Crackheads are some funny

muthafuckas. Up the street I saw the redbone that was sitting on

Stevey D’s lap. She waved at the car. When women find out a cat

is from out of town and is getting money, they make themselves

available. I asked Nina who she was. Nina told me she was a skeez-

er that sold pussy out of both drawers. I made a mental note to

buy me a shot of that ass.

*****

Nina Brown lived in the old run down section of town that

looked as if it dated back to slavery. Actually, they were Section 8

homes sitting on top of rotten wood and bricks. Strangely, across

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the street from where she lived was an abor tion clinic. At the time

it seemed so out of place. I parked my car up ahead at the gas sta-

tion and sent Nina to the store to get me a pack of razors, two

quarts of Olde English 800 and a pack of Newports. As we walked

back to her place every moment so far had been carefully planned,

parking the car at the gas station as well as walking back to her

place, ser ved as a reconnaissance move to survey the spot I was

about to turn into a trap, a dope hole. Police are trained to associ-

ate cars with drug areas. I did not want to make Trina’s car hot.

Nina Brown had not paid her light bill, so we had to use can-

dles in the dark. Her place was eerie and damp inside with a foul

malodorous smell. The wooden floors were barren and dirty.

There were three rooms, a front room, kitchen and her bedroom.

A worn dirty sheet served as the room divider to her room. She

had a back door with a clear view to the streets. That’s where I set

up. I gave Nina a half an ounce, her personal stash. She pinched

off a piece and stuffed it into her stem, lighting it up. The dope