Tales from da Hood (26 page)

Dodo lit his cigarette. “What you mean by get some air? You can open a window to get some air.”

“I mean that I wanna go over by the park where everybody be hanging out for a few minutes. My girls is over there and I just put Mulan to sleep. She ain't had a nap all day so she gon’ be sleep for a minute. Please?”

“Gon’ head, Crystal, but don't be all night.”

“Thanks, Dodo.” Crystal darted to her room and grabbed her leather jacket, purse, keys, and cell phone. Back in the living room, she said, “La and La, I'll be back. Be good and make sure you listen to your uncle Dodo. Take y'all baths at eight o'clock on the dot and get in that bed by nine. I'll be back. Love y'all.”

“Member what I said, Crystal. Bring yo butt back in tonight.”

“I got you,” Crystal said as she slipped out of the door.

CRYSTAL DROVE
her Camry, slowly scanning the faces of the men and women standing and sitting along the block or in the cars lining both sides of the street. Halfway through the block, a car stopped in front of her and its occupants began talking to someone alongside them in a parked car. Crystal pulled out her cell phone and pushed speed dial.

“Where y'all at?” she said into her cell. “I'm on the block. I'm in the middle right behind one of these fools. Hold on.”

Using the heel of her hand, Crystal pushed hard on her car horn and didn't release it until the driver in front of her cruised away.

“I see y'all,” she said into her cell. “Let me park.”

She maneuvered her car into a parking space and got out.

“What's up, y'all!” she shouted to her two friends.

“Crystal, hey bitch!” Shanté exclaimed. “We thought you wadn't gon’ make it. Everybody out here tonight.”

“You ain't lying,” Crystal said as she snapped her cell phone into the holster on her belt. “It's off the chain out here. Everybody is out here today. It some people out here I ain't seen since I don't know when. I thought I was bout to be stuck in the crib with my kids, but my brother is watching them for me.”

“I know you glad you ain't have to miss this,” Trina said. “These
niggas is out here checking for us. They must want to spend some of that paper that they got before they get ready to settle down for the winter.”

Shanté slapped Trina a high five. “I know that's right. Sweetest Day right around the corner, too. I think the cost of my pussy done went up the same way the cost of living did.”

The three friends laughed as another of their friends joined them.

“Bam-Bam, what's up, bitch?” Trina asked. “That nigga Gilly let you out, huh?”

Bam-Bam smiled. “I do what I want to. Don't act like y'all happy to see a bitch. Y'all know you bitches don't get no action when I'm on the set.”

“You ain't blocking no action,” Crystal said. “Plus ain't nobody around here gon’ say shit to yo ass as long as they know Gilly crazy ass be stalking like that.”

Crystal and Shanté high fived this time.

“I don't know what you two bitches is giving each other five for,”

Bam-Bam said, “not with all that free fucking that Shanté be doing.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Shanté retorted. “If I do do some free fucking it's cause they packing. And I can't count the niggas who done paid for it and ate it.”

“Yeah, I know that's right,” Trina agreed. “But I wonder do you let the ones with the little peepees hit it for half price?”

“Fuck you, too, bitch,” Shanté said with a smile. “What, you bitches must be broke—y'all ain't sipping on nothing? I knew I shoulda stopped at the store. Let's ride to the store and get something to drink.”

“We ain't got to go nowhere,” Crystal sang out. “I still got some of that apple vodka from last time in the trunk. We just need some cups.” She unlocked the trunk of her car and held high the
bottle of alcohol. “One of y'all go ask some of those niggas over there if they got some extra cups.”

“I'll be right back,” Shanté said. She sashayed over to a group of men across the street, who were listening to the music streaming from the rear of a dark blue Envoy while they sipped beers and liquor. Moments later Shanté returned with a stack of cups.

“Mario and his guys said to tell y'all w'sup,” Shanté told them.

“You should have told that nigga ‘not a damn thing,’ ” Trina said. “He need to take his momma back her truck 'cause she got to go to work in the morning.”

“You stupid girl,” Crystal said as she poured herself a shot of vodka. She passed the bottle around.

As the sun sank, the crisp Chicago night air caused everyone to begin zipping and buttoning their jackets, but no one left. A few incidents arose to gain everyone's attention such as a woman dumping clothes on the ground in front of her man as he talked to another woman, and a drunken shoving match between a couple of the guys, but other than that the night was chill.

Around eleven P
.
M
.
a glistening black Cadillac Escalade glided onto the block. As it pulled alongside Crystal's car it stopped and the tinted driver's window slid down.

“Ah, Crystal, DM wanna holler at you,” the driver said.

Crystal saw the driver was Gilly, Danny Man's best friend. “Gilly, w'sup? Where DM at?”

“He in the back, get in,” Gilly said curtly. “Bam-Bam, take yo ass home now!”

Bam-Bam started to protest, but a stern look from Gilly stopped her in her tracks. She went down the street to her car and left.

“I'll be back, y'all,” Crystal called out to her remaining friends. She opened the back door of the Cadillac truck and climbed in.

The scent of witch hazel almost overpowered her in the close
confines of the rear seat. Gilly pulled into a parking space a little farther down the block. Danny Man was lying back with a towel covering his head and most of his face.

“DM, what happened to you?” Crystal asked. “Did the police jump on you again?”

“Cut the dramatics, bitch,” Danny Man growled. “Where the fuck is yo brother?”

“Dodo?”

Danny Man leaned over and grabbed Crystal by the collar of her leather jacket, pulling her inches from his face. The towel covering his face slipped and for the first time Crystal saw the full extent of his injuries, causing her to gasp.

“Bitch, who the fuck you think I'm talking about? Where the fuck is he at?”

Crystal hesitated.

“Crystal, I ain't playing with you! Where the fuck is Dodo at?”

“I don't know, DM. He ain't been to my house today. I don't know where he at.”

Danny Man eyed her closely through his swollen eyes for a moment and then pushed her back against the door and readjusted his towel. “Crystal, you bet’ not be lying to me. You sure you ain't seen Dodo today?”

“I told you nall, DM. I ain't gon’ lie to you. What you looking for him for? Did he do that to you?”

“What the fuck you think I'm looking for him for?”

“I didn't know. How y'all get into it?”

“That nigga was on some bullshit back-in-the-day shit. He mad 'cause he been locked up all that time, while niggas like me was out here getting that money. Jealous-ass hating shit! I'ma fuck that boy up!”

“Can't y'all squash that shit?”

Danny Man laughed. “C'mon, Crystal, I thought you was
smarter than that. Look at my mutherfucking face. That nigga stole on me on some sneaky-ass penitentiary shit. I can't go out like that. I ain't squashing shit.”

Danny Man fell silent, and they were both silent for several minutes.

“DM, I gotta go,” Crystal said finally.

“Where the fuck you gotta go?”

“I gotta get the kids from the baby-sitter before she get to tripping and won't watch them for me no more.”

Danny Man peered at her from under his towel. “What baby-sitter?” he asked.

“My neighbor,” Crystal said quickly. “You don't know her.”

For a second, he looked like he didn't believe her, but then Danny Man said, “You better take yo ass straight home, too.”

Crystal put her hand on the door latch. “Are you coming over later?”

“Why?”

“Well, just so I can make sure you straight. You know, nurse on you.”

“I don't know. I'll call you.”

Crystal opened the car door.

“If you see Dodo, you better let me know, girl,” Danny Man warned. “I don't want to find out that you was bullshitting me. You hear me?”

“Yeah, I hear you. I wouldn't bullshit you,” Crystal said. She closed the car door and quickly walked to her own vehicle.

“I gotta go, y'all,” she yelled to her friends. Crystal ignored their protests as she climbed into her car and left.

DODO
WAS LYING
on the couch watching television with Mulan sprawled across his chest when Crystal came in the house.

“Dodo, what did you do?” Crystal shouted.

“What? Girl, you better lower yo doggone voice. It just took me an hour to get this baby to sleep.”

“Gimme her,” Crystal said. She plucked Mulan from his chest and took her in the bedroom, depositing her in the playpen. She pulled a blanket over the sleeping infant and then rushed back to the living room.

Dodo was sitting up by now. Crystal came and stood over him.

“What the hell was you thinking, beating DM up like that?”

Television remote in hand, Dodo tried to look around Crystal at the television. “Girl, you better sit down somewhere. Ain't nobody thinking about Danny Man punk ass. He shouldn'ta been talking that shit.”

Crystal threw her hands up. “Dodo, you don't have no idea what you done done! You can't just whup a nigga like DM 'cause he was talking shit! DM can talk shit to whoever he want to around here 'cause this is his neighborhood! He run this shit!”

“That nigga don't run shit but his mouth. And quit calling that faggot-ass nigga DM. His name is Danny Man. These new niggas might think he hot shit, but I know he still the same little punk-ass nigga that used to follow behind me and Casey. He ain't have no business talking greasy to me. That nigga ain't no heavy. I was in the joint with real heavies. If we was in the joint …”

Crystal sighed as she walked over and dropped down onto the love seat. “You ain't in the joint no more, Dodo,” she said in a tired voice. “A lot of time has passed while you was locked up. Remember I was still jumping double Dutch when you went away. That big-chest penitentiary shit don't float on the streets no more. It's a certain way that things is out here and the way things is, is that DM is that nigga around here. It's that simple.”

Dodo laughed. “How that nigga get respect and can't even fight?”

“Niggas don't even fight like that no more. They be shooting
out here. That's the old days you thinking about. Niggas with they shirt off going toe-to-toe in the street. That shit is dead. Niggas is running to get them pistols. Get yo mind off them old days and that joint shit. DM got more power than them niggas in the joint.”

“You talking like you fucking that nigga,” Dodo said with a heavy scowl on his face.

Crystal rolled her eyes. “That's Mulan's daddy. That couch you been sleeping on, he bought. This big-screen TV you be watching, he bought.”

“Stop playing with me, Crystal.”

Crystal sank back on the love seat like she was exhausted and put her hand on her forehead. “I know I should have told you, but I didn't think that it would matter. How would I know that out of all the people around here you would manage to get into it with him? Damn!”

Dodo realized that was how Danny Man had known his personal business. Feeling betrayed, he jumped to his feet. “How could you fuck with a nigga like that? You be on some bullshit, Crystal. I just left a place surrounded by enemies day and night where I couldn't let my guard down and you telling me that my sister is fucking with one of my enemies!”

“So I guess you think I'm yo enemy? They sho fucked yo head up in prison. I'm the only one out the whole family who gave a fuck that you had a place to go when you got out. I tried to make sure that you had someplace nice to lay your head until you got on your feet. My personal life wasn't supposed to have nothing to do with you. Who I'm fucking is my business. I'm grown.”

“You know what? That shit don't even matter. What is you trying to say?”

“I'm saying that you got to leave. You got to get out of here. Go stay at Johnny's house with Momma in Glenwood. Either that or go stay with Kent out in San Diego.”

“You know I can't stay with Johnny and his wife. They on that super-religious born-again stuff. Momma can barely live with them. And I can't go to San Diego 'cause I'm on parole. Hold the fuck up! I just realized that you got me talking about running and hiding from Danny Man. I ain't finta be dodging that soft-ass nigga. He got to come on with it. Fuck that nigga!”

“Dodo, I'm doing this for your own good; you got to go,” Crystal said quietly. “Now. DM could come over here at any time and you can't be here. Him and his people are going to try and hurt you.”

Dodo sat back down on the couch. “You really for real, huh?”

“I'm really for real,” Crystal said as she dug into her purse and pulled out several hundred dollars. “You were gone so you wouldn't know, but DM and his people don't play fair. Them niggas is straight wild. Take this money and go get you a room for a couple of nights and then you gon’ have to go out to Johnny's house and stay out there until this shit die down.”

At first Dodo's pride wouldn't let him take the money. I can't believe that she is really honoring this pussy-ass nigga, he thought.
She got to be fucking kidding me. I ain't finta be taking no money from my little sister to run from no Danny Man. I don't believe this shit. She must really be scared if she telling me to get up outta here. That soft-ass nigga already done tried to hit a kid up at the store; he fuck around and try to come through here and try some shit and one of the kids be done got hurt. Yeah, it would probably be better if I got up outta here and thought this shit through. I ain't got nowhere to go though. Fuck it, I'm gon’ take this little cash and get me a room till I figure out what to do.

He pulled his boots on his feet and stood up. “Just let me grab a few things. I ain't got much of shit no way.”

Dodo grabbed his clothes and his toilet articles from the bathroom
and packed them into a bag. When he returned to the living room, Crystal was sitting with her head in her hands.