What's Really Hood!: A Collection of Tales From the Streets (11 page)

And she did, swinging wildly, but doing no damage. He reached in and smacked her again. “Fight,” he repeated.

Crystal grunted with emphasis, swinging, swinging and swinging. Wiz smacked her once more. “Fight.”

She couldn’t anymore, because she was exhausted. She fell into his arms, sobbing like a small child, lost and turned out.
He allowed her weight to sag against him, causing them to slide slowly to the floor. He cradled her in his arms, whispering,
“Fight, baby girl… you’re gonna need it.”

F
ive… four… three… two… one…

Happy new year!!!

The ball in Times Square dropped, signaling the beginning of 1987 and a new beginning for Crystal. She had never fought so
hard for anything in her life, but slowly she was regaining her spirit of self, her motivation to be her best, and Wiz was
with her every step of the way.

Times Square on New Year’s eve was the place to be, and 1987 was no different. Everyone came out to do it up in their own
way, but Crystal and Wiz did it big. Wiz rented a cocaine-white stretch limousine and held Forty-Deuce hostage as he and Crystal
fucked it up in matching full-length chinchillas, diamonds smiling for every flash. They club-hopped from the Silver Shadow
to the Red Parrot and even blessed the Latin Quarters with a paparazzi-type entrance. They owned the night, so they would
only share it with each other.

Back around the way, paper was steadily flowing, so much so that Wiz started selling hundred-dollar clips for fifty dollars.
He changed the game and had nigguhs
blowing his pager like crazy. Nigguhs who ain’t have their weight up couldn’t compete, and those who did had no choice but
to do the same. Crystal on the other hand was on top of the world. The first couple of months getting off crack had been tough,
but once they passed it had gotten that much easier. Whenever the urge did hit her to scratch that itch, she’d remember Wiz’s
word, “Fight,” then she’d sing Alicia Myers’s “I Want to Thank You.”
I want to thank you, heavenly Father / For shining your light on me / You sent me someone who really loves me and not just
my body.

Wiz became her everything, her world and her new addiction. She had to have him all the time. Not just sexually, although
it was liable to go down anywhere anytime, she had to have him around, close. He didn’t take her everywhere as he had before,
because then coke would always be in her face or in her presence. But she kept a constant check on him, beeping him and would
be like, “Hey, boo! Where you at? You comin’ home soon?” It irked Wiz slightly, but he understood, so he never let it show.

“Gimme like an hour.”

“An hour?” she’d pout. “You gonna leave me naked for an hour,” she’d purr, because she knew how to get him.

“Aiight, twenty minutes.”

Truth be told, between the game and home, Wiz was happily exhausted, but exhausted nonetheless. So one afternoon, while he
and Crystal were cuddled in the afterglow, he asked, “You ever think about going back to school?”

Crystal lifted her head from his chest. “You tryin’ to get rid of me, huh?” she asked, only half jokingly, because she had
become very possessive of him.

Wiz chuckled. “Naw, yo, I just asked, you know, ’cause I know how you told me how much you liked it.”

“That’s true,” she had to admit. She rolled over on her stomach and rested her forearm on his chest and her chin on her forearm.
“It’s not a bad idea… on one condition?”

“What?”

“You go back with me.”

Wiz threw his head back and laughed. “Stop playin’. Me? Go back to school?”

Crystal was feeling the idea more and more because school would mean less time in the streets and more time with her. “It’ll
be good for both of us. We could go to Essex County and you can just test out and get your GED, then we could take business
classes together. Turn that street money legit.”

“We’ll see,” Wiz replied, realizing his plan had back-fired.

Several weeks later Wiz had his GED and he and Crystal began to go to Essex County College together. He was still in the streets,
but he let Nu-Nu handle things more and more.

“Shorty got that nigguh fucked up,” Nu-Nu would say, “got Wiz in school and shit, yo.”

Word got to Ali Smalls and he was proud of little cuz. He even approved of shorty because she was having a good effect on
Wiz. School was good, money
was good and love was good, until one day Veronica beeped Wiz.

He and Crystal were home making spaghetti. So he picked up the kitchen phone and hit Veronica back. “You beep me?” he asked,
cradling the phone to his shoulder and stirring the sauce.

“Wiz, I need to see you,” Veronica said, sounding like she was crying.

“For what?” he questioned.

Crystal was fixing the table a few feet away. She knew who Veronica was and what she did for Wiz, but she definitely didn’t
know what she did
with
Wiz.

“Wiz, please, when is you comin’ over here?” Her sobs were getting heavier.

Wiz knew in his gut that this was no conversation he wanted to have with Crystal right there, so he replied, “Tomorrow, as
usual. You straight?”

“No!” she blurted out, “I’m pregnant!”

She said it so loud, Wiz swore Crystal heard her. He quickly glanced her way, but she made no indication she had heard.

“And?” he quipped, trying to keep his answers short.

“Please don’t do me like that, Wiz, I’m not a ho. I know it’s yours, please, just come see—”

Wiz cut her off. “Whatever. See you then.” He hung up.

Crystal could sense something in his mood. “Everything okay?”

Wiz mixed the sauce with the noodles. “Yeah. Fuckin’ Veronica want more money for the trip, that’s all.”

Crystal shrugged. “Can you blame her? Shit getting hot out there.”

Wiz didn’t really hear her, because he was already thinking about an abortion, and whether or not he could convince Veronica
to have one. His or not, he was willing to foot the bill, to avoid the hassle down the road.

Before he could sit down, the phone rang again. He started to get up but Crystal was already on it. “Hello?… Yeah hold… Veronica,
you okay?”

Before he knew it, Wiz had snatched the phone, yelling, “What the fuck you keep callin’ for?”

“Don’t be like that—”

Wiz hung up again. Crystal just looked at him.

“Wiz. What is going on?” she asked in the calmest voice she could muster.

He looked away to get a lie together, but before he could the phone rang a third time. He flinched for it, but Crystal’s gaze
dared him to touch it. It rang two more times, then she answered.

“Yes.” Her guts were all quivery like when you expect bad news. “Yeah, go ’head…” When her eyes shut tight, he knew what she
was hearing, and when she put her hand to her stomach, he knew what she was feeling. “I’ll tell him for sure.”

Crystal hung up and said, “Veronica says she’s sorry it had to be this way, but you wouldn’t talk to her. She hopes you understand.”
With that Crystal turned to walk away.

“Crystal! So you just gonna fall for that bullshit? That ain’t my fuckin’ kid, yo!” Wiz explained to her motionless back.

“So… you sayin’ you didn’t have sex with her, Wiz?” Crystal asked, then turned to him. “Look me in my eyes and tell me you
didn’t fuck her, Wiz?”

“Before, okay, before,” he admitted.

“So you’re telling me a female you claim you pay with money just bit the hand that feeds her because you used to fuck her?”

Crystal shook her head and began to walk away again, but Wiz admitted, “I fucked up, aiight?”

Silence.

“Aiight?” Wiz sighed.

“What you gonna do about it?” she asked.

“It’s too late to get another mule, so after this last run tomorrow, I’m cutting her off, word is bond,” Wiz declared.

Crystal looked at him and replied, “Do what you feel is best,” and walked away.

He knew he had been set up. It all played back in his head. The phone call, the timing, the sob story. It all added up to
the pistol to his temple.

“Run that shit, nigguh.”

He vowed to kill Veronica. She had watched him come up from half a brick to three every two weeks. Then she had made her move.
Two cats in masks pistol-whipped him until he told them where the coke was at in the car. He spit up a tooth along with three
kilos of cocaine and his Jetta. They even took the measly eight hundred dollars he had on him, leaving him leaking on St.
Nicholas Avenue.

*   *   *

Crystal sat at home waiting for him to return, but he had been gone all night. Too long. All kinds of things went through
her mind. She thought of all the nights just like this one, when he was with Veronica, betraying her love… He was taking too
long… Her thoughts turned over on themselves and before she knew it, she felt that itch. She couldn’t sing it away because
she felt more alone than ever before… And the urge to scratch grew. Just one… she knew where his stash was… just one… But
she forgot, one is too many, and a million is never enough. One became two, two became a clip and the clip made her guilty
enough to know she had gone too far. She imagined Wiz coming through the door. She couldn’t let him find her like this. She
had to go… get out. Wiz had about a half a kilo left, of which Crystal took at least a good nine ounces. She grabbed her coat
and headed out the door.

Meanwhile Wiz tried to call collect, but he got no answer, so he tried again. Still no answer. He called four times until
he accepted the fact Crystal wasn’t there. He called Moe collect and finally got an answer. He told Moe he was needed in Harlem
and to bring the heat. An hour later he and Moe pulled up to Veronica’s building. They went to her apartment, but when they
got no answer, Moe kicked in the door.

Empty.

“Fuck!” Wiz exclaimed.

Just like that, he was out a large portion of his weight.
All he had left was the half at the crib and a few bundles of clips, which all totaled up to less than a key.

“Let’s go.”

But his nightmare wasn’t over… When Moe dropped him off, and he went upstairs, he called out, “Crystal! Crystal!” He looked
in the bedroom, no Crystal. He looked in the bathroom, no Crystal there either. But there was no time for that, he was in
hustle mode, and he was determined to get his weight back up.

Wiz rushed to his stash, opened it and couldn’t believe his eyes. He had found Crystal—or at least where she had gone… Wiz
lowered his head into the palms of his hands, thinking of Ali Smalls’s words, “Any mistakes and shit be like dominoes.” He
felt like his whole castle had fallen in on him. But Wiz wasn’t a quitter. The absence of Crystal had him sick and his loss
had him boiling, but he refused to fail. He went and took a long hot shower. And washed the caked-up blood off his body.

He put on a fresh Sergio Tacchini sweatsuit and prepared to take his grind back out the block. The only problem was the one
he had created for himself. Clips were no longer a hundred dollars, they were fifty dollars. But with the loss he had taken
he couldn’t keep up with his own prices, but it was too late because everybody was on that now, so the feens expected it.

Wiz went hard, hand to hand for a few days, getting little sleep and little food. So when Ali Smalls pulled up to him on Goldsmith,
he didn’t look like the man he used to be. He needed a haircut and his sneakers
weren’t crisp. A sure sign that a man in the streets ain’t on top of his game.

Ali approached, gave him a hug and asked, “Whut up, lil’ Wiz, how you?”

Wiz shrugged because he could see how he was doing in Ali’s eyes. “Just tryin’ to get mine.”

Ali nodded. “I heard about the New York shit. Shorty just disappeared, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“What goes around comes back around, you’ll see her again.”

Wiz just nodded, glancing around, keeping an eye out for narco.

“Whut up wit’ you and ol’ girl?” Ali asked, getting Wiz’s complete attention.

“Ain’t nothin’, yo… nothin,” Wiz told him.

“Yeah, I figured that. You know, since I see she back on the shit. I figured you cut her off,” Ali surmised, knowing that
it wasn’t the case at all.

Wiz bit. “Where you see her at?” he questioned with too much urgency in his tone.

“Why?” I thought you said wasn’t nothin’? Lil’ cuz, do Ali a favor. Leave her alone, aiight?” Wiz wanted to, but he needed
to see her. Talk to her, so he couldn’t answer. Ali sighed. “She on Lehigh Avenue. Staying wit’ some head named Tricia.”

Wiz shook Ali’s hand. “Good lookin’ out, Cuz. I ’preciate that.”

“Yeah, I bet you do.”

Crystal sat on Tricia’s bed, letting the TV watch her. She hated to be back around Tricia, but she had no place else to go,
and when she gave Tricia a little bit of coke, she was damn sure welcome. Crystal hadn’t even smoked too much of the nine
ounces, but she had smoked enough to know she wasn’t cured. It was still in her.

She missed Wiz, but she was hurt by his betrayal and ashamed of hers. She yearned to go back to him, but…

“Crystal.” Tricia came to the bedroom door. “Somebody here to see you.”

Crystal didn’t have to ask who it was, because she already knew. “Okay.” She didn’t know what he would do or say, but it had
to be confronted. Wiz walked in and for a moment they just looked at each other. “How’s Veronica?” she quipped sarcastically,
really wanting to say how she missed him.

“Fuck Veronica, where’s my shit?” he intoned, really wanting to ask,
Why did you leave me?

Crystal reached under the bed, pulled out some socks and pulled out more than half of what she had taken. She tossed it to
the end of the bed.

Wiz stared at the white rocky substance and said, “Why?”

She began to say, “Because, Wiz, I was confused and hurt, so—”

He cut her off. “Not that, yo, why period? What about this shit make you just fuckin’ abandon everything, huh? Why?” he repeated.

“You wouldn’t understand, Wiz, you can’t.”

“This shit is crazy,” he stated, more to himself than to her. “How the fuck can that shit make you just say, fuck everything,
take everything, take you away from me?” Wiz probed, striking his chest for emphasis. “How?”