What's Really Hood!: A Collection of Tales From the Streets (12 page)

Crystal looked at him “Wiz… I wanna go home.”

But Wiz was too focused on his rival to hear her. His pride felt challenged and his curiosity was aroused. “Gimme your pipe.”

Crystal’s eyes widened. “Why?”

Wiz grabbed her purse. He emptied the contents, then rummaged through them until he found the pipe.

“What are you doing, Wiz?”

“I’ma show you this shit ain’t nothin’, yo. Then you’ll see for yourself you don’t need it.”

“Wiz? You don’t know what you’re doing.”

But his mind was made up. He stuffed the pipe full and Crystal tried to snatch it away, but he moved, put the lighter to it,
and for the first time he heard crack speak.
“See, Wiz… it ain’t shit… only weak-minded nigguhs can’t handle me. But you ain’t weak, are you, Wiz? Hell no… but let me
ride with you ’cause I’ma keep you sharp. Put you back on top and give you that edge… see how open you is? I do that, me and
you, Wiz, me and you. Let’s get this money!”

Crystal refused to watch him, but she heard the lighter flick over and over and over again. When it finally stopped, she glanced
over and saw Wiz standing in the corner, mumbling. “Me and you, baby… me and you,” but he wasn’t talking to Crystal.

Six months later…

“Yo, Wiz! Wiz! Over here, yo!” Nu-Nu called out to him, snickering.

Nu-Nu, Lil Mike and Pills were chilling on Goldsmith when Nu-Nu spotted Wiz around the corner in his trademark gray sweatpants
and army jacket. He wasn’t coming to Goldsmith to pick up money anymore; he was here to give it away. Everybody knew Wiz was
smoking, and it was cats like Nu-Nu who wanted to rub it in.

“Whut up, Nu? Pills? Mike? What’s up?” Wiz asked, pulling out six crumpled-up dollar bills. “I’m a little short today, but—”

“Man, you short every day!” Nu-Nu laughed. “No shorts today.”

“Come on, baby, this me. Look out, yo,” Wiz begged.

“Wash my car, Wiz, I’ll give you a dime,” Pills teased.

“A dime? At least let me get two?”

Lil Mike watched the banter until he couldn’t take it anymore. “Fuck that shit, Wiz, I got you, yo. Come on.”

He and Wiz walked away from the group, then Lil Mike turned to him and said, “Don’t fuck wit’ them nigguhs, Wiz, they be tryin’
to play you out. Here.” He handed Wiz four bottles.

“Good lookin’, Mike, word up. Here, you want this?” He tried to give Mike the money.

“Naw, just keep it,” Mike replied, feeling sorry for the man he used to admire.

“Thank you, man, and, yo… trust me. I know I’m
fucked up, but this is Wiz, baby. I’ma bounce back. Get strong, yo, then me and you gonna sew shit up, word is bond,” Wiz
promised, believing his own pipe dream.

“Sure, Wiz, sew shit up.” Mike shook his hand. “I’m down, homeboy.” He smiled. Mike watched Wiz shuffle off, wondering how
a nigguh like Wiz could fall off.

Wiz wondered the same exact thing on his way back to his mother’s house. Last year this time, he was the man. Now he was just
a sham. But it couldn’t be the crack. Naw, he could quit whenever he wanted, he just didn’t want to. For what? Crack kept
him on point, or so he made himself believe.

As soon as he walked in, his mother was in his face. “They let you get the short?”

Wiz gripped the bottles in his pocket tighter and handed her the money back. “Naw.” He headed for his room.

“Well, did you tell them I get my check tomorrow?” he heard her say as he closed his door and stuffed a towel under it so
she couldn’t smell the smoke. He pulled out the vial and retrieved his pipe from under the pillow. He loaded the pipe as he
had done a thousand times, flicked up and fantasized about his master plan to come up.

He was jolted back to reality when his mother banged on the door. “Wiz! You on probation or somethin’? Some lady here to see
you.”

Lady? Probation?
he thought. He wasn’t on probation and he ain’t have no lady, ever since Crystal left. “I’m comin’.”

He put the pipe down carefully, brushed himself off and opened the door. The face he saw froze him. It was Crystal. She was
dressed in a dark purple skirt set with black pumps. Her hair was cut like Anita Baker’s and her weight was up. She looked
good, damn good… too good. “Hello, Wiz.”

Wiz turned away in disgust. “The fuck you doin’ here, huh?” He hadn’t seen her since the night he first hit the pipe. The
next morning she was gone. At first he was sick, but crack quickly cured him, filled her void and became his all.

“I came to see you, Wiz… to take you home,” Crystal stated, wanting to cry seeing him like this, but knowing he needed her
strength.

“Home?” He chuckled. “I am home, you the one that left.”

Crystal walked into his room. “I never left you, Wiz, never.”

“Well, where you been all this time, the corner store? Get the fuck outta here,” he hissed.

Crystal ignored his tone and said, “The way I was, the way we were… we wasn’t no good for each other. You watched me destroy
myself, then I saw you take the same road, Wiz. So I had to do something.”

“So you left? Just, fuck Wiz, and ran off,” Wiz accused.

“I went to rehab. That’s where I’ve been. In rehab. I got out thirty days ago, and I’m back in school. I’m stayin’ at home
until I find a job, now here I am and I’m takin’ you home,” Crystal concluded.

Wiz clapped his hands sarcastically. “The end. Now if you’ll excuse me, I got shit to do.”

He reached for the pipe, but she grabbed his wrist. “Ay yo, take your—” His words were interrupted by a face-turning smack.
At first he was shocked, but his emotions quickly turned to anger.

“Fight,” Crystal commanded him, unafraid of any consequences.

“I’ma let that go, but next time—”

She smacked him again, this time harder. “Fight,” she repeated more firmly.

The emotions that welled up inside him started low and bubbled up like lava.

Shit from way down, way down deep came spewing to the brink. So when she raised her hand the third time, he sprang from the
bed and grabbed her, wrapping his arms around her waist. Wiz didn’t have the strength emotionally or the motivation physically
to do anything but fall to his knees, holding Crystal around the waist like he was holding on for dear life. The tears ran
down his cheeks in torrents, so Crystal just held his head to her womb and whispered, “Fight, black man… because you’re going
to need it.”

THE LAST
LAUGH

BY BONTA

H
ey, Nita, where your brother at?” the passenger of a custom-painted candy-apple-red Chevy Caprice asked.

In the streets, he was known as BoBo. One of the most notorious and most feared of the Black P. Stones of Chicago’s east side
neighborhood called Eighty-third or simply Eight-Trey because of its proximity to Eighty-third Street. From Eighty-first up
to Eighty-fifth, from South Chicago Avenue to Commercial Avenue, guys claimed Eighty-third as their set. And BoBo, five feet
ten, two hundred forty pounds of dark-complected muscle, with the stature of an NFL player, was in control of it. He was clean-cut
in appearance, but grimy in character.

“I don’t know! Ain’t seen him,” a young wide-eyed girl with plaited hair answered.

“Aiight then. Tell him I’m looking for him.”

“Aiight, BoBo.”

“Drive up to the park,” BoBo instructed the young driver. Although it was not his car, BoBo was calling the shots. If he was
instructing, you had better be following
his instructions or else! He was known for wreaking havoc on his own guys as well as his enemies.

They rode up to Eckersall Park, which was situated between Eighty-second and Yates Avenue and Eighty-second and Essex Avenue.
It was a fairly small park that had a big basketball court, a small court, a swing set, and a grassy area for playing football.
Across the street was a stadium where local high schools played their football games and ran track.

They turned onto Eighty-second Street from Yates Avenue. Cars lined both sides of the street. Some youngsters played tag football
while a full-court basketball game ran with spectators on its sides, some watching and others waiting on next. Not far from
the court’s edge a dice game was in session. Hustlers hoped to come up on some money while some just tried their luck. There
was an older couple who had seen opportunity knocking. They had converted an ice cream truck and parked right in the middle
of the park. They sold beef and turkey hot dogs, Polishes, burgers, chips, candy, and ice-cold sodas. BoBo had let them know
that the selling of swine was prohibited in
his
park. Knowing his reputation, they complied. A little farther down by the swings were benches. Guys and girls sat and stood
around talking, smoking and drinking.

“Drop me off right here and park up there,” BoBo directed the guy driving as he pointed farther down Essex Avenue.

“Aiight.”

As he got out of the car, a guy yelled out his name
from the crowd of people surrounding the benches. “BoBo.”

BoBo nodded his head while keeping a serious look on his face. He walked over to the crowd, which was really broken down into
smaller groups. A couple of his comrades comprised one group. He went to them first.

“All is well?” he asked while extending his hand.

The first one to shake his hand was Looney. His name spoke for itself. He was certified crazy. At six feet tall with a stocky
build from various stints in prison, he had a dark complexion and body full of homemade tattoos that showed his allegiance
to the Black P. Stones. The tattoos on his face were enough to cause even the most hardcore gangbanger to back off him. He
was BoBo’s best friend. They had grown up together and become part of the backbone for Eighty-third. “Fa sho’, nigga!” Looney
said.

They did their special handshake that was unique to their gang.

BoBo shook the other guys’ hands as well. “What’s that I smell?” he asked with his face turned up like he had smelled a soiled
baby’s Pamper.

“What smell?” Looney asked him.

“You don’t smell that shit?”

Looney just shrugged his shoulders. He did not have the slightest idea what BoBo was talking about.

“Hey!” BoBo called out. “Hey, homie.” The guy he was calling was standing several feet away, puffing on a blunt. “What you
smokin’ on?”

The guy did not answer. Instead, he walked over
toward BoBo and handed him the half of a blunt cigar that he was smoking. “Here, BoBo. Go ahead and kill it,” he told him
while smiling.

BoBo took it and smelled it. “It’s straight weed?”

“Naw. I sprinkled a lil’ salt on it,” the guy boasted, speaking of the powder cocaine mixed with the marijuana he had rolled
into the cigar.

Before anyone had even thought he would, BoBo swung and slapped him so hard he literally spun around. Dazed, he went to run
but BoBo’s guys were on him like hounds on a fox, catching him within a few steps. The people around all stared and wondered
what the guy had done that quick and what would happen to him now that he had obviously pissed BoBo off.

A girl in the crowd mumbled, “BoBo is tripping!”

“My fault, BoBo, man. I didn’t know.” BoBo’s henchmen held dude tight, forcing him to his knees.

“Let that nigga up,” BoBo commanded. He waited for him to stand. “So you like getting high, huh?”

The guy said nothing.

“Huh?!” BoBo yelled, causing him to jump.

“Y-y-y-y-yeah,” he stuttered.

“How old are you?”

“Twenty.”

“Who made you put coke on this blunt?” He raised the blunt and blew on the fire to keep it lit.

“What?”

“Nigga, you heard me.”

“Nobody.”

“Well you see these shorties out here?” He pointed to
the little kids who were on the nearby swings. The guy glanced over at them. “You ain’t finna make them smoke this shit you
fuckin’ yourself up with. Plus, I told your ass before ’bout smokin’ this shit in this park. Didn’t I?”

“I know, BoBo. I forgot. My fault. I ain’t gonna forget no more. On everything I love,” he cried, the fear obvious in his
eyes.

“I know you ain’t,” BoBo told him, lightly smacking him on the cheek. “Hold this muthafucka!” He reached for the guy’s T-shirt.

“BoBo, what you doing?” Dude was on the verge of panic.

BoBo ignored him as he tried to jerk himself away from the two guys holding him. “Looney, put this dope-fiend-ass nigga in
a chicken wing.” BoBo began blowing on the blunt, making its flame glow brighter and brighter orange with each breath he gave
it.

Looney took over by getting behind the guy and putting him in a choke hold. Upon seeing BoBo coming closer to his now exposed
chest with the blunt, he began jerking wildly.

“Nigga, if you kick me, I’ma beat your ass half to death out here!” BoBo told him.

He knew BoBo would do just that and stopped jerking. It was no use anyhow. Looney’s grip was like vise grips.

“Now I’ma help you remember what the fuck I tell you.”

The crowd oohed and aahed as the guy screamed from the burning blunt’s flame being extinguished on his chest’s flesh.

“And for any other primo-smokin’ muthafuckas. Smoke that bullshit somewhere else!”