Baltimore Chronicles (3 page)

Scar's custom built mansion sat on almost twenty acres in an affluent Baltimore suburb. The circular driveway was filled with every luxury car on the market. There was no mistaking his wealth because he flaunted it relentlessly. Music could be heard blaring from beyond the huge wrought-iron gates. Scar wanted to celebrate every day for the same amount of time he was locked up awaiting trial. This was just day one of his planned festivities.

Inside of his twenty thousand square foot home, Scar sat on his custom-made throne in his very own champagne room. He watched as two beautiful, exotic model-type chicks performed a striptease in front of him and his newest recruits—Trail, Sticks, and Flip. Scar was in the process of grooming the three young heads to be as deadly as he was at their age. He trained his little henchmen much like dogfighters trained their pit bulls to become deadly killers, with harsh treatment and just enough food—or in the young heads' case, money—to keep them loyal to him. They were the next generation of his Dirty Money Crew.

Scar sat surrounded by bottles of Moët and Cristal and stacks of money. He was definitely back at his best. He held his customary Cuban between his pointer and middle fingers and laughed. “Yo, the black bitch got a donkey ass. I would murder that pussy,” Scar said as he tossed hundred dollar bills at the women's naked bodies.

“Niggah, you ain't never lied,” Trail replied, touching his crotch for emphasis.

Scar took a bottle of Moët Rose to the head. He was feeling good. As Scar drank, there was a knock at the door.

Scar slammed his drink on the table and furrowed his brow. “Yo, who the fuck is that breaking up my private party? Niggahs know I don't like to be disturbed when I'm in my champagne room,” Scar complained.

“A'ight, I'ma take care of that,” Sticks replied, pulling his .357 Magnum from his waistband and heading toward the door.

Trail and Flip also pulled their weapons. Sticks pulled back the door to reveal the unlucky bastard who decided to encroach on their good time. Everybody aimed their weapons at the culprit guilty of breaking up Scar's private party.

“I fuckin' surrender, damn!” the man at the door said, throwing his hands in the air.

“Niggah, you must got a death wish!” Sticks said, lowering his gun when he recognized who was at the door. Everyone else followed suit, and Scar immediately lightened his mood too.

“It's all good. This here the only niggah I would let slide for fucking up my moment,” Scar announced at the sight of the man. Scar smiled wide. It did his heart good to see the dude.

“Damn, niggah, you gonna have your dudes put me on ice and shit,” Derek said, laughing and walking over to Scar to give him a pound and a chest bump.

“Yo, niggah. Detective fucking Fuller. I gotta tell you what; your ass deserve a fuckin' Academy Award for all that acting you did during that fuckin' bust and at the courthouse. Your ass was better than Will Smith and shit,” Scar said, chuckling at his own joke. “That fucking arrest was very believable. You said all the shit those fuckin' pigs be saying: ‘Shut the fuck up! Stand the fuck up!' Then at the courthouse you acted like you was really gonna kick my ass and shit. Talking all that blah, blah…I would hire you to be in my movies any day, niggah,” Scar continued, cracking up.

“Was I good or what?” Derek asked as he got comfortable. He picked up Scar's bottle of Moët and took a swig, knowing in his head that not all of his anger was an act. Some of that shit was real, but he wasn't going to let Scar know he was pissed that the lawyer ended the trial so fast.

The Dirty Money Crew was kind of taken aback at how easygoing Scar was around Derek.

“The whole ‘son of a bitch' thing had me rolling too. I was thinking, shit, if I'm a son of a bitch, you a straight son of a bitch too, since we from the same bitch,” Scar continued, laughing hard at his own jokes.

“You owe me for them days up in the clink. I'ma have to take some dough off the top,” Scar said jokingly. He really looked at his time before the trial as a small sacrifice for a bigger payoff later.

“Don't play! I'm the one who should get extra pay for letting you fuck up my good name. I had to look big-time stupid and embarrassed for fuckin' up the warrant and shit. I don't even know how they fuckin' believed a debonair, sharp-ass niggah like me would fuck up a warrant. But that was some genius shit you came up with, my man, changing the numbers around. It's also a good thing I got my wifey on lock so I could convince her to go through with it,” Derek said.

This wasn't the first time Derek had botched a drug bust, so he had to come up with a good plan for how to do it again. This time had to be different from last time, even though last time was a true fuck-up. He had legitimately forgotten to get a warrant a few years back while busting Scar's rival, a drug dealer named Malek. Scar had wanted his competition stomped and destroyed, and Fuller and his crew were more than willing to oblige in order to keep their share of the drug profits padding their pockets. Only problem was that in their eagerness to take Malek out, they forgot to follow the rules. So, Malek lived to sling another day, and Derek and his crew looked like chumps. That's the problem with working on that side of the law: those fucking rules get in the way.

“Yo, I'ma bounce.” Derek didn't want to take a chance on anyone seeing him there. Scar wanted to meet in a few days at their normal spot, a small Italian restaurant in Bowie, a suburb of Baltimore, but Derek just couldn't wait. He knew coming to Scar's house this soon after the trial was risky, but not seeing his brother since the bust had Derek missing him big time.

“We make a good fucking team, bro. You keep the law up off me, I keep your pockets laced; you use me to look like a hero cop, I use you to buy myself a lot of time before any other five-O even thinks twice about busting up on me, for fear that my high-paid lawyer will make them look like shit. Niggah, it all worked out,” Scar explained, extending his hand to offer Derek one of his prized Cuban cigars.

Derek took the little gift and nodded in agreement at what Scar was saying. He understood the being made to look like shit part, but that was the one thing that Derek had a hard time accepting. He had to admit that the money he made from helping Scar evade the law was more than he could ever dream of seeing from his state salary. But sometimes living a double life took its toll on him mentally, especially because of his special connection to Scar.

“Flip, give this man what he came for,” Scar instructed, waving his hand like Flip was his servant.

“You wanna get up on that donkey ass right there before you go home?” Scar asked Derek, gesturing toward the strippers.

“Nah, I got a beauty at home. She's all I need,” Derek said, thinking about his wife.

Scar smiled wide, almost smirking. He could never understand how a man could love one woman to the extent that Derek loved his wife. Scar thought Derek almost seemed like a punk for her.

“I hear that, niggah. That got to be some good-ass shit if you gon' pass up that J-Lo ass right there. By the way, tell my sister-in-law I said hello,” Scar commented with that smirk appearing on his face again.

Before Derek could respond, Flip returned and reluctantly handed Derek a black duffel bag filled with cash. It was the profit from their last cocaine flip. When Scar had told his young soldiers they had to give up their last flip, they weren't too happy. Flip was the most upset. Scar had decided to give Derek the entire profit. The crew thought it was like a slap in the face, since they were the ones on the front line putting in the work. They didn't think that Derek's help was anywhere near as important to the operation as their grinding. But none of them dared to question Scar. Not right now anyway.

Flip gave up what he thought of as his loot, but he filed it in his mental Rolodex. He had a plan.

Derek took a quick look inside the bag and looked back at Scar a bit confused. It was more than he had ever seen in his dealings with Scar. A line of sweat broke out on Derek's forehead as his mind raced with ideas on how he would “wash” all that money to make it look legit before he could spend it.

“Yeah, I thought you deserved a little extra. I mean, we are brothers, right?” Scar said seriously.

“Yeah, blood of my blood, flesh of my flesh, niggah for life,” Derek said in an almost inaudible whisper. Seeing all that money gave Derek an uneasy feeling, almost as if he was getting in too deep. He wasn't about to go back on his promise to his mother now, though, so he put that uneasy feeling right out of his mind.

“That's what I'm saying, niggah. We blood for life, so when I can look out, I will. That bond is important,” Scar commented.

Derek nodded. He was feeling a strong sense of love and allegiance. He never wanted to be separated from his brother again. Derek closed the bag, gave his brother a hug, and headed home to his wife.

 

Once he was outside of Scar's doors, Derek slid behind the steering wheel of his car, and with his heart racing, he checked the bag of money again. He rested his head on the headrest and thought about what he had done and had been doing for the past two years. He felt so caught in the middle sometimes. Derek loved his brother, but he knew this shit was all going to come to an end one day; however, right now he didn't see a way out.

Brother or not, Derek knew Scar was dangerous. When he had been reunited with his brother, Derek was so excited to find him after their tragic childhood separation that he overlooked Scar's life of crime. It wasn't long before he had been drawn into a web of lies and deceit. He felt an overwhelming need to stay connected and bonded to Scar, the only piece of his mother and his true identity that he had left. He had made his mother a promise that he would take care of his little brother—no matter what. Derek was determined to keep that promise. He felt it would keep his mother's memory alive in his heart and mind. Derek closed his eyes, and just like always, the memories flooded back.

 

In a car across the street from Scar's house, the observer from the courtroom had watched Detective Fuller enter the house and come out with a duffel bag. The person immediately picked up a cell phone and started taking pictures. After the trial, or rather the theatrical event at the courthouse, the lone spectator decided to take a trip to Scar's house and see what was going on. Little did they know that Detective Fuller would be there, entering the house of his enemy so soon after the trial. Even more interesting to the person was the detective leaving with the duffel bag.

Derek pulled away from the house, and his new shadow put down the cell phone and prepared to follow. Before they could pull away from the curb, a dark blue Chevy Impala pulled up. The shadow stayed put so as not to draw any attention. Keeping as still possible, the observer watched as a tall black man with salt-and-pepper hair stepped out of the Chevy.

“That dude look familiar. Where do I know him from? Better take some pictures to document this shit for later perusal,” the shadow said, picking up the phone and snapping a few pictures as the familiar-looking dude walked into Scar's house. This shit was definitely getting interesting.

“Mommy! Ahhhh!” Derek screamed, his small, cherubic face turning almost burgundy as he jumped up and down in sheer terror. His brother stood next to him and peed on himself as he watched too.

“I told you before, bitch, you don't play with my fuckin' money!” a strange man screamed as he dragged their mother by her hair. The man was so big and his skin was so black that he looked to Derek like a giant monster.

As the boys screamed, the man hoisted their mother in the air by her throat. Derek felt vomit creep up his throat and his bowels threatened to release from the fear he felt. His mother clawed at the man's hands in a futile attempt to loosen his grip so she could breathe.

“Get off my mommy!” Stephon screamed, the scar he was born with dragging the side of his mouth down, causing his words to slur. Derek grabbed onto his little brother's shirt and pulled him back. He couldn't risk this monster harming his brother too.

“Please don't hurt my babies,” their mother rasped, begging the man for mercy.

“Bitch, you should have thought about that before you decided to cross me,” the giant said, hoisting her up and throwing her up against the wall. She hit the wall with a thud and slid down, her body going limp like a rag doll. She continued to scream and beg for her life as the man pounded on her.

He let his fist land at will, each punch harder than the one before. “You like to smoke crack? You like to steal from people, bitch?” the man growled as he lifted her weak body so he could get to her face easier. With the force of a Mack truck, he backhanded her, and one of her teeth shot from her mouth. Blood covered her face and the floor around her. “Now, I expect to get my money by tomorrow, or you and these bastard trick babies of yours gonna be dead,” the man said, spewing a wad of spit on her crumpled form.

Five-year-old Derek and his four-year-old brother Stephon cowered in a corner. Derek, being a year older, tried to shield his brother from harm as usual. Although he was only five, Derek often acted as if he were ten or eleven. On the nights his mother disappeared or stayed holed up in her bedroom with different men, Derek would pour cereal or make a sandwich out of whatever was there for him and his little brother. He would make sure his brother washed his face and brushed his teeth before they went to bed.

Derek always protected Stephon, who his mother had nicknamed Scar because of his misshapen head and the scar that dragged down one side of his face, making his head resemble a boulder. “Scar, Scar…Scar head baby,” she would sing to her youngest son. She would call Derek her “baby genius” and tell him he was destined for greatness.

People often thought the brothers were fraternal twins because they were the same size. Although Scar was a year younger, he was always just as big as his older brother.

When he was sure the giant was gone, Derek got up and went to his mother's side. “Mommy?” he whined, nudging her frantically. When she didn't respond, he thought she was dead for sure. “Mommy!” he called out again, with urgency rippling through his words.

Finally, his mother shifted, winced in pain, moaned, and turned over. Struggling to get up and barely able to speak through her swollen lips, she rushed her boys to put on their coats. Afraid and visibly shaken, Derek followed his mother's instructions and helped Scar into his coat and put on his own. Their mother rushed them out of the apartment, looking around nervously the entire time.

Once they were outside, their battered mother let motherly instinct take over. She ignored the massive pains ripping through her entire body as she walked at a feverish pace to get her children far away from the potential danger.

Derek could keep up, but Scar had a hard time, and he gasped for breath because he had to jog just to keep in step. After walking for what seemed like an eternity, the trio finally came to a middle class white neighborhood.

“Go in there and y'all stand right by that green dumpster. Don't move until I come back. You hear me, Derek?” his mother said, her words garbled and her face becoming more swollen by the minute.

“When you coming back?” Derek asked, shivering anxiously.

“Take care of your brother, okay? He is special, and don't you let nobody bother him about his face. You hear me?” she said, ignoring his question as her body quaked with sobs.

“When you coming back?” Derek asked her again, an ominous feeling taking over.

“Just take care of your brother,” his mother said, shoving them along.

As they started ambling forward slowly toward the dumpster, their mother turned and limped away as fast as she could. Her heart was breaking as she walked farther and farther away from her children. She knew eventually somebody would find them and take care of them. If she kept them, she feared, her addiction would eventually get them killed.

Scar began crying out, “Mommy! Mommy! Don't leave us.”

“Shhh. Mommy is coming back. I'm gonna take care of you until she comes back,” Derek consoled, squeezing his brother's hand tightly.

Derek took his brother and stood right where his mother had instructed him. They stood at the dumpster until the sun came up. Their legs throbbed and Scar whined and cried in between nodding from sleep deprivation. Derek refused to sit down or allow Scar to sit down. His mother had told him to stand there, and he would not let her down. Several people passed them and stared, but no one said anything to them. It was the trash truck driver who came to empty the dumpster who finally asked Derek why they were there.

“My mommy said she is coming back for us,” Derek said. After waiting with Derek and Scar for three hours, the trash man finally called the authorities.

Derek never saw his mother again. When the child protective service workers and the police showed up, Derek still refused to move. They had to finally, forcefully remove him from the dumpster.

“No! I'm waiting for my mommy! No!” Derek screamed and kicked. It was to no avail. Derek and Scar were whisked away to the hospital for a medical clearance and then off to foster care.

The boys remained in foster care for more than a year, but with the mandatory expiration on parental rights, after eighteen months they were put up for adoption. Every Wednesday, Derek and Scar went to the agency along with about twenty-five other kids, to be on display for prospective parents. Derek would always hold Scar's hand and tell people that they were not being separated and if they wanted him, they would have to take Scar too. With one look at Scar's disfigured face, the potential parents always turned away and found other kids to adopt.

Derek's plan had worked for weeks, and each week, Derek and Scar would go together back to the foster home. After a few weeks of this flat out rejection, the social workers couldn't figure out why at least one of the boys could not attract an adoptive family. The workers finally started sitting close to Derek and Scar. When the workers got wind of what Derek was doing, the next Wednesday, they put Derek and Scar in separate rooms. Derek was picked immediately. He was seven, with the cutest dimples and the prettiest smile. Scar, on the other hand, had been overlooked again and again.

The day Derek's new family—a father who was a cop and a mother who was a teacher—came to pick him up, he refused to leave without his brother. He fought and cursed and even locked himself inside the bathroom. The social workers lied to Derek in order to coax him out of the bathroom so his new parents could grab him and get him home.

“Your brother will be coming along soon. Go ahead. You will see him again,” she said.

Not fully believing her, but also not wanting to do anything that would possibly delay his brother's departure, Derek reluctantly went. He wouldn't see his brother until almost fifteen years later, when they had both landed on opposite sides of the law.

In Derek's new adoptive home, everything seemed to be perfect. His father fought crime and his mother taught him everything there was to know in any book imaginable. They were a real family. They ate dinner together and had fun movie nights on Fridays, his father's day off. Derek lived like a kid that had been born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He wore the finest clothes, had every toy before it even became popular with other kids, and most of all, he had a real family life—with both parents. But despite how it seemed from the outside, everything wasn't as peachy as it seemed.

Derek's father worked the midnight shift, and when he left home at ten o'clock after tucking his son in and kissing his wife, things would take a dark turn in the house. Derek's adoptive mother would creep into his bedroom at night and wake him up. She would shake him awake and stand over him wearing a see-through nightgown. Longing for her husband's touch and affection, Ms. Fuller was lonely and desperate. She would climb into bed with her adopted son and stroke his hair. Then she would tell Derek that she loved him more than anything in the world.

She knew the one thing that was most important to Derek, and she used it against him. Mrs. Fuller told him that if he wanted to see his brother again, he would have to touch her, and she would help him find his brother.

Derek was so desperate to see Stephon again that he would have done anything his adoptive mother asked of him. At first it started out as touching; she would take his little hands and guide them around her body, making Derek touch her breasts and put his fingers in her vagina. By the time Derek was eleven, she had begun to make him have full-blown intercourse with her. She would always perform fellatio on him first, then make him perform cunnilingus on her. Then she would take his still growing penis and force him to put it in her oversized, sloppy pussy.

Most of the time, Derek felt disgusting and dirty, but he so longed for his brother that he ignored it and did what he was told. Sometimes he wanted to vomit. But things changed, and he felt differently as the years went by. His body would betray him and he started to experience sensations that he did not quite understand. Derek tried to fight the “good feeling” that he started to get as he got older, but soon realized that the faster he got to that feeling the better, because his nightmare would then be over. Derek would ejaculate after a few minutes so he wouldn't feel so guilty. It was ingrained in him as a coping mechanism; cum quickly and it will be over, he used to tell himself. It had become a way of life for him.

Derek had everything any child could want: toys, a private school education, and church every Sunday. Even with everything, he endured torture for years. The only thing Derek wanted was to see his biological mother and brother again.

On the other hand, still in the hood of Baltimore, Scar remained in the foster care system. After years of teasing and beatings at the hands of other kids in group home after group home, Scar grew angry inside. On most days he felt ruthless, and often had visions of killing the social workers and the other kids with his bare hands. It wasn't long before Scar was on edge.

“Hey, elephant man,” a boy had called out to Scar, throwing a ping pong ball from the day room, hitting Scar in the head. Scar bit down into his cheek and ignored his tormentor. “You so ugly we could probably win a world war just by showing your face to the enemies,” the boy continued, garnering laughs from the other kids sitting around. “Look at that scar and those saggy lips. I bet your mother must have fucked a gorilla to get something as ugly as you,” the boy said, letting out a shrill, grating laugh.

That was it. Scar's ear seemed clogged, and the room started spinning around him. He snapped. He never tolerated anyone talking about his mother or his brother. “Arrrggh!” Scar screamed out, suddenly lunging at the boy. Scar gripped a pocket knife he had stolen from the local sporting goods store.

The boy's eyes popped open in shock. He had not expected the “ugly monster kid” to ever fight back. The boy backed up from Scar's contact. He was holding his throat and gagging. Screams erupted in the room, and some of the other kids ran out into the hallway to get help. Scar had buried the pocket knife deep into the boy's neck, hitting his jugular vein.

Scar stumbled backward at the sight of his deed. Thick burgundy blood—arterial blood—spewed from the boy's neck like a fountain. With every pump of his heart, the boy lost what looked like a half pint of blood.

Before any of the group home administrators could help, the boy had bled to death within minutes, right at Scar's feet. Although he was scared to death, something inside of Scar felt powerful, almost invincible. He had learned how to silence his tormentor. He was never going to let anyone disrespect him again.

The group home security tackled Scar to the floor and held him there until the police arrived. After the incident, Scar spent two months in a mental institution. When the psychiatrist cleared him, Scar was placed in a juvenile detention center, where he stayed until he was eighteen years old.

The detention center was where Scar learned all of his criminal ways. When he was released onto the streets of Baltimore, instead of being rehabilitated, Scar had become a ruthless dude with a nothing-to-lose attitude.

 

Derek went away to college, and only returned to his adoptive home when his father was laid to rest after a long battle with cancer. He felt he needed to pay his respects. He didn't hold a grudge against his adoptive father for the abuses that happened. After all, he never told his father about any of it, so how could Derek expect him to do anything about it?

When the funeral was over, Derek told his adoptive mother that she would never see him again. He had never forgiven her for years of sexual abuse. In fact, it had followed him like a looming nightmare. Derek had always felt like he had no control over his own body or his own sexuality. When he began having sex for pleasure with girls his age, his body would betray him. His mind would overpower his physical will not to ejaculate quickly.

Derek immediately moved back to Baltimore. Maybe, just maybe, he thought, he would run into his real mother or his brother. After a year of looking for corporate jobs, Derek joined the Maryland State Police.