Life Without Hope (35 page)

excite me, perhaps it was her animus, that rough and rugged fem-

inine part of a woman. I began to dig into my pockets and throw

money on the bathroom floor, and then I took the money out my

drawers and socks. Trina’s whole demeanor changed. I saw a glim-

mer of a smile in her eyes as I stood. This, for me, was a hustler’s

proudest moment, this is what I did best. Some people scored

touchdowns, others had their degrees for their personal satisfac-

tion. I had the glory of the game. To be truthful, the reason why

a lot of niggas couldn’t do this shit was because they didn’t have

the balls nor the hear t to keep it gangsta. I walked up to Trina,

eased my hand up under her T-shirt and pulled down her panties

with the other hand. She did not say a word as her eyes stared at

me defiantly, like when a woman is daring you, and at the same

time, I could see the surprise written on her face as I unzipped my

fly and pulled out my joint. She looked down and watched it. I

was on full blast and feeling freaky, the way a brotha be feeling in

the mornings. I turned her around and bent her over.

“
Go slow,” she whispered in the echo of the bathroom.

I spit on my hands lubricating my joint and to wet the rest of

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her hairy bush but to my surprise, she was already wet. We got

busy in the bathroom. Some of the best sex I ever had.

When I walked out of the bathroom, Tomica and Evette were

gone and Black Pearl was standing in the same exact spot I left her.

“
Where did they go?” I asked. I was thinking about the

bracelet. Black Pearl shrugged her shoulders as if to say,

I don’t

know

. As I looked at her I realized that she did not want to be

there. What Black Pearl didn’t know was, I didn’t want to be there

either.

*****

Three days later, me and my crew were encroached in a fierce

struggle. Like all confrontations over drug turf there were casual-

ties. However, when you execute a proper turf take over, niggas

normally catch on fast. Get shot, or get the fuck out the way–that

was Blazack’s motif. After all, a nigga wasn’t new to this, we were

true to this. Frenchtown was a hustler’s paradise. After a few days

of Blazack’s mayhem of pistol-whipping and kidnapping niggas,

we were presented with the keys to the city, so to speak. Niggas got

real friendly and even started betraying their homeboys, which is

normally the case. Especially with the women, when niggas come

from out of town stacking paper.

Finally it happened. T-Bone and Jackie Boy caught Dir ty in

the projects flaunting, trying to holla at a chickenhead. They split

his wig and robbed him for about three grand. He ended up need-

ing forty stitches in the back of his head. Blazack went on a ram-

page. His understanding was zero. That night, we rode back

through the projects, abducted an innocent bystander and beat

the breaks off his ass. Shot up the place, tried to air that bitch out.

Made that AK and street sweeper sing a song of the promise of

death. In the end, seven people were shot, two critically wounded.

I advised Blazack to tone it down, but he seemed to be possessed

with finding T-Bone and Jackie Boy, the niggas that had touched

Dirty on the jack tip. I just hoped that they had enough sense to

get out of town.

*****

173

Chapter T

welve

Chapter T

welve

“
Crooked Cops”

–
Life –

Blazack began to act strange, doing things that were not in his

character. One of the things that caught my attention was a phrase

that he would repeat over and over again. He thought it was the

funniest shit in the world. “If you got a problem, ax Blazack. If

your homeboy is missing, ax Blazack.” For all of us it was weird,

and at times, he was starting to spook the hell out of us. As a true

lieutenant he handled his business. In fact, we all owed it to him

for putting the fear of God in them niggas. “You got a problem ax

Blazack.” It took us a while to catch on to what the fuck he was

talking about. By the time we did it was too late. But the mystery

of how he was making people disappear was revealed.

*****

Soon I received a message from Stevey D. One of his guys was

missing. He wanted to know if we had anything to do with it. He

was real humble, like he was concerned for a friend. But I know

that he was really checking to see if we were beefing, too. I don’t

know if it was out of fear, or the coke that I promised to cop for

him, probably both. When he told me that one of my homies was

shaking down niggas, making them pay protection fees, I knew

that he was talking about Blazack. That was the same shit he used

to do in Miami. Extort niggas. It dawned on me that one of the

reasons Stevey D was calling was to see if he was on Blazack’s

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“
must do list.” After I hung the phone up, I was pissed the fuck

off. Blazack was a walking time bomb. The shit he was doing was

for his personal gain, not for our benefit. I knew that I was going

to have to check his ass. The confrontation could not be avoided,

I had no choice.

Tomica and Evette formed a clique with Trina and her sorori-

ty sisters, the Deltas. I found out that one of the worst things you

can do is put a bunch of women together that are from New York,

mainly Brooklyn. They will turn a town full of rednecks and

country Black folks out. They called themselves “Thug Misses.” I

called them some ruddy-ass bitches. Tomica and Evette were still

mad boosting, but with the recruitment of the rest of the girls,

they graduated from simply stealing jewelr y and clothes to steal-

ing expensive cars. The other day I saw them pull up in the park-

ing lot, in not one, but two brand new Benzes with the paper tags

still on them. I was riding dirty. They were making so much rau-

cous I had to distance myself. I tried to talk with Trina about it,

but Brooklyn broads will run circles around the average nigga if he

ain’t used to the “Rotten Apple.” I could understand why it took

her seven years to complete a four-year degree in business. She was

scheduled to graduate in a couple of weeks, the same day as Black

Pearl’s seventeenth birthday. I took that as a good omen, especial-

ly since the two of them had started speaking. Trina couldn’t help

but like Black Pearl. She was a real trooper. She enrolled in school

to learn fashion design. After school she would come back to the

hotel, tired, and cook a big ass meal. Sometimes there would be as

many as ten or more people eating her food. Black Pearl was a

country girl at heart. I was so proud of her. I think we were all a

little worried about the baby, wondering if the coke she smoked

was going to have an effect on the child.

*****

Two weeks, two keys and three hundred dollars later, I was out

of coke and anxious to fly back to New York to meet the infamous

Willie Falcon at a five star hotel called the Trump Tower. He was

major. It was like the dope god had shined on a nigga. To this day,

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I still don’t know how my name came up in the echelons of such

esteemed drug lords. I do recall when Trina and I went back to her

cousin to re-up on dope, she introduced him to me. He drilled me

with the one thousand question routine. Mainly he was interested

in knowing how in the hell Trina and I flipped two birds and

made over three hundred G’s and were back wanting twenty more.

I wanted to tell him to ask Trina. She was the one that knew how

to stretch the coke, whipping it and then breaking it down into

dime rocks, but I took the credit and wore it like all thugs do.

Now word spread, young nigga on the come up, and I had their

attention. I was in the minor league, and Willie Falcon wanted to

draft me into the pros. Willie was a Colombian. He was also into

“
Boy”–heroin. He had the best heroin known to mankind, China

White. A key went for four hundred G’s. You could step on it thir-

ty times, meaning, you could cut the dope and make thirty keys

off of it. I did not know what the fuck I was into. You really had

to know what you were doing when cutting up the dope, or you

could run the risk of fucking up the product, or worse, killing nig-

gas like roaches.

The morning I came back to the hotel it was thundering and

lightning in a tempestuous storm. The canvas of the sky was black

like smoke billowing. That day it rained so hard, I wondered if

God was mad at the world and he was cr ying, pounding his

mighty fist. The day before, I bought an antique ‘73 conver tible

Caddy, black with red interior. The car was in good condition. I

hadn’t had a chance to buy any shoes for it yet, because the roof

leaked, the air conditioner was broke and some mo’ shit. I pulled

up in the parking lot, sweating like a nigga sitting in the electric

chair. The windows were fogged. I had a shopping bag full of

money lying on the passenger seat. This was perfect weather for

touching a nigga, so after I sur veyed the scene, the only thing I

noticed out of place were a few cars. A real hustler is always going

to know his surroundings. That is if he’s on point. In the shopping

bag I had eighty grand.

Once I entered my room, Trina’s clothes were cluttered every-

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where. She refused to cook or clean. She told me that’s what maids

were for. She and Black Pearl attended school in the mornings,

and the two kleptomaniacs, Tomica and Evette, were still going

about their business of five-finger discounting. For me, that morn-

ing was my quiet time, a time for me to be alone and ruminate on

past events.

I took off my wet clothes, along with my gun, and placed

them on the dresser. Walking over to the table, I fixed myself a

strong drink and lit cigarette. I sat on the bed in only my boxer

shorts and began to count money. In the back of my mind certain

things about Trina were starting to gnaw me raw. Things that a

man cannot escape. I was following her meticulous plan to the let-

ter. In a sense, she was the real mastermind, and we both knew it.

My male ego was killing me. Once again I thought about what she

said when we first met,

to keep the federalies off your ass, they’re only

looking for weight. Ain’t no longevity in the dope game. Stick and

move, get out within a year.

So far what she was saying was tr ue, with her whip game plus

breaking the coke down to its lowest terms, we were making a

killing. I was scheduled to meet with Willie. He was going to front