Love and a Gangsta (31 page)

“What now, Mega?” Monk asked.

“Leave him there and report it,” I instructed. “Monk you stay behind with his bitch till the police gets here.” My cell phone rang. “Who…? Alexis, what you want bitch. I ain’t got the time to talk to you right now…I ain’t got time to talk about no damn photos either, bitch… You ain’t send ‘em. I know who did. So what’s new, bitch?” I said, hanging up on the bitch.

That nigga Soul just lost a thoroughbred, family member, but I shoulder that lost too. Greasy was my fam. I didn’t want to fucking talk trivial bullshit about photos with that bitch. I glanced at Biscuit and saw his veins ready to explode. He wasn’t trying to shed no tears, real gangsters don’t cry. He wanted to spill blood. The nigga Soul, was on that love-Jones shit. Right now if he was putting fear in these niggas hearts out here, this might not have gone down like this. I got to think everything through now. It was time to pay Jagged that visit of death, peel that nigga’s cap back.

Several days later, we got word that Jagged was hanging out at his usual spot in Harlem, a low-key bar off 145
^th
street. It was around midnight when we got the call about his whereabouts. The crew was at the bar twenty minutes
later.

I stepped out, with Biscuit, Monk, Tank, Whistle and Groggy behind me. We were well armed and ready. Jagged was about to feel my wrath. Shortly after, our source came walking out the bar smiling at us. Her name was Jennie, a bartender in Harlem for years, but lived in Jamaica Queens. She was about her money.

“He’s in there now, right?” I asked.

“Been sitting at the bar drinking for the past hour. But he’s got company with him,” she informed.

“How many?” I asked.

“One, trying to be subtle by the back entrance nursing a beer. He’s wearing a black T-shirt, braids, and a thick goatee.”

“Ahight, how many customers inside right now?” I asked.

“Just Jagged, his protection, and this old dude that always comes around. It doesn’t start getting crowed in here until after one.”

“You did good, baby girl,” I said. I passed her an envelope filled with hundreds. She smiled and took the money.

“This is what I want you to do, I’m gonna call the bar, you pick up and tell that old nigga it’s for him. Have him take the call in the back. Then you let a few of my boys in from the back exit and be cool about it,” I instructed.

She nodded and walked away. I called the bar ten minutes after. It rang and she followed the plan. Jagged was getting sloppy having a one-man security when there was a war going on. He used his reputation and size to intimidate his enemies and rival crews. I wasn’t the one to fuck with and didn’t give a damn about his rep.

Monk, Tank and Whistle went around the back, while Groggy, Biscuit and I planned on entering from the front entrance. I waited for a short moment and then entered the bar first. Jagged and his boy turned and saw me walking in and knew what time it was.

His security stood up rapidly, reaching for his weapon, but Monk crept up on him from the back and popped two in his head using the silencer dropping him dead. I had my gun trained on Jagged’s head and ordered him not to move.

“What yuh gwine do wit’ that? Yuh know yuh shouldn’t point that shit at me.”

His voice showed no signs of fear even though he was outgunned and outnumbered.

“What the fuck you say, nigga?”

“If yuh know what’s best, yuh and yuh blood claat boys will turn around and walk out dat bumbo claat door and mi try and act like yuh didn’t come in here and disrespect dis place of business like dis.”

“You put your hands on Greasy, you fat-ass bastard?”

“We told yuh, behave and continue suckin’ on our tits, and life fi yuh would be good. But yuh leave da nest, play house on ya own, and make up yuh own rules. Yuh misbehave and yuh get spanked, young blood.”

I knew he was the one responsible for doing Greasy like that. It had his signature of brutality. Jagged was heartless, he tortured niggas for fun, and just thinking about what he did to Greasy had me fuming.

It took everything that I had in me, not to pull the trigger at that moment, because I wanted information on Demetrius. And I knew he had the goods. Jagged was ol’ school, and like Greasy, he was loyal to Demetrius. It would be a bitch to get him to talk.

“Mi admire yuh heart, but what yuh came here for, it won’ happen, not from mi or any of mi people—”

Before he could say anything else, I shot him, but he didn’t go down.

“Bombo claat!” he shouted, charging me.

I let off on him again, but he didn’t fall. He was fast and rushed at me. Knocking Biscuit and me down, the gun fell. My goons charged at him, but he became a raging bull and dropped two of my men to the floor like they were kids.

“Yuh blood claat batty-boy, mi come fi yuh and kill yuh wit’ mi own two hands,” Jagged said in a rage.

I got up and started punching him, but even with two upper gunshot wounds in his torso, he struggled with us. I jumped on his back trying to choke him, but he moved back quickly, smashing me against a mirror wall. It shattered I dropped and suffered a few cuts. Blood was everywhere. Jagged
wasn’t going out easily.

“Mi a Jamaican Don. Yuh a fuckin’ batty boy. Mi don’t fall, mi kill yuh hear? Mi gwine kill yuh all!” he shouted.

This nigga had to be on PCP, he was like an ox. Monk and Whistle went at him striking him across the back with a chair, but he turned and grabbed Monk viciously and snapped his neck like it was a twig. With Monk down, Whistle charged for Jagged and was immediately thrown across the bar like a rag doll.

“What the fuck!” I shouted.

Biscuit pulled out a huge blade and thrust at him, plunging the blade into Jagged’s back. Jagged jerked forward and finally stumbled, but he didn’t fall.

“Fuck yuh!” Jagged shouted, feeling the wounds slowing him down.

He tried to rush Biscuit with the knife still rooted in his back, but was sluggish and fell helplessly against the bar, clutching the railing for some dire support and stumbled against the barstools. I stood up and went for my gun.

“Omega, yuh will fall… Yuh fuckin’ batty boy,” Jagged said. “The Jamaican mafia will come fi yuh.”

Biscuit walked up to the now weak and fading Jagged and began plunging the knife into his neck repeatedly. He must have hit an artery, because blood started gushing out like a fountain. Jagged clutched his neck desperately, trying to stop the uncontrollable blood flow spewing from his gash, but too much was spilling and he collapsed down on the floor, his breathing becoming sparse. I stood there and watched him die slow.

“That’s for Greasy, you fuckin’ bitch!” I said spitting on him.

Moments later he was dead. Jennie stood behind the bar frozen and with her eyes wide. She had blood on her.

“Yo, lock that fuckin’ door, Jennie,” I ordered.

She nodded, but she didn’t look right in her mind. What she witnessed fucked her up. She locked the door and stood by it looking panicky.

“Jennie, you gonna be okay?” I asked.

She nodded. We had to clean up. I had blood on me, and so did
Biscuit, and Whistle. I looked at Monk’s lifeless body crumpled to the floor and uttered, “Fuck!” We couldn’t step out this bar looking like we just came from a feeding frenzy. Jennie showed us where we could clean up in a bathroom downstairs. I went first followed by the rest of my crew.

We had to get rid of Jagged and his bodyguard’s bodies. There was one way of cleaning this shit up without leaving any evidence behind, burn down the bar with the bodies. Jennie thought I was crazy. Groggy and Whistle went to the truck to get the kerosene while Biscuit and I tried to set it up. Jennie was quietly sitting on one of the barstools and looked in a deep trance.

When Groggy came back with the kerosene we started dowsing the two bodies first, and then the rest of the bar. Biscuit and I held each other’s gaze for a moment, thinking the same thing. He pulled out his gun, put it to Jennie’s temple squeezing off three shots. We dowsed her, set the bodies on fire and the bar and exited the back where Whistle was waiting in the truck. The bar went up in flames.

I took Greasy’s death personal and now one of the men responsible for his gruesome death was burning in hell. I would wear the crown and become the king of New York soon. I was gonna own this town through drugs and music. Kemistry was my young protégé on the rise and I would have money coming at me in every direction. I’d be Scar Face and Diddy rolled in one, having money, power, and respect. No one would stop me now.

Life’s challenges shouldn’t paralyze you.
They’re to help you discover who you are…

 

 

 

They say everything occurs in three’s. I truly believe that this was true and here was how the tri-factual manifested itself in my life. First, there was my re-incarceration after only being out for a little over five months. Next I get the news that Greasy was dead, the news really fucked me up. Thirdly, I was in Rikers’ Island for the past three weeks. With my parole violation looming, I was looking at least eighteen months upstate.

I was fucked. I felt that I let everyone down, my wife, my unborn, and the folks who supported me. I thought about Rahmel and his struggles. I was just another statistic, a Black man returning to prison after a parole violation.

My emotions had taken over, and I did a very dumb thing, carrying out actions without thinking of the consequences. Now my freedom, maybe my marriage and witnessing the birth of my first-born were the privileges I had lost.

For the first time in a while, I felt alone and afraid. I feared the unknown, and losing everything that I had worked to attain. I sat in my cold jail cell, feeling the world go still, isolated and ugly. It was hard to remain positive when I was surrounded by so much negativity—the guards, the inmates, the bars, the tainted minds of men that wanted to see harm done. The system was bearing down on me with it laws and sentences.

I was alone in a cell when the C.O announced that I had a visitor. I stood up, clad in my gray jumpsuit, with the acronym
D.O.C.
imprinted in black on my back. I now belonged to them.

I followed the guard through the corridor, muting the shouts from numerous inmates caged behind bars. We were like wild animals in a zoo and I was used to this type of environment, I shouldn’t be. I was on my way to becoming a family man, but now I was inmate number
00B46599
, in for violation of parole, plus other numerous charges.

An hour later, I walked into the sizeable visitor’s room. I knew who had come to see me. I never thought that we would be seeing each other like this again, with me confined and restrained. There was a slight smile when I saw America seated by herself, looking angelic, beautiful, and was about to
become the mother of my child in about a month.

She was wearing a loosely fitted gray Sean John sweat suit, with her hair styled into a long ponytail. She was dressed so simple, but still in my eyes she looked so radiant. She looked up at me and smiled. It was a smile of wonder and doubt. I saw it in her eyes. She came to me with news, good or bad, but she had something to say to me.

I thought of my child and our marriage, and couldn’t help but wonder if it could still last while I did a second stint behind bars. I walked casually to America and she stood embracing me in a loving hug. Her belly had grown bigger and my child was maturing in her.

“I missed you,” I said affectionately with a warm smile to match.

I tried to give her a kiss, but she pulled away. That hurt me. I was still her husband, but she pulled away from my kiss, something she never did.

“We need to talk,” she said glumly.

We both took our seats across from each other, with a small synthetic table positioned between us. She held my hands in hers and gave me eye contact.

“Everything okay?” I asked.

A heavy sigh escaped her lips, and before she went on with anything else, she asked, “How are you holding up in here?”

“Trying to remain positive about things, but it’s hard. I miss you America, and I know I fucked up. I hate myself for that. That night I left you I just lost it. I’m sorry about the pictures, my past, and what I put you through. But you know, I’m still trying and I love you, baby and I want us to be together.”

“Omar, please, before I let you go on, there’s something you need to know,” she said.

I stared at her, my heart racing and my nerves on the edge.

“I can’t do this with you anymore, Omar. I want a divorce,” she said.

“A divorce…?” I shouted.

“Yes, Omar I tried with you, but if this is where you’re gonna keep ending up, I just can’t do it anymore. I just can’t, Omar,” she said gravely.

“America, it ain’t gotta be like this. I’ve made a mistake. I fucked up. I deserve a second chance.”