Me and My Hittas (23 page)

***

It was a gloomy Thursday morning when Nightmare
came from the backyard with Karma on a blue leash.
Stopping in the driveway, he fired up a Kush blunt; his
breakfast for the morning, and looked over his hood. The
dew had left the neighboring lawns slick and parked car
windows fogged. People were leaving for work with their
children in tow to drop off at school while others were
returning home from their jobs.

Nightmare took a pull of his L and then blew the
smoke into the cold air, watching it dissolve before his eyes.
He then adjusted the straps in his waistband and moved to
patrol his turf. Patrolling the neighbor-hood was something
he and Karma did at 7:30 A.M every morning; rain, sleet,
or snow.

He hoped to catch some enemies slipping while out
on patrol. Normally he’d buck them down where they
stood, but if he caught some out of bounds this morning he
would sic Karma on them. It would be much more amusing
to watch the pit chew his enemies up.

Nightmare smiled as the thought crossed his mind.
Yeahhhh, Cuz, I wish I would catch me a nigga slipping out
here this A.M.

A Lexus truck swung into the driveway of the house
the gangsta crip was just about to cross. He went for one of
his straps, but once it registered who it was inside the SUV
he stayed his hand.

Nightmare’s lieutenant and street son, Taco, hopped
out of the truck. He was a skinny nigga who had a body that
was a collage of tattoos. He wore his long hair in four thick
cornrows that hung passed his shoulders. He was twentyone but didn’t look a day over sixteen. With all his jewelry
and designer clothes on the young nigga looked more like a
rapper than a gangbanger.

Taco kneeled down and rubbed Karma behind her
ears, the pit licked his face and hands as he did so. She
considered the young hustler family just as her master did.

“How ya doing there, girl, huh? Thi
s nigga treating
you right, or nah?” he referred to her master before turning
to him and giving him a pound. “What’s cracking, Cuz?”

“You know you almost got blasted on rolling up like
that, right?”

“My fault, homie, I need to holla at chu though, on
somereal shit.” He stood in a half number four, with his fist
inside the palm of his left hand. The look on his face was
like
My nigga, you need to hear this shit,
but something else
had caught his big homie’s attention.

His sights were set on his little homi
e’s ride. “Damn,
Cuz, I must be paying you pretty goddamn good, you
rolling like that, Big Time?” he said,looking over Taco’s
diamond necklace as he held it in his hand, admiring the
sparkling diamonds in the Jesus piece.

“Nike and Supacrip fucked up. T
hey missed. That
nigga Booby is still alive,” Taco gave it to him raw and
uncut. He said fuck it and decided to put it out there. “And
a few of the homies got smoked last night.” He added.

“Who?” Nightmare’s brows furrowed and he blew
smoke into the air.

 

“C-note, Crowand a few of the lil’ homies.”

“Mothafuckaz!” he looked away pissed off, placing
his hand on his hip. Turning back around, he bowed his
head and massaged the bridge of his nose.

“Your cell is dead or something?”

 

“Yeah, I forgot it in the car last night, so the battery
died. It’s at the house right now charging.”

“I had just got off the jack with the big homie Cas; he
had been trying to get in touch with you. He wanna have a
sit down with you tonight, he said for you to holla at him.”

“Alright, you take care of that business for me?”

“Yeah, I had the workers break that shit down last
night and bag it. Shit is fire too, Loc. We might be getting
our custies back off of this shit.” Taco nodded and rubbed
his hands together greedily.

“For real?” Nightmare said, raising his brow.

“For real,” Taco said, giving him a pound. Afterwards
they chopped it up for a time and then he made his
departure.

Nightmare watched the back of the truck until it
disappeared down the block. He couldn’t help but thinking,
What the fuck does this nigga Cas wanna talk to me about?

That night

Nightmare knocked on Cas’s apartment door and
moments later the door was pulled open by the double O.G.
He wore a silk button-down shirt, matching pants and
loafers. Pistol dangling at his side, he gave his guests the
once over before stepping aside to allow them to step inside.
Once they were inside he closed the door behind them.

“Have a seat, make yourselves at home,” Cas told
them. “Would you like some apple cinnamon tea?”

“Nah, we good,” Nightmare said, looking over the
apartment, Cas’s place was something else. It looked like it
was an Asian Emperor’s palace. If he didn’t know the O.G
lived there he would have sworn it belonged to a man of
royalty. “You’ve gotta nice place here.”

“Thank you,” Cas grinned, laying his gun down on
the counter and pouring himself a cup of apple cinnamon
tea. Shutting his eyelids, he brought the cup to his nose and
inhaled, taking in its tempting scent before taking a sip.

“What kind of incense you got burning in here, Butt
Naked?” Nightmare inquired, loving the aroma that he’d
gotten a whiff of.

“No, Black Love.”

 

Bobby leaned over and asked her man in his ear in a
hushed tone,“What is he? AMuslim or something?”

“Five Percenter.”
“You smoke?” Cas asked from the kitchen as he
rummaged through the vegetable tray in the bottom of the
refrigerator, startling them.

“Come on, Cuz, you know I smoke. My bitch does,
too.”

 

“Earth,” the O.G frowned, annoyed by the gangsta
crip referring to his lady as a
Bitch.

 

“Huh?” Nightmare’s forehead creased.

 

“Earth,” he repeated himself. “You will refer to the
sister by her name, or as Earth while in my presence, sun.”

“Sure,” Nightmare rolled his eyes. He wasn’t trying
to hear that shit. He knew that the O.G was deeply rooted
with his religion and all, but he felt that he had belittled him
in front of his woman. However, out of respect, he decided
to hold his tongue on the matter.

Cas emerged from the kitchen with a big red ceramic
bowl of Purple Kush buds, a five pack of Grape Swishers
in his shirt’s pocket, and his cup of tea. He sat the bowl on
the glass table and tossed the box of blunt wrappers beside
it.

“Would
you do us the honor of rolling up, Mother
Earth?” He asked Bobby. She told him sure and ripped the
plastic off of the Swishers. She then removed them from
their box and began rolling her first blunt expertly. Cas sat
back and got comfortable in his seat before turning to
Nightmare, crossing his legs like a gentleman,“Now about
these red rags, I can see in your eyes that you have war on
your mind, lil’ brother.”

“You fucking…” Nightmare cut himself short
remembering how Cas didn’t tolerate cursing in his home.
“I mean you’re right. I want the slobs that iced my
homeboys’ heads hanging over the fireplace in my crib.”
He replied honestly, eyebrows arched and lips twisted.

“I feel you on that, lil’ brother,” Cas took a sip of tea
and savored the taste. “But starting up a war right now is
only going to make the streets hot. The hood is going to be
crawling with cops as soon as bodies start dropping, and
with the pigs around, man, ain’t nobody gone be out in the
streets tryna cop no drugs. And that’s gone fuck up the
money.”

“All your worried about is money, man?” Nightmare
became annoyed, nostrils pulsating.

“No, I care about our young brothers, too. But like the
man says ‘business before pleasure’.” He took another sip
of tea, not giving a fuck about the gangsta crip being in his
feelings. “We lost out on a lot of money since that young
brother entered the fold. I’m tryna see what this new
product you got can do. If the stuff is as good as you say it
is I’m sure we can get our ends back flowing right.”

“Man, we’re sitting on enough money between us to
last until the beef is over. We’re millionaires, Cas. I know
you haven’t forgotten, look how you living.” He looked
around at the lavish apartment and spread his arms wide.

“Lil’brother
,
you can
never
have enough paper,
somebody told you wrong.” He sat his cup of tea down on
the coffee table and cleared his throat with a fist to his
mouth.

“Man…”

“Look, the bottom line is, I’m not going to cosign
your lil’ war. So if you go at these young brothers, man,
you’ll be going at them by yourself. Remember there are
still two members of the three headed monster left, so
you’re going to need my go ahead before the brothers bear
arms.”

Nightmare lay back on the couch, blowing hard and
running his hand down his face. He looked to Bobby who
was licking the blunt closed and then to the O.G. “You
know what, Cas? You’re right. As long as you’re still
breathing, Ican’t handle this thing how I want to,”In a flash,
he drew his chrome Desert Eagle and placed it to one of the
fluffy couch pillows. “So, it’s time you retire…”

Poof!
Poof!
Poof!

The couch pillow muffled the barks of Nightmare’s
banger as bullets tore through its suede fabric, knocking the
stuffing out of it. Cas’s belly exploded into a mass of blood,
saturating the lower half of what he was wearing. His eyes
doubled in size and his mouth quivered. He touched his
wound and looked at his crimson stained palm, then back
up at the gunman. He couldn’t believe that Nightmare had
shot him.

His eyebrows arched and his lips peeled back in a
sneer. He went for the steel stashed in his pants and grabbed
air. That’s when he realized he had forgotten it on the
kitchen counter. Cas got upon his feet and staggered
towards the gangsta crip with his arms out stretched like a
grizzly, roaring. Before he could reach him, Bobby came
from his blindside and shattered a ceramic vase over his
head. The O.G fell to the floor unconscious, Nightmare
stepped over him. He placed a fresh couch pillow to the
back of his head and pressed his banger in behind it. He
pumped two rounds into the back of his skull like it wasn’t
nothing but a thang to him. He then stepped from over him
and turned to Bobby. “Grab a towel and wipe down
everything we touched. Do that now.” he ordered.

Bobby retrieved the washcloth and did as she was
instructed. Afterwards
she and
Nightmare turned the
apartment upside down; once they were done the place
looked like the police had raided it. They took Cas’s stash,
his flat-screens, and the few jewels he had. They then broke
the chain on the door before they left the apartment. The
plan was to make it look as if a couple of burglars broke
into Cas’s place, killed him, and robbed him.

The next night

After the news of C-note, Crow, Cas and the little
homies murders had spread like a wildfire throughout the
hood. The homeboys were pissed off and thirsty for blood.
They wanted some payback. Seeing his set anxious and
eager to lay down some bodies, Nightmare called for a
meeting in the backyard of his home.

“T
hese slobs think something is sweet over here?”
Nightmare asked his blue clad audience from the roof of his
Cadillac. Bobby was sitting on the hood of the car filing her
nails and chewing bubble gum. “These fools think they can
pop two of our shot-callers and four of our homies and get
away with it? They got me, nah, fuck that, they got
our
entire hood fucked up. Niggaz gone pay for touching ours!
Oh yeah, niggaz gone pay! That’s on my dead daddy and
my dead homies. I’ma ride,but I need to know my G’s are
with me.” He looked over his audience, hoping to hear the
voices of some brave souls.

“Yeah!” the audience answered in unison.

 

“Are y’all ready to bring it to these slobs?”

 

“Yeah!” the audience answered once more.

“I can’t hear you,” Nightmare said
, cupping a hand
behind his ear and leaning towards the audience. “Are y’all
ready to bring it to these slobs?”

“Yeah!” the audience retorted as they fired their
weapons into the air. They then chanted
Nightmare
over
and over again. The gangster crip lifted his hands higher
and higher into the sky, signaling to them to raise their
voices higher. And they did.

There was about to be a lot of slow singing and flower
bringing.
Chapter Seventeen

Nightmare had rallied his troops and so had Pavielle.
With drive bys and walk-ups being executed on both
opposing sides, bodies were dropping like flies and piling
so high you could build a wall out of them. Pavielle was
feeling the loss of every homie he lost but there was the
death of one homie that really hit home for him.

Big Panic made his way out of Wally’s Liquor Store
with a brown paper bag in his hand. Its contents were a
bottle of Alize, a box of Swishers, a box of Magnums and
two clear plastic cups. The big man was overly excited; he
had some ass on the line he had been trying to get for a
month now. A little fine, educated honey by the name of
Remy. He had been trying to get baby over to the house, but
she seemed to always have an excuse. If she wasn’t at
school, she was at work, or taking care of her grandmother
or babysitting her niece and nephew.

Panic was about to say fuck it and move along to this
other broad he had bumped a week ago until he got a call
from her out of the blue. He worked his charm and got her
to agree to get a motel room with him. With images of her
voluptuous, curvy body burned into his mental, he thought
about how he was going to wax that ass like Mr. Miyagi.
The thought alone had his dick nudging at the zipper of his
jeans, trying to free its self.