Street Pharm (17 page)

“Damn right they’ll charge him. 5-0 sees a guy leaving the scene of a murder with a car full of drugs, and it’s all over, nigga.”

“I hope they rough him up something good.” Sonny grinned. “Can you believe things worked out even better than we thought? Darkman’s locked up, he’s gonna get charged with some serious shit, and Crow and Leanne are too pussy to stick around. This means we don’t have to give up no territory!”

“Word.”

Sonny switched to a hip-hop station. We grooved to the music like two homies in their first ride. I put down the windows to spread the tunes to the public.

After dropping off the rental car, we went to Sonny’s crib. Desarae was making French toast in her slinky Victoria’s Secret bathrobe.

“Des, slap on a few pieces for me and Ty. We celebrating!”

“Sure thing, sweets. Take a look at the news. They might recap the car chase.”

I looked at Sonny. “She knows?”

“ ’Course she knows. She’s my girl.”

We sat in front of the TV and flicked channels but couldn’t find the car chase. In the meantime, we ate the delicious French toast.

I watched Desarae curl against Sonny’s side.

Alyse.

I shoveled more food into my mouth. I had to forget about her.

At 12:30, a newsbreak on CBS-2 gave us an aerial clip of the car chase.

Sonny clapped his hands. “Look at that! He driving like a madman!”

“A wonder he didn’t mow nobody down,” Desarae said.

“Thank God for that,” I muttered, and finished my French toast.

*  *  *

For the rest of the day, I walked around in a daze. It was a satisfied kind of daze that came from things going my way. Maybe now that Darkman was out of the picture, Alyse could come back into my life.

That night, as I sat in front of the computer, an e-mail from Alyse popped up in my inbox. My eyes bugged out.

When I opened the e-mail, I cursed. It was a damn message from Amnesty International asking me to sign an online petition to save some woman who was gonna be stoned to death in Africa. Alyse sent the e-mail to everybody she knew.

Instead of pressing delete, I pressed reply.

I wrote:
So I’m still on your list?

Less than two minutes later, I got an answer.
Sorry about that. I’ll delete your name.

I wrote:
You don’t have to. It was a very interesting message about that woman in Africa. I signed the petition.

She wrote back:
That’s B.S. Why are you always pretending to be someone you’re not?

My fingers shook over the keyboard as I tried to think of an answer.

In the end, I wrote:
My feelings for you are real.

I waited for her answer, refreshing my screen every few seconds. I hoped she’d call me. That would be an easier way to have a conversation.

Five minutes passed, then ten. She didn’t answer.

Fifteen minutes.

Damn it, she
had
to answer.

Caving in, I e-mailed her again:
Are you there?

I stared at the screen.

No answer.

I
n the days after Darkman got arrested, I worked harder than ever, wanting to prove to myself and anybody who didn’t know it that I was still the King of the Streets.

I got myself an apartment, a seventh-floor, two-bedroom on Washington Avenue. The building wasn’t much to look at on the outside, but my crib was a different story. I spiffed it up with a fly stereo system and a huge plasma-screen TV. I bought black leather furniture, had the hardwood floors shined up, and even got some African artwork for the walls. For the first time, the king had his own castle.

Mom didn’t like it one bit. Her nerves were shot these days.
I had a helluva time convincing her that I wasn’t up to no good. Didn’t have a prayer of convincing her that the shooting was a random drive-by.

I don’t think she believed anything I said anymore. But there was nothing she could do, and she knew it.

For Mom and her family, Christmas Eve was a big deal, so I made sure I showed up. Every year they went back to the old neighborhood in Crown Heights, went to church, and had a feast at Aunt Mary and Uncle Phil’s. I skipped church, but caught up with them at the party.

“Ty!” Mom threw herself into my arms. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“ ’Course I am. It’s Christmas!”

Aunt Sherise and Aunt Doris came up. It’s a wonder they hugged me instead of knocking me upside the head. I guess Mom told them to be good.

We went into the living room. Everybody was there. They all looked at me with a lot more interest than usual. Whatever. I was expecting it.

I made the rounds, doing my best to answer questions about school (I’m going back soon), living by myself (I work at the gym, so that’s how I can afford it), and my future goals (I want to be a personal trainer). It sucked that they all seemed to be extra careful around me, like they didn’t want to say the wrong thing. But I
guess that was better than having to answer questions about the drive-by.

Throughout the evening, I kept thinking about Alyse and wondering what she was doing. Was she at a family thing like me? Damn, she should be here, by my side.

It was a pipe dream.

Eventually I made it to the food table. There was fried chicken, ribs, catfish, pork chops, sweet potatoes, scallop potatoes, coleslaw, asparagus, cornbread. On Christmas, we always ate like crazy.

“Hello, Ty.”

“G!” I gave my grandma a big hug. She was so short and light, I lifted her clear off the floor.

I started calling her G—for Grandma, not gangsta—years ago.

“You look great, G.”

“Thanks.” She craned her neck to look up at me. “Baby, I think you still growing.”

“Sorry, G, but I think you’re shrinking.”

“You little—!”

Yeah, me and G always got along good.

“Your mama’s so happy you’re spending Christmas with her,” she said, loading up her plate. “You gave us a scare, you know. Your poor mama’s been worried sick.”

“I’m all better now.”

“That hasn’t stopped her worrying. She’s afraid you’re turning out like Orlando.”

I blinked. “C’mon, G, you know it ain’t like that. Me and my dad are two different people.”

“I hope so. Did she ever tell you why she left your father? She left him because of
you.
”

“What did I have to do with it?”

“Your mama could’ve lived like a queen. But you were more important. She knew she couldn’t raise you right if she was living with a hustler.” G spooned some asparagus onto my plate. “You were brought up, Ty, not dragged up. And don’t you forget it.”

*  *  *

I spent the last few days of December working my ass off, going from one meeting place to another, delivering a few ki’s here, a few there, and coming home late at night to a silence that even my fly stereo couldn’t cover up.

The week before New Year’s, Sonny and me met with Jones and Menendez to pick up a shipment. I didn’t give them details on what went down with Darkman, but I let them know that we were the ones who brought him down. I could tell they were impressed.

But when we left the meeting, Sonny said, “It’s about time we got ourselves new suppliers.”

“Why? They holding up their end.”

He stared at me. “You serious? What about them pictures? We supposed to forget that they threatened our peeps?”

“I told you, there wasn’t nothing behind it. They were just sending a message. Look, I’ll do some research. It could take a few weeks, and I ain’t rushing into anything, but I’ll try.”

“Do that. I will too. We bound to find people.”

In the next few days, I put feelers out for new suppliers, but all the leads I got were too shady to go after.

What Sonny didn’t get was that in a business like ours, you weren’t gonna be working with no Boy Scouts.

The question wasn’t: Is this nigga dangerous?

It was: How dangerous is he?

A
few days before New Year’s, I decided to catch up with Monfrey.

When I stopped by the local bowling lanes where he hung out, he wasn’t there. The homies said they hadn’t seen him around for a week.

My instincts went off like a warning bell. Actually, it felt more like the late bell at school—once you heard it, you were already too late.

My next stop was the park where he liked to chill and smoke up.

No sign of him.

His favorite diner.

Still no sign.

Another nearby park.

Nothing.

I was running out of options. If I wasn’t going to waste more time looking, I had to do something I didn’t want to: go to his crib.

Rob Monfrey lived with his mom in a shit project where Flatbush and Crown Heights gangbangers shoot each other weekly. In front of the buildings were huge frozen piles of dirt, like the City tried to do something to fix up the neighborhood—but quit for the winter.

Stepping over a bum hunched up in the side doorway, I skipped stairs to the third floor. I couldn’t remember his apartment number, but I was pretty sure it was the first door on the left.

I knocked.

“Monfrey, it’s Ty!”

I banged on the door.

Nothing.

Cursing, I went back down the stairs.

The damn bum was now all laid out in the doorway, making it impossible for me to get by. I nudged him with my shoe.
“Yo, could you move?”

The bum twitched like he just woke up. “Uhhh . . . ” His groggy face looked up from under a nappy Afro.

“Monfrey?”

“Eh . . . ”

I bent down. “Monfrey, it’s me, Ty! You know me?”

“Tyyy . . . ”

I went through his pockets until I found the crumpled little Ziploc bag. “
Damn,
Monfrey.”

He slumped against the wall.

“What were you thinking? You told me you’d never touch that shit!”

He started shaking.

“Keys, where your keys?” I felt the rest of his pockets, but couldn’t find them. Maybe that’s why he ended up in the doorway instead of in his crib.

What the hell was I gonna do with him?

Leave him to rot.

Could I do that? Could I just leave him here?

Monfrey got himself fucked up. It wasn’t my fault. He was supposed to stay away from anything stronger than weed.

But I couldn’t leave him.

*  *  *

With the help of a cab driver (and an extra twenty bucks), I put Monfrey on my couch. The brother was a mess. Shaking, sweating, puking. Begging for a hit. And when I wouldn’t give it to him, he
cursed me, my mama, and the day I was born. I was seeing a different person. A damn scary person. It was the crack talking, not Monfrey.

I couldn’t take the look or the stink of him, but I knew if I left the apartment, he wouldn’t stay put. He’d be on the streets trying to get the hit that would end the hell he was going through. I couldn’t let that happen. I moved him into my bedroom so he couldn’t sneak out without going past me. He tried to bounce twice that first night, but both times I stopped him. He didn’t put up much of a fight; he was too weak. I dragged him back into the bedroom and shut the door. He started crying like a baby. And when he’d cried enough, he fell asleep.

The next day was just as bad. I thought I was gonna lose it. I couldn’t get him to eat, sleep, or sit still. Finally I gave him a little weed to ease the pain. It helped. The shaking stopped.

“Where’s your mom, Monfrey?”

“She in . . . Trinidad.”

“When’s she coming back?”

“I can’t remember.”

“I’m gonna put on a DVD for you now, and get you some food.”

“Food. Yeah.”

Damn, he was skin and bones. It was hard even looking at him.

“What you want to eat? I ain’t got any food. We have to order something.”

“There’s a deli . . . on the corner. I’ll go.” He tried to get up.

“Sit down. I ain’t letting you outta my sight.”

“The fuck is this? House arrest?”

“Call it what you want. When I get your mom’s okay, you’re going up north.”

Monfrey almost dropped his blunt. “Huh?”

“Not to jail, Monfrey. To rehab. I’m sending you somewhere cushy. Maybe you’ll see some celebs.”

“Fuck you, Ty. I done so much for you, and you wanna lock me up?”

“Fuck you, too, Monfrey. Now what you want to eat?”

N
ew Year’s Day. I woke up feeling like I didn’t sleep at all. Pieces of a nightmare bugged me like a fly behind a curtain, but I didn’t want to think about them.

I was in my own bed again, thank God. I finally got rid of Monfrey yesterday, when his mom came back from Trinidad. She looked like she was gonna whoop his ass, but I knew she’d take care of him. I told her about the arrangements I made for him to go into rehab. When I said I was paying for it, she didn’t look surprised. I guess she knew that Monfrey worked for me. For all I knew, Monfrey could’ve told her himself.

My cell phone was blinking. Whenever my phone rang or I had
a message, I couldn’t help thinking it could be Alyse. I don’t know why—there was no way that girl would change her mind about me.

I had three messages from last night.

“Ty, it’s your boy, Cheddar. What’s cracking? You over getting shot up? Me and the homies is partying at Brown’s Billiards, so if you around, stop by.”

Good thing I missed that one. I wasn’t up for partying last night, not after the hellish few days with Monfrey. I’d locked myself in for the night, turned off my phone, looked at some porn, and stared at the ceiling until I fell asleep.

Message two was Sonny:
“Ty, it’s around nine, why ain’t you answering your phone? Just to let you know, I found us some new suppliers, and we got a nice little shipment coming in. I figure we’ll put the shit out, see how the peeps like it. We’ll meet the shipment down at Brighton Beach at one thirty the day after tomorrow. Later.”

When I heard the voice on the third message, I couldn’t believe it.
“Hi, it’s Alyse. I know it’s been a while.”
I could hear the catch in her voice.
“I’m just calling, well, to wish you a Happy New Year and . . . and to apologize for how bitchy I was over the e-mail that time. School isn’t the same without you. I told our teachers you weren’t coming back, and they were really disappointed. They still ask about you. Anyway, you don’t need to call back, I just wanted you to know . . . that I hope you’re okay. Happy New Year.”