The Apostles (2 page)

As always, Michael “Murderman” Moore resembled a coiled, poisonous viper ready to strike at any moment. The man actually felt naked if he didn't have a gun on his person or at least close enough to get to at all times. He wore a black Adidas hooded sweatshirt with a pair of black Levi's 550 jeans. His feet were kicked up on the table and on them was a pair of white-and-black Adidas shell toes. His shoulder-length hair was braided into an intricate pattern. A pair of black Adidas baseball batting gloves hung out of the back pocket of his Levi's. Between the laughing and joking his head swiveled back and forth; he never truly let down his guard even among his friends.

On the other hand Big Ant was totally relaxed. The big man wore a coverall suit lacquered with oily stains and a well-worn pair of Timberland boots. His hair was in direct contrast to his unkempt clothes. It was neatly shaped into a short Afro with a chiseled goatee complementing his dark facial features. Laughter danced in his dark gray eyes as he joked with his friends. He looked over at Solemn Shawn and noticed him glance at his Kenneth Cole wristwatch.

“All right, c'mon, y'all, let's get on with this,” Big Ant remarked, taking the hint from his friend. “I got to finish putting these tie-rods on this deuce and a quarter so I can get it to the pipe shop tomorrow.”

Mumps commented, “Man, you bought another one of those raggedy old cars. Nigga, you need to stop being cheap and buy you some new shit.”

“Mumbo, I can't fit in most of that new shit. Plus that computerized
shit is built to self-destruct two to three years after you get it. The injectors go bad, them fucking computer sensors fry, and they all made of fiberglass. Now take my ‘74 Chevy or my ‘76 Bonneville. All steel, big engines, Holley carbs, Flomaster pipes, enough room for a big man and a bucket of chicken.”

All of the men laughed, even Solemn Shawn. Rubbing his freshly faded head, Solemn Shawn silently agreed with Big Ant, but that was another matter for a different time.

“Settle down,” Solemn Shawn said.

The group's eyes focused on their leader.

“Sorry about the tie-rods, Ant. This is pretty important. First order of business is your new phones. I got Tay to splurge and get the ones with the color screens and you can add cameras and stuff. Go pick them up from Drisell's shop. Everything's paid for so don't let that old dude try to slick a few bucks out of you.”

Solemn Shawn continued. “We been doing this thing for close to twenty years. I'm thirty-three years old. I guess that I've come to a point in my life where I realize that this good run that we've had has got to come to an end one day. Police aren't getting any dumber, cats are snitching like never before, and they're making new laws every day to get rid of us. The odds are more and more in their favor. I've given it plenty of thought and I realize that one day soon I'm gone have to give this shit up.”

“SS, you sound like you finta die or something,” Mumps teased.

“It's nothing like that, Mumbo, I'm just tired. We haven't struggled like we have all these years to end up some has-beens. Our generation is dead. Locked up, doped up, cracked up, or dead. The young cats coming up behind us don't have any respect or understanding for the game. It's getting redundant.”

“You right about that shit,” Big Ant growled. “These fucking shorties ain't got no respect for shit. All they want to do is kick shit off, then do a drive-by. Then when they get caught, these little motherfuckers tell on everybody.”

Murderman interjected, “All these young punks think that they
killers. They want to air out the block and they want everybody to know that they did the shit. No-shooting niggas be hitting innocent kids and shit.”

“That's that fucking rap music,” Dante said. “Ever since niggas started all that killing on them fucking records, all of a sudden these fucking kids think it's a game to take somebody life. All they want to do is shoot guns, rock ice, and ride on dubs. But that's all they been seeing from every angle. They hearing it and seeing it in them damn videos. They ain't got no positive images.”

Solemn Shawn contended, “I'm not going to get up on the pulpit, but I think it's up to us to show them some positive images. If we don't start trying to help the kids, they are going to keep heading down the wrong paths. We don't need another drug dealer, we need some pharmacists; we don't need another thug, we need an orthodontist, a stockbroker, a school counselor, a coach, a yacht captain, a world-class chef, a chess champion.”

Murderman asked, “All the shorties want to be is the next Allen Iverson or the next Jigga. They don't see no glamour in that shit that you named. So how is you gone change they thinking?”

“I don't know if we can. But recently I was contacted by State Representative Coleman Washington. He dropped a little something in my ear about trying to build a community center.”

“But we already got a community center, SS. That little joint on 71st Street,” Mumps countered.

“That's true, Mumbo. But that one is small potatoes. It isn't accessible to anyone outside of that neighborhood. They have next to no funding and limited activities. It's stuck in the middle of rival gangs. Basically the place is ancient and off the beaten track. If you were a traveler and you were wounded, do you think that you would get help on a back-country road, or on a main thoroughfare? I would take my chances on that main street. The way this guy was talking it would be the mother of all community centers. All of the things that I've mentioned and more will be taught there.”

The group was silent after Solemn Shawn's speech.

Murderman vocalized the group's fears. “SS, what you finta do? Disband the Apostles?”

“No, nothing like that, M1. This isn't some movie plot. I know the family won't be completely legal in five years.”

Solemn Shawn's reference to Michael Corleone's line from
The Godfather
drew brief laughs from his crew. “No, it's just like I said. I'm tired of this shit. I not asking anyone else to be. That's just how I feel. This is kind of the last thing I want to do before I retire. I don't have the exact detail on just how much this thing is going to cost, but me and Dante will find that out when we meet with Washington. I know this type of thing isn't cheap, so we're going to need all the help that we can get. Any questions?”

“Yeah, SS, I got a question.”

“Go ahead, Mumbo.”

“Just why did the state rep come to you?”

“Money. It's that simple. Whereas he would have to wait on grants forever, he knows that we can get our hands on a couple hundred thousand in way less time. Question, Ant?”

“Yeah. It sound like we talking ‘bout some crucial shit. Who gone run this joint? I know you don't think they gone give us jobs.”

Solemn Shawn stood to his feet. “Well, from what I'm guessing and I may be wrong, it'll have a board of directors like any other major corporation. The board will be composed of a chairman that will probably be Washington, and whoever else he decides to hire. I might sound like an idealist, but I want to be a part of something like this. This is maybe the biggest thing that we'll do in our lifetimes. It won't make up for the wrongs that we've done, but I think that this place will make a difference in somebody's life. Now, I don't want to try and undertake something as great as this without all of you. If you're not all for this I'll leave it alone. But I've got to admit that I really want to do this.”

Dante said, “Well, personally I know that most of us got kids
and we want them to do better than we did in this shit. This sounds like the kind of place that can help make that shit a reality. Am I wrong, y'all?”

“I'm on board, y'all. I hope they got a gambling class,” Mumps said.

“It's cool with me,” Murderman announced.

“I got four shorties. Shid. You know my answer,” Big Ant remarked.

Shawn was all smiles as he looked around the table at the coleaders of the Apostles. All along he knew that they would support any decision that he made to move the organization forward, but what he had in mind was on such a grand scale he didn't want to go ahead without all of their backing. These men had been with him during many of the Apostles' battles to survive, but this was outside of the usual sphere of ghetto survival. This was a conscious effort to make a future for the children. The future was something that no one who lived like they did cared to contemplate or discuss. The majority of the time life for Black men in the ghetto ended badly—bullets, selling and becoming addicted to illegal narcotics, and incarceration ended the dreams of many a young Black man. Maybe, just maybe, if this thing worked, it might save a new generation from that bleak future.

O
DELL WALKER CROSSED THE STREET. HE WALKED SWIFTLY
with his hands in his pants pockets. He kept his kinky head down as he scanned the sidewalk and street. In the six blocks that he traveled, the only thing he spotted of any interest was a Newport 100s box, which proved to be empty upon inspection. Though the March wind in Chicago was biting, Odell didn't notice. The twenty-dollar bill in his pants pocket clenched in his right fist created a shield around him that fought off the baby hawk of the Chicago spring. It had taken him most of the morning to earn that twenty bucks.

“Cheap bitch,” he said to himself. He had to laugh at Mrs. Freeman, one of his mother's church cronies. Mrs. Freeman was a wily old bird. The crafty old gal had gotten a full day's work out of him by midmorning and only paid him a measly double sawbuck for all his labor. Plus she kept such a tight grip on her natty little coin purse that he never had an opportunity to maybe snake another twenty out of it. Somehow, she managed to keep him busy at all times—emptying garbage, sealing leaks in the garage roof, nailing banisters, sweeping the sidewalk and steps, and picking up the litter that gathered along the back gate in the alley. Only now did he notice just how much work she had managed to get out of him for a measly twenty singles. Yeah, he had to give it to Mrs. Freeman, she was good.

He knew the few odd jobs she gave him made her feel like she
was doing her part to help stem the small crime wave that he'd become to feed his habit. No heavy stuff like armed robbery or home invasions, Odell preferred to stick to the small-time stuff. A little breaking and entering and some shoplifting, mostly petty thefts. It didn't take a genius to cipher that when you moved into the arena of peeling cars and stickups your life was easily forfeit. Any one of the young, vicious cats these days would leave you stinking with no hesitation, to stop you from making off with his whip. It was tempting, but Odell was no fool. He felt his life was worth more than a couple of sun-visor TVs or some twenty-inch rims. One day he was about to break the window of some young cat's Monte Carlo for a cell phone that was on the seat; just as he was looking around for something to bust the window, the owner of the car ran and jumped into the car with a chrome-plated Mossberg shotgun and peeled off. Boy, was he glad that he hadn't broken that window.

Odell skeeted a thin line of spit through the gap in his teeth as he crossed another street. The gap in his teeth was due to the absence of his right front tooth. He used his tongue to lick the breach in his smile. His gums had healed perfectly—almost like there was never a tooth there. As long as he lived, the space in his mouth would serve as a reminder never to steal from one of those little mom-and-pop stores. Especially not a mom and pop that had an ex-Golden Glove winner for a son and security guard. The son had snuck up on him while he was stuffing toothpaste and toothbrushes into the waistband of his jogging pants. Without warning the guy rattled off a series of punches to Odell's face that made him lose control of his bladder. He tried to run, but he was already out on his feet. Spinning around he tried to grab onto one of the store's shelves for support, but his equilibrium was off and he missed the shelf by a mile, landing face-first in his own urine. After he suffered the indignity of losing a tooth and urinating on himself, the owners still had the nerve to summon the police.

The thought of the three months he had to spend in the county
jail made him shudder, though he had to admit that he did gain some of his weight back. When he first got out, people said that he looked like his old self. His old self. He looked down at his dirty khakis. It wasn't so long ago that he used to wear nice clothes— back when he was a clerk for the Social Security Administration. That was only six years ago. Six long years of crack addiction. It had taken a little under two years for him to lose everything—typical substance abuser cliché. Smoke crack, lose job; smoke crack, lose apartment; smoke crack, stop paying car notes.

Odell looked up. He was nearing his destination; only a few more blocks. As he crossed a side street, he noticed a familiar insignia on the wall of an abandoned building. Someone had painted a six-foot-tall green
A
, adorned with a halo, on the crumbling edifice. That emblem meant different things to different people. To Odell it meant that he was on his way to satisfying the itch in his throat that indicated he needed a hit of some good crack. And some sex. He knew his girlfriend would be mad that he had been gone all morning, but when he came through the door with one of the Apostles' half-sixteenths she wouldn't trip too hard. He could have bought a couple of bags from the young dudes who hung out on the block—it would have been more convenient, but convenience is where the advantages of copping from them ran out. They couldn't fuck with the Apostles when it came to selling drugs. Those dudes were selling match heads of straight garbage and acting like they were doing you a favor by serving it to you. And if you complained, you could get your ass whupped. Those young cats loved treating the customers like they weren't shit. And then they always wondered why their profit margin was so low.