Gutter

our own family.”

“We can do something to stop it, Ken, but we don’t want to,” she shot back.

“You talking real reckless on the horn, Sharell,” he warned.

“Kenyatta, I’m upset not stupid. These kids are getting cut down left and right over this street shit, and everybody turns a blind eye as long as it’s not somebody they knew. It’s bullshit and you know it. I don’t want this for my family, Gutter, no white sheets.”

He sighed. “It’s not gonna be like that for us.”

“I can’t keep doing this.” She sounded exhausted.

“So what you trying to say?” he asked defensively.

“Calm down, Kenyatta, I’m not trying to say anything… Baby, we got a good life together. Kenyatta, you move my spirit in a way that a man hasn’t been able to do since my daddy was alive, but something has got to give.”

“Sharell, it’s going to get better,” he said as if the line had been rehearsed.

“Oh, I don’t doubt that, but in order for it to get better we’ve got to change the formula. In a hot minute, we’re going to be somebody’s mommy and daddy, and this child is gonna need us… both of us. I really ain’t trying to have the ‘your daddy was a good man’ talk with my baby, Ken.”

Gutter tugged at his beard in frustration. “Sharell, you know what it is, so don’t come at me with this. I know what you want, and I know what I gotta do to get it, but I gotta be who I am.”

“Ken, I know who you are and I’d never try and change that, but I’m asking you to look at the bigger picture. I’m tired of not being able to shop at the mall or go out to dinner without having a bodyguard. I want a life, Ken, a life and a family. I deserve as much.”

“I know,” he said, more to himself than anyone else.

“Then act like it.”

“A’ight, Sharell, we’ll talk about it when I get back. I gotta get back to the house, fam is waiting for me.”

“Umm-hmm.” There was doubt in her tone. “I know you’re in the middle of something right now, Kenyatta, but best believe when you get back from California we’ve got some talking to do.”

“You got that, baby. I love you.”

“I love you too, Ken, and keep that in mind while you’re out there with them big braid-wearing West Coast broads,” she remarked. Gutter laughed, but she didn’t. “I’m serious, Ken. I’d hate to have to come out there and clown, you don’t wanna see my ghetto side.”

“Nah, I don’t wanna see that. Don’t even trip, ma, you know this bone belongs to you.” He grabbed his crotch as if she could see him through the phone.

“You better know it. Now go ahead and handle your business, I’ll talk to you later.” She ended the call.

Sharell’s ass is a trip, he thought to himself. She was the only person he knew who would use something she saw on the news to prompt a lecture on life issues. She had to know that the set flowed through his veins, and was a part of him. Still, hearing about that child getting caught up in his turf war struck him like a physical blow. Though he wasn’t the shooter, he still felt in some way responsible for her death. He had passed the death sentence on the other side, so whether he had been there or not, the blood was on his hands.

“Dawg, you tripping,” he said to himself. He was at war, and sometimes in war there were casualties, but that still didn’t justify that mother having to bury her child. “Fuck it, just one more I owe them hoes,” he reasoned as he headed back to the house.

chapter 16

“BACK ON the streets, straight blue and gray, cuz I rep-re-sent like every day,” Charlie sang along with the track. He loved to bump the Murder Was the Case soundtrack just before they went on a mission, and “Who Got Some Gangsta Shit,” had become his and Blue Bird’s theme song.

Lil Gunn sat as low as he could get in the backseat of a borrowed Grand Cherokee. His wool skully was pulled down on his head, nearly covering his eyes. He took long drags of his Newport, which had been dipped, and felt the fluttering of little wings in his gut. He normally didn’t smoke PCP, but the circumstances were anything but normal. He had shot at enemies in his lifetime, but that was always from a distance. He knew Blue Bird was an old-school killer and would want to make this up close and personal.

“Yo a’ight back there?” Blue Bird called from the driver’s seat.

“I’m good,” Lil Gunn said flatly.

“Little nigga, take you another hit of this stick.” Charlie tried to pass him another dipped cigarette, but Gunn waved it off. “Man, let me find out yo ass is claiming blue when you really yellow?”

“Fuck you,” Lil Gunn spat at Charlie.

“Don’t go bitching up on me, lil cuz,” Blue Bird added, taking the sherm stick from Charlie.

“He gonna bitch up.” Charlie snickered.

Lil Gunn continued to stare out the window.

After cruising for a while longer, Charlie suggested that they make a beer run. Blue Bird pulled into the parking lot of a local package store. There were several cars parked with people posted up and killing time. The Grand Cherokee bent the corner to park at the rear of the store. As they passed the last row of cars, Blue Bird recognized one of the loiterers. His name was Shorty and he was a respected member of Mad Swans.

“Say, there go some of them ho-ass niggaz right there,” Blue Bird nodded toward where Shorty was standing with two other men.

“Aye, pull ’round back and let’s creep on these niggaz,” Charlie said excitedly.

Blue Bird nodded and backed the car into a parking spot. He retrieved a Colt revolver from under the seat and got out, leaving the engine running. Charlie handed Lil Gunn the 9 from the glove box while he went with the bulldog. The three men skirted along the edge of the store, back toward the front. Shorty and his crew were sipping beers and trying to holla at some of the females in the lot. A five feet five light-skinned dude with caramel eyes, Shorty considered himself a pretty boy. One of the young ladies was in the process of writing down her phone number when she spotted the killers creeping. When Shorty turned to see what she was looking at, a bullet hit him in the left bicep.

“What’s up now, niggaz!” Blue Bird screamed, firing his Colt.

People began running for cover, trying not to end up on anyone’s wall. Shorty ducked behind a car, leaving his comrades stunned and on their own. One of the red-clad men tried to get Blue Bird in his sights, but Charlie laid cover fire and forced him back.

The sound of gunfire and the smell of smoke made Lil Gunn dizzy. The youngster fired his gun one-handed, feeling the rush of the hunt. Seeing the fear in his enemy’s faces was like a high for him, and in the name of his father, he planned to overdose that night.

A soldier, whom no one had noticed in the backseat, leaned out the window, spitting from his pistol. Lil Gunn dashed forward, military-style, and leapt behind a metal garbage can. Crawling on his belly he slipped up under the car the shooter was held up in and slithered out from under the other side. When the shooter looked down, Lil Gunn blew the top of his head off, raining brain matter all over his face. The goop was sticky and uncomfortable but Lil Gunn was so high that he didn’t even seem to notice. The only thing that mattered to him at that moment was the kill.

A man wearing an Atlanta Hawks jersey let off with his.32. The low-caliber bullets sparked off brick and metal as he tried to take Blue Bird out of the game. The seasoned warrior returned fire, hitting the shooter in the jaw. The man clutched uselessly at his jaw and spilled to the ground.

A second man managed to get to the driver’s side of the car and came up holding a Mac-11. He swept the lot, hitting glass and bystanders. Blue Bird got low just as he was making a second sweep, but Charlie got caught out there. Bullets danced up his chest, spinning him. Charlie was dead before he hit the ground.

The two men were exchanging fire with Blue Bird, so they never saw Lil Gunn creeping from the rear bumper of their car. He leveled his hammer and blew the back of the machine gunner’s head off. His partner spun on Lil Gunn