Gutter

chapter 31

“I SEE YOU still slumming, cuz,” Ren said, with his face twisted into a mad-dog stare. He stood with his heels touching and feet pointing out like the top half of a number four.

“I could say the same, Blood,” Trik replied. There was no emotion in his voice and his eyes remained cold as he stared at Ren. The men were equal in height as well as build, but whereas Ren was known as a brawler, Trik was a stone killer.

There was an uneasy moment where neither man said a word. There was the faint sound of thunder in the distance, but there didn’t seem to be a cloud in sight. Mongo tensed like he was about to make a move, but Jynx had him covered. When the air had finally come to a boil, both Ren and Trik burst into broad grins.

“What’s popping, family?” Trik embraced Ren.

“Same shit, different day.” Ren hugged him equally tight. “Nigga, I ain’t seen you since Christmas!”

“You know the streets keep a nigga busy.” Trik shrugged. “Tell my auntie I’m gonna come check her for her birthday though.”

Jynx looked totally confused, but Gutter and Snake Eyes shared a quiet chuckle. The main reason that Gutter had brought Ren along was because he and Trik were first cousins. Sure, they racked up one hell of a body count on opposing sides, but it never came between the cousins. Gutter reasoned that if Trik did have something dirty up his sleeve he’d have been hesitant to spring trap if his family was involved.

“So, what’s this all about, cousin?” Ren asked Trik.

“It’s about us offering some crab muthafuckas a hand up and they pull a bitch move. Fuck you on snatching my brother, Blood?” Mongo spat viciously.

“Man, you need to slow ya muthafucking lip and remember where you at.” Jynx stepped forward with a scowl. “Only blood pump through the beach is blue blood.” Years before Mongo had shot one of Jynx’s home boys when he was coming out of the movie theater with his girl. Jynx had always wanted to even the score, but hadn’t had the good fortune to bump into him.

“Man, we gonna roll around in the dirt like some schoolkids or we gonna swap some stories?” Gutter’s voice boomed. He didn’t speak above his normal tone, but the power in his words is what gave it volume.

Trik turned to the speaker and narrowed his eyes. His features had hardened since the last time he’d seen him; he knew the youngest male Soladine. “Sup, Gutter?”

Gutter shrugged. “I was hoping you could tell me? Word is you got some intel on who put the heat to my uncle.”

“Man, skip all that. We ain’t telling you crabs nothing until I see my brother!” Mongo cut in. The veins in his thick neck were bulging like they would burst at any moment. He was trying to lay the guerrilla down, but Gutter wasn’t moved.

The fire in Gutter’s eyes was the only sign that he was becoming irritated with Mongo. “Dawg, why don’t you kick back with that loud shit, fo it get tense ’round here? Unlike some muthafuckas, I respect the rules of conduct, so I wouldn’t do you or your envoy like that. But if you niggaz is running some bullshit you can rest assured the Soladines ain’t gonna be the only ones burying one of their own.”

“Why don’t everybody just kick back for a minute,” Trik spoke up. “Gutter, let’s cut to the chase ’cause ain’t neither one of us got time for it. The bottom line is I came here to see if we can put a cease to the bloodshed.”

“Trik, you must be out ya mind to come over here talking some peace shit when my brother is about to be laid into the ground, cuz. Nah, this shit is about to go full-scale,” Rahkim said emotionally.

“Young Rah, I done lost two brothers and a nephew to this shit, so make no mistake about my understanding your loss,” Trik said. “Gunn was born on the wrong side of the fence, but me and all the home boys respected him as a stand-up nigga and we also respected the fact that he wasn’t active no more.”

Snake Eyes spoke up for the first time. “Trik, I’ve known you for a long time and you’ve always been a man of your word, but if the homeys respected Gunn’s inactive status then how the fuck did he get hit? And why is the finger being pointed at y’all?”

“I don’t know all the details, but what I can tell you is that nobody from this side sanctioned that hit,” Trik assured them.

“Man fuck dancing around the subject. If y’all didn’t do it, I wanna know who killed my uncle,” Gutter said seriously.

“Come on, G, you know I ain’t in the business of snitching,” Trik told him.

“Well, that’s too fucking bad, because I’m in the business of killing and if you had us come out here for nothing I’m gonna put in some overtime,” Gutter shot back. Trik looked like he wanted to say something, but kept looking to his homeys for a reaction. “Trik, what is your face telling me that ya mouth ain’t?”

Trik ground his teeth together. He looked from his troops to theirs and weighed his options. Sure, they could all bang out and make a bad situation worse, but Trik wanted a solution, not a bigger problem. Taking a short breath, he addressed Gutter, “Walk with me for a minute, Gutter.” Trik motioned toward a darkened corner away from everyone else.

“Nigga, fuck that shit. Trik, you better start talking before these fullies do!” Rahkim snarled.

“It’s all good, Unc.” Gutter placed a reassuring hand on his enraged uncle’s shoulder. “Come on, Trik.” Gutter broke away from his group. When they were out of earshot, Trik began speaking in a hushed tone.

“First of all, let’s get one thing straight, lil homey, I earned my stripes just like you and everybody else out the Soladine house, so I don’t take kindly to being spoken to like a common street punk,” Trik told him.

“I hear you, Trik, our family is dead, and the finger is being pointed at you, not nobody else. Now, if you’ve got some info you wanna share, I’m listening. If not, the next time we meet we’ll be speaking over pistols,” Gutter told him. It wasn’t a threat, but an actual fact and Trik knew that.

Had this been ten years ago it would’ve surely been on and popping for the threat Gutter had launched at Trik. In his day he had commanded respect and been quick to violence, but it was no longer his day. The young wolves had changed the code of conduct and every gangster, young and old, could be a potential victim of their wrath. Trik was a battle-worn vet, one of the few who had lived to see his forties, and was just trying to live peacefully for the rest of his days, and a confrontation with the youngest remaining Soladine wasn’t something he wanted. No, it was better to just give him what he wanted and be done with it. With any luck Gutter and the wild assassin from the red side would kill each other and be out of Trik’s hair for good.

“A’ight, trip this.” Trik leaned in to whisper to Gutter. “I ain’t gonna deny the fact that a Blood blasted your uncle, but it wasn’t about no turf. This shit was about a murder that’s over twenty years old. The muthafucka who wasted Gunn had a personal grudge, one that even the nation couldn’t make him let go.”

“How the fuck am I supposed to know who could’ve been holding a grudge against Gunn for twenty years?” Gutter didn’t bother to hide his irritation at Trik’s riddles.

“Shit, you’re a smart kid. Ask your uncle Rahkim about it. You think on the only nigga crazy enough to clip a dude like Gunn after he was declared inactive, and you couple it with what you learn from your uncle. It’ll come to you.”

“Trik, that ain’t good enough. You said you wanted to end the violence, so I need a name to make that happen,” Gutter told him.

Trik sighed. “I want this shit to stop, but I ain’t about to just give up one of my own, Gutter, you should know this. Wrong or right, he’s still damu and I just can’t send him off to the slaughter like that, so you’re on your own with the name. Now, if you wanna get down over it”-Trik spread his arms-“cool, but I’d rather keep this shit individual instead of riling the sets. It’s hard enough to get these little niggaz to quit tripping as it is.”

Gutter weighed Trik’s words. He could’ve tried to force the issue, but to what end? Trik obviously wasn’t giving up the name, and besides he had already risked more than he had to trying to put a stop to the fighting. Some people might’ve taken the fact that Trik was meeting with Crips in Long Beach as a sign of not being down, which could’ve netted him a bigger problem than the Soladines. For him to risk his life like that Gutter knew that Trik truly