“Man, fall back you know I’m only fucking wit you.” High Side laughed, but Pop Top didn’t.
“Well, don’t fuck wit me, I done had enough of that shit to last me a lifetime. That fool got me tight, son. This nigga from Cali and act like he know what it is in New York ’cause he been here a few years. Shit we was born and raised in New York!”
“Man, go ahead wit that shit, Pop Top. Gutter is running the show and that’s just the way it is.” Unlike Pop Top, High Side didn’t have delusions of grandeur. He was good with the few corners he’d been given and didn’t really care who was at the helm.
“But it ain’t gotta be, son,” Pop Top said, with a wicked plan forming in his head.
“Man, what kinda shit you talking?” High Side asked in a suspicious voice.
“Check this, all I’m saying is that maybe it’s time we had a little more say in the way things are run? I mean, we are from Harlem, ain’t we?”
High Side thought on it for a minute. “Yeah, but what’s that got to do with it?”
“Man, it has everything to do with it, Side. We homegrown, baby, but Gutter is the one who gets all the props. Check, when him and Lou-Loc first started that unified set shit, who helped them rally the troops?”
“Us,” High Side said.
“And when muthafuckas jump up, who put ’em down?”
“Us.”
“Exactly.” Pop Top slapped his palms together. “We opened the door for a nigga and we can’t get a set of keys? Don’t get me wrong, High Side, I got love for the homey too, but he ain’t the only nigga putting in work.”
“I see your point, but what we supposed to do about it, Top?” High Side asked.
“Fuck you think, nigga? If I can’t get a piece up under Gutter, I might as well take the whole pie.” Pop Top flipped open his cell phone.
“Who you calling?” High Side asked.
“Bronx Presbyterian Hospital.”
chapter 33
THERE WERE so many young men gathered in the garage that the door had to be kept open to accommodate them. Weed smoke filled the air while bottles clanged together and weapons were visible on just about everyone. Most of the men, Gutter knew, but the rest had just come to get their pound of flesh.
“Cousins,” Gutter began, forgoing the formalities. “Yesterday we lost a down-ass soldier. A soldier who put many of us on the turf, and handed damn near all of us beat-downs when we were out of bounds. Gunn was not only my uncle, but he played the father figure to a great many of us. We all knew Gunn wasn’t in no more, hell everybody on the Coast knew he wasn’t active, but that didn’t stop that ho-ass nigga Major Blood from laying my folk.” The people who had gone with him to see Trik knew who was behind the killing, but this was the first time Gutter had said it publicly.
“Major Blood?” someone whispered.
“I thought he was in the can?” another voice added.
“Nah, they smoked him for killing Bad Ass!” someone else added to the mix.
“Nah, that fag is alive and kicking, causing me even more grief on the East Coast,” Gutter said.
“Man, I say we mount up for a road trip, loc!” Criminal said eagerly. It had been awhile since he killed something for the hood and didn’t know how much longer he could contain himself. Gutter and Rahkim were icons to young Criminal and he was dying to get his stripes up.
“Nah, little cousin, that’s a problem that I’m gonna deal with personally. Oh, but before I do, I want that slob to feel what we feel right now,” Gutter said emotionally. “I want him to know what it’s like to bury a homey or a muthafucking relative!” he shouted. “Tonight, we rolling through Compton and I’m gonna show these niggaz from the other side how to catch a fucking body. When we bail through, I want any and everything in that hood to lay down!”
The crowd roared at Gutter’s proclamation. The sounds of sets being shouted and guns clicking were all that could be heard. They didn’t even see Rahshida when she pulled up in the driveway with Monifa. Seeing twenty young men gathered on her property, with Gutter and Rahkim in their midst, meant another mother would be burying her child soon.
“What are y’all doing out here congregating?” she addressed them, putting her shopping bag down on the hood of the car. Monifa came to stand beside her.
“Ain’t nobody congregating, Auntie. The homeys just came by to pay their respects to Big Gunn.” Gutter leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. She frowned at the smell of liquor coming off his breath.
“Kenyatta, don’t play me, all right?” she warned him. “I know y’all ain’t fixing to go in them streets and act crazy?” When nobody responded her suspicions were confirmed. “When are y’all gonna ever learn?”
“Rah, you tripping-” Rahkim began.
“I’m not tripping, Rahkim, you’re the one that’s tripping. As old as you are and as much as you’ve been through I’d think you’d be trying to defuse these kinds of situations instead of agitating them. Rahkim, that is not what Islam teaches,” she tried to reason with him.
“Man, fuck that. A nigga blasted on my brother and I ain’t supposed to do nothing? We can all be devout Muslims at Gunn’s ceremony tomorrow morning, but tonight I’m a muthafucking gangster.” Rahkim stormed past his twin.
Rahshida let out a deep sigh. “Hasn’t there been enough death already?” She was looking at the men assembled. “Criminal, wasn’t it your brother who got shot last month at the bus stop? Tears, how did you feel when those boys from Six Duce almost blew your face off in front of your son?” No one responded. “Don’t you see it? Us killing them and them killing us is getting us nowhere. The only people that thinking is beneficial to is white folks who don’t want you to rise above this foolishness. When it is gonna end?”
“When there’s only one side left,” Gunn called from the flowerpot he’d been sitting on. Rahshida hadn’t even noticed him until he spoke. There was a coldness to his eyes that she had seen in her little brother’s eyes just before someone died.
“And you, Tariq. What are you doing? It’s bad enough that I had to lose my brother to this madness. Will I lose you too?” Her voice was heavy with emotion.
“Nah, you ain’t gotta worry about Tariq, Auntie.” Gutter put an arm around her. “Tariq is coming back to the Coast with me, I’m gonna make sure he’s good.”
A glimmer of hope shone in Rahshida’s eyes. “Kenyatta, please don’t let him get turned out to this craziness. Teach him a better way.”
“I’ll do my best, Auntie,” he said, looking over at Gunn whose eyes were cold and focused. “I’ll do my best.”
IT TOOK nearly a half hour, but the young men finally went on their way. Snake Eyes was gone again, this time tracking down a current address for Major Blood. He’d heard through the grapevine that he’d purchased a property on the east side of Compton. Rahshida had taken Lil Gunn inside the house to have a heart- to-heart talk. He’d been elated when Gutter made the announcement that he’d be moving east with him. Gunn saw it as an opportunity to learn the art of gang-banging from a true street legend so naturally he was all for it. What he didn’t know was that his cousin had a whole different plan in mind.
Gutter had thought of himself as untouchable, especially after his resurrection, but the man formerly known as B-High had shown him different. The first thing Gutter intended to do when he got back to New York was move everyone out. He had recently closed on the house in Long Island and wanted it to be a surprise for Sharell, but the botched hit sped things up. Now her dream house was a safe house. He realized that he needed to do a better job at keeping his family and his hood separate and Brooklyn just wasn’t far enough.
“Can I holla at you for a minute?” Monifa walked up on him.
“Sup, ma?” he asked a little dryly. From the look in her eyes he could tell she had something heavy on her mind and he really wasn’t for it at that moment.
“Y’all really riding tonight?”
