again?”
It wasn’t like Yolanda approved of me blastin’ fools for Scratch or anything. She was just a hell of a lot more open-minded about it than Moms was. She was willing to talk about it, giving genuine thought to my point of view, whereas Moms wouldn’t even talk about it. As long as I was involved with drug dealers she had nothing to say to me. Yolanda, so often the victim of harsh criticism herself, was less quick to judge and condemn. Still, that didn’t stop her from letting me know how she felt about things.
“You know that you and Huey are two of the brightest kids in this neighborhood. If ya’ll stopped fuckin’ around in the streets and took some kind of interest in school ya’ll could make something of yourselves out there. Ya’ll could be whatever ya’ll wanted to be and wouldn’t have to go around shootin’ and killin’ to do it. I always imagined that someday I’d pick up a magazine and read about you being some big-time politician or activist or something instead of another tool of the white man in the genocide of our people. I’m sorry to put it that way, but everyday I’m afraid that I’m going to look in the paper and see you in handcuffs or lyin’ dead in the streets. That would just break my heart, Malik.”
“Don’t worry, it wouldn’t make the papers anyway. I ain’t that important.”
“Nigga, why is you so damn cold? I used to change your diapers and rock you to sleep at night. I know you ain’t as hard as you front like you is. You just a little baby boy trying to imitate a man.”
“Fuck you, bitch! You don’t know shit about me. Don’t you know most fools would lose their lives for just suggesting that I’m anything less than a man? You know Malik, but you don’t know Snap and that’s me too. That’s who I am out in the street. Snap, the maddog psycho killer that everyone’s afraid of. That’s me. That’s who I am. So don’t get it twisted. ’Cause you don’t know if I might turn around and smoke
“Anytime you feelin’ rabbit you just jump, little boy. I done put bigger dicks in the dirt than yours. I love you like you was my own kid and at the same time like you was my man, but I’d still deal with your ass like all the rest of them wannabe gangstas I’ve had to put in check over the years.”
“See, that’s just the thing, Yolanda. That’s what you ain’t feelin’ me on. I don’t want to be no gangsta. I don’t want to be no killa. If I was some white kid growin’ up in the suburbs I’d probably never touch a gun. But these are the cards I’ve been dealt. I was born into the game. This is what I am. This is all I am.”
“Oh, Malik, you can be so much more.”
“How! How am I supposed to go to school and compete with kids who eat three square meals a day when my stomach is empty? Kids who get driven to school everyday when I’m walkin’ two miles back and forth in the goddamn snow and rain and shit and even when it’s ninety degrees outside? How am I supposed to do that? How can I compete with kids who can afford to wear nice clothes everyday when I’m fightin’ everyday because all the kids are dissin’ the fucked-up hand-me-downs that I’m wearin’? I got to compete with kids whose mothers cook all their meals and clean their rooms and wash and iron their clothes for them and help them with their homework every night while my mom is comin’ home from work exhausted every night and I’m out in the streets hustlin’ to get just a few of the things they get handed to them on silver platters. Fuck that shit! I ain’t got to go through all that shit now that I’m workin’ for Scratch. I got money in my pockets and clothes on my back. I got my own car and a full stomach. Those white boys and those rich ass Mount Airy niggas look at me like I ain’t shit ’cause I’m poor. But they all start jockin’ when they see me come to school wearin’ a platinum necklace that they know they couldn’t wear even if their parents can afford it because someone would jack their asses for it. I’d kill every last one of them fools just for how they’ve made me feel all these years. Fuck all of them!”
“I wish you’d listen to your whinin’ self. Nuthin’ but bullshit, pussy-ass, self-pity. You got a million reasons to be out there takin’ lives. Why? ’Cause you’ve suffered? ’Cause the white man ain’t left you no opportunities? Ain’t no nigga in the hood got much opportunity. Now what if we all picked up guns and started blastin’ each other?”
“It’d be a lot less white boys getting over is what.”
“Naw, it would be just what we have now, a lot of dead niggas and niggas in jail. We’ve all been hurt, disappointed, lied to, disrespected and cheated, including half the people you’re out there killing. Ain’t none of us had much opportunity either so does that mean it’s okay for you to kill us off to get ahead? That kind of selfishness is exactly why we ain’t got shit now! Talkin’ ’bout bein’ down for yours and getting’ paid. Ya’ll a bunch of selfish babies throwin’ tantrums. Takin’ the easy way out ’cause ya’ll ain’t got the guts to fight the white man. So instead you work for him and fight each other. I can’t stand to see ya’ll go out like suckers while those crackers just laugh and piss on your graves.”
Her words stung because I knew she was right, but I felt I had no choice in any of this. She didn’t understand. Killing is what I was made for. No one is this talented at something without using it. Me not killing would be like Micheal Jordan never playing basketball or Roy Jones Jr. never boxing. It seemed like my entire life had been predestined. How could I change what I was? I wanted to respond calmly and logically, but the gears in my machine were jamming, grinding against each other and heating up. My brain wouldn’t work. I could feel my temperature rising. Like any cornered animal I left my defensive posture and got angry, got ignorant, and attacked.
“Bitch, fuck all that! You don’t give a fuck about me! You just scared like all the rest of these weak-ass bitches! Talkin’ that same bullshit Moms been runnin’ for years. I ain’t tryin’ to hear none of it! Nigga like me don’t give a fuck. You heard? I gotta get mines and you gotta get yours and if getting’ mines mean takin’ yours then your shit gets took. Period! End of story! I don’t care if that means takin’ a motherfucker’s ride, his stash, or his goddamn life. It don’t make no difference to me. Bitch, look around you! Fuck is there to care about around here? I ain’t killin’ nobody. It’s this place that’s killin’ us all!”
I left the room so she wouldn’t see the tears spill from my eyes. I left her house so she wouldn’t see the murderous rage that scarred my face seconds after the tears had evaporated. She had ripped the scabs off some infected wounds and the blood had come boiling out. Emotional blood that would not coagulate but would just flow until it drowned me. I only knew one way to get rid of it and that was to make someone else bleed. I had to transfer the pain. For the things I didn’t have and never would, for the hopes and dreams I had squandered, someone was going to die. I knew it and I couldn’t stop it. I didn’t even want to try.
When I got home I was still upset.
“Why did she have to say all that shit? Why’d she have to run that fuckin’ lecture on me when all I wanted to do was get a nut off in her fat ass and chill? I’ve got enough on my mind without that playa hatin’ bitch puttin’ salt in my game.” I was puttin’ rounds in a fresh clip almost unconsciously as I gave voice to my frustration.
When Scratch knocked on the door it was a welcome distraction. His gold teeth caught sunrays and bounced them back at me, almost blinding me.
“I got a job for you, Snap.”
“I’m down for whatever, dog. Let’s do this.”
— | — | —
Chapter 13
—Sapphire, “Wild Thing”
««—»»
“So where we goin’?”
“I need an escort. I got some business to take care of and I need someone to watch my back.”
“What type of business?”
Scratch raised an eyebrow and smiled at me. I’d heard a lot of people describe his smile as chilling, but my heart doesn’t pump Kool-Aid. I knew all about the rumors of Scratch being involved in black magic and shit. I’d seen him eat that Jamaican kid’s brains when I was a kid. But none of that stuff bothered me. I’d smoked enough Jamaican dealers who were deep into voodoo to not believe any of that hocus-pocus. It was just another trick they
