white boy himself. He had red hair and freckles and skin the color of buttermilk, yet his features were decidedly African. Thick lips, wide nose, and hair that was thick and wooly despite its rusty hue. Both his parents were Black but very fair skinned. He had always wanted my job and I guess he had gotten it. I always knew he wouldn’t last long as a hitter. Yellow Dog was a money man, a street accountant. It took a different type of calculation to be a killer. You never rushed in, especially when it came to taking out another killer. Who the fuck does a driveby from halfway up the block and waits until his marks are in the car with the motor running before he fires? Amateur. He hesitated and so he’d gotten his ass capped. But Scratch was still out there somewhere looking for me and the baby. He could keep sending his soldiers at me one at a time until he finally popped me or he could come at me with everything he had. He had an entire ghetto full of desperate killers to pull from. We had to get that son of a bitch. It was the only way to put an end to the madness.
Yellow Dog’s decimated corpse slipped forward and struck the steering wheel with what remained of its face. The horn blared loudly and lights began going on in the surrounding houses including my own, which was just a few doors away. Doors and windows opened abruptly as the neighborhood awakened to the smell of sulfur and blood more familiar to them than the aroma of hot biscuits and morning coffee. Another brother was dead because of Scratch and I had once again acted as the instrument of his death.
“Mourn that house nigga later. We gots to get ghost before the police get here!”
Huey was right. In the grand scheme of things Yellow Dog was just spilled milk. It was more important now that we didn’t get caught standing over his body with a smoking gun in our hands. The police had gotten into the habit of not turning on their sirens when they responded to a scene so there was no way of knowing how near or far they were from us. But there was little doubt that they were on their way. Huey was already turning the Monte Carlo around and opening the door for me to get in when I saw my mother come to one of the windows wrapped in her robe and wiping the sleep from her eyes. Her eyes locked with mine as I slipped into the car beside Huey and he hit the accelerator. Our eyes remained locked as the Monte Carlo charged down the street not breaking until we disappeared around the corner. I slumped back into my seat and covered my eyes with my fists.
“Damn.”
— | — | —
Chapter 20
—Malcolm X
««—»»
“I need to rest somewhere and Iesha and this kid of yours ain’t gonna last too long either unless they get some sleep. We can’t go back to my place though and we damn sure can’t go to yours. It’s probably crawling with cops about now.”
I thought for a minute. Only one solution came to mind.
“I know a place where we can go, but you ain’t gonna like it.”
I directed him onto the freeway and soon we were headed downtown towards Center City. I picked up my cell phone and dialed a number. Huey watched suspiciously as I made arrangements for us. I hung up and smiled at him.
“It’s cool. I got us a place to crash for a few days.”
“With who?”
“Just make your next right. You’ll see when we get there.” I was still smiling and Huey was still glaring at me skeptically.
Huey sneered and shook his head in disgust as Christina opened the door to her tiny one bedroom apartment overlooking South Street. Without modesty or pretension she flew into my arms, greedily sucking my lips and tongue as she kissed me passionately, grinding her pelvis and opulent breasts against my body, which responded despite my fatigue. The girl was amazing.
I gently pulled her off of me and turned to Huey. He rolled his eyes up toward the ceiling and let out a sigh then turned as if searching for an exit. Iesha was behind him urging him forward so he relented and stepped into the apartment. He had to admit, there was nowhere else for us to go. Christina was bubbling over with excitement at seeing me. It almost made me blush.
“I can’t believe you’re here! Come in, all of you. This is Huey right?”
“Yeah, and this is his lady Iesha and this…” I gestured toward the baby who was now soundly asleep, “…is one long fucking story.”
“What happened to your ear? You’ve got blood all over the side of your head.”
“It ain’t nuthin’. I’ll tell you all about it in a minute.”
We sat down on Christina’s couch while she went to get a washcloth to wipe the blood from the side of my head. After I was clean she stuck a huge Band Aid over the wounded ear and dabbed the abrasion alongside my head where the bullet had traveled with peroxide. Huey’s immutable scowl had not diminished in the least.
Annoyingly, I felt every bit the shuffling, shucking, Tomming, white man’s dog Huey’s eyes accused me of being as Christina attended to me.
“Anything else I can do for you baby?”
“I think the kid needs to be changed. Why don’t you and Iesha go to the store and get him some diapers and formula and stuff.”
I peeled off a hundred dollar bill from a roll that included the ten thousand dollars I’d gotten from hittin’ Jah Warrior just a week ago and handed it to her. Her eyes widened as they spotted my bankroll, but she didn’t comment. I’m sure she had assumed my gangster lifestyle was just some sort of act and she was now starting to realize that it was all real. I was curious to see how she’d handle it. Shit was about to get deep now and there would be no way I could keep her out of it.
After Christina and Iesha left, Huey and I sat and discussed the best way to bring the pain to Scratch as the baby slept calmly between us, surrounded by pillows to keep him from rolling off the couch.
“It don’t make no sense for us to be kickin’ back in this white bitch’s crib while that fool is out there spreadin’ the word all over the city about your ass. Pretty soon we won’t be able to go nowhere in this town. We need to peel this fool’s cap back tonight!”
“You’re the one who said we needed to get Iesha and the baby safe first and get some rest. Scratch don’t know nothin’ about Christina. He won’t be lookin’ for us way down here. He’ll still think we’re in the hood somewhere. This is the best place for us to kick it until we can figure out how to finish this. We can’t just stroll up into the Raymond Rosen projects and blast that mutherfucker. We need a plan.”
“Yeah? And why
“True. That might work. It might also get my ass killed.”
“You a dead man right now anyway. At least this way you might have a chance. Now,” Huey picked up his cup of ginseng tea and crossed his legs atop the smoked glass coffee table, “Fuck is up with you and this white bitch?”
“Dog, don’t even go there with me right now. That Black consciousness shit is played out anyway. Ain’t nobody tryin’ to hear that shit no more.”
“I’m just sayin’, you was workin’ for a white drug dealer killin’ other brothers and talkin’ all that bullshit about God fuckin’ up your life and shit and now,” he shook his head and chuckled to himself as if he were discussing the ridiculous antics of some pathetic moron, “And now you all hugged up with this Caucasoid trick. Do you have that much self-hatred? You hate your own skin that much?”
“I told you I ain’t tryin’ to hear this shit right now! Don’t you think I got enough shit goin’ on without your
