The Corner II (2 page)

“And walked with you home?”

“Yes.”

She realized that her son was still holding the belt.

“Anthony, you can put the belt up.”

Anthony looped the belt on the hook in the cluttered closet next to his black suit—his only suit. His mother made sure that his suit was black seeing as how she could only afford one. When she was young her brothers had only one suit and the color was black or either navy blue. With all the funerals they went to when they were young the boys all had to have a dark suit.

“Anthony, I’m not mad at you for getting into a fight. As a-matter-of-fact I’m glad that you did. It’s about time.”

She took the bloody shirt from him.

Gloria looked him in the eyes and pointed. Her cigarette dangling between her two fingers as she told him, “That kid that helped you out. You owe him. You are new here and he helped defend you and made sure that you made it home safely. That’s a real friend. Risking himself for you. As long as he never crosses you,” she took another drag then pointed the cancer stick at her son, “you be there for him even if it means risking your own ass. You hear me?”

“Yes, mama.”

She hugged her son.

“Boy you remind me so much of your daddy.” She broke her embrace. “Now get your bath ready and I’ll get some ice for that nose. You want Pizza Hut for dinner?”

Excited, Anthony yelled, “Yeah. I mean yes.”

“Take your bath and I’ll pick it up.”

Anthony washed as his mother went to pick up the pizza. He thought about what his mother was saying. He touched his nose and felt the soreness.
It ain’t so bad
, he thought. He then thought about Smiley who he had just met. How he came to his rescue. He thought about how nice it was to have a friend in the neighborhood. He then thought about Smiley’s brother Tavarious and the money he was making out on the corner. He thought about how his mom went to work everyday and came home tired. Feet hurting. Head aching. Back cramping. He thought about how Tavarious was just standing around laughing and listening to LL Cool J’s ‘Rock The Bells’ pump through his boom box as he made his money. Thought about the white man in the shiny car pulling up giving Tavarious his money. He wanted that. He wanted his mom to have nice stuff. He wanted to be able to afford a phone like Smiley. He touched his nose again only with a little more pressure and wanted to yell ouch! But smiled instead. He was now learning what it meant to live in the
hood
.

*     *     *

The two teenagers continued getting high.
Gimmie The Loot
finished and they skipped to
I Love It When You Call Me Big Poppa
. Smiley was on the phone and didn’t notice when Tavarious pulled up in his new Cadillac STS.

“Yo, Ant,” Tavarious, who was twenty-eight a decade older than his brother and Anthony, yelled.

Anthony trotted down the steps. He had no shirt on and his muscular pecs bounced with every step. He had outgrown his best friend in height and weight. Smiley was a slim, cut, one seventy-five. He stopped growing while Anthony continued. At six-two, two hundred pounds, he was a force to be reckoned with.

Anthony leaned inside the passenger’s side window.

Tavarious asked, “I need you to handle some shit fo’ me. You down?”

“Nigga, whateva. Wassup?”

Tavarious looked at him seriously. “Look here. You the baddest muthafucka when it comes to that breakin’ and enterin’ shit, right?”

Smiling, knowing that it wasn’t shit that he couldn’t break into—at least in his mind Ant said, “You know it. What you got.”

“This some for real shit can you handle it? You think you can handle it?” Tavarious said as he puffed on his blunt.

“Man what’s up? Time is money.”

“What I’m ’bout to tell you is from my mouth to your ears. This some serious shit that can get some niggas killed. It’s a shipment of kilos comin’ in. They gonna be at this white boy’s house for about four hours. What I need is for you to get in there and get that shit, ’bout twenty of ’em. You gonna need a couple of cats to go with ya. Get that shit and hit me up.”

“What’s my cut?” Anthony asked knowing that this was the payday that would put him on. Whether he got loot or either some of the bricks, it was a come up.

Tavarious took a hard drag. He coughed lightly and his words were music to Anthony’s ears. “Fifty percent, nigga.”

“Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about,” Anthony said as he rose from the vehicle instinctively looking around. He swatted at a mosquito then leaned back into the lowered window of the car.

“I’ll hit you with the rest of the info tonight. The only thing is you will need to get a couple of guys. They get paid out of your cut and they don’t need to know shit about me. Got it?”

“Whatever you say.”

Looking serious, Tavarious told Ant, “Lean forward a bit.”

Anthony did.

Smoke blew in his face as Tavarious’ eyes tightened and not from the chronic he was smoking but from the seriousness he wanted to convey to Anthony. “Don’t let my brother know about this shit. I don’t want him involved. If you want to shoot him some loot, that’s cool. But he don’t need to be up on no shit like this, understand?”

“It’s your call.”

Tavarious handed Anthony a baggie filled with two ounces of chronic.

“If he asks, tell him you called me bout some of this good shit.”

Tavarious put the car in gear, turned up the volume and bumped some
Nas.

Once back on the porch Smiley asked, “What big bro want?”

Anthony held up a fat sack.

Smiley reached for it. He opened the zip-lock and smelled the herb saying, “Oh, we gonna get faded tonight.”  He handed the bag back to Anthony. “We gonna hookup with them freaks, right?”

Against his better judgment and what Tavarious told him Anthony decided to cut his best friend in on the money making deal. Sure he could have just given Smiley some of the money he made since it was going to be thousands but why not bring him along. Instead of two other people all he’d have to do is get one. Besides, he trusted Smiley to have his back instead of some of the other cats he did dirt with. He rubbed his smooth dark chin as Smiley hit his forty and changed from the Biggie CD to the Wu-Tang Clans
C.R.E.A.M
. (Cash Rules Everything Around Me). How fitting
Anthony thought.

“Yo, Smiley.”

“What up?”

“You down for getting paid?”

“You know I’m wit cha. What you got in mind?”

“Got twenty keys sitting in a spot. I got limited time to get ’em. We heist that shit for your big bro and we get to keep half. I need another body to roll with us so I’m gonna put Baby G up on it. You down?”

“Just let me know when and where.”

“I need you to do what you do. We got them pistols you came up on last week but we need a little more firepower. Can you get a couple Tec-9’s from your dude?”

“I didn’t get ’em last time cause we ain’t have enough loot—”     

“Let that nigga know that we’ll break him off a little somethin’ extra. But homie, don’t let on that we got some shit going. If he doesn’t want to come off the heat on the front then just say fuck it we’ll just do the shit with them nines we got. You feel me?”

“Aw’ight,” Smiley told his partner.

Tavarious loved his brother and would do anything for him. But he knew his sibling was best at pulling women. If he’d wanted to come up on some females he’d involve his brother. If he wanted to do dirt he kept his brother out of the equation because his brother wasn’t built for that type of action and tonight Smiley would prove his brother to be right.

Anthony walked away from the porch with his cell in one hand and his forty clutched in the other. He could still hear the music but he was now able to hear Baby G.

“Whas’up fool?” the young gangster asked.

“I got a little something poppin’ off you might be interested in. It pays a grip. You down?” “How I’m gonna be down with some shit that I don’t know about?”

“Yo, G, have I ever steered you wrong?”

“Nah, nigga.”

“Then you just gotta trust me. Somebody big put me up on a lick. Shit goes right you might be getting up to three keys.”

With that, the young live wire was in. Anthony told him that he’d hit him up when he was ready to roll. He knew he didn’t have to school Baby G on what to wear, how to be strapped or to keep his mouth shut. Anthony closed his cell and walked back to the porch. Smiley was sitting on a lawn chair talking on his cell to his man about getting the Techs. Once finished Ant poured their forties out and put out the weed. Smiley looked at him like he was crazy so Ant told him that they needed to be on full alert tonight and would have plenty enough time afterwards to celebrate their riches.

The sun was just beginning to set but the humidity that blanketed the city was lingering. Ant parked the old Chevy in front of a house on the west side of town. Smiley turned down the radio and looked over to the driver’s side. He told his boy that he’d be out in less than fifteen. An eternity, Ant thought as he kept his eyes on some of the young hustlers on the street corner getting off their rocks. They were familiar with the area but it wasn’t their hood. Winchester, a twenty something street hood that sold guns and a little crack to make his ends, told Smiley that he was on parole so he couldn’t travel to bring the heat. Usually he would have with an extra fee attached but Smiley was getting the guns on the front. He wasn’t showing no such love so it was a trip they had to make and make quickly. Tavarious had already called Ant and given him the low down. Ant called Baby G with the info and he was to meet him and Smiley at their house. Baby G was responsible for supplying the transportation, which he was in the process of getting. The young gangster’s M.O. was that he would head to the suburbs where the retirees lived and steal a car off one of the old white folks who were asleep and wouldn’t notice that their car was missing until the morning when they woke up. By that time the car would have already been used in a crime and burned.

Smiley was about to get out of the car when Ant grabbed him by the arm.

“Hurry up and get out. I don’t like it up here with these shady ass niggas.”

“I feel ya,” Smiley said looking in the direction of the hustler up the block.

Smiley knocked on the screen door three times. When he didn’t get an answer he opened the screen door and banged on the oil base painted wooden door that was chipping.

Winchester opened the door yelling, “Damn nigga. You bangin’ on my shit like you the police!”

“Shit, next time answer this muthafucka then. I got shit to take care of,” Smiley said as he entered the dimly lit dank house.

Winchester looked out the door at the Chevy. He remembered the Nine-Eight being Anthony’s. He locked the door and when they walked through the kitchen Smiley frowned at the old food and dirty dishes that were everywhere with roaches trying to dart in and under whatever they could to hide. Winchester told a skinny dusty looking light skinned teenager to watch the front. The boy grabbed a bottle of beer from the refrigerator and walked to the front room so he could keep a look out. The light was off so no one could see him sitting in the chair at the window. He pulled a pistol out of his waistband and set it on the windowsill, then cracked open the brew and sipped as he conducted guard duty.

Smiley followed Winchester down the stairs to a dimly lit basement where there was a couple of young men playing XBOX and one grimy looking dude rolling blunts and stacking them into a cigar box. If it weren’t for Winchester knowing Smiley didn’t have any money and were getting the guns on a front, Smiley would have been worried that he was going to get jacked.

“So you got what I need?” Smiley asked.

“Yeah, but I need my paper tomorrow. I ain’t running no fucking charity outfit.”

“I gotcha.”

Winchester went to the bar and grabbed a beer for Smiley. He accepted it and sipped as he watched Winchester set three Tech-nines on the bar.

“Told you I only needed two.”

“Fool, I’m giving you your choice. Either these two black ones or one black and one nickel plated. The nickel plated is a little extra but she is sexy,” he said as he held up the weapon admiring it.

“I’m straight with the black ones. What we’re doing we don’t need that shinny shit.”

Winchester put the weapons in a gym bag. While he was getting a couple of boxes of 9mm ammo he asked Smiley, “What your ladies’ man ass gonna do with this shit? You don’t know nothin’ about pistol play.”

The man rolling the blunt and the two cats playing the video game laughed. Smiley was a little shitty at the joke being on him and never the one to be outdone, he told Winchester, “Nigga after tonight, muthafucka’s gonna be coppin’ from Smiley. I’ma be the man.”

“What nigga, you jackin’ a nigga fo’ his shit. I mean your nigga out in the car Ant, that nigga got the heart for some shit like that but you a pimp baby. Not a hustler.”

“Shit nigga we ’bout to come up on some keys and you can deduct the three hundred I owe you for these Tech’s when you come to get a bird from me for fifteen. Yeah nigga, I said it fifteen thou a kilo. That’s how I’ll be doin’ it this time tomorrow,” Smiley said as he took the bag from the young arms dealer.