Hood (19 page)

I’m well-prepared,

Never sleepin never scared

Keep the lamas for the drama

Mama keep me in ya prayers…

OLD HABITS DIED
hard, and morning found Hood stretched out on the floor exercising his body and his mind. Spittin lyrics and doing killer push-ups. Egypt was asleep, so he took a quick shower then kissed her and slipped out of the apartment while it was still quiet.

Brooklyn was coming alive, and so was Hood. The streets were calling him and he had work to put in. The air was crisp and clear and he sucked it down like a starving man. Freedom was a blessed fuckin thing, and never again would he take it for granted. He walked through the projects and nodded at a few cats he knew. He was a street favorite and they gave him respect and stared at him with awe in their eyes. All around him there was movement. Squares were leaving for work, rushing toward the train station, while crackheads had finally finished chasing those tan goods, and ballers were just coming in from yanking that doe all night.

The first stop on Hood’s agenda was Sackie’s crib. He had been out when Hood had gone there to find Egypt, so he banged hard on the door and waited until his boy opened it.

“Whattup, muhfucka!” Hood laughed at his friend standing there half-asleep in boxer shorts with pillow hair sticking up all over his head. Sackie dapped him, then scratched his balls and led Hood into the kitchen. “Yo what it do?”

“Your boy Dreko came through for you, huh?” Sackie opened the fridge and peered inside. “Breakfast?” He reached in and tossed Hood a beer. They went into the living room and Sackie turned on the television.

“Yeah,” Hood held the icy can in his hand for a moment, then set it on the floor. “My man’s a fuckin soldier. Soldiers always come through for they comrades. Son done good while I was gone too! Nigga got the Arms, a fleet, a whole fuckin army. He done amassed crazy shit! The boy’s a fuckin warrior!”

Sackie shrugged. He put his feet up on the end table and crossed his arms. “That depends on which end you lookin at it from. Ask a dun dun and that’s what you’ll get. But ask some of these real cats out here and they’ll tell you a whole lotta shit done fell apart since you left. That fool went and killed every damn thing we built up, Hood.”

“It don’t look that way to me. Dreko took Xan’s grimy ass out and that’s why cats is hatin. That nigga was dead wrong for popping Fat Daddy, and if I wasn’t on lock I woulda stretched Xan out cool myself.”

Sackie swallowed hard, but didn’t correct him.

“Xan made a big mistake, man,” Hood went on. “He demanded loyalty in the game but he didn’t show none himself. Fat Daddy was down with that fool for years. As much as he did for the crew Xan shoulda had some allegiance to the man. But a playa like him didn’t know how to be loyal to nothing or nobody.”

Sackie pressed on. “But you heard what happened to Big Monk, right? Somebody set his place on fire after Fat Daddy died and he ain’t have no insurance. Dreko’s the one who fingered that young cat Donahue, and Big Monk got wild and took him out. The cops just caught him a couple of months ago and his wife and kids had to move into a shelter.”

Hood nodded. He’d seen Monk on the Rock and knew his boy would be back out on the streets in a quick minute. “Monk cool, man. That shit wasn’t nothing but a misdemeanor murder. No witnesses, right? Then after sixty days the charge disappears. Dreko made sure nobody stepped up to snitch, right? Big Monk oughtta be grateful.”

“Grateful for what? If it wasn’t for Dreko, Big Monk woulda still been feeding his fuckin family instead of getting his cheeks spread and biting pillows on the Rock. Dreko’s fuckin up everybody’s flow. How do you think he got Ocean Hill? He used Riff to take down Chaos’s click, then stood back while Chaos got knocked by the feds. Riff wasn’t on top for a good month before he turned up dead over in that used car lot on Linden Boulevard. And Dreko was running shit in Ocean Hill that same day.

“He got Lil Jay going at Hawk’s throat, and that cat Amp from Dumont Avenue is gunning for Vandy now. Your boy is planting shit on a crew from the eastside, then blaming that shit on a crew from the westside. Ain’t no order in his game. He fuckin with the balance of shit. He’s thrown mad chaos in the game and he likes it like that.”

Hood shrugged. “Then them niggas is weak, Sack! Anybody who allows Dreko to get in they heads or in they pockets, they deserve it. This is Brooklyn! Only the strong survive, man.”

Sackie made a noise deep in his throat, then went for broke. “Then what about Reem? Ya boy Dreko stirred up some nasty shit over in Raw’s camp too. Don’t forget, Reem
is
the street. Shit gone start stinkin real fast if Dreko try to go for his throat. What about it, Hood? You gone blow that shit off too?”

Hood grew silent as his loyalty was tested. Dreko was a renegade, but fuckin with a cat like Reem was unthinkable. Hood didn’t know exactly how much shit had gone wrong, or why, but fury rose in him as Sackie opened his mouth and caught him up on everything that had happened while he was on lock. It took Sackie a minute, but his son broke it all the way down to him with truth. Almost all the way. Sackie couldn’t bring himself to tell Hood who had really popped Fat Daddy. He didn’t tell him about Egypt neither.

When Sackie was done talking, all Hood could do was burn inside. Dreko musta been smokin his own crack when he went up on Reem’s block waving gats and claiming some wild hype about members of Reem’s crew interfering in his biz. Reem’s boy Robb Hawk pushed back hard and clowned Dreko in front of all his lil soldiers.

“And that’s when,” Sackie said, “Dreko put word out on the streets that he wanted Hawk’s neck. He said Reem could go down with his nigga if he wanted to. But instead of taking that shit to Reem, some say Dreko took it to the man.”

“To the cops? That’s insanity, man. Fuckin insanity.”

Sackie shook his head. “Not really, man. Hot 97 sponsored Reem’s tour man, and that shit got cut short last week because of Dreko. Reem was coming off an interview when a kid from Tilden got popped outside the station. Dreko put the word out that Reem’s boys did it. The police got the dime and had a big investigation going all over the news and shit, and that’s when the station canceled Reem’s tour. They tryna beef up their image, ya know? That’s why they moved to Wall Street, man. They yanked back those tour dollars from Reem, man, and if Dreko wasn’t your son Reem prolly would’ve murdered him by now.”

Dreko was his nig and he was strong, Hood knew. But not strong enough to be going up against Reem Raw and them Bottom Half Boyz.

There was no way in fuck he could win.

The next night Hood rolled up in the Stank Mic, a popular rapper’s club Reem had opened up on the border between East New York and Brownsville. He walked inside and greeted the tank-looking dude at the door.

“What it do, Toppa?”

A wide grin spread over the bearlike head of the bouncer. “Hood! My nigga! When they turn you loose, man?”

“A coupl’a minutes ago.” He glanced around, noticing everything. “I see y’all changed shit up in here.”

“Had to,” Toppa shrugged. “Reem and them niggas blasted the whole damn place up a few months ago. Some cats from Crown Heights rolled through and we had to show them lil gangstas how to act.”

Hood moved into the club and immediately began bouncing his head to a Joe Wright beat. Joe was one of the hottest young producers on the scene and his beats were sick and distinctive.

But it wasn’t just the beat that captivated Hood as he walked into the main room. It was the dude who was up on the stage stankin up the mic as he spit some real nasty shit at the crowd. Hood stood in the back and listened as Reem Raw put his flow game down hard.

Step in the building you can tell they tense!

My whole fam here fresher than that Bel Air Prince

And uhm,

We get money and inhale that piff!

But if it’s wood you can face that, I don’t wanna taste that!

Your chick face stay below where my waist at,

When I skeet, she straight, I know she don’t waste that!

You good? Nigga well I’m great, you should face facts

My flow bringing the N.Y. state back!

Reem was doing it up. He had on a bullet-proof vest for the haters, but the crowd loved him. That lil nigga was on his way up the music charts just like he’d always said he would. He had something about him that spoke the truth of the streets to music for real.

I got the cleanest, meanest team, N-J, N-J-S

I live and I breathe this!

My weed’s greenish, white-haired and seedless

School of hard knocks, check! Reem’s on the dean’s list!

Reem’s lyrics were tight as usual, but suddenly he switched up his style and it seemed like his mood changed. And that’s when Hood realized his old friend had spotted him. They eyed each other, talking without words. It was good seeing his boy. They’d been real tight over the years, loyal G’s to the game and to each other. Hood lifted his chin. Letting Reem see he came in peace. Showing him he was there to try and make all the crazy shit Dreko had started right.

Reem responded with a dark look. Then he opened his mouth and shit all over the mic. Letting his position be known with much clarity and absolutely no doubt.

Feed fifths to the prick that told!

That’s word to the streets and the strip I stroll,

That’s word to the heat and the clip I hold,

Cross my fam, and straight to ya chin I go!

Look, I don’t know what provoked him,

I don’t know what he smokin

All I know is I smoke him

He come around me…

Now, I don’t know what they told him,

all I know is I fold him

Fuck around and expose him

He come around me…

I’ll BITE one of them niggas you know

I don’t just talk threats!

You gotta see Reem ’fore you come at Hawk’s neck!

You ill niggas ain’t got a spark yet?

Fuck ya rhymes, you outshined if I get on your project!

My mind set like a nigga runnin in the projects

Brownsville, East New York, you know where I rep!

East side, nigga that vibe, you know I ride that

I’m RAW like sniffin coke lines off the dishes

I’m vicious, and I done been on both sides of the bridges

No signs of giving a FUCK about none a’ y’all!

Whoever said you was nice, they was suckin’ y’all!

Then Reem grilled Hood hard and spoke to his boy with pure murder in his lyrics. Game time was about to be up for Dreko if he didn’t stand his ass down, and Reem broke that raw message down with a mean gangsta hook while staring dead in Hood’s eyes.

I’m up next, Gag Order in effect

Drought time for that nigga now

I’m forcin him to stretch!

Yes! I’m ’bout cheese! These niggas is not G’s!

Don’t want it to jump off?

THEN KEEP HIM FROM ROUND ME!

I don’t know what provoked him,

I don’t know what he smokin

All I know is I smoke him

He come around me…

Now, I don’t know what they told him,

All I know is I fold him

Fuck around and expose him

He come around me!

Hood nodded and turned away.

Reem’s message was raw and clear: Get ya man in check else I’ma dead him.

I know you wanna see me hit,

Blood leaking on the canvas…

But your sister and ya bitch?

They wanna see me in a sandwich!

IT TOOK LESS
than a week for Hood to get back on his street grind. Dreko had built their organization up to a level that made it look like child’s play back when Xanbar had been on top. Drug money was practically growing on trees and falling out of the sky, and everyone connected with D.W.I.T. was eating lush meals and rolling around with fat knots in their pockets.

“Ya done good, son!” Hood told Dreko one night as they counted the day’s take. They had street teams positioned from Ocean Hill all the way down to the pedestrian bridge that crossed over from Brownsville to East New York, and the cake they raked in each day could be stacked real high.

Not only did Dreko commandeer two tenements, he had bogarted a neighborhood church as well. There was an industrial-size safe down in the church basement, and half of the doe that came out of the count room was stashed there until it could be washed through one of Brownsville’s legitimate businesses.

The small business owners in the neighborhood were so terrified behind the brutality of Dreko’s criminal crew that they paid him a business tax each week and did whatever else he demanded of them with no questions asked. He had a string of shiesty cops on his roll too. They enjoyed the extra food Dreko was putting on their tables so they turned their heads and looked the other way while he did his dirt.

It wasn’t hard to see how his boy had managed to dominate and terrorize an entire neighborhood in such a short period of time. Every nigga with a gat was willing to pop one off, but not too many dudes gave less than a fuck about taking a few rounds to the dome too. Dreko was that guy. He was willing to die without a moment’s notice for what he wanted. Not many gangstas could say that and mean it.

Since hitting the bricks, Hood and Dreko had ridden out on a lot of missions together, and and twice Dreko had simply walked up on some cat he thought
mighta
been scheming on their action and put his tool to his forehead and pulled the trigger. Just to send a clear message to the rest of the niggas on the block. And both times son had even pulled out a camera and took a picture of his work. Dead dude on the ground, brain juice running into the gutter.

“Look at that shit!” Dreko had laughed. “Nigga messed with the crew and got his forehead smacked!”

All that shit was well and good. The code of the street dictated that when a cat tried to gank you for your money, your bitch, or your status, you cracked him. But turf boundaries were fiercely guarded, and Hood cautioned Dreko against sliding his toe over the line Reem Raw and his team were holding.

“Don’t do it, Dre. You got some beef with Hawk? Squash it. This shit can get so much bigger than that.”

“Fuck that nigga!” Dreko exploded. A dark look came into his eyes. “Reem ain’t the only general wit’ a army! I got a whole tribe of gorillas lined up behind me! That nigga’s dick ain’t the only one long!”

Hood’s tone was realistic. Cut and dried. “Son stop wildin for a minute and think. If we got a thousand goonies, Reem and them Bottom Half Boyz got two thousand. And every last one of them is street tested and loyal. Besides, all this beefin bullshit is bad for business. You go off fuckin with Reem’s crew and it’ll make shit go south with our connects. It just ain’t worth the hassle. Business is booming on our side of the yard. Let’s not put no cramps in our cash flow.”

The mention of money woke Dreko up, and he finally agreed to stay out of Reem’s territory, but Hood didn’t know how long that shit would last. What he did know, was that if his boy put his toe over there, just one fuckin toe, Reem Raw and his click would rise up so hard that Dreko would surely lose both his legs.

It was deep in the night and Hood was sleeping naked on his back with a silk sheet covering his legs. He opened his eyes in the darkness and immediately he could feel the tension in the air. Shit wasn’t right. His hand shot out and slid across the sheets searching for Egypt. When she wasn’t there he sat straight up and was surprised to see her sitting on the windowsill.

One of her long brown legs was bent at the knee, and her chin rested upon it. Her hair hung past her shoulders and her eyes were wide in the darkness. They looked haunted and were filled with tears.

Hood checked himself. Instead of rushing to comfort her like he would’ve done back in the day, he just waited. And watched.

“I’m sorry,” she said after a few minutes. She wiped her eyes and got down from the windowsill. “You was sleeping so good, I wasn’t trying to wake you up.”

Hood didn’t say a word. Here she was looking crazy and staring at him in the middle of the night with tears all over her face. It was obvious that the girl had some shit she needed to get off her chest. Even though she hadn’t been down for him while he pulled his bid, he still loved her, but he wasn’t a fool and he for damn sure wasn’t a fuckin herb.

“It’s just too damn hot in here,” Egypt said like she had an attitude. “I can’t even sleep.” She stood up and stretched her arms over her head. Her body was long and curvy. She had on a pair of light blue boy shorts and a matching Naughty Girls tank top. They’d fucked before going to bed and Hood remembered her being ass naked when he’d dozed off with her in his arms.

Eygpt pulled up the edge of her top and dried her eyes. She had been sitting there battling with herself as she feened for a hit. Money wasn’t the problem right now. Getting out of this damn room was. Mont was paid and as generous as he could be. A few days after coming home he’d taken her shopping and told her to pick out all new shit. Bras, thongs, shoes, everything. Dreko had set aside some big bank for his boy to enjoy when he hit the bricks, and Mont had wrapped her in the best of shit, happily.

But none of that mattered right now and she was almost mad at Mont for coming home and throwing curves in her flow. The neighborhood drug czar was actually standing in her way. Blocking her game. Stopping her from doing what she wanted to do, and what she wanted to do was get high!

Instead, for the past two hours she had been laying next to Lamont listening to him snore while she had the most delirious of awake-dreams. Each time she closed her eyes she fantasized about wrapping her lips around a stem. It was almost like her brain was one big clitoris and she could bust a nut just by visualizing the thick curls of smoke and that sweet, acrid smell of burning rock. She was just too weak, and that poison was just too strong.

Egypt loved Lamont from her soul. She really did. And what he felt for her was pure and true. This she knew. But right now she needed some room to move because she wouldn’t be able to hide this shit from Mont much longer. He was bound to find out. And when he did, he was bound to kill her.

Less than two weeks later Hood came face to face with his past once again, and this particular encounter was enough to make his heart thud to a halt in his chest. He was coming out of a clothing store on Pitken Avenue carrying three large bags filled with new gear. Slanging rock was a cash and carry business, and neither him nor Dreko had the time or the patience to be doing nothing as simple as laundry. Both of them shopped for new clothes two or three times a week and tossed their old shit off to the doljahs and dun duns, even their drawers, as soon as they brought new shit in.

Today Hood had laid out over a G for some Enyce gear and a few pieces by Rocawear. He’d bought some new footwear and twenty pairs of silk boxers too. A couple of fitteds, a dope jacket, and he was straight.

Sackie was standing outside the whip, which was double parked, and the horn beeped as he clicked the remote and unlocked the doors. Hood was about two steps from the curb when he stumbled forward, bumped from behind. Hand on gat, he whirled, ready to blow.

“Sorry.” The nut who had fallen into him was wearing a long knit dress with all kinds of crazy buttons pinned to it. Not a clear spot was to be found on that shit, and the rusty pin-on buttons of all size, shapes, and colors, clanked and clanged against each other as she moved. She was skinny and tired looking. She dragged a raggedy black suitcase behind her on broken wheels. She was small-boned and she used to be pretty. She was his mother.

Pain squeezed his heart as he looked into her dazed, disoriented eyes. Her drug addiction and mental illness had driven the normalcy from her face and it had been so long since they’d seen each other that there was no recognition in her eyes for him whatsoever. She didn’t even know who he was. She was with someone. A raggedy, one-eyed nigga who pulled a suitcase behind him too.

“Mama,” Hood said letting his bags drop to the ground. He put his arms on her shoulders and searched her eyes hoping she would recognize him, her first-born son. She wasn’t even forty yet but the harsh years of drugs and self-abuse had taken their toll. “It’s me, Ma. Monty. It’s me.”

Marjay frowned, her eyes darting all over his face. She looked just like Moo when she did that, Hood thought sadly.

“I know who you is,” Marjay finally said, busting out in a big grin. “You
is
that Monty, ain’t you!” She hugged him, squeezing tight. Then she pushed him away and smacked his face. “Boy you s’posed to be round there taking care of your gramma! You out here foolin around in the streets. And where is that Monroe? Is you been watching your brother?”

Her friend laughed and smacked Hood on the back of his head. “Yeah! You s’posed to watch your brother!”

“Moo is de—” Hood almost yelled in his mother’s face, but he caught himself. He looked at the nappy-bearded crackhead standing beside her and slammed the palm of his hand square into the man’s bony chest. “Nigga if you
ever
…” Hood breathed deeply, willing himself not to strangle the cat. “If you ever put ya fuckin hands on me or my moms, I’ll kill you where you stand. Straight blast your polluted ass away.”

Marjay frowned. “Now you ain’t got no reason to do Picky that way! He been helping me! He the one helping me get myself together so I can come to Gramma’s and get you and Moo. We all gone live together again soon, Monty. I promise, baby. We gone be together again, all of us. Even ya daddy. You just watch.”

Hood had been digging into his front pockets as she spoke. He held a fat roll of bank in his hand and all he wanted to do was throw it at her. She was skinny and she was dirty. She was trapped in a world of confusion and delirium. And even worse, she was a fuckin crackhead.

He peeled five twenties off the top of his knot.

“Here,” he said, thrusting the money out at her. He would’ve given her a hundred times more if it could have saved her, but all she was gone do was smoke that shit up. Besides, he didn’t want her little ugly friend to see her with a jackpot then get her somewhere and beat her up and take her money. Hood would really have to kill him then.

He waited while she stuck the doe down the front of her dress, then reached out and held her again. So what she was dirty and she smelled bad. She was his moms, and he loved her. But he was wise to the ways of a crackhead. This was gonna be his last time dishing off cash so she could get high. He was gonna put the word out thick on the corners too. Between him and Dreko, they oversaw every rock slanger in Brownsville and Ocean Hill. Marjay was gone hafta travel into somebody else’s territory if she wanted to smoke any more crack because after today them boys in his sector better not sell his moms so much as a fuckin flake. No powder, no fish scales, nothing. If they did, and he caught ’em, he’d kill ’em.