Thirsty (6 page)

My T-shirt was draped over my head. I was only wearing a wife beater and still burning up. It felt like July in a microwave oven and my skin felt like it was frying.

But Charlotte PD was patrolling too thick to take a chance with drinking alcohol.
Me, D.C., and our new partner in crime, Cross, were parked side by side on our motorcycles with me in the middle. D.C. and Cross both owned Kawasaki’s. Their chromed out custom-painted ZX-13s were tight to death. But they couldn’t fuck with my shit. My preference was the Japanese-made Suzuki Hayubussa 1300. My bike was chromed out and painted with that candy chameleon shit that changed colors with the light. I loved it because it came in handy when fleeing from the Jakes! One minute they would be searching for a green bike and the next minute they would be searching for a blue joint! Kept them muthafuckas confused.
We were situated in a corner of one of the large parking lots just off the strip so we could have a clear view of everyone entering and exiting the park. Since we had robbed so many niggas and had accumulated so many enemies we had to be on point, especially when we were out like this. We were parked so we could watch the crowd because we didn’t need any surprises. We needed to be able to see everything that was moving.
“Hey, Chinaman. Can a bitch ride wit’ choo?” I looked up from my bike and saw that the voice came from a young redbone who looked no older than sixteen in the eyes, but twenty-two in the thighs. She and two of her girlfriends were walking past us looking like younger versions of the video models Vida Guerra, Buffie the Body, and Ice T’s white wife, Co-Co. The confusing thing about the trio was the fact that the white girl had the fattest ass.
I wrinkled my eyebrows as I watched the three young girls stroll by smiling at us. My eyes were glued to the snow bunny’s backside.
Where da fuck white girls gettin’ all this ass from these days?
I thought.
The redbone saw me staring at her friend. She looked at me, then followed my gaze to her friend’s ass and commented with a knowing smile, “Oh, so
that’s
yo’ flavor, huh?”
I snapped out of my trance and sarcastically replied while puffing on a Newport, “Ain’t y’all a little too young to be out here without a chaperone?”
They had gotten a nice distance away but they still heard my comment. The redbone looked back, rolled her eyes and swung her ass even harder as she walked off. The skirt she was wearing was so short it barely covered her shapely ass cheeks. My remark must have irked her because she didn’t look back again. They disappeared into the throng of niggas who were gaping and foaming at the mouth like hungry wolves waiting to devour them.
“Yo, why didn’t you holla at shorty?” D.C. asked while laughing.
“Man, you see how these hoes sweatin’ a nigga like we celebs an’ shit. Why should we
run
down the hill and fuck just one sheep when we can
walk
down an’ fuck ’em all?” I looked over at D.C., “Slow ya roll, nigga, we got all day.”
After the girls left, we sat there and kicked it for a few minutes. The park began to get congested with cars and bikes. I was on my cell talking to Justice when I heard Cross’s raspy voice call my name. When I looked over at him he was pointing towards the park’s entrance where I saw a midnight black 760i with dark tinted windows turning into the park.
“You know dem niggas?” Cross asked, sounding just like the rapper Jada Kiss.
“Not yet,” I replied. I told my sister I’d call her back. I snapped my phone shut while we all watched the sleek Beemer sitting on 24s slowly cruise up the strip in the slow moving traffic that were attempting to enter the parking area. I didn’t know who these niggas were, but I was itching to find out.
As we watched the BMW finally park approximately fifty feet away from where we were, we waited to see who would exit. When the doors finally opened, we were surprised to see two females step out. The passenger was a pecan tan Amazon and the driver looked to be Hispanic. Both women were dimes, hands down, and they seemed to possess air sophistication about them. They both stood next to the car wearing dark sunglasses as they laughed and conversed amongst one another.
I looked around and saw every nigga in my vicinity staring at the two chicks. Even a few females were checking them out and pointing in their direction. I knew most of the niggas who were watching the pair was more than likely thinking about trying to fuck. However,
my
mind was
way
in the gutter! I was thinking about the actual owner of the vehicle the two girls had just emerged from. I had a gut feeling neither of the girls owned that joint and I was willing to bet money that it belonged to a dope boy.
The jack-boy in me always made me look at things beyond the surface. What can I say? It was like second nature for me. My enjoyment of taking shit from people almost ran as deep as my enjoyment of busting a nut. Maybe it was the sense of power I felt whenever I aimed my burner at a mark and watched as they trembled with fear and anxiety. I loved that shit!
From an early age I’d had a fetish for jackin’ niggas. Ever since I was a youngster in the “Wild Hundreds” back home in Chicago I’d been running with stick up kids. Most of which were Gangsta Disciples and Black Disciples who used to terrorize housing projects like Argyle Homes and other spots around the Hundreds. The Hundreds were the most ruthless streets in the Southside of Chicago from the early 70s to this very day. Famous gangsters like Al Capone once roamed the Hundreds, reeking havoc.
Thinking about Chicago, I took a deep breath and looked off in the distance and thought about my family and friends back in the Midwest. When my mom had first moved me and Justice to N.C. I was homesick as hell! I had immediately started missing everything about Chicago, especially my niggas, who I used to run with. And my favorite hangout spots like Harold’s Chicken on 89th and The Underground club downtown. Of course, I was too young to get inside the club, so me and my niggas used to rob niggas in the parking lot. We knew they didn’t have any burners on them as they exited the club so we caught those niggas on the way to their cars. Those were sweet come ups. Eventually I’d gotten over that homesickness when I had started meeting all of these southern bitches who seem to get mesmerized by a nigga’s chinky eyes and slick ass tongue.
I had even started meeting a few jack boys. One of whom turned out to be my nigga D.C. We’d met through a bitch we had both been using to set niggas up. We eventually hooked up and started robbing niggas together. Since we’d hooked up we had robbed countless niggas and had been involved in enough gunplay to make those niggas over there in Iraq look like fuckin’ boy scouts!
We hooked up with Cross one day when we had a lick that would take three niggas to pull off. Cross was dating D.C.’s cousin at the time, so we propositioned him and he had agreed to come along. That was our first caper with Cross, and those bitch ass football players at the Embassy Suites who Justice had put us up on had been the second.
When I rob a nigga I’d give him an ultimatum: “Give it to me or give it to God! I can do more with it than He can!”
Most took my advice of giving it to me, but there were those who had tried to buck and I usually kept my promise of making them give it to God. God rest their souls!
Most of our licks were quick and efficient—in and out like ghosts. But there were those few times when a nigga would have to put in some work. The sweetest lick we’d been on yet had by far been those football niggas. Those niggas were sitting ducks. Imagine their surprise when they thought they were letting in two bitches only to find out they had let in three
monsters
!
Those niggas were so drunk and horny they just opened the door without hesitation. We took everything them niggas had. Cash, plastic, jewels, you name it! When I went at niggas I was coming for it all! I wouldn’t leave a nigga with shit. I’d take a nigga’s socks, doo-rags, T-shirts...I wanted it all!
That night I had even taken those football niggas’ towels, sheets, and blankets, and had thrown them into a laundry cart at the end of the hallway. The news had failed to mention the fact that they had found those players duct-taped and ass naked. That shit was funny as hell to me. After that night, I couldn’t even watch a Panthers’ game with a straight face anymore.
Shaking those thoughts and returning to the present, I looked back over at the two chicks standing near the BMW looking like their shit didn’t stink. They were brushing niggas off like cats shaking fleas. I saw them shoot down at least six different niggas and that alone made me even more determined to try my hand. I thumped my cigarette butt to the pavement and looked over at D.C. He was still watching the women as well.
I told him, “A closed mouth don’t get fed, homie.”
I arose from my bike and hung my helmet on the handle bars. D.C. followed suit then he told Cross, “Watch our shit for a minute.”
“No doubt,” Cross replied.
We all smelled an imminent lick. Now it was time to put in work. Besides, a nigga might’ve even gotten lucky and ended up getting the pussy as well. Now that would’ve been a nice bonus! I put my T-shirt back on and draped my towel around my neck as D.C. and I walked toward the women. I had to keep pulling my shorts up a little as we walked across the parking lot, not because they were too big but because the pistol I had in my back pocket was heavy as hell. While we were approaching the BMW we saw two other niggas already trying to holla. We sat back and patiently waited for those clowns to be dismissed. As soon as they were gone we moved in.
I stepped to the driver with my confident swagger and charming grin. I noticed she had her mouth turned up into a scowl. When I was directly in front of her, I commented, “You shouldn’t be frownin’ like that, baby girl.”
“Excuse me, I shouldn’t be doing what?” She spoke with an up North accent, which was tainted with just an iota of Spanish. I was thinking maybe she was a Puerto Rican from New York. She dropped her head slightly so she could look over the top of her sunglasses as if she were trying to get a better look at me.
“I said you shouldn’t be frownin’ like that. ’Cause you never know who might fall in love with yo’ smile,” I told her with a grin. “Besides, it takes more muscles and more effort to frown than it does to smile.”
She cracked a slight smile at my remark and glanced over at her girl to see if she’d heard my comment also, but D.C. had the passenger’s full attention.
I leaned against the BMW and stuck my hand into the pockets of my shorts while checking her out. Her curly auburn hair was streaked with blonde highlights and hung well below her shoulders. Her skin was the color of freshly whipped cocaine and I could tell she had a tan because a line was barely visible on her right shoulder where her blouse strap had fallen. A beauty mark decorated the right corner of her mouth just above her pouty top lip like that actress Eva Mendes. She was dressed a tad bit more conservative than the rest of the girls who were running around like pigeons. However, her jeans were so tight it looked as if someone had poured her into them. I figured her to be about five-two or five-three and she was thicker than Government cheese. This bitch was fine as hell! Her friend was pecan-tan, tall as hell, but as equally fine.
“Who gave you permission to lean on my whip?” the driver joked.
“Damn, my bad, ma.” I pulled the towel from around my neck and pretended to wipe the spot where I’d been leaning. While clowning around I was discreetly trying to get a good look inside the Beemer.
I heard her say, “Five-speed, wood grain steering wheel, bucket seats, peanut butter interior. Find what you’re looking for?”
She’d peeped me.
“So, this is
your
ride, huh?” I was now walking around the BMW, openly admiring it while trying to pick her for information.
“It’s mine while I’m drivin’ it,” she returned.
Just as I’d figured, it belonged to someone else and I wanted to know who that someone else was.
“Ya nigga trust you to bring his whip out here? You must be somethin’ real special. A lota niggas wouldn’t do that. Hell, I wouldn’t do it. You wouldn’t be out here flossin’ in my shit. ’Cause for one reason you gonna draw too much attention and two, it’s gonna be a smooth ass nigga like me tryna get at you and I wouldn’t be havin’ that.”
I was smiling at her. She didn’t respond to what I’d just said, she was being cool. I changed tactics.
“What’s ya name?”
She looked towards me with those dark ass shades with the double Gs on the side and just stared for a minute.
“It’s Tan. Why? You takin’ a census or somethin’?” She was being sarcastic.
“Damn, why you so hostile?” I teased. “I just like to know who I’m talkin’ to, that’s all.”
“Well, that makes two of us.”
She was letting me know I hadn’t introduced myself.
“I’m Chink.” I lied while digging into my pocket for my pack of cigarettes. I lit one and asked, “What part of New York you from?”
She corrected me and told me that she was from Jersey, Newark to be exact. I also found out that she was Dominican and not Puerto Rican liked I’d assumed.
She in turn questioned my nationality as well and I told her, “I’m half-African American and half nigga.”
She laughed.
She looked at me and stated, “I figured you to be part Asian or somethin’.”
She reached for my necklace and caressed it as if she were appraising it. She raised her sunglasses and squinted, trying to make out the charm.
She finally asked, “What is it?”
I lied again. “It’s a face.”
Actually, the charm was a white-gold, diamond encrusted ski-mask.
“Nice ice. What do you do?” she asked nonchalantly as she readjusted her Gucci frames.
“I direct traffic,” I replied, exhaling smoke.
“Say what?” She sounded confused.
“I make sure certain niggas stay in they lane, ya dig?”
She looked perplexed as hell, missing my meaning. However, I didn’t bother to clarify myself. We conversed for a few minutes before I ended up giving her my number. She wouldn’t give up hers, a clear indication that she more than likely had a man. If her man was the owner of the BMW, then I definitely wanted to see that nigga, just to make sure he was in the right lane.
I walked back to my bike to rejoin Cross while D.C. continued to holla at the passenger.
After I’d climbed onto my bike Cross looked over and asked, “Who them hoes?”
“Some bitches from Jersey. The driver is…is…damn, I done forgot the bitch’s name already. Um...um, damn!” I was snapping my fingers, trying to remember the girl’s name. “She just told me. I know it’s a color. Beige? Nah, that ain’t it. Oh, yeah, Tan! That’s it, Tan. Damn, a nigga need to quit smokin’ so much weed. That shit’s fuckin’ wit’ a nigga’s memory.”