White Lines (18 page)

“Everybody
is piling their problems on your shoulders, Ingrid. You’ve always been that type of person. Quick to help out a friend in need. You watch people’s kids, and drive people to doctor appointments. Everybody loves you. And sometimes they take you for granted. You need to come and move to Virginia with me. Don’t nobody ask me for shit, ‘cuz they know they ain’t getting shit.” Betty wasn’t lying. She was the type to put a person in their place, like it or not. Betty had no problem saying “no,” and meaning it.

“I can’t leave New York now,” Ingrid said, with a sigh. She would have loved to get away, and move to where life was simpler, with Betty. But
she would have felt like she was giving up on her husband, and giving up on her son. “I need to be here right now. But I need these two to stop shining a spotlight on our family. I think I deserve to be able to walk out of here every day with my head held high.”

Born had listened to his mother’s conversation, feeling guilty for all the embarrassment he had caused her. He made a decision to try to avoid bringing trouble to his mother’s doorstep. It was important to Born, now that he was older, that no criminal activity be traced to him at his mother’s house. He never wanted to cast her in an unfavorable light or put her in any kind of jeopardy for the choices he’d made.

But that didn’t stop Ingrid from worrying about him. Born was out there one night in 1991, getting his hustle on. He had been outside all that evening with his boys, getting money and supervising their workers, handling business, with their drugs and guns stashed in nearby garbage cans and mailboxes. Things had changed drastically. On this night his mother was sitting in her darkened bedroom looking out her window. Leo was asleep beside her, and she was watching for signs of her son. She worried more and more about Marquis, because she knew that he was living dangerously.

Born decided to go upstairs to see his mother at around one o’clock in the morning. He knew she would be up, because he knew his mother was a night owl, and it was a Saturday night. As he approached his building, he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. Ingrid saw it all unfold as she watched in horror in the dark from her bedroom window.

A.J. hopped out of his Explorer with his gun drawn. Born turned, and he saw A.J. and heard the shots ring out in the night at the same time. A.J. stood with bullets flying from his .45, and the handful of people nearby ran for cover. Born pulled his nine, and shot back, the two guns sounding like a twisted symphony in the cold winter air. Born ran into the building, hearing his mother’s cries echoing in his ears. He wouldn’t run to her apartment for fear of bringing a gun battle to his mother’s doorstep. He ran for the staircase and heard tires screeching outside. Not knowing if anyone was pursuing him inside the building, he ran up the stairs two and three at a time, his heart beating a mile a minute. He was sweating and panting, pushing himself up the flight of stairs. By the time he made it, breathlessly, to his drug spot on the second floor, Martin was already there with the door flung open. Born grabbed his .380. Martin was already strapped, and they ran back downstairs without any conversation between them. When they got to the lobby, the whole crew was there: Smitty, Chance, and several other young soldiers from the
hood came downstairs, everyone strapped with artillery. The building emptied out, everyone pouring into the night, prepared for war.

Ingrid called out from her bedroom window.
“Marquis!
” Her voice was that of a mother pleading for the life of her son. The desperation could be heard as she screamed her son’s name into the stillness that lingered after the gunfire. Born looked up into his mother’s eyes, and his look spoke volumes. His expression told her that he was a man on a mission, that he would not stop until he had A.J.’s head. Ingrid cried out again. “Marquis, please!” But her son didn’t listen. Instead, he kept pressing forward into the darkness with his crew behind him. Ingrid sat in the window, frozen, with tears falling from her eyes. She didn’t bother to turn to see if Leo was awake. Her husband had to have heard her voice as it pierced the silence in the apartment. But Leo said nothing, and Ingrid never turned to look at him. It didn’t matter. She knew that he lived with the guilt of knowing that he was to blame for Born being the hell-raiser that he was. With her heart in her throat, Ingrid stared out the window, praying repeatedly for her son.

The 55 Holland crew piled into vehicles. Born jumped into the passenger seat of Martin’s hooptie. Smitty and Chance jumped in the back. The car behind them contained even more firepower. Born was enraged about the close call he’d just survived. “I’ma kill that muthafucka!” He kept seeing A.J.’s face as his gun sparked in Born’s direction. “That’s my word.”

Martin was eerily silent. His brow was firmly set, and he looked like he was just as thirsty for A.J.’s blood as his friend was. They drove around frantically, in search of A.J. They were determined to lay the nigga down that night, and be done with the beef between them. They circled every hood in Staten Island in search of A.J.’s truck, or for any sign of the coward.

“Don’t worry,” Chance said from the backseat. “We’re gonna get that nigga. He gotta come out sometime.”

Finally, they returned to Arlington, and that’s when Martin spotted A.J.’s truck parked near one of the town houses. He parked his car, and
turned off the engine and headlights so as not to be detected. They were a considerable distance away from where AJ.’s truck was parked, and they figured A.J. was already inside one of the town houses.

“That nigga gotta be in one of them. We could split up and see which one it is, and bring his ass out in the open.” Chance looked at the row of town houses, figuring it shouldn’t take them long to find him. But as they approached, Martin could see that A.J. was in the Explorer with two other men. “Born!” he whispered anxiously. “That nigga’s still in the truck!”

Born looked at Martin, and then at the truck to see for himself. But without any warning, Martin set it off all by himself. He ran toward the truck, guns blazing.

A.J. stepped out of the car, as did two other men in black, and the bullets flew back and forth for several minutes. A town house began to empty out, with more of AJ.’s crew spilling outside with guns drawn. Chance, Smitty, and the rest of their boys all ran for cover, still firing. With only a few trees and parked cars between them, AJ.’s crew and Born’s crew shot it out.

The hood grows eerily silent whenever shots are fired. Suddenly, all sound seems to cease besides the sound of the shots echoing in the night. Born heard each and every bullet that was fired. Some came closer than others. Still, he fired back, anxious to kill the man who had shot at him. “Come on out, A J.!” he yelled, as he fired a barrage of bullets and then stopped to reload. The whole time, Born thought about his mother. He heard her pleading voice in his head calling out to him, begging him not to go out there. He knew she was probably upstairs hearing the gunfire, and praying that it wasn’t her son who would be lying in a body bag by the end of the night. Born continued shooting at A J. and his crew, and dodging the bullets that were flying in his direction. He was determined that his mother would not be bent over his casket, heartbroken. Not this time. On this night it would have to be someone else’s mother playing that role.

Born stepped out from behind the car he had positioned himself behind. He took clear aim at A.J. and let off a hail of bullets before ducking
back into his fortress, and then emerging again with more gunshots. Finally, one of Born’s shots hit its mark, and A.J. was caught in the chest. This was the moment in time when Born’s legacy was cemented. He was the man that had finally brought A.J. to his knees. As A.J. fell to the ground, he was hit twice more in the shoulder and leg, both by Martin’s bullets. Quickly Born retreated with his cronies in tow, as sirens could at last be heard in the distance. Born and his boys got out of there, and as they ran it appeared that all of them were accounted for. For a minute it seemed that none of them were harmed in the melee.

Born ran backward, still firing at the few members of A.J.’s crew who had not yet retreated. He could see that A.J. wasn’t moving, and he caught sight of Martin making his escape. Born took flight as well; he headed for the safety of his mother’s apartment.

When Born got to his mother’s apartment, Ingrid was standing in her open doorway, waiting for him. He came up the stairs and saw her familiar brown face looking so relieved, so very grateful to see her only child still standing. She ran to him and hugged him so tightly. “Thank God!” she said, over and over. “Thank God, Marquis!”

She ushered him inside, and then she clung to him, hugging her son as if she never wanted to let him go. “I’m alright!” Born reassured her. “I’m okay, Ma.” Ingrid cried, and was only comforted by the fact that it had not been her child—not this time. It was not her child sprawled outside, his hot blood spilling on the cold concrete. Born would never forget the feeling he had on that February evening. The life he lived made him feel cold inside. Another emotional wall was erected within him. He’d felt hopeless, and he was never really the same after that night. He truly didn’t expect to survive to see his seventeenth birthday. And he didn’t even give a fuck.

But when the shooting had stopped, and everyone had scattered, screams had come from the front of the bar on the corner. Bobby, a young cat who always hung around Born and his crew, was shaking on the sidewalk with three holes in his chest. His was a death that was so undeserving. Bobby had been what was known in the streets as a “sometime hustler.” He didn’t do it all the time, wasn’t in it for the long haul.
But he would hustle for Born and them if he wanted some money to take a chick out, or if he was going somewhere and needed to buy something. He wasn’t a bully, nor was he a typical hoodlum. He was a guy who was well liked by everyone. This was the last young man anybody wanted to see go down.

In Born’s opinion, Bobby was a decent guy whose hand didn’t call for what he got. If such a horrible death could befall Bobby, Born could only imagine what life had in store for him. Born stopped being scared of death after that. He started feeling like it was inevitable, that it was a part of life. It’s not that he wanted to die. But he wasn’t afraid to put his life on the line to get ahead. He made bigger moves, without always worrying about the consequences. He really didn’t care anymore. He started stepping on other people’s toes. He was stealing customers and making sales on other people’s turf. Born didn’t give a fuck, and he dared niggas to say something to him. A.J. didn’t die from his wounds. But he didn’t cooperate with the police investigation, and his boys held him down while he recuperated. Born and his crew robbed A.J.’s drug spots as often as they could after that. They had no fear, no reservations about going after a hustler who was older than them. A.J. was older, but they were more ruthless. Plus, his crew was weak, and there were too many loose links in his chain. He had made too many enemies, and there were too many people for him to watch all at once. Born was mad that he hadn’t killed him. He sure had tried. He wanted A.J. dead, and he wouldn’t be satisfied until he was.

AJ. remained hidden for a long while after he was released from the hospital. He was embarrassed more than anything. He had allowed a crew of youngsters who
he
had brought into the game knock him off his own throne. Born and his crew were well respected after they put A.J. on temporary life support. A.J., on the other hand, had lost his swagger. It wasn’t until the weather got warm and spring came into bloom that A.J. showed his face in the hood once again. And it wasn’t long after that that A.J. was killed. A lone shooter gunned him down outside of a club called the Island Room, and the case went unsolved. There weren’t many people who didn’t suspect that the 55 Holland niggas had had something to do with it. But no one was ever charged. Their reign at the top had officially begun.

As the boys became men, things started to change. Born began to realize that he was pulling most of the weight in their operation. It was he who got out there early and stayed late. He was the one making contact with the gunrunners and the loan sharks, forming connections to those that sold weight. Like a singing group that comes into the music industry on some all for one and one for all shit. Once the lead singer realizes
his
name is the one that everyone remembers, it becomes obvious that the rest of the group is obsolete. The same was true of Born and the 55 Holland crew. Eventually, as the young men grew older and their egos clashed, the crew was starting to dismantle amid angry words and intense confrontations.

Born was ready to branch out on his own, and to stop dealing with the deadweight of his cronies. The last straw came when he found himself sitting alone on the block one winter night, wondering why the rest of his boys weren’t out there with him. The workers had gone home for the night, but Born knew that the fiends never sleep. There was so much money to be had. Crackheads galore came to him to cop that night, and Born couldn’t help wondering how much money they were missing out on simply because he was the only one smart enough to hustle even when Jack Frost was out. That’s when it dawned on him that he was dealing with guys who didn’t want to put in the work necessary to achieve the type of success he wanted. He was dealing with dudes who were too lazy to ball till they fall.

Born told his crew that he was ready to branch off on his own. “I’m done with this crew shit,” he said. “I love y’all niggas, but business ain’t right between us. I’m the one out here taking chances, stepping on toes, and putting my freedom at risk with the moves I’m making. We gon’ always be boys, you know what I’m saying? But I gotta get on my own and do me from now on.”

Martin wasn’t happy about it at all. His facial expression turned sinister as he listened to his lifelong friend defecting from his camp. “Fuck kinda bullshit is you talking?” Martin growled. “Ain’t nobody doing they own thing. This is a fuckin’ team, you hear what I’m saying? Ain’t no? in team, nigga. We came in this shit together. That’s how it’s gonna stay.”