The bodyguard I’d shot was reeling on the floor cursing and groaning in pain and rage. The recoil from the huge gun had nearly torn it from my grasp. My heart was trip-hammering in my chest and my blood raced with exhiliration. I nearly swooned with the rush of adrenalin that hit me as I pulled the trigger. It was nearly as strong as the recoil from the gun and I stood there trembling; visibly shaken by it as the big black leg breaker prepared to aim a shot at my head.
“Muthafucka! You shot me! You little bastard muthafucker! I’ma kill your punk ass!”
“Fool, you ain’t killin’ shit.”
He was too slow and Huey was on the case, silencing him with a kick to the bridge of the nose that shattered the delicate cartiledge and smeared his nose across his face in a bloody spray before he could properly aim. The shot sailed about two feet over my head and ricocheted off a building somewhere off in the distance. Huey collected both the guns from the two fallen killers. Half the size of Scratch’s tremendous bodyguards, Huey’s psychotic ferocity and martial arts knowledge had made him twice their match. They hadn’t stood a chance.
“What was you gonna try and smoke all of us over this muthafucka?”
Scratch shrugged his shoulders as if to say: “You can’t blame a muthafucker for tryin’,” and kept staring from me to Demetrious to the two defeated leg-breakers and then to Huey who leveled his eyes, blistering with an inexplicable hatred, at him as if they were lasers that could burn him to a cinder. I looked down at the two guns in his hands and hoped that he wouldn’t shoot. Huey hated white people as if each and every member of the race had done him some grave and personal injustice. A white boy who had just tried to kill him was almost guaranteed a trip to the grave. But we both knew better than to off a guy like Scratch.
“Okay, so now what?” Scratch asked. He tucked his sunglasses back over his eyes to hide his expression and a bemused smirk creased his face.
“How you know I won’t smoke your cracker ass right now?”
“You won’t,” he said flatly.
I punched Demetrious in the gut with the loaded .45 letting a little air out of his lungs, then I pointed the pistol right at Scratch.
“You want him that bad?”
“Yeah. That nigga owes me.” Even though he tried to remain calm, I could tell he was shaken by the quick efficient handling of his bodyguards. He was staring at Huey like he had just stepped out of a spaceship. Huey stared back at the white thug like he was a particularly large and unpleasant pimple that he was considering squeezing the puss out of.
Scratch’s cunning, televangelist, con-man smile resurrected itself, stretching nearly around to the back of his head and displaying each one of his platinum capped teeth. He looked like a great white shark about to swallow a boatload of sun worshippers.
“Ya’ll ain’t no killas. How about I let you keep the guns if you give that muthafucka over to me and I promise you won’t catch no static for fuckin’ up my bodyguards either. Punk-ass niggas couldn’t handle a bunch of freshman then they deserved to get broke up.”
“Well, that’s damned generous and all, but we keepin’ these gats anyway so that ain’t no deal. But I tell you what, you let us keep the cash he took from you and we’ll get the drugs back plus I’ll blast this nigga for you.”
“Naw! Naw! Ya’ll can’t just kill me! I’m just a kid! I ain’t did shit! I ain’t got shit, Scratch, and if I did, you know I’d give it up. I wouldn’t hold out on you, bro! I ain’t got no drugs.”
“You ain’t got shit, huh? Then what was all that shit you was talkin’ ’fore he showed up? And stop squirmin’ before you mess around and rip that jacket ’cause once you’re a ghost I own that shit.”
Demetrious still believed he could just talk his way out of this and walk away with his life. I smacked him hard with the heavy pistol opening a huge gash on his head that began dripping bright red blood. He slumped in Tank’s grasp, his eyes wild with fear. The bloodlust was vibrating in my nerves, churning in my stomach like physical hunger. I wanted to shoot the gun again. But this time…I wanted to kill.
“Get that fuckin’ jacket off ’fore you fuck it up! That shit’s mine now. And get them sneaks off too!”
Scratch seemed to relax then. He slid the sunglasses down his nose and looked over them at us shaking his head, finding our vicous greed both amusing and pitiful like lions in a circus. It was the way white people had looked at me all my life and it made me furious. Tank jerked the jacket off Demetrious’ shoulders and I punched the gun into his eye socket again.
“Don’t think about tryin’a break out cause I’ll cap your ass right tha fuck here! That’s my word, dog. Now try me!”
Demetrious stared meekly into my eyes and remained still as Tank removed the jacket.
“But I ain’t do shit!”
“Shut tha fuck up!”
I turned back to Scratch.
“We got a deal or what?”
“Word, little G. We got a deal. Just don’t bitch when it’s time to fulfill your end.”
“Fuck that. I don’t never bitch from no two gees.”
“Hah! You niggers ain’t never even seen two gees.”
I bristled at the way he pronounced “niggers.” I wanted to cap his ass just for that.
“So, how you gonna get him to tell where the shit’s at? You bad little thugs got the heart for torture?”
“I know where the fuck it’s at,” I said confidently, but inwardly uncertain.
“He had this gat just sittin’ there under that rock where somebody might have found it. I bet the rest of that shit’s right in his bedroom or…”
Quickly, I turned and smacked Meech with the gun again as hard as I could causing Tank to wince and step back as blood from Demetrious’ forehead splattered his face allowing him to slump to the ground. His eyes rolled back in his head and his forehead continued spraying blood from the fresh wound.
There was something I loved about head wounds. The blood was brighter, redder, and it pumped out more easily. It reminded me of Darryl’s war stories. When I got older I would be known for shooting fools in the head even though everyone knew the body was an easier target and that someday I would miss and wind up getting my ass killed. It was dumb and dangerous, but it became my thing.
A lot of wannabe gangstas carried guns, but few actually used them; still fewer of those who used them actually intended to kill. Often they would shoot a fool in the gut where they might be paralyzed if it hit their spine, but not killed. But if you flew some fool’s head it left no doubt in anyone’s mind that you meant the shot to be fatal. I bent down over Meech’s semi-conscious form and began pulling cash out of his pockets.
“Yeah! I knew that shit! This dumb muthafucka. I knew if he wouldn’t hide a gun in his crib he wasn’t gonna hide no two gees there.”
I unfastened his pants and pulled them down to his knees. There was more money and a big sack of white powder in his drawls.
“Little dick muthafucka! I should have known you wouldn’t leave this shit lyin’ around for your momma to find.”
“That little ass sack ain’t all of it though.”
I stopped and thought a moment. Had this kid started hittin’ the pipe and smoked that shit all up or had he sold it? If he’d sold it then where was the other money? Then Tank spoke up.
“Yo, right here man.”
He reached into the Sixers jacket and pulled two more fat sacks from the lining. The three sacks combined must have weighed five or six pounds.
“Well there you go, white boy. I guess that means this cash is ours then.”
“Nuh-uh, nigger. You ain’t finished.” Scratch said pointing to Meech.
“You know what, white boy. I don’t like no fuckin’ peckerwood callin’ me nigga.” I pointed the gun at his head again and that crazy look was back in my eyes.