Authors: Clever Black
The group entered the bar, which had all but a few customers, and
walked towards the last booth. The short order cook emerged from the
kitchen and asked did they want a bite to eat.
“Eh, take a break,” Junior told the middle-aged man. “I’m
gonna fix my crew whatever they want today.”
The cook left and Junior got up and walked into the kitchen where
Tiva was in front the grill deep-frying an order of lemon pepper
chicken wings and french fries for a waiting customer.
Connections
was one of the coolest places in the neighborhood. It wasn’t
nothing for one of the crew to fry up a burger and fries, a grilled
steak, pork chops or whatever the menu held for a customer. Ever
since the infamous hit nearly a year ago, many people came to the
bar, if only to say they’d hung out and had a meal or drink, or
both, in what was known as a gangster’s domain.
Connections
was revered in the area, and so were the new faces who now ran the
establishment.
“You need a hand, baby?” Junior asked.
“I got it,” Tiva replied calmly, all the while eyeing
Junior and smiling sexily.
Tiva and Bay had turned eighteen a couple of weeks back in early July
and it didn’t take long for Tiva and Junior to become involved.
Tiva had only one lover before Junior back in Ponca City, but Junior
was her heart. And he’d done the right thing by asking Doss and
Naomi during the twins’ birthday party if they’d mind him
dating Tiva. Both parents were surprised, but they respected Junior’s
approach, especially since he’d come clean on some ill-will
he’d been harboring for some time.
Last year, shortly after his father’s funeral, Junior had
invited his grandfather, Doss, Naomi, DeeDee and Eddie Cottonwood to
his parents’ home in Cicero for an elegant dinner where he
apologized to everybody for being disrespectful of the family. Naomi,
Doss, DeeDee and Eddie would’ve never known of Junior’s
brief battle with envy had he not told them, but they all respected
him even more so for doing so; and Mendoza’s presence only
aided in Junior’s successful attempt to smooth things over.
Doss and Naomi knew what Tiva was involved in and if it weren’t
Junior, Tiva would’ve have had to find someone not involved in
the business to become intimate with; with that aside, Doss gave his
approval based on Junior’s loyalty to the family and Junior and
Tiva were now in the early stages of a budding romance.
To Tiva, Junior was a sexy man. She remembered him being a little on
the chubby side when he was younger, but at the age of twenty-five,
Junior looked exactly like his father. Lucky was a muscular
bow-legged man with rugged features and a square jawline. Junior was
built the same way, save for his red hair and his mother’s blue
eyes. The first time the two made love, which was a week ago, Tiva
had shed tears the experience was so good. Junior complimented her
body perfectly when he lay on top of her and when he took from behind
he engulfed her completely, able to stand up in it while pulling her
short black hair and kissing her like a man possessed. Sitting atop
her man was the best for Tiva. Junior had a chest full of silky red
hair and she loved to run her hands through it while he gripped her
ass cheeks and drove up in her, the two staring one another in the
eyes in the most intense way imaginable. Theirs was a special kind of
love that both wanted to last a lifetime.
“You need anything you just let me know,” Junior said as
he slid pass Tiva, purposely brushing up her rear end as he went over
to the stainless still island counter and began setting up the meat
slicer in order to cut fresh sirloin steak for the crew.
“What I need from you can’t be given to me up in here
that’s for sure,” Tiva said as she shook the basket
inside the deep fryer.
“No it can’t. Give me a rain check.”
“You don’t even have to ask, baby.” Tiva answered.
Back outside in the bar, sixteen year-old Dooney sat shuffling a deck
of cards preparing to deal out a hand of spades for his self, Dawk,
Bay and Malik while Jay-D kept score. “Bay,” Dooney said
through his trademark smile and baby face.
Bay leaned back and sighed as she looked off into the openness of the
bar. Dooney was a relentless flirt, a sex hound so to speak. He’d
loss his virginity when he was eleven years old and couldn’t
get enough of sex. If a hole was available, nine times out of ten
Dooney was going in hard. He’d tried to get next to Tiva, but
when he learned she was interested in Junior he backed off.
The twins were all out sexy and it was a given. They stood five foot
nine and weighed a solid one hundred and forty-five pounds. Smooth
tan skin and short black hair with slender eyes and luscious lips
accentuated near-perfect physiques and the outfits they wore only
added to their exquisite beauty. The entire crew knew Dooney had no
shot, no shot at either twin; and Dooney himself knew he had not a
chance, he just loved flirting with the twins as he’d never
been around such adoring, mirror imaged women in his life. He took
every opportunity to engage them in conversation, albeit aggravating,
but everybody knew Dooney meant no harm and actually had a better
chance of winning the mega ball or getting struck by lightning rather
than getting either twin to drop their panties for him.
“You hear me talking, Bay,” Dooney said as he began
dealing out the cards. “You and me is partners in this game,
baby, so you should hear me out.”
“What? What you gotta say, Dooney?” Bay asked as she
picked up her cards.
“Let’s go to the movies tomorrow. My treat.”
“I’m not going on a date with you, man. Didn’t I
tell you I gotta girlfriend?”
“I know,” Dooney snapped. “That’s what I’m
saying. Me, you and your girlfriend can go out to the movies, dinner
and take it from there.”
“We ain’t takin’ it nowhere and you know it. Ship
ain’t leaving the dock. How many books you got, boy?”
“Three,” Dooney said as he smiled at Bay. “I have
ménage a trois.”
“You a relentless soul, yeah?” Dawk said as he chuckled
over Dooney’s remark. Dawk was stacking his cards but couldn’t
help notice how Malik kept staring at the floor outside the booth.
“What you keep looking at on the floor, Malik,” he asked.
Jay-D shook his head at that moment and said, “This fool think
he know how to do floors. Talkin’ bout he wanna lay down some
new wood in the bar.”
“I can, homes.” Malik replied causally. “Look at
this wood. The polish isn’t working anymore and it’s
rotting. I can take that wood up and put down some fresh cherry wood
that’ll set this place off.”
“You do that kind of work?” Dawk asked.
“Yeah, man. I mean, I only work on my parents’ home in
Maplewood, but, someday? Someday I’m gonna have my own
renovation company. This here game ain’t a career, no?”
“I like that,” Dawk said. “What’s your plan?”
“I have two guys under me in Fox Park that love to do
renovation too. They help me out around the house sometimes.
Together? Together we gone buy all the tools we need? A couple of
vans, do some advertising and build up our clientele. Just like I do
now with the game.”
“I respect that,” Dawk said. “We gone make that
happen for you, homeboy.”
“That’s hard work,” Dooney said. “Me and Jay
ain’t working hard now and don’t plan on workin’
hard later.”
“For once he said something that makes sense,” Jay-D
nodded in agreement.
“What’s y’all plan?” Bay asked.
“Shiiit,” Jay-D said as he leaned forward and sipped his
Heineken. “Me and hot nuts here gone get in the music biz. Find
us a hot rapper tryna make it in the game and invest in his ass and
ride ‘em straight to the top. We gone be next No Limit or
G-Unit.”
“Roc-a-fella and Cash Money got both of them beat, homes. Why
not be the best of the best?” Malik asked.
“You just worry about what color uniform and name tag your ass
gone be wearing while you work on these here floors,” Jay-D
joked. “And while you doing floors? We gone be in New York
poppin’ bottles with a buncha freaks.”
“A bunch of freaks?” Malik said in a matter of fact tone
as he straightened his cards. “You gone have millions of
dollars and you gone have ‘a buncha freaks’ at your
table? That’s the best you can do, homes? Why not Angela
Bassett, Nia Campbell or Sanaa Lathan instead of a buncha freaks?”
“A buncha freaks was like, like metaphoric for bad bitches,”
Dooney said.
“Y’all gone have some bad bitches at your table, already.
Fuck around and catch that gangsta,” Bay stated. “How
many books you got again, Dooney?”
“Trois.”
“You got three, I got six, that’s ten. Put the wheels on
it.” Bay said quickly.
“Boston,” Jay-D sang as he wrote down the score.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Dooney snapped. “Where you
learned your math, Bena? Three plus six is nine all day where I’m
from!”
“We got ten, trust me. Sit down and play. Go ‘head Dawk.”
“I don’t know where to start,” Dawk said. “I
ain’t even bothering to straighten these out.”
“Say, Dawk? You saw that new diamond Rolex?” Malik asked.
Bay and Dooney leaned back in their seats. “Dock ‘em
three books, Jay-D,” Bay said.
“Dock us three for what?” Dawk asked.
“Y’all talkin’ cross the table, man. You know what
y’all doing.” Dooney said.
“I just asked a question, Bay,” Malik responded.
“Okay. Go ‘head. See where cheatin’ get y’all,”
Bay said.
“Nahh, I’m gone have check that new rollie out though,”
Dawk said as he threw out the Ace of diamonds. Bay merely shook her
head as she threw out a three of spades and cut his suit.
“Already!” Dooney said as he threw out a four of
diamonds.
Bay and Dooney won eleven books and set Dawk and Malik on the first
hand, thereby ending the game before it even started. “Bay did
that!” Dooney said as he stood and reached out to hug Bena.
“Get the fuck outta here! I ain’t huggin’ your
nasty ass!” Bay snapped as she hopped up from the table to
check on the food.
*******
Several hours later, after enjoying a sirloin steak dinner, the crew
had closed
Connections
and were now preparing for a ride
through Fox Park. The kitchen’s island counter, which was once
filled with an assortment of vegetables, seasonings, meats and
cooking utensils, now held an arsenal of weapons ranging from
semi-automatic handguns to assault rifles. The sun was beginning to
dip behind the hills of Missouri and the neighborhood had grown still
and quiet.
Junior, Dawk, Bay, T-top, Jay-D, Malik and Dooney were loading
bullets into clips and greasing guns when Doss called and had them
unlock the front doors for him and Eddie.
“Okay, family,” Doss said upon entering the building as
he removed his suit jacket. “We got the product out on the
streets, brought in some more profits and we are dead tired. What’s
going on with that other thing?”
“Going through the plan now. Gone ride down Jefferson Avenue
and bend a few corners in Fox Park. Toodie and Phoebe been on the
move, but word is they been posted up on Ann Avenue.” Bay
answered.
“I hate that spot and love it at the same time,” Eddie
remarked.
“I understand,” Doss replied as he took a seat at the bar
and was handed a cold beer by Dooney. “Love it because it’s
a perfect fortress, and hate it for the same reasons. Don’t
ride down Ann Avenue tonight. They guard that place like the white
house and I got a bed feeling about that there.”
“Stick and move if you can and stay on main Ave,” Junior
chimed in. “We know some of their soldiers, so if you see
anybody you know that’s affiliated with the Perez sisters you
got the green light, okay?”
“Cool,” Bay said as she grabbed a Chicago Piano, A.K.A.
the Tommy gun, with a thirty round drum attached and headed for the
front doors with Dawk and Malik following close behind, each welding
powerful semi-automatic assault rifles.
*******
“Yo, we got another sale from our girl up to Mickey D’s,”
Toodie told Phoebe as she snapped her phone shut.
“Already. Let me see if these li’l girls want something
while we up there,” Phoebe stated.
“Fuck them, Phoebe! Let’s just go drop off and come
back!”
“Kathy, them girls been trappin’ all day. The least we
can do is feed ‘em before they knock off.”
“Knock off? You run this shit like General Motors or something.
I be in the car,” Toodie sighed.
Phoebe returned with a list of orders and she and Toodie were on
their way up to McDonald’s on Jefferson Avenue with Simone and
Pepper in tow. Toodie had resented the two youngsters riding with
her, but the immaculate 1975 black on black Cadillac Fleetwood with
the big chrome wheels that kept spinning even when car wasn’t
moving and the suicide doors was the best ride the Perez sisters
owned and it was a beauty that begged to rode in.
Toodie swerved onto Russell Avenue headed east blasting Master P’s
song
Players From the South.
The d-girl ride slid up the
avenue in seeming slow motion with bass thumping and blunt smoke
billowing out into the open air. Enthralled by the song, which seemed
to be dragging, Pepper couldn’t help but to ask, “Simone,
why it sound like they rappin’ in slow motion?”
“You ain’t never heard a chopped and screwed out record
before, girl?” Simone asked as she tapped Phoebe’s
shoulder to get her to pass the blunt.
“What’s chopped and screwed?”
“It’s when the Dee-Jay slow a song down like it’s
in slow motion or something. Tight ain’t it?” Simone
asked before took a long toke and passed the blunt back to Phoebe.
“Yeah,” Pepper said as she bobbed her head to the music,
listening hard to the gumbo thick bass and gangster-laden lyrics.
“…
eliminating niggas like Calgon…if this was a
mutherfuckin’ band I be a baritone…see the P is from
that mutherfuckin’ Calliope…where them niggas boot up
with gold teeth don’t give a fuck about a hoe…and niggas
stuntin’ on that water water…you know we bout bout it
but don’t give no fuck about seeing no mutherfuckin’
tomorrow…”