chapter
37
We had been pacing in this old abandoned warehouse all night and neither Wiz nor I had come up with any ideas about what we were going to do.
“Man, I say we find someone else to rob,” Wiz said. We both were sick about Paco, and at some point I knew that the pain of losing our friend would hit me like a bulldozer. But right now I was in survival mode.
I cocked my head and looked at him. “Dude, there’s a reason we out here as corner stumpers,” I told him. “We’re not stickup kids.”
Wiz and I sold guns, but neither of us had ever used one.
“Then what are we supposed to do?” Wiz said, running his hand over his head. We both had dozed off and on, but the lack of real sleep was evident in both of our faces.
Wiz knew I was right. He and I weren’t true criminals. We were just trying to survive. We were making it day to day. If we had our way, neither one of us would have anything to do with gangs. But Monster wasn’t in the business of letting people have their way. We’d just been grateful that he hadn’t made us get in the drug game, since both of us had lost parents to drugs. But we’d come to discover that running guns was a whole lot worse. This gun game was big money, and Wiz and I had just lost not only the money but the guns.
“What do you think Monster is gonna do?” Wiz said. His tone was hushed like he was afraid of the rats overhearing or something.
“Put a bullet in both of our heads,” I replied in all seriousness. “He ain’t gon’ care about Paco. All he cares about is his bread.”
Wiz slid to the ground.
We had to figure out something and figure it out quick. Wiz had called Monster’s henchman Don and told him what happened. Of course, Don wasn’t trying to hear it. Wiz put him on speakerphone, and all I heard was “Y’all little punks better have our money by ten o’clock. If you don’t, I’ma have your blood. Word is bond.” Then he hung up, and Wiz and I had been running ever since.
If there was one thing that we knew about Monster and his crew, it was that they didn’t make idle threats. If they said they were gonna put a bullet in your head, you better believe you’d have a hole in your head.
“We gotta run. We gotta get out of town,” Wiz said.
“Man, I can’t leave my brother. He won’t have anybody,” I said.
“Well, he won’t have anybody when Monster kills you so . . .”
With that thought fear spread throughout my body. I paced across the warehouse, stopping only as a rat scurried past, paused, then stared at me like we were invading his space, before continuing into the wall.
“Isn’t there any other option?” I said, because staying in this rat-infested place wasn’t one.
“No, you know with Monster there are only two options: have his money or die.”
“You don’t think we can talk to Monster?” I asked.
“Does Monster look like he’s in the ‘let’s discuss this’ business?”
He was right about that. The last guy that had come up short with Monster had tried to “talk” to him, and before he finished his first sentence, Monster’s goons cut off his tongue.
Still, I said, “Look, I say we just tell the truth. They know that we were robbed. We just need to tell Monster that we’re gonna get his money and we just need time.”
“I say we run,” Wiz said. “Because even if he agrees to that, he’s gonna add on his fifty percent late payment penalty. Where would we get that money from?”
I was beyond frustrated. “All I know is, I can’t run. Plus, how far can your whip even get us? To the county line?”
“I know your car is so much better . . . Oh, wait, you don’t have a car,” he snapped.
“Look, I don’t want to fight. We’re stressed. We just gotta handle this. So I’m gonna go talk to Monster, man to man.”
I was headed toward the door when Wiz came running after me.
I’d been living with an old friend of my grandmother’s, Ms. Laura, but I couldn’t take this drama to her doorstep. Even still, I wanted to go see how much money I had hidden in my mattress so I could know what to say to Monster.
“Let’s just run by my crib,” I said as we walked outside. “I’ve been saving some money. It ain’t what we owe, but it’ll be something, and maybe Monster will give us time to work off the rest.” My heart sank at the thought of giving Monster my money. But it was better than giving him my life.
“I don’t know, man,” Wiz said, shaking his head. “I’m ready to just bounce.”
“Let’s just try this first,” I said.
We dipped into the alley where Wiz had parked his car, hopped in, then headed to my house, which I hated because there were like eight people living there, including Ms. Laura’s trifling thirty-year-old grandson, Carl, who made it his business to make my life miserable.
“Hey, boy. Where you been?” Ms. Laura said when I came through the door. Her soap opera was blaring in the background.
“Just out,” I replied.
“Little fake gangsta always out,” Carl said, sitting at the kitchen table, playing solitaire, which he did all day, every day.
I just ignored him. I’d learned that was the best way to handle all of Ms. Laura’s relatives. Because they always reminded me that I was just an “outside charity case.” I went into my room and slipped underneath my mattress. I had cut a hole in the middle of the mattress and stuffed a sock with my money. I stuck my hand in the hole, reached around, and didn’t feel anything. My heart immediately began to race. I pulled the twin-sized mattress off the bed, flipped it over, and dug and dug. Before long, I realized my money was gone.
I raced back into the living room. “Ms. Laura, Ms. Laura!”
“What is it, boy?” she said, sitting up from her spot on the sofa. “Calm your nerves.”
“I had some money and it’s missing,” I huffed.
“You had some money?” she said. “Money for what?”
“I’ve been saving it to help my brother, and now it’s gone.”
The smirk on her grandson’s face told me exactly where my money had gone.
I spun toward him. “Did you touch my money, Carl?”
“What it look like?” he said.
I don’t know what came over me, but I dove across the table. Carl had about four inches on me, but in that moment I didn’t care. “Where is my money? Give me my money back,” I said as I pummeled him.
I knocked him over onto the floor, but as soon as he got his bearings, he threw me off like I was a rag doll.
Ms. Laura was screaming. “What in tarnation? If you two don’t stop it!”
“Grandma, you better get this little punk before I have to hurt him,” Carl said as he picked his chair up.
“You ain’t gonna hurt nobody,” she said.
“He stole my money!” I screamed, stumbling as I pulled myself up off the floor.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He plopped back down in his seat and went back to playing his card game.
“You’re a liar!” I screamed.
Ms. Laura placed her hands on her robust hips and planted herself firmly between us. “Look, if Carl said he ain’t seen the money, then he ain’t seen your money,” she said.
“He’s lying. He’s a thief.”
“He paid his debt to society,” Ms. Laura said.
It was frustrating because Carl had done two stints for armed robbery, and Ms. Laura still didn’t believe he was capable of any wrongdoing.
“I just need my money back. I really need my money back,” I cried, my anger gone. Desperation was in its place.
“What you need money for so bad?” she said. “Are you in some sort of trouble? You know you can’t bring no trouble up in here.” She wagged her finger at me.
“Ms. Laura, please.”
Carl shook his head as he turned over cards. “Grandma, I always told you about doing these charity cases.”
“Ain’t nobody talking to you,” I screamed.
Carl leaned back, smugness filling his face. “Look, li’l man, I understand. You’re upset about a few hundred dollars missing.”
“How did you know how much it was?”
Ms. Laura cut her eyes as if she wanted to know the answer to that herself.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I just assumed if you had money, that’s how much it is.”
“Liar!” I screamed.
“Enough,” Ms. Laura said. “Unless you got some proof that Carl stole your money, you’re not going to come in my house accusing my grandson.”
I knew that this was useless. More than that, I was done with this place. I stomped back into my room, grabbed my old Nike bag, and stuffed as much as I could into it. Then I stomped back through the living room.
“Now, Trey, where you going? Why are you being so dramatic?”
“Li’l dude always dramatic,” Carl said.
I ignored both of them as I stomped back outside.
“Don’t stay gone too long,” Ms. Laura called out after me. “I’m making some peach cobbler.”
I ignored her and let the screen door slam on the sound of her voice.
I walked down the sidewalk to see Wiz under the hood of his car. He glanced at me, then turned his attention back to the car. “Man, this crap overheated. I can’t believe this piece of . . .” His words trailed off as he took in the expression on my face. “Uh, what’s up?” His eyes drifted down to my duffel bag. “Did you get the money?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Man, it’s gone.” For the first time since my grandmother died, I felt real tears seep out.
Wiz’s eyes bucked. “What do you mean, it’s gone?”
“The money’s gone.” I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Somebody stole it.”
“Oh, snap. So now what are we gonna do?”
I was just about to answer him when I saw Monster’s henchmen driving down the street toward the house. The car was moving slowly like in one of those gangster movies. Wiz and I looked at each other, and then, without saying a word, we both took off running.