Still Hood Read online

  A few buildings away were two girls that Dena didn’t care to see first thing in the morning, Yvette and Mousy. Yvette was a transplant from East New York that had moved to the block a few years back. She was a mixture of Dominican and Black, giving her a skin tone that was a shade deeper than caramel candy. Her face could’ve been considered attractive had it not been for the lingering war scars from the many scraps she had been in over the years. She wore her long hair wrapped and tucked beneath the ever-present scarf on her head, more so to keep her hair from being pulled out in a fight than to preserve whatever hairdo she was sporting.

  Mousy was short and dark-skinned, with large breasts and an equally large mouth. Unlike Yvette, for whom there might’ve still been hope, Mousy had never been very attractive. She wasn’t butt-ugly, but it was an effort for her to turn the head of a man who had anything going for himself. Mousy was a skilled boxer, but had made her name in the streets for her willingness to go above and beyond in the bedroom. Though it was never confirmed, Dena had heard that a guy gave Mousy two thousand dollars to have oral sex with his pit bull.

  These two were the official guardians of the “Stoop of Shamelessness.” The stoop was a platform for all things hood. Most neighborhoods in the inner city had a focal point for most of the bullshit that went on in them, but the stoop had them beat. The things that took place on that stoop were straight out of an episode of Jerry Springer. From drug sales to group fights, to domestic disputes, the stoop had it all.

  “Look at you!” Yvette shouted as Dena approached the stoop. Yvette let her eyes roll from Dena’s Gucci sandals to the matching shades sitting on top of her head. “Dena, I gotta give you your props. For a young bitch you be on your job. Get money, shorty!”

  Dena smirked. Though she didn’t say it, she knew Yvette was speaking the absolute truth. For a girl that was all of seventeen years old, Dena had quite a bit going for herself. Unlike some of her peers she was about to graduate high school and had a feasible shot at going to college. Dena gave a halfhearted effort at best, but a natural intelligence kept her ahead of the pack. None of her teachers could quite understand how a girl who looked at school with such a flippant attitude could be so brilliant. It was one of the greatest unsolved mysteries amongst the faculty of Martin Luther King Jr. High School.

  “I just do what I do,” Dena replied, executing a playful crosslegged strut. “What you doing outside this early?”

  Yvette shrugged. “Shiiit, waiting on the aftermath.”

  “Aftermath of what?” Dena asked.

  “You didn’t hear what happened last night?” Mousy asked, anxious to recount the story. “Them Hancock bitches came over here on they bullshit last night, trying to say that Tee-Tee fucked Tango’s ugly ass. You know he got a baby wit that bitch Boo from Hancock, so she be acting like she got papers on the nigga. Anyhow, these hos came over here stunting, so Tee-Tee and them got it popping. Yo, Tee-Tee ragged that bum bitch!”

  Dena shook her head. “I knew that shit was gonna happen. Every time one of them bitches walks to the store they grill this building all hard. I never knew what that shit was about, but I always knew it was gonna explode.”

  “Well it exploded alright,” Yvette added. “After Tee-Tee mangled that ho she came back with her brother Scott. Him and those degenerate-ass niggaz he be with shot out Tee-Tee’s windows last night.” She motioned up to the fourth-floor window, which now had a black garbage bag taped over it.

  “Damn, they was popping last night?” Dena said, looking up at the window.

  “Yeah, I’m surprised you didn’t hear it.”

  “Girl, you know I be in a coma when I’m sleep. I guess that explains why the block is so quiet this morning.”

  “Yep, everybody is waiting to hear what happened, but me and my girl wanna see it firsthand,” Mousy said.

  “Y’all bitches is crazy. I wouldn’t want to be out here when the shit hits the fan. Especially as reckless as these niggaz is wit they hammers,” Dena told them.

  “Man, listen, I’m out here trying to make a dollar. I can’t let some knucklehead-ass dudes stop me from doing my thing. These crack heads wanna get high on the wake up, and I’ll be damned if my rocks ain’t the first ones they taste in the morning. Besides,” Yvette dipped her hand into the trash can and came up with a chrome .25, “I’m ready for the bullshit if it comes my way.”

  “Yo, we about to get high, D. You wanna blaze something with us?” Mousy asked, holding up a small Ziploc full of pretty green buds. “This shit is straight from Five-Six.”

  “Damn, you rode all the way uptown to get that?” Dena asked.

  “Please believe it,” Yvette answered for Mousy. “I’d rather travel for it than smoke some bullshit, feel me? So what’s up, you trying to get high or what?”

  “Nah, I think I’m gonna pass. If I fuck around and get high before school I won’t be able to get a damn thing done.” Dena lied. Actually, she preferred to get high early in the morning. That way, she’d be floating for the majority of the day. The real reason she turned down the weed was because she didn’t want to smoke behind Mousy. She had heard more than a few stories about where that girl’s mouth had been, and the last thing she needed was a strange growth on her lip for the love of a get-high.

  Mousy shrugged, “Suit yourself.” She really didn’t care what Dena’s reason for not smoking with them was, because to her it was just one less head on the blunt.

  A thumping sound drew all their attentions to the lobby of the building they were standing in front of. The sound was distant at first but seemed to be getting closer. It sounded like someone dragging a pushcart down the stairs. They all watched curiously as a pair of legs appeared on the stairs followed by hips, then an upper body. In a matter of seconds Dena’s best friend Monique was standing on the stoop in all her glory.

  Monique was a big girl. She teetered somewhere between big-boned and fat. A baby or a cheeseburger would likely push her in the direction of the latter. Even though Monique was a size sixteen, she refused to believe she couldn’t dress as provocatively as a woman who was a size eight. That morning she had squeezed into a pair of shorts that left little to the imagination and a halter that strained to hold her huge breasts. The noise everyone had heard was produced by her calf-high leather boots that sported a tall wooden heel. The zipper on the side looked like it would go at any minute, but Monique still stepped like a fashion model. In an attempt to preserve some of her decency, she wore a plaid shirt that was tied off at the stomach, but she still looked like she had just stepped off someone’s stage. Monique was a big girl, but because she had a very pretty face and outgoing personality, she never found herself short of men who showered her with affection. After all, big girls needed love too, right?

  “Dena, I know these hos ain’t got you caught up in the drama which is this stoop?” Monique said in a deep voice that didn’t quite fit her China doll face.

  “Fuck outta here, like you don’t spend as much time on the stoop as we do,” Yvette shot back.

  “What y’all doing out here so early?”

  “Bout to get high.” Mousy held up a Dutch Master that was still in the plastic sleeve.

  “Now, you’re speaking my language,” Monique said, retrieving a crate that had been left in the building lobby. When she settled on the crate you could almost hear the plastic cry out for mercy.

  “Mo, you know we gotta go to school,” Dena said, checking the time on her cell phone.

  “We’ll still be on time, Dena, stop acting like that.” Monique waved her off. “So,” she turned to Yvette and Mousy, “I know y’all got the lowdown on what happened last night, so spill it.” Just as simple as that, Monique was caught up in the gossip network, listening intently as Yvette and Mousy gave her their accounts.

  Dena sighed. She knew that it would be a while before the girls finished smoking and running their mouths, and she didn’t want to spend any more time around them than necessary. In an attempt to occupy some of that ti
me, she decided to walk to the corner store for a loose cigarette.

  Right next to the bodega a group of young men were shooting dice in front of the liquor store. For the most part they were a ragtag bunch that was known to dabble in one hustle or another around the way. They made up the knucklehead population of Jefferson, with their shenanigans constantly making the block hot. In the center of the group was a young man Dena didn’t want to see. She tried to slip in the store, but it was too late, as she had been spotted.

  “Baby girl, wha go on?” Roots asked, in an accent that was heavier than it needed to be. Roots was a tall kid, with peanut butter skin and locks that stopped just above his lower back. He bopped towards Dena, smiling so she could see the cheap yellow gold in his mouth.

  “Sup,” she replied in a very disinterested tone.

  “Come sis, ya no sound happy to see me. Put a smile on that pretty face.” Dena gave him a fake smile and moved toward the entrance of the bodega, only to have him block her path. “Why you on it like that, sis? You know I check for you.”

  “Roots, you know I don’t fuck with neighborhood niggaz,” she said, trying to be as polite as possible. Dena, as well as most of the girls on the block, hated the pushy young Jamaican, but they tolerated him because he worked for Sosa, the local weed baron. Sosa had the best weed in a ten-block radius but didn’t deal directly. If you wanted to get served you had to see Roots.

  “Fuck you lie for, when I know you used to see the skinny kid down the way?” he accused.

  “That was like five years ago!” she reminded him.

  “Five years or five days, what should it matter? Listen, I know you like the big-money men, baby, so stop acting like you don’t know what time it is.” He flashed his bankroll.

  Dena looked at the short stack of mostly singles and sucked her teeth. “Son, I wouldn’t care if you had Bill Gates’s paper, I still wouldn’t fuck you.” She tried once again to enter the store, but this time Roots grabbed her arm forcefully.

  “Fucking tease cunt, you trying to play me?” he barked. “Bitch, I’ll—”

  “You’ll what?” a voice asked from behind Roots.

  A cold chill ran down Roots’s back. Even before he turned around he knew what he would see. Standing on the curb was the equivalent of a mail box dressed in a white T-shirt and shorts that stopped just above his ankles. The owner of the voice rocked his hair cornrowed straight back, held down by a black stocking cap. Empty black eyes stared at the Jamaican, daring him to do something stupid. Roots had disrespected Shannon’s little sister, and Shannon wasn’t happy about it.

  “Go ahead, Roots, why don’t you finish telling my little sister what you’ll do to her. Talk some more of that rude boy shit you was kicking a few minutes ago,” Shannon dared him. By now the girls from the stoop had rushed over in anticipation of a good ass-whipping.

  “Come on, man, it was a misunderstanding,” Roots tried to plead out.

  “That don’t sound like the shit you was kicking when we walked up.” Shannon’s companion taunted Roots. He was slim with chocolate skin and cunning eyes. Other than Shannon, no one on the block knew much about the kid named Spooky, except that he was from Harlem, and every bit as deadly, if not more so, than Shannon.

  “Yo, son, this is between them.” A big-head kid from the dice game tried to come to Roots’s defense against the foreigner.

  Spooky spun on the kid and pointed a 9 mm at his face. “Shut the fuck up, before I dis ya stupid ass out here.” The big-head kid did as he was told.

  “Like I was saying,” Shannon continued, looking from Roots to Dena and back again. “From what I hear, it seems like you’ve got a problem with my sister?”

  “No problems, kid.” Roots raised his hands in surrender.

  “Dena?” Shannon looked to his sister.

  For a minute Dena just stood there. She knew how her brother got down, so the situation was sure to turn out ugly for Roots. She started to tell Shannon that they didn’t have a problem, but when she thought about how Roots had harassed her as well as other girls from the block she decided that it was finally time for someone to check his ass.

  Dena folded her arms and spoke very clearly when she said, “Yeah, we got a problem.”

  Roots opened his mouth to dispute what she was saying, but never had a chance, because Shannon’s fist came crashing into it. Shannon was shorter than Roots, so he had to swing upwards, but the blow landed true. Shannon hit Roots with a right then a left, and came back with another left. When Roots tried to cover his face, Shannon started working on his body, hitting his ribs with the force of a pro boxer.

  The only thing that saved Roots was the bodega owner, Ralphy, coming out of the store. Ralphy was a Puerto Rican throwback to the Beat Street era. His socks were always pulled up to his knees and his white-on-white shell toes were cleaner than a nigga’s who had just gotten out of the joint. Back in the day, Ralphy had Bushwick flooded with coke. He and his brother Juan had come down from the Bronx and clocked heavy paper in the fresh Brooklyn hood; but eventually the snitch factor came into play and both brothers found themselves property of the feds. Juan cut a deal with them, offering to take the weight for the drugs and the five murders they had them on if his brother would be shown leniency. He ended up with life plus sixty-six years, while his brother was released after serving ten. Since then Ralphy had been operating the bodega and running numbers out of the building next to it. Both were properties he had purchased before his incarceration.

  Ralphy grabbed Shannon around his arms and pulled him off Roots. Shannon snarled at Ralphy, but didn’t attack him. The kindly Spanish cat who owned the store had known Shannon and his family since the eighties, so there was a line of respect that he wouldn’t cross, even in a blind rage. Spooky went to draw on Ralphy, but Dena gave a quick explanation of who he was, and the killer fell back.

  “What the fuck, Shannon!” Ralphy yelled, looking at the bloodied Roots lying across the entrance to his store. “Did you have to beat him up on my stoop?”

  Shannon took a minute to catch his breath. “My fault, Ralphy, this nigga just got a big mouth.” Shannon kicked Roots for emphasis.

  “Come on, come on.” Ralphy pushed him back. “Shannon, get your ass up outta here before the police lock you up. Dena”—he looked to the girl—“get your fast ass off to school and stop causing trouble.”

  “Ralphy, I didn’t do nothing!” she protested.

  Ralphy looked from Roots, who was having trouble getting to his feet, back to Dena. “You never do. Just go, Dena.”

  Dena opened her mouth to say something but knew it was useless. “Come on, Mo,” she called to her friend and started in the direction of the train station.

  Mo hesitated, looking from Yvette and Mousy, who were laughing hysterically at Roots, back to Dena’s departing form. “But the blunt ain’t dead!”

  Chapter 4

  “YEAH, YOU AIN’T POPPING THAT SHIT NOW, IS you nigga?” Jah stood wide-legged in the middle of the plush living room. His arm was fully extended and locked in place at the elbow. In his hand he held a high-tech pistol with an incredibly long barrel. The anticipation of the kill made his heart beat slightly faster in his chest. He always got butterflies before he popped off. As cool as the other side of the pillow, he pulled the trigger and hit his mark.

  “Blood, that was a lucky shot!” Tech accused, watching the low-bit digital duck go bug-eyed and spiral into the video grass. Busting out the old school Nintendo and playing Duck Hunt was a favorite pastime of theirs.

  “What I tell you about that ‘blood’ shit, Tech?” Jah placed the plastic gun on the table.

  “Come on, man, it’s just something I say,” Tech smirked.

  “Dig, I ain’t blood or cuz, so stop kicking that backyard boogie shit to me.”

  “I forgot that the only set you respect is the green side.” Tech waived a dollar in the air, which Jah quickly snatched.

  “Muthafucking right. Cash over colors, fool!” Jah pushe
d Tech playfully.

  Tech was a few years younger than Jah, but had proven to be wise beyond his years. It was good for Jah to have someone to keep him occupied, since Spooky was still running wild and kept a low profile. He was on fire in Harlem, so he spent a good deal of his time in Brooklyn with his brother Nate and his crew. The Brooklyn heads were jacking shit left and right, but only a few of them put in real work, until Spooky came along. When Jah asked him what was up he simply said: “I’m giving them a swagger.”

  The previous summer had taught him a painful lesson: Tomorrow isn’t promised to anyone. His brother had killed himself in prison after murdering his son’s mother, or at least who he thought was his son’s mother. As it turned out Rhonda had ran a dirty game on Jah’s brother, Paul, and in the end both their lives were the price; and then there was a little boy that had no parents. The grandmother stepped to the plate and took in all three of Rhonda’s children. Some say that the guilt of the way she had treated her daughter in life moved her to do so. She got a monthly check from the government, and every so often an intern from Big Dawg would drop money off. Most shrugged it off as True or Don B just feeling sorry for the kids, but a select few suspected otherwise, since the paternity of little P.J. was never really figured out.

  Thinking about Rhonda often made him emotional. Clearly, she was a pain in the ass, but Rhonda had her moments. For all her fucked-up ways, she loved her kids and made sure they were good. Rhonda just had a fucked-up perception of life. In the end, greed and ignorance caught up with her and she paid with her life.

  All the deaths he had been touched by or brought down on himself left a bitter taste in Jah’s mouth. He still made moves with Spooky, but his heart wasn’t quite in it anymore. As much as he wanted to completely leave the game alone, he knew he still needed to eat. Luckily, his lady, Yoshi, was a chick whose mind was always on paper, so she taught him a way to capitalize on it.

  Her job as a stylist kept her in contact with paper. Yoshi rubbed shoulders with some of the elite in the entertainment industry. A lot of these cats felt like moving around with a bodyguard would damage their street credibility, but muscle was always necessary when dealing with paper. This is where Jah came in. He could blend in with the entourage and didn’t mind laying something down if the paper was right.