The enormous antique St. John Baptist Church in East Stuart was overcrowded with friends and family attend-ing both Joc’s and Meat Head’s funerals, which were being held together. The entire swamp was there showing their respects, as were others who knew both friends throughout the entire Treasure Coast.
Reverend Weaver from Hobe Sound directed the funeral, and touched a lot of souls in the church. Real sat in the sixth row with Shamoney and Chantele, who were dressed like twins in all-black attire. Real kept a close eye on Lala, who sat with Joc’s mother and family. Behind her were all the Ms. Gorgeouses, constantly crying for the bodies that lay in the black closed caskets front and center in the church. What Reverend Weaver was preaching on reminded Real exactly why he had to go hard or else not even play the game.
“People, we only have one precious life to live, and a more precious life to live when death comes in either odds or evens,” Reverend Weaver spoke as the organ sounded. “We not cryin’ ’cause of death,” he said as he wiped away the sweat from his face with a rag. “We cryin’ for joy!”
The organ chimed again.
“Peace! Freedom! Bliss!”
“Amen!” an elderly woman stood with joy, causing more in attendance to stand up in spiritual ovation.
“Hallelujah! Yes, Lord!” Reverend Weaver exclaimed while jumping up and down. “We not crying for sadness. God is here today! He has called these men home. Amen! And we gon’ celebrate, Lord! Hallelujah!” the reverend preached hysterically as the organ sounded and sent the Holy Ghost through the church.
When Real looked over at Lala, he saw her breaking down. He then made eye contact with Mookie, who was consoling Lala with Pimp, Nut-Nut, and Luscious. When Real looked to his right, he saw Var being consoled by Alleycat and V-Money.
Damn, my two niggas gone fo’ real! he thought as the reality finally dawned on him; and like everyone else who tried to bridle their emotions but failed, he cried too.
But he cried with blood in his eyes for B-Zoe, and retaliation for his homies nowhere near finished in his heart. Real stood up and excused himself. He had to get outside to catch some fresh air.
“Brah, if you want, we can go outside,” Real whispered into Shamoney’s ear, who nodded his head, grabbed Chantele’s hand, and proceeded out the door.
They found T-Gutta outside the church as well, getting some air and smoking a phat kush blunt.
“You too, huh?” Real asked him.
“It’s too much. Funerals and me never get along. I don’t even want to attend my own!” T-Gutta retorted as he passed over the blunt to Real while looking at Shamoney and his wife hold each other. “Brah got a bad one,” T-Gutta complimented Shamoney’s wife to Real.
“Yeah, he did that!” Real added.
The music in the church could be heard from outside. As Real looked up at the overcast sky, a sound of thunder exploded, causing him to smile. “You know what that means, T-Gutta!”
“Hell yeah, brah! It means our niggas are in heaven today,” T-Gutta said.
“That’s right, my nigga,” Real assented.
* * *
When Big Chub, Pat, and the rest of the entourage pulled up to the luxurious palace in Port St. Lucie, Pat saw that the Maybach he had given Shamoney was sitting in the driveway along with his .745. There were six men in the two SUVs, and every man was carrying M-16 rifles. They all exited the SUVs together and approached the front door.
On the side of the palace in an access driveway that led to the backyard, Pat saw a parked cleaning service.
“We got some company,” Pat told everyone as he artistically and successfully picked the lock to the front door.
Once inside the house, the cleaning service crew of illegal immigrants was caught off guard attending to the opulent home. The frightened men and women were all immediately gunned down by Pat’s men.
“Strip this bitch down!” Pat ordered his men to ransack Shamoney and Chantele’s precious home.
* * *
The block in East Stuart was jumping with the new product that Real had put out, and the fiends were going crazy. It was heaven for the dope boys, who saw the dramatic increase in money. The kilos were going for 20.5, and the ounces were 5.75 a piece. With the Haitians out of the area, it was all game. Real and Shamoney were making a killing shutting shit down.
The gambling house on Tarpon was loud and raucous as usual, with young niggas shooting dice and playing poker. Everyone inside the house hit the deck when the rapid shots exploded outside.
“Oh shit!” a couple niggas howled.
Some niggas weren’t as fortunate and got hit with stray bullets that came crashing through the windows.
“Damn!” a young nigga named Quinton shouted while immersing low, cocking back his Glock .40, and running out the front door and squeezing at the fleeing SUV.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
When Quinton’s Glock jammed, he found himself in trouble, but it was too late to retreat.
Chop! Chop! Chop! Chop!
The AK-47 bullets from the SUV riddled his body like swiss cheese, letting off a full thirty-clip into the young man.
As the heavy rain fell from the sky and washed away Quinton’s blood, all that was left of him was the blank stare in his eyes. The lifeless twenty-one-year-old Quinton was slumped against the bullet-riddled bubble Caprice Chevy on twenty-eight-inch rims.
* * *
When B-Zoe made it to the Ramada Inn in Stuart, he and his two soldiers abandoned the stolen SUV and then hopped into another legit SUV.
“Man, I can’t believe that lil nigga tried some Rambo shit!” B-Zoe said, speaking of the young man he had just taken out with his AK-47 in East Stuart.
“That lil nigga thought shit was sweet!” B-Zoe’s soldier David retorted while sparking flame to a phat dro blunt and passing it to B-Zoe, who was driving.
“A lot of niggas ’bout to fall fo’ my nigga T-Zoe,” another soldier, Skinny Zoe, said from the backseat.
“This shit just getting started,” B-Zoe exclaimed.
He was missing his nigga T-Zoe. B-Zoe knew that T-Zoe was dead somewhere, and he just wanted to make sure that his nigga had a proper burial.
B-Zoe wasn’t naive, and he refused to be in the statistics of it. He knew well that niggas who died in the streets sometimes went missing and were never found. But he would never guess or expect for T-Zoe’s remains to be in the bellies of three alligators in the infamous Taylor Creek.
* * *
The news about the fatal drive-by shooting that had occurred on Tarpon Street quickly circulated and got back to Real and Shamoney, along with everyone else, at the cemetery in Port Mayaca. It was the grave site fifteen miles outside of Indiantown where every dead soldier from the swamp was buried. The heavy downpour made many scramble, mainly those who lacked an umbrella.
The rain is strong symbolic assurance that both homies are in heaven, Real and others considered.
Real, T-Gutta, Lunatic, and Var all came to the grave site, while Shamoney and Chantele went home to ready themselves for the after party at a reception center in the swamp,
“What’s good, brah?” Real asked T-Gutta, who’d had a bothered look on his face since he heard about the shooting in his hood.
“I gotta find out who did that shit. It’s like we lose a nigga every other day, dirty,” T-Gutta explained while watching the dirt get poured onto Joc’s and Meat Head’s caskets.
The stage was too much for Lala and her clique, who had left with the rest of the crowd after Reverend Weaver’s last prayer for the departed men.
“Don’t worry, brah,” Real said as he rubbed the fatigue from his face with his hands. “From here on out, I don’t care what hood a nigga from. He from Martin and he drop, then we dropping three of theirs. We know who’s responsible,” Real declared among his circle.
T-Gutta had lost his childhood homie Mike James that day. He was a go-getter and stupid-ass nigga who said anything out of his mouth to anybody.
“Even if we gotta go get ’em out of the city, we goin’, nigga,” Real added as he felt the vibration of his iPhone in his slacks. When he retrieved his phone and saw it was Shamoney, he quickly answered. “What’s up, my nigga?” he inquired.
He could hear crying in the background, and instantly he knew it was Chantele.
Something’s wrong, Real thought, sensing something amiss.
He heard Shamoney release a sigh and then begin to speak angrily, “All my cleaning service people are dead, and my home is destroyed.” He paused and then sighed again. “The house is a wreck, and I know it’s Pat.”
“Don’t go nowhere, brah. He trying to lure you into a trap. He knows that out of all people, you’ll suspect him first. We goin’ to get him together, lil brah!” Real insisted to a dead line.
Shamoney was gone.
“Hello!” Real called out into the phone again. “Damn it!” Real exploded, knowing his brother wasn’t hearing anything he had to say.
Real knew how much of a hot-head Shamoney could be, and when blood was in his eyes, he only saw one thing: the objective.
“What’s good, brah?” T-Gutta asked with concern.
“Shamoney’s crib got hit, and he ’bout to go at this nigga himself. It’s a trap, and he ’bout to walk right into it!” Real exclaimed as he made a dash from underneath the tent and out into the rain along with T-Gutta, Var, and Lunatic on his heels.
Real jumped into his SUV with T-Gutta while Var and Lunatic hopped into Lunatic’s Dodge Durango. Together the foursome burned rubber leaving the grave site.
Little brother, don’t fall for the bait! Real thought, pushing ninety miles per hour on Highway 76/Kanner.
“Damn it!” Real exclaimed, hammering the steering wheel. “T-Gutta, call Shamoney. He’s not pickin’ up for me. He knows I’ma talk him out of goin’ by himself,” Real said while trying to hit up Johnny but to no avail.
Johnny was the only person who was missing from the funeral. He just didn’t do funerals, and neither did his ace, Su’Rabbit.
“Shit!” Real exclaimed.
“He not pickin’ up, brah,” T-Gutta said as he was also ignored by Shamoney.
“Stubborn bitch!” Real exploded, increasing the speed to the max of 125 mph on Highway 76, in hopes of catching his brother and saving his life.
He had no clue where Pat lived in Palm Beach County. Real just knew that he had to get to St. Lucie County to prepare for the worst or best of his brother’s stupid decision to war on his own.