Chapter 4
The move to Atlanta was good for Tammy. Anshon missed her during the two months she’d been gone, but he and Monica were together every day, so he didn’t feel so bad. Tom-Tom was still missing, but word on the street was that he was seen riding through Redwood Village apartments. Anshon knew it was only a matter of time before he would catch up to him.
“Hey, baby,” Anshon greeted Monica, who lay across the floor, studying for her college finals.
“Hey, sugar sweets,” Monica said, rolling on her back. “You just gettin’ here?”
“Yeah. I missed you.” He pushed her schoolbooks to the side and lay on top of her.
“Mmm . . . I know your girl gets the best,” Monica hissed.
“Don’t play me, mami,” Anshon said in his best Latin accent. “You know what I give you is better than what my girl gets.”
Monica mushed Anshon on the side of his head. “Don’t play with me!”
Anshon laughed as he started feeling between her legs.
* * *
Over at Fe-Fe’s, Teck was sweeping the kitchen floor as Fe-Fe stood at the stove frying some chicken.
“What time tomorrow will the new furniture be here?” she said over her shoulder. Not only was she excited about the new digs for her crib, but she was even more excited about her new life. It wasn’t every day that a crackhead was given a second chance. As far as Fe-Fe was concerned, Teck was that nigga.
“The furtniture’ll be here in the morning, baby,” Teck said, dumping the dust pan into the garbage. “At least by ten.”
The sound of Teck calling her “baby” was the sweetest sound Fe-Fe had heard in a long time.
Leaning up against the counter, Teck pulled out a wad of cash he made that day and started counting it. Afterward, he handed it to her and said, “Put that away. Send half of it to your cousin for your sons, and the other half, I want you to open up a bank account.”
Fe-Fe couldn’t believe her ears. She finished cooking the chicken and fixed Teck a plate of food. After they had dinner, she led him by the hand into her candlelit bedroom.
“Teck,” she said, kissing his pecs slowly, laying with him on the bed and sucking on his nipples, “I swear you the best man I’ve ever had. I never had nobody to care about me.”
He rolled on top of her. “Don’t worry about that no more. Just know that I care about you. Now enough of the sentimental shit. I wanna hear this headboard bang against the wall!”
Fe-Fe fell out laughing, and before Teck knew it, she’d rolled him over and slid between his legs, took his dick into her mouth, and was slowly gettin’ her eagle on. He let his head roll back and in between seeing stars, he could swear that her tongue felt better than a hot and wet prison washrag coated with melted Vaseline.
* * *
“Yo, Shon, what up?” Teck called Anshon on his cell phone, trying to set up a time to re-up. “You got a li’l freak in the secret Bat Cave or what?”
“Naw, I don’t fuck with freaks. But since you tryin’ to find out what my dick’s been up to, I been chillin’ with that li’l shawtie, Monica, from the club. Wassup wit’ you?” Anshon asked.
“Doin’ my ting-ting. Dawg, tryin’ to re-up, na’mean?”
“I feel you, but yo, Teck . . .” Anshon hesitated. “I ain’t tryin’ to be in your business, but you know you can’t get high off your own supply.”
“What the hell you talkin’ about?”
“This shit you got goin’ on with Fe-Fe. Yo, you ain’t on that shit, is you?”
“Maaaaannn, hell naw. Fe-Fe is clean, dawg. Have you seen her lately? She lookin’ good as hell, her gold tooth shinin’. Don’t sleep on Fe. Fuck what dem niggas in the street sayin’.”
“A’ight, I’ll call you later. We can meet up about five or six this evening.”
* * *
Tom-Tom sat in his beat-up and rusted trailer in Buck Adams trailer park, laid out on his couch smoking a Newport, playing with his dick and watching TV. Nothing was going right. He had no money, his food was getting low, and Anshon had a price on his head.
He put his dick back in his pants, sat up, and started snorting a line of coke. Slowly but surely, Tom-Tom was falling off. He either had to come out of hiding or die.
He couldn’t believe what was happening to him. How did the little boy that he helped raise become the one to have a price on his head? After all, Tom-Tom was the one who taught Tammy the game, and she passed it on to Anshon.
“I made you, ma’fucker!” Tom-Tom yelled out as his high started to take effect.
“I’m the fuckin’ star!” Tom started thinking about Tammy. “Cripple bitch!” He took his index finger, held his right nostril closed, and snorted a line of coke with the open one. Thoughts of Tammy raced through his mind.
After Tom-Tom left Tammy, she had called him and cried for a month, begging him to come back. But he couldn’t. How could he when she had risen to the top of the game and refused to move over?
“Together?” he said to her the day he got out of prison. “Bitch, is you crazy?”
“But how can I give all this up?” she cried. “I’ve worked too hard. Look, baby, I got two female drivers to run the D.C. line, and all you basically have to do is chill and watch the dough roll in.”
“Naw, you think I’ma let a bitch lead me around in the game? You done lost your mind? I’m the one that put you on. Know what? Fuck it and fuck you!” It was not that he didn’t love Tammy, but his heart couldn’t take the way she ran the game without him. A quiet, red-head, freckle-faced, two-dollar waitress was slangin’ dem thangs better than he could’ve ever imagined, and to make matters worse, everybody that she was sellin’ to wanted to keep it that way.
That’s when Tom-Tom hooked up with Teck and Wallo. He’d heard through the streets that they were stick-up kids, the Dirty-Dirty’s version of the old DMX, robbin’ niggas and bragging about it. He hooked up with them and came up with a plan: snatch Tammy’s cash and force her to start over. Then he would regain the hustle and the bitch, Tammy, would fall back into her place.
But he never imagined that the robbery would go bust and Tammy would be shot in Redwood Village parking lot. So, the combination of Tom-Tom, Teck, and Wallo stayed on the low, until the night in the pool hall. That was supposed to be their coming out party. They just never expected that Doughnut was such a crazy motherfucker.
“I swear to God, I’ma kill that bitch!” Tom-Tom said, laying his head back and watching the ceiling. “I’ma kill her!”