Chapter 13
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The next morning, they packed up in silence. Clyde was originally going to take the bus back to the city but ruled it out because of all their baggage. Besides, he felt Keyshia didn’t need to be around so many people at that moment. He wanted to protect her from that point on and ensure that she would never be abused again. He had developed a newfound anger and hate, and he knew that it would not be settled until the wrong was made right. A boy named Omar and a preacher from South Carolina had hurt his baby when she was weak and innocent and unable to defend herself. They’d scarred her for life and never suffered the consequences. But for every action there was a reaction, and Clyde would be the reactor. He knew one thing—they might not be dealt with that day, maybe not that week or that year, but they would be dealt with one day! He was sure of it.
The couple pulled up in front of Clyde’s building on 118th Street at about six-thirty that evening. Clyde had to make two trips to bring all the packages upstairs and into the apartment. Keyshia was right behind him when he turned on the lights in the apartment, and that’s when he saw his brother Sonny sitting in the chair and staring out the window. Clyde was caught even more off guard when he saw Wolf creep out of the kitchen with a .357 Magnum dangling from his hand. Clyde turned toward Sonny and yelled, “Yo, what the fuck are you doing in my apartment?”
Sonny said almost casually, “A few nights ago an old-school nigga from uptown named Sugar Bear was murdered inside a motel in the Bronx.” Keyshia nearly lost her breath when she saw the cannon hanging from Wolf’s hand.
Clyde clutched her tighter and said, “Don’t worry, Keesh, that’s my brother and his stupid-ass partner, Wolf.” Wolf smiled and made a howling sound.
Sonny continued slowly, “Before he was murdered, his boys said they last saw him leaving with a girl on a Hundred Twenty-sixth between Lex and Park, in a local spot frequented by young tramps looking to get with a baller for the night.” Sonny stood up and walked toward his brother.
“They described the girl as young, dark-skinned, and real, real skinny.” Sonny looked Keyshia over carefully. “As it turned out,” he continued, “Sugar Bear got caught with his pants down so to speak and caught a bad one.” Sonny frowned. “They say that somebody or some two”—being sarcastic—“smashed that boy’s head in like a watermelon. Smashed it so bad the cops even found some of his brains on the ceiling.
“Police said whoever done it was an expert, ’cause they didn’t even have no witnesses, no fingerprints, no suspects, no nothing, other than a three-hundred-and-fifty-pound naked-ass body with his asshole ripped out.” Sonny walked directly up to Clyde. “My guess it was with a shotgun.” He took a deep breath as he scratched his head and started walking back and forth. “Well, it seemed that Sugar got some people who was interested in his well-being. And it also seems that he owed these cats a whole lot of money, not including the money he had on the street, but the money and drugs the police got from his apartment after they searched it after his death because it appeared to be a drug-related killing. Now these people could care less about a grimy undercover homo like Sugar, but they are, however, concerned about the lost drugs and money.”
Sonny stopped pacing and asked, “You probably asking yourself, What does this have to do with you, Sonny? And that a good question that I’m about to answer. Well, not only did Sonny’s name come up, but also his little brother, Clyde. My first reaction was to laugh, and my second was to blow this nigga’s brains out for throwing my brother’s name in the mix like that, ’cause I know my li’l brother don’t get down like that and I know that not his MO and I know he don’t be fucking with no stink bitches on a setup tip. He work alone when he does his dirt.” Sonny chuckled. “But on the strength of keeping peace, I said that I would check with my brother and find out the deal even though I knew it was impossible.”
Sonny began to laugh even louder and said, “So, I wait for my li’l brother, and what the fuck do I see pulling up in a fucking black car?” He started to get heated. “My brother and a bitch stepping out with shopping bags full of shit like they fuckin’ hit the lottery!”
Clyde tried to interrupt, “Yo, don’t be callin’ my girl a—”
Sonny cut him off quickly. “Shut the fuck up, Clyde, you ain’t in no fuckin’ position to be talking that bullshit right now, nigga!”
Clyde had never seen his brother this serious.
“Nigga, I don’t know if you know it, but you and this bitch is about ta come up missing.”
“Yo, Sonny, I told you that she is my girl, don’t be calling her no bitch!”
Sonny threw up his hands and said, “Oh, my bad, let me rephrase that, but you and this slut is about to come up missing.” Clyde hauled off and clocked Sonny in the jaw, catching him totally off guard. Wolf stepped up, but Sonny just shook him off and checked his lip for blood. He shook his head and said, “All right, I was out of line on that one. I didn’t think you like her like that.” He spat and shook his jaw. “But, check this out, and this is the bottom line. You got two choices now. You, me, and Wolf, we got to kill all them niggas before they kill you and your . . .” He looked at Keyshia scornfully and said, “Girl.”
Keyshia could not bear to look Sonny in the eye.
Sonny continued, “ ’Cause if I figured this shit out already, they did also. And I ain’t having them niggas come after you! Naa mean?”
Clyde spoke in a near whisper and asked while he eyed the floor, “What was the other choice, Sonny?”
Sonny looked at his brother and said, “What?”
“You heard me, you said we got two choices. What’s the other choice?”
Sonny and Wolf looked at each other and laughed. “This nigga want to know the other choice, Wolf.” Wolf stared at Clyde like he was a cute five-year-old who had asked to drive his car.“You heard me, what’s the other fuckin’ choice?”
Sonny looked at Wolf again and said, “Oh shit, this nigga is serious. All right, nigga. The other choice is to come up with these niggas’ money. Can you handle that?”
Sonny and Wolf laughed their asses off until Clyde shocked them by saying, “Then I’ll come up with the money!” Their laughter stopped, and they looked at him as if he were losing his mind.
“Fuck do you mean you’ll come up with the money?” Sonny asked.
“Just like I said, I’ll come up with the money.”
Sonny got serious. “How the fuck are you gonna come up with that type of money?”
Clyde snapped, “Don’t worry how I come up with the money, Sonny. Just tell them they’ll get it.”
“Man, that’s the stupidest shit I ever heard. All we got to do is slam all them niggas and that’s that. Them niggas ain’t that serious. Smash ’em and take they whole stash in the process. Rest of them niggas will be heading for the border, they don’t want it!”
“I ain’t killin’ nobody, Sonny, I told you.”
“Nigga, fuck is you talking ’bout? That shit you did to Sugar wasn’t no Cub Scout shit.”
Clyde remained silent.
“Listen, we hit them niggas quick, one shot and that be that. You or your peeps here ain’t got to worry about none of the niggas coming after you no more.” Sonny smiled and said, “Or we could do a straight bank job, and the three of us, shit, we’d come off like the motherfuckin’ mob. Nigga, what’s up?”
Clyde looked Sonny in the eye again and said through gritted teeth, “I ain’t doing no bank job and I ain’t doing no killin’, Sonny!”
Angry, Sonny simply shook his head. “All right, I’m gonna speak to them niggas and tell them that you gonna pay. But remember this, nigga, this my last time bailing your ass out! You hear me? My last time!” Clyde shook his head. Sonny stared menacingly at Keyshia and Clyde and said, “Pack y’all shit. You can’t stay here no more ’cause they might come after you before I talk to his peoples. I got a lay-low spot for y’all to stay at on Two Hundred Fifth Street in the Bronx.” He looked around Clyde’s place and added, “It might be a step up from this place.”
• • •
The place where Sonny took them was a modest two-family house on a nice tree-lined block. Clyde and Keyshia occupied the basement apartment and lay low, waiting for Sonny to get back with them. The apartment was better than they expected, clean and spacious. Clyde was worried about the situation, but he didn’t want Keyshia to know that he hadn’t figured out how he was going to come up with that type of money.
Clyde took small comfort in that at least it wasn’t about no revenge shit, only business. That’s how cats in Harlem got down; they looked at the bigger picture for the most part and tried not to take shit personal. Sugar Bear’s bosses, Clyde thought, were probably just a bunch of niggas that came up on the same block together from back in the day. When niggas start getting money they form their own little crew, consisting of niggas who been on the block forever. Out of that crew, they ran the entire block, depending on how strong or greedy they were. If they had both those attributes, they ruled the block exclusively with their product; nobody else could sell on that block. You could have several crews pumping crack in and out of that block, yellow tops, green tops, red tops, or black tops. But it would be the same people, pumping the same products, supplying the entire area.
Sugar Bear had his own crew and made the most money out of them all; he had better quality and more potent crack because he didn’t cut it up with all the bullshit like the rest of the crews. The other crews hated him on the low-low, because he flaunted his riches and talked down to them ’cause he was getting more money. There were a lot of people happy to see his demise. On the block, Sugar tried to fuck everybody’s girl, sister, or mother and was more than happy to tell everyone that he did the next day. Even the police were happy to see that he finally fucked with the wrong person. Sugar would not be missed.
After a couple of days, both Keyshia and Clyde were starting to feel a little more at ease. They even began going shopping for household goods. Since the apartment was cable ready, they bought a twenty-seven-inch television and DVD player. They even went to the supermarket, and Keyshia, who was already an excellent cook, began fixing Clyde home-cooked country-style meals that he enjoyed. Despite the circumstances that surrounded them, they tried to make the best of it and even grew closer in the process.
“Clyde,” Keyshia asked one night while they lay in bed together, “did you ever wonder what you was good at? You know, what you was really meant to do with ya life?”
Clyde thought about it for a second and answered, “Yeah, I want to work for a bank one day, work real hard, and maybe become a manager, maybe even one day make it up to regional manager.” Keyshia smiled and turned on her side, pleased to hear Clyde talk about his future. “And then,” Clyde said enthusiastically, “after I make it to the top . . .” He paused and looked at Keyshia. “I’m gonna stick they fuckin’ ass up!” He laughed and laughed.
Keyshia gave him a love tap on his arm for stringing her along with his joke. “You are stupid.”
“Naw, for real yo, I won’t even need a gun. I’ll just walk in the vault and carry that shit out like they did in Scarface.” He looked at Keyshia and asked her, “What about you? What was you meant to do in life?”
She thought for a moment and said, “To take care of you.”
Clyde was flattered, but he asked, “For real, what would you do?”
“I am for real, boy, what do you think I should be?”
Clyde lay back on his pillow and said, “I’ll get back to you on that.”
• • •
They did this every single night. Talked and learned about each other and fell asleep snugly in each other’s arms, waking up in the same position every morning. They hadn’t made love the entire time they were there, until one night . . .
The moonlight coming through the window was the only light in the room as they lay facing each other, preoccupied with their own thoughts. Keyshia shook Clyde softly and asked, “What are you thinking about?”
He stared at her and smiled. “Nothing, just thinking.”
“That’s what I want to know, what you thinking,” she joked.
He turned and lay on his back and stared at the ceiling. “It’s just all this shit that’s going down. I feel bad about putting you in the middle of it.” He shook his head. “If only I would have minded my business, took his shit and be out, and—”
Keyshia stopped him. “And we would have never met.”
He stared at her and said, “It just that, I’d die if something happened to you.”
Keyshia was stunned. She still wasn’t used to having someone care about her well-being, and each time he said something like this, the same indescribable feeling overwhelmed her.
She got on top of Clyde and said, “I love you, boy, I love you to death. I love you because I know you fuckin’ love me, and I’m willing to ride and die with you and do whatever it take to see us through this.” She sat him up and squared her face with his and spoke with dead seriousness. “I ain’t talkin’ no punk smooth shit, just to hear myself talk, I’m for real. Whatever you tell me to do, I’m gonna do it. If you told me to sell this body to get this money up, I’ll do it. Anything for you, Clyde, you hear me? Anything. And if by chance, baby, we don’t come up with the money, fuck it! If you have to die, we gon’ die together, ’cause I ain’t gon’ let no motherfucka put they hands on you, ’cause I love you, boy.”
A single tear rolled down the side of Clyde’s face as he stared into hers. It suddenly occurred to him that he no longer had to think alone or act alone, because he had Keyshia. He felt stronger. In his heart he was now ready to conquer the world because somebody had his back and wasn’t gonna let him fall.
He pulled Keyshia closer to his lips and they kissed slowly, then nature took its course as they entered each other for the first time and would not stop. Their bodies became one as they cried out and solidified their eternal love for each other, until death do them part!