CHAPTER FIVE
Black Tone was passed out cold. He was sleeping good. In between putting in long hours down at the club and taking care of his granny the best he could, he stayed exhausted. Disturbed by the constant annoying sound of his cell vibrating, he moved his muscular arm from underneath the sheet. Reaching over toward the other side of the mattress, he blindly searched for his phone. Finally, he grabbed it up and brought it to his face. Not wanting to open his eyes fully, Black Tone squinted at the screen. He pushed the button on the side, and the screen lit up.
Ten missed calls? Seven text messages and voice mails? Damn, what in the entire fuck? By pushing one of the many icons, he brought up the call log. Immediately, Black Tone saw that all the alerts and notifications were from Amir. He dialed him back and said, “Hey, now, my dude. What’s the deal?”
“Hey, man. It’s not right! It’s crazy! It’s crazy!” Can you believe this bullshit?” Amir blurted out as soon as he heard Black Tone say hello. “It’s not right! It’s crazy! It’s crazy!”
“Huh? Believe what, man? What’s going on? What’s the deal?” He yawned, wiped the sleep out of the corner of one of his eyes. “You been trying to get at me all damn morning, I see.”
Amir’s voice trembled with panic and fear. The one thing he had worried about most since the city of Detroit originally announced the random rolling zip code power outages would finally touch not only his business but his immediate family’s as well. “Come on, man. You haven’t seen the news this morning? Wake your ass up. Shit is all fucked up.”
“Naw. I was sleep until just now. What’s popping?” Black Tone sat all the way up in the bed, still just as confused as he was when he first called. “What’s all fucked up? What’s the deal, Amir? What the fuck I miss? And what damn time is it?”
“Dude, they got us this time. Shit. Matter of fact, the entire city. We need to post up as soon as possible. Tell your crew I’m paying double pay. We need them as soon as possible.”
“Double pay? What?”
“Just turn on the damn news, Tone! Not only are these motherfucking bastards turning off the power in different zip codes soon, but they sweeping the entire city for twenty-four hours. Plus, no police or fire. Water gonna be off too! We gotta get ready. It’s gonna be crazy, pandemonium. We gotta get down to the club to protect it from your people. The alarm system is gonna be off-line.”
Black Tone couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Not just the fact that his boss, Amir, had just slipped and used the term “your people” with him, and not as a joke, but what he had claimed was about to occur. After locating the remote, he clicked on the television. Searching through the channels, Black Tone stopped on a breaking news report. Cell phone still in the other hand, with Amir on the line, he turned up the volume. Seconds into listening, he, like millions of others, was speechless. What Amir had said was true. Detroit was going dark at noon. And yeah, pandemonium was one of many words that would be used to explain the aftermath.
Black Tone reassured Amir that he’d call a few of his crew who didn’t live in Detroit to see if they wanted to earn that double-time pay. He knew for sure it would be a waste of time to call his main homeboys, because if what the news reports claimed was about to pop off was indeed true, they have to post up at their own homes to make sure they went untouched. Before ending their conversation, Black Tone also reminded his boss that he lived in the heart of the city, in the infamous 48238, to top it off, and he would have to make sure his granny and his own household were secure.
“I’ma get off this phone and see what’s what. I’ll get back with you in about twenty minutes or so,” he told Amir.
Amir didn’t want to hear that. Selfish minded, all the greedy club owner wanted to hear his head of security say was that he would fuck any and everything he might have had on the table, including his old sickly granny, and that he was on the way. “Look Tone, swing by my people’s spot before you head this way. I know it’s gonna be super wild up there on Linwood,” he warned angrily. “Pops and them moving as much stuff out as possible, just in case motherfuckers try it. He gonna go chill at my uncle’s store, but Mikey and Hassan gonna post up all night, until this thing is over, make a stand. Hold shit down for the family and whatnot.”
“Oh yeah, they gonna post up, huh?” Black Tone replied sarcastically as both size fourteen feet touched the floor.
Having lived in the hood forever, Black Tone had known Amir’s brothers for a few years now, ever since they’d opened the party store. So the statement about them supposedly being on some old protection squad bullshit brought an instant smile to his face. Mikey, the middle son, was as soft as toilet paper. He tried to act as if he was about that life when need be, but Black Tone and most of the world could easily see through his fronting. Mikey let his wife run over him not some of the time, but all the time. That was no major secret to his family or even to the hood niggas she was rumored to mess around with from time to time. And in any culture that was unheard of. If you couldn’t at least run your own household, how could you want respect from the next man?
As for Hassan, the youngest brother, he was the most like Amir, in the sense that they both thought they were African American. The way he dressed. The way he spoke. And the way he tried to carry himself in general. Hassan, however, had taken the black experience a few steps further than his older brother. Not seeming to care what his pops, brothers, or the neighborhood they did business in thought, he had been claiming Alexis as his woman for some time. The baby Dre’s little sister had had was Hassan’s son. There had not been any blood test taken, but the small infant came out of the womb as the spitting image of his alleged pappy, damn near crying in Arabic. Amir was known around the club to have hit off a few of the waitresses and some of the more “eager to get free” VIP treatment females who would breeze through the doors of Detroit Live, but his Iraqi-born arrogance would not allow him to go public with his dark pleasures.
After ending their conversation, Black Tone went to go check on his granny. It was time he made her something to eat and give her her much-needed medications. He had to figure out his next move if he planned on helping Amir down at the club. After ensuring his granny was good, he then tried to contact one of the evening nurses that stayed there while he went to work. After a good thirty minutes or so, the agency finally answered its phone. Considering the majority of their staff resided in Detroit, Black Tone was told they had absolutely no one available to work. That information came as no great shock to him, because he knew that if anyone lived in the city and wasn’t smart enough to stay home, that was on them. That he was even considering leaving his own home now had everything to do with the fact that he’d laid down the law to Dre and his boys a long time ago that even dreaming about violating his and Granny’s space would end with them suffering a fate worse than the cops being called.
Moments later, Amir called back. Black Tone sent him straight to voice mail, still at a loss about what he was going to do. He then ignored the several 911 texts. Pacing the floor, he wisely came to the conclusion that his granny should go out to his auntie’s house in Oak Park, at least until the power came back on. Placing a call to his cousin Wild Child, he killed two birds with one stone. His aunt agreed to stop by and pick up his granny, so he was good. She’d be safe and secure during this mandatory twenty-four-hour power outage. That was his first priority. Black Tone knew that even in his absence, lights out or not, any would-be thief from his way dared not to cross him and disrespect the crib. As far as Detroit Live went, Wild Child said he was good to go on posting up and making that double time.
With that business taken care of, Black Tone called Amir back and reassured him that he’d be covered well before nightfall and certain anarchy ensued. Before he could get his granny’s necessities packed and could jump in the shower, his cell rang again.