Chapter 53

Bright and early the following morning, Little James cruised down First Street with only one thing his mind:  finding  Carmelo and his closest relatives. It had been a long time coming, but learning about the person who killed his uncle seemed to be coming together. He dreamed of being back on the streets and avenging his uncle’s murder and he still couldn’t believe the day had finally arrived.

Once he called Jennifer and hung up on her. She had been calling him all night. He got a rush out of the way she was sweating him. He’d been tempted to go back to the hotel and tap that ass some more, but he had more pressing business. Making a left turn on Bryant Street, Little James drove over onto Flagler Street and parked in front of his grandmother’s house.

He got out of the car and walked up the steps to her home. When he knocked on the door, it opened instantly. He couldn’t believe his grandmother still left the door wide open like everything was safe. Fear and worry consumed him as he stepped inside the big three story house. The aroma of fried bacon invaded his nostrils. His stomach began grumbling. He rubbed his stomach and walked further inside the house.

“Grandma! Mama!” he called out, looking around her spacious front room with plastic-covered furniture everywhere. He saw his baby pictures sitting up on the mantle over the fireplace and walked over to take a closer look at them.

A single tear slid from his eyes while looking at his mother’s pretty smile. He couldn’t believe it’d been five years since her death. She had been riding with some guys after leaving the Go-Go and somebody shot up the car she was in, gunning for the driver. His mother caught two stray bullets in the chest and died two days later in the hospital. Little James cried for the entire forty-five day stretch he had to do. When they released him back into population, he got a single tattoo tear under his left eye and vowed never to cry again.

“Boy, what the hell you yelling for?” Little James jumped after hearing his grandmother’s sweet voice.

Wiping away his fugitive tear quickly, Little James turned on the 5’8” portly brown-skinned woman and smiled. “’Cause you left the door open, Grandma. I didn’t know what was up.”

“If you bring your tail around here more often and check on your grandma, you’ll know what’s up. Besides, I been living around here for thirty-seven years. Ain’t nobody gon’ mess with me. Everybody loves themselves some Mama Vernie. I make plates and feed all these children round here.”

“But still, Grandma, a crackhead or anything can come up in here and try to rob you,” he said, sounding like a baby instead of the cold-hearted individual he was in the streets.

“That’s why your butt needs to come back home and live with me. Now, I done told your tail about running them damn streets trying to be like your uncle. You see where it got him. It’s two options you have when running them streets, boy.” She paused, giving him the evil eye.        

Aw shit, here we go again, he thought, hoping she didn’t lecture him about staying out of the street life.

“The prison yard or the graveyard - just two choices,” she emphasized in a motherly tone.

“I ain’t doing nothing in the streets, Ma,” he lied. “I just need my privacy when I need to take my little girlfriends somewhere. I don’t want to disrespect your house like that - plus I just wouldn’t feel right.”

“I know you grown and hot in the pants, baby.” She grinned. “I’m just glad you like girls and didn’t grow up in the jail liking them boys. You know God hates that, I tell you what. You come back here and live with your Nana and I’ll fix up the basement for you and you can come and go as you please. But I have one stipulation.”

“What’s that?” He arched his eyebrow, looking at her.

“You have to pay me some rent and eat and go to church with your Grandmama every Sunday.”

“C’mon, Grandma, that’s three stipulations,” he whined.

“So what? You know I’m old and senile.” She laughed. “Bear with your Nana, boy, before I beat your hindparts.”

“I’ma think it over, okay?”

“Okay, baby, now come give your Grandmama a hug and some sugar.” She opened her arms and he rushed over into her embrace.

Little James chilled with her for the rest of the morning, getting a good home-cooked meal and learning bits and pieces of information from her about Twan’s enemy Carmelo. She told him that at one time or another Carmelo used to be real tight with his uncle. 

“Once that Glover boy went to prison, your uncle didn’t seem the same anymore, like he lost his best friend or something. Then one day, that Glover boy wrote me a letter from jail and told me that my baby was the reason for him being in jail, but he’d never hold that against me, ‘cause he loves me just like his mama. I never heard from him again until your uncle told me that boy was out of jail, and a few months later, Twan passed away.”

He was murdered in cold blood by that bitch-ass nigga. He ain’t pass away shit, so stop trying to clean the shit up! That bitch-ass nigga Carmelo is the reason you’re all alone right now, but you can’t see that. You always see the good in everybody no matter what they do! He wanted to yell at her, but he remained quiet, keeping his anger in check.

Once he found out Carmelo’s last name and that he didn’t have any living relatives around the hood, he felt a little disappointed. He wanted to hurt Carmelo just like he’d hurt his grandmother when he killed his Uncle Twan.

Since I can’t crush your family. I’m going to come after you and crush your bitch ass! It’s on sight wherever I see you! he thought as his grandmother pulled him up from the kitchen table to show him around the basement in which she wanted him to live.   

After looking over the spacious and dusty basement, Little James figured it would be the perfect place to live in once he fixed the place up. Plus the living arrangements would give him better access to ambush all the guys hustling on the drug strip down the street that his uncle built from the ground up.