Promise Broken, page 13
“Oh, please believe that I’m going to address any and everybody on my shit list in short order; from the largest offenses to the smallest slights,” Zul assured him. “I hear that you’ve been getting your weight up since I’ve been gone? I can’t say I’m surprised though. You always were an ambitious little son of a bitch. Would step over your own mama to get where you need to go.”
“Fuck you,” Asher said, tiring of Zul’s games. If he was going to die then let them be done with it already.
“Y’all already tried that and we see how it worked out, didn’t we?” Zul closed the distance between him and Asher. Uncomfortable at the closeness, Asher tried to get up, but Zul shoved him back onto the couch. Asher looked like he wanted to make a move, but a cold stare from Zul changed his mind. “Watch yourself, lil nigga. I ain’t some homicidal dust head who doesn’t know the difference between people laughing with me and at me.”
“Zul, just tell me what you want, man?” Asher asked in exasperation.
“To make things right,” Zul revealed. “Contrary to what most people might think, I was never mad at B-Stone for wanting to step up. He should’ve, as was his right. In truth, I would’ve lost respect for him if he hadn’t. That little thing between us in the streets was all about business. It became personal when instead of us all standing firm like men and gunning it out for what we laid claim to, somebody decided to dance outside the rules and made a dirty play. Now, when I left I already knew the who’s and the why’s of how I ended up on that little vacation. The how is what took me some time to figure out. I lay there night after night on the cold cot wondering how a bunch of gun-toting Neanderthals could line a smart nigga like me up for the bullshit? Now, you know me Ash, so I’m sure I ain’t gotta tell you that I’ve always been a careful guy. I never take the same route home, I never stand next to anybody I don’t know and keep from some that I do . . . hell, I don’t even shop in the same supermarkets more than once in a week. Sure, it’s a little extreme, but I understand the game I’m playing. You can never be too careful, right? Even after all this I still managed to get caught up. The cross tells me that it came from somewhere close. You following me so far?”
Before Asher could answer, his text message alert went off on his phone, making him jump. Before he could even think about reaching for it, Missing Tooth was in his pocket. He rifled around roughly before pulling the phone out, nearly ripping the pocket of Asher’s sweats in the process. Missing Tooth checked the screen before looking at Zul.
“That’s probably his boy Milk, letting him know he’s downstairs,” Zul said, much to Asher’s surprise.
“Fuck, you got my phone tapped or something?” Asher asked angrily.
“Little boy, you can’t take a shit without me knowing about it. I’ve had eyes and ears on you and your people since I touched down. Ain’t that right, boys?” Zul looked to his men for confirmation.
“Day and muthafuckin’ night. I live for your mama’s eight p.m. showers,” Zul informed him. Missing Tooth stroked his gun seductively. Asher looked like he wanted to jump, but the gun kept him seated.
“Are my guys making you nervous, Asher? Is that why you’re not showing me the proper affection for a homie that just came home?” Zul asked in a taunting tone. “Fellas, take a walk real quick. Give me and Asher a few minutes.”
“You sure about this, Z?” the shooter with the missing tooth asked. He clearly didn’t like the idea of leaving his benefactor alone with the young thug. He had done his homework on Asher before taking on the mission. He wasn’t a killer in the traditional sense but would go there if his hand was forced.
“I think we’re good here,” Zul assured him. “Me and Asher got . . . history, so to speak. Plus, I don’t think he’d wanna make a mess of his mama’s living room. Would you, Asher?”
More silence.
“A’ight,” Missing Tooth reluctantly agreed. He gave his two cohorts the signal to follow him out and they left the condo.
“That better?” Zul invited himself to a seat on the recliner across from Asher, crossing one leg over the other. He was totally at ease, while Asher was tense. “Loosen up, fam. This is your pad,” he said, trying to lighten the mood with little luck. “What’s the matter, Ash? You and me used to be so at ease with each other, and now you’re acting like I’m some monster, come to devour you and your village.”
“More like a nigga playing head games,” Asher shot back.
“It’s only a game to the spectators. The players know what it is.” There was now an edge to Zul’s tone. “Let’s cut the bullshit, Asher, and just speak facts. This new nigga whose dick you sucking is a cold-blooded snake. I know B-Stone pulled the trigger on that little setup, but he didn’t load the gun. That functional fiend ain’t got the good sense to outplay me . . . at least not on his own. I got a strong idea of who planted the seed, but only the people in this room know who watered it.”
Asher looked around the room, suggesting that Zul was seeing people that he wasn’t. “Afraid you lost me somewhere in all this, boss.” He shrugged nonchalantly.
Some men ran fast and some men moved fast. Zul fell into the latter. Before Asher even realized Zul had moved, his jaws were caving in from Zul gripping him about the face. One-handed, he yanked Asher from the couch and slammed him through his mother’s coffee table. Playing cards and board game pieces flew everywhere. Asher tried to claw at Zul’s face, but Zul took the fight out of him with a powerful slap. One blow was all it took to remind Asher who was the predator and who was the prey.
“Asher, I’ve always had a special place in my heart for you, but as God is my witness, if you keep playing with me I’ll paint your sweet old mom’s living room with her baby boy’s blood!” Zul snarled, raining spittle on Asher’s face. “You think I wouldn’t recognize that busted-ass gun? The same gun that I had stashed under the mattress in my bedroom?”
And there it was. The secret that was no longer a secret. Once upon a time, Asher and Zul were cool. Asher used to sneak and date Zul’s baby sister Liza. They tried to keep it on the low for a while, but it wasn’t long before Zul found out. He didn’t trip too hard over Asher seeing his sister. Asher seemed to be a cool little dude, and he was about a dollar. So long as he never disrespected Zul’s sister, he wouldn’t have a problem. After a while Asher had started to become somewhat of a fixture in the house so he and Zul ended up developing a friendship, well as much of a friendship as any big brother could have with the dude piping out his sister.
“You know, even after I managed to piece everything together, I found myself with still more questions than answers,” Zul continued. “I know that me and you represent two different sides of the color line, but we ain’t never had no misunderstanding. As long as my sister was happy, you were good. Even when me and B-Stone got into our thing, and you started hustling for him I still left you out of it, on account of her. I couldn’t let anything happen to my baby sister’s play boyfriend, even if he was a dog-ass nigga who was out fucking everything with a pulse on her time. I wasn’t even mad at you for that, because I’m a dude so I know how the game goes. Then you went and did the bullshit.”
The last statement made Asher tense. Where was Zul going with this?
“Broke my heart when I found out your little role in all this. I just couldn’t figure out what B-Stone could’ve offered a kid that I always showed love that would make him turn on me like that? It wasn’t until I heard about your newfound success that I put it all together. There’s no way a snot-nosed kid who was little more than a flunky when I went in, makes the jump to running his own block almost overnight. That promotion was fast-tracked. Judas betrayed Jesus for thirty pieces of silver and you did me in for a street corner.”
Asher was speechless because everything Zul had said was true. It was him who had swiped the gun from their house and him who had planted it in Zul’s car. He’d done it one late night when Zul offered to give him a ride home. Asher knew how Zul gave it up. He was a shooter and a killer. Every gun in his possession likely had a body on it or had been used in a crime, but this turned out to be untrue. Asher had been banking on Zul catching so much time over the gun that even if he did figure out his involvement and wanted to raise a stink it would be at least a decade before Asher had to deal with him. By then, he would be the man on the block. He had never factored in the possibility that the gun would come back clean, and instead of his reckoning coming in a decade, it arrived in three years.
“She would be ashamed of you.” Zul picked up a picture of Asher’s mother that was on the coffee table. It was an old picture of her wearing a baggy sweatshirt and gold chain, hugged up on some dude. This was when Asher was a baby and Linda was still claiming the hood. “I hear in her day, she was reputable. I wonder how she would feel if I told her what kind of sucker-ass nigga she raised?”
“Zul, my mother ain’t got nothing to do with this, man.” Asher found his voice.
“If I didn’t already know that we’d have stopped by her job at the hotel before coming to see you,” Zul told him. “I think I can find it in my heart to leave Linda out of this, so long as baby boy plays his position.”
“And what position is that?” Asher asked, not sure if he wanted to know the answer.
“To be my David in this biblical ass story I’m about to write in the hood!” Zul announced. “You, my sneaky-ass friend, are going to slay the giant for me.”
Asher laughed. “And what makes you think I’m gonna cross B-Stone for you?”
“Because if you don’t I’m going to kill you, but not before I make you watch while my boys have a good old time with Linda.”
“That’s some cold shit you’re pulling, Zul,” Asher said angrily. Street beef was one thing, but families were supposed to be off-limits.
Zul shrugged. “A side effect of all those unnecessary years I spent in prison. One thing about prison is that it has a way of stripping you of your humanity, piece by piece. For each year you spend in there among the killers, thieves, and rapists, the more of yourself you lose. You start finding that you become capable of doing things that at one point would’ve turned your stomach. Don’t make me show you that person, Asher.”
Zul wasn’t leaving him a whole lot of options. “No way I can take B-Stone down. Even if I did, I’d get my wig knocked off right after by Saud or Ab. Zul, I’m too valuable alive for you to send me off to die. This is a fool’s errand,” he said, trying to appeal to Zul’s sense of reasoning.
“Which is why I’ve chosen a fool for the task,” Zul countered. “This ain’t no negotiation. You have my terms.” He got up and adjusted his blazer.
“I’m gonna need some time,” Asher told him. There was no way he was going to go at B-Stone, but he had to stall long enough to figure out how to get Zul off his back.
“That’s a luxury that you don’t have.” Zul was standing in front of the living room mirror smoothing his waves. “I sat on my hands for three years, so you’ll have to understand if I seem a bit anxious. You’ve got your marching orders, soldier.” He started for the door but stopped short. “And just in case you’re thinking about crossing me again, you should know that something else prison taught me was not to make the same mistakes twice.”
* * *
After about twenty minutes or so, Milk was done waiting on Asher. It was bad enough that he had called him at the spur of the moment to do him a favor, and then acted like he had an attitude when Milk didn’t come right away, but he had the nerve not to be where he said he was going to be. Asher was always doing shit like this, treating the soldiers like his personal flunkies. Sure, he had rank in the crew, but technically they all answered to B-Stone and Abdul. Asher’s monkey ass was always trying to run around playing the boss and Milk was sick of it. He wasn’t Asher’s chauffeur and he had shit to do. If Asher needed a ride he would have to call someone else.
As Milk was walking to his car he saw several men coming from the direction of Asher’s condo. There were three hard-faced dudes, trailed by a joker in a tight-ass suit. They walked to a white Escalade truck with Pennsylvania plates. They definitely weren’t from around here. He’d probably just come from knocking the stuffing out of Asher’s mother, and Asher had probably walked in on them which would explain why he didn’t respond to the text. Maybe she even let all four of them have a go? He’d heard that Linda was wild back in her day. He wished that he could’ve been a fly on the wall in their house to see Asher catch his mamma getting a train ran on her! The thought made Milk laugh.
Milk was just about to hop back in his car when he felt a presence behind him. He turned, thinking that it may have been Asher trying to catch him before he left, but it wasn’t. Milk opened his mouth to say something when a fist was jammed in it. The punch wasn’t hard enough to knock him out, but it did stagger him. The punch was followed up by something heavy crashing across the back of his head. He wasn’t sure what it was, but from the hollow ringing it made on impact, he had assumed it was a pipe. The next thing he knew, he was doing a face-plant in front of his car.
“No means no, muthafucka!” Milk heard him say before bringing the pipe down again. The second blow from the pipe failed to knock him out, which he wished it had. That way he wouldn’t have felt the third blow . . . or the forth . . . or the fifth. He was all too relieved when the blackness came to take him away from the pain he was in.
Milk had long stopped moving by the time the attacker’s arm tired of swinging the pipe. Milk was a mess of blood, bruises, and broken bones. Several of his gold teeth had even been knocked out during the assault. He plucked the gold teeth from the blood that was pooling under Milk’s head. He wiped them clean on his pants before holding them up to the light. An accomplished smile spread across his face, and he slipped the teeth into his pocket. He paused long enough to spit on Milk, before skipping off with the happiness of a kid who couldn’t wait to get home and show his mother the money he’d found on the playground.
PART III
GANGSTA PARTY
CHAPTER 15
Promise wasn’t sure how Mouse had been able to swing it, but she had successfully gotten them an invite to Clay’s celebration. She’d asked her how she did it, but Mouse was tight-lipped. The only thing she said was, “Bitch, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Just go home and get cute.” Which is what Promise found herself in the process of doing.
She stood in front of the makeshift rack that she had built from some piping she’d gotten from Home Depot, thumbing through the outfits hanging on it. A good chunk of her newer pieces were stashed at Mouse’s. If she hadn’t been so hyped about the prospect of going out, she’d have thought to swing by there and grab something. Still, she had enough in her room to piece something nice together, or so she had hoped.
She decided to start with her shoes and build the outfit based around them. Her footwear consisted of mostly sneakers, but there were a few dressier pairs that Mouse had pressured her into getting. As she was looking for a particular pair of black shoes, she realized that something looked off with her sneakers. It only took a few seconds for her to realize that a box was missing, the one with her black-and-gold Air Max in them. She already knew what happened, Brianna had been in her stuff again. They didn’t wear the same sized clothes, so it kept her cousin from swiping outfits, but she had a bad habit of helping herself to the sneakers since they did wear the same size in those. Normally Promise let it go, as not to cause trouble in the house but she had just bought the pair of Air Max. She hadn’t even had a chance to wear them yet. Brianna had finally gone too far.
Promise found Brianna, sitting on the couch yakking away on her phone. Her feet were propped on the coffee table and tucked snugly in Promise’s sneakers. She tried to be courteous and wait for Brianna to get off the phone, but the girl just ignored her like she wasn’t even standing there. This only added to Promise’s anger. “Did you ask me if you could borrow my stuff?”
Brianna looked at Promise, rolled her eyes, and kept talking.
“I know you hear me talking to you.” Promise’s voice was more forceful now.
“Hold on for a second,” Brianna told whoever she was talking to, and finally saw fit to address Promise. “What you want? I know you see me on the phone.”
“What I want is for you to stop helping yourself to my shit without asking.” Promise pointed at the sneakers.
“Well, you weren’t here for me to ask. What was I supposed to do?” Brianna asked.
“Not touch my stuff. Aunt Dell is always taking you shopping and buying you stuff, why do you have to keep touching mine?” Promise wanted to know.
Brianna sucked her teeth. “Look, if it’s such a big fucking deal then take your stupid sneakers!” She snatched them off and tossed them at Promise’s feet.
Promise looked from the sneakers back to her cousin. “I ain’t no fucking dog, Bri. Pick my sneakers up and put them back where you got them from.”
Brianna turned her back on Promise and continued chatting on the phone. “Yeah, this bitch must’ve fell and bumped her fat-ass head.”
Brianna looked over her shoulder at her cousin. “And what you gonna do if I don’t?” she challenged.
It was at that moment that Promise finally snapped. She slapped Brianna so hard that the phone flew across the room and cracked the television screen. Brianna looked at Promise as if she had lost her mind and in part, she had. She was sick of being abused in that house and wouldn’t stand for it anymore.
Promise didn’t waste any time jumping on Brianna and trying to choke her out. Brianna tried to fight back, but Promise outweighed her and pinned her down. Brianna couldn’t fight so she resorted to the only defense she knew and raked her nails down the Promise’s face. There was a thin trickle of blood from the scratch, but no real damage. Promise jerked her face out of Brianna’s reach and grabbed a handful of her hair. She smashed her fist into Brianna’s face over and over until blood began squirting from her nose. Still holding Brianna by the hair, she spun her around like a prowrestler and slung her clear across the room.
