Eviction Notice, page 9
“Well, it wasn’t funny.” She folded her arms. Sonja bit her lip in frustration. “Everything is a joke to you, including people’s feelings. Ain’t you got no heart, Animal?”
He paused before answering. “I used to, but these days I ain’t so sure.” His answer seemed only to frustrate her more. “Sonja, when you’ve lost as much as I have, it makes it hard to feel for anything, or anyone. When you’re an outlaw, you live in the moment and don’t too much worry about tomorrow.”
“That’s a fucked-up way to live.”
“Unfortunately, it’s the only way I know how,” he said honestly. Since he’d arrived in Puerto Rico, Sonja had been trying to get Animal to open up. She was a good chick and had provided him with comfort when he needed it, but Animal never let it go beyond that. She needed something that he couldn’t give so he kept her at arm’s length. He could tell by the look on her face that she wanted to press the issue, as she often did, so he changed the subject. “How the hell do you know how to stitch a wound anyway?”
“Well, after I graduated high school I went to the army and got my RN. I did a tour of the Middle East, so that kept my hands full, but after a while it became too intense so I hung it up after my first tour. I ended up working at Cook County Hospital for two years before coming back to Puerto Rico to take care of my father.” She went back to threading the needle in and out of his skin expertly.
“Damn, I can’t imagine what was worse, the Middle East or South Side Chicago. I’ll bet you’ve seen some shit the way those Folks and Vice Lords be out there butchering each other, huh?”
Sonja stopped her stitching and looked up at him. “It ain’t no worse than what the Bloods and Crips are doing to each other in L.A. and New York. What makes your gang holier than theirs when at the end of the day it’s all genocide?”
“If that ain’t the pot calling the kettle black,” Animal capped. “For the time I’ve been here I ain’t seen nothing but Puerto Ricans banging on Puerto Ricans. Fuck how many of these li’l hoppers Poppito had us lay down out here, and he was born and raised in P.R.?”
Sonja thought on it before responding. “The war going on out here is way deeper than what you guys have going on. Even though Puerto Rico is technically a part of the United States, look at how differently we live. The United States is supposed to defend itself from enemies both foreign and domestic, but it’s the domestic terrorists like Cruz and his people that are being ignored. Yeah, drugs are what it’s about on the surface, but this shit goes way deeper. Cruz and his people will run Puerto Rico more crooked than the letter S if they’re left unchecked,” she said heatedly. “I don’t agree with the spilling of black or brown blood, but who wants to live under the yoke of somebody motivated more by greed than what’s best for the people?”
“If you’re against the spilling of black and brown blood, then why play the game for Poppito?” he asked sincerely.
“Because he’s my father and the well-being of my family comes before the well-being of everybody, including my country,” she said seriously.
Animal quietly drank in not only the weight of her words but the passion in her eyes when she spoke them. Red Sonja was a conundrum to him. She could go from being a socialite princess to a soldier in less than a breath and be believable in either role. Her strong will and no-nonsense attitude reminded him of Gucci, but there was another element to her that was alien to Animal. Had it been another place and another time, Animal would’ve enjoyed the challenge of trying to peel back the layers of Red Sonja to see what made her tick, but his soul was promised to another, so they would never be more than comrades in the war he had been selected to fight.
“Enough chitchat. I need to finish patching you up so I can get back to my own business. Flip over on your stomach,” she told him. Animal smiled back at her flirtatiously. “Let’s not go there again for both our sakes. The cut goes around to your back and I just need to finish closing it, so don’t flatter yourself. And just because I may bed the help from time to time doesn’t mean I get caught up with them.”
Her remark cut him, but he kept his composure. “Baby, I ain’t never helped nothing but myself and don’t plan on deviating from that, so please don’t group me in with the last New York nigga you might’ve had to stitch up out here. I’m a whole different breed,” Animal said with confidence and rolled over so that she could get at the cut.
Sonya straddled his back to get a better angle at the slash and purposely jabbed him with the needle when she went back to her stitching. “Had it been just anybody, they wouldn’t have made it out of the town square, let alone have me stitching their wounds. One thing anybody will tell you about Red Sonja is that I don’t do something for nothing.” She closed the stitch, then leaned in to bite the end of the thread off. As she did so she made sure to press her chest against his back so he could feel her stiff nipples through the tank top. Sonja leaned in and let her soft lips brush against his ear as she whispered, “I see potential in you, gringo, and I think you’ll be more valuable to me alive than dead.” She slapped him on his ass playfully and rolled off him.
Animal got off the bed and walked over to the dusty dressing mirror. He raised his arm and examined the expert job Sonja had done with his cut. “Damn, you do some good work.”
“You don’t have to tell me what I already know,” Sonja said over her shoulder as she washed her hands in the kitchenette sink. “Let me ask you something.” She approached him, drying her hands on a towel. “What the hell were you doing wandering the ghettos by yourself?”
“Just taking a walk,” Animal said, as if it was just that simple.
“Poppy, this ain’t Manhattan, this is the trenches and we are in the middle of a political war. You can’t just go for an afternoon stroll like that.”
“Why not? We’re all children of the ghetto, be it P.R. or N.Y., so why should I have to feel in a way about taking a walk?” he asked.
At first Sonja thought he was being sarcastic but his eyes said he was serious. “You just can’t.” She sighed. Her answer seemed only to confuse him more and it saddened her. Without meaning to, she reached out and stroked his cheek affectionately. There was such a childlike innocence to Animal that unless you had seen him in action you wouldn’t believe that he was a mass murderer. Animal was like a two-sided coin: one side a bright-eyed young man who loved to read and take walks and the other a cold killer birthed in the streets of New York and baptized by pain.
“Is this a bad time?” The voice startled them. Justice was standing in the half-open doorway, watching them with an amused look on his face. He was dressed in denim shorts, white Nike Airs, and a white T-shirt. His long hair was braided into two ponytails that hung down his back. Justice was almost a mirror twin of Animal except his skin was a little lighter and he sported a neatly trimmed beard.
“No, it’s cool. I was just patching your li’l brother up,” Sonja said. Though she and Animal hadn’t been doing anything, the look Justice was giving them made her feel guilty. “I’ll catch you guys later. I got some errands to run.”
“I’ll bet.” Justice smirked as Sonja passed him on her way out. He strode into Animal’s room, crunching newspapers under his feet. Justice picked one up and glanced over the two-week-old headline about a shooting in Harlem. “Damn, why don’t you throw some of these old-ass newspapers away?”
“I gotta stay up on what’s going down on the home front,” Animal told him.
“I don’t know why, it ain’t like your ass will be setting foot back in New York anytime soon.” Justice laughed, but Animal didn’t. “What’s good with you and shorty?” He was referring to Sonja.
Animal shrugged. “Nothing. I got into a little scrape and Sonja pulled my ass out of the fire.”
“From the look of that beauty mark it looks like a little more than a scrape.” Justice nodded at the freshly stitched cut. “But I think you and I both know that ain’t what I meant.”
Animal pulled a black T-shirt over his head. “If you’re trying to ask if I’m fucking her the answer is no.” Animal’s tone was less than convincing.
“For as much time as the two of you spend together, you should be.” Justice laughed.
“You know it’s only one chick that’ll ever have my heart,” Animal said seriously.
“Damn, I was just playing, li’l bro.” Justice flopped on the bed. “That Gucci broad must’ve been a real special lady, huh?”
“You have no idea. Gucci fit me like a missing piece to a puzzle.” He closed his eyes and saw her face in his head. “When you went to prison and Tech got killed I felt like I didn’t have nobody, but when Gucci came along, all that changed. I wish you had had a chance to meet her.”
“Me too, so I could’ve thanked her,” Justice said sincerely.
“Thank her for what?” Animal was curious.
“Sit down for a second, my nigga.” Justice motioned toward the spot on the bed next to him. Justice had envisioned this talk with his little brother a million times, but he suddenly couldn’t find the rehearsed words, so he did what he should have done from the beginning a kept it one hundred with his little brother. “You have no idea how much I stressed over you while I was locked up. I left you in a fucked-up predicament and the streets ended up raising you instead of me.”
“I think she did okay.” Animal brushed his shoulders off playfully.
Justice mustered a weak smile but it didn’t take away from the pain behind his eyes. “Tayshawn, you are a master of words with everyone you encounter, but we come from the same womb so I can see through it. Tech taught you the ropes and you became your own man, but you had to give up your childhood for it. Instead of learning how to approach girls, you were learning how to load guns. That ain’t no way for a kid to live.”
“C’mon, Jus, you’re acting like I turned out all fucked up and shit. I’ve done more in my young life than most niggaz twice my age have even wrapped their minds around. From the trap to the billboards, I did it big! Before I got caught up with all this I had made it out, remember?”
Justice laughed at his brother’s ignorance. “Homie, you opened the door to get out, but you ain’t step all the way through it. If you’d really made it then you wouldn’t be hiding out over here with the rest of us hard-luck-ass niggaz. I was beyond proud of you when you was doing the music thing. I used to show everybody the magazines and shit and tell them that you were my brother.” He smiled. “That was definitely a great accomplishment, but what I was most proud of you for was being wise enough to finally lay those demons to rest, and I know that’s largely in part to Gucci.”
“Dude, you’re talking some Love Jones shit and you don’t even know the Gucci. For all you know she could’ve been a crab bitch.”
“Animal, just because I was locked up don’t mean I didn’t have eyes and ears on the street. I knew ya chick’s résumé from the first time you dropped her name to me in a kite, because that was the first sign that it was getting serious, even if your li’l ignorant ass hadn’t seen it yet. More importantly, I know you, li’l bro. I don’t respect Gucci because she was your girl, I respect her because she was able to help you find something neither Tech nor I was able to … peace.”
“True,” Animal said, looking down at his feet.
“I know is. In a perfect world you and shorty would’ve been able to make a life together and do something with your success, but shit ain’t go down like that. You killed any chance of that happening the minute you set foot back in New York and picked up a gun, and I blame myself because had I been home and on my job instead of upstate, then it wouldn’t have played out that way.” Justice’s voice was heavy with emotion.
“Sometimes shit happens, Justice. I knew that before I even stepped into the arena,” Animal said. “Jus, I know I fucked up a great life but I’m thankful that I’m still here to reflect on it. Shit is way complicated for me right now but I know one day I’m gonna get it all worked out. At this point I’d be a fool to think that I can walk back into my old life and expect Gucci and me to pick up where we left off, but I hold on to the hope that if we can’t have love we can at least have closure. Fuck, I didn’t even say good-bye before I left, and that’s gonna haunt me until I make it right.”
Justice gave him a serious look. “Homie, if you come within three feet of Gucci the only closure you’re gonna have is a coffin lid.”
Animal sucked his teeth. “Justice, you know your little brother knows how to conduct himself out in the world.” He picked up the pistol that had been resting on the night table and chambered a round.
“Animal, have you forgotten you’re a fugitive from justice? You’re a convicted murderer, and when them cops went down, that killed any hope you had of ever living a normal life. You are a wanted man, my friend, by the streets and law enforcement. If your enemies don’t kill you, the police are sure as hell going to drop you in a ditch somewhere. You touch U.S. soil and you’re finished.”
“So what do y’all expect me to do, hide out in the jungles of Puerto Rico for the rest of my life?” Animal snapped.
“Nah, man, this shit is way bigger than just P.R. K-Dawg has got some real Poppa Doc shit going on that stretches further than even I’m absolutely sure of. From here we push out to the next port and the next payday. Who knows, maybe we’ll land in Europe next and I can finally sample one of those euro devils!” Justice burst out laughing.
“Y’all can do whatever y’all want, Justice, but as soon as the heat dies down I’m out,” Animal said.
Justice stopped laughing and became very serious. “My nigga, do you know what it took for K-Dawg to get us our lives back? A few years ago I was lying on my bunk jerking my dick and you were on your way to the gas chamber, but look at us now.” Justice pointed out the window to the farmhouse that loomed in the distance. “We’re fucking the baddest bitches, smoking the best weed, and driving eighty-thousand-dollar cars. But for as good as we’re living, all this shit comes with a price, and in this case the price is loyalty to the man who made it all possible.”
“I agree with you on that, but for as grateful as I am to K-Dawg for busting me out of prison, there’s only so far I’m willing to go to prove that. I’m gonna thug this shit out with y’all for as long as I need to, but this ain’t my life, Justice. I’ve got things that need to be put in order.”
“So you mean to say you’d risk going back to prison or getting killed just to kiss your li’l girlfriend good-bye?” Justice gave him a confused look.
“Better to die in love than in war,” Animal told him.
Justice grabbed him in a playful headlock and mussed his hair. “My poor love-struck li’l brother.”
“Get the hell off me.” Animal pushed him away. “What’re you doing out here anyway? I thought you’d have been up in the main house with ya man plotting to take over some third-world country.”
“See, that’s your problem, you think too damn small. Fuck a country, we’re gonna take over the world, but we need all of our Road Dawgz on the same page and this means you too, li’l brother.”
“I ain’t no Dawg,” Animal said sharply.
Justice just smiled. “You’re a Dawg, li’l bro, whether you wanna admit it or not. It’s in your blood, and no matter what that bleeding-ass heart of yours says, blood is thicker than anything else and you’d do well to remember it.”
“Whatever. You still haven’t answered my question. What are you doing here?”
“Boss Dawg wants to see you,” Justice explained.
“Is that right? And what has ol’ Animal done to get an invite to the massa’s house?” Animal asked sarcastically.
“Why don’t you knock it off with the smart-ass jokes and get serious for a minute. I don’t know exactly what he wants, all he said was he needs you to do a favor.”
Animal laughed. “The last time he did me a favor I ended up a hostage in a third-world country.”
“You need to show a little respect to the man who pulled your ass out of the fire.” Justice jabbed his finger toward Animal’s face.
“And you might wanna watch where you jab that finger,” Animal said coldly.
“Or what? Listen, don’t play that big-bad-killer shit with me, I used to change your fucking diapers.”
“Been a long time since I was in diapers, Jus.”
Justice got in Animal’s face, but his little brother didn’t back down. “Don’t test me, Animal.”
Animal sized his brother up and for a minute he thought about trying him, but decided to let it go. “Ain’t nobody testing you, Justice. I’m just tired of getting my strings jerked like a puppet.”
Justice laid his hand on the back of Animal’s neck and gave him an affectionate squeeze. “Little brother, I know this is rough on you … it’s rough on all of us, but sometimes we have to play the hands we’re dealt.”
“Even if we didn’t ask to sit in the game?”
Justice hesitated. “Yes, even if we didn’t ask to sit in on the game. Now quit with the fucking questions and bring your ass on. You don’t wanna keep K-Dawg waiting.” Justice left the room.
Animal didn’t move right away. He considered ignoring K-Dawg’s summons just to spite him and Justice, but he knew that would only make Justice mad, which didn’t sound like a bad idea. Justice had been a heavy hitter in his day, but Animal had killed far more men than half of the original Road Dawgz put together. Still, in the presence of his big brother, Animal still felt like little Tayshawn.
CHAPTER 14
By the time Animal made it up the grassy path to the farmhouse, K-Dawg was already sitting outside, speaking with some of the others. It was well over eighty degrees, but he still wore a black turtleneck and black fatigue pants over black combat boots. When he leaned in to whisper something to Justice, the sun kissed his bald head and reminded Animal of a Milk Dud.
Sonja sat off to the side in a wicker chair with a toned leg thrown over one of the arms. She was wiping down a long black pistol with a rag, while Sincere hovered near her. From the look on his face, Animal knew he was whispering sweet nothings to her, which he always seemed to be doing. Sonja had confided in Animal that she and Sincere had had a thing for a while, but it was old news. From the way he loomed around her, it was apparent that he hadn’t gotten the memo. When Sonja noticed Animal she rolled her eyes and walked into the house. Sincere glared at the approaching Animal and tried to mug him, but couldn’t hold his gaze. Sincere was one of the most dangerous members of Los Negros Muertes but he was weighed down by something that would always make him a runner-up when it came to Animal … a soul.
