Hood Read online

  Lamont ducked his head against the freezing ice that was starting to fall. He tried not to think about his parents as tiny shards bit into his skin and he trembled inside the Members Only windbreaker he’d gotten from the Salvation Army.

  “Mama got her words back now, and Gramma don’t know shit, Moo. Especially about Mama.”

  “But w-w-why we can’t go to Gramma house? Or what about Miss Baker, Monty? Huh? Why we always walkin around so much? Miss Baker always real nice to us. Why we can’t go get warm over there?”

  Lamont stopped and looked at his little brother. The cold wind shoved them around and their feet slid across the ice as they struggled to remain upright. He broke it down to Monroe for the umpteenth time. “I told you, Moo. Miss Baker is sick in the hospital right now. And you already know why we can’t go to Gramma’s. Aunt Pat don’t like us. She ain’t let us in last night, and she ain’t gone let us in tonight neither.”

  “Then we can go back to the empty house, right? Them guys with the fire cans probably gone somewhere else by now, huh?”

  “No,” Lamont said firmly. It had been two days since the pair of crackheads had run them into the streets and Lamont was still mad about it. Head up and toe-to-toe, he could have given them some fight with his knife. But those fiends had gotten real stupid and started pouring gasoline everywhere, threatening to roast Lamont and Moo while they slept unless the two boys un-assed the premises.

  They’d spent the next four nights sleeping on the floor in his friend Reem’s bedroom. Their mothers had been friends back in the day, and Jareem and Lamont had been tight since the sandbox. Reem’s mom worked two jobs and left him home alone a lot. Reem was a generous kid and a loyal friend. He let Mont and Moo in the crib and snuck them as much food as he could, and whenever his moms was home he made sure the coast was clear so they could use the bathroom.

  But Moo was sick, and the cement-tiled floors of the projects were hard and cold. Reem let Moo have his bed while he toughed it out with Mont on a thin blanket they spread on the floor. Reem cut school every day while they were there, so they could plan their future as moguls in the music industry. They swore they’d cut a string of platinum albums one day, and both had verbal skills that were far superior to their ages and their environment. So the moment Reem’s mother left for work he doubled back to the crib, and the three boys spent the cold days watching karate movies, playing video games, and spittin endless battle raps.

  “Check it,” Reem said as they looked out the window one morning. The cold was brutal, but the corner action was still rolling heavy outside of his building. Them trap boys was bundled up in layers as they ran back and forth between a steady stream of customers.

  “That guy is a jake,” he said pointing to a cat in a red SUV. “Them traps better shake them lookout boys up and get in they asses because somebody’s about to get knocked.” Reem grinned at Hood, then with a challenging look in his eyes, he started spittin.

  Them boys standin on the corner,

  Heavy on the grind,

  Clientele swarming, demand and supply

  Business booming, real good line

  That’s when I seen out the corner of my eye

  Dude by the bus stop—undercover on watch,

  Kept talking into…a cigarette box

  That’s the third time that Suburban rolled by…

  I’m lookin up and it’s a full moon in the sky…

  “That’s tight as hell!” Hood said dapping Reem hard. He nodded his head and let his creativity flow. Then he cut in with his own phat lyrics and got some too.

  Something don’t feel right and I ain’t trippin,

  Say what you wanna but it’s street intuition!

  So much heat feels like we in a kitchen,

  So keep ya eyes peeled and listen…

  Cuz its about to be a showdown, whoa-down

  Ya better throw y’all stash on the ground!

  Cause I got a strange feeling…

  Something’s bout to happen

  And I aint tryna get caught out!

  The three boys were real comfortable up in that small room together, and they would have stayed there rapping and making up karate moves even longer but Moo’s cough was so loud it got them busted. Reem’s mom found them hiding in his closet and made them come out.

  “Now Lamont,” she said gently. She’d made them take a hot bath and fixed each of them a big plate of food. “You know I love you and Moo, and if there was somebody here to watch y’all while I worked I’d keep you both forever. But your Aunt Pat ain’t nothing but trouble. If she found out I had y’all up in here without no papers she would do her best to see me in jail.”

  Mont knew Reem’s mom cared about them but he wasn’t just gonna sit there while she called Social Services to come pick them up. He had grabbed Moo and made a run for the door the minute her back was turned, and ever since then they’d been right back out in the cold, walking the streets.

  “Well, w-w-what about the staircase then?” Monroe asked, stomping his numb feet. His big brown eyes were desperate as his small body jerked and shuddered with the penetrating cold. “We slept on the stairs before and we was okay, right?”

  “Can’t,” Lamont said shaking his head. “Winos already got the stairs. X-fiends and crackheads got the porches and the doorways. It ain’t safe, Moo. We just gotta keep moving, man. Okay?”

  “B-b-but we already walked this way before! Two times! Where we gone go, Lamont? Huh? Where we gone go?” Moo was cranky and crazy tired. Not only was he way too cold, his head hurt and his throat burned. Moving his small legs quickly to keep up with his brother, all he could do was whimper softly because he was too cold and too sick to cry any real tears.

  Lamont felt for his brother as he looked around at the deserted streets. Moo had it right. They’d already walked from one side of town to the other. Twice. He knew they couldn’t last much longer out here. They’d both probably die. But he also couldn’t decide which was worse: walking the evil streets of Brownsville on the coldest night of the year, sneaking into one of the crack houses that were all around him and getting killed, or running into the police and getting separated from his brother. He shook his head at that last thought.

  “Okay,” he said, turning around and pulling Moo in the direction they’d just left. “Let’s go to Gramma’s. Maybe Aunt Pat’ll change her mind. Maybe she’ll let you in for a few minutes to use the bathroom or something. We’ll try, okay?”

  Moo nodded and a tear made its way down his frozen cheek.

  Lamont wiped it away, his bare fingers grazing the reddish mole under Moo’s left eye. Not even the burning cold could match the pain in Lamont’s eleven-year-old heart. He pulled the skully completely down over Monroe’s face, covering his eyes and snotty nose.

  “Hey!” Moo complained. He stopped walking and slid along, pulled by his brother’s momentum. “I can’t see nothing, Mont. How I’ma walk if I can’t see?”

  Lamont squeezed his brother’s hand and pulled him again. “You ain’t gotta see nothing, Moo. You gone be straight lil man. I promise. All you gotta do is follow me.”

  The moon shone brightly as the two boys walked hand in hand down Rockaway Avenue. They cut across the street on Dumont and struggled along the ice until they reached Van Dyke projects. Lamont paused outside of the Brownsville branch of the Brooklyn Public Library. A sign said it was closed for renovations. He pulled Moo further down the street and they entered the back of building 345 and slipped into the dark stairwell. It was just as cold inside as it was outside. Every light bulb and window had been broken out and the slippery steps were caked up with icy piss. Winos huddled around their bottles sipping liquid heat. Lamont guided Moo around a needle fiend and they climbed up to the fourth floor. The exit door squealed loudly as Lamont pulled it open, startling them. They walked down to the end of the hallway. Lamont dragged his wet feet. They stopped outside the last door on the left and he just stood there. Looking at the door and shivering.

&n
bsp; “Knock,” Moo demanded. He was cold. Starving too. He woulda done anything to get through that door and get next to some heat. “C’mon. I’m f-f-freezing, Mont. Just watch. Aunt Pat gonna be n-n-n-nice this time.”

  Lamont shrugged, then knocked on the door and waited.

  He knocked twice more. Three, five times, no answer. He could hear them moving around on the other side of the door. He heard the refrigerator open and slam closed. A chair scraped across the floor.

  He sighed and took his brother’s small, cold hand. “They sleep, Moo. Let’s go.”

  “No,” Monroe said, snatching away. He lifted his soggy little foot and kicked the door hard. He kicked it twice, then banged on it with his frozen fists.

  “It’s Moo, Gramma!” the small boy pleaded, tears in his eyes. “Moo! Out! Here! Let us in, Aunt P-P-Pat!”

  No answer.

  The child sobbed, sagging against the closed door. “Please, Aunt Pat. Let us in. We tired and it’s really really really really cold out here!” Grimacing, Monroe pummeled the door again, swinging his hands as hard and fast as he could, and when that became too painful he used his elbows then went back to kicking again.

  Finally a door opened. Behind them.

  “Boy.” A scratchy, cruel voice filled the hall as their grandmother’s neighbor poked his big gray head out the door. “Quit banging on that damn door ’fore I let my dogs out on ya ass. Can’t ya take a hint? Don’t nobody want you ’round here. Now get goin’ wit’ all that damn noise.”

  Minutes later the boys were back outside. The wind had picked up and tiny pellets of hail were pinging down all around them.

  “Here,” Lamont said. He held his torn mitten out to Monroe. “Put both your hands inside.” Moo obeyed silently. His face was drawn and his four-year-old eyes looked about forty.

  Lamont’s look was also grim. He wrapped his arm around his baby brother and together they headed back out into the streets.

  Chapter 3

  Y’all niggas got a problem…

  How do you think you gone solve ’em?

  Not like that!

  A USELESS SUN shone in the sky. It gave off no heat and the bright day was just as cold as the bitter night before it had been. Corner boys were out grinding and making that trap, while Dreko stood in the lobby of his tenement building getting warm and taking a break from his lookout duties.

  He slouched his lanky frame against the wall and stared out through the glass door with his hands in his pockets. The lock was busted and the handle had been broken off. The frigid wind whistled in sharply, sliding through the narrow gap where the doorframes failed to meet.

  Dreko sniffed, then spit a big gob on the floor. He’d had a nasty taste in his mouth since last night when that stupid white bitch had tongued him, slobbering his own cum back down his throat. Rage rose in him just thinking about it. They’d had to pull him off her ass up in Baller’s Paradise ’cause he’d been ready to dead that bitch. If he ever caught her stupid ass out here in Brownsville again, he would.

  He was a big nigga. A menace. Already he stood taller than some grown men and he had bulk on his muscles and a nice long dick. And he was just going on thirteen. He had a foul temper too, and was known to bust muhfuckas in the head with little provocation. Especially if there was some doe involved.

  A deep scowl creased his face as his stomach growled, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten since the night before. His moms had gone to work already, taking his brother with her. All the food in the house had been locked up in her bedroom. Even the damn refrigerator had a lock on it. That bitch had problems with him, and she didn’t even trust him around his own brother.

  She was constantly trying to turn little Drew against him, telling him all kinds of crazy shit that wasn’t true. She walked around the house silent and cold, and at night she took Drew into her bedroom and locked the door behind them. He knew she kept a knife in there, but it wouldn’t help her ass if he ever decided to bust down that door.

  She treated him like he was something dirty, and just last night she’d told him if he couldn’t take his ass to school and keep his nasty hands off other kids, then he could raise, clothe, and feed his damn self. And that’s exactly what he was doing working as a lookout for Xanbar and his crew.

  Dreko peered out the glass door and down the block. He was supposed to be out there with Lil Jay, taking turns as lookouts on the corner. He sneered as he watched white boy Sackie Woodson run out to a car and make a transaction. Him and the rest of the crew were out there trapping hard, and Dreko wanted to be a part of that.

  Instead, Xan was holding him back. Like he was a herb. Dreko glanced at his watch. He should have been back outside about fifteen minutes ago, but fuck it. If Lil Jay got cold enough or got bad enough, let him come inside this fuckin building and get him.

  Dreko stared out the doorway watching people hurry up and down the street, their heads bent against the wind. Every now and then somebody walked past him either coming in or going out the building, but he never moved. Instead, he made ’em walk around him. Even the old ladies.

  For the third time, a pair of raggedy-ass boys caught his eye as they walked past. One cat was older than the other one, who was really just past being a baby. Dreko stood up straighter and watched the way the bigger boy held the lil dude’s hand and pulled him down the street. The whole time the cat had his eyes on prowl. Every chick who passed by with a purse was a potential victim. Dreko could see it in his sharp, intense face. The kid was eyeballing the hero shop and the storefronts too. Thinking on something to steal, Dreko knew.

  There was something about the cat that intrigued him, and braving the cold Dreko threw his hoody over his head and stepped out of the building so he could watch as they moved on down the street.

  “Lil bitch,” he muttered under his breath as the bigger cat pushed his brother up against a wall like he was warning him not to move. That fool was gone get straight knocked. How the fuck he thought he was gonna steal something and get away while he had a youngster running beside him was crazy. Dreko woulda never brought his little brother out on a lick. Besides, he had gotten knocked enough times to know how to get down and how not to get down. And not behind no petty-ass purse snatching shit like this kid was scheming on neither. He’d been a real stick-up kid, and sometimes he didn’t even have to use a gat to get what he wanted.

  But he had gotten cool on all that shit. It was too risky and it didn’t pay enough to be worth it. These days he schemed up grand plans of one day ruling the entire Brownsville drug trade, but for now he had to be satisfied with all this low-level action. He’d hold down his little lookout post for now, but as soon as he gained Xanbar’s confidence he’d be inching up to a corner grind so he could make that trap and start kicking up that doe. Hell yeah, the boys in blue had swooped down and fucked with him a time or two, but lookouts didn’t carry no product so eventually he’d landed back on the streets. Shit, he was still a youngster. Not a lot the courts would do to a cat like him unless he straight popped somebody. And still…even then they had to catch him before they could do something about it.

  Dreko watched the lil cat with the desperate eyes for a few seconds more. Punk-ass. Muhfucka needed to leave that purse snatchin shit to the winos and the fiends and get himself a job on a lookout station. He stomped his feet a few times, then blew into his icy hands and headed back inside of his building. On the way in he bumped into a youngster named Berry.

  “Yo, nigga. Don’t you owe me something?”

  The level of fear that came into the nine-year-old’s eyes would’ve been heartbreaking to anyone else.

  But Dreko didn’t give a fuck.

  “Look, muhfucka. The next time your moms feening for that pipe and you beg me to get one of my boys to spot her, you better come back with my money, you hear?” Dreko grabbed the kid’s shoulders and turned him around, pushing him deeper into the building and toward the back stairs. He was about to get him some and Lil Jay was just gone have to fuckin wa
it.

  It was quiet on the back stairs as Dreko slammed the frightened kid against the wall. The little boy shook his head, then shrank down to the ground with tears in his eyes.

  “I don’t wanna…”

  Dreko smacked Berry real hard on top of his peasy head, then yanked him to his feet by his jacket.

  “Yo shut the fuck up and quit whining!” He unbuckled his belt and zipped down his pants. His dick was already hard and straining.

  “You know just how I like this shit. So get up on it and do it right.”

  Fat Daddy was in the barbershop getting toasted up.

  A hefty, barrel-waisted man with a tight goatee, he had a chocolate dutch in one hand and a Corona in the other.

  “Fuckin kids,” he said glancing out the wide window of his shop. His boy Felton had a customer in his chair, and so did his seventy-year-old uncle, Chop. “This the third damn time they been past here today. Seen ’em out there a couple of days last week too. Little muhfuckas. Need to have they ass in school.”

  Felton looked up and stared. He was edging up Kraft, who was second in line to Xanbar, the neighborhood’s most brutal drug kingpin.

  “Butch, you know who them kids is. Them is crazy Marjay’s boys. Miz Jones keep ’em now. Whenever evil Pat let her.”

  Kraft laughed, looking out the window. He was a handsome cat, muscled up with an even row of pearly teeth. “I know them lil niggas too. My lil sons usta fuck with the big one over in Van Dyke projects. They’d knock him down and take all the little change his granny give him to go to the store.” He chuckled again and shook his head. “He got smart real quick, though. Got good with his hands. Nigga started fightin back and fightin real dirty too. He stabbed Beano in the arm and head butted Ike so hard he broke a bone over his eye. He put some shit on that long-faced nigga Bally too.” Kraft rubbed his freshly trimmed goatee. “The kid is small, but he nice. I might hafta give him a job…train him up to be one of my trap boys.”