Thug-A-Licious Read online

  He looked around the playground at niggahs hiding behind all kinds of shit.

  “Y’all motherfuckers betta listen,” he hollered, holding out his gun. “Y’all don’t step up in my yard no more, and I won’t have to step back in yours. Y’all don’t hurt my fuckin’ brother or my cousin, and I won’t spray y’all whole motherfuckin’ families. Your mamas and your kids too.”

  Pimp whirled and fired two quick rounds into Evil’s head, then spit down on that niggah as he laying bleeding on a bed of empty crack vials.

  Smoove stepped up next and busted a cap in Evil’s chest.

  And I popped that niggah right where he’d popped Precious.

  In his stomach.

  I wish I could tell you that the shit was settled right there. But c’mon, yo. My life ain’t no fuckin’ fairy tale and what you bring to the streets you gotta be able to carry back with you. My little sister was dead. Noojie copped her some crack and went straight out on a mission. Two weeks later, a ho named Remy I was grinding dropped it on me that she was pregnant with my kid. The next day all three of us got knocked and Pimp got hit with a mandatory one-year sentence for a piece I’d carried into the crib months earlier. We’d gotten rid of the tools we used to smoke that fool, so when 5-0 came busting up in the apartment with a search warrant they couldn’t find nothing dirty, but they did find something clean stashed in a plastic bag underneath my bed.

  The cops hauled all three of us down to the 32nd Precinct, and within hours they came and hustled me and Smoove back outta the bull pen and told us we was free to go. A street narc I knew from T.C.’s place told me that Pimp had confessed to the charge, and as a result, he’d also be handling the mandatory one-year bid.

  “Closed lips! Anything for the motherfuckin’ family!” Pimp hollered as they led him out in handcuffs, and he proved without a doubt that he meant that shit.

  And so did Smoove. That niggah had saved both of us from a bullet back in the day, and G snatching him up had caught me between a promise and a vow. See, my future had finally opened up wide, and realizing my dreams was almost at hand. I’d just signed on with Ruthless Rap to cut my first solo album, and Syracuse had offered me a full scholarship to play ball at their university in the fall.

  But this was some for-real shit. The ’Licious Lovers were Dawgs-4-Lyfe. Yeah, I loved T.C. and Miss Lady deep like that, but I’d lay down and die for my blood. Pimp was on point. Anything and everything for the family. The three of us were a triangle and I owed him. And with a killer like G holding Smoove in that Dungeon…finding his dead body was only a matter of time.

  So no matter how I tossed it, I was in a box with no way out.

  Thug-A-Licious! Pimp-A-Licious! Smoove-A-Licious!

  People rolled in and out of the front door of the hospital. They gave me and Pimp crazy looks as they passed by.

  “Look, man,” I said, putting my hand on Pimp’s shoulder. He had punched his hand through a wall when he found out about Smoove, and his right fist was busted wide open. Meat was showing from between his knuckles and blood dripped to the floor in a steady flow. “You bleeding all over this joint. Let’s roll on in the emergency room and make these motherfuckers stitch your shit up. We’ll figure out how to get Smoove back. I promise, man. But let’s get your shit straight first.”

  Pimp knocked my hand back and stepped to me hard, speaking in a cold whisper. “My shit is straight, niggah.” We stood nose to nose, locking eyes. “The only one who need to come up on they game is you. You musta forgot what that fool G did to Big Sonny and his boys. I can’t let my brother go out like that, man. I’ma take T.C.’s shit down tonight, Thug. With or without your bitch ass. I’ma go in and come right back out. I ain’t planning on hurting nobody, but I’m getting that money. Cause if I don’t get it, Smoove is dead.”

  I was just a kid when I shot that dopehead up in T.C.’s Place.

  It was summertime in Harlem. The air-conditioning was broke, and it was hot and sticky in the little kitchen where Miss Lady had me standing at the counter wrapping dinner plates.

  “Quit wasting my foil,” she scolded me. She was smoking a cigarette and flipping pieces of hot fish around in a frying pan. T.C. had gone to Brooklyn to handle some last-minute business, and Miss Lady had sent all the workers home early so they could get ready for the biggest gambling night of the year. Normally she woulda been upstairs in her apartment getting ready too, but instead she was cooking me and Noojie some dinner so I could get home before the Sweep or Weep gambling spree got started.

  Fanning herself, she put her spatula down and unlocked the door leading to the alley. She opened it wide and propped a big can of cling peaches against the door.

  “Do it like this, Andre,” she said, coming over to me. She tore a small piece of foil off the roll and spread it over the food. “You seven years old, boy. That’s big enough to know how to cover a plate and tuck it under the edge.”

  I’d been “working” for T.C. and Miss Lady for over a month. I lived in the baddest tenement slum in all of Harlem and was the biggest thief on the block. My moms, Noojie, had told me that the two little stumps on the sides of my hands came from being born with six fingers, and that’s why I was always stealing something. But Miss Lady was getting real tired of seeing me get chased past her window by whomever it was I had stolen from that day.

  One morning I’d played hooky and was speeding past T.C.’s Place as fast as I could run. I had a basketball under one arm and a bunch of bananas I’d snatched from the Korean fruit stand under the other when Miss Lady stepped out of her doorway and snatched me inside the pool hall and started beating the shit outta me with her house shoe.

  “You thievin’-ass little thug!” she hollered as the Korean owner stood in the doorway laughing like a motherfucker as he watched me get my ass whipped. She slapped me all upside my head with that dirty pink shoe. “If you ain’t fightin’, you stealin’! Ain’t no damn good gone never come of your black ass until you learn to fight only for right and work like a man for what you want!”

  Miss Lady was fine and had a shape on her. I liked the way she smelled when she sat me up on a pool table and used the edge of her shirt to wipe my crying eyes. “And stop hollerin’ like somebody killing you. I don’t give a damn how little you is. I can’t stand no damn thief. Besides, you wasn’t crying when you was up there stealing other people’s shit, now was you?”

  I didn’t answer cause now she was digging a tissue all up my nose. Cleaning out snot and shaking her head at my nasty boogers. “Boy!” She pulled down on my bottom lip until it touched my chin. “When’s the last time these teeth seen a damn toothbrush?”

  I jerked away and shrugged. Noojie ain’t buy no damn toothbrushes. I was lucky if she remembered to throw me toward a bathtub every few months.

  Miss Lady pointed her long finger in my face. Her nail was polished bright pink, and I thought it looked slick. “You gone march your little ass out there and give that Chinaman back his damn bananas, you hear me? And from now on I want your tail standing at my door every day soon as you get outta school. I know who your mama is boy, and just cause she ain’t shit don’t mean you can’t be shit.” She grabbed my arm and slung me down off her pool table. “You show up every day at three o’clock, you hear? I need some help round here, and your little ass needs a job. You gone shine my front windows, empty the ashtrays, and sweep out from under every last pool table we got. And when you through, I’ll feed you and send you home with enough food for your baby sister too. But the next time I catch you putting your hands on something you ain’t worked for I’ma bend ya damn fingers back till they pop off. One by one.”

  She handed me back my ball. “Let’s see how good you fight and steal and how much damn basketball you can play then.”

  I didn’t care what she threatened me with. Miss Lady was the classiest woman I’d ever seen in Harlem. Her and her man T.C. were real good people. Their pool hall was a gathering spot for hustlers and big-time gamblers who were looking fo
r good times and had money to burn.

  T.C.’s brother, Big Sonny, was Harlem’s number-one drug kingpin and had a black-hearted rep for pushing dope and pulling triggers. But T.C. and his woman wasn’t into Big Sonny’s shitty game. Him and Miss Lady believed in building their community up. They hired local kids to work for them, sponsored youth programs, and turned their profits around and put a lot of cash back into the Harlem they loved and lived for.

  I’d been working in the pool hall every day for over a month but Miss Lady still didn’t trust me. Sometimes she’d fix me a baloney sandwich, and I’d sneak behind her back and steal me a piece of fried chicken. I was more than a fighter and a thief. I was slick and smart. Especially with numbers. It didn’t take me long to figure out that sweeping up in a gambling joint was even better than stealing on the avenue. Miss Lady paid me five dollars a day and pushed me out the front door when the night crowd showed up. As soon as she turned her back I’d sneak in through the back door and gamble them five dollars over and over until my pockets was swole.

  But on this Friday afternoon Miss Lady had me with her in the kitchen. It was Harlem Week and T.C. was hosting hustlers and gamblers from all over New York City, Connecticut, Philly, and D.C., who were rolling through looking to make a cash killing at his annual Summer Sweep or Weep.

  I tried real hard to tear the foil off like Miss Lady wanted, and I guess I was doing it right. “That’s better,” she said, nodding. I liked Miss Lady and couldn’t wait to get big enough to get me a woman just like her. I could sit there and stare at her wiggly hips and round ass all day. She was real feminine and sexy, and I dug that shit. I also liked the way she grinned and gave me a hug every afternoon when I showed up at her door after school. Her and T.C. was doing more for me than my own moms did. Not only did they feed me and my little sister Precious and make sure I had clean clothes for school, they supported my talent for basketball by signing me up for a youth league. They even sponsored jerseys for the whole team.

  “Goddamn! It’s hotter than hell in here,” Miss Lady complained. She smoothed her blouse and started fanning herself again. Miss Lady stayed looking right in her clothes and makeup, and even now she was wrapped real tight just to be frying some fish.

  “And it’s gonna get even hotter tonight when all them out-of-town niggahs start piling up in here.” She looked up at the air-conditioning vent and frowned. “We gotta get that thing fixed, Dre. Run in the back room and bring me that telephone book off of T.C.’s desk.”

  “Yes, Miss Lady,” I blurted. I almost dropped the plate I was holding I was so eager to get back there in T.C.’s office and see what I could get into.

  I ran out the kitchen and down the narrow hallway. I passed a staircase on my right that led to the apartment upstairs where T.C. and Miss Lady lived. I’d never been invited up there but I had a colorful picture in my little head about how grand it musta been.

  I hurried past the stairs and stood outside of T.C.’s office. The door was closed, but I opened it and went inside. I looked around with big, greedy eyes. T.C.’s office was just as sharp as he was. He had a huge brown wall unit off in one corner, a big fish tank with all kinds of colorful weeds in it, and a huge color television up in there too. The phone book was right on his grand Maplewood desk where Miss Lady said it would be. A big fat New York City Yellow Pages. You couldn’t miss it. I glanced at it, and my eyes kept right on traveling. Before I knew it my sticky little fingers were pulling open T.C.’s top drawer, and I was feeling around inside.

  I rambled through the stacks of envelopes and what looked like a bunch of receipts until I got to the back of the drawer. I was hoping to snag me a few dollars ’cause I knew T.C. was paid. But cash ain’t what I stumbled on as my greedy hands searched the back of his drawer, though. I was already holding the weight in my hand when I heard Miss Lady yell out in alarm.

  “What the hell you think you doing, Greek? You better get your stank ass up outta my kitchen and hope to God I don’t tell T.C. about this shit!”

  I heard her moving in my direction, and I dropped to the floor and scooted under T.C.’s desk until my back touched the wall. Holding my breath, I put the weight between my legs, then pulled my knees up to my chest as footsteps came barreling down the hall.

  “Shut up and get your ass in there,” a man’s rough voice said as the office door opened, and their legs came into view. “Don’t fuck with me, Miss Lady. Just gimme whatever cash you got and everythang’ll be cool.”

  “Stupid ass, you come at the wrong hour,” Miss Lady sassed him as he pushed her into the room. “What kinda thief is you? Shit, we don’t even start waking up around here until way after dark. You see any motherfuckers gambling up in here? Where you think I’ma get some money from in the middle of the day?”

  “Bitch, I told you don’t fuck with me,” the man warned her in a crackhead’s whine, but Miss Lady kept right on talking shit.

  “Naw, niggah! Don’t you fuck with me! Now I hired you once before, and if you need another day job I might be able to help you out again. But I ain’t got shit for you up in here for free, and you can believe that. Now take your fuckin’ hands off me before you make me mad.”

  Miss Lady could fight like a man, but a niggah on dope was a dangerous thing. I’d seen Noojie get fucked up by enough crackhead boyfriends to know.

  “Black bitch! Gimme your motherfuckin’ money!”

  Miss Lady’s voice was full of scorn. “I ain’t giving you shit!”

  I heard fist sounds, and Miss Lady grunted in pain. The dopehead knocked her to the ground and blood shot out of her mouth when she fell.

  I gasped out loud. A long moan came outta me at the sight of her laid out on the floor. Miss Lady heard me and turned her head, meeting my wide eyes.

  “Bitch,” the crackhead she’d called Greek said slowly. “I will kill your ass up in here—”

  I was trembling as I stared into Miss Lady’s brown eyes. The sight of her swollen lips made the inside of my stomach feel tight.

  “Ohhh…,” I heard the man say, then a scraggly head appeared as he bent down and looked under the desk. He followed Miss Lady’s gaze straight to me.

  “What the fuck we got down here?”

  I was trembling down to my bones. The pounding of my heart was making my whole body spasm. He reached out and grabbed at my foot, and I kicked his hand away.

  “Little motherfucker,” the crackhead said. “Look at ya. Shaking like a girl. You got any goddamn money? Little niggah so damn scared he ’bout to piss all over hisself.”

  He was right. I was shaking like a fiend. But it wasn’t outta fear though. This pipe-smoking motherfucker had punched out my Miss Lady! He had her fine self laid out on the floor! A rage filled me so deep that I almost stopped breathing.

  I waited until he bent down again. When he tried to grab my foot this time I gathered the weight in my hand and pointed it.

  “Niggah,” I muttered, “don’t you hit my Miss Lady.”

  The gun boomed once. Twice. Three times.

  The crackhead screamed in agony and rolled on the floor holding his leg. A bright splash of blood darkened his pants where one of my bullets had caught him, halfway between his knee and his ankle.

  I looked over at Miss Lady. She was smiling through her busted mouth.

  “That’s my baby!” she said, beaming. She glanced at the howling junkie, then crawled to her feet and reached for me under the desk.

  “Come on out from under there, baby boy. And gimme that gun. Let this dirty motherfucker lay here and bleed. T.C.’ll finish him off when he gets back, but I gots to get you home.” She hugged me to her, but I kept my eyes on the crying junkie who was holding his leg and rolling all over the floor. Miss Lady took the gun from my hand. She hugged my shoulder and led me out the office. She closed the door and took a key out of her pocket. “I oughta shoot Greek’s dumb ass in the other damn leg. But how ’bout we just lock him up in there until T.C. gets back instead? You probably real hungry now,
huh? Want Miss Lady to whip you up a pan of corn bread to go along with your fish?”

  Chapter 4

  Growing up I used to wet the bed almost every night, but when Pimp and Smoove came to live with us all that shit stopped in a hurry. Pimp and Smoove were my cousins from the Bronx. Their mother, Druzetta, was my mother’s little sister. Pimp was two years older than me, and his brother Smoove was about a year younger. The three of us slept together on a raggedy sofa in the hallway of our one-bedroom apartment.

  “Piss on me again,” Pimp warned me after his second night of waking up itching, soaked in my warm piss. “Just do it again, bitch. And see don’t I get me a rubber band and wrap it around your dick.”

  I shoulda known better than to fuck with Pimp, but I went to sleep the next night and pissed just like I usually did. But this time I woke up doubled over. Moaning in pain. My joint was on fire and it felt like somebody was squeezing the tip of it with a wrench. I looked down and almost screamed. A fat rubber band was twisted tightly around the head of my dick, cutting off my piss and my circulation. Pimp stood over me with ice in his black eyes. “Can’t no fuckin’ babies be sleeping wit’ me. Next time you piss on me I’ma get me a knife.”

  Pimp’s mother, Aunt Dru, was one of those stinky-ass crack fiends who rode the number four train back and forth all day holding out a cup and pretending to be blind. She would get on at Fordham Road in the Bronx, beg all the way down to Brooklyn, and then beg back uptown and start all over again.

  My grandmother was a Puerto Rican wino from Spanish Harlem named Migdalia, but everybody called her Mimi. My moms and Aunt Dru were her only kids. Mimi was a tall, light-skinned woman with long wavy hair and high cheekbones. She drank cheap wine and laughed all day long. She’d been married to a black man from Queens, and people used to joke that she had drank her husband straight under the table and that was what had killed him.