Hood Read online

  Hood made love to Egypt for the first time on a rainy Wednesday afternoon. They had the day off from school for some dead president’s birthday. Fat Daddy had taken a three-day trip to Vegas, and Uncle Chop had been left to watch the shop and the kids. Moo had complained about a sore throat and had sucked a Sucrets before falling asleep on the back room sofa. Hood and Egypt were upstairs in Fat Daddy’s plush living room watching a movie on his wide-screened plasma. Hood brushed the bare skin of her arm as he kissed her and held her close. Egypt shuddered pressing her taut young body against him.

  It was chilly in the room and the pittering sound of windswept water hitting the windows was seductive. Egypt kissed him hard, urging him on. For a fleeting moment she thought of her father, knowing he would kill her if he could see her now. But what she was doing felt more than good. It felt right.

  She lifted her shirt so Hood could see her young breasts, nipples hard and pointed. Hood gasped and finished undressing her. And when they were naked he covered her cool skin with kisses as their whispers of love filled the air.

  They rocked the couch, exploring and experimenting. Hood knew more, so he took the lead. He touched her in places no one had ever been, and in return she held him and stroked him with a love he’d been yearning for. They were tender with each other. Patient and easy. But they were careful too. They used protection, laughing as they tore holes in two condoms before they got it right.

  What they shared was intense and deep. Their emotions were as real as any under the sun. When it was over they clung to each other. Weakened physically, but each much stronger emotionally. Hood knew that he had found his salvation. The one solid thing in his life that would never leave him and never change. And Egypt knew the claims Lamont had made were without a doubt true and correct: She was his. He was hers. And that’s all there was to it.

  Life was falling into place for Hood and the streets were treating him grand. While Xan still had his doubts about Hood’s right hand man, Dreko was making the best out of his second-string status and was showing up on point for Hood in every possible way. He squashed niggas down at the slightest sign of beef, and wherever Hood rolled Dreko was always strapped and on guard, never far behind him.

  The pair became tighter than tight. Their bond was forged through trials and trust as they earned their stripes on the corners. They were known to roll up as one and compliment each other’s fearless style of street management. Their youthful faces belied their inherent brutality when crossed. Even older and more experienced hustlers were awed by their heart and their loyalty, and started calling their brutal roll ups the one-two punch. Their motto became D.W.I.T. or “Do Whatever It Takes,” and they lived by that shit on their hustle every day. Game recognized game, and Hood and Dreko parlayed their individual strengths into the ultimate enforcement team. Hood was typically the planner and Dreko was the pain inflicter, but both would dead a nigga in an instant behind some doe or some yay. Their business creed was simply nonnegotiable, and on count day they never feared Xan’s wrath because their cash was always legit.

  Over time Hood and Dreko made a deadly name for themselves on the streets of Central Brooklyn, and from weed to crack to heroin, loyal drug users flocked to their corner to hand over the doe. On the few occasions where some old head tried to muscle in on them and try their metal, Hood and Dreko made heating a nigga look real easy. Xan was never worried about his goods when Hood’s street team re-upped on a run. Some of the cats he’d been running with for years spoke of the two with pride in their voices and a big measure of respect for the lil young niggas too.

  There was a big difference between the two young boys, though, and it was obvious to almost everyone. Dreko was reckless and wild. What you saw with him was exactly what was there. Grime. But Hood could get real quiet sometimes and go inside of himself to think and rhyme. On the grind he was a straight shooter who lived by the street code, but he was guided by his own set of principles too.

  All in all, shit seemed like it was lining up for Hood, except for one thing.

  Monroe.

  “Take this,” he told his little brother one Saturday night. The school nurse had called Fat Daddy every single day that week telling him to come and pick up Moo. The boy stayed sick. It seemed like he always had a fever and he was always coughing.

  “It’s nasty,” Moo complained swallowing the cherry-flavored cough syrup. “I don’t like it, Lamont.”

  Hood pressed his ear to his brother’s chest, listening to wet rattling noises as the boy wheezed. He made him take another teaspoon and then covered him up and wrapped a blanket tightly around his thin shoulders.

  By the next morning Moo was even worse. Fat Daddy, Felton, Lil Jay, and a bunch of other old heads had gone to Atlantic City to the casinos, and once again old Uncle Chop was the only one home. Moo was real bad off. He coughed so hard he peed on the sagging green couch and his whole body shook. He had a fever and his blanket was soaked through with sweat. Hood was mad worried but he tried not to show it.

  “I’m sick, right, Lamont?” Moo wheezed. Dreko had just swung by to see what was happening and Hood told him to stay in the room and watch Moo while he went to call Fat Daddy on his cell phone. He didn’t know what else to do.

  “I know I’m sick,” Moo declared. His eyes were runny and he didn’t even complain when Uncle Chop came in the back room and gave him some liquid Tylenol and some more cough syrup. “I must be sick ’cause even my fingernails is hurting me, Mont,” he said with his eyes wide. “That’s what Moo know.”

  Hood lay down on the damp couch with his brother and put his arm around him. He felt Moo struggling to suck air in, then struggle just as hard to push it out again. By later on that day Moo’s skin was half-gray and he was out of his mind as he desperately tried to breathe. Egypt came downstairs and stood in the doorway watching them. When Lamont looked up and nodded her over, she crossed the room and pressed her lips to Moo’s hot, shrunken face.

  “Moo,” she said softly. “You okay, little man?”

  Moo tried to smile at her but he was too weak to even open his eyes.

  “I’m scared, Lamont,” Egypt whispered, her own eyes wide. She didn’t want to say it out loud, but there was a reason she had stopped in the doorway and just stood there instead of coming in. Moo had looked dead laying there like that. She’d thought he was dead.

  “Fat Daddy said he’ll be back first thing in the morning.”

  “Mont, I don’t think we can’t wait for Daddy to get back. I think Moo needs to get to a hospital right now.”

  Seeing the tears forming in her eyes, Hood agreed.

  Egypt ran and told Uncle Chop to call an ambulance. But them muthafuckas hated coming in the hood without a police escort, and after what seemed like forever and a day they still hadn’t shown up.

  Dreko and Egypt paced while they waited, sticking their heads out the door and looking up and down the street for the flashing lights of a phantom ambulance.

  Hood sat on the couch holding his little brother in his arms, talking to him softly as he rocked back and forth and counted each second that went by.

  “Oh shit,” Dreko said suddenly. He had been watching Moo closely and now he put his hand on Hood’s shoulder, stilling him. “Man, hold still. Quit rocking him. Shit.” He stared at Moo for several long seconds. The boy’s chest only moved every so often and it didn’t seem like he was taking in no air at all. “He ain’t even breathing, yo. I think he dying, man.”

  At that, Hood jumped up and hoisted Moo and the blanket over his shoulder. “Get out the way!” he said, running. He was through the shop and out the front door before he could be stopped, and he had carried Moo halfway down the block before Dreko and Egypt caught up with him.

  “Man what you doing?” Dreko blurted, jogging beside his boy.

  Hood kept moving fast as he headed toward the hospital with his sick brother in his arms.

  “Hold up,” Dreko said, taking long strides until he was jogging in front of them. H
ood could prolly get Moo to the emergency room all right, but Dreko was bigger and he was stronger. He could get him there faster. He lifted Moo off his brother’s shoulder and cradled him. Then both boys took off running through the streets of Brownsville, rushing little Monroe toward the nearest city hospital.

  Chapter 10

  Life just ain’t worth it at all without you…

  I don’t wanna do it at all without you…

  “IT DON’T MATTER how much this shit cost,” Hood bargained with the old white nurse at the desk. Moo was so sick they had put an oxygen mask over his face and taken him to intensive care where the doctors were now working on him. “I got plenty of cash so everybody gone get paid, cool? Just tell them doctors to do everything they gotta do ’cause I’m straight. Don’t worry ’bout how much it’s gone cost or none of that stupid shit ’cause I been stackin my shit. Just let my brother be okay, cool? Go in the back and tell all of them I said to take care of my little brother for me, aiight?”

  The nurse looked sympathetic and assured him the doctors would do their best.

  Hood and Dreko both walked the hall nervously. Hood kept his eyes on the checkered floor as he tried to remember how to pray. His mother had taught him a long time ago, but none of the words would come to him now and his heart was beating so fast it made his mouth dry. Panic had his mind going cloudy, and the only thing he could do was spit himself a mental rap to keep his thoughts sharp and his fear at bay.

  My lil brother in this ’spital,

  I feel like clutchin’ on my pistol

  Black Glock! The military issue!

  Chest full of stress, what better way to get it off

  One by one, I gotta pick these feelings off!

  Uncle Chop and Egypt had somehow managed to flag down a cab and were now waiting with them. Somebody musta called Sackie ’cause him and his sister Zena were there too. Every few seconds Hood came out of his zone and looked toward the door real quick, hoping that a miracle would transpire and his moms would come walking in. He wasn’t supposed to be doing no life-or-death shit like this by himself. Moo was his little brother, not his son. Something inside Marjay’s heart shoulda pulled her here straight off the streets. Her mother-instincts should have told her that her baby was real sick and needed her bad. They should have sent her running outta whatever crack house she was holed up in and straight into the emergency room.

  But in the end it didn’t matter where Marjay was getting high at, or what mental lyrics Hood spit, or how much bank he had stacked. Money didn’t fix everything, and it sure couldn’t save Monroe.

  “We tried,” the doctor said, shrugging as he came through the door. He was a turban-wearing Pakistani in an inner-city hospital besieged with gunshot victims, AIDS patients, and other casualties of the violent crime that encapsulated the cold Brooklyn streets. His eyes were tired but emotionless, and he looked straight through Hood as he spoke. “But the boy is dead. He should have been seen in the hospital weeks ago. The child had one of the worst cases of pneumonia I’ve ever seen. He did not survive.”

  Hood stood there in shock. The doctor walked right past him and approached Uncle Chop.

  “Are you the grandfather? You’ll need to select a funeral home so the nurse can tell the morgue who will be collecting the body.” And with that he walked off, sighing as he grabbed a chart off the wall so he could attend to his next patient.

  The nurses drew the privacy curtains in Moo’s room as Hood shed hot tears over the body of his little brother. Moo looked even smaller in death, especially with all them tubes going in him and the big machines he had been hooked up to. Hood cried. He might have been living a grown man’s life, but in reality he was still just a child. Sniffing, he climbed up on the hospital bed and joined Moo whose tiny body remained warm, and snuggled his little brother in his arms for the last time. He closed his eyes, his tears dampening his brother’s face as he pretended that Monroe was just sleeping and would wake up any minute with big trusting eyes and a long list of crazy questions coming outta his mouth.

  It was Fat Daddy who had Moo buried a week later. He had sent a crew out looking for Marjay, but she must have been locked up because nobody had seen her on the streets and she ended up missing the boy’s funeral, just like she had missed almost every other event in his life.

  Hood’s heart was crushed. Reem and his mother came by the shop and cried with him. Dreko was there for him too, night and day, and so was Sackie. His boys didn’t crowd him or nothing, but they definitely let him know that their hearts was paining for him and Moo and that they had love for him like a brother. Moo had been their baby boy too.

  But something deep inside of Hood seemed to be permanently damaged after Moo’s death, and for the first time Fat Daddy allowed himself to feel for the boy. His grief was strong, almost overwhelming. But there was something else mixed in with it too, and Fat Daddy saw that shit real clear. It was rage. Aimed at life on these streets and at his mother, Marjay, too. Complete rage and utter helplessness. The kind of dangerous emotions that if not countered, can drive a man to commit an act he could wind up in jail for.

  Fat Daddy walked up on Hood in the small kitchen behind the shop late one night three days after Moo had been buried. He had eased downstairs and into the back room, lured by a sound that he had never heard before. The boy stood next to the microwave with his back to the door. His head was bent and his small shoulders shook as he cried from his natural soul.

  Fat Daddy never said a word. Instead he walked up behind Hood and put his arms around him, comforting him. To his surprise, Hood accepted his touch and didn’t pull away. Fat Daddy wasn’t father-figure material and wasn’t even trying to be. But he was the only man alive who could show Hood any real concern or affection. He held the boy and let him grieve.

  Regardless of the distance Fat Daddy had tried to keep between them, from that day forward Hood saw himself as Fat Daddy’s son. As much as it hurt him he’d had no choice but to say good-bye to his little brother, and while searching for a connection to fill up the emptiness left by Moo’s death, Hood rebuilt himself a family out of the people who were there for him in a major way every single day. Egypt became his soul mate and lover, Sackie became his closest confidant, and Dreko became his brother.

  Chapter 11

  I can tell watchin her walk, what she workin with,

  Frame-fitted cat suit like Eartha Kitt…

  SACKIE HAD A sister named Zena. She was a blondie who liked to fuck. The two of them had been sent to Brownsville to live with their elderly grandfather when he was four and she was two years old, after their parents were killed in a boating accident. They were two blond-haired, blue-eyed white kids in a tough neighborhood overflowing with brown bodies. Quite often they stood out in a crowd, but they were just kids and Brownsville was the only home the pair had ever known.

  Sackie and Zena attended the mostly black and Hispanic schools in their neighborhood, and by the time they were in the third and fifth grades the fact that they were geographical minorities was no longer easy to ignore.

  While Sackie was big for his age and had been quick to join up with the dominant click and earn himself a rep as a white boy who had mad fist skills, Zena had always been shy and hesitant and very insecure. Her timid demeanor made her an easy target for the chicks in the hood who felt superior to her, and whose impressions of white people in general were already mostly negative and contemptuous.

  But it didn’t take long for Zena to figure out something that the black girls in the hood didn’t like and definitely didn’t care to admit: Zena had a nice plump ass and brothers wanted to fuck her. Yeah, she knew the guys weren’t all up in her face because she was brilliant and popular or anything, because she really wasn’t. She had gotten the looks in the family, while Sackie had gotten most of the brains. But when the black boys crept upstairs to the apartment she shared with her brother and grandfather and closed the door to her bedroom, Zena became the sole focus of their attention and she loved ever
y minute of it.

  Zena might have been lonely and love-starved, but she wasn’t street dumb. She didn’t give the pussy up to every dude who wanted it, only to those young ballers who could either provide her with something she wanted in return, or those who could advance her standing in the hood in some kinda way. Lately she’d been fuckin with a trap boy named Roller, who worked for Xanbar up on Sutter Avenue, but there were a couple of guys much closer to home who were clocking her too.

  “Don’t let these broke niggas use you,” Egypt had warned her. They were good friends and Zena was trying hard to pay attention and take her advice. Egypt was one of the few black girls in the hood who actually talked to her like she was a real person and wasn’t pressed out about the shit other people talked when they ate lunch together in school or were seen hanging out together in the hood.

  “You see that shit?” Egypt had said one afternoon as they walked home at the end of the school day. She grabbed Zena’s arm and pointed her toward the corner where a patrol car was double parked and two officers were patting down a group of young thugs they had hemmed up against a fence. “They might be going to juvie today, but most of them gonna be in somebody’s state prison by the time they turn twenty-one. Ain’t no future in what these idiots is doing, girl. Don’t get all blinded just because one of them brings you some slum earrings or buys you a slice of pizza and Chinese food two nights in a row. That shit ain’t nothing. Fuck around and you’ll be looking like one of them stroller chicks on the porches in the projects. Dummies walking around here fifteen years old and already got three kids. You see ’em pulling, pushing, and kicking all them babies down the street. You’re real pretty, Zena, so be real smart too. You need to hold out for somebody who got a future out in front of him. A cat who’s going somewhere far and wants to take you along too.”