Chapter One
One year later on Mother's Day...
Not the one that comes once a year, but the one that comes once a month on the first and fifteenth, whenthe hood is flooded with government checks. The block looked like an open market in a Third World Country.
Abandoned cars sitting on cinder blocks lined the street.
Winos huddled around garbage cans aflame, the fire elongating their shadows grotesquely over vacant lots.
Madison Avenue was the hottest block in the city. Money flowed like water. The scene screamed poverty, but it was also a million dollar block. Dope fiends shuffled back and forth. A young boy herded them like cattle, keeping order."Get yo' shit and go! Keep it movin', yo'. Keep it movin'!
Spot is hot!"The block lieutenant, an eighteen year old named Jo-Jo surveyed the scenery proudly. He was on the come up. His name was beginning to ring bells in the street. Jo-Jo checked his watch, a diamond encrusted Rolex. A quarter to midnight. He was waiting on the bag man to come through and pick up the money and drop another package. Shit was going like water... smooth."Yo, muthafucka," one of the young boys growled, kicking a bum lying out against a chain link fence. "Get the fuck up!"
The bum lifted his head weakly, started to speak, but"Yo! What the fuck?" He kicked the bum harder. "You betta not had got none on my shit," he wamned, checking his sneakers under the streetlight. Jo-Jo laughed.
"Yo, B. Chill. Old muthafucka already 'bout to die, yo!" "He betta hurry up and do it," the young boy replied. Jo-Jo started to say something, but a dark blue hooptie cut the comer. It was the drop."Yo, yo, heads up, stay up!" Jo-Jo shouted, making sure his team was on point, keeping their eyes open for anything shady. The team spread out, triggers pointed, cocked, locked and loaded, heads on swivel. When they were in place, Jo-Jo whistled, and looked up to the window behind him. Someone dropped a duffle bag out the window. Jo-Jo caught it by the handle. The hooptie stopped in the middle of the street. Jo-Jo started toward it. His team had the perimeter secure, but they didn't know the enemy was already in their midst. They didn't pay attention to the bum whose eyes weren't bloodshot or clouded. They were clear and focused. The bum rose up.
cradling an AK-47 with a modified firing pin and banana clip-in other words, a fully automatic chopper. They never saw it coming. The AK stuttered and spit fire, blowing out the young boy's back that had kicked him, and bursting Jo-Jo's skull into a rain of blood, bones, and gray matter under the shine of the streetlight. The team was taken by surprise. It took them a second to locate the direction of the shots and fire back, a precious second that cost another young boy his life. The bag man tried to pull off. The bum, with deadly aim, windshield. The car rolled into a parked car. The rest of the team fired wildly, like thugs with their adrenaline flowing. They just squeezed and shot, no aim, no method. The bum grabbed the duffle bag out of Jo-Jo's dead hand. As he rose up, a single shot whizzed through the air and hit the bum dead in the chest, throwing him on his back."Fuck!" the bum barked through gritted teeth. The wind had been knocked out of him. A lot more would've been knocked out of him had he not had on a bulletproof vest. He rose up firing, only missing the rest of the team because they ducked and took cover. It gave him enough time to sprint across the street to the hooptie. Shots flashed around him as he snatched the dead driver out the car, tossed the bag in the passenger seat, and jumped in. He stayed low as he floored the car, metal grinding against metal as he scraped up against the car the bag man had hit. The back window exploded, shattering into pieces as the young boys came out of hiding like roaches. He screeched off and sped away from the scene. The bum snatched off the rags he was wearing, stripping down to the bulletproof vest. His adrenaline had his heartbeat pounding so loud he couldn't hear the tiny voice screaming, "Yo! What the fuck? Tee!"He scowled. Sounds like a phone. As he looked around he spotted a phone wedged under the duffle bag. He picked it up."Yo, Tee! What" "This ain't Tee." He chuckled.
"Who this? Yo, somebody tell me what's going on now!" the voice barked with authority. He laughed. "What's going on? I got the money ... and I got the yayo," he taunted, using the line from Scarface. The voice went silent, but then said, "Chump change, you bitch ass nigga. But you still a dead man!"The telegraphed threat made him laugh. He tossed the phone out of the window and watched it smash in the rearview.