settle down with that special someone who’d make me feel as if all that grindin’ and throwing bricks at the penitentiary was well worth it. My baby stepped up to the plate and made me feel just right.
I’ll always remember when I got shot, at Angel’s wedding, getting out of the hospital and having Tasha nurse me back to health, right here in this very apartment. What used to be my bachelor pad now had tampons under the sink. My weight room was now the kids’ bedroom, with bunk beds and Transformer curtains hanging over the windows. Damn. Nothing stays the same.
I had dozed off, not knowing how long I was asleep, when somebody woke me by knocking on the door. When the knocking got louder, I sat up, and in walked Kay. He had a key, so why was this nigga knocking as if he was the police?
“Yo, nigga, you slippin’ tough,” Kay teased.
“I knew ya ass was coming through.” I held up the .380 I had tucked under my thigh. “She’s never far from me. I keep my bitch close,” I teased back.
I knew he would be stopping by, which was one of the reasons I didn’t retire in the bedroom. I got up and went to the bathroom to piss, wash my face, and brush my teeth. Wide awake, I was now ready to face the music.
I went back into the living room and glanced at the clock. Three thirty-three in the morning. I sat down and watched Kay walk into the kitchen and come back into the living room with two Heinekens. He passed me one of them as he looked around, smiled, and sat down. I knew he was reminiscing about old times, too. You had to have been rollin’ with us to understand what we were feeling. It was a rush to hustle nonstop and have to constantly look over your shoulders. I relit the other half of my blunt, took a few tokes, stood up and passed it to my main nigga.
“So you heard,” I said to him as I sat back down. I looked over at him, and he looked tired as hell, as if he had been out in the streets for days. His eyes were bloodshot, and he wore the same clothes from the day before. “Nigga, you dumb. Of course, I heard. Do you know where the fuck I just came from? I’m just leaving the muthafuckin’ precinct, a place where I said I was never stepping foot in again. I was one of the last niggas to leave the hospital room, so you know the police had to question me.” Kay paused. “Your ass slipped up big time. You did that shit in a public place. You know they got cameras everywhere in a hospital.”
“Who did you mention it to?” I was more elated with my deed than caring about some damn hospital cameras.
“Man, they got you on camera, I told you. You on the news. And you know me better than anybody. Who the fuck you think I mentioned it to? At the station, I only answered what my attorney, Harry, told me to answer. But you know I had to tell Angel bits and—”
“Damn, my nigga! Why did you have to say shit to her? You know she gonna run and tell Tasha. Tasha needed to hear this shit from me first.” Hearing that took some of the fun out of what I did.
“Nigga, I told her not to tell anybody, especially Tasha. And what the fuck do you mean, ‘why did I have to say shit to her?’ Who do you think answered the door when the police came by? Who do you think called Harry? In your mind, you may think you did, but you ain’t pulled off the perfect crime. Not this time. Actually, you may have fucked yourself, and my hands are tied.”
I thought about what he said, and he was right. So I said, “For what it’s worth, I apologize for putting you in this situation. I owe you for this one.”
“You owe me more than an apology!” Kay barked. “You really got me in a fucked-up situation. Anybody else, you know we wouldn’t be sitting here talking,” my partner-in-crime said as we locked gazes.
They don’t make niggas like Kay anymore. When he said that we were brothers, he meant that shit. Here I done killed his blood brother for fuckin’ my wife, but because of our history, the circumstances, and