An Urban Drama (8 page)

“Oh.”

“Now, make yourself comfortable. You consider this your home, you hear me? Like I said, you’re family. You need anything while you’re here you just have to say so. Understand?”

“I understand, and thank you.”

“Now, talk to me, Nina,”
Leon
said as he sat down in the chair across from the bed. “Tell me what’s been goin’ on with you.”

I sat on the edge of the bed and told Leon everything I had gone through since Lorenzo went to jail, eventually, working up to my decision to get into the game. I even told him that I had been dancing, and how I felt about the whole experience.

“You don’t have to feel ashamed about that, Nina. A lot of women go down that road and find that it’s not what they thought it was.”

“Don’t get it twisted. I’m not ashamed of what I did. I was just doin’ what I had to do.”

“It’s called survival, baby girl,”
Leon
said and stood up. He walked over to the window.

“But sometimes,
Leon
, I feel like I’m just out here spiraling out of control.” I was surprising myself with how open I was being with
Leon
. He was just so easy to talk to. He was a good listener. Talking to him now, I no longer felt like I wasn’t ‘good enough’ for his baby cousin. That’s when I realized that he was the same person, treating me with the same respect that he had each time I was a guest in his house. It was my attitude that had changed.

“I have an idea, but I hate misunderstandings. So, what was it that you wanted to talk to me about, Nina?”
Leon
asked and returned to his chair.

“Lorenzo said if I ever needed anything to call you. Well, I saved up some money and I’m ready for whatever.”

Leon
sat quietly and listened while I talked. I explained that I had some money and I wanted to get as much product as I could for what I had. He laughed a little when I said I had two thousand dollars, but he tried to play it off as a cough.

“How did you know to come see me about that?”

“I didn’t.”

“Well, I can help you, but first I gotta ask are you sure this is what you wanna do?”

“I’m sure.”

“I can help you with that. In fact, I’ve been expecting you, but I was expecting you three months ago. Lorenzo said that you’d be coming,”
Leon
said and stood up. “You get settled in and relax. I’ll call you when they get back with the food.”

“They said they were goin’ to Red Lobster.”

“I know they had to go somewhere. Neither of them can boil water.”
Leon
laughed and closed the door behind him.
 

Over the next four days,
me
and Leon became inseparable. We didn’t sleep together or anything like that.
Leon
was always a perfect gentleman. At the end of the day,
Leon
would say good night and go to his room, where the tittie twins were waiting for him.

We would talk all day about the game—what to do, what not to do; who to fuck with and who to leave alone; how to deal with the cops. We talked about seeing the bigger picture and not getting caught up on bullshit, and we talked a lot about trust. It was like going to school. “Damn, you mean there’s more to this than just collecting money?” I joked early on, but
Leon
was not amused.

“This shit ain’t
no
joke, Nina. You get to fuckin’ around in them streets, thinkin’ this shit is funny, and you’ll get yourself killed or locked up like your man,”
Leon
advised.

Some things I knew from being with Lorenzo, some things were just common sense, but most of what he was telling me I had no clue about.

“Do you like football, Nina?”

“I love football.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Then you understand the game?” he questioned. “You’re not one of these women who
love football
because it’s men in tight pants?”

“No,
Leon
, I really understand the game.”

“Good. I would have been disappointed in you if it was just the pants.”

“Why would that disappoint you?”

“’Cause it’s so much deeper than that.”

“How so?”

“Football is like life, Nina. Each time you step on the field, your objective is to score a touchdown, right?”

“Right.”

“So the natural temptation is to go for the big play every time. The fans go wild, and it’s great for your ego. However”—Leon said, taking a timely pause and raising his finger to emphasize his point—“the defense is there to prevent this from happening. But the objective remains.”

“To score a touchdown,” I added.

“Exactly. This poses a problem, so you got to study the defense. You have to understand its strengths and learn how to exploit its weaknesses. Now you can take advantage of what the defense gives you. You run the draw up the middle, you run the short passing routes, but you’re moving the ball downfield and moving closer to your objective. You’ve got to play your hardest on every play until you’ve put yourself in a position to complete your objective.”

“To score a touchdown.”

“Just like life,”
Leon
said.

“That was kind of deep,
Leon
,” I said as I stretched and yawned.
Leon
stood up. “Hey,
Leon
, how come I never met you before? I mean, back when me and Lorenzo were in high school. I thought I’d met his whole family.”

“You met his Uncle Wayne, right?”

“Yeah, we used to go and visit him in jail sometimes.”

“
Wayne
is my daddy.”

“I didn’t know that. I guess drug dealing does run in y’all’s family.”

“It’s the family business,”
Leon
said.

“So, you used to live in the
Bronx
?”

Leon
nodded his head in response.

“Why’d you leave? What’s the matter, you don’t love
New York
?”

“Let’s just say that I left
New York
for business reasons, and leave it at that, Nina,”
Leon
said, and as he did every night, went off to slay the tittie twins.

The following day, I came downstairs and found
Leon
sitting at the kitchen table, while the twins tried to cook breakfast. “Good morning. I’m ready for another day of Drug Dealer 101.”

The twins started laughing until
Leon
cut his eyes at them. They stopped laughing quickly and resumed their discussion on the best way to fry an egg.

“Good morning, Nina,”
Leon
said. “Sit down and pay them no mind.”

“I thought you said they couldn’t cook,” I whispered.

“They can’t,” he whispered back, “and I damn sure ain’t eatin’ anything they cook. It’s my fault. I said a home-cooked meal sure would be nice once in a while. What I wanna say that for? Look at them. Between the two of them you’d think they could fry an egg. Anyway, they mean well.”

“I’m sure they have other talents.”

“You just don’t know, Nina. You couldn’t imagine the talents those two have,”
Leon
said as he looked over at the twins. Diamond glanced over at
Leon
while he was looking at her. She ran her tongue over her lips and went back to doing what she was doing.
Leon
smiled more of a smile than I’d ever seen on him. It still wasn’t much, but I could see what the twins saw in him:
Leon
was sexy.

Leon
always had this serious look on his face. It was like he was always thinking. Thinking about what was next, thinking about that bigger picture that he was always talking about.
Sure,
Leon
was teaching me how to play the game, but what was more important to me was when he told me, “Nina, what you have to do is stay focused on the objective instead of the game. How to work from a position of strength, making allies out of enemies to accomplish your objectives. And one other thing: always be right, and when you’re wrong, make sure you have a backup plan. It’s a poor rat that only has one hole,”
Leon
told me. I nodded my head like I understood exactly what he was talking about, even though I was clueless.

“Now, you go and get dressed and we’ll go to Waffle House,” he told me. “By the time you’re dressed, I’ll have put a stop to this.”

The more I thought about what he was trying to get me to see, the more it made perfect sense. To put it simply, don’t get caught up on bullshit, ’cause it will only take time and energy away from what you’re doing.

“I could cook breakfast,” I volunteered.

“I know. I was thinkin’ about the last time you were here with Lorenzo and you cooked us that big-ass breakfast, but I don’t want you to show them up. Let them go on believin’ that all women are just as useless in the kitchen as they are.”

That day, Leon and I sat out by the pool and talked. He was still on trust. “I know what you’re thinkin’, Nina, but don’t do it. I’m tellin’ you. Don’t fuck with anybody that Lorenzo used to do business with.”

“Why not?”

“’Cause you don’t know if you can trust them. You don’t know which ones the cops got their hooks in. Cops had Lorenzo under surveillance; they know who he was doing business with. You see, some of them went to jail behind his shit. The ones that are still on the street are the ones who gave the cops something to stay out.”

“I never thought about that.”

“Build your own team”—Leon said and pointed at me—“People who’ll be loyal to you.”

“I understand. I need a loyal team to achieve my objectives.”

“You have been listening.”

“More than that, I’ve been paying attention. So, I’ll stay away from the guys he used to do business with.”

“Good. They won’t respect you anyway.”

“Why not?”

“’Cause they will always see you as Lorenzo’s ho.” I didn’t particularly like being called
a ho
, but that’s probably how they all saw me. “Gimme the keys to your car.” Once I handed him the keys he said that he would be back in a couple of hours. “You’ll be ready to leave in the morning, so relax for the rest of the day.” He got up. “Diamond, come follow me,” he yelled to one of the tittie twins, and she left with him.

Once
Leon
was gone,
Pearl
came and sat with me by the pool. “You smoke weed?”

“Yes.”

“Good,”
Pearl
said, and pulled out a blunt from her cleavage. “It’s a little damp, but we’ll fix that,” she said and put a lighter to it. “You wanna drink too?”

“Sure, why not?”

“Don’t worry, Nina, I make drinks better than I cook. Come inside with me,” she said, and I followed her. “I used to be a bartender until I found out I could make more money dancin’ than pouring drinks. Now I’m gettin’ too old for that shit too. Anyway, I’ll make us a couple of Blue Muthafuckas,”
Pearl
said.