Antebellum (9 page)

“You know, I've always been intrigued by cultural differences when it comes to the concept of responsibility. It seems only logical to me that if you are upset about a decision that was made, you would direct that concern to the person who made the decision.”

“You son-of-a—”

The elevator doors started to open and cut off SaTia's would-be profanity, and the ensuing chaos wiped away any traces of the previous conversation. Brian, Orlando, and Ray had made such a scene when they came into the building that the same three security guards that SaTia and I had run into followed them up to the twentieth floor. They'd exchanged words on the elevator, and consequently, Orlando had tried to swing on the tallest one while the head guard called two more up for backup. When our elevator doors opened, we saw eight grown men trying to give each other concussions.

When they saw the three of us, they all froze like ice sculptures.

SaTia and Rose spoke simultaneously.

“Get in the conference room.”

“Get back to your posts.”

They scattered like moviegoers after a bomb threat.

I had regained most of my strength by this point, and wanting to look strong in front of my entourage, I led the way into the conference room. Though the security guards were gone, Ray, Brian, and Orlando looked as if they were still in the middle of a fight.

Brian yelled out loud first.

“Yo, we gotta get dem niggas, Moe! We gotta get dem niggas, for real!”

“Who—the guards?”

“No! Man, forget dem guards, they was pussies anyway,” Ray cut in, jumping up and down. “I'm talkin 'bout P. Silenzas, man! Dem niggas gotta get dealt wid!”

For the first time, I realized that only three of my crew members were in the room with me.

“Where's Henry?”

“Dat's what I'm sayin', man!” Ray continued to hop around like a pissed off bunny. “Henry in da hospital, dogg! Orlando got through to da back while dey was workin' on him. Dey was tryin' to keep us out, but 'Lando got in and heard 'em fo' hisself. They said he got hit in one'a his arteries and he lost too much blood on the way to da 'mergency room. He in a coma!”

“What?” I would've preferred another panic attack to the way I felt when I heard those words. I couldn't decide if I wanted to throw up or pass out. Instead, I jumped out of my seat for the second time in ten minutes.

“He in a coma, dogg.” Orlando scared me. He wasn't jumping
around or pacing or anything. He stood up from the wall with this cold look in his eyes and evil in his voice. “Laid up like a vegetable, dude. And I'ont know 'bout none'a y'all niggas—” He walked up to the table in the middle of the room and pulled a 9mm handgun out of his pants. “—but I'm tryin' to ride on dese niggas tonight.”

He put the gun down on the glass table in front of him and kept his hand on top of it as he looked up at each of us. “What's up?”

“Whoa!” Rose and SaTia jumped back from the table.

“Hell yeah!” Ray pointed to the gun on the glass table. “Dat's what I'm talkin bout!”

“Let's lay dese niggas on the sidewalk!” Brian walked around the room, slamming his hand against the wall.

I stayed in my seat, looking at Orlando as if I was trying to pinpoint the part of his brain that had stopped functioning properly.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Oh, so what? You Mr. Hotshot Famous Rapper now and you cain't ride for yo' homies no more? Yo' man sittin' up in the hospital half-dead and you cain't take no action? All dis fame done made you some kinda pussy?”

Without thinking, I walked over to the table, picked up the gun, turned it around in my palm so that I was holding the barrel, and smacked Orlando across the face with the handle.

“Nigga, don't you ever call me no pussy again! I could give a damn 'bout yo' lil gun! You forget who da hell you talkin' to? I'm Da Nigga; you wouldn't be nothin' without me! Nothin'! Everything you got, I bought, nigga! I'll beat da bricks off you!”

Orlando spit blood from his mouth onto the floor and looked up at me with unadulterated contempt.

“So you can pistol whip me, but you cain't go after da niggas who 'bout killed your man? Aight, Mr. Moses Jenkins, let's see how many bricks you beat off me when I get dat gun back...”

At that moment, I decided to quit everything. Doing shows, making music, interviews, I was going to quit it all.

Somehow, in only one day, a man had tried to kill me, one of my best friends was in a coma, and now another of my best friends had threatened my life. And it all related back to being in this godforsaken business. It was only one night, but that was all it had taken. It was too much for me to bear.

“I can't do this anymore...” I started.

Rose cut in before I could finish.

“Alright, look, everyone needs to calm down, okay? Moe, give me the gun so I can check to see if there's a serial number on it.”

I still had my eyes nailed on Orlando as I slid the gun down the table.

When Rose got it in his hands, he examined it briefly.

“Ms. Brooks,” Rose said. SaTia shook herself out of the trance of watching two best friends get ready to come to blows. She turned toward Rose. “Do you think you could continue to add some common sense to this situation? Moe put his fingerprints on this gun. I need to go and make sure it disappears.”

Aligning herself with him would have been out of the question in any other situation, but she recognized the severity of the moment. She gave him a slight nod, and he quickly got up with the firearm and headed to his quarters. As soon as he was gone, SaTia turned back to us. “So, I guess it's time to pack up our stuff and move back to the ghetto, right? It was fun while it lasted, fellas. Hope your careers were worth it.”

Orlando wiped some more blood away from his mouth with his wrist.

“I'ont care what dat nigga...”

SaTia turned to him instantly and stuck her finger in his face.

“Shut up! You shut up! What kind of idiot shows his gun off in front of a record executive? And what did you all think you were
gonna do?” She looked back and forth between Ray, Brian, and Orlando. “You were gonna go ride for your nigga, huh? You got no proof that P. Silenzas had anything to do with what happened tonight. And even if you did, so what? Did you think you were gonna ride three blocks and pull a drive-by? They're not even in the same state as us! We're in Chicago, you dummies! They live in Idaho!”

“I'ont care where dey live at!” SaTia's insults had turned Orlando's anger to madness. He stood up and got into her face, cocked back his arm and swung.

Instinctively, I ran up behind SaTia and pushed her out of the way, putting myself in the trajectory of Orlando's fist. He missed us both, and as SaTia caught her balance from my shove, Orlando and I both stared at each other.

Turns out it was providence that had Rose take that gun upstairs. If Orlando had hit SaTia, I have no doubt I would've shot him.

No one said it, but we were all thinking the same thing. Orlando knew it, and felt the need to respond.

“All I know is dat my mans is in the hospital, and somebody gotta pay fo' it.”

He sneered at me as he spoke, as if he already had a plan. I stood solid in front of him, looking him straight in the eye.

“Yo, 'Lando, dis is crazy, dude...” Brian said from the corner. “Ain't nobody in here cap Henry, man. Why you so mad at Moe?”

“'Cause Moe a punk!” My newest enemy answered Brian while still staring at me. “He won't ride, dat's why! Long as we been homies, and dis nigga won't ride! It ain't all dat surprisin' though, when you think 'bout it. We been dis nigga's slaves since we left D.C.! We cain't even take a piss without askin' dis man ‘toilet or urinal?'”

Ray stood up beside Brian.

“What is you talkin' 'bout? We don't ask for nuthin' when we out here. Moe hook us up wid everything! Yo, real talk, you wildin' out. You need to be easy...”

For the first time since I stepped in for SaTia, Orlando broke his stare and looked back and forth between Brian and Ray. After a few seconds had passed, he took a step back from me and glanced around the room.

“Forget all y'all.” He seemed disoriented as he spoke. “Y'all can keep on bein' dis man's field niggas if y'all want to, but I'm out.”

Just then Rose emerged from around the corner. He looked like he had been rushing to get back.

“The gun will be taken care of,” he said, looking directly at SaTia and me as he spoke. “And I just got off the phone with the hospital. Henry is stable, but still in a coma.”

Anger is the only emotion that can make you oblivious. I was so angry with Orlando that I hadn't had the time to soak in the fact that Henry was in a coma. Now, with my partner-turned-nemesis having retreated, I sat down at the table and put my hand over my face.

“We should go back and see him,” Brian said softly, but SaTia pounced on him anyway.

“Really? I thought you wanted to go bus' some caps?”

“You ain't funny.”

Twenty minutes later, we were all standing in the lobby. Rose had one of his drivers give us a ride to the hospital, and the security guards from earlier were more than happy to hold Orlando until a cab arrived. I stood in front of the traitor and looked him in the eye one last time before we went down to the garage.

“Gimme my card.”

He paused for a second, then reached into his pocket and pulled out the platinum Visa I had given to him and everyone else. I reached out for it and he threw it on the ground.

Rage requires energy, which I was all out of. I took two steps, picked up the card, and gave it to SaTia.

“What about the cash you gave him earlier?” she asked.

If it was up to her, I'd have left him naked on the sidewalk. I briefly looked at her, and then back over to Orlando. “You can go to da hospital, you can go home, you can go to a strip club wid sexy midgets and a one-eyed bouncer for all I care. And you can keep the two g's I gave you earlier. Dat ain't no money to me, homie. But come tomorrow, you gon' wake up in some nasty motel, laid up wid some nasty broad, and you gon' realize it's all over.”

I turned to walk away, but the image of me picking his Visa card up off of the ground compelled me to leave one last thought. I turned back. “And you might wanna think 'bout how you gon' break dis whole thing to yo family, seein' as how you got 'em livin' all large off of my money. How much is your lil sister's tuition these days?”

He tried to keep a straight face, but his eyes betrayed him and began to gloss over. I had no remorse as I turned to walk away. I couldn't forgive Orlando for what he tried to do to SaTia. Emotions were high and had he merely threatened me, maybe there would have been a possibility of forgiveness. Where we're from, you fight with your boys all the time, and in the end it only makes you both stronger. But had I not been there, he would have put his fist through SaTia's jaw. There was no coming back from that.

When SaTia, Ray, Brian, and I reached the garage level and stepped out the elevator, the driver was already seated behind the wheel of a Cadillac Escalade. I guessed by the clean frame and the new-car smell of the interior that it had never been driven before. As we pulled out of the parking lot, the chauffeur behind the wheel adjusted his rearview mirror. When I looked up, he was staring right at me.

“I don't know if you're aware, sir, but for the past two hours there have been news reports running about the incident.”

SaTia, Brian, and Ray all looked at me, then each other, and then back at me. I could tell they really wanted to see the news reports. Neither of them said a word, though. They knew how fragile I was.

“If you like, I can put them on, sir.”

I rubbed my forehead, trying to search through the fog in my brain for an answer.

“Yeah, lemme see 'em,” I said after awhile.

The driver hit a button on the information deck and the screens on the back of each seat's headrest came on. The female news reporter's voice echoed through the vehicle.