Backstage: Street Chronicles (15 page)

“I know.” Cannon paused to choose his next words wisely. “Yo, JJ thanks for bringing me down here with you. You’re like the older brother I never had. I will never betray you, JJ, my word is my bond.”

JJ got a lump in his throat from the heartfelt speech. “No doubt, you already know what it is. Make sure you don’t get in too late because we have a lot to do tomorrow.”

“I always got your back.”

With that said, JJ strolled away with one of the most beautiful women in the club.

Word spread fast about JJ and Cannon coming into town. Some of the locals weren’t feeling the way JJ just came into town and tried to lock things down.

One of those locals was an OG like Rosco, he went by the name Chopper. Chopper got his name for shooting three men with an AK-47. In the hood they called AK-47s Choppers, because of their ability to chop limbs clean off.

Chopper controlled the whole Jackson Ward section that JJ was conquering. Chopper didn’t take out-of-town cats selling in his area too lightly, especially cats from New York. In fact, the three men that he shot were all from New York.

“This muthafucka JJ must not know who the fuck he dealing with. They don’t call me Chopper for nothing. Somebody better tell that boy,” Chopper said to one of his cohorts. “I think we going to pay this JJ fellow a little visit.”

Chopper cocked back the AK-47 and made sure the safety was off. He put the AK-47 in a duffel bag and walked toward his vehicle.

———

JJ and Cannon were both in the middle of the projects surrounded by fiends and dope boys trying to take all the orders. JJ’s cousin Tim played lookout for the narcs.

“I need two ounces, pimping. I know you can trim some fat off the cost,” said the local dealer known as Big, named for his striking resemblance to the late great icon Christopher “B.I.G.” Wallace.

“I got you, my man, this is your fourth time seeing me so just give me fourteen hundred dollars this time.” JJ reached into his pocket and handed Big a CD. “This is a couple of songs from my forthcoming album.”

“I heard your songs were like that, dog. Good looking.” Big gave JJ a pound and went on about his business.

JJ walked toward the building to get Big his order. He went into the apartment, weighed two ounces, and exited. Just as he walked out of the building, Chopper put the AK-47 to his temple.

“I know exactly what you’re thinking, young blood.
How the fuck this nigga creep up on me like that?”

Chopper had on dark glasses and a winter cap with a blue bandanna covering his mouth. There was no way for JJ to know who he was.

“I’m going to tell you how, because your bitch ass ain’t from around here. You don’t know my territory like I do. Now you’re trapped.”

JJ’s heart was beating a hundred miles a minute. He was terrified. He’d never had an AK-47 held up against his temple.

“Now, slowly pass the muthafuckin bag over to me.”

JJ passed Chopper the bag so slow you would’ve thought he was Neo from
The Matrix
.

Cannon knew that it wouldn’t take JJ this long to get Big’s order.

Something ain’t right
, Cannon thought as he grabbed the 40-caliber handgun they had stashed in case of emergency. “They don’t call me Cannon for nothing.”

Cannon slowly crept to the area where JJ had the weight stashed. He saw Chopper holding the AK up to JJ’s temple.

Just as Chopper was about to grab the bag from JJ’s hand, Cannon came from behind the building blasting the 40-caliber. He let off three ear-shattering shots right in Chopper’s direction. One of the rounds hit Chopper in his shoulder, knocking him back.

Although Chopper was hit, he managed to hold on to the AK as if it were glued to his hands. Before Chopper hit the ground, he let off a barrage of automatic gunfire right in Cannon’s direction. Two of the rounds hit young Cannon’s body. One hit him in his chest, the other hit him in his throat. Both hits were fatal. Cannon was dead before he hit the ground.

The hole that was left in Cannon’s chest was the size of a grapefruit. His head was hanging by a piece of muscle tissue to his neck. If it were not for the muscle tissue, Cannon would have been decapitated by the AK round.

Both men lay on the ground, except Chopper was still living. However, the 40-caliber did some major damage. Chopper’s left arm was separated from his shoulder. It seems that AK-47’s aren’t the only guns that chop limbs clean off.

Chopper started to go into shock. “I can’t feel my arm!” he shouted.

JJ was also in shock. He stood still, staring in the direction of young Cannon’s cold body laying on the floor. He heard the sirens coming, but he couldn’t run. All he could do was slowly walk in the direction of Cannon’s body.

At the same time JJ reached Cannon’s body and looked down, a red-haired police officer yelled, “FREEZE!”

Freeze was all JJ could do. The sight of what the AK did to his little homie traumatized him so much that he fainted before the officer could put cuffs on him.

The officer panicked; he thought JJ fell to the ground because he was hit. He quickly walked over with his 9mm held out in front
of him. When he got close enough to see Cannon’s body he shouted, “Oh shit!”

The police academy didn’t prepare him for this. As much as they thought they’d seen it all, there is always something crazier than the last.

“This is Officer Putnam. We have three men down at the south entrance of the Jackson Ward Projects.”

He mistakenly thought JJ was down because of a gun wound, until he noticed that JJ wasn’t bleeding, and he was moving. Officer Putnam knew JJ was alive; that’s when he grabbed JJ’s hand. He let it go right before the ambulance got there.

When the ambulance got there, the medics noticed that JJ wasn’t bleeding from anywhere. “He must be in shock,” one of them said.

He put smelling salts under JJ’s nose until he began to cough.

“Yeah, this one is okay.”

JJ shook his head from side to side, scrunching his nose up from the effects of the powerful smelling salts. “What happened?” he asked, trying to move his left hand but it was chained to a metal rail.

Officer Putnam was sitting next to him. JJ recognized that police shield immediately, then the rest started slowly coming back like a bad dream.

“NO! What happened to Cannon?” The memory of what he saw was coming back and he was going back into shock.

“Sedate him!” the head medic ordered.

Before he could blink, there was a needle being injected into his arm. Within seconds he was back in la-la land.

“Don’t worry, when he wakes up again, I’ll be right here. Detective Hewes has some questions for you,” said Officer Putnam, the same cop with the red hair who had ordered JJ to freeze. “You’re facing some pretty big charges. Yeah, he’s a big fish, all right. Attempted murder, and possession of narcotics,” Officer Putnam said with pride.

This was the biggest catch of his mediocre career in law enforcement. He was ecstatic about arresting JJ, and was going to charge JJ with possession of the 40-caliber that shot Chopper’s arm off.

JJ’s good luck looked like it had just ran out.

“This fucking drought is killing me!” Dee complained. “I haven’t made a fucking dime in two weeks!”

Trapp just shook his head in silence. His pockets were hurting so bad, he didn’t even have any more lint left in them. Whenever times got this bad, Trapp resorted to grimy measures. Trapp had devious thoughts running through his mind.

“Yo, we need to do a nice jux.” Trapp spoke like a hungry wolf.

“Fuck it, right about now I’m ready to do whatever,” Dee said in agreement with Trapp.

Trapp liked it when he was able to convince someone to do evil. It fueled a strange feeling of power in his mind that was becoming dangerous and uncontrollable.

“Anybody can fucking get it,” Dee added.

“That’s what the fuck I’m saying!” Trapp gave Dee a strong handshake to increase the negative energy.

Just then Trapp’s cellphone rang. “What’s poppin?”

“Yo, did you hear about what happened to JJ and Cannon?”

“No, what happened, son?” Trapp’s diabolical mind was always looking to profit from anything, especially now.

“Little Cannon from C.I. by one-eleven and Sycamore went down South to “VA with that nigga JJ and got murdered, and the nigga JJ locked up for a body and like a half a key or some crazy shit. He facing life in prison.”

“Son, stop playing!” Trapp said with a hint of glee in his voice as if he was half happy about JJ’s demise.

“Word bond, son. This bitch that fuck with his cousin aunt’s cousin, or some shit like that, told me.” The youngster on the phone paused to pull on a blunt.

The truth wasn’t the truth once it traveled a block, let alone four hundred miles. The story was twisted at least a hundred times before it got to Trapp from his source.

“She said Cannon got his whole torso and head blown off, and this nigga JJ killed the nigga that killed Cannon. Then they found made drugs on JJ. He finished, son.”

“Son, I’m going to call you later.” Trapp was anxious to tell Dee about JJ’s misfortune.

“Who was that, Trapp?”

“Some lame, but yo! This nigga just told me that JJ got locked up for a body and a half-key possession. He facing life in prison.” He paused. “Oh yeah, some kid named Cannon from C.I. got murdered down there with him.” Trapp spoke about Cannon as if he was nobody.

“Wait a minute, did you say a kid named Cannon from C.I. by one-eleven and Sycamore?” Dee’s face became flushed.

“Yeah, he did say by one-eleven. I don’t know that nigga, though.” Trapp stopped talking because he saw the look on Dee’s face. “Yo, Dee, you all right, man?” Trapp asked with concern.

“Noooo!” Dee screamed at the top of his lungs. Just then his cellphone rang. He saw the name on his caller ID and automatically knew what they were going to say. “Hello.”

“Derrick, this is your Aunt Beverly.” She spoke calmly, then came the storm. “They killed my baby! They killed my baby! He was only eighteen years old and his birthday was next week!” she shouted into the phone with a river of tears running down her smooth brown complexion. “They killed my baby!”

Dee hung up the phone and began to clutch his heart. Young Cannon was Dee’s first cousin. A cousin that Dee used to be very close with. The thing that was hurting Dee the most was the fallout they had the last time he saw Cannon.

“I don’t want you to hustle, Li’l Cannon. I can pay for your studio time and pay for the video and everything. Just don’t hustle because you can’t rap from behind bars, let me take that risk.”

“Fuck that, if you can hustle I can, too. I’m not little Cannon no more. From now on knock that little shit from in front of my handle. I’m getting money and can’t nobody stop me.”

“Yo, little nigga, don’t get it fucked up! I will still put the beats on you!”

“You ain’t going to do nothing to Cannon. Move out my way.”

Dee punched Cannon in the face, then Cannon pulled out a .357 Magnum, hit Dee in the side of his head, and pointed the barrel between Dee’s eyes
.

“I should blow your fucking head off.” Cannon saw the blood leaking from Dee’s temple and was content with that. “Now your stupid ass is leaking for fucking with a G!”

Dee felt the side of his face and saw blood on his fingers. “Yo, from now on I don’t give a fuck what happens to you. Don’t call me, you’re dead to me! You ain’t shit to me.”

“I don’t need you any fucking way, lame.”

Cannon stormed out of the house
.

That was two years ago
.

Dee was reminiscing on that last moment with the only male cousin he had in his whole family. Cannon was like Dee’s little brother, in fact Cannon’s short tenure in the drug game was due to Dee.

Cannon wanted to be just like his older cousin. Dee built a formidable reputation for himself on the local drug scene. Cannon used his cousin’s reputation on many occasions to get connections in the game.

Dee knew that his cousin wanted to be like him, and although he was flattered, he wanted Cannon to be more than a drug dealer. He saw Cannon as a talented rap artist. He wanted him to be successful in something positive, because he had the talent.

Dee saw too many people from his hood with talent that did
nothing with it. He wanted Cannon to transcend mediocrity, to be the greatest. Now Cannon would never get that chance.

“It’s all that nigga JJ’s fault. If he wouldn’t have taken the little nigga down there, he wouldn’t have gotten murdered. You know how that nigga JJ is, he always want somebody to do shit his way. Well look what his way did, it got his dumb ass locked up for life, and he got your little cousin killed.”

Trapp was using this situation to his evil advantage. He saw the vengeance building up in Dee’s eyes. He looked as evil as Trapp did when he was in this mode, so Trapp knew the look.

“You right, son, it’s all that nigga JJ’s fault. Fuck that nigga JJ Gates, we going to run up in that nigga’s apartment. I know where he keep his money and everything. That nigga still be keeping his bread in shoe boxes,” Dee said deviously with tears for his cousin running down his face.

“Fuck it, son, let’s get it poppin.”

JJ’s apartment was in the hood. He was still a novice in the game, so he hadn’t learned the simple but complex rule, don’t shit where you sleep. Although he had come up fast in the game, it was pure luck. He just happened to be at the right place around the right people that made it happen for him, but he took all the credit.

It didn’t take Trapp any time to break into JJ’s apartment. Once they were in, Dee led the way straight to a closet that had fifty Jordan sneaker boxes lined up against the back wall.

“Which one of these boxes has the money in it?” Trapp asked impatiently. “We don’t have time to go through them all.”

“I think he keeps it on the third row or some dumb shit.”

Dee took the whole third row and quickly went through them. There was no money in none of the boxes on the third row.

“Fuck it, move over, son, let’s both go through the boxes. We don’t have time to bullshit.” Trapp shoved Dee to the side and started going through the boxes with him.