Crave All Lose All (16 page)

“I’m out anyway. I don’t need this shit!”

I scrambled around the bedroom, tossing clothes in a bag.

“Get out of here and don’t come back into this house until you get your act together Vincent,” Aunt Linda shouted. “You’re a grown man, Vincent; you need to be on your own.”

“I’m good,” I stated.

My mother tossed the money at me and it went flying everywhere—ten-thousand dollars spread all over my room.

My mother and aunt were standing by the doorway, watching me get my shit together. I then heard my mother cry out, “Do think about your son, Vinny? You’re doing wrong, baby…you’re doing wrong. This is not you.”

I tossed the bag over my shoulder and went for the front door.

“Y’ all can keep the ten grand,” I said.

“Get out my house with that damn drug money!” my aunt screamed.

I rushed pass them, the exit my only focus. I was in the living room.

“Noooo! Don’t go, baby. Don’t go!” My mother screamed grabbing my shirt and pulling me from the front door.

“Ma, let me go…let me go,” I said.

“No…ooh!”

“Jean, let that boy go so he can leave out my house. He’s a man now. Let him do what he wanna do,” Aunt Linda said.

“He’s gonna get himself killed out there, Linda. I don’t want my baby
dying out in the streets. I love him,” my mother cried.

She tugged on my shirt but I relentlessly moved forward, ignoring my mother’s wailing. It hurt to see her in pain but it was for the best. I couldn’t continue to do what I do, and still live under my people’s roof. It was the only thing that Aunt Linda and I agreed on.

Outside on the porch, my mother was still unyielding. “Vincent, this ain’t you. Please, stay and get your life right. God will work it out for you, baby,” she cried.

“Jean, let him go,” Aunt Linda yelled.

“No, he’s not your son. He’s my only child. I can’t let him go and destroy himself.”

“Ma, let me go. I’m good,” I said.

“No, you’re not. I want you to stay! Talk to me,” she screamed.

Aunt Linda was pulling at my moms, trying to get her away from me while my mom kept pulling at me. I tried to make my way to the car. I saw some of the neighbors being nosey and I got upset.

“What the fuck y’all lookin’ at…? Mind y’all fuckin’ business!” They kept looking and shaking their heads.

Finally, I was free of my mother’s strong grip and ran for the car. My mother tried to chase after me, but my aunt grabbed her and held onto her. I tossed the bag in the backseat.

“Vincent, don’t go….don’t leave me. God, please bring him back. Oh God don’t let him leave, protect him, protect him,” she cried.

“Jean, let him go. Can’t you see that he’s stubborn?”

My mother fell on the grass, her tear-stained eyes looking at me in despair. We gazed at each other briefly and I started to tear up. I was breaking her heart. It was the last thing I wanted to do. My life had changed dramatically and I didn’t want to get my family caught up in the streets.

Aunt Linda held my moms and was consoling her, saying, “He’ll come back and get his act right. He’ll come back, Jean.”

“I love y’all,” I said.

I quickly jumped in the GS, started it and sped off the block as fast as I could. Racing down the street, my tears were streaming down my cheeks. The life I had with my mother and aunt was over.

I was talking with Tyriq about the deal with Inf. He loved that I took the initiative setting up shop and trying to put more money in his organization. He looked at me like a proud father.

“We already have Tango up in north Philly.” Spoon was against it.

Tango was Spoon’s boy and he didn’t want to be stepping on toes. Fuck stepping on toes! Philly was a big city and this was my connect. I was in the inner circle. I was an associate holding down my own. I proved that I could kill at will and moved drugs from state to state with no problems. I was a fast learner and caught on quickly.

Tyriq offered me the buildings between South Rd and 107
^th
Avenue to run business. I had to get a crew and move the work. I had seven project buildings. He would front me keys from the Jamaicans and I had to bottle it up and stretch the work out to the crews.

I was trying to lock down respect and my name. There were still many that didn’t know my name. In the long run, that meant problems.

Soul and Omega helped me run the spot. They were a few years younger than me to. Soul, I knew from the basketball courts back in the days when we used to go balling all the time. He was a cool dude who was musically gifted and a real hustler. Soul was known for having the baddest bitch. She was a ten, America was her name. He was ready to kill anyone who came at her sideways.

Omega came from a family of gangsters. Back in the eighties, his older brother was an enforcer for the Supreme team. Omega and I weren’t cool like that. He was Soul’s right hand man and he felt I didn’t deserve to
be running shit. He had been in the game since he was thirteen. I’ve been doing this shit for months and I was already locking shit down. Omega was ambitious and ruthless.

Tyriq gave me a south Philly pipeline. Thanks to Tyriq, I was officially Inf’s connect.

“Vince, that’s yours. You set it up, get the weight from me and supply that nigga down there. You ready for this right?”

“Yeah, I got this,” I said real confident.

Tyriq smiled and said, “Ayyite, it’s good to see you step up my nigga. Get this money and us right?”

“Us,” I said, giving him dap and embracing him.

I was definitely becoming a legit player in this game. Bricks from Tyriq cost me twenty-one thousand dollars. I charged, thirty-thousand. They would take as many as twenty birds at a time. With the many spots Inf had controlled over he was flipping them making forty-five to fifty grand on each bird. The drug game in Philly was crazy.

In my spot we moved eight to ten birds. Inf was moving fifteen to twenty-five. But the money was good and abundant all over. We moved dope, coke, ecstasy and weed straight off the boat.

I adopted Tyriq’s method in transporting the keys out of town. Young girls were dressed in cotton pregnant suits with the tight stitched lining for drug support. With my suits, each girl could carry up to six kilos. Anything over that we shipped in vehicles or trucks with large secret compartments and air shocks so that the car wouldn’t fall to the ground. With cities like Memphis, we would ship one-hundred kilos at a time across state lines and in Okalahoma up to fifty kilos. In Gary, Indiana they were getting a hundred and fifty bricks. Gary was a straight slum. All the fiends got high. It was ‘02 and the drug game was still lucrative.

After 9/11, people were scared of there being another terrorist attack and they wanted to escape the fear, so they got high, and getting high cost money. I mean it was a good year for the game, because the government and the feds had their noses so far up Osama Ben Laden’s ass hunting him down, that the drug game felt it got a free pass for the moment.

Jobs were lost and a few businesses closed down, leaving folks running to the unemployment line and worrying about a source of income. We
provided relief for people. The fiends came to us like we had the answers.

I got Shae involved with my movement. Ever since our trip to Albany; I had developed a soft spot for her. I’d give her money to take care of her son and looked out for her when I could. We even went out a couple of times.

By November, I was making so much fucking money that I didn’t know what to do with it. As my life flourished in the drug world, the relationship I had with my family was crumbling. I hadn’t spoken to my mother in a month and it was even more of a strain with Chandra. I was seeing my son less and less, and when I wanted to scoop my little man up to chill with him, Chandra would be against it, saying to me, “I don’t want our son around what you’ve become. You’ve become a dangerous man, Vincent.”

“What the fuck you mean I’m dangerous to my son,” I barked. “I’m a man, holding down my own and taking care of my business, Chandra, respect that.”

I heard her snicker over the phone. “Uh huh, I can’t respect that.”

“Fuck you, Chandra. A year ago you was thirsty for me giving you that paper, now you wit’ this all holy act and shit. You playing yourself,” I shouted.

“See, there goes that attitude. I’m tryin’ to talk to you in a civilized manner and you acting a fool over the phone,” she said.

“Whateva…!”

“And you need to call your mother; she and your aunt are worried sick over you, Vincent?”

“Y’all been talking?” I asked.

“Yes, I call her and she calls me, asking if I heard from you. I tell her yes. You’re breaking that poor woman’s heart, Vincent. Why don’t you just go back to her, let her know you’re okay.”

“I got my reasons,” I explained matter-of-factly.

I heard her sigh. “I’m gonna pray for you Vincent, because your soul is heading in the wrong direction.”

“What, you wit’ religion,” I said, chuckling.

“Yes, I got baptized three weeks ago,” she informed.

I was shocked. “Fo’ real…?”

“Yes, and Jamal goes to church with me.”

Hearing her speak his name got me upset and I said, “Yeah, whateva, that nigga got you brainwashed.”

“You’re the one brainwashed, Vincent. Look at what you’re becoming. The devil is in you, you just don’t know. You think what you’re doing is rich. Your life is not rich, it’s blasphemy,” she said.

“Chandra, please preach that somewhere else. I just wanna talk about my son,” I said. “Can I talk to him at least?”

“He’s sleeping right now, call back tomorrow.”

“Whateva, you need money?”

“No, I got a promotion at my job. It’s getting better for me. God is good,” she proclaimed.

“That’s what’s up. Tell my son I love him. And you be safe,” I said calmly.

“Can I pray for you Vincent?” she asked.

“Nah, I gotta go,” I said and hung up.

I sat alone for a moment, thinking about my son and Chandra and my moms. I could no longer look that beautiful woman in the eye and not think about the pain I caused her. I didn’t want my moms to see that I’d become a bonafide drug-dealer and killer. The further I was away from my peoples, the easier it was to continue doing what I had to do to stack papers.

Getting back with Chandra was no longer a reality for me. We both were going different ways, living different lives. I was still in love with her and the thought of her and Jamal becoming a family together hurt me. My family was this game and my crew. In order for me to survive this game, I had to let my domestic life be nothing but a memory. Constantly I reminded myself that the past was in the past. I was in too deep to stop.

I loved the stares and awes that we got on Supthin Blvd as I cruised in the passenger seat of Tyriq’s 2002 blue Aston Martin Vanquish. It was a hundred and thirty thousand dollar car with fine beige leather interior, rarely seen anywhere especially Jamaica, Queens. I was there when Tyriq purchased it in cash, from a high-end dealership in Great Neck, Long Island. I wanted one but had my eyes on a burgundy Bentley coup.

I was on the phone talking to a bitch, while Tyriq navigated through light traffic while puffing a Black & Mild. Business was great and the streets were our personal bank. I was pumping out over a hundred grand a week in some spots, pushing coke and weed to fiends. That Philly money from Inf was triple that.

I had diamonds, platinum and cars. I had money. And finally, I had respect. Tyriq continued supplying the product and my life felt like I was in the shoes of Tony Montana. I was slowly becoming Tyriq’s right hand man and with Spoon, it felt like the Three Musketeers.

We pulled up to this club on Hillside Avenue called, Left Lane. There was a crowd of hundreds waiting outside to get in to see
50 Cent
perform. He was a hot, up-and-coming rapper from around the way that was doing his thang on the mix tapes. Dozens of cars jammed the avenue, with strong police presence in the vicinity.

Tyriq slowly drove by the barricade and parked in front of the club. All eyes were on us as we got out the car and made our way to the front, skipping the long lines that snaked around the corner. We went passed security without hassle. They knew who we were and gave us a head nod.

Inside, the club was jammed packed with revelers grinding and dancing it out on the floor, as the DJ provided hot mixes. The thunderous bass from the half dozen speakers in the club ripped through the crowd. A few bitches caught my eyes when I walked in. I watched them pull up their skirts a bit and back it up, looking like they were ready to fuck on the dance floor.

I followed Tyriq through the dense crowd that parted as we headed to VIP.

“Tyriq, what up?” some dude greeted, giving Tyriq dap.

“Tyriq, what’s good?” a man greeted.

“Yo, T., I need to holler at you when you get that chance,” a chubby nigga with a fat chain around his neck said to Tyriq.

“Hey Tyriq, hey Vince,” a fine shortie in a tight black cat suit greeted us.

“Hey, Vince, we need to talk,” this big booty shortie said hugging and kissing me.

Tyriq and I smiled and kept it moving to the back. We came to a remote black door, where a burly bouncer was keeping guard.

“He up in here…?” Tyriq asked.

The bouncer nodded his head and moved to the side. We both entered the room, and I was shocked to see a NYPD sergeant standing before us in uniform and all, with the three chevrons decorating his shoulders. He was tall and lean, clean-shaven, with sandy-blonde hair.

“Tyriq, what’s good?” he greeted.

“Manny,” Tyriq greeted back.

The cop looked at me and twisted his face and asked, “Yo, who the fuck is this?”

“Yo, chill, this is my boy, Vince. He’s cool people. We grew up together,” Tyriq informed the officer.