Authors: Ashley Antoinette
Guilty Gucci (7 page)
Lisa handed Micah over to Raegan. She cradled him in her arms and kissed his forehead before she got up and reluctantly walked out of the room.
Micah stood with a smirk on his face as he reached out for the baby. “Give me my son,” he spat.
“Why are you doing this? Because I caught you cheating? You didn’t even want him. Why are you taking him from me?” she asked.
“Bitch, you took from me so now I’m taking from you. You should’ve left my paper where you found it,” he seethed as he stared at her in contempt. “You give me my money I might give you your brat back.”
Raegan shook her head in disgust. “You doing all of this over ten thousand dollars?” she asked. “You bitter, broke bastard!”
Micah put the baby in a car seat and then turned away from Raegan.
“I want my baby!”
“I wanted my money! We can’t always have the things we want,” he mocked as he left the lawyer’s office feeling as though he had gotten the last laugh.
Chapter Four
Nahvid sat behind his cherry oak desk as he leaned back in his executive chair and focused on the man speaking before him. He only half listened as exhaustion plagued him. He was a man who wore many hats. His many businesses occupied much of his time, but it was his dealings in the street that caused the bags to form beneath his eyes and made his heart heavy. He had planned to give the streets up a long time ago, but they always pulled him back in. The game had chosen him back when he was a young kid coming up in Baltimore and they had a hold on him. He couldn’t let go. He had a strange fear of going broke despite the millions of dollars he had in the bank. He feared poverty ... It was his only fear. He had been down skid row and he refused to go back. He was addicted to it all.
The Money.
The Power.
The Prestige.
“I swear, Nah, the cops took that shit out of the trunk of my car and kept it moving. They robbed me.”
Nahvid folded his hands on top of his desk and stared the man in his eyes.
This stupid mu’fucka,
he thought in frustration. Sometimes it felt as if he were a scholar surrounded by idiots. Niggas just didn’t move the way that he did. Nahvid was a different breed. They didn’t make them like him anymore. Nahvid didn’t care to hear the tune the guy was singing. He wasn’t interested in hearing sob stories. Nahvid was about his paper and if the nigga didn’t have it, a conversation was not going to be the consequence. Nahvid wasn’t about talk and his silence put fear in the young hustler’s heart. Nahvid had been in the game long enough to know guilty men couldn’t handle silence ... they needed the noise to distract from the lies they told. Silence intimidated liars and they dominated the conversation so that others didn’t have time to dispute their stories. So as the hustler went on and on he dug his grave deeper and deeper.
This stupid mu’fucka,
he thought in frustration. Sometimes it felt as if he were a scholar surrounded by idiots. Niggas just didn’t move the way that he did. Nahvid was a different breed. They didn’t make them like him anymore. Nahvid didn’t care to hear the tune the guy was singing. He wasn’t interested in hearing sob stories. Nahvid was about his paper and if the nigga didn’t have it, a conversation was not going to be the consequence. Nahvid wasn’t about talk and his silence put fear in the young hustler’s heart. Nahvid had been in the game long enough to know guilty men couldn’t handle silence ... they needed the noise to distract from the lies they told. Silence intimidated liars and they dominated the conversation so that others didn’t have time to dispute their stories. So as the hustler went on and on he dug his grave deeper and deeper.
“Yo, my man ... all that you’re talking sounds good, but it is irrelevant. Do you have my money?” Nahvid asked sternly.
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I got pulled over and the cops took the weight out of my car,” the guy rambled.
“And yet you sit in front of me,” Nahvid responded sarcastically.
“Man, I swear on my moms ... those pigs were dirty. They just took the weight and let me go. If you hit me with something I can flip it and work off my debt to you, fam,” the guy promised. He tried to put on a brave front but the quivering in his voice gave him away. “Come on, Nahvid man. I’ve known you since the sandbox, fam. I know how you get down. I didn’t steal from you. I’m good for it, Nah. Just let me pay you back a little at a time.”
Nahvid’s brow bent low as if he were highly offended. “Did I hit you with the work a little at a time?” he asked.
At a loss for words, the man didn’t respond.
“Then I don’t want my money a little at a time. Nigga, how you goin’ to spoon-feed me my own dough? Now I’ma ask you again. Do you have my money?”
The hustler shook his head and lowered his eyes to the floor as if he were a little boy being scolded by his father.
“Then you know who you need to go see. Right now this is about you. You go see my man Reason and I’ll keep it about you. If you run then I’ma make it about that wife and those two kids you got out there in South-east,” Nahvid threatened. He didn’t need to make eye contact or even raise his voice for his point to hit home. He simply picked up his phone and proceeded to handle the day’s business as the hustler stood to his feet. The color left the man’s face as he stared at Nahvid in desperation.
“You can see yourself out, fam,” Nahvid dismissed shortly as he nodded toward the door.
Nahvid put the call in to his right-hand man, Reese “Reason” Grimes, and with the snap of a finger a man’s life was on a countdown. “Make it clean ... no headshots. I’ve known the nigga awhile. Let his wife have an open casket,” Nahvid instructed before hanging up the phone. Nahvid yielded so much power in the streets that niggas delivered themselves to the execution block.
The sound of glass breaking caused him to stand to his feet as he pulled his .45 out of his desk drawer and made his way toward the noise. When he entered his kitchen he lowered his pistol and leaned against the wall as a shallow pit filled his stomach. He knew it was her without even seeing her face. Her slender frame and long jet-black hair were embedded in his memory. Even through the stench that covered her body, he recognized her natural scent. His eyes watered as he watched his mother rummage through his refrigerator, desperately shoving anything into her mouth that she could find.
He wanted to be disappointed in her, but this had become a routine long ago. Crack binges, clean binges, crack binges, clean binges. She never stuck to one thing for too long. Her crack addiction was too much for her to handle. She had a monkey on her back like none he had ever seen. She was part of the reason he entered the dope game in the first place. Being born to a drug-addicted mother he knew that the taste of crack had already been introduced to him. He was born hooked, a crack baby in fact and he knew that crack cocaine was destined to be a part of his life. Instead of smoking it, he chose the lesser evil and sold it. It was either one or the other. His mother had introduced him to it too early for him to ever be completely free of it. He walked up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist, holding tightly as he hugged her from behind.
“Hey, Nita,” he said, calling her by her first name as he always had. His mother had always treated him like a friend. She was his homegirl and they had come up on the mean streets as a two-man team, until Nahvid reached the age where her addiction was an embarrassment to him.
Nita stopped scrambling and calmed down. Her son always soothed her soul. She rested her head on his strong chest and replied, “Hey, baby.”
“When did you get out?” he asked. “I thought you were going to try this time.”
“I did try! Those mu’fuckas kicked me out the program,” Nita shouted.
“Kicked you out for what?” he questioned. He took her hand and turned her toward him. “Don’t lie to me, Nita. What did they kick you out for?”
Nita lowered her eyes and shuffled her feet nervously. “I brought a little something into the center with me... .”
“Ma ...” Nahvid sighed in disappointment.
“Just a little bit. To hold me over you know... .” she explained.
“No, Nita. I don’t know,” he countered. “You got to get off of this shit. You’re killing yourself.”
“We all got to go sometime,” she said as she pulled a cigarette from her bra and put it in her mouth. She lit it and only took one pull before Nahvid snatched it from her lips and broke it in half.
“You’re pushing it, old lady,” he said with a smile.
“Old lady? Who you calling old? Huh? I remember back in the day when I was the finest thing walking these streets. I was on the scene let me tell you ...”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ve heard it all before,” he teased as he put his arm around his mother’s shoulder and pulled her close.
“Let’s go take a hot bath and then I’ll take you out to eat,” he said.
He escorted his mother upstairs, his heart delighted by her presence. He sat on the toilet as she bathed herself. He wanted to give her privacy, but he was afraid that she would hop out of the window and disappear like a thief in the night. They reminisced about the good ol’ days. When she spoke of her past ... before the drugs ... before the shame ... her eyes sparkled clear and vibrant. He had no memory of her before crack. All of his stories were filled with dark times so he didn’t share them. He simply listened to her and let her talk until her heart was content. He enjoyed her presence. It wasn’t often that he got to indulge in her and he cherished every fleeting moment that they shared. He told himself that he was going to get his mother clean. The day she kicked her habit would be the day he gave up the game.
She’s going right back to rehab in the morning,
he thought. As he held out a towel for her she stepped out of the tub and he wrapped her up, ensuring that she was warm. Despite her flaws, his mother was his world. He adored her and it tortured him to see her in pain.
She’s going right back to rehab in the morning,
he thought. As he held out a towel for her she stepped out of the tub and he wrapped her up, ensuring that she was warm. Despite her flaws, his mother was his world. He adored her and it tortured him to see her in pain.
“You getting skinny, girl, you need to put some meat on those bones,” Nahvid cracked as he escorted her into his bedroom. He pulled out a drawer where he kept a few things for her and dressed her as if he were the parent and she was the child.
“Meals aren’t always easy to come by, baby boy. Yo’ mama ain’t never been desperate enough to eat out of no trash bin. If I can’t eat at a table then I would rather go without. Lately I’ve been coming across more trash bins then dining tables. I feel like I’m all skin and bones,” Nita stated.
Nahvid wanted to tell his mother that she couldn’t play both diva and addict. The two didn’t match, but he never wanted to embarrass her or belittle her. When she stayed away Nahvid was slightly grateful. Out of sight, out of mind was how he regarded her ... but here she was, standing in front of him and he felt obligated to help her change.
“You never have to go without, Nita. As long as there is air in my lungs I will make sure you have whatever you need, but I can’t put money in your hands right now. You and I both already know where it’ll go. I can feed you but I can’t supply your habit,” he said openly.
“It’s recreational with your mama, boy. Don’t worry about me. Just worry about yourself. I got this,” Nita said as she rubbed the top of her son’s head as he knelt before her, placing socks on her feet.
Nahvid sighed deeply, knowing that there was no such thing as a recreational user. In his mind if you smoked crack you smoked crack. It wasn’t a party drug that could be experimented with lightly. She was hooked and obviously in denial about her dependency. He hated to burst her bubble, but he could not sugarcoat things for Nita. “You’re a crackhead, ma. It’s a problem. I’ve been on my own since the day I was born because you can’t leave that shit alone. I don’t hate you for it. I never have, but I can’t let you sit in my face and act like you have everything in control. Things have been out of control and if you don’t get off of that shit it will kill you. Then what I’m supposed to do? Huh?” he asked as he stood to his feet. He stared at her intensely, but she couldn’t look him in the eyes. Tears threatened to fall down her face. “It hurts thinking about all that you’ve done to me, doesn’t it? How you think I feel? I’m in the streets, Nita. I hear the stories. You sucking dick, robbing, conning, doing whatever you got to do to get high. Do you even know how many fights I got into coming up defending you? I held you down, no matter who spoke badly about you, but I’m still waiting for you to return the love. When are you going to beat the odds and fight for me? I love you, Nita. You’re my favorite girl in the world but you don’t make it easy on me. You show up and then you leave me. You hurt my heart, Nita. Every time you leave it kills me. Stop running. You’ve got to get clean,” he whispered.
“I know, Nahvid,” Nita whispered as she wiped the snot from her nose. His words cut deeply because she knew that he was speaking the truth. It had never been her intention to be a horrible mother. She had gotten lost along the way and now she felt like it was too late to turn things around. So she smoked herself into oblivion where none of her mistakes mattered. But her son was standing before her, pouring out his heart like he never had before. It did matter ... her actions did hurt him. “I’ma get clean, baby. Mama will. I promise. I will.”
Nahvid pulled his grey Range Rover up to the rehab center as his mother cowered in her seat beside him.
“You can do this, Nita. I’m going to be behind you every step of the way. This time I’ll be here every day to visit. Twice a day if they let me. I’ll do whatever it takes to help you get right,” he said.
He noticed that his mother was silent. He could see through her ... she was intimidated by the inevitable hard journey to come. He got out and helped Nita from the car before accompanying her inside.
“They’re not going to let me back in here, Nahvid,” Nita said shamefully.
“Don’t worry about it. They will let you in. You wait right here,” he replied as he motioned to one of the seats in the reception area. He knew that the rules to the rehabilitation center were strict, but the $25,000 knot in his pocket ensured Nita’s readmission. Nahvid walked in and made the arrangements with the director. Hopeful that this time would be different he went to retrieve Nita, but when he saw the empty chair she had been sitting in, he knew that she was long gone. His heart sank into his stomach as disappointment filled him. He should have known that she wouldn’t go through with it. She wasn’t ready to let go of her pipe dreams and there was nothing he could do to change that fact.
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