The Apostles (17 page)

“First I thought it was just some motherfuckers bellyaching ‘cause they ain't got cop money, but these studs been around the building trying to get their hand on shanks and shit.”

Solemn Shawn held his hand up to halt Weezie. “How many of them is it?”

“Four.”

“Did they say when and where?”

Weezie reached for Murderman's chocolate milk again, but a glance from the youth with the high-top fade stopped him. “In the rec room on Thursday. Two of them plan to start a fight outside of the rec room to keep the guard distracted while the others take you offa here. They know they ain't no way for Dante or Murderman to get rec room privileges on Thursday ‘cause they got different house numbers. Plus, they know that you be holding heavy on rec room day.”

Toying with his orange, Solemn Shawn asked, “Who are these cats?”

“Ben, you know Bad Breath Ben, Frito, and I don't know the other two cats by name. One of them I think is called Freddy. They stay on some bullshit though. Stealing out of niggas' cells and shit. Them niggas think they hard too.”

Solemn Shawn looked around. He noticed four of the kids sitting at the table had got in the wind at the mention of Ben and Frito. Several more looked ready to bolt, and the last four looked ready to spread news of his cowardice, if he showed any. He could even see that Murderman and Dante were trying to play it off, but they were looking at him expectantly—looking at him to make a decision, to be a leader.

Big Ant had groomed him for this day. He had told him over and over again this day was coming, especially once he'd left for the world. This was a direct challenge to his existence, and if he didn't meet it head-on, Solemn Shawn knew he was through gambling. He thought about the few months of training in the art of prison warfare that Big Ant had bestowed upon him. It was time to put some of the cruel, brutal methods into action. He hated being picked as the weak one out of the crowd, but he would definitely show Ben and his buddies they had seriously underestimated him.

“Weezie,” Solemn Shawn said, “I thank you for sharing this information with us. Your slate is wiped clean. Next time you lie to get some weed from us, we gone stomp yo ass. Now excuse yourself.”

This is a cold-blooded motherfucker,
Weezie thought.
He dismissing me like I'm a damn peasant or something. Well, that's cool, I don't owe these motherfuckers no more. This nigga acting all arrogant and shit. I hope he don't write no check that his ass can't cash.

Weezie stood up. “I'm glad that I could be of service to y'all. You know I always liked you cats. Watch y'all back.”

Dante spoke first. “We can't be up in that rec room wit you, so what you gone do? The niggas in yo house ain't gone help you. You
need to chill until we can bust them niggas' heads together. Or we can get on the phone and rap with Big Ant and maybe he can point us in the right direction.”

Solemn Shawn began to peel his orange. “Can't do that, Dante. We got to stand on our own two feet. Inside here and outside, weakness is a sin. I must stress that I have to deal with this head-on. Like Chaplain Brown says, if our cause be divine, everything'll be fine.”

“Later for that preacher-man shit,” Murderman snapped. “Sounds like you starting to believe all that ‘meek shall inherit the earth’ shit. It's gone be two niggas in that room with shanks, and Chaplain Brown and his God ain't gone be nowhere around, you dig.”

“What would you propose I do,” Solemn Shawn asked. “Run from these dudes? Look around you, my man. There isn't anywhere to run. Should I call Big Ant sniveling like a coward and try to get him to pull a few strings? If I did then he would think we couldn't take care of our own problems in here. I know that if I don't handle these punks, then we might as well give our weed away, because ain't nobody gonna wanna cop from a punk-ass dopeman. The shanks they're going to have only pose a minor threat because they're walking into a room full of pool sticks. I can already tell these dudes aren't too bright—greedy but stupid.”

Frustrated, Murderman asked, “Dante, you heard this nigga?”

“Yeah, Shawn, you is starting to sound like you off you damn rocker.”

“Trust me,” Solemn Shawn said as he ate his orange. He collected his food tray and walked away without looking back.

“That nigga is losing his damn marbles,” Murderman said. “Going up against two niggas with shanks just for the hell of it. That nigga so smart, he stupid.”

Pensively, Dante said, “That's just him. Ain't no kind of way he gone let that shit ride. As long as I known him, he ain't never fucked with nobody, but he ain't never allowed no motherfucker to fuck with him. Stop worrying about that nigga. He'll come to his senses. Now
bring yo ass on, I'm ready to work out. You gone hit the weights wit me?”

“Hell nall. You know I don't lift no fucking weights. The only iron I lift is the kind that go bang and that's what got me in here in the first place. You gone on ahead, I got to go check on something.”

Outside the recreation room, Solemn Shawn whispered a silent prayer under his breath before he pushed open the door and entered the room.

“Good,” he said to himself. He had made it here before his antagonists.

Quietly he began making his rounds and peddling his joints of the best green stuff this kiddie pen had seen in a long time. Several boys by the Ping-Pong table signaled to him to get his attention. Warily he walked over to them, his eyes scanning the room. He noticed one youth over by the Foosball table leaning on a mop in a bucket, staring at him. The boy had a menacing scowl on his face. Solemn Shawn made a note to keep his eyes on that kid.

He stepped to the kids playing Ping-Pong. “What's up, y'all?”

“Got some reefer?” Billy, the taller of the Ping-Pong players, asked.

“Yeah, man,” Solemn Shawn answered in clipped tones.

“The same good shit like last time?” the other player asked. “I mean is it that fire bo that make yo hair grow?”

“Money-back guarantee,” Solemn Shawn stated impatiently. They knew he had the good stuff. He had known it would be risky pretending to carry on business as usual, but the way these dudes were questioning the obvious was ridiculous. “So what's up? Y'all copping or window-shopping, baby?”

“Yeah, give us four of ‘em. Tone, pay the man,” Billy directed. Tone looked like he wanted to protest, but Billy gave him a look. “Nigga, I know you ain't trying to renege on our bet. You lost four times—that's four joints. Now pay the man.”

Reluctantly Tone coughed up the money, including a dollar's worth of change that Solemn Shawn didn't want to take, but hey, money was
money. Once the transaction was made, Solemn Shawn headed over to the pool table area. There were three pool tables and all of them were occupied. He picked his marks and slid up to them.

“A Johnny and Bread,” he said to the two pool-playing boys. “Let me put a bug in y'all ear.”

Bread stopped aiming at the seven ball and looked up. “Solemn Shawn, what's up, baby?”

“I need this table here and I'm willing to pay you cats two dollars and two joints for it.”

“‘Nuff said,” Bread replied. He and Johnny laid their pool cues on the table, accepted the payoff, and made for the game closet to get high.

After making sure the guard wasn't watching him, Solemn Shawn broke one of the pool cues across his knee as quietly as possible. He attracted only minor attention from the other inmates. The skinny end of the pool cue he tossed in the garbage can; the heavy weighted end he placed on the side of the pool table in the space where the unracked balls were stored. As he prepared himself for battle, Solemn Shawn kept an eye on the door and the boy who was leaning on the mop. The boy hadn't moved from his initial spot. From his pocket Solemn Shawn pulled a double tube sock. Palming two balls from the table, he dropped them in the sock and tied a knot right over them. He stashed the pool ball sock with the broken pool cue. When he looked up, the kid by the mop was still watching him.

Still keeping his eye on the door, Solemn Shawn walked back over to the Ping-Pong table. “Billy, dig it. Let me ask you something, man.”

Without putting down his Ping-Pong paddle, Billy stepped a little ways away from the Ping-Pong table. “Yeah, man. What's popping?”

“Billy, who is this chump that's leaning on that mop over there?” Solemn Shawn asked. “That stud keep pinning me while I'm trying to take care of my business like he a junior narc or something.”

“Dude name is Vee. Shorty been here for a minute. You probably ain't never seen him ‘cause he spend so much time in the hole for doing bullshit.”

“Yeah. What's the 411 on him though?”

“Shorty be trying to make a name for hisself. Starting fights and shit. He ain't shit.”

“Thanks, Billy,” Solemn Shawn said. He slapped Billy five before making his way back to the pool table loaded with his mini-arsenal.

At the pool table, Solemn Shawn racked the balls, and through his nervous anticipation he managed to make a few shots. He was trying to sink a two-cushion shot when he heard a commotion outside the rec room.

This is it,
he thought, as he moved around the table to the side where his weapons were stored.

Sure enough, Ben and Frito burst into the rec room. Ben shouted, “Them niggas is out there boxing! Dre is mopping Tyrone! Check it out, y'all!”

All of the inmates and the rec room guard bolted for the door to see the brawl. Solemn Shawn stood his ground.

The empty room gave notice to Ben that the first stage of his plan was successful. He started toward the seemingly uninterested Solemn Shawn. Behind Ben, Frito closed the door, pulled the guard's chair over and secured it under the doorknob.

“Quiet-ass nigga, drop that stick!” Ben ordered as he pulled a six-inch shank from his waistband.

Solemn Shawn dropped the pool cue and stood up. “What's happening, man? What, you niggas want to buy some weed?”

“Frito, you hear this nigga talking about do we want to buy some weed?”

Frito snickered. “Nigga must be stupid, Ben, or he losing his got-damn mind.”

“Yeah, something like that,” Ben agreed. “Let me make it where he can understand this shit. Nigga, this is a stickup, don't make it an ambulance pickup.”

The boys were only a few feet from Solemn Shawn, coming at him from both ends of the pool table with their knives out in front of them.

In a blur, Solemn Shawn filled his hands with the pool ball sock
and broken pool cue. Looks of amazement leaped to his attackers' faces as they saw their mark was prepared for them. Across the room, Vee stepped from behind one of the room's columns holding the metal mop bucket filled with hot water.

“Ahhhh!” he yelled as he charged across the room.

Vee's yell caught everyone off guard. As Ben and Frito turned to see who the hell was yelling like a fool, Solemn Shawn sprang forward and tried to cave the back of Ben's head in with the pool ball sock. There was a dull thunk as Ben grabbed his head. He dropped his knife and melted to his knees. The boy with the bucket was almost upon him so Solemn Shawn had to disregard Frito momentarily so he could defend himself against Vee.

But instead of heading toward Solemn Shawn, Vee heaved the bucket of water on Frito. Drenched in the hot water, Frito began to dance around, all the while bellowing in pain. Vee hopped toward him and slapped him alongside his head with the metal bucket. As Frito fell, Vee pounced on him and began beating him with the bucket.

Amazed, but relieved, Solemn Shawn went to work on Ben with the pool cue. With the heavy end, he mechanically beat Ben. The would-be robber writhed on the floor in pain as he tried to cover his face and head with his arms and hands. With surgical precision, Solemn Shawn brought the pool cue down on his wrists, arms, and hands over and over again. The smacks of the wood were punctuated by the sound of fracturing bones. One of the bones in Ben's left wrist began peeking through the flesh. Solemn Shawn aimed the stick at Ben's right shoulder and swung hard. There was an awesome crack as the pool cue and Ben's collarbone met. Satisfied with his handiwork, he backed off. Solemn Shawn looked over at Vee, who was taking his time kicking Frito's unconscious face to pieces.

The soggy, bloody boy looked to be disfigured, but Vee wasn't through. Vee spotted Solemn Shawn's discarded pool ball sock and scooped it up. With it, he began aiming blow after blow at Frito's ankles and knees.

Solemn Shawn knew from the awful sound of the pool balls striking
Frito's kneecaps that the boy wouldn't be walking normally any
time soon—if ever again.

Worried that they would be missed, Solemn Shawn called out to Vee, “A, man, that's enough. We need to get out of here before everybody come back.”

Vee ignored him and kept whacking Frito with the sock.

Solemn Shawn walked over and grabbed his flailing arm. “Man, I said that's about enough,” he said forcefully.

There was a slight glaze in Vee's eyes as he looked up at Solemn Shawn. It seemed to take him a second or two to fight down the blood-lust. Solemn Shawn released his arm and started for the door. Vee looked over at Ben, unconscious of pain. Almost as an afterthought he swatted Ben a few times in the head and groin area with the pool ball sock.

“I said that's enough, man!” Solemn Shawn spit through his teeth. “We need to book before we both be in the hole or get our privileges took for the rest of our sentences. Now come on.”

Vee gave Ben one more hit, and then after kicking him in the ribs, he dropped the sock and joined Solemn Shawn by the door.

“One thing, man. Why did you help me?”