Yaccub's Curse (23 page)

“I knew I liked you for a reason, Snap. I think you’re even more vicious than I am.”

Scratch killed the engine and we both stepped out of the ride and approached the little townhouse, careful to stand clear of the windows. I was nervous about not having the car running, but not nearly as nervous as I’d be if we had to make a fast retreat and we ran out to find that some kids had taken the Beemer for a joyride. I was even more nervous about Scratch’s personalized license plate. Why anyone would drive such a distinctive vehicle to a homicide made no sense to me, but I figured that Scratch wanted everyone to know who’d ended Jah Warrior’s life. More fodder for his considerable rep. The fact that his ride might alert the rest of the JBGL to his presence on their turf was a secondary concern for him. For me it was primary though. I didn’t like anything about this scene.

I didn’t like the way the dry grass and loose gravel crunched loudly under our boots as we walked around to the back of the house. I didn’t like the sheets that covered the windows preventing me from seeing what was going on inside. I really didn’t like not having Tank there to cover my back with the AK. None of that could be helped though. It was time to put in work.

The back yard was littered with garbage. There would be no way to cross the yard without making a racket. I held up a hand for Scratch to halt while I considered our options. Bottles and cans littered the ground everywhere along with old toys and car parts.

“Shit! We’re gonna’ have to do this like the PD. You go through the front and as soon as I hear you kick in the door I’ll come through the back blazin’. Don’t start shootin’ until I do. I ain’t tryin’ to get hit by no friendly fire. We cool?”

“You the man with the plan today, Snap. However you call it.”

“I just want us both walkin’ out of here alive.”

“I like that plan.”

I watched Scratch walk back around to the front of the house and poised myself so that I could get to the back door in seconds after Scratch came through the front. I crossed the yard slowly, tip-toeing in between piles of debris until I could go no further. I was right in the middle of the yard. Exposed. If someone looked out the window right now they’d spot me right off. The Berretta was in my hand and loaded with fifteen Black Talons I’d bought from a crackhead cop I knew. Even if Jah fucked with his vest on he was still a dead man.

From where I stood I could see through one corner of the back window where the sheet wasn’t tacked down. I was looking right into the bedroom. Two bodies undulated on a bare mattress in a familiar violent rhythm. Jah was getting’ himself some ass. I hoped that Scratch would be quick because I wasn’t sure how long Jah’s stamina would hold out. They were going at it pretty hard in there.

Moments later I heard the sound of a shotgun going off and I knew that Scratch was making his move. I crossed the yard in a heartbeat and smashed right through the window landing right on top of Jah and his lover.

The room smelled of sweat, ass, and Astroglide. They both screamed as glass rained down on their naked bodies and I slammed into them and knocked them sprawling off the little twin bed onto the floor. The boy was still screaming as Jah’s enslimed penis was unceremoniously extricated from the kid’s bleeding asshole.

Jah Warrior was not a small man. He was about two-hundred and twenty pounds and almost all of it was muscle. He had been a pro-boxer before he became a drug lord and I knew that he was fully capable of beating me to death. I struggled to get to my feet and raise my gun, but my legs had somehow gotten tangled in a blanket and some sheets they must have ripped off the bed in their passion. Luckily Jah was still entwined with his lover and having just as much trouble freeing himself from the tangle of limbs.

“What tha fuck?” It was all he had time to say before Scratch entered the room and aimed the shotgun at his head.

“Hello, Jah. You’d better tell your bitch to shut up if he wants to live.”

“Don’t kill me! I am loyal to you. You are the dark Lord. The Morning Star. I am your loyal servant forever. You promised me power, a high seat in the hierarchy of hell!” The boy’s eyes were wide with fright and wet with tears. His voice shook as he spoke and his body trembled.

“What da fuck you talkin’ ’bout?” the big Jamaican asked as he sat on the floor with his impressive organ still swollen and erect as if he was just waiting for us to leave so he could finish sodomizing his little playmate. “You sell me out? You make a deal wit’ dis peckerwood?” He started to rise and Scratch cocked the shotgun.

“Settle down there, Rastaman.” He turned to address the Fillipino kid who was growing hysterical. “You’re right, Micheal. You’ve been very loyal to me and I did promise you that you would be rewarded for it with an honored place in hell. Now, I want you to go there first and wait for me.”

He unloaded both barrels into the boy’s face taking his head clean off his shoulders and sending a shower of brain and bone all over Jah.

“Noooo! Fuck you, mon! Fuck you! You nah ’ave to do that! Your beef is wit’ me. He ain’t done nut’ing to you, mon!”.

“You should be thanking me, Jah. Your little butt buddy gave you up and I ain’t have to pay him a dime. He did it because he thought I was Satan. See, he was raised Catholic and so he thought he was going to hell already for being gay and letting you pack his shit everyday. He thought that if he helped me I’d be able to make his stay in hell a little more comfortable. What do you think, Jah? You think I’m the devil.”

Jah Warrior didn’t answer Scratch. Instead he turned his attention to me.

“’Ow can you work for this creature? Don’t you know what he is? Can’t you see what master you’re serving?”

“I serve the same master you do muthafucka, the almighty dollar bill. Time to say goodnight now.” I pointed the gun at his head. Scratch cocked the shotgun again. He aimed it at Jah’s erection, which had finally diminished after the death of his lover.

“I’ll see you in ’ell white boy. You too, ’ouse nigga!”

When we were done pumping rounds into him he was not even recognizable as a man.

Clumps of powder burned flesh littered the floor from where the shotgun had disintegrated it from the two mangled bodies. Molecules of blood floated in the air and pools of it soaked into the mangy carpet. Both corpses were missing most of their skulls and their torso’s were punctured and gouged, so riddled with bullets that they were literally falling apart.

“You’d better go on back to the car. I don’t think you want to see the rest of this.”

I looked at the brain matter coating the walls and floor and my stomach roiled.

“Are you going to eat that?”

Scratch raised an eyebrow quizzically and looked deep into my eyes trying to read me. I purposely kept my expression neutral.

“Eat what, Snap?”

“Eat their brains. Are you going to eat their brains?”

I could see the surprise cross Scratch’s face even though he too was struggling to keep his face emotionless. His eyes narrowed as he regarded me even closer, scrutinizing my face for some clue to my thoughts. Then he smiled and eased back, but his eyes still did not leave my face.

“I’m going to have to keep my eyes on you, Snap. You know a lot more than you let on.”

“Why do you do it? Just to convince the Jamaican posses that you really are the devil? More of that voodoo shit?”

“It’s just part of the ritual, man.”

Scratch reached his hand down into Jah Warrior’s ruptured skull and scooped out the stringy pink pulp that was all that was left of his brains, except for what was now oozing down the wall in back of him. I decided to take his advice and wait out in the car. I was just stepping out of the room when I heard the wet smacking sounds as Scratch consumed his prize.

— | — | —

Chapter 14

“…I don’t think anyone expects a sheep to go into the den of the wolf and love the wolf, because the sheep would wind up in the stomach of the wolf.”

—Malcolm X

««—»»

Scratch dropped me off in front of Yolanda’s house with my pockets fat with ten thousand dollars in cash.

“You done good today, playa. I’ll see ya around. I might have another job for you soon.”

“Yeah, okay. Just let me know.”

The gold encrusted red BMW took off down the street creeping slowly. I could see Scratch watching me in his side mirrors as he rolled down the block. He was smiling again. I turned and walked up the steps to Yolanda’s front door.

“What you want now?”

“Shut the fuck up,” I said as I grabbed her in my arms and dragged her back into the house kissing and undressing her. I kicked the door shut while lifting her dress over her head and dropping my pants. By the time we made it to the bedroom we were both completely naked.

I turned her around and bent her over the back of an overstuffed chair in the middle of the room. We made love violently, angrily. We didn’t speak, no apologies, no explanations, we just fucked hard and angry, saying with our bodies what pride prevented us from speaking. We scratched, spanked, and bit each other, shifting seamlessly from one position to the next, from the chair, to the floor, to the bed, as we hammered out orgasm after orgasm until we both collapsed sweating and quivering into each others arms.

I was laying in her bed, still inside her, looking at the semen glistening on her lips and pooling in her belly button, when the doorbell began ringing frantically and Huey’s voice called out from the street.

“Yo, Malik! Yolanda! C’mon and open up! I know that pussy can’t be that good that you got to spend all day up in it. Bros before hos, remember, Snap? Bros before hos.”

A wide grin spread across my face as I rolled out of bed and tip-toed barefoot across the splintering hardwood floor. The window rattled loudly as I yanked it open.

“Man, what you want, Huey? Makin’ all that muthafuckin’ noise down there. You pullin’ me right up out the pussy.”

“Fuck that old tired pussy! Over-sexed hooker gets too much dick as it is. Shit, don’t you know you gotta make them miss it sometimes? That bitch ain’t missed a day of dick since she was twelve. She done got spoiled on it.”

“Fuck your little yellar ass, nigga. You
wish
you could get some of this pussy.” Yolanda yelled from behind me.

“If that nigga don’t get da fuck down here I might just come up there and break your big black ass off with some of this.” It was kind of funny to see Huey clowning with Yolanda. It was a mood you didn’t see from Huey everyday. He was usually so serious and intense. I was enjoying their little verbal sparring match.

“You ain’t gonna do nuthin’ with that little yaller dick of yours.”

“Hooker, I’ll slap you in your fat-ass mouth with this yaller dick!”

“Little yaller dick, nigga. Little yaller dick.”

I came out the front door and shook Huey’s hand.

“Man, why that bitch of yours always got to have the last word on everything?”

“Why you always got to be antagonizing her?”

We started walking off down the street before Huey even told me where we were going or what he wanted.

“I’m just fuckin’ with the bitch. Besides, I hate how that hooker always tryin’ to play mommy to everybody. She thinks she knows everything and she ain’t shit herself. Sittin’ on her fat ass sellin’ beer and weed and collectin’ welfare checks. You can do much better than that shit, bro.”

“I could have Iesha, but, since you got her, Yolanda is about the best thing going.”

Huey knew how much I cared about Iesha so he just let the matter drop. In all the years Huey and I had been friends we never argued, mostly due to Huey’s deft handling of my volatile moods, but lately we’d been disagreeing more frequently.

“So, peep this, bro. I’m bored out of my muthafuckin’ mind and Iesha’s getting on my goddamned nerves. I was thinkin’ we could go on one of them payback missions up in the Northeast like we used to do you know?”

It had started back before we all got arrested and sent to reform school. Huey and I would go on these missions in the white neighborhoods. What we would do is go up to Northeast Philly and beat and rob white folks on their own turf just to let them know that there was no insulation from the streets. We wanted to let them know that just because they lived across town from us didn’t mean they were safe from us. It didn’t mean they could ignore us.

It started when my homeboy dirty Frank got stabbed. Frank was a thief who was too stupid to go outside the neighborhood. He would steal from his own neighbors. Any fool could figure out that nobody was making a special trip to our poor-ass little community to steal a few used TVs, stereos, and VCRs. So, anytime something came up missing you’d more than likely be able to recover it by knocking on Frank’s door. I had to step in his ass once myself over my Mom’s VCR, but still he was my boy.

Frank and I went to grade school together and he used to live right across the street from me when he was staying with his grandparents while his mom was in rehab kicking heroin. He still lived only two blocks away and in G-town that almost made him family. Then, one day, he gets stabbed right in front of the police station in broad daylight and his attacker just walks away. Police just yards away saw nothing and no one was ever apprehended. Even worse, as Frank lay bleeding from a gut wound, the cops searched him and then harassed him about a couple vials of rock they found in his pockets, treating him like a suspect instead of a victim. Frank could have died and nobody would have been convicted. There would have been no story on the eleven o’clock news, no public outcry, and no change in police policies and procedures.

Nothing ever changed for the better until it started happening to white folks and they began writing letters, and calling their congressman, and talking to the newspapers, and threatening lawsuits. So we decided to make it happen to white folks. We decided to bring the ghetto to their doorsteps. That very night, while Frank was having his intestines stitched together at Germantown Hospital, Huey and I took a bus up to Northeast Philadelphia for some payback.