Kayshaun was not going to let his brother go to hell. Even if he had to disappear. They were all going to be with Pop in Heaven just as he had seen in that Bone, Thugz, ‘n’ Harmony music video, ‘See ya at the Crossroads’. He had filed in his memory how a brother had been wasted by gang violence, and its resurfacing now made him shake as a gun of ludicrously high caliber with a black mirror shine finish was level with his very white teeth. Cold sweat broke under his Lakers’ Bryant Jersey in the living room full of Basketball Star Posters. The daylight ricocheted from the wide windows seeming to cast the room into chiaroscuro. Children’s voices outside carried joy and innocence in their nursery rhymes.
“Kay, where is mah stash? You ain’t gonna make your big brother look bad to mister Smoke here. That’s two kilos of coke and ah want it now.” Michael Jordan Lawrence, so named because Pop was a Bull’s fanatic, was neither placating nor dead serious. He was hoping Kayshaun would be chickened by the gun and be scared enough to reveal where the merchandise had gone from under his bed. It would’ve bought his way to UCLA.
“This is very bad, bro, dealing with drugs and shit,” he almost sound like Cris Rock, “Are you gonna send brothers to their deaths, Mikey? Are ya gonna ruin them families, them lives with tha devilish white powder?”
“Just tell where did ya put it and I’m gonna give ya a hundred buck,” mister Smoke pulled the crackling bill out and snapped it with his two hands before his reflectorized shades, like James Brown in Las Vegas.
“You can shove that up yours, you walkin’ zombie. I wonder what voodoo raised ya up from the grave.”
“Don’t make me shoot you,” Michael had cocked the hammer of the .357 Smith & Wesson, “where the fuck is it!”
“Yeah, shoot the punk.”
“You’re not going down, are you bro? This is not how Pop raised us. I’m not going to let ya put the lives of the youth of our ‘hood down the drain. An’ ah did just that. I flushed the damn poison in the loo.”
Now, Michael’s face became lustrous as beads on his forehead refracted sunlight, contemplating thousands of dollars going down to the sewers beyond reach. But he was within the reach of his Cadillac-ed suppliers, whose mumbles had cops calling for back up, and were never found. Smoke was his buyer of a kilo. He’d spread the word of his screw up faster than Devin Harris’ crossover dribble.
“Shoot tha stupid brother! Shoot ‘im!” he said between yellowing teeth.
“If ah havta die so that you may live, so be it Michael. I’ll tell Pop how you helped Momma with the groceries and little Keesha with her homework. I’m gonna miss you bro,” Kayshaun tried to look brave and had stopped inhaling.
“You’re a dead black guy,” Smoke was urging almost hysterically. Michael’s face hardened, the muscles of his arm bulging as he leveled the barrel at mister Smoke. He was gone.
“Where’d he go?” Michael spat.
“He just of vanished!” Kayshaun cried. The brothers hugged. Relief and dread flooding their Afro and Dreadlock adorned heads.
“This is creeping me out, Kay. We gotta pack. We all goin’ to Uncle Bubba in Alabama, lay low for awhile.”
“I know a brotha who will buy that bling bling.”
“So, Morton, were you able to corrupt the boys? Please, taste the soup, it’s delicious,” mister Devlin was sipping from his meatball soup in Chao Fan’s Home of Chinese Cuisine in downtown, facing the busy street where roller blading bikini girls sped past.
“Forgive me, but he did not kill the boy. Their love for each other won out.” Devlin coughed the soup, spraying the air between them.
“My very, very dear apprentice, that ‘F’ word is a bit unbecoming amongst us, don’t you think? That word. It’s impolite, if not damn straight disgusting.”
“Master, I promise, I won’t fail again.”
“And that vanishing act is a tad reckless, Merlin.”
“He was going to shoot me!”
“Fool! That’s the point! That would’ve made another murderer for us. And you incompetent moron, they’re not supposed to know we exist! They have to blame God and each other for evil. You probably didn’t read the memo, Elmo,” Morton slumped on his chair, “you know, sonny, the Overlord doesn’t take kindly to failure. If I don’t do something it’s going to be my red ass on the grill,” his eyes began to turn dark red with emanating black light flames.
“Your lordship, no! I will do better next time, please—” red lightning connected from his eyes to the cringing underling no human eye could follow. A meatball that wasn’t in the soup before was wriggling in the bowl. He skewered it with a fork and calmly ate it as it squeaked. Mister Chao happened to pass by and decided to have a little PR with Devlin.
“Where is yo frend, mis’er Deblin? I thought I saw him here awhile ago.”
“He is going down with the soup.”
“Something wrong with the soup? Me replace pree of cha’ge!”
“Nah, don’t sweat it, mister Chao. In fact, I want some more.”
“Ah, tank you. Always good luck to serve regula’ customa.”
“I love eating in this town. My associates in Iraq aren’t so lucky.”
