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  Growing up basically solo, his demeanor and personality were selfish. Cursed with a single-parent mother who worried herself into an early grave, he’d given up on family respect early on. He never knew fact for sure who his father was. Clay would often think back on several of the men his mother ran with; yet, she said nothing concrete. There had been constant rumors circulating throughout his tumultuous childhood from distant relatives, but never anything proven. Having overheard several of his adult neighbors whisper about his mother’s promiscuous tendencies, as a youth, he shrugged it off. He knew he was different than the other kids growing up. Looking in the mirror, Clay easily noticed his skin was extremely lighter than his best friend’s and his cousin’s. Being teased about his deep waved, so-called good hair had become normal behavior. At various points in his coming of age, he inquired who his dad was, but his mother seemed to have a knack for avoiding that damning conversation of truth. Her repeated response was that her son was God’s child, and that was all that mattered. That being said, Clay suffered the ridicule of being labeled “the white man’s seed,” “half-breed bastard,” “pretty boy,” and the one he grew to despise the most, “soft-ass nigga with a cut.” Walking around with those disparaging remarks looming over his head made Clay a target wherever he went. With no choice whatsoever, the once naïve boy quickly transformed into a bitter, coldhearted teen turning into a hard-core, zero-tolerance monster; one that ruled his crew with an iron fist. Family meant nothing to Clay, and people who had those blood ties amused him. The twice-convicted felon couldn’t understand why people were on their porches making such a big deal about telling their kids they loved them or wives shouting for their husbands to have a good day at work. In his crime-filled world, nobody really loved anyone. No one trusted anyone, and what day at work slaving for the next man was really good? Those emotions were reserved for suckers, and he was definitely not classified in that category. As far as he was concerned, the people he was watching were.

  Double-checking his fresh wheat-colored Tims for signs of any scuffs, Clay sighed. For some strange reason, he felt it was going to be one of those days that things seemed off in the hood. Not wanting to ever get caught slipping, he pondered switching up the way he moved and the way he thought. It was easy for him to be seen, even if he didn’t want to be noticed with the ride he was currently pushing. Police and foes alike knew he was coming a mile away. The game definitely needed a change. Contemplating trading in his leased gas-guzzling Hummer for a low-key vehicle, he rubbed his hand down over his face. Taking one more brief survey of the block, Clay stepped back into the lower rented flat to make sure everything was running smoothly with his team.

  “Yo, what up, doe, Whip? What you think so far? Where we at with it?” He twisted the four deadbolts after slamming the steel-reinforced door closed. “We good or what? What’s the deal? Talk to me. What it do? You got a nigga anxious to know.”

  “Clay, to be honest, my guy, I dunno for sure.” Whip reached for the opened box of baking soda. After carefully measuring out a few more teaspoons to the already piping hot Pyrex that was home to the contents of their morning’s work, he puzzled. “This play ain’t coming back like the other package did yesterday. I don’t know what exactly the problem is, but hold tight. I’ma try something else.” Bobbing his head to the old-school music that was playing on The Steve Harvey Morning Show, he stirred the mixture with the precision of a scientist trying to cure cancer. “If this bullshit here don’t do it, we might have to go holler at ole boy. It might just need a little more time and heat. But you know me, playboy, I’m gonna try to make it do what it do.”

  Clay immediately placed his hand on the handle of his ever-present pistol. Now, garnering a double bad attitude, he stroked the grip, hoping the product he’d just dropped a few Gs on was proper. Dawg don’t wanna see me. Not to-fucking-day of all days. Right about now, I ain’t in the mood. As much as he would try to resist the urge to pop off, he’d fail. Clay stayed in an ongoing battle to remain calm. It was easy to see why, as a child, the doctors suggested some sort of medication for his impromptu rages. But Clay’s mother refused. Maybe it was her own demons she was waging battle with where pills were concerned, or just not wanting him to become another labeled “troubled black boy.” Just the same, today, as on many other occasions throughout the years, Clay was seconds away from acting out. If he didn’t shake off the feelings of folks being purposely out to get him, he would snap. No one in the small flat wanted that. None of his crew wanted their leader to damn near have to be caged up like some wild animal to get back in his right mind. Thankfully, Clay snapped out of his trance and came back to reality. Watching Whip work his magic with the aid of a few ice cube chips, Clay turned his attention to another pressing matter. Asking his other worker Dorie how things were going on the competition side of the game, Clay’s blood pressure rose once more in anticipation of the answer. Having run the streets for years, the game vet knew from experience, even if you had the best dope in the world, some drug addicts would go with the size of the play over quality of the product.

  “Yo, Dorie, who out there got a stronger package than us? Who out there making them fucking streets pop off?” Firing off statement after statement, question after question, he waited with sweaty palms, knowing the answer could go either way. “’Cause ya know we need to keep a head banger on they asses. That is, if we wanna eat. You know how picky them motherfuckers can be. We need something that, no matter how big or small, gonna have them beating down the block.”

  “Well, ole boy an’ ’em across Twelfth Street sack is weak as a baby aspirin. It ain’t hitting up on much of nothing. But other dude and his soft bread clique tried to come up on some work they supposedly copped from one of them sand niggas near Seven Mile and Woodward.” Dorie continued to divulge what he knew while counting money, placing a red rubber band around every stack. “My boy said it was off the hook the first part of the day. They was making all the bread, but by nightfall, they must’ve cut the dog shit out of it. They flow slowed all the way down, and we came through like a champ and made that late-night rush ours.”

  “Oh yeah? Real talk? So the count was still good?”

  “Yeah, don’t worry, Clay. It ain’t mess with our bump, though!” He continued to count the assorted bills while making sure all the faces on the bills were in the same direction. “We on top of it out in them streets. You know we always gonna have the best hand; do or die.”

  “Dig that. Real rap, nine outta ten, they probably can’t get no more, so they stretched it.” Clay walked over closer to Whip, who was just bringing the massive misshaped boulder together. He grinned, putting a toothpick in his mouth, seeing Whip finally pour “the hardened work” out onto the paper towel-covered plate. “But if this hookup right here is half as good as it was straight up uncut with nothing on it, them heads gonna be dancing in the motherfucking streets; some old Dancing With The Stars, Chris Brown dancing shit. Now, one of y’all go get homegirl. We ready to rock and roll and see what’s really good with Whip’s handiwork,” he happily ordered, knowing money was to be made on the floor.

  Eight minutes later, an already Wild Irish Rose-intoxicated cross-addicted Ida was let inside the cook up house. If anyone was gonna be able to give them an accurate read on the drug, it would be her. She was a seasoned veteran when it came to getting high. Proudly letting it be known she had been getting “half out of her mind” since the early sixties, Ida grinned. As she wrapped her dry, split lips around the transparent pipe, her usually half-closed eyes opened wide as a deer caught in headlights. One short pull, followed by a few long ones, Ida’s jaw started to tighten up. With each hard suck on the glass dick the lifelong crackhead and heroin addict took, Clay started to smile, moving his toothpick to the other side of his mouth. The heavy stream of smoke filling the pipe, then disappearing into Ida’s surely dark-infested lungs, made Whip sit back, feeling extremely content with his craft. With a huge smile knowing he’d cooked up another perfect pack
age, his reputation as a master chef was secure once more.

  “Well, what up, doe? What’s the real official deal?” Clay knew the woman old enough to be his grandmother was feeling it by her outward reactions. “Talk to me, Ida. What’s the verdict? We good money or not? Let a nigga know something.”

  Getting herself together, she was out of breath and off balance. After choking five or six good times, Ida made her final “professional smoker decision” on the quality of what she was testing. “Hell, yeah, Clay,” she struggled to speak, coughing once more from the effects of the strong blast she’d just been treated to. “This is the best bump I done had in days—maybe weeks.” Her veinless swollen hands dropped the hot stem on the table as her eyes bucked twice their normal size, watering up. “Let me hit some more just to make sure. You know, just in case I’m imagining things. I need to make sure this shit ain’t playing tricks on my old mind. Gimme one more blast I can do here, right quick.”

  “Naw, not here, but good lookin’ out, Ida. I’ll holler at you next go-around. We gotta get the rest of this shit all the way together, then hit the block hard.” Clay then instructed Whip to chip their always-reliable test dummy off another tiny-size rock, then send her on her wasted way to spread the word throughout the streets.

  “Hold up now. This is it?” Ida bargained, fixing her matted wig that was cocked to the side. “Come on now, baby boy, this can’t be it,” she slurred, showing all remaining seven of her rotten teeth. “Don’t do me like this, Clay. Hook me up, baby boy.” Her wig shifted once more. “You owe me that much after all the times I be out here having your back.”

  “I owe you? You be out here having my damn back? What in the hell!”

  “Yeah, nigga,” she brazenly stuck her chest out as if she was waiting to get a medal pinned on her lapel. “Whenever all them people be out in the streets talking about y’all’s dope ain’t shit, I be saying it is, even when it do be garbage. And when them other dope boys be saying they gonna catch you slippin’ and lay you down for good, I don’t be thinking they right.”

  The room grew silent. It was like the quiet before the storm. The awkward dead zone quiet moment when you get caught in a big-ass lie. Everyone knew Clay had zero tolerance when it came to people questioning him, let alone begging. He was the first, the last, and the only word in his organization. When Clay spoke, people listened. Asking for Whip or Dorie’s opinion was one thing, but to have them, or any of his lower-level street runners, speak out of turn was another, especially if they were ordered to shut the fuck up. To Clay, shut the fuck up meant just that . . . shut the fuck up. So, when Ida, a common drunk and crackhead, had the audacity to not appreciate his generosity, Clay damn near lost it. The fact he was banging Ida’s youngest granddaughter Rhonda on the regular the past month still didn’t matter. Clay was beyond heated.

  “So hold tight. Let me get this bullshit straight. You up here in this motherfucker telling me niggas out in these streets running off at the mouth? Out there disrespecting my name like I’m some sort of bitch-made ho? And you just now found it in your fucked-up mind-set to put me up on that shit? Like you doing me some sort of hellava favor?” Clay was fighting hard not to put his hands on Ida. Every part of him wanted to not only chin check her, but silence her forever. “You crackhead motherfuckers kill me. Y’all out here running around trying to get high and don’t realize how serious shit can be. You lucky I got some other shit to deal with right now, so get the fuck on. And, Whip, take that shit back from her.”

  “Come on, Clay, don’t do me like that. Please, I need that hit.” With Wild Irish Rose-liquid courage in her system, Ida kept at it, acting like fat meat ain’t greasy and her shit ain’t stank.

  “Ida, you best chill with all that,” Dorie advised, knowing what was about to come next if she didn’t take heed to his advice.

  “Yo, one of y’all get this foul skank outta here before I snap her goddamn neck! Old head or not, she got me twisted. Now I’m done playing around.” He waved his hand dismissing her like she was a fly. “And hurry the fuck up doing it before it get ugly.”

  High as hell, Ida obviously couldn’t see the seriousness on Clay’s face or hear it in his tone. “Aww, come on with your ole bright-skin ass. I just need a few more pieces for the road, for later. I know you got it like that. My granddaughter told me how y’all been living; eating at restaurants every night.” She continued begging, all while being roughly led to the rear door. “Don’t do me like this, Clay. We practically family; me and you.”

  Whip intervened, personally escorting her to the backyard. Practically shoving her out the gated fence, causing her to land dead on her dusty tailbone, he knew she had to be extra high off his mixture. “Damn, Ida, fall the fuck back. Is you on a suicide mission or what? You know how ole boy get down on that bright-skin bullshit. Now, your best bet is to get the hell on. Take a lap or two before he come out here and stump a mud hole in your ass.”

  Whether she knew it or not, Whip had just done the old woman the ghetto favor of a lifetime. If she would’ve stayed inside of that flat any longer, working the boss’s nerves, old Ida probably would’ve come up missing. That’s how life was in Detroit. Snitches got killed, haters got checked, loud-talking Negroes selling wolf tickets got them thangs cashed in, and pesky, begging-ass heads, like Ida, got seriously ghost!

  * * *

  Spending close to an hour weighing and bagging product, Clay and his crew were ready to hit the streets. Finally, they were about to post up in his territory. He had fought long and hard to earn the prime drug area that was his now, and would stand strong to keep it, if need be. The fact the police had found several nude dead bodies in the trunks of abandoned cars making the neighborhood hot made no difference to the team. It was what it was. That was life in the hood, and residents and thugs alike had grown accustomed to it. The police could care less if it was a workingman they would jump out and frisk or one of Clay’s boys. An arrest was an arrest was their motto. Squad cars and unmarked vehicles would slow cruise when they had the extra manpower just to knock heads. It was as if some cops were doing it for sport, mad that they were losing the war on crime. But Clay knew the police had a job to do, which was try to catch them doing wrong. He also knew he and his homeboys had a job as well, which was not to get caught doing well.

  Day after day, the crew would show up and show out doing theirs. They had one mission and one mission only . . . each day they woke up and their feet touched the ground, and that was to get paid by any means. Even when Clay was hauled in for questioning after rumors surfaced of his possible involvement in their gruesome murders, shit didn’t stop. And why would it? There was money to be made in the streets—so that was that. Crackheads had to smoke crack. Dopefiends had to shoot up. And alcoholics needed a drink. The hustle and flow of the game didn’t cease because he was off the streets. Like breathing, the game was second nature. Clay understood that and lived by that code. His boys were as close as anything he had as family, and they held it down until Clay touched back in the streets. As the three of them drove dirty as hell past the misfortunate people who’d just received free boxes of cheese, butter, and powdered milk behaving like they’d just won the lottery, Whip and Dorie frowned. Both barely in their twenties shook their heads, not yet knowing the true meaning of the struggle of life.

  “Damn, it must be tight out here. They at them baskets like they got gold or some shit in ’em,” Dorie observed, making sure the old-school Buick Regal he was driving came to a complete stop at the sign.

  Whip, the fastest of all three on foot, held the purple and gold Crown Royal drawstring bag with “the work” inside of it, also staring at the chaos that was going on at the church building. “You ain’t never lied. It’s almost like when we give out testers,” he commented while still trying to keep an eye out for Detroit’s Finest in case he had to bail from the backseat.

  I wish the fuck I would, Clay, toothpick still in mouth, gangster leaned to the side, low-profiled in the passenger
seat. As the car pulled off from the stop sign, Clay and Reverend Richards, the ringmaster of the ghetto circus, momentarily locked eyes. It was as if two big, ferocious dogs would come face-to-face on the regular but neither would attack, let alone bark. They would lift their heads as if they were sniffing out each other’s strong scent in the air. Showing no change in facial expressions, they nodded, slow acknowledging each other’s presence on the congested block. It was no deep dark secret they were cut from two different cloths. The good reverend assum-ingly stood for everything righteous in Detroit, while Clay held down all that was bad. Nevertheless, the two had some strange mutual respect for each other—just being black men in America.

  Only a few short city streets over from where they’d just hooked up at, Dorie swerved the Burgundy rag roof Regal over, taking up his usual two parking spots. The fact one of them was reserved for handicapped parking never seemed to matter to Dorie one bit. As the cautious yet cocky trio exited the vehicle, the blight-infested block seemed to come alive. The few pockets of families that actually still lived on Monterey Avenue were far, few, and in between. But as far as Clay was concerned, that was their loss and his gain. If they didn’t like living in the middle of a ground-zero crime zone, they could pack up and move because he and his team were there to stay. Clay was on the block to make money, not friends. He was about that life, even if they weren’t.

  Disappearing with the “package” inside the stash house where the runners were waiting for their individual sacks, Whip finally came back out joining Dorie and Clay on the stoop where they started their grind of overseeing.

  Chapter Two

  Lynn Banks

  Like clockwork, it was the same routine day in and day out. Not much changed if you were chasing a high and were dope sick. Everything you said, did, or even thought about was ultimately in the pursuit of getting that next blast. Lynn Banks, a middle-aged elementary schoolteacher, was definitely not the exception to that golden ghetto rule. With red, yellow, and royal-blue folders filled with homework assignments and several book reports next to her, Ms. Banks, as her students affectionately called her, sat scrunched down in the front seat of her late-model silver Toyota Corolla. Impatiently waiting for Clay and his crew to arrive and set up shop, she let her rough fingertips rub the smooth sides of the burnt edge pipe that always aided her in her pursuit of ecstasy.