Chaser Page 16

  “What?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Nasir too mad at me to take any of my calls, but he would agree to be a lookout for Kenny, who had just as much fault as me in using his dad’s accounts to wash money.

  “I know.” Kenny shook his head. “That was stupid as shit of me, knowin’ the nigga’s pop and they whole business is under investigation. But that shit didn’t even dawn on me at the time. But anyway, I know the cops goin’ be houndin’ him for information. And being as though he got hit and his homie got killed, he might be prone to give it to ’em.”

  I was floored taking in all the information Kenny was giving me. First, Detective Daily was dead, then Nasir was hit, and his homie, whom I presumed to be Brock, was killed. I didn’t have time to deal with one issue before he had hit me with another and another.

  “So I’ma need you to be my eyes and ears while you workin’ with the cops. In the meantime, I need to get to the bottom of why the cop was out there in the first place. I need to find out who is hippin’ the mafuckin’ law to my shit.”

  Kenny stood up straight and rubbed his palm over his low haircut. He brushed past me as he left out the bathroom. Then he came back.

  “Oh, and everything that we talk about stays between you and me! You understand?”

  “Yes,” I whimpered, my eyes staring down at the floor.

  “Look at me,” he said.

  I turned around and raised my head. Tears streaming down my face, I looked at him.

  Then, in a cold and calculated tone, he said, “I don’t have no problems knockin’ anybody off if I even think they takin’ shots at my freedom, you dig?”

  I managed to nod, even though my body had stiffened up. My lungs felt like they were closing, and I found myself unable to breathe.

  “That goes for you and anybody the fuck else,” he added. Then he left again.

  I collapsed to the floor, panting. I was scared breathless.

  Nasir

  It was the Tuesday after Memorial Day, and I was laid up in the hospital recovering from a bullet wound that had shattered my collarbone. Much worse, though, I was mourning the loss of my best friend. I couldn’t believe Brock was gone. Not Brock, of all people. That was one nigga who never did shit to nobody. He stayed outta trouble, stayed out the way. And all he ever wanted to do was have fun. It hurt like hell picturing his body stretched out on the pavement with all those bullet holes through it, and I’d found myself shedding more tears in the last forty-eight hours than I had in my entire life.

  “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” I repeatedly apologized to the nurse for having to clean vomit off me again.

  “It’s okay, Mr. Freeman. It’s not your fault. You don’t have to be so apologetic,” she said as she wiped me clean.

  “I know. But it’s embarrassin’ to keep spittin’ up on myself.”

  “You can’t control it. You’re just one of those patients who can’t take morphine. Consider that a good thing.”

  The room grew silent as the nurse continued cleaning me up. She threw the sponge in the bucket that was by my bed and rinsed it. She had a smile on her face the whole time and tried to make me feel okay, but I felt fucked up. I was a grown man throwin’ up on himself and I couldn’t even clean it off. The only thing that kept me sane was the fact that I was alive. I could’ve easily been another homicide victim.

  “Oh, it looks like you have visitors,” the nurse said as she helped changed my gown. She gathered her cleaning items and started out the room.

  I looked toward the door. Once I got past the bouquet of “Get Well” balloons I realized it was my mom and my dad.

  My mom was smiling and crying at the same time as she walked over to my bed. Leaning over, she kissed me on my forehead. I hugged her with my right arm, the one that wasn’t in a sling.

  “Stop crying,” I told her.

  She unwrapped the balloon strings from around her hand and let the balloons coast to the ceiling. Meanwhile, my dad shook his head as he greeted me with a handshake.

  “How you feelin’, man?” he asked, as if it pained him to talk to me.

  “Aww, man, I’m alive. That’s all that matters,” I responded, holding back.

  “Thank God,” my mom chimed in, shaking her head. “Thank God.” My mom wiped tears from her eyes and then blew her nose. Her legs were shaking uncontrollably. She was an emotional wreck. She couldn’t get herself together.

  “Mom, calm down,” I said. “It’s just a broken bone. It’ll heal.”

  “You don’t understand,” she said. “You my firstborn, and just the thought of losing you is driving me crazy. And like I told ya dad last night, we should never go a day without tellin’ our kids we love them. Let alone go weeks without even speakin’ to them.” My mom’s tears returned. “He would have had a heart attack if you would’ve been taken from us, especially while y’all were goin’ through y’all shit. If y’all don’t do nothin’ else, y’all need to squash the bullshit.”

  Then my dad cut in. “It’s squashed. This my son. That little shit that happened can’t change that.”

  I nodded to my mom to assure her that I was willing to squash the beef as well. “Life is too short to be holdin’ on to grudges,” I said.

  “I just wanna get to the bottom of what happened and who did this shit,” my dad said, switching the subject. “The cops said you told them you went up there for a tow and shots rang out.”

  “Yeah, pretty much.” I stuck to my story. I didn’t want to tell anybody that Kenny had something to do with the shooting because I wanted to handle him on my own.

  “So you didn’t see the pussies?”

  I shook my head.

  “Not one of them? ’Cause I’m convinced this wasn’t no fuckin’ accident. They hit Brock up like they wanted to kill that nigga, and lookin’ at the truck, I’m lucky to still have my son,” my dad expressed.

  “Soon as I heard the shots I ducked down, and that’s why I couldn’t see nothin’.”

  My dad rubbed his goatee and asked, “What were you doin’ a tow for at one in the morning anyway? Matter of fact, what were you doin’ a tow for, period?” My dad knew better. He knew that I didn’t tow cars unless they were hits I had gotten.

  “Normally I wouldn’t have took the call. But Brock ain’t never do a tow before, and since he was chasin’ full-time now, I told him he needed to learn. So I figured that would be a good time to show him how to hook a car. Plus, it had been slow all night, a bunch of domestic disputes,” I recalled. “I ain’t think it would hurt us to leave the post for a minute and do a quick tow.” I came up with a good excuse. I usually kept it 100 percent with my dad about stuff like that, but I knew the minute I mentioned Kenny’s name he would be out huntin’ that nigga down. And that was my battle—one I wanted to fight.

  “Let me ask you somethin’,” my dad said.

  “What’s that?”

  “What else are you doin’ besides chasin’?” he asked.

  “Nothin’. I mean, I run my bodily injury cases, too, but that’s it.”

  “Seriously, Nas, you can tell me,” he said. “Are you hustlin’?”

  I smirked and said, “No!”

  “Honestly,” my dad insisted, looking me in the eyes.

  “Naw, I’m keepin’ it one hundred. I don’t sell drugs.”

  My dad took a deep breath and nodded. “All right,” he said, sounding only halfway convinced. “If that’s ya story and you stickin’ to it, cool. But it ain’t addin’ up to me, Nas. I mean, somebody set you and Brock the fuck up! And if that’s the case, let this be a lesson to you. Watch the company you keep. And don’t let me find out you protectin’ the nigga who did this, ’cause you don’t want me to get at ’im! ’Cause I’m ya father, and that’s a decision for me to make not for you to make for me!”

  My mom cut in, “Let’s not talk about all of that, please.”

  “I’m just sayin’,” my dad continued, “I was chasin’ for six years before I opened the shop. And when I wa
s scratchin’ and scrapin’ on the streets, everybody was cool with me. But soon as I opened the shop and started making real money, that’s when I started seeing niggas for who they really were. The same niggas who I called my friends started turnin’ against me. They couldn’t stand the fact that I was makin’ so much more money than them, and some of them were actually hustlin’, puttin’ their lives on the line, riskin’ their freedom and still comin’ in second to a nigga like me who was on the straight and narrow. Niggas hate to see a nigga doin’ good, let alone doin’ better than themselves. Like that nigga Kenny. He don’t keep you close ’cause y’all was best friends. He keep you close because misery loves company and success breeds envy, son.”

  My dad was sharp. He knew in his gut that Kenny had somethin’ to do with my bein’ shot and Brock gettin’ killed. He just wanted me to come out and say it. But I didn’t want to.

  My dad concluded his father-to-son by saying that he was goin’ to find out who shot me. He was goin’ to put the word out in the streets that he was lookin’ for whoever did, and when it got back to him, he was goin’ take care of the nigga. I believed my dad, too. He was older and settled, yes, but he had the kind of past that could never completely desert him. He was from the streets and had no problem returning to them if need be.

  For the remainder of their visit, my mom and dad went on to discuss other things, like when the doctors planned on discharging me and how long it was going to take for my broken collarbone to heal. After about an hour and a half they left. Before they did, though, my dad demanded that I give him any and all information about the shooting as it came to me. I gave him my word that I would.

  Leah

  The holiday had passed, and the country got back to work. That meant Kenny, too. This was the first day since the mayhem that broke out during Memorial Day weekend that he had left the house. I took his absence as an opportunity to take care of some personal business.

  I was standing in the parking lot of the doctor’s office with a lot on my mind. My fears were confirmed. I was pregnant. I didn’t know by whom, though. After calculating the time between the last time I had sex with either Kenny or Nasir and when I had my last period, I concluded that Nasir was likely the father. But, of course, I wasn’t absolutely sure. And I didn’t want to point fingers without being able to prove anything. I didn’t want to embarrass myself. It was bad enough I was in such a situation. I had never been that type of girl.

  I decided against telling anybody. I didn’t know what I was going to do just yet, whether or not I was going to keep it or get an abortion. So I decided I would keep the news to myself for now.

  The next thing I wanted to do with my free time was go to the hospital to see Nasir in person. Regardless how he felt about me, I still had love for him and wanted to make sure he was all right.

  I drove to the University of Pennsylvania on Thirty-fourth and Spruce and parked in visitor’s parking. I found out Nasir’s room number, and before I went up to the Trauma and Critical Care Unit, I stopped at the gift shop and bought Nasir a get-well gift.

  When I got to his floor, I was stopped at the nurse’s station and asked who I was there to see. I gave Nasir’s name. They called his room and asked if it was okay for me to come in. I stood there, anxious, hoping Nasir wouldn’t refuse me.

  I desperately wanted to see him and console him. I wanted him to know that I really loved him and that I was sorry about what had happened to him and Brock. I also wanted to get his side of the story about what had happened at the shoot-out. I needed some information to take with me to the police station when I went later that afternoon. Not only did Kenny jeopardize the deal I had with the detective by killing him, his constant bullshit made it more and more of a strain to live with him. He needed to be locked up.

  Nasir

  I was alone again with time to think. But not for long. I got a call from the nurse’s station alerting me that I had a visitor by the name of Leah Baker. I was reluctant about accepting her visit, but I ended up telling the nurse it was all right for her to come in. I was curious to see what she was going to say and how she was going to feel.

  Leah walked in my hospital room slowly and hesitantly. She had a small basket of flowers in her hands, which she extended to me as she approached my bedside.

  “Oh my God, Nasir, look at you,” she sang, one hand over her mouth, sorrow in her eyes.

  I sat up in bed to accept the basket. I read the tag: Get Well Soon.

  I put the flowers on the tray table. Then I lay back in my bed.

  “Good lookin’,” I said, dispassionate.

  “Of course,” she responded. “It’s the least I could do.” Then she broke out in tears and blurted out, “Nasir, I’m so sorry!”

  I rolled my eyes and asked, “When aren’t you sorry, Leah? It seem like I’m constantly travelin’ down this same road with you. Like every time I turn around I’m caught up in some serious drama ’cause of you or ya boy. I’m through with it. I learned. So don’t worry about apologizin’ to me. Just accept the fact that I don’t wanna be a part of ya life anymore and move on.” I sighed, having gotten my feelings off my chest.

  Leah’s face dimmed with pity. She shook her head as she stood over my bed. Leaning over, she wrapped her arms around me, hugging me. “You don’t mean that,” she said.

  “Yes, I do,” I maintained. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like it if you’d leave so I can get through the rest of the day on a happier note.”

  Leah withdrew her arms from around me. “Okay, I deserve that,” she said, seemingly gathering her composure. “I’ll leave, but before I do, I just want to get your side of the story about what happened Saturday night, Sunday morning.”

  Before I could say anything or ask what she cared for, like I wanted to, I got a call from the nurse’s station saying that I had a visitor who said his name was Kenny.

  Fuck this nigga want, I thought. “You can send him in,” I said. I hung the phone up and told Leah, “Ya man ’bout to come in here.” Still, I was nonchalant.

  “Oh my God! Are you for real? What am I goin’ to do? I can’t leave. He’ll see me in the hallway.” She panicked, just like I had thought she would.

  “It amazes me how you keep comin’ at me askin’ me to forgive you and to take you back, but every time you seem to have this undying love for Kenny. I mean, what you care that he’s on his way in here for if you love me like you say you do?”

  “Nasir, for the last time, that is not the case,” Leah pleaded. Then, looking around in panic, Leah scampered to the bathroom and closed the door.

  Seconds later in walked Kenny.

  “What’s up, cannon?” He greeted me with a smile on his face, as if there was something to celebrate.

  “Whatchu doin’ here, man?” I asked him, a frown on my face to let him know exactly how I felt. “You got some nerve comin’ up here.”

  “Daaamn,” he said. “I just came up here to see how you was makin’ out and shit. Give my condolences, that’s all.”

  I went to say something but was distracted by Kenny’s sudden change of focus. I followed his eyes as they locked in on something that was in my bed. They landed on a Dior key chain that was peeping out from underneath the white blanket. It must’ve been Leah’s. She must’ve have dropped it when she gave me a hug. I started to make up a lie about the key chain and say something like my mom left it by accident, but I changed my mind. I didn’t care anymore about trying to hide the fact that Leah and I had had something in the past. I was done giving a fuck about Kenny and how he felt.

  Kenny stepped back and looked at me like he was confused.

  I looked back at him as if to say, What, nigga?

  Then he put his hand on his chin and started reminiscing. “Remember back when we was chasin’ together? You called yaself beatin’ me to a hit and hauled ass through that stop sign—”

  I cut Kenny off. With my teeth clenched and my eyes squinted, I warned, “Don’t fuckin’ do it, man! Don’t fu
ckin’ do it!”

  Kenny chuckled. “Do what?”

  “Throw that shit in my mafuckin’ face! That shit stops today! You hear me? I been paid you back for that shit! Up until two days ago, nigga, I been payin’ you back for that shit! I got shot and my man lost his life in the process! And you come up in this mafucka like I still owe you?”

  Kenny’s anger matched mine and he shouted, “I DIDN’T HIT THAT OLD LADY! YOU DID! BUT BECAUSE I AIN’T SAY SHIT, THAT SHIT ATE AWAY AT MY MOTHAFUCKIN’ CONSCIENCE!”

  “AWW, NIGGA, WHO THE FUCK YOU THINK YOU PLAYIN’? YOU AIN’T GOT NO MAFUCKIN’ CONSCIENCE! NOT THEN AND NOT THE FUCK NOW!”

  “AND APPARENTLY YOU AIN’T GOT ONE, EITHER, NIGGA! THAT’S WHY YOU THINK IT’S COOL TO FUCK MY GIRL?”

  With my head up I looked Kenny in his eyes and said quietly, “My conscience ain’t lead me in that direction. My dick did!” I hit him where it hurt.

  In that instant Kenny pulled a four-five out of his waistband, grabbed me by my neck, and shoved the gun in my mouth. It felt like a couple of my teeth had been knocked loose.

  “You lucky you worth more to me alive!” Kenny said, then he removed the gun from my mouth.

  I spit blood out in Kenny’s direction. “YOU SHOULDA KILLED ME, NIGGA!”

  “If I wanted you dead, I woulda killed you when I killed ya boy, Brock.”

  I jumped out the bed and lunged at Kenny with my one good arm. He blocked my swing. Then he put me in a headlock, causing me excruciating pain.

  “Fuck you surprised for? You didn’t think I was goin’ leave witnesses, did you? The only reason why I left you alive was ’cause Leah ain’t done gettin’ information out ya ass. You ain’t think she was fuckin’ you ’cause you got that curly-ass hair, did you? Naw, she was fuckin’ you to get tape about all the crooked shit you and ya pop be doin’. Why you think she started workin’ at the shop? She ain’t need that measly paper, dog. She agreed to be an informant to get us out that fraud case we caught.”