Honor Thy Thug

5




KYRON

“Ma, I’m good. Just get everybody out of my house, and I promise you I’ll be doing much better. Y’all are acting as if I’m a cripple.”

“Your damn mouth is!” smart-ass Kendra, my first cousin had the nerve to say as she chuckled. “Look at you, you can barely talk, sounding like Whispers from the movie Hoodlum. You know your mouth is where all your strength lies.” She plopped down in a chair across from me just so she could talk shit.

I gave her a look that said, You better get the f*ck out of my face and fast. She obviously read my expression, because she got up and went into the kitchen.

My mother touched my shoulder. “Kyron, go lie down and get some rest. I will get rid of everyone.”

“Ma, what do you think I’ve been doing for the last few months? Laying up resting. Trust me, I’m good. I just need to clear my head in my own house all by myself. I’ll be fine, Ma.” I grabbed her hand and kissed it.

She sat down next to me. “Watch your tone, boy. You didn’t try to get rid of me when I was cleaning your behind.” She shot daggers at me, and I had to grin at the thought.

“My bad, Ma. I know you just want the best for your son.” She smiled as I leaned over, kissed her forehead, put my arms around her, and squeezed her tight.

“That’s your problem. You think you are the baby, but you’re not. You are my eldest, and I want you to start acting like it. Now, turn me loose so that I can get you settled.”

I couldn’t do anything but surrender. Between the nurse’s visits, Mari, and family crowding my space, I was feeling suffocated. I was thankful when my moms eventually went to kicking everyone out of my apartment before finally putting on her jacket and snatching up her big-ass purse off the sofa. I stood up, and she stood right in front of me with her hands on her hips. I leaned over and kissed her cheek one last time. Mama was my heart.

“Do you remember how to change those bandages?”

“Ma!”

“Do you?”

“Yes, ma’am. I do.”

“Good, and don’t get fresh with me, Kyron. I thought your brother was going to be the death of me, but now I see that it’s you. You shouldn’t have gotten yourself into this mess in the first place.”

“I’ll call you each time I change the bandages. How’s that?” I needed to get rid of my mother as soon as possible.

“You are the oldest, Kyron. You are supposed to lead by example. A good example.”

“I know, Ma. We all make mistakes.”

“Why don’t you want somebody over here with you?” My mother continued to question me as I led her to the front door.

“Ma, I need some time to myself. Time to think and strategize.”

“Strategize for what? Kyron, at the rate you’re going, I’ll be burying you instead of you burying me. Don’t take me through that. I’m not supposed to bury my son.” She touched my face as tears began welling up in her eyes.

“Ma, I’m going to be fine. I promise.” I opened the door to let her out.

“That’s what your mouth says, but I’m not totally convinced.” She rolled her eyes and shook her head as she walked out of the apartment.

I closed and locked the door and hurried into the bathroom to splash cold water onto my face. All of a sudden, I was having hot flashes. I wasn’t sure if it was from the pain medication or the rush I was having from finally being out of that hospital and alone in my own space. To be sure, I opened up the pain-medication bottle and dumped the pills down the drain. I looked at myself in the mirror. I rubbed the stubble on my chin, while wishing that I didn’t have to look at the gauze wrapped around my neck. The plastic surgeon hooked a brotha up, but the deep scar left behind would be a constant reminder that I almost lost my life over some good p-ssy. p-ssy that didn’t belong to me.

Trae’s bitch ass had the perfect opportunity, but he f*cked it up. It must have been meant for me to be here. He thought I was gone. But I was about to be his worst f*cking nightmare. Now it was my turn.

I went and sat down on my sofa and stared at the blank television screen. I needed the silence. But what I needed more was to hear what this bitch Tasha had to say. I didn’t even know that she had written me back until I was packing to leave the hospital. I wanted to read the letter in peace and quiet, one of the reasons I wanted everybody out. I was anxious, mainly because when I sent her my letter, I wasn’t sure if she would receive it. But she did.

I ripped the letter open.

Kyron, Kyron, Kyron.

First of all, nigga, you bitch made. Here it is, you over there recovering from a life-threatening injury, and the first bitch you holla at is me? You talking all that shit about Jags and money and connections—who the f*ck you tryna convince that you the shit, me or yourself? Talking about you love me and you hate me. What kinda fag shit is that? You wish you hated me. You don’t know who you f*cking with, so you better check my résumé. I will bet anything that your dick is hard right now as you read and anticipate my next line.

My nigga, why can’t you just accept it? You were just something to do for me . . . simply a revenge f*ck. I gave you some payback p-ssy on my terms, and you got p-ssy-whipped and fell in love. That’s why you laying over there crying and shit. And you have the audacity to call me a ho? F*ck outta here with that bullshit. You don’t even know how you mustered up the energy to call me a ho. No, nigga, I ain’t your ho; you’re my bitch. Sheeeit . . . gonna call me a walking billboard? If I am that, you best believe it reads, “Kyron’s a f*ckin’ sucka!”

I recall you saying three important things: 1. You went out. 2. You made my money. 3. You kept me fly, then gave me the dick if and when I decided I wanted it. But then I f*cked you so good you thought I was going to take you to the top of the world and had you begging: Marry me, Tasha! Be mine, Tasha! I had your punk ass pulling out rings and shit. So that sounds like you the ho. Nigga, I pimped your ass real good, had you trained well, and even after you got that ass whipped, you still brought Momma her money. Yeah, I rode your dick . . . good enough to make you lick where another nigga slides his dick. How does Trae’s cum taste? Is it as good to you as it is to me? And then you brag about a bitch serving her purpose. No nigga, you served your purpose. I wasn’t even f*cking you, and you were coming up off stacks and scheming on ways to steal me from Trae. And you are boasting about a Jag? You a low-budget-ass nigga if you think a Jag gets you a come-up. Them fake-ass, so-called loyal niggas you got on your team are laughing in your face because they got a bitch for a boss, or should I say a broke-ass coworker? Bitch ass sitting here whining about a car, page after page. Nigga, please! I bought Trae a f*ckin’ Maybach. And you obviously forgot that I told you I have a Spyder C8 Aileron sitting in the garage that I don’t even drive! That Jag was like a punch buggy compared to my shit. That’s why Trae busted the shit up. You think your money is long? Get the f*ck outta here; your money is as long as your dick . . . and that ain’t long enough.

Since we keeping score, let me ho-check your ass real quick. You called me a ho, but I’m the same bitch who had you turn your back on your family. It was me, Tasha, the same bitch who had you eating p-ssy, and it ain’t about you making me cum, nigga. I’m married to Trae Macklin. My p-ssy is well trained. And yes, I’m the same bitch who turned you into a marked f*cking man. So watch your back, bitch-ass nigga. You do the math. Calculate that shit. Tasha, a ten . . . Kyron, a zero.

You asked yourself, are you insane? Hell, no! You in love, and I can’t fault a nigga for that. You just like every other nigga that gets the pleasure of Tasha. You sprung the f*ck out. The proof is in that long-ass letter going on and on and on about what you lost and what you wish you still had. Gonna write me a punk-ass letter. I can’t get over this shit. What? You ain’t got shit else to do? By the way, where your bitch at? You had a so-called bad bitch who held you down the whole time you was doing your bid, but as soon as you fell into this boss p-ssy, you forgot all about that bitch. I had your ass moaning and groaning my name. Tasha. While thinking, Mari who?

Oh, and I didn’t kill your seed. The little muthaf*cka committed suicide when it realized it wasn’t the child of a real boss. So f*ck you and die, muthaf*cka!

The Boss Bitch,

Tasha Macklin Forever

P.S. Don’t contact me no more. Bitch!

With each paragraph I read, I pictured myself killing this bitch. She really had no clue who she was flappin’ off at the gums to. By the time I finished the letter, I couldn’t help but laugh. I’ma make this bitch eat all of these words. We’ll see who the fag is when my dick is all up in her guts. Did this bitch really say I was a revenge f*ck? She don’t know I will destroy everything and everyone around her until I get her. Including them bastard ass kids. Yeah, I’m crazy bitch and I plan on showing you just how crazy.

I called Kendrick and told him that I was getting ready to call Trina and that I might need him.

“Nigga, it’s too soon for you to be hittin’ the streets,” he told me.

“Just be on stand-by.” I hung up on him.

I called Trina.

“Hello.”

“Hey.”

“Who is this?” she snapped.

“Kyron.”

Silence.

“Why are you whisper—oh, snap! Kyron. I forgot all about that.”

“It’s all good. I want you to set it up so that I can see Shorty.” I got straight to the point.

“Oh, no no no no no, Kyron! My sister is barely speaking to me as it is. Her man hates me, her best friends call me all kinds of conniving bitches, and your own brother won’t even give me the time of day. So no, no, no. I am not getting involved. No, Kyron. And listen to you, are you even well? You can barely talk, and you almost lost your life because of f*cking with her. I would think that you learned some sort of a lesson from all of this and wouldn’t even think about f*ckin’ with her.”

“You done?”

“Yeah, I’m done.” Trina popped off.

“Good. ’Cause I ain’t trying to hear all that psychobabble bullshit. Set it up. And do it within the next couple of days. Forty-eight hours, to be exact.” I ended the call, and she called right back. “Trina, this is not a game. You got forty-eight hours.”

“Or what, nigga?” she challenged me.

“Oh, you’ll know.” I didn’t have time to be playing games with this ho. I turned my phone off and dialed Kendrick from the house phone. I needed this bitch to take me seriously.

“Yo, whaddup?” he answered.

“You got that address for me, right?”

“Which one?”

“Kevin’s.”

“I put someone on it. Let me check and hit you back.”


TRINA

I needed to talk to somebody but had no clue who. That last phone call had me convinced that Kyron was a certified lunatic. Here this nigga was fresh out of the hospital, recovering from a life-threatening situation, and now he was running right back to the same trap that got him caught up in the first place. Insane! And he thought that I was going to get involved? I don’t think so. I learned my lesson. As a matter of fact, f*ck Kyron! As far as I was concerned, he and everything that looked like him was dead to me. And the conversation we had never happened. And as I thought over it some more, I figured that now was just as good a time to let him know. I called him, and it went straight to voicemail.

“Aye, Kyron, check this out. I won’t be doing shit you tell me. Please leave me and my sister the f*ck alone. You should be treating her like she got the plague and staying the f*ck away! Don’t call my phone no more.”


KYRON

I couldn’t wait to see how the bitch would react to this. She had me f*cked up. I listened to her little voicemail message, and all it did was urge me to move a little faster. I had to let her know that it was not a game. I wanted what I wanted. As soon as Kendrick gave me the address to her brother, Kevin’s house, we headed on over there. After I thought about it, I had a way to get this silly bitch’s attention. I knew it would get Shorty’s attention as well. This nigga stayed out in Coney Island. It was a nice, quiet spot, and his house was the last one on the block, sitting on the cul-de-sac. Kendrick and I camped out down the street for almost six hours before he pulled up. My muscle was already waiting on him; we were just waiting on their signal.

“What’s taking them niggas so long?” Kendrick mumbled as he shifted from side to side in his seat.

“Stop fidgeting, nigga. You making me nervous.”

“You think we should go in?” He reached for his hammer.

“Not yet. Wait for the word. I’m confident in these niggas.”

Just then, Kendrick’s cell vibrated. He looked at it and said, “Let’s do this.”

He started the car, and we parked right in the nigga’s driveway and got out. It was dark and was beginning to rain. I pulled my hood over my head and followed Kendrick, careful to protect the bandages on my neck.

As soon as we came up the back stairs, the door popped open. “Everything’s ready. You sure you don’t want us to stay?” my muscle, Herb, asked.

“We’ll take it from here!” Kendrick told him.

We followed Herb to the kitchen, where our pawn was sitting at the table. “What do y’all want? Dope? Money?” He was sitting there looking confused, as Knowledge, muscle I had on my team from day one, had his foot propped on a chair standing over him with his pistol aimed at his head. I looked at Kevin closely and saw the resemblance. He looked more like Trina than he resembled Tasha. But there was no mistaking that he was family. Kendrick took off his jacket and pulled out his hammer.

“Y’all good?” Knowledge asked.

“We good. Y’all niggas wait outside,” Kendrick told him.

“Who the f*ck are y’all?” Kevin asked.

I pulled out this handmade crafted Sebenza knife that I had been wanting to use. Kendrick let out a whistle when he saw it. “Nice, ain’t it?” I was talking more to myself. I pulled out my cell and dialed Trina’s number, hit the speaker button, and set the phone on the table directly in front of her brother.

“Hello.” She sounded groggy, obviously in a deep sleep.

“What the f*ck do y’all want, man? I said take the dope. Damn! You got that,” her brother yelled out. Kendrick quickly put him in a chokehold, and I stuck the knife into his shoulder, twisting it back and forth. “Ahhhhhhhh!” he screamed.

“Hello. Hello? Kyron, I don’t have time for your bullshit,” Trina snapped. She was starting to sound wide awake.

She didn’t have time for the bullshit? Well, me, either. I got closer, grabbed the nigga’s face, sliced the nigga’s ear off, and threw it on the table.

“Owwwwwwwwww! Shit! F*ck! Ahhhhhhhhh!” His eyes widened as he shook and twisted. You would have thought I’d sliced the nigga’s dick off the way he was yelling in anguish, holding the side of his face as Kendrick unlocked his grip. Blood poured through his fingers. “Take the dope! Shit!! Ahhh! Take the dope!”

I picked up the phone and took it off speaker.

“Kevin?” Trina asked in apparent panic. “Kyron, is that my brother?”

“My f*ckin’ ear! What the f*ck? I don’t even know you.” He was still screaming.

“Kevin! Kevin? Oh, my God. Kyron! His ear? What are you doing to my brother?”

“You took care of that yet?” I asked her.

“Kyron, is that my brother? Don’t do this. Why are you—”

“Did you take care of that?” I asked again as I walked to the living room and peeked through the blinds.

“No, not yet. But I’ma do it. Please, Kyron. That’s my brother. I’ma do it.”

“Now, do you see how easy that was?” I asked her.

I thought about the look in Kevin’s eyes, and it was void of fear. I had to give it to him.

“Please, Kyron, stop hurting my brother.” Trina pleaded with me.

“You got that. Just handle my business. Me and you good, right?”

“Yes, we good.” She started crying.

That was all I needed to hear. I ended the call, went back into the kitchen, pointed the knife in his face, and said, “This shit is between us.” I rubbed the blood from the blade on his lips. “If not, everyone you love will die a slow and painful death. Sorry for the inconvenience.”

I was now more anxious to see Shorty.


MARI

“I’m outside,” I heard Kyron say, and then the phone went dead. I went into the bedroom and stood in front of my long mirror, giving myself the once-over. I was thinking about dyeing my long, thick black mane to a medium brown. I needed a change and was no longer feeling the black. And if one more person asked me if I was Eva Mendes, the chick who played Denzel’s mistress in Training Day, I was going to snap.

My Chanel dress was hugging me in all the right places. I wanted Kyron to see what he had been neglecting and what he was about to lose. He, of course, didn’t say where he was taking me; he simply said to be ready. Little did he know, tonight I was giving him his walking papers.

I grabbed my Chanel bag, turned out my bedroom light, and headed for the door, only to hear the locks turning. I stepped back, and in walked Kyron.

“I thought you wanted me to meet you out front.”

“I changed my mind.” I barely heard him. He closed the door behind him and locked it.

He had on all black, even down to the gators. He looked and smelled like money and appeared to be wearing the gauze around his neck proudly. I hated to admit it, but I was a damned fool in love. His love. I put so much into him. Into us. But it was so one-sided. Just the thought pissed me off and made me realize that I didn’t need to end things tonight. Hell, no. Not before getting back at least half of what I put into this relationship.

“Why is your face all frowned up?” he had the nerve to ask me.

“Because seeing you only makes me angry.”

He smiled. “This was always about business. You know that.”

“Business? Is chasing that bitch business?” I paused and looked at him. “Why would you let some new p-ssy f*ck up everything we’ve worked so hard for?”

He smiled again. “Who’s been puttin’ shit in your ear?”

“Puttin’ shit in my ear? Kyron, I am not stupid, so don’t insult my intelligence. I have eyes. Were you not just laid up in critical condition? Don’t you have a patch covering your throat? Can you barley speak? Are you not chasing a married woman, acting like some common hoodlum from the block?”

He nonchalantly turned around and opened the door.

“Oh, so now you don’t have anything to say.”

“Are you coming with me or not?”

“Oh, I’m coming. This conversation is long overdue.” I brushed past him. “Remember the big picture, Kyron.”

“Why the f*ck are you still here? If you don’t want to ride this thing out with me, you can go.”

“You’re kidding me, right?” I stopped and turned to look into his eyes.

“When have you known me to kid?” He was dead serious.

“Kyron, we have a game plan. We were supposed to stick to it, not come home and fall for some hood bitch and lose focus.”

“Game plan. Did you hear what you just said? Game plan. Mari, this ain’t no game out here.”

“You are the one playing the games, Kyron. Chasing some married bitch. You are more concerned with this whore than you are with business.”

“The game plan.” He chuckled.

“If you want me to scrap everything, let me know. My brother is waiting on you. And when he asks me about you, I have to choose to lie or be totally truthful. My reputation is on the line here, Kyron, and I’m not going to let you f*ck that up!”

We stood in an intense stare-down. Then he smiled. Something he always does when he thinks I’m bullshitting. “Stop stressing over irrelevant shit. You look too sexy to be stressing.”

He opened the front door. I stormed to the car, stood there with my arms folded, and could only shake my head. I got into the car, entertaining the thought of going right back into the house.

When he jumped into the car, he said, “Your brother ain’t going nowhere. When I’m ready to get with your brother, I will do just that. I don’t work for nobody, and I don’t owe nobody shit.”

“So this is what’s stopping you? The fact that you’re a boss, you don’t work for anybody?”

“Exactly. I don’t need muthaf*ckas. Muthaf*ckas need me.” He looked over at me and then put the car into gear and pulled off.

I couldn’t believe the shit that was coming out of his mouth. I wanted to reach over and slap that smug look off his face. I turned away from him and looked out the window. I was the dumb one. I was the one guilty of sticking around and taking all of his bullshit.

We drove in silence all the way until we stopped at a light on Manhattan’s Eighth Avenue. A white guy on a bike next to us hawked and spit, and the wind blew it onto the hood of Kyron’s car. The next thing I knew, he was out of the car, running and grabbing the back of the guy’s bike. He pushed him over and went to stomping him. I couldn’t believe it. “Kyron! The bigger picture! The bigger picture!” I heard myself screaming. I jumped out of the car and grabbed his arm in an attempt to end the situation before it got worse.

“Get the f*ck off me!” he barked, no longer whispering and he snatched away from me. He was in a fitful rage.

I was furious as I stepped back and looked at him. I had to ask myself, was it worth it? Why the f*ck was I so obsessed with him? And if he didn’t give a f*ck about his future, why should I? Just like I guided him to this point, I could just as easily guide the next man, and it probably wouldn’t take half the time.

“You know what? I’m out of here.” I left him there stomping the daylights out of a total stranger on a bike. “Taxi! Taxi!” I jumped into the first one that stopped. I was convinced that Kyron had lost his mind.