It Is What It Is. Montez Jordan
been doin’ da shit all this time. It’s time y’all niggas step up.”
“Man, I’ll get up and do it as long as someone wakes me up,” Lor Man interrupted. “I’m wit whatever as long as we gettin’ paper.”
“Yeah, fuck dat shit. I’m wif it,” Scrappy added.
Out of his whole squad, he loved these two young niggas the most. They looked up to Cho and did whatever he told them to. He would always go on and on about how to get money and how to keep it. Damn near every experience he had he would tell them about. He wanted them to be better than he was, so he stressed a lot of shit so they wouldn’t make the same mistakes in the game. Cho stayed preaching, and Scrappy and Lor Man stayed listening. They treated selling dope like a job. It wasn’t a game—their lives were on the line, and one fuck up could cause them to be gone.
“Good! So Scrappy, you get Lor Man up so he can come out at 5. He’ll hit ‘til 9 and take his ass to school!” Cho said, grilling Lor Man.
Lor Man was 16 and hadn’t been going to school, which made Cho angry. “By 9 the rest a you lames should be up and shit should move smoothly.”
“That’s cool ‘cause I know I couldn’t get up at 5 inna morning,” Rocko said, looking at Phill.
“I know. I would probably still be rollin’ at 5,” Sambo added. Everyone laughed.
“OK! Enough congregatin’. It’s hella fiends in da hole.” They all went to their designated positions and business commenced as usual. “Scrap, if you need me I’ll be in the one crib chillin’.”
• • // • •
Time had flown. He hadn’t realized he’d been gone for two hours. He hadn’t fucked Sheila in over a month and he knew it was about time that he did. For some reason that morning, she turned him on something terrible. Just the thought of how wet she was made his dick hard. His thoughts were interrupted when he walked in the door and saw little Kicks sitting in the middle of the floor, watching Dora the Explorer.
“What’s up Cho,” Kicks said, smiling. He loved Cho and thought he was his dad. He’d never met his father and since Cho took care of him, that’s all he knew.
“What’s up my nig? Why you so close to the TV?” Cho asked. “Back up some.”
“OK. I’m waiting for my ride to skoo,” Kicks explained as he scooted away from the television. He was very intelligent for a 3 year old. Sheila had found a Headstart program that kept him all day while she worked. Her girlfriend’s daughter went there also, and she picked Kicks up every day and brought him back home.
Just then a horn beeped. Cho looked out the door and waved his hand. “He’ll be right out!” he shouted. “Come on, get your coat.”
Kicks jumped up like he was a superhero and put his hands on his hips.
“Who are you today?” Cho asked.
“Biderman, but my real name is Beter Barker,” Kicks said.
Cho smiled. He knew what Kicks meant. “OK Spiderman, put on your coat and get your bookbag.”
“Yes,” Kicks said as he jumped in the air and acted as if he was swinging from a building using his web. He put on his coat and grabbed his Spiderman bookbag. Then he dashed out the door yelling, “Bye Mom! Bye Cho! See you later.”
“Alright my nig,” Cho replied. He watched him get in the car and shut the door.
Cho walked up the steps and into Sheila’s room. She had just gotten out of the bathtub and was lotioning her body. She looked at him out of the corner of her eye, pretending to have an attitude. “Hmph, I didn’t think you were coming back.”
“I'ma man of my word, ain’t I?”
“Hell no!”
“Whatever bitch!” He smacked her thigh.
“That shit hurt!” she yelled as she threw the lotion at him. “You play too much boy!”
“Whatever,” he laughed, dodging the lotion bottle. “If that would’ve hit me I would’ve fucked you up!”
“I hear that shit,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“What? You think I’m bluffin’?” he asked as he jumped on top of her. “Run your mouth now.”
“Boy, get the fuck up. Stop playin’,” she said jokingly. She knew she didn’t want him to move. In fact, she wanted him to stay there forever. Because she knew that he wouldn’t, she decided to just be satisfied to have him for that moment.
As they tussled, she began to rub his dick. She enticed him easily. When it got hard, she grabbed it, looked at him and began to lick her lips. She had him where she wanted him and he gave in. She unbuckled his belt and pulled his pants down. He was a sucker for head and Sheila’s was a beast. As soon as she licked around the shaft of his penis, his eyes rolled to the back of his head. From there it was on.
• • // • •
Bzz! Bzz! Bzz!
The phone vibrated on the nightstand. Cho rolled over and grabbed it before it vibrated itself onto the floor. Screening the call, he noticed that it was now 1:00 in the afternoon. He and Sheila had fallen asleep after their sexual encounter. Cho answered the phone with sleep in his voice. “Who dat?”
“Get up nigga! You still sleep?” Radi barked, knowing he himself had just gotten up from the night before. He always made it seem like he had been up all morning, but Cho knew better.
“Shit nigga, I’m just taking a nap. You know what time I hit the block. That’s your fat ass that wants to sleep late every day. It’s only 24 hours in a day, you know.”
“I been up too,” Radi lied. “Tiff had me in here cleaning up and shit.” Radi and Tiff had been together since the day they met. They had a little girl and just found out that they were expecting another baby. Tiff had turned Radi into a family man, but she ran shit for real. He didn’t hang out anymore and he never cheated on her.
Cho teased him saying, “Tiff must got that shit, ‘cause her lor ass got you gone. You always cleaning and shit! Come on out. Meet me down at the market.”
“Aight, cool, Give me like an hour.”
After they hung up, Cho looked at Sheila. She was still out. He rubbed his hand across her thigh to her midsection. When she shifted her legs he could feel the wetness and his dick started to get hard.
Fuck it, he thought. I got an hour. He spread her legs and entered her. Once he got all the way inside of her she woke up—or so he thought. She had actually been waiting for him the whole time.
He looked at her and smiled. “We have to make this fast. I have to take care of something.”
“Fine…by…me…,” she said between breaths as he went in and out of her. She didn’t know how long it would be until the next time they were intimate, so she was satisfied with the time she’d gotten.
CHAPTER 2
For the past few years, Baltimore had been rebuilding the downtown part of the city to make it a more popular tourist attraction. A lot of the historical buildings and areas were being renovated just for that purpose. Lexington Market was among the sites that were under construction. Although they redid the outside, a step through the doors proved everything inside was the same. It was still a hangout for dope fiends and ex-dope fiends, alcoholics, homeless people and other undesirables that the city didn’t want on display. The market’s legendary food was still up to par, so lots of people who worked in the neighborhood went there for lunch.
Cho parked his black 2003 Honda Accord coupe in the outside parking lot next to Radi’s car. Radi drove a silver 2000 Cadillac DeVille. It had black leather interior and gleaming 22-inch rims. Cho had black