Two Tears in a Bucket Read online

  “Please,” Gwen pleaded. “I would do it myself, but I ain’t never climbed through a window a day in my life.”

  Kevin sighed. “Look,” he threatened as he cut through the grass and headed toward Gwen’s window, both ladies following behind him, “don’t make me regret this.”

  Kevin surveyed the distance to the window. He knew he could do it. He’d climbed through his second-floor window many days.

  In one leap, Kevin grabbed the ledge of the open window with his lengthy arms. Using his upper body strength, he snatched the window screen out and pulled himself into the darkness of the unfamiliar room. His leg bumped a lamp and sent it crashing to the floor. Shit! thought as he stepped on the sharp pieces, hoping they wouldn’t puncture the soles of his shoes.

  CLICK, CLICK, CLICK.

  What the fuck is that? Kevin thought, although deep inside, he recognized the sound of the gun. He stood frozen in the dark room.

  The bedroom light came on. Tuffy appeared, shaken and caught off guard, with his gun drawn and pointed at Kevin. Sean, Tuffy’s occasional sidekick, stood at his side armed with a wooden baseball bat, his eyes darting from Tuffy to Kevin.

  What the fuck is this shit? Kevin said to himself as his heart raced.

  “What’s up, Kevin, man!” Tuffy yelled, bouncing around nervously. “Why you tryna rob me, man? Ain’t never had no drama with you!”

  “Hold up, Tuffy,” Kevin said easily. “It ain’t even like that, man. Your moms was locked out, and she asked me to climb through y’all window and open the door.”

  I knew I shouldna did this shit, Kevin said to himself as he stood in the middle of the floor, staring down Tuffy’s pistol.

  Knocks rang out from the front door. Tuffy and Sean didn’t budge. The knocks rang out again.

  “Look, Tuffy,” Kevin said. “You can come check me. I ain’t even packin’. How I’ma rob you if I ain’t gotta gun? Go answer your door, man. That’s your moms. Just ask her. She asked me to climb through your window.”

  “Go check the door, Sean!” Tuffy ordered.

  Sean backed out of the room, heading down the hall to the front door.

  Kevin stood there, regretting his decision to help. He kept his eyes off of Tuffy, knowing his angered expression would probably piss him off and tempt him to pull the trigger. Seconds later, Gwen and Tammy’s heels click-clacked along the parquet wood floor.

  “Oh my God, Tuffy! What the hell are you doing?”

  Gwen screamed hysterically, shaken at the sight of Tuffy standing with his gun pointed at Kevin. “I asked Kevin to climb through the window.”

  “Yeah, man.” Sean stood off to the side, nodding his head in approval. “She was knockin’, like Kevin said. I told her he was tryna break in this muthafucka and they ran right past me.”

  Sean and Tuffy both spoke at a snail’s pace, obviously high, which explained why neither had opened the door when Gwen knocked originally.

  “Damn.” Tuffy lowered his gun and stuck it in the waistband of his jeans.

  “I want that gun outta my house,” Gwen cried. She stormed over to her son and showered him with a windmill of smacks.

  Tuffy threw his arms up to block his mother’s blows. “Ma, I thought he was tryna break in.”

  “Just imagine had you shot him,” she cried, delivering the final smack to the back of Tuffy’s head.

  The same thought ran rapid through Kevin’s mind as he headed out the room, leaving Tuffy to his beating.

  “Yo! Hold up, Kevin,” Tuffy hollered. “I thought you was tryna break in,” he said as he and Sean chased after him. “Listen, man,” Tuffy said as they entered the hallway, where their voices bounced off the concrete walls. “We cool, right?”

  “Yeah, man, we cool,” Kevin replied as he trotted down the steps. In his eyes, Tuffy’s actions were justified. He’d seen another thug he barely knew crashing through his apartment. Tuffy had followed the gangster’s code of conduct by pulling his gun.

  “But hold up, Kevin. Hold up,” Tuffy said once they were outside. Kevin stopped in his tracks. “I bought this piece of shit gun from a dude on the strip yesterday. Man,” he chuckled nervously, “I shot at you like nine times… nine times, Kevin, and this bitch didn’t do nothin’.”

  “Let me see it.”

  Tuffy handed Kevin the gun. Walking around to the side of the building, Kevin examined the gun and pointed it in the air. He pulled the trigger. A bullet exploded in the sky without hesitation. Kevin handed the gun back and walked off, leaving Tuffy and Sean in awe.

  Something inside Kevin’s gut told him his evening would be better spent on the couch in front of the television. He contemplated listening to his instincts, but as he approached the little section of the drug strip that had become his corner, he spotted a few of his regulars, scratching and twitching. Guaranteed money.

  “Ah!” James, Kevin’s best friend, yelled out as he jogged across the parking lot. “I just ran into Tuffy. He told me what happened, man.”

  Kevin passed the last addict a tiny plastic baggie that contained the blessing to his hell and shoved the money in his pocket.

  “Now get the fuck outta here, man,” James threatened through tight lips. He stomped his foot, lunging at the addict. Kevin shook his head while James held his stomach in laughter as the addict tumbled over his feet and sprinted toward the darkness of the strip.

  “Hey, look, man. I’ma run up here to the liquor store and get us somethin’ nice. We need to celebrate. You ’pose to be in a body bag.”

  “Yeah, that ain’t a bad idea. I could use a drink,” Kevin agreed as another loyal junkie approached.

  James took off through the dirt trail that connected the drug strip to the liquor store and the greasy spoon that Kevin and his friends nibbled from nearly every day as the addicts continued to come, searching for their Friday-night high, one behind the other.

  Damn, where the hell James go? Kevin thought. He glanced at this watch. James had been gone for over an hour. Let me go put this shit up, thought, tapping the wad of bills in his front pocket. The stickup boys worked overtime on the weekends. Then I can go to the store my damn self.

  As he turned to head down the walkway that led to the apartment he shared with his mother and older brother, LeCount, Kevin felt the barrel of a shotgun poke him in the back.

  Get the fuck outta here. This cannot be happening, he screamed to himself. He couldn’t believe his luck.

  “Yeah.” The gunman chuckled. “What’s up, muthafucka! Where your boy at?”

  “Don’t know who you talking ’bout,” Kevin responded carefully.

  “You know who the fuck I’m talking about! That bitch-ass James! Where that muthafucka at?” the gunman yelled.

  “I don’t know,” Kevin responded.

  The gunman pumped the chamber and punched the barrel of the shotgun into Kevin’s jaw. Kevin’s heart thumped as his mouth filled with the salty taste of blood. Lady Luck had already saved him once by defecting Tuffy’s gun. The possibility of her showing up again was slim to none.

  “Oh you don’t know, huh? Well tell’em that Lil’ Bits looking for his ass,” the gunman shouted. “You heard me, muthafucka?”

  “Yeah.” Kevin spoke nice and slow. “I heard you, Lil’ Bits.”

  “I know he robbed me,” Lil’ Bits replied through clenched teeth as he forced the barrel deeper into Kevin’s jaw. “And I’ma get my money back one way or another.”

  Removing the shotgun, Lil’ Bits marched off like a solider at battle. But the streets were a different type of war, and Lil’ Bits had forgotten the most important rule—never pull a gun on a gangster and not use it. Kevin’s nerves erupted into anger as he spat a wad of blood on the ground.

  “I’m gon’ get your ass.”

  “Damn, Kevin!” Tuffy’s friend, Sean, stepped from Kevin’s building. “I saw that shit, man! You a’ight?”

  “Watch out!” Kevin ordered. “I’ma get that muthafucka.”

  “Naw, here, man.
Take mine before his ass runs off somewhere.” Sean reached in his pants and offered Kevin his gun. “This ain’t that raggedy shit Tuffy had earlier. My shit works.”

  Kevin preferred his 9-mm, but snatched the .25 automatic from Sean, determined to get Lil’ Bits before he disappeared. But as long as he remained in the vicinity, he couldn’t hide. Kevin knew every inch of the strip like the back of his hand. Ducking between parked cars, he went on the prowl, searching the complex for Lil’ Bits. Finally, he spotted him puffing away on a cigarette, still armed with his shotgun.

  Yeah, you bitch muthafucka, Kevin thought as he crept up behind Lil’ Bits. I got your ass now.

  “Ah, Lil’ Bits!”

  Lil’ Bits dropped his cigarette and spun around on his heels. Kevin met his eyes. He remembered the bullet in the chamber of the shotgun and fired before Lil’ Bits had a chance to pull the trigger. The bullet connected, ripping open the side of Lil’ Bits’ face.

  “Aaaggh!” he cried. Blood oozed down his face. Lil’ Bits fired back but missed. He tried to run, but Kevin shot again. The bullet snatched open Lil’ Bits’ back and sent him to the ground in a pool of blood.

  Police cars flooded the scene within minutes, illuminating the dark drug strip with their flashing lights. In the midst of the crowd, Kevin spotted his mother. As the police car zoomed from the scene, Kevin threw his head against the backseat of the car and mumbled, “I’m sorry, Ma.” The image of her tear-drenched face rode with him all the way to the station.

  ● ● ●

  September, 1987 - six months later, Fat Ed sat outside the prison, waiting for his god-brother in his milk-white S500 Mercedes, with two bottles of Moet chilling in a Styrofoam cooler in the trunk. It was time to celebrate. Lil’ Bits survived the ordeal but failed to appear in court as the state’s key witness, forcing the judge to throw the case out due to lack of evidence. Kevin was a free man.

  Fat Ed exploded on the drug scene while Kevin was incarcerated. He’d stumbled across a Floridian with aColumbian connection and invested the money he’d earned as a corner pusher in large quantities of cocaine and marijuana. Now, not only was he one of the area suppliers, but the corner pushers on the strip were employed by him. With money pouring in from all ends, Fat Ed purchased a fleet of automobiles—a white S-Class Mercedes, a black Porsche, and a money-green Range Rover, all of which he parked in the driveway of his new house.

  “Welcome home, man! I got you a little something,” Fat Ed beamed, dangling the keys to the Benz as Kevin made his way through the prison gates.

  “You got who a lil’ something?” Kevin asked, staring at the car in awe.

  “You! This is your car. Your Benz. C’mon and drive,” he said as Kevin took inventory of the flashy automobile. “I’m serious.” He chuckled. “It’s yours, Kevin.”

  “What I do to deserve this?”

  “Nothing, yet.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Kevin said and detoured to the passenger seat. “I don’t like that yet shit, so I think I’ll ride over here.”

  Fat Ed’s brows drew together. “What, you don’t like it?” he asked as he climbed in the driver’s seat.

  Kevin ran his hand along the polished wood grain while his body sank into the soft, cream-colored leather seats. “Shit, what’s not to like?”

  “Well, it’s yours,” Fat Ed repeated. The jolliness in his voice had subsided.

  The shooting was the buzz on the strip. Just like Fat Ed’s drug game, Kevin’s reputation had stepped up, making him just what Fat Ed needed—a notorious, no-nonsense gangster that the knuckleheads on the strip feared, one they knew would pull the trigger.

  “I want us to be partners. This here is like a lil’ signing bonus.”

  “Partners?”

  “Yeah. I need a no-nonsense type of partner to collect that paper and deal wit’ them knuckleheads when they don’t pay.”

  “Deal wit’em how?”

  “However you see fit. That’s your department. If they owe a few dollars, hell, just beat their asses. But if it’s major paper,” Fat Ed said, looking over at Kevin, “flatline ’em.”

  “Boy, you must be crazy!” Fresh out of the penitentiary, the last thing Kevin wanted to discuss was an illegal activity that would send him right back. “You want me to kill a chump ’cause he owes you a few dollars? What’s a few dollars to you anyway? Hell, if they mess up one time, cut ’em off. Just don’t fuck wit’ ’em no more.”

  “Man, you know it don’t work like that! Then all them lil’ youngins will be tryin’ to get over at least one muthafuckin’ time. That ain’t no way to run the business, and plus, you the only person I’d trust collecting for me.”

  “Well, then, you got a problem, ’cause I ain’t no hit man,” Kevin said. “I ain’t a killer.”

  Fat Ed sucked his teeth. “Why you cold fakin’ on me, man? You damn near killed Lil’ Bits!”

  “That shit was different. You know the laws on the street. You don’t pull a gun on nobody unless you plan on using it.”

  “But…”

  “Ain’t no buts, man,” Kevin interrupted, tired of the meaningless chatter that was going nowhere. “Hey, look. What’s up? What we getting ready to get in-to? I’m fresh out the pen. We ’pose to be celebrating.”

  “Hell, I know your ass gotta be horny, so I got some strippers waiting for you up in a hotel.”

  “Word?”

  “Yeah, man. They some stripper bitches, too. And I got some Mo on ice in the trunk.”

  Kevin smiled his approval. “Now, that’s what I want to hear.”

  “I figured you’d like that shit. Maybe after you bust a nut or two, you’ll stop lunchin’ and we can talk business. I want us to be partners for real.”

  ● ● ●

  Kevin’s mother stretched her depleting budget and said farewell to her three-bedroom apartment in the drug-stricken community in exchange for a two-bedroom in a better neighborhood. She knew LeCount and Kevin would scream bloody murder about having to share a bedroom, but she didn’t care. She had to get control over her sons before the streets swallowed them whole.

  A registered nurse at an area nursing home, Beatrice had pulled a few strings and got Kevin a job caring for the elderly men. To make it even better, she was his supervisor and therefore made sure their schedules coincided.

  After three weeks, Kevin finally had his first day off and had no plans on spending it cooped up in the house under the watchful eye of his mother. He hadn’t had a moment to himself since Fat Ed brought him home.

  I gotta get out of this house, he thought, just as Beatrice strolled from her room dressed in her nurse’s uniform.

  “Where you going?” Kevin asked, unable to hide the excitement in his voice.

  “Where it look like I’m going?” Beatrice huffed.

  Kevin could tell from her sigh that a lecture was a syllable away.

  “I almost told them no, I couldn’t work overtime because part of me feels the need to stay here and watch your behind. But,” Beatrice said, heading to the front door, “you’re twenty years old, Kevin. I’ve taught you right from wrong. I can’t sit here and babysit you every day.”

  “Ma, I’m not gonna get in no more…”

  Beatrice threw up her hand, silencing him. “I’ve heard it all before. This time, I just hope you mean it. One day your luck is gonna run out.”

  Kevin didn’t waste a second. The minute the deadbolt turned, he jumped from the couch and headed to the room he shared with LeCount.

  I wonder if it’s still in here.

  He yanked the covers and sheets from his unmade bed and squeezed his large hand inside the secret compartment he’d cut in his mattress a long time ago.

  Yes, he rejoiced as he pulled out the plastic baggie filled with tiny rocks of cocaine. I gotta get me a car, Ma. Then I’ll be done with this shit for real.

  ● ● ●

  Kevin ignored the October chill and placed the tiny baggie into the addict’s hand.

  �
�Thank you, Mr. Kevin,” the addict said with a bow. “We missed you, man.”

  Kevin filled the hours slinging the few rocks he had and catching up with the fellas he hadn’t seen in months. Glancing at his watch, he knew his mother was home, smoldering on the couch in disappointment.

  Shit, it’s damn near eleven o’clock, Kevin thought as a sparkling black Lincoln slowly crept down the street. He eyeballed the car as he reached underneath his sweatshirt and wrapped his fingers around his 9-mm. He gripped it tighter as the driver’s window eased down.

  “Hey!” Puffing on a joint, James blew a cloud of smoke out the window and grinned. “What’s up, man? Fat Ed told me you were home. Why it take you so long to come see a brotha?”

  Kevin released his gun and breathed a sigh of relief. He stepped into the parking lot to slap hands with James. “Man, I was gettin’ ready to blast your ass.”

  “You still shooting muthafuckas? Your ass must like the pen.”

  “Yeah,” Kevin said as he looked over the shiny Lincoln. “You must like it, too. Whose car your hot ass don’ stole now?” A screwdriver was jammed inside the ignition, clear as day.

  James chuckled. From the front passenger seat, Nic leaned his head forward. “What’s up, Kevin, man?”

  “What’s up, Nic?” Kevin greeted the one and only friend he had who sought education over dealing drugs. “What, you slingin’ drugs to pay for college?”

  “Naw, man.” Nic chuckled. “I’m tryna catch a ride, but James is sightseeing and shit.”

  “Well, hell,” Kevin opened the door and climbed inside the back. “I’m tryna catch a ride, too. Take me home, James, and I mean straight home. I ain’t tryna get caught in no stolen car fuckin’ ’round with you.”

  Chapter Three

  At the top of her lungs, Simone sang along to her Jody Watley cassette as she ran the vacuum across the living room floor. Every morsel of Simone’s being wanted to celebrate. Finally, she was in her own place after spending the last ten days on her grandmother’s couch nursing her fractured nose, thanks to Ricardo’s backhand slap. A smile eased across Simone’s face when all of a sudden she realized she could blast her music as loud as she wanted, just as she’d envisioned. She danced over to her boom box to turn the music up even louder.