carrying a brown paper bag. “These are for y’all.” He emptied the bag and five black six-shot .32 hand guns were on the table.
“These are for us?” Don asked jumping up.
Bay Bro flashed a smile. “Yeah little brother, these are for y’all. But don’t go turning this city into the Wild-Wild West because these are for protection purposes only.”
“We not old-timer,” Don said smiling now that they had heat. “You know we responsible.”
The weekend flew by. Monday morning came and it was time to get back to school. With the exception of Jon, the boys hated school. The morning went as it normally did with the boys talking shit to other boys and flirting with girls. At the end of their lunch break the boys decided that they had enough school for one day and went to their skip spot. It was also only five minutes away from Delany, Tyrone’s projects.
It was a graveyard five minutes away from the school. The usual routine was chatting, wrestling and then talking more shit. Today they played a game called Gangsta. They’d pick gangsters from the mob movies and pretended to be them. The boys ran around the grave yard for about thirty minutes fake shooting at one another. Then they’d get into wrestling matches. Don and Kay were in the middle getting down. Tyrone and two older boys they’d never seen before walked up sipping on 40 ounces of Colt 45 and passing a swisher around.
“What do we have here?” Tyrone said passing the blunt to one of his boys. “I told y’all little bitches this wasn’t over.”
He dropped his 40 ounce and charged Don. Don swung as Tyrone rushed him but he missed and Tyrone scooped him up and slammed him hard on his back. Within seconds Tyrone was on top of him pounding away connecting forceful blows to his face.
“This what you wanted, right? This what yo lil’ ass wanted?” Tyrone repeated.
“Get off my brother!”
Immediately after the words left Jon’s mouth, he let loose three hollow point bullets from his .32 handgun. All three shots caught Tyrone in his back. He slumped forward onto Don who quickly pushed him off. The two other boys dropped their 40’s and ran. Kay walked up to Tyrone and put his gun to the back of Tyrone’s head and fired twice.
“Hey, better safe than sorry,” Kay said kicking Tyrone’s lifeless body. “Let’s get outta here.”
The boys went straight to the Dungeon and just sat in Don’s room saying nothing. Thirty minutes passed before Kay finally spoke.
“Look y’all, what’s done is done. Ain’t no need worrying about it now. Dude came looking for trouble and got what he had coming. We can’t change what happened, but we definitely sent a message. Now we just have to stick together, keep our mouths shut and watch each other’s back. Y’all know them niggas from Delaney gone be out for blood. But as long as we stick together and watch out for one another they ain’t gone be able to touch us. Now shake that shit off and let’s play some Madden.”
Kay and Zoe were playing the football game while Twon had his own thoughts of the repercussions that were sure to follow. Don and Jon were carrying on their own conversation.
“I ain’t never heard Kay talk so much at one time.” Don said trying to lighten the mood.
“He has a point. Them cats from Delany are going to be at us and we’re gonna have to be ready for whatever.” Don said and pumped Scarface’s Diary CD. “You my brother and I love you more than I love myself. I can’t speak for the rest of the crew but I know that we got each other’s back. Our lives changed today and only time will tell if it was for the best or the worst. The only thing I do know is that today we graduated from boys to men,” Don said.
“I heard everything that you just said and I promise you that you can always count on me to be there for you,” Jon said.
Delany housing project was notorious for killing. The place was also filled with Vice Lords. While the boys were playing video games in the Dungeon, the two boys who were with Tyrone were in the projects at Cash’s house telling him what had happened at the grave yard.
“You telling me that ya’ll two let some little kids stank Tyrone?” Cash asked while lighting a Newport. “What the fuck good is ya’ll?”
One of them, Pee-wee spoke up not wanting to let Cash get too agitated.
“Cash man, we didn’t have no heat on us and all five of them little muthafucka’s had they shit out and ready.”
The other, Doug, followed up.
“Yeah Cash, they came out of nowhere with all these guns and shit. Man, we barely got away ourselves. We could be lying next to Tyrone right now.”
Delany projects produced a lot of killers, but the man out there was Cash. At sixteen he shot and killed two Gary police officers. The court had very little evidence and the case was dropped. After that incident no one messed with Cash. Now twenty-four, he stood six-feet even and weighed two hundred pounds. He was more of a force.
Cash sat at the kitchen table blowing smoke rings and contemplated what to do about the boys who had just killed his cousin. Finally he spoke.
“These lil’ boys wanna play in the big leagues, huh? They killed my cousin, so now I’m gonna kill them. First thing, I’m gonna have a little fun. I want ya’ll to find out who they are? Where they from? What school they go to? And who they affiliated with? That shouldn’t be too hard for ya’ll to do?”
Cash was putting his cigarette out when Pee-Wee said, “They play for Beckman. I saw a couple of the games. They hot shit.”
“I don’t give a damn if they hot shit or not because they dead.” After cooling down he finished saying, “Well now all ya’ll got to do is find out where they from and who they with. I don’t want no surprises because if them lil’ niggas got heat like that, no doubt that they plugged. I just hope they ain’t from 11th because if they is? We got a war on our hands, in the worse way.” Cash was clearly pissed.
Weeks passed and nothing was heard about the murder. The boys felt relieved and started getting back to their routine. It was a Friday and Norton’s gym was packed.
Even though the gym was located on 13th Avenue in the boy’s hood, people from all over the city came to play ball. Pee-Wee stood talking to some chick when the boys rolled up in the gym. Since this was their hood people gave them their due respect.
“There go Don and Jon.” The girl said.
“Do you know them?” Pee-Wee asked.
“Hell yeah I know them. They from 11th Avenue,” the girl said.
Pee-Wee knew their names, what school they went to and where they were from. Cash would be pleased.
“What up old man?” Jon asked.
Bay Bro sitting in the bleachers talking to some young, sexy chocolate female looked up smiling.
“What’s up lil’ soldiers?” he greeted shaking their hands. “Ya’ll all right?”
“We’re
