Dirty Work: Part 1

Devon said, “It’s all over the news. Whoever bodied them niggas almost tore them muthafuckas in half wit’ machine gun fire right outside Marcy Projects. Some Scarface type of shit.”

“Damn!” Kip felt strongly that a war was coming their way. Of course, Brooklyn would feel that Harlem had something to do with it.

Mark Spark’s death was on Devon, and Kip had his friend’s back completely, but the other gangland-style murders on their own turf? Someone crazy had done it.

Kip was ready for whatever came his way. Trouble wasn’t anything new to him. He lived his life a quarter mile at a time, meaning he took life’s situation as they came, and he planned on living his life to the fullest.

Seventeen

Yo, we slippin’, my niggas. This muthafucka been alive for too long. Two weeks already and he still breathing,” Devon griped. “How we lookin’? We lookin’ like we can’t hunt a nigga down and take care of him when this is what we do, steal and kill.” He sat in the backseat of Kip’s minivan smoking a blunt. He was anxious to put down the murder game and get paid. He needed the money. The cash from their last score had already been spent mostly on hookers, weed, things for his truck, and guns.

Kip said, “Yo, Devon, chill, a’ight! I got this.”

“I’m sayin’, Kip, the longer it takes lookin’ for this muthafucka, the more incompetent we lookin’ to Maserati Meek.”

“You think I don’t know that, nigga!” Kip replied in frustration.

“It feels like Big Sean knows we lookin’ for him,” Papa John chimed. “We been lookin’ everywhere for this nigga, and he ain’t been at the spots he usually be at.”

“I know,” said Kip.

“Now what?” Devon asked.

“We keep lookin’, that’s now what. What, y’all niggas think because two weeks went by this nigga still can’t get got? Every contract ain’t gonna be swift like that, y’all niggas know. Fuck. Get y’all minds right, niggas, and stay focused on what we getting paid to do. Y’all niggas sounding like y’all becoming discouraged by the time.”

Devon and Papa John didn’t argue with Kip, knowing he was right. It was just taking them longer than usual. Big Sean was out there somewhere, most likely still in New York, and they didn’t know whether he had been tipped off about the contract on his life.

“So, that thing wit’ the police, they sweatin’ you hard about that park shooting?” Papa John asked, changing the subject.

“They ain’t got shit on us, and they know it. Them muthafuckas just fishing, that’s all, and they came at me because they know I’m the biggest fish in the pond.”

“Fuck it, I’ll kill a cop. I don’t give a fuck. All them niggas need to die anyway,” Devon said seriously.

“Yeah, we know you would, wit’ ya crazy ass,” Papa John replied.

“Still, we need to be extra, extra careful, still do what we do, and watch our backs doing it,” Kip said.

Devon and Papa John nodded.

Devon passed the blunt to Papa John as they sat parked on a Queens block, not too far from his cousin’s place. It was dark, it was late, and they were moving around inconspicuously.

“Devon, you need to stay in Queens and keep cool. Harlem ain’t the place for you to come back right now. Not until shit gets breezy and blows away like the wind.”

“I miss the block, my niggas, and the hood, yo. Queens is dead.”

“And the cops are still pressing niggas out there. I can’t afford to have you locked up right now,” Kip said.

Silence struck Devon as he looked out the window and took a pull from the blunt that was passed back to him. Kip had always been the smart one and the cautious one. Devon knew he had fucked up by shooting that boy in the head in the park with so many people around, and though no one was talking yet, it still wasn’t wise for him to be in Harlem. Kip always advised well. It was one of the reasons they hadn’t been incarcerated yet. Committing a crime was like artwork. You had to pay attention to the details—you had to take your time. The pistol was your brush, and the street was your canvas.

With cash getting low, each man was desperate for another robbery to commit. And Big Sean was out there somewhere. Kip knew it. He felt the nigga was close but just fortunate not to cross paths with them so far.

The men continued smoking and talking before parting ways that night. Devon went back to his cousin’s place, and Kip dropped Papa John off at a different baby mama’s place in Washington Heights.

Kip didn’t drive straight home. He drove to Riverside Park, where he liked to go to think and be alone. He parked his vehicle and stepped out into the warm spring night and into the park. With it being so late, the park was quiet and still. From where he stood, Kip had a beautiful view of the GW Bridge crossing over the Hudson River and into New Jersey. The Hudson River was God-made and wide and stretched for miles. With a full moon above, the lights that illuminated from the bridge to the shores of New Jersey were hypnotic.

Kip lit a Black & Mild and smoked. He had a lot to think about. He eyed a few boats floating on the Hudson and wondered what problems them people had. They lived on a boat and maybe sailed the world. They could just float away and be someplace else the next day.

With a handicapped brother, not knowing his parents, and living in the ghetto, Kip had to become a man overnight. If not, the wolves of the ghetto would have devoured him and his little brother.