Bred From Treason: Why I Do What I Do

PROLOGUE

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I laid back and studied her. For the full impact, I used more than one of my senses. Greedily, I took in the curves of her silhouette, and once again, my heart rate began to accelerate. It was hard to focus with just a dim glow barely peeking through the shut curtains, but still, I stared. I breathed deeply while taking in the smell of her skin. After six months, her fragrance was still a mystery. I let the tips of my fingers slither across the perspiration that still coated her spine, my hand traveling downward, towards the small of her back.

It was true. I fought myself but I had to finally admit it. I’d fallen in love with her.

I agonized over it yet again.

Two days passed since I was supposed to put that work in. It was, by far, the hardest task I have ever had to carry out. There were so many excuses I would have used if I could; the fact that she was only eighteen; her innocence, and her ignorance about the very reason that she was laying beside me. The warm feelings that could have been love would have been love, if only...

Why do I do this to myself?

Why do I torture myself like this?

At the other end of the room, I glanced at the mirror that had watched as I fucked her over and over. Now I watch my reflection reach for the drawer with my left hand, I asked myself why?

I wanted one last time to feel that warm nectar on my face to have her mount me, allow one more round, one last experience into pure bliss. But how many times would I have promised myself that same shit? I reached past the condoms in the drawer and grabbed the silenced .9mm.

Fuck that! Because of me, he beat that murder! I gave him a life, saved his life!

Then he stabs me in the fucking back! He testified at my trial! He is the reason I got 25 to Life! It took me twelve years to get that reversal! Seventeen total years wasted!

Tabitha, I loved her so much. I found out that she was pregnant with his kid. I found out that they had disappeared. He’d run with all my money, sold the house I put in her name...the treachery. The prison life and the struggle all combined.

So much time had passed, but I found them. Through the years she’d had two kids by him. The same little bastards he tried to use when he begged me to let him live. The same kids of which a son looked up to me; and a daughter warmed my bed.

Her; she looked just like Tabby. I couldn’t look into her eyes; or I would be helpless all over again. Him, that little mutha fucka reminds me so much ofhis father, just thinking about it makes it that much easier.

Fuck his innocence! My plans were to use him up as soon as he turned fourteen. At thirteen, he’d already wanted to be a hustla. He told me he wanted to try murder. Imagine killing someone just to see if you could do it. Stupid mutha fucka! I will use him. He will carry out my plans of controlling the East. The same plans that were ruined by his son-of-a-bitch father; and co-signed by his whore of a mother, who just so happened to have been the love of my life.

To kill someone you love for revenge. But you know what? My name is Doogs! You shit on me, and I kill you and your family! I’m a hard-body street boss, and emotions run secondary to principle. I remember tears starting to fall just as my heart rate returned to normal, because murder was my norm.

Mista, you still up?

Her voice stunned me. Did she know? It was too eerily exotic that she called me Mista, just like her mother did. I choked back from all out crying when I realized that it would be the last time I would ever hear that name called out to me.... Mista.

Instantly, as if the devil suddenly re-entered my soul, calm spread across my tear-strewn face. I lay on my side and kissed her shoulder slow.

I love you Samantha, with all my heart. Then I aimed the silenced pistol at her head and squeezed. First a click; then a flash! Blood and brain speckled the lampshade that sat atop the bedside table. A crater disappeared from the top corner of her head. The last woman I ever loved...

***

Damn this man never sleeps! When I’m up, he’s up. When I’m sleep, he’s up. He doesn’t drink or smoke; all he wants to do is fuck.

He thinks I’m stupid. Mom told me about him. I know it’s him because he looks exactly the same as the picture mom showed me. She cried deep forgotten tears the day she showed me those pictures. With jewels gleaming from his fingers, wrists and neck. Tailor made suits, the mountains of money on the table; she told me the entire story. She also warned me about how vicious he was; how many men he had killed when she ran with him, how that wild life aroused her before she saw it from inside the mind of a real killer. She told me how she ended up with my father; how they ran away. She also told me that if I ever saw the face in those pictures it meant he found us. Ain’t nothing healthy about him finding us. She said.

My mother actually thought she deserved to die at his hands, because of what she’d done to him.

That February, when I actually saw his face, I lost my breath. Familiarity was saturated in his eyes as he looked at me. My fear was an aphrodisiac that mixed with my hate for him. I had my first orgasm just standing there looking in his eyes; the face of my parents’ killer. He said his name was Riley, but I knew better; and when my parents were found dead a couple days later, I really knew. When he pressed me, I let him. If I had run, then my element of surprise would have been gone. So I rode out, waiting for the perfect opportunity to kill him.

I couldn’t tell Jeremy because he wouldn’t have been able to hide it. I let this man satisfy my physical desires. It was the energy radiating, not only from him, but the entire situation. The danger, the fear and the experience of allowing this man to enter me, a man who at one time made love to my own mother. A man my mother said was a killer with a heart colder than any man she’d ever met. He felt so good inside of me.

Ever since my birthday the day before yesterday, we constantly fucked. It was his idea to have Jeremy stay with his friend over the weekend, but he had me tell him. He had a look in his eye, of what? Passion? No, more. His eyes were glassy. It was more than passion. It was ecstasy, satisfaction, hunger, a foreign stare.

I would miss the sex, so I fully intended to fuck him as much as he could handle. I knew my mother’s Mista would die this weekend, and I would kill him.

Mista, you still up? I might have loved this man if I didn’t know that he was my parents’ killer. Instead, all I felt was a deep hate mixed with raw lust.

I hate him, but him lying beside me made me wet all over again. Feeling his lips on my shoulder temporarily eases the contempt as anticipation filled my body. That was when he said he loved me...but this man killed my parents....

CHAPTER 1

Eight Years Later...

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Jay laid staring at the ceiling; contemplating taking another hit before heading out. He silently cursed himself for starting that shit. He was told that as long as you didn’t smoke it – especially cook it and smoke it – you were good. He was also told when he was fourteen, and just starting to do deliveries, that cocaine would keep you up and ready. Jay was told that the runners’ job was very important because you were in contact with everything and everybody; and being a step ahead was mandatory. He was told that the pinky nail of powder promised promotion.

Jay smiled remembering how he damn near shoved his whole pinky in his nose then pulled back to quote what he referred to as ‘The Hustla’s Scripture’.

Speaking of running, Jay hated how his nose felt like it was constantly running and how his nostrils felt like they took up half his face.

Feel that haze? Makes you focus hard, huh? Use that intensity. Stare directly into the eyes of whoever you talk to. When he looks away, that triumph is all part of your growth in this game.

hustlaJay sat up. He surveyed the room he was in. The window was a nasty little rectangle just big enough for the small ventilation fan; and set high, right under the ceiling. Other than the small pile of cocaine inside the fifty-dollar bill, the room in the basement was empty of work. The pistol grip twelve gauge and fatigue style slug proof vest lay against the far wall. The two 40 Cals lying on the floor looked completely out of bounds.

Jay hopped out of bed and decided to hold off on that next hit. He had to pick up the last of the money, then get ready for the next shipment. He was gonna be pushing kilos now. The thought sent a surge of energy through his body. The natural excitement of the fact, made Jay feel alive. His yawn-stretch transformed into an uncontrolled shiver as anticipation overpowered the latest craving for chemical energy.

Use everybody for what they’re worth Jay. As long as you, in turn, allow yourself to be used; there’s no harm, no foul... Poetically quoted. Strategically taught. Nonetheless, accepted.

The Hustla’s Scripture.

I earned what I’m about to get, Jay thought to himself. I will accept it, gladly; and I’ll do whatever’s necessary to maintain it. Murder is second nature, it comes with the territory and I have been taught by the best. My willingness, as always, makes me a step ahead.

Jay threw on the velour sweat suit that was neatly folded at the edge of the bed. He slipped into his new low-top white on white Uptowns then reached onto the old blistered end table and grabbed his Jacob, chain, and single pinky ring.

After tucking a small .380 into his waistline at the small of his back, Jay took a look at himself in the full-length mirror hooked on his door. He looked Hood official. Waves spinning, fresh taper, and his caramel complexion; the money green velour zipped up just enough to meet the iced out cross. The emerald tips sparkled with each slight movement in the mirrored reflection of the dull light coming through the window.

A little too skinny for his liking, he scrutinized his 5’9" frame, causing just a moment’s doubt to his capabilities of what lie ahead. But as he looked into his own eyes with that deadpan stare, he thought back to one of his first lessons. Before you can kill, you must allow yourself to die inside. You must be able to separate the two forces. Identify the part of you that’s alive and the part of you that’s dead. You have to be able to embrace either, at will, instantaneously, in the blink of an eye. Lessons were like echoes inside his head. That particular quote became a part of him in the last year; as much lesson as it was warning, from a man whose love was questionable until questioned. Not quite a father figure, not quite a mentor, but always adding up to just that; manifested through street lessons.

I look like a million. Soon I’ll be worth a million...Millions nigga!

Jay walked over to the nightstand and grabbed the cell when it chirped. Yo?

What up doggy?

I’m leaving’ now.

Aiight, out.

Jay checked his messages, fourteen, one from each of his six Captains. No actual messages, just the numbers; each a couple hours ago. They was all probably bugging out because they didn’t have no work all day. But they couldn’t know about the next move, not yet. Anything could go wrong and the worst thing that could happen is plans that go wrong when a hustlahustla’s expecting. With all the ideas of what could have been, any real hustla would decide he could do it himself.

The other eight were from Ebony. Jay tucked the phone on his hip and walked out the room. His was at the end of a concrete paved corridor with four other rooms, all occupied by smokers. Mrs. Bianca’s room was next to his. She was an older woman, wise to the ways of the hood. She ran with the big boys back in the seventies and always held her own. She by-passed the dope string knowing that getting high on your own supply was no good. But she got caught up in the eighties, during that base head epidemic. Her credentials with the old heads remained upheld. She somehow always knew what was going on in the hood. There were times when she could talk to Jay and mesmerize him with her words. Then she would take a hit on that glass dick and fuck it all up.

Sunshine, Cheri, and Dana occupied the other three rooms. They were three prostitute dick-sucking bitches that were word spreaders for all the nickel and dime freelance hustla’s in the hood. Trifling bitches would give up any new jack getting started for a dime. Without knowing it, they had been a very important part of the plans that were about to go down. Plans to take over the hood and living in a basement room with a bunch of fucking crack heads held a certain irony to it.

Jay left the basement; letting the spring-slam door clap heavily against the jamb. He walked up Montauk Street and turned on Blake Avenue headed toward old man Ike’s crib. His was one of a string of new homes built in the hood, and his driveway was where Jay parked his Jaguar. Though his shit was candy painted and sitting on 20’s, Jay already looked at it like old news. A ride that only took him