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  When I got up to the car, I took the young one hanging on the door by his arm and threw his ass off the car and onto the ground.

  The punk driving Jalen’s whip looked out. “Yo’, man, what is your problem?” he said. Then when he saw my face, he said, “What’s up, L?

  I didn’t know this fool who’d made himself comfortable in Jalen’s wheels. “Where’d you get the whip?”

  He answered, “Huh?”

  I punched him in the face and snatched his ass through the car window then drug him on the pavement. I lifted him up in the air. “The car, where did you get it?”

  “C’mon, L. I don’t know, man. It was sitting down by Maryland pool. I walk by, look in, the music on, nobody in it, but the keys, so I take off.”

  “That’s all you know?”

  “That’s it, man. I swear to you,” he pleaded.

  I looked back at the crew looking at me. “Y’all need to get your young asses out the streets. Go home! Go!”

  They all took off running, except for the fool I had just yanked out. I kept my eye on him and got into Jalen’s car.

  “Hold up, man. I just bought a chicken meal. I ain’t even bust it open yet,” he said.

  I looked over in the passenger seat and saw his food. I dropped his smoking-hot three-piece on the ground piece by piece, kept the drink, and drove off.

  The shock of seeing Jalen was wearing me down. I just wanted to cry, but my anger kept me going. I wanted revenge. I had a feeling Jalen didn’t get rid of his tool like I told him, because he didn’t trust the streets. He knew someday for some reason he was going to need to use it to protect himself.

  I reached under the seat and found his piece and began to think that he must have really been surprised by the fools that jumped out on him because he didn’t get a chance to reach for it. Now I had his pistol and was going to make it right as soon as I could.

  When I pulled up to Toy’s house, I tucked the pistol in my pants and knocked on the door a few times.

  Without any questions, I was planning to blow his face off as soon as I saw him, but he never answered the door, and his car wasn’t out front.

  I drove over to The Strip Club, and sure enough, I spotted his ride. I got there just in time because just as I parked far enough away so that he couldn’t see me, he came out the club holding Katrina by the arm.

  “C’mon, bitch, get in the car,” he was telling her.

  “If you don’t get off me, Toy,” Katrina said. “Why you always have to be pushing on me?”

  “What the hell your stupid ass going to do about it?” he barked.

  “I wanna go home, Toy. I’m tired. I been dancing all night.”

  “You can walk your ass home from my place when I’m finished, so get your ass in the car.”

  “No, I wanna go home.”

  Toy smacked her.

  I was on my way out the car, but my phone rang. “Yeah?” I answered it as Toy and Katrina struggled.

  “Hey, baby. It’s your mom.”

  “Hello, Ma.”

  By this time, Toy had pushed Katrina in the car and was on his way to the driver’s side to get in.

  “Langston . . . Jalen’s dead, baby. He just passed away.”

  I could hear my mother crying on the phone. When I finally opened my eyes from the pain, Toy and Katrina were gone.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Shed So Many Tears

  Jalen’s funeral wasn’t my first, but it was my worst. I was barely coping with anything that had to do with life. My boy, who I’d been with every day since I could remember, was gone.

  I went to the wake and cried until my eyes hurt. Jalen’s mother didn’t want an open casket, and I was glad. I wanted to think of only the good memories of him, but it was going to be hard to do after the way I saw him laying up in that hospital bed the night he was beaten.

  Everyone gathered in Jalen’s spot in The Vil, and people were running in and out bringing food and telling his mother how sorry they were. Most of the people who came through were parents who had lost kids in The Vil over some senseless nonsense too, so they knew exactly what to say to Jalen’s mom.

  It hurt me to see Jalen’s mom try to deal with him being gone. Jalen’s crazy ass was the first of her seven kids to graduate from high school, and he was her last born.

  She was trying her best to be strong even as she tried to explain to Jalen’s locked-up father what happened to his seed. She had no idea who killed Jalen. The police didn’t know when they came out to talk to her, and they did their investigation like they barely cared.

  I decided I was going to keep everything Jalen told me to myself and finish what I planned to do the night he died, because that was my boy, and I owed him.

  I sat with Jalen’s mom for a long while and tried to ease her pain, letting her know I would continue to pay Jalen’s salary. It was the least I could do. After all, he was one of the main reasons I was going pro.

  Jalen’s mom told me to take his car though; she didn’t think she could stay strong with it in her face every day and Jalen not driving it with his wide smile, and hat cocked to the side .

  I was tired of everyone coming up to me asking how I was. Jalen didn’t deserve to get beaten to death and have his arm and leg taken from him in the process.

  When Jalen’s mom heard someone ask me if I was okay again, she began to cry out. It was her third time within thirty minutes. Her daughters gathered her up and started to take her to her room.

  Another tear rolled down my face as I looked at a picture of me and J washing our raggedy hand-me-down bikes with a rag and a bucket with holes.

  I looked up from the picture when the front door opened and Tori walked in. She looked around at everyone then heard Jalen’s mother crying out, and after one look into my eyes, she began to cry.

  I stood up to grab her, and she fell into my arms. I started shedding tears again for Jalen. Damn! Our boy is gone. Damn! He is gone.

  Every funeral I had ever been to had rained, and Jalen’s was no different. I watched from a distance though from the backseat of one of the limos as they got ready to put J in the ground after the service. I didn’t want to see him going down into the earth, nor did I want to hear any more crying because I think I would have had some kind of breakdown if I did.

  We hadn’t been at the cemetery more than five minutes, but I saw Tori looking around then back at the car. She came toward me with her umbrella, and I opened the door so she could get inside. She sat down and wiped a few drops from her face, as we sat in silence looking on at what was going on outside.

  “You’re not coming out, huh?”

  “Naah, I’ve had enough. Jalen already in heaven anyway,” I told her.

  “Yeah?” Tori wondered.

  “Probably already trying to get a summer b-ball tournament set up or something.”

  “You know his ass is. Probably trying to play a game of one on one with Jesus, with his crazy self.”

  I swear, I wasn’t trying to cry again. “That was my boy, Tori. Jalen was my brother.”

  She said, “I loved him too. You just not supposed to go out like that, L.”

  I moved toward the window and looked out. I couldn’t believe Toy had the nerve to be in attendance at Jalen’s funeral. I don’t know how long I stared at him, but I know I was thinking whether or not to go out there and kill him on the spot.

  “What’s wrong?” Tori asked.

  “Nothing. I’m cool.” I took a deep breath. I needed to talk about something else. Anything. “So how did it go?”

  “What?”

  I looked down at her stomach.

  She hesitated before saying, “Oh, it didn’t. I couldn’t do it.”

  “No?”

  “I couldn’t.” She exhaled loudly. “I mean, like you said, so what the baby won’t know its father? How many kids in the hood know them anyway? Plus, this baby is going to have all of me inside it anyway. I promise you that.”

  I pounded my fist on
my leg.

  “What’s wrong, L?”

  “It seems like everything that’s happened comes from me and going pro.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “It don’t matter. Just know that it’s fucked-up to lose your best friend and girl in the same week.”

  “Well, I’ve been thinking about that too,” Tori said.

  “What you mean?”

  “Just wondering what would happen if we just moved on, got away from here, and just did us.”

  “Really?”

  “Mmm-mmm, you sit around and dream as a little girl of one day not having to live in the projects anymore and having a man with a family that you can cling to. Yeah, I thought about it.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you were thinking about me?”

  “Of course, I was.”

  I took my time before I spoke again. “You should do more than think about it though. You and the baby come with me. We’ll get married and leave all this behind. No more projects, no more guns, no more murders. Just us and that little one inside you.”

  “But it’s not yours, Langston. This baby won’t be your blood.”

  “It will still be mine. I’ll love it to death because it’s part of you, and that’s on my word.”

  Tori started to smile.

  “So you’ll do it? Oh, hold on a second.” I reached into my pocket and gave her the ring I was still holding on to.

  Tori’s smile widened some more.

  “You will?”

  “Yes, boy, I’ll marry you. Ain’t no way I’m staying here without you.”

  Tori gave me a hug then a long kiss afterwards. I could see through the window they were finally lowering Jalen into the ground, and people were beginning to walk away.

  “You see, Jalen. We’re going to do it, baby! Me and your girl going to get married, man.” I looked at Tori. “You know we should name the baby Jalen.”

  “And if it’s a girl, Jada.”

  “Yeah, cool. I like that.”

  We both had tears running down our faces. I wiped mine away. “Now c’mon. Let’s go say one last good-bye to our boy.” I grabbed a bottle of liquor from the limo to share with Jalen and showed it to Tori. “You think J would like this? It’s Johnnie Walker Blue Label.”

  “Oh, hell yeah. Jalen would drink anything.”

  I helped Tori out the limo, and we walked hand in hand to Jalen’s grave then had our own little private time with our boy without shedding another tear.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  This on Me

  I felt good knowing that Tori was going with me to France, but I still had to deal with Toy. I had let him breathe long enough.

  I called him up. When he answered, his voice never before seemed so fake to me. It only made me wonder how many other people he had killed.

  “We need to meet,” I told him.

  “Yeah? What’s up?”

  “Been thinking about those investments you talked about. I think I want to do a few. I want to sign on before I leave.”

  “Yeah?”

  “That’s right.”

  “So what made you change your mind?”

  “Life, man, just life. You have to get it while it’s good, right?”

  “No doubt. Look, I was going to reach out to you about your boy, but I thought I would let you get through it awhile. Another senseless murder in the hood, you know.”

  I could tell he was trying to feel me out. “Yeah, you got that right.”

  “A’ight,” he said. “Call me when you ready to meet.”

  “I will.”

  “The sooner the better,” Toy said.

  When I hung up the phone, my mother was standing near the sink, getting a glass of water.

  “So what are you signing with Toy?” she asked.

  “A few investments, that’s all.”

  “Anything you want me to look at for you?”

  “Naah, they all good. Just some property downtown and stuff like that.”

  I sat down at the kitchen table with her. She was still shaken by Jalen’s death and had been going back and forth visiting his mother. I was wondering what I was going to do to Toy and how, and whether I could get away with it or not.

  “What’s wrong, L?”

  “ Oh, nothing. I just want to give you all my information on my accounts so that you can go in and get my money if anything ever happens to me.”

  My mother was quick. “Happen to you? Like what?”

  “I don’t know. I mean, like Jalen . . . if I ever get killed or something.”

  “Boy, ain’t nothing going to happen to you. You’re a chosen one.”

  “You never know, Ma. “

  “What’s gotten into you? Now you know I’m not going to be able to stand it if you don’t have your faith. You’re getting ready to travel all over the world playing ball, and you’re going to need your faith and confidence sky-high all the time.”

  “I know, but you still need it, just in case.”

  The court was finally finished. The contractor that Jalen worked with to get the whole thing together called and let me know that they were putting up the nets on the rims and wanted me to come down to see how it looked with the bleachers because the kids were dying to bounce up and down on the new rubber matted pavement he’d laid down. He seemed really down concerning Jalen, telling me that Jalen was one young man on the move who just needed a little more seasoning and would have turned into a fine businessman.

  When we finally pulled up to the court, there were about fifty kids and a few parents standing around the court looking at the painting of Jalen that me and the contractor decided to put on the center of the court. When they saw me get out the car with Tori, they all cheered.

  We walked to the middle of the court, dedicated it to Jalen, and begged them to always come to the court to have fun, without the violence. All of a sudden, a big truck pulled up, opened up the back doors, and basketballs were being thrown to the court, sending the kids wild.

  “Aww! This is so nice, L,” Tori said.

  “Yeah, they need this. Keep them off the corners, turning them drugs, you know.”

  “And they get to remember Jalen too,” Tori said.

  We sat around in the bleachers watching the young’uns go buck wild on the court for a while.

  Tori said, “You ever think they are going to get who kill-ed Jalen?”

  “I don’t know, but I am,” I told her.

  “What?”

  “Just what I said.”

  “You know, L?”

  I didn’t answer, but she read my eyes.

  “How? I mean, what happened?”

  “He told me, Tori. Jalen told me when I went to see him before he died.”

  “And you’ve been keeping this inside all this time?”

  “I had to. Can’t trust anybody around here. You know that.”

  “You can trust me. I’m gonna be your wife.”

  Just then, a ball bounced into the bleachers. I grabbed it and gave it to a little boy, who thanked me for having the court built.

  Tori hadn’t taken her eyes off of me. She wanted to know what I knew.

  “It was Toy.”

  Her eyes began to well up. “Are you sure?”

  “That’s what he told me. I heard him clear as day.”

  Tori wiped a tear from her face.

  “He told me something else, Tori.”

  “What was it?”

  I waited a few seconds before I answered her. I felt myself biting my lip. “Jalen said Toy was the one who set you up to get raped. And it makes sense now, because he’s the one who told us where we could find you.”

  Tori was silent for minutes. She looked out at the kids screaming and playing. She looked at me hard then said, “Are you going to need any help, baby?”

  I looked back at her then back out at the kids standing around looking at the drawing of Jalen.

  “Naah, you just get ready to
go, okay. I got this. This all on me.”

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Pop! Pop!

  I was locked and loaded waiting outside The Strip Club for Toy. My heart was racing. I was a little nervous, but when I saw him walking out, the smile on his face filled me with mad get-back. I wondered if that was the way he looked when he walked away with Jalen lying in his own blood, or after having his moment with my girl.

  Toy flopped down in Jalen’s ride. “Young brother, the back rooms in the VIP are poppin’ tonight,” he said. “I mean, really getting buck wild.” Then he looked around, probably remembering we were in J’s ride. “Look, when we done with this, you need to come inside so we can really party.”

  “Not my thing,” I told him.

  “A’ight, whatever.” Toy reached into his suit jacket and pulled out the paperwork and began to unfold it. “When you’re an old man like me, L, you’re going to be happy you did this.”

  I wasn’t paying much attention to Toy because I was looking around the lot and at the vacant building next to the club. That’s where I had planned on taking him and laying him out.

  “So you ready for France or what? They told me they are starting you at shooting guard right out the gate. Just be careful ’cause those ‘Euros’ will bust your ass when you drive to the hole. I plan on traveling there to check things out and meet your coach in a couple of days, maybe even get me a spot.”

  I was really tired of hearing his voice. “Yeah, whatever, Toy.”

  He looked up from the papers. “Whatever? C’mon, what do you mean? This is our—”

  I snatched the papers from his hand and threw them to the floor. “Why’d you do it?”

  His lying eyes wandered around. “Do what?”

  “So now you’re a killer and a liar?”

  “Killer? What the hell you talkin’ about?”

  I locked the car doors then pulled the pistol from up under my tee. “Jalen. That’s what I’m talking about.”

  Toy kind of laughed.

  I snapped at his arrogance and put the gun right on his temple. “Shut up! And you raped Tori too!”