Teri Woods - Angel's Revenge

He stood stone still, watching as Salahudeen’s body was lowered into the ground. They were all well aware of the risks. They all knew death was a strong possibility and sometimes a consequence of what they were doing. Still, losing Salahudeen was painful. Rahman would miss his longtime friend.

Rahman felt someone looking at him. He glanced up and met Ayesha’s gaze. She had been watching him and knew he was hurt, but she also knew he was angry. She could see him boiling inside. But somehow he found the strength to maintain his composure. He flashed her a slight grin to let her know he was all right.

Hanif approached him. “ As-Salaamu Alaikum ,Ock. How you?” Hanif inquired, giving him a hug.

“All praise is due Allah. To Allah we belong and to him we return.”

“True indeed,” Hanif agreed. “But are you okay?”

Rahman didn’t respond.

“Rahman, I need to know. We got a lot of brothers upset and ready to flip for the wrong reason. We can’t change from fighting for Allah’s cause to fighting for revenge. That, my brother, is not Islam. Justice, yes. Revenge, no. The difference is intention.”

Rahman understood what Hanif was saying. He had already been to war within himself. He wanted to avenge Sal’s murder but knew the fallacy of reacting on emotion. Anger clouds and love blinds, but a thinking man remains unswayed. He was prepared to turn up the heat on the streets, not for revenge but for justice.

Before he responded, his cell phone rang. He excused himself from Hanif and answered his phone.

“Speak.”

“I’m sorry about Sal,” Angel said with true remorse.

“We ain’t got nothin’ to say to one another,” Rahman said and hung up on her.

A few seconds later his phone rang again.

“Roc, listen. I know you’re upset, but on my word, I had nothing to do with it. I didn’t know anything about it. That was all Roll,” Angel explained.

Truthfully, Angel wanted to solve the problem, not squash it like Roll had tried to do.

Rahman knew Angel was telling the truth, but there was no way back, no way to return.

“Roc… Roll is gone. He ain’t a problem for neither one of us. I took care of it. I just wanna make this right. I really do,” Angel offered.

“There’s nothing…”

“The area we discussed, the one you wanted. It’s yours. Period. I’m in control now and it’s yours. You take it and you handle your part of the city. I’ll handle mine.”

She was trying to compromise but that was a luxury he didn’t have. His cause wouldn’t allow him to. Outside, he remained stone but inside, he was in turmoil. He had to say no, but to do so brought him one step closer to what he dreaded. An all-out war with Angel.

“No deal. I want all the drugs out of Newark. Anything less, I won’t accept. You wanna pick up where Roll left off, then you inherit his beef,” Rahman said calmly.

“I remember a time when your beef was mine, yo. Now the same vow means the exact opposite.”

Rahman closed his eyes tight against his emotions before speaking evenly and firmly. “The next time we meet, we meet as enemies.”

Silence filled the air for a moment.

“I… I know there’s no way we can avoid that now. Either you gonna kill me or I’ma kill you. But regardless, we both lose. But know this, Roc. Whatever happens, I love you.”

His heart silently returned the sentiment.

“Salaam.”

“Siempre.”

Angel sat on the couch in Capo’s safe house, staring at the money counters. The machines counted endlessly until the rickety sound became meaningless to her. With the money coming in since Roll’s death, they didn’t count it as often as they weighed it. They had calculated that a million dollars in small bills filled a duffel bag made to hold two basketballs.

Capo sat across the room with headphones strapped to his head, feeding the machine then taping the stacks and depositing them in bags.

Angel looked into his eighteen-year-old face. He was a brown-skinned Puerto Rican but his features were clearly Latino right down to his curly brown hair and bushy eyebrows. She watched him, wondering how long he would live before the life took him under.

Goldilocks came out of the kitchen with a glass of water for Angel. Her shapely figure swayed as she walked. She smiled when she noticed Angel watching her.

“Here you go, boo,” Goldilocks said, handing her the glass, then curling up on the couch next to her.

Angel didn’t respond. She just sipped her water and wondered when Goldilocks’s love for her would make Angel kill her, too. She wondered when love would cloud her vision, blind her judgment, and cause her to make emotional mistakes. In the high-stakes game of street survival, Angel could not afford any mistakes.

Angel remembered a time when Dutch, Craze, Zoom, and Roc occupied a room like this. There used to be laughter and arguments, love and trust, and nobody’s mind was exclusively on the money. But with Dutch, Craze, and Zoom gone and Roc her sworn enemy, the taste of success curdled in her mouth like spoiled milk.

“Fuck!” she bellowed so loudly that Capo heard her over his music. She stood up angrily.

“Shut that fuckin’ machine off! It’s drivin’ me crazy!” she exclaimed, holding her hands over her ears.

Goldilocks stood and wiggled up to her. “Baby, you…” but Angel’s eyes silenced her.

Capo saw the abrupt change in her demeanor and quickly shut the machine off.

“What… what is we doin’? What are we here for?” Angel wanted to know, looking from face to face.

Capo was puzzled. “Countin’ paper like we always do?” he replied.

“No,” Angel retorted, Dutch’s dragon chain swinging with her movements. “What are we doing here? In this position, huh? Where we at, who we are?”

Neither could understand what she meant so they didn’t say anything. Capo thought Angel was losing it, and Goldilocks tried to soothe her.

“Baby, sit down and relax. You just have a lot on your mind. Let me give you a massage,” she offered, but Angel yanked away.

“Relax? Relax?! Bitch is you crazy? Don’t you know right now there’s a hungry muthafucka out there goin’ all out to come to get what we got, and you want me to relax?!”

Angel appeared hysterical yet her mind was totally clear.

“When they come, we got ’nuff guns to go around!” Capo boasted.

Angel snatched the headphones off his head.

“You dumb fuck! You think we the only ones wit’ guns? Huh? Kazami had guns, and Dutch took him out. Dutch had guns, and the mob pushed him out. Young World had guns, Roll slumped ’im. And we slumped Roll. Do you think that’s it? You think one day you won’t get slumped?” she asked him, staring into his eyes until he looked away.

“Do you? Digame! ” Angel screamed. “Do you think I could be slumped, Capo? Would you slump me, Capo?”

Capo knew Angel was crazy, but he had never seen her like this before. “Naw, yo. We family, la familia , remember?” he replied, shifting in his chair.

Angel laughed in his face. “You lyin’, Cap. You lyin’ and you know it.”

Capo hated to be called a liar, but he feared the consequences of being judged one even more.

“My word, Angel. Death before dishonor, you know that,” he vowed.

“That ain’t got shit to do wit’ what I asked,” Angel retorted. “Push come to shove, you better slump me because I won’t hesitate to slump you,” she hissed, then looked at Goldilocks. “Or you.”

Goldilocks’s heart jumped. “I would never do anything to hurt you, lover, you know that.”

“Do I?” Angel asked, then again to Capo, “Do I?”

“Let’s hope it never comes to that,” Capo replied.