K'wan - Gutter

B. T.’s eyes flashed rage, and he thought about taking a swing at the stranger, but the coward in him stayed his hand. “Check this shit out, cuz, I’ve been helping y’all niggaz take out key players, and I think that counts for something, so you might wanna stop talking all crazy to me. When I get some more info, I’ll float it to you.”

“Fair enough.” Tito nodded. “If Blood ain’t got no more questions for you, we out.”

“Actually, I do have a question,” Major spoke up. “Why?”

“Why what?” B. T. asked, confused.

“Why cross yo peoples like this? I know they’ve done some greasy shit, but you’re still a Crip. How can you set your own up to be slaughtered?”

“Gutter ain’t mine. Him and his faggot-ass man came out here acting like they running shit. It’s about time somebody checked his ass. Besides, this shit ain’t personal. It’s strictly business.”

“Strictly business.” Major laughed. “I’ll be sure they put that on your tombstone.” Out of nowhere, Major Blood hit B. T. with a left. He staggered from the blow, but it was the right hook that put him on his ass. He lay on the ground, dazed and leaking from his nose.

“I never could stand a rat.” Major Blood shook his head while kneeling over B. T. The turncoat suddenly found it very difficult to focus his eyes, but he caught flashes of Major Blood taking something out of his pocket. B. T. tried to say something, but all that came out was a wet, gurgling sound as Major Blood cut his throat.

“GOTDAMN, MAJOR, we could’ve used that nigga!” Tito fumed.

“For what? Man, I wouldn’t use that snake-bitch to wipe the shit off my shoes,” Major Blood spat. “I came here to put in work, not play muthafucking I Spy, nigga! Fuck B. T. and fuck Harlem. What you need to do is spin Harlem so I can get a line on this monkey muthafucka, Pop Top. As far as everything else, I got this nigga.”

“I hope so, Blood,” Miguel mumbled.

“Y’all niggaz stop acting like faggots and show some nuts,” Major barked. “Now pay attention while I put that little info you gave me to some good use, Tito.” Major Blood pulled out his cell and punched in a few numbers. After a brief pause someone picked up on the other line, but didn’t say anything, not that Major needed him to. “Sup, Blood?” Major greeted his watchdog.

THE MANknown as B-High was a piece of shit even by a piece of shit’s standards. Born in Compton and raised on different Blood sets throughout the surrounding area, all he knew was gang-banging and his love for his hood ran deeper than the love he had for his own mother. To him there was nothing outside of the set.

Major Blood had originally come across the wild young man barely into his fifteenth year and had no problem turning him out. The seeds had already been planted in B-High so all Major Blood had to do was add a little water. Of all the young Bs he had under him, B-High was the most down to ride, which is why he was now on the East Coast living like a fugitive.

When Major had finally reached O.G. status he decided it was time to deal with his mother’s murderer. It was public knowledge that Big Gunn from Hoover had killed his mother, so he found himself stumped that when he’d approached the governing body about laying Gunn they had denied him justice. Some of the old heads felt him on wanting to ride for his old bird, but there were two in particular who fought him tooth and nail on the matter, Swoop from the Jungle, and Bad Ass who represented the 900s. They spit a bunch of political shit about letting old beefs die and Gunn’s status, but Major didn’t even listen. In his mind, if you weren’t for him then you were against him and you had to go, Blood or not. It was that night after the meeting that he plotted Swoop’s and Bad Ass’s deaths.

Major knew he would be under the magnifying glass, because of the ruling and his reputation of having a hot temper, so he had to seek help elsewhere and this is where B-High came in. He loved Major Blood as if he had been the one to push him from the womb. All it took was the spiel of crabs killing Major’s parents and Bad Ass and Swoop trying to protect them. B-High was a powder keg and Major Blood lit the fuse.

Three nights after Major Blood and B-High’s meeting Swoop was found shot to death in the parking lot of his apartment complex. Bad Ass got roasted the next evening. He was found at an hourly motel in Hollywood sporting a bullet hole in his left cheek. The whore he had been with took one in the back, but unfortunately she lived. Five minutes after scrolling through the LAPD’s gang file, she had fingered B-High and made him not only a fugitive from justice, but with his name crossed out on every wall in the hood. The set had marked him for death.

Major Blood knew that he would have to get rid of anything that could’ve tied him to the murders, but he had a soft spot for B-High. Instead of murking him he put B-High on the first thing smoking to Florida. B-High was supposed to lay low until things had cooled off, but of course he couldn’t. He went from selling coke on South Beach to sniffing and taking contract hits for short paper in Miami, and finally a fugitive from both ports. Now he made his home in New York, living off the occasional bone Major Blood threw him and his wits.

He was thoroughly surprised when he’d heard from his old mentor, Major Blood. Every so often Major would throw him a piece of business, but that was always done by phone or coded letters. They hadn’t actually seen each other in almost a year, so he wondered what his intentions really were for coming to New York? His first thought was that Major had finally confessed and bartered B-High’s life for his, but when he mentioned Gutter his fears were put to rest.

Gutter had been notorious in California, but he was becoming a street legend in New York. He had brought to the Big Apple what hadn’t been seen in L.A. for almost ten years, banging… full frontal murder over turf. His gangsta wasn’t to be tested, but it was his ability to unify the sets that made him dangerous. Could you imagine a man like Gutter with ten thousand troops? No, it made perfect sense for Major Blood to be put on his ass. Use a sociopath to kill a sociopath, how ironic was that?

The nation must’ve been pissed with Gutter, considering Major’s rep and the fact that he hated every Soladine. But the logic behind it, nor Gutter, were B-High’s concerns at the moment. What his mind was focused on was the fact that Major had promised him thirty grand for this assignment. Fifteen up front and fifteen when the job was done. B-High took the money, went and bought a quarter-piece of white, and had been getting blasted and sitting on Sharell ever since.

His cell phone vibrated, tearing his eyes off the entrance of Sharell’s building. He started to let it ring until he saw that it was Major. His mentor told him that it was time to go to phase two, which brought a smile to B-High’s face. He needed the cash, but he was lazy as hell, preferring to sit in his tiny apartment, playing Madden or sniffing with one of the hood rats off his block. Laziness aside, B-High enjoyed putting in work and the heavy paper Major was gonna drop only got him more excited.

WHEN SHARELLfelt the faint throbbing in her temples, she knew a headache would be coming soon after. It was bad enough that the baby was sucking all the calcium out of her, causing god-awful toothaches, but the strongest thing she could take was Tylenol… regular strength at that.

Between the kung fu master in her stomach, who felt the need to kick her every time she tried to doze off, Satin being pregnant, and her man on a suicide mission, Sharell found that her nerves were quite frayed. “French onion dip,” she said aloud. The draining sound that emitted from her stomach said that the baby agreed. Rolling off the couch, which she had been lounging on all morning, Sharell decided to take a walk to the store.