K'wan - Gutter

THE MENwho rushed the house were young… the oldest couldn’t have been more than eighteen. They were armed with sticks, bats, and a variety of small-caliber handguns. They had no idea what was going on inside the Drayton residence but they knew that some Crips had invaded their neighborhood, which was reason enough to rush head-on into danger.

Jynx leaned over in the lawn chair and waited for the first victim to step into view. He wore a hard face, but his eyes weren’t those of a killer. He was just a young man willing to live or die in service to his set, and Jynx was all too willing to treat him to the latter. The boy didn’t even have time to scream as the top of his head came off.

Danny’s heart pounded so hard in his chest that he was sure everyone on the block could hear it. When Jynx licked off the mob scattered, but they were still advancing on the house. Sweat ran freely down his face, and his palms were so slick that it’s a miracle that the shotgun didn’t jump out of his hands. A chubby cat armed with a hunting rifle came creeping from the yard of the next house. His were the eyes of a killer. “Kill or be killed, baby boy,” he could hear Gutter telling him. Blinking a bead of sweat out of his eye, Danny caught his first body.

HAD ITnot been for quick reflexes, Gutter would’ve gotten hit when Reckless darted out from the back room, firing blind as he hit the stairs. He was a man cornered and would fight until his last breath, but that was fine by Gutter. He wanted him to fight before he made his child a bastard. Drawing Big Gunn’s.44 he took off after Reckless.

By the time Gutter made it to the bottom of the stairs, Reckless was just hitting a landing. He fired a shot, hitting his rival high in the back. Reckless staggered forward, but the railing kept him from falling down. Gutter licked a second shot, but Reckless was off down the hall. When Gutter cleared the second-floor landing, he played the wall and peeked around the corner before jetting into the line of fire.

Reckless’s jog had slowed to a shamble, bouncing him from wall to wall like a drunk. The sheet he’d been clutching to his chest to stop the bleeding got tangled with his legs and he fell to one knee. Firing the gun blindly over his shoulder, Reckless staggered into a bedroom. A wicked smile crept across Gutter’s lips as he knew he had his prey cornered.

“Time to die, pussy,” Gutter said, moving toward the bedroom. Playing the wall, he inched along it and peeked inside. Reckless had his back to the door, frantically fumbling with the window, his spent pistol lying on the floor a few feet away.

“This for my family, nigga!” Gutter roared, cutting loose with the.44. The next few moments went in slow motion, but would forever be etched into his mind. The bullet seemed to move like a slow trickle, but its screech was like the wailing of one thousand police sirens. It was then that Reckless turned to meet his end and Gutter felt his soul shift. The thing he’d been clutching to his chest wasn’t for the bleeding at all… it was his son.

“LOOKS LIKEthey came out in full force, huh?” Tears joked, weaving the car left to right down Lime Street. There was a knot of people consisting of angry young men and people trying to be nosey forming a wedge in the middle of the street. On the other side he could see someone bucking a shotgun from the porch.

“Then let’s turn this shit into a mass murder,” Blue Bird said, sliding the AR from the backseat. After chambering one of the missilelike bullets, he sat on the driver’s side window and leaned over the top of the car, bracing the AR against the roof. “Hoover!” he bellowed before scattering the crowd with a barrage of missile-sized bullets. The fortunate bounced off the hood of the car, but the unfortunate would have closed casket funerals.

When Danny spotted the car breaking the crowd he immediately moved to fire on it. Had it not been for him recognizing the silhouette of Blue Bird’s enormous head he would’ve hit the car up.

“Hold your fire, lil nigga!” Blue Bird shouted as he climbed out of the car. “Damn, y’all tore shit up out here.” Blue Bird surveyed the damage.

Danny ignored Blue Bird’s comment. “Jynx is hit, man, and Rah is dead.”

“Hell nah, not my fucking folks!” Blue Bird’s face saddened. For a minute it looked like he would fall over, but Tears helped him to right his self.

“Man, we need to wrap this shit up. With all this gunfire and things I doubt if Mad Man and Lil Blue can keep the police outta here but so long,” Tears said.

“Get Jynx to the whip. I’m ’bout to check on Gutter,” Danny said, disappearing into the house before anyone could protest.

HAD ITnot been for the wall behind him, Gutter would’ve landed flat on his back. It felt like someone was squeezing his windpipe, only allowing air through in spurts. His body trembled uncontrollably as he whispered, “No,” over and over. All the rage and hate he had carried in his heart when he entered the house drained away and was replaced by great sorrow as he surveyed the damage he’d wrought.

Reckless was slumped against the wall, just below the window. His eyes were vacant and half of his throat was missing from where the.44 slug hit him. On one side of him lay the pistol that had clicked empty and on the other side, still wrapped in the sheet, was his son.

It was at that moment that Gutter realized that he’d gone too far. Totally forgetting all else he rushed to the child. He was screaming his lungs out and splattered with blood, but from what Gutter could tell he hadn’t been hit. Looking at the dead man and his son and thinking of his own impending delivery made him ill. Hugging the child to his chest, he gave thanks that the boy was unharmed.

There was the sound of movement coming from behind him, but by the time Gutter turned around to see what it was he was deafened by the roar of a shotgun. The woman who had been screaming in the kitchen slammed against the bedroom door with Mo-Mo’s abandoned pistol in her upraised hand. She tried to right herself, but a second blast splintered the door and sent her flying into the dresser behind it. Gutter looked up in total shock as Danny came into the bedroom holding the smoking shotgun.

Danny moved over to the woman’s broken body and nudged her with his foot. He looked over at Gutter who was just staring at him in disbelief and simply said, “She was gonna pop you, man. I had to shoot the bitch. Tears and them is outside, cuz. We gotta dip.”

Gutter looked from the monster he’d created to the young life he’d almost snubbed and let out a heavy sigh. When he’d set out, Reckless had been little more than another enemy to be executed, but the child in his arms changed the dynamics of that. By his own hands another black baby would have to grow up without his parents and within the hell of God only knew what kind of foster care system. When Reckless’s child came of age would he be the one to cut Gutter down while he held his own child over a twenty-year debt?

Anwar’s question rang in his head: “Are you killing for vengeance, or is it something deeper than that?” Gutter had killed enough people to avenge just about every homey he’d lost on the set so why was he still killing? Because it was natural to him. Death and rebellion had been the constant in his family… the glue that bound them so to speak. Would this be the legacy he’d pass on to his own seed? No. Gutter’s would not be a child of war.

Cali was his home… his place of birth, but he would be glad when he was away from it. He would go home to his wife, his heart, and work on being a better husband and a good father to his unborn. Once Major Blood was either dead or out of his city, Gutter was handing the set over to Pop Top. He had built an army, but found himself no longer willing to pay the price that came with being a general. Pop Top had long coveted his position and as far as Gutter was concerned he was welcome to it.