K'wan - Gutter

Gutter shook his head, just before tossing the paper into the trash. “Growing up in the hood,” he quoted. If Gutter noticed the look Snake Eyes was giving him he gave no indication of it. “Where’s everybody at?”

“Gutter!” Lil Gunn yelled, running down the porch steps. He threw his arms around his cousin and squeezed. “I knew you wouldn’t let it ride,” he whispered into Gutter’s chest.

“That can’t be that fool-hearted nephew of mine could it?” Rahshida appeared in the doorway. She was wearing a long black dress, which tickled her ankles and a head covering. “The devil is not welcomed into my brother’s house!” she snarled, taking measured steps down the porch. Gutter had seen his aunt angry before, but the fire that burned in her eyes that morning made him take a step back.

“Auntie-” he began, but a vicious slap cut his words off.

“There is nothing you can say to me right now, Kenyatta, that will calm my rage,” she almost hissed. “Eighteen and twenty, Kenyatta, that’s how old they were. Babies with a baby.”

“Auntie, they were enemies,” Gutter whispered.

“Why, because those fools’ ass-rags, or because the street signs say so? Kenyatta, you didn’t just kill enemies last night, you killed children… black children.”

“I didn’t think-” he began but she cut him off again, this time with words.

“Y’all never do, Kenyatta. I’m from the turf too, so I know full well what this war is about, but it’s still bullshit. Since we’ve been in this country you and my fool-ass brothers have forgotten that this is not how we were raised. Life is the most precious of gifts, but you don’t honor it, you abuse and take it. Let a little black girl get killed across the ocean and y’all quiet, but if somebody get killed in the hood and y’all out for blood. Don’t any of you fool-ass boys get it? The war y’all are fighting ain’t ours. ” She gestured at everyone assembled.

“Kenyatta”-she touched his face lovingly-“when Gunn is laid to rest, I want you out of California.” Gutter tried to speak, but she raised her hand for silence. “It’s not that you’re not welcomed here, Ken. This is your home and you know that, but the longer you stay the worse it’s gonna get. Y’all killed people while there was a baby in the house. If the Brims don’t kill you, the police sure as hell will!”

“I’m a soldier, Rahshida, you know that. For every one of mine they take, I’ll take three of theirs.” Gutter wasn’t boasting, just stating a fact.

“See, that’s the foolishness I’m talking about. Y’all kill them and they kill y’all, it’s a never-ending cycle. In less than a week I’ve lost both of my brothers and almost my faith, because of this thing going on in the streets and I don’t want that for you, or Tariq.” She draped her arm around Lil Gunn.

“It ain’t, Auntie,” he said.

She tried to smile, but didn’t have the strength. “Go home and be the man my brother raised you to be. Be a good father to your child and a mentor to Tariq. We’re all we have left, Ken, the last surviving members of a once proud clan.”

“Rahshida, the limo is ready to go,” Monifa interrupted. Rahshida hugged her nephews and made her way to the black stretch Escalade. Monifa lingered momentarily, casting cold eyes on Gutter.

“What?” he asked, matching her glare.

“Nothing, I’m just trying to figure out where it all went wrong, Gutter?” she told him. “As I stand here looking into your eyes, the eyes that were always so beautiful to me, I find myself wondering where the life has gone? What happened to the boy I used to love?”

“He grew up to become the man that America hates,” he said. His tone was sharp, but not quite hostile. “I’ve been to the grave and back Monifa and even on the other side we’re still niggers. This world ain’t got a lot of love for me, and I ain’t big on it. Whatever happens happens.”

She shook her head. “That sounds real intelligent for somebody that’s about to be a father. What you trying to say, that it don’t matter if you’re here for your child or not?”

“Girl, you tripping, me blasting on muthafuckas ain’t gonna affect my seed. I’m always gonna be around for mine and can’t nobody change that,” he said proudly.

“I’m sure Reckless said the same thing before y’all killed him,” she pointed out. “You know, when you used to talk about being a Crip, you did so with such a sense of passion that people couldn’t help but to follow you. But as I got older I began to see it for what it was. Gutter, you ain’t no great liberator of the Crip movement, you’re a killer like the rest of them.”

“You got some fucking nerve, coming out here trying to drop jewels on me, Mo, real talk. Yeah, I’m a killer and I accept that. But how many bodies you got under your belt?”

“I’ve never killed anybody, Gutter,” she defended herself.

“Is that right?” He raised an eyebrow. “You sitting here tripping off me blasting muthafuckas, but how many of them pistols have you loaded for me?” She was silent so he continued, “So you see, I ain’t the only one with blood on their hands.” It was a low blow, but she cast the first stone.

“Fuck you, Gutter, I don’t know what I ever saw in you!” she hissed, breaking her promise to herself as the first tears hit her cheeks.

“You saw greatness,” he continued. “You saw a nigga from the ghetto that was determined to make it out of the ghetto, by any means necessary.”

“You’re a fraud, Kenyatta Soladine. You let the set corrupt everything we… you used to stand for.” She tried to walk away, but he grabbed her arm. He leaned in so close that she could see spittle flying as he spoke.

“Everybody wanna blame the set for what I’ve become but what I didn’t realize until last night was that the monster has always lived here.” He pounded his chest. “Long before I smoked my first enemy, I was a fucking abomination… death is a part of me. Mo, it ain’t no secret that I was born into this life, but never forget that this life does not define me!”

She broke away from him and took a step back. As she stared at him that loving fire that used to burn between them dwindled to a smolder. If she hadn’t been convinced before, she knew then that their era had truly come and gone.

“I gotta go, Rah is waiting for me.” Monifa turned to head for the limo, but his voice gave her pause.

“Will you come say goodbye to me at the airport?” For a minute he thought she was going to stop, but it was only a break in her stride. They had already said their goodbyes and Gutter knew it, but he just wanted to be sure before he closed his heart off to her.

FIFTEEN MINUTESlater Gutter had reemerged from the house, trading in his sweatshirt and jeans for a beautiful three-piece, charcoal-gray suit. He could’ve rode in the limo with his family, but just then he wasn’t feeling much like family, he was feeling like a wolf and needed to be among his pack.

“If it’s one thing I can say is that you Soladine niggaz clean up pretty nice,” Stacia cracked from the bottom of the porch steps. She was dressed in a tasteful skirt and blazer set, her eyes surprisingly clear.

“I thought you pushed out with the rest of the fam?” Gutter said, hugging her.

“Nah, you know yo peoples is Holy Rollers and I’m trying to smoke a joint before the ceremony. Set it out, I know y’all got that,” she joked.

“Fo sho.” Gutter smiled. For the next few moments Stacia was quiet. He could tell there was something on her mind, but she struggled to find the words. “Sup, Stace?”

“I don’t know, man. I’m just thinking about my baby’s daddy and how much I’m gonna miss him,” she admitted.