Maurice Broaddus - King Maker

"They ain't real drug dealers. They just playing."

"Call themselves ESG," Lady G said.

"What's that stand for?" Wayne asked.

"Eggs, Sausage, and Grits."

"Ain't that some shit?" The words flew out of Wayne's mouth before he received a scolding glance from the volunteer. They tried not to use profanities in front of the clients, trying to walk the line of being real yet being an example. Wayne bristled at the idea of being an example, uncomfortable with the idea of being a role model.

"That ain't the worst. They up there selling burn bags to folks." Lady G still had her "I'm gonna tell" air about her.

"You can get a beat down behind that mess," Wayne said.

"You telling me? That's why I keep telling Rhianna to drop his sorry behind."

A car screeched to a halt above them. The quartet froze where they stood. Slamming doors were soon followed by raised voices. Wayne moved to shield them, as if protecting them from anything that might fall from above. The shouts, the trumpeting of machismo attempting to get the other party to back down, curdled into abrupt screams. Lady G stifled her own scream, then pointed to the trestle above them. Wayne ushered the girls up there, and they scrambled into one of the holes in the bottom of a support structure. The small alcoves formed a series of tiny compartments with the holes acting as the entrance, though it reminded Wayne too much of sticking his head through an attic door into unknowable darkness. Knowing that he stood no chance in hell of squeezing through the hole, Wayne signaled that he was going topside to investigate. The volunteer shot him eyes pleading for him to stay, but realized he was too exposed to whatever was out there. Rhianna thrust her thumb into her mouth and put her other hand against an ear as she began to rock back and forth. Her mother had warned her to quit sucking her thumb before it bucked her teeth.

Wayne slowly lumbered up the hill.

Prez didn't care what you called him as long as he got called. Though Green had brought him on, he felt it was on an interim basis until he proved himself. In the meantime, until he saw some real money, he still had to make ends so he financed what he termed "independent entrepreneurial enterprises": burn bags. Dried-out baking soda passed for crack and stepped-on oregano for weed — the pair had an assortment of burn bags they sold to newbies. After every sale they set up somewhere new should anyone decide to come back on them. Unfortunately, their current location didn't have much by way of foot traffic, but Prez was more interested in hooking up with his girl. Rhianna was all right enough, not as fine as her girl, Lady G, but she had a fat ass and threw her back into her work.

"I wish some fool would try to come up on us." Trevant, all of thirteen years old, still retained much of his baby fat, especially about the neck. Prez thought it apropos to start calling him Turkey because of all of his would-be gangsta gobbling. "I'd tell him, 'It's Li'l Nam, shortie. It's how we do this bitch.'"

Li'l Nam was the nom-de-guerre of the area just south of the Phoenix Apartments. Trevant was an east side nigga who'd come to truck with Prez and some of Night's boys on the west side because no one else would have his dusty ass. Well, Prez's either, which was why they were left dealing burn bags and calling themselves ESG.

"Damn, fool, you can't keep going off on every fiend we deal with," Prez said.

"Why not? It's not like they're going to quit buying."

"Customer service, nigga. Ain't you ever heard of it? It's not like we the only ones selling." Prez might as well have been speaking in Mandarin judging from the vacant stare Trevant returned.

After chewing on his words, and with them spit out his other ear, Trevant continued. "I seen niggas get smoked right in front of me."

"Yeah, you hard, brotha." Prez eyed the street. Knowing he'd been dismissed, Trevant slipped on a set of headphones to listen to the new Nas.

A Ford Focus screeched to a halt. Prez tapped Trevant on his jacket and nodded toward the idling vehicle. They prepared their wares but also checked their escape route should things go bad. Two people, a man and a woman, stepped out the car, the suspension on the Focus squawking in relief at their exit. They couldn't be dissatisfied customers. They'd have remembered selling to these two.

"They must be part-Samoan," Prez whispered.

"Some ugly-ass Samoans, then," Trevant said, not nearly quietly enough. "Nice suits though."

"What you need, money? ESG can set you up with whatever," Prez said.

"ESG? What weak-ass shit you selling?" the woman asked. Well, Prez presumed her to be a woman.

"Don't matter none. Dred don't like it, so the shit's got to stop," the man's voice boomed.

"Free country. Live and let live," Trevant said.

She whirled and grabbed Trevant by the throat and lifted him into the air like so much a sack of leaves. "Move, or worse, make me have to chase you and you'll get what your friend's about to get. We've got a message for Night and you're just the man to deliver it."

"Wha-what's that?" Prez asked.

The woman grabbed Trevant's arm and pulled. The skin around his shoulder stretched, the bones shifted at odd angles until a dull pop freed the joint. The flesh ripped, the last bits of frayed tendons tearing free amidst a spray of blood. The boy screamed over the cries of "holy shit, holy shit, holy shit" repeated by Prez. She waved the bloody stump at him, trying to refocus his attention on her.

"You with me? Good." Blood gurgled out the arm, ribbons of veins and shorn flesh dangled. She fixed her eyes on him and raised the arm to her mouth. Not blinking, she took a huge bite from it and chewed slowly. The smell of piss from Prez let her know she had his full attention. "Tell your folks what you saw. Let them know the Durham Brothers are in town and Dred's done fucking around with them. And just so you don't forget…"

With her nod, her brother upended Trevant and the two of them each took a leg in a hand. Being around bridges always had the Durham Brothers especially enervated. Trevant's next scream scored itself into Prez's mind, even as the image of his flesh unzipping before him would forever scar his psyche. Trevant's insides splayed out in spools as he was ripped from ass to sternum.

"Go." The woman licked her lips.

Prez ran off into the night, forgetting all about Rhianna.

"Fe, fi, fo, fum," the man said and sniffed in the direction of Wayne, who thought himself well hidden by the foliage lining the bridge.

"Leave him, we've made our point," Michaela said. "Besides, the tale will spread faster with more witnesses."

Only the desire remained.

Tavon Little didn't care that he killed himself a bit at a time. Squatting to eye level with the table, he carefully doled out the powdered heroin; his works spread out like instruments in an operating theater. He sprayed water from the syringe (Evian — he was particular). He loved this part of it, when he wasn't too sick, the dick-hard anticipation of the ever briefly sated hunger. The match's flame caught the bottom of the bottle cap. Slowly he loaded his syringe, the puff of pink in the bottom of his spike confirmed entry. He shut his eyes and slammed it all home, indifferent to the possibility of an overdose. So what if he did? It'd be a rush all the way. A high to end all highs.

He leaned against the rotted drywall and let the first wave of the blast crash into his skull. A slight moan escaped his cracked lips. He pulled one side of his old Army jacket over his dirty tank top to try and keep in some heat. Except for the grime and the worn cuffs, it was in pretty good shape. With his red sweatpants he considered himself the height of fashion. Yeah, he was set for tonight. Tomorrow he'd have to come up with a new hustle to set them up, but he wasn't worried. He still had a good head on him — he couldn't survive the game long if he didn't — but he also suffered from a good heart. Anywhere except here and that was probably a good thing. He simply wasn't wired to do what it took to survive, to prey on his own. Hell, he could barely lie to people he knew, so no stick-ups and no moves that might hurt someone. And it meant that he often suffered bad luck, like yesterday, the C-Devils weren't shit.