Benny cursed under his breath; he blocked some of my blows. I could tell he was torn, my fists connected whenever he looked over at Pops.
“Kendrick, come on man. He’s just a fucking kid, I—ahhh!”
I jumped up and socked him in the jaw. Rage burned hotter than my fear. I jumped again, slamming my fist into Benny’s face again.
“Benny! You better fight the fuck back, now!” Pops voice boomed.
My next hit split Benny’s bottom lip. He shoved me back hard, using all of his strength. I stumbled and fell on my ass; my shoulder knocked hard into something that felt solid. Pain shot through my body, but the fire inside screamed louder. I jumped to my feet and lunged again.
In a blur, my fists connected wherever they could land. Benny groaned, his skin was slick with sweat. He tried his hardest to pull me off of him, but all of his attempts failed. Seconds later, he stopped resisting and let me wail on him. I kept swinging until my arms went numb, and I couldn’t tell if I was hitting him or just swinging at the air.
My chest burned, my knuckles felt raw and was bloody. I gave up and stumbled backwards, collapsing on the floor. Benny’s face was bruised, his lip split. He held his head down, breathing hard but didn’t charge. He wasn’t just scared of Pops, it was his death sentence that was promised to him at the start of this fight.
“Stand over my son, Benny. Kenric, stay right where you are.” Pops said.
I turned my head towards Pops and saw him standing in front with his hands resting on the table.
“You did okay, next time will be better. See? Fear tried to hold you, but you broke it. Never wait to be respected, you take it.” He said with pride dripping in his tone.
I nodded, my stomach churned. My fists felt like they were broken, my chest hurt, and deep down, something inside of me felt broken. All of what I felt, I overlooked because of the approval in Pops dark orbs, it made me want to stand tall with my chin up to the ceiling. A part of me didn’t want to be apart of what my father was about. While another part of me wanted to do whatever, just to get that look of approval from Pops over and over.
POW!
POW!
POW!
In a blur, Pops shot Benny in the stomach, his chest, and in the center of his forehead. Benny eyes was popped out its sockets. Seconds felt like hours as he rocked back and forth, eyes locked on mine. He fell forward, instead of me moving out of the way, his big three-hundred-pound body landed on top of me. I couldn’t breathe or even think straight. I laid there suffocating; panic overtook me as I struggled against his dead weight.
“Finish counting all this mutha fuckin money.” Pops voice sounded muffled.
“Pops!” I screamed out in agony.
I didn’t know what was worse, Benny’s pungent body and the odor that suffocated me or the heaviness of him on top of me.
“You must like the feel of blood all over you. I don’t know what the fuck you waiting for, you better get his funky ass off of you so they can clean up the mess.” Pops spat out.
I struggled for what felt like hours getting Benny off of me. Anger consumed me all over again. The sound of money being counted, crack being smoked, everybody in the room laughing and joking all while I was stuck under Benny’s body. By the time I got Benny off of me, money was being bagged up, and half of the men was gone. Rosco and pops sat at the table talking, they never glanced my way once.
“Why didn’t you help me?” I asked.
Pops stopped what he was saying to Rosco and looked over at me with dilated pupils.
“I killed him for you, now you got the nerves to tell me you was underneath his big ass waiting for me to help you?” He cocked his head to the side as Rosco laughed.
“Fuck is so funny pussy?” I directed my anger towards Rosco instead of Pops.
“Nothing at all Little Kenny.” He held his hands up in mocked surrender.
“It’s a part of the game, a deadly debt that had to be collected. Moral of the story is never wait for no one to help you gain respect.”
A DEADLY DEBT…
“The Eastside always smells like shit.”Dre complained from the front seat of the truck.
I looked out of the back window and eyed the two trucks behind us. My men jumped out like they were coming for war. Precisely they spread out as quick as they exited their vehicles. I didn’t come to the Eastside, that didn’t stop me from hearing about how high the death rate from overdosing was like on this side.
“Shit ran down, seem like it’s getting worse by the day.” Dre continued.
