“You should have done that from the beginning,” I announced, followed by a yawn.
It wasn’t even nine yet, and I was already tired as hell. Tank was the type to stay up super late, and at night, he liked to watch true crime documentaries, so he would have me up late as hell, watching it with him, but tonight, I didn’t think that my body could hang. Even as I was lying on him right now, I was fighting like hell to keep my eyes open.
“When you went in my pocket, and answered my phone, I wanted to body slam your ass,” he said, finally putting his hands on my ass, and he jiggled my ass cheeks in his hands.
My eyes were closed, but I was listening to him. He continued in his rant of talking shit, and I let him. I’m sure that he would want to revisit this conversation again in the morning, so that we didn’t have to have this problem again, but in the meantime, I was taking my ass to sleep, in hopes that tomorrow would be a much better day.
Chapter 8
Rico Briggs
Lurking In The Dark
It was ten at night, and I was camped out in the hood, ducked off in the back of the parking lot in the apartment complex where I knew Toby lived. I was in a beat down whip that didn’t belong to me, that had dark tents, so I didn’t have to worry about anyone spotting me out.
I came out here tonight with the sole intention of killing this nigga. I had to. He left me with no other choice. I had a game coming up in a few days, and I couldn’t take that chance, where Toby was expecting me to play a certain way, and when I didn’t do it, he was going to pull up on another one of my family members.
I could hear Tank’s voice in my head, telling me how I wasn’t a killer. He was right because the entire time that I was sitting here, camped out, with the car off, my legs were shaking up and down, and I kept wiping sweat from my forehead.
I didn’t fear Toby. I feared the outcome. I feared this shit pointing back to me, and now I have to spend the rest of my life in prison, away from my loved ones, and never being able to play football again. Those were the things that I was constantly worried about, but it wasn’t like me to get someone else involvedand handling my dirty work for me. I had to do this shit on my own.
As I was sitting in the car, my body perked up when I noticed Toby’s hellcat cruising into the lot. Even though the tents on the whip I was in was dark, I still made sure that I was planted down as low as possible, so that he wouldn’t be able to see me. My eyes stayed on his whip, watching as he found a spot that was parked towards the middle of the lot. That’s when I quickly opened the door, kept my gun in my hand, and Toby opened his driver’s side door.
I was under the impression that he was alone, but out of nowhere, the passenger side door opened. My eyes left Toby, and they skipped over to the passenger side, seeing that it was a small figure. It was a little boy. I could only see him from behind. I knew that it wasn’t Toby’s kid because Toby didn’t have any children. I couldn’t kill no fuckin kid. I also had a heart, so I couldn’t kill Toby in front of a kid, so I quickly got back in the car, closed the door, and I slumped back down, checking out what was going on between them from inside the car.
Suddenly, the trunk opened to Toby’s car, and Toby, along with the little boy went for the trunk, and with the little boy turned around now, I had a visual of him, and I immediately remembered him. I just saw that little nigga a few months ago at his school. He attended Libert City elementary. My team and I had gone out to the school, so that we could talk to the youth boys. Our college put on this big event that took place outside, and I remember that little boy coming up to me, telling me how I was his favorite player, and how he looked up to me, and shit. Handsome little nigga, so there was no way that I could forget him. Those big, hazel eyes, with his long, sandy brown hair, and his caramel-colored skin wasn’t something that was forgettable.
I also remembered him because of his skills. He was quick on his feet, had good hands, and his ability to have good focus at his age was great. He was only nine years old.
I sat here with my leg bouncing up and down, really trying to make it make sense on why he was with Toby.
They took groceries out of the trunk. I watched as Toby took most of the bags, while the little boy took about two bags. Toby closed the trunk, and then they walked through the parking lot, and they went for a door that was right on the first floor. They disappeared, causing me to no longer see them.
I was driving myself crazy, trying to figure out what the fuck was going on.
Ten minutes later, the same door that they just went inside opened, and I thought that it was going to be Toby walking out, but it was the little boy. He was holding onto his bike, and once it was out of the house, he rode it. It was late at night, on a school night, and he hopped on his bike like it was nothing.
I wanted to catch his ass, so I got out of the car, and right when he got to the parking lot, I whistled for him.
“Yo! Come here!” I called out for him.
I couldn’t remember the lil nigga’s name. He paused on his bike, squinted with his eyes, trying to see who I was, and once he realized that it was me, I watched the smile appear on his face, as he jumped off the bike, left it right there in the middle of the road, and he raced over to me, putting his hand out once he was in front of me, so that I could slap it up with him.
“Yo, Rico! What’s up, man? What you doing over here?” he asked, excitement dripping in his voice.
“I know a few people that stay over here. Why you out here riding your bike so late?” I wanted to know.
“My mom’s boyfriend stays here. We just moved in with him a couple of weeks ago. She said that the two of them had to talk about something, so she told me to come outside, and ride mybike for a little bit because I guess she didn’t want me to hear what they were talking about. Can you come in the house with me? I want to show my mama that you’re here. She knows that your my favorite football player,” he went on to say, and I was shaking my head, knowing that the things he was asking me to do, I wasn’t going to be able to do them.
“Who’s your mama’s boyfriend?” I asked, just to see if he would say Toby.
“Toby. You know him?” he asked.
“Nah. I don’t know who that is,” I lied to him, and he nodded his head.
“He cool. Him, and my mama have been dating for a little bit. We been struggling for a while because my mom lost her job, so Toby has been helping us out. My mom couldn’t pay the rent at our apartment, and her and my grandma don’t get along, so we moved in with Toby. I hate this neighborhood, so I hope that we don’t have to stay over here much longer. Our last apartment was bad, but this one is even worse. They be shooting and stuff over here,” he said, telling me all his business in under one minute.
All I could think about was how, when I was his age, I used to do the same shit. I stayed telling everybody my mama’s business, and she would get mad as hell about it too.
