Four Years Earlier
I had a long drive ahead of me and the last thing I needed was to be running on empty so I pulled into the Shell gas station in the hood, on MLK before hitting the highway. I grabbed my card out my wallet, and got out to pump my gas.
It was early. Not even ten in the morning yet and the hood was just starting to wake up. The corner store across the street was open, somebody’s music was already blasting from somewhere down the block, and the gas station lot had the usual mix of people moving in and out grabbing breakfast and coffee before the start of the day. I had my hoodie up and my mind already on the road, thinking about the three hour drive and what I needed to handle when I got back because I had moves to make and not a lot of time to make them.
I was minding my business.
That shit lasted about ninety seconds.
There was a dark blue Camry parked two pumps over and I peeped the movement inside it before I heard anything. It was just the kind of feeling that made you look over without fully knowing why yet. Then the voices in the car started coming through loud as hell and clear. The woman’s voice is what caught my attention and made me lose focus on the gas I was pumping. High and strained in a way that told you this wasn’t a regular argument. This was somebody who was scared on top of being angry. The nigga was matching her energy and getting loud too. It was too early for muthafuckas to be arguing.
I kept my eyes forward and focused on my pump while I shook my head at the usual hood shit.
Then I heard the first hit. That muthafucka sounded off loud, even through the cars and traffic passing by.
That sound was unmistakable. Wasn’t a slap. Wasn’t somebody bumping into something. That was a closed fist connecting with somebody’s face. Then, the sharp cry that came right after it told me everything else I needed to know.
I pulled the pump out of my tank before it finished and walked over to them fast as hell. Nah, I wasn’t captain save-a-hoe, but I wasn’t gone stand around and watch a nigga beat on a woman. I don’t care how pressed for time I was or in a hurry. This some shit that I was willing to get behind schedule for. No woman deserves to be hit by a man, I don’t care what she said to him.
The passenger window was down and I could see her now. She was a young girl, couldn’t have been older than me. I’d say she was around twenty two, twenty three, pressed against the door with her hand up trying to block whatever was coming next andblood already coming from her lip. The man in the driver seat was still going, grabbing at her, and she was trying to get away from him in a space that didn’t give her nowhere to go.
I knocked on the driver window twice. Hard.
He stopped, looked over at me and the look on his face was the kind that men got when they felt like whatever they were doing behind closed doors was being interrupted by somebody who had no business being there.
He rolled the window down further. “The fuck you want?”
“Step out the car real quick my guy,” I said. I didn’t know if I was going to talk to him, or beat his ass. I just knew I needed to get him off of her. I couldn’t watch this happen right in front of me and not say anything.
“Nigga this ain’t got nothing to do with you. Mind your business.”
“You putting your hands on a woman at a gas station pump at this time in the morning. It’s everybody’s business now. Step out.”
He looked at me for a second like he was deciding something and then he opened the door and got out and he was bigger than he looked sitting down. Taller. Wide through the shoulders. He got in my face without any hesitation which told me he had done this before, not just with her but in general. This nigga thought he was bad or somethin. He was the kind of man who had gotten away with being physical his whole life because of his size. Today was his lucky day though.
“I said mind your muthafuckin business homie. This is between me and my girl. You need to walk back over to your car beforeyou get the same shit she getting for not knowing her fuckin place.” he spat, and I couldn’t help but laugh. Did I really look like a bitch to him?
“Nah. That ain’t gone happen. I’ll never let a bitch ass nigga handle me like that, but I am gone make sure you don’t lift yo hands to nobody else. You must not know who the fuck I am?”
He grabbed me by the throat before I finished speaking.
He reached out and grabbed me with one hand, squeezed and got in my face. This nigga grip was strong and meant to be intimidating. On somebody else it probably would have worked.
I wasn’t somebody else though.
“I said mind yo business bitch ass, police ass nigga. You can’t save the world today if I put yo bitch ass in a body bag for getting in my shit.” he spat.
I was more in shock that this nigga ain’t know that I wasn’t the nigga to play with. I mean, the whole hood knew that. All I wanted was some gas, and was about to possibly catch a body round this bitch.
I broke his grip, grabbed him by the back of his head and slammed his face to the hood of his own car. I felt something crunch under the impact. He stumbled back and I was already on him, two body shots that folded his bitch ass forward and then a right hook that straightened him back up. Then another one that put him on his ass. I kicked that bitch ass nigga like I was playing soccer with his head. He tried to get up but I got down and put my knee in his back, then pressed him flat and got close to his ear.
“My name is Street, hoe ass nigga. You should have stopped when you had the chance. You wanted to be tough today, knowing you a pussy.”
He wasn’t moving.
I stood up, stepped back and looked at him on the ground and then looked over at the girl who had gotten out of the passenger side during all of it and was standing by the rear of the car watching.
I expected her to be relieved.
