Hittin' the Bricks: An Urban Erotic Tale (17 page)

Bullet didn't speak either. He looked at the gorgeous young girl that his brother had turned out and was using as a punching bag, and his mouth hardened. Slowly, she raised her eyes so he could see her face. She let her scarf slide from her head, and then he saw it all. He winced at the bruises. At the amount of damage that those big, rock- breaking hands had done. Bullet couldn't stop himself. A gangsta at heart, he also had a mother. And a sister, and two nieces. He reached out and touched her battered face. Then he took her hand and gently guided her inside. He kissed her palm, then closed the door behind her.

B
rody and his boys were watching a hot XXX flick in one of Bricks's bunkers when Bullet showed up. He gave the secret knock and almost immediately a black door the size of a double- wide garage was raised on its tracks. Bullet entered the room, which was large enough to hold six luxury cars. The
bunkers were straight- up tight, and had every amenity one might need for the task at hand. They were all air- conditioned and well decorated, and this one contained a king- sized bed and two leather couches, carpet on the floors, and a small kitchen and bathroom area off to the side.

There were three other sheds just like this one in the back of Bricks. The one they were in was used to film some of the grimiest porno flicks on the underground market, and the others were used to burn and copy the tens of thousands of bootleg CDs and DVDs that made the black- market trade such a lucrative business.

Brody had a team of street hawkers, organized by Island, who hand- sold pirated units to the masses every day. They owned and operated scores of street tables in every borough of New York City. All were manned by persistent urban salesmen. And all were highly lucrative and kept Brody's phat pockets lined with bank.

Bullet glanced at the screen. They were watching a skin flick they had just recently filmed right there on the bed. He remembered it so well because it was so fuckin’ brutal and so fuckin’ graphic. And because it was one of the few flicks that his brother had actually starred in.

A lot of people didn't know it, but athletes and ballers had a fetish about underground porn. Some of them paid good dollars to get hooked up with a hot bitch on camera. They usually wanted to do some perverted shit to the girl that emphasized their power. Like pissing all over her face or in her hair, making her lick their assholes, or by using their fists in a way that made her endure a lot of pain while she was being submissive.

Bullet had seen all that shit. He loved pussy just as much as the next niggah, and there were times when he blew a bitch's back out as he slammed her pussy bone real good. But he
wasn't into some of the shit these other cats dug. He especially wasn't into the shit that his brother got off on, and looking at Brody on the big screen now jerked his blood pressure up higher than it already was.

Fuck music was playing in the background and Brody was dogging the young bitch. He had his joint so far up her ass that she screamed with each thrust. It wasn't about sex for him. It was about dehumanizing the ho and torturing her. He held her down by her neck and used one huge arm to scoop her middle up so that her ass was high in the air. He slapped her jiggling flesh and pinched her hard with both hands. Everywhere he touched her he left a bright red splotch on her light skin. That niggah yanked her titties like he was milking a cow. He placed both hands on her ass cheeks and spread them so wide he coulda split her from one end to the other. Then he leaned over and placed both elbows in the small of her back, and pressed down hard. He was still slanging dick up in her as he tried his best to break her little spine in half. Suddenly Brody had some kinda prod in his hand. Bullet remembered walking out the shed on this part, with the young girl's screams echoing in his ears. Yeah, the dumb ho was screaming fuck me daddy, gimme more, more, more, but you could tell she didn't mean that shit. She'd been paid long dollars to play to the cameras, and that's exactly what she was gonna do even if it killed her.

Bullet watched his brother watch himself on the screen. Brody had a crazy little smile on his face. Like he was proud of his performance and was really into that shit hard.

“Yo, man,” Bullet interrupted. He broke up all that concentration on Brody's dick game on purpose. Wasn't shit sexy about it no way. He busted the look of annoyance that crossed his brother's face, but Bullet was fuckin’ annoyed too. “I need to holla at ya for a minute, bruh.”

Brody stormed over toward the kitchen on his brother's heels. The niggah had the crazy look in his eyes but Bullet didn't give a fuck. He used to look up to Brody and they used to be real close. Every fuckin’ day of jail time Bullet had ever done was behind some shit he'd gotten into because of his brother. He'd been a loyal lieutenant and had followed Brody's lead in all the drug- slanging, bitch- banging, and rival- hanging shit his brother cooked up. Bullet had crossed the line and slumped cats that he really liked and was cool with over his brother. All because they were blood and he was loyal down to his bones. But shit was changing. Brody had become crueler and more vicious over the years. Especially while he was on lock. He'd been lucky to get outta jail at all after all the convicts he'd buck- fiffed and smiley- faced up in the pen. Their own mother was even leery of the niggah now. She wouldn't even let him in the crib unless Bullet was there with him. And even then she kept her teenaged granddaughters away from him by making sure they stayed in a locked room until he left.

“What the fuck, niggah?” Brody held his arms up. “Didn't you see I was doing something?”

Bullet laid it straight out for the maniac.

“Look man, you need to chill with some of this shit, bruh.” He gestured to the half- naked broads who were lounging on the sofas zooted out of their minds. “I'm just looking out for you, man. One of these bitches gone amp up on ya ass one day if you don't slow ya hand roll. You feel me?”

Brody narrowed his eyes. “What the fuck did you just say?”

Bullet squared up to his brother. They stood toe- to- toe, looking just alike. Except one was truly concerned, and the other was straight fuckin’ crazy.

“We got a moms, B. We got a little sister too. How you can beat these bitches so far down is a mystery to me. I'm your
brother so I'm telling you, man. You need to chill with some of that shit.”

Brody moved so fast there was no time to react. He turned halfway left and bent slightly at the knees. He came up fast and hard, swinging his massive hand around in a vicious backhanded arc. His ring ripped straight across Bullet's cheek, drawing blood.

“Muhfuckah!” Brody raged. He lunged at Bullet again, and it took every man in the shed to jump on him and wrestle him down. “Don't you
ever
tell me what to do to my bitches! I'll roll ya fuckin’ dome like you
one of those
bitches!”

Bullet just stood there. He didn't even touch his face. He just let the blood flow unchecked. He had seen his brother black out on many people and on many occasions. But they were blood.
Blood.
Just like the warm liquid that was now dripping down his face. Bullet knew his brother was off, but he never thought Brody would cross that invisible bloodline when it came to him. At least now he knew that he'd been wrong.

“
I
wish them old drunk bitches would shut the fuck up!” Fiyah muttered, tapping his pencil on his notepad and staring out at the rain. He was sitting in his small bedroom trying to lay some lyrics on paper, but Milena had company in the living room and they were making all kinds of noise.

He bumped out a beat on the windowsill, then scribbled a few words in his notebook. He paused and listened close to the beat in his head. His fingers drummed furiously, trying to capture the right flow. Then he wrote a couple more words before throwing his pencil against the wall.

It was too fuckin noisy up in there.

Milena and her loud- ass friends! They were smoking weed
and drinking beer and shaking their asses to some live Big Daddy Kane.

Fiyah tried again. He muttered his flow, listened to the silent beat, then re- mouthed the words, fucking them up.

“Yo, Ma!”

Milena didn't answer, but he could hear them laughing.

“Ma!”

No response, but the laughter got louder.

Fuck!

Fiyah stormed out of his room but slowed his roll at the doorway of the living room. There were a bunch of Hispanic women in there. They were shaking their wide asses, jiggling their stomachs, and winding their hips to the beat. Fiyah started to say something smart, but one look from his mother and he checked himself.

She walked over to him holding her drink. “I have company, Fuego,” she said. Milena looked nothing like her friends. With her slim body and youthful face, she looked twenty years younger than every other woman in the room. “I told you, we get together once a month now. We started it when you were in jail and we're not gonna stop just because you got out.” She sipped from her glass and the ice cubes clinked. “And we don't really wanna see no men while we doing it neither. Why don't you go somewhere? Better yet, the rent is damn near due. Be a man and go make some money.”

“It's raining out there, Ma.”

“And what? A little water is gonna kill you? I walked those streets in the rain many nights when you were locked up, Fuego. Just to keep a fuckin roof over our heads. I got wet plenty of times too. And the water didn't kill me neither. It just washed away my sins.”

Fiyah stared at her. Something had changed in his moms.
She'd never been a soft woman, but she was harder now. Even harder than she'd been back in the day when she was into her drugs. He gave her a long look, then walked back into his room. He picked up his notepad and his pencil and looked out the window. The rain was stopping. Fiyah pulled on a hoody and stuck his pad and pencil in the front pocket. Then he walked out his room and into the living room. He brushed past one of his mother's fat- ass friends as he went by, and she reached out and pinched him hard on the ass.

“Sexy
culito
!” she giggled as Fiyah slammed outta the apartment with the sound of contemptuous female laughter ringing loudly in his ears.

M
ello walked down the streets of Harlem taking in the sights. With all the urban stores and pretty girls, it was easy not to see the darker, seedier things that made the hood he loved strike fear in the hearts of outsiders.

Up ahead of him a young wanna- be baller came out of a Spanish store carrying a bag of groceries. The chocolate-faced boy had a real bad limp and a peasy head. A group of cute but hard- looking teenaged girls passed by him and the young'uns head whipped around on his shoulders. He stepped dead in a big rain puddle, and when he tried to jump out the water he jumped right into Mello.

They bumped and the boy dropped his bag of food. Mello grinned and waved off the boy's “my bads.” He
scooped up a can of Carnation Evaporated Milk and tossed it toward the kid, who caught it in the bag.

The kid limped down Lenox Avenue for several blocks. He came up on a numbers spot where a crew of hardhead boys were standing around trying to get into some shit. They spotted him and the littlest dude in the bunch tried to roll on him. The kid limped on faster, and the crew followed him. Talking shit right on his heels.

Fiyah came around the corner on his way to his spot. He scoped out the kid, and then the small, boisterous crowd that was following him, and saw the fear in the boy's eyes.

“Whattup, Lil Man?” Fiyah said. He walked up on the kid like he knew him, and threw his arm around the kid's shoulder. Fiyah had been heading in the opposite direction, but he figured what the fuck. He turned around and gave the crew of hardheads a deadly look, then walked off with the limping boy under his protection.

Fiyah wasn't new to Harlem and he knew how hard it was out on these streets. It didn't matter how young those kids was. They would stick a blade in a niggah or pop ya ass off in the blink of an eye. He knew the trick was to show them that G code. That look that said I will slay your ten- year- old ass and then wait for ya daddy to go get his tool.

It worked.

“Thanks, man.” The boy looked at Fiyah like he was a superhero for real, and after walking beside the kid as he limped home to give his grandmother her groceries, Fiyah walked back in the other direction. He stopped at a small area across from his crib that had a little bit of grass and a couple of garbage cans that bums set on fire in the winter to keep warm. The lot used to have a house on it, but it had been condemned and torn down by the city years ago.

Fiyah found a few soggy pieces of cardboard and sat down to let his words flow. And they did too. Flowed like sweet water. His lyrics came out in a clever mixture of Spanish and English that pleased the fuck outta him. He wanted his shit to sound perfect for Friday night, and he placed each word deliberately erasing and rewriting if something was even slightly off.

Time passed as Fiyah got his shit off in his little notepad. He got carried away and wrote some more, until he could no longer see the lines in his little book. He stuck the notepad into his hoody pocket and held his pencil like a mic. He spit his awesome flow out loud and practiced his stage moves until his delivery and performance were perfect.