I pull the envelope from my cut and lay it on the table in front of the man wearing blue coveralls and a soot on his face. He retrieves a paper from his front pocket and slides it to me.
Without a word spoken between us, I snag the paper, taking a look at the information, but remaining in place, when I would normally already be on my way out of the door.
Efficient.
Effective.
This is how I like it. I don’t need to have some bullshit conversation where he asks me how I’m doing when I know he doesn’t give a shit, just as much as I don’t give a fuck about his day. Business is business. This is a transaction, and then we move on. Typically, I would walk right back out the door without the need for a conversation.
Except today, there is no simple exchange. We have a problem.
I shoot the information in a text to Sly who waits on the property with North in a full size blacked out van so we can load up.
“Chuck,” I say his name and watch as he lifts his head, no doubt to meet my stare. With my sunglasses on, he can’t read my expression.
“Jinx,” he replies with a crack in his voice. “Is there a problem?”
I shake my head, “Not yet, but there could be.”
He drops his half-eaten sandwich to his plate as his face pales. “What is it?”
“Rail Wreckers are back. Told you last time, that shit doesn’t touch my shit.”
He’s the one to shake his head now. “Jinx, I can’t control those kids. They got nowhere to go. Most ain’t got no family. They don’t get into the boxcars that are yours, I make sure before I pull out those are loaded and locked up tight. No one touches Kings merch.”
Aw, isn’t he fucking cute feeling sorry for the assholes. I don’t give a fuck about their lack of a home or a job, that’s not my problem, that’s on them. My sympathy simply doesn’t exist. “I want them gone.”
“It’s not that simple, Jinx.”
I don’t repeat myself. Frankly, having to restate anything pisses me off almost as much as a case of blue balls. “You got twenty-four hours, Chuck. It’s them or you.”
I don’t wait for him to respond or try to negotiate. I leave the office and get back to business because in the end, everything is about the Kings for me.
Making my way to the cargo car, I mentally start breaking down the order. One pallet is cocaine. A brick is one kilo, a kilo earns roughly twenty-thousand dollars on the street. A pallet is worth about ten million if we just sold it. But the power in supplying it to rivals and gangs gives us an upper-hand at all times. So, not only is the white powder our biggest profit, it’s also our easiest item to trade. Once someone snorts, smokes, or shoots the shit, it’s gone. They don’t pay, then it’s an easy marker to the Kings. Sometimes those markers are worth more than any amount of cash.
The pallet of guns in this car, well, all AR-15s. While we will strip the guns and keep half for our armory, the other portion gets sold to the street. There is also a pallet of ammunition. A pallet of batteries, a half-pallet of pharmaceutical supplies that will be used to manufacture meth, and the final pallet of non-perishable food will be distributed to the food bank in the upper east side where the people line up each week for a paper bag of food that will hold them over for another week, but only if they are one of the precious few to get the goods. Since finding out about the shortage in supplies, the Kings have been dropping these off anonymously every week to help serve more people in our community.
There isn’t a single item in this order that doesn’t have a value of some sort. As I approach the train car, I pull my gloves from my back pocket and put them on. At the doors, I retrieve the key to the lock and get the doors open. North immediately jumps up and begins to cut into the shrink wrap as Sly makes his way into the fold. We have a system, the three of us, and it’s something I swear we could do in our sleep.
If Sly or North can’t make it to help me, Bash or Chaos step in. Bash is the club VP, and while he and I work a lot of deals together, I prefer he stay close to the Prez. We’re all better together than alone. Safety in numbers and all that bullshit.
Getting the shit offloaded into the van, we work quietly. Sly will get the items distributed appropriately. The coke will go out to the dealers Bash and I work with, so we can earn our money back, the guns to the armory until Chaos strikes whatever deal comes next to sell them or trade them. The shit for the meth will go to the cooks, the food to the community, and within a few hours, I’ll be sitting in the clubhouse with some club ass on my lap and a beer in my hand.
I live a damn good life. Even in the chaos, it somehow gives me a calm inside.
After all, I’m a motherfucking King.
Two
Talia
“One day your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure it’s worth watching.” Billboard sign – I don’t want to relive my life even in memories, Talia
Rain. I hate rain.
I used to love it. There was nothing better than a rainy day for an afternoon nap in my canopy bed with the softest pillow beneath my head. Those days were forever ago, almost as if it was all a dream. The life I left behind, where I lived in a bubble only the innocence of childhood gives. The older we grow, the more aware we become, and for me, with that awareness came the realities that everything I thought I knew was beyond fucked up.
It feels like it’s been ages since I last slept in a real bed.
I guess four years of life on the streets is equivalent to a lifetime. Hell, I don’t know many people who have lasted this long. Most end up going home, in jail, or dead. I’m lucky to still be breathing. As for jail, while I probably belong behind bars, and three hots and a cot sounds appealing somedays, prison life is not for me either. To an outsider, I have an obvious option: go home. But in reality, the only option I have is surviving. I didn’t come this far to turn back. Forget home because that’s no place for anyone to be.
Closing my eyes, I picture my sister, Amara, with her long golden hair and vibrant blue eyes. A true angel amongst us. She is the reason I press on. The sacrifices she made for my freedom won’t be in vain. My very best friend, there isn’t a single day where I don’t long for her company again. I know I can’t see her, no matter how much I long to.
Often times, I wonder … is she okay? Is she healthy? Is she surviving? Did I do the right thing? Does she miss me? Could I get her away from there? Away from them? How is my niece? My nephew? Does she have more children? I bet they have grown so much.
Nights like this one where I missed a switch and I’m stuck waiting out a storm for another ride to roll in, I think of all the ways things could be if I hadn’t listened to her. Maybe my path would have been different. Sure, the life planned before was a special kind of Hell, but maybe I would have endured it. All the maybes, what ifs, and possibilities roll around in my head. I’ll never know. I made my choice and here I am.
I can’t sleep because if I miss the next one, I may not get another ride out for days. I screwed up with my last choice. I shouldn’t have gone off on my own. Except, the different gangs in my lifestyle are people I haven’t connected with.
I long for companionship.