CHAPTER XXXVIII
16:04
"Sup, loc?"
"Ayo! got some crazy news for you, Mike."
"What it is?"
"Remember the fool nigga that got up in Blue Boy's face yesterday afternoon?"
"Yeah, I remember."
"They saying he the one that smoked the loc but because of some crazy law or some shit like that they can't lock him up."
"Steel, how sure are you about this news?"
"Blue Boy pops locked up right now cuz the Twenty Eighth couldn't hold the other nigga, and his pops tried to smoke homie... in front of the precinct." Steel laughed uncontrollably. Michael didn't see anything particularly amusing about that. "In front of the precinct, loc!" He continued laughing in incredulity as Michael lowered his t.v. volume. "They said he hit somebody. We waiting to find out more before we decide anything."
"'We' who?" Michael asked skeptically.
"The crew, nigga."
"Decide anything like what?"
"We gon' smoke the nigga, cuz!"said Steel, with fervor.
"I'm not sure that's a good idea, cuz. That detective chick - both of them - look kinda mean yo. Maybe it's best if we just wait a little bit, let the dust settle small."
"Nigga. You aint hear me? As soon as we find out where this nigga lay his head at night, we at his do! The smoked the loc, your best friend, and you over here talkin' some sucka shit!" Steel exclaimed, his anger rising.
"Watch your mouth, nigga. I may not be the toughest nigga, but I ain't no sucka."
"Well, well, well." Steel said goading Michael. "The fighter done came out his shell, huh?"
"Fuck you, nigga."
"Nah! Fuck Cassandra, nigga, not me." Michael's body went cold. "What happened now, nigga? Cat gotcha tongue? Don't think niggas ain't peep you dip out the back of her building after going in through the front last night."
Da fuck?These niggas were watching me like that?
"I went to console her, nigga."
"Lemme hit you with the DJ Envy: yeah, okay."
"Whatever, nigga."
"I know whatever. Any of these days, loc. When we call, we ridin! Trey!"
"Trey!" Michael was shocked that niggas had even paid him any mind as he went in her building last night, shortly after the detectives had interviewed him and the crew. Yeah, he went to console with her, that was true... but he lusted for her, too. All this time, had his lust been so evident? Had Blue Boy known that his best friend had just wanted to be around his girlfriend? And when Blue Boy got smoked, Michael had truly been sad... but an inner, more secret, part of him had silently rejoiced after realizing that Cassandra was a free woman now. He had held her last night, smelling the lavender or whatever the fuck good ass bodywash she used, feeling the underside of her breasts as he put his arm around her to condole with her. Yeah, who else could, except her man's best friend?
His dick had been hard as a muthafucka as he got his feels on. She was too distraught to notice how delicate and intimate Michael's touches had been, how he had oftentimes been too close for comfort; still, not thinking about anything but her one and only, she took it for the comforting of a mutual good friend. She allowed him to hold her and rub her, touch her and pet her, press her and kiss her hands, forehead and cheeks, wet with tears he reveled in tasting. When enough time had passed and her mom had come into the room to tell her some family members were there to speak to her, Michael had had to bow his head as if about to cry, but really he was trying to consciously make his hard-on go down. A few minutes later he succeeded. Thankfully, no one was in her room at the time so he stood up and fixed himself, grabbing and pressing his deflating dick, which had given him great pleasure, then left the house and went out the back of the building.
Why the fuck I aint go out through the front? Michael thought to himself.
Michael chastised himself. He cautioned himself to go slowly; he was alive and Blue Boy was dead. Patience! All he could think about was Cassandra. From the first day Blue Boy bagged her up the block, a week after she moved to Johnson from far as fuck Hillcrest, Michael had fallen in love with her. That was about eight months ago. For the first time in never, Michael thought back to how he was always the third wheel in the friendship, always around until Blue Boy would give him hints (which he would ignore) to leave the crib when they were about to fuck.
And then Blue Boy would physically, but playfully, haul Michael out of his apartment and tell him in a loud, playful whisper, "What the fuck is you doing? Me and my girl tryna fuck, my nigga. Trey!" Michael realized how pitiful it must have looked because it happened often, and Blue Boy, thinking Michael appreciated their friendship so much, that the friendship was the reason for Michael's subsequent sad face, would say, "Come back in like an hour." He hated Blue Boy for saying that in what he, Michael, perceived in his love-addled brain to be prideful. Inevitably, however, one hour to the minute after Blue Boy told him to return, he would.
Blue Boy, smelling like Cassandra and hot sex (on a platter, for A Tribe Called Quest fans), would put his arm around the shoulders of his lost puppy best friend whom he felt he always had to protect, and take him back into the room that would smell like Cassandra and intense copulation, while she was inevitably cleaning up in the bathroom. One day, Michael dreamed, he too would smell like Cassandra and hot sex.
Patience!
