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What you do for friends

 

 

 

“I need a gangster bitch! Gangster Bitch! I need to gangster boogie with my gangster bitch! I need a…”

The ringtone and the cell phone buzzing on her night stand woke up Chardae Willows, alias Boss Mama, out of her slumber. She loved that ringtone because it described her to the fullest but at three o’ clock in the morning when she had a massive headache; it was like a church bell banging against her head.

“Whoever calling me this late must be dead already and waiting for me to bury them,” Chardae answered the phone.

“Boss, I’m sorry to be calling you but I…I…” Chardae knew who the person that was on the other end was and now she really mad she answered in the first place.

“What the fuck, Janice,” Chardae expressed her frustration. “Does your hoe ass know what time it is?”

“I...I…know but…but…”Janice was stammering over her words and it sounded like she was whispering.

“Look, hoe, I don’t have time for this especially since you calling me like it’s a booty call, talking all low and shit,” Chardae was fed up. She was missing precious beauty rest time.

“It’s To…Tony… he came home mad again,” Janice sounded like she was on the verge of crying as she tried to speak. “It…it was bad this time. He…”

“I don’t want to hear this shit again,” Chardae stated. “Unless you’re telling me you want Beyoncé to pay him a visit?”

Chardae smiled at the mention of her 9 millimeter chrome black Glock 17 she named Beyoncé because as Chardae once told someone “anytime it sings, people are going to listen and respect it.” Her moniker was embedded on the handle with the words BM. Chardae loved Beyoncé and anytime she went out, Beyoncé stayed right in her back waistline ready to start singing.

“I just need to get away,” Janice said and now Chardae knew Janice was crying.

“Listen, bitch, if I come over, it won’t be pretty,” Chardae warned. “Beyoncé will get on stage if that nigga still there and he acting crazy.”

“Just come get me before…”Janice was in the middle of the sentence when Chardae heard another voice in the background and what sounded like a door being banged on.

“Who the fuck you on the phone with?” Chardae heard the other voice say and more banging. “I know you ain’t calling another nigga while I’m up in this bitch. Open this damn door before I break it in and your face as well!”

Chardae knew automatically who the other voice was and her disgust immediately showed on her pretty face. The threatened voice belonged to Janice’s poor excuse for a baby father and a lover, Tyrel.

“I’m not talking to anyone,” Janice was now moving her voice away from the phone and talking to Tyrel who must have been on the other side of the door. “I’m just using the bathroom!”

“Who the fuck you thinking you yelling at?” Tyrel seemed more agitated. “You done lost your mind, bitch!”

Chardae could hear static like Janice was putting the phone down somewhere to address her irate boyfriend.

“I’m not….ahhhhh!” Chardae was already up and getting dressed when she heard what sounded like a door being tore off its’ hinges and Janice screaming as scuffling can be heard in the background.

Chardae was already out of bed. Chardae quickly put on some clothes and grabbed Beyoncé off the dresser as well. She checked to make sure Beyoncé was locked and loaded then grabbed her phone and car keys.

Chardae got into her car, a Toyota Roadrunner with the initials BM in purple lettering on the front hood and a graphic image of her face placed underneath it. She put her cell phone on the dashboard and started the ignition. She could still hear Janice yelling and screaming like someone was dragging her wherever she was from and beating on her. The more Chardae heard her friend cry out and get brutalize for it, the angrier she got. Chardae made a vow that night. The dude was not going to leave that apartment tonight unless accompanied by the paramedics and a gurney or the coroner and a body bag. They will be no other options tonight.

Chardae could hear Tyrel cursing and calling Janice all type of the word bitches and hard fists hitting something. Chardae couldn’t get to Janice’s house fast enough. She was already breathing real hard from all the adrenaline going through her body. She could picture the bullets going through Tyrel’s body. She would have to deal with the consequences later. The song ‘Love is blind’ by rapper Eve suddenly came on the radio and Chardae almost laughed at the irony. God must have known what was in her heart.

Chardae was out of her jeep and banging on Janice’s front door at record speed. She didn’t even know how fast she was driving until she saw that she got there in less than ten minutes for an almost thirty minute road. Chardae was hammering her fist on the front door of Janice’s apartment complex. Noisy neighbors were peeking their heads out or looking out the peephole but no one was calling the police or intervening and Janice’s screams can be heard throughout the whole building. Chardae hated people like that. They’re the first to observe an accident but will do nothing to help.

“Open the fuck up, you bitch!” Chardae shouted as she continued to pound on the front door.

The screaming stopped inside the apartment and she heard footsteps walking towards the front door.

“What the fuck you want?” Chardae heard the peephole open and a voice speak from behind the door.

“Open up Tyrel or you going to be explaining to housing why they had replace a door full of bullets,” Chardae replied back.

Chardae heard locks being taken off the door and Tyrel opened the door in nothing but sweatpants and slippers. She saw a little bit of blood on his knuckles.

“What you doing here, bi…” Tyrel never got to finish that sentence because Chardae hit him in the bridge of his nose of the gun she pulled out from her waist causing him to fall back.

Chardae rushed in and saw her best friend laid out on the floor with a busty lip and two swollen eyes. Her clothes were covered with bloods and it looked like she was missing teeth.

“Why the fuck you hit me, bitch?” Tyrel said holding his nose and getting up off the floor.

Chardae looked at her friend laying there unconscious on the floor and then at Tyrel. Chardae knew she had to keep good on her promise.

“You hear me talking to you, bitch?” Tyrel asked coming towards her.

Chardae pointed Beyoncé right at him.

“What you going to do with that?” Tyrel inquired with a smirk on his face. “You really think you a boss bitch. You’re just riding of your brother’s name and fame. You think you the shit, huh? Now put the gun down and maybe I'll let you suck my dick. And tell that lazy hoe to get up and stop getting blood on my floor.”

Chardae took the gun off safety and Tyrel heard the click.

“You ain’t going to do shit but put that gun down and say sorry for interrupting me handling my woman,” Tyrel said squeezing his nose and sneezing blood from his nostril. “You lucky I like your pretty ass or you would get the same thing she just got for pulling that little stunt of yours. “

“Lucky me,” Chardae remarked then pulled the trigger.

When the police finally arrived, Chardae was on the floor kneeling over Janice rocking Janice’s body back and forth. Tyrel was found dead with two bullets in the head. Chardae had her gun placed beside her.

“Freeze!” the officers said as they entered the apartment with guns drawn. “Put your hands up!”

Chardae ignored the officers and just stayed focused on her friend. Chardae wiped the hair strands out of Janice’s bruised face.

“I love you, girl,” Chardae whispered to her friend and kissed Janice on the forehead. ‘I got that nigga. Boss Mama got him.”

Chardae heard one of the officers kick Beyoncé from beside her and repeat his original order.

“Late busters,” Chardae spoke softly to her friend whose eyes were both closed shut. “Don’t worry. Boss Mama took care of it. Boss Mama will always take care of it.”

 

 

 

 

 

Boss Background

Chapter 2

 

 

Chardae was a person of her word. She believed your word was everything. Your word is what made your character. Without it, you was nothing, at least nothing important. If people couldn’t take you at your word then why did they even need to fuck with you in the first place?

Beside just your word being ideal, Chardae respected someone that ‘keep it real’. Not just spoke the words but did the actions. She met a lot of people, men and women, who claimed they were quote on quote real and was softer than dog shit in the rain. Over the years, he learned to distinguish the two very fast and very easily. One simple way was real people don’t have to talk much about what they going to do, they just do it. Anybody can talk your ear off about what they going to do to you but a real personis not wasting that many syllables, they already making moves while you busy still talking.

Chardae learned that definitely on her own block where the so called thugs hung out thinking they were so tough. She never believed in any of them and she made it clear she didn’t. They were false gangster and Chardae didn’t believe in anything artificial. Everything about her and on her was real and came from something authentic from her clothes, to her jewelry, to her footwear. She was light skin, slim waist, with long luscious legs to match. She had long natural blonde hair along with her arched eyebrows and small smile made her look a mixed Caucasian lady but she was in fact half Puerto Rican, Columbian and black. Her features alone made her a model type and every dude wanted her on his arm and in his bad but then they never got that chance because in her eyes, they weren’t real enough for her.

 Chardae would stay around long enough to hear those lame dudes’ weak lines so she can remember them later so she can laugh with her friends. That was another thing about Chardae, she only had a small circle of friends. She was never the type of girl to have a whole bunch of fake people around her. So if she considered you a friend, you better cherish it.

Her older brother of two years, Charles Willow, street alias Bad Luck Chuck, or Luck for short, was one of the reasons she learned so much about people and how to deal with him. Charles got his name because whenever he showed up, it was bad luck for someone that day. He was a notorious player in the drug game and had connection for weaponry of all types since one of his best friend was in the Navy and stayed hooking Charles up with items. Their father, Charleston Willow, was a great dice player and poker hustler. He met their beautifully mother, Alexandria Martinez, exactly on the arms of another man, a big Spanish drug lord that run half of Spanish Harlem all the way to Washington Heights named El Jefe Loco(The Crazy Boss). El Jefe Loco got that name simply he would react to the simplest matter to the ultimate extreme even bring harm to his own workers. Charleston, who street alias was Crooked, wasn’t afraid of El Jefe Loco, not in the least bit and he proved when the Dominican crime boss came to a card game with Alexandria that Charleston was helping sponsor. Charleston waited until they were only two players left at the table on a particular hand and that’s when Charleston pulled out all the stops. He put all his chips on the table, his gold Rolex watch, and the actually custom made shirt of his back and stated that if Loco won that hand, he could have it all. But if Loco lost, Alexandria had to give Charleston a kiss on the lips. Loco was outraged and was about to pull out his trusty Smith & Wesson Glock pistol and put two in Charleston’s chest but Charleston called his bluff. ‘You scared you going to lose,’ Charleston said. ‘All you lose a kiss, I’m the only betting everything on the line.’ Loco looked at the cards in his hands and then his woman. Loco figured he had nothing to lose. Besides if he really lose the hand, he would still shoot Charleston before Charleston even got a chance to kiss Alexandria. However, the joke was on Loco because a hit was already put on his head by a higher player in the game and the card game was just a lure to get him in one place. Loco put his cards on the table and smiled. Charleston smiled too and put down his cards. ‘I guess I win’ was all Charleston said. Loco lifted up the table in a rage and before he pull out his weapon of choice, Charleston calmly pulled out his weapon, a Heckler and Koch Glock, from the side holster he keep concealed in his suit jacket. He shot Loco three times in the head as Alexandria screamed and everybody else started running. Charleston quickly grabbed Alexandria and embraced her. ‘Now to collect my prize’ was the last words Charleston said before they began their new life together.

Chardae remembered her father from her earlier childhood. Charleston was still heavy in the streets but after their mother gave birth to his two children, Charles and Chardae, he slowed down his hustle and killing game. Charleston didn’t know much about genetic pools and how people’s genetic makeup works but he had the hardest fathoming how Charles was dark as midnight like him but Chardae was as light as her mother. The siblings looked like ebony and ivory together.

Alexandria never worked a day in her life. Her job was maintain her beauty and take care of her children. Charleston for the most part made sure Alexandria had pretty much everything to do so. Chardae knew her father didn’t have a regular nine to five like the other dads on their block because he always came home with a smile and presents every time he walked in the door. By the time Charles and Chardae got into first grade, they were already hated because they dressed better than the other kids and they lived in a better home. Her father always taught her that people were going to hate on her regardless because they could never be like her. He also embedded in her qualities and values to look for in people and to never use the word ‘friend’ loosely and to always remember to not owe people. ‘A favor will kill you faster than a bullet’ was his favorite saying. Both Charles and Chardae learned a lot from their father as far as street knowledge and how not to get played. Their mother was a fashion whore and had been since she ran with Loco so it was easy to make sure her children dressed fancy to a tee especially Chardae, her spitting image. Their father also taught them one other thing that was vital to their existence: how to defend themselves. He showed him how to use guns and knives because he knew the streets hated fortunate people and will try anything to make sure they didn’t stay fortunate.

So by the time Chardae turned fourteen, she was the ultimate envy of the block. Every girl wanted to be her friend and every boy wanted her by their side. Then tragedy stuck hard for young Chardae and her family. Her father coming home one day got gunned down by a group of young thugs with masks on. Nobody claimed responsibility but nobody also didn’t say who was responsible. Calm Charles quickly at the tender age of sixteen became a terror after that. He was already blessed with his father’s height at 6’4 by that age and looked more like a grown man than a teenage kid. Charles wanted to find out who killed his father and started hanging with the wrong crowds after that to fill that void that not having his father was making.

Chardae soon followed suit because she couldn’t see her mother turned from the sophisticated lady of stature to a nervous wreck because all her life Alexandria was just comfortable being the trophy wife or girlfriend. She didn’t have any real skills and she now started depending on her teenage children. Charles adapted to street life rather quickly and Chardae soon became his student. He kept her close to the hip mainly so she would still have a male role model even though their father was gone and mostly so no fresh ass dudes would try to take advantage of her. But later did Charles know, Chardae was not a naïve little girl and she used both her father’s and her brother’s teachings into molding her to be the baddest chick she could be.

Charles ended up being with an older lady that in Sumner houses, a housing project in Brooklyn and she used her connection to get him an apartment in the same building she lived in. The lady used her real son’s name, who was over 21, and lived somewhere else to get Charles into the apartment. Of course Charles extended his new crib to his twin, Chardae, who loved using it from time to time. When Charles suggested his mother now get a job instead of depending on her kids like she did with her father, she left. Their mother just packed her bags and left. Chardae never forgot that day she came home to where her father had built a life for his wife and his kids and all her mother’s belongings were up and gone. She never looked the fact their mother only depended on her father to get by and she vowed from that day on to never be like her. As much as the young hustlers on the block kept telling her they would take care of her, she knew it was bullshit. Only man that was ever obligated to care of her and did it with no remorse was her father and he was no longer with her. She had to fiend for self. Chardae still stayed at the house being that it was still paid for except for the monthly mortgage which her brother paid off with his illegal hustles. Charles was getting to be a legend like his father was. And Chardae was next up on the throne.

The case of...

Chapter 3

 

 

“In the case of the State of New York versus Chardae Willows…”

Today was the day that determined Chardae Willow’s fate. A whole year and a half had passed since that day Chardae had ended the life of her best friend, Janice’s, abusive boyfriend, Tyrel Greene. To Chardae, justice had been done. She was willing to except her fate. The prosecutor was trying to get Chardae on murder in the second degree but her defense team was going for manslaughter in the first degree. However, since Chardae brought the gun, the murder charge was more than likely going to stick despite the fact she was distraught and went into a rage after seeing her best friend beaten up and bloody. Her defense team was claiming Chardae brought the gun over to scare Tyrel not intentionally kill him. There were police reports were she and Janice had called the police on Tyrel and he was released the next day and back in the house. Janice even took the witness stand stating she tried to leave Tyrel several times but was threatened every time. Janice made the jury see she was scared for her life and the only person she could turn to was Chardae.

Chardae’s defense team also stated Chardae acted in self-defense and was in fear of her life as well. She brought the gun not only to scare Tyrel but to protect herself as well. Chardae’s attorney painted Tyrel as a vicious woman abuser that dodged the law time and time again and would have continued his behavior until Janice was eventually dead.

Before the decision went to the jury, the assistant district attorney came to Chardae and her lawyer and offered Murder in the Second with 15 years with parole. Chardae declined that real fast. To Chardae, she saved her friend when everybody else was too much of a pussy to do so. Chardae’s attorney believed they had a good case and backed her decision.

“Madame Foreperson, has the jury reached a verdict?”

Chardae looked at the jury as she at the defendant’s table with her lawyers in a pink striped suit and skirt outfit that her brother had one of his girls buy her for the trial. Chardae couldn’t believe six people would determine her freedom and for how long. She hated the fact that these people that she didn’t even know could now control her fate. Chardae looked at the middle aged Caucasian judge that had been eying her through the whole trial. If push came to shove, she would give him some if it meant she didn’t go to jail but three old white bitches, one black girl, and two elder gentlemen were the deciders of her destiny.

“Yes, your honor, we have.”

The oldest lady of the group made herself Foreperson. Chardae remembered her brother telling her to smile her pearly whites and sit up straight like a proper woman. Charles told her to look and act more like a white southern lady would and maybe the jury would ease up on her thinking she was one of their own. Chardae could play that role and if her life was on the run, she would. Besides, Charles had added during one of his visits to the correctional facility she was stationed at, Chardae had killed a black man, an abusive black man. Those white jurors will feel safety knowing a dangerous monster was off the streets and not harming people anymore. So show those pearly whites and act like a scared little white girl that was only defending her friend because no one else would. The little frightened woman stood up to the abusive massive black giant and came out victorious.

Chardae took his advice and acted accordingly. Even now she was smiling but showing the jury that she was downtrodden with guilt and remorse but it had to be done because there was no other way. The madam foreperson looked at Chardae then at the paper she held in her hands.’

“In the case of Chardae Willows, pertaining to the charge of murder in the first degree, we the jury find the defendant not guilty.”

Chardae’s lawyer smiled a little. That was the big one. That meant Chardae wasn’t going to get life in prison. The rest Chardae and the lawyer could work out.

“For the charge of murder in the second degree, we the jury find the defendant not guilty.”

Now there was a little cheering coming from Chardae’s corner. Those were the toughest charges to beat. The judge banged the gavel to quiet the room and the jury foreperson continued.

“For the charge of manslaughter in the first degree, we the jury found the defendant guilty. And for the charge of possessing of unregistered firearm, we find the defendant guilty.”

Chardae heard the rest of the charges the lady foreperson recited then looked at her lawyer. She knew despite it all, she was going to jail. She felt her brother behind her on the benches.

“It’s going to be alright, sis,” Chardae heard him reassure her and that made her smile.

Chardae didn’t even hear the judge bang his gavel again and thank the jury for their time. The trial was over and Chardae was guilty of manslaughter. The thought now hit her. She was a murderer but for her friend. But it didn’t matter, she was at fault. But looking at her friend Janice on the bench in the back of the courtroom with her face still not completely heal. Janice would never be the pretty girl she grew up with because of some asshole. Chardae was glad Tyrel was dead and if truth be told, she was glad she pulled that trigger that day and she wouldn’t take that back. She would gladly gave her life for a true friend.

“I got you,” Chardae saw Janice mouthed to her.

“I always got you,” Chardae returned the sentiment.

Chardae’s conscious was clear. Now she just had to wait until sentencing and she could fully start this nightmare.

Impressum

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 22.02.2014

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