Hold you down a novel, p.12
Hold You Down: a Novel, page 12
“God, please protect my mother. Keep her safe from everybody who wants to hurt her. Please keep me safe, too. And my cousin Judah and Aunt Mercy. Watch over us and protect us, God. Amen.”
Mercy overheard Deon’s prayers a few times as she lingered in the bedroom doorway late at night. She was just as concerned for Lenox’s safety, and she shared those feelings with Xavier. It had been three weeks since he moved to DC. He had gotten an apartment in PG County, and all of the necessary licenses and certifications to do business as an interstate truck driver. He called Mercy at night when he figured the boys were asleep, and they talked until they both were yawning.
“I miss you,” she said one night.
“I miss you, too. You would like it here. It’s not New York, but it’s dope. Got a nice little vibe to it. They call DC ‘Chocolate City.’”
Mercy smiled. “Once all this dies down and Lenox gets back, me and Judah will come and visit you.”
“How’s she doing?” Xavier asked.
“She says she’s fine. It sounds like she’s done with G for good this time. So, that’s reassuring.”
Xavier opened the refrigerator to grab some juice. “Why don’t you try to convince her to move down here with you and Judah? This could be the perfect chance for y’all to start over. Away from all the beef and the bullshit.”
Mercy thought about it. “I don’t know if she would go for it.”
“Can’t hurt to try,” Xavier said. He looked around the kitchen for a snack and sighed. “On another note, I really miss your cooking.”
Mercy laughed. “Don’t worry. I’ll be there as soon as I can. And I’ll cook you all your favorites.”
He smiled. “You’re my favorite. Just get here.”
Each day, Mercy made sure the boys were taken care of and tried not to think too much about the threat of impending danger surrounding Lenox and her life choices. She felt like her life was in turmoil and she was powerless to change it.
Those three weeks felt like an eternity for Lenox. Not only was she missing her family, but she had left the hustle behind. And the truth was she missed that, too. She decided that she couldn’t work with G anymore. What little desire had existed between them in the beginning was long gone now. At least for her it was. It hadn’t taken long for Lenox to realize that she was a better hustler than G would ever be. She kept working with him against her better judgment and had found herself in a hornet’s nest with him. Now G’s beef with Mark had disrupted her life. It was something she could never allow to happen again.
She ignored him each time he paged her on her beeper. Ignored every number except for Mercy’s. For the first time in years, she was far enough from New York City to hear her own thoughts.
She thought long and hard about getting out of the game completely. But the notion terrified her. Working a normal job, living an average life. The idea of those things petrified Lenox. She had tasted the fast life and liked it.
She called Benny while she was in Philly.
“Lenox Ave!” his voice boomed through the phone. “Good to hear your voice.”
“How’s it going, Benny? How’s the temperature uptown?”
Benny knew she wasn’t talking about the weather.
“It’s better than it was,” he said. “G came uptown yesterday. He said he brought his mother with him to visit his aunt. At the end of the day, it’s a family dispute. That shit got nothing to do with you. I let Mark know that I’ll cut him off completely if he touches you. So, it’s safe for you to come home.”
Lenox breathed a long sigh of relief.
“As far as G is concerned, I think Mark is gonna harbor some resentment for a long time. Hopefully, they work that shit out and we can all get back to getting money.”
“I’m done with G,” she said. “For good. This whole situation showed me that if I keep fucking with him it’ll cost me everything.”
“So, what now? You getting out the game?” Benny’s tone was somewhere between shock and disappointment.
“No. I want you to work with me solo. I’m a big girl. I learned the ropes of the game, and I’m ready to get in the ring with the big dogs all by myself.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“There’s already a problem with these two muthafuckas fighting. Now you want me to cut you in. You know that’s gonna piss G off.”
“Fuck G!” Lenox was done letting him drag her down. “I guarantee you’ll make more money with me than you are with him. All I need is for you to say ‘yes’ and back me up. If G gets mad, tell him the same thing you told Mark. Let him know that I have your protection.”
Benny laughed. “I gotta admire your balls. I already did you one favor. Now you’re calling me asking for an even bigger one.”
“I’ll repay the favor, Benny. You know I’m thorough. You can count on me. All I need is to know that I can count on you, too.” She took Benny’s hesitation as a sign that he was considering it. She pressed on. “Start me out the same way you did with G. Let me get a brick on consignment. I’ll flip that shit just like I been doing. And me and you can get this money on our own.”
“You’ll be competing in a market that’s already getting crowded. Staten Island is a small borough,” he warned.
“Let me worry about that. Just give me the shot.”
Benny was silent while he considered it. He had always felt that Lenox had a spark. He believed that without G and all his family drama, Lenox could make it on her own. Reluctantly he agreed.
“Okay. Come and see me when you get back to New York.”
Lenox set her plans in motion. She knew a couple of G’s workers that would happily break ranks with him and hustle for her instead. She knew that it wouldn’t be easy, but she was determined to become one of the few female contenders in the crack game.
She waited until Benny confirmed that things had finally settled down between G and his cousin Mark. Within a week, Benny said that the two had come to some type of peace treaty that involved G giving Mark a lump sum of money. They were family, after all. So, in the end their beef had simmered without bloodshed. At least for now.
Lenox came back to Staten Island the week before Thanksgiving. Deon was relieved to have his mother back home. He had enjoyed his time with Aunt Mercy and his cousin Judah, though. His grades had gone up and his behavior in school had improved. Lenox was impressed.
She brought it up as they ate Thanksgiving dinner at Mercy’s place.
“So, maybe me and you should move in here with Mercy. It seems like you know how to act when your aunt is around. I left town for a few weeks and came back to find a little Einstein.”
Deon smiled shyly.
Judah beamed proudly. He had finally gotten Deon to admit that being smart wasn’t corny after all.
“Deon’s smarter than me,” Judah said. “He just likes to act dumb for attention.”
Mercy put some more macaroni and cheese on her plate.
“Deon came home every night and sat there doing his homework with Judah. Even helped Judah with some history project he had about the state of Oregon and the explorers Lewis and Clark.”
Deon nodded, his eyes wide with excitement.
“Them fools were crazy. They had a Native American slave named Sacagawea. And they almost died when it got cold and they wasn’t prepared for it.”
Lenox couldn’t believe her ears. She looked at Mercy in amazement.
“Maybe I should put him in Judah’s school after all!”
Mercy gave her a look that said “told you so” and shoved some stuffing in her mouth.
Deon scoffed.
“Not unless I can wear my regular clothes. That uniform Judah wears looks like something Pee-wee Herman designed.”
Judah sucked his teeth as they all laughed. Mercy caught herself and grinned at him sympathetically.
“My baby don’t look like no Pee-wee Herman!”
“Don’t let him make fun of your uniform, Judah. Someday you’re gonna be a big executive. Mark my words. Guys who dress like that are the successful ones.” Lenox winked at her nephew.
Judah smiled.
Deon thought about that as he chewed his turkey.
“So, why don’t Benny dress like that?” he asked innocently.
Mercy and Lenox locked eyes across the table. Finally, Mercy subtly shook her head, looked down, and pushed her fork around her plate absently.
Lenox looked at her son.
“What made you bring up Benny?”
Deon shrugged.
“He’s successful. Every time I see him he gives me money. He drives a nice car, has all that jewelry and everything. And he don’t dress in a shirt and tie.”
Mercy sat back and sipped her apple cider while she watched Lenox scramble for an answer.
“Deon, I never told you that Benny or G or any of them guys are successful. And don’t assume that just because you see a few shiny things that means everything is sweet. Those guys are living a certain type of life.”
“What do you mean? Cuz they hustle?”
Mercy groaned.
Lenox shot a look at her before refocusing on her son.
“What you know about hustling, Deon?”
He shrugged. “I hear you saying that all the time. That you get your money by hustling. You, G, Benny, all of y’all.”
“And what do you think it means?” Lenox pressed him.
“Selling … selling drugs,” Deon said, matter-of-factly.
Judah watched everyone closely. He saw the look of simultaneous outrage and amusement on his mother’s face; the flash of regret in Aunt Lenox’s eyes as she stared at Deon speechlessly; and the expression of innocent curiosity on Deon’s face as he stared back at her.
“That’s what you think I do, Deon?” Lenox asked, softly.
Deon nodded slowly, aware suddenly that this conversation was breaking his mother’s heart. Now he wished he had kept his mouth shut.
Mercy seemed to sense the emotions Deon was feeling in that moment and spoke up.
“Lenox, he ain’t wrong. That is what you do. It’s what you been doing for years. You, G, Benny, and God knows who else you been parading past Deon on a regular basis. And what? You thought he wasn’t smart enough to figure it out?”
Lenox side-eyed Mercy, but Mercy was unfazed.
“It’s Thanksgiving. I’m grateful for a lot this year, especially the fact that you’re home safe. That all of us are here together. But I’m done pretending, Len. I’m not gonna walk around acting like what’s happening ain’t real. I’m not keeping my mouth shut anymore. Deon has questions. I’m sure Judah has some, too.”
Judah nodded his head for emphasis.
“I’m always telling you to watch what you say in front of the kids,” Mercy continued. “But when you left a few weeks ago to go on the run, I realized that if we keep all these secrets … and something happens to you…”
Mercy’s voice cracked and she paused for a moment to gather herself.
“I realized that I’ll be the one who has to explain that shit to your son. And where the hell would I begin?”
Lenox felt her heart sinking lower in her chest. Varied emotions fought for dominance inside of her. Anger, frustration, regret, fear, shame, defiance. She looked at her sister and found irony in the fact that her name was Mercy. At the moment, she seemed like she was fresh out of that shit.
Lenox sighed. “Deon, Judah … listen,” she began. “Yes. I was hustling for a little while. But it’s not how you think it is. I was never out there selling drugs to people. Taking money out of people’s hands and risking arrest. The way I was doing it was safer and smarter than that. I won’t get into the details about it because that’s all behind me now. I’m not doing that anymore.”
She knew as each word slipped from her lips that it was all a big lie. She was a drug dealer in every sense of the word. She was risking everything and making a ton of money in the process. And she had not stopped. In fact, before she even came home to Staten Island to see her family, she had stopped in the Bronx to get her first brick from Benny. Over the past week, she had set up her own new crack operation in a run-down apartment she had rented on Sharpe Avenue in Port Richmond. She looked at Mercy and saw her looking skeptically back at her.
“I had a close call,” Lenox said. “I almost got into some trouble. And that was all I needed to put me back on track. I’m done with hustling,” she lied. “From now on you won’t be seeing G anymore. So, you don’t have to worry. You hear me?”
Deon and Judah nodded.
“I don’t want y’all looking at guys like G and Benny and thinking that’s what success looks like. Look up to hardworking men like Xavier. He might not have fancy clothes, but he’s got peace of mind. Everything that glitters ain’t gold. Sometimes people seem like they’re having a good time when really they’re scared to death. Looking over their shoulders all the time, worrying constantly. No amount of money makes that easy to deal with.”
Mercy felt so relieved as she listened to Lenox speaking. Like her prayers had been answered. Finally, Lenox sounded like she understood that in the streets the juice was seldom worth the squeeze. When their eyes met across the table, this time Mercy smiled at her sister. Lenox returned the gesture, though her heart still felt heavy.
Lenox knew the truth. And she knew that Mercy would never understand. But Lenox wasn’t done with the game just yet. She wanted to do it on her own terms this time. She had promised herself that she would be more careful, that she would only do it until it got hot again. Then she would stop for good. But it was clear that she couldn’t tell anyone. Not Mercy, and certainly not Deon or Judah. She knew that she would have to keep the truth to herself for as long as possible so that the people she loved—all seated around this Thanksgiving table, staring at her expectantly—wouldn’t be disappointed in her.
In the days that followed, Deon was bolder with his questioning of his mother. Like Aunt Mercy, he was done skirting around the issues at hand.
“Why did we have to change our phone number?” Deon asked. “I had to give the new one to all my friends.”
Lenox shrugged. “It was time to switch up. Change is good.”
She was shielding Deon from the truth. From the moment she got back to New York, G had been calling her house and beeping her nonstop, and she had been ignoring him. She put an extra lock on her door and kept her gun even closer to her than she usually did. She slept with it, fearful of how desperate G might get in his efforts to get to her. Although Benny had assured her that she was safe, she still worried about other competitors. She was on her own in every sense, and it was both liberating and terrifying.
It was also lonely. Aware that Deon was paying close attention to her, Lenox switched her routine up. She took him to school each day without fail and was there to pick him up each day. After school, she took him with her to Mercy’s apartment and they spent the afternoon there. Deon and Judah would do their homework and play outside. Lenox and Mercy would cook dinner together (at least that was how Lenox described watching Mercy prepare meals each night) while talking and laughing the hours away. After dinner, Lenox and Deon drove home and got ready to do it all again the next day.
What no one knew was that while the boys were in school and Mercy was at work, Lenox wasn’t out job hunting like she claimed. She was in her stash house cooking like her name was Betty Crocker.
She had two workers now—Andre and Theo—who had once worked for G. She knew that they were unhappy with the cut they were getting from G. So, she summoned them to her stash house and offered them a better deal than the one that G was doling out.
“G was giving you a flat one hundred fifty dollars a day. I want to offer you thirty dollars for every one hundred you sell. The more you sell, the more you make.”
They didn’t hesitate to accept her offer. Lenox only dealt with them at the stash house, never at her own apartment. She was being extra careful to keep the drug game as far away from her family as she could.
Everything was going smoothly except for one unrelenting problem. G was growing increasingly agitated.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
“Yo, Lenox! Open the fuckin’ door!”
He pounded on her apartment door late one night.
Deon rushed into his mother’s bedroom, terrified. “Who is that?” he asked.
“It’s G,” Lenox said, pushing him back into his bedroom. “Stay in there and don’t come out.”
G banged harder on the door. “LENOX! Stop playing with me!”
“Ma, what’s going on?” Deon asked, panicking. “Why’s he yelling like that?”
Lenox gripped Deon tightly by the shoulders. “Listen to me! Stay in here. Don’t come out until I tell you. You understand?”
Deon nodded, though he was scared to death.
Lenox rushed out and shut the door behind her. She ran to her bedroom and grabbed her gun from beneath the mountain of pillows on her bed.
G was jiggling the doorknob now, kicking the door, still shouting.
Lenox stood near the door in the dark, waiting. If he got through the door, she was prepared to blow his fucking brains out. She stood silently, her heart thundering in her chest, praying that Deon obeyed her and stayed in his room.
G gave another violent kick to the door that rocked the front of the house. Lenox planted her feet and raised the gun in preparation. Then she heard sirens outside of her house, and the pounding ceased. She rushed over to the window and discreetly pulled back a small part of the curtain. Peering out, she saw police cars, the flashing lights lighting up the block. She could see two uniformed officers approaching her house. G was obscured from her view, but she glimpsed the sleeve of his brown leather jacket as he stood facing the officers. She listened to the voices outside of her window.
