The Ex-Con

Chapter 21: Planning

Wednesday February 6th, 2008

7:00am

Tahime

As soon as I heard about what happened to Roderick I couldn't believe it, it was messed up. Here he was doing the right thing and he was being punished for it by Maurice, that wasn't cool, that ain't cool at all. It was all over the news as well as hearing about it from people in the neighborhood, it wasn't right. I looked out the window and thought about some things.

"So you're thinking huh?"

I turned around and saw that It was Savon.

"Hey Savin how's it going? Also what are you doing here young'n?"

"So what, I can't visit you?"

"Naw I'm not saying that it's just people will probably be like why this dude over here visiting the janitor at school." I said laughing.

"Right right, but seriously I just came over here because I needed someone to talk to and get advice from." He said. "Now we all know what happened to Roderick, DaQuan came over to my place last night and told me, that dude looked pissed, like he wasn't in his right frame of mind...."

"Oh no, what did he do?"

"He didn't do nothing, I talked him out of it and he stayed at my place. He was pissed and angry but I told him that I'd come up with something."

I hope Savon wasn't saying what I think he was saying, if so it wouldn't be good, but I inquired and asked him what he meant.

"What do you mean?"

"Come on Tahime, you know what I mean, getting revenge, planning revenge." He said.

"You can't, I mean Maurice is a pretty powerful guy in the city, he has some dirty cops on his payroll, that's common knowledge...."

"Yeah but if people rally together and we find a way to not only put pressure on him but the police as well and threaten to expose those dirty officers...."

"We could take the neighborhood away from Maurice's grasp and find a way to make the neighborhood feel a little more safe." I said. "But how do we do that, that's the question."

"You mind if I give my input?" We heard a voice say. We turned around and it was Reggie.

"Sure Mr. Bullard." Savon said.

"Well 1st both of y'all come on down stairs and get some breakfast and then we'll talk." He said.

We both went downstairs and it was some R&B playing on the radio and on the table it was some toast, eggs, grits, bacon. We sat down and made ourselves comfortable.

"This is a pretty good spread reggie." I said.

"Yeah Mr. Bullard, I agree with Mr. Perry here."

"Thanks." He said laughing. "Now as far as the situation with Maurice goes, when I was in 'Nam, that's short for Vietnam, we had to come up with a strategic way to take down the opposition, we had to plan and calculate our each and every move. Now I'm not saying it's going to be easy but in order for this to work you're going to have to do some smart smart thinking, gather some intel & information from around the way, find ways to infiltrate his gang....wait wait." He said looking at me. "Your boy Angelo, he's part of Maurice's crew right?"

"Yeah, unfortunately."

"No, no this could be a good thing, you could try talking to him and reason with him..."

"Ain't no way he's trying to listen to me Reggie, he's as stubborn as I was when I was his age."

"Like father like son huh?" Savon said he smirked a bit. "You never know sir, you could get through to him Mr. Perry." He said.