Memphis Streets 4: Skeletons

Chapter 15-Lucifer

Uncle Skeet is dead.

That shit is another shock to the system—even though I never liked his crooked, monkey ass. The main reason is still wailing in my ear.

For years, my mom has been content to be Skeet's sideline chick—happy to take any piece of him that he would give her. I never got it and I'll never understand it—especially since she wasted no time opening her legs to him within weeks my father was gunned down right in front of us in the front yard.

"What am I going to do? I don't have anybody left."

Jeez. Thanks. "Mom, let me call you back after I find out what the hell is going on."

"NOOOOOOOOOO," she cries, pathetically. "He can't leave me like this. He can't." Her devastation pulls at me, but for my own sanity I have to throw up a brick wall on this shit.

"Momma, I'll call you back."

"What am I gonna do? How am I going to live without him?" Click. Sorry, but I don't have time for this shit.

"Call Dice." Mason's eyes are still glued to the news report.

"Already on it." I just hope that he takes my call. Of course he doesn't.

My irritation climbs a few more notches. The level of disrespect from Dice is straining the fuck out of my patience. The line rolls to voice mail and I disconnect the call and rush over to the bedroom window.

"His car isn't parked in his drive," I tell Mason.

"Maybe he already knows."

"Kidnapped." Mason is visibly shaken. Dribbles has always had her problems but there is no doubt that Mason loves her. "Alice Carver."

I glance back at hearing him say his mother's name. He's struggling to keep his emotions in check. "Let's roll," Mason orders.

We take thirty minutes to shit, shower, and change before scrambling out. I'm aware that the second we walk out the door that all hell is gonna break loose. Fat Ace's miraculous rise from the dead will be official. We take two steps out the door and see Dice's ride blaze down Ruby Cove toward his crib.

"Wait. There he goes." I spot his girl Brielle in the back seat and Dribbles riding shotgun.

The anxiety rolling around in my gut relaxes a bit even as Mason and I break out into a slow trot toward Mason's old place. When the car is parked, Dribbles climbs out and the first thing I see is the battery of bruises on her face.

"What the fuck?" Mason takes off. As we're rushing toward the house, niggas around us stop dead in their tracks. Next comes the finger pointing—and then the whispers.

"DICE—MOM," Mason barks when he's inches from the driveway. Dice climbs out of the car and freezes.

Mason quickens his pace. Dribbles removes her shades. "Oh my God." Her mouth falls open and then, in the next second, she slaps a hand across it in stunned disbelief.

"Mason." Dice is still unable to move as his mother takes off running.

Mason grins from ear to ear as he sweeps his mother up into his arms and swings her around. "My baby! My baby!" Dribbles shouts. She doesn't give a damn about the crowd they drew.

She keeps peppering Mason's burned face with kisses. "You're alive! You're alive!" Dice moves away from his car door like a rusted robot, his eyes dilated with shock. He takes in the afro, the beard—and the eyes.

"How in the fuck?" At last, he accepts that his eyes aren't playing tricks on him and the biggest smile I've ever seen monopolizes his face.

Mason sets his mom back down in time to receive a quick one-armed hug and a shoulder bump from his little brother.

"I don't understand? How in the fuck are you alive? Where the fuck have you been?" Dice fires off.

"Well, I fuckin' missed you, too." Mason sweeps both his momma and his brother into his mountainous arms.

"Oh, shit. It is that muthafucka!" A lone voice shouts from behind us.

A thick mob, about fifty deep, creeps toward us like the zombies on Walking Dead. Their eyes are wide. Their mouths open. "Yo, Fat Ace is alive," another voice shouts. "Fat Ace! Fat Ace!," they chant at the top of their voices until his name rings out from every inch of Ruby Cove.

Sixty deep.

Seventy deep.

Eighty deep.

This Lewis family Kodak moment transforms into a city-block celebration. Shots are fired in the air and somebody cranks up the music. It's official. Memphis's chief Cartel Lord is back.

The streets will never be the same.