What Doesn't Kill Me...

Chapt. 13 - Quan

"Ay you talk to Omar today Ray?"

She nodded her head and puffed her cigarette.

"Yeah. He said he had shit to handle today and he'd get with us later."

I drunk some of my beer.

"That nigga always handling something."

"Well shit he got a strip club, and a couple trap houses with hella workers."

I chuckled.

"True that. Nigga never stop working."

We sat there on the table outside my apartment drinking and smoking watching the neighborhood kids play at the park.

"Heeyyy there babies."

Ms. Debra made her way over to us slowly using her cane.

"Move Ray, let me sit down."

Ray slid over and made room.

"Y'all not out here hustling are ya?"

I looked at her crazy.

"Ms. Debra we don't do that."

She shook her head and pushed her glasses up on her nose.

"Quan you can't fool me. I'm 65 years old, I've seen it all from the old generation to the new. I see y'all leaving every 5 mins. My son was a thug, a hustler. I kept telling him... Son, them streets don't love you like you love them. Them streets gone have you dead or in jail. I worried about him everyday, every night. He was killed by the man he was working for. I knew something happen when my phone ring. I felt it. That man shot my baby 16 times over $100. How broke could you really be to shoot somebody over $100?"

She paused and looked up in the sky.

"I felt those 16 shots when they hit my son. Every single one of em. Mhmmm.. I felt em.... Right in my heart. I called him and I called him, he didn't answer. I knew something was wrong, I knew he had gone on home at that very minute."

I sat there listening to Ms. Debra and couldn't help but think about what my mama told me bout my daddy.

"Who told you what happen? Who called?"

She looked at Ray and placed her hand on her leg.

"My daughter did. She called me crying. She say mama something happen to DC. I said baby he died didn't he? She broke down even harder.. She ask me who told me. I said I felt those shots. I asked her how many times did he get hit. She said 16. I said mhmm.. I counted as I felt my heart hurt more and more. 16 times over $100. Putting y'all family through that is not worth it. Its not, till this day I cry myself to sleep cause I tried to warn em but he didn't catch on quick enough."

I shook my head and drunk some more of my beer as Ray puffed her cigarette harder.

"Its not worth it. Yall got good mamas that love ya dearly. She may get on ya nerves, wake you up yelling about the most petty thing she could find but she love ya. Thats it. She love ya, no matter what you do, what you put her through, she love ya..... Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.... Proverbs 22:6"

We sat there as Ms. Debra slowly made her way up.

"Get out before its too late. Fast money always has something behind it. Fast money is the devil."

She hugged us both.

"Get out before its too late..."

She slowly walked off to her apartment.

"Yo that's crazy."

Ray looked at me.

"Got you thinking?"

I nodded as I stared off into the sky.

"Hell yeahh. That's why I don't want Mon in this shit. He don't got the mind for this man. I let him get in this shit and something happen to him, I'm gone forever blame myself."

"And its gone be war. Quan v.s. everybody."