You Got Potential

I.

Israel in the MM.

-Israel Easton-
-October 3rd, 2014-

"Aye Israel! Come out here Cuz!"

I sat the stack twenties I was counting on the coffee table and went into the front room of the trap to find my older cousin Malik and his right hand Mike waiting for me.

"Run this down the block to Shoot for me." He said giving me a pack with the straightest face. No emotion. I looked back and forth between him and Mike for some kind of explanation on what exactly I was doing.

"You sure you good bro? " I said looking at him one last time before tucking my strap in my pants. He gave me a simple nod and walked down the hall into the back room, slamming the door behind them.

I shrugged it off and left out the front door grabbing my bag on the way out. I tucked my hands in my hoodie pockets and started walking towards Shooter's crib.

Here I was. 18. Moving dope all through Harlem. Working underneath my oldest cousin, Malik 'Mugga' Asghedom.

***

-Malik "Mugga" Asghedom-

***

As long as I can remember Mugga was always that 'hood figure' I looked up to. My dad up and left me and my mom when I was 7 years old and from the outside looking in, I could see it drove her nuts. Her multiple jobs became her main distraction and she slowly started to slip away from me. I didn't even feel like her son anymore, just a stranger living in the same house. She thought she was doing a good thing sending me to California with auntie Angie and my cousin over breaks thinking he could get me going in the right direction but it was the opposite. Those long summer nights being able to run through the streets with Malik made it worth it when I came back home. I always came back with hella bread to get anything I wanted to get for myself and some to throw to my mom. Of course, I was able to keep it under wraps easily when I was a youngin by saying I had a summer job out there in the local barbershop, but once I got older I started getting reckless.

Last year when I turned 17, Malik turned 20 and moved out of auntie Angie's house and to Harlem. He quickly got his name established inside and outside of the city with multiple plugs. The people out here liked his hustle and grind mentality and ended up meeting Mike through the same mid-city plugs. They cliqued up and been working together ever since. Nobody was moving dope without Mike or Malik knowing about it. He started taking me under his wing making deliveries and even had me assigned selling on the block. I quickly started to know the ins and outs of the game and it became like a hobby.

***

Walking up the porch to Shooter's house I did the special knock on the door and waited. The porch light flashed on and the screen door opened revealing Shoot.

"Whats good bro." He said dapping me up letting me inside.

I walked into his room with him closing the door behind me placing my backpack on the ground.

"Mugga sent me over with the pack for the week." I took the jar of weed out of my bag and set it on his table.

"What strain?" He asked picking out one of the small nugs and smelling it.

"Didn't say, he was on some 'here you go leave' type shit. Had a whole attitude and everything." 

"Yeah, that's definitely yo cousin nigga. Stubbornness is a family gene."

I sat down on the couch next to him. "Shut up Cuz."

We sat there for the next few hours scaling and weighing the grams of weed into the perfect amounts for packaging and selling. We had 20 bags total and split them between the two of us to sell by the end of the week. I placed my half back into my mason jar and into my bag to get ready to leave.

"Aight brudda Ima bounce, it's getting late. Moms probably gone stop home and check-in before she leaves again for work tonight so I gotta be there."

I packed up the rest of my shit and threw my hood on as I walked out of Shooter's room. We dapped up one last time before I left out the house and walked down the block. I took my small cracked iPod touch out of my pocket and put my headphones in. The lyrical raps of Nas' Illmatic bumped as I walked steadily down the semi-lit block to get home.

Getting closer to my apartments,  I see at least two or three cop cars drive past me with the familiar siren and lights flashing.

"I wonder who they tryna catch.." I spoke quietly to myself watching them cut the right corner quickly. I tucked my head further into my hoodie as I kept walking. And then it clicked.

The trap.

I picked up my pace and ran through the back ally and ended up on the next street over. Police officers and tape covered the whole block as people crowded outside to see what was going on. I jumped the fence to the Johnsons' backyard and walked through the side gate to get to the front of the trap house where everything was going on.

Bullet casings were all over the front yard and the window had been shattered. It had to be at least four ambulance trucks on the block. Investigators crowded into the house with suitcases full of equipment and news reporters hot on their trail trying to get details on what happened.

Then I saw him...

His lifeless body laid on the gurney with his blood staining his blue shirt. I was only gone a few hours, what the fuck?

"Stop Yo! That's my cousin!" I said almost lunging towards the paramedics carrying Mugga out of the house.

I had no control over my body. Everything had gone blurry and I'm sure I blacked out. Soon enough they had officers holding me back to allow the paramedics to go through. I had so many questions but didn't have the strength to ask them. I watched them haul Mike out next. One by one they carried the bodies into the back of two different trucks and drove off. I fell down onto the sidewalk punching the ground multiple times. My knuckles quickly swole up in pain and started bleeding but I didn't care. I let the tears flow down my face as I sat there letting the scene unfold.

My only cousin was gone.