Another Man's Treasure (Joey Bada$$ Story)

Part Trenta

Melissa knew what she was doing when she left. She knew that if she stuck around long enough for us to read the note, we wouldn’t let her leave. We wouldn’t let her escape the awkwardness of our encounter or her shame and self-pity. We needed answers.

But she wasn’t here.

Not only was she already out of our sight - we couldn’t even see her after walking a few blocks down - but we couldn’t dedicate much more time to her situation. It wasn’t long after her departure that we got a call back from Joey. They wanted us to meet them in the city, outside of some restaurant so they fill us in on a plan that they’d configured. Apparently, that was why they weren’t answering our calls, because they were too busy getting things ready before we came.

We decided to take a bus down there. I was poor, but Sole wasn’t. We deserved some rest after all we’d been through for the day. I fell asleep on the bus ride; we were only on it for a little under ten minutes, but the taste of shut-eye I got was enough to keep me going for the next few hours, the next few days, the rest of the week. The sleep itself didn’t give me more energy, but the fact that I was just drifting off completely before Sole tapped me to tell me it was our stop gave me faith. It let me know that there was still a possibility that I could do normal things like taking naps on buses. There was faith in me now that I could escape to another world, or to something blank, where these problems were faint. Existant, but far away. I knew that there would come a time when I could really drift off, when I wouldn’t have to wake up for our stop and I could go all the way. I knew that even while I didn’t know what day tomorrow was, I could live for it.

I could make it.

The boys were sitting in the restaurant that they promised to be in by the time we came. They looked very threatening sitting there, some of them still with bloodstains and some with sweaty shirts. All of them, very tired. They didn’t look threatening in a manner that’d make you think they were about to hurt someone, but more in the manner that they looked like they had nothing to lose.

Nothing changed in their demeanor when they saw us. No bright smiles, no one sat up. They all just looked like a crowd of people on the verge of death, now just plus three more. I sat down at the end of the booth they were occupying and sat Latara down on my lap. All of us just sat there in silence for a while, looking at the wooden tables in this diner, ignoring the fact that the waitresses were walking around in their blue-and-white uniforms, eyeing us as if trying to let us know that we were the only “customers” in the store and they needed us to order something. We just sat there, letting our thoughts swim in this big ocean of personalities and events. And finally, right before I felt like drowning, Joey stood up.

“So here’s what we’re going to do.” He said with a groggy voice, barely even able to stand up straight.

“That’s how we’re going to do things? Joey just gets up and says ‘this is what we’re going to do’, and we do it? What ever happened to us being a team?” Dessy fussed.

“Look, man, if you have another plan, then go ahead. Fill us in. If not, if you’re only bitching because you want some kind of authority that you think I have, just shut up.”

So he did. He shut up.

“Now, back to what I was saying. Here’s what we’re going to do: the rest of you are going to find them. I mean, really, find them. All of Cheddy’s crew. They’re not idiots, so the only one way you can get them in your sight is to get yourselves in their sight. That means bait them. You killed some of their own. They’re looking for you. Some of you have to go to the hotel we were staying at, some of you can go to that trap neighborhood we found them in before, some of you can even just ask around for them. Just do obvious things - go where they’d expect you to go. And when they come, you trap them. Get them in your custody and keep them wherever you need to. When you’ve got them, call me, and I’ll come. I know what to do from there.”