Hard White. Shannon Holmes

pass me that fan behind you.”

      Melquan handed Mike Copeland the fan. He placed the mound of crack on a stack of paper towels and turned the fan on high to accelerate drying process. Melquan and Mike Copeland were about to engage in conversation, there was a sudden knock on the door.

      “It better be Precious, Mel. Shop’s closed. I’m not letting none of Tess crack-head friends up in this joint. Not while we doin’ this. I don’t give a fuck if it is her house or not,” Mike Copeland warned.

      Armed, Mike Copeland exited the kitchen and entered the hallway. Tess suddenly appeared in at her bedroom doorway. She glared evilly at him, watching closely to see who was at the door. Satisfied that the person at the door wasn’t for her Tess retreated back into her room.

      “It sure took you long enough,” Mike Copeland said. “Fuck was you doing? Huh? Washing that nasty, stinkin’ ass…?”

      “Shut da fuck up, Mike!” Precious replied. “Where’s Melquan?”

      “That’s all you fuckin’ worry about. Melquan this, Melquan that, Melquan! Melquan! Gimme a fuckin’ break...! Why don’t you let dat nigger’s balls hang? The nigga’s in da fuckin’ kitchen. Goddamn!”

      “Fuck you, Mike! You just mad cause ain’t no bitches on your lil’ dick.”

      “Bitch, ha, ha, ya muthafuckin’ liar! A’ight! I got soo many ho’s in all area codes. Cause ya bird-ass don’t see ‘em, don’t mean they ain’t around. I don’t be lettin’ people in my BI… Ain’t you ever heard this from the old folks, ‘You keep tellin’ yo bizness you ain’t gone have no bizness.’”

      Mike Copeland and Precious had a friendly rivalry between them. There was no harm meant and all gloves were off in this friendly bickering. At the end of the day it was all love, crew love. They had each other’s back one hundred and ten percent. Still they traded insults wherever and whenever possible.

      “A yo, Precious, can you get the fuck in here and close that muthafuckin’ door?” Melquan shouted.

      Precious did as she was told, pushing past Mike Copeland to enter the apartment. She walked into the kitchen to find Melquan seated at the small wooden raggedy kitchen table. Three badly soiled dinner plates were placed in front of the three chair, along with dozens of tiny packages of clear glassine bags and Gem star razorblades. Every inch of the kitchen table was covered with crack cocaine and drug paraphernalia.

      “Hey Melquan…”

      “Yeah, what up…?” He coolly replied.

      Precious knew there would no affectionate response coming from Melquan. It was as if last night never happened and their relationship didn’t exist. Melquan had a tendency to downplay the depth of there relationship all the time, especially in front of Mike. He wanted to maintain the respect of his lieutenant, first and foremost. Melquan had an image to uphold.

      “Wow,” Precious smiled sarcastically. “How soon we forget.”

      “Forget about what?” Melquan sternly asked.

      “Nothin’ Melquan… Whatever!”

      “Mike check on that work. Maybe it’s all dry by now. We really need to bag it up and put it on the streets.”

      Mike Copeland went over to the mound of crack and lifting it up and breaking it into two, he inspected it. After the careful examination, he gave Melquan the go ahead to start bagging it up. Precious, Melquan and Mike Copeland tackled the task. Mike Copeland precisely weighed the crack before doing anything. They quickly formed an assembly line with each person performing a specific task. Mike busted the boulder of crack into dimes. Precious opened all the glassine bags, and Melquan stuff the bags full with crack. Silently they went about bagging up the crack for street distribution.

      “Oh, I almost forgot, Mel what the fuck is this I hear about you bussin’ ya gun? You know I feel some kinda way about that. That’s my specialty,” Mike Copeland said, interrupting the flow.

      “Yeah, some niggas in the shoe jumped on a crackhead. They was about ta body him. I had to do sumthin before shit got out of hand.”

      “Yeah, I heard you handled ya biz though. I heard a couple niggas salty behind that too.”

      “Fuck all ‘em niggas!”

      “Yeah, that’s what I’ve been sayin’.”

      “Anyway, who told you that…? Precious…?”

      Precious rolled her eyes and sucked her teeth at the mention of her name. She stared at the other two before speaking.

      “Why my name gotta be mentioned in everything? Huh? You makin’ me sound like some kinda snitch or something. And I feel some kinda way about that shit, Melquan.”

      “You’ll get over it. That’s why they call ‘em feelings, cause they come and go,” Melquan replied.

      “Mel, you got it twisted. Precious ain’t tell me shit!” Mike Copeland added. “You know the streets watching. Plus you already know where we at. This da fuckin’ projects… Somebody always seeing or hearing sumthin and nigga’s was blowin’ up my phone before the shell even hit the ground.”

      “Wow!” Melquan replied. “Fuck it! I did what I had to do. I don’t even wanna talk about that shit no more. That ain’t about nothing. Not to change the subject, I do wanna speak to y’all about something else.”

      “What Mel?” Mike interrupted. “Speak on it, my dude.”

      Suddenly the incessant sound of razor blades slicing through crack rock and hitting ceramic plates halted. Melquan had everyone’s undivided attention.

      “Member a while back, on the way home from City Island, when I was chopping it up with you about taking over the projects?”

      “Yeah,” Mike Copeland answered.

      “Mike, you said then the time wasn’t right. And I went with that.”

      “That was then this is now, big homie. It’s time to do the damn thing.”

      Mike Copeland couldn’t contain his excitement. He leaped out of his chair, damn- near spilling the contents of the table on the floor.

      “Mike be easy!” Precious rudely suggested. “Nigga you almost knocked all this shit over. You and your crazy-ass self...”

      “Now, this is what the fuck I been waiting for! You know me I’m into disciplin’ muthafuckers by any means necessary. With the hands, knife work or the gunplay, it don’t matter.”

      “Slow ya roll, Mike. We gon’ do this my way, a’ight?” Melquan warned.

      “Are you kidding me? There’s only one way you can do this and that’s by force. You think niggas just gon’ lay down, and let you have shit. We gotta straight smash these niggas and take all this fuckin’ money. You think big, you get big!”

      “A yo, Mike, be easy. I still got my doubts about whether we can pull this shit off.

      “What?” Mike Copeland uttered in disbelief. “Mel, we can do anything we fuckin’ want! Who gonna stop us? Tell me, who? Once we put our thing down niggas gon’ fall the fuck in line. You feel me?”

      “I hear you,” Melquan began. “But it ain’t that easy. We can’t take on the world and win. We gon’ need more people… We gonna need an army to pull this shit off.”

      “My dude, we ain’t gon’ need no fuckin’ army,” Mike Copeland assured him. “All we need is me!”

      Melquan paused and looked over at his longtime friend, Mike Copeland. He studied his face for any signs of insincerity, and saw none. Melquan saw the same bold, brash guy that he had known since they were kids. Mike’s bravado and his heart was what always endeared him to Melquan. Mike had a one track mind when it came to handling beef. He always went through