“OK, good. Say no more, I’ll be back in town on Tuesday so I can cut that check.”

“Bet,” Lamar said, parking behind a line of cars like a drug distribution drive-thru.

Screw, a local dealer, walked up to the Impala’s window, and said, “What’s up Lambchop? Ain’t seen you in a minute.”

“Laying low,” Lamar said, hopping out of the Impala, shaking Screw’s hand.

Screw asked, “You heard about that shit that just happened up at the Germantown masjid?”

“Naw, I ain’t hip.”

“Somebody just texts me about it. They saying someone slid in there, sat in the khutbah, offered salat, then popped three nigga’s tops. And a sister, too.”

Damn. “Wow,” Lamar replied, feigning surprise. “They all died?”

“Not sure, it just popped off. I feel sorry for whoever shot up a place of worship when the feds get him. That’s a hate crime. The woman was pregnant.”

“Dat’s fucked up,” Lamar said. “Five bodies in one shot,” he added like he wasn’t the man behind the terror. “Let me get ten zanies and two Os.”

“Hold up. I can handle that.” Screw reached in his dip and gave Lamar what he asked for and received his payment.

Lamar smirked inside at the thought of how fast the incident had picked up and circulated. “Thanks, man, let me get up outta here. I ain’t tryinna be out here too long. My burner, y’alls burners, and y’alls work equals one big conspiracy.” Lamar laughed.

“I can dig it. Make sure you get at me, though, bull,” he replied, shaking Lamar’s hand.

Lamar pulled off, swallowed two pills and an ounce of promethazine before he was a block away. High as he planned to get, he was sure to catch another body before the day was over: the mixture of drugs and rage, he was sure to turn into another person, if that was even possible.

Driving back to Southwest, he began to fall in and out of consciousness: dozing off and quickly waking back up. It was a stifling hot day. The drugs took effect, and Lamar knew he couldn’t make back to the block safely, but that didn’t stop him from trying.

Before getting on the expressway, he decided to stop and buy gas. He pulled up to the pump and despite his high noticed a lot of activity going on around him. Getting out of the car he watched a bunch of losers and hustlers and weirdos, wandering around trying to sell everything, under the sun.

“Dick sucks out,” a woman said to him, as he walked by her, as commonly as a street dealer said, weed out to let passerby know that they had weed for sale.

Damn, she doesn’t even look like she would be out here if not for the drugs that she must be on. What the fuck are you thinking, he thought. You’re out here high as shit thinking of picking up this bitch for a cheap dick suck.

Lamar paid for his gas, exited the store, and got next to his car when he was accosted by a young man, asking to pump his gas in exchange for one dollar. Lamar handed him a ten, told him to pump the gas, and then walked over to where the woman that had offered him the dick suck. Ten minutes of chit chat later, they were in his car, driving down Girard Avenue.

“Make a right at the end of the zoo. Drive down some, and then park up. Imma sucks on ya dick right outside of the monkey exhibit.”

What the fuck, he thought, pulling to the sidewalk. The way the drugs had kicked in, she looked like a monkey. He parked, pulled his jeans down around his waist, and reclined his seat back.

Grabbing his dick, she said, “You got a big ole thunder stick. I should charge you extra.”

“Naw, a deal is a deal. Twenty for a nice deep throat.”

“I can’t deep throat all that.”

“Try,” he said, grabbing the back of her neck.

Twenty minutes later, Lamar was so relaxed from her throat massaging his dick, and the pills taking a greater effect, he had nodded. His companion heard him let out a little snore and popped his dick out of her mouth.

Sitting up, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and looked at him. He was asleep, but she had to be sure. “You fell asleep on me, baby?”

He did not answer.

“I hope you ain’t the fuck dead with my DNA all over ya dick.”

WHEN LAMAR OPENED HIS eyes, he was greeted by the flashlight of a Philadelphia PD officer.

“Get your pants up, freak,” the cops said, “and then hand over your license and registration.”

The moment was foggy. Lamar couldn't put together where he was or why the fuck is my pants down.

“I don’t know what you’re doing here, but I am going to get to the bottom of it,” the cop said. “When we get calls from zoo security that a man is outside of the city’s zoo with his pants down, we think sexual predator.”

“I’m not,” Lamar said, buttoning his pants. He went into his glove box for a fake New Jersey driver’s license and handed it to the cop. “If you must know, I was getting this gun ate up.”

“Gun?” the cop asked, reaching for his. “Put your hands on the steering wheel. Now.”

Lamar complied, and added, “I’m talking about a dick suck, officer. I nodded off ‘cause that shit was so good it put me to sleep.”

“See, this is why any attorney tells his client to keep his mouth shut. Sex in a car is illegal, sir. But your dumb ass probably didn’t know that. I’m going to go run your name, man. Hang tight.”

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Lamar was pissed. His high had been slept off and he was back to reality. He looked around, remembering why he was there with his pants down. He pats his pockets. Jumped. Punched the steering wheel. Digging his hand into his pants pocket, he shook his head in disgust. They were both empty. The trick has robbed him for over a thousand dollars. Looking up, the officer was back at his window with a frown on his face. More bullshit, he thought.

“Listen here,” the cop said, handing Lamar his license. “I know you’re young and sex in the car is a fun and adventurous thing to do, but this looks more like a prostitution situation. Why? There is no woman or man here, and your pants were still down. And you were asleep. Either way, I don’t know, and I don’t care. What I do know is, you need to stay from around this area, and definitely not be found parked outside of the fuckin’ zoo with ya dick out every again in life. That is just not going to look good on a police report, and I am not trying to sit on a jury and say that I walked up and saw your fuckin’ dick out. So, today is your lucky day. You have no warrants, so I am going to let you ride off without any problems, but make no mistake, I have recorded your name and this car into my notes. I won’t forget you, as you’ll be forever in my mind as the dickhead parked outside the zoo with his dick out. Have a good one.”

“Thank you, officer,” Lamar said humbly. Pulling off, he was grateful to get out of there with a warning. I was caught with my pants down, and that actually paid off, he thought. Had they not been, the cop would have probably done that field sobriety bullshit, and locked my ass up for DUI. I would have been locked up and robbed. He laughed out loud and hauled ass back to Bartram Village, short one thousand dollars and he didn’t even care.

CHAPTER 27

Monday afternoon, gasping for breath in an intense state of excitement, Sean Mason, had rushed to his cell from mail call at the state penitentiary in Graterford, Pennsylvania. He gently tore open the envelope with the words PICTURES DO NOT BEND written on it. He chest rising and falling. Thumbing through the pictures, he couldn’t believe that he was looking at the second group of photos from his daughter, Nikia. He touched the edge of a photo, his eyes zeroing in on a particular woman, his baby’s mother, Kesha. He hated her. The years had been good to her, though, as she remained a beautiful woman, somewhere in her mid- to late-forties. She had a short auburn hair style and chocolate-brown eyes set closely together above defined cheekbones. Despite her physical attributes, he could not wrap his mind around her denying him fatherhood.

“Look at my lovely, young lady.”

His head hung low, his mouth opened, and a look of pleasure spread across his face. He kissed the photo.

“Til death,” he said, cutting Kesha’s face out of the picture.

He pulled out his photo album and placed the pictures inside amongst the hundreds of pictures he had collected over the past twenty-two years. He flipped through some photos reminded of his pals, Mossberg and Roc Wilda, who he ran with before his arrest. Mason didn’t like how they had let his hard work building the block go to waste; and, he couldn’t wait to get back out to reclaim his fame and his block from the young punk, Lambchop. A man that he’d never met or even seen.

He was pressed to get his block back as if he had another twenty years in him.