DEE, LEE, & ME

“Come on man. You have to help me,” Ronnie begged. “This nigga done said he gone kill me if I don’t get his money and you know I don’t have it.” 

Lee was unmoved by the stickiness of his friend’s situation.

“I’m not gone let him kill you but I don’t know about all this, Ronnie,” he said. “We can fuck him up and all that but he’ll come back.”

“This is a kill or be killed situation. I’m coming to you because you are my friend, man. You know I don’t have nobody. You’re all I got,” Ronnie replied to his friend’s valid concerns. 

The tears welled up in his eyes until Lee’s face was just a blur.

“Damn man. You really putting me in a fucked up situation,” Lee said grabbing his jacket from the concrete stoop and walking off the porch. “Come on!  Let’s get this shit over with.” 
-------------------------

Ronnie had already planned it all out. Knowing Greg stopped by his baby mom’s house everyday at 8, the two men crouched down in the shadow of an abandoned pick up truck and waited.

“Thank you, man,” Ronnie whispered.

The cold concrete sent shivers through their bodies. Lee pulled his jacket closer to his torso as the wind of the unusually cold autumn night blew through the cheap seams.

“I can’t keep living like this. The drugs…guns…bitches,” Lee said. “I want a better life.  I need a….” Ronnie leapt to his feet interrupting his friend’s epiphany.

“There that nigga go right there!”

Ronnie ran from behind the truck with Lee following closely behind. The normally alert Greg was totally oblivious to the unfolding events until Ronnie approached him from behind with repeated blows to the back of his head with the butt of his gun. “What, you, got, to, say, now, nigga,” Ronnie repeated.

Lee stood over them watching each end of the block. “Not here,” he finally intervened. “Put him in the car and we can take him up by the school.”

They each grabbed one end of Greg’s nearly lifeless body and threw him into the back seat of his car. Ronnie hopped into the driver’s side and pulled away from the curb in a storm cloud of smoking tires. 

The embattled trio parked in the corner of the abandoned school’s parking lot and dragged Greg’s body from the car. The ride over allowed him time to gather some strength to try to fight off his attackers, but it was all in vain.

“Take your clothes off,” Lee barked at the barely standing man.

Apparently, Greg wasn’t moving fast enough because Lee wound his leg back and kicked the man in the stomach.

“I said get naked, bitch!” 

Greg pulled his blood soaked shirt from his body and threw it to the ground. “No, nigga!  Fold that shit up,” Lee demanded. Greg paused at the absurdity of Lee’s request. Eager to comply, however, he picked the shirt up, folded it, and placed it neatly at his feet. “Now your pants,” Ronnie screamed more excited than he should have been. Greg knew then that he was going to die. He pulled his trembling legs from his pants and remembered how he had just gotten mad at his little girl for spilling juice on them. 

“I know you gone to kill me,” Greg said coolly. “Shit, at this point you have to. If you don’t I am damn sure gone to kill you… and your kids, and maybe your moms, too.”

Unmoved by his monologue, Ronnie pulled out the large knife he kept concealed in his pocket and sunk it into Greg’s gut. He could feel the edge of the blade grind against his victim’s rib cage as he plunged it deep into his body. The blood quickly draining from his open wounds, Greg stumbled forward pressing his weight against Ronnie’s thin frame. Unable to bear the load, Ronnie fell onto the glass littered concrete with Greg landing on top of him.

Lee ran to his friend’s aide, kicking Greg until his lifeless body slumped onto the ground.  Now on his feet, Ronnie continued to stab Greg’s corpse until there was so much blood on the ground that there couldn’t possibly be any more coursing through his veins. 

“That’s enough, man,” Lee said interrupting the carnage unfolding in front of him.

“Come on before some body sees us over here.” Ronnie kicked Greg one final time, picked up his cell phone, and ran to catch up with Lee. “Man, put that shit back,” Lee demanded. 

“Naw, man this is a good phone. Imma bout to sell this bitch.”

The next morning Lee awoke to the sounds of footsteps above his head. Having lived in the basement of his mother’s house for most of his life, he had become accustomed to the sounds of footsteps going in and out. He had even gotten so good that he knew who was who just by the sound of their shoes on the hard wood floors above him.

But these footsteps were different. They were not the sounds of any one who lived there. He threw on some shorts and took the rickety stairs two at a time, pausing when he got to the door where he heard the muffled bass of two stranger’s voices.  

“Lee!! Lee!! Come on up here,” his mother screamed thinking he was still asleep.
He waited for a few seconds and slowly opened the door trying to make it seem like it was his mother’s words that roused him.

“What’s up, ma,” he inquired in a voice that sounded like his breath stunk.

“These gentlemen want to ask you some questions,” she said motioning toward the two middle aged white men standing in the front room. 

“Hi, Lee,” the taller of the two said as he extended his hand to the young black man before him.

“What can I do for you?”