Original story from the book The Pride of Park Avenue by Toriano Porter
The situation was real as all-get out.
“Your baby daddy is bout to die tonight!” I screamed at Keva.
Barely three months after we met, the relationship between me and Keva had become unpredictably crazy. Her man at home, Jerome, was not happy to be left all alone with their kids the majority of his free time.
The youngins were disposed to the home of the couple’s family and friends while Jerome was out looking for Keva, who was taking up her free time hanging with me.
Our time together was fun, intense and went by extremely quick.
A day with her usually went like this: wake and bake, screw, go to work, take a lunch break, drive Keva to friends or family’s home near my job, (she didn’t work, she slept in my car while I clocked in for a few hours) go back to work, finish work, pick a so fresh and so clean Keva back up from the home of friends or family, bake some more, comp some Belve and juice, hit the town, party up, bake some more and then screw.
The screwing, of course, was the best part.
One day, the party on wheels came to a screeching halt.
The deranged --yet rightfully so-- jealous-hearted father of her kids had chased me and his broad some twenty semi-odd blocks through the streets of South St. Louis, literally trying to run us off the road.
From Broadway Street and Lafayette Avenue in Soulard all the way up Lafayette to the Gate District’s intersection of Louisiana Street and Park Avenue, the cock-strong, bald-headed, dark skinned son of a bitch tried with all his might to make us wipe out.
He had just spotted the early 1990’s Ford Probe I had brought after soberly wrecking the ‘81 Chevy that Keva had praised so often during our excursions.
As mad as I was when I wreck the Chevy, I was also blessed to get out what we call in the hood a “hot box” or a “cat car.”
That bad boy was a police magnet and I was never spared the moment law enforcement caught a glimpse of the candy paint.
At one point in late 1999, early 2000, I got pulled over seven times in six months.
The candy paint paired with a broken speedometer and a 350 engine was not a good combination to ride indiscreetly.
Jerome had spotted us during one of his fact-finding missions to locate his broad’s whereabouts. It was obvious to him his broad was cheating.
The fact I called the home the two shared with the kids probably didn’t help, nor did the fact I picked her up from their digs in Soulard, while he was there no less.
The fact I called the home the two shared with the kids probably didn’t help, nor did the fact I picked her up from their digs in Soulard, while he was there no less.
Still, he hadn’t put a name or a face on the man responsible for taken his children’s mother on a three month adventure through creepville.
Keva’s three-days-at-a-time no call, no shows only made the man more furious.
He had it in his mind he was going to find out the deal and he did.
Right there at Broadway and Lafayette.
He had it in his mind he was going to find out the deal and he did.
Right there at Broadway and Lafayette.
“Oh my God,” Keva screamed prior to the chase. She was visibly shaken. Just seconds before we were laughing and giggling like school children, listening and singing along to the St. Lunatics’ “Let Me in Now”. “It’s him! It’s him!”
She was too afraid to look back over her shoulder from the passenger side of the Probe, but she made it clear we had been made.
I was cool, but a tad confused.
Dumping the ashes of the second blunt cigar we had smoked that early summer evening, I asked casually : “him who, baby?”
“Jerome!”
My heart sank.
Adrenaline shot up, then I looked. “It’s cool, we good, see what he wants.”
“Forget that,” Keva screamed, “he’s crazy. Let’s go!”
“Man, I got this,” I said, underestimating the fury that burned inside Jerome. “See what the fool wants.”
I busted a southbound U-turn on Broadway, headed west up Lafayette when Jerome’s inferno became abundantly clear.
“Keva,” Jerome not so kindly screamed from the driver’s side of the new model Chevy he drove. “You betta’ get yo’ ass home to these kids!”
I tried to remain cool.
“Hey look,” I reasoned to Keva. “I’ma pull over up there and let you out so you can get back to your kids, ma.”
Keva had been hanging out with me four at least four straight days, even though I held a full-time job.
She didn’t care and I didn’t either.
On the nights we partied up to the wee hours of the morning, she would ride with me to work, sleep in the Probe until my lunch break and I’d drop her off to freshen up at some obscure destination before heading back to the gig.
I’d pick her up later and we’d do it again.
“Naw, man,” Keva screamed. “Just drive. He’s crazy. Drive!”
So I drove. I mashed on the pedal a bit to gauge if Jerome was really intent on getting his main squeeze back in the fold.
“Where my cell phone at?” I spoke into the air. “I got to get Nell on the phone.”
The damnedest thing happened.
I had removed earlier that evening the little .25 semiautomatic I kept stashed in the Probe for security purposes.
It was a Friday.
I had gotten off work around 2 in the afternoon and made a trip - Keva in tow- to Streetside Records in the Delmar Loop.
A local rap group had scored a nice lick with Atlantic Records for the music giant to distribute their debut album and they were scheduled for an in-store appearance to promote their hit single.
The in-store was at 4 p.m., so Keva and I milled around at a few of the shops in the Loop, before we descended on Streetside.
I was scheduled to interview the group for the newspaper I worked, so the in-store made it an all around better story.
Anyway, Keva told me about a talent show her younger sister was participating later that evening at Riverview Gardens High and we made plans to make it.
I just had to run to the City after the in-store to put the strap away.
Bad enough we rolling with blunts, brew and vodka, I thought. Damn sure ain’t ‘bout to go to no Moline Acres with a pistol.
Just my luck we made it back from Moline Acres unscathed, but caught in a middle of a cat and mouse game of Speed Racer with Jerome and his cruel intentions.
The man had the look of kill in his eyes, I wasn’t strapped and I definitely didn’t know what Jerome had on him.
So I made a few calls to the people I trusted most and nobody was answering.
It’s Friday night in the City and ain’t nobody answering their cellies, I thought.
Ain’t that a blimp?
“Damn,” I mumbled to the air again, Jerome side-swiping the Probe at Lafayette and Tucker St. “Nell ain’t answering. Carly ain’t at the crib. Ain’t nobody answering my mama’s phone. This fool is trying to straight make us wipe out.”
“Hurry up,” Keva screamed again. “He’s crazy. Drive. Go faster. Drive TP, damn.”
“Look,” I said, agitated at the circumstance I was in. Jerome had continued chasing us after the side-swiping at Tucker and now we were both on a top-speed sprint towards Jefferson Ave. I blew stop signs at the Interstate entrance and Mississippi St. and a red light at Jefferson. I honked my horn incessantly to warn on-coming traffic to take heed. “We just gonna make it to the hood and everything’s going to be good.”
As both the Probe and Jerome’s Chevy made it through the intersection, Jerome tried another maneuver in the attempt to cause the Probe to lose control.
I was going at least 75 to 80 mph up Lafayette in a 35 mph zone.
He had to tap out at least at 90 mph because he cut us off three times before I made my most aggressive move of the ordeal.
I had already blew past stop signs at California, Nebraska and Compton, headed for Park Ave.
It was the summer of 2001. Somebody from the hood was out and more than likely strapped up, I thought.
I didn’t want to take the flair up to my stomping grounds but my instincts told me to get to the homeland.
At Lafayette and Louisiana, I was supposed to make a right to get to the hood but I was going too fast to make it.
Had I tried, I firmly believe I would have wiped out.
Instead, I hit the brakes, Jerome barreling down on us, dashing out of the way of the Probe’s sudden stop. Alas, I thought, my opportunity for breathing room.
Once Jerome passed us, I hit the Probe into reverse, spun out to head north on Louisiana, stopping at the corner of Louisiana and Park Ave.
“Hey man,” I yelled to my younger brother and his posse of comrades.
The young turks were milling about on the porch of the four-family flat that housed our mother as one of the tenants. Jerome had corrected himself and was giving chase down Louisiana. “Get this fool up off me.”
On command, the younger brother and his partners came out the cut with small guns, big guns, machine guns, I mean an cache of weapons fit for urban warfare.
“This fool right here,” I yelled, jumping out of the Probe, pointing Jerome out.
Jerome had seen the convoy form from the flat’s porch and managed to avoid the wrath.
He drove past us, lowered his window down and screamed, “Aw woman, you gon’ get some fools to shoot me.”
“Give me the strap,” I said to the younger brother.
He held a Tech-9 semiautomatic that I knew would tear Jerome a new one.
Before I could even consider squeezing the trigger, Jerome had vanished down Park Ave and was already at Compton Blvd.
I turned my attention back to Keva.
“Your baby daddy is about to die tonight!”
No comments:
Post a Comment