I stood there waiting, and for the first time in a long time, I wasn’t scared at all. I was ready for G and ready to die. The lights were on me so bright I could barely see G, but I knew he was twirling that ring with a killer look on his face.
“So you do like sucking dick, huh Juicy?”
I glanced over at Pluto. He was holding his shit through his pants.
“I guess.”
“Naw, bitch. Don’t look like you was guessing just now to me. Say that shit out loud. Don’t be shy. Say you like sucking dick, cause that’s exactly what you was doing.”
I went ahead and said it. What did it matter? “Yes, G. I like sucking dick.”
“Good,” he said. “Cause you gonna suck some dick tonight. Pluto, wake that niggah up.”
Pluto came up on stage and snatched the hoody off the brother in the chair. He turned a whole bottle of vodka over and poured it dead in the guy’s face. Ace and G started laughing as the guy sputtered and coughed while coming awake, and as I strained to see around Pluto’s big wide ass I almost passed out when I peeped who was struggling and choking in that chair.
It was Jimmy.
My brother looked more dead than alive. His face was all fucked up and blood was caked up everywhere. He had a dented gash deep in his forehead and his jaw swung back and forth like it was broken.
“Jimmy…,” I moaned, dropping to my knees in front of him. He had come back for me. “Oh, God… Jimmy-Jo… what did they do to you?”
His eyes were so puffy he could hardly open them. He reached out to touch me and I saw that his fingers were swollen and broken and pointing every which way. “You… my heart… Juicy.”
I couldn’t stop crying. “And you my soul.”
I turned to G. “What’d you do to him, G?” I screamed. “I thought you loved him like your own! How could you do him this way?”
“Bitch, you thought I loved Gino, too, but that didn’t stop you from sucking his dick!”
“Get a doctor for him, G. Please. Do what you wanna do to me, but Jimmy is hurt for real. At least get him a doctor.”
“Everything Jimmy’s gonna get is right here.”
I put my head down on my brother’s lap and cried some more. His insides were so busted up that he was bleeding from the mouth and blood sprayed out his nose every time he exhaled.
G said, “You in just the right spot, Juicy. Now, since you like sucking dick so much, pull out that niggah’s shit and get to sucking!”
I looked up. “W-w-what?”
G’s voice was cold as ice. “You heard me. Suck… his… MOTHERFUCKIN DICK!” And then he added softly, “Or watch the motherfucker die.”
A chill ran through my body and I fumbled for Jimmy’s belt. I’d suck his dick. I’d lick his ass, I’d swallow his balls, just as long as G let him live.
Jimmy fought me as I tried to get to him, cursing and protesting. “Juicy… no… stop, Juicy. No…”
Ace and his niggahs was laughing like crazy as I slapped at Jimmy’s hands, crying louder as he winced in pain from my blows. I didn’t give a fuck. I was gonna suck his dick until the skin fell off. I’d do anything to please G and to keep my brother alive.
I managed to undo the top button on Jimmy’s pants and he finally quit fighting me and let me get his zipper down, but as soon as I reached down into his underwear he brought his knee up and caught me in the chest, and if I hadn’t grabbed hold of the chair I would have fallen over backward.
Jimmy looked down at me with love and tears in his eyes and I knew the only reason my brother was here was because of me. We stared at each other for a split second and I tried to make him see without words why we had to work together, why we had to do whatever it took to keep him alive. But he shook his head no.
“I love you, Juicy-Mo,” my baby brother whispered with blood on his lips, and as I opened my mouth to tell him the same thing, he stood up and reached into his pants and then I saw a quick flash of silver and heard two thunderous booms.
The first shot got G right where he stood, and the second shot, the one that Jimmy turned on himself, sent blood and brains and shattered pieces of bone raining down all over my head as my soul broke free of his body and floated up to heaven.
Chapter Twenty-Six
As soon as the shooting stopped Moonie grabbed me and led me back down to the Dungeon. I’d screamed until my throat was raw, hysterical at the sight of my brother’s faceless body and his brain matter clinging to my skin. Jimmy’s body had landed on top of me, slamming me down to the ground and protecting me from the rounds that sank into his dead flesh as Pluto opened fire. It was a miracle, but I didn’t have a hole in me, except for the one bleeding from my heart.
Pluto had actually screamed when G went down, and if it wasn’t for Moonie he would have shot me on the spot. Click! Click! Click! Pluto kept on pulling his trigger even after all the bullets were gone, and if he’da had any rounds left my ass would be dead. Moonie and Cooter rolled Jimmy off of me, and I caught a quick glimpse of G laying against a table with half of his chest blown away.
“This is some fucked-up shit, Juicy.” Moonie took me in the tiny bathroom and tried to use his shirt to wipe the blood out my eyes. “Shit’s about to get hot cause too many niggas got emotional and fucked up!”
Moonie pulled my bloody T-shirt over my head and helped me take off my filthy panties. My period had come down earlier that morning, and I’d made a pad out of the last of the toilet tissue I’d found in the nasty little bathroom.
There wasn’t even a rag to wash up with, so Moonie turned on the rusted tap and wet my bloody T-shirt down, then used it to wash my face and chest, and get what gore he could out of my hair. I stood there naked and crying in grief, that last look in Jimmy’s eyes haunting me down to my bones.
I didn’t even know Pluto and Ace had come downstairs until they were standing in front of me. Pluto was still crying, and the way Ace was looking at me made me glad that Moonie was standing between us.
“You gonna do her, Moonie?” Pluto asked, slinging snot. “Or you want me to? Either way, this ho gotta go.”
Moonie looked at him and shrugged. “Don’t matter who do her. But Pacho is still in Brooklyn and we ain’t getting three bodies in the trunk of no Benz.” He grabbed my arm and dragged me over to the mattress on the floor, and flung me down on that nasty, cum-stained sheet. I was shaking as Moonie slipped the chain around my wrist and then looped it around the pole again and locked it. “We’ll come back for her ass later. This time we’ll make sure the bitch treats you right. And then we’ll do her.”
I tried to turn over in my sleep, but I was still chained to the pipe on the filthy mattress. I didn’t know how long much time had passed, but ants had been chowing down on me, and I’d scratched my leg down to the white meat while I was asleep. I’d been dreaming about Grandmother, and grief was all over me. I’d seen her as clear as day, wearing the same dress we’d buried her in, her smiling face still caked up with mortician makeup. “Look out for yourself, Juicy,” she had whispered to me. “Jimmy-Jo is right here with me and Cara, and that hardheaded boy is doing just fine.”
The realization that they were all gone hit me hard. I was left in this world all by myself, alone without nobody to love me or look out for me. I willed myself not to cry again, and instead I started praying, wishing Moonie hadn’t stepped in front of Pluto when he pulled out that gun and hoping that the next time Pluto pointed it at me he’d have enough heart to take me out fast.
At the top of the stairs, the door opened again, but I didn’t even bother to open my eyes. Why should I? I’d lost my soul in the G-Spot, and there was nothing left to live for anymore. I heard Pluto coming down, this time real slow, like he thought I was scared and he wanted to punk me some more. I could feel him standing there looking down at me, but if he thought I was gonna open my eyes and beg to suck his dick in exchange for my life, his ass was dead wrong. I wasn’t Cara. I didn’t even want to live.