Back in the day...

  Isaac came of age during the heroine epidemic, and then made his bones during the crack epidemic. Crack was so affordable, that small time hustlers could buy the product, flip it, and flip it until they became kingpins and mafia dogs like the hustlers they had once worked for. That was how the killing started. Everyone wanted a piece of the pie, and all they had to do was gun down the crack king currently on top. But Isaac Walker didn’t play that. He had built his organization by sweat, hard work and a bullet if need be. As far as Isaac could see, he wasn’t going down, because winners went up.

  A lot of hustlers had a problem with how fast he came up in the game. Isaac and Keith had their coat tails pulled and got called out time and time again for taking more than they deserved. But they didn’t want nothing that didn’t belong to them. So, they agreed to sit down with some of the old heads and listen to their grievances.

  Isaac thought that he could shut the old heads up if he could just explain where He and Keith’s territory was. At their meeting, however, things did not go so well. No one smiled as Isaac and Keith glanced around the table. Spoony was at the head, Brown was on his right. To Spoony’s left was Stevie Johnson. Two other cats were at the table. On Brown’s left was another old school hustler named Shinny Watson and next to Stevie was Pete Jones, a guy who came up alongside Isaac. He just wasn’t closing as many deals as Isaac of late, but whose fault was that?

  “Isaac, your take has doubled in the last year, and some of the brothers here thinking that you’re trying to take over?” Spoony told him.

  “Have I ever taken anything from you, Spoony?” Isaac asked. Spoony didn’t answer so Isaac asked another question. “And don’t I still bring all my business to you? So why haven’t you already told these cats to lay off?”

  Brown said, “Look here sonny-”

  Isaac turned his cold black eyes on Brown. “You ain’t my daddy, and I’m not your son. I’m a man, and if I speak to you respectfully, I expect the same in return. Understand?”

  Brown stood up and exploded. “Boy, I will slit your throat. How’s that for respect?”

  Spoony touched Brown’s arm. “Brown, man, we came here to discuss this like reasonable men. Sit down, please.”

  Brown flopped back into his seat as he told Spoony, “You just better tell your boy to check his self, before I do it for him.”

  Stevie put his elbows on the table and tried his hand at intimidation. “Isaac, people are concerned.”

  Brown added, “And we are all a little worried about your family’s safety. People are getting uptight, thinking that you and Keith are earning money that should have been theirs. Anything could happen.”

  Isaac wanted to laugh in Brown’s face. The only family he had left was his usually-wrong daddy and he would gladly give up the address to Usually-wrong’s house if they wanted to do him a favor and kill that maggot. Thank God and good reddens was how Isaac saw it.

  But Keith was another matter. He stood up and told them, “If you think I’m going to sit here and listen to you threaten my family, you’ve got another thought coming. Bring it on,” Keith said as he strutted to the door and waited on Isaac to join him.

  Isaac slowly rose out of his chair, understanding he had now entered a game of winner take all – loser eat six feet of dirt. He nodded at Spoony and said, “I’ll see you around.”

  Spoony nodded back with a look on his face that said, “I sure hope so.”

  Over the next three months, Isaac and Keith’s cars were bombed. Their homes were riddled with bullets, so they started moving from hotel to hotel. Their runners were gunned down in the street. Isaac and Keith went to war and hit them harder than they were hit. By the end of that three month period, Stevie, Shinny and Pete were no longer of this world. The only two that were at that round table meeting left alive besides Isaac and Keith were Spoony and Brown. Spoony had arranged a meeting with Isaac and Brown and had them both agree to end the war. Isaac willingly agreed to stay on his side of town and leave Brown to his side. And with that, it was over. But, just when Isaac and Keith thought they could breathe easy again, two things happened.

  Leonard came home when Isaac was at Clara’s bringing some money to help with the bills. He’d stolen her bill money that month and the month before and they were getting ready to be evicted. Leonard walked over to Isaac as he sat at the kitchen table playing with his godson and said, “I miss you, man. How you just gon’ drop me like this when we supposed to be boys.”

  Isaac handed the baby back to Clara and told Leonard, “There’s no place in my organization for crack-heads.”

  Leonard started jumping around the kitchen like a man without hope, flailing his long arms and kicking in the air. He turned back to Isaac and pulled at his worn and tattered clothes and asked, “Do you think I want to be like this?”

  “We warned you more times than I can count about sampling the product. Is it my fault that you wouldn’t listen?”

  Leonard walked over to Isaac and got on his knees. “Help me, man. Don’t you see me? Look at me, Isaac. I need help!”

  Isaac was saddened by the man that knelt before him. Leonard’s cheeks were sunken and he had the ashen look that crack-heads get. His boy had sunken low and Isaac sat on the sidelines while it happened. “I’ll tell you what,” Isaac began. “If you agree to go to rehab, then I’ll have your back all the way.”

  Leonard stood up and stepped away from Isaac. “Ah man, them rehabs don’t work. Why you want to make me waist time like that when I could be back on the block helping you?”

  “If you’re serious about getting clean, it’ll work. Take it or leave it.”

  Leonard tried to reason with Isaac but Isaac, grabbed his keys and walked out of the house with one last parting remark to Leonard. “Have Clara call me when you check into rehab. I’ll send you some roses.”

  Isaac received a call from Joey, one of his runners. Joey told him that Keith needed to get over to his mother’s apartment a-sap. Isaac got Keith on the phone and told him, “Man, you need to get over to your mom’s place. Something has happened.”

  “I told you I don’t want to be bothered by her drama anymore?” Keith said.

  “You need to get over there, Keith. One of my runners just called and told me that the ambulance and police are at her place.”

  When they hung up, Isaac sped towards Ms. Doretha’s apartment on the lower South Side. He pulled up at the same time Keith did. He watched as Keith jumped out of his car and ran up to one of the police officers. Then Keith turned and watched the paramedics bringing the bed out of the apartment with a body bag on top of it. He ran over to them. The police officer followed, trying to hold him back.

  “Get off me, man. That’s my Mama,” Keith yelled as he trotted forward.

  The paramedics set the ambulatory bed down and stood in front of it, waving Keith away. “You don’t want to see her now, sir,” One of them told him.

  Isaac ran over to Keith and tried to pull him away also. But Keith jerked away. “I have a right to know if that is my mother.” Keith pointed at the body bag.

  “She’s been cut up, man. Don’t do this to yourself,” the other police officer said.

  Keith grabbed the bag and quickly unzipped it before he could be stopped by anyone. A thin arm fell out, but Keith wasn’t looking at the arm. He was looking into the slashed and bloody face of Doretha Williams. He put his arms around her and became covered in blood because her chest was cut-up as well. Keith didn’t notice how bloody he was becoming. He just wanted to hold his mother one last time. “I’m sorry. You hear me?” he asked her. “I’m sorry.”

  Isaac pulled Keith off of his mother so the paramedics could close the bag back up. Keith tried to fall back on the body, but Isaac grabbed him. Tears were streaming down Keith’s face as Isaac hugged him. Isaac’s own mother had been carried out by the paramedics covered in blood. So as they hugged, Isaac and Keith became forever bonded in blood.

  “Come on, man. Let me take you home,” Isaac said.

  “No. I can’t leave her like this, Isaac. She needs me, man.”

  “You’ve got to get out of here. Let these people do their job.” Isaac tried to pull Keith away again, and this time Keith allowed him. He took Keith over to his car and opened the passenger side door for him. “Get in, Keith. I’ll have Valerie come pick up your car.”

  Keith sat in the car numbly as Isaac drove. He then clenched his fist and smashed it against the dashboard. “Brown did this. I know it in my gut.”

  Isaac didn’t say anything, but he had been thinking over the probability of Brown having something to do with Keith’s mother’s death. Ms. Doretha had been prostituting to get her drugs. Anyone could have done this as far as Isaac was concerned.

  “We should have killed him right along with the rest of them.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you what,” Isaac said. “Let’s check into it, and if Brown had something to do with this, then his family will finally get to cash in his insurance policy.

  ~~~~

  As it turned out, the killer just about begged the police to come and get him. He’d left his fingerprints all over Doretha’s apartment and body and bragged to numerous friends about the murder. Michael Hopkins was arrested in a coffee shop that was owned by Brown. And it was no wonder that the murderer was arrested at Brown’s coffee shop, since he was one of Brown’s top soldiers.

  Keith and Isaac were watching the news while Valerie fixed steaks for them. The arrest was televised, so after watching Michael Hopkins get carted out of Brown’s coffee shop, Isaac and Keith looked at each other and nodded. That night they went out in search of Brown and whoever might try to get in their way. They found him at Fat Al’s juke joint. It was ten at night so there was only four people in the joint; Fat Al, Brown and two of Brown’s henchmen. Brown was sitting at a back table sucking on a barbecue rib bone. His men were at the bar. Isaac and Keith sat at Brown’s table and trained their guns on him from underneath the table.

  “Isaac told Brown, “You shouldn’t have done it.”

  Brown put his barbecue down and asked, “What are you talking about?”

  “We hadn’t tried to move in on your operation. We hadn’t bothered anything of yours, but the way you had Keith’s mother cut up.” Isaac shook his head and then finished with, “We can’t let that go.”

  Brown turned to Keith. “I didn’t do anything to your mother. Don’t act crazy and get yourself killed in here.”

  “Brave talk for a dead man,” Isaac said.

  Brown laughed in Isaac’s face. “Man, get out of here before you get hurt.”

  “We never forgot how you warned us about our family, Brown,” Keith said.

  “And now we’ve got a warning for you,” Isaac said, and then pulled the trigger and shot Brown in the gut.

  Brown began lifting out of his chair. “You can’t shoot me,” he said.

  But Isaac must not have understood him because he lifted his gun and shot him again; this time in the head. As Brown fell face forward on top of his barbecue, Keith shot two of Brown’s henchmen as they tried to pull out their guns.

  “What’s up, Fat Al,” Isaac asked as he pointed his gun at him.

  Fat Al raised his hands. “I’m not taking sides, Ike-man. I’ve got a family and I just want to get out of here and see them again.”

  “You remember your family when the police ask you about this. Okay?” Isaac said as he and Keith backed out the door.

  5

  Jude hadn't been able to get a flight out of Los Angeles until the next morning. He'd left his house at five a.m. for a seven a.m. flight. Alexa still hadn't come home by the time he left and he didn't bother to leave her a note because as far as he was concerned, it was over. No need to leave a note for that.

  What had caused Alexa to think that she could stay out on him all night and still have a home to come back to, Jude didn’t know. But she would soon discover that she played herself. He would have her stuffed moved back to her apartment while he was in Ohio, but for right now his only thoughts were of his father.

  The formidable Isaac Walker had fallen. He'd been struck down by the ticking time bomb inside of him. Jude had wanted to talk to his father for weeks. But he'd avoided calls or made excuses for why he couldn't talk long, all because of the doubts that had been plaguing him since Stephen's untimely death.

  If his father died before he could get to him and thank him for being the man he was... the man who taught him how to stand on his own two feet and become a man in this world that his family could be proud of. But lately, Jude hadn't been proud of himself. Micah had been right, he had sold out his values as he'd tried to forget everything that God had put in his heart... things he was called to do.

  As he landed in Ohio, Jude prayed that his father was still alive. He needed the old man to give him a good kick in the rear one more time. He got off the plane and waited for his luggage. His cell phone rang and Jude saw that it was Alexa. He really didn't want to talk to her, but he wanted her packed and out of his house before he got back home, so he answered the phone.

  "Jude, hon, I know you're at work, but I just wanted to let you know that I'm okay. My car got a flat tire last night so I just stayed over at Darlene's house. I knew you wouldn't want me out in the middle of the night trying to get a tire fixed."

  He didn't even care enough to ask why she didn't call him or triple A. "I'm not at work. I'm in Ohio. My father had a heart attack last night."

  "Oh Jude, I'm so sorry. If you would have waited for me to get home, I would have flown out there with you."

  "Don't worry about it."

  "I just don't want you coming back here even more depressed than you already are. I couldn't take it if you moped around here one more day."

  "When I said don't worry about it. I meant that you don't have to worry about any of it, because I want you out of my house before I get back to town."

  “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  “You don't mean that."

  "Oh but I do. Pack you stuff and take it back to your apartment. You can leave my key on the table in the foyer."

  “So, you’re that mad about me not coming home last night? Can you blame me for not wanting to be here with the way you’ve been acting lately?”

  “I don’t blame you, Alexa. I’m just done. It is over between us.”

  “I wasn’t out fooling around last night if that’s what you think.”

  “Alexa, listen to me and listen good. I don’t care who you were with last night. Go be with them again tonight. But do it after you pack your stuff and get out of my house.” He hung up and kept it moving.

  When Jude arrived at the hospital, his brother Donavan and sister Iona were seated in the waiting area of the intensive care unit. He hugged both of them.

  Iona kissed him on the cheek. "I sure have missed seeing your big head around here."

  With his dad in the hospital and the fact that he hadn't been keeping in touch lately, Jude felt guilty about his actions. Lowering his head, he admitted, "I should call more, I know."

  “Call, and visit," Donavan chided.

  His brother and sister could get on his case all they wanted, but before their conversation went any further, Jude had to know... "How's dad?"

  Smiling, Iona said, "Last night was touch and go. But he's responding to the medicine the doctor gave him."

  "Will they let me in to see him?"

  "Momma's in there with him right now. As soon as she comes back out here, you should be able to go in." Donavan told him, then added, "Dad will be real glad to see you. This might be the boost he needs right now."

  "I thought you said he's doing better? I didn't come all the way back here just to watch my father die."

  "Calm down, Ikee." Iona put a hand over her mouth then released it. "I keep forgetting that you're a grown man with your own identity now."

  "You can call me Ikee, Sis. I don't mind. It's not as if I don't like my name. I just needed to differentiate myself from the great Isaac Walker as I was building my own identity in the business world."

  "We understand that, Donavan said as he palmed Jude's head as if it were a basketball.

  "Don't start that stuff," Jude told him as he backed away from his brother.

  "Oh, you too grown for that too, huh." Donavan shook his head. "I want my little brother who went off to college vowing to stay the same."

  "Don't listen to him," Iona said as she stood in between her brothers. "You've done good. My kids are even using your Find It app to do some of their homework."

  Jude gave a weak smile at Iona's praise, because no matter how much good that app has done with kids in school, he knew in his heart that it wasn't doing what it was originally designed to do.

  The doors to the ICU opened, Nina walked into the waiting area, but as she looked up to see her youngest son, her eyes misted and she stopped in her tracks. "Son."

  "I'm here, Mama. I'm here." Jude rushed to Nina's side.

  Nina wrapped her arms around her son and began rapidly speaking in a language that Jude could not interpret. She was speaking in tongues. Her body shook as if she had caught the Holy Ghost and was about to dance down the aisle of the waiting room. "My son, my son," she finally said once she began speaking in her native tongue again. "How we have missed you."

  "I'm sorry I didn't come home sooner Mama. If I would have known that daddy was sick, I would have. I promise I would have."

  "It's not too late Judah. Your father is still alive, so the two of you can make peace and then you can deal with whatever it is that is keeping you away from us."

  Jude wished with everything that was in him that what his mother said was true. But he didn't know how to tell her that it wasn't his earthly father he needed to make peace with. And until he could finally come to terms with how he must has disappointed his Heavenly Father, Jude didn't see how there could be much peace.

  6

  “Why did you scare me like that, Old Man? You and mom are supposed to stay alive long enough to babysit for me. It’s only fair... I mean, y’all been watching Donavan’s and Iona’s big head kids all this time,” Jude joked with Isaac.