Carl Weber's Kingpins: Snitch

by Treasure Hernandez

Genres: African American Urban

Synopsis

Blood is thicker than water! Every grimy hustler will express those words when they are out on the block chasing the bag. But when Flash’s back is up against the wall and he’s being pressured by homicide detectives, all sense of loyalty goes out the window. 
 
Flash, the son of Philadelphia drug queen pin Vickie Lopez, decides he isn't going to prison, not even for his own mother. When he’s arrested for a small amount of cocaine, he spills his guts to Philadelphia homicide detectives, resulting in the arrest and federal conviction, under the RICO Act, of his own mother. She’s staring down a life sentence.

As the clock winds down on the deal he cut with the Feds, Flash is shipped to Graterford, one of the harshest prisons in the state of Pennsylvania. His baby brother, who is North Philly’s most notorious contract killer, awaits him for a family reunion.   

With nowhere to run, Flash is forced to lay in the bed he made for himself. His past has finally come back to haunt him. Will his brother make him pay the ultimate price for betraying their mother, or will he forgive him for his sin?
 

Release date: December 28, 2021

Publisher: Urban Books

Print pages: 288

Sample

“Raul, please stop! Leave me alone! I promise I won’t tell. Mami! Leave me alone, please!”

Raul was my stepfather, and a man of God. To the Hispanic community in the South Bronx, he was known as Reverend Raul Lopez, a respectable man who preached the gospel. Those people were a bunch of assholes who were spooked the fuck out by some blue-eyed devil the white man had sold to us as Jesus.

Behind closed doors, Raul was a pervert who loved to molest little boys and girls. He started raping me when I was fourteen years old, the minute I started getting a little bit of ass and tits.

My mother decided to ignore what was happening right under her nose, because she was suffering from a serious case of low self-esteem. When I tried to tell her, she said, “If you mess this up for me, I will send you to foster care. Got it?”

In her mind, if Raul left her, no one else would want her. She sacrificed her only child for the affection of a muthafucka who didn’t give a fuck about her.

“Mami! Mami! Mami!” I screamed for my mother’s help.

“Shut the fuck up! Your mama ain’t gonna help you!” Raul hissed.

“Mami!”

I felt a burning sensation between my legs. Blood was running down the crack of my ass. I closed my eyes and prayed for this ordeal to be over. When he was finished, he pulled his pants up and walked out my room with a Bible tucked under his arm.

For the next week after that horrific experience, I couldn’t walk, eat, or sleep. I was ashamed of myself. I couldn’t look at my mother in the eyes. I refused to look at myself in the mirror.

Why me? Why me? I asked God over and over again. Why? I’ve been good to Mami! I’ve been good in school, I don’t cuss! I hate you, God! I hate you!

Raul’s voice kept floating in my head. For three months straight, Raul raped me twice a day.

A few weeks later . . .

My mother and I took a cab from Longwood Avenue to Lincoln Hospital, where doctors examined me and concluded that I wasn’t a virgin. While I lay back on the examining table, I felt violated again as a Puerto Rican doctor looked at my pussy in front of my mother.

After hearing I wasn’t a virgin, my mother insisted I get a pregnancy test. She didn’t even ask me who I’d slept with. She knew who had impregnated me.

“Is she pregnant? I want to know,” she barked.

“Let’s have a look,” the doctor said. He wheeled on his stool over to the ultrasound machine. He fired it up, put some jelly on the end of the wand, and pressed it against my belly.

We all stared at the screen. It looked like a bunch of gray and black splotches. Every time he pressed the wand, the screen would move with it.

“Ah, there it is.” He pointed to a spot on the screen. “Right there.”

There was a small gray speck on the screen, where he was pointing.

“What am I looking at?” my mother said.

“A fetus.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“A baby,” said the doctor.

That explains why I’m vomiting everything I eat, I thought.

“Thank you, Dr. Whitaker,” my mother said.

“Mrs. Lopez, I know a few clinics that could take care of this,” Dr. Whitaker said.

“No! I don’t believe in abortions! Thank you, Dr. Whitaker.” My mother grabbed my hand and dragged me out of the room. I stumbled as I tried to keep up with her.

I can’t believe she’s gonna make me keep the child of a rapist. I wanted to scream at her, but just as when Raul was raping me, I couldn’t get my mouth to work.

Being the religion freak my mother was, the bitch kicked me out on the street after my seventh month of pregnancy. You know, it was common for those in the church to turn their back on a young girl who’d been raped. As they saw it, she had had premarital sex, and even though they were all committing adultery, sex outside of marriage was a sin. A bunch of hypocrites.

For the remainder of my pregnancy, I crashed on top of the Jackson Avenue rooftops or under the steps of the 149th Street train station. Sometimes, I would just hop the six train and ride all night.

During the day, I sold pussy down in Hunts Point. By the end of the day, I was exhausted. I was turning tricks nonstop. Pregnant pussy was always a hot commodity, because it was always wet.

After I gave birth to my son, Rashad, the state of New York wanted me to put him up for adoption because I was a minor without a stable home. But my best friend, Destiny, and her mother, Carmen, came to the hospital and took custody of my son.

Carmen was a worn-out prostitute who made a hustle out of everything she engaged in. On the surface, rescuing me and my son from the hospital might seem like a noble deed, but the bitch had others plans. A month after I gave birth, Carmen became my pimp. She had me on the ho strip and took half out of every dollar I made, and I wasn’t making much.

Standing out there for hours without any action was worse than being pregnant and having to fuck all the time. At least I could lie down for a minute while the john had his way. Standing up all day hurt a girl’s legs. Before long, I got tired of hoeing and needed a day off.

“Get your ass up. Time to get out and hustle,” Carmen called as she stood in the living-room doorway.

“I’m tired, Carmen. I need a day off,” I replied, not moving a muscle on the couch.

“What the fuck did you just say?” She cut her eyes at me.

“I don’t want to trick today. I’m tired.”

“Don’t make me give your son up to the state! You know how them state babies always turn out!”

My baby was the most important thing to me. I was determined to give him a better life than the one I had had so far.

I got up from the couch, threw on my clothes, and got to my corner spot.

I put up with Carmen’s threats for three miserable years. When I turned eighteen, I decided I needed to run. One afternoon, while Carmen was taking a nap, I packed my things and grabbed my son. I tiptoed to the front door, opened it as carefully and quietly as I could. When I got outside, I closed the door without making a sound.

With my son in one arm and a suitcase in my other hand, I took off running in the direction of the train station. A train was just about to pull away, and so I sprinted and jumped through the closing train doors. I looked out the window as the train left the station. It would be the last time I looked back on my life. I wanted to forget my childhood.

I found an apartment at the Fox Street shelter in the South Bronx, and there I meet a pretty nigga named Flash, who had a lot of money to spend. This nigga was into that metrosexual shit. Eyebrows shaved, long nails, straight long hair, and a fetish for young pussy. If the nigga were to ever end up in prison, he would definitely have to fight to keep his asshole intact.

“Damn, Ma! What’s your name! When did you move in here?” he said to me while I was entering the corner store on Beck Street, a half a block from the shelter.

“Nigga, you too pretty to be spitting out that weak-ass line,” I responded, then watched him turn red in the face.

His little crew of young niggas started clowning him.

“Damn, nigga. That bitch just made you look like a fucking nut!” one tall, ugly nigga said. Then he added, “Watch dis! I bet you one hundred dollars she give me some play.”

The tall, ugly nigga grabbed a handful of my ass. My reaction shocked everyone standing around. I spit out my straight razor and let it slide across the face of that nigga, giving him a permanent scar.

“Nigga, I bet you a hundred dollars you will never touch another bitch without permission!” I said as I walked away.

“Damn. Dat fucking puta bitch is gangsta,” one fat kid said.

“Yo, B, your face is fucked up! That bitch got you real good!” another kid exclaimed.

“Man! Don’t tell me my face is fucked up,” the tall, ugly nigga said, holding his face, trying to stop the blood.

“Call a fucking ambulance! Puñeta, damn it! Get my son some help!” a dark-skinned Cuban chick yelled.

The Fox Street shelter was like a congested prison. People from all parts of the city were crammed on top of each other like rodents in a sack as they waited for Section Eight to place them into one of the city’s low-income apartments.

One afternoon, as I was walking down Third Avenue, window-shopping, I felt a gentle hand rub against mine.

“Can I talk to you?” a voice said in a friendly manner.

When I turned around, the pretty nigga I had brushed off three weeks ago at the corner store was standing in front of me with a smile on his face. I instantly spit my razor out my mouth, ready to let the pretty nigga know that I was the wrong bitch to fuck with.

“Do I know you?” I said with an attitude.

“Damn, Ma. You don’t remember me?”

“Nigga, what do you want?”

“I just want to talk to you.”

“Talk!”

“By the way, my name is Flash. Now, about the other night, don’t worry about it. That ugly nigga went back home to Florida. He was just up here visiting his father,” the pretty nigga said, as if I was supposed to be impressed with his speech.

“Trust me, my nigga, I’m not worry about anything. I know how to handle myself. But if you feel like picking up his slack, holla at your girl,” I said, holding the razor between my fingers.

“Nah, baby, the only thing I wanna do is get to know you a little better.”

“That’s a better line than the other day,” I said with a smile.

“You got jokes, huh?”

“You are a funny nigga.”

“Let’s go over to my apartment, so I can show you how funny I can get.”

“What’s that? A challenge?” I asked him.

“Something like that.”

“You ain’t saying nothing, bet!”

The second we entered his apartment, Flash undressed me, then began sucking my toes. Once he laid me down on his bed, he turned me around and began licking the crack of my ass. I was in ecstasy. I felt like I was in heaven. I pinched my own nipples.

“Give me some dick, nigga!”

Flash stopped sucking my toes and ordered me to get up from the bed. “Stand up and grab your ankles!”

He put his dick inside my wet pussy and then pulled out of me softly. Then he started rubbing his dick against my asshole, stimulating all these nerves I never knew existed. Gripping my waist, Flash stuck it in my asshole, then ground inside my ass, feeling the inside of my walls. The pain was nothing compared to the pleasure that was running through my body. When he was done letting loose, he pulled out, went into the bathroom, and washed up his dick. When he came back into the room, I was lying in bed, playing with my pussy.

“Nah, Ma. You don’t have to play with yourself. I’m ready for round two.”

That same day we fucked each other’s brains out, raw.

Flash turned out to be a typical asshole, broke-ass wannabe pimp, one who wanted to pimp me out. At first, I thought he was the truth, but once I discovered he went both ways, I kicked his ass to the curb.

It all happened when I was out shopping one day and realized I had forgotten my phone. I went back in the apartment to get it before going to a movie. There was a funny smell when I entered the apartment. I stopped to sniff. I heard a noise coming from the back room. I assumed it was Flash and my son playing some wrestling game. I was wrong. I opened the door and saw Flash bent over, getting fucked by a big black guy covered in jail tats.

“Faggot, put your pants on and get the fuck out!” I yelled.

“What do you mean? Come and join in.” Flash smiled.

“Hell no. I don’t fuck no fags.”

Flash finally put his clothes on and left. I never let him back.

The only problem was, I was eight months pregnant with my second child. Once Li’l Flash was born, I bounced from one city shelter to another. At eighteen years old, with two mouths to feed, I was forced to go on welfare.

Walking into the welfare office down on Third Avenue was the hardest thing I had ever done in my life. I had never thought once in my life that my children would become a product of the system. The welfare office was jam-packed, with nothing but Latina and Black faces. I took a number and waited to be interviewed by a social worker. After four long hours of waiting, my number was called on a loudspeaker.

The social worker behind the desk wasn’t a friendly person. She had been condescending and rude to the two girls before me. I vowed never to become that mean and angry. It was intimidating to watch the woman berate the people before me, but I was determined to feed my kids, so I swallowed my pride. I felt the river of pain that flowed through my veins.

When I reached her desk, she gave me a “What do you want?” look.

“Hello.” I smiled.

“What you need?” She scowled at me.

“Well, I hope you can help me. I’d like to apply for welfare. I have two babies, and I need help feeding them.”

“Where is your babies’ father at?” she asked condescendingly.

I ignored her. “What are the benefits I’m able to receive? I think I can get SNAP and some money for each of my children.”

She rolled her eyes and handed me a piece of paper to sign and an envelope containing sixty-five dollars’ worth of food stamps. I took the food stamps without hesitation. I needed them to feed my babies.

“I’m supposed to feed two kids with sixty-five dollars?” I yelled at the social worker. If it wasn’t for the Plexiglas separating us, I would’ve beaten this bitch down.

Walking out of the welfare office, I felt like I’d been raped of my dignity, again, for sixty-five dollars.

Life ain’t shit. Believe me when I tell you, there’s nothing in this fucking world to be thankful for. My mother, La Puta, also known as Vicky Lopez, is a stone-cold hustler who did what was necessary to ensure my li’l brother and I had food on the table and clothes on our backs. I’m the product of a rapist. I was born on my mother’s fifteenth birthday.

The streets of the South Bronx raised me. My father was any punk-ass trick willing to break La Puta off with a few dollars. For the first eight years of my life, I had more fathers than I could count. The baker from the bakery down the block. The banker from the bank on 149th Street. The gas attendant, the mailman, the funeral home director, and the store owner. My mother didn’t earn the nickname La Puta for no reason. Fucking and sucking were part of her scheme; draining niggas’ pockets was her only mission in life.

La Puta was the flyest mom on the block. When the Mister Softee ice cream truck came around, she would pull her bankroll out and buy all the li’l kids ice cream. That was how I hooked up with my niggas. Well, sort of. Actually, Grip, Dirty D, Tungo, and Miguelito were four dirty li’l niggas who stayed in trouble on the block, and I was a li’l fly nigga with all the latest gear.

I was nine years old when La Puta’s real father popped up out of nowhere and came looking for her. When he located her, she was down in Hunts Point, slinging rocks and selling pussy. At first when Ricardo approached her, she treated him like a straight trick.

“Rocks or pussy! Rocks are ten! Pussy is forty! Don’t waste my time, old head!” La Puta told Ricardo, looking him up and down, trying to see if this well-kept old head was the police or not. “Ain’t no window-shopping here, so either you cop or roll.”

“I don’t think you remember me,” Ricardo said, stroking his watch.

“Ma’fucker! I don’t remember what I did yesterday. Am I supposed to remember your fine ass or something?” By now my aunt Destiny had joined La Puta in the face-off with Ricardo.

“I guess not! But I’m your father. I know it doesn’t sound right, but let me explain. I’m really your father.” Ricardo pulled out his wallet and showed La Puta a baby picture of her. The same picture she had up in her room.

“I don’t have a father! My father died when I was three years old,” La Puta blurted out, not wanting to beli. . .