Carl Weber's Kingpins: West Coast

by Raynesha Pittman

Genres: African American Urban

Synopsis

All hail to the West Coast, where its natural resources of breathtaking beaches, smokable trees, and beautiful women are unlimited. From the freezing top of Mt. Denali in Alaska to the fly-ass architectural marvel of California's Golden Gate Bridge, the region is one of the most desirable places to visit on Earth. But for a problematic girl like Temper Chey, it's a prison, and she's dying to be freed.
Perhaps Temper's longing to escape is a result of being raised on a road less traveled in an area of South Central Los Angeles, where tourism is obsolete and gang banging and dope slanging reign supreme. Or maybe it's because of the widespread enigma of "the only way out the hood is over a thirty-foot wall." If this hood proverb is true, then being born half black and half Asian should've given her a ten-foot ladder as a head start.
Will her brief escapade with one of the most infamous Crip kingpins force her to twist, toss, and burn her exit plans? Will she give up on the promise she made to her uncle to "bust her ass" to get those missing twenty feet? Or will the chaos be the defibrillator that revives her and provides an escalator ride to freedom?

Release date: June 29, 2021

Publisher: Urban Books

Print pages: 288

Sample

It was nearly eight o’clock, and the signs of night approaching were slowly beginning to peak. Noctilucent clouds covered the sky in their beauty as the sun drifted away to its nightly hiding place. No one with vision would question why God was called the greatest architect of the universe. The sky was His canvas. The sunset was His painting, and He drew effortlessly for all the residents of Los Angeles to see. Well, everyone except Kei’Lani. She didn’t get to enjoy the free art exhibit. Her best friend Temper’s body perched on her bike’s handlebars didn’t grant her admission.

“Pedal faster, bitch!” Temper yelled.

Although little and malnourished from the junk food and beer she used as meal replacements, Temper’s body acted as a solar eclipse blinding Kei’Lani’s line of sight. She used memory to steer them to their destination. In cooler words, Temper was throwing shade, literally, and that shade prevented Kei’Lani from seeing her lap and the warm, sticky fluid that was covering it. That wasn’t to say that she would have opted to glance at it if she could. The thought alone of blood dripping made her dizzy. It was paradoxical to the coldhearted gangster bitch Kei’Lani so desperately wanted to be.

“I’m trying to, but . . .” But seeing the blood was one thing. To feel it drip like a busted pipe in the ceiling over her thighs was another. An uneasy discomfort built in her upper abdomen and sent spasms to the back of her throat. If she gagged again, she’d throw up. Thanks to her queasy stomach, she didn’t need smarts to assess the danger in the amount of blood Temper was losing. She knew only God would be able to make her friend’s bleeding stop. Although, she was sure God was too busy handling more critical stuff than to make a trip to the hood for a sinner. That assumption reminded her of the deadly situation they were in. “Is it supposed to be leaking like that?” she questioned.

“How in the fuck am I supposed to know? Just keep pedaling. I think I’m about to die,” Temper moaned, weaker than when she last spoke. The pain caused her lips to lock, suppressing her screams. She didn’t want to scare her best friend with the answer. The truth was that the only thoughts Temper could formulate were those related to her death.

“I am pedaling, but your blood is dripping all over me, and you know my stomach is weak. What if Lena’s not there? Doesn’t she go to bingo with the church tonight? Man, I think we should stop at that mom-and-pop store on the corner and call 911 if you think you’re dying. I can’t ride around the hood with you dead on my handlebars. My mama gon’ kill me.”

“Damn, you got the bingo bus rider list memorized?” Temper teased, trying to make light of the situation. “Please do me a favor and shut the fuck up so if I do die, it can be in peace. We’re a block away from her house. We might as well check, and why are you all in my ear complaining? I’m the bitch who might die on these fucking handlebars if you don’t pedal faster. Does it look like I want your big undertaker-looking ass riding me through the hood dead on this raggedy-ass bike?”

“You’re always taking shit as a joke. I’m here trying to help your crazy ass, and you still tryin’ to burn on me like this shit is a standup comedy opportunity. I got your nasty-ass Asian blood dripping on me, bitch, and you don’t give a shit about what I’m going through with yo’ selfish ass. I am trying to pedal faster. I’m nervous and . . .” Her words stopped abruptly, and the not-so-easy-on-the-ears sound of vomiting replaced them. She didn’t have time to warn Temper that the forty ounces of Olde English she’d gulped down less than twenty minutes ago were about to make their way back up and onto her back.

“I know you didn’t just call Earl all over my muthafuckin’ back. If I weren’t dying, I’d jump off these handlebars and beat yo’ ass.”

“My bad. This shit got my stomach all fucked up, and I gotta shit, too. I need a blunt, a drink, or something. I can’t believe you got me doing this. I swear if you live through this shit, I’m going to stop fuckin’ with you like my mama said.”

She continued voicing her ill feelings about making the house call instead of doing what was best, which, in her opinion, was taking Temper to the hospital. As she ripped Temper a new one, Temper lowered her head and focused on the squeaking sounds of the bike to take her mind off the pain of death moving near.

The gunshots a little while ago had seemed far away as the girls had dropped to the floor for safety behind the park’s gymnasium. The tucked-away, graffitied, piss-smelling area, with shards of glass from every beer bottle known to Angelenos covering the concrete, had become the girls’ sanctuary from the dangers that flooded their neighborhood. Whenever they needed a break from it all, they’d flee to the spot to smoke and turn up a beer or two without worrying about being seen by the wrong person or people. The girls knew everybody, and they hated that everyone knew everything about them, including their ages. Turning 18 was in their near future. However, 21 was years away. As far as the nosy adults and police assigned to their community were concerned, underaged drinking was still illegal. The girls didn’t want to catch a charge nor have a grown-up snitch telling their guardians.

As they’d smoked the fattest blunt of weed Temper had ever rolled, the sound of the shots ripping through the noise barrier had acted as an alarm, and the best friends knew the drill. One and then the other hit the floor for cover. For the girls, it was overly rehearsed choreography. It was 1998 in L.A. Guns going off, police and ambulance sirens, and the loud, choppy sounds of the ghetto bird making its daily rounds were unwanted yet unremovable occurrences to that shitty side of the city where the girls grew up. Temper used to waste hours puzzled by why that part of Los Angeles had been called the Low Bottoms. It wasn’t until she grew older that she realized it was a cool nickname given to those who lived in the bottom of the Hollywood-fueled city’s barrel. In the 1980s and ’90s, Hollywood still had the world trapped in its web of motion pictures identical to its heyday. The punchline was that Hollywood had yet to break away from L.A.

Nevertheless, being the rich and powerful Holly-Angelenos they were, they made sure to let the world know the city of Los Angeles was extremely large, so large that the city divided into multiple areas and sections. Holly-Angelenos got this message across by filming more movies and shows throughout the city so, no matter where you lived in this world, you’d know the bad sides of the city from the good. The poverty-stricken and underprivileged knew what Hollywood was doing and didn’t give a fuck. Even with the movies filming on East Twenty-fifth Street and Naomi Avenue, the Low Bottoms were still the Low Bottoms. The drive-by shootings didn’t stop on account of the cameras. Hollywood was fake, and the hood was as real as it got. Not everyone could call the Low Bottoms home. No one who made the mistake of visiting was allowed to make it home without the local gang’s approval.

Out of mere habit formed from making it out alive after a shooting, Kei’Lani had burst out laughing until she looked over and saw her friend hunched over, gripping her side, with a growing puddle of blood beneath her. She’d wanted to call 911 and get help. However, Temper had her plan in mind. That plan had landed them on a bike ride to the neighborhood nurse’s house.

“We’re here. What’s the plan now, smart ass?” asked Kei’Lani, out of breath as she backpedaled to bring the bike to a stop. There was too much weight on the bike. Her feet couldn’t rest on the pedals like usual, so she used her Chucks as kickstands on the concrete.

Temper jumped off the handlebars the same way she did every other day, except every other day she hadn’t been leaking blood outside of her monthly menstruation. The impact of her Chuck Taylors touching the sidewalk sent a shock to her already-pained side, and she nearly fell. Fortunately, Kei’Lani was there, ready to catch her as she always was.

“Like I said earlier, be ready to pull your daddy’s heat out on this bitch as soon as she answers the door.” Temper gave instructions in the slot where saying, “Thank you for having my back,” should have gone.

Despite their frightening circumstances, Kei’Lani felt that a little gratitude would have been nice. If it weren’t for the murderous look Temper gave her with the demand, “Bring yo’ ass on!” she would have played taxi by dropping Temper off and cycling away.

The entire situation was more than Kei’Lani could manage, though it seemed to be as normal as starching khakis to Temper. Temper loved dangerous situations and found comfort in drama no matter whose drama it was. She wasn’t enjoying the problem she was currently facing because this situation came with a level of uncertainty. Would she live to laugh about it another day, or would death headline an impromptu show? She didn’t know, and the pain didn’t ease to give her a chance to find out.

When they made it up the steps to the barred door, Temper let out her fears and frustrations on it through her knocks. “Don’t act all weak and shit. Get yo’ ass up out of yo’ feelings, Kei-Kei. We made it and I’m still alive. All you have to do is keep the heat in this ho’s face until she does everything I need her old ass to do. But if that ho acts crazy, pull the trigger!”

Kei’Lani nodded her head in understanding despite the fact that she didn’t comprehend anything that was happening. The girls always toted guns and only planned on using them if they had to. To Kei’Lani, this didn’t seem comparable to one of those forced times, though she knew it was always easy for Temper to make something out of nothing.

Temper pounded on the door harder and then lay on the bell.

“Who in the hell is banging on my screen door like they’ve lost their damn mind?” Lena yelled, pushing her window curtain back. She wasn’t shocked to see Temper wearing an oversized khaki shirt and pants and looking every part the gangster bitch she yearned to be. What was surprising was that she dared to bring one of her little gangbanging friends with her, a fat one weighing 200 pounds or better and wearing too much black eyeliner.

Kei-Kei, which was the only name the hood knew Kei’Lani by, had the shit swirled around her eyes to accent absolutely nothing, and she’d heavily lined her plump, weed-stained lips. If her skin tone were half a shade darker, you wouldn’t be able to tell she had any makeup on at all. Seeing that it wasn’t, she looked a fool with thinning edges, wearing a Dickies jumpsuit and a one-inch ponytail to the side gelled with Pro Styl.

To make it worse, she stood next to a skinny, half-Asian, half-black girl almost twice her height who must have gotten lost in the hood and dressed consistently with the locals. She looked like she should be doing nails or ringing customers up for a pack of cigarettes and some lottery tickets. You could see the traces of black in Temper’s DNA. Even so, the Asian was dominant. Everyone around Temper could see it, and she didn’t care, because nothing inside of her felt Asian.

Lena grabbed her metal bat from its place next to her front door with the umbrellas, and she opened the door, prepared to swing. “I thought I told you that Khasema is in jail. Whatcha gon’ do? Make him—”

Guns cocked in her face, forcing her to swallow her next words.

“Bitch, I’m not here for K-Mack. I came for you!” Temper said, moving the gun closer to her ex-boyfriend’s mother’s temple. “Now let us in so you can help me!”

“Help you with what?” Lena’s heart hammered against her chest, causing her sagging C-cups to shake in her support bra. She’d warned her son not to mess with the neighborhood scraps, and now she was going to lose her life over the mistakes his dick had made. He’d better be glad his ass is in jail. If he weren’t, I’d kill him for this shit here, she thought as she eyed Temper from head to toe, not seeing a cause for her to be asking for help.

Temper waved her bloody hands erratically in Lena’s face.

“Oh, God, sugar, where are you shot? I heard the shooting but didn’t think nobody was hit.” She gasped and then gasped again as the smell of malt liquor and vomit invaded her nose.

“I’m not shot. I’m in labor with your weak-ass son’s baby.”

“Wha . . . what?” Lena stammered.

“There ain’t no time for explanations. This is how this shit is about to go down. You’re going to deliver this baby as if you’re working labor and delivery, or my bitch Kei-Kei is going to put a bullet in the back of your head. So you can stop clutching your imaginary pearls as if you didn’t know me and your son were fucking and get to work.” Her demand came from gritted teeth as the contraction she tried to breathe through, as seen on TV, finally subsided.

“Since you put it that way, come on in,” Lena said, making a mental note not to inhale through her nose. She looked from Temper to the gun Kei-Kei was nervously waving in her face with her right hand. Kei-Kei’s left hand was up to her face as her thumb rested in her mouth while she sucked it. Lena cleared the entrance and then double-locked the door before she spoke again. “Kei-Kei, that’s your name, right? Get your thumb out of your mouth and look in that hallway closet. Bring me every big towel you can carry.”

Lena ran to the kitchen, began snatching every pot in view, and filled them with water. Even after years of working in Martin Luther King Jr. Hospital’s trauma ward, she feared for her life. The hospital, better known by its street nickname of Killer King, had gotten a bad rap sheet over the years. It became known as the go-to hospital for victims of gang shootings. Lena had grown accustomed to working under hostile conditions. This wasn’t the first time a patient’s loved one had pulled a gun on her, demanding that she play God, and since she was far from retirement, she knew it wouldn’t be the last. Despite her experience, Lena couldn’t help the urge to run out the back door and risk being killed as she prepared for the delivery. She told herself years ago, when she realized that Khasema had sold his soul to the streets, that it was only a matter of time before his street life would find its way into her house.

Nonetheless, she never imagined it would be in this form. She assumed the police would be at her door to arrest Khasema for the dope he was pushing around the neighborhood, or one of those Crips he hung around with would be banging on her door to collect money he owed them. Having a young, worthless girl in labor, claiming it was her son’s baby and forcing her to deliver it, was never a thought.

“Oh, shit!”

Lena heard Temper scream as the water began to boil and bubble out over the pots. She had another thought. This time it was about getting help. She could snatch the phone off the kitchen wall and dial 911 the next time the girl yelled in agony. She wouldn’t need to say anything to them. All she had to do was speak loud enough to Temper or Kei-Kei about what they were forcing her to do at gunpoint so the operator could get the gist of what was going on. After a moment of giving it thought, she concluded it was too risky. What if the girls catch on to what I’m doing, or the police show up at the door? Lena didn’t know a thing about the two thugs in training who’d invaded her home to judge if they’d shoot her before the police made it inside. I should’ve taken my ass to bingo like I started to.

“Kei-Kei, go see what she’s in the kitchen doing. I want this baby out of me now,” she heard Temper yell. Lena quickly turned the gas to high on another eye of the stove as she struck her match.

“What are you in here doing, Ms. Lena?” Kei-Kei questioned loudly enough for Temper to hear, while holding the gun in her shaky hand.

“I had to light the pilot to boil another pot of water. These pots aren’t enough. There’s more to delivering a damn baby than her pushing and me catching.” She rolled her eyes and managed to catch the scared look on Kei-Kei’s face. The girl’s fear didn’t go unnoticed, and Lena was ready to test her luck on it. Fuck it, she thought as she built the momentum to give it a try. “How old are the two of you?”

“Sixteen. Why?” Kei-Kei asked with her thumb back in her mouth.

“Because I don’t think you understand how serious all of this is. Do you know how dangerous it is to deliver a child into this world even at a hospital? Women die during deliveries. Her chances of survival are slim to none having the child here. Are you ready to lose your friend because you didn’t have the strength to put your foot down and take her ass to an emergency room? Yeah, if this goes wrong, I want you to know it falls on your shoulders, not mine. When the coroner comes for the body, he will want to know how she made it here while in labor. Are you ready to go down for her and the child’s deaths?”

“This is what she wanted to do. I said, ‘Let’s go to the hospital,’ and then she said you were the fucking hospital. Hell, I didn’t even know my boo was pregnant for the past year or however long it takes to have a baby until she started leaking while we were smoking and shit. I hit the ground trying to dodge the bullets, and then my bitch screamed out her water broke.” Kei-Kei couldn’t hide her fear of possibly losing her best friend. Since kindergarten they had been besties, and they even went so far as making a blood pact when they were in the fourth grade.

The girls waited until recess and snuck into the bathroom with paper clips. It was Temper’s idea, of course. “I’m tired of people saying we act like sisters. We will be sisters after this.”

Temper retrieved a paper clip out of her faded denim skirt pocket and began to straighten it before speaking again. “We have to cut ourselves until we bleed. Then we have to mix our blood, and that will make us blood sisters for life.”

Kei-Kei was scared of the effects of her blood mixing with that of a person who wasn’t black. It was the nineties, and she’d heard the life-taking and career-ending impacts of HIV and AIDS. Uncertain of the outcome, she put her fears aside. There was no doubt that she loved Temper, and if hurting herself meant they’d have this special bond for life, she was ready to do it.

She didn’t go through the trouble of straightening her clip. Instead, she pressed the point against her middle finger, closed her eyes, and twisted it until she was sure she had broken through the skin. Temper followed her actions, and then their middle fingers kissed as they recited the words Temper had told her earlier that morning had to be said.

“I will lie, cheat, steal, and kill to protect my sister. We are blood sisters for life.”

Those words they recited meant more to her than they had in the past. She erased her fears of her fate and had her sister’s back.

“Well, bitch, we’re here now, and you’re going to deliver my niece or nephew.” She reenforced her words by pointing the gun against the middle of Lena’s forehead. “If she dies, you die, and it’s as simple as that. Now what else do you need me to do?”

Lena hesitated as she stared into the eyes of the little girl standing before her. All she saw was pain. She didn’t know if the pain was from the current situation that faced them. Nevertheless, she was sure there had to be multiple sources mixing in with it, judging by her lifestyle.

“You don’t have to do any of this, Kei-Kei. You can get help with whatever or whoever is hurting you. Is she hurting you and forcing you to do all this bad stuff? I can help you get away.”

Lena stopped talking as Kei-Kei rammed the mouth of the gun against her forehead.

“Okay, I’ll just help you with this then. Grab the box of gloves and those silver scissors out of the medicine cabinet in the hallway bathroom, and let’s deliver this baby.”

Kei-Kei returned to the kitchen with the items, and Lena lit another eye on the stove. Kei-Kei stood back and watched Lena grab the dish towel by the sink and wrap it around the scissors’ handles before placing the scissors over the bluish part of the flame. Once she noticed the scissors’ legs turning black, she removed them from the flame and walked into the living room to a fully naked Temper with the head of the baby crowning between her open thighs.

“I need to shit!” Temper yelled to no one in particular.

“Not just yet. Hold on a second. I’m almost ready. Kei-Kei, look in my bedroom closet for a duckbill hair clip. It’s in a black duffle bag.”

Kei-Kei heard her, yet she was too shell-shocked to move. The smell itself was enough to bring the remaining beer in her stomach up and out of her mouth. There was no way to describe the poisonous scent in the air besides labeling it as fishy sewage. She didn’t know if it was supposed to smell that way, and she sure as hell wasn’t sure if it was supposed to look that way. She was sure the dark mass was the baby’s head making its way out of her best friend. Then again, that wasn’t the way it looked. There was hair freckled with blood, a thick, creamy off-white substance, and slime leaking from a hole she had seen in its normal state and even had her tongue in a few times for the right amount of money. They weren’t prostitutes. They just had prostitute tendencies. If their “get high” funds were low, they’d do what was necessary to get them back up. In those cases, for dollars from a dope boy or two, the girls would awaken their lesbian tendencies. To see Temper’s pleasure tunnel stretched to fit a ripe cantaloupe, coupled with that smell, sent her into shock.

“Kei-Kei!” Temper yelled. She didn’t get a response.

“Kei-Kei, don’. . .