The Day the Streets Stood Still

by JaQuavis Coleman

Genres: African American Urban

Synopsis

New York Times bestseller JaQuavis Coleman’s The Day the Streets Stood Still is an intricate, fast-paced street thriller that tells a bold story of true love, addiction, and murder.

Sean was raised by a hustling, well-connected mother who taught him early about street survival. When she is brutally murdered, Sean is thrust into a cold world all alone, until an old friend of his mother takes Sean under his wing and introduces him to a life of drug dealing at its highest level. Sean becomes King Sean, making a solid name for himself and rising quickly up the drug game’s totem pole.

Sean’s only weakness is a beauty named Sunny, who is a friend from childhood—and the love of his life. Sunny has a problem with drugs, and as she travels down her own path of addiction, Sean falls victim to the vice as well—and his downward spiral from street fame will be filled with murder, lies, backstabbing, and a struggle to survive.

Walk along the journey with Sunny and Sean as they hit rock bottom, stealing and lying to support their addiction. Someone will die, but not until the end will the truth be revealed.

JaQuavis Coleman delivers another instant street classic with The Day the Streets Stood Still.

Release date: October 1, 2014

Publisher: Urban Books

Print pages: 288

Sample

“Oh, yes! That feels so good.” The moans and groans coming from behind the door were driving Sean crazy as he sat scratching his arms, legs and crotch like a million bugs were feasting on him. He had that dope itch and he needed a hit real bad, but he was preoccupied with what was happening on the other side of the door. The sound of “Sexual Healing” by Marvin Gaye played from an old CD player sitting next to him and as bad as he wanted to smash the radio to drown out the song, the CD player was the last of his belongings that he hadn’t sold.

“Yeah, that’s it,” Sunny’s voice filtered through the makeshift door. “Ahh yeah.” Sean curled up his fists and pounded on his knees, silently praying that the music would drown out his sorrow as a lone tear made its way down his face. Images of Sunny’s face, twisted with a look of lust and ecstasy flashed in Sean’s mind and the music just seemed to make his imagination run wild even worse. That was his and Sunny’s song back in the days, when things were right with them. He closed his eyes now, picturing how fine Sunny was when he first met her—her long silky hair, her beautiful face with its delicate features, and her striking green eyes—had all captured him then and never let go of their hold on him.

Now he sat listening to his woman sucking and slurping and moaning with another man. Sean bent over, cradled his head in his hands and hit himself in the head trying to get the visions to stop. What had he done to her? What had he allowed her to do to him?

Finally tired of sitting like a lame duck waiting to be fed, Sean jumped up from the filthy, threadbare couch he had been holding down inside of the drug haven he once owned. It had once been one of his most lucrative traps, but it was far from that now. Now, it was what they called a shooting gallery for fiends from all over the city. The darkened railroad flat had fiends in every corner shooting up, smoking, or sniffing their poison of choice. Sean jumped when he heard a scream coming from behind him. Two fiends were fighting over a pipe, the dude lifted his foot over and over again and stomped the woman mercilessly until her face was covered in blood.

Sean’s legs were weak, he needed the package or else he was going to be sick in a minute. He jumped around trying to keep the monkey from crawling up on his back. From the sounds of it, Sunny was going to come out on top with the job she was doing and they would be able to get high. It seemed like an eternity that she had been behind that door with the young dope boy that had agreed to give Sunny two packs of heroin in exchange for sex.

Doubt was setting in on Sean and he was regretting the suggestion he’d made that Sunny get their package this time. He would usually take the lead with scoring, even if he had to stick up a store or snatch a purse or two, but tonight he was too sick to pull it off. Sunny and Sean had run out of scams since everybody knew them as mere fiends looking to score now. Sean had run out of favors on the streets and his name was mud with all the street cats that he used to deal with and even the ones that used to work for him. His reign at the top of the game didn’t mean anything anymore.

Sean had to kick away empty beer bottles, empty crack vials and used needles to make a pathway to walk. The stench of garbage, shit, vomit and burning crack didn’t bother Sean when he was high, but now, the odors were working his stomach. Either that or the sickness of needing a hit was getting the best of him.

“Ouch! Watch where you goin’, nigga!” a butt-naked fiend screeched. Sean stumbled as she pushed him. He looked down at her strangely. She was laid out on the floor, pussy bare trying to feel for a vein on her inner thigh to hit. Her titties were shriveled like prunes and her hair was gone in patches. He remembered when she was a striking beauty that frequented his many establishments back in the days. Sean’s eyes were wide and sweat dripped down the sides of his face. He hated when the memories of better times flooded his brain, making it harder for him to forget how much he had lost.

It was surreal how fast things could change. Sean whirled around and looked out on the entire room. The floor could barely be seen; every inch was covered with either a body or garbage or drug paraphernalia. Old food containers were scattered around with mold inches thick growing on them. There were flies buzzing all over because of the random piles of human feces that littered the floor. It wasn’t strange for a fiend to pull their pants down and relieve themselves right in the room rather than risk leaving and losing their spot or worse someone stealing their drugs.

Sean averted his eyes to a line of dudes on the wall opposite from where he stood all in different stages of taking a hit—one was sucking the end of a glass pipe; one had the end of a belt in his mouth and a needle jammed in the crack of his arm; and one was sniffing a newly crushed pile of crystal meth. He scanned the room some more and his heart broke when he noticed a pregnant chick lying on a dirty foam mattress letting three dudes take turns having their way with her. Thoughts of Sunny popped into his mind.

Sean turned and went to knock on the door to get Sunny out of the room, but he paused when he heard her giggling and groaning like she was having the time of her life. He felt like someone had stabbed him in the heart as he listened to her.

“Oh, baby. Yeah, fuck me, baby. Yeah, daddy.” Sunny moaned, sounding like she was in heaven. Those were words Sean had thought he’d only ever hear her say to him. His chest heaved now, but the aching inside of him for the drugs wouldn’t allow him to bust in the room and grab his woman. He put his back up against the raggedy wall and slid down to the floor. With his radio on his lap, he turned up the music and let the tears roll down his face as he waited for Sunny.

After what seemed like an eternity, the graffiti-covered door creaked open. Sean got to his feet swiftly, his jaw was rocking feverishly and he clenched his fists at his side. Sean watched the young dope boy bop out of the room smiling with sweat glistening on his face and chest. His pants were still unbuttoned and halfway off his waist where the butt of his gun peeked out. He eyed Sean up and down with a smirk and then laughed at him. Sean looked at the kid with his thick gold Cuban link chains dangling around his neck and his slick True Religion jeans and Louboutin sneakers fitting him perfectly. Sean remembered when he was on that side of the game, wearing nothing but the best clothes, shoes and jewels. He felt ashamed now, standing there in his dirty, faded jeans, beat-down Nike Air Force Ones and a fitted cap so dirty the team name was barely visible anymore.

“That’s a sweet piece of pussy you got there. I can only imagine how much sweeter it was before the whole town ran up in those guts,” the young boy said to Sean snidely. Sean lifted his fists, but quickly but them back down when he thought about what would happen to him if he bucked on the young kid. Sean was once one of the most feared men on the streets but that had changed too.

“I guess you ain’t king no more, huh? King Sean,” the kid taunted, waiting for Sean to react so he could clap on him and make a name for himself.

Sean’s chest rose and fell rapidly. His radio went crashing to the floor and he bit down into his jaw. The young boy stopped in front of him and pulled his weapon. He sat it on Sean’s shoulder in a bold show of bravado.

“Remember when I worked for you and you beat my ass within a inch of my life that time?” the kid asked, then he lifted his gun and cracked it across Sean’s head.

“Ahh.” Sean winced crumpling to the floor in a heap. The kid stood over him and laughed.

“Damn, now I got your bitch working her jaws for me and ain’t shit you can do . . . fucking fiend-ass nigga. You wasn’t never no king in my eyes,” the kid said viciously. Then he bopped away, leaving Sean scrambling up off of the floor with his pride and manhood crushed.

Sunny stumbled out of the room with her lipstick smeared, her hair an untamed mess and her cat green eyes wild. She refused to hold eye contact with Sean as she dug into her purse for the tiny bottle of mouthwash she had stolen from the drugstore earlier. Finally locating the bottle, she popped it open, took a swig of the mouthwash, gargled it and spit it right on the floor of the dilapidated house. It was all she could do to wash the taste of another man from her lips.

“You ready? I got a twenty for that and I’m hitting more than half for all of my hard work,” Sunny smacked her lips and said with a disrespectful tone. It had been hard for her to maintain her respect for Sean and even harder for her to hide it. Sean got to his feet and pushed her back into the room. He snatched the bundle of heroin from her.

“You ain’t doing shit unless I say you doing it,” he growled, grabbing her collar forcefully. “You enjoyed that shit right? Right?” Sean barked in Sunny’s face.

“Don’t do that, Sean! Give it back to me! I worked for that!” Sunny whined like a baby, being real careful with her words. She knew how he could get when it came to sharing the drugs and with his already-bruised ego rearing its ugly head, Sunny knew Sean could be violently unpredictable.

“You get what the fuck I give you,” Sean spat, squeezing the packs in his hand like he never wanted to let them go. Sunny burst into tears, something she knew would tug at Sean’s heart. She had been working that trick on him since they were kids.

“But since you worked for it like you like to remind me, I’ma let you hit first,” he relented, softening his tone.

Sunny hurriedly pulled out her works and with shaky hands she tied the belt around her arm. Sean pulled it for her so she could feel the best vein since the room was too dimly lit to see that well. He tossed one of the little black balls of heroin into the spoon and lit the bottom of it. Sunny was salivating as she watched him cook the drugs with a hawk’s eye.

When it was ready Sean loaded Sunny’s needle and touched the fattest vein in her arm. She looked at him, her once-flawless face finally showing the signs of her addiction. Sean turned his eyes away from her face, it was too painful to see her looking like she did now.

“Do it, baby, hurry up,” Sunny whispered in her deepest sex kitten voice. Sean sniffled back the snot threatening to drip from his nose and plunged the needle into her arm easing the poison into her vein.

“Ssss.” Sunny winced, her body relaxing against the chair. Her head fell back and her eyes rolled up into her head until only the whites were visible. Sean pulled the belt loose so the drugs could move through her system with ease.

“That shit must be real good,” he said as he watched her head roll back forward and her chin fall to her chest.

“Yo, I’m next so c’mon,” he demanded anxiously. Sean started cooking his portion of the heroin as his mouth watered waiting for the hit.

“A’ight you ready to hit me?” he asked without looking at Sunny. All of a sudden Sunny’s legs did something funny that startled him.

“What the fuck?” he whispered. “You almost made me drop my shit. Stop the shit and get up and help me hit this shit. Don’t be so fucking selfish all of the time,” Sean growled at her. Then Sunny’s body jerked like she had been hit with a bolt of lightning and she fell off the chair. Sean dropped the drugs, let go of the belt around his arm and fell down at Sunny’s side.

“Baby! Sunny! Wake up!” Sean yelled, grabbing her into his arms. Sunny’s body began convulsing and her eyes were completely white. Her legs flopped around like she was being electrocuted.

“Sunny! No! C’mon!” he yelled, slapping her face vigorously. White foam was spilling from her mouth and her body bucked so wildly even he couldn’t hold on to her.

“Help me! Somebody, help me! Help me!” Sean screamed frantically. But there was no one in that house that would care enough to call an ambulance. No one would dare call 911 and risk having the cops bust up in there and break up their getting high.

“Help me . . . God, help me,” Sean whispered through tears as he held Sunny’s face up against his. He could feel her starting to get cold.

Finally Sunny’s body went still. Sean laid her head down and looked down into her face. He couldn’t stop the tears from falling as his body jerked with sobs. He hadn’t cried like that since his mother had died.

“Sunny!!” he screamed at the top of his lungs. “You can’t leave me! I need you!” he hollered some more. He lay his head on her chest and there was no sound. The heart he had fallen in love with so many years earlier was no longer beating.

“I did this to you. I did this to you,” Sean said, his voice trailing off and his mind reeling backward.

Summer 1992

“You tryin’a play me, nigga? What I look like my name is? Where the fuck is the rest of my money!”

Sean’s eyes popped open when he heard his mother screaming. He crept out of his bed and opened his bedroom door a crack. Even over the loud music blasting through their house, he could still hear her yelling.

“Oh, you think because I’m a bitch you can short me? A’ight, I got something for that ass,” his mother spat. Suddenly she was storming in Sean’s direction. With his heart racing, Sean jumped back into his bed and pretended to be asleep. He knew if his mother caught him watching she would tear him up. When Sean heard her footsteps pass his bedroom again, he got back out the bed and cracked the door open again.

“A’ight . . . I’m a ask you one more time. Where is the rest of my fucking money?” his mother gritted. Sean’s eyes grew wide when he saw his mother pointing a black handgun at the man cowering in front of her. His mother looked like one of Charlie’s Angels standing there dressed in a pair of sexy cutoff jean shorts, a gold tank top with no bra underneath and a pair of gold stilettos, holding her gun out in front of her with her shoulders locked like a professional.

“C’mon, Mook, don’t do me like that. I’m always square with you. I told you, I got robbed,” the man pleaded with his hands up in front of him in surrender. Sean could see the muscles in his mother’s beautiful, shapely chocolate legs flexing as she cocked her head to the side, something she did when she was angry.

“Nah, I ain’t tryin’a hear that. If you got robbed I woulda been the first to hear about it from the streets. That’s a bullshit lie and you know it, nigga. If I let it slide with you, I gotta let it slide with everybody,” his mother said through her teeth. Bang! Bang! Two shots rang out. Sean jumped so hard he fell backward and a little bit of urine escaped his bladder involuntarily. Sean could hear the man screaming.

“She shot me! This bitch shot me! Y’all seen that . . . this crazy bitch shot me!” the man was hollering. Sean got back to his feet and went back to the door.

“Get him the fuck out of here. Throw him in the street with the trash where he deserves to be,” his mother demanded. Sean watched as a group of dudes picked up the wounded man and tossed him right out of their apartment door.

“You ain’t seen the last of me, Mook! On my life you ain’t seen the last of me!” the man screamed. Sean’s mother was unfazed by the man’s threats. She strutted her beautiful body back into her living room, turned up her music and returned to all of her party guests.

“Now, anybody else got a problem?” she asked, her gun still hot in her hand. A few mumbles passed over the crowd of partygoers but no one spoke up. Everybody went back to playing spades, bid whist and blackjack like nothing ever happened. Within minutes there was the usual loud laughter, music and drinking again.

“Oww! That’s my song!” Sean heard his mother scream out as she danced around. “Pass me my shit,” she called to someone. Mook was the life of the party and the boss of a very lucrative heroin operation. Everyone gravitated toward her because she threw a hot party every night; she always had good food, good drinks and good drugs. Mook was beautiful with deep, dark ebony skin that was as smooth as silk. Her hair was a thick, jet-black mane down her back, her eyes were chestnut brown and slanted. Mook had a tiny waist, but big round hips that gave her an hourglass shape. She was an exotic beauty and people often call her the Indian, because she looked like one of those women straight from India. Sean thought his mother was the most beautiful woman in the world.

Sean jumped when he saw someone coming in his direction, but he quickly realized it wasn’t his mother. He giggled as he watched an older woman that he called Aunty holding the hand of a man, leading him to one of the back rooms. That wasn’t unusual at their house either. Several streetwalkers, who Sean called his aunties, paid Mook for the use of her house for turning tricks rather than risking themselves being on the street or working for a pimp who would only take their money. Sean’s aunty was wearing a hot pink corset top, thongs, a garter belt and clear plastic high heel shoes. The man was smiling from ear to ear as he followed her. Sean waited a few minutes and then he snuck out of his room, ran down the hallway and put his eye to the keyhole of the room his aunty had gone into. Sean smiled as he watched his naked aunty bounce up and down on the man.

“Boy! Get away from that door and get yo’ ass in the bed. You know I don’t play that,” Mook scolded playfully when she caught him. Sean giggled and ran back to his room. Just as he was about to close his door and really get in the bed this time, he heard that familiar voice that he looked forward to every day. Excited, Sean cracked his door open again and just like he had suspected, Fox was walking in. Sean watched dreamily as Fox glided his six foot, four inch frame through the door. Fox wore a fresh Pelle Pelle leather jacket, crisp Timberland boots that looked clean enough to eat off of and a diamond pinky ring that could blind you from a distance. Fox was his mother’s friend, but Sean would pretend in his mind that Fox was his father. Fox was a basketball legend in their neighborhood and one of the few dudes who had actually made it to the NBA. After two years in the league Fox blew out his knee and was cut from team after team. Finally, Fox gave up trying to get rich the legal way and took the money he’d made in the league and invested in his street business. Being a boss in the streets had made him much more money than he would’ve ever made in the league. Sean wanted to be just like Fox when he got older. He even practiced how to walk and talk like Fox.

“Mook . . . baby, what’s good?” Fox chimed, flashing his sparkling smile as he made his way over to Sean’s mother.

“Ain’t nothing new, baby.” Mook smiled, her cheeks flushing red. She got on her tiptoes and threw her arms around Fox’s neck so she could hug him. He patted her on the ass and kissed her on the top of her head. Sean giggled; he had always secretly hoped that one day Fox would marry his mother.

“Let’s talk,” Fox said to Mook.

“Yeah, baby . . . anything for you,” Mook said dreamily. “Nobody touch my bud,” Mook warned her party guests before she walked out with Fox. She started down the hallway toward Sean’s room with. . .