Chapter 3: Life in the Hood

Marcus and Tyrone Williams were black teens growing up in the hood. They were loosely associated with the Crypts, Marcus having a cousin in LA who was one. But around here, there was no local chapter. They were it for now. They’d started young, doing odd jobs for Wilcox. Wilcox pretty much ran the hood. If you did a robbery, he’d better get his 20%. Hold up a local citizen? Wilcox better get his 20%. He had eyes and ears everywhere. Recently, Marcus and Tyrone had recently graduated to car theft. Wilcox paid good for the right car, but it was also high-risk for the two teens for two reasons: Wilcox, and the police. Armed car-jacking meant serious jail time if caught. Not getting the car Wilcox wanted had its own consequences. When Wilcox wanted something; he’d call Marcus and Tyrone; tell them what he wanted and when. You didn’t ask questions. You just did it. Or else.

On this afternoon, Wilcox’s boy Lester had called; said the Man wanted a black Mercedes GLS SUV for tomorrow. They’d be expecting it out front of his house at sunup with legal plates on it. The boys got to work. First, they got their sister to give them a ride. They’d cruise around, looking for the right car. When they found it, they’d grab it and she’d get 20% for driving them all over. Rochelle was always wanting more money, so she readily agreed.

It was around 10:00 pm. They’d been driving around the malls and neighborhoods of Brentwood for three hours now in Rochelle’s maroon Chevy Impala. Nothing. They were getting impatient; Rochelle’s constant bitching was getting on Tyrone’s nerves. Then in a nice quiet subdivision, they saw a black GLS SUV idling by the sidewalk. It was on a hill, a brick road with fancy bushes on either side. The only light was a small lamp post by the driveway. Tyrone told her to stop, come back in ten minutes, pick them up if they missed it. As they jumped out, Rochelle snapped, “You better not miss it! I need my twenty precent!”

The two brothers, both dressed in black, jogged quietly down the sidewalk. They stopped just short of the SUV in the shadow of a stone wall and bushes. The back door of the house suddenly opened; a woman said good-bye to someone and walked away from the door. They saw the light disappear when the door closed. Tyrone crept forward a step. The woman appeared in front of him, crossing left to right to the Mercedes door. He jumped up, hit her on her head as hard as he could with a brick he’d grabbed by the curb. The woman went “Uh!” and fell to the ground, unconscious. Leslie Martin had stopped briefly at her friends’ home after picking up her daughter, Kelsey, from practice. She’d dropped off some books she’d promised Mrs. Ingalls, and now she was heading home. As she reached for the car door handle, something hit the side of her head hard, then everything went blank. She lay on the sidewalk for almost 15 minutes unconscious before a woman walking her dog found her. All anyone knew was that her car was gone. Nobody knew that her daughter was even in the car; not until her mother came to from her head injury almost an hour later in the ER.

Rochelle drove around the block, slowed. All she saw was a person laying on the sidewalk; the car was gone. She drove off. “Ah’d better get my twenty percent soon,” she scowled to herself.

Tyrone had jumped in first; Marcus jumped in the right side. Tyrone quickly put it in gear and drove off. He turned right at the stop sign, then drove two blocks and got on the interstate. He’d head up I-65 to I-190, then north and into the hood. It wasn’t far. Traffic wasn’t bad this time of night. As they accelerated onto the highway from Brentwood, they both heard a voice in back. A sleepy girl’s voice. “Mommy?”

Marcus spun around. “The fuck...?” he said. Tyrone kept glancing back; Marcus said to keep his eyes on the road. Marcus reached up; turned on the overhead light. A young girl lay on the back seat. She had on shorts and a winter coat. She looked like she’d been sleeping. She squinted in the light, then saw the black man in the front seat staring at her.

Kelsey quickly sat straight up; wide awake now. Who...?! Oh my God, there’s two! What, what was going on? Where’s her mom? She quickly jumped to the left side of the back seat, started babbling, “Who are you? What are you doing? Where’s my mom? Let me out! Let out!” She screamed once. Marcus grinned, looking the girl up and down. She tugged at the door handle but it wouldn’t work while the car was in motion. He clicked off the light. She kept going on; demanding they let her out. Marcus turned to Tyrone. “Looks like we got us some bonus white meat,” he grinned. This happened sometimes when jacking cars. Not often, just once in a while. A bonus was any teenage girl.

Kelsey was 14; an eighth grader, on her way home from tennis practice. She had long, straight, blonde hair. Kelsey was obviously into puberty. Her breasts definitely showed a lot of promise. Being only 5’3”, they just looked bigger on her small, thin teenage frame. Kelsey’s butt though was already forming a very sexy shape. Her legs weren’t skinny. They were strong in fact, from tennis. With her narrow waist and short stature, she only weighed 97 pounds. Short, thin, nice legs and long blonde hair; she was an extremely attractive young teenager.

To Kelsey, what was happening now was exactly what they had warned them about in school last year. This was definitely a bad situation; this was not someplace she wanted to be. “If you ever find yourself in a bad situation...” Christ, what had they said? Um, something about keep telling them to let you out. Run the first chance you can. Scream a lot. The car raced onto the highway; she had no idea where they were going. She tried to jump again, but again the safety locks stopped her. The one black man in the passenger seat reached back, pointing a big gun right in her face. “Shut the fuck up! Lay down! Lay the fuck back down! And keep your mutherfuckin’ mouth shut, bitch!” He turned to Tyrone. “Until I tells her to open up, that is!” he chuckled. He kept the gun pointed at her, low, so it couldn’t be seen from outside. He smacked her on the side of her head a couple of times, making sure she stayed there. The girl lay on the seat, crying, kept saying quietly, “Please, please, let me go, please, you don’t understand. I’m only fourteen...”

Soon, they got off the highway, turned down Jefferson Court, then into an alley. He pulled into the backyard of their crib, cut the lights and turned the stolen Mercedes off. The car was nearly impossible to see now, under thig big Elm tree. They’d leave it there till just before dawn, then drive it to Wilcox’s. Tyrone and Marcus’s mom suddenly came out the back screen door of the house, madder than hell.

“Where you two been? I got supper getting cold! Who’s car is that?”

Tyrone quickly jumped out and walked towards her, stopping her from getting closer. “Sorry momma! Sorry! We done ate already, over at Uncle Leroy’s. Tell you what, let’s save it. We’ll have it for breakfast. This? Oh, it belongs to a friend of mine. I’m just lettin’ him park it here overnight. He giving me ten bucks too. I don’t know, come on, momma. We gonna go see Jackson, play some music. You go on back inside, we gonna go down to Jackson’s. Play that music you don’t like.”

Their mother walked back inside, carrying on about everything to no one in particular. After she’d gone to the front TV room, Tyrone went back to the car.

They couldn’t take the girl inside. Their sister would be there soon, too. Instead, they pulled the girl from the backseat; Marcus punched her once in the gut to keep her quiet. She doubled over; unable to speak, gasping for air. They forced a rag into her mouth; then they forced her quickly down the dark alley to another old broken-down house two doors down. This was Jackson’s crib. He was cool, an older guy, about 40-something. Plus, he had a basement. He had some soundproofing up so he could blast his rap recordings. They went in the back door, the girl barely touching the ground, still gasping, but struggling. Jackson turned, saw them come in.

Tyrone said, “We need your recording room for a little while.” Jackson got up, followed them downstairs to his studio. He had no idea what this was all about. In the basement, they pushed the white girl into the center of the room. She tried to run; Jackson closed the heavy door behind him, tightly. She screamed once when she reached up and pulled the rag from her mouth. Another punch to her stomach; more gasping for air as she fell down on one knee. She was crying, sobbing, asking meekly “What, what do you want?” Tyrone walked up to her. He gripped her jaw hard, turning her up to him. “How old did you say you were?” he asked.

She mumbled out, her mouth being squeezed tightly, “Four, fourteen, fourteen ... please, just...”

Tyrone looked at Jackson. “We found her in the back seat when we jacked a ride.” Jackson said, “I see, a free bonus. Very nice.” They all laughed. Jackson knew all about bonuses. The boys had been here before. He moved to his audio board, flipped some switches. Rap music began blasting.

Tyrone glared at the youngster, said, “Yeah, baby girl. Right now, I want me some of that white pussy of yours.” He forced her to stand up; She was terrified; shaking as she scrunched her arms around herself, her legs tight together, turning sideways to these men, cringing away as much as she could. He grabbed her winter coat and began roughly pulling it from her. She fought to keep it, but he was way too strong for her. Off it came. She had on her gym jersey and shorts under it. Tyrone grabbed her hair, forced his mouth over hers. He forced his tongue between those luscious lips of hers. Teenage lips. White girl lips. He forced his tongue between her teeth, into her mouth, squirming all around that young girl tongue of hers. Her cries were muffled. Tyrone stopped, pushed her over to his brother Marcus. Marcus grabbed her long, silky blonde hair, forced a kiss on her too, then licked her neck some. He pushed her over to Jackson. Jackson also grabbed her long hair, pulled her head back, pushed his tongue between those pretty, pink, trembling lips of hers. He grabbed a tit as he did, through her shirt, then after a long time working that mouth of hers, he pushed her back to Tyrone.