5 Minutes and 42 Seconds Read Online Free PDF Page A

had been feeling guilty about not telling Fashad what was really about to go down after the trumpet sounded, but not anymore. Fashad was going to get what he deserved.
    Â 
    A s Smokey drove from Fashad’s suburb of Grosse Pointe to Apples’ run-down neighborhood of Brewster-Douglass, he kept looking back to make sure Bill was nowhere to be seen. He pulled the car over to the side of the road in the middle of a posh neighborhood on the upside of town to let a car that had been behind him for a little toolong pass. When he got a few evil eyes from the residents, it made him think of how imbalanced life was. How come some people had so much and others had so little? Why did everyone he knew have to live in old broken-down shacks and project-esque apartments occupied by rats—of both the rodent and human variety? How come there wasn’t some place, just one place, on the good side of town for people like him? He’d seen a rapper on television showing off his home earlier, and wondered: If he cares so much about the hood, why doesn’t he build us some apartments out here with that money he wasted on a platinum goblet? He had to stop himself from tearing up when he passed a particularly dilapidated home with four or five biracial children in the yard and remembered what it was like.
    He composed himself as he entered Apples’ driveway. “Man up, Smokey!” he commanded himself aloud. The way Smokey saw it, any real man could help himself, and that was exactly what he planned on doing. He didn’t just have a plan—he had a blueprint. Plans could go awry. This was foolproof; it just had to be executed to perfection.
    He crept around to the back of the house slowly, because there had to be a pit bull. Everyone in that neighborhood had a pit bull. They always said it was for safety, but Smokey knew it was because they just wanted something powerful they could treat like shit. Sure enough, the dog came out of nowhere and barked three inches from Smokey’s leg. Smokey knew not to run.
    â€œBastard!” yelled a woman from inside.
    Smokey slowly pointed to himself as if asking if she weretalking to him. Not wanting to make any sudden movements, he didn’t look back.
    â€œBastard!” she said again. “Get the fuck away from him.”
    â€œBitch, I would if I could,” Smokey responded.
    â€œNigga, ain’t nobody talkin’ to you,” said the woman. Smokey glanced to his side and saw a redheaded black woman with an almost sickly thin frame, wearing a long white T-shirt and seemingly nothing else. From Fashad’s description he knew she must have been Apples. She kicked the dog in the belly. “Gone.” The dog ran away.
    â€œWho the fuck are you?”
    â€œSmokey.”
    She looked behind Smokey to the left, then behind him and to the right. “Where is Fashad?” asked Apples before Smokey could step through the back door.
    â€œDon’t worry about it,” said Smokey pushing past her, searching for the inevitable baby daddy of the house.
    â€œOh nigga, I’m gonna be worried about it,” said Apples, reentering his personal space. “When I told Fashad I would do this, I thought I was going to be dealing with him directly, not some scared-looking nigga I ain’t never seen before. How I’m sposed to know you ain’t federal. I can’t get locked up—I got kids.” She continued speaking with the authority of a man twice her size, her red weave bouncing back and forth, in sync with her thin neck and finger.
    â€œNaw. Chill, Ma. He cool. This Smokey. He work for Fashad,” said the dark-skinned man whom Smokey didn’t recognize. Smokey was pleased to be known by those whom he didn’t. What he hated was only being known as Fashad’slackey. The man condescendingly put his hand on Apples’ shoulder and moved her aside, absorbing her spunk in the process.
    Apples looked at Smokey, then