Page 12 of This is Law

I wasn’t even the person that was driving, but they made me hand over my license too, and I was searched. They found that gun on me, saw that I was a felon, and took my ass right to jail. I hated that I had to sit down and serve that time because I had been staying out of trouble, and my pops was finally getting ready to move my position up in his drug business. For years, that nigga had me still working as a corner boy because he felt like I wasn’t ready for any other position. Just when I was proving to the nigga that I was on the right path, that shit happened, where I had to sit down, and pretty much start all over again, trying to get him to see the good in me. I’ve been home for a week, and every time I even brought up the conversation about getting put on, my pops was quick to shut it down, telling me that he wasn’t ready to have that conversation with me yet. He wasn’t putting me in a position to fatten up my pockets, so that I could stack up, move out of his crib, and into my own shit, so during the day, I would just be chilling with my niggas, or somewhere laid up with a bitch.

“Hoes? And pulling up? Son, since when the fuck a hoe ever pulled up at my crib? You just be saying anything,” he snapped, picking his phone up that was sitting next to him on the counter, and I’m sure he was going to pull up the camera footage outside, so that he could see who was at the door.

We were both at the dining room table, eating cereal. This was my pops for real because me, and him had a lot of the same ways. We could eat cereal any time of the day. Both lovedCinnamon toast crunchand the family sized box was sitting right in the middle of the table, so that we could grab, and add more to our bowls when we were finished. No exaggeration, we could finish this shit in one serving.

“That’s Law. My lil nigga pulling up on me,” he voiced, and you could hear the excitement all in his voice.

It took everything in me not to suck my teeth like a little bitch. I hated that Law. If my pops had some kind of magical powers, I know for a fact that he would have done something, where he could make another man my daddy, and he would have made Law his flesh and blood son. For as long as I can remember, Dutch has always bragged on Law. Whether it was because Law graduated college, then went off to graduate law school, passed his bar exam, started working as an attorney, killing shit in his field, and then when he went off and opened his own firm. Dutch was his biggest cheerleader, and I hated that shit because I can’t remember a time where he was ever that loud in his cheering for me. Granted, I was the kid that was always fuckin up, making bad choices, but I had some victories too. I barely graduated high school, but damn, I still got my diploma and walked that stage. Don’t get me wrong, Dutch hooked me up with a brand-new Camaro when I graduated high school, but the praise he had given me was nowhere near the praise that he would give to Law.

“That nigga just pulled up on you like that at the crib? Let anybody else would have done that, and you would have been ready to spaz out,” I couldn’t hide my jealousy, but the things that I was saying were true.

Dutch didn’t play that shit when it came to popping up at his crib unannounced. Before I got locked up, and I had my own spot, I would randomly pull up on him, and he would get hot about it. He didn’t mind me pulling up, but he just wanted me to announce the shit beforehand. With my pops being in the drug business, always having to look over his shoulders 24/7, I think it just made him paranoid, so the regular everyday shit that a normal person could do, he wasn’t like that. He lived his life on edge. That was the price that you had to pay when you were out here living wrong.

“Here you go about to start that crybaby ass shit. I ain’t see Law in weeks. That nigga been so busy this month,” he responded, standing up from his chair.

My pops was sixty years old, but unless he told you out of his mouth his age, or you grew up with him to have known his age, you would think that he was at least in his middle 30’s because that’s just how good he looked for his age. He stood there in just a wife beater, and some sweatpants, and you could see the way he was cut up because of the long hours that he would put in the gym. He was inked up too. Both his arms had full sleeves. He was working with a bald head, and he had a full, thick beard.

At his age, he wasn’t seriously tied to any females, and he’s quick to let it be known that he never wanted marriage. He didn’t even want kids. Because I had the kind of pops that would talk shit, he’s told me before in the past that I wasn’t planned, and that him, and my mama had just been fuckin around, and she popped up pregnant. He barely had a relationship with my mama because once she washed her hands with me and sent me to live with him when I was a kid, we started hearing from herless. The only time the two of them ever really communicated was when I would get locked up, and he would hit her telling her the details of the case, and shit. I couldn’t fault my mama for doing me the way that she did because I was a disrespectful son, and I would get in my feelings, and start talking to her like she was just a random bitch off the street, so she had every right to wash her hands with me. My relationship with her was pretty much nonexistent. I didn’t talk to her the whole year that I was locked up, and now that I was out, I hadn’t bothered hitting her up either.

Dutch went to open the door for Law, and while he did that, I stayed here at the table, finishing my cereal.

A few seconds later, I could hear the front door opening, and you would have thought that it was some kind of celebrity ass nigga at the door, judging from the reaction that I heard my pops make. He was overly excited to see Law. I could hear Law telling him that he wasn’t in a rush to head into the office, so he decided to just pull up on him right quick. From there, I heard the front door close, and within a matter of seconds, their footsteps could be heard walking into the dining room area where I was.

The way my pops house was set up, the dining room wasn’t closed off like it is with most houses. It was just one large, open space, so you had the kitchen on one side, the dining room where I was seated, and off to the side, there was the family room. The two of them walked in the room, and like I didn’t even see that nigga standing there, I continued finishing my cereal, and I picked the bowl up, putting it to my lips, and I drank what was left of the milk inside.

Where the kitchen island was, there were three barstools lined up, and that’s where the two of them chose to sit at. They were chopping it up, while I stood up, and I took my bowl over to the sink. Dutch was a neat freak, and I knew that he would snap on me if I were to leave my bowl, and spoon in the sink,since there weren’t any dishes in the sink, so I went ahead, and washed it. While I was doing that, my pops was talking to Law, and Law’s eyes glanced up, and they happened to land on mine. He had a look on his face, mugging the fuck out of me, and I did that shit right back to him.

The thing about Law, even though he wasn’t in the drug game, or he wasn’t out here risking his freedom, living illegally, he had the mindset of a street nigga, moved like a street nigga, and had the respect of one. Niggas in Miami respected Law. His face was good all throughout Miami. He’s helped some of the biggest niggas out in the drug game, and even big-time rappers, so because of that, Miami natives treated him like a king. He was also well respected because of who his father was. Niggas spoke highly of Knox, like he was the best thing to ever come out of Miami. With all that love, and appreciation, I felt like it went to that nigga’s head, and he was cocky as fuck, and that was one of the reasons why I didn’t too much fuck with him. He felt like he couldn’t be touched.

I had to tussle with him not long before I was locked up because shit got back to him that I said some crazy shit about his wife. Rumors went around Miami about him, and Yaya losing their daughter, and I made an ignorant comment in the hood, around a group of niggas, just talking out the ass, basically putting the blame on Yaya, when I didn’t know the real story about it. I guess shit got back to him, and he pulled up on me, and even though I was calling it a tussle, truth is, that nigga beat the fuck out of me. It wasn’t Law’s first time putting his ass on me, either, and both times, I’d got my ass beat. Niggas in the hood wasn’t letting me live that down, and every time they saw me, they would still bring up that ass whipping.

I just couldn’t wait until the day that somebody touched him. The way I hated his ass so bad, I wouldn’t be surprised if I had to be the one to do it.

“What you getting ready to do?” my pops asked me, after I washed the bowl and spoon, and was getting ready to head upstairs. I looked up at him, and his eyes were narrowed in on mine.

“Shit, take a shower, and get dressed,” I let him know. I really didn’t have any plans for the day. It wasn’t like I had a job that I needed to clock into.

“Don’t leave out. Ima take you with me. I gotta make a few business moves,” he let me know, and I nodded my head to that, not mad at that at all.

All I wanted my pops to see was that I could be trusted. I was his son. He was sixty, and the only reason why he hadn’t walked away from this drug shit yet is because he didn’t trust anyone enough to pass it down to them. I overheard him telling Law before in jokes that he wished he would have been a dope boy because he would have easily handed the business down to him. Even though that shit was said jokingly, I knew that he meant every word that had left his lips.

Now that I was free, this was my year to put that work in, show that I was a product of him, and that I could be trusted. This empire that he was running, I wanted this shit to be mine one day. This big ass house that my pops had, and all those nice, fancy whips that he had parked outside of his crib, I wanted to have that one day as well. Just had to get his ass to trust me.

Chapter Six

SEVYN ‘LAW’ CRAWFORD

I was riding with the music turned down low, and on my way to a juvenile detention center, so that I could visit one of my clients. I personally didn’t like taking on juvenile cases because I had teenage boys, and every time I’m forced to defend a teenaged boy, that shit reminds me of my boys that I have back at home. That’s why I was always riding my sons the way that I was because I never wanted to see either one of them in an orange jumpsuit, standing before a judge, and having to plea for their freedom.

The juvenile that I was defending right now, the case was so fuckin heavy. Shit kept me up at night. I was coming up with my best argument, gathering all the evidence that I could because that shit would break me if he had to sit down, and serve some time.

His name was Justin. He was only sixteen years old. Black kid, and he was just one year older than my boys. He was a decent kid. I wasn’t going to call him good because I’ve seen his record, and he’s been in trouble with the law before for running away, and just other petty stuff like theft, and fighting. He didn’t have the best record in school, either. Justin wasn’t a killer though. He wasn’t the monster that they were trying topaint him out to be. He was defending his mom, April. April was in an abusive, toxic relationship with her boyfriend of five years. Her boyfriend was known for getting drunk and putting his hands on her. One night, April and her boyfriend were in her bedroom, going at it, and Justin came in to intervene. Justin and April’s boyfriend started fighting, and there was a gun that was sitting on the dresser, that Justin used to blow April’s boyfriends brains out. The DA were debating on charging him as an adult for manslaughter, or second-degree murder. I didn’t want either of those scenarios. I was going to argue self-defense on himself, and self-defense of another, which was his mother, and I wanted the charges dropped. I had to do what I knew best in the courtroom, so that I could get this lil nigga home, and didn’t have him in a situation where he had to give years of his life to prison.

I was about ten minutes away from the detention center when my phone rang. Yaya’s name lit up on the screen across my dashboard. It rang through the car speakers viaApple CarPlay.I wouldn’t say that I was shocked that she was calling me. We had kids and still had to deal with each other. We both wanted the best for our boys, and had game plans of tackling that together, so we were always in communication. Shit could be a little awkward, especially since I just went over there, and fucked her brains out last week, and now we had to pretend that the shit never happened.

“What’s up?” I answered for her.

“Hey. I hate to have to ask, but can you get the boys from school today? I can’t do it. It’s so much shit happening here with my clients. It’s like when one disaster happens with one of my clients, then something else happens with another one. I’ve been cleaning up messes all week. Can you get them for me?” she asked me, and I could hear the stress all in her voice.

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