Page 1 of Grand Master

BAPTIZED IN BLOOD, AND RESENTMENT.

“I’ll suck your dick clean off the bone for a quick dub.”

I looked down at my Pops in disbelief then back at the smoker chick that had skin like torn paper.

Her lips were dry and scabbed up. With one titty out of her shirt, she looked like she had given up a long time ago.

Her wig was crooked as her eyes twitched with need.

She scratched the inside of her elbow like it owed her something.

My eyes went right down to her bare feet that were ashy and gray looking.

I frowned my face up in disgust then stepped to the side on the back porch creating space between her and I, so I didn’t get a whiff of how she smelled.

“Bitch what?” Pops sat up in his worn rocking chair. He heard her but wanted her to repeat herself so she could hear the ridiculous shit that she just said from her mouth. With no shame, she licked her dry lips and said it again.

“Lemme suck you up, Kendrick. Just really quick, you ain’t got to take off shit. Just lemme taste it, I need somethin’ please.” She batted her eyes and showed her toothless smile.

I can’t stand fucking fiends! I thought to myself as I watched my Pops contemplate his own thoughts.

Anything went with him; he didn’t give a fuck.

It didn’t matter that I was his thirteen-year-old son standing right next to him hearing the explicit words either.

She dropped to her knees and reached for his belt.

Her lips parted, I flinched, my stomach turned as bile climbed up my throat.

Pops laughed, took a puff from his Newport and blew smoke right in her face.

“Nasty bitch.” He chuckled as her trembling fingers tried to figure out how to get his belt unclasped.

“This here, Kenric is a broad that sucked more pipes than—” He slapped her hand away hard; she did nothing but giggle.

“Wait bitch!” He looked down at her with a warning glare.

“She done sucked more pipes than I sold.” He continued.

She giggled like what he said was a compliment.

I stood off to the side, jaw tight trying to breathe through my mouth.

I hated crackheads. Hated the way they smelled like burnt plastic and shit.

They looked at you like you were a God if you had their substance that they were in love with.

They made Pops feel like a king, although he was one of them.

I didn’t understand how muthafucka’s told me I’d end up like him.

Another dead man on the block, face down drowning in my own blood.

Maybe they pictured me drugged out like him, weak…

they hoped for it, maybe even prayed to God for my demise before I got old enough to walk in his shoes.

My so-called family constantly preached to me about the streets not loving nobody.

I used to believe that shit, until I learned how to make the corners fear me back.

“Aye, Kenric. Go to the front, grab the work from the fridge. The blue topped ones. I switched the colors, Rosco said it will help you not mix the crack and heroin up.” He told me with his eyes still glued to the dope fiend in front of him.

Moms would want me at school if she hadn’t gotten addicted herself.

That hurt me the worst. Nobody stopped to make sure I got the things that I needed to have.

I looked out for me most days and made sure that I did whatever Pops said because his anger was something that even the devil himself couldn’t simmer down.

I didn’t say shit back to him, I simply nodded and walked away.

I dipped through the alley and stepped over a bum sleeping with his pants down.

I wanted to stomp his ass just because he looked weak as fuck.

I wondered if he had kids somewhere waiting on him to do better and be better.

I constantly wished one day my parents would realize the same thing.

I gave up on wishes, time proved that they were pointless.

The stench back in the alley was like a punch to the face.

It smelled like old meat, open wounds and trash juice.

The heat from the sun didn’t make the smell no better.

I made it to the front of the house and heard thunder from the sky.

I hated being here, in this area in general.

This was Pops favorite trap house, moms didn’t know about it just like Pops didn’t know about her secretly doing drugs behind his back in order to deal with the heartache of him constantly cheating on her and never being at home.

We didn’t have to be here, at least I didn’t have to be with him day after day helping him and being a part of his circus.

I was away from our home so much that I started bringing things from the mini lab I created at home to this trap house to keep busy with my studies.

I was an honor roll student before Pops snatched me out of school.

He claimed that we were filthy rich and that the only education I needed to know was how to navigate the streets and run them.

This trap house made my skin crawl, roaches and rats roamed freely around like they paid the mortgage here.

The walls were stained yellow from all the cigarette smoke and crack being smoked on a day-to-day basis.

I want to go home. I took in the two-bedroom house that was ran down with a heavy heart.

I looked at Rosco’s fat ass, who sat on the couch comfortably, as I stomped pass him.

He was Pop’s right-hand man that I couldn’t stand and sometimes plotted to kill randomly in my head.

It was something about his fat greasy ass that rubbed me the wrong fuckin’ way.

Pops trusted him with too much and thought too highly of him.

I quickly shrugged off my negative thoughts and started to wonder what my mom was doing.

I hope she ate something today and was spending Pops money on other things instead of getting high off it.

Our house was nice, located in Orange County tucked away.

Pops was happy when he bought it. Nobody would ever picture Big Kendrick, The King Of L.A, ducked off with his family in a nice suburban neighborhood.

I think that’s why he made sure to be in L.A majority of the time.

He manipulated the streets in every way possible.

People didn’t know if he was coming or going.

Once I had the blue bottle tops, I walked back through the small living room.

I stepped over broken beer bottles and passed by Rosco who stopped me by the worn-down couch.

He loaded his .380 then smirked evilly at me.

Rosco was a big, burly, ugly monster with jagged scars going criss cross up and down his neck.

I never liked him, he always seemed shady and looked at Pops with a look that said if he had the opportunity, he’d cross him.

“Tell that fool Kendrick to lay low.” He muttered out.

I stood there for a second because what he said didn’t feel right. Rosco never said more than two words to me.

“The fuck that mean?” I frowned, balling my free fist.

“As I stated, dummy. Get on.” He waved me off with his loaded gun.

I stood there in a stare-off with Rosco, I imagined having a gun and smoking him right where he sat but questioned my own abilities.

If I did have a gun, would I smoke Rosco?

Could I actually kill a man in cold blood like Pops did on a regular?

I shrugged the weird moment off just like I shrugged off the possibility of Pops letting a crack head top him off in the back.

I walked back through the front door wishing like hell, Pops paranoid ass didn’t board up the back door and windows to the trap house.

He made sure it was almost impossible to break into his trap houses since he got robbed once by a bunch of crackheads.

By the time I stepped out on the porch, it was raining.

The sky looked ugly and gray matching my mood.

I walked past the dried up, front lawn then back through the alley way that led to the back of the house, holding my breath not wanting to inhale the funk mixed with heavy drops of rain.

The fiend that I stepped over when I first walked through the alley was gone.

Maybe he went for shelter since it’s raining, I thought with an eerie feeling that was hard to ignore.

My stomach twisted up as I walked past the bob wired fence then—froze.

The crack head who offered Pops head was no longer in sight and Pops was laid out in front of his chair with blood decorating the front of his shirt.

What the fuck happened? My heart rate tripled in speed.

I dropped the drugs and ran to Pops, then dropped down to his side and started inspecting him. His eyes were wide and popped out the sockets. He grabbed at my hoodie and pulled me to him weakly.

“K-Kenny…” He choked; blood spilled out his mouth as I frantically looked down trying to see the damage with shaking hands.

“Pops, please stop moving. What happened?” I nearly choked over my words in panic.

It wasn’t a bullet; he was stabbed in the stomach, multiple times.

My heart kicked violently against my ribs, I didn’t want him to bleed out, I couldn’t imagine him dying on me.

“They gone try to take it all from you Kenric.” He rasped; voice strangled.

“The blocks, money, our name—you gotta be stronger than me, feel it?”

I nodded once swallowing down every part of me that wanted to be weak right now. I wanted to cry; the rain made it almost unbearable to hold it all in.

“Take the board.”

He always spoke of a board…his board. The board that he used to manipulate the streets until it became his main bitch that he pimped out on a regular.

Most of his men hated him, they looked at pops like a powerful junkie that couldn’t be beaten.

Kendrick Mastiff’s veins were full of poison, but his mind was sharper than a broken bottle.