Page 17 of The Impact (Parachutes #3)
They still had a kilo of pure white under the safe space in the trunk from Munch’s Colombian connect.
They had just made it back to Jersey in one piece, pit-stopping in Franklin to see Julio, a Puerto-Rican cat who owned three bodegas and pushed Munch and Vin’s product with quarter water juices and Bonton chips.
Two more stops meant two more drops of re-up that Vin couldn’t make a wrong turn or go a digit over the speed limit on.
Especially not today. Not with what was on tomorrow’s horizon.
“You sure you gonna be able to handle this shit while I’m gone?”
“Nigga, watch what you come home to. A fucking empire, god. Straight Tony and Manolo shit. But fuck all of that. You thinking about the wrong shit,” Munch redirected, as Vin’s solemn gaze followed the foot traffic, people moving around in their regular existence, taking for granted how blessed they were to be doing so.
Sure, it was raining. Sure, they were poor.
Some ugly, overweight, on drugs. A mother rushing three children across the street into the bodega, and Vin could tell they were struggling.
A man with his prized liquor bottle in a brown paper bag, getting soaked in his ratty t-shirt.
Reminded him of his mother, Lola. So hooked on whatever they were that they felt nothing. But still… luckier than him.
“You need to be thinking ‘bout how much pussy you can run through before the sun comes up. Fucking so much, your dick falls off in the morning. Nigga, you better overdose on pussy tonight. Like how them bears do... Eat enough to hibernate all winter and shit? You better eat, fuck, and drown in enough pussy to last you the next five,” Munch made light of Vin’s upcoming predicament.
Of course, a young man not mentally preparing to spend the next five years cut off from the world could think about that. Pussy. Munch didn’t have his grandmother turn her back on him this morning, clutching her chest and telling him she couldn’t bear the sight of him.
“I did my best with you, Dalvin. I wanted so much more for you than what’s around here.
You hurt me to the bone, boy.” Then Vin heard the sniffles and he made his way out the door for his final drug deal.
His last assist for Munch, who vowed to keep Vin’s commissary stacked. And Vin knew he meant it.
“Yo, you remember Tina? Tina with the light eyes?”
Vin shook his head, barely listening. “Nah.”
“Remember that nigga Krit who tried to get you to front him a brick? Nigga was crying and begging about being put on, practically sucking ya dick at the blackjack table in AC?”
“Don’t say no shit like that,” Vin warned.
“Whatever nigga. Remember the broad he had wit’ him? The Ashanti looking bitch? And she had that tall, Patrick Ewing looking bitch with her?”
“The tall, Patrick Ewing bitch that you fucked?” Vin jogged Munch’s memory.
“Man, get the fuck outta here. I ain’t fuck her… She sucked me off in the lounge. But look…if you remember her then you definitely remember Tina.” Vin didn’t answer, but it didn’t stop Munch from rambling.
“I ran into shorty the other night at Cindy’s up in Elizabeth,” Munch spoke of the popular strip joint. “She was wit’ her girls and she was like, where’s ya friendddd?” Munch imitated a girl’s voice. “I told her we was having a party for you tonight and you was bouncing out for a while – ”
“Why the fuck you telling strangers that?”
“Nigga, cause she wants you to play hide and seek in her pussy, and I’m looking out for you.
Fuck you mean why? She was like ‘oh my God, that’s so sad.
Does he need a pen pal? I’m not with Krit anymore.
’ So, she said she coming through. And you better wear that the fuck out, nigga. I swear to God, if you don’t I will.”
Vin’s chest jumped in a laugh. As Munch rambled on about Vin’s Farwell Freak Fest, Vin took in the rain-blurred strangers outside trying not to dwell on how long it’d be before he was one of them again.
Five years. He’d gotten off easy for taking someone’s life.
But still…five years ago, he was thirteen.
And thirteen to eighteen seemed like a world of difference in his life.
Five years could do a lot. He wouldn’t see streets until 2007.
Still, there were several victims in this situation and Vin wasn’t one of them. He didn’t have to kill that boy. Yes, his loyalty to the man beside him, his quick temper, his notable deadly reputation, and just animalistic way of life all played a part in him making the decision.
But…he didn’t have to kill that boy.
He’d killed before. And to Vin, they were more deserving than this kid. But now, he had a brand-new perspective when faced with the reality. Not at sentencing, but at his real punishment: seeing that boy’s mother at the hearing, doubled over in so much pain it looked like it hurt her to live.
Murdering without ever witnessing the repercussions was like jerking off—all thrills, no headaches.
Vin didn’t attend the funerals of his victims to see the sorrow he’d caused. He didn’t witness the void he left behind. Though he never glamorized the violence he lived like the books, movies, and music, he did grow numb to it. That was until he saw that mother.
If he were lucky enough, he would be a parent one day. What if someone took his child from him?
So, yeah, now he had perspective. And it was a tapeworm.
He could’ve sent the same message by beating the boy’s ass. Broke his legs, broke his fingers, pistol-whipped him, knocked out his teeth. He still would’ve been the same Vin that pumped fear into hearts. But that boy’s mother would still have her son.
“Nigga, is we moving or not? Quise down there waiting on us.”
Vin snapped out of it—all the sad regrets and looming fate.
He floored the gas, pulling out into the street, only to slam on the brakes.
Thank God, he’d just had them replaced. The truck still squealed as it hydroplaned in the rain, skidding to a slow stop—just an inch from two girls crossing the street.
Vin’s heart dropped with his jaw.
Just like that, he had almost killed again.
One of the figures, distorted by rain, slammed her hand on his hood heatedly, yelling and cursing. He couldn’t make out her words with the windows up or her face hidden beneath in the hood of her jacket. But she was pissed. Rightfully. The girl with her was leaning over, picking up scattered books.
“Man, shut the fuck up, little bitch!” Munch yelled out as Vin opened the driver’s door to check on them.
“We got it! We don’t need your fucking help. Just watch where the fuck you’re going before you kill someone. Dumb ass!”
Vin blinked rain from his lashes. Her friend had collected her wet belongings and hurried across the street.
“Fuck you, bitch!” Munch called out as Vin retook his driver’s seat, soaked to his socks.
“Chill out. They little girls.”
“They ain’t no little fucking girls,” Munch cursed as the light changed, leaving them stuck at it.
“You see they bookbags,” Vin argued.
“Man, fuck them and them bookbags,” Munch sucked his teeth. “Fucking stupid bitches making us late. We gotta drop this to Quise and I still gotta head over to The Ville.”
This time when Vin hit the gas, he did it with ease. They turned on the block and Vin immediately recognized Quise’s Lexus with the spinning rims. Hard to miss with the loud-ass gaudy license plate reading ‘FCKYOU’.
“Oh shit,” Munch drawled out as Vin kept driving, creeping past Quise and his new visitors, doing the speed limit. Two unmarked sedans with flashing police lights had Quise cornered. The way Quise nodded at Vin’s tinted truck as it escaped unscathed let Vin know he’d keep his mouth shut.
Lucky for them, they hadn’t rolled up a second sooner.
“I guess it’s not fuck them little girls and they bookbags now, huh?” Vin quipped.
If it weren’t for the girls, they would have been hemmed up right beside Quise. Five years for killing a man, but the RICO laws? Vin would have been looking at twenty for what was in his trunk. He and Munch had the nameless girls with the backpacks to thank.