Slide

Twelve

Max was gearing up for the big meeting with the Colombians, trying to learn as much Español as he could. He’d sent his bee-atch out to get him the tapes and he was listening to them whenever he had time, which wasn’t often because he was mucho busy. Mucho, see how he intuitively knew this shit?

The idea to learn Spanish came to Max one morning on the bowl when he was thinking because, like, thinking was his forte.

See, when you were a clued-in dude like The M.A.X., you not only got to use words like forte, you had a reasonable idea of what they meant. He’d been telling himself like a mantra, know your market, and know the guys you’re dealing with. He hadn’t built up this hell of a business without being savvy, and he liked to think of himself as straddling both sides. Yeah, the boardroom, piece of cake, he could do the biz gig in his sleep. Sometimes he believed he was born with the Dow Jones in his mouth. Your regular working stiff, he read the sports section of the Daily News, moved his lips as he read, but The M.A.X., he didn’t just read the business section, he fucking devoured it. Wall Street Journal, man, he subscribed, and knew his name was in every editor’s address book over there. Come on, if you were a journalist in the business world and didn’t have an in with Max Fisher, then who the hell were you anyway?

Who knew, maybe one of these days the Journal would ask Max to do a regular column for them and if Max was in a philanthropic mood, had some free time on his hands, felt the need to give back, maybe he’d accept. He’d call the column, what else, The M.A.X. Have guys in all the happening bars going, “I was reading in The M.A.X.…” or “The M.A.X. says…” Yeah, he could see it. The double hit of coke he’d had with his croissant and skim milk latte helped the visualization. And, hey, it could happen. But the bottom line was Max was too busy. The guy who came up with multitasking, shit, that guy had The M.A.X. in mind.

So, anyway, Max was thinking that the Colombians were coming to town, and those dudes spoke, like, Spanish, right? So, you were going to be in bed with them, you better, like, speak their lingo. Seemed to make sense. And it was this kind of preparation that had made Max the hombre he was today.

Hombre. Man, he was getting this shit down fast.

He listened to the Spanish tapes whenever he got some downtime and when you were as freaking busy as Max, running a goddamn crack empire, there wasn’t a whole load of free time floating around. He listened when he was eating, on the shitter; he even wore the fucking headphones in bed, letting that crap seep into his subconscious, so even his sleep gig was, like, working. Did The Donald know that little trick?

And sure, okay, it was a little uncomfortable-damn earpiece fell out and poked you in the eye and the wire got wrapped round your throat-but who said knowledge was easy. Fuck, you ever hear old Stephen Hawking complaining? And that dude was wired if anyone was.

Max laughed out loud, loving his wit.

A few times there, yeah, when he’d gotten a little carried away with the crack, the booze, he’d put on the tapes, let it crank, played that shit loud till Felicia had screamed, “The fuck is wrong with you, put on some Lil’ Kim!”

The reason why she’d always be a follower, didn’t grasp the big picture. The bee-atch just didn’t get it.

One odd sidebar-the voice on the Spanish tapes had this, like, posh accent, like some Spanish royalty or shit, and Max could only speak the lingo in the same aristocratic tone. There was this Lopez dude doing the lessons and Max was incapable of speaking in a halfway decent Spanish accent if he didn’t add “Señor Lopez” to everything he said, in that upper-class tone. Like if he wanted to say “Puede ayudarme?” in a normal tone he sounded like shit. But if he said, “Puede ayudarme, Señor Lopez?” he sounded like a native.

Man, he sure as shit hoped one of these Colombians was named Lopez.

Another problem, his vocabulary wasn’t exactly massive. He wasn’t going to be entering any Spanish Scrabble tournaments any time soon. And a lot of the phrases he knew weren’t exactly useful. Like how many opportunities would he have to say, “Usted tiene gusto de dos limones y de dos naranjas, Señor Lopez?” Would you like two lemons and two oranges, Mr. Lopez? Or “A que hora abre la oficina de correos, Señor Lopez?” What time does the post office open, Mr. Lopez? Or, “A donde esta un buon restaurant in este ciudad, Señor Lopez?” Do you know where there is a good restaurant in this city, Mr. Lopez?

The Colombians might find it a tad odd that he was asking them what time the post office opened and where the good restaurants were since he was the one who lived in fucking New York. Or, make that Nueva York.

Eh, The M.A.X. would pull it off somehow. He always did.

He pushed the CD player away, went, “Usted tiene gusto de más blow, Señor Lopez?” and cut a fresh line.

Sha-Sha shifted on his water bed, couldn’t get comfortable. When you weigh in at four hundred pounds and change, comfort, man, that shit’s hard to come by.

He was twenty-six years old and where was his life at? Nowhere, that’s where. He was doing the same old, same old all the time, every day, and he was getting tired of all that bullshit. He was still out there on the corners, busting his ass and for what? He wasn’t The Man-shit, he wasn’t even on his way to being The Man. Niggas sixteen and seventeen were above him, bossing his ass around and shit, goin’, “Do this, Sha-Sha, do that, Sha-Sha, smoke that dude, Sha-Sha, how come you fucked up, Sha-Sha? Where’s my money at, Sha-Sha?” Man, he was thinking about going out there one day, blowing all their asses away. He get a piece and a hundred bullets and solve all his damn problems.

But Sha-Sha knew why he was where he was at-cause he was a sick-ass, that’s why. How many times he go to nigga above him and say, “I wanna move up,” and the nigga go back to him, “Fuck you”? Sha-Sha knew it was his own damn fault, cause he had no damn self control. He didn’t know how to stop hurting people and even the gangs, man, they didn’t need no crazyasses hangin’ around. Like sometimes Sha-Sha would be walkin’ down the street, and he didn’t like the way some nigga was lookin’ at him, or he didn’t like his sneakers, or the way he smelled, or sometimes there was no reason at all, and he’d take out his nine, pop the motherfucker in the head.

Sha-Sha didn’t know why he was so fucked-up-it was just the way he was. It was probably the reason why he got so fat. Whenever he got down about his life and shit, he’d go for the menus, order in a whole mess of food. Then he’d get on the scale, see he’d gained another ten, fifteen pounds, and he’d feel so bad about it, he’d go out and shoot somebody. Then he’d feel bad about how fucked up all that shit was and he’d start with burgers and pizzas again. It was like his life was going round and round in circles and there was no way out.

When he saw he’d passed four hundred pounds he was all ready to say, Fuck it, and go out and start killing people, and kill himself while he was at it. Didn’t make no damn difference anyway and, besides, how long before the cops got off their asses and busted him? They’d already had him in for questioning three times for killing three different motherfuckers. Yeah, he’d been away, but never on a murder rap, and his fat ass wasn’t gonna be doing no thirty-to-life upstate. Them niggas loved big boys and he wasn’t gonna be gettin’ jammed like a pin cushion for no thirty years.

Then Felicia, his ho cousin, showed up at his crib. She was looking fine too, with that big ghetto ass, but what she’d do to her titties? Every time he saw her they got bigger and bigger; now it looked like they was ready to explode.

He went to hug her, was ready to push her head down so she could start sucking on his dick like when they was kids, but she pushed him away, started dissing him about his weight and shit. Man, he was ready to smoke that ho, then she hit him with some big i-dea. Shit didn’t seem so bad neither-get some cash and product off some white people and dealers from down south and shit. Twenty grand was bullshit, but maybe they could get forty for the product. That made sixty grand and that wasn’t too bad. It got Sha-Sha thinking, anyway-maybe he didn’t have to go out, start killing people after all. Sixty grand, shit, he could use that-start up his own crew with his boy Troit. They could be the ones ordering all ’em niggas around and shit. Yeah, Sha-Sha saw his whole life changing. He’d go on the Slim Fast and Lean Cuisine, drop a couple hundred pounds, be able to get up out of his water bed without feeling all that shame and shit.

So when Felicia talking, Sha-Sha kept saying Yeah, yeah, let’s do it, let’s take the white man’s money. Stupid ho thought she was gonna get twenty grand, meanwhile she wasn’t gonna get a damn cent. Then he fucked her good and sent her ass back to Manhattan.

A few days later, she called him, told him she knew where the drug deal was at. But she was acting all smart and shit-said she wasn’t gonna tell him nothing over the phone, that she had to be in the car with him and Troit and then she’d tell them where it was at. Yeah, she was smart all right. Soon she was gonna be dead too.

Felicia came back to Brooklyn the day before. In the elevator going down, Sha-Sha pulled stop and made Felicia blow him before they went to pick up Troit. Sha-Sha had hooked up with Troit up at Sing-Sing. Troit looked the opposite of Sha-Sha, bone thin, no meat on his whole body, but he was just as fucked up in the head. They called him Troit, cause he was from Dee-troit. Rumor had it he’d killed so many brothers over there he had to come to Brooklyn to cool down. Most times when niggas started going on about all the people they popped, Sha-Sha knew that was bullshit talking. But he’d seen Troit in action and the boy was stupid-crazy. Sometimes after Sha-Sha killed somebody he felt bad and started eating and shit. But Troit, man, he didn’t give a shit.

So they was all three in a jacked BMW-Sha-Sha driving with Troit up front next to him, and Felicia in the back seat. She was all excited and shit, talking about the twenty grand she was never gonna get. She even had a damn suitcase, said she was gonna leave New York tonight, get on a bus to St. Louis and open a beauty salon or some stupid shit like that. She still wouldn’t tell Sha-Sha where the deal was at-just kept on with the “Make a left here, make a right there” bullshit, like she was Miss Shadow Traffic. Man, Sha-Sha was sick of taking orders, specially from his ho-ass cousin.

They took the Belt Parkway, round to the BQE. Looked to Sha-Sha like they was heading to Queens someplace. Sha-Sha and Troit just wanted to listen to jazz, have some peace and quiet in the car, before they had to go start killing everybody. But Felicia kept going on and on, givin’ more mouth. She was talking about Sha-Sha’s body again, saying how he was too damn fat, and should go for one of them operations where he could get his stomach sewn up or cut off or some shit. Then she started getting into it with Troit, telling the man he was too thin, that he looked like a skeleton. Sha-Sha couldn’t believe it. Didn’t the ho know who she was talking to?

Troit couldn’t take any more and turned round and said, “Bitch, you better learn how to shut up.”

Felicia still couldn’t keep her mouth shut, said, “You better stop callin’ me bitch. I gotta listen to that shit all day long from Max, and I sure as hell ain’t takin’ that shit from y’all niggas.”

Sha-Sha saw Troit’s hand go for his piece, knew what was gonna happen next. And he couldn’t let that shit happen-not till they knew where the drug deal was at anyway. Sha-Sha turned to Troit, gave him a look that said, Later, man, and Troit put the piece down.

Felicia didn’t shut up the rest of the ride.

One point Troit said to Sha-Sha, “Later, yo, she mine.”

Felicia, all bitchy, went, “What he say?”

Sha-Sha, smiling, went, “Nothin’.”