Born Sinners Read online

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  Wicked Pen Publications Presents

  Born Sinners

  By

  Marlon McCaulsky

  Copyright 2015 Marlon McCaulsky

  Published by:

  Wicked Pen Publications, LLC

  P.O. Box 1788

  Red Oak, GA 30272

  www.wickedpenpublications.com

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE:

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either the product of the authors imagination, or used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locals are coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a newspaper or magazine.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author/publisher.

  Cover Design

  Vonda Howard of VPL Graphic Design

  Editing

  Shelby R. Lazenby, MBA for Progressive Editing Solutions, LLC

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  ‘Fuck the world, don’t ask me for shit. And everything you get ya gotta work hard for it.’- ‘The What’

  The Notorious B.I.G. & Method Man

  Introduction

  Taft Projects- Harlem, N.Y.

  November 1992

  THE IMPACT OF A FIST MADE HIS NOSE EXPLODE. A mixture of snot and blood made an abstract Jackson Pollock pattern against his shirt. The sounds of two men trying to beat each other into the concrete echoed in the dark alley. The man now wearing his blood-splattered art received another blow to the face. His name was Lamar Ferguson, but in the streets he preferred to be called ‘Money’ on the strength of his hustle while selling crack rocks to the local fiends.

  Born and raised in the Taft Projects, Lamar Johnson made a name for himself by constantly bragging about the money he got. He always flossed fat gold chains, designer shirts, and jeans. He rocked the latest Timberland boots, and he flashed his knock-off Rolex that he bought 125th street in Harlem. What Money didn’t know is that flossing and fronting made himself a target. Coming from where he came from and being around niggas that were hungry for a come up, Money should have known this was coming. When niggas are starving, they’ll eat whoever looks like bait.

  The barrage of blows that were feverishly thrown to his face staggered Money. He couldn’t see his attacker's face. A gray hoodie and black bandana hid his face. The only thing he could see was his eyes. A pair of dark eyes that were full of rage. The man was pure evil, he thought. He tried to pull his gun, only to have it knocked away in the scuffle. His assailant crept up on him from behind. Money was barely able to move in time to avoid the pipe that was coming for his skull. Instead it grazed him, not enough to drop him, but hard enough to daze him. Another blow to his shoulder sent him crashing against a brick wall. Money fought back and was able to get the pipe out of his assailant’s hands, but this guy was a like a demon.

  Another thing Money didn’t know was that his attacker had been stalking him for days. He’d been watching his moves, making note of his routine, and waiting for the right opportunity to spring his attack. When that moment came, Money was completely unprepared for the fury that was brought to him. There was no such thing as a fair fight in the hood. A vicious series of combinations of punches, kicks, elbows, and knees soon brought Money to the ground, and even then the beating didn’t stop. It didn’t stop until Money was bruised, bloodied and barely conscious. Only then did his attacker ease up.

  He ruffled through his pockets, taking the knot of tens and twenties Money had tied with a rubber band. He shoved that in his pocket. He snatched the Jesus piece attached to the gold chain around Money’s neck. He dropped that in his other pocket. Then he grabbed the fake Rolex on Money’s wrist. He looked at it for a second, shook his head, and then tossed it back on Money’s chest. He was only interested in the real shit.

  Through the one eye that was not completely swollen, Money glared at his attacker trying to see if he could recognize something about him. He was gonna get this nigga. Money was angry at himself for being caught slipping. He was beaten, but payback was mandatory and he wasn’t a punk. Money started trying to rise, only to be greeted by a Nike to the face.

  “Where you going? Stay down bitch,” his attacker bellowed.

  His world went black.

  ~~~

  “Wake yo’ black ass up! This ain’t no damn hotel!” Darlene yelled at her son. Contrary to what some people may say, nobody is born evil. Our environment and our upbringing influence us all. Given the right circumstances, anybody can become a monster. Although, with a name like Damien, it’s not hard to see how someone can turn out that way. When your mother is a dope fiend, your upbringing becomes a little twisted.

  Damien stirred at the voice screeching in his ear, wiped the sleep from his eyes, and rolled over in his bed. At the grand age of seventeen, this wakeup call was nothing new to him.

  “You need to get yo' black ass out there and get a job!” His mother swiftly yanked the thin blanket off of his long, lean body. “You need to be paying some of these damn bills ‘round here!”

  “Maybe if you didn’t shoot up all the money you could pay them,” Damien mumbled to himself and rolled his eyes.

  He sat up and threw his long legs over the side of his bed, put his feet on the cold floor, and looked away from his mother. He noticed that when she yanked the covers off of him, her dirty gray robe gaped open. He didn’t want to see what she was hiding. Darlene used to be a dime, but her continued drug use over the years dramatically reduced her physical appearance to that of a fiend. Her once well-kept shoulder-length mane was now a matted mess, and her supple ebony skin was reduced to a dry, ashen tone. Although a fiend, her body was still tight, and because of that she still had different men sleeping with her every night.

  “What did you say?” Darlene asked in a daring tone with a cigarette dangling from her lips as she walked up on Damien, forcing him to look at her.

  She cocked her neck to the side, scratched her head, and waited for a response. Darlene wanted one good reason to smack Damien upside his mouth. By the tight pull of her lips as well as the squint in her eyes, Damien knew she was ready to battle and he didn’t want any part of it.

  “Nothin’ ma,” he replied softly. “Nothin’.”

  “That’s what I thought.” Darlene snapped with authority.

  Damien shook his head listening to his mother rant. This was nothing new. Whenever she wasn’t shooting up, she was yelling at him. Once Damien hit his last growth spurt and was physically bigger than her, she fell back on beating him. Throwing her shoes or a pot from a distance became easier to do.

  She glared at him, “You know you ain’t shit right?”

  Damien returned her glare, clinching his fist, and gritting his teeth.

  “You’re a fucking looser! Just like you’re sorry ass daddy!”

  He turned his head away from her trying to ignore her taunts. “Yeah okay unhuh.”

  “You ain’t ever gonna be shit either! You can’t even keep yo’ ass in school,” she looked around his room. “It smells like shit in here!”

  “It’s probably you,” he mumbled.

  Darlene frowned, took the lit cigarette from her mouth, and flicked it on him. Damien unexpectedly felt the burns on his neck and chest as he quickly brushed the cancer stick off of him.

  “What the fuck,” he
yelled standing up.

  A wicked grin came to her lips as she saw the pain on her son’s face. He glared at his mother. He hated her. He wanted to kill her. But more than that he hated that deep down inside he still loved her. That was the only thing saving her from a similar beating he gave to his victim last night. His knuckles were sore from that ass whooping he delt.

  “I pay the bills in this mutha’fucka, not you! Now get yo' ass up. If you ain’t gonna go to school, then get a fuckin’ job!” Darlene yelled as she pulled her robe closed and walked back to her bedroom with her house slippers flopping against the wooden floor.

  Damien cursed, and stomped to the bathroom. It wasn’t always like this between Damien and his mother. At one point when he was younger, he was what most of his friends would call a momma’s boy. That slowly changed after his mother started shooting heroin in ‘85.

  As the years passed and Damien grew older, he began to resemble his father, and Darlene began to resent him. Damien’s father left when he was three years old, and neither of them had heard from him since. Not only did he resemble his father, Damien also shared a lot of his mannerisms. The way he walked, the way he laughed, and even how he smiled were all reminiscent of his father. Almost everything about Damien drove Darlene crazy.

  At 17 years old, Damien stood about 6’1” with broad shoulders and well-defined arms. He even had an obvious six pack that he absent-mindedly worked at but didn’t floss. His skin was an even toned light-ebony color, and his dark eyes were something else he inherited from his father. If eyes were the windows to your soul, then Darlene saw his father’s threatening glare staring back at her at times.

  He wasn’t a pretty boy, but he was far from ugly - just thuggish. With no real spending money, his fade hadn’t been cut in a few months, and his clothes were far from new. While most of his peers were rocking Karl Kani and Cross Colors, Damien dressed in gray hoodies, jeans, and a pair of old black and white basketball Nikes.

  With his mother spending most, if not all, of her welfare check on heroin, it was always a guessing game as to which utility would be cut off and when. As Damien reached inside of the shower and turned the water on, he got his answer. The ice-cold water startled him and he turned it off quickly. ‘No gas’, he huffed. Taking a cold shower in November was suicide, so a quick wipe down would have to do.

  Dressed in his normal hoodie, jeans, and Nikes, Damien headed off toward the kitchen. The only thing they did have was food, and plenty of it. ‘Thank God for food stamps’, he thought as his stomach growled.

  Damien walked into the kitchen and stopped in his tracks when he saw a man he had never seen before sitting in his chair at the table. He was only wearing a pair of draws and a wife-beater, while eating some Cap’n Crunch.

  “Whassup little nigga?” the man acknowledged.

  Damien glared at him and grabbed the box of cereal to eat a bowl, but the box was empty.

  “Sorry about that son,” The guy said to him, smacking like he had no care in the world.

  Damien watched as he took another mouth full of cereal and saw milk dribble from the corner of his mouth. Damien had grown used to seeing random niggas his mom would fuck with in the house, but having them eat all the damn food was something he couldn’t stand.

  “This is some bullshit!” Damien threw the box on the floor, and stormed out of the door. ‘Fuck it’, Damien thought as he walked to the bodega to get himself something to eat. ‘Go to school or get a job’, he remembered his mother yelling at him. “Fuck you too.” He pursed his lips and huffed.

  Damien dropped out of tenth grade a month after school started after getting into an argument with a teacher over a test he had turned in.

  “So I’m gonna ask you one more time Mr. Ruffin,” Mr. Waldman, Damien’s 12th grade math teacher at P.S.89 spoke as he stood in front of Damien’s desk. “How did you score a 94% on my exam?”

  “What do you mean how did I score a 94%,” Damien shot back.

  “You know what I mean. You’re hardly ever in my class, and you’ve never turned in a homework assignment. So who did you cheat off of?”

  Audible talk filled the air amongst the students who waited to see what would happen next.

  “Man, I ain’t cheat off nobody! I sat right here and took that shit!” Damien raised his voice defiantly, upset that Mr. Waldman accused him of cheating.

  “You watch your mouth, young man!” Mr. Waldman warned sternly as he slammed the test down on Damien’s desk, showering his face with a brisk breeze. “You are going to have to learn that cheaters don’t win in my world, Mr. Ruffin. That’s why you failed.”

  “Oooh!” A classmate squealed.

  Damien looked at his test, and then back at Mr. Waldman. Instinctively, he jumped up and yelled, “Yo, fuck you, man! I don’t need this bullshit class anyway!”

  “That’s right, tell him!” A classmate chortled as others became rowdy.

  Damien balled up the paper and threw it in Mr. Waldman’s face.

  “That’s it! You’ve just earned yourself a week of detention,” Mr. Waldman yelled, as he turned bright red in front of his students.

  Without hesitation, Damien threw a hard right hook to Mr. Waldman’s face, sending him to the floor. The classroom erupted with laughter as Mr. Waldman grabbed his right eye in pain.

  “Fuck you and this school, you freckle-face mutha’fucka! I don’t need this shit anyway!” Damien walked out of class and never went back.

  1

  The Jump Off

  November 1992

  Damien’s mom was right; if he wasn’t going to go to school then he had better get a job. Working at McDonalds flipping burgers wasn’t his style. Damien had a friend from around the way that hustled on 125th. Damien made a journey to visit his homie Irv Watts who he knew could hook him up with some work. Damien found Irv working the corner selling weed to people rolling up to him in their car. Irv was tall and thick. He had a reddish skin tone with a tight bald fade. Irv’s muscular build and demeanor naturally gave off the vibe of don’t fuck with me and there won’t be any trouble. He could’ve pasted for a fourth member of the hip-hop group Onyx, but women still found him sexy. Irv spotted Damien walking and made his way over toward him.

  “What’s up my nigga?” Irv asked, and gave him some dap.

  “Chillin’.”

  “So what you doing over here, Dame? Ain’t seen you in a minute.”

  “Just trying to see what you got poppin’ over here.”

  “Same old shit. Just serving these niggas up,” Irv replied causally.

  Damien looked around the area as if he was inspecting Irv’s operation. Damien saw another dude across the street hustling, and a wino sitting in the alley sipping on a Heineken, and then he looked back at Irv.

  “Yo, I wanted to know if you can put me on?”

  Irv stared at him, nodded, and then said, “Yeah, I can get you some work. Just come back through here tomorrow about this time, and I’ll hook ya up.”

  “A’ight my nigga, I’ll be back.”

  He gave him a pound and walked back down the block. Damien started to work the block with Irv the next day. The money was straight but Damien was thinking about how to get more money a faster way. It wasn’t long before he decided to go back to hustle he knew, jacking fools for their loot. He already had his next victim picked out. Damien was watching the kid all day and crept up to him in the alley, while he was re-upping his supply.

  “Give me ya shit nigga!”

  Damien hit the kid in the back with a pipe. The kid yelled, but was still holding on to his money. “You think I’m playing nigga? I said give me that shit!”

  Damien beat the shit out of him and took his money and stash. He scored a quick two hundred dollars.

  Over the next two weeks Damien was smart enough to never let his mother see his new stuff he would buy or risk having his mother steal his shit and pawn it. He kept his money and weed on him at all times. Damien’s idols were the local big time hustlers i
n Harlem. Harlem hustlers were so fly about how they dressed and the hoes they would fuck with. They would be pushing big ass Cadillac’s and Mercedes-Benz. Damien knew that was the life he wanted some day.

  In the meantime Damien just settled on the paper chase he had already mastered. Today he had a little extra cash on him and decided it was time for a haircut. He got his fade tightened along two cuts in his eye brows. Then he went and bought himself a pair of baggy black jeans, and a fresh pair of black and white Fila’s. While he was walking out of the store he ran into Irv.

  “Aye, what’s up my nigga,” Irv greeted him with a shoulder hug.

  “Chilling my nigga, how you livin’?”

  “Shit, I’m doing my thing son. Aye, you know Nard is throwing a house party tonight at his crib.”

  “Word?”

  “Yeah my nigga, you know there’s gonna be plenty of hoes up in there too.”

  “That’s what I’m talking about.”

  “So you gonna come through?”

  “No doubt.”

  “Alright my nigga I’ll see you tonight. One.”

  “One, my nigga,” Damien said as he walked away. He decided to pick up a new polo shirt for the party tonight and went back into the store. It had been a while since he been to a party so he was going to be fly. There was no half stepping tonight.

  Later that night, Damien went to Nard’s brownstone home on 116th street and could barely walk into his basement party. This was the jump off for sure. The DJ was spinning The Humpty Dance. Irv was right, the basement was filled with a lot of girls. The smell of weed and alcohol filled the air. The girls in here freaking were fine and he was ready to get up on them. This one girl caught Damien’s eye, her name was Stacy Clarke. He knew her from school and had flirted with her, but never got the chance to get with her before he got expelled. Tonight he was going to see what’s up. The DJ started to play SWV’s ‘Weak’, and he moved in on Stacy.