Read Online Tyrell by Coe Booth - Free Book Online Page A

with no baby mama shit right ‘bout now.
    Cal smile. “Yeah, me and her is through. I got three girls now.” Then he go on and on with one of his stories ‘bout how he gettin’all these fine females now that him and Tina broke up. Cal is my boy, but that nigga can talk some mad shit when he get started.
    Finally, when he done, he lean up against the row of metal mailboxes. “So what up? What you need?”
    I gotta admit, sometimes I can’t stand coming to Cal like this. Me and him is cool and everything, but I wish things was like they used to be, when we was both broke as a joke. Now that he selling weed and making money, things is different. It’s like now I gotta come to him for help, like I need him to save me or something.
    â€œSay the word, Ty, and I’ll hook you up. You can work for me, make some real money. How long you planning to make that chump change you makin’ now?”
    â€œCal, I ain’t working for you.”
    He shake his head like he don’t understand me. “You only fifteen, man,” he say, like he ain’t fifteen hisself. “You get arrested, you still a juvenile. Ain’t nothing gonna happen to you all that bad. What you scared of?”
    Me and him had this conversation ‘bout twenty times already, and he know how I feel. “I ain’t scared of nothin’,” I say. I don’t want him thinking I’m scared of getting locked up, ‘cause that ain’t it. “I told you, man, I get locked up, Troy gonna end up back in the system. My moms can’t take care of him by herself. You know how she is.”
    â€œYeah, your moms is bugged, man.”
    â€œCal, you ain’t never been in the system, but we was, and I ain’t going down like that again. I wanna keep things easy. I need to make some money, but I gotta keep myself out of jail, least ‘til my pops get out, know what I mean?” For some reason, I’m getting real mad just thinkin’ ‘bout my pops coming home. “Cal,when he get out, I’m on my own ‘cause ain’t no way me and him gonna live under the same roof again.”
    I don’t really know why I’m telling all my plans to Cal, but I don’t want him thinking I’m turning down his job ‘cause I’m scared. When my pops get out, who know? Maybe I will work for Cal for a while, make some quick cash. I wanna make sure I’m ready to move wherever Novisha wanna go to college. It don’t matter to me where we go. I just need to be able to take care of her while she studying and shit. And I’ma do whatever it take to make her happy.
    After a while me and Cal walk up to the third floor where he live at with his two big brothers. They moms used to live there too, but they got her a apartment in Co-op City. Cal s’posed to be living with her, but he spend most of his time right here. Both his brothers is home when we get there. Greg is sitting on the couch playing some game on the PlayStation. On the screen this man is running down the hall and just killing everybody in sight. Heads is gettin’ blown off, and blood is everywhere. The game look so real, and Greg is just smiling and working them controls like this is all he do all day. That and get high.
    Andre, the other brother, is in the kitchen on the cell. “What up, Ty?” he ask when he get off the phone. “When you gonna start working with us, man? We expanding our business and we looking for some new guys? You down?”
    â€œNah, not now,” I say.
    â€œYou still with that MetroCard bullshit?”
    â€œYeah, but I wanna talk to y’all ‘bout something else.”
    Andre sit down at the table and light up a blunt. “You want a taste?”
    â€œA’ight.”
    Next thing I know, me, Calvin, and Andre is sitting at the kitchen table gettin’ fucked up. I gotta say, them niggas got the best weed in the Bronx. Greg come into the