YNs

2002

White particles fell to the ground. The brick consisted of two hundred kilos. It looked like a huge block of snow. It represented Mount Rushmore for the dealers. It appeared as a giant chunk of soap that would be placed at the entrance to their inner sanctum. The subjects stood with their chins parallel to the ground as well. In all of her artistry, she felt the most power, like she was in the zone or something. Also, the ten thousand dollars she would receive drove her to work even more.

Brenda Threapleton enjoyed putting the final touches on the project.

She spun the work around. They marveled.

“My face in a brick,” Virizio Polton, 22, smiled.

“I’m the best looking out of all of y’all,” Celton Gonce, 25, remarked. Perillo Barry, 25 and Lennox States, 20, remained silent.

A TV played in the background. It displayed the Chambers Brothers and their vast amount of bills displayed on a table.

“Pay the woman, man,” Gonce commanded. States reached into his pocket and counted out the money owed to her. She took the money and continued on her way, but she stopped and said. “I’m really proud of my work, and you all should be proud of what you do, too.” A guard escorted her blindfolded out of the lair.

“We’re going to go from a million a week like them,” Barry pointed at the screen, “to five million a day. What’s stopping us?”

“The feds,” Polton chimed.

“That’s the only way that we can be stopped,” States mentioned. “What’s the plan on this?”

“We wrap up the work and continue with the dollars. Virizio! Get the money counters and start counting these bills. We’re keeping our dollar bills. I don’t know what they’re on,” Barry pointed a thumb at the television screen.

He stuck out his tongue and laughed with a haughty nature. “Alright, we're going out in the van tonight. We can go from here to Sussex County. It’ll be about two hours to go to the tip of the state, South wise. It’s going to be a stretch, but we can handle it,” he observed. Polton and States started loading up the van with firearms. Two .223s, four Uzi, three sawed-off Mossbergs, and two .44 Magnums and one Desert Eagle. Around three hundred kis stuffed into the van via the duo.

Barry and Gonce got in the truck and started their trek southward.

“What’s all the firepower for? Do we have opposition down this way?” Gonce asked

“I didn’t want to mention it in front of the other guys…but there are powers beyond the feds or rival gangs,” Barry explained.

“Oh no, you’re not talking about….”

“Yes. The orange men.”

“Like Syracuse? Down here?” Gonce quipped.

“I’m serious, man.”

“Isn’t that all legend, though?”

“You tell that to the Bourne Boys.”

“Oh, yeah. Their bodies were never found, right?”

“Never.”

Gonce quieted himself. He looked out of the window and noticed the streetlights passing by with swift succession.

“Hey, man, I’ve gotta go, man,” Gonce broke his silence.

“We’ll say that the next stop is the gas station.”

“Cool.”

Gonce then took his John P. Kee CD featuring “Show Up” and inserted it into the player.

He sang to the soprano and alto sections and bellowed out the tenor ones, too. The CD played the seventh track and then he started to look for Barry.

“C’mon man,” he said to himself, “we’ve gotta make this drop and head back up north.” He heard a thud against the van. When he looked up, the sight of Barry without a head alarmed him.

“Goddamn!” He reached around to pick up the two sawed off shotguns and some slugs.

“I ain’t afraid of whatever you are. I ain’t.” He held the firearms parallel to the deck. He saw a figure run across the other side of the vehicle. Then, it leapt on top of the van and roared. Gonce shot but missed. He, though, remained determined. He aimed this time and the orange creature sustained a gruesome head wound and bled out right there at the station. People screamed and ran away from the shots fired and the carnage.

Gonce filled the shot guns up with more slugs. He looked around the place to secure the perimeter. There appeared to be no more its kind in the area.

He got back into the van and drove to Sussex all alone. The gospel music helped to calm his nerves. It rejuvenated him and gave him a sonic suppressant to keep him from swerving on the highway.

“So he was right. Damn, he had to go out that way. I’m just glad I got my rounds off when I could. It could have been nasty back there…well nastier,” he thought. He looked at the rearview mirror and saw a police cruiser. It switched lanes and moved on ahead of him. He breathed. When he looked back at all the weapons and the work, he gulped down a sense of relief. But his mind remained on Barry. He knew his mom and dad. He knew his girl and his toddler son. How’s he going to break this horrific news? No one’s going to believe him. Barry was the only one in the whole clique who believed in the orange men. He felt foolish, dazed, off-kilter yet at the same time focused on the task.

He had a whole folder of gospel music which he played. Hezekiah Walker, Kirk Franklin, Shirley Caesar, and Fred Hammond. They provided some semblance of order in his mind. As he drove those miles to the Southern part of Delaware, he utilized I-95 in all its glory. The miles racked up but he honed in on his goal. Once he reached the destination, he ensured that he had prepared for the smokers and the men receiving this shipment…and these orange monsters.

Gonce pulled up to the main gate. He remembered that they had given a code but he forgot it. Then, he remembered that first responders don’t have time to stop at gates and the code to the community was 0000#. He rolled out over to the apartment where everything looked sedate in the twilight of the evening. Gonce kept going. He didn’t even phone the other men to tell them what had taken place. He lasered in on the exchange.

Campbell Venton stood about six feet tall and dressed superb. His partner Ingle Hayson, peaked at around five eight and dressed equally well.

“Hey, you had a buddy with you, no?” Venton asked.

“I did. The story’s not worth the breath.” Gonce walked around the rear of the van. He opened the doors and it was like heaven’s gates had opened. There seemed to be a sheen, a glow surrounding the kilograms of cocaine.

“Alright, we’re going off the agreement over the phone for $650,000 for the product. Of course, if you flip these, we front you another three hundred kis.” “That’s the way of knowing that we’re in good business,” Venton acknowledged. He dapped him and Hayson and they began unloading the van. The men took about twenty minutes to place all of the product onto a few trucks and wheel them into the garage. Gonce once again shook hands with the two men and returned to his vehicle. All of the different weapons now clanked without the support of the work. He recalled the actual number now, though it didn’t matter which one he used. The gate raised and he was back on the highway. He broke down crying. They consisted of sobs of pain and anguish regarding Barry’s untimely death. He put in a Scarface CD and just kept playing The Diary. The tears flowed. He didn’t want to show that he was crying in front of Polton and Celton when he arrived back at the house. He sniffled a bit and dried his eyes.

“Hey, where’s Barry.”

“He was right that those things do exist. It took his head off. It was like a horror movie or something.” Gonce reached for a Newport and lit it. He looked at his compatriots.

“Damn. With Barry being dead, you’re our new Don,” Celton deduced, looking at Gonce.

“I don’t want it, man. I’ve stacked up my ones. I’m looking for a way out of the hustle. I’m thinking about getting a place in Rehoboth and selling T-shirts.” He tried anything to inject some humor into the glum circumstances.

“C’mon, man. We’ve got an operation going on here. Without your guidance, we don’t have a vision for moving this product. This is all about us getting this money and maybe when fifty or sixty or something, we can cash in and do what you just said,” Polton argued.

“He’s right. We’ve gotta look at it right now. If we move a few more kis, that’s twenty million dollars. We’ll do way better than the Chambers brothers.”

“With Barry gone…I’m just not up to it. It’s a matter of principle. That's what we all took an oath to, isn’t it?”

“We also said the next in line would take over the business. I’m feeling bad for him, but we can’t stop now. We have to continue the fight if we’re going to be able to survive.”

Gonce stomped out his cigarette. He titled his back and blew the emission into the atmosphere. “I can help y’all with the connects but I’m not going to be head of the operation. It’s too wild out here for that.”

Once the three men stopped to look around, they found themselves surrounded by the orange men.

“Get to the van!” Gonce commanded like a general in the field.

Celton and Polton retrieved the firearms and distributed them amongst each other.

“On my count of three, blast at the center of the head. One, two, three!”

The night air crackled with gunshots that became largely ignored in a neighborhood like theirs in Wilmington, Delaware. They kept firing and firing, hitting some in the head. They were out numbered but they had enough firepower to defeat them. There existed a sense like a dreaded phone call in school that fell on all three of them. The orange bodies fell to the ground despite their speed and agility. Soaking in sweat, the three men cracked beers and leaned up against the house.

“Who knows when there will be more of them? There will be more,” Gonce said as he poured out some for Barry. “I’m going to call the Barry family. They’re going to be torn up thinking a smoker tested him or a rival gang took him out of here. Not some goddamn orangemen.”

“The legend is definitely true,” States affirmed. “I just can’t believe we have to look out for the cops, other crews, smokers….”

“It’s part of the math.”

“That’s what we have to do. We’ve gotta come together as sets and raise awareness of these things,” Polton mentioned.

Gonce and States exchanged glances. “Nah,” they voiced in unison. “I’m just trying to find my way out of this kitchen like you, Celt’. If those things impede our progress we’ll have nothing left to save.”

“Calm down, calm down. We’re going to put up enough defense to take down all of them wherever the hell they originate.”

States walked around, wondering if he could sense them by just listening, smelling, or tasting the air. He looked severe like he’d just sliced his finger. He brought down his head and prayed. Gonce, though he listened to gospel music, remained a devout atheist. States and Polton both believed. In the midst of his orison, an orange man swooped in and snatched him up and ate him whole. Gonce and States each looked up and saw it on top of the van. One shot killing it, Gonce used the .223 and tore through its head with effectiveness. Polton hyperventilated. “What the hell, man?! That’s Barry and States. What are we going to do?!”

“We’re going to keep calm. We’ll let the families know about their deaths and hire new people. That’s the on;y wise route. Okay? We will get through this madness.”