Excerpt from Next Book

 Okay, I'm currently close to finishing the next book, entitled Thug Life: Emancipated.  The main character will be Shade, the young hustler introduced in She's His Drug, He's Her Thug 3.  He was such an interesting character that I thought it would be fun to do more with him.  Anyway, below is an excerpt from the book. (And for those interested, I'm kicking around an idea for She's His Drug 4, although a part of me says Book 3 ended well and to leave well enough alone.)

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It only took Shade a few minutes to unclog the toilet. He generally kept things like the plumbing and electrical in their house running without a hitch – something his grandfather had taught him. Occasionally, however, Gin would flush random shit down the toilet: plastic sandwich bags, dirty handkerchiefs, roach clips, and so on. That’s why his first thought upon learning about the stopped-up toilet was to ask where she was. Needless to say, the fact that she wasn’t presently at home didn’t mean she hadn’t down something to cause the current problem. (And bearing in mind that his mother had once flushed a dirty needle, he was working with gloves on.) What he actually pulled out of the toilet line, however, was something that first surprised and then angered him.

Trying to contain his fury, Shade marched back to the kitchen, where Goose, Nissa and Cherry were still at the table.

“Goose,” Shade began, trying to keep his voice even, “can you help me with sommin’ outside for a minute?”

“Ah, sure,” Goose replied, plainly surprised, since Shade rarely ever spoke to him without prompting. Nissa however, recognizing her brother’s mood, suddenly looked worried but didn’t say anything.

As he’d done with Rod the night before, Shade just started walking towards the back door, and Goose followed. A moment later, they were in the back yard, at which juncture Shade actually led them to the side of the house.

Once there, Shade turned and faced Goose, who looked at him expectedly. Rather than say anything, Shade lifted his right hand – which was still gloved – and flicked his wrist in Goose’s direction. A moment later, something wet and rubbery hit Goose in the face.

It wasn’t hard and didn’t hurt, but Goose closed his eyes and flinched instinctively. He then brought a hand up and wiped his face; he blinked, and then his eyes went wide when he saw, on the ground, the item that Shade had hit him with: a used condom.

“What da fuck???!!” he screeched. “Are you crazy?!”

“Naw, nigga,” Shade shot back. “You da one crazy, flushin’ fuckin’ rubbers down my toilet.”

“Man, you got that wrong. Me and Nissa ain’t even doin’ nuthin’.”

Shade’s eyes narrowed. “You might wanna rethink that last statement.”

Goose frowned. “Whachu mean?”

“What I mean is that you the only nigga besides me been ’round here lately. Now, my crackhead momma’s in the wind, so that just leaves my two sistas as the only fems in the house.  Now if you sayin’ you ain’t done nuthin’ with Nissa, that just leaves our lil’ sista Cherry, you, and a used condom. I don’t like that math and you shouldn’t either, because it mean that shit’s ’bout to escalate in a way that’s gonna be fuckin’ unhealthy for you.”

Goose gulped. “Okay, um, maybe Nissa and me–”

“Maybe?” Shade interjected incredulously.

“Okay, okay.  We, uh, we did so sommin’. We was on the couch, and–”

“Muhfucka, I don’t need no details,” Shade snapped, cutting him off. Trying to keep his cool, Shade took a deep breath. “Look, I’m responsible for Nissa, but I don’t try to control her. She does what she wants with who she wants, and she’s smart enough to be careful.”

“Okay, cool,” Goose muttered, sounding relieved.

“But you need to understand sommin’,” Shade continued, with a hard edge to his voice now. “If she get pregnant, you takin’ care of that baby.”

Goose nodded. “Yeah, dawg – I get where you comin’ from.”

“Naw, nigga,” Shade countered, shaking his head. “This ain’t gone be one of them hood situations, where you drop off a pack of diapers every other month then brag to muhfuckas ’bout how you takin’ care of yo kid. You payin’ for everythang.”

Goose look confused for a moment. “Whachu mean, ‘everythang’?”

“I mean everythang, nigga,” Shade stressed. “The kid need a new pair of shoes, you buyin’ ’em. They got private school tuition, you payin’. They got a class trip to muhfuckin’ France, you coughin’ up the funds.”

Goose looked stunned. It was as if he was hearing something that he had never considered before, something outside the realm of possibility – like being told he had a vagina.

“Basically,” Shade continued, “if you knock up my sista, every red cent needed to support that kid is comin’ from you – even if I have to harvest yo fuckin’ organs to get it.”