Dead Faith

By W.J. Powell

At twenty-years-old, the only thing Quick knows is how to survive life on the streets. Most of his friends are dead or in jail, and his younger brother, Trouble, gives new meaning to the word. Quick meets Tracy, a beautiful nurse who is untainted by Quick’s hard lifestyle. As Quick struggles to lead a double life of violence and love, he must ultimately decide his fate—whether he lives or dies in the place he calls home.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: May 14, 2014
• ISBN: 9781631920486

Book preview

top.

THE BEGINNING....

Don’t move, I whispered as I gently pressed my rusty .32 revolver against the back of his head.

That’s my word. You act like you got some heart, and I’ll leave yo fat ass right here stinking, I said as I grabbed Jason around his neck while still holding my gun against the back of his head.

I ’only had two shells in my gun, but best believe if he made the wrong move he was getting both of them. My brother Trouble, quickly snatched the keys from Jason’s hand, and we began walking him from his driveway to his front porch.

Which key is it? My brother screamed while dangling the keys in front of Jason’s face. Jason pointed to a silver key on his key ring.

How many people in there? Trouble asked. Jason shook his head slowly, stating that no one was home.

Anybody in this house when we get in here. I swear to God, I’m going to blow your fucking fat-ass brains out, I quietly whispered in his ear as I slowly tapped the back of his head with my gun.

As my brother turned the key, something came over me. Something did not feel right. At that very moment when the key turned in the lock, I wanted to turn around. I wanted to tell my younger brother to just forget it. Forget it and let’s go home. Something wasn’t right. But it was too late. We had gone too far to turn around.

CHAPTER 1

I could see her begging for her life without her even saying a word.

Surprise! was all I remembered hearing. Everything after that seemed to be in slow motion, without sound. As we walked in the house, all the lights came on. There, under a sign that read Happy Birthday Jason, stood about fifteen to twenty people. After the shout of surprise, everyone, including my brother and I just stood there for what seemed like days, silent. One guy, who looked to be in his mid-forties, dressed in a blue sweat suit, lunged toward my brother.

Without even blinking, my brother fired a shot, striking the man above his top lip. I had already had the hammer pulled back on my gun but didn’t really realize how tight I was actually holding it. When my brother fired the shot, it scared me a little, and without really knowing what I was doing, I fired. The bullet went through the back of Jason’s head. As the front of his head burst opened, people began screaming and knocking each other over while running toward the back of the house.

As I stood there watching Jason’s body hit the floor, my brother ran toward the rear of the house after them. Suddenly, I heard seven shots come from the kitchen, and a man came charging toward me. I stood there as I watched my brother step from around the corner, take aim and shoot the man in the back of his head. The man still managed to run past me and make it to the front door. Just as he placed his hand on the doorknob he collapsed. My brother quickly disappeared back into the kitchen. I heard several more shots, and seconds later, my brother came running out of the kitchen.

Fuck you standing there for. . . let’s go! He yelled.

As we ran out of the front door, I removed my mask, trying to catch my breath. All I kept wondering was what happened to the money. What happened to us coming here to get paid? Shit had gotten out of hand so fast that money was the last thing on our minds. Just as I reached the bottom of the stairs, a woman, perhaps in her mid-sixties, ran screaming from the rear of the house down the driveway. When we made eye contact, I could see her begging for her life without her even saying a word.

It was one of those being-at-the-wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time situations. I hadn’t come here for this; I came for Jason. A local big-time drug dealer. The plan was to rob him and keep it moving, and nobody was supposed to get hurt, and nobody for damn sure was supposed to die, but in my life nothing ever goes as planned. I quickly raised my gun, and in one fluid motion, I fired one shot—my only shot—striking the woman in the forehead. She grabbed her face and fell to the ground motionless.

As I ran down the street to catch up with my brother, I looked back and saw the woman crawl slowly down the sidewalk toward me. She crawled about four or five feet, reached out her hand as if she was trying to grab me, and collapsed. I turned away and quickly caught up with my brother. We ran for what seemed like forever. I felt like my heart was going to give out.

Finally, we were on East Main Street. We walked until we got to Scio Street. We were in our neighborhood now, so we were safe, or at least I felt we were. The whole time we were walking we didn’t say shit to each other. During our walk, I looked over at my brother and noticed that his right hand was still shaking.

It was obvious that he did what he thought had to be done even though he was scared as hell. While I stared at him, I wondered if he knew I was just as scared as he was. It was one of those things that neither one of us would ever admit to each other. We would always talk tough and say what we would do to someone, but this was different because we had actually done it! It was funny because the whole neighborhood viewed my brother and I as stone-cold killers, but we had actually never killed anyone . . . until now.

As we were walking down Scio Street, my brother looked at me, nodded his head, and turned up Weld Street. I had to walk another thirty minutes before I got to where I lived.

It was funny that I called it home because it wasn’t a home at all. The place I called home was simply a mattress on a cold basement floor. But shit, it was better than sleeping downtown under the bridge I guess. The whole time I was walking I kept thinking to myself that all that was for nothing. We didn’t get a damn dime out of what we just did.

When I got to my house, I opened the side door and stepped into the hallway of the apartment building. I always stopped and listened before I went into the basement to make sure no one was coming downstairs or no one was coming up from the basement. I slowly grabbed the doorknob to the basement door and eased it open. As I walked down the dimly light stairs, I felt a sense of relief. I was really safe now.

I walked into a small room in the rear of the basement and removed my shoes, laid down on the mattress ,and stared at the ceiling. Then I got up, kneeled beside the mattress ,and began to pray.

Dear God, if you can hear me. I promise you that I never meant for anyone to get hurt. If I could change what happened tonight I would. Please forgive me. Please forgive me for all the evil that I do. Amen.

After I finished my prayer, I paced the room. The shit that happened tonight really got to me. In the streets I had to keep up this tough-guy act because if I didn’t anything could happen to me. I really wished tonight wouldn’t have happened. On some real shit, I might have not felt as bad as I did if we would have gotten some paper out the deal. I laid back down on the mattress and stared at the ceiling. Damn, I thought to myself. My first robbery shot straight to hell. Life was different now. Now I had blood on my hands. So there was no turning back.

CHAPTER 2

It’s a good thing he didn’t want any money, I thought to myself, because right now I ain’t got shit!

It’s kind of cool down here, The gas and electric man said as he walked in the basement and noticed me lying on a mattress.

Yeah, I replied as I was awakened by his voice. I come down here all the time when it’s hot.

I quickly got up and walked up the stairs and out the side door. I had fallen asleep and was sleeping so hard that I didn’t feel or hear him standing over me reading the meters. Since I had nowhere to stay, I would go to this apartment building on Weyl Street every night. I knew the basement door didn’t have a lock on it because my Aunt Moe stayed in the upstairs apartment so that was where I would lay my head at night. Sometimes, while leaving in the morning, I would look up at her window and wonder if she knew I was staying in her basement, and if she did know, would she ask me to come upstairs.

When I was younger I stayed with my Aunt Moe for a while. I guess I stayed with her until about the ninth grade. I got tired of being her personal punching bag so I bounced. The Bible says; spare the rod, spoil the child. My Aunt Moe made sure I wasn’t spoiled. She would beat me over the simplest things. I remember the night we were eating dinner and she reached across the kitchen table and smacked me across the face because she felt I was eating too fast. She smacked me so hard I couldn’t hear shit for about fifteen minutes. Then she grabbed me by my neck and choked me. Causing me to spit out my food and start over. This was a weekly occurrence for me. My aunt would come home intoxicated and beat the hell out of me. I always wished she would get a man so it would take some of the attention off of me. She moved me to Rochester when I was thirteen years old. I had to take those constant ass whippings for almost three years. On my sixteenth birthday she was upset because I asked why I never received anything for my birthday. It made her so mad that she ran to the kitchen and grabbed a knife and threatened to stab the shit out of me if I disrespected her ever again. Once I left my aunt’s house any stability I had in my life was gone. I loved going to school but had to drop out because I had nowhere to live. With only a ninth grade education, there was no way anyone would hire me.

When I left, I didn’t have anywhere to go, but I knew I didn’t want to live there anymore, so at the time, I thought that living in the streets was a whole lot better than living with my aunt. I was a teenager and I wanted to live like one.

When I got to Hudson Avenue, I began walking toward my Uncle Johnny’s house. I would go there every day to eat, and most of the time he would give me five or ten dollars to put in my pocket. His wife worked at a nearby school, so she would always bring home the leftover school lunches for me. Shit, most days that was the only time I got a chance to eat. After that, I would go to my homeboy’s house where I kept my clothes and take a shower then hit the streets. This was a daily routine for me. For as long as I could remember, my mother never took care of me. I remembered staying with her from second grade up until I was about in the fourth grade and that was it. Even then it felt like a nightmare that would never end.

I never knew who my father was, and my mother probably didn’t know either. I believed that part of my anger toward the world came from not having the luxury of having parents. I mean, I literally grew up alone with no one to look out for me. I knew who my mother was and where she lived, but I guess taking care of me was more of a problem than a responsibility. I used to always think that if I had parents I would have turned out to be a doctor or some famous lawyer. But you know