to back to his weapon, a true companion in Benjamin’s line of work, more intimate to him than his own heart beat. The creole smiles eerily as the weapon shines in his eyes.
Something that would scare most law abiding civilians.
“Ya’ see this lil’ lady right hur’ my ole’ friend.”
“This sexy bitch aint neva’ let me down.”
“She tha’ only lady by my side three sixty-fuck’in five playa’.”
Benjamin smiles, kissing the long pearl handled blade, placing it back in its holster.
“Tha’ fat fuck’a come near me, I’mma gut him lik’a Sunday hog.”
“Trimmings and all.”
The creole looks over to his buddy. Breakfast is finished.
Time to also finish up a few loose ends before the plan takes place tomorrow.
His belly full and satisfied, Benjamin glances to the sunny window. Thinking back, the creole glances at his best friend for twenty-six years.
“Th’ur sum’thin ya’ aint tell’in me. I’ll find out wha’ it is boy.”
“No fuck’in doubt bout’ that playa’.”
Slick looks to the outside day, beaming with a new and pleasing way. Gently, the hustler’s gaze seems to study the kitchen he has been in every morning for the last twelve years. He already misses his home. “Actually thu'r’ is .....,” the young killer says softly.
“When we do this, we off ta’ New Orleans. Fo’ good.”
Benjamin glances to his buddy, then back out to the manicured grounds out front. He has been suspecting this for some time. He has noticed his brother checking for real estate in and around the famous southern city. The hustler has also been paying for information concerning the more colorful residents of New Orleans. The creole has been waiting for the final word for some time.
“Kelly kno’ bout this ?,” he asks.
“Yeah, hu’r folks gott’a big house down th’ur in tha’ French Quarter. Been in tha’ family since yur’ family was in chains. Pick’in cotton and eat’in dirt,” Slick grins.
Benjamin looks over at his brother with a glaring deadpan.
“Next time I bring my blade out’cha my sock fuck’a.”
“That bitch gon’ get a good red sip this morning, courtesy of your fuck’in neck negro,” he sneers playfully.
“Talk’in bout me like that .....”
Slick grins as he looks outside, then back to his kin. He means to say something else.
“Shut tha’ fuck up asshole. My peoples whu’r work’in them same fields. Right next ta’ yours nigga.”
“Proud po’ white trash fo’ decades. Aint no shame in my game.”
Benjamin nods. Slick and he have always had an unspoken communication, a camaraderie of goodwill and care that will never be said nor see the light of day. But its there, has to be. Murdering people can be an intimate affair into the darkest of oblivion.
Sharing that experience with another person that understands keeps one grounded in reality. From descending into darkness. Quietly the men look from each other, knowing the other would give his life for the next.
That fact been proven too many times.
Benjamin’s pick his teeth with a toothpick. “Nigga-yo’ say I love you, I’mma cut ya’ fuck’in throat,” he grins.
“Don't’ worry ya fuck’in yella’ mongrel.”
“I hat’cha ya’ guts like night hat’in day,” Slick grins.
Listening to the woman upstairs, Sally laughing with Kelly, the men consider their lives, as well as the women that love and adore them. Slick can not see his life without Kelly. Nor her money.
The two men sit in the kitchen for some time, silent. Respectful of each, both think hard and heavy. Planning and conniving is a part of a the men’s job. Plans upon plans, first second and third. Nothing is done without a backup and a backup for that.
Curious as he sits back in his chair, ready to hear the plan of a lifetime, benjamin thinks of other rumors he has heard. “So. What's in Nola' ?,” he finally asks.
Slick sits back, deeply sighing as the sun shines through the kitchen window on his handsome face. He peers over to Benjamin, a man as equally dashing as he. The white slickster instantly thinks back to a time where money was not so plentiful. Where life was rough and hard, brutal.
A time when friendship was a defense against death itself.
Atlanta was a harsh for the poor back in the 1900’s. Sharecroppers and the wealthy was all that existed, there was not much of a middle class.
Around April 6 1902, Henry Igasho, a sickly small blonde little boy with a strange Native American last name, met a mixed race black boy. A robust child of the same age, Benjamin Beaulieu.
The black boy’s family were always treated badly, a family of seven working in a large tobacco field. One hundred acres to be toiled over by broken backs and spirits.
There were other black families on the Stewart's’ plantation. Fifty to be exact, one family for every two acres. The patriarch of the plantation, David Stewart, was a reasonable men, though racist to his core. Which always confused little Benjamin. The man would call the little boy a nigger, then come back a few hours later with sweets for all the kids.
Little Henry’s family did not fair any better. One of two, the boy had a sister. The kids belong to a small family, one of twelve white families working on the fields.
When Stewart would ride around with one of his sons, young men just as crazy as him, the plantation owner would always eye Benjamin’s mama curiously.
Then eye the boy, always with a gentle smile.
Nothing was ever said, but Benjamin suspected the landowner was his daddy. A secret his mother carried to her early grave. Probably because she was raped.
Little Benjamin, always curious and hardworking, nose always to the ground when around the land owner and his arrogant sons. Even young, the boy was always taken aback at how Stewart would treat the white sharecroppers. He instinctually knew that the man was a bully.
It was as if Stewart hated them more than the blacks, always vindictive and petty.
His sons were even worse.
One day, the sun bright in the summer sky, one of Stewart’s sons, Daniel Stewart, decided he wanted blood sport. A cruel excuse for skin and spit, the young man pushed little Henry hard as he could.
A few feet away, Benjamin watched as the small white boy fell to the dirt, screaming out in pain as Daniel starting kicking the child.
Years later, Benjamin and Slick eventually found out that the evil young men hated young Slick because they suspected that old man Stewart was the child’s father. Being white, the hateful sons despised the fact that Slick could have a rightful claim to their fortunes.
Their evil daddy broke the cardinal rule when trolling for ‘midnight tail’. Never take it from a white woman.
Because what comes from her belly could take everything right back.
Benjamin's mother, Clara, a wise and honorable dark-skinned beauty, at that moment, fearing for her own child, grabbed Benjamin. Pushing the young boy down