A Big Mistake

Breezy Gwap stood outside his Durango in the middle of traffic, on the Grand Concourse, with a .38 in his hand. The gun was loaded and pointed in Burgers face, between his eyes. Would he kill him right there? Out in the open? Gwap had his finger on the trigger. He was caught up in the moment, going with the flow, acting on instinct. This thing had started when he made a big mistake at the Post Office and there was nothing he could do about it now; at this point the story was writing itself; he was gonna have t’let the plot play out, finish itself. All Breezy Gwap could do now was be in the moment, let it happen.   

Burger

People called him Burger because—from a kid—he was always eating hamburgers. In his twenties Burger was on the same kinda time. At McDonald’s, Burger would order the Double Grand McExtreme Bacon sandwich because it had two double quarter pounders, fresh beef with thick-cut Applewood smoked bacon, smoky McBacon Sauce, Gouda and onions on a toasted sesame seed bun. He’d get the meal with a Coke and supersized that joint, get extra mayonnaise and ketchup and mix the mayo and ketchup together to make a dipping sauce for his fries. And he didn’t eat one fry at a time; he gathered a fist-full and doused’em into his sauce and scarfed’em down like he was starving.  

Some people though he was lucky because he was not dead or in jail. Burger caused static and was quick to get on his demon time. He was a criminal opportunist. He’d stand by an ATM and stick up an old woman for her withdrawal. He’d jack a phone from a disabled middle schooler in a wheelchair waiting for a bus. If he stumbled across a car left running idle, it was a wrap, he was stealing it. He’d yank chains from the necks of those he perceived to be helpless, unable to fight back. He’d sell drugs to little kids. He’d punch somebody from the blind side for no other reason than a dare. He’d give the middle finger to a blind man and curse the deaf, laughing about how the fools didn’t know what was going on. 

When Burger had product he usually sold on the corner of Westchester and St. Anns, near the Post Office, eating Cheetos from a large bag, working the streets. When he wasn’t eating a hamburger he was chomping down on some Cheetos. The routine was simple: the fiends would come to Burger, cop the drugs, and be on their way. Regular shit. Then one day some fool pulled up in front of the Post Office in a new Dodge Durango, got out, and left that joint running, right there on the street. Could he have left it unlocked? As the man was making his way to the Post Office, carrying a package in his hands, looking in a major rush, Burger was walking towards the Durango. It was too good to be true.

Breezy Gwap

His given name was Clarence but people called him Breezy Gwap ’cause he was about getting’ his money. Gwap stayed on some let’s get this money type’a time. He did it legal. He played the system, went to school, hustled various ends, educated himself, learned what the laws were and how to use them to his advantage. He learned how banks worked and figured out how to get loans for purchasing property. He had patience and worked his way up, saving money from his jobs, working consistently. For his first big bank loan the Dapper Dan backed him. They had roots in Harlem and Dapper was always looking out for people on the come-up, gettin’ money the right way, and helping them get on their feet. 

Now, Gwap owned two buildings on the corner of 3rd Ave and 149th in the Bronx. With those buildings he rented out a number of residential apartments and two storefronts to a tenant that was a businessman from Morocco named Sabri. Sabri operated bodegas in the rented space. 

Breezy Gwap was a businessman and a building owner. It was hard work but he did whatever it took. He worked all the time, was doin’ his thing, but lately life was getting more and more stressful. The government was helping big corporations gentrify the South Bronx, forcing local owners like Breezy Gwap to sell his buildings to big corporations. The G did this by executing inspections on the buildings Gwap owned—and others like Gwap—finding violations, hitting local owners where it hurt the most: their pockets. The G was up to some real griminess. Sometimes the water would mysteriously stop working in one of his buildings and Gwap would spend hours on the phone with the city before somebody from the DEP would check it out and turn the water back on that was connected to the main in one of his buildings. There was never an explanation as to how it was cut off in the first place. “Must’ve be some mistake,” they’d say, “we’ll check it out and get back to ya.” 

These kinda tactics made local owners more likely to sell. The Corporations would tear down the smaller buildings and build bigger buildings, what they called affordable housing. Only it wasn’t affordable. It was more expensive and it forced settled residents out of their apartments, out of their neighborhoods (the G called this relocating and made it sound as no big deal), to make way for more people—younger outsiders with more money to spend. The G didn’t care to see people like Breezy Gwap get that money, or established tenants live in peace, when a big corporation could bring in more revenue. So the G was coming down hard on Gwap: IRS and insurance investigations, fire inspections, buildings and grounds inspections, and the city’s Quality of Life agency was trying to get his tenants to make complaints. 

The big G wanted the big corporations to take over. They could taste the revenue that would be generated from the contracts for demolition, construction of new buildings, more new residents paying taxes on rent and jobs. The local businessman or tenant from the neighborhood that loved his apartment? they were in the way. So be it. Gwap and Hundie would fight to the end.

Gwap’s girl was named Hundie ’cause she stacked paper just like he did: by the hundreds. She ran their eBay account from the apartment and made wild hundies selling goods that she copped at a cheap price and sold at a profit online to internet surfers in the suburbs, upstate, and out a’state as well. She might check out a Goodwill, or walk the streets on Fordham Road, and find quality items that had slipped through the cracks. She’d buy them for a cheap price and then resell the items on eBay for triple and sometimes quadruple the cost of what she paid. 

But things had gotten complicated lately because Gwap and Hundie recently had a newborn baby boy. They named him Benjamin, after the man who was on the face of the hundred-dollar bill. They still got that money but times were getting hard.

Burger

Word spread fast that Burger had that good food and it wasn’t long before the fiends started coming. He was hustlin’ at his usual spot by the Post Office, standing there, his fingers covered with a cheesy film from the Cheetos he was eating. His shirt was littered with Cheeto crumbs under his chin and every now-an-again he would stop chomping to lick the thin layer of cheesy residue covering his fingertips, even though his hands were dirty. He thought nothing of putting the same hand that he just put into his pants to adjust himself into the Cheetos bag for another helping of eats. He liked the taste of the cheesy paste so much that sometimes he accidentally bit a finger when lapping up the cheesy residue from off his fingertips. There were streaks of cheesy lines on his pants where he would wipe his hands before making a sale.  

He was chomping Cheetos and smacking his lips, when he spotted some fool pull up in front of the Post Office in a new Dodge Durango, get out, and leave that joint running, right there on the street. Could he have left it unlocked? As the man was making his way to the Post Office, carrying a package in his hands, looking in a major rush, Burger was walking towards the Durango. It was too good to be true. 

Burger’s mind was working like his hunger for junk food. He didn’t see anybody in the car. There was a chop-shop on Jerome. All he had to do was hop in, take the whip down 149th, bust a right, then another right on the Concourse, left on 170th, right on Jerome and boom, there was the shop. He could drop it off and the Dominican automobile mechanics would go to work, stripping the car down for parts, and pay him for the goods. Not one for thinking things through to the end, Burger made his move. 

As the driver was stepping through the front door of the Post Office, Burger was stepping through the front driver-side door of the Durango. The car was a new joint; keyless, the kind of whip you had to leave the key fob in the car to keep it running. An iPhone was plugged into the dash just under the navigational screen. Once in, Burger set his big bag of Cheetos on the passenger seat, put his foot on the break, dropped the gear shifter into drive, hit the gas and was on his way. 

Breezy Gwap

Hundie had to shake Gwap hard to wake him up. “Get up, baby. You have to mail off those files to the insurance company. You were supposed to mail it yesterday. All you have to do is go by the Post Office, the one on St. Anns.”

Gwap sat up and rubbed...