Free Associates by S. W. Frank Page A

gone.
    He stuck his hands in his pockets, waiting for the slow elevator, thinking how the woman needed her ass kicked for naming her child Finesha. Heck, if that isn’t bad enough she kept rolling them out, Kaquanna, Taquasia and Nasarius were the product of her identity crisis. She wanted to show pride in her ancestry but hadn’t researched African names, so why not, invent them, huh?
    Dumb woman didn’t know there’s a mud snail, known as the nassa mud snail and a dog whelk spelled N-a-s-s-a-r-i-u-s.
    What the hell was that woman smoking?
    Sergio promised when he had children, they would have normal names, like Rory, Lance or Violet. Yeah, classy names which weren’t cause for ridicule or labeling. Poor Nasarius, if he ever went to the dictionary to read the definition of his name he’d cry. His loving mama named him after a mud snail, ignorant woman.
    He pressed the elevator, listening to the boisterous youth discussing the latest new sneakers which was more than their rent. Getting jacked for expensive kicks occurred regularly in the ‘hood. Dumb ass kids.
    The elevator arrived and when he boarded, he anxiously anticipated the fresh air. Nico asked why he hadn’t relocated. He wanted to, but he couldn’t afford a nicer place. Rentals in New York were pricey and his aspirations were to move the hell out of the city entirely.
    Thirty-five minutes later, his joyful stride carried him up the stairs of the brownstone on Sterling Place in Bedford-Stuyvesant. He pressed the buzzer for the first floor and rocked on his heels as he watched the traffic rolling along Fulton Street. A Saturday night in Bed-Stuy had the excitement of the city on speaker. The cars rolling by with their music pumping was New York’s bass.
    The door opened and instead of the chick he met earlier in the week a dude answered the door with his face twisted in distaste and a threatening glare. “Who the fuck is you?”
    “Is Dee here?”
    The dude rubbed his bald head. Sergio noticed the skull tats on his hand and thought, goddamn ! 
    “Yo Dee, there’s a pretty muthafucka’ out here askin’ for you!”
    Sergio took offense. He didn’t mind being called pretty, shit women called him good-looking a lot; it’s the motherfucker part he took issue with. The dude calling him pretty signified he considered Sergio a wuss. “Yo, I bet they thought your ass was pretty bent over upstate didn’t they skull bitch.”
    The dude tossed back the door. The large nostrils flared like an enraged bull and he advanced on Sergio but never crossed the threshold because Sergio uppercut him so hard the smack talking motherfucker’s legs shook. He tried reaching for the doorknob, missed and crashed to the floor on his bitch ass!
    Sergio didn’t wait around for him to stand up and hauled tail to his vehicle and sped along Sterling Place.
    ‘ Man that felt good !’
    Sergio was fed up with being knuckled in the face, first by Chip and then that bastard Giuseppe. Well, he wasn’t letting anybody get off licks again without striking first!
    The blood pumped hard through his body, straight to his head. He relaxed when he got to Atlantic Avenue. Whoever the chump was didn’t matter because he had no intention of hitting up Dee again. And when his cell began humming, he figured it was her calling to curse him out or the dude he snuffed sending a warning. Anyway, his plans were a bust. Maybe, he’d stop in on his sister before heading to Chip’s. On Saturday nights’ Chip was in Canarsie at the Platinum Door. The honeys in that place were fine. He could use a lap dance with the money in his pocket and a drink. He would have spent some on Dee anyway, and he might as well use it on himself.
    He turned left on Grand Army Plaza to Eastern Parkway, passing the Brooklyn Museum, chuckling because he envisioned Tonya and her doctor boyfriend strolling through the halls with the rest of the art nerds. Several blocks later he made a right, another left and double parked