Version 2.0

Culture, healing, politics and bullshit - Not necessarily in that order

The general, socio-political and very personal rantings and ravings of a hip hop head from the hood hustling for change... Of himself.

You all know me and are aware that I am unable to remain silent. At times to be silent is to lie. For silence can be interpreted as acquiescence.
—Miguel de Unamuno



.
.

Monday, December 05, 2011

Siblings Are For Suckers

I almost killed my brother yesterday.

I was assisting my brother with making a supply run for his delivery company. He called me over a month ago and asked if I could help him with streamlining and modernizing his business for added profitability. I initially balked at helping him because he uses people and never reciprocates. That and plus we never got along.

We are polar opposites, I went to the military and school to educate myself on dealing with the world, my brother dropped out of high school and started hustling on the street. He became well known for his successes and has a large crew, I was known for my successes and power moves in the blue collar, then the corporate setting and by both main street and mean street standards, we both did exceptionally well.

He owns a delivery company that started out as a hustle about 6 years ago and he needs help to stay relevant and is overwhelmed and needs to expand. My younger siblings won't look in his direction because my older brother is straight gully with his shit. he is the epitome of 'ghetto'. He has ambition and good business sense, but he's absolutely the wrong cat to bring to a corporate setting for meetings and such. So he calls about six weeks ago and tells me that since half the company is mine, he could use me as the corporate face. He knows his limitations and understands that with my acumen used on the suit side, he can stay on the boot side and do his thing as I do mine, both of us enhancing the company profile.

I reluctantly decide to help his ass, and for three days, our travels to client sites, meetings and heavy work on deliveries and supply runs became nothing but shouting matches, disagreements and ended with me putting his ass out of my car on the way to a huge client supply pick up.

We argued over two dollars.

You see, he has a new employee (3 months in) that makes food deliveries for a string of Chinese joints in which he delivers the food timely, collects payment from the customer, gets in his vehicle and just rides off. he never speaks of change or gives change to the end customer. So the owner of the restaurants, Mrs. Kim calls and my brother puts her on speaker. She's irate as hell, shouting and cussing that this individual never gives her customers their proper change and this is a make or break habit he has to break or she's switching services. I immediately explain to my brother after the call that we must enforce a zero tolerance policy and release this man from his contract. He balks. He also made excuses for the driver to Mrs. Kim and then he insulted and irritated the FUCK out of me by calling the driver, apologizing to him for the inconvenience and stated "Aye, you cool, get that money man, I didn't think that lady would trip over two dollars man."

What.the.Fuck?

My brother has balked at every single suggestion made to either improve or enhance his business. He fussed, cussed, questioned my sanity, manhood and education whenever I made any critique or suggestion. He got gully with me, so I got gully with his ass. I let him know what time it was and how i absolutely cannot deal with unscrupulous business practices as the law. I questioned his integrity after he basically said 'fuck the customer, I need to get paid' He also confided in me that he doesn't know what integrity is. This negro done lost his muthafuckin mind!

SIDEBAR: We never got along as kids. We tried to kill each other on various occasions. We had a serious Spy vs Spy, I'm gon' kill your ass thing that went on for years. We never lost touch, but purposely kept out of each other's way since 1992 or 1993.

So I said my piece and we ended out night rescuing the thief of a driver because he couldn't finish his route because he ran out of gas. My brother grabbed money out of his own pocket and used my gas can to get dude about a quarter tank of gas. Never asked for reimbursement. Even fronted on me jokingly to this cat on how I've been gone from Chicago for 14 years and how I don't know the street system. This cat is only 16 months older than me, and other than my travels in the military, vacations, corporate training, me 'dragging' my ex across the country inconveniencing  her by trying to establish a home base and make new opportunities for us to become a family as well as me me trucking across the highways of America, Chicago has always been my home.

This muthafucker...

So this morning on the supply run, he brings the shit back up. So I asked him: "in this moment, can I be replaced?" He said no, but in the same breath, he said  that since thieving driver dude makes him over a thousand bucks a week, he would rather keep him on than to have me around at all because all I've done in the past few days is take from him.

I pulled the car over, unbuckled my seat belt and calmly told him to get the fuck out of my car. He started talking again, so I reiterated my position and asked him to un-ass my vehicle or there was going to be a problem. He stated that he didn't want a problem, got out, and I went on my merry way. I hope to GOD that i never see his ass ever again in my natural life. I could probably tolerate his ass at a funeral or something, but other than that...

I truly hate that dude.

Am I wrong?

///