Russians Invade Da' Hood

RUSSIANS INVADE THE HOOD a novel Fayetteville, North Carolina 2026 1 CONTENTS 1. Craig's Bad Morning 2. The Shipment 3. Lock the Truck 4. Cheap Kings 5. Wrong White Truck 6. Wake Up 7. What's in the Truck 8. One 9. Somebody Always Come 10. Where's the Phone 11. The Flat Tire 12. Uncle Ray's Cut 13. Simone Season 14. The Track DAY THREE: COLLISION 15. Knock Knock 16. Leigh Can't Fight 17. The Block 18. Twenty Five Million 19. Nine Hundred Dollars 20. Simone Leaves 21. What You Got Left DAY FOUR: THE DOUBLE SETUP 22. Uncle Grisha 23. Unappreciated 24. The Phone Call 25. The War Room 26. Bait 27. Three Kings 28. What They Were Left Holding 2 29. Payday 30. One Normal Weekend 3 CHAPTER ONE Craig's Bad Morning The rooster in Leigh's phone went off at 6:45, and Leigh killed it like it owed him money. He lay there a second in the little back room of his mama's house on Rosehill, staring at the water stain on the ceiling that had been slowly becoming the shape of Florida for about four years now. It was July in Fayetteville, which meant the air was already thick as gravy and the box fan in the window wasn't moving it so much as stirring it. Somewhere down the street a dog was losing a serious argument with a lawnmower. Twenty eight years old, Leigh thought. Living in the back room. Owing money to a man named after a whole region of the United States. "One weekend," he said out loud to the ceiling. "That's it. That's all I want. One normal weekend where nothing happens to me." The ceiling did not answer, which was the smartest thing it could've done. He got up, put on the shirt that smelled the least like grass and gasoline, and went to find coffee. Miss Deb was on the front porch in her robe, which was her office. She ran the block from that porch the way other people ran companies from corner suites. 4 Nothing happened on Rosehill Street that Miss Deb didn't know about within nine minutes, and she was currently holding court with a cup of coffee and a face that said she already knew about whatever Leigh had done, even if Leigh didn't know yet. "Morning, Mama." "Mm." "That's it? Just 'mm'?" "I said what I said." She sipped. "You seen the light bill?" "I gave you money for the light bill." "You gave me some money for the light bill. The light bill is a whole number, Leigh. It don't accept installments like it's a layaway sofa." "I'ma get it," Leigh said, pouring coffee into a cup that said WORLD'S OKAYEST FISHERMAN. "Payday Friday. I'm on the schedule all week. Mr. Alvarez got us doing the whole townhome complex off Cliffdale, that's like forty units of grass, that's good money." "Uh huh." Miss Deb looked at him over the rim of her cup, and here it came. "Country came by." Leigh's stomach did the thing. The thing where it tries to leave through your back. "Country came by here ?" "Sat right there." She pointed at the plastic chair like it was now cursed. "Drank my lemonade. Was very polite. Told me to tell you he 'looking forward to seeing you.'" She did the air quotes with two fingers, coffee and all. "Leigh. Baby. What did you do." "I didn't do nothing." 5 "You owe that man money?" "...A little money." "How little." "Mama..." " How little, Leigh." Leigh took a long sip of the World's Okayest coffee so he wouldn't have to answer, which was itself an answer, and Miss Deb closed her eyes the way she did in church when the pastor got to talking about temptation. "Lord," she said. "I raised a genius." The thing about owing Big Country money was that everybody in a two mile radius owed Big Country money, so it wasn't even special, and somehow that made it worse. Big Country ran the Suds & Soul off Bragg Boulevard, a car wash on one side, a soul food window on the other, and it was genuinely unclear which one was the front for the other. You could get your Camry detailed and a plate of oxtails for thirty nine dollars, and if you needed to hold a little cash till the first of the month, well, Country could see about that too. He was a huge, soft spoken man who wore Hawaiian shirts and called everybody "young blood" and had never once in recorded history raised his voice, which was exactly why nobody wanted to be the person who found out what happened right before he did. 6 Leigh had borrowed four hundred dollars back in the spring. It was six hundred now. Country's interest worked like the humidity, you couldn't see it moving but somehow you were always more soaked than you started. He was supposed to have a hundred of it for Country today. He had thirty one dollars and a coupon for a free car wash, which he could not use, because it was Country's car wash. Tez was waiting by the truck. Tez was always waiting by the truck. Tez had a whole apartment with a whole bed in it and still somehow materialized next to Leigh's Ram every single morning like he condensed out of the air, already talking, already six sentences into a conversation Leigh had not been present for the start of. "...and that's why I'm saying, and hear me out, we don't even need the government," Tez said, climbing into the passenger seat. "Morning. We don't. Think about it. Roads? We got GPS. We could route ourselves. Boom. Anyway what's wrong with your face." "Country came by the house." Tez stopped. This was notable, because Tez did not stop. "Country came to Miss Deb's ?" "Drank her lemonade." "Ohhh." Tez sucked his teeth and settled back like a man watching weather roll in.