Yellow Brick Road (an Eazy-E Story)

NINE

January 26th, 1991 | 4:00pm

"Tonight on NBCLA Channel 4, Gangsta rap star Eazy-E arrested for attempted assault. More on the story in just a few!" 

I sat up on the couch in my living room with my jaw wide. My land line started to ring. I ran to it as fast as I could, picking it up immediately. "Hello?" 

"You have a collect call from..." The automated voice came through the receiver. My heart dropped instantly. "Eazy." Eric's voice broke through the automated prompt. "An LA County inmate. Press zero to accept the charges." I pressed zero at least twice. 

"Lauren?" Eric's voice was lower than I could recognize and all nasal. 

"Eric, what the fuck is going on? You're on the news!" I yelled into the phone. 

"I need you to do me a favor. Can you do that for me, baby?" Eric rarely called me baby. Not that I didn't mind it, but I didn't want to hear it from him right now while he was behind bars. "What is it?" I sighed. 

"I need you to go to my house in Norwalk. The one you met me at. You still have the address?" Eric's voice was breaking up some, but I could make out what was being asked of me.

"Yes. It's in my address book."

"Okay. Good. There's a spare key underneath the hood of my Impala, it's parked in the driveway." Eric cleared his throat. "I need you to go inside and go to my kitchen. There's a pantry door on the left hand side, by the fridge. You following me?" He paused to make sure I was understanding what he was asking of me. I said yes and listened to him intently. 

"There's a compartment inside of the pantry on the right hand side. Move the metal latch in front of it. There's a big ass bag of money in there. Rolled up hundreds wrapped in rubber bands. I need you to get ten G's for me and bring it downtown. Can you do that for me?"

"Of course I can. I'll be there in about an hour, okay. Stay put." I yelled into the phone.

"Lauren. Where the hell am I going?" Eric laughed into the phone. His voice was coming in and out of reception. "I'll be there, okay?" I hung up the phone. I rummaged through my closet to find something to wear. All that I could find was a olive green sweatshirt, gray biker shorts that were mid-thigh length and an Oakland Athletics hat. 

Though it was all I had, the outfit came together perfectly. I put on some crew socks and slipped my feet into the first pair of sneakers I could find. I grabbed my cross body purse and my keychain and locked the apartment up behind me. 

Los Angeles, California | 6:24pm

It took me well over thirty minutes to locate the money in the secret compartment of his kitchen pantry. I was quick with counting, seeing as it's my job. I stacked the money neatly and wrapped it in the blue rubber bands that were used to bind the money before. He had a habit of rolling his money up like a Phillie blunt or bawling it up like a crumpled note. 

I went through the process of bailing Eric out. All that was left for me to do was to wait for him to walk into the lobby so that I could quickly take him back to my place. Luckily the news van wasn't parked in front of his home by the time I got there. A loud buzzing noise snapped me back to reality. 

"You're free to go." Said the warden. He gave Eric a plastic bag with his Locs and his LA Dodgers hat inside. He took the contents out of the bag and placed his designer frames on his face. His wet set that was freshly done the night before for our date, was no longer fresh in appearance.