who got bank nigga, roll the fuckin’ dice!”
“Yo, I got fifty, he has four!”
“Money on the wood, nigga!”
Their breath clouded the alley, the sodium glow of the street lights seemed to make the space feel colder. Kane crouched in the middle of the circle, shaking the dice like a voodoo doctor shakes bones ready to cast a spell.
“Come on baby, six-six-six – mark of the beast!” he grunted, letting the dice fly. As the bones clicked and clacked together like skeleton teeth, a new, seventh voice yelled, “Freeze! Muthafuckers. Lay down!”
Nobody had seen the man creep up on them, but now that all six of them were staring down the barrel of a chrome .40 caliber with mother of pearl grip and gold accents, they knew he caught them slipping.
He was a cold man holding a pretty killer.
Kane looked up straight into the gunman’s eyes.
“Nigga, this my hood! I promise you, you won’t make it off this block alive!” Kane growled.
“Gimme the loot!” the masked man growled with a deep voice.
Kane was about to continue his protest and threats but stopped. He squinted. “Hol’ up, I know that voice. Yo Power, I’ma kill yo’ ass!” As soon as Kane said his name, Power busted out laughing.
The other five dudes relaxed as Power removed the mask, laughing hysterically. Kane started to curse him out, but he stopped, too happy to see Power back on the street. He slammed him with a thorough gangsta hug. Power put the S&W in his pants and dapped the circle.
“My nigga, God damn it’s good to see you! But I should kill your ass, playin’ wit’’ me!” Kane barked.
Power laughed.
“Fuck that, you was shook! Talkin’ about ‘this my hood!’ I heard your voice crack on some Minnie Mouse shit!” Power said, pushing Kane’s shoulder.
The crew laughed and Kane couldn’t help but crack his signature sinister gold grill grin.
“Fuck outta here,” Kane said, a chuckle not far from the surface.
“When you got home, thun?” a dude named Black Jesus asked Power, giving him a pound and a gangster hug.
“Today,” Power answered, scanning the faces around him, and then adding, “Yo Kane, where the twins at?”
“On a mission,” was all Kane replied, but his eyes said much more…
Three Years Later
“Several members of the notorious rap group Q.B.C. were arrested today in Raleigh, North Carolina on firearms and related offenses. It began as an altercation after a performance in a local nightclub, but quickly escalated when shots were exchanged between the group and the crowd. The police found that several of the guns used in the shooting had been stolen three years ago and police say the altercation ultimately cost one man his life. The body, however, was never recovered.”
Messiah gazed up at the screen as he stood in the day room of the Wake County Jail.
The red peel swallowed up his slim but wiry frame because they only had one that was three sizes too big for him. He also hated the fact that he had to wear cheap ass flip-flops with no socks, keeping his feet cold.
“Man, this some bullshit,” he grumbled to himself, as he looked around his bullpen.
Overcrowded wasn’t the word for the conditions. There were three people sleeping in a cell meant for one man — people sleeping on the floor, people everywhere. The place stank like a dirty armpit in summer all day long. The smell never got out of his nose, never went from his mouth. On some days even, the food tasted like armpits. Messiah was already pissed, but the Carolina niggas were making it worse, ice grilling him as if looks could kill.
Messiah took one look around at the squalid day room and decided a single cell in the hole was preferable to being cramped up in general population.
Besides, he wanted to release some stress.
He stepped up to three dudes standing by the phone who had been ice grilling him since he came in. The biggest dude was four inches on Messiah’s six feet even stature, but size was never a factor when his outcome was to be determined by will.
“Ay yo, you know me or somethin’, son?” Messiah questioned, ice grilling the dude just as hard.
“You know me?” the big dude shot back.
Messiah could see that dude really didn’t want any problems, but the mere fact of having his two mans right there was putting a battery in his back. So Messiah knew sooner or later, the situation would escalate. He preferred sooner.
Ssssshhitt! Messiah spat the gem star razor from his mouth.
The dudes never even saw it coming. Messiah had marveled when he came in to Wake County the police officer who strip-searched him never told him to open his mouth. Now he was glad he hadn’t.
The big dude cried out as the razor slit his face open like it had a zipper. The straight lipped line ran from his temple to his chin. Blood spitting, landing on Messiah’s cheek as he ripped the big dude again across the lip, splitting it in two.
Then in the same motion, he pushed the big dude into his man on the left, who was lunging at Messiah. Cooler than new frost, Messiah slit the dude on the hand, right across the palm, wrist and forearm because he raised his arms in time to save his face.
“Oh shit.”
“God damn!”
“Fuck!”
Niggas standing around jumped away as blood gushed, but Messiah wasn’t done. He went after the third dude just as four police officers burst into the pod, spraying mace and pulling out Tasers.
“Get down on the floor now!” the first officer bellowed as he reached to grab Messiah.
But Messiah was in a zone. He didn’t know it was the police who grabbed him, so he spun with the razor and slashed the officer across the check and the bridge of his nose.
His flesh sliced open, yanking a bitch scream out of his mouth as blood got in his eye.
“I can’t see! I can’t see! My face!” he yelled.
The other officers made short work of Messiah, punching, stomping and tasing him until he went down and his lights went out.
When he came to, Messiah was laying on a cold steel slab in a solitary cell. The stench of mace was still on him, and when he tried to get up, he grimaced with excruciating pain because his ribs felt like they were broken. There was no window in the cell, so he didn’t know if it was day,
