“Yeah.”
“That’s the first time I’ve seen it written like that. When they quote raps in the magazines, they look different. That looks like poetry.”
“I know what you mean. I’ve been writing music since I was 12. This style just developed over the years.”
“How old are you?!”
Gives her a dumb look. “Why?” he asks.
“I was just wondering. You mentioned writing since you’re 12, but if you don’t want to—”
“20.”
“Dang, you young. Can I ask you how much time you have?”
“Life.”
“Ooh, that’s sad.”
His anger flares. “Get off from over me wit’ that. Save ya’ sympathy. I’ll holla at cha.”
“Damn.” She’s suddenly indignant. “Why you talk to me like that?”
“That’s how you handled yourself.”
Silence.
“Well, okay, my bad. I didn’t mean to offend you—”
“You didn’t,” he cuts her off. “I just don’t dig … People say shit that sounds right. That’s fake. Keep it ghuttah.”
Silence.
“Anyway,” she looks around. Checkin’. He can tell she’s starting to feel comfortable. She rolls her eyes and gives him a smirk. “What are you in for?”
“Murder. First-degree.”
“Ooh. Did you do it?”
“Hold up. What is this? Twenty questions or some shit?”
Unshaken. “I’m sayin’ … well … you in here, now—”
“Yeah, but if I was to ask you some questions about yo’self, you would try to handle me like—like … a sucka.”
She just stands there and looks at him. “You don’t know that,” she says.
“Come on, don’t play games wit’ me.” She’s blowin’ his high.
“No, seriously. I mean, normally I would. But, hell, who you go’n tell? You don’t talk to nobody.”
He studies her for a few heartbeats. Vaguely wonders what made her stop to talk to him. “Okay, well, who am I talkin’ to, then?”
“What you mean? Man, you know who I am.”
“No. What’s your name? I’m asking a question.” He looks at her. Proves his point. “You want to ask me all kinds of personal shit, but you don’t even respect me enough to tell me your name. Come on, man—”
“Where you see a man at?”
“I don’t know. What’s your name, huh? Derrick Havoc?” He smiles.
They both laugh a bit and then look around to see if they woke anyone up. The fan’s hum is pretty insistent, though. Kind o’ loud. No one’s even stirrin’. Lil Chris looks at her as if for the first time. Like, really looks at her. He’s diggin’ her, for real. And, he thinks, she can see it. But what she’s doin’ doesn’t make sense. He intended to be the one approaching her. Must’ve took too long…
She bites her bottom lip. Stains her front teeth with cherry lip gloss. Looks around the dorm, again. He senses that if she tells him her name, it crosses some kind of line. She looks in his eyes. He stares directly back into hers.
“Veronica. My people call me Roni.” She waits to see how he act.
“Roni, huh? I’m feelin’ that, Veronica.”
“Oh, you feel that, huh?” She stammers when she speaks. Damn.
“How old are you?”
“Boy, you don’t ask a woman her age. I’m 25.”
“Yeah? What’s your sign?” He works a devilish smile.
“You crazy … I’m a Scorpio.”
“Oh, okay,” he says. Nods. “So that’s what the deal is.”
“So that’s what deal?” she asks all uptight.
“Y’all freaky.”
“Boy! I ain’t freaky!”
“Shhh, shh! What you doin’? Chill out,” he reminds her.
They both laugh.
On the other side of the penitentiary, Rise wakes up smiling. It’s the middle of the night. He was just pedaling up that steep hill on Milam Avenue along the fence-line sidewalk next to the golf course. He was pumping his brother who sat on the seat behind him. They were on a royal blue and grey ten-speed bike with chrome and the racer handlebars.
When he got home he had some good clothes on. Some cream-colored Girbaud jeans. A dark brown, pullover polo shirt, and dark brown, pointed-toe dress shoes made of some kind of reptile skin. He is sure that it wasn’t a dream. It was some sort of twisted prophecy.
He fishes under the cot as he sits up. He grabs his pen and pad from on top of his footlocker. Suddenly, somethin’ that Pusshead said to him yesterday has rushed to his mind. He scrambles to scribble it down before he forgets it.
Ninety-percent of success is knowing exactly what you want. The other ten-percent is the how-to.
SECOND VERSE
One year, six months later
CHAPTER SEVEN
We do these things
’Cause we have to
When we put in work
It ain’t personal
It’s all about respect
For the game.
If you gotta squab
You gotta squab
Don’t just think about it
Or, get caught slippin’
’Cause that nigga know the same thing.
THE WIND IS A COMFORTABLE breeze.
The mood is settled, yet the sky cries out. Moving grays play over clean patches of white, to stirring effect. Then the rain comes.
Underneath it all, the fieldlines toil. The linepushers refuse to call “headline.” Not until the last vegetable is pulled from the dirt. The workers are weary of gettin’ soaked, but most of ’em feel they need the mobility they have in population. Few would give up what little ground they’ve gained since leavin’ the cellblocks. So they keep pickin’. Others, who don’t have sense enough to strategize, continue pickin’, because although they may deny it vehemently, they are followers by nature.
Lil Chris is among the laboring ranks. Like so many others here, he tends to closely scrutinize the minute, but doesn’t understand enough to make out the bigger picture. Not yet.
The wind is stronger now. It whips at his blue state-issue button-down. The shirt is too thin to offer any cover from the chill. He shivers. Too mad to speak. Deathly cold, inside and out. He is conscious that these conditions are meant to kill something inside of him. He knows this because he feels whatever it is strugglin’ to live. The whole time, he wonders how it is possible that this shit could be happening. In the same society that claims to have placed him here for breakin’ the law. Modern day slavery.
Almost two years have passed since he arrived. He has heard it said often that the punishment should fit the crime. That the life sentence is justified when the prosecution has shown that somebody is incapable of functionin’ in society. That there is absolutely no way to fix him. How could that apply to him? He cannot yet put it into words, but it is clear to him that something about the so-called criminal justice system is fucked up.
And the rain comes. It falls so hard it stings the skin. It beats down on their heads. It rains so hard the whole area takes on a gray tint.
As the workers march in, they have to hold the back of each other’s shirts in order to keep up. The line is a loosely linked wreckage of its usually disciplined double-file order.
“Boy, you stay writing, huh.” It’s a statement. More so than a question.
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. It’s how I, you know, express a lot of things that be on my mind.”
Lil Chris has not so much matured as chilled out. He’s still a little wild, but he doesn’t have the complex. He’s been back and forth to the dungeon for minor shit, but he’s managed to stay out o’ any real drama. At least, up until now. In the joint, it is often said, anything can happen at any time. And it usually does. The trick is to not get caught off-guard.
“Well, look. Put ya pen down for a second. I need to run sump’n by you.”
“Catch me later. I need t
o finish this thought before it get away from me,” Lil Chris says. Looks up for the first time to acknowledge PowwWoww.
“No, I think you go’n wanna hear this. You need to be on top just in case sump’n jumps.” PowwWoww is adamant.
“Just … let me finish … writing this … last … few … Alright, what you got?” Lil Chris asks, laying his pen down.
For the first time, now, the C’ster is really paying attention to PowwWoww. Whateva it is he has to drop, it ain’t good.
“Say, C, some foul shit being said about our boy.”
“Who dat? Wayne?”
“Yeah. They got some things in the wind that’s go’n have to be dealt with.”
“Like what!” Lil Chris starts to get twisted. This can’t be nothin’ good.
“The word is that they got a few cats playin’ games wit’ him.”
It dawns on Lil Chris like black smoke. “What kinda—you mean …”
“Yeah. Booty bandits. They at him.”
“Nah, I don’t believe that,” Lil Chris says. His face don’t show it, but he’s burnt. Like major.
“Don’t act like no fresh fish, man. If it’s in the wind it don’t matter if it’s true or not. The vultures circling.”
Lil Chris frowns in disgust. “You talkin’ ’bout what niggas think? I don’t care nothin’ ’bout what niggas think. In my eyes he a man.”
PowwWoww gets frustrated. “You steady tah’m ’bout you, you, you. This ain’t ’bout you or what you th—”
“Man I know wh—”
“No! You don’t know. If you did, you would know that the lil homie gotta handle his business. It’s all about respect. Even if it ain’t true. If he don’t make a showin’, that’s what’s go’n hurt him. In the end, that’s what’s go’n be remembered.”
Lil Chris calms down. “That nigga a man, PowwWoww.”
“May be. But that ain’t the issue. He have to make a showin’. Point blank. He gotta live amongst these dudes. This will follow him. Without respect, ain’t no peace. People go’n steal from him. Talk crazy to him. Mess over him. Play ass games wit’ him for real!” PowwWoww is adamant.
“Ah man, come—”
“You hear what I’m tellin’ you?! If he don’t face this thing head-on, he’ll never have no peace. If he let this go, it won’t go away. He go’n stay in some bullshit. The pride he do have will keep him fightin’. Constantly. That’s how it goes. If he don’t nip it in the bud, they go’n keep comin’ at him. Minor nitpick shit. Until he breaks one way or another. Either he will have to hurt one real bad. Or, he’ll start runnin’. And he run, they go’n run him until he gets tired. Next thing you know, he be a—”
“Go’n wit that, PowwWoww!” Lil Chris is trippin’. He’s never given this any thought. He’s known the wolves were there, but all that exists outside his world.
His homeboys, though, are his team. He doesn’t have but a few. Loyalty, duty … he doesn’t even think about these things. They’re second nature. Now, they fucking with Wayne. He ’bout to wig out.
“A turn out. What? This is the joint,” PowwWoww mashes his point home. “The big house. Ain’t nothin’ nice. And everybody gets tried sometime.”
“Not me! I wish a ni—”
“Man, we need to get at Wayne. Quick.”
“Well, let’s go then,” Lil Chris is already up and walkin’.
“Hold up, m—”
“No, ain’t no hold up,” Lil Chris calls over his shoulder. “Catch up! We ’bout to take care o’ this.”
With that, they go lookin’ for Wayne.
There is a knight on D-6 and another on F-6 that should have long been captured.
There is a bishop on E-5, as well as a rook on C-1. The H file is open, except for the white king on H-8 and his pawn on H-7. There is another white pawn on F-7. The white queen is on G-6, stacking the white rook on G-8 …
It’s black’s move. His house is in order. There are three pawns, from A to C across rank 2. The black king sits comfortably on B-1. Gotta have your house in order.
Wayne studies the board. The game should have been over, but he likes to play with his food before he eats it. He already cleared out the whole of white’s king’s side of the board, then sacrificed his queen to a pawn on F-6 just to give his opponent a false sense of hope. Wayne punishes trash talkers severely. Otherwise, he would have already beat the beginner and put him out of his misery.
The dude Wayne is playing is typical. So typical. Six-three, around 200ish. Fat, Black, bald, dusty, loud. All muscle and no brain. The guy is unable to reconcile the admiration he has for Wayne, who appears to be considerably weaker than him and all. That is, if one goes by appearances. So, he’s using the chess game as a sounding board to shoot all kind of foul remarks Wayne’s way. So typical.
As Wayne ponders his next move, Lil Chris and PowwWoww walk into the game room. Something about Wayne’s calm demeanor slows and settles them for the moment. Plus, the two of them know they need to keep a low profile. They’re out of bounds. In Wayne’s dormitory. Both of them full of cannabinoids. Riding dirty.
Wayne sees four moves ahead. He’s playing his opponent for just one logical move and then another mistake.
Wayne’s opponent, for his part, focuses on PowwWoww and Lil Chris. He knows Wayne is their homeboy. He’s going to really act bad now. He intends to drive all three of them by handling their boy Wayne like a chump. For him, this is the height of aspiration. Mental gymnastics. So typical.
“Come on, chump. What, is you scared?! Dat’s why I hate playin’ you lil boys.” He frowns and glares at Wayne. Really about to mash on him. Hard.
Lil Chris pulls a chair up to the table. Sits where he can see both sides of the board. He doesn’t understand much about the game. He’s just readin’ on instinct. Looks back and forth, from the chessboard to each player’s face. His disposition is cool, calm, and collected. Exaggerated nonchalance. The reefer they rolled, slim like toothpicks, is what did it. The indo’ pinhead he and PowwWoww just finished has his head swirlin’. He just sits and chills. And listens.
“Look! What time is it? You need to do something! Oh, you can’t think under pressure, huh?”
Wayne doesn’t say a word. No response. He concentrates on the last two pieces he needs to consider. The white bishop on E-3. Problem piece. It needs to be lured out of the way. And the black rook on F-1. Significant. This will be the anchor piece for his strategy. He jumps one of the black knights from F-6 to E-8. Never takes his eyes off the board.
The guy grabs the white queen and lines it up with the bishop, places it on G-5.
Lil Chris takes the white queen and puts it back on G-6. Impulse. He points insistently at the black bishop and says, “You in check.”
“What?!”
“Discover check,” Wayne says without taking his eyes off the board.
“Say, my man,” the guys says, talking to Lil Chris. “Stay out my game.”
PowwWoww, who’s been leaning against the plexiglass behind Wayne’s chair, shifts from one leg to the other.
The guy looks back to Wayne and the board. Says, “Speak up, fool! What you want me to do? Read your mind. You better learn how to talk!” At this, he moves the white rook up to block the check, places it on G-7.
“Touch and move,” Lil Chris says, a little too quickly, but still calm. “He gotta use his queen. Move that bitch!”
“Don’t worry about it,” Wayne says, more to Lil Chris than to his opponent.
The guy mean-mugs Lil Chris. With a boot in his mouth he says, “A’ight? I done told you. Get out my business.”
The C’ster doesn’t respond.
Wayne starts, “Look, brother, don’t worry—”
“Well, play then! Your move,” the guy cuts Wayne off. “Coward! I don’t need you tellin’ me what to worry about.”
Wayne keeps a level head. Like he don’t speak English. Or rather, bullshit. That rook moved up to G-7 was the one logical move he had anticipated. Now, he ne
eds to run the bishop out of position. He’ll let him keep his queen.
He takes his other knight from D-6 and drops it on F-5, thus putting double black offensive on the white rook blocking check. Two knights. Plus, one of them is threatening his white bishop. All this with one maneuver. Tantalizing. Wayne can actually taste the turmoil and confusion in his opponent’s mind. Watch, he’ll do something stupid.
“See, that’s what I’m tah’m bout, right there, lil boy,” the guy says. “You had me, but you ain’t got no killa instinct. Oh, that’s right! You a coward.” He laughs hysterically.
PowwWoww looks around to see where the freeman’s at. He catches the keys all the way in the back of the dorm, eating tuna fish sandwiches with another prisoner, who incidentally runs a store out of his footlocker.
The dude in front of Wayne is still laughing and putting his finger in Wayne’s face. Yelling, “You a coward, lil boy. You ain’t got no killa instinct!”
Lil Chris just sits there with his elbows propped on his knees, resting his chin in his palms. His face shows no emotion.
The dude leans over the board and says, “Now, watch this, chump.” He moves the white bishop down to capture the black rook on C-1. He says, “You through, lil boy … Busta!” Giggles. Cackles, really. And glares at Wayne.
Still, Wayne says nothing. He keeps his eyes glued to the board. Okay, he was able to successfully run his opponent’s white bishop. The guy’s capture of the black rook was overly aggressive. Dislodged him. He’s playing into Wayne’s hands. Best thing to do now is go ahead and remove the white bishop, thus eliminating that problem altogether.
“Black king captures white bishop on C-1,” Wayne says with almost no emotion at all.
The guy moves the white queen up and says, “Check.”
Wayne moves his king back to B-1 to sit comfortably out of the line of fire.
Now, the guy frowns and really studies the board for the first time. He tries to figure out what his best move would be from this point. He feels that as long as he has his queen he can win. He studies the board a moment longer. Too pigheaded to consider the possibility that his own house may still be in danger. He decides to move the white king from H-8 to G-8, in order to free up his rook to attack.
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