Let Me Hear a Rhyme: Chapters 9–21

“You guess? Boy, did you actually listen to Reasonable Doubt? The way he spits over the horns on ‘Can I Live’? ‘Recruited lieutenants with ludicrous dreams of gettin’ cream. “Let’s do this,” it gets tedious. So I keep one eye open like CBS!’..."

“You guess? Boy, did you actually listen to Reasonable Doubt? The way he spits over the horns on ‘Can I Live’? ‘Recruited lieutenants with ludicrous dreams of gettin’ cream. “Let’s do this,” it gets tedious. So I keep one eye open like CBS!’..."

Untouched, the door creaks like a crypt when I open it, light blazing through the small window.

Someone built some type of invisible glass force field that won’t let me pass the threshold.

He would nod....I asked him in abundance,
How could a Blind Soldier enter a war?
How would he know what he was fighting for?

“Damn. That’s deep,” Jarrell says, pensive. “I didn’t know Steph could write like that.”

Inside a large ziplock bag, the kind of bag that Mom marinates chicken in, is at least a hundred mini vials...

Project heat is the type of heat that makes walls sweat, pipes hot enough to burn the skin off knuckles, and windows fog with condensation.

With only a few pieces left, it would soon be time to officially say goodbye to summer and everything he loved—endless basketball games, open fire hydrants, barbeques, and ice-cream trucks. Everything he used to do with his dad that he made his friends and family uphold.

“Maybe?” Jarrell scoffed.

He’s mad scrawny, rocking a bright-green knit sweater with thick glasses that slip down his nose.

“But I think that’s what the police are gonna assume..."

“Yo, man, is this a joke? You a promoter now?”

He throws his arm over my neck, yoking me up.

“Aight. But need to be on consignment. Split the profits seventy/twenty.”

Quady blinks out of a trance and hands him five CDs, and I offer homie a handshake.

Plus, I’m rereading Assata Shakur’s autobiography. Daddy bought it for Mom, but she was never really interested. Me, though, I couldn’t get enough. A militant revolutionary so committed to black liberation she even took on an African name.

Ronnie has on this long black velvet dress with sheer sleeves and two slits that stop way up her thigh.

He’s much shorter than he looks on TV, his voice raspy like Rakim.

“Now, please remind your client not to be late. Mr. Williams is all about promptness.”

I don’t wanna say I’m scared ’cause that’d make me sound like some chump.

The girl gushes and nods. “Really?”

“...I don’t have time for games with pointless lackeys.”

Biggie’s Suburban SUV stopped at a red light on the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and South Fairfax Avenue, near the venue.

“It just don’t make no sense. They expect us to believe with the streets being mad crowded and the police and fire department shutting the club down, Big gets popped a few feet away, and no one saw nothing? No cameras. No paparazzi. No one?” Quadir shook his head.

“...I think it’s a conspiracy. The government is in on it. Trying to take out hip-hop ’cause we taking over. First NWA, now Big.”

“But...that’s just mad stupid,” Quadir said incredulously.

Jarrell looked over both his shoulders with a wary eye before sneezing into his jacket.

Dante laughs. “Hey man, I’m Sweden!”
“Sweden? What does that mean?”
“...I got peoples all over. I’m neutral.”

With the lights shining in our faces and me pinned against the wall, I couldn’t get a good look at the cats hemming us up, rummaging through all our pockets.

Here we are, cleaning again. Except Mom’s purging stuff now. Throwing away papers, broken toys, and collecting old clothes to donate to the shelter.

The rusted gate to the basement of a beat-up brownstone looks like a door to Satan’s playhouse, and I ain’t about to skip inside some vampire’s lair.

A blue tarp covering a broken window flaps in the wind.

The basement looks nothing like it does outside. Polished oak floors, green leather sofas, glass audio booths, and pristine equipment surrounded by warm orange lighting.

He clears his throat, composing himself.