Angel's Revenge

“Somebody tried to kill me.” He laughed.

“And that’s funny?” she asked in a panic. She knew her man was crazy, but she thought he had finally lost it.

Roll relaxed in one of the salon chairs.

“It is when you send stupid muthafuckas to murk a nigga like Big Roll,” he boasted.

Roll explained the scenario, and Renee sucked her teeth.

“It’s not funny, Roland. I swear I wish you’d leave this shit alone because everybody won’t always be stupid muthafuckas,” she told him, then walked away mad that he took the attempt on his life so nonchalantly.

Nitti, Roll’s sleepy-eyed silent killer, wasn’t laughing either. “I guess I ain’t gotta tell you who it was, do I?” Nitti asked.

Roll lit a Cuban cigar.

“Hell no! Who else could afford to just give away a million dollars, except me, and I damn sure ain’t try and kill myself.” Roll chuckled, but his insides were beginning to boil over. “I’ll tell you this though,” he said between puffs, “I was startin’ to think World’s bitch ass was goin’ soft, yo. He was makin’ it too easy to play him out of pocket.”

Roll blew out a puff of smoke. The more he thought about it, the more his nervousness subsided and his anger grew.

“Send toy soldiers at a real nigga like Roll? I’ma bury that nigga! Him, that bitch-ass Duke, his dick-suckin’ mother, and whoever else get in my way! I’ma take what shoulda been mine from the jump!” Roll huffed. “And my next Bentley on World!” Roll exclaimed and held up the million-dollar duffel bag.

“You got exactly one hour, Muhammad,” the blond CO told Rahman as he took off the cuffs at the door of the booth.

Rahman didn’t respond. Instead he looked over his shoulder at Young World on the other side of the Plexiglas.

Rahman gave him a wink, but he could tell Young World didn’t like seeing him in a cage chained like an animal. When the officer left, he firmly locked the door with a thud. Rahman turned to the phone and picked it up with a smile.

“As-Salaamu Alaikum, Shahid,” Rahman said, calling World by his born name.

“Alaikum As-Salaamu, my brother,” World replied. “What up wit’ this thick-ass Plexi and crazy heavy phones? You been wildin’ on them niggas in there or what?”

“Naw. You know how these crackers play with a nigga’s life. A nigga ain’t suppose to speak. And if you outspoken, then you losin’ some type of privilege. It ain’t nothin’ though.”

Young World nodded.

“What was you protestin’ for, more food?” World joked. “I saw that gut, Ock!”

Rahman threw his head back and laughed. “Yeah, I know. I ain’t been workin’ out like I should,” he confessed, noticing the dragon chain World was wearing. Rahman could clearly see the world he had introduced his young protege to, a world based on slavery. Enslavement of self, morally, and principally, enslavement to materialism, totally. It was the prison of the game many entered but few ever escaped. Rahman turned his head away.

Young World sensed his annoyance but mistook it for a different kind of disappointment. World thought Roc was upset with the way he had been handling the family affairs, so he sought to explain himself.

“I’m sayin’ yo, I know I ain’t holdin’ it down like you and Dutch, but shit is crazy for a nigga right now. I know you heard about it.”

“First of all, this is a federal penitentiary, Sha. I’m in here on drug and racketeering charges. My mail, my phone calls, my visits are all monitored and documented. You see that?” Rahman asked, pointing to the cameras in the corners of the room. “My whole life is an open book, and you come up in here with a murdered man’s chain around your neck, an armful of bling, sayin’ names like Dutch and y’all? You must wanna go to prison.”

“Naw, naw, my bad. I wasn’t-”

“Thinking?” Rahman finished the statement, then sighed. “If you gonna live that life, you always gotta think before you act.”

Young World was back on familiar ground now that his mentor was keeping him sharp, which was exactly what he had come for.

“I got you, my bad.”

“So what was it I’m ’posed to be hearin’?” Rahman asked, changing the subject.

Young World glanced at the camera before beginning. “Just things. I know dudes in here comin’ at you saying I ain’t cut for this shit or whatever.”

“It’s a lot of talk that I don’t listen to these days,” Rahman replied.

“Everybody wants to be gorillas and killas like they’d rather see blood than money. You know me, Roc, and you know how you raised me. Ice cold, and I done dealt with shit on those terms, but it ain’t enough, yo. It’s like, I’m missing somethin’. I’m missin’ a lot. That’s why I’m here.”

Rahman had lost his focus on Young World’s words after World said “how you raised me.” It echoed in his mind several times before settling in his stomach like a ball of hot lead. He grimaced over the lessons he had instilled in Young World.

Fuck the forty-eight laws of power, Rahman remembered saying once, referring to the true hustler’s handbook. The forty-ninth law is break every law except your own.

They were lessons that all ran counter to the Islamic faith, which he now held so dear. Rahman rubbed his head.

“So what you sayin’, Sha?”

“How he do it?”

“He who?” Rahman replied, feigning ignorance.

Young World just looked at him as if to say, who else?

“The only man that knew that answer is dead,” Rahman replied dryly.

“But, Ock, you know son like that. Y’all came up from the dirt together. You know the moves he made and why. I know you wasn’t in his head, but you was there from the jump.”

Rahman could tell Young World was desperately seeking the secrets of Dutch’s success, secrets only he could provide, ones he’d never reveal, not because of the code of the streets but because of the code of Islam. He knew he had created a monster in Young World, one that would eventually destroy itself.

“Let me ask you something, Sha. What does your name mean?”

Young World was puzzled.

“What? Young World? You gave me that name, remember? You said I was the next generation, the Young World.”

I know this nigga ain’t forget, Young World wondered to himself.

“But the next generation of what?” Rahman asked. “How’s your Abu? He still go to the masjid on Branford?” asked Rahman, changing the subject once again.

“Yeah, I guess,” World replied, not really feeling the small talk when there was more important business to discuss in the hour they had.

“How about you? You go?”

“Sometimes,” World lied.

“When’s the last time you been?” Rahman pressed.

Young World realized where the conversation was going so he sarcastically retorted, “I don’t know, yo. Whenever. I ain’t bodyin’ a nigga or a nigga tryin’ to body me. I drop by.”

Rahman sighed when he saw the steel in Young World’s eyes. The door to his soul was locked shut.

“If I could tell you, I would tell you, but then what? Huh? What you gonna do then? Go out and try and be like him? Be like me? Which one you want, death or jail? Because that’s where it ends. Don’t look at what we did to get it. Look at the inevitability of how we lost it!”

Rahman was adamant in his tone, but Young World was just as adamant in his resolve.

“Naw, Ock, I ain’t tryin’ to be nobody. I am somebody! I’m muthafuckin’ Young World! Let me worry about tomorrow. I’m askin’ you about today!” World exclaimed.

“Sound like you want me to hold your fuckin’ hand,” Rahman cursed, which was something he no longer did. He was angrier with himself than with Young World.