No Dominion

He points around the barbershop, taking in the rhinos, the one-armed barber, and the guy in the Timberlands sitting in a chair by the door reading a copy of The Source. Timberlands there is wearing my hide, the nice black leather jacket that Evie gave me.

Digga takes them all in.

– We all grow shit back.

– If you say so.

He laughs.

– If I say so. Muthafucka. Give it to you, you cool. You busted out in the wrong place at the wrong time, you got yo ass dragged up in my shop, got us Hoodies all about yo ass, an you still cool. Give you that. Give you that.

– Thanks.

– Don’t be thankin’ me. Shit. Want to do somethin’ might help with this situation, you start tellin’me what the fuck Predo thinkin’. Start talking ’bout that ’fore you get somethin’ cut off don’t grow back.

– Sorry. I missed that name again. What was it?

He crosses his arms and drops his head.

– Mutha. Fucka.

He looks up.

– Cool-ass mutha. What yo name, cool-ass?

I look at the barber.

– Leave as much length as you can on top.

I look at Digga.

– Pitt.

– Oh! Snap!

He claps his hands.

– Pitt. Joe muthafuckin’ Pitt. You Terry Bird’s bitch. You his pet Rogue bitch, ain’t you? This shit gettin’ curiouser an’ curiouser. What Bird send you up here for? His hippie ass know better than to send no Rogue agent up here without no transit agreement.

– He didn’t send me.

– Uh-huh. You jus wand’rin’ up here all by yo lonesome. Sight-seein’ like.

– Heard the fried chicken and waffles can’t be beat.

The barber stops cutting.

Digga puckers his lips.

– What that you just say?

– Heard about the fried chicken and waffles.

– That’s thin ice, bitch. That fried chicken talk is some thin ass ice for a muthafucka to be treadin’ on.

– Sorry.

– That right you sorry.

– Not like I said I was here for the watermelon season.

His eyes open wide.

– Uh-uh. You did not. You did not.

He points at the barber.

– You done with that shit?

The barber looks at my head.

– Doan look no worse none than when I started.

Digga flaps his hand at him.

– Leave it, leave it. Lather muthafucka up and give him a scrape.

The barber sets his scissors aside, stirs a brush around in an old coffee cup and starts lathering my cheeks and neck.

Digga turns his back to me and faces the mirror again. He flicks his pinkie over the tips of his moustache.

– Watermelon season. That some classic shit. That some good, old-skool, stereotypin’, racist humor that is. You a racist, Pitt?

The barber puts his index finger on the point of my chin and tilts my head back.

– Not really. I just don’t like assholes.

– Muthafucka!

He grabs the razor from the barber, pushes him aside and tucks the blade up under my jaw.

– Asshole this, muthafucka. You tell me what you doin’ up here. Now, muthafucka. Want to know what you doin’ comin’ up here trailin’ a fuckin’ enforcer behind you. You on Predo’s tip or whorin’ for Bird, I doan care, you just talk, muthafucka, talk. And doan move yo mouth too much or you slit yo own damn throat ’fore I can.

– Not here for Predo.

– Oh, you know that name now, do ya?

– Not here for Bird.

– Who for?

– I’m here on my own, on my own business.

He adds an ounce of pressure to the blade and the skin splits and I feel the blood start to run.

– On your own bizniz. A Rogue out traipsin’ ’cross Coalition turf, takin’ a spin up ta the Hood on his own bizniz. Bullshit.

– It’s my own thing.

– You got someone gonna vouch that shit? You got someone gonna throw down for you on that? You got a brotha gonna back you?

I don’t say anything. Got nothing to say.

– That your answer, son? Got no names for me?

The blade slices deeper, the edge raking the cartilage sheath around my esophagus.

I throw the only name I have.

– Chubby Freeze.

He eases slightly on the razor.

– Chubby Freeze. That downtown niggah. He vouch you?

– He might.

– Hunh.

He lets go of my head and snaps at Timberlands.

– Chubby Freeze. You got that niggah’s digits?

– Ya-huh.

– Blow ’im up. Get that niggah on the phone.

Digga turns to the mirror and adjusts his collar and tie.

– Lucky I di’nt get no blood on this tie.

Timberlands waves his arm.

– Got ’im.

– What he say?

The guy talks quietly into the phone, nods a couple times and then flips it closed.

Digga snaps his fingers.

– Well, niggah?

– Chubby say he cool.

– He vouch?

– Chubby Freeze say he vouch for the man. Say the man righteous to a fault. Say they do bizniz and it always come out right.

– Hunh. Well. Well, well.

He looks me over.

– A vouch from Chubby Freeze. Ah’ite, that somethin’. So, Mr. Pitt, what you doin’ up here all by yo’self? What’s this bizniz?