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(I)

The three of them walked down Clag Street—Case Piece, Menduez, and Sung—Case Piece with his antiquated “boom box” on his shoulder. He was jammin’, and what he was jammin’ to was the brand-new CD by PREE-postur-ISS, which was especially appropriate since it featured Hip Hop Christmas songs. “Dig it, my dawgs,” he said, bopping along. He upped the volume:

“Rudolf the motherfuckin’ reindeer, had a motherfuckin’ shiny nose, and if you ever motherfuckin’ saw it, you would say it motherfuckin’ glows. All of the other motherfuckin’ reindeers, used to laugh and call him motherfuckin’ names. They never let poor Rudolf join in any goddamn motherfuckin’ reindeer games…”

“Turn that shit off!” bellowed an old woman on her doorstep. The gang turned to glare but resumed walking when they spied the 12-gauge in the woman’s hands. Case Piece turned off the music.

“Shit. Motherfuckin’ old white bitch ain’t got no Christmas spirit,” Case Piece complained.

“Yeah!” Sung agreed. “No Kwissmas spiwit at all!”

“I take a giant chit in her yard tonight, mang,” Menduez promised.

“Fuck ’em.” Case Piece thumbs-upped. “We ain’t gonna let no motherfucker crimp our motherfuckin’ joy, uh- uh.”

The moon glazed the old street, painting cracker-box houses. Christmas lights blinked in alternate windows, and from one scrubby yard, a plastic snowman waved. Ahead, a pair of sneakers dangled on some power lines. “Chit, yeah, mang. Tying ta sell more smack,” Menduez said, observing the dilapidated shadow at the phone pole.

“Sling it, bro.”

“Yeah, bwo!”

The skinny Caucasian female addict teetered forward with hollow eyes and a proffered $20 bill. Her arms looked like bones painted the color of lard, but with needle-tracks like lines of black pepper. Menduez slapped the heroin baggie into her hand, then, like a card trick, the $20 was in his own hand. “Chew only buy smack from us, right, woomahn?”

“Oh, yeah, man,” the stick-girl affirmed. Her clothes were rotten.

“Chew don’t never buy from no fuckin’ cowboys, right? ’cos, if chew do?” Menduez shook his head. “Chew wind up fucked.”

“No, no, I’d never do that, man,” the addict assured, shuffling away. She picked at the ass-crack in her rotten jeans. “Thanks, man.”

“Hey, girl!” Case Piece called out. “Merry Christmas—uh-huh!”

They all high-fived when Menduez returned to the group.

“How many skag-bags we got left, my man?” Case Piece asked.

“All gron, man!” Sung informed.

Case Piece got back to his bop. “Our gig? Shit. It’s trick as a crown. It’s tip as a top—we drip to that drop.”

“Yeah, mang. Last week, chit took us all fockin’ week to sell what we sold in one fockin’ day,?mang.”

“Shit, all’s a sudden it seem like this recession be over,” Case Piece regarded hopefully. “Guess my top-dawg Obama, he must’ve fixed the economy. We movin’ skag.”

Menduez, “Yeah, mang, and we still got three kilos left, I tink.”

“Yeah! Twee,” Sung verified. “Our gig twop-dwawer, boyz!”

The three idiots continued walking. Case Piece…well, he rubbed his crotch. “And now we gots our own ‘ho with the trickin’-est bod.”

Menduez squeezed his crotch, too. “Where dat puta tonight, mang?”

“Turnin’ twicks?”

“Naw, she back the crib, baggin’ the next kilo. See what I mean, me’n my dawgs? We got it made in the shade. Paulie and his boyz, they bring it, we sling it, and Highball, she bag the skag and we slag the skag. Right on.”

Menduez frowned. “Slag? What chew mean by dat chit, mang?”

“Yeah, Clase Pleece. Rut does slag mean?”

Case Piece slumped. “Shit. It don’t mean nothin’. I just make it up cos it rhyme.”

Their laughter crackled down the dark street.

When they turned the corner, the next road extended in worse repair than the previous. Lots of old triplex tenements and drab apartments with dingy laundry flapping from high rails in the cold breeze. But on the porch of one triplex, several young Hispanic men sat.

“Dare day is, dah poo-putt piece’s a chit,” Menduez guttered sinisterly.

Case Piece grinned at them and pointed his finger like a gun.

The sullen faces on the Hispanics observed the NSG-3 through indirect glances, then they got up and went inside.

“More new cowboys, chit. Mexicans, sellin’ dat black tar chit in our town. Fuck, I bury doze cockroaches.”

“Competition, man,” Case Piece said. “It part’a business, like my top dawg Paulie say.” He slapped Menduez on the shoulder. “Look like you’ll be busy tonight, Menduez. You need to do that doggie thing you do and send those chumps a message. And if it don’t work, fuck, we’ll just pop trunk on the motherfuckers.”

“Hey, I see a new puppy dog today just down the stweet!”

“Yeah, mang, I see it too. At house dat asshole Giller lives.” Meduenz prounced Giller as “Geeler.”

“Aw, that honkie dick? Shit. I ‘member one time, I’se just jammin’ to my tunes walkin’ down the street with my Grape Slush, and that honkie dick, you know what he say? He say, ‘Negroes ain’t allowed on this street.’ Shit. That white fuck. I’m duh Ace Boon Coonest player dare is, I’m a motherfuckin’ thug- king, I ain’t no Negro. Yeah, Menduez, whine’choo snatch that honkie piece’a shit’s puppy and do that dog thing you do?”

“Chore, mang. No prob-leng.”

“Time to sky up, dawgs. Let’s bop our butts back to the warehouse. I need my dick deep in Highball’s cash drawer, don’t’cha know. And that bitch better’a done our laundry and washed the fuck- rust out’a our sheets like I tole her, or I’se bust her up!”

“Shrit, yeah, man!” Sung enthused and rubbed his crotch. “Ret’s get back to the kwib!”

Menduez kept rubbing his crotch. “Chew guys go on ahead, mang. First eyeing gotta snatch me dat piece’a chit Giller’s puppy,” and then he turned and went down another street.

“Come on, Sung. Shit.” Case Piece was about to head back to the warehouse but he suddenly stopped and brought a hand to his forehead. He seemed to be experiencing a mental flash. “Wait, wait! I just got me some creative inspiration!” and he looked up at the crisp winter sky, closed his eyes, and began to sing: “Hickory dickery DOCK! In her mouth she suck my SLOP and swallow every DROP! The clock strike five, I’m slappin’ jive! Hickory dickery motherfuckin’ DOCK!”

Sung applauded. “That gwate, Clase Pleece! You a wegular wapper!”

“Shit, yeah,” Case Piece agreed. “Keep them words in that genius brain of yours, Sung. I gotta find some way to get it to my man Ice-T. Shit, he make a hit out of it!”

Indeed.

The two drug dealers eventually returned to the warehouse, but the first sight that greeted them stopped them both in their tracks.

“Yo, yo, yo, yo, yo,” Case Piece said, holding out his hand.

In the darkened parking lot sat—

“Prawlie’s Rinnebago!” Sung exclaimed.

Case Piece scratched his Afro. “Shit. What Paulie doin’ back? He and his dudes split hours ago.”

“We better trek it out!”