5 Minutes and 42 Seconds Read Free Page A

from the streets, born and raised. A lot of cats got they ears to the streets, and more props to them, but I got ten toes, a face, and a belly. You know what I’m saying?”
    The audience cheers.
    Free touches his shoulder. “Growin’ up in the streets must have been hard. A lot of brothas just like you are either dead or locked up. How did you manage to make your way to the top?”
    â€œYou know what, Free? I’m glad you asked that, because a lot of y’alls don’t understand why my album is called Gladiator. When I rhyme I ain’t just throwin’ shit together,aight? I ain’t Nelly or Chingy. Every word I write means something. When I say I’m a gladiator, I’m telling you how I survived. Coming up, it was a lot of situations where it was either me or the other nigga. Being a gladiator is all about knowing you gotta choose you, every time.”
    Suddenly a hand shakes him and Smokey wakes up.
    â€œDude, wake the fuck up,” said the voice behind the hand reaching into the little white car Fashad had ordered Smokey to drive to the corner. “You trying to get us caught or something?” asked the boy, trying to sound experienced beyond his age.
    â€œFuck you,” said Smokey, yawning as he stretched. He had never seen this one before, but he knew he was the one because his braids were the longest Smokey had seen in Detroit besides his own. He was light, bright, and damn near white, just like all the others Fashad hired. He rolled his eyes at the pip-squeak, like Michael Jordan sizing up Lebron James. Because the boy was so curt and insistent, Smokey purposefully took his time getting out of the car.
    The boy was nervously biting his fingernails and fidgeting about like he was a virgin. For Smokey this was an everyday thing. He casually let his body weight sway from his left foot to his right, and walked with delayed reaction to the concrete floor. He was sure that made him look cool, ’cause he’d seen older kids do it when he was little. He’d never done it before in public, but he felt he could get away with it around this kid. They went through Fashad’s car dealership to the back end of “Fashad’s Fix-it Service.” As soon as they were inside, the boy started with the questions.
    â€œYou’re Smokey, right?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œThe cocaine is in there, right?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œIt’s from Fashad, right?”
    â€œStop asking so many goddamn questions, Oprah. You getting on my motherfuckin’ nerves.” Smokey tried to sound more annoyed than he was, hoping he’d intimidated the boy. Instead the boy only looked confused.
    â€œWhat? What’s happening?” said the boy.
    Smokey was a little upset that he couldn’t even intimidate a high school kid, but he got over that once he heard the excitement in the boy’s voice. It was the same excitement Smokey’d had in his own voice when he first agreed to start dealing. It was going to be thrilling, dangerous, manly, and respectable. Instead, it was full of procedure and order taking. There was waiting and driving, driving and waiting. It was time for a change, and Smokey knew just what it was.
    Today would be Smokey’s last on the job. He’d been saving, and he figured he had enough to make his dream a reality. He was done with Detroit, done with Fashad. Smokey wanted to be something more than an ordinary nigga on a street corner wishing he was extraordinary. And nobody was a superstar in Detroit. He was going to New York to become a rapper, and more. An icon like Diddy and Jay-Z.
    â€œI’m sorry. I’m just really…this is my first time. I just want to make sure you’re one of Fashad’s boys,” said the boy.
    â€œI don’t like to talk about that shit,” said Smokey, coming close to cutting the boy off, wondering why the boy would want to speak of the unspeakable.
    â€œTalk about