Pousyè Pa Janm Fini Leve
Saul felt the sun stick to his skin the second he stepped off campus, the kind of wet heat that made your shirt cling like a hand that wouldn’t let go. The bell had rung ten minutes ago and the sidewalk was still breathing kids—uniform polos, backpacks, voices bouncing off brick. Trent drifted on his left, Javi on his right, all three of them sliding toward the bus stop like the current knew where to take them.
“Homecoming in a few weeks,” Trent said, grinning at his screen. “Mia already acting like I owe her a corsage and a room key.”
Javi snorted. “You gon’ ask the girl everybody there with… and everybody gon’ be with after.” He cut his eyes at Saul, grin crooked. “Zoe.”
Trent shook his head. “Let that hate go, bruh.”
Saul made his face blank and gave a little nod, the way you do when you don’t want to show you heard it. His jaw worked anyway. The word Zoe lit something he didn’t want them to see. He kept walking.
They cleared the chain-link and the grass that never grew right near the curb. The bus stop bench threw a short shadow that didn’t help anybody. Across the street, a storefront window held a dusty display of church shoes and graduation sashes that had been sun-bleached to a soft ghost of their original color. A little girl—six? seven?—pressed her hands to the glass like she was looking at a museum. Behind her, Pedro’s shoulder rolled into view.
Pedro glanced across the street and saw them. His mouth tugged into that not-smile he used. He opened his arms like a stage villain welcoming applause, a what’s-up-then gesture that ate the space between them.
Trent muttered, “Ignore that motherfucker,” low enough to pretend it wasn’t fear.
Javi echoed him, sharper: “Just keep it moving.” Both of them cutting side-eyes at Saul like he was the fuse.
Saul kept his eyes on the bus symbol nailed to the pole. The old feeling crawled up his neck anyway: the memory of weight in his hand, cold and certain, the way conversations changed when metal entered the room.
Pedro lifted his chin. “Lil’ Saul!” he called across traffic, not loud enough to draw grown-folk attention, just loud enough to test.
His little sister tugged his sleeve, eyes still on the shoes, and he shook her off without looking down. He kept his arms open like he was ready to hug or fight—like the choice was Saul’s.
Saul’s heartbeat hit a faster rhythm. He tasted copper.
A rumble came from up the block—the bus, brakes whining as it slid toward the stop in a sigh of diesel and heat. Saul locked onto it like salvation.
“Man, let’s go,” Trent said. “Ain’t worth it.”
“For real,” Javi added, voice tight. “Don’t do nothing stupid.”
They wanted him quiet because they thought he was strapped. Saul could feel it in the way they stood a half-step behind him, like he was the shield and the problem. Part of him liked that power. Most of him hated it.
Pedro spread his hands wider, like he was measuring Saul from a distance. It would’ve been funny if it wasn’t so close to ugly.
Saul didn’t look left or right. Didn’t toss back a word. He stepped to the curb and let the bus’ reflection wash over him in the glass of the storefront. He climbed first when the door folded open with a hiss, shoulder brushing the rubber edge, the smell of old vinyl and sweat rushing him like a wave.
They slid to an empty seat and dropped into it like falling through. For a beat none of them spoke. The bus lurched, swallowed the corner, and set them moving.
Only then did Saul say, “I don’t got it on me.”
Trent let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, laugh shaky. Javi did too, shoulders loosening as if someone had cut a strap. The relief embarrassed Saul. He kept his eyes on the graffiti scratched into the seat back ahead of him.
“You sure?” Javi said, half-joking, half-checking.
Saul didn’t look at him. “I said I ain’t got it.”
Out the window, Pedro’s little sister tilted her head at a pair of patent-leather flats and spun around to show him, still excited, still little. Pedro gave her a bored nod, eyes on the bus like it had mouthed off.
“You asking Zoe to homecoming or what?” Trent said, switching gears too fast but on purpose. “I gotta know if I’m buying one corsage or two, playa.”
“Man,” Javi said, “he asking the whole city to share. Had the nerve to—”
“Let. It. Go,” Trent said, but he was smiling when he said it.
Saul let the noise roll over him, room enough inside it to breathe. He pressed his palm flat to his thigh to stop the shaking. The bus creaked around another corner, and the city slid past—porch steps with cracked paint, a woman fanning herself on a stoop, a kid running with a bag of hot fries like they were gold. A siren started somewhere and then changed its mind. Humidity crawled in through the open windows and sat with them like a fourth friend nobody invited.
When the bus rolled through the next green light, Saul let himself look back. Pedro was smaller from here, just another boy on a sidewalk with a kid tugging his sleeve. But that was the lie of distance. The trouble always stayed the same size.
~~~
Mireya parked inside the chain-link and razor wire and cut the engine. Heat shimmered off the asphalt, pressing against the windshield like a weight. A guard tower cut a black square out of the sky. She sat one extra beat, jaw tight, the sting of the numbers still chewing at her—his 20 against her 21, too close, too unfair. She shoved the door open hard and walked.
The vestibule smelled of bleach and sweat baked into concrete. A CO behind glass shoved a clipboard through the slot.
“ID.”
She slid it under, signed her name, gave the same answers she always gave. Pockets emptied. Belt into the bin. Shoes, too. Arms out. The wand buzzed down her sides, then the gloved hand pat near her neck. The choreography of being tolerated, of knowing your body didn’t belong to you here.
The visitor’s badge pinched her collarbone. She followed the CO down a corridor humming with fluorescent light and muffled voices, through a door that buzzed, into another block where the AC worked too hard and still lost.
The visitation room was rows of bolted tables, paint worn down to dull chalk. She chose one at the back wall, where she could see without being seen too much. Metal chairs coughed as people shifted. A baby hiccuped on the far side.
She set her hands flat and waited. The hum of the room swelled: a laugh too loud, whispers pressed into each other’s ears, the squeak of sneakers. Across the room, a young couple bent over a carrier. The girl’s shoulders were rigid, the boy’s hands clumsy but careful as he touched the baby’s foot. Mireya couldn’t stop staring. Could’ve been them. Could still be, if the world bent different.
The door clanged. Chains clinked. Inmates filed in. Ricardo saw her quick and grinned big enough to shift the air.
“Hermanita,” he said, sliding into the chair across from her. His hands were cuff-free but inked, La eMe’s crown burned into his skin. She clocked it, said nothing.
“You good?” she asked, because Caine told her to, and because it was the only thing she could manage.
Ricardo shook his head, waving it off. “Nah. No one worried about me. How you holding up?” His tone made clear he’d switched to Spanish, but the words carried in English.
She lifted a shoulder. “Just surviving.”
“Eso,” he said, leaning back. “That’s how it is. Let’s keep it in Spanish—no need for these cabrones”—he flicked his chin toward the COs—“to catch everything.”
She nodded. “Fine.”
For a moment, silence. The AC coughed dust. Someone’s chair scraped.
“I know it’s hard,” Ricardo said, voice low. “But nuestro gente—we’re born hustlers. Always find a way.”
She kept her face still.
Ricardo studied her, smile softening. “Listen. I’m not here to tell stories. Just—know this. Caine doesn’t love anyone more than you and Camila.” He shrugged. “Not even his mom. Nadie.”
Mireya snorted lightly. “Camila, yeah. That I believe.”
“And you?” His mouth tilted.
Her eyes stayed on the table.
He chuckled, not unkind. His gaze drifted to the couple with the baby, then back. “I was out there doing dirt with him. Dre and me, we wanted quick money. But Caine? He did it for you. That’s the truth. La verdad. Everything he does is for you.”
The words sat heavy. She folded her hands into her lap, then put them back on the table so he wouldn’t see the tremor.
She lifted her chin. “I’m supposed to believe you?”
Ricardo laughed under his breath. “No. But it helps you not get confused. He’s in the fire, hermanita—probation, eyes on him, pigs circling. It messes with your head. But if you know he’s walking for you, you’ll choose your fights better.”
A CO drifted by, pretending to check the clock. Ricardo leaned back until he passed.
“And you?” she asked. “How they treating you here?”
He smiled thin. “Like everyone. But I got people watching my back.” He flexed his fingers once, not showing off, just letting the ink speak. “Not a life, but you learn.”
The baby squeaked across the room, the girl’s hair falling forward as she bent over, the boy’s fingers brushing the tiny foot. For a moment, the place didn’t feel like prison, just a room where people waited for something.
“Caine told me to come,” Mireya said. “Put eyes on y’all.”
Ricardo nodded, mouth flattening. “I figured. Tell me not to worry about me. Claro? I’m fine.”
She said nothing. Sweat cooled under the badge pressed to her collar.
Ricardo tapped the table once. “You’re strong, hermanita. Stronger than us sometimes. Don’t wait for permission. Make your way.”
“You want me to tell him anything else?”
“Just tell him to keep doing right by you and y’all hijita.”
She nodded once. The clock stuttered forward. Somewhere, a CO called time.
Ricardo glanced at his hands, then back at her. His smile smaller now, but real. “You’ll be all right. Créetela.”
She felt the words pushing at her, but didn’t let them all the way in.
When the CO tapped his shoulder, Ricardo rose. No goodbye. Just two fingers lifted in salute. Mireya watched the door swallow him, watched the air stay dented where he’d been.
The AC clicked. The baby hiccuped again.
~~~
The huddle broke and noise came rushing back—band horns sharp, bleachers clanging under stomping feet, whistles slicing through it all. Caine stood in the shotgun, fingers flexing once before he pressed them against the laces. His eyes worked quick—corner creeping, linebacker leaning on his toes, the safety late sliding over the top. He didn’t flinch. Just stored it.
“Go!” His voice cut clean.
The ball slapped his hands and he dropped back, three quick steps, ball tucked. The pocket folded and roared around him—shoulder pads colliding, cleats tearing divots. He kept his eyes up.
Corey burst off the line and broke shallow, shaking the corner with a stutter. The window opened half a second. That was enough.
Caine planted, hips snapping, and let it go. Spiral tight, cutting through the night.
A helmet flashed at his ribs as he released, the thud rattling bone, but the ball was gone. Corey turned inside, hands waiting, and the leather sank against his chest just as the corner swiped air behind him.
First down. Chains moving. The crowd cracked loud, brass booming.
Caine straightened from the hit, chest burning, and jogged back to reset.
…
Caine stood in shotgun, Jayden offset a step behind his right hip. Derrick planted at guard, wide and low, barking at the man across from him. Matt split wide left, Corey to the right, both crouched, hands twitching with the snap count.
Caine’s eyes moved quick. Safety shaded toward Corey. Corner on Matt pressing too close. Linebacker creeping into the box like he smelled blood. St. Aug’s front twitching, hungry.
He licked sweat off his lip, wiped his hand once on his thigh. Motion came—Corey cutting fast across the formation, a blur. The linebacker’s head turned. That was the tell.
He lifted his foot and clapped twice.
The ball smacked his hands from the gun. He rode it into Jayden’s stomach for a half-beat, eyes up. Linebacker bit down hard. Safety froze just enough. Caine yanked it back, tucking tight against his ribs, and snapped downhill.
The lane split open behind Derrick’s block. Caine burst through, shoulder brushing a helmet, hand swiping at his hip but finding nothing.
He cut outside, eyes forward, legs churning. The crowd roared — brass and voices colliding into one sound.
A corner dove for his ankles, but Caine hopped, feet landing solid, stride never breaking. Corey threw himself across a safety’s angle, clearing daylight. Matt sprinted downfield, caught a block, held it.
Caine’s lungs burned, sweat stinging his eyes. He stiff-armed another defender, palm to facemask, driving him into turf. Fifteen. Twenty. Thirty yards and the noise kept building.
One more body came at him—helmet low, arms wide. Caine dropped his shoulder, bounced off, stumbled once, then righted himself. Still running. Still going.
Dragged down near midfield, grass tearing under him, ball still locked high and tight. He popped up quick, chest heaving.
…
Caine’s eyes scanned the defense. St. Aug’s corners pressed, safeties showing two high but leaning. Linebackers sat shallow, expecting run. He knew what he wanted before he even called it.
Motion came across—Corey streaking left to right. The defense shifted, eyes flashing. One safety cheated down a half-step. That was enough.
“Go!”
The snap was clean. Caine caught it, settled quick—one step, two, three—eyes locked downfield. The rush came heavy, helmets colliding. Caine slid a half-step left, kept the pocket alive, and saw it: Matt had beaten the corner off the line, streaking down the sideline with only daylight and one safety too late to help.
Caine planted. Hips whipped through. The ball leapt from his hand, spinning tight, a rope that cut through the night air like it was pulled on a string.
Contact hit his shoulder just after release—pads colliding, breath knocked out—but he stayed upright long enough to watch it fly.
Forty yards. Fifty. The spiral never wavered. Matt tracked it, eyes wide, legs pumping, arms pumping. The corner scrambled, but he was gone. The ball dropped perfectly, sliding into Matt’s stride, hands clutching it like it belonged there.
Matt crossed the line untouched. Touchdown.
The crowd broke open—horns blaring, bleachers rattling with feet. Teammates swarmed downfield.
Caine popped up from the hit laughing, shaking off the sting in his ribs. He jogged forward loose, tapping his chest once, then throwing both arms. He mimed a gun with his hand, pointed it downfield then “pulled the trigger,” blowing faux smoke from his fingers.
He strutted back toward the sideline slowly, grin still leaking under his mask, chin high, letting the sound surround him.
…
Caine lined up, pulse steady, already seeing the space the trick might open.
Jay came in motion, flashing across the formation. The defense shifted with him—linebacker sliding, safety rolling, exactly the reaction they wanted.
Caine called for the snap. Caine rode the fake into Jay’s gut, then ripped it back, selling hard like the jet sweep was live. The pocket swelled and buckled, but he stayed tall.
Jay bent his motion vertical, turning it into the wheel. He had the corner beat. Caine set, hips whipping, and fired.
The ball sailed long, spiral tight, thirty yards down the sideline.
Jay throttled down, cut the route short, eyes flicking back before the break was even there.
Caine felt it before he saw it—the ball flying past empty air. The corner didn’t slow. He kept running, rose up, and stole it clean. Leather smacked his chest and purple jerseys poured into the open field.
The stadium detonated. Horns, feet, a tidal roar folding over itself.
Caine stood planted, arms still loose from the throw, jaw locked as the return went the other way.
Jay jogged back slowly toward the sideline. Helmet tipped up just enough to show his mouth set hard, chin high.
Caine jogged off slowly, helmet bouncing with each step. The noise was still swelling behind him, St. Aug’s band pounding, their sideline alive like they’d just cracked the whole game open.
He didn’t sit. He yanked his chinstrap loose and stood at the edge of the bench, chest heaving, eyes cutting to the field as the refs spotted the ball the other way. His ribs still buzzed from the hit he’d taken on the release, but that wasn’t what burned.
Jay came in behind him, helmet tilted up, mouth tight. No glance in Caine’s direction. Just walked, slow and steady, and dropped onto the bench like it was any other snap.
Coach Joseph stormed over, clipboard rattling in his hand.
“What the hell was that?” he barked, eyes darting between them.
Caine turned his gaze to the coach. “Ball was there.”
Joseph swung to Jay. “Route’s not five yards. It’s the wheel. You know that.”
Jay leaned back, legs spread, chin up. “He overthrew it.”
The words hung sharp. A couple of teammates nearby froze, helmets halfway off, eyes flicking between the two of them.
“I ain’t overthrow a motherfucking thing,” Caine shot back.
Joseph slapped the play sheet against his thigh, muttered something under his breath, and turned away to find the line coach. The moment broke, but not all the way.
Jay leaned forward, elbows on his knees, still not looking at Caine. A grin tugged at the corner of his mouth, quick, sharp, there and gone.
Caine saw it. He sat down finally, slow, helmet clutched between his hands. Breath steady, eyes narrowed.
…
Caine slapped his hands together twice.
The ball hit his palms. He dropped fast, two steps, then the pocket collapsed—pads smashing, helmets popping, rush spilling through the right side. Heat came screaming down on him.
Caine snapped right, rolling, ball high and tight, legs cutting sharp grooves into the turf. The crowd noise bled into one long roar. He kept his eyes up.
Corey broke free, a hard shake inside then out, defender stumbling a half-step late. The safety was still drifting the wrong way.
Caine’s chest twisted, shoulders square just enough. He ripped it on the run, sidearm dart cutting low and mean across the seam.
The ball whistled past the corner’s outstretched hand. Corey slid under it smoothly, hands soft, pulled it in and turned upfield. Three strides and he was gone. End zone.
The stadium detonated—horns, voices, feet on metal.
Caine popped up out of the roll, grin already spread wide. He pointed downfield at Corey, sprinted a few steps after him, then threw both arms high to the crowd. The bleachers shook back, screaming his name, stomping rhythm into the night.
Corey spiked the ball, teammates mobbed him. Caine jogged in late, slapped Corey’s helmet hard enough to ring, then leaned in his facemask with a laugh.
…
The scoreboard still glowed over the field, numbers fat and bright: 45–13. Karr had run St. Aug off their own field, and the band was still stabbing horns into the night while the bleachers thudded with kids stomping.
Caine pulled at his chinstrap, sweat sliding down his cheek, jersey clinging. He’d played clean, sharp, like he owned the place. But even with the noise still thick, he could feel the shift—eyes on him from the fence, men in polos moving along the sideline, scouting like it was a market.
One of them peeled off and came his way. Neat beard, Georgia State logo stitched into his shirt. He stuck out his hand before he was even close.
“Caine Guerra, right? Ryan Williams. Georgia State.”
Caine took the shake, chin up, grip firm. “Yeah.”
“Hell of a game,” Williams said, nodding at the scoreboard. “You made that look easy.”
Caine let one corner of his mouth lift. “Appreciate it. Ain’t nothing easy, though.”
“That’s what I like to hear.” Williams gave him the once-over—shoulders, frame, how he carried himself. “We’d like to get you in Atlanta. Meet the staff, see the campus.”
Caine already felt it tighten in his chest. Markus’s voice sat in his head: be straight, don’t dodge, don’t get caught lying. He wiped his palm on his thigh pad. “I can’t visit.”
Williams tilted his head. “Can’t?”
“I’m on probation,” Caine said flat.
The recruiter didn’t blink. “For what?”
For a beat, Caine thought about giving the clean version. There wasn’t one. He looked Williams in the eye. “Attempted carjacking and possession.”
The noise rolled on around them—horns, shouts, cleats on concrete—but it felt quiet between them.
Williams finally nodded. “You wouldn’t be the first kid we’ve had with a past. But not being able to get on a plane, that’s tough. We need you to see us, we need compliance signed off.”
“I know,” Caine said.
Williams rubbed his jaw, then clapped him once on the shoulder pad. “We’ll see what we can do.”
Caine nodded again, slow. He didn’t grin. Just held his ground until Williams turned back toward the cluster of coaches, players and scouts.
~~~
By the time they brought Dre out, the room had settled into that tired hush prisons teach—a baby’s squeak, metal legs scraping, a CO’s walkie cricking static every few breaths. The air conditioner pushed a cold that never reached skin, just circled overhead. Mireya had kept the same table she used with Ricardo, back wall, good sightline, her badge edge biting the hollow above her collarbone.
Dre came through the door with two other men and a CO. No cuffs. Hands loose at his sides. He didn’t scan for her like Ricardo had. He clocked the room in one sweep and made his way over slow, expression flat like he was saving anything extra for later. He sat and didn’t say anything.
Mireya folded her hands on the tabletop. “Caine asked me to come,” she said. “Put eyes on y’all.”
Dre looked at her hands first, then her face. A single nod. “I’m straight,” he said. Voice dry, not disrespectful, just worn. “Far as a nigga can be in here.”
The phrase laid itself down—in here—and the room did that thing where every sound got louder: chair squeak, the soft clack of a CO’s ring of keys. The bleach in the air stung at the back of her throat.
“Thank you,” she said.
“For what.”
“For what you did.” She kept her eyes on him so he knew she meant it. “You know.”
Dre’s jaw flexed once.
“It was right,” he said, and he said it simple.
In the hard light, she could see the new line of a cut along his cheekbone. Not fresh, just healed badly. He didn’t reach up to touch it.
“Ain’t for talking about,” he added, not unkind.
She nodded and let the quiet stand with them. Across the room, the couple from earlier had gone. In their place a woman in a Beauty Mart T-shirt was laughing too loud at something a man said and then shrinking the laugh down, like she remembered where she was halfway through.
“You look tired,” Dre said finally.
Mireya almost smiled. “I am.”
“School, work, baby,” he said, like he’d been keeping a running list for her. “That’ll do it.”
Mireya rolled her shoulders as if that could loosen the day. “You eating?” she asked. The question came out of her before she made a plan for it.
“As good as the tray.” His mouth shifted—neither smile nor complaint. “I don’t need nothing.”
She let that pass. They sat with it a few breaths more. The AC coughed; someone’s bracelet clicked the edge of a table in a tiny clock.
Dre leaned in the smallest bit, forearms resting on the gray laminate. “I’ma say one thing, then I’m done,” he said.
Mireya lifted her chin. “Okay.”
“Don’t hold him back.”
Her lips pressed together before she knew she was doing it. “Back from what.” She made it flat.
“Anything you tell him to do,” Dre said, “he gon’ do. That boy…” He stopped, adjusted, like he was choosing the angle that would cut cleanest. “He wired for you. He always been. He’ll throw it all if you say the word. I ain’t sit down in here so a bitter baby mama could turn him into the wrong kind of loyal.”
The words hit like a door slamming and like something she already knew, both at once. Heat rose in her cheeks and then turned to a colder heat. She bit the wet edge of her lip until it felt like just lip again.
“You don’t know me like that,” she said, quiet.
Dre nodded. “I know him.” His eyes stayed steady. “And I know how the city starves folks. Make you think small just to feel safe. Make love feel like a leash.”
She exhaled once through her nose. The guard by the clock pretended to look at the clock again.
“You said you were straight,” she said. “You don’t sound straight.”
He almost smiled at that, but it never made it to his mouth. “I’m in the bing. Straight don’t live in here.” He tilted his head, considering her. “But I sleep, some. Eat, some. Breathe. That’s straight enough.”
She looked at the table because eye contact felt like a contest and she had nothing to prove. The laminate had been cleaned too many times with something that stripped shine and left haze. Under her fingers, it felt like chalk and damp.
“I ain’t your enemy, Dre,” she said.
“I ain’t say you was.” He opened his hands, palms up, then folded them again. “I’m telling you how it is. He got eyes on him. Everybody pulling. One person he gon’ listen to first. That’s you. Don’t make that the thing that sinks him.”
“You telling me to disappear?” She kept the sarcasm out of it.
“I’m telling you to pick your battles.” He tapped the table once, a small knuckle knock. “If it ain’t about y’all staying alive, let it go. You want him to be good, yeah? Then let him get good.”
Mireya dragged her thumbnail along a nick in the tabletop. It made a tiny sound like a zipper tooth.
“You done?”
“I’m done.” He pushed back his chair an inch, then stopped, then slid it forward again—changed his mind about how to leave. “Tell him I’m alive.” He paused. “Tell him… tell him don’t go stupid behind shit he can’t fix.”
She nodded once. “Okay.”
“And tell him,” Dre added, after a beat, “I ain’t change my mind about what I did.” The line came out clean, like a blade that’d been sharpened in silence.
Mireya let the weight of that sit. “I’ll tell him.”
He gave her a small chin tip, not quite a nod, and turned toward the door. The CO by the clock had been waiting for it. He was already moving. Dre didn’t look back. The door buzzed. He disappeared into it.
For a moment after, the room seemed too large for the bodies inside. The AC blew the same stale cold. The walkie coughed. Somewhere, a baby hiccuped again, like the sound traveled on a loop from building to building. Mireya set both hands down on the table and tapped her fingers once—thumb to index, index to middle, a slow roll to tell her blood to settle. She stared at the nick in the laminate until it was just a nick.
Then she stood, the visitor badge biting her skin again, and walked to the door. The CO wanded her out with the same bored hum as before. Heat slapped her at the final exit—honest heat, swampy and heavy. Out in the parking lot, the razor wire drew pencil lines across the sky.
She unlocked the car, slid in behind the wheel, and let the sun burn through the windshield while the engine coughed to life. For a second she didn’t move, both hands on the wheel the way you’re taught, breathing until her chest.
Then she put it in drive.
~~~
The street breathed thick—grease and hot dust and the sweet rot from a busted trash can half a block down. Headlights slid slow like they were tired. Across the street, the OGs had their circle—3NG cap next to a G-Strip tee, elbows on hoods, ash tapping off cigarettes like metronomes. They spoke low. The block adjusted itself around their quiet.
Caine was posted up with Ramon, Tyree, and E.J. under a streetlamp that hummed like a busted bee. Sweat made his shirt cling a little, but he wasn’t bothered. He laughed as Tyree ran his mouth.
“One of my lil’ yeas said she’d let niggas run a train on her if we brought her some wing stop,” Tyree grinned, tapping his chin. “I told her I’m the whole combo. Lemon pepper, Hawaiian, garlic parm—family meal.”
E.J. cracked up, wheezing. “Nigga, why you fucking with a bitch taking dick for an eight piece?”
Caine snorted, shaking his head. “That hoe probably got that shit that’s gonna have you burning by Monday.”
Tyree put a hand to his chest. “Disrespectful. Ain’t nothing wrong with chick who know what she want.”
“You know they got hoes on the stroll you can fuck for that much,” Ramon said, straight-faced. A smile tugged anyway. “But then again, you be fucking with slow bitches.”
“On God,” E.J. said, “Gonna put that nigga back behind bars for setting up trains on hoes who on them short buses.”
“Nigga, please,” Tyree said. “This bitch at Ursuline. She just nasty.”
Caine laughed again, light and quick. “Ursuline? Ain’t you always clowning E about fucking with white bitches?”
Across the way, an OG smacked the hood once to make a point. Everything got quiet for a breath, then slid back to normal. A cicada scratched somewhere high. A stray dog nosed a Popeyes bag, decided against it, kept moving.
Tyree still grinned but his eyes flicked at Ramon. “Aye—tell him.”
E.J. rocked on his heels, toothpick between his molars. “Might not even be his problem.”
Caine side-eyed both, still easy. “What problem.”
Ramon glanced down the block, then at Caine. “Young Melph know it was us at Tee Tito’s. Word is, they asking.”
The laugh went out of the space. The lamp buzzed louder.
Caine didn’t blink. “Yeah, that’s a problem.”
Tyree rolled his shoulders like he could shake the air looser. “Man, them niggas pussy, though. We ain’t got nothing to worry about.”
E.J. didn’t co-sign. “That don’t stop niggas from trying to up they rank.”
A slow car crept by with music low, bass a heartbeat under the windows. The driver looked once and kept floating. Caine watched. The car turned on Claiborne and disappeared.
Ramon stepped a half-foot closer, keeping his voice just for the four of them. “You still got that pistol I gave you?”
“At my grandma’s,” Caine said.
Ramon’s brow ticked. “Why you leave it there?”
Caine smirked. “Ain’t trying to go back to the bing, bruh.”
Ramon nodded “Just keep it close a while. Just in case. At least until they try to spin on us or we send some steppers over there..”
Caine nodded once. “Bet.”
Two teens biked past, back pegs rattling, one yelling, “Aye, I’m serious, she said her mama don’t get off ‘til ten,” and the other laughing so hard the chain skipped. Tyree pointed after them.
“See? The B.G.s believe in me.”
“They think you gonna let them get in line,” E.J. said.
“That ain’t got nothing to do with me,” Tyree shot back. “I always go first in the train and leave.”
Caine grinned, low. “Everyone know you lying, brudda.”
They cracked up again; even Ramon’s shoulders shook once. The comfort came back in, like it lived here and just took a water break.
Across the street, one of the OGs tapped ash and gestured, making a small invisible diagram in the air. Money talk. Territory talk. Nothing for kids. A woman in a bonnet crossed behind them pulling a rolling milk crate full of sodas and chips, head down, mind on hers. Somewhere a baby cried, got scooped, quieted.
Tyree’s phone lit his pocket; he checked it, sucked his teeth. “This bitch talking about, ‘you bring blue cheese or ranch?’ What fucking difference it make?”
“Say ranch,” E.J. said. “Blue cheese smell like wet dog.”
“I ain’t even gonna say it,” Caine said, face twisting.
“That he should know exactly what wet dog smell like,” Ramon muttered. “Tell her ass you bringing what you bringing.”
Tyree typed, thumbs blazing. “You right.”
E.J. dragged the toothpick to the other side of his mouth. “Hope you bringing condoms, too. I know that bitch smell fishy.”
“Nigga, ya mama smell fishy,” Tyree said.
“At least, I ain’t going last in a train on no Derrick Rose shit,” E.J. said.
They let the foolishness live a second, letting the block be the block again. Then Caine looked at Ramon.
Caine chuckled and leaned back against the lamppost, the hum rattling through metal into his shoulder. A breeze barely grabbed the sweat off his neck and set it cool. He looked like a kid at home.
Ramon bumped his knuckles once against Caine’s forearm—nothing big, just a hear me. “For real. Watch out for them niggas. I don’t know what they know for real. Hit me up if you see ‘em.”
“Say less,” Caine said.
i can't stand her ass.
