Snickarius, Jamalabad and Samjai gathered around the elder statesmen of Lower Park Heights, which, if you is a nigga, be a slight on your kind, as Upper Park Heights is down the way below and Lower Park Heights is up on that high hill. This was just another reminder of the rampant injustice implicit in the Black American experience.

Broke-Ass Rasheed was ancient, damned near sixty, some said, half gray of beard—almost like that Santa Claus faɡɡot, who did all the Christmas work for white people—part white of hair, with one messed-up leg left to him strapped straight out in a steel-pole boot and the other messed-up leg gone—took by white doctors, which were well-known to practice on black folks so that they could be better at fixing up white people. He had big hands, puffy, blackened lips and sleepy-lidded eyes of the big brown kind. He dressed in a black beret jangling with trinkets, a black leather jacket, a lopsided pair of jean pants and a single black leather boot. Over his leg and up around his rounded belly lay a gray blanket, draped like a shroud of mourning. Broke-Ass Rasheed was usually down in the dumps. But today, even as he cried and drank he seemed up in spirit.

Samjai was new to the crew, wearing a ‘Che Forever’ shirt, the light-skinned slave rebel depicted wearing a beret—like Broke-Ass Rasheed’s, minus the jangles—on the designer shirt. Getting a good look at the ‘Liquor Mart Wiseman’ for the first time, Samjai pointed to the man’s hat and said, “Righteously militant, my brutha!”

Rasheed nodded and bumped fists with all three, Samjai last, who could not contain himself and embarrassed Snickarius and made Jamalabad roll his eyes as he ran off at the mouth, “Rasheed is a bad-ass name, also. But how’d you get stuck with Broke-Ass? Snickarius says it’s ‘cause you broke all the time and Jamalabad claims it ‘cause your ass is actually broke from taking lead in it—like they shot your ass right here and there you sit!

Rasheed rolled his eyes, looked to the two experienced crew members and said, “I suppose it’s about time ya’ll young-ass niggas knew da trute. I need me a little drink though. So, if you be kind enough to get me a miniature of Smirnoff, Broke-Ass Rasheed will bring home the trute.”

Taking a dollar bill out from under his blanket, he held it out to Samjai, who ran into the Liquor Mart, bought the mini, and brought it right back out to the handicapped old butha, who unscrewed the tiny top, sucked the thing dry and then tossed the plastic bottle in the gutter, declaring, “This ole soldia on the verge of a righteous deed. So if you young-ass niggas wants ta know how he got to the pinnacle of grace, gatha ‘round and take in the Song of Broke-Ass Rasheed.”

Under the stuttering yellow light and the darkening sky, the three gathered like ghosts about a dying man in the driving snow, thirsty to feast upon his human essence as the light of life yet flickered.

“First, there were Cute-Ass Rasheed, Mamma’s first hope, the apple of her EBT pie, the baby that brought home the bacon. Yeah, you know what I’m talkin’ ‘bout, damned-near-white as you is, Samjai. Sheeee, as light as you is Mamma was displayin’ yo ass like White Daddy’s own pearl necklace.”

Snickarius and Jamalabad snickered and hooted at the singling out of the new cut of the crew.

“But then, as happens, when Baby’s Daddy don’t come ‘round fo no second date, Mamma lays up with anotha nigga—en nine month’s afta’ that shiftless muthafucka’s shoes hit the sidewalk, pop, here come Little Sista and don’t you know, Cute-Ass Rasheed done got demoted to Bitch-Ass Rasheed—you know how it is Snick, yo ramen noodle money goin’ to braids fo yo little sista.

“As happens, when a giant bitch mamma call her son a Bitch-Ass right out da cradle, he needs ta prove hisself—so he did, and became Whooped-Ass Rasheed—piled on by bigga kids, beat by the nigga that fuckin’ his mamma and so on—you know it, Jamalabad, I saw yo sista’s daddy trowin’ you out da window twice now.”

“Ya’ll young-asses know it’s true!”

To this the boys shuffled, nodded and hung their heads, feeling the plight of their elder as a child, each in his own way, according to his particular curse.

“Then, after some years of takin’ whoopin, afta whoopin, Whooped-Ass Rasheed finds hisself halfway trough a can a spinach—which was all the shit his mamma let him eat—but don’t you know, that shit brought on the hulk in his frame. As he squatted on the side of the tub, feasting on them cold, soggy leaves with the plastic fork, while Mamma en her man, en Little Sista all eatin’ scrimps en cake on the couch, watching Wrestlmania—the hulk come on him. Within two days Whooped-Ass Rasheed’s little hands was growed out ta chump-hammas like y’all scrawny-ass niggas see right here!”

To this Broke-Ass Rasheed theatrically flexed his giant man-hands and the boys cheered and swayed to the story, making punching motions as they grinned sinisterly.

“Thus came Bad-Ass Rasheed outa da High Hood to tread the sissy-braided faɡɡots of the worl under his heavy, Niked-up heels. He bust a nigga’s nose here, knock out a white boy’s teeth there, crack the rib of some limp-dicked teacher up in school—beatdown two muthafuckin’ skank-ass bitches who tought dey was men in Upper Saint Clair. Bad-Ass Rasheed choked out Snitchy the Shoe-Shine man right on his box-stool at the Lexington Market—a nigga ta be reckoned with, don’t you know!—and took that shoeshine spot fo his own self.”

The boys were howling in exultation and dancing around, boxing the punk shadows that crept on by before the passing headlights.

Then the big hand of the man called a halt and he intoned sorrowfully, “But to every bad-ass comes his day a downfall. Don’t you know it, but Bad-Ass Rasheed run into a heavy-handed negro named Poet—seven foot tall in his sneakers, head like a bowling ball, not a sneak punch you could name but he don’t trow it! Though, as the worl turn, the conqueror of Bad-Ass did not strangle him on his box-stool throne, but set him on his knee—so to speak—and talked of things sublime, that the name Rasheed was a holy seed, that he was destined to serve the Holy Nation of Islam, under the Honorable Reverend Louis Farrakhan, in the ultimate struggle against the White Devil, and a lesson learned from some cracker fiddler player, that the Devil is best done in by trick, not by the brick. Thus marked the rise of Slick-Ass Rasheed, whose story is the key to understanding the plight of Broke-Ass Rasheed.”

The now animate old man, fresh snot running over his brush-like mustache, tears dried white like chalk-patterned lightning strikes on his cheeks, brought out another dollar from under the blanket, then added another two it and called, “A mini of One-Fifty-One, my Oreo friend, if you please.”

As Samjai took the bills he noticed that Snickarius was peeping under the blanket, as if trying to discern the amount of money therein.

The old man in the power chair called after him, “Slick-Ass Rasheed is the precursor of Broke-Ass Rasheed, the current and Sixth Shade of that martyr name—and you two snoopin’ niggas here don’t want to find out the Seventh Shade of Rasheed—mark dese Broke-Ass words…”

Samjai was ecstatic, that he had stumbled upon such a man, such a storyteller, a man that surely could connect him with his Muslim roots and might very well know what was up with the Jews, like where their mind-control machines were kept and if they really became doctors so that they could snip off pieces of baby junk and insert tracking devices.

To be continued in All that Glitters is Bold: The Quest of Slick-Ass Rasheed.