Samjai really felt for old Rasheed—the broken dude having had such a hard life. But Snickarius and Jamalabad just wanted to find out about the dice spot behind the liquor store, where legend had it Broke-Ass Rasheed used to spin dice better than anybody and knew the lucky spot on the curb. Rasheed kept begging off, saying, “Naw, naw, naw—it weren’t all that. Besides, I’m too goddamn old to rumple-stumple this buggy back there over all that broken block.”

The boys would not take no for an answer and helped Rasheed guide his power chair back behind the liquor store, clearing a path through the gap in the broken wall, onto an old parking pad—for like horses and wagons or some shit, it was so banged up and crumpling. Finally they came to the dice spot, a chalked-off slab of pavement in near pristine condition, up against the intact curb, against the completely crumbled sidewalk the liquor store man used to haul his trash. Thing was, that liquor store man respected the Park Heights Boyz to such an extent that he did not dare tread on the curb or the spot where dice were spun, and so this place of gambling was like a sacred precinct—actual concrete that wasn’t crumbling apart.

“This sho is the spot. So what you young hoppers needs ta know?”

“We need ta know how much money you be given us so we don’ whoop yo broke ass—ya ole fool nigga!” snarled Snickarius, as he pointed his broken gun at Rasheed’s face, pointing the finger of his other hand at the blanket under which Rasheed kept his money. Not to be outdone, Jamalabad pulled out both of his straight razors and placed one up under the old man’s eye.

Samjai was aghast and snatched up a brick, but no attention was paid to him. His friends had so little regard for him and his stature among them that they paid him no heed and had not even consulted with him about doing this rotten thing.

“No!’ said Samjai.

Jamalabad simply gave him an evil stare.

Rasheed was not flustered, “You some real lowdown niցցers ain’t you?”

In answer Snickarius slammed the barrel of his little broke gun into the face of the broke man and Jamalabad pressed the razor so it made a trickle of blood on that big brown cheek, the light from the backdoor security camera glinting off of both blades, including the other, which was held at the ready to go for the throat.

“Give it!” snarled Snickarious, as blood trickled from the nose of Broke-Ass Rasheed.

Rasheed answered, clear-toned and even, “Here I thought you hoppers had a chance to become somethin’—even spared yer asses the story of the sixth shade, not wantin’ to infect a young mind with the taint of mine."

Snickarius was snarling, “You pluckin’ my las’ nerve, niggar! Give it!”

With that command Jamalabad placed his second razor on the Rasheedian throat, the other still bleeding the cheek under the eye.

“Sho lille brutha. Jus’ say da word,” capitulated Rasheed.

“Whazyougot unda dere—unda dat blanket?”

Rasheed grinned a triumphantly unbroken smile and sneered, “Say hello to my little friend!”

With that, a loud pop sounded and blood darted from under Jamalabad’s chin, his one eye rolling out and hanging on a gooey red string as he tilted back and gurgled, falling and slicing his own face with the razors as his confused hands grabbed for his hanging eye.

Broke-Ass Rasheed had a dark light in his narrow eyes and Snickarius—not so bad sounding now—took a step back and stammered a word that never came out, but began with a “w,” as Rashhed threw aside the blanket with his left hand, money flying everywhere and pointed a little gun at Snickarius and sneered, “You done summoned up Evil-Ass Rasheed en that muthafucka's a bad seed!”

“Pop” went the gun and a burst of blood blew out of Snickarius’ ear and he fell straight back, eyes wide open, a red dot between them.

Rasheed and Samjai then met with their eyes over the body of Snickarius and the man spoke, nodding at the brick in Samjai’s little hand, “I appreciate the thought. But you got better things to do with your fresh life than to get involved in this nastiness. Now I got bidness to up-end to, so if you could cast that blanket back ova my lap, I’d much appreciate that shit.”

Without dropping his sacred brick—that somehow felt like his defining possession—Samjai placed the blanket back on the man’s big lap and noticed an arsenal. Strapped to Rasheed’s right leg, it’s barrel taped to the inside of his iron-booted shoe, was a big-ass shotgun. On his lap was an Uzi and now also the little pistol as Rasheed helped Samjai cover up his hands, the left one peeking out to operate the control box for the chair. It occurred to Samjai then, that power chairs should be right-handed and Rasheed laughed a big toothy grin at the look on his face where his thoughts were so obviously etched, “That’s right, son, Evil-Ass rides customized. Now get on out da way and home to your mamma, ‘cuz Evil-Ass Rasheed got some bidness to un-tend.”

Rasheed then cruised through the gap in the wall, leaving Samjai with his two dead friends and the boy just had to follow, brick in hand, after his very own man-defining hero.”

“Wait, yo,” he said as he caught up with Rasheed in front of the liquor stores as a big car full of Somalis with their triangular garlic-bulb heads rolled up almost to the curb and started piling out, drawing guns big and small.

Rasheed shoved Samjai to the ground and yelled, “Run!” as he opened up with the shotgun, with one hand while he lifted up the blanket-covered Uzi with the other. The flaming “blam” blasts of the shotgun that kept blamming and the machinegun sound of the Uzi and the pops of the Somali guns, the shattering of Somali car windows, the blasting of the liquor store windows and the terrible howling of Evil-Ass Rasheed, who only said one long-ass word for the whole gunfight, rose to a crescendo, the call of Rasheed somehow louder than the gunfire as he howled, “Muthafuckaaaaasssssssss…”

Within seconds it was over, four dead Somali dudes, one real dead car, one Somali man standing over the old man chair, and Rasheed, broken again, gurgling from a hole in his neck as he squeezed triggers that clicked empty, still attempting to curse up at his killer, who held a wicked-looking handgun before his forehead, smiling like he knew he was the bad guy and he got to win in the movie anyhow.

Samjai screamed, “No!” as he lunged forward and threw that brick overhead with both hands into the surprised mouth of the man turning to face him, a face you’d thought would make a cracking sound, as it was so bony-looking, but made a squishing sound instead. The man fell back like a falling trashcan in the winter wind, an empty look in his eyes, and when the back of his head cracked on the pavement like a watermelon dropped off the Fireworks Day table, the wicked looking gun clattered on the sidewalk as lifeless as its owner.

Samjai stepped to Rasheed’s side and looked into his red, watery eyes, not wanting him to die. Rasheed took a finger that was not shot off and plugged the hole in his throat and rasped wetly, “See who da nigga is—I gots ta know fo I go.”

Samjai scrambled, in a panic that he would not be able to honor his hero’s last request and hauled out a wallet from the back jean pocket of the man with the squished face and the cracked head. He bounced right up as sirens sounded in the distance, opened up the wallet and bugged his eyes out at what he saw, but did his duty of holding the open wallet up before the dying eyes of his friend, who did not seem as surprised as one might expect that the Somali man was a Baltimore City Police Detective.

Rasheed looked at Samjai, smiled, which caused more blood to squirt from the throat hole, then managed to plug it with his thumb and rasped, “Ma hero, Cop-Jacker Jay—now get gone—” and the gurgling became something unpluggable by the big thumb of Rasheed and the converging police sirens sounded closer, inspiring freshly minted Cop-Jacker Jay to get good and gone…

Morning found him waking from among the steamy leaves of the old leaf heap behind Cylburn Conservatory for White Peoples’ Pretty Flowers, the shimmering, orange dawn, assuring him that a future of infamous promise awaited his young-ass.