Page 63 of The Street Disciples
And I was ready for where the chess piece fell.
Ro
The Weight of the Mic
Recommended Song: Can’t Deny It by Fabolous ft. Nate Dogg
The mic feltheavy in my hand, like I was holding the whole Crest on a leash, and it was one bad move from biting me. Eyes everywhere. Some hard, some hungry, some waiting for me to slip. My throat burned, but I cleared it, leaned into the crackle of the speakers.
“Y’all know me,” I started, voice low but sharp enough to cut through the hum of side conversations. “Or you think you do.” A pause. The crowd leaned closer. “You know my uncle. You know what he built. What he bled for. You know the name Zore like you know your own street.”
A couple shouts from the back. Approval. I let it breathe.
“But lemme tell you somethin’,” I went on, my tone rougher. “This ain’t no fairytale block. This Crest got blood in the cracks of every sidewalk. Ain’t no kings here—just survivors. And if you think this city gon’ save you, you already dead.”
I saw movement at the fence—sheriffs shifting, Tony’s little red light blinking as his camera zoomed. Trigger’s shadow never moved. That meant he was watching harder than anybody.
I kept going, voice rising. “We let too many outsiders write stories about us. Politicians, cops, snitches. They gon’ tell the world we animals. And some of y’all believe it. But look around—ain’t nobody protecting this block but us.”
The crowd clapped, but I wasn’t looking for applause. I scanned faces. Old heads with scars. Young ones trying to stand tall. Mothers rocking babies with one hand and holding pepper spray with the other. They deserved more than this circus Trigger put on.
“Tonight, ain’t about a party,” I barked. “It’s about the Crest standing on its own. It’s about loyalty. About bein’ tired of burying brothers, cousins, sisters before they see thirty.” My knuckles tightened around the mic, breath hot in the cool night.
I spotted Whit posted near the sheriffs; slick grin plastered on his face. Darius Jr.—the mayor’s golden boy. Watching. Always watching. I wanted to snatch that smirk off his face right there.
“You ain’t gotta like me,” I growled. “You ain’t gotta clap for me. But don’t you dare forget who Sal was. Don’t you dare forget what he built for us to even stand here safe enough to talk.”
A heavy silence followed. The mic popped once, like the city itself cleared its throat. Somewhere in the back, someone yelled, “Real talk!” and that’s when I knew I had ‘em. Not all of ‘em. But enough.
And somewhere in that sea of faces, I felt Trigger’s eyes pin me to the stage like crosshairs.
He wasn’t just watchin’. He was workin’. I caught him leaned against a post in the far corner of the yard, blunt hanging from his lips, one hand in his cut like he was just chillin’. But every move around him said different. Boys shifted when he breathed.Heads tilted when he nodded. He didn’t need to bark orders; he just blinked and the yard obeyed.
Tino stepped closer to the edge of the stage, his hand ghosting near his vest mic like he was adjusting it. Subtle. Too subtle. He wasn’t checking sound. He was signaling. I knew that language — I grew up on it. Mouse moved through the crowd like a shadow, handing out plates, but his eyes were counting people, corners, exits. Whit had his phone out, thumb moving slow. Camera crews on him like he was royalty.
Trigger was building a picture. Every lens, every set of eyes, every person placed just right. My gut knotted as I realized I wasn’t just making a speech. I was being framed in real-time.
The mic buzzed in my hand, the crowd leaning in, waiting for me to keep talking. I could feel Trigger smirking without even seeing his face. He wanted me to talk myself into a corner. He wanted me loud so every man here could hear just how dangerous I sounded.
I clenched my jaw and leaned forward into the mic. “This block don’t need no politicians to tell us who we are. We ain’t scared of badges. We ain’t scared of suits. We ain’t scared of them cameras pointed at us neither.”
The crowd erupted, voices rising, a ripple of energy Trigger was feeding. I clocked Jinx moving through the crowd too, brushing shoulders, whispering into ears. He wasn’t hyping them up — he was calming them down. Crowd control. Classic play. Keep them simmering, never boiling, so the man on stage looks like he’s the only spark.
I swallowed hard, trying to keep my voice steady. “We only scared of one thing,” I said, scanning faces, locking eyes with a woman holding a baby in a pink hoodie. “We scared of losin’ this. Our families. Our homes. This Crest.”
Trigger exhaled a lazy cloud of smoke, but his fingers tapped once against the post — an unspoken command. A cameralight flicked on at the gate. A sheriff shifted his stance like he was suddenly uncomfortable. My own words were being weaponized, dressed up for the evening news. I wasn’t speaking to my people anymore; I was speaking into a narrative Trigger had already written.
“Don’t let nobody write your story for you!” I barked into the mic, voice cracking. “They want us scared. They want us quiet. I say?—”
The speakers popped. Jinx’s work. My voice cut out for half a second, making me sound more raw, more desperate. Trigger was orchestrating every hiccup. The cheers grew louder, thinking I was fighting through tech issues, but I knew better. This was him painting me into a myth — a reckless one.
I glanced back at him, that calm silhouette in the corner. His smirk was barely there, but it burned hotter than any stare I’d ever felt. He wasn’t clapping. He wasn’t cheering. He was counting every word, every reaction.
And I felt it — the trap wasn’t closing. It was already shut, and I was standing in the middle of it, mic in hand, crowd watching like wolves waiting for a limp.
I scanned the yard, my voice carrying over the beat of a lowrider stereo and the smell of grilled ribs thick in the air. “This block raised me,” I called out, steady but sharp. “This Crest made me. Y’all know my uncle, y’all know Sal’s name don’t die in this dirt. And I ain’t here to play king or prince or none of that fairy-tale shit. I’m here ‘cause too many of our people got put in the ground for nothing.”
Faces blurred into a wall of eyes—some wide, some cold, some already calculating. My pulse hit hard. I could feel them deciding who I was with every breath I took.
