Page 39 of The Street Disciples
“Give him a tape,” I instructed.
“What kind?”
“The kind with red on it,” I answered. “Tell him good cameras wore red like luck.”
Mouse grinned because he thought he was on my level. I didn’t correct him. The difference between a teacher and a leader was simple: teachers explained. Leaders expected. I didn’t have that kind of time.
The alley smelled like fried grease and damp cardboard as Mouse drifted off, and I slipped back into the hum of the city. Time was ticking, every errand another wire in the trap I was setting. The rain had eased, but the streets were still slick—reflective, dangerous. The next move was already mapped out. It wasn’t much I had to do now but wait.
The afternoon sky seemed to have given up on life. Lyon Crest was gloomier this rainy season, but honestly it was going to get darker in the time to come. Especially for the MC.
I took the long route past the school that still had a bullet hole in the bell. Kids sprinted out ready for some time away from structured society. Aaliyah was too small for school. She didn’t know clocks yet. She knew naps and spoons and the way her mother hummed when the window shook. That was power bigger than money. It scared men who never had it. It scared me the right amount.
I didn’t hurt kids. That wasn’t a brag. That was a boundary in my book. Names passed around easy in a city like ours. I wanted mine to pass for a long time. People who hurt kids didn’t get to retire. They looked over their shoulders at night.
At the corner, Darius’s Ducati idled with an arrogance it didn’t earn. He flicked ash from a cigarette he wasn’t smoking. The cop car that rolled by looked dead in our faces and forgot our names on purpose. That was the magic you paid for. It was ugly. It was efficient. I didn’t romanticize it.
“Friday,” Darius informed me. “You want speeches?”
“I want Ro to think the air loves his words,” I grinned. “I want men to nod dogwise while they consider where to put their money next. I want a camera to find itself full. You get me that, I get you quiet.”
He pointed at my chest. “Don’t threaten me with silence.”
I smiled because his father never taught him that men like me didn’t threaten. We budgeted.
“Wear brown,” I let out, and rode off before he decided his feelings were hurt. Men like him called meetings over feelings. I ran rooms with plans. The difference showed on Friday nights.
The Ducati’s roar faded behind me, but the weight of his smirk lingered. Deals like that didn’t get handshakes, just chess pieces moved in the rain. I pulled the throttle, let the wind scrape off the tension, and headed toward the one block I couldn’t stop circling.
Evening dripped back into the gutters. I circled Nova’s block once more because consistency was a language and I spoke all of them when it was useful. Saint’s brights blinked twice again. He had a rhythm too. I pulled into the alley and listened. Apartment hum, the little plastic fan that thought it was an air conditioner, the radio low to save the baby from learning about heartbreak too early. A prayer scooted under the door. I didn’t catch the words. Some words you didn’t earn by being near them.
I left a second envelope. This one was empty. She’d feel the weight and open it and find nothing and hate me just enough to make sure the chain stayed around her neck when she slept. That kept her alive too. My enemies were always confused by how often my protection looked like a threat. That was because they didn’t understand outcomes. They only understood poses.
Downstairs, Tony held court in a plastic chair that used to be white. The camcorder was on his lap; strap looped around his wrist like he was afraid the wind would steal it. He chewed a toothpick like it owed him rent.
“You ready for Friday, Spielberg?” I asked.
He lit up hella fast because I knew his pretend name. “Man, I was born ready. I got tapes. I got angles. I got?—”
“You got two feet,” I cut in. “You’ll stand by the fence near Tino’s cousin’s truck. You’ll point that relic at the gate. Don’t follow drama into the yard. You film the gate. You hear me?”
He tried to argue because he thought art was chaos. “But what if?—”
“You film the gate,” I repeated. “The gate is where men enter and exit. That’s where stories change shape, feel me?”
He nodded, chastised and proud all at once. “You gonna say something good?”
“I’m not saying anything,” I told him. “But you’ll hear everything.”
He didn’t understand. He didn’t need to. The camera would.
I left him there with his pride and relic, slipped through the block like smoke, and headed to the bar that smelled like dust and spilled secrets. If I was going to tie this net tighter, I needed a word with a man who hated me enough to tell me the truth straight. I need this shit raw, on my mama. The time was ticking, and I wasn’t going to be on the other end of the bomb.
I rolled into a dive I hated because I knew the owner hated me back. The door groaned when I pushed it open, years of grime turning the hinge into a warning. The smell hit first: old beer soaked into floorboards, fryer grease that clung to every breath, and the faint rot of citrus left too long in bar wells. Neon lights buzzed overhead, their glow dim and dirty, making the bottles behind the counter look like trophies stolen, not earned. The floor was sticky enough to slow my boots, gum and God-knows-what welded into tile. Laughter in the back cracked like glass, sharp and thin, cutting through a haze of cigarette smoke and stale weed.
The bartender barely looked up. His eyes narrowed when he saw me, jaw tight. “Still pullin’ up in my spot like you own the lease, Trigger?” he muttered, voice dry as dust.
“I own silence,” I told him, dropping onto a barstool. “You like rentin’ it out, or should I remind this room what noise sounds like?”
