My name is Elijah Rivera. Folks call me Eli. I was born in 1974, but sometimes I feel like I'm already past my due date. In the winter of '76, I was two, and the South Bronx was busy tearing itself apart. Mama Sofia said the buildings were just old, but I could smell the accelerant mixed with the cold air.
Mama Sofia was good, but she was organized like a hostage negotiator's desk. Every book on the shelf was aligned by size, every button was sorted by color, and she scrubbed the grease from my hands like it was moral rot. She taught college English and worried about me, but mostly she worried about the lack of order in the universe.
"Eli, stand close," she told me, pulling my coat tighter. "This place is a beautiful mess. But the mess is winning."
We were near Cedar Park. The air was thick with smoke and the sound of DJ Kool Herc's twin turntables. The music wasn't like the radio; it was raw, just the breakbeats stretched out—the rhythm of the block was trying to fight the rhythm of the decay. Shaolin Fantastic was there, already doing those impossible, fluid motions that looked like a prayer and a fight at the same time. Ezekiel Figuero was spitting rhymes that hadn't found the right name yet. This was The Pulse.
But I wasn't looking at the pulse. I was looking at the powder.
I saw Stringer Bell, only seven, but wearing a jacket that looked like it already had a profit margin stitched into the lining. He was arguing with a tall guy with eyes that didn't match the temperature outside. Stringer had been trusted by Nicky Barnes' people to handle a small route.
"Five is five for the drop," Stringer said, his voice tight and formal, like he was reading a contract.The tall guy leaned down, smelling like cheap liquor. "Five is nothin', kid. Give me eight, or you got a new problem."
That's when it hit me. Not a thought, but a glitch in the air. A Divine Revelation. The sound of Herc's bass dropped out, and I saw a clip of a gritty TV show. It was a dark scene inside a real estate office. The title flashed: The Wire (2002). I saw Stringer himself, older, talking about "legitimate avenues" and "co-ops," using real estate to wash drug money. The clip was short, but the message was clear: The hustle eventually has to buy a seat at the clean world's table.
When the clip snapped off, I knew two things: one, the tall guy was trying to rob Stringer, and two, I needed to learn how to clean cash now, not later.
I walked right up to the tall guy's knee. I used the language that made him pause—the language that always confused the street hustlers.
"Ascolta, fratello. You standing here smells like bad profit margin," I said, using the Italian I learned from Mama Sofia's opera records. I switched to the street slang I learned from listening to Cutty. "Yo, this guy's running a loss-leader on his whole day. You ain't gettin' eight."
I finished it with the rhythm of a future comic's swagger. "Yo, this corner hotter than my mama's arroz, but I'm cool like Spider-Man!"
The guy looked down at me, blinking, unable to process the Italian coming from a two-year-old in a snowsuit. He mumbled a threat and walked away.
Stringer didn't smile. He just checked the corner for cops. He looked at me not like a kid, but like a calculator that just spit out the right answer. He handed me a folded fifty and another fifty, hidden deep inside an empty, clean spray paint can.
"That's a hundred dollars," Stringer said. "You the lookout. The mascot.""It's a five hundred dollar commission for the strategic save," I corrected him in a quiet voice, because the rules are the rules.Stringer didn't flinch. He handed me four more hundreds. "Brianna will check the inventory at the end of the month."
I took the $500 commission and hid the cash immediately. I looked over at Omar Little, my little friend, who was quietly mimicking my movement. He was fiercely loyal. I knew, thanks to the Revelation, that Omar would get a scar protecting me. I knew that scar was coming.
My chest felt tight. I just made five hundred dollars, and I knew that money was the beginning of my $35,000 Net Fund. It was the fastest way out. The hustle was dirty, but the future was expensive.
I had to get clean before the street ate the clean right out of me.