The $500 was folded thin and tucked into my baby boot, next to the sole. Mama Sofia thought I had a problem with cold feet, but I just had a high-stakes problem with cash flow. I knew the Bronx was dirty, but the money felt clean once it was in my possession. It was fuel.
A few weeks after the Stringer job, the weather got meaner, but the music got louder. The Pulse was always fighting back against the cold and the fires. I walked over to a different corner where the speakers sounded like they had a chest cold. This was where the real artists were.
I saw Shaolin Fantastic. He was using his body like a compass, spinning and turning so quick he looked like he was fighting the air. His movements were electric, not just dancing. He was making history on a piece of discarded cardboard.
Then there was Ezekiel Figuero. Zeke wasn't moving much, but his voice was liquid gold. He was working a cypher—a circle of guys spitting rhymes—and his words were stacked like clean bricks, precise and strong. He wasn't talking about the powder; he was talking about feeling alive.
I watched Zeke's rhythm. I knew I had the words—I had a future vocabulary and a polyglot brain. I could hear the complicated meter of his lines, but I could also hear the rhythm of cash flow, the true language of the Bronx.
If my words were worth money, why not sell them clean?
I waited until Zeke finished a clean verse that ended on a punchline about the garbage collection being late. The circle laughed, and that was my opening. I toddled right into the cypher, stood next to the speaker, and looked up at Zeke.
"Yo, Zeke," I piped up, using my best Chris Rock inflection. "Your flow is tight, but your profit margin is low. You rhyming about garbage, but I'm rhyming about futures."
The circle stopped laughing. Zeke, cool and precise, just looked down at me. "What you got, shorty? Spit it."
I took a deep breath, trying to use the Italian diaphragm control Mama Sofia taught me for elocution. I was going to use a complex rhyme about arbitrage and supply-chain logistics disguised as street poetry. I was aiming for brilliance.
But what came out sounded like a cartoon mouse who just inhaled helium.
"Yo! Yo! The numbers ain't lyin', yo! Arbitrage is the key!"
My voice—small, high, and absurdly squeaky—cracked right over the loud bass. The wires weren't meant to hold my words.
The circle didn't laugh; they just looked embarrassed for me. Even Shaolin Fantastic stopped spinning.
Then, the music stopped. The sudden silence triggered a Divine Revelation.
I saw a clip of a huge stadium, all lights and noise, and a famous musician wearing a flamboyant jacket screaming into a microphone. The title flashed: Bohemian Rhapsody(2018). I saw the performer struggling with a high note, the camera zoomed in on the sheer, fragile effort it took to control those powerful vocal cords. The clip wasn't about the music; it was about the biological impossibility of the performance.
The Revelation cut off. I looked at Zeke, whose kind eyes told me everything.
"Nah, little man," Zeke said, dropping a hand on my head. "Your heart is big, but your voice box is on layaway. Keep the rhymes, but lose the mic, for now."
I walked out of the cypher. My ears were hot, and the failure was complete. My language was sophisticated, but my vessel was two years old. The Pulse was closed to me. I couldn't earn clean money, not yet.
I adjusted the $500 in my boot. The drug hustle was dirty, but it was the only economy that valued my strategy over my age. I had to focus on the Powder now, because the clean stage wasn't ready for me.