The air smelled wrong. It wasn't the sweet smell of the ocean or the sharp scent of Pine-Sol. It was the thick, metallic scent of regret, smoke, and too much accelerant.
It was May 20, 1977. I was sitting on the curb of a burnt-out tenement, a few blocks from our place. The building was already a skeleton, its windows punched out and its brick face blackened. The fire had been fast and mean, like the sudden, violent end to a bad negotiation.
I wasn't looking at the rubble; I was looking at Omar Little.
Omar was three now, and his scar was a thin, white line on his cheek—a permanent reminder of the price I had paid to secure my future. He was standing with his grandmother, who was holding a few bags that contained the entire sum of their worldly possessions.
Omar's parents were gone. They died in the fire. My Divine Revelation had shown me the violence was coming, but I couldn't stop it. My genius could acquire clean money, but it couldn't save lives. The fire was the final, devastating payment for my silence.
Omar walked over to me, his eyes wide and dark, still defiant, even in grief. He didn't cry. He looked at the wreckage, then at the sky, then at me.
"The block's too hot, Eli," he said, his voice simple and final. "Grandma says we gotta go to Baltimore."
I pulled out my own final asset: the slightly bent Rubik's Cube prototype. It was salvation for me, but it was just a strange, colored toy for him. I didn't offer him money; money was what killed his parents. I offered him the only thing I had left: the truth.
I looked at the scar he bore for me. "You my brother," I said, my voice thick with the guilt of the future I knew he faced. "I saw a Divine Revelation just this morning."
I saw a rapid, dizzying clip of the TV series The Wire(2002)—not the police or the dealers, but just Omar Little himself, years older, walking the streets of West Baltimore, his trench coat flowing, his shotgun visible. The title flashed: The Legend of Omar.
The message wasn't about crime; it was about honor. The future showed he would become a legend, defined by the moral code he adopted on this street.
I leaned forward, trying to transfer all that terrible, prophetic knowledge into our simple child language.
"You took a hit for me," I whispered, holding his small, scarred face. "You my brother. You gonna be a legend, yo. You gotta watch the corners."
Omar nodded, accepting the fate and the wisdom from his time-traveling prophet. He reached up and touched the thin, white line on his cheek.
"We family," Omar said, his voice quiet but steady. "We family, yo, like graffiti on these walls."
It was the final, binding confirmation of our vow. He was leaving with his life, and I was leaving with my strategic capital.
Omar turned and walked toward the small, faded car waiting to take him and his grandmother south to Baltimore. I watched him go, feeling the full, crushing weight of the Powder's ultimate price.
I adjusted the clean traveler's checks hidden in my coat. My escape was now guaranteed, but it came at the cost of the one person I truly loved.