He lifted the paper to his lips and sealed it slow. “The CO you just saw,” he said. “She brings it in for me.”
I stared at him ‘cause he said that shit so smooth. “Man, what you got on her? You ain’t gettin’ all this shit for free.”
“Nobody in here do shit out the kindness of their heart,” he said. “She likes me, and she likes money. I give her both.”
He lit up, took a pull, and passed it to me. I inhaled slow and felt my whole body calm down in a way it hadn’t since I got locked up. He watched the smoke leave my mouth and nodded like he already knew I needed it.
“You been here long?” I asked ‘cause it felt weird that he moved around like he owned the bitch.
“A year,” he said.
“A year?” I frowned. “For what?”
He leaned back and tapped ash in a cup on the table. “Gun charges,” he said. “I got picked up out here movin’ around when I shouldn’t have been.”
I looked at him ‘cause somethin’ about that ain’t make sense. “Out here? I ain’t never seen you before. You from Trill-Land?”
He shook his head once. “Candy County. Slab Ridge area.”
I stared at him even harder ‘cause that was far as hell. “Nigga, that’s like a whole world away from Trill-Land. How the hell you get caught up out here?”
He shrugged like it ain’t matter. “I come out this way to buy guns, fight and blow off steam. Wrong night, wrong cops, and my last name don’t save me out here. My family was pissed, and since I’m the black sheep, they left me sittin’.”
“They ain’t try to bond you out?” I asked.
“They could’ve,” he said. “They just didn’t. They figured jail would straighten me out, make me come back home ready to fall in line. And I refused, so here I am.”
“You still sittin’ for gun charges?” I asked.
“For now,” he said. “I’ll be out soon though. Could be any day.”
I took another hit and passed it back to him ‘cause I wanted to hear the rest.
“My family owns half the correctional facilities back in Candy County,” he said, and he said the shit like none of it mattered to him. “Private prisons, transport, medical centers, securitycontracts, all that. When I got picked up, I tried calling my people. They told me I made my bed, so I needed to lay in it. I guess they figured sittin’ in a Trill-Land jail would make me better.”
I stared at him ‘cause I needed him to break that shit down again. “Hold on. You tellin’ me yo’ family own a damn prison empire, and they let you sit in this bitch for a year?”
“They didn’t let me,” he said. “They want me to fold. I refuse.”
I shook my head ‘cause that was the coldest shit I ever heard. “Yo’ people sound racist as hell.”
He let out a low laugh, like he wasn’t surprised I said it. “They just… the type that think money make them God. If you don’t fall in line, you get cut off. I’m the one they couldn’t control, so they let me sit.”
He passed the blunt back to me. His face stayed calm even though everything he said was heavy. He ain’t blink through none of it.
“That’s fuckin’ wild,” I said. “You ain’t think to fight ya way out that shit legally?”
“I could walk out tomorrow,” he said. “I just won’t give them what they want. Like I said, I’m the black sheep. They want me to come crawling back so they can shape me into the next face of the Varrari Empire.”
“So what you do instead?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Fight underground MMA and hack shit I shouldn’t touch.”
“Bare knuckle?” I asked, starin’ down at his hands.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m good at it too. Better than anybody they ever tried to groom into a champion. Which they hate even more.”
I sat there quiet for a lil’ minute ‘cause it was the first time I met somebody in this place who wasn’t just talkin’ to talk. Everything about him felt real and cold at the same time. Theweed wasn’t better than the shit I smoked with my cousins, but it still hit me deep, and I leaned back in the chair while he rolled another one like he had all night.
