“Yo, the world’s about to feel us, thun! They all gonna be tryin’ to speak the thun language. What the drilly wit’ that’!” Ty Five$ laughed as he washed his tongue with hundred dollar a pop Moet.

      “Yo thun, that bitch had you fucked up,” Kane teased with a knowing laugh, as he passed the blunt to Power.

      He, Power, Messiah, Ty Five$ and Lil’ Earl were on top of Kane’s building in QB, getting their drink and smoke on. The evening was falling towards night. Across the river the Boro was lighting up and the city beyond was shadowing against the orange sky. The sun looked like it was rolling down the cheese cut edge of the old Citicorp Center and the air around them was cool and comfortable. The whole city was making niggas feel like they were on top of the world, so they went to the top of the world to celebrate.

      “Man, you buggin’ the fuck out, God. That bitch was checkin’ me out,” Power retorted cockily, as he took the blunt.

      “Bullshit! I seen you, yo. I just ain’t say nothin’. She is a bad bitch though, yo. I ain’t gonna front,” Kane admitted, giving Power dap.

      Power hit the blunt.

      “Yo, I gotta hit that. Word,” he rolled.

      “Fuckin’ the boss’ bitch? If we lose our deal over that hoe, I’ma fuck you up!” Kane laughed.

      “Fuck Duppy, that nigga soft. Besides, we the best thing that ever happened to him. Without us, he’d still be scrapin’ Exclusive off that stage,” bragged Power.

      “Word,” Kane cackled, giving Power a heartfelt dap.

      Lil’ Earl looked like the only one who wasn’t feelin’ it tonight. He stood in the corner, leaning against the overhang of the building’s masonry, looking out over Queens Boro Park. He wasn’t smoking, he wasn’t drinking. Messiah peeled away from the others and went over.

      “Ay yo Earl, fuck wrong wit’ you?” he asked, eyeing his cousin skeptically. Lil’ Earl was shaking. Ever since witnessing and being made to participate in Tyrone’s murder, he had been getting progressively worse. He’d told Messiah last night that at the beginning, he heard Tyrone calling him, then he thought he had begun to see shadows in the dark. “It got to the point where I couldn’t sleep with the lights off, but that made it even worse…” he’d said. Because he started seeing Tyrone, Messiah had thought. Fuckin’ pussy.

      Lil’ Earl had described that he’d see Tyrone’s body decaying and all he could smell in the dream was the rotting stench of his flesh. “I-I-I’m sorry, Ty. I swear I didn’t mean to do it,” Lil’ Earl told Messiah he’d said in the dream. “Tyrone never opens his mouth, but I can hear his words… Tell the truth…. Tell the truth…. Set me free…. Tell the truth. Those words haunt me cuz…They were in my mind like a song stuck in the brain.”

      Messiah had spanked Lil’ Earl’s face hard and told him to put that shit behind him. He didn’t want to hear none of that stuff no more, yet here was Lil’ Earl again taking the shine off the whole situation.

      Messiah didn’t have to say anything, Lil’ Earl knew just by looking at him how angry he was “Man, I can’t take this anymore.”

      “We dealt wit’ this nigga. You some noid ass crazy,” Messiah hissed, so the others, laughing and smoking still, didn’t hear. He didn’t want Lil’ Earl killing the buzz.

      Messiah had kept an eye on Lil’ Earl since the murder but hadn’t realized how fucked up his cousin was until last night. Messiah was glad he had brought Lil’ Earl back to New York with him.

      Lil’ Earl looked up at him, his expression on the verge of tears, his posture was bent and broken. “Tyrone…he…he still speakin’ to me,” Lil’ Earl admitted.

      “No he isn’t cuz. That’s just shit in your head. Jus’ the chocolate you been smokin’.” Messiah said, staying firm.

      The whole time they were talking, the rest of the crew were oblivious to their conversation.

      Lil’ Earl shook his head.

      Messiah gazed down at his little cousin, his mother’s sister’s son; his little nigga that peed the bed whenever he stayed with him. He loved him, but he loved himself and Knowledge more. There was no question Lil’ Earl would tell. The only question was when.

      He reached his hand down to help Lil’ Earl up.

      “Don’t worry about it, cuz. We’ll take care of it,” Messiah assured him.

      Looking into his eyes, Lil’ Earl saw it, but at that point, he was too gone to care. “O-okay,” Lil’ Earl replied, as he reached up and took his cousin’s hand. Messiah pulled him to his feet and then without missing a beat, he shoved Lil’ Earl’s head and sent him toppling over the side of the roof.

      Power caught the moment out of the corner of his eye. “What the fuck?!”

      In that last instant before he fell, Messiah and Lil’ Earl’s eyes met.

      On Lil’ Earl’s face was an expression of relief. He knew what his cousin was going to do, but deep down he thanked him because he knew he didn’t have the heart to do it himself. His arms flailed around as he felt the pull of gravity, making his heart pound - but then he looked down and saw Tyrone smiling up at him, no longer rotting, but whole and glowing.

      Then his arms went from flailing to embracing as his body sped downward, faster and faster, until he hit the pavement. The crash taking out all the lights on the building, bridge, in the city from his head, and last of all the light in Lil’ Earl’s eyes went out.

      Messiah looked over the edge at the broken bird of his cuz, spread on the ground, arms and legs doing impossible things. In seconds there was screaming and running footsteps. A woman fell to her knees by the body, her hands useless. There was nothing she could do. She looked up at Messiah.

      Messiah shook his head moved back from the edge to face his crew.

      All conversation on the roof had stopped. They all knew what happened, but none of them knew why. Messiah looked at them - at their questioning eyes and simply said, “He fell.”

      And that became what happened.

      Three Years Later

      “He fell?” O’Brien echoed with a disbelieving smirk on his face. It was the smirk you’d paint on if you’d just been told a stupid joke or read a lame meme on Facebook. It wasn’t the face you made when you heard some nigga had become pizza on a project pavement. Or, looking at Spagoli and O’Brien, perhaps it was.

      “He fell,” he repeated with a shrug, then lit a cigarette.

      “Bullshit,” O’Brien spat. “You killed your own cousin because he knew about the murder in Goldsboro. Admit it!” The detective banged the table to hammer home his point, but it didn’t startle him. All O’Brien got out of him was a shrug. “Yo, if you believed that, I’d be under arrest. Like I said earlier, my fuckin’ ribs is killin’ me. I need a fuckin’ doctor!”

      “You think you’re hot shit, don’t you?! Running all over the world with that nigger rap shit. Well let me tell you, I’m not fooled! You’re not a rap group, you’re a fuckin’ drug-dealing hit squad!” Spagoli bellowed in his face as he pulled out a stack of glossies, slapping each photo on the table one by one. “Cincinnati! Houston! Miami! Hawaii!”

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