We were having a great time in there. I used to go out to make money, to the park, and I'd come back home after I see Yvette my real woman and my kid over there in the alphabet projects in Manhattan. One day I walk in the apartment from breaking night, there was a kid in there. So I asks him, who are you, man?

"My name the Snapback."

"Why they tag you that for?"

"Cause no matter how wasted I is I always will snap back."

And he starts showing me these freaky hiphop moves, like snapping his hands inside out and shit.

"What's your game, Snapback? What kind of joshing do you do?"

"Hey, I do everything, I do anything."

"And do you got any money on you?"

No, he says. Fuck, I'm thinking. I better tell Sugar Fly about letting broke motherfuckers come up here.

So we started going about getting high. Sugar Fly had stashed some rockets behind a loose brick in the wall when he thought I was sleeping. And then we said let's play cards. We got to talking about the people we know from the Deuce which is all but shut down now. It turns out this little guy he was in the Nine-and-a-Half crew like twelve years ago, and you know I was in the Crazy Bishops. And night comes along, and I ask him how swift are you, bro, you want to make some money with me tonight?

So that night--a freezing cold night--we went to get paid over to Central Park and waited under a bridge. And Juan and Jose was with us too. Our asses were almost frozed off before this white dude comes by in these Timberlanes, and his girlfriend had a purse too.
C'mon let's go get paid, Juan says, or turn to ice and get busted. And I says don't you think it's a little too soon, and Juan says c'mon Jose, let's break out.

So Snapback is creeping way up ahead in front of the dude and his girl, and Juan and Jose and, well, me are far enough but not too far behind. Snapback turns around quick like he forgot something and bumps into them just when Jose grabs the girl. Juan is choking the guy when I start going in his pockets.

"Don't say a word. We'll stab you right here, you fucking white bastard."

"Please please, don't hurt him."

"Shut up bitch. Let's fucking empty out your purse too."

We took his wallet, watch and everything and whatever she had in her purse, her jewelry. Then we told him to take off the Timberlanes. He tried to argue about that so I dropped him. He hit his head or something when he fell.

Now we had some money. I told Snapback, c'mon I want to show a way to make more. We're going over to this bar near the Deuce where these johns go. And Snapback he thought I was going to let one of the faggots suck my dick, but I rightened him quick on that. No Snapback Man, I am not about that.

Inside the bar there was this homo name of Charlie who always wears this red wack wig. I told Snapback watch this, man, faggot's are easy to shake down.

"How's my man, buy me a drink?"

You just talk to him for a while as you kind of rub your dick.

"I been working out, can you see the difference?"

It's good if you can think of Janet Jackson and get a hard-on going.

"I'm into this school for auto mechanics now, Charlie. I'm doing pretty good at it. And I been looking after my mother, I got a job so I can pay the doctor and shit . . ."

Then you can ask him for five or ten. You just say it like he owes it to you.

"You, let me have a few bucks will you so I can get something to eat. C'mon, man."

Shit, you do that four, five times and you got thirty, forty dollars in one hour.

Back at the crib in Brooklyn Diamond Sue was all hectic paranoid upset cause she had a problem with the super-lady who was saying Diamond Sue put a curse on her. The rice was hard and the beans would burn. Seems like everything was going wrong since Diamond Sue moved in there. The super-lady's daughter kept coming up here to hang out with Diamond Sue and she would come home high. Then the super-lady would feel a puff on her face in the bed at night so she went to the botanica and bought a candle to hex Diamond Sue.

Me and Diamond Sue got this game going telling everybody we brother and sister. So I went down there to talk to them. What's this your wife wanting to beat up on my little sister who's pregnant? I said to the super-man. And before the faggot can answer his slut comes running out the kitchen screaming that bitch upstairs, she don't even belong here. Look you skanky bitch, I told her back, ain't nobody gonna hit her when she's pregnant. You fight her after she has the baby. For now you come and fight me. I'll fuck you up and anybody in your family. Her husband didn't like that so I had to waste him. And their daughter was there and she looked like she was enjoying the whole thing.

"Please don't hit my father no more."

"For you baby, I'll do anything. But tell your pop not to get loud if he can't back his words up."

I had this uncle help me get a job breaking boxes in a factory, so I started going to the apartment less and less. One day I hear Ruby had her baby so I stopped over there in the middle of the night. The weeks went by, I don't know, I kept breaking up these boxes and got too tired to go out and get money. But one day I got this call from Sugar Fly at my uncle's saying I feel like killing myself.

Over to the building Ruby and Sugar Fly was sitting outside with the baby. I could see his eyes all glittery from far away and she was crying too.

"We lost the apartment. We lost the baby."

"What's that, the baby? You know what I am, you know by heart and by god I am the baby's godfather, what's wrong with the baby?"

Well the baby was dead. The baby got something they call crib death, they laid her down and she stopped breathing sometime. I felt like ripping out my own heart.

But I'm an outlaw, and if it's one thing I know life can't be brought back with tears. I said, let's go get some Old English, let's go hang out, let's go smoke a rock somewheres.
And that's just what we did, after we went and turned the baby in.