Reggie and Rah.

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a/n - for now, this book will be updated in shorter chapters because i’m still introducing reggie and rah as characters. we know egypt well, but to introduce rah’s and reggie’s personalities takes longer.

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RAH

      I sit on the corner of one of most notorious streets of all of Chicago, Lexington street. Word got around that this was one the most dangerous streets here, and that’s what I liked to hear. Today I was packed with everyone, and I was selling cheap. I remember when my cousins used to tell me that selling more product for cheap was always gonna be better than selling few products that was expensive. Besides, I was doing justice around here. Some people need weed and shit to get through the day. If you look at it as you helping somebody, it motivates you to keep doing what you doing.

       A nigga with shoulder-length dreads with a black bandanna approaches me with a smirk on his face. This nigga dark as hell, almost purple. He gets real close to me, and I step back. I know better.

      “Aye yo’. They call me Black, what you got for sale today, man?” He asks. They way he was talking to me woulda made you think we was blood or something.

      “Shit. . . I see why. I got everything you need.” I took out a bag of weed out of my pocket and showed him. He smirked, and pulled out wads of cash. That made me smile, too.

     He handed me an amount of money I ain’t even bother to count, and I gave him the weed. I looked at my phone to check the time. 2:39. Everybody at the crib was probably sleep, and I could take time for my damn self. Fucking around with Reggie wasn’t no easy job. He always was on the go, and he always wanted to get into some bullshit. He was obsessed with it.

     Me, however, I got caught up in this life because it was something I almost had to do. Every little black boy getting exposed to the thug life if you living in Compton, one way or another. It wasn’t like your momma or your daddy (if you was lucky enough to have one) would shield you from it. Everybody in Compton and every other hood accepted it.

      I wasn’t born in Chicago so I didn’t know much about it. All I knew was that the crime rate was high as hell, and the rap was good. It was Reggie’s plan to come up here. Did I think he was doing it so we could have a better life? Hell naw. I just think he wanted more trouble, and right here was finna get it. That’s exactly what he wanted.

      Reggie and me didn’t have the same upbringing though, so I couldn’t blame him. I knew his parents didn’t really give a damn about him, and from what I heard that could really mess somebody up. I guess I didn’t know what that was like, since I was known to have a chill mind and everybody knew that.

     I started to go back to the house, watching my back the further I went. I was on the most dangerous street of all Chicago, and trust me, I couldn’t afford to mess around unless I want to be laid face down on the road somewhere.

            When I finally made it to the crib, the lights was on, meaning that everybody was still woke. What the hell? We don’t have nothing to do, so why is everybody awake when it’s damn near 3 in the morning? I walk in, and stare and everybody crazy.

      “What y’all doing up?” I question them.

      “We heard gunshots,” they all say in unison. I narrow my eyebrows, because I ain’t hear shit. I was confused. “Plus, the phone was ringing. We thought it was an emergency,” A.J. says. I take his word for it.

     The phone was ringing again, and I ain’t recognize the number. I pick it up anyways, and listen the voice. “Hello?” I answer.

     “Is this Rah?” A female’s voice asks. It sounds so damn familiar, but I can’t tell who it is just yet. She sounds like she’s in pain or something, or she needs help.

      “Who needs to know? Who is you?” I question her. I know better than to give my information out to just anyone. That’s one of the main rules in the hood. Ain’t nobody that got sense finna do something like that. 

      “...It’s Serena. . . Serena Broadnax. . .” She says. I recall exactly who it was now. She was supposedly carrying my baby cousin but Reggie wasn’t having it. Lord knows my heart went out to that girl, but she knew how Reggie was and he wasn’t gonna claim something that wasn’t his, especially considering the fact that Serena’s body count was high as hell and she probably got every disease under the sun.

      “What the hell is going on with you?” Is all I ask her.

       “Where are y’all? I desperately need your help man. I know that Reggie don’t want to claim this baby but he has to. He’s the only hope I have at this point.” She was crying between her sentences, and I could tell she was really fucked up.

     I swallow and sigh. “We in Chi, and Reggie probably don’t want nothing to do with your ass.” I tell her exactly how it is.