! BOOK ONE OF THE NAS TRILOGY !
In building 40-16 of Queensbridge North Housing, Nasir Jones steps up as the man of the house. Looking after his mother and brother, Jabari, he's hungry for a way out. His back is against the wall after the loss of hi...
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"What did I tell you about creasing my shit up?" I yelled at Jungle, my baby brother. He was always stealing my shit and wearing it outside until the soles came ripped from the seams. I had saved up money from slinging what I was fronted to buy these new Timbs, only for him to fuck them up.
"I didn't crease them shits! They was like that when I put them on!" Jabari (Jungle as we call him) yelled back at me from the one bathroom we shared in this cramped apartment. Ma was at work and Jungle had just come home from working the block all afternoon.
"Nigga, you lying! I just bought these last month." I tossed a clean white shirt over my head and sat on the edge of my bed. The blinds covering my bedroom window was left open for me to look out and see the neighboring building across the concrete walkway from our building to theirs.
Some of their windows were left open. A mother was breast feeding her newborn. A man was watching the news in his rocking chair. A woman, smoking a cigarette while watching the kids play below. It was the everyday norm for the hood. Jungle and I would always be home alone together around this time anyway.
"What's for dinner?" Jungle entered my room without permission, as always. He was fresh out of the shower and rummaging through my drawer for a wife beater. "I should be asking you." I snickered at him as I watched him steal my shit right in front of my eyes. Luckily, I had enough money stashed to buy more.
"Thieving ass nigga." I joked, watching Jungle put my wife beater over his head as he walked out of my room. "Order a pizza or something." I yelled out to my baby brother. "I got the money." I added. I continued staring out of my window. Hearing the children scream with glee as they threw snowballs at each other.
That was something I only got to experience one time in my life. That was until my Pops left us to go travel the world and focus on his career as a Jazz musician. The fighting and arguing with Ma got too much for him. Hell, it was too much for us. We were too young for that shit.
Jungle didn't know that the fuck was going on, but I did. My Pops looked me in the eyes as he left my mom and told me that I was the man of the house now. I had to look after her and Jabari from now on. I wasn't planning on working a nine to five and I damn sure wasn't going to school.
I dropped out and started slinging rocks with my man, Will. We called him Ill Will. He lived in the unit across from me. He was like a second brother to me. Our moms were like best friends. You couldn't tell our families shit.
Will had so much more to do, so much life to live. All because of some broad that wanted to start a physical altercation with my mans. He was killed senselessly over a bitch. Burying him was like burying a piece of me. There's not a day that goes by that I pass his unit and not want to tear some shit up.
I keep a lot of this bottled up inside until it's time for me to write down my thoughts in the form of a rhyme. It was a hidden talent of mine until my friends hyped me up to get my name out there. I did a few records, appeared in a few videos. But, that wasn't enough to satisfy me.
