! 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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I can pretend all day that I didn't see that shit go down. I can tell you that it never happened, that I performed that night and no bodies were dropped. I can tell you 'I don't know what the fuck you're talking about', being that it's been almost a year since shit went down.
The thing about that night is that I still replay Smoove dropping lifeless in front of me. I still hear the sound of that nigga's last gasp. I still replay Big helping Ron drag his men's bodies out the back of the club and Supreme calling for his cleaning crew to throw these niggas in the back of the black van to vanish.
With Supreme's pull with local police, we were never questions and their bodies hadn't been found yet. Ronjae and Tionne skipped town with their baby boy and hadn't been seen or heard from in almost a year. Gia was mentally fucked up for months. She'd go to work pretending that everything is fine and couldn't even function at home.
She was so stressed that she couldn't produce milk for Destined. We had to feed him oat milk and shit so he wouldn't get cranky. Her moms was always over to help me with Destined while I toured the Illmatic album. I would be gone for months, performing nightly with The Fugees.
But see, Gia wasn't the only one stressing the fuck out. A few months ago, Pac and Big were good. We were trying to record records together, make appearances on each other's albums and shit. Then, the night Pac and Big finally linked in November, Pac was robbed and shot five times in the lobby.
Pac said that Big set him up. Big called me up immediately and told me that it's not true, he wouldn't do that shit. I believe my mans. He has nothing to gain from sticking him up. But Pac has been on a 'Fuck Big' campaign since the release of Big's album 'Ready To Die'. He swore that the record 'Who Shot Ya' was aimed directly at him.
I was supposed to appear on the remix to 'Gimme The Loot', but got way too high off the Chocolate that Big provided me. That's my biggest regret. The record was huge! Once Pac got word of it, he was looking at me strange and started taking digs at me in interviews. I ignored him completely, seeing as I have a mouth to feed and shit to do.
I stood firm in our empty Long Island apartment. The lease was up and we had rented a town home in Manhattan. Somewhere closer to our offices and not too far from where our moms still stay in Queensbridge. The movers took the last box out of the apartment as I stood there in my own silence.
Gia tip-toed her way in and stood next to me as she grabbed my hand. "You okay?" She asked me softly as we looked around at the empty space in front of us.
"I'll manage." I said as I squeezed her hand. Long Island treated us as well as it could, but it was time for a fresh start and time for me to step into a new era of Nas.
Gia | 8:34am
"Come on, Des." I waved my hand to my stumbling son who was moving full speed ahead on his two feet atop the tiles of our new townhome.
