King's Disease (a Nas Story)

FIVE

Nasir | Date Unknown, 5:10PM

I was having second thoughts about this whole documentary shit.

Gia keeps telling me to 'let the fans in' and that I 'never let them have shit'. I would laugh her off, tell her that only she and the kids get that part of me. Hell, not even my own mother knew half of the shit I've done.

Jung on the other hand? He was a witness to about eighty-five percent of my bullshit.

For as far as I could think back, I didn't know what vulnerability was. Not until I had to come face to face with the trauma I was creating for my wife and my kids. I was repeating cycles of my father's dark history. I saw my only son headed down the same path I was on. I had to dead that shit before it had gone too far.

I sat in this hard ass chair, nervously twisting my yellow diamond pinky ring around the circumference of my skin. I tapped my foot on the carpeted flooring beneath my Air Maxes and listened to the clock tick as every waking second passed me by.

"So, Nasir..."

A familiar voice, so comforting to me, said as I lifted my head up to the woman across the room from me. She scribbled in her faithful notepad and paused before looking up to smile at me.

Dr. Johnson was aging as gracefully as ever. With more smile lines and deep set wrinkles along the base of her neck, she glowed effortlessly with her legs covered in sheer black stocking.

Her fingernails were painted a deep cherry red. Her hair more grey than I remembered when I was in my early thirties.

"Back again, I see?"

Jungle | October 1987

The sky was as dark as my motives.

I wanted to find Nas in the crowd of people but everyone was smushed against each other. It was like a sea of puffers and skull caps. I couldn't recognize Nas' gear from where I was standing.

The Bronx's night scene was thriving with Spanish music and the food smelled good as hell. A couple of Tias were on the block cooking on charcoal grills while their mothers kept their hair wrapped right in Bobby pins, folding clothes that were drying on the lines during the day.

"You know this nigga?" I heard in the distance.

I followed the voice with a hunch that they could be talking about my brother.

"Nah, I don't know son." The man next to him replied. His hair was curly, not a hat covering his head from what I could see.

"Ayo!" The first guy called out. I wasn't sure who he was talking to, but I kept my hand on the handle of the knife that was in my pocket just in case come shit went down.

I wasn't going to leave my brother for dead.

"You don't live around here. The fuck you from?"

"Yo! My friend asked you a question!" The curly haired nigga called out from behind. I slipped between two women and finally got a glimpse of the entire scene.

The two of them were walking behind my brother. I played cool to see how Nas was going to play it. He ignored them, walking as if shit didn't phase him. He trudged up the stairs to Tara's building before they yanked the back of his coat.

"I said where the fuck you from, nigga?" The guy in the yellow jacket yelled in my brother's face. He was brown skinned, sported a curly fro and wore construction Timberlands with slim fitting denim.

His homeboy stood behind him with a black coat on, sporting the same fit damn near. He was lighter skinned with curlier hair. I could tell they were Puerto Rican and ran things on this block.