Nick’s new truck had paper tags and new rims. It was a used Range Rover to somebody, but new to us. Whirlwinds of weed smoke exited the car before Dog Boy and Nick jumped out. “You keep the Lexus? You keep the Lexus?” was the number one question for two reasons. One: everybody was nosy and wanted to see how much money we really had. Two: dudes thought they could borrow the Lex while he drove the Range or borrow the Range while he drove the Lex.
“Naw, dug, I keep all my whips! And y’all ugly asses ain’t driving them!” yelled Nick, beating on his chest like a gorilla. Nick liked to beat on his chest when he accomplished a goal, or when he was trying to make a point about something—basically whenever he was in his feelings.
“You really need two luxury cars?” I asked as I surveyed the vehicle, checking out the rims, thinking about how crazy it was that we had a Lex, a Benz, and a Range in the crew—we were really moving work.
“Is you really hatin’?” he replied in a gulp of a chuckle. I laughed; we all did until I stopped. I had to.
The rear of the truck fucked up my day. It read “4.0.”
“Really, Nick? A 4.0? What the fuck is wrong with you!” Everybody on the block jumped in like “Hell no! Take that shit back, boy! That cheap-ass truck!”
“What? I saved ten racks! What the fuck!” Nick argued.
I ain’t give a shit. The hood ain’t give a shit. We wasn’t having that. We are students of Jay culture, direct products of Jay-Zism—meaning that anything under a 4.6 is unacceptable. Jay Z even had a whole song called “Imaginary Player” where he clowns a dude for driving a 4.0, telling him to spend that thirty G’s, so fuck that. I wasn’t going to let Nick go out like that.
“Nick! Building up these haters was hard work! You can’t let them off the hook with a 4.0!” I yelled. Some guys laughed, but I was serious as cancer in its final stage. We took our Jay Z shit seriously, meaning that we didn’t even wear fake stuff. We couldn’t drive small economy luxury vehicles like 3 series Beamers, we didn’t drink rail vodka, our jewelry was platinum, Cristal was the only champagne for us, we carried packs of Franklins because Washingtons were a no-no, and we didn’t put aftermarket diamonds in our Rolex watches because that’s uncivilized, plus it cheapened the value.
No one from our hood really knew the difference between a 4.0 and 4.6. Some of the dudes who joined me in clowning Nick’s truck didn’t even have cars. Some of them couldn’t even get their hands on a hundred dollars and others were junkies who lived in places without running water. Some were kids and most of us were from public housing but Jay Z set the standard and we rolled with it.
Nick took the truck back the next morning and came around with a shiny black 4.6 with twenty-inch black rims to match. The streets went crazy. I started hearing wild rumors like our cars were rented and our money came from us receiving settlements due to lead paint poisoning. Some of us had lead but our new money didn’t come from checks.
I laughed at it all and spent more.