| |
Lamar walked through the double doors of unit 5-North, dressed in a green jumpsuit and a pair of white skippy sneakers. He had a bedroll tucked under an arm, and his ID in his hand. He approached the CO station to get his bed assignment at the Federal Detention Center—a building hidden amongst other downtown Philadelphia buildings. This one, though, housed 950 inmates and was disrespectful across the street from the African American Museum.
Lamar walked by the men, watching TV on one of four wall mounted televisions. Glancing at the top tier he saw treadmills but knew that the jail didn’t have any weights for him to workout. He made it to his cell door and peeked in before opening the door. No one was inside of the cell, so he opened the door, walked in, and pulled the door shut behind him. The door opened and a close friend stepped into the room behind him.
“Wassup, playa?”
“Ah man, wassup? Long time no sees, Shep.” Lamar smiled and half-hugged his old head, David Shepard, whom he hadn’t seen in three years.
Lamar looked Shep from head to toe. His former solid two hundred and five-pound body was about one hundred and forty. His face was sunk in and he had bags the size of a king pillow on his face. He looked awful, and Lamar wanted to explore what had gotten into his old head.
“Damn, Shep, you looking skinnier than a greyhound. Ya people ain’t been sending you that money I was hittin’ them off with?” Lamar asked as Shep threw himself down into a plastic chair. He looked like he hadn't eaten in months.
“Yeah, I’ve been gettin’ it, lil nigga. Good lookin’ out. Wassup, though? Wassup with Crook?”
“Crook still on State Road. He goes to trial next month. I dropped a buck and some change on his lawyer, so Insha Allah, his lawyer can spank that shit.”
“Oh, OK, that’s wassup. I heard you were out there stuntin’ like ya daddy. Driving spaceships and shit, doing it real B I G.” Shep laughed.
“I was definitely getting it in—”
Shep cut off Lamar. “Aye, hold up. You know Gunna slid through here for about two weeks. He slid right out. I don’t know how he did that when he told me that he got booked for buying a quarter ounce of coke. That was freaky.”
For the second time in hours, Lamar had been reminded that there was always a price for someone’s loyalty. Of his whole team, he would have never thought that Gunna would have lined him up for this.
“Shep, that nigga is the one that lined me up. The pussy tried to kill me, man.”
“Yeah—”
“Yo, the nigga Slam paid him to get me outta the way.”
“Wow!”
“It’s been real out there. I downed a lot of niggas, OG.”
“Yeah.” Shep snapped and cut Lamar deeply with his foul breath, smelling like four sweaty fat men playing jailhouse basketball.
“Gunna lined up the clown, Slam, too. The indictment is some bullshit, though. I guess he’s this CI#1 mutha fucka that this indictment keeps naming. But I am going to bring you up-to-date. Who’s my cellie? He ain’t no rat, is he? You know I don’t play that shit.”
“Nigga, I’m ya cellie.” Shep was smiling.
Later, after ten p.m. lock down, Lamar and Shep sat up, talking about everything that was going on in the streets. Lamar brought Shep up to speed on all the murders, Slam’s birthday party stunt, Nikia stealing his drugs and vanishing, and his soon-to-be baby’s mother, Amilli.
He had no idea that his first night back in jail would be the worse day of his life.