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You don’t need no interview to work the corners. No one asks you questions and looks into your past. You don’t gotta worry about being accepted. You don’t gotta negotiate no salary. It’s every nigga for himself. It’s survival of the fuckin’ fittest. That’s what I’m fit for. That’s what I’m born for. That’s who I am.

But I think of Uncle, and I think of Mama, I think of Denise and all the good people in my life and I go back to soaping up the cars. It’s ten in the morning. It’s two in the afternoon. It’s almost time to get off.

I smell of soap.

“You ain’t soaping like you mean it,” says the bossman as I walk out the door.

“Excuse me?” I say. What the fuck does that mean?

“You doing a lame-ass job.”

“This is a lame-ass job,” I tell him.

“You missing spots.”

“Bullshit,” I say.

“And the guys don’t like working with no bull dyke.”

I snap. “You know what? You and the other guys can go fuck yourselves in the ass. Fuck you, fuck the other guys, fuck this car wash, and fuck every motherfuckin’ car-drivin’ asshole who comes in here. I’m out.”

LIFE AIN’T NO MOVIE

Life ain’t no comedy. Ain’t no folks singing songs on the car wash line. Ain’t no cute jokes and ain’t no happy ending.

That’s how I was thinking when I told the car wash cat to fuck himself. I was fed up. Fed up with knocking my head against the wall. Fed up with niggas’ fucked-up attitudes. Fed up with name-calling. This so-called straight world out here was no world I could relate to. It was a world I had to leave. I’d tried it and I’d fuckin’ failed. So it was good-bye to bad garbage. I was going back to the only world where I’d ever done any good, the world where bad was good and where I was super-bad.

My rep was already established on the street. My shit was already standing. My shit was marked in stone.

I paid my dues. I had sat my little ass down in the Cut for a minute.

Now the minute was up.

Now I said, “Fuck everything else.”

I was tired of struggling.

I could have talked to Mama, but I didn’t.

I could have talked to my godmother, Denise, but I didn’t.

Could have found a cool counselor or some righteous preacher, but fuck the counselor and fuck the preacher. I was tired of this fucked-up do-goody attitude. I was tired of being someone I would never be.

Back to the dog-eat-dog world.

Back to get it when you can.

Back to the goddamn block.

Ain’t gonna fight with no one. Just bust a move and jump outta sight. Move outta Mama’s house. Move in with a girlfriend. She’s pretty cool. She lets me runs things. She knows I’m the man in the relationship. She don’t bug me about where I’m going and how I’m making a dollar.

I got me five hundred dollars saved.

Take that five hundred, buy me a half ounce of coke, and work off that.

That’s it.

That’s the start.

Put that Mickey Mouse go-straight shit out of my head.

Think like I used to think.

Think ahead.

Start dealing with this coke and move up to heroin. More money in heroin.

Got one thought and one thought only:

Start slow, stay cool, but wind up the biggest drug dealer in East Baltimore.

This time fuckin’ go for it.

I know the game.

Now I’m playing to win.

DICKHEAD

I called him a dickhead ’cause he was a dickhead. I called him a fuckin’ prick cause he hated my ass so bad he bent the rules. He wanted the satisfaction of locking me up—and he did.

I was out there on the corner. Since the car wash bust, I had only been out there for a hot second. Got my shit together. Got me a couple of corner boys to watch for the cops. And got me a couple of hitters who would run the drugs to the customers in the cars. I knew what I was doing.

But this particular cop had attitude flying out his ass. Every time I was ready to open shop in the morning, he’d cruise by and talk much shit.

“Gonna get your ass, nigga,” he’d sneer.

I wouldn’t say nothing back. Wouldn’t even look at the motherfucker. Naturally that made him angrier. He wanted some kind of reaction. I just turned my back. When he was gone, I