Lorenzo & Books

A Thugs Code

Criminal, Christ! Convict, felon, thug, gangster, concluding titles cunts just namesters. If their amount of balls matched their amount of lingo, I’d be emperor, but I’m still king though. Born in a place long time I’ven‘t bared my face. Wicked, evil, unholy, anti-Christ, lots of hats that say I’m “not nice.” My birth buried my mother. I a spawn not from the getting on of a couple lovers. A junkie taken for evasion of payment, the equation equaling my arraignment. Somewhat raised by her failure of a father until a fire took a town house and a liar.

From those flames I became a free man, well maybe boy, but my mind never a toy, and at 11 I not get employ, so I ventured to the ghetto where common credentials are let go. I came across some thugs, who I told I wanted to hustle drugs. They laughed and teased, I told them I’m not a man on his knees, but I could use a break. One man looked in my eyes and knew I not fake. He handed me a pill I came back ten minutes later with a twenty bill, he copped that shit and said “yo man that’s ill, we usually flip em for five, looks like you’ll more than survive.” He handed me a sack and I came back with a stack.

Two years later this is where I’ve been at. His name was Ken Lorenzo, but they called him Kenny always sippin some silent Sam or a bottle of Henny. He stayed drunk twenty four sevy, and maybe that’s what got me on the gin, he got nabbed a year later and spent a dab in the pen. It was some bull shit charge but a few years later he showed his face in the yard. I hooked him a brick and since then we been rolling thick. I had kept my hustle strong and made my money long, bought some Altamont jeans and some Nike Blazers a Mossberg pump and for fun some tazers. Steps ahead of where I once stood, the gang lane mundane but good.

Years went by seeing the same person in a different guy. Wonder I did why such bland in flavor designed life our maker. Even if I were to be a nihilist in this bland I’d continue to exist. Duping the stupid, getting sucked off by suckas suckering them onto my wood like cupid. Quit pimpin? Then I’d be stupid. Sensulizing my senses with which ever vices, that’s what one of the nice parts of life is. I admit making money and funny fucking fuckery mostly just keep me high, maybe I’d slide too close to something I don’t really wanna know, if I ever let myself get low.

I was wasted on Tanqueray one day smoking on a C.A., that’s CAO for those who don’t know. I caught sight of this fine dime, thickness, jiggling down the street, the type of thing I knew I’d eat; I turned down the Dre Dog beat. Situation critical, ass was literal, round, proportion to the pound, nice light brown. Latina was about to get tip like a ballerina, we locked eyes to Nickatina, she a sucka to my scheme-a. Hopped in the beamer, she said her name was Leslie, she said are you gonna impress me? I took she head and handed it to me wood, I put the 7 in gear and gargling was all you could hear. She swallowed my juice and I let her wash it down with my gin, this was the best way a day could begin. I kicked her outta the car called up Kenny, he was on his second bottle of Henny, and said pick up in ten me. I arrived in a double nickel, two bodies bounced out he’s house in a trickle. Lorenzo was in some Stacey’s, gold and some Guess jeans, the other a long blonde haired hippie I had never seen.

They rolled up in the whip; I said “who the fuck is this?” Lorenzo said “that’s the homie books.” I gave them both dirty looks. “Books? Fucking Books? Can he even fucking read? He looks like he just smokes fucking weed.” “Nah G, that’s the brilliance of Books, he’s much bigger then he fucking looks.” At second glance, he did have a bit of a presence that put you in trance, he held very strange, but subtle stance. He was smoking two cigs at the same time; I couldn’t quite tell what was on his mind. “You’re some different fucking kind.” He finally spoke “Altamont jeans? You better be a fucking skate.” I pulled the Creature deck out of my trunk, popped a switch heel far from bunk. He gave me an awkward nod and sly grin, grabbed my board and did a frontside bigspin. I said “okay, get the fuck in.” We cruised down the street liquor bottles at our feet. Lorenzo had a runner he had to meet. We pulled into the dope spot and heard a gunshot. Books opened up the door, gave his cup a hefty pour, then threw the Tanqueray bottle so hard, the gunman’s face filled with green shard. We got out of the car, gunned the other pistol popper down. Then Books switch flipped him while he was on the ground! This odd two cig smoking son of a fuck was on another planet. He pointed at the Mossberg saying “hand it.” We rolled in the trap house, speakers were blaring some new age rap. Books shot the laptop, saying “it’s bad for your health that crap.” Mean while he had two cigs in the hand not holding the pump. “You dumbass fuckers almost got jumped” Lorenzo yelled at his punks. Potheads are lucky you’ve got us drunks.

Books who had vanished, hobbled in holding one of the dead gunmen’s body and popped all Lorenzo’s punks, holding the gunman’s finger on the trigger of his shotty. “Good thinking” Lorenzo said to be books, “can’t be rolling with crooks like that.” He took one of the dead punks’ hands and shot the gunman again with their gat. “The cops will never believe this staging, 911 have surely sent patrol a paging, you’re both fucking insane.” Books said “sounds like propane!” He ran out to the barbecue, gave the propane tank a crank or two, Lorenzo stuffed the stash money into a bag. So I filled a liquor bottle with a rag. We ran to the beam, sirens howled closer to the scene, the Molotov shattered the window into the living room, and we peeled off to a hell of a boom. That day Books became a creature I just had to respect, he blew up a house and switch flipped a dead guy’s neck. Kenny and I carried on as uncaught crime connoisseurs, never receiving an ounce of heat from that night.

As time went on I learned Kenny called Books ‘Books’ because all he wanted to do was write. He would wait til dark sit in a room with mirrors and a candle, and in purple pen, pen out pages plain people couldn’t handle. Kenny said he wrote in rather strange rhyme, and said he might be ahead of his time.

Books never spoke about his writing unless you asked him. I questioned him one day, and all he would say is “eventually everyone will read it.” He was certain but not conceited. I hung out with him more and more as time went on. We’d skate and talk about stuff we hate, we’d drink and talk about how people think.

When it came to rap, Books was a purist, said “modern attempters were just tourists, trotting outside a land they hadn’t the mind to understand.” “You need to start rhyming” he said to me one day while we were lime-ing. “The fuck I got to do up in a booth?” He gave me a Books look and said “you know, you know the truth.” I know, I know the truth? Books barely ever had an ounce of normal in his body; he was truly a language no one speaks. It was only through my own wisdom that I was ever able to occasionally decipher him. Books knew what his life held in store for him, those who were in tune could sense it, yet most are detuned and senseless. Rap my knack, could he sense this? I know, I know the truth? The life I lead is that of the rap bread….up until now I’ve been but a criminal, flippin bricks, pimpin tricks. I thought about how I’d been since a youth, my birth murdered my mother, I torched that shit stick who tried to raise me, I’d been gangster since I was a baby. Currently I popped and dropped the flops who schemed, pimped the skimps and ghetto queens, I knew damn well what he means. The true truth of life ‘if you’re not doing the fucking you’re getting FUCKED!’ You gotta have balls or else you’re a pussy, no political correctness could push me not, to shove my hateful cock, down every whore who stalked my metaphorical and literal block. This era is so philosophically fucked, any embodiment of strength is shucked, weaknesses are praised, to say otherwise you’re crazed. They lock up free thinkers and turn you into cock drinkers. My wood’s been slipped into every set of lips that’s let this shit exist. I’ve been fucking up every fiend who’s fringed my field but what’s the yield? Dollars and cents while the world’s fully fenced? Do I want to set these fuckers free or just die a fucking G? I might as well merge my mind to the higher and at least die a try-er. I set sights on a wiser peak, all from hearing Books speak, my entire future now shifted, god damn that man’s gifted. “I’m gonna give it a shot” I told books, we exchanged fire eyed looks, hand clapped with a snap and that was that. I walked up to the beam, struck the clutch, clicked in clean, and I was ready to rape another scene.

I fueled myself on fuckery, took every ounce of it and cut it to fuck G. I wrote my lines razor sharp and full of dark, I didn’t dabble an utter inch of promotion towards debilitating devotion. I described direct the effect of neglect, penned punch after punch to put it in check. Every line designed to crucify the mind, pierce the veil of the blind, and hard fuck mankind. Lorenzo & Books saw the lyrics and said “when we gonna hear it?” I booked studio time, with a link of mine, 13 tracks on wax for a couple stacks. The producer had brains on the board, took twenty hours to record. Album was on board to bang at the end of the week, all left was to mix it, so we booked a show and sold some tickets.

Two days before the gig a song surfaced by some worthless candy colored cornrow cock clinger R&B singer who had stolen sixteen bars from my opening track and there was only one way of coping with that. From second to fifth the whip shifted gear; I was gonna duppy the engineer, and slice the thief from ear to ear. I arrived in five, some souls soon not to be alive, bust in the studio door, and before I can pull the gloc, I’m hit with half a shock. There stood Books with the audio technician tied up in position, he looked to me for permission, I gave a grin that ended a life, I don’t know where Books got that strange knife. Books said “rainbow mops up top in knots” he handed me a scroll covered in tape and plastic, “what’s next will be drastic.” Books is fucked up but fantastic, I put the package in my pocket, shot up the steps, a rocket, kicked in the door to unlock it, saw the fluorescent haired face and socked it. The ill acquire-er why I were standing closed handing his store front with force blunt. He murmured at me mid strike “if you hadn’t slipped, your song wouldn’t have got ripped.” I emptied the clip, who’s he to be saying I tripped? This coward had no tact, but I stung sour to the fact, never did such disgrace lace my lane, who the fuck have I became? My empire now had a stain, I can’t simply remain, I jumped through the fucking window pane, I hit the ground and I was dead.

Lorenzo’s Denouement

“Yo, big ups, Vybez Kartel, any club I’m a shell, listen what I’m a tell, dat man dead up after he fell, cops find Books, book up in he pocket. Marketing scheme dat, making million dollar stack, no one not know who he be after dat, Books put he self on da map! Predictable Gumption pump thousand of copy, with style so strong no one a cop he. CD be found too, everyone wish a round two, but dead a dead dat, Gangsta legend of a rap cat.”