5 Minutes and 42 Seconds by Timothy Williams

as if I’d gotten a promotion. Fashad has a restaurant, a car dealership, and an auto shop to clean the money he makes from dealing. He put me in charge of all that shit. Every day I had to go see how they was doin’, and if they needed something I had to get it, but that was almost never because they weren’t doin’ shit. And he kept me paid too. In about a year I had my leather.
    Still, there was something wrong. I didn’t feel like I was doin’ nothin’ big. Everybody was lookin’ at me like I was Fashad’s bitch or somethin’, like slavery got remixed and he owned me. In a way, I guessed he did.
    I wanted respect, I wanted fame, recognition. I wanted for people to have to stop calling me white boy, cracker, honky—or else. I wanted in on the action. I told Fashad I wanted to be part of the family. He told me I was, but he didn’t understand what I meant. I told him I wanted to be part of the family like Tony Soprano, not Moms Mabley. He told me he didn’t want to see me go down that road. Said he wanted me to stay legit, but that it was my choice.
    â€œI got to get back in the streets,” I told him.
    â€œWhy?” he asked. “You got everything you need. Good money. Easy job. Why you want to be out there?”
    â€œIt’s like that movie where they be in the ring with them lions and shit. And then they be fightin’ each other in front of everybody. And they be in the Bible times and shit. What movie is that?” I asked him.
    â€œI don’t know what you talkin’ about. Who was in it?”
    â€œThat one man.”
    â€œWhat one man?”
    â€œYou know, that one,” I said and I looked at him so he would know what I wanted him to know about the man since neither of us could say it.
    â€œOh, you talking about Gladiator. With Russell Crowe.”
    â€œYeah. It’s like Gladiator out on them streets. And I’m a fuckin’ gladiator like Russell Crowe. I can’t just sit back like a lil bitch while niggas is in the ring battling.”
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    I started off on Lennox and Twenty-third, just me and my uniform. Fashad said it was already our territory, so I wouldn’t have to worry about nobody. I didn’t care. After all that shit happened with Fashad, I was sad enough to die, mad enough to kill, and wouldn’t have minded doing either.
    That type of I-don’t-give-a-fuck attitude pays off in the streets. I was the best in Detroit, and then the shit started getting bigger. I had like seven niggas workin’ for me, and who knows how many niggas was workin’ for them. Fashad saw how good I was and pulled me off the streets. He said,“A real baller don’t do his own sellin’.” Just in time too, because I seen that that shit wasn’t for me. I’m too smart to be a hustler. That’s like James Bond being a security guard.
    I started doin’ what he did, layin’ around the office, chillin’. Passing shit to dealers and waitin’ for them to bring my money back. That was the best time of my life. All I did was smoke and fuck. Sometimes men, and sometimes women, but never with Fashad. It lasted for about a year, until I met Bill and shit got heavy.
    I was passing off fifty grams to a new dealer Fashad gave the okay to about a month ago. I get into the car after the switch and a fed named Bill is in the backseat. The punk bastard set me up. Bill took me to a diner across town, showed me pictures of me takin’ money and passin’ off coke. They said they had witnesses. They said they was ’bout to put me away for life if I didn’t cooperate.
    I felt bad at first. I mean, Fashad was like the father I never had. He took care of me, you know? Then I started thinkin’ about how he gave me that weed that night, and didn’t smoke none himself. And how funny the orange juice tasted. And how he never even asked me if I wanted to do it. He just made me do