Baby Brother by 50 Cent, Noire Page B

niggah. Green eyes, wavy hair, dimples and pretty lips. Damn right he was scared. But the thing he feared was much bigger than the eighteen-year-old accused murderer standing in front of him.
    Baby Brother put his gear down and got up on his bunk. He stared at the ceiling as his heart pounded and his mind raced. This place was a cesspool. A motherfuckin’ sewer. Niggahs shit on each other up in here all the time. In more ways than one.
    He sat alone at lunchtime. The food was grim. Sliced turkey, peas, lumpy potatoes. Baby Brother dug in without looking at it. Survival was paramount and he had to eat to live. He was surprised when an inmate sat down across from him.
    “We cool?”
    It was Dirtbag, his stank-ass cellie. Fouling up the air.
    Baby Brother ignored the fool and kept eating. He was on a mission. He knew his brothers were on the outside working like hell for him. All he had to do was stay cool and mark down the days until they got him out.
    “I heard you popped a Puerto Rican chick,” his cellie said, his eyes scanning the room. “That means you better watch your back around these P.R. cats in here.”
    Baby Brother gulped from his carton of milk like his cellie wasn’t even there.
    “And them mothafuckin Asians is tryna come up too.” Dirtball twisted his arm behind him and dug down his shirt, trying to scratch his own back.
    “See that dude over there with all the muscles? They call him Doobie. He’s down with that notorious ‘Kill-AMan Crew.’ Watch them niggahs too. They treacherous on the real.”
    For the first time Baby Brother acknowledged the fact that Dirtball was even sitting at his table. He looked across the room and damn if it wasn’t Doobie. He knew the niggah well and had never liked him. Smooth, slick, and used to run drugs for Farad and Finesse. Without a word, he stood and picked up his tray. Igging Dirtbag, he walked over to the trash and dumped his leavings, then headed out of the dining room.
    He was stopped at the door.
    “Hey,” a corrections officer called out to him. He was standing near the doorway with his arms crossed. Salt-and-pepper hair streaked his temples and Baby Brother figured he was a vet who had been on the job for a while. “They need you in the kitchen right now. Run back there and ask for Dreamer. He’s your new boss. He’ll tell you what you need to do.”
    The kitchen was industrial-sized. It was bigger and more complex than any Baby Brother had ever seen. Inmates were doing all sorts of chores. From cutting vegetables to boiling huge vats of noodles, shit was getting done up in there.
    “Over here,” the cat named Dreamer directed him. “I’ma put you on the dishwasher team today. I hope you learn quick ’cause we on a strict schedule back here and ain’t nobody got time to show you nothing more than once.”
    Baby Brother shrugged. There were plastic containers filled with dirty plates and utensils waiting to be washed. He shook his head. He’d graduated with a 4.0 grade average. How fuckin’ hard could loading up a dishwasher be?
    He was working alone, transferring dirty silverware to the dishwasher rack, when it happened. The first blow caught him in the back of the head, stunning him and propelling him so hard he landed halfway inside the industrial dishwasher.
    They hit him behind the knees next, causing him to arch his back and slide to the ground in agony. The entire silverware tray came down with him, and instinctively he closed his hand around a piece of cool metal.
    “Yeah!” he heard one of his attackers yell out. “Payback, mothafuckah! It’s get-back time!”
    Baby Brother tried to stand. Payback? He glanced up and saw five inmates. They were all strangers. Fists flew and boots stomped. They pummeled him everywhere and Baby Brother rolled with the blows as best he could.
    The blow to the head had weakened him. Dulled his reflexes. He tried to cover his head and ball up in a knot, and that’s when they started dragging him. Three