The neighborhood changed real quick after Sammy and daddy died. I don't think them being gone had anything to do with it, but all of a sudden everything was just...different. Rico and my uncles came up fast after Jazz cooked cocaine that first time. Everybody was going crazy for it. They spent all their money on it. Bills stopped getting paid. People started getting eviction notices.

And Rico was the answer to all their problem.

They didn't even realize that he had been the creator of most of their problems, too.

Rico and my uncles had so much business that he started paying us kids to stand around and watch for the laws. If we saw them, we would make this pigeon noise. Remmey made it up. There weren't a whole lot of pigeons in Houston at that time, but for some reason, no one noticed the difference. That made it easy for all of us to pick up on a sound that nobody else even thought twice about. Eventually, when the neighborhood got bad enough, the laws just stopped coming around. After that, Rico put us on the corners while him and the OGs took care of the money.

I started calling my uncles "the OGs" because they thought it was funny, and because it was true.

Rico had us do other stuff, too. Like steal cars and jack people, and break into different houses, even if someone was home. He opened a car detail shop, which is where we took the cars after we stole them. Them things would go in all old and beat up, and would come out looking like jelly. I mean clean.

I kept helping Jazz in the kitchen, too, and eventually she taught me how to really cook. A whole bunch, all at one time. People went crazy over my product even more than they did over Jazz's.

Rico took notice.

"Nephew," he would say to me, "I dreamed you. Before you were even born. I knew one day that you would be my son, and that we would rise to the top together." He would always say that to me. And the more of a distant memory that daddy became, the less it would bother me when he said it.

Rico took notice of a lot of things, though. Not just me. He would have these dreams, and then would watch for them to happen in real life. Jazz said that he had always been like that, and that's why she trusted what he said about business. But I didn't remember him saying anything like that before daddy died. Rico would watch for signs from his dreams, but he would watch regular people, too. He watched everybody. Read everybody. Observed them head to toe. I learned early to do the same thing.

And I also learned early how to control my own reactions, from head to toe.

Jazz asked me to lie for her a lot. Mostly about what Rico was doing to her. And I would, but I didn't like it. The only person that I really had to lie to was mama, and I hated doing that. But I did it.

For Jazz.

But eventually mama checked out, anyway, and stopped giving a shit about most things.

Including Jazz.

When I was around ten, Rico noticed that I didn't take any shit from adults or kids, and didn't back down from anyone, either. So he let me work in the detail shop with the OGs for a while, to see how I would handle myself around nothing but adults. I guess he liked what he saw, because when he put me back on the corners with Remmey and Chauncey, I was the only kid that moved when they moved. By eleven, Rico had four crackhouses and was taking me with him and Remmey on "rounds" to pick up his money and drop off more of whatever they needed.

By the end of that same year, he had me completely in charge of the money.

And the OGs didn't like it.

At all.

Especially Chauncey. He would give me a hard time all the time, and I already didn't like his ass because of what he did to Charity.

But even Chauncey wouldn't say shit to Rico about it.

Nobody did.

Nobody said shit to Rico about anything.

Because Rico had turned the neighborhood upside down. Now the kids were making the money and taking care of the adults.

And now the adults were...all fucked up.

All fucked up.

Including mama.

She was one of the few that wasn't on drugs, but she kind of checked out of reality after Sammy died. She was just...all the way gone. So really, she was just like everybody else in the neighborhood, and let Rico do whatever the hell he wanted to do, too. Because Rico wasn't just Rico anymore.

Now he was the ma fuggin' King.