and sometimes she acts like an annoying older sister. Especially since Jay helped raise her—their mom was killed when Aunt Pooh was one and their dad died when she was nine. Jay’s always treated Pooh like her third kid.
“Um, nerd shit?” I say to her. “More like dope shit. You need to expand your horizons.”
“And you need to stop shopping off the Syfy channel.”
Star Wars technically isn’t sci—never mind. The top’s down on the Cutlass, so I climb over the door to get in. Aunt Pooh pulls her sagging pants up before she hops in. What’s the point of letting them sag if you’re just gonna pull them up all the time? Yet she wants to criticize my fashion choices.
She reclines her seat back and turns the heat all the way up. Yeah, she could put the top up, but that combination of cold night air and warmth from the heater is A1.
“Let me get one of my shits.” She reaches into the glove compartment. Aunt Pooh gave up weed and turned to Blow Pops instead. Guess she’d rather get diabetes than get high all the time.
My phone buzzes in my hoodie pocket. I texted Sonny and Malik the same three words I texted Aunt Pooh, and they’re geeking out.
I should be geeking out too, or at least getting in the zone, but I can’t shake the feeling that the world has turned upside down.
At any second, it may turn me upside down with it.
Jimmy’s parking lot is almost filled up, but not everybody is trying to get in the building. The “let out” has already started. That’s the party outside that happens every Thursday night after the final battle in the Ring. For almost a year now, folks have been using Jimmy’s as a party spot, kinda like they do Magnolia Ave on Friday nights. See, last year a kid was murdered by a cop just a few streets away from my grandparents’ house. He was unarmed, but the grand jury decided not to charge the officer. There were riots and protests for weeks. Half the businesses in the Garden were either intentionally burned down by rioters or were casualties of the war. Club Envy, the usual Thursday nightspot, was a casualty.
The parking lot club’s not really my thing (partying in the freezing cold? I think not), but it’s cool to see people showing off their new rims or their hydraulics, cars bouncing up and down like they don’t know a thing about gravity. The cops constantly drive by, but that’s the new normal in the Garden. It’s supposed to be on some “Hi, I’m your friendly neighborhood cop who won’t shoot you” type shit, but it comes off as some “We’re keeping an eye on your black asses” type shit.
I follow Aunt Pooh to the entrance. Music drifts from in the gym, and the bouncers pat people down and wave metal-detector wands around. If somebody’s got a piece, security puts it in a bucket nearby and returns it once the Ring lets out.
“The champ is here!” Aunt Pooh calls as we approach the line. “Might as well crown her now!”
It’s enough to get me and Aunt Pooh palm slaps and nods. “What’s up, Li’l Law,” a couple of people say. Even though we’re technically cutting the line, it’s all good. I’m royalty thanks to my dad.
I get a couple of smirks too though. Guess it’s funny that a sixteen-year-old girl in a Darth Vader hoodie thinks she’s got a shot in the Ring.
The bouncers slap palms with Aunt Pooh. “What’s up, Bri?” the stocky one, Reggie, says. “You finally getting on tonight?”
“Yep! She gon’ kill it too,” Aunt Pooh says.
“A’ight,” the taller one, Frank, says, waving the wand around us. “Carrying the torch for Law, huh?”
Not really. More like making my own torch and carrying it. I say, “Yeah,” though, because that’s what I’m supposed to say. It’s part of being royalty.
Reggie motions us through. “May the force beam you up, Scotty.” He points at my hoodie, then does the Vulcan salute.
How the hell do you confuse Star Trek and Star Wars? How? Unfortunately to some people in the Garden it’s “nerd shit,” or as some fool at the swap meet said, “white shit.”
Folks need to get their space opera life right.
We go inside. As usual it’s mostly guys in here, but I see a few girls too (which is reflective of the small ratio of women to men in hip-hop, which is total misogynistic fuckery, but anyway