"Yo, I’m like you," Maceo responded. "I don’t know who the fuck he is. But what I do know is that he’s on one of our blocks gettin’ money. At least that’s the word on the street.
- from Crackhead by Lisa Lennox
She began to cry as she thought about the price she may have to pay if Des didn’t want to be with her anymore. Then she thought of the cost of all the things she had been faced with. What’s the price for someone giving you gonorrhea? What’s the price to fix a broken heart? What’s the price doing a day in jail? How much does it cost for you to give your life? What’s the price of breaking your mother’s heart? How many chances do you really have at love? I can’t lose Des in spite of my stupid choices. What am I going to do?
While she was sitting there thinking, Jay Z’s new song was playing on an underground tape she bought a while back when she was living in New York. There were only a few words of the song, she could make out, but those words were her inspiration, her stimulation, her encouragement and what gave her the will to move forward … "order to survive, you gotta live with regrets."
- from A Hustler’s Wife by Nikki Turner
In February of 1992, Bilal Davis had the whole city on lock down. When Bilal first came home, he got with a Spanish nigga he was down Oakhill with named Carlos Gonzales. Carlos and Bilal became good friends while they were locked up and they always promised each other that they would get together when they got out. Carlos fronted Bilal two kilos of powder for twenty-five thousand as a coming home present and he went right back around his old neighborhood and started hustling. Niggas knew Bilal from when he was little, but mostly, they remembered him killing Boo-Boo in the alley back in the day, at least that’s what they thought he did.
- from Larceny: The Cruelest Lie Told in Silence by Jason Poole
"Taste it," Scorpion said with no emotion as he continued to pound into her steadily.
"Mmm … s-say what, baby?" She opened her eyes just in time to see an odd-looking black object coming into her face. Scorpion shoved the Beretta into her mouth, splitting her lip and knocking out a few of her front teeth. Blood spilled out of her mouth, and before she could react he pulled the trigger, blowing her brains out. Collapsing on top of her, he continued to thrust until he came deep inside of her. "Thank you, thank you," he uttered as the juices flowed from his loins into her dead body.
- from Menage’s Way by Victor L. Martin
