Big L's Arc

Chapter 1 of 6

Big L wanted to be the most feared enforcer on these blocks, but tonight the boss of these blocks wanted him dead. The word reached him at the broken cottage where he crashed. A kid ran up breathless, said the kingpin had marked him as an upstart. Big L touched the gun in his waistband and felt the tattoos itch on his arms. He was nobody yet. That was the problem. You don't become somebody by hiding. His pitbull rose from the doorway, muscle rippling, blue eyes fixed on the dark. Big L scratched the dog's thick neck. "We go to him," he said. "Or we run forever." The dog didn't run from anything. Neither would he. He found the kingpin at the corner store, the one everyone paid tribute to. Marcus "Dread" Williams leaned against the display window, dreads hanging past his shoulders, a gun tucked in the back of his jeans. Two men flanked him. Dread was the one who ran these streets, the one who ate upstarts for breakfast. He didn't even look up when Big L walked in. "You the one wearing my streets like they yours," Dread said. He weighed a purple nugget of weed in his palm, thumb rolling it slow. "I make examples out of boys like you." "Then make one," Big L said. His heart slammed. He kept his hand off the gun. "Or make me useful. You got debts on these blocks. Folks who don't pay. I collect. I hit harder than these two." One of Dread's men laughed. The dog growled low, and the laugh died. Dread's eyes moved to the pitbull, then back to Big L. He set the weed down on the counter. "Prove it," Dread said. "There's a man three doors down owes me and won't pay. Bring me what's mine tonight. Come back empty, I bury you behind that cottage you sleep in." Big L walked out with the dog at his heel. His hands shook until he balled them into fists. He found the man who owed. He didn't need the gun. He put the man against a wall, let the pitbull show its teeth, and named the number Dread wanted. The man emptied his pockets. Cash and more. Big L came back to the corner store and dropped the money on the counter. Dread counted it twice. Then he smiled, slow and cold. "You work for me now," Dread said. "You collect. You hurt who I say hurt." He picked up his gun off the counter and slid it back into his jeans. "But understand something. You just made yourself mine. And I don't set my dogs loose." Big L nodded. He wasn't dead. He had a place on these streets now. But he'd wanted to rule them, not kneel. He walked home to the broken cottage with the kingpin's leash already tight around his neck.