Array 50 Cent - Baby Brother

“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 niggahs grabbed his legs and pulled him across the now-deserted kitchen. Workstations had been abandoned, vegetables left unchopped on counters, and huge pots were boiling unwatched.

Baby Brother felt frigid air wash over him and realized that they’d dragged him into the walk-in freezer. He came alive with a fury. He thrust his heel into a pair of nuts and heard a sickening thunk as he connected. On his feet, he bobbed and weaved, energized like a punch-crazy boxer who had found his second wind.

With the piece of metal still clenched in his hand, Baby Brother lunged at a skinny dude with a big head, stabbing him deeply in the throat with a fork and sending him down for good. He whirled and hit another inmate so hard, his front teeth flew out.

Baby Brother fought like a champion. Two of his attackers were out for the duration, and that left three against one. He gave it just as good as he took it, using every bit of street skills he had and calling up power and endurance from the pit of his soul. He went down quite a few times, but so did his attackers. Blood was everywhere, and all four men were sweating in that freezer.

He swung a hard right and knocked down a short niggah with a long ponytail, then side-kicked the burly cat on his left. But as his foot touched the ground and he prepared to whirl to his right, an industrial-sized black skillet loomed in front of him and a moment later his skull cracked and his world went dark.

Baby Brother came to on his stomach.

He was in a hard yoke, his head locked in the crook of a muscular arm.

Blood dripped from his face and into his eyes, and his whole body was on fire. He was dizzy, suffocating. His pants were yanked down. There was thrusting movement behind him. Probing, and then explosive pain. He gasped as he was penetrated, unable to inhale a full breath.

“Yeah, mothafuckah!” a heavy voice growled in his ear. His muscles were clenched as his manhood was brutally violated. “Who’s doin’ the dog now, bitch! This for your bitch-ass brothers, son!”

Baby Brother broiled. A rage greater than any he could have imagined exploded from him. He screamed inside and rose up on his arms, bucking his rapist off of him. From his knees, he reached back and felt for the nuts of his choker, seeking to rip them from the man’s body.

Blind and choking, he was on one knee and had managed to get one foot planted on the floor, and then it happened.

White heat seared from his left ear all the way across to his right. The air he’d been so desperate to breathe was now totally gone. He gurgled and clutched his bloody throat, and the truth was right there in his hands.

He’d been buck-fiffed.

Smiley-faced. His neck slit from ear to ear.

Baby Brother fell forward, the icy floor no match for the fire in his lungs. His struggle was weak and brief. His death, violent and vicious. His last moments were comforting, though. His life had been cut short, but it had not been without love. For the next sixty-eight seconds Baby Brother lay on a dirty freezer floor gasping and gurgling, drowning in a pool of his own blood. He thought of his parents and of his brothers, and prepared to meet Sari.

Raheem was on fire. Outta all the mothafuckahs they coulda played with, they picked him. He had nutted up like a crazy man in the admin office. Them mothafuckas shoulda known better!

“Y’all put my little brother in a cell with Dirtbag? Who the fuck made that goddamn decision?”

The young C.O. on duty raised his hands. “It wasn’t me, man. I don’t even think nobody knew he was your family, man. If we woulda known, you know we woulda looked out, bruh.”

Raheem had tossed the whole damn office ufl Slinging chairs, throwing manuals and logs and daring some fuckin’ body to try to stop him.

“I’m gone down there to get my brother outta that goddamn cell, you hear? Y’all better put him in Adult Segregation right now. Lock him down and get him away from them fuckin’ animals, right now . Call whoever you gotta call. I don’t care what you gotta do to make that shit happen, but you better do it.”

He stormed down the halls heading toward Dirtbag’s cell. Even the guards stayed outta that joint. The cat was harmless, but he was pure slime. He couldn’t even let his mind imagine what his brother must have faced going up in there.

But as Raheem rounded a corner he saw two C.O.s standing outside of Dirtbag’s cell.

“Yo!” he called out, making his presence known. “Bring my brother outta there right the fuck now!”

But when he got up closer on the cell he saw that some sort of investigation was under way.

“I’m sorry, man,” an officer named Joplin said. He was a cool cat from Tilden Houses and had gone to Jeff High too. His mom had died young and he’d spent a lot of time in the Davis house with Raheem and Kadir.

He reached out and grabbed both of Raheem’s broad shoulders and hugged him. “Zab is gone, Rah. Shit got all fucked up in the kitchen. Somebody turned they fuckin’ head and played possum. I’m sorry, man.”