Something always goes wrong.
I’ve tried to drink bleach. I’ve tried to overdose on cocaine, heroine, fentanyl. I’ve tried to slit my wrists. I’ve tried to shoot myself. I tried to step in front of a subway. I even tried to jump off a building.
But something always goes wrong.
And they’re not coincidences. They’re something closer to divine intervention.
A miracle at first glance.
You might look at my situation and think I had an Angel on my shoulder.
Unfortunately, it’s not an angel.
And He didn’t come looking like the Devil. As they say, He showed up looking like everything I ever wanted.
I first met Him in my early 20s. I grew up in Englewood, in Chicago’s south end and was in my early teens during the city’s Plan for Transformation. This was supposed to lower poverty and crime and create new hopeful spaces.
Of course, it did the opposite.
It did give me a job though, albeit a criminal one. And something to rap about. Because that was what I wanted to do above all else. Be a rapper.
Where I’m from, rapping was more than just a job, it was an identity. The more dangerous you were, the more violence you created and drugs you sold, and as a result, the more clout you got as a rapper.
Even if you couldn’t spit. Even if you sounded like an out of rhyme Dr Seuss character…
Being dangerous was more important.
I was good at that. But I wasn’t good at rapping. I had all the stories from all my crimes, but I just didn’t have that edge in the studio.
And I wanted that more than anything or anyone.
I guess that’s why He came to me.
I was at a show one night when I saw Him through the crowd. I wish I could describe Him but I can’t. Every time I think back, even if it was just moments ago, there’s a blur where His face should be.
The man has a name, but I can only remember that when He’s near me.
After the show, the next time I saw him… was more strange.
I went into an apartment with a few guys to collect some money owed. They didn’t have it, so things got out of hand. Two dead bodies later and we were leaving out the front door.
But as we were, I looked back inside.
Out the window, there was a face staring in. I couldn’t remember a thing about it, but I remember it was the same man as at the club.
And somehow… I remember He was smiling at me.
The third time I saw the man was when I was sitting in the back of a cop car.
I was driving home from an after hours club and I’d fallen asleep at the wheel at a green light. I was getting booked for drunk driving. But then they found drugs and two guns I didn’t have papers for.
As I sat in the back of the cruiser, watching the two Officers go through my car, I caught movement to my left.
The man was back.
He was staring at me, inches from the window. He said something. I couldn’t hear it, but somehow I knew what He said.
He asked if I wanted out.
I said, “Yes.”
He opened the door and offered His hand. I discovered the handcuffs holding my wrists behind my back were now gone.
I took the man’s hand and He led me away from the car.
I kept expecting to hear the cops behind us yelling for us to stop and get down. But they never did.
We turned down a corner street I’d never seen before and all of a sudden we were in a dive bar at a back table.
I was so twisted from the earlier partying that the insanity of it all wasn’t really hitting me at the time.
I just didn’t know who the guy was or what He was about.
Then I felt my back pocket and realized my wallet was in it. I coulda sworn the cops had taken it. I slurred out a jumble of words, asking the man about the police. They had all my stuff, including my car.
All He said was, “Don’t worry about them. They won’t remember. Your car will be in your driveway when you wake up.”
I asked Him how - why was He helping me?
He told me I had a gift. That I needed to use that gift. And that He would help me.
If I wanted Him to.
I said I did.
He stuck out His hand for me to shake it.
And I did.
The next thing I remember was waking up in bed. My car was in the driveway and everything was in it.
I wasn’t sure if I’d had a nightmare about Him after seeing Him those two times, or if I’d really been sitting in a dive bar with someone who helped me escape from a police cruiser.
Then one of my boys called.
He’d just gotten a chunk of studio time. Out of the blue. And he wanted me to use it.
From there, it was an avalanche of good fortune. A new sound tech was hired on earlier that week and available to work with us. And the studio had just renovated and gotten some brand new equipment.
It was more than that though. It was also what everyone else brought.
Standing in the room, I felt something move through the air. It moved through all of us. It guided their hands and my words and we started creating gold.
It was like all of a sudden everyone became really good at what they were doing. But not just really good.
We were excellent.
And we had a 15 track album by the end of the weekend.
Almost everything I spit was loose and freestyled. I opened my mouth and the next phrases were already there. And they were all things I would say… just better than I would say them. But they were still in my voice, if that makes sense. Simply the best of my voice.
Once the tracks were on mp3 and hit the web, they spread like the plague. I was quickly signed to a label and put out three more albums that year. Each one was better and made more money.
People became obsessed with me and my tracks.
I forgot about the man with the blurry face.
But He came back in my second year when I was working on album number five.
I’d see Him at my shows. Flashes of Him in the crowds.
Then one night, it was only for a moment, but when my show lights strobed on, I looked out at the crowd and saw each of their faces.
And they were all the same as the man. The man whose face I can’t even describe.
Then the strobe switched and the crowd’s faces all morphed back to normal.
I didn’t and couldn’t forget about the man after that.
Not long after, I got into trouble with the cops again. I may have become successful, but it caused the bloating of my ego and unleashed my trigger finger. I was still living a gang life outside of the studio, cause I still needed content to rhyme about.
But this time was bad. I had assault and murder charges.
I was sitting in a jail cell after I was pulled in, and was coming down from the previous night’s drugs. My heart was racing and I thought I was having an anxiety attack.
Then I saw the man.
He was sitting on the other side of the bars looking in at me. I told Him I needed His help.
All He said was, “Tell me I can take Jayce.”
I didn’t know what He meant. But I said yes.
As I blinked, my world changed and I was back at home. I was ecstatic and forgot about the encounter until two days later… when Jayce, who was a newer member of my crew, died of a heart attack.
I couldn’t help but think I was responsible for Jayce’s kid going fatherless.
Still… the charges disappeared. It was like they never happened. Like the world forgot the people I’d hurt and killed.
I started to drink more and was burning through coke. Legal problems were mounting up and pending charges for more assaults were at my doorstep.
And just as each wall of court cases hit me, the man showed up. Asking for more and more of the closest people to me in exchange for innocence.
Within a few months, I’d lost everyone except for my brother Tre. I was trying to block it all out by consuming more and more substances, but the man had taken everyone close to us.
And I’d given Him permission. I was addicted to my identity as a dangerous rapper, and the drugs and booze left a hazy filter over my conscience so the only direction I knew to go in was towards my next album.
Then a homicide charge from the past came up. And my DNA was linked to the murder weapon. I was facing life.
The man showed up.
He asked for Tre.
I wish I was a better man and could say I refused. That I chose my brother over fame. That I took the deserved jail time. And told the man to fuck off.
But I didn’t.
The charges disappeared. And Tre passed away.
After that, I couldn’t rap. I couldn’t really do anything. Everything felt pointless. It’s when I started to think about suicide.
But the man won’t let me die. Every time I try, He’s there. Laughing at me.
Switching my bleach to milk. My drugs to water. My blades to wax and my guns to toys. The subway to my hallway and the building roof to my couch.
He wants me to live with it all and keep feeding him more.
I work by myself now. I don’t utter more than a few words to anyone. Because I know the man is always watching.
And he’s not just taking the people I care about anymore. They’re all long gone.
Now, anyone I meet or talk to… is unsafe.
Even you.