Page 1 of Krist and Moanie (D-Ville Projects #3)

Krist McNeal

T he air was thick in here, but the smoke was thicker. A barely lit warehouse filled past capacity with everybody from the hood to Diamonds. Speakers adorned the makeshift stage while two fools battled it out with subpar lyrics and heavy accents.

“It’s amateur hour, Krist,” Ben said loud enough for me to hear.

I chuckled. “Probably. It don’t sound too bad.” Through my response I sported a smile heavy on the sarcasm.

“You ready to get up there? Winner takes the whole pot tonight. But first of course you gotta go up against the champ.” The MC nodded in my direction and I raised my cup at him.

I laughed when I caught the cocky lil nigga wave me off.

Yeah, I was about to enjoy this. For the next fifteen minutes the two went back and forth on the stage and I watched, dissecting each line, already knowing how I’d hit either of them.

It was never much for me because ever since I was a kid the words just flowed, and somehow, when I threw them together, they worked.

Words and sounds bent to my will because I took the time to understand them.

About another fifteen minutes later the two rounds were up and the loud mumbling one of the two had won. By then I was ready to finish his ass for the night in my mind. I had to get up early tomorrow.

“Take it easy on him, bro.” Ben fixed his glasses and threw his head, knowing damn well that wasn’t about to happen.

“Nah.” I shook my head cockily as the sea of people parted for me to get onstage. When I stepped up there I felt the animosity coming off ol’ boy and I couldn’t help but chuckle. The fact that a nigga didn’t know me but knew of me and still got up here was funny to me.

“Are we flipping for who goes first?” Seer, the MC, asked

“Nah. Let homeboy go first.” I nodded in his direction, then brought the cup of brown liquor to my lips before setting it down on the small table near me.

“Bet.” Ol’ boy started just as the beat dropped. I didn’t catch many of his words because all that shit sounded like mumbling, like he was on his 50 with the jaw wired shut shit. About a minute and fifteen seconds later he was finished and handing the mic back to Seer.

Seer nodded, eyes trained on me because he knew how this went all too well.

I wasn’t arrogant or anything like that, but I knew my motion.

About a second later I had the mic and sported a sinister smirk.

“Lemme send son home acapella.” The beat went off and I stepped right into ol’ boy’s face before I put the mic to my lips.

“All y’all niggas wanna be Roc-a-fella that’s cool too, I’ll be Dame with it

Cut the check or you covering the deck with it

Y’all visiting from the heights, you probably should have stayed in it

I break down you fake tough ass rappers

Exposing your borrowed flows

While you barking all loud, I’m moving in silence

Sweet talking ass niggas, yeah I’m a bar flipper

You punching soft, young boy, while I’m a real hitter…”

I maintained eye contact with him and paused, then moved toward the front of the stage. The looks of people who never missed a battle and knew my face all too well egged me on, had me going in for the kill.

“Real deal landmine every step, I promise I’ma deliver

You just filler, I’m really a thriller, rap’s actual killer

You shooting too high, wrong height, shoe wrong tier too

Youngin’ I’m crowned with fire, ending careers with just a verse

Watching you stand in when I’m really the man they admire

Yeah you still barking all loud, but I promise you my silence is bound to incite a riot.”

The crowd erupted with each word, and I paused again, letting him think I was done before I finished him off the best way I knew how.

“You up here tryna spar with a poet, but I do more than write like a killer

Another filter, told you I’m like a thriller

You could never go bar for bar with me because I’m way too iller

Ain’t nothing about you deep, just another loud ass nigga with a weak script

Type to have your girl quoting my shit because she listened too deep.”

My words hit like bullets. Because by the time I finished, that man looked like he needed a break, but I wasn’t done.

He was in disbelief because the very people who had cheered his victory against his first opponent were going crazy for me.

I laughed at his incredulity then handed Seer back the mic and went to grab my cup.

Nothing he could say would move me. Because shit like this was done in my sleep.

It was almost like he didn’t want the other round, but his biggest mistake was that he took it.

He had the mic in his hands, waving one of them back and forth like he was talking with his hands.

More like hand mumbling. That shit was hard to listen to, because at this point it was probably gonna be the last time I allowed them to put some amateur nigga in front of me.

I needed a challenge… and this wasn’t it.

The mic was in my hand once again and this time my goal was simple. Finish him off and leave no crumbs. Body his ass and go home.

“You still here? Up for round two

I’m still calm, ain’t broke no sweat

And here you go, swinging all wild while I cocked my shit

Aiming for the neck, no recovery, knocked an artery.”

I used my hand like I was aiming a gun in his direction, then laughed, deciding to keep shit unserious.

“You rap like you googled what to say, no threat assessment necessary

I write pain in these margins, watching niggas like you internet flex

Every bar I ever spit been a loaded confession

Yours? Yeah, you got AI writing all your aggression

You from the heights? Cool, I’m from where the demons play

And those weak ass lines you delivered will get you a coffin stay.”

Then I stepped into his face for dramatic effect, making clear eye contact with him before I delivered my last lines.

“I break you niggas down, exposing all the fake skins

Your whole style is borrowed, want me to name your inspirations

Rapping like you almost cold, but ain’t never been able to hold it

Your mask, I see through it

No danger, mystique, or shit

You just another nigga they convinced to come up here

Unaware they were ending your career.”

Hands together, with the crowd going nuts, I maintained eye contact, making sure he felt that shit. Yep, he heard me because not only had hatred filled his eyes, but he backed up and waved off the L.

“Ay yo, Where the demons play? That shit just bodied,” Ben boasted, throwing his arm around my shoulder. Seer walked up to me, shaking his head.

“You gotta let a nigga at least feel like he won a round, Krist.”

“What I look like?” I accepted the knot of cash from him, ready to cut out. I never stuck around for the festivities, just the W then the exit.

“You did good tonight, Krist.” I heard a feminine voice behind me.

When I turned around I peeped Alley, somebody I went to school with a while ago.

I’d seen her a few times and always kept it cool, never going any further.

Tonight was no different. Even though she was looking at me with that easy look in her eyes, I wasn’t going.

She wasn’t much my type, but the glazed honey bun colored, perfectly pink, thick lipped beauty next to her was.

She had slightly slanted eyes with hair that stopped sharply at her jawline.

Even in the overpopulated space I could feel her eyes.

They were serious, shit, almost like she had the ability to look through me.

“’Preciate that.”

Alley giggled. “Anytime, this is my cousin Moanie. Mo, this is Krist. We know one another from school.”

She nodded in my direction. Shorty was beautiful, too fucking beautiful to be in here.

“Y’all tryna eat?” Ben asked. Nigga was forever passenger in my car but inviting a girl to come eat. This time I didn’t mind though, especially since if they came, he’d be entertaining Alley.

Of course Alley nodded and her cousin looked at her. She was no more interested in going anywhere with us than I was with them.

“I’m going to my car. Let me know what’s up.” Shit didn’t move me one way or another.

I moved through the sea of people toward the exit. Fresh air invaded my lungs the moment I exited. Cars lined the usually empty space, making their own pattern for a lot. A lotta people were blocked in, but I wasn’t. I parked right up front so I could pull right out.

Pulling my phone out of my pocket, I dialed up Jru. His young ass should have been in the crib by now. He hadn’t called or texted me, so I was on his ass.

“Yeah,” he answered on the third ring.

“Where are you? I ain’t heard from you since this morning.”

“My bad.” He yawned into the phone. “I came in after practice and crashed. Coach ran the fuck out of us.”

I chuckled and leaned against my truck. “You good, kid, go back to sleep. I should be there in a couple hours. You eat?”

“No. You gonna bring something?”

“Yeah. I got you.”

“Bet.”

“Love you, bro.”

“You too.”

We hung up a few seconds later. In this life, all I had was Jru. He was my responsibility, had been since I was eleven and he was four. After our father died, our mother couldn’t give the pipe up, so it was always him and me.

I looked up and my eyes landed on Ben walking toward me with Alley and Moanie in tow. He rubbed his hands together with a big ass smile on his face. He was definitely on some mack shit.

“Food it is,” he said in a giddy ass tone that had me shaking my head.

My eyes immediately found Moanie who seemed unsure but had apparently agreed to go. Nine times out of ten, peer pressure from her blood did that.

“Get in the back with me, Alley,” Ben called out, hopping in on the passenger side and scooting into the seat behind mine.

Mama didn’t raise a gentleman; shit, she didn’t raise me at all. That didn’t mean I wouldn’t open the door for shorty. She seemed like the timid type. Fine and quiet. Refined, almost. So, what the fuck was she doing out here?

I opened her door then stood to the side, waiting for her to get in.

“Thank you.”

I nodded and closed the door, moving around to my side. Once inside I started it up and peeled out of the park.

I didn’t bother asking where to go, because at this time of night only a few places were open.

“So, you’re a poet?” she asked, turning her entire being in my direction since we were sitting next to one another. Ben and her cousin had long since made their way to the restaurant’s washroom.

I shook my head. “Nah, but I feel like it could’ve been my style in a different life.”

She nodded. “Vague, but I get that.”

I chuckled. “Damn sure wasn’t trying to be. You talking now, sweetheart?”

“I guess so. Shit, one of us has to, you were perfectly content with drinking that thick ass milkshake and staring out the window, right?”

Again I was laughing. “Wasn’t ’bout to force no words out of you.”

“Well thank you for that. Sometimes you have to sit back and peep the scene, rather than doing all the talking.”

I nodded, understanding exactly what she meant. The motherfucker in the room doing all the talking was telling too much at all times. “You ’ont do this shit too often, do you?” It was my turn to ask a question.

She shook her head. “Not at all. I’m boring. If I’m not at work, then I’m at home. I don’t do weekend plans. Just so happens this week I let my cousin talk me into this.”

“What you think?”

“I think you’re a poet. You have this presence and cadence that’s truly out of this world. You don’t mumble, you respect the words in a way that only a poet can.”

“Well, when you put it into those words, I guess you could say that, huh?” I was inclined to agree with her.

She shrugged. “But what do I know? I’m just a woman with a deep love for poetry.”

I smiled.

“Oh, he smiled. Not grins or grunts. You know you’re handsome when you’re mugged up, but even more handsome when you’re smiling.” She laughed, pouring syrup on her pancakes.

“What’s that supposed to mean, shorty?”

“You’re not much of a smiler. You seemed extremely irritated on stage and even in the car. I was wondering if that was just your demeanor or if you were truly irritated.”

“Says the motherfucker who was mugged up looking out the window. This my facial expression, what about you?” I pointed with the piece of bacon in my hand before I brought it to my lips.

She laughed. “Even though it’s my face as well, I was a little irritated. I think I have a little bit of the ’tism. I hate when plans change, like I really like sticking to routines and a schedule. Any deviation pisses me off and I overthink to calm myself down.”

“Tism?” I quizzed, eyes narrowed in confusion.

“Autism. Meaning I think I’m a little neurodivergent,” she explained, reaching for her orange juice.

“Well shit, if that’s a couple of the symptoms then sign me up. I’ve been that way since I was a youngin. I just figured it came from the way I grew up.” I shrugged, not caring for the fact that I spoke so freely around a woman I didn’t know shit about.

“Same. I fe—” She was about to say something else but her cousin’s high pitched voice filled the space.

“Damn, y’all ordered and started eating without us?” Alley’s hair was all over her head and her clothes disheveled.

I looked away, eyes landing back on Moanie. Shorty was taken aback. I didn’t know her from a can of paint but I could tell she didn’t know her blood got down this way. Lowkey, it took everything in me not to bust up laughing. I held that shit in and ate my food.