Outside of Fort Worth, TX.

Night of April 24.

Year’s 2065.

Beautiful starry night.

I brush the lapels on my tuxedo and check the shine on my Stacy Adams Oxford shoes.

My wife, my life, my soulmate whispers into my one good ear: “Happy 84^th, baby.”

She links my arm and we descend the staircase to a big-ass stage built out over the lake on my 1,000-acre ranch.

Hundreds of my friends and family stand and applaud.

All except for one intense young dude who watches from a distance.

Everyone else starts to sing “Happy Birthday.”

Get to that age, there’s no sweeter sound...

Apart from the phone ring updating my portfolio status.

And there’s the magic number I’ve been waiting over 50 years to see…

$19.9 trillion.

“We made it,” I say to my wife.

But soon the singing voices are drowned out by the phone which rings louder and louder and now all I want is for that goddam ringing to stop…

For those of you who know it, I’m imagining myself in the party scene from the movie “Meet Joe Black” where Anthony Hopkins tells his guests his birthday wish:
“That you would have a life as lucky as mine, where you can wake up one morning and say, "I don't want anything more."”

In that movie, the young dude watching him is Death, who bargains with Hopkins to give him more time on Earth.  

The man watching me in my vision was God. 

I know one day I’ll live into all this, but for now, that goddamn non-stop ringing is what’s up.

*****

United States Penitentiary, Pollock.

Louisiana.

Year’s 2014.

The ringing that won’t stop is the lockdown bell.

All hell has broken loose on my dorm again.

Word is some homie got shanked on the next dorm over.

Normally that would mean weeks of being locked up 23 hours a day.

“Exercise” is an hour in a tiny cage with just a narrow beam of sunlight streaming down from the heavens for company.

But I’m on lockdown for some other shit anyways.

As the chaos rolls on outside my cell, I slump in my bunk.

I’m reading this old-ass book from 1912 called “The Master Key System” for the third time.

This book taught me to visualize the future life I wanted, and to hold onto it so tight that I’ll eventually live into it.

And for me that’s the $19.9 trillion I’ll be worth by my 84^th birthday surrounded by family and friends.  

But looking round my concrete cell, my bitch-ass ego shuts me down real quick.

“Yeah right. Your ass ain’t gonna do that. You ain't shit. You’re in lockdown in a maximum-security penitentiary. What do you mean, $19.9 trillion? Soulmate, great grandkids, a fucking ranch? Look at you. Fucking loser.”

At the time, that bitch-ass ego voice wasn't too far wrong.

*****

Fort Worth, TX

It’s November.

Year’s 2005.

Beautiful Saturday morning, sun shining hot as shit.

I’m deep in selling drugs and being stupid out in the street.

My oldest daughter, she’s 9 at the time, rolls up as I’m ready to head out.

“Wanna play chase in the park, Daddy?” she asks, bouncing in circles around me with those big hopeful eyes.

“Nah baby, Daddy’s gotta work, you know?” and I kiss her and head out.

I don’t look back because I don’t want to see those big eyes all sad and shit.

So I head off to work.
And by “work” I mean go to some homeboy’s house to drink and party.

But I get to that crib and everybody’s still passed out from the night before.

So I'm just sitting there in the dark waiting for these drunk-ass homies to wake up so I can get loaded, and I picture my daughter’s wide eyes looking up at me all disappointed.

And I realize I’m only 25 and I’m tired of this life, man.

Sick of all the lying and dealing and fighting and thieving.

So I look up at the cracked ceiling and put this on God.

“I don’t wanna do this shit no more. But I’m not gonna change because it’s too easy. So I’m putting it on you, bro. And whatever you decide, I’ll trust you on, but I don’t want to do this alone. God, bro, you tell me what’s up.”

Few months later, I get sent down to a maximum security penitentiary for eight years and one month for “conspiracy to manufacture and distribute methamphetamines.”

God damn, bro… that’s what’s up?
*****

My dad was murdered when I was nine.

And in my neighborhood, my options were the military, prison, or drugs.

But the military turned me down ‘cause of a tiny patch of eczema on my leg.

And my grandfather was a known drug Kingpin, so I enlist for that life instead.

Time I’m 19 I’m smuggling heroin in from Ecuador.

Six years later I’m slinging 40 kilos of coke and 1,000 pounds of weed a month.

But at the time, the new money, the real money?

That’s in methamphetamine.

And soon I’m moving 20 kilos of ice a month.

I’m rolling in the dough.

But, this game?

The higher you get, the longer the fall.

*****

It’s July 4^th.

Year’s 2012.

In the Pen., bad is good, and good is bad.

The crazier you are, the more respect you get.

The more you keep your head down, the sharks sniff blood and come at you.

Soon I’m running with a top crew.

We got knives, drugs, and thousands in stamps (cash) stashed in a false wall in the locker.

Hell, we even got our own Mexican chef.

Now all that shit is fought and paid for, so you hold tight to what you got. 

And when the cell doors are open like today, rule is you keep your knife on you ‘cause some asshole’s always looking to get his piece of the pie.

Kinda funny celebrating Independence Day in the lockup, but whatever man, me and my crew are partying hard.

I’m fucked up on moonshine and run out.

I pack my big-ass bone-crusher knife and head out for more ‘shine.

But I’m so smashed I “fall out of bounds” into another dorm.   

I find the guy who has the ‘shine.

Now he’s kinda in our group, but nobody likes him.

And I pull rank hard on this loser.

“Knife check,” I grunt as I snatch the ‘shine from him.

“It’s in my locker, so what?” Fool’s feeling brave now he’s all liquored up.

So I beat his ass down and then tell him to walk me back to my dorm so the guards don’t stop me and pat me down.

Well halfway back I turn and this asshole’s not there.

He’s rolling back up the stairs to his dorm.

I chase him down and we get into it and the ‘shine has me in a blind rage and next thing I know I’m stabbing him.

Now he’s bleeding everywhere, and I slip and fall on his damn blood.

And guess what?

The knife I just told him to get is in his hand now, and he jumps on me and starts stabbing me, and then I hear this loud pop.

He’s stabbed me right in my fucking ear.

He sees the blood and stops, thinking he just killed me.

Must be the ‘shine give me strength, but somehow I get up and stagger towards the Medical room pouring blood with a damn knife sticking out my ear.

And as I fight to keep from blacking out, these three things come to mind…

1. All the coulda-woulda-shoulda’s from my life ran through my head.

2. I can’t believe I’m going to die in this hellhole, and

3. It doesn’t matter now anyways, I’m gone.

Then I drop to the floor and as my lights go out, that third one gives me peace.

*****

Year’s 2014.

It’s two years on, and I’m still in my cell with the rioting happening outside.

Shitty as that is, at least I ain't dead.

I did die on that filthy dorm floor though.

The ambulance crew told me they brought me back...
I guess God, you weren’t done with my lesson just yet.

Let my own stupidity kill me then you bring me back to life to finish out my time?

God, bro, that's some cold shit.

But anyways today? As the homies riot outside my door? I’m reading this old-ass book I mentioned called “The Master Key System.”

It has me envisioning my future rich-ass life full of love and family and prosperity, and I realize that all the bad in my life? I envisioned that too.

I mean I drove around with ten-kilo bags of coke like I was taking pinatas full of candy to a quinceanera.

But when I stepped up to dealing ice I was warned that this was serious shit.

At every buy, another guy would say: “Be careful.” “Don’t say nothing.” “Keep your nose clean when you’re carrying this shit.”

And I couldn’t wait to get rid of even the tiniest piece of it.

That’s why I sold that last pound to some guy I didn’t know, just to get rid of it.

That guy was a snitch.

So I figured if I thought my way into all this shit, I could think my way out of it.

Because I know my soulmate and all my family and friends are waiting to sing “Happy Birthday” to me by the lake of my big-ass ranch.

And as I turn 84, the only ringing in my ears will be my phone telling me I’ve hit $19.9 trillion.

And God? I know you’ll be watching over me from a distance.

Bro, you ran me hard, but props man, I deserved every piece of it.

And even with my busted-ass hearing, I’m finally able to hear what you’ve been telling me all along.

And with your help, bro?
I got it from here.