It was the seventies, and heroin was still heavy in the hood.
Unpredictability was one of the things that we counted on.
Like the day when I wandered up to something I'd never seen before.
A cipher, but I wouldn't have called it that.
No one would have back then.
I shouldered my way through the crowd, towards the middle.
It felt like gravity pulling me into that swirl of kids, no bullshit.
Like a planet being pulled into orbit by a star.
His name was Slate, and he was a kid I used to see around the neighborhood, an older kid who had barely made an impression on me.
In that circle, though, he was transformed like the church ladies, touched by the spirit, and everyone was mesmerized.
He was rhyming, throwing out couplet after couplet like he was in a trance for a crazy long time, 30 minutes straight off the top of his head, never losing the beat, riding the hand claps.
He rhymed about nothing, the sidewalk, the benches.
Or he'd go in on the kids who were standing around listening to him.
And then he'd go in on how clean he was, how nice he was with the ball, how all the girls loved him.
Then he'd start rhyming about the rhymes themselves, how good they were, how much better they were than yours, and how he was the best that ever did it.
All he had were his eyes taking in everything and the words inside him.
I was dazzled.
That's some cool shit, was the first thing I thought.
Then I could do that.
That night I started writing rhymes in my notebook.