The Lost Treasures of R&B. Nelson George
side eyeing the competition, wondering which of these women they’d be punching in a few hours.
In the van Deuce Chainz, the promoter of the Brooklyn B-Girl Fight Club, laid it down for first timers. Winner got three hundred dollars. Losers got fifty. Three rounds of two minutes each. Taped hands but no gloves. Mouth guards. Headgear. No biting. No spitting (unless accidental). No fighting in the van home afterward or you get kicked to the curb.
Once filled with these distaff warriors, the van rolled through a corridor of public housing, past the Tilden, Van Dyke, and Brownsville projects, scattered crumbling tenements from the twentieth century, some tracts of new local church–developed private homes, and then made a right into an industrial park of nondescript two- and three-story factories and warehouses.
The fights moved around to one of three locations in this industrial park up toward Atlantic Avenue. Except for the trainers, the audience was invitation only. Hustlers, thugs, gamblers, pimps, and other choice customers filled the room. Tims, low-slung jeans, colorful underwear, and red bandannas, both in back pockets and around necks, were in abundance. Guns were checked at the door, though Deuce Chainz’s security guards wore visible holsters to let niggas know. This, after all, was the Brooklyn B-Girl Fight Club, a place as combustible as a ghetto gas oven.
Usually deserted at night save the occasional truck, on this evening the street in front of the industrial building teemed with jeeps and pedestrians, a miniparade of folks from Brownsville, East New York, and as far uptown as the Bronx’s Grand Concourse. It was a bimonthly ritual in the heart of the hood that had given the world Eddie “Mustafa” Gregory, Riddick Bowe, and “Iron” Mike Tyson. Brownsville was many things, and one of them was a place where bloody knuckles reigned supreme.
Those standing outside trying to talk their way in were not surprised to see a black Denali jeep parked in front. For any ghetto celebrity, the Brooklyn B-Girl Fight Club was a requisite stop. Some thought the vehicle belonged to fight fan 50 Cent or maybe BK’s de facto mayor Jay-Z. Instead, the hottest young MC in the city, Asya Roc, popped out of the jeep, china-white do-rag offset by his almond, girlish eyes and a mouthful of fronts as amber as a harvest moon.
By his side, in an oversized black tee, black jeans, and sneakers, and a woolly natural hairstyle, was D Hunter: bodyguard, student of musical history, owner of a failing security company, HIV positive, and Brownsville native son.
D never enjoyed coming to these fights (watching out-of-shape women bash for cash didn’t move him), but quite a few Brooklyn MCs did, such as tonight’s client. D was to go with him here and then accompany him to John F. Kennedy International Airport and put him on a flight to Europe. Asya Roc was a new breed of New York rap star who rhymed like he was from ATL or Texas. Atlanta, Memphis, and Miami ran hip hop in the twenty-first century’s second decade, and if you wanted to be on the radio, even in New York, you had better put some twang in your delivery, cuz. Asya was from Canarsie, but on record he sounded like a Southern boy cruising in a candy-colored Caddy.
The bout underway featured Bloody Knuckles versus BAD, a.k.a. Bad Azz Beeyatch. Bloody Knuckles was a big gal with short dyed-blond hair and a couple of twisty tattoos on her fleshy, light-brown arms. She had no technique but swung fast and often and would definitely hurt you when she landed solid. BAD was taller but slighter, with Michael Jordan–like dark-chocolate skin, actual muscle tone, and she had some training. Her jab was very crisp and quickly she was bloodying her knuckles on Bloody Knuckles’s nose. Jab. Jab. Jab.
Asya stood next to Junot, a Dominican fool with more diamonds in his mouth than on his glittering chain. The two were rooting for different girls just for the hell of it. Neither was invested in the fighters—as athletes, women, or even human beings.
From behind D a voice said, “You got a good heart, dude.”
D turned to his right and there stood Ice, big bald head, thin salt-and-pepper line of a hair around his jawline, and drooping eyes. His burly shoulders, product of many jailhouse bench-press reps, were the size of newborn babies. The last time D had seen Ice was in the basement of a house in Canarsie a couple of years back. Also in that basement, tied to a chair, had been a rogue FBI agent (and wannabe hip hop mogul) named Eric Mayer, a nasty manipulator who’d engineered the killing of a woman dear to D along with two decades of other foul behavior. D had nodded his consent and hadn’t looked back. The rogue agent hadn’t been heard from and these two hadn’t spoken since.
“Quiet has kept, you do too,” D said back.
“In my own damn way.” He gazed over at Asya Roc. “You backstopping the star over there?”
“As best I can.”
“Hope you can get him out of here safe,” Ice said. “A lot of people in here would like to pistol-whip him and then piss on what’s left.”
“I just work for him sometimes.”
“Yeah. You can’t be with him all the time.”
“And I wouldn’t want to be.”
“I bet. He’s why I’m here.” Ice touched the backpack hanging off his left shoulder.
“This a delivery?” D asked, now worried.
Ice nodded. “All the way from one of those states where you can buy gats like Tic Tacs.”
“Why are you doing it yourself?”
“Better me than one of these damn fool kids. Niggas get stupider every day. Believe that.”
Over Ice’s shoulder D noticed a wiry young man who, sans forty pounds and years of hard living, looked a lot like Ice. Clearly they were kin. “He with you?” D asked.
Ice didn’t even turn around. “For the moment.”
The young man looked uneasy and a little angry. Upon hearing Ice’s comment he walked away, muttering, “I’ma go get some water.”
Bloody Knuckles had absorbed the smaller woman’s jabs the entire first round—kind of a ghetto rope-a-dope—and was now using her weight to bully her opponent into corners and was smacking BAD upside the head with disrespectful vigor. It seemed just a matter of time before the smaller woman went down.
“Where is this supposed to happen?” D asked.
“Here. I know a spot in the back.”
“He didn’t tell me.”
“Like I said, stupider every day.”
BAD made a sudden comeback with a quick flurry of jabs before the round ended and, in a savvy preemptive move, raised her hands in victory despite getting pounded for most of round two.
Asya Roc told Junot he’d be right back and strutted over to where D and Ice stood. “I see you guys got acquainted and shit.”
“Yeah,” D said, a little irritated by the kid’s tough-guy tone.
“So,” the MC said, “let’s do this.”
Ice nodded and started past the ring with Asya behind him and D bringing up the rear. Asya Roc didn’t completely owe D an explanation—it was for-hire work, after all. Show up and guard the fool. But making D part of a gun deal wasn’t in his job description. This was felony shit. No plea bargain. Mandatory sentences. A gun deal transacted in the back of an illegal fight club was just plain reckless.
They went through a metal door and into a storage area converted into a dressing room where a bunch of the fighters were in various states of undress and activity. One woman was removing tape from her hand. Another was squeezing her red-tinted weave under headgear. Another was making out with a boyish little teenaged girl. They paid scant attention to the three men.
The trio entered a small washroom—toilet, stall, urinal, sink—all of it grimy. The room smelled like mildew stirred in a blender with vomit. D knew this was about the worst place imaginable for this transaction. One way in and out. No windows. No backup. D was cool with Ice—they had a serious bond—but would Ice have set up a jack move on this sucker MC before he knew D was