Free Dollar Bill by Joy

Would you like to try to eat something?”
    Slightly disappointed that Crissy was referring to real food and not her private part that she had been referring to in his vision, Dollar nodded his head. “Yeah, that’s cool,” Dollar replied.
    â€œDon’t sound so depressed,” Crissy said. “How about we skip this jailhouse food and I give you the sandwich from my lunch? It’s salami on rye, decked with lettuce, tomato, and onion.”
    â€œYeah, that would be nice,” Dollar moaned with a smile on his face.
    â€œOkay, you try to stay awake and I’ll be right back,” Crissy said, heading out the door. “Oh, and Dareese, I was just kidding about that heaven thing. God forgives us all.”

CHAPTER 6
    Rules of the Game
    It was a few days before Dollar returned to general population. He hated that every time an inmate walked by him they hissed and laughed at the back brace he sported.
    â€œDamn, Dollar,” this faggot-ass dude named Shawny said as he brushed by Dollar with his little T-shirt tied into a knot at his belly button. “If I had known you put your back into it like that, I would have tattooed your name on my ass years ago.”
    The inmates within ear distance laughed as if they were watching Def Comedy Jam. Dollar just brushed that shit off and went on about his business.
    He passed a table where a game of chess between Romeo and some other inmate was taking place. As Romeo began to make his move, he spotted Dollar walking by. A grim grin took over the bottom portion of his face as he declared checkmate against his opponent without taking his eyes off of Dollar.
    Dollar stared him down all the same. Fuck it! Dollar looked at it this way: both them niggaz was going to die in jail anyway. They might as well go out gangsta. Although Dollar was in no position to battle, he wasn’t going to bow down to no man. The look he gave Romeo confirmed such.
    Ironically, Dollar’s life always seemed to come full circle. Like déjà vu, one night, right before lights out, Romeo appeared outside of Dollar’s cell. Dollar was ready for the old man this time though. Earlier that day, while Dollar was shaving, he removed the blade and placed it under his tongue. When he returned to his cell, he inserted it into the bristles of his toothbrush and secured it with tape. Fuck buying a dozen cans of soda pop and loading his pillowcase with them to blast Romeo with. Dollar was going for the jugular. The old man had brought out something in Dollar that he had managed to bury deep inside his soul: the killer in him.
    â€œI bet you think that was me who busted up your back in the shower,” Romeo said, tooting on a cancer stick.
    â€œLook, old man,” Dollar said, raisin’ up off of his bed. “Fuck you and the mind games you playin’. If you got beef, then come on wit’ it. Like I said before, let’s do the damn thang.”
    Romeo couldn’t help but burst out laughing. “You little niggaz kill me. What is it y’all call yourselves? Hard? Ain’t nothin’ hard about you hoes except for your dicks when you wake up in the morning. Put the Old Gs back on the street and we’ll show y’all dumb bitches how the game is played.”
    â€œWell from the looks of all the Old Gs occupying these prison cells, y’all lost the muthafuckin’ game.”
    â€œYeah, but that’s when the teachin’ comes in,” Romeo said, exhaling two synchronized streams of smoke from his nostrils. “When you lose, you have time to sit back and think of where you fucked up along the way. Mentally, you can correct that shit. Of course you can’t go back in time and change things, but you can school the next muthafucker tryin’ to come up in the game. Take you, for instance. You sat with your back against the world. What kind of shit is that? The world is your enemy and you turn your back to it. You assumed because