The Thingamajig...

“I got the thing a ma jig?” Derrick Sampson blurted out, reaching over the seat of the car. He was seventeen, a clean-cut, short-haired boy from the South Side trying to escape any way he could.

“How the hell did you get one of those? Legally?” Terrel Thomas replied, hitching up his pants like he was bracing for a fight. A year younger, same school, same class: same everything except height and hope. “That thing a ma jig is fire! Where’d you find it?”

“Obviously uptown. They don’t carry this kind of shit down here,” Derrick said. Uptown… where gentrification spread like COVID... quick, merciless, and polite. Corner stores became candle shops. Check-cashing joints turned into kombucha cafés. And neighbors? They turned into squatters, vanished without warning.

“Uptown?” Terrel raised an eyebrow. “You mean where people jog with dogs that wear shoes?” His hair hung in loose, tired braids, the ends frayed like rope scraped against concrete. “I’m surprised you went up there,” he muttered. “You know they got pigs in roll-ups, unmarked vans snatching dudes like it’s Gaza. And all them pigs live in houses made of bricks... not like the straw-mouth, plywood shit eating pigs down here.” He laughed, but it didn’t last. “Ain’t nobody blowin their house down. I guess that’s why the cops around here beat us harder, just to keep their houses up.”

“Sometimes you gotta walk through the fire,” Derrick said, voice low. “Especially if that’s the only way out da house.”

“What fire?” Terrel asked.

“You aint coughin from all the smoke? I been breathing it since I was born... that's why I went Uptown.” Derrick grinned. “I hit up this dude online. Met him up there ‘cause... get this... he was too scared to drive his Tesla down here.”

“Bro… people still brave enough to drive Teslas?” Terrel squinted like he just saw a ghost walk out the laundromat.

“Yeah, I almost hit him with the Tesla slap.”

“What that, D?”

“You know... the Nazi backhand. Kids don’t play punch buggy no more. Now we slap privilege. Every time somebody says ‘Tesla,’ you gotta swing.”

“Damn, D... that’s wild.” Terrel scanned the block. “There go a Tesla right there.” He thumped a fist to his chest like a fallen soldier rising from the grave, cocked his arm back slow like he was charging up, and swung it toward Derrick’s jaw but stopped abruptly before tasting skin.

Derrick flinched hard. “Yo! Chill!”

“Come on, bro. We on the South Side. Ain’t no Candace Owens drivin’ Teslas down here unless she tryna get jumped by her ancestors.” Terrel shook his head, laughing. “So what you gonna do with it?”

“I’m gonna shove it up your ass…” Derrick snorted, then leaned in. “Nah, but on the real, this ain’t no toy. This right here? This is the opportunity. The thing that flips the game.”

“How you gonna do that?” T asked, scratching at a spot in his locs like he was trying to rub the doubt out.

Derrick laid back, eyes on the cracked ceiling of his 1994 Nissan Altima, “Man… the way I see it... with folks losing jobs, houses, whole damn identities… who even wanna work anymore? This the age of social media, and as a Black boy, we only got four real ways to make it.” He ticked them off on his fingers. “One… post some fake-ass article about how I graduated Harvard at 17, even though I still owe Ms. Franklin that book report. Two… go full MAGA, like your girl Candace or that sweaty fat boy on Fox. Three… sell pyramid schemes to broke folks on Instagram, talkin’ ‘bout generational wealth. Or four… be entertaining. Real loud. Real funny. Real harmless.” He turned to T, dead serious now. “So which one you think we going for?”

“Oh shizzle! Let me borrow that thang!” Crackhead Tina popped up at the window like a damn jump scare, all elbows and cracked lips, looking like she was dusted in cocaine and disappointment. Her skin flaked like powdered drywall, and she smelled like old mildew that’d been slow cooked in a hot car.

Derrick nearly smacked his head on the ceiling, knocking more foam loose from the lining. “What the… Tina?! Back up! You can’t smoke this, dummy!” She leaned closer, eyes wild, gums flashing. “Tina, I swear to God,” Derrick continued, waving her off. “Your breath smell like it could knock a buzzard off a shit wagon. A dead buzzard.”

“Good one, D… roll up the damn window already.” T waved his hand like he was swatting flies made of funk. Derrick rolled it up slow, fanning the stench out through the inch-wide tinted crack. Tina smacked the glass with an open palm.

“Oh, you talkin’ now, huh? Little nappy-headed boy…” she sneered. “That’s cool. I’ma re-up with yo mother. She know what’s good.”

“Yo…” Derrick jerked the gear into drive, “I know she ain’t comin’ over here.” He pulled across the street to the carryout, tires crunching over broken glass and chicken bones.

“Ms. Singh gon’ run out and set her ass straight. Ever since she got banned from the carryout,” D said, pulling into the lot.

“Yeah, but that bitch got banned from the laundromat too... for breakin’ into machines,” T added, shaking his head.

Derrick nodded. “Yeah, but the laundromat don’t got Ms. Singh and her Louisville Slugger. Man, if they ever catch her on video? The Nationals gon’ give that old chick a call-up. Put her on shortstop. She got hands.”

“Please… they gonna stick that big bitch and her limp at first base…” T chuckled.

Derrick paused, then looked sideways at T. “Damn. I thought your moms stopped slangin’? What happened?”

T scratched the back of his neck, voice dropping a little. “She did, when she got that government promotion. But once she started making just a little bit more, we couldn’t qualify for welfare no more. No food stamps, no energy assistance. Nothin’.”

He sighed. “And here’s the crazy part… we were doin’ better with the benefits. Now we ‘middle class broke.’ Lights still flicker, fridge still empty, but we too ‘successful’ for help.”

Derrick frowned. “Damn.”

“Yeah,” T said, staring out the window. “That’s why I gave up on the music and got a job. Moms just got axed by DOGE last week. Ain’t nothin’ left but hustle now.” He paused, watching a white woman walk a trembling Chihuahua past the carryout. “Damn. They invading the South Side too?”

“Yeah,” D replied. “Saw an article the other day… said you gotta make six figures just to be middle class now and the way they raising rent and utilities... the projects are beginning to look like prospects.”

“You always readin’ and shit,” T said, smirking. “Man, we all thought you’d have that scholarship by now. You the Black Albert Einstein.”

Derrick chuckled, stale and distant. “Gotta read these days, with all this free info floatin’ around. That’s the trap, though... If I was white Einstein? I’d be outta here already. Like DEI… soon as Trump got reelected.”

T ducked down in his seat as a police car crept by, engine rumbling like it was hungry. “Oh shit… here come fake ICE. Let’s dip before they confuse us for some deportees.” He peeked through the cracked window, breath tight. “You know nowadays they don’t even check your documents. They just snatch and ship. No questions, no names. Just gone.” He slapped Derrick’s arm. “Let’s get this thing a ma jig rollin’—now. Before these big bad pigs blow our dreams away.”