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D-Boy will shoot you if you even look hard at Sly.”
    We had reached my stoop, and I asked Terrell if he wanted to come in.
    â€œNo, I got to pick up my sister from church,” he answered.
    â€œShe goes to church in the evenings?” I asked.
    â€œThe building fund has a meeting,” he said. “I’ll call you later.”
    Terrell lived on the hill. I watched him walk to the corner, and then I started walking into my building.
    â€œHey, Paul, what you doing with your young self?” Sly was about six feet two, well built, and wore frameless glasses on the end of his nose.
    â€œSame old, same old,” I said.
    â€œYou need to make twenty-five dollars in a hurry?” Sly asked. He had a toothpick in the corner of his mouth.
    â€œNo.”
    â€œWhy, you got rich since the last time I saw you?” Sly looked at me sideways.
    â€œI got a job,” I said. “It gets me over.”
    â€œWhere you working?”
    â€œAt a soup kitchen,” I said. “Well, sort of a soup kitchen. This guy makes soup every day for senior citizens.”
    â€œYou talking about Elijah Jones’s place on 144th Street, across from the school?” Sly asked.
    â€œYeah, you know him?”
    â€œYeah, I know him,” Sly said. “Old man, got that old man thing going on. You know, catch some holiness before he passes on. What do they say these days? Getting right before the sunset.”
    â€œHe’s okay,” I said.
    â€œHe’s talking to you about Jesus and getting saved?” Sly asked.
    â€œNo, about something called the social contract,” I said.
    â€œThe social contract?” Sly’s eyes kept shifting up and down the street. “Yeah, yeah, I’m hip to that scene.”
    â€œNo, this isn’t like a real contract—” I started.
    â€œIt’s an agreement between people to surrender some of their rights so that they can live in peace with one another,” Sly said. “That’s what he told you?”
    â€œYou know about the social contract?”
    â€œI don’t go around in a cap and gown, so I’m supposed to be stupid or something?” Sly asked.
    â€œI didn’t say that,” I said.
    â€œI studied the social contract at Grambling,” Sly said. “But when I see young brothers like you scared to make twenty-five dollars, I can tell it’s not working. The social contract has you running scared, right?”
    â€œNo.” I could feel my heart beating faster.
    â€œYeah, it does,” Sly said. “That’s what it’s supposed to do. Set up a bunch of rules so that some people can stay on top and be comfortable while people like you and me can learn to get comfortable on the bottom. Elijah’s making the bottom feel good, but it’s still the bottom.”
    â€œI see you’ve been talking to him,” I said.
    â€œI used to rap to him some when I was your age,” Sly said. “Liked him, too. He taught history in the public school system and did odd jobs to make enough money to buy a little real estate. I saw how he and a whole lot of people like him went around smiling and telling people how they’re blessed.”
    â€œI don’t think he’s that religious,” I said.
    â€œYeah, he is.” Sly checked his watch. “You scratch a do-gooder and they got a religious streak somewhere in them. So you want to make the twenty-five dollars or not?”
    â€œWhat do I have to do?”
    â€œFirst, wipe the scared look off your face,” Sly said, smiling. “The cops see a black teenager walking down the street looking scared, they’re liable to arrest you on the spot. Then go to the corner store, buy a bottle of soda, and go up to Broadhurst Avenue and give it to the first brother you see looks like he can use a cold drink. Then come back here and tell me what he said when you gave him the soda.”
    â€œThat’s