Right after Joey’s punishment, his grounding for the whole Cumberland Farms window breaking episode, and it’s follow up of failing to meet Esperanza, he returns to school to encounter an unexpected adventure!

  I’m shuffling down the hall later in the week, consumed in self-pity, when all of a sudden, a few inches in front of my nose, the boys’ room door swings open violently. A huge cloud of aromatic reefer smoke pours out into the hallway. From behind the door, a large black umbrella with a murderously sharp point, is thrust forcefully right into the leg of Robert Hunter, who unfortunately, just happens to be passing by. He immediately goes down like a deer hit by buckshot, lying on the floor wincing in pain. This is followed by Na-Na Johnson emerging from the smoke, eyes ablaze, glowering over him.

“Get up, simple ass mo’fucka, ‘fore I really cut you!”

Hunter looks up at him with an expression of terror, usually reserved for one of those paintings depicting the victims from The Last Days of Pompeii. He limps to his feet, scurrying down the hall.

An inhuman sort of growl/laugh escapes from the twisted scowl, dredged up from deep inside the solar plexus somewhere. Now the offending umbrella begins to twirl wildly. Apparently, this is just another random attack for Na-Na, and one that is deeply satisfying. Everybody within a fifteen-foot radius scrambles, exposing only me, standing a foot away from him.

“Yo Strong!”

Uh-oh. I stand there frozen, not knowing quite what to expect at this moment.  He advances towards me; the maniacal glaze still evident in his eyes, clamps my shoulder, and without a sound, guides me towards the stairs. We descend one flight, and stop abruptly on the stairwell. Is this going to be the execution? He peeks guardedly around, up and down the steps. What now? I shiver to myself.

“Yo Strong, check this out, man,” he half whispers, eyeing me as if he is about to let me in on a terrifying state secret. 

My next shit, man, that I GOT to do…dig it - I gots to capture some mo’fucka, who is right about to kick it, y’ know what I’m saying?” He pauses, gauging my reaction.

I nod enthusiastically, although I have no real idea of what he’s even talking about.

“Yeah man, that point where the nigga - he jes' got capped, or cut, some shit like that, right. He know he be crossin’ over to the other side, an’ shit, but he right on that last mothafuckin’ breath. He be buggin’, y’ know what I’m sayin’? Cuz he know it comin,’ and that las’ expression on the nigga face, that las’ second befoe he dead, like he almost a ghost. Thass what I wanna get down on paper, man! Gots to capture that las’ mothafuckin’ second in ink, you dig it?”

He stops, again checks me out with a kind of peculiar, almost curious stance.

Seconds tick by as I let what he says sink in. Sink in to my core.

 “Damn! Oh shit, Na-Na…that’s - that’s intense, man.” I exhale.

“Solid.”

 He passes his gaze over me once again, apparently satisfied. 

“Check you later.”