The two men lost a couple of hours bullshitting, unfurling old stories, adding the odd embellishment here and there. Reggie, eyes animated, retelling that one about the Cuban club-owner who refused them entry on the opening night of his club. The Cuban was a big boy, all right. Maybe not so big that you couldn't slide a cheque past him when he stood in a doorway, as Reggie suggested. But the man was a lump.

It had been a typical August night, sticky, airless heat, mosquitos hovering around in the dark waiting to feast on any exposed skin. The two boys wanted to be inside, press their sweaty flesh, with the slinky mamacitas moving snakelike to the mambo beat. Never going to happen, the owner objecting to Ricky's choice of footwear. Far worse crimes against fashion on display on the heaving dancefloor.

Reggie got in on the argument, pissed they were denied entry on account of flip-flops. That's when the big Cuban brought race into the equation. Bad move. Reggie collapsed his ass with one punch. Ricky smashing the bouncer in the solar-plexus before the lumbering giant got any heroic ideas.

Hard to believe that had happened almost twelve years ago. The two men had known each other about three years by that time. First clapped eyes on each other in a dingy, smoke-filled dive-bar in Alicante. The place was grimy, patrons using the floor for an ashtray. Reggie, fresh in town, had spent half the evening traipsing the city, searching for anywhere showing the finals. Needed to see this one, his beloved Celtics taking on the Lakers. He settled onto a hard-backed stool by the bar, bottle of corona in hand. One eye on the game, one ear on the guy at the other end chatting up the Russian bar-girl, intrigued by this wiry white-boy tossing out American phrases in a thick Irish accent.

At the end of the first quarter, Reggie bought the man a beer. Discovered the guy had spent three years living in Boston. After that, the conversation flowed as quick as the beers, the pair of them racing towards wasted by the time the final whistle blew. A few things were said that made Reggie think they shared more in common than onetime residency in his hometown. An attitude, and mentality that didn't jive with the teaching position the Irishman claimed to hold.

They met up a few nights later for the next game. After some initial cagey verbal shadow-boxing, and due in no small part to the drink, certain pertinent facts came to light. Turned out the Paddy had slipped off to the city on the hill to escape the attention of Irish police. The man's crew hitting armoured vans like it was going out of fashion. Reggie, a long-time practitioner of the old tax-free armed withdrawal, had found himself a new buddy. Since then, the two amigos had been through more heavy-duty shit than a sewage plant.

Reggie looked at the thick silver watch on his wrist. "Reminiscing times over, cuz. Gotta go see the man."

Stepping out on the street, they slipped on their shades. The two men looked at each other. Swapped smiles. Felt like old times, again.

"What you think of the ride?" Reggie said, waiting for a reaction.

Ricky stared at the cream-coloured RV, unimpressed. "Looks like you been watching too much Breaking Bad."

"What... Not that piece of shit. I look like no mullet-wearing, broke-assed trailer-park boy to you?" Fishing the keys from his pocket, he aimed the fob at the shiny Rover MG parked at the end of the narrow street. "This how Reggie roll."

"You jack this?"

"You see a brother with a flash motor, you gonna automatically assume its stolen? What kinda ass-ignorant shit is that?"

Ricky smirked, like he knew better. "Reggie, I see you in a motor cost more than my crib. I know it ain't legit."

"Just get in the car already." Reggie opened the driver's door, slid into the bucket-seat, leather squeaking under his ass. Eyeing Ricky, as he stuck the key in the ignition. "You best not even think about lighting up."

"You worried about cancer?"

"Smell that air." Reggie inhaled deeply for effect. "That's pine fresh, motherfucker. And it gonna stay that way, else they be putting you in a pine box. You feel me?"

Ricky slipped the cigarette back into the pack, scowling.

"Four years, I been breathing in industrial-strength bleach and festering feet. This here..." Forget it. Ricky staring out the window, paying him no heed. Reggie switched the sound-system on.

On the coastal motorway cruising at a steady sixty, the briny sea air rushing through the open window. Take a peek at that sky, so blue you wishing the rapture come, so you could rise up and bathe in the bitch. Man, all those days Reggie had spent stretched out on the top bunk, staring up at the cold, grey cell ceiling dreaming of these simple pleasures.

All those frustrating hours imagining the unattainable, dull hours moving at the speed of stoned sheep. Until that afternoon, the guard came by Reggie's cell, telling him he had a visitor. First visit he'd gotten in three years. A dude in a fine Italian suit sat on the other side of the plexiglass, receiver up to his ear, pulling down the blue surgical mask to give Reggie that business smile. That same smile he wore in court when he had pleaded Reggie's case to an unsympathetic judge. Now, the man's voice rattling in his eardrum, promising he could wrangle Reggie an early release. How he will work his case. Pro Bono. Of course, the man had an angle. Sharp bastard had more angles than a Rubik cube. What bugged Reggie was, he hadn't figured them out yet.

"You got any Wu-tang?" Ricky's husky voice, derailing his train of thought. His friend had been doling out the silent treatment for the past ten minutes, starts talking when Reggie trying to think.

"What... No... I look like Tower records?"

"Hip-hop's gone to shit."

Reggie wanting to let it slide, but couldn't. "Whatcha talkin' 'bout?"

Ricky got that look, the bridge of his nose scrunched, black eyebrows almost meeting. "Bunch of auto-tuned pussies, mumbling 'bout how they gonna pop this and that. Got more front than Macys."

"You trippin', brothers are in the entertainment business. Bobby DeNiro plays killers. You think he actually murder anybody."

"DeNiro ain't claiming he's a straight-up killer. The clue's in his job-description. Actor. Plus, I ain't never heard him threaten to waste Sammy Jackson."

"What's your point?"

"What's my point? My point is, rappers nowadays are as fake as wrestling. I mean, would you want any these guys on a bit of work?"

"Would I take a musician on a job? That's what you're askin' me?"

"Back in the day you had Cube and Ice-T. Those guys were real. Cube hit you with that angry look. You know he mean business. He tell you he's coming straight outta Compton with a sawn-off. You believe him."

"So?"

"Your imagination don't have to get too elastic to picture him in a ski-mask, telling folks to hit the floor."

"Man, I can't believe I'm having this conversation with you. Rap's about empowerment. Using street-knowledge to buck a corrupt system designed to hold us down. Brothers be using words as their tools, telling their stories. Ain't no cartoon fantasy for white folks to get off on."

"You should see the shit-hole I grew up in," Ricky said, anger bringing out the accent. The full Irish. "Rats wouldn't set foot in the place. Horses in the lifts, smack-heads leaving syringes on the stairs. Oh, it was a cartoon, all right. Fuckin' Looney Tunes."

Reggie cracked a smile. "Okay, so we both a product of a shitty environment. Ain't a competition."

"Poverty's poverty."

"Feel better now? Got that out of your system."

"I'm just sayin'."

"Keep the rage dogs on a leash. Save it for the job."

Reggie leaned forward, hit the button toggling between the radio and the CD-changer. He clicked the button again; the tray trundling into place. Marvin Gaye's Greatest Hits. The Prince of Motown's smooth, soulful tenor filled the dead air in the car. The two men inside, grooving to I heard it through the grapevine.

Reggie glanced across at his pal, singing out of tune. He chuckled to himself. Little man—Ricky barely scraping 5'8—with big issues. Cat come across as congenial, full of Celtic charm, with that sleep-eyed look from all the dope he smokes. But if you paid close attention, now and then, you'd catch the crazy dancing in the man's eyes. Never know what he was liable to do.

"The hell we have here?" Traffic, now, slowing to a crawl in both lanes, less than a kilometre from Alicante. Tall hotel-blocks dominated the skyline in the distance, police jeeps cordoning off the roads leading to them. Reggie looked in the rear-view, the car behind tailgating him, humping his bumper.

Ricky sniffed. "Lockdown. The new normal."

"What kinda Dickian shit is this?"

"Dickian?"

"Yeah, muthafucker, I read. What else you gonna do in the joint?"

"I'm tryna picture you getting jiggy with Charles Dickens."

"Dick—ian. As in Philip K. Dick. Man was prescient, could see where this world was headed—Why couldn't I be down with Dickens? You think a brother should stick to Wright and Ellison?"

"Who—The light-bulb fella?" Reggie eyed his partner. Hard to tell if he was serious, or playing. Ricky made a point of being dumb when the occasion suited. An abrasive negativist. He'd read about that type in the psychology book he studied in the can. One of the few English-language books in the prison library. He recognised Ricky's personality in the description.

Reggie drummed his fingers on the wheel. What right did Ricky have to be pissed? He hadn't spent the last four years of his life eating whatever that slop was the prison system had the cojones to pass off as food. "Goddamn, you one step beneath remedial. Ralph Ellison. The Invisible Man."

"Hated that movie. Don't know why they gotta remake the classics. Never in the history of cinema has a—"

"I envy Christians. They believe hell only comes after yo ass is dead. I wish—" Reggie broke off. He noticed the driver of the car at the head of the queue exiting their vehicle. Now, locked in an arm gesturing conversation with a uniformed police officer.

Damn, this wasn't good. No way of turning back. Bang goes the MG.

On his second morning back in the free world, Reggie had strolled into a car-dealership, armed with his residency papers. And bogus payslips from a shady brokerage firm his sleazeball lawyer had rustled up. The pandemic hitting car-sales so hard the over-eager salesman had shoved Reggie into the automobile.

Upon sticking his John Hancock on the bottom of the rental agreement, Reggie drove off the lot in his spanking new motor. Hadn't parted with a red-cent. Two months, and plenty of dodged calls later, he still hadn't. Repo men were scouring the streets for this motor, and now they would find it. At the police impound. Goddamn, bad luck seemed to shadow him like that raven in the Edgar Allan Poe poem..

Reggie had reconciled with the idea of getting a taxi home when he spotted Ricky lifting his shirt and pulling out a piece. "You have got to be shitting me." Ricky hit him with an innocent look, made Reggie want to lay him out. "Why would you even...We're going to a meet."

Ricky carefully placed the Glock down on the road-maps bundled together in the glove compartment. "Only place I ever enter naked is a shower."

"Man, I should kill your dumb ass..."

"Relax will yeh. It's weekend curfew, they're checking for passes—"

"You need a pass to get into the city? And you're telling me this, now."

"You don't got one?"

"How'm I supposed to have one, when I didn't even know I needed one."

Ricky clicked his tongue. "Tricky. Could be looking at a hefty fine."

"I'm looking at a cell, they search this motor."

"My shooter, my rap." Reggie looked at him, furious. Never wanted to stomp a mudhole in anyone's ass so bad.

Marvin on the stereo singing, Inner city blues make me wanna holler.

Reggie switched the sound off, watching the cop approach the window. Middle-aged, judging by the gut and the fact his waistband came halfway up it. Only slivers of his face showing, the rest hidden by the mask, shades, and peaked cap. Not that Reggie was complaining. With their surgical masks and shades on, he and Ricky could pass for law-abiding citizens.

Reggie hit the button for the window. "Buenas Tardes." The cop nodded. He looked the type would rest his folded arms on the window, stick his head in and let you know who's boss. Not now, he wouldn't. Had to maintain a safe distance from the car.

"¿Papeles?" the cop said in a bored monotone. Reggie hesitated. What could he say? That's when Ricky jumped in, started running a spiel on him.

Ricky telling the cop he needed to get to his AA meeting, how Reggie was his sponsor. The barrier keeping him from diving into the bottom of a bottle in these troubling times. Especially now that he'd gotten news that his old man's cancer had spread to the lung. All in pidgin Spanish layered with a thick Irish accent. But the cop seemed to follow. Follow, he was holding Ricky's hand as the mad Paddy led him down the yellow-brick road.

Reggie's smile remained in place long after the cop had waved them through. "You're something else. You could talk your way out of a headache."

"I've had plenty of those."

"For a man obsessed with keeping it real, you sure know your way around a lie."

"I went to three meetings when I first quit. And the old man's cancer has spread. The most believable lies are adhesive to the truth."

"That's messed up..."

"Worked, didn't it?"

"I meant about your pops."

"Yeah, well, what're you gonna do?"

A brief silence ensued.

"Let's go holler at mister Green," Reggie said. "See if he can't give us a hundred thousand reasons to get them Irish eyes smiling."