It's Friday...890

Yeah, it's Friday. And it's dark, with the blanket of night that's turned The City into a place full of malice in every alley, and every sidewalk, and every space between parked cars. Only small pools of streetlights give the illusion of safety, but with the passing cars insulated by doors and locks and speed, no one is about to give tonite over towards good-samaritanism. Tonite, Friday is distinctly noir, and 2Pac floats down, flavoring the scene with a more honest modernity.

Let me welcome everybody to the wild wild west, a state that's untouchable like Elliot Ness. The track hits your eardrum like a slug to your chest.

Friday wore a long trench coat, and a fedora, and he carried what looked like a violin case under the crook his arm. Fanning out behind him in a pyramid formation were the assembled weekdays, dressed in suitable attire. They all carried black cases too. Monday had the handle of a guitar case in his left hand, and his eyes sent out waves of malice. Tuesday held over his shoulder the huge case of a stand up bass like it was a rocket-launcher. Wednesday, his suit and overcoat ill-fitting over his hunchback, carried a flat black suitcase and was constantly looking behind the crew. Thursday carried a square trumpet case, and looked at ease in a flashy black suit with a white tie (and black tie-clip), and when his overcoat blew back in the breeze revealed a square folded handkerchief in his breast pocket.

They walked until a driveway off the street crossed their path, and carried a dark river of asphalt up into darkness, into the park. There, two lamp posts lit the entrance - an open gate between an unscaleable fence that guarded the park. Against the left pole leaned a black man, dressed in black Nike shoes, black baggy pants, and a black hoodie which didn't quite cover the white L.A. stitched on a black baseball cap. He eyed the weekdays with barely concealed contempt.

Let me serinade the streets of L.A., from Oakland to Sac-town, the Bay area and back-down, Cali is where they put the mack down Give Me Love!

Friday and the weekdays pulled to a stop, noticing a Latino leaning up against the other pole. He was thick, young, and full of tough. He wore khaki brown boots, loose-fitting blue jeans, and a red hoodie, that likewise couldn't cover the white L.A. logo stitched on his red baseball cap. He flicked things out of his fingernails with a switchblade knife, and looked over at the gang of pulled up weekdays.

"You're late." He said.
"Word." The black man in black clothes responded.
"Traffic." Thursday responded without hostility, and a slight shrug.
"Ss'Aiite." Said the man in the black cap. "Still gots an hour to do dis."
The Latino in the red cap folded his knife and put it back into his pocket. He stared at the weekdays, but with a touch of irony said,
"Word."

He peeled himself off the lamp post, and walked up the road. The man in black turned his back on them and followed.

"Are you sure we should do this?" Said Tuesday.
"Well fuck, we came this far..." Wednesday responded.
Monday spoke with a hard edge...
"Only live once. And by Gjod..." His tone changed to something more friendly, "in it, is a lifetime of mistakes. C'mon."

He walked forward, and reached Friday's shoulder as he started moving too, not about to loose his place as the leader.
"Are you sure about this?" Monday asked Friday as they walked up the hill, following their black-and-red clad guides.
"Sure as shit." Friday spoke. "We're armed to the teeth. It'll get ugly, but there's nothing saying we can't hold our own like we always do."

With his free hand he opened a chrome cigarette case, slipped out a smoke, stuck it in his mouth, folded the case closed, slipped it back in his pocket, and produced a lighter which, in a brief moment of windless dark, he struck to life. It lit the cigarette with a bright light-blue flame blown back towards him in the breeze his motion produced. He drew a drag, and blew it out of his lungs.

In less than the time it took for Friday to finish his smoke, they had walked between trees and walked up a staircase, still following their guides. The formation of five weekdays had slowly gained a crowded following behind them, as people emerged from the darkened park in an ominous mob that began to follow them. Wednesday looked occasionally and tried to bring it up to the group.

"There's a few people behind us." He said at first. No one cared enough to respond. "There's about a hundred people behind us." He said next. Not one other weekday looked back. "There's about a thousand people behind us." Was the next thing out of his mouth. Not one other Weekday looked back. Monday responded.
"Wedneday," He said, "Shut up."

Deep in the park with a mob behind them the five weekdays followed the road till it came to a small outlet, where a small bowl-shaped depression peeled off to the right. There, a number of people gathered in two large groups. Words were hurled like weapons between them.

"I was busy fucking your mom in the ass last night!"
"What the fuck did you just say?!"
"It sounds like you have a cock in your mouth!"
"Yeah, your mom's cock!"

The two men they had been following, split off, to the left, the man with the black cap, to the right, the man with the red.
"Shut this shit down." The black man with the black cap said. "You know it's crap, and it's about to get serious!"
The Latino in the red cap replied in kind to his mob.
"Get your shit together!" He threw his arms out on a glorious display of bravado to his mob of people. "We're gonna' do this!" He threw his arms down as emphasis as he shouted, "Right now!"

Friday set down the violin case, and cracked it open. Inside were the component pieces of a tommy-gun. He began to remove the stock, and the barrel, which he affixed together, then he grabbed the wooden barrel handle, set that in it's place. He looked back at the assorted weekdays.

"You guys ready?" He asked hopefully.
"Fuck yeah Friday." Said Monday. The others nodded in agreement.

As Friday placed the firing pin into the barrel, members of both groups on their left and right moved forward to see what he was doing. As they moved forward, those behind them in the two mobs began to fiddle with cases, their jackets, and then, two trailers of searchlights kicked on lighting the scene with un gjodly light. Thousands of spectators had gathered around the shallow bowl where they were gathered.

"That is so fucking cool." Said a member of the black-clad mob, looking at Friday's tommy-gun.
"Mang..." A member of the red-clad crew said. "Word."

Friday put his weapon to his shoulder, and grabbed the cylindrical magazine out of the case, and fitted it to his weapon.

There was a moment of silence, which spilled out around him like a wave, and with the searchlights, everyone was riveted. Behind him, the weekdays frantically opened cases, and tried to get themselves getting ready for the battle about to begin.

"I've come here to make a point! That point will not be denied!"

Friday yelled.
From his left, the sound of a bass beat began. It was thick, and heavy, and fucking solid.
"we have come here tonite to bring this to a conclusion!" He shouted, just as a backbeat began coming from the right. Then he raised his tommy gun to his shoulder, he pointed at the sky, and began to fire!

Rounds spilled out in staccato, an amazing snare-drum rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat that lasted far longer than anyone in the crowd could have believed. In fact, it was still going after everyone in the crowd believed such a weapon was done firing its projectiles moments before. Friday looked back to the people from each group who had moved forward to admire his weapon.

"Just blanks." He said, taking the smoking barrel of tommy-gun down from his shoulder, and dropped the weapon at his feet.
"Shootin' real slugs is dangerous!"

As the audience had been blasted by the staccato sound of his gun, it took a few moments for them to realize the battling beats behind them had coalesced into a perfect mesh of driving force, and accents that revealed skilled DJ's, who had fought each other, and reached an agreement.

Behind that, a bass line appeared from nowhere. Tuesday, standing precariously on his angled stand-up-bass ripped a rock-a-billy vibe off his instrument, as Wednesday adjusted a washboard hanging from straps around his shoulders, and began running spoons across it, filling the space between the throbbing drumbeats with a soft scratchy rhythm that was echoed from the right, where maracas and castanet’s kicked in.

From the left came three men armed with microphones blaring the non-subtle, attention-getting words, "YO! YO YO!" Then one man came to the forefront, who exploded,

"We came to this place to make a mess of this place! And that's why you came too!"

Behind him, from the right, three trumpet players followed the melody of his eighteen words, and brought it into a grove. It swelled up and down and then cut out, only the throbbing beat, and backbeat were heard. Then Monday's guitar cut a swath through the beat. Echoing the best five notes in the repetition of the horn section following the rappers from the left, cut up a razor groove, where then the rappers blasted in perfect sychopation with each other.

"It's true it's hard!"
"It's true it's bad!"
"it's true it's never gonna be right!"

And just then a DJ (impossible to tell which side decides to kill this at the moment) just kicked in with a sample from the Prodigy song "smack my bitch up" at the bridge, where the woman is singing her gorgeous part, and everyone is transfixt. Like, even the guys running the beat, and backbeat, and percussion are shocked that something like this can be run over their their work.

Thursday waits until the sample of the woman has played out, then repeats the performance, only in trumpet form...a solid backbeat with one of the best, and most powerful melodies ever written, only repeated with tender skill and power forced through a fjucking trumpet. The crowds gathered are weeping even before he rips further emotions from them.

Then Friday reaches into his overcoat, and pulls out a small case. He cracks is open, and sets a Honer harmonica between his teeth, then from his other pocket on his left hand-side pulls a mic, and begins to echo the strains. It's sheer beauty, and it's sheer madness. It's a fucking harmonica.

Those from one side and the other are overwhelmed. There's just too much grove going on to stop. The trumpets kick in, along with another shot of chest-crunching bass, and Monday's shearing guitar...which has been joined by axe-players from both sides, combining only the best of notes and the best of space between them.

Friday took the harmonica from between his lips, and held the mic close to his face.
"I came here tonite to prove a point." He said in perfect time to the beat.
"And that point will not be denied!"
*the beat continues*
The trumpets kicked in to emphasize the moment. Then the rappers reiterated, echoing in unison, like the trainers of Ali.
"That point will not be denied! Fourteen things you gots a problem with, and ten solutions...

The mob gathered was stupid, following like a dog on a leash. They yelled back as loud as they could in agreement!

"We're stronger together!" Friday yells over the beat, "Than we ever could be alone!!"

The rest of the shit that happens is not worth my time to describe.

Happy Mothafjuckin' Friday!