​Prologue: The Last High

ATL, TRAP HOUSE, 2 AM.

Gun to my head.... “Fuck!”

The steel cold against the back of my head, pressing in like it was tryna kiss my skull. Sweat drippin’ down my forehead, mixin’ with the dirt and the last traces of clown makeup I ain’t even bother to wipe off. Yeah, I’m still in my clown fit—red nose somewhere on the floor, blue and white paint smeared on my cheeks like war paint. “Guess that’s what I been my whole life,  a clown to the end, huh? Ain't that some shit."

I’m slouched, legs stretched out, glass pipe in hand, takin’ one last pull. The crack rock sizzlin’, smoke floodin’ my lungs, drownin’ out the fear, the pain—all of it. I ain’t beggin’. Ain’t cryin’. Ain’t tryna talk my way out. Not this time.

I already know how this ends.

What’s funny is, I ain’t even mad at nobody but myself. I'm right where I need to be...shid. I made every fucked-up decision that led to this moment. I betrayed the wrong people, stole from the wrong niggas, and fucked over the only ones that gave a fuck about me. I threw away everything—my job, my kid, my dream—all for a high.

“Hahahahaha!”

“Damn, this some poetic shit, ain’t it?”  “Nigga like me spent his whole life clownin’ around... now I’m ‘bout to die as the punchline.”

Before I tell you how I got here, we gotta start from the beginning.