We Shine Like a Super Bowl Ring

The whole Harlem is so crazy right now. Negroes are out honking their horns and whooping and hollering all up and down the streets. I think I even heard a few ratchets bust off. Which is cool as far as sentiments go. But chill regular, residents of Harlem. Gravity, as the homey Jay says, is ill. Them bullets got to come back down, cousin.

Tonight my roommate's wild-ass brothers and their families came over to watch the game. These being the same brothers that tried to convince me, last Christmas, of the benefits of hanging out at the local around-the-way barbershop during the holidays:

"I'm sayin' though, doggie: You wanna get it in on some drinking for free, come through the spot and kick it with live niggas, feel me? Somebody usually always got a bottle of something around this time, you know what I'm sayin'. Mad beers in the fridge and everything, fam!"

They're really nice guys, if not a little rough around the edges (one of them, Joe, I think, was last seen fondly reminiscing about the bed-making etiquette at Spofford in the '70s).

Joe, like his 17-year-old son Kevin, is heavily into football and was, from what I understand, about to go pro back in the day until he caught a case behind some bullshit. Now, his NFL fantasies are pretty much limited to the Sunday-night flat-screen.

Cherokee, Joe's charming, if not mischievous 18-year-old daughter (who reminds me of the rapper Lil Mama) evidently bet her father $50 that the Patriots were going to win:

"Dad! Oh my God. You're seriously gonna make me pay you that? You know they cut my hours at Pathmark—I don't know when I’m gonna get paid next!"

"…I want my bills in two 20s and a 10—don’t bring me no 50 either. You know I don't trust no 50 above 116th Street."

"But dad! I’ma be broke…"

"…Bring me a ginger ale, too, when you go downstairs."

"Dad, are you really gonna send your loving daughter out into the world broke? The whole Harlem is gonna be looking at me crazy!"

"This is a Giants family—"

"I know. The first word out my mouth: "Giants."

"…We from New York. How you gonna bet on New England?"

"Daddy. The Giants don’t even play in New York."