Caught In The Trap

Saturday 25 March 2006

We'd been ambushed at a local bar. D-Loc and I had gone out for a drink with The Codpiece Crew, but walked into 'The Shit'. We crossed the threshold and were met by 'nam style confusion. There was a crush, a scuffle; I swung my way out of the crowd before I saw Chad Kaiser charging at me through the dust and smoke. This was a formidable opponent. Chad Kaiser, the famous bodybuilder and Mousetrap champion. His ridiculous name had preceded him. I knew he was clearly bigger and stronger than me and I had to think quickly. I also knew that D-Loc was down; a table had been smashed over his head. His hairdo had cushioned some of the blow, but he was certainly in trouble and I realized straight away that I wouldn't be able to count on his help for the rest of the brawl. He had his back against the wall, he was trying to stay conscious and seemed to be gazing off into the distance as the destruction continued around him.

Chad was a machine, a monster in spandex. His whole wardrobe was spandex. He slept in spandex. He got married in a spandex tuxedo. This was going to be a test.

As with most of the battles that D-Loc and I encountered, this affair had been instigated by Judge. This time it was the star's notorious prejudice that had got us into this situation. In a drunken, rambling speech delivered to the city's Board game Society at the annual dinner, Judge managed to insult a whole community. He was guest of honour, but for reasons still best known to himself, he called Mousetrap, 'A game for c**ts and people with learning

Sunday 26 March 2006

Word of Judge's unfortunate indiscretion had spread around town. D-Loc and I tried to play it cool, but we were on the fucking edge and we knew it. We could sense it on the streets and see it in each other's eyes. We were being stalked by a new level of menace. The mysterious force that counted Mousetrap as an interest was terrifyingly hostile. We were up against a sinister organisation with funding from the very top, and a Machiavellian moral code stolen from the lowest creatures that this town could cough up.

They ranked alongside history's biggest c**ts.

D-Loc and I knew that we had to do something. The idea came to us in the last few days before the massacre at the Hip-Hop wine bar, 'Straight Outta' Corbières'. We rallied around and reformed The Codpiece Crew. These muthas were angry and deadly; a useful combination. A powerful team of former dancers, each one loyal to D-Loc and ready to take on Mousetrap's representatives. They were certainly brawling for their lives against Chad Kaiser's foot soldiers when I saw him storming cross the bar to take me out.

He blasted through the debris in front of him, sending fractured bar furniture spinning away as he tore up the space between us. My muscles tensed as I noticed Chad preparing his giant right arm for action. He wanted to permanently alter my features with a punch. Not if I could help it, Lord God Almighty dammit.

Experience is my sensei and I anticipated the attack. I dodged to the right and watched his massive fist as it missed by millimetres. It whistled past my face and I could feel a cold breeze on my cheek as the momentum dragged his body past mine. Now, Chad 's rage at Judge's insult was such that his attack was simply too ferocious and he paid the price. I heard the familiar sound of bone breaking from behind me and turned to see that a decorative bronze statue of Melle Mel had taken the brunt of Chad 's punch.

Sunday 02 April 2006

The battle was ending. I surveyed the scene, did a quick headcount and began to accept that the Mousetrap Mafia was in retreat. Their effort had never recovered after they witnessed Chad Kaiser's pathetic demise. We knew that he'd be back.

It was morning now and daylight had recently taken over from the pink neon in 'Straight Outta' Corbières'. My first concern was D-Loc. He was starting to recover from the mammoth blow that Chad had dealt him in the ambush. Getting a table broken on his head was relatively run of the mill for him. The emotional recovery would prove to be much more difficult. D-Loc was utterly devastated that he had missed out on all the action. The man was inconsolable. I helped him to his feet and we went off to get breakfast together.

Judge Reinhold had brought a storm of violence onto his doorstep and the campaign against Chad Kaiser had only just begun. All was calm for now and at that point the welfare of my buddy seemed much more important. I felt that this was the right time to get to the bottom of D-Loc's misanthropy. D-Loc wanted to talk.

It was all about his teenage years. D-Loc had been brought up on the East Coast, but after a run in with some local hoods his mother sent him to Belair to live with his wealthy and highly strung Aunt and Uncle. The family was like a festering, bloated blob of excess wealth, which seeped from the father to his spoilt, nauseating offspring. D-Loc was too down-to-earth to adapt to this new environment. He was hip, streetwise and fast-talking and was despised from the moment he moved in. He could sense constant resentment and disappointment in the house, even from the snooty English butler.

The scenario sounded like the basis for a hilarious sitcom to me, but the actual experience was a hellish nightmare of teenage despair, alienation and eventual rejection. Within months D-Loc was on the streets, break dancing for heroin. It was his technical prowess that elevated him from the level of dance-whore to boss of the expressive yet explosive Cod-Piece Crew. It was his determination to gain revenge for his adolescent suffering that eventually helped him kick the habit. He stopped as his team was beginning to take over:

He found himself cold and shivering as he lay in a backstreet gutter for days on end, drenched in the dark, rancid liquid that leaked from garbage cans and drains. D-Loc laughed throughout the ordeal. The torture of Cold Turkey was nothing compared to what he had in store for his Uncle.