Blood Money Pt. 1:

The interview

“So, Mr. Byrd, it says here you did some time in Statesville.”

I really should have been ready for that question. I would have been, but I wasn’t expecting having to talk about it so soon into the interview. I took a moment to gather myself, smoothed the creases in my slacks, and took a deep breath before nodding and looking up to him.

“Yeah, “ I started, “I mean, yes, I did.”

“How long were you there?”

At this point, I’m pretty sure he was just being an asshole. I mean, he had my whole application in his hand! Maybe he was just trying to catch me up in a lie. I threw all that out of my head as I figured I really didn’t have much of a choice but to speak the truth.

“8 years, 4 months, and 13 days.”

Hearing the words come out of my own mouth always sounds strange. Like I’m talking about somebody else life. Why I hardly ever talk about it. He look down at my resume, then back up at me, giving me this look, whole time bopping his head like something wrong with him or something. I ain’t like that shit. I started to say something before he started up.

“Well, Tony says you’re good people. And I need good people. He’s one of my best, and if he says your solid…”

He shrugged his shoulders and let his voice trail off. All the sudden, he sprang up, taking the unlit cigar out of his mouth.

“There is one thing I gotta ask though,” he said. “Seeing how you’re a felon and all, you know legally I can’t have you with any type of firearm. We get a lot of tough guys come through here. We got two armed security guys, you would be down on the main floor with Mitch. How would you go about diffusing a situation before things get out of hand?”

I had to sit back and think a minute. Diffusing was never my way, in all actuality. Same time, if I learned anything behind them walls, it’s that I have to be quick on my toes and stay on point at all times. This situation was no different.

“It depends on the situation,” I started, making sure to look him dead in his eye, let him know I’m serious and all. I paused for a second, one of those real dramatic pauses, make sure I had his attention. Once I saw him give me that look like he wanted me to explain more, I went in for the kill.

“You see me? I’m 6'4, 250 lbs with jailhouse tattoos. Excuse my french but not too many people wanna fuck with me.”

He sat back down in his chair, his eyes locked on me, not saying anything. His expression made me worried that maybe I fucked up. I ain’t have no time to worry bout all that, though. I needed this gig- bad!

“Same time, I’m older and wiser now. I learned you gotta be humble, so I don’t lead with any of that street shit, even though my name still ring out round these parts.”

For the first time since maybe the interview started, he cracked a smile. It wasn’t a friendly smile either, mind you. It was one of those “I know something you don’t know” type of grins that made me wanna bust his shit, but again, I needed the job.

“That’s right,” he said, “You was a big time singer back in the day I hear.”

This dude was on one! I see he clearly tryna make a brother uncomfortable, but it’s cool. I got him.

“Naaah,” I began, “I rhymed a little bit back in the day, but that’s all behind me now.”

“I heard you were on the radio every 15 minutes. Had videos with all these stars. Who walks away from that?”

He didn’t wanna let it go. It was almost like he wanted me to knock his ass out! I kept it cool though.

“Somebody who realizes all that glitters ain’t gold. For all those industry contacts and gold plaques, I ended up right back here in Chicago after I got out of prison. You know why? Not a single “name” came to visit, put any money on my books, none of that. So I came back home to rebuild my life with the people who were there for me from day 1.”

He looked impressed. Shit, I was impressed! Not wanting to the lose the momentum, I decided to keep applying pressure.

“You asked what would I do to deescalate a situation. I learned a few things while I was away about vocal tools. I took classes on conflict mediation and there are 3 other vocal tools aside from being loud, which is all you know coming from where I from. You can say a lot without a whole lot of speaking just from your voice inflection, rate and pitch.”

I felt like I was teaching a college class or something at this point. Was really feeling myself. He took his eyes off me for a brief moment and jotted something down on the notepad on his desk before looking back up at me. He nodded as if to say, “go on”.

“My whole thing nowadays is not to put my hands on somebody unless I really have to. Working in a club, I already know I’ma run across my share of drunks. Comes with the territory. Difference with me now and ten years ago is that everything was about my ego.”

“I didn’t have the tools to say ‘you know what, dude is drunk. Let me be not just the bigger man, but the smarter man. Now, I’m liable to just crack a joke or something, lighten the mood. Before all that though, I’ma man before anything else, and they gonna know that just from my presence.”

I started to go on some more when he put a finger in the air, telling me to hold on a second as he picked up the phone and dialed a number.

“Yeah,” he said, speaking into the handset, “I’m gonna need you to come in tonight, just for a bit.” He looked at me and smiled.

“We’re onboarding our newest employee.”