🔫 South Circular Smoke 🔫 – Bad Man Ting 💨EsSense of Ebony Books

🔥 In Brixton’s belly, bullets whisper and baby mamas scream—Malik’s tryna stay clean, but the roads don’t forget. 💨🔫

One Bag of Passa Passa

Malik took a long, deliberate drag on his spliff, letting the bitter smoke coil through his lungs before exhaling slowly. His eyes scanned the estates graffiti-tagged walls, busted lift buttons, and a group of youngers loitering near the stairwell entrance of the Angel Town block in Brixton. His instincts tingled.

“Bredda, ya a tek too long…” he muttered under his breath, fidgeting with the gearstick of his new black Mercedes C250. The interior still smelt like German leather and weed. It was a bold car for this kind of estate, flashing chrome rims, blacked-out tints. Flashy enough to attract envy. Dangerous enough to attract steel. Especially without his .45 on him.

Malik didn’t like Angel Town. The younger lot around here were reckless—kids with point to prove, egos to build, and no real code. Stick-up kids. Most of them used robberies and stabbings as initiation rites. The more fear you caused, the faster you climbed the ladder.

He had been one of them once.

When he landed in the UK at sixteen with fake papers and a head full of street sense from Maxfield Avenue, Kingston, he came ready for war. Life had schooled him early. His big brother Gavin had linked him with the area Don, a man named Rufus—an unpredictable tyrant who stood 6’5”, his face disfigured by a telephone cut that stretched from ear to ear.

Rufus didn’t earn respect; he manufactured fear. His father gave him the scar when he was just a boy for snitching about missing shopping money. Now he wore it like a medal.

Still, it was Rufus who had offered Malik his way out—a boat run from Kingston to Curaçao, packed with cocaine bricks. From there, he hopped a flight to Miami using doctored documents, then made his way to London. Settled first in Brixton with his baby mother Sheniel, then drifted deeper into the roads.

Now at twenty-nine, Malik was a man of levels. He moved quietly, dressed clean, and never got caught slipping. But sitting in a parked Benz on a cold November morning in Angel Town? That felt too bait.

He glanced down at his phone, just about to dial Gavin when the block doors flung open. Gavin emerged at a light jog, blue carrier bag in hand, a tin of SMA Gold formula sticking out.

Then the screaming started.

“Bloodclaat heediat yuh tek mi fah Gavin?! A so yuh always do! Come drop dung one likkle tin a milk and expect mi fi smile up?”

Michelle, Gavin’s baby mother, stormed out behind him barefoot in her bra and knickers, their toddler Negus bouncing on her hip. Her lips twisted with fury, eyes blazing. Hair wrapped in a red headscarf, nipples poking through the cold. She looked like rage personified.

“Yuh waan come round mi once a week, fuck mi raw, leave mi with belly and bills, and come back wid one tin?! One?!”

Gavin didn’t stop walking. He knew Michelle’s style—loud, dramatic, always for the gallery.

“Shut yuh stinkin mout’ man! Carry di pickney go inside before di whole estate see yuh out yah a move like some crab louse gyal!” he barked, his jaw tight. “Mi tired a di noise. Gwaan inside, Michelle. Gwaan!”

But Michelle wasn’t having it.

“You tired?!” she shouted, laughing bitterly. “Yuh tired? Yuh nevah tired when yuh deh pon mi like wild dog last week! Come tek mi front and lef’ me wid nappy money and credit fi mi phone—dat a all mi worth to you?!”

Inside the car, Malik cursed under his breath. This was long. Too loud. Too exposed. He got out quickly, closing the car door with a soft thud. The weed was still burning in the ashtray.

“Yow, Michelle, ease off di big war vibes man. It too early,” Malik said, stepping forward. “At least gwan een go put on a robe or supm—Negus look like him catch cold already.”

Michelle spun on Malik, her voice still hot.

“Tell yuh big bro fi stop act like some wasteman den! What him tink? One tin can raise two pickney? Him only show face when him balls get heavy!”

Malik tried not to laugh. She was wild. But she wasn’t lying.

Gavin, still standing by the open passenger door, ignored her now and pulled out his weed pouch, licking the edge of a Rizla and building a fresh spliff.

Michelle clocked the move and lost it.

“Mi a talk bout nappy and food and yuh stand up deh roll spliff? Yuh bloodclaat serious, Gavin? Yuh cyaan even afford blem! Yuh dick small but yuh tongue big—dat a di only ting yuh good fah!”

That did it. Gavin’s hands dropped. He flung open the car door, half-built spliff forgotten on the passenger seat.

His long leg cocked back like a piston.

Malik saw it.

“Yow, easy!” he shouted, dashing forward. His arms wrapped around the baby first, scooping Negus from Michelle’s grip just as Gavin’s leg came up. Malik spun, placing himself between them.

“King! Calm di fuck down. Yuh nuh straight in dis ya country. Dem people yah quick fi dial Babylon. You waan go back a yard fi kick up baby madda in front di whole block?”

Gavin’s face twitched, but he stepped back, breathing heavy.

Malik turned to Michelle.

“Look, man this no right—but tek di yout and gwan inside. Cold ya a nuh joke,” he said, pulling out a thick wad of notes from his inside pocket. He peeled off five crisp fifties and pressed them into her palm.

“Buy wha yuh need fi di kids. An put on a robe next time, please man.”

Michelle’s rage melted instantly. She looked down at the notes, lips curling into a satisfied smirk.

“Wasteman,” she muttered under her breath, eyeing Gavin one last time before strutting back toward the block.

Gavin sucked his teeth and climbed into the car. He gathered the remains of the weed and tried salvaging the spliff.

Malik eased into the driver’s seat and started the engine. He peeled out of Angel Town without a word. The silence hung thick until they crossed into Elephant and Castle.

Then Gavin spoke.

“One day mi ago lose it and kill dah gyal deh, enuh.”

Malik didn’t even look at him.

“Forget dem foolish vibes, man. We have bigger fish fi fry.”

Gavin nodded slowly, pulling on the joint.

They were headed to a warehouse in Deptford for a meeting with one of Rufus’ old connects—straight outta Medellín. Malik was cautious. Colombians didn’t deal in grams. They moved weight. Serious weight. And while Rufus had vouched for the link, Malik knew trust didn’t stretch far in this game.

Especially when Gavin still had unresolved beef with the same man who’d saved Malik’s life.

But that? That was another story.

To be continued…

The streets remember — even when you try to forget.