Big Doe Rehab Pt. III

From the Brooklyn Bodega...

Catch up on Part I and Part II...

THE BIG DOE REHAB pt III

as told by spaulding h. forsythe. illustration by little jimmy blags

I’ve never been one for jewelry. The only gems I don lace up and have Zoom Air technology. But the Killah with No Face Toney Starks, my Big Doe Rehab roommate, needs both hands crusty like Soulja Boy needs another smash ringtone hit. But if I’ve learned one thing from this rehab experience, it’s that you should never doubt the Macgyver-ness of a gully dude from Staten Island. Ambulances don’t even go there.

So what does Ghost-Deini do to fill his necklace-less void? He folds himself up some.

Using his medication—the duffel bags of money, in varying denominations, that arrive to our room throughout the day, that are supposed to overdose Toney’s Big Doe problem—Ghost has crimped, creased, and folded hundreds of dollars into eight-inch figaro chains, pinky rings, and even a pair of earrings out of the new big-face fifties so they look like lemonhead diamonds. Each of his fingers has a different ring, each arm a particular money-bracelet, and his neck is flooded with origami-pendants dangling at the end of paper-fashioned dookie chains. The Don looks like a fire hazard. I asked dude if the Jesus piece was really necessary. Ghost held it up and was like, “Fam, it’s the only joint made in God We Trust.”

In the cafeteria today Starks told me how he remembered meeting me at the 2007 Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival, down at that park between the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges. He remembered me backstage, gawking at his buttery Air Maxes and Fat Joe’s eye-searing Jordans. That show, I almost lost my sh*t at the end of his set. Ghostface throwing darts to thousands of people, Manhattan in the backdrop, dusk in the sky. Sh*t was beautiful. I told him so and he thanked me. He also called me a “man-fan.”

I think we’re becoming fast friends.