"Sup?"
"You heard about Righty?"
"Righty Lefkowitz? Singer for 2 Beat Cru? Biggest white boy rapper since last month?"
"Yeah."
"Naah. What about him?"
"He dead."
"Dead?"
"Word, yo."
"Shit. The boy gets instant street cred! What a move!"
"Man, you not hearing me. Righty Lefkowitz be dead."
"No, man. You not hearing me. Sure, he dead, but I bet that'll add millions of units to his sales. That mother's gonna leave him one hell of an estate!"
"What good it do him? He dead."
"You think Righty shoulda, like, just lost a limb or something?"
"Hell, yeah! Take a couple in the leg, then use the gazillion bucks you gonna make for rehabilitation! I mean - shit - you have any idea how many prosthetic legs you can buy with a gazillion dollars?"
"Naah. That really don't work for me. I mean, you have any idea how bad a prosthetic leg looks in a video?"
"You not taking the long view, man."
"The long view?"
"You know how good a stump looks in a video?"
"No, no, no. Kids don't wanna see tha effects of violence realistically portrayed. Shit, that stuff be gross, man! You wanna be a gangsta rapper, you got two choices: live or dead. Maimed just don't do it, yo."
"They could be givin' him artificial legs for the video - like, wit' special effects 'n' shit."
"Well, this all be hyper...theoretical anyway, yo. The man, he dead."
"Mmm...so, how'd Righty buy it, anyway?"
"Slipped in his bathroom and cracked his skull open, man."
"Word?"
"Word."
"...That is one lameass way to die, man. No way that's gangsta."
"Yeah, well, I heard that Ice Trey is being investigated for being involved."
"Man slipped in his bathroom, bro. What do they think Ice Trey coulda done? Greased the tiles with butter?"
"I'm just telling you what I heard, yo. Everybody knows Ice Trey and Righty didn't get along - something about a drug deal gone down all wrong."
"That ain't right. Only drug Righty Lefkowitz ever used was Viagra."
"Why you have to be so cold, man?"
"I'm just sayin -"
"Look, Righty's death ain't gonna mean squat if - I mean, what punkassed...punk's gonna buy the CDs of a guy who slipped and fell to death in his bathroom? You don't get street cred just because you dead - shit, people die all the time, yo, and you ain't never even heard of 'em. You get street cred by dying street, know what I'm saying?"
"Dying street?"
"Yeah. Go out in a hail of bullets, like Bonnie and Clyde or some shit."
"Maybe...maybe he slipped on a bullet in the shower."
"Yeah, well, investigation's ongoing. Maybe they'll come up with somethin."
"Aww, come on, bro. It don't matter how Righty died. Word on the street'll turn him into a hero in no time."
"You think?"
"Sure. Start tellin' folks he died with a ho around one shoulder and an Uzi on the other and this bathroom slipping shit'll be forgotten in no time. Do he have a shrine?"
"A shrine?"
"Yeah. Outside his record label. Flowers and candles and bigassed framed portraits of Righty showing all his gold teeth and shit. You know - a shrine."
"I...I don't think so."
"Hey! You wanna establish Righty's street cred, the street's gotta have a poignant and highly visible reaction to his death. Shit, if I was the record company, I'd be on that shrine mofo ASAP."
"Get a cover artist to design it."
"That's what I'm talkin' about. You want a shrine that rocks. Candles burnin' up the pictures of the star bein' memorialized all accidental-like, well, that shit don't fly, yo. Any idea who's gonna play Righty in the movie?"
"Word on the street's Tommy Lee Jones."
"No shit?"
"No shit."
"Righty was really that old?"
"Older."
"But, in our hearts, he'll always be 23."
"Wo -"
RIIIING.
"Scuse me... Yeah? Right. Yeah. I know. I'm busy. I said I'm - yeah. Right. Okay. Yeah. Bye."
"Agent?"
"Mother. She says if I don't get my ass home this second, I'm gonna miss choir rehearsal. I tried telling her I'm on top of it, but she wouldn't listen."
"No problem. I've got cello practice in half an hour. See you tomorrow?"
"Sure thing...bro."