Conversation with Big E

ACT III, SCENE II

Conversation with Big E

NOTICE: Explicit Language

Excerpts from filmed conversation with Erick McCord, aka Fat Mac (pronounced Fae-Mey), aka Big E, one-time American warlord, Gangster Disciple–G.D.

I could die tomorrow. But my whole point of being here right now is to make sure legacy live on. 

Erick

“ That’s the name I wanna be called, yep. That’s what I wanna be called.

“Na I don’t wanna be called Fat Mac. You all ain’t met Fat Mac. You all ain’t met Fat Mac. Fat Mac ain’t straight. Fat Mac a whole ‘nuther person.

“That’s what I was trying to [say]. Like, I didn’t have nobody to tell me to be myself [back then. So I became Fat Mac]. Fat Mac really a character, I ain’t gonna lie to you. But guess what, everybody got that character. Every n—- from the projects got that character. It’s… it’s somebody inside every n—- that don’t wanna be who they really is.

“You know, who the person that… that life made me like this. The projects made me have to smack the shit outta somebody when they say something sideways. Because if I didn’t, guess what. They’ll punch on me and pick on me. You feel me?

“Life made me when I went to prison, it made me talk with aggression. And let you know that I ain’t… bullshittin’ you, that I’ll beat your motherfuckin’ ass, stick the shit out of you, do whatever the fuck I gotta do to get my point across. Because if you didn’t come like that you was considered soft.”

“When I was young…Didn’t nobody tell me not to sell dope… I came up in the eighties… So I came up in the crack era… ‘Cause it was like the new economy for the community that I came up in… They wouldn’t give you ten dollars but they give you fifty dollars worth of crack rock to go sell. And that’s how it started…”

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“I try not to give him the circumstances that I had…  I am going to feed him…

“I told him, ‘Go to school, play football, I’m gonna pay for everything it costs for you to play football. And then we’ll talk about you becomin’ GD.’

“My job isn’t to make him like me. My job is to make him flourish way past what I was… That’s where I get to see where life could have took me…

“I’m 43 years old… I’m doin’ dialysis. I got a fuckin’ hole in my chest dude … I could die at any time. I could die tomorrow. But my whole point of being here right now is… to make sure… what… legacy live on.

“I don’t just want legacy, I want somebody say my name a hundred years from now…

“That mean more to me than leaving kids on this earth… I got to give my little brother the teachings I got good and bad… That’s our documentation of life. That’s the cheat code. That’s the cheat code to life. The cheat code to life is him 23 years old and having my 43 years old knowledge. That’s his cheat code.

“Somebody gotta say your name. Somebody gotta say your name to mean something.”

“I want to help as many people as I can. I don’t want nobody to know I’m doin’ it. I don’t care if nobody know what I’m doin’ because I ain’t doin’ it for the recognition.

“I’m doin’ it so that in a hundred years somebody will say that I did it. I’m doin’ it because it got them somewhere… To where it may be the President that came from these teachings that a n– from Joe Johnson, this Gangsta Disciple, taught them. You feel what I’m sayin’? That makes sense. It sounds stupid right now. But in a hundred years… That’s what I started…

“It ain’t gotta be my name… I ain’t here for that. I ain’t here for the fame. I ain’t here to be known for that. What I taught, though, the way I gave the game up. It’s still being used…. That means something. That means something.”

“We choose instant gratification and it be fun out there…”

“It was fun when I went to prison…”

“But Imma tell you what ain’t fun…I ain’t got nobody that’s obligated to come check on me. I ain’t sowed no good seeds, that’s what I’m tryin’ to tell you.

“So this is how I’m sowing my good seeds [now]. Not just for the legacy of it… For it to live on.”

“One thing about death, whatever it is, you need peace. Whatever. You cannot lay down in that ground and you out here fucked up the whole time. That ain’t gonna sit right. I don’t care what’s on the other side of it. You gonna need some peace.”

“We all facin’ death. We all facin’ death. I been facin’ death all my life. The same way I feel with this hole in my chest and them folks telling me I can die at any time because of dialysis if my kidney’s fail, I’ve been feeling like that all my life. Every time I see a police car I felt like that. Every time I was on the block trying to sell some dope to feed my… and make my own money I felt like that. Because I know at any time the robbers can pull up, the police can pull up and kill me. Shit, my momma might pull up and kick my ass, I don’t know. But I done felt like I done faced death all my life.

“I do. I have. I felt like that all my life. But the thing about it is you kinda find some peace, you gotta start putting some life in it. When you start feeding life I believe that is how you get reincarnated. You start feeding life and life will come out of you. But if you feed nothing but death and negativity man that’s all that’s gonna come to you in the end.”

“And you know, you… you got to give, give something, something to this thing for you to… to be fulfilled.”

And you know, you… you got to give

ACT III, SCENE II

Kyle the Voice