Teriyaki Joe: Neo-Harlem Detective

***Teriyaki Joe: Neo-Harlem Detective*** is a novel by Lupe Fiasco, published to Twitter. The first chapter was released on November 30, 2013, while his account was set to private. He stated: "an Afro-Futurist novel that will be written entirely on [T]witter. It will be published in chapters." It has not been updated since the release of the sixth installment. Each chapter title is named after a food or drink.

## Chapters

### Chapter 1: Grits

Two more smacks should do it. She's weak. A couple more properly placed palms across the cheeks and she'll be all his.

She'll make good money for him too. Thick-legged, creole, tall...yeah she's a real winner. I give her two months. I give him three.

Two months before she wises up and figures out she'll be here forever and three months before she puts a knife in his chest for it.

That's Neo-Harlem for you. That slow burn then that inferno. And you either wood or fire...ain't no water just Gin to keep it goin.

Two slick punks gambling they heart out next to the scene. Couple cops shaking down some junky next to that. That's the view from the office

.45 on the desk. Digital cigar burning. Sun-Ra coming out the speakers. Antique Rick Ross poster on the wall. Man I miss hip-hop. Damn shame

Mental telephone on vibrate. Mostly getting lost dog calls these days. 10 million worth of Units in the wall safe. Nano-Eames couch for now.

Could really use some pussy. Real pussy not that robotic Kevlar jellyfish these ladies walking around with today. Fake pussy fake furniture.

CHANEL VAGINAL IMPLANTS: Who Says Sex Can't Be Luxurious"

"Coach Vaginal Implants: The Next Level"

"NIKE Sport Implants: Just Do It"

The Sun-Ra reaches its crescendo just as I get a call worth answering. ---1 Million Units!!! Respond For Details--- Money first. I like that

POW! POW! The cops shot the junky. Streets gonna be alive tonight. Real alive.

I put on my jacket & head for the diner. I need some grits.

### Chapter 2: Coffee

"You're Not Real Joe" God Damn hackers! They got into my MindPhone somehow.

They keep leaving these messages. Nobody is coming to get this junky. All his body parts are expired probably why he was getting doped up.

Two years ago he'd of been stripped clean before he hit the ground. But now designers parts are so easy to come by he's good as gum wrappers

Don't know why they shot him though. Cops these days. You never know. Disposal might come in a couple weeks. Might not.

Valentines Day. Hookers working overtime. Flower shop empty. Whole city in love with something or atleast pretending to be.

I step into the diner and work my way through the crowd waiting on tables to steal a seat at the counter. It's always a seat there.

5 coffees, 3 grits, 6 eggs, 2 toasts, 9 sausage. She hands over the glasses. I inform her these are dirty. She doesn't care.

I wipe them on my jacket and put them on. 5 blinks equal 25 Units. She slides me the black tray with the pills and sneers out "Bon Apetite"

Units are stored in the eyes. Blinking releases Units into receiving glasses or goggles or contacts and your purchase is complete.

They updated the toast. Coffee is still terrible. I spot Tall Creole at the end of the counter popping back Gin pills raw. A reality freak.

I look back down with my eyes half over the top of the glasses & see the black tray in the glasses I see a plate overflowing with breakfast.

I like to stay one foot in & one foot out I guess. I can take being lied to. Being a liar comes easy too. Here its an expectation of sorts.

The human body still isn't used to digesting pill food properly. Updating is a constant to combat the side effects. Shakes, vomiting etc.

Better than real food though. That shit will kill you. So many additives and molecular advertising in it it's damn near plastic.

Tall Creole shakes violently, damn near falls off stool. She's almost ready 4 the night to take her. I hope she makes it out the other side.

I grab the Shake Handles connected to the stool and prepare for my turn. It comes. I wink a tip. Take off the glasses & head into the nite.

---1 Million Units Respond For Details--- glows in the left hand corner of my mind. I've been thinking about it this whole time.

Sounds like a set up to be honest. 1 Millions Units is the apple but who is the devil on the other side. I guess that makes me Adam. No Eve!

"Playback Tall Creole" half my mind rewinds back to my thick-legged tail as she followed me into the diner recording me as I recorded her.

Now we have our Eve, Adam & The Apple. Now we just need The Devil. Sometimes the best place to find the devil is in the mirror. Lets see.

---This is Teriyaki Joe...What Are The Details??---

### Chapter 3: Gravy

---Download Complete--- Hmmm looks like I'll be heading upstairs.

The cab stinks. The stale intensity of so many burned out digital cigar cores left to decay on the floor. The acid graffiti. It doesn't fit.

Not fit transport for somebody "Going Upstairs" as they say. We all say that. Some champagne and classical music would be nice.

Maybe a chauffeur would give the trip up top a fancier sentiment. I mean the best of us should travel with a little more class and dignity.

This is like being in a port-o-potty with thrusters. A couple coughs. A well aimed spit. Yeah thats how the "Best Of Us" do it, precisely.

Up through the clouds. Directly into the Moon. We pass through it. It's only a meter thick. So warm. So fake. Color is still wrong to me.

The cab slows to a halt. Border patrol scans the ID tags. All clear. One step down. Disinfection nozzles spray the cab down. Missed a spot.

Step three is up next. Blindness. Total sensory disconnect. 3 seconds. 3 weeks. It's all the same in "non-sense." Helpless. Out of touch.

"EOJ LAER TON RUOY" --------- \*digital sizzle"

—•----------------------------------------------------music-------------------------------------------------------

!!! Awww Nice. Grass. Glass. Nothing else. Central Fucking Park Baby! It's all tai-chi and vegan techno utopia. Upstairs.

NH is Downstairs. Can't see it from here. Shit I wouldn't wanna see it either. Most these folks never have. Never will. Where's my devil?

Birthing out of Non-sense mode is always a mellow moment. Has to be or the shock would give you a heart attack. Wish I could smoke here.

Man would you look at that. The real Sun. Son of a bitch. My devil approaches. His name is 11. Mid level manager at a pill manufacturer.

I don't believe him. He's not my devil. Too many questions. He's just checking me out. He knows I know. He changes to his real voice.

All this espionage. Games. The real voice isn't really right either. Neither are the eyes. All tests. The "air" is thick with nano-machines

It's like wading in a pool of thin water. It's what moves things here. A seamless, all encompassing soup of nano-machines & information.

A spoonful of this stuff would sell for millions back Downstairs if we had real sunlight to keep it alive that is. What'd he say???!!!

"That's right Mr.Teriyaki (-It's Joe!-) I want you to bring my daughter back."

Impossible.

### Chapter 4: Pie

Slurp..Slurp...Slurp...Sluuuuurp...SlurpSlurpSlurpSlurp...hmmmph!...aaah!...\*Gulp\* :)

"Happy Valentines Day Baby" she says with a wink. I fell for the Mohawk. She fell for the 10,000 Units. The business of love in the streets

Had to relieve some tension before I made my first move. Decisions made while being tense always come back to bite you in the ass. Clarity

"Everybody" just for 1 person. Seems a bit extreme. Even for a "Parker." You'd think all that Taichi would make them a little more peaceful

A little more humane. Hell even a little more robotic would be nice at least they have a valid point. This whole thing has funk on it

I know 11 was serious though. Deadly serious. Serious as the 100 Million Units he winked at me when I refused to take the job

Serious when he said in 5 days he'd "update" every food pill in Neo-Harlem so instead of the shakes you got the deads right after dinner. ;)

Get rich and save Neo-Harlem. I like that. Getting lost in the VooDoo and probably end up destroying Neo-Harlem anyway. I don't like that

Things tend to get real possible when you got a gun to your head or money in your hands. I got both. Mix fear with reward. I'm impressed

Lost dogs are easy. Easy as pie. Find some shabby two-Unit witch doctor have him call some flea bag back from the VooDoo, Exorcise & Upload

Getting a human soul back from the afterlife is lets say a little more complicated than that. Not pie at all. Devils pie is what it is

Shit!

### Chapter 5: Gumbo

Morning. The sky is a television screen. The "sky" is the bottom of Central Park

A sunrise and a sunset and all other galactic phenomenon are broadcasted across the bottom of Central Park to be viewed by us Downstairs

The bottom of Neo-Harlem provides the same courteous service to Neo-Orleans which won its spot underneath us. We call it the basement

Underneath that in no particular order is Old London, Sau Paulo, what's left of Los Angeles & Moscow and that's pretty much it

City states stacked on top of each other like a shish kabob. Earth decided to a go a little nuts orbitally speaking.

Scientist still can't explain it. But in short Earth began spinning out of control &. what wasn't literally thrown into space was BBQ'd off.

Some say that's it all a conspiracy and were actually living inside some science project out in the middle of the desert & nothing is real.

Either way here we are. The cities or at least the parts that were able survive the tumult & the apocalyptic meltdown that followed...

..signed treaties and created "The Caste" with the ruthless & rich Central Park literally at the top and us unlucky bastards at the bottoms.

The rest of the planet is either fully automated manufacturing facilities or nothing. Central Park controls all modes of production.

Everything else, religion, philosophy, crime, etc just kind gets in where it fits in. Not lawless but definitely "law-least." Why not?

When the very Earth you live on takes an unexpected shit on you & your way of life everything kinda goes out of focus. Welcome to the blur.

The position of the real Sun over Central Park hasn't changed in about 100 years. If it wasn't 4 the Nano-Gravy it would've been burned away.

It's literally the tip of the iceberg. Gotta be "born" there to live there kinda jazz. An Invitation only Taichi party for the fancy tyrant.

It's ultra-simplistic in form. Just grass, the glass buildings and the all encompassing Gravy. No history, no future. Just never-ending now.

No pressures, no sympathies. Just calm and nihilism. Hence why 11's request, I mean threat, to bring his daughter back is so out of order.

Down here in Neo-Harlem it's none of that. It's all about maximum consumption all the time. Crime & nostalgia & love & hate.

Living like no tomorrow was yesterday. Like the end of the world came and left us behind like bastards on the steps of an abandoned church.

Luckily ppl still want2 find things so that keeps me employed. Luckily 4 them Im really good @ it but maybe not so lucky 4 me this time tho.

I spent the night pondering my next few moves. I knew I needed a Mambo Queen and that meant going Downstairs to Neo- Orleans.

For obvious reasons I'll need a disguise. And a guide who knows her way around...an Eve to lead Adam to the Apple tree. An Eve indeed!

### Chapter 6: Dressing

She laughed at me at first. I caught her leaving the diner on her way to work.

She stopped laughing when I showed her the high side of a million Units for her troubles if she so volunteered for the task at hand.

Her body was perfect. Her timing was perfect. Everything had a symmetry. It all fit together with no excess. Seamless. I knew better.

This was all somebody's chess. Lotta thought went into it. Big thinking too. Either I'm underestimating someone or they are me.

Either way I'm on the board now and I feel that the games just getting started. She's gonna know somebody that knows somebody. She did.

She's gonna ask for more money. She does. I'm gonna hard nose. I did. She's gonna say "Well baybee you won't cha Mambo Queen or not?" I did.

She's a real looker. She knows. All part of the plan. Beauty & trouble always come together & if the beauty is this big then the trouble...

---Have A Look Inside The Diner Mr. Teriyaki (It's Joe!!)

I look in through the diner window & see people shaking violently & collapsing.

I ask her did she eat anything in there. She says no somewhat startled at the scene taking place back in the diner. I rush in.

The waitresses are motionless, horrified. People grab at their own necks in chaos and last gasps before dropping to the floor lifeless.

---4 Days Mr. Teriyaki...Godspeed---

Son of a bitch. 39 dead. Poisoned. Food Pills. Messy. Poor bastards. Talk about motivation. Shit.

I take Pricele$$ back to my office. She's shook. All kinds of shook. She sits down on the couch and manages to steady herself.

I don't tell her how what just happened @ the diner is connected to our little vacation down to Neo-Orleans or that in the light her eyes...

"What you know about sum Rick Ross?" She motions to the antique poster on the wall. Small talk to take the mind off the massacre.

I like the old school I tell her. Old fashioned. Old music. Old guns. One foot in and one foot out. She remembers something and smiles.

"I like both feet in the pool baybee." She says while pulling two real cigarettes from her small purse. She walks one over to me.

We have a moment. I dont remember lighting it. She's back on the couch now. Wisps of smoke spiral toward the ceiling. Everything is cool.

Next train 2 Neo-Orleans leaves in an hour. Just enough time 2get a proper disguise. A guy could really stick out in a city full of women.

## References

1. ↑ "Lupe Fiasco (@LupeFiasco)". *Twitter*. November 30, 2013.
2. ↑ Ellis, Stacy-Ann (December 3, 2013). "Lupe Fiasco Starts Penning His 'Afro-Futurist' Novel on Twitter". *Vibe*.