I can’t believe all this time I’ve never told this story….but it appears I haven’t. Perhaps I was waiting on the moment when I was no longer embarrassed by it. Whatever the case, journey with me back to a time when the Killa Cal was a simpler guy. As a matter of fact I wasn’t even called the Killa Cal back then….no….I was still P. Diddy or if you didn’t want to get hit, Cal….this is a severely long story….so ummmm…you might want to grab a snack….*smoke comes out of nowhere* THOUSANDS OF YEARS AGO….(okay like 3 people will get that joke)….but no seriously, this story is long!

So yeah, I think it was like the fall of 1998, though by this point it could have been fall of 1999 (the Killa memory, like the old grey mare, she isn’t what she used to be!). The principals involved in this story are the ever present Nile, Rich, and Mike Rob from B-Town a.k.a. The Wick b.k.a. Brunswick, GA.

Mike Rob was one of the first people I met at Morehouse when the school year actually started. I was chilling in my newly set up dorm room playing a game of Triple Play 98 when Mike peeped in and was like, “Wassup dawg, I’m Mike. Wanna get a game in?” So I was like, cool. Little did he know that I was (and still am to an extent although I repress it) a sore loser and he would soon be the first (but not last by a long shot) person kicked out of room 405 after beating me handily in a video game!

Anyway Mike was from a little town in south Georgia (near Jacksonville, FL as it were) called Brunswick. One of the frequent visitors to our dorm freshman year was his boy Rich who went to high school with him. For a long time, Rich was the countriest person I knew. Okay so he wasn’t country in the STRICT sense of the word, but his voice was HELLA twangy, and one of the first things he ever said to me was, “You crazier than creekwater dawg!” That alone made him the countriest person I knew.

And well Nile….well ya’ll know all about Nile. We have had our ups and downs, but that’s my boy….for real….I’m serious!

Anyway, now that you have the proper setup….Fall of 199-late….Mike is super excited because his high school is about to play in the quarterfinals of the class 4A (highest at the time) football tournament. It was a foregone conclusion that they would probably get WAXED by Brookwood (a powerhouse at the time), but he’d get a chance to see them play in the Atlanta area….sorta. Brookwood is also known as FAR AS F*CK. But the crew said, “Hey, why the hell not!” If anything we could scam on some high school chi….wait….ummmm…..we ain’t have sh*t else to do on that particular Friday night!

So we drove all the way out to Far As F*ck, Gwinnett county and immediately Mike and Rich see their homeboy Amp. So we go and sit by this guy Amp who turns out had the worlds most jokes at the time. As soon as we sat down it was a roastfest going back and forth. Pretty soon it came down to me and Amp (that nigga had a huge OJ Simpson-esque head).

So, I can’t mince words here folks, that nigga was giving it to me! Like I’m talking he was giving it to me worse than ANYTHING this nigga Nile ever did in middle school. This nigga was joning me out! So you know what it gets like when you are getting joned out….eventually you turn to threats of physical violence!

Well, I was so flustergated and frustrated and other adjectives of utter confusion that the threat I meant to make, never really came out right.

At the time, the wrestler Stone Cold Steve Austin was the shit! He was an icon and universally recognized as someone you didn’t eff with. His finishing move was (actually still is) the Stone Cold Stunner, wherein he kicks you in the stomach, turns around while you are bent over in pain, grabs your head and drops to his ass while driving your chin onto his shoulder. It looks helluva painful! Anyway, I intended to tell buddy that I was going to Stone Cold Stun him…..but all I could manage to get out in one breath was, “B*tch, I’m Stone Cold!!!”

There was a seeming pause in ALL life for about 5 seconds. Like the area around us became a vacuum, and then laughter….non-stop laughter for like 5 minutes. At this point Nile, Rich, and Mike ALL turn on me and start joning on me. It was agony, and because we were in FAR AS F*CK, Gwinnett County, I had NOWHERE to run! I had to sit there and take it.

But it doesn’t end there (otherwise I wouldn’t be telling the story). No, as soon as we got back, Mike, Rich, and (especially) Nile told EVERYONE who wasn’t there the story, including my roommate at the time (so it had to be 1998) Eulus and his cousin (also one of my boys) Travis. Of course Nile had to gussy it up a little bit, but eventually it became “one of those stories”. You know? The stories that people tell, where they weren’t there to witness it themself, but it’s too good a story not to tell, so they end up adding on certain parts and leaving out other parts.

So fast forward to Christmas night. On the way to Club 112, somehow or another the topic of Ice Cream comes up and Eulus mentions Stone Cold Creamery…..meaning to say Cold Stone Creamery….but that’s enough to get Travis started. But our other passenger, Alvin, had never heard the story of “I’m Stone Cold” so this man Travis proceeds to hype it up in a way that would make Hype Williams proud. He hyped the story up SO much that despite all the drinks Alvin consumed in the club, and all the women he danced with, and all the old homies he reunited with he only had one thought on his mind when we got back into the car….”Yo Trav, wassup with that Stone Cold story???”

I was left with a choice, a choice the Killa shouldn’t be forced to make….tell the story of “I’m Stone Cold” myself so that as humiliating as it may be, at least the most truthful version is told….or let Travis or Eulus tell a potentially janky version. So I told it. But when I’m done, Eulus is like, “Shawdy, I hate to put you out there bad…but you left something out….” I knew at this point a “Nile-ism” was coming. He was like, “Didn’t you also give shawdy the old Degeneration-X crotch chop?” Of course this was not true, but it was so funny that even if it wasn’t a part of the real story, it was a part of the legend.

We concluded that from now on, every year, someone will be told this story, and they will add a part to it, so that by next year not only will I have yelled out with no rhyme or reason “I’m Stone Cold!!!”, and not only will I have given the universal sign for “Suck it!”, no…..in next years version I will have ripped off my shirt and had a big superman t-shirt on underneath, with the S for Stone Cold.

So I give this story to you, brave reader, for reading it….tell it….add your own embellishment! Happy New Year!