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When you’re searching for direction, you need to take any omen you can find. Such as an empty Tupac money clip. True, he preferred Biggie to Tupac and full money clips to empty, but his desperation was so acute that it demanded optimism. He had that half-retarded giggling feeling of the almost-damned, like his team was down 30 at the start of the second half and the coach just said, "Screw it, boys. Start gunning and see what happens." Salvation in a discarded hip-hop knick-knack? Hey, where else?

He studied his score. The portrait was of an unbandannaed, smiling Pac, suggesting sincere origins at the Tello’s in Central, as opposed to whatever thugged-out caricature the smug pricks at the Urban Outfitters in Harvard would have come up with. A good sign. He wasn’t frontin’, and neither was his Pac clip.