CHAPTER FIVE

 
 

The floorboard creaked at the scurry of movement from the other room. Percy laid already awake, though never truly asleep. Not as long as there was another man in the house. A jumble of legs and arms, the three babies slept next to him. The family referred to his young charges as "the babies" despite them all being in elementary school. Oblivious to the sounds from the next room, they slept with a hail of snorts and snores, under his guard, sprawled out like Power Rangers caught in mid-action. Percy tried to cover his ears to block the rutting sounds from the next room. The moment itched against his skin and ached his stomach; even his unintended eavesdropping intruded on something private. Something dirty.

  It wasn't as if he had snuck into his mother's room and hid under her bed in order to divine why so many "uncles" stopped by to stay the night. Or the hour. Or the quick fifteen minutes. It implied her having a bed, instead of the stained mattress hauled from down the street after it had been set out for heavy trash pick-up. A "ghetto garage sale" Miss Jane called it, then she convinced several of her fellow partiers – she always called them partiers, with her always in search of the next party – to haul the thing back to where she stayed. They squatted in one of the dilapidated houses boarded up by the city which had long been zoned to be demolished. The plan was to build a few affordable houses, a Section 8 oasis among the older homes in the neighborhood. Those houses too run-down to be refurbished were to be razed. Until the paperwork went through, bids submitted then chosen, and contracts signed, the houses were free game for whoever chose to live there.

  And Miss Jane never missed an opportunity.

  A man, his voice gruff and low, called out her name as if he were in church and struck by the Holy Ghost. Percy all but pictured him jumping down the aisles caught up in the throes of the spirit that moved him. His mother's name. God's name. A stream of words people shouldn't use. All to the staccato rhythm banged against the thin wall separating them. His eyes squeezed shut even tighter, Percy acted as if that would block out the sounds. He began to sing softly to himself: "Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so…"

  Finally, mercifully, it stopped.

  The knob turned noisily, furtive whispers exchanged after the long creak of the door, barely on its hinges, opened. Attending to his final duty, Percy rose and positioned himself formidably in the hallway, his large frame shadowed by the dawn light through the cracks of the plywood boarding the windows. He was a looming shade in a faded Polo T-shirt stretched by his bulbous form and a pair of five yearold jeans, his size carried the day as the man paused upon seeing him. Disheveled, shirt unbuttoned and untucked, pants hastily put on, the man glanced back toward Miss Jane half-flustered. Percy nodded, the way his momma taught him. The man reached for his wallet and peeled off a few twenties.

  "Later." The man stumbled toward the door, carefully avoiding Percy's gaze.

  "Later, baby," Miss Jane said, an echo of exaggerated seduction to her voice. As easily as she turned it on, she turned it off. "How's my big man?"

  "Tired." Percy rubbed his eyes. With the man gone, his body slouched in an exhale.

  "Couldn't sleep?" Miss Jane played at naïve innocence, the wisp of a devilish grin at the edge of her mouth.

  "What we going to do for breakfast?"

  "We got any cereal left?"

  "No." Percy had hidden the remaining half of a box before Miss Jane and her parade of would-be suitors returned from their nightly routine of running the streets foraging for highs. He would divvy it up among the babies for dinner, before the idea to sell the box occurred to her. He made that mistake last week after restocking the shelves with food stamp-bought groceries. What her paramours, his "uncles", didn't eat, she sold the next day. Before then, he had to learn the hard way his lesson about letting her have the food stamps card directly. They went without food for a month, getting by on church pantries and neighborhood moms who pitied them and gave out of their own meager food supply.

  "Guess we going to have to get to work early this morning." Her breasts peered unapologetically through the flimsy material. She stretched, her shirt raised to expose her belly, fully revealing that she wasn't wearing any panties. A smile with too much knowing inched with devilish glee across her face. "Send them off early, maybe they can catch a free breakfast at school. Then hook up with me at the spot."

  Miss Jane slipped into gray sweatpants and a matching jacket and pulled her hair up into a pink wrap which matched her slippers. Schemes already half-forming as to how to raise enough money to not only get right but also to get through the day, she marched out the house with nary a backward glance.

  Percy roused the babies and found some clothes which had been aired out for a few days. Maybe tomorrow he would be able to scrounge enough change to make it to the laundromat or perhaps a teacher might do a load for them. He, too, bled a life full of maybes. He walked them to school, many of the children kept a mocking distance from them. The babies without combed hair who smelled funny were easy targets, even from children just as poor and just as crusty-assed. Percy waited until the school doors swallowed his younger siblings, before he was assured they were even somewhat safe for a time.

  And he felt tired.

  He wanted to go to school. If nothing else, it was a break from the world he knew. Some days, however, he had to put in work. Almost like skipping school to help out on the family farm… if by "family farm" one meant a new way to get over on folks. Percy met up with her behind the Fountain Square Mortuary. She made a few extra dollars as a professional griever. The old man who ran the place gave her forty dollars to wail at funerals, especially when there were only a few mourners in attendance. For an extra twenty, she'd throw herself onto the casket.

  "Boy, look at you." Her hands on her hips, she eyed him up and down, a scorn-filled countenance displeased with the measure of the man.

  "What, ma?"

  "Shuffling around like you got nowhere to go. What, ma?" she mocked. "Even when you talk, you sound beaten down. You radiate weakness like you the sun beaming down on all us folks. You ain't ever going to be half the man your daddy is."

  "Is?" His voice raised with hope. It wasn't as if he believed his father to be dead or even purposefully absent. Hope gilded Percy's thoughts of the man. With dreams of being wanted but his father being too busy to come around. Too important. Yes, he had one of those important jobs which had him constantly traveling. The word "is" carried the promise that not only was he still around but that Miss Jane knew where he was. Hope was a death of a thousand small cuts, bleeding the life from him in a steady, painful stream.

  "Boy, you too slow for words most days. You ain't built for this here game. You have to have hardness. You have to have heart. And you? You so…"

  "Soft." Percy sighed, eyes cast downward.

  "Look here." Miss Jane sidled alongside him, not putting her arm around him or anything too… maternal. But the boy, despite his obvious deficiencies, touched something within her. Maybe he was so simple, so pathetic, she drew near just to staunch his feebleness. He had a way about him, not his father's way, but a way. A purity, one which shamed her every time she approached. She stepped back. "You see them boys over there." Dollar and his crew stood about gearing up for the day's trade. These days, Dollar oversaw a couple of crews. He might be in line to rise to the next level. As it was, boys buzzed about, attending to him without so much as a word from him. "You have to know a few things about folks. First, everyone is out for they self."

  "But…"

  "Ain't no buts. This is all about survival and doing whatever it takes to survive, well, sometimes ain't a lot of room for pride left. You get over on them or else they will get over on you. That leads to rule number two."

  "What's that?"

  "You can't trust nobody."

  "Not even you?"

  "Not even me." Miss Jane paused, struck by the honesty of her answer. Something about the boy just made folks… simple. "Folks be stupid or too sneaky. Everyone's got an agenda, some angle they working. That's why you have to play or get played."

  "I don't think I like this game."

  "That's what I'm trying to tell you. Not everyone's cut out for this. See? Look."

  They turned to the scene drawn by someone hollering in pain. He probably got his ass caught shorting money, diluting product to squeeze out some side money, or selling burn bags as their product. All variations on the same theme: his hand in their pockets. Dollar delivered the first fisted blow, knocking the man's head back with the sound like a bag of ice dropped to the sidewalk. After the first punch, he seemed to lose interest, giving license to his boys to stomp and pummel the man into senselessness.

  "Why'd they beat him up?" Percy asked, mouth agape and eyes lingering too obviously. It didn't pay to be too fastidious to details. Miss Jane turned his face to hers.

  "Dude over there shorting them. Someone takes you off, you can't let that shit slide. Never. Once they see you as weak, you done out here. So you have to put a beatdown on them. They do it again, you got to fuck them up for real. So what you learn?"

  "Don't let them read you for weak. Or soft."

  Miss Jane caught scent of some new-tested package and ambled off. Percy stood there for a moment, watching the boys play at manhood, and hummed to himself.

 

The day was brisk but sharp, a chill wind under a blue sky. A second-chance day, when one dreamt of doing things right this time: finish school, don't mess with that girl, get a straight job, be about family. Living life without waiting for the click of a hammer to end it all.

  Baylon walked along the street of Dred's house at an easy pace. For some reason, the song "Jesus Can Work It Out" kept running through his head: That problem that I had/I just couldn't seem to solve. He hadn't thought about that song in ages. The breakdown chant of "work it out" brought to mind a frenzied choir and folks anxious to get caught up in the Holy Ghost. He hated the show of church.

  "Baylon!" a voice called out as he walked by.

  He returned the slightest of head nods.

  A group of boys slung rocks down the street, not trying to hit anything in particular. Simply whiling away the time with casual destruction the way boys were prone to. At Baylon's approach, the flicker of recognition, respect, and perhaps even fear filled their eyes. They stopped their game and parted for him. Their gazes lingered on him in admiration.

  "Hey B," a sultry voice sang. Pert breasts tenting her low-cut blouse with no back over some tight blue jeans, stretched to bursting seams by her full hips. "You got something for me."

  "Yeah, why don't you hit me up at the spot later on." Baylon waved her off knowing a few years ago, a girl like that would have rolled her eyes in a "Nigga, you can't step to this" way at his approach, much less chase after him. The charge of fame had pipeheads running up to him to beg for a free sample, like fans pining for an autograph. His name ringing out, he was every bit just as much a junkie, hooked on status, on being the man. He paused on the porch and surveyed the neighborhood. Then he went in.

  Every time he crossed the threshold he felt transported to another place. Odd symbols etched the doorframe. When he ran his fingers along them, they gave the same sort of tingle as licking a battery. Baylon thought it unusual that Dred rarely kept any soldiers at the house. None were required here, he had told him. The kinds of enemies I've made wouldn't be stopped by thugs with guns. Baylon ignored the irony of him saying that from his wheelchair.

  Dred waited for him in the spacious living room. His scraggy goatee never grew in right. He had to grow it. His face had a natural boyishness to it. The softness of retained baby fat which made him appear younger than his twenty-odd years. His nest of hair coiled out in serpentine aggression. The color of cold onyx, he glared his ancient gaze from bloodshot and rheumy eyes. Long wizened fingers propelled his chair with little exertion, his all-white Fila jogging suit matching his brand-new tennis shoes.

  "You hear what happened with Green's crew?" Dred asked rhetorically.

  "Everyone heard. Lots of shots." Baylon shifted uncomfortably, standing without having been offered a seat and having the distinct impression he'd been called into the principal's office.

  "A lot of noise. If the message was 'we like to make a lot of noise and bring down all sorts of unwarranted attention', message received. Those two fuck-ups couldn't be trusted to send a telegram."

  "You gonna call the Durham Brothers?" Baylon kept his sigh to himself. Junie and Parker, Junie more so, were world-class fuck-ups. Despite congratulating themselves on a ruckus well made, they needed to be sat down. Reflecting a moment, Baylon realized they weren't too dissimilar from him. They all demanded respect, yet none of them could command it. Dred continued as if picking up on his thoughts.

  "Call done been made. Remember when a nigga would say 'I'm gonna hold things down' and business got handled?"

  "Lots of things change." Baylon ignored the quiet indictment.

  "You got something to say?" Dred wheeled nearer. Baylon never had the sense that he looked down at him. Dred created – he didn't know how else to describe it – a vertigo effect. Despite the height differential, it was like they stared at each other eye-to-eye.

  "Nah man, I'm just saying. The crew's weak. You up here. I'm up here. Back in the day, we had things on lockdown."

  "Yeah, you right. Lots of things change."

  Dred backed away from him. He tapped the small box which hung from his arm rest. The lid popped open and he withdrew a huge spliff. He fired it up. The smoke filled the room immediately, its aroma pungent, like earthy though rotted burnt vegetables. "Think back, remember how I found you?"

 

  How could they think that of me? Did that even sound like the person I was? They know me. They know me. He still had the knife.

  Dred pulled up, the outline of his black Escalade a blurred shadow in the haphazard rain. Its parking light on, it roamed the lot like a leering hyena in search of wounded prey. Dred rolled down the window. A thick issue of smoke poured from his mouth. Like he'd been expectantly waiting. "Get in. You're not safe here."

  "I'm not safe anywhere. Not anymore." Baylon's panic ran so deep, he barely recognized Dred.

  "I understand. Look, I ain't gonna bullshit you, you in deep. Left quite a mess back there. But we're handling it."

  "We?" Only then did he notice Night in the passenger seat.

  "You don't need to worry about that. What you need to know is that your crew, your true crew, stands tall beside you." Dred checked his rearview mirror. "I don't mean to press you, but we gots to roll. Get in."

  Baylon ducked inside the Escalade as Dred peeled off. He drove a halfmile or so before turning on his headlights. The quiet thickened between them. Jittery eyed and drymouthed, he jumped at every brake, squeal, or car horn. Arguing, a shout, bursts of laughter. They drove aimlessly, taking in the sights of the city. The street's cacophony of life, abrupt, charged sounds which brought only terror. Edgy, he anticipated some thing bad about to happen. Ware and uneasy, he leaned forward in his seat, drawing Dred's attention in the rearview mirror.

  "That girl back there? That was his cousin."

  "Wrong time, wrong place. Tragic."

  Baylon remained silent not yet knowing his play. Dred's measured words bubbled with import, calculated to appraise him at every turn. Bleak as things seemed, he knew he had options. It was an accident. It had to be. If he just went to King. Explained.

  "King was your boy. Took some stones to do him like that."

  "I don't believe it. No one would."

  "A noheart nigga like you. I'm saying, no offense, that ain't your rep," Night said to Dred's obvious dis pleasure. "He didn't have it in him. That's all I'm saying."

  "We all have it in us. We just need the right teacher to draw it out of us. Ain't that right."

  "Bay?"

  "It got done, didn't it?"

  "He might be ready to step up. What you think?"

  Baylon hated the way they discussed him as if he weren't there.

  "Ain't my call. My man has to make his choice. What you think, B? You ready to step up?" Dred asked.

  Still jumpy and unhinged, his nerves drained of all resolve, Baylon realized he was a man of fluid loyalties. After the misunderstanding which ended his and King's friendship, perhaps his future interest was with Night and Dred. Every story needed a villain. Maybe it was time for him to embrace his calling. As hollow as that thought ran, at his core, Baylon was practical. The best way to survive was to stick with survivors. Dred, no matter the level of chaos around him, always managed to survive.

  "You cursed, you know," Dred said.

  "I don't know shit about no curses," Baylon said.

  "Death follows you," Night said.

  "Death follows all of us." Baylon grew annoyed at their steady rhythm. He felt pressed in and doubleteamed. The Escalade became claus trophobic. He stared out the window. He had a selfdestructive impulse he wrestled against. Got in a bad way, a dark head space and wants to take a torch to his life. "We born to die."

  "Not all of us. Some of us even death won't touch." Dred stared into the rearview mirror until he locked eyes with Baylon.

  Baylon fidgeted with the handle of his knife then shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He ticked off the streets as they headed east on Washington.

  "Why you want to help me out?" Baylon eventually found his voice.

  "The enemy of my enemy…" Dred said.

  "So we friends now?"

  "Better than that. We're partners."

  Baylon nodded. This was the life he wanted, the opportunity he'd been waiting for. It only cost him his friendship with King. They hadn't been close of late, but they were still boys. They'd depended on each other for so long, they had become comfortable. And now it was evaporated. He was dead to King. He would have to find his own way with his own people.

  "And then you brought me in," Griff said.

  Baylon jumped. The voice was so real in his ear, he searched Dred's face to see if he heard it. He couldn't be here. Not here, not now, not in this memory. Griff came later. Smoke filled the car, a billowing cloud so thick it now obscured the front seat. The smoke's heady aroma disoriented Baylon. Soon, all he knew was the smoke. It isolated him. The world beyond its fringes ceased to exist. All there was, his entire reality, had been reduced to bodiless voices.

  "You wanted in. Remember what I asked you?" Baylon asked.

  "'Now you want to get your dick wet and do some work?'" Griff quoted.

  "Yeah, you were always the first in line to get paid."

  The smoke began to clear. The cloudless sky beamed with such an intense blue it hurt Baylon's eyes. The landscape shifted until it coalesced into the familiar. He grew up in this playground. His house was across the street, behind the community center. His neighbors' houses lined the alley which cordoned off the park. Baylon spidered his hands up along the chains of the swing in which he sat until they reached a comfortable height.

  "You remember when we used to race swing?" Griff sat idly in the swing next to him as if he had been there the entire time.

  "We were damn fools," Baylon said sharply. "Surprised we didn't break our necks."

  "You were a beast. Could get higher than any of us."

  Baylon smiled at the thought, the secret compliment, and he remembered. Swings different back in the day. Taller, with wood seats. A fool of a boy could stand on the seat, pump for greater height and at the apex of a swing, jump off to fly through the air and land past the scree of pebbles and dirt that filled the swing area.

  "I don't know how any of us survived our childhoods," Baylon conceded.

  "There were no children here. There were soldiers in training."

  "We were fierce though."

  "Yeah. We were fierce. It all worth it?" Griff's words hung in the air, the perfect playground beesting. He was gone. Baylon was alone on the swings.

 

Then Dred's voice drew him from his brief respite.

  "We in this deep now," Dred said.

  "I never thought we'd make it this far. Or this long." Baylon stumbled for words, hoping his matched whatever conversation he was having.

  "Some of us didn't." Dred smiled, a rueful and wholly unpleasant thing.

  "You ever think of him?"

  "Think of who?"

  "Griff."

  "Naw, man. Best to not dwell on things best left in the past. What's the matter, brotha? You look like you saw a ghost or some shit. You paler than a motherfucka."

 

The weather ought to have been drizzling, overcast at the very least, but the noonday sun dazzled overhead. Lackluster warmth did little for King's mood. He towered over the small plaque. MICHELLE DAVIS. 1984–2004. Another person he had failed. His life had become a litany of failures, of lives derailed, ruined, or tragically truncated by his involvement in them. The swelling sentiment pained him more when it was family. He couldn't even afford to bury her. Outreach Inc. put up the money to cover her burial.

  Burial.

  His cousin laid under six feet of dirt, a secret kept from the rest of the world for eternity. A secret that didn't have the chance to blossom, to chart her own way, to fulfill her potential. King ached at the hole in his heart whenever he thought about her. He ran the heel of his hand across his brow, then held his hand like a visor. Lott walked up to him. Fleeting eye contact, afraid of what he might see there. A gain, a sorrow, which matched his own. Combined it might create a well of anguish so profound they might not escape. Or worse, they might break down and cry. And neither would admit or want that.

  "How'd you know I was out here?" King asked.

  "I didn't. Come to see her on my own." Lott adjusted his FedEx uniform. The heat of it didn't bother him. He rather enjoyed the comfort of its cloying presence. The thin skim of sweat, as if girded for battle.

  "I don't know what made me think of her today."

  "Me either. Something in the air."

  "Like we share a special bond."

  "We're brothers. Brothers born of tragedy and pain."

  "What?"

  "I don't know. Something Merle once said about us… before going off about cycles and cursers. You know how he gets." If he held still enough, Lott could still smell her. Could feel her run her fingers through his hair. She liked long hair, so he rarely cut it. "Seen too many funerals."

  "I know she meant a lot to you."

  "I don't like to think back on it," Lott said.

  "It was a bad time. A hard time."

 

  Wayne toted the massive backpack filled with bot tles of water, an assortment of snacks and materials about contacting Outreach Inc. King trotted noisily be side him, a long flashlight in each hand. With no additional volunteers that week, and Wayne not wanting to miss a week, he asked King to join him. He was proud of the work he did. Having started several programs within Outreach Inc., from their inschool assistance program to the tutoring session and bible study programs on site, Wayne had poured himself into the ministry. A quiet joy hidden by his gruff exterior, he didn't take for granted the rare opportunity he had, matching his passion to his profession. Wayne's realization that working with hardtoreach knuckleheads was his gift was another revelation. Took one to reach one, he guessed.

  Two nights a week, staffers from Outreach Inc. trekked across the city, checking spots known as stops for homeless teenagers. Bus stops. Bridges. Parks. Downtown rooftops. The places varied and morphed. King knew what "street night" entailed. Wayne had discovered him on one such street jaunt. Set him on a course to better himself and realize his potential. Where King went once he got his feet set was up to him, but the possibilities were endless if he could imagine them for himself. That was the rap Wayne gave him, despite there not being that great a gap in their age difference. But it stuck with him.

  King glared out the window, angry at the passing scenery, lost in grim thought. He heard rumors about his cousin being out on the streets. Alone. Scared. Abandoned. She might have taken off on her own, Lord knew her mother was no prize, but family should have been there for her. Should have chased after her and taken her in. But family failed her the same way it had failed him and he was determined not to let history repeat itself.

  "Outreach Inc.," Wayne called out. A few groans rang out from a couple cubicles, pissed at their disturbed rest. King flashed the beams in the direction of every sound. "Anyone need water or food?"

  A few hands poked out from behind the blankets and tarps. A linebackersized altar boy passing out communion of water and peanut butter crackers, Wayne made his way along the path. King couldn't help but be impressed with Wayne's easy manner. Not just how comfortable he was, but how gentle. To be around him like this, there was a spirit of nurturing about him, passing through him, that the kids responded to. Wayne spoke of Outreach's services and they listened. He spoke about school options, and they listened. He offered to pray with them and they bowed their heads.

  When the two of them reached the last of the out croppings, Wayne repeated his announcement. A female voice stirred.

  "Michelle?" King dared ask.

  The rustling within the chamber paused. The blue tarp parted tentatively, a shadow stirred among the deeper shadows. King sensed they were being studied.

  "Who that is?"

  "King. Your cousin."

  "King?"

  A baby girl, maybe all of fourteen, stepped from the hovel. Despite all of the hardness she wore like dented armor, the upturn of her head and beaming face betrayed the kernel of innocence she clung to. Her eyes sparkled with something… undefeated. Her smooth round face wasn't haggard, wasn't worn to premature age. Her figure wasn't gaunt nor her manner reduced to hunger. She still carried her notebook filled with incomplete letters to various boys in her class and odd poems she'd started but never finished.

  She was safe.

  "Leave her alone."

  A man rushed from behind the compartment and tackled King. The flashlights clattered on the ground next to him. The man snuck him a few times in the kidney as King regained his breath. Though bigger than his assailant, the man obviously knew how to fight. King shifted his weight and put his knee into the man's side throwing him off of him. King tried to remain reasonable, putting his hands up to show that he didn't want any trouble. Scrambling to his feet quickly, the man warily circled King, shifting his weight from foot to foot, leaving King unable to read his next move. Looking to land a right hand, his awkward stance attempted to work his way inside. A heavy shot from King left him a bit wobbly. King hoped it would be enough to make him rethink his attack.

  They squared off again, arms up, ready for the other to make the initial feint. The man ducked past King's blows. An errant elbow pushed King's head back, which left an opening for a flurry of wild punches. Then that cold thing in him erupted. The needless fight was starting to piss King off more than anything else. Snarling as he charged, he lashed out.

  Heads popped out. "He don't give a fuck." "Knock that nigga in the head, fool!"

  The little man wrapped King up about his legs and shoulders, leaving him with only one free hand to whale with. The man's shoulder took the brunt of the damage as he gained the footing to tumble King over. He prepared to begin kicking him when Michelle screamed.

  "Lott! Stop it. He's my cousin. King. He's not here to hurt me."

  Still locked in a frenzied bloodlust, he seemed to not hear her.

  "King! This ain't how we do things out here." Wayne raised his voice and hardened it. That seemed to snap the two of them out of their fugue.

  "Aw man." "That was garbage." Rejoinders from the crowd dissipated, their evening's entertainment coming to a disappointing end. They returned to their spaces.

  "What's this all about?" Wayne asked.

  "It's just… word on the street was that someone was looking to hurt Michelle." Lott directed his comments to Wayne, but kept a wary eye on King.

  "The Pall?" Wayne asked.

  "No. None of the usual pimp suspects. A dealer is all I know. I still don't know what she did…"

  "I told you, I didn't do nothing," Michelle protested.

  "But someone's pissed enough at her to put a bounty on her."

  "Not if I have anything to say about it." King puffed his chest and put an arm around Michelle. Futile declarations, macho preening in front of Lott and Michelle as much as anything else. The words rang with iron and determination. Both King and Lott stood ready to die in her cause for all the good it did her.

 

  A trace scent of a familiar cologne clung to the air.

  King remembered the words he said to Lott when he found his voice again. "Every man wants to be larger than himself. He can only be if he is part of something bigger than himself."

 

Guilt had a way of gnawing at Baylon during his quiet moments. He had hurt a lot of people in the past. Not that he intentionally set out to hurt them, but just in the course of him doing his thing. Concerned only about what he wanted and felt with little regard for the feelings of others and the consequences of what he considered to be "my business". How his sometimes stupid and selfish acts altered the courses of people's, too often his friends' lives. Relationships irreparably damaged often without the luxury of making things up to folks. Fixing matters wasn't always an option: what was done was done. Sometimes you just had to carry the weight of your bad decisions and selfishness and hopefully let them shape you into a better person. Though he hoped that some of the people he had hurt in the past might have the chance to see the person he had become.

  Though the memories had a way of becoming a part of him.

  Griff sat next to him on the couch, though he didn't react. He merely angled his body more toward Dred, hoping his body language didn't betray his burgeoning fear. Not of Griff, because the dead only knew things, but more of him losing his mind.

  "You still with me, Bay?" Dred asked. "Look like you faded on me there."

  "Stress," he said, as if that covered the answer to any question Dred might have asked.

  "You need to find a way to relax. I think I can help you out there." Dred positioned his chair directly across from him. Growing more solemn, as if overtook by a darker aspect, he began speaking. "Let me tell you a story told by the old people. Among his tribe there once lived a young man, prosperous in all he did. His fields flourished enough to feed his village. His cattle numbered enough for the wealth of ten tribes. All the people knew his name. The only thing missing from his life was a good woman, someone to share his life with and give him a family. Good women, though a rare treasure, presented themselves regularly enough for a man with his wealth. He had the daughters of prominent men and nearby tribal chiefs offered up to him frequently. But none caught his heart.

  "One day, a young woman caught his eye. Of course she sprang up from where he least suspected he would find a woman: from his own village. She had grown up alongside him yet never before had he noticed her. In both beauty and intellect, she pleased him and with that, they were married. His greatest fear in allowing himself to fully love another was that she would be taken from him. And in all too soon a course, their time together was cut short as she grew sick and death claimed her.

  "The young man became obsessed with her. He went to her house, but she was not there. He slept in their bed, but it ached with her empty space. He walked the banks of the river where she fetched water and washed their clothes, but the routine of their life together left a sour taste in his mouth.

  "His family spoke to him, begged him to find a new wife, but he was not to be consoled. Love, he believed, could only be caught once. To ask for it a second time was to be greedy. Nor did he wish to let go of the love he had. Sitting in his house refusing to come out, his heart was no longer among the living. His friends had another woman brought to his house. They pleaded with him to take her, to end his solitary and dreary existence. 'The past is done away with and you can't return to it. Let the dead stay with the dead and the living with the living. Love remains in the heart.'

  "There was truth in their words, the young man recognized, but the time to let go, to give up, had not yet arrived. He examined his fields and cattle and declared them worthless and left his world behind. He walked until he could walk no further, finding himself in a strange land among a strange people. There he built for himself a house. But still he was not ready to return to living.

  "After another sleepless night, he decided better to go to the Land of the Dead. Again he marched, this time until he reached a place of total darkness. The shadow chilled him to his very core. He forgot what the heat of the sun as he strode his fields felt like on his back. But he kept walking. Passing through it, he came to a river and stopped. No birds sang out. No voices of man whispered among the trees. No animal disturbed the grass. A crone of a woman sat on the bank, a straw hat low on her face.

  "'Why are you here?'

  "'I've come to see my wife. Life has nothing left to offer me without her.'

  "'You are not a soul. A living man cannot cross.'

  "'Then I will wait until I die.'

  "'Death won't come for you. You are cursed. All love that enters your life will die. However, because of your suffering, I will allow you to cross for a moment.'

  "The crone pointed to the water and it became shallow. The young man crossed without turning around. Whispers came to him like a gentle breeze, the spirit of her an unseen dancer. The brush of lips against his neck. The embrace of the wind. In his heart, he held a song, the song of her, and then fell into a deep sleep. When he woke, he was among his people once more. He reclaimed his cattle and his fields. He began to work because work was all he knew. And then he called upon his friends for he found a life again. That was the way the old people told the story."

  "I don't get what you're saying."

  "Life is hard, but this is all there is. Bitches die and sometimes you need your boys to see you through. Now you get your head straightened out, your mind back in the game, and then go back to work."

  Wheeling himself backward, not breaking his eyeline with Baylon, Dred stopped at his side door. He knocked three times and crossed his arms, waiting with a self-satisfied grin. A woman opened the door and posed in the entrance way, wrapped inside a long trenchcoat. From the judicious way she held the coat, she obviously wore nothing underneath it.

  "She's straight-up jump-off, ready whenever you call and has no problem with whatever freaky shit you can imagine. Ain't that right, baby?" Dred ran his hand down her leg.

  "You should know."

  Dred left the two of them alone in his office for some privacy. Baylon shoved everything from the desk. She spread herself on it obligingly. Determined to lose himself in her, he dropped his pants and climbed on top of her.

  And thought of Michelle.

 

  "You vouch for him?" Dred was new on the scene. No one knew much about him. He had a way of being in the right place at the right time and assembled an efficient crew which allowed him to remain in the shadows. All anyone needed to know was that he had the right connect. His stuff was always on point. His cheap prices allowed him to carve out a huge swath of territory quickly, and no one questioned his main two enforcers, Night and Green.

  "He's my boy." After the incident with Michelle, Griff was the only one who came around Baylon and he never forgot that. Not that his other friends set out to shun him; they just suddenly came up busy and involved in their own lives. Some afraid of what folks might say about them should they roll through. Griff didn't give a fuck about what anyone thought.

  "He don't look like he played no football." Night was a hood rat through and through. He grew up in the Phoenix Apartments, from back when it was called the Meadows. It was all he knew. As soon as he got a little money, he moved his mom out to Allisonville, but he stayed at the Phoenix as if some invisible cord tethered him. Word on the vine told of Green practically raising the ambitious young thug before passing the crown onto him. Though no one understood why Green didn't simply rule himself.

  "Did so. For Northwest," Griff said with the sting of injured pride.

  "Shit. I thought you said he played high school ball. The only thing Northwest knows how to do is lose."

  "Yeah, you won't hear him deny that. Other teams consider Northwest's homecoming game a home game." Baylon tried to keep the mood light. With so many brothers in a room all out to play hard, it wouldn't take but the wrong word, tone, or lingering stare to set someone off.

  "What position you play?" Dred asked.

  "Running back," Griff lied. He was a kicker, but they would have run him off the block for bragging about being a kicker. "What do I have to do? Shoot someone? Get beat up?"

  "You run your mouth too much." Night's eyes bore a thousandyard stare into him.

  "We work at a whole different level," Dred said. "You can put all that gangsta bullshit out of your head. We about real power."

  "So he in?" Baylon asked.

  "We'll see."

  They walked toward Dred's black Escalade. It neared midnight, but the moon burned bright and full.

  "What the–" A blindfold dropped over Griff's eyes. He swung his arms wildly, though Night smiled as he bucked. "Showed heart," he would say later.

  "Be cool. You want to blow this?" Baylon whispered. Griff stopped struggling. "Once you in, you in. Ain't no backing out later."

  The truck rumbled along, the four men riding without conversation. The sounds of traffic faded and soon the settling silence discomforted Griff enough for him to shift toward the door. His hand trailed along the hand rest to the door handle, assuring himself that he knew where it was. The car stopped. The other three doors opened and slammed shut. Furtive voices consulted one another, though Griff couldn't make out any words. Then nothing. Tense. Jackhammered heart. The sheen of uncomfortable sweat under his armpits. The door swung open and two sets of arms grabbed him and dragged him out.

  They removed the blindfold.

  They faced a ruined building, the stones of its wall remained as if a wrecking ball had been taken to it. At the center was a clearing where a fire raged, a series of snaps and sputters spat embers into the air. Shadowed figures took post, guarding against all intruders. Wearing a long black and purple robe, Dred threw powder into the flames. A cloud of smoke rose. The isolated puffs took form, morphing into a face which turned to Griff with a mocking gaze then dissipated.

  Baylon escorted Griff to a small wall and sat next to Night. On the wall were scrawled a couple of names, only one of which wasn't crossed out. Rellik. Positioned in front of the wall, an oblation of food and drink on a table before a stone with a leopard pelt draped across it.

  "The Etai Ngbe. The Leopard Stone," Baylon answered the unasked question.

  "What is all this?" Griff asked.

  "Call us the Egbo Society. We control the gangs, the drugs, the money. We've had our eye on you for a while and I vouched for you. We've invited you to join us."

  "I don't remember asking."

  "We don't ask." Baylon sounded strong and certain. Not to be questioned or denied.

  Night wore a lowcut fade. He was one of them black brothers. Blue black. And as dark as he was, he had a darker knot above his left eyebrow in the shape of a crescent moon. Keloids ran along his big chest and huge arms, constantly itching. He rubbed lotion on them.

  Dred began to speak, the purple and black robe draped around him like a poorly fitting hoodie. His face fell into its shadows. "Ours is the house without walls. We call upon Obassi to guide and protect us."

  Baylon and Night joined with him. "Okum ngbe om mobik ejennum ngimm, akiko ye ajakk nga ka ejenn nyamm."

 

  "You want to run with us, you need to be marked. Take off your shirt," Dred said.

  "What is it?" Griff asked.

  "A sigil. It's like a name."

  Dred lifted a small bowl and dipped his finger into it. He daubed each of Griff's arms with white chalk. From another bowl, he marked his forehead with camwood dye. Then lastly, from another bowl, he marked Griff with a yellow dye on his abdomen and back of his shoulders.

  "And thus, the Ndibu are complete." Dred raised a goblet from the table. "Medraut."

  "Owe," Night and Baylon said in unison. Griff stared at them.

  Dred sipped from the goblet, handed it to Night.

  "Barrant."

  "Owe." Griff joined Dred and Baylon.

  Night drank then handed the cup to Baylon.

  "Balin."

  "Owe."

  Baylon handed the cup to Griff. He held it with a look of uncertainty.

  "Balan."

  "Owe."

  All eyes fell on Griff. He stared into the fallow liquid swirling in the cup. Then Griff drank.

  "Now you are one of the Ndibu, the high order of the Egbo Society. We are bound to one another and only by our hand are we released."

 

Waves of heat shimmered off the pavement. Percy wandered the alleyway ticking off his mental checklist Miss Jane had so painstakingly instructed him. He had to be more aware of his surroundings, know the score in order to stay out of trouble; or worse, let trouble find him off guard. He surveyed the alley. Lone roughneck in a long wife-beater tee, baggy black pants. The beginnings of a beard along each side of his face. Toothpick protruding from his mouth, the man hard-eyed him.

  "What you need?"

  "How many lookouts do you have?" Percy began amiably enough, then pointed down the way to a group of kids sitting on their bikes with no particular need to go anywhere. "Those kids down there?"

  "What the fuck?" Anger flashed, a lifetime of lessons and reinforced habits snapping into place without a thought. "You better quit playing and get on. Simple motherfucker."

  "Where's your stash?" Percy examined how the man stood in front of the garage, careful not to wander towards the side with overgrown weeds and an abandoned tire. "I bet it's in those bushes around the corner of the house."

  "Boy, what you doing?" Miss Jane yelled at him.

  "Do you have a gun? Can I see it?" Percy asked, nearly reaching to pull up the man's shirt.

  "What the fuck's wrong with you?"

  "Don't mind him. He simple. I was just trying to school him on what's what out here and he wanders off for some… extracurriculars."

  "Well, you need to teach him how to watch his mouth. Could get him killed up in this piece."

  "I doubt that."

  "Why? He bulletproof or something?"

  "You know whose boy he is?"

  "Who?"

  "You better check out that scar on his left eye."

  "Oh snap. My bad." The soldier took a step back.

  "Yeah, your bad, motherfucker. Now let me get two." Miss Jane shorted him the cash and dared him to rise up on her to collect the rest. He decided she wasn't worth the effort.

  He hated watching her inject herself.

  "Momma, who's my daddy?"

  "Shit, boy, you trying to blow my high?"

  "I want to know. Can I meet him?"

  "Let me see if I can arrange something. He might as well see the man you turned out to be."

 

Not that Miss Jane or Night were up for parents of the year, they had both agreed to keep Percy far from the game. Well, as far as possible. The streets weren't meant for people like him. Soft. Innocent. Miss Jane told him as much about Night as she could, but for what he wanted to know, the questions he was ready to ask, he needed a face-to-face.

  The naked light of the bar bleached most of the details away. Already stoked in sweet Scotch fumes and liquor-loose, Night slowly drank. Percy studied the man's face, searching for something familiar. Dark as he was, he had a scar about his left eye in the shape of a crescent moon. He fought the compulsion to scratch his own scar.

  "You still with that girl?" Percy asked. Apparently there was always some girl, so it was a generic enough question. It wasn't as if Night kept track of any of their names. To hear Miss Jane tell it, Percy might as well have asked about one of his other babies. There was always some baby. Automatic. Impersonal. The wall.

  "That what you want to talk about?" Night's sleepheavy eyes turned to him. He had a power to him, a force of will, much like hypnosis. Part of his way was his ability to suck you into his web of half-truths, deceit by omission, and out-and-out lies. He had a smile. A broken smile, Percy thought. The smile that usually intimidated others into silence.

  "No. I…" Percy didn't know how to form the questions he wanted to ask. He half-closed his eyes, a child pretending to be asleep, trying to get through the conversation, unaware that his body language mirrored Night's. He kept his voice light. He wanted Night to like him. Percy hunched over, making himself appear smaller, more the picture of a little boy. He only wished they were a family. The tidal wave of questions slammed against his cautious spirit and he blurted out, "Didn't you want me?"

  "Accidents happen." Night read the sting of the words in Percy's heart-sick looking face. "Shit. This ain't going right. Don't know why Miss Jane insisted on this. Just said it was time. Time for what? Me hurting you?"

  "So you didn't want me." Percy's face scrunched up, flat and sullen; his voice tentative and mournful.

  "Not just you. I always go in bagged. I had the feeling Miss Jane set me up. Wouldn't put it above her to run a pin or some shit through the whole box of rubbers. Look here, kids bind you. Keep you from doing what you want to do. I'm out here hustling, getting it done. and don't have time for all that daddy mess. Can't be the man out here if I'm doing the Cosby thing. I have to be the man because without leadership, folks run in circles and reach into your pockets."

  His job was important, Percy thought.

  Night tightened his mouth. His gaze roamed about then suddenly fixed on him in a cat's pounce. He scowled, half-disgusted, feeling cornered and uncomfortable. Then his grimace relaxed. Percy had a way about him, one Night secretly wished would rub off on him. An innocence, maybe?

  "It's a terrible feeling when you can't stand the sound of your own kids. The little things. Coughs in the middle of the night. Little sniffles, throw up, sick business? That's a mother's job to take care of shit like that. The stink they make, diapers, I ain't got time for that domestic shit. That's bitches' work. I ain't got time for that." As if repeating it would demonstrate the truthfulness of the situation. Touched by his innocence, he owed him the truth. "So you decide to wait till he got a little older. Show him some shit. My world. Let him see what I do and how I do it. Teach him how to be a man. Then you realize you don't know what to show him. Better off not being around. Put word on the street to take care of you. Keep you safe. We look after our own best we can."

  Night searched Percy's eyes, hungry for any sort of understanding.

  "So you wait a little longer. You get to the point where he was about grown. Don't really need you to show him nothin'. Can barely face him knowing you had no hand in who he became. Can only hope he do a'ight. Maybe better than you.

  "Where I come from, we have a code. We carry it like that." Night leaned back and gave Percy some space. He peeled off a handful of twenties, the only thing he knew how to do.

 

The neighborhood preyed on itself, an ouroboros of poverty. The irony of taking from people with so little eluded Miss Jane to a nearly painful degree. An anguish Percy experienced as he pushed open the window. The first-floor apartments of the Phoenix were better off without windows. To stare at the outside world through bars. They were an "open for business" sign for the local crackheads opting for an easy score. Most tenants occupied the first level only until they could move to a higher floor. But not too high as the stairwells offered their own dangers.

  Miss Jane convinced him to break in. Rumors of the household hoarding money and jewelry, eccentric ghetto millionaires. Such tales bubbled up from time to time, excusing would-be treasure hunters their Robin Hood ethos, though the poor who were targeted by their charitable impulse were usually themselves.

  Two windows in the apartment, one with an airconditioning unit in it, though it too was stolen from a first-floor apartment down the street. The bedroom window slid open easily enough. A young girl stirred, disturbed by the rush of traffic sounds from the outside. Percy closed the window behind him. Pausing, he bent over the frame in case the girl fully woke and he needed to make a hasty retreat. He sensed her in the dark, could hear her breathing. Fumbling along her dresser, his large, nimble hands found no jewelry. He ran them along a chalice; inside was a lone ring. He picked up the ring, holding the metal goblet in case it clattered against it. He peered over his shoulder. The sleeping figure didn't move.

  Percy leaned over her. Rhianna. The warmth of her brushed against his cheek. He took in a deep breath. Flowers and powder, a gentle scent. Peaceful. The ring grew hot in his hand. He lost the heart to continue going through her things. It was a violation. He ran his finger along her face. Gripped by the panic that always seized him when around her, that sense that he might break her, he scuttled out the window.

  "Anything?" Miss Jane demanded.

  "No, Momma." The ring burned in his pocket. A memento.

  Miss Jane read his face. The boy was flushed to the point of blushing and refused to meet her eyes. He was lying about something. His pants bulged in front. She smiled.

  "Come on. Nothing going on out here. Let me see if I can get you taken care of."

  Burger Chef to Hardees to Burger King to Big Belly; the restaurants which occupied this spot changed with the neighborhood. Ghetto to projects to hood. The evolution of poverty. The names changed but the problems remained the same. Miss Jane leaned heavily against a car.

  "What are we waiting for, Momma?"

  "Between your father and mine…" She broke off her initial sentence, re-thinking the tack she wished to take with him. "Pussy makes you stupid. Remember that, boy. You can't be in it for love. There's no love in pussy. Only want."

  The bad words made Percy turn his head.

  "You like Superman."

  "I am?"

  "Yeah, you know. He all super strong an' all, but he has to go through life all cautious. He can't just relax. He fuck around and break a ho. That's you. Everything you do is so… tentative."

  "Tentative." He rolled the word around in his mind. "I like that."

  "Here's my girl now."

  A woman sauntered toward them in an exaggerated gait. Her burnt almond complexion and high cheekbones framed a generous mouth, with lips filled to an exaggerated fullness. Her blonde extensions twisted into braids. Wearing low-cut blue jean shorts and a green halter top, her full breasts too easily visible, Percy was embarrassed for her.

  "Girl, how you been?"

  "Still in the game," Miss Jane said.

  "You a soldier to the end. Who do we have here?"

  "This is my oldest. Percy."

  "He turning out to be quite the man."

  Percy wondered if he ought to open his mouth and let her check his teeth, the way horses did when being appraised.

  "Sometimes a momma has to look out for her boy. Teach him to be a man." Directly in front of him, Miss Jane unbuttoned his shirt and lifted it over her head. She beamed with pride at her baby boy. His premature "out of shape with middle age spread" of a body not all that different from the baby she bathed in the kitchen sink so long ago. She tugged at his belt, slipping it free from the pant loops. His pants fell to the ground, but his gaze remained fixed on hers. "He's always been a shy boy."

  "I don't mind the shy ones." Her friend ran her hand up along the inside of his leg. He was suddenly aware of two things: one, just how close he had been standing to her, and two, that he had a raging hard-on that threatened to poke her eye out if she leaned in any closer. "I wanted to confirm how deep you were."

  "Momma?"

  "Hush, baby. Momma knows what she's doing. You'll be all right."

  She stripped him to his boxers and thermal kneehigh tube socks – it was cold out and he always made a point of dressing properly. Folding his clothes, she set them in a pile next to her. He didn't want to lose his virginity, especially this way. Percy began to cry.

  "Look at this motherfucker here."

  "He always had a problem dealing with people," Miss Jane said.

  "He's obviously not ready to handle all of this." She passed her hand down her body to show off her voluptuous figure. "Tell you what, though. I'll suck him off real good."

  Her hands encircled the outline of his penis. His eyes fixed on her mouth. Brown lipstick smoldered on lips traced with black liner. A mole dotted her chin on the left. She might as well have drawn a bull'seye on her face. She took him into her mouth and seemed to hold him there for eternity.