And the smell was just awful. Most people might not know, but poverty has a unique stench and low-income hoods reeked of it. An amalgamated odor of sweat, cheap rum, cigarettes, rotten meat, spoiled cabbage, and urine, both human and animal.
One could get used to it, like rats habituated to sewers, but Ryatt had long ago promised himself he would never become acclimated to poverty. He just hated it when people said we should be happy with what we are given and live in gratitude.
Well, fuck youse.
Evolution didn’t function like that. Greed, the want more attitude, was what mutated us from some gooey multicellular organism at the bottom of the ocean to a species smart enough to photograph a ringed planet one and a half billion kilometers away from the Earth. If we had been complacent, satisfied with what we had, we wouldn’t have crawled out of the darkest pits of ancient waters. So greed was good, not a sin, and even if it were, then Ryatt would gleefully compete to be the greatest sinner.
Twenty-seven minutes of revalidating his beliefs and justifying his perspective of the world later, Ryatt ambled towards a fence at the end of a cul-de-sac. It separated the tarmac from a vacant lot on the other side, which the homeless, junkies, and other garden variety bottom feeders occupied. The concrete platform of the lot was broken, and the rugged edges jutted up, greenery sprouting from the maws.
Across the lot was the back of a one-story building – the Durants’ home/business. It nestled between a poultry and an auto parts shop, where a transmission tower stood supporting dangerously low hanging power cables.
Ryatt slipped through the narrow opening in the fence, went and sat beside one of the hobos. The streetwise guy, though inebriated, sensed Ryatt’s presence, and left. Ryatt pulled his thighs up to his chest and hugged his legs, mimicking an antsy druggie.
Chin on his knees, he meticulously observed every little thing around him for fifteen minutes. Only when he was sure that he wasn’t being followed did he get up and wipe the back of his jeans. Better that no one knew where he resided.
As Ryatt crept up to the building, he spotted an old guy with half a bottle of rum in one hand, pissing against their wall. Ryatt shook his head. This was what his mom had to live with. He stepped over the broken section of the picket fence and trotted towards the tramp.
The ground was soggy, and patches of algae made it more slippery. A sewage pipe sandwiched between the chicken plant and the picket fence had been broken by a random drifter. Their backyard absorbed the putrid water, and sometimes the runoff stayed there for days, stinking the surroundings.
When Ryatt neared the pisser, he said, “Scram, pops.”
The hobo turned and grimaced, displaying crooked yellow teeth and black gums. “Why?”
Calm as ever, Ryatt answered, “It ain’t a toilet.”
The old man let go of his dick—the stream of his business going wayward, some spilling on his own pants—and gave Ryatt the finger. “Oh fuck you, mother—”
Ryatt’s threadbare sneakers drove into the old man’s boney hips. His head whiplashed, and his body jerked to the side as he lost balance and fell into the runoff. But even in this moment of disorientation, the old man took care of the booze, his dirty fingers holding the neck of the bottle firmly as it stood upright on the ground. Priorities. However, the old man didn’t move. Perhaps the shock or the lack of energy contributed to the asshole’s urge to play possum.
Ryatt wasn’t bothered by guilt. Poverty costs souls. Only the purest and strongest came out of it as better people, like his mom. But Ryatt was no angel.
“Stop acting like you dead,” Ryatt said. “I’m going inside, and you better not be here when I come back because I’m bringing a shooter with me.”
Ryatt pulled a pair of keys from the jeans pocket and unlocked the back door but didn’t push. Instead he took in a deep breath and surveyed the vicinity. The reek of chicken meat, motor oil, sewage, and human waste, and the sight of graffitied lot, broken walls, and damned vagrants made him angry. This slum was what a devil’s anus must look like and only rectal worms thrived here.
And my mom ain’t a worm.
Understanding that he was a helpless man, unable to save his mom, brought a dose of electricity underneath his skin, giving him goosebumps. Ryatt’s purpose in life had never been clearer: get rich or die trying.
Fighting back the tears, he opened the door and stepped inside. He peeked out through a yellow tinted window. The old man pushed himself to his feet, rubbed his face on the muddied coat, and moved on, the pain and indignation of Ryatt’s kick apparently already forgotten. Homeless, they disgusted Ryatt. But if he was honest with himself, he and his mom were just a few months away from losing the roof over their heads. Random bullying from strangers would then become an unavoidable part of their lives, too.
No. Death was kinder than the streets. Ryatt would rather kill his mom and himself.
Iris and Ryatt called that building their home as long as he could remember. But there was no radio, no couch, no oven, no nothing. This was a house without anything that made it a home. A husk mocking Ryatt of his impotence.
Releasing a sigh of self-loathing, he looked at the ceiling and resisted the tears once again. His feet dragged him to a small counter camouflaging as a kitchen. A lone dining stool sat there.
A narrow corridor connected the kitchen to the rest of the house that made up their shop. Two doors flanked the corridor. Left and right. Together they formed bedrooms though Ryatt didn’t know if they could be called that since they didn’t own a bed anymore. One room was a seven-by-four den with an old mattress that might as well be named a ‘back-wrecker’ and could easily pass for a torture device to extract information from Commie spies. And the other room had none, just a floor, a pillow, and a torn excuse of a blanket. Iris, being the wonderful mom that she was, always took the floor.
On the countertop, Ryatt found a dish covered by a plate. He didn’t have to lift the china to know it was the sort of food the heathens and apostates would have been condemned to eat during the Inquisition: ramen. That goddamn ramen was going to be the end of him.
Taking it in one hand and grabbing a jug of water with the other, he made his way to the bedroom. He sat and dug into his meal. His hungry stomach sucked the thin noodles like a vacuum cleaner, even though his taste buds were light years away from being thrilled, but what could his mom do? She did the best she could with what she had. And in all fairness, it was Ryatt’s duty to provide and stand up to be a man.
Some man, he thought, being chased around the city by pigs, forcing Ryatt to scram like a scared little roach.
“We have a bit of soy sauce!” Iris’s voice sang from the front.
“I’m good, Ma,” Ryatt shouted back. “Don’t feel like it.”
Actually, he did feel like it. Anything to cheat his jaded tongue that he was eating tasty food. But the thing was, Iris loved soy sauce, too. And when he was shoving ramen down his throat that morning, he noticed that the sauce would last only for another serving, if that.
“Okay,” Iris said.
When Ryatt was done, like clockwork, his nemesis showed up. The contents of his stomach lurched up the esophagus. He needed a lollipop but his jeans pockets were empty.
Inadvertently cupping his mouth again, he dashed to the front of the shop. Ryatt inserted his hand in a jar that had a bunch of lollipops. He unwrapped one and sucked on it, and then felt the acids receding back to his stomach.
After taking three more, he returned the lollipop jar to the billing counter, beside a transparent box that had a picture of a dove. A fund his mom had created in Lawrence’s name to educate the kids from their block and help them steer clear of drugs and debauchery. And it never filled as far as he knew.
“How’s sales, Ma?” Ryatt asked.
“You know…” She put her head down and gave out a small smile, which was supposed to encourage him, but only made his eyes watery. Goddamn it. He quickly dabbed at the edges. He should never cry.
But apart from the lack of business, something else was not right. Though Iris was blind, she always tried to make eye contact when she spoke. Except when she was trying to hide something. Her eyes weren’t teary, or her shoulders weren’t slumped, the woman was made of the strongest stone. No apparent clues to suggest that she was battling inside, but Ryatt knew, just from the atmosphere, that she was disturbed. Which meant only one thing: Bugsy.
As usual, Iris digressed. “How’s school?”
“Not bad,” Ryatt lied without a stutter, because he expected this question, and massaged his wrists pensively. It was eight months since he had seen the school campus.
“Ma?” Ryatt’s voice turned grave. “Did Bugsy visit here?”
“N—no,” she said abruptly.
That moment’s hesitation was all Ryatt needed for a confirmation. She was lying. Between them, this telltale sign inferred that one person was uncomfortable with the truth and the other should drop the subject.
Bugsy was a ‘sottocapo’, underboss in English, of a prominent Mafia family in their neighborhood. He had loaned Iris’s mom, Ryatt’s grandma, $5,000 to start a new business after their electronic shop had been plundered during the riots. Now Bugsy harassed Iris to pay back $20,000. Plus whatever interest these loan sharks saw fit to charge people who were desperate enough to borrow from them because the banks had abandoned them.
No one crossed Bugsy because he had two things that most peace-loving citizens didn’t: gang and guns.
Word on the street was since Ryatt’s mother was a beautiful Italian American woman and she married a black, not Bugsy, another Italian, he gave her shit whenever he could. Some even said he… assaulted Iris in the worst way one could defile a lady, and Ryatt couldn’t bear hearing those words. Could be just rumors. Should be just rumors.
But his mom had never gone to the police, that’s not how things worked here. Pigs didn’t trouble guys like Bugsy. In this shitty economy, criminals’ earnings surpassed the government’s, and their kickbacks paid pigs a lot more than their salaries. Finally having their first black mayor was supposed to change everything. How wrong had they been. The only way out, Iris had said, was to pay the man up. And she had already settled an upwards of $10,000. Still that bastard was Shylocking what little Iris scrimped and saved. Not that he needed the money. It was a show of power.
Ryatt blamed Bugsy for everything wrong with his life. His mom was permanently blind, due to the botched surgery she had risked in order to give her eye to Ryatt, whose vision was destroyed because of Bugsy.
Maybe, just maybe, if there were no Bugsy in this world, Ryatt might have really been playing football right now.
In spite of Iris’s colossal efforts, life treated them both like a really sticky gum under its shoe. It just wouldn’t stop stomping and smearing them across the curb, tearing them apart bit by bit.
“I can cook you a snack.” Iris changed the topic.
“Not hungry, Ma.” Ryatt lied. He was a stray dog; he was always hungry. Since he spent most of his life in hunger, he just couldn’t get enough of food. But he reckoned it was more psychological than real. “Save it for later.”
“Okay.” Iris extended her arm on the table. A sign she felt perturbed. And he knew what he had to do.
Ryatt held her hand. So soft, yet the strongest. He mouthed, “Love you, Ma.” He didn’t have the audacity to tell her he loved her when he was unable to emancipate his angel from this hell. It would sound like bullshit.
They stood there like that for a few seconds. It was her who let go first but not before giving a gentle squeeze. As if she understood he was dying inside.
“Alright. I am going to church.” Ryatt headed towards the entrance.
“Sweetie?”
“Ma?” he stopped at the door.
“You seem so quiet lately,” Iris said. “Are you doing okay? Is that why you’re meeting with the pastor?”
“What’s he gonna do if I ain’t feeling okay?”
“Guide you towards the right place. Most times we don’t know what we need, but yearn for what we want, and suffer.”
“I am old enough to decide what I need, Ma. What we need.”
“If you’re wise enough to make decisions, then you should also be responsible enough not to make bad ones.”
“I am responsible, Ma,” Ryatt said.
“Negativity or positivity is like a plant. And time is water.”
“Water?” Ryatt’s asked, confused.
“Yes. The more you feed your plants, the stronger their roots get and the bigger they grow. But the catch is, you must be careful which plant you water.”
“Sure, Ma,” Ryatt said and pondered over it. Then he quietly left the building.
Too bad his mom didn’t know that his plant had already become a monstrous banyan tree. And the schemes he conjured up, sitting under its shade, were the only respite in this scorching poverty.
* * *
Given all that was happening in his life, Ryatt surprisingly wasn’t an atheist. In fact, he went to church regularly. He talked to God whenever he could. For instance, that morning Ryatt had looked at the sky and prayed.
For a meteor to strike his home.
It wouldn’t even have to destroy the world because Ryatt was sure that so many of God’s beloved children lived here. It’s just that Ryatt and Iris weren’t on that list. So even just a pocket-sized meteor capable of disintegrating their home would suffice.
All the pain had made Iris a better person. Like a fucking white swan. Poised and diligent. Beautiful and altruistic. But it turned Ryatt into what he was now: an angry beast who despised everything about the world. He could explode anytime now, lava seething out. But the same pressure made a diamond out of Iris. The more pain she accepted, the tougher she became but also kinder, her spine a little straighter, her gait more purposeful. Though they were made of the same material, one was a red-hot liquid that endangered people while the other was a glittering stone everyone adored.
Ryatt went into the well-lit church with a gaping void inside his center. He paced heavy-heartedly, fingers tracing the shiny wooden pews while his eye set firmly on the centerpiece. “You have high-ticket carpentry.” He shrugged. “We have one piece of furniture. A dining stool.”
Closing his fists, he tightened his arms and brought them forward, examining the meandering blood vessels. A chuckle escaped his thin lips. “Don’t know if they are really veins and arteries, or just ramen, because thanks to you, I feel like it’s all I’m eating. It’s all I’ve ever eaten. Goddamn ramen.”
His eyes prickled.
“You have some good air conditioning?” Ryatt sucked in his lower lip and nodded, the first drop escaping his bottomless tearducts. “We either sweat in the sweltering summer or shiver in the bitter cold.”
Not really minding the torrents that began cascading down his cheeks, he sniffled.
“Smells good in here.” Ryatt made a show of looking around. “Scented candles? Room fresheners?” He closed his eyes and shuddered. “We have ourselves the smell of chicken goo and hobo piss.”
And then the penny dropped. He couldn’t contain the flooding anguish anymore.
He collapsed on all fours and bawled, his misery forming little puddles on the clean floor. The tears dotted his path as he crawled to the altar, wailing. When he finally reached it, he grabbed the edge and pulled himself onto his knees. Angling his head sideways, he stared at the smudged image of the Savior hanging on the crucifix.
“If you really hate our guts so much, why don’t you just end me and my mom right now?” He wiped his eyes. “Living ain’t supposed to hurt this much, is it? I ain’t asked to be born.”
Ryatt felt dizzy, the pressure literally building up within his head and throbbing. For a few minutes, he was in a trance, devoid of motion, and everything around him stopped. No words were needed anymore. In fact he hated himself for opening up like that. God should understand him without all this drama. Like a mother knew her child was i
n pain even before the child had learned to articulate it.
A gunshot somewhere in the distance echoed inside and broke his stupor. Ryatt took a long quivery breath and shook his head in disdain. “Please stop torturing us. Enough is enough.” He balanced his wet trembling palms on the landing and got up to his feet. But before he turned and walked away, he muttered, “Kill us already, you fucking coward.”
Chapter 6
May 18, 1981. 08:56 P.M.
Ryatt headed to his stomping ground in Forest Park, a seedy neighborhood at the outskirts, five miles from his house. Not that there weren’t any hangouts around 12th Street, but minority whites dominated them all, who in turn reported to Bugsy. Forest Park, though it had been influenced by Italian mobsters in the past, was not under their control anymore. Blacks ruled it, like they did most of the city. Bordered by Interstate 75 and the Detroit River, Forest Park was the remnant of an industrial town. Abandoned factories, deserted roads, and an absence of pigs combined, formed an ideal and snug retreat for many a scumbag.
Ryatt crossed the last drivable street and trod onto an unlit path, the bright full moon his only source of navigation. Potholes, made only more dangerous by lush undergrowth hiding them, were deep enough to upend even an SUV. It could easily pass for a haunted road, what with lack of traffic, thick tall trees flanking the jagged edges, and brick chimneys of old mills rubbernecking from the dark jungle.
Yawning, Ryatt trudged along. The vegetation around and under his shoes grew denser and denser, gradually merging into an imposing wall of bush that blocked the path. One might assume that nothing existed beyond it, except wilderness and wraiths. But if you waited and listened, you could hear faint music.
Covering his face with both hands, Ryatt shambled right into the thicket, the bristles scratching the back of his hand, ears, and neck. After thirty seconds of blindly pussyfooting through the bloodthirsty thorns, the flora became sparse, opening into an old basketball court. From where Ryatt stood, he could see and hear the beltway that stretched down to Ohio.
The Innocents Page 4