Feral King

by Ginger Booth

  Frosty nodded. “Elon’s riding a tiger. Ordinary good people, plus monsters, and he has to yoke them together.” His own projected persona got squirrelly even to unify the White Tigers. He couldn’t stretch to bridge middle-class white kids and a bunch of felons. But maybe Elon was native to that bridge. “The bottom line is whether we can trust him at our back.”

  “Moot point,” Jake opined. “Because he’s already there, and he’s too big for us to budge.”

  Smiley nodded emphatically. “If it comes to us versus Libre, we better start running.”

  “We’re not running,” Frosty growled. “I buy it. He wants a quiet flank, just like I do, so he’s not surrounded by monsters.”

  “They’re culturally compatible,” Maz offered. “Similar goals. Catholic-dominated community. Bond with their own kind. Police the place. They share authority with the girls. If this Puño is smart and talented and has a place in the hierarchy – and it looks like he does – then Libre’s culture leverages merit, not just violence.”

  “Let’s do it,” Jake agreed. “Is there a concrete proposal from Elon?”

  Smiley pulled out a map sketched on graph paper. “Yeah, he wants February 28th. I guess we took too long, and they got busy on a problem to the east, so the timing might slip. He wanted that crystal clear, that unless the 28th is confirmed as a go on the 27th, we hold off.”

  “Good,” Jake agreed.

  “Here’s the proposal.”

  February 26, E-day plus 80.

  Ava halted the kids in front of a dull stone apartment building on 24th, and began to divide them into two teams to leapfrog upstairs, scouring the apartments.

  “This is pointless!” Minnie bitched yet again, the girl Kat seconded her to ‘help.’ “Like these snot-nosed ankle-biters are any use in a fight!”

  Ava caught Germy’s eye, and jerked her chin up a little. Get them started. They piled into the entrance under his direction. She trusted he also reminded them of their assignment before setting them loose to scour the building. They were to acquire any white kids and loot, holler and run if they ran into resistance. They always needed food, but the pressing need was more ammo. To kill, maim, or scatter 200-plus Hip Hops would take a lot more bullets than they had. Bringing martial arts and knives to a gun fight only worked for the highly skilled.

  “I’m a fighter!” Minnie railed. “And instead I’m stuck babysitting!”

  Ava attempted to tune her out until the kids scattered. Minnie had a point, almost. Sure, she’d rather fight with the guys. Ava was talented enough to stand toe-to-toe against more than half of them. Hell, more like three quarters, though she wasn’t much of a shooter.

  She motioned for Minnie to follow her inside as the biting ankles fled upstairs, and continued behind the stairs, where she wheeled, arms crossed. “Minnie, these kids follow me every day. Were you there when Frosty explained this system? I know you heard Kat explain it.”

  Minnie rolled her eyes. “Sexist bullshit.”

  Ava shoved her into the wall and held her there. “And then you insult my fighters. I don’t know how you rank with your usual bitchy do-nothings.” Minnie shoved her back hard enough for Ava to stagger.

  Ava gathered her dignity and continued. “But here, I’m leader. And you don’t undermine me or my team. Minnie, they’re kids. They’re scared and they ought to be protected. Our job is help them be brave enough to stand and defend our home. That’s why the top girl fighters stick with the kids and the girls, to add backbone and leadership. And what do you do? Wander onto my team and trash talk them? What, to make yourself feel important? You’re too good for us?”

  Minnie pinched her lips and leered at her. “You get a cushy make-work job with the kids because you sleep with Frosty!”

  Ava jerked her arm and rolled the other girl over her back to flip onto the floor, face up. Then she stepped toes on her biceps – excruciating – and dropped to a seat on Minnie’s gut, knocking the air out of her in a gale of halitosis. “You’re wrong, idiot. The only girl fighter better than me is Kat. Frosty likes me because I’m a fighter. I don’t get out of anything. I work as hard as any girl in this gang! And you! Are a useless piece of shit.”

  Sitting on the kids was a great impediment. But Minnie outweighed her. The fighter twisted and shoved Ava off to land on her ass.

  “Cat fight!” Switch called down from above.

  “Switch, no spectators! Back to work!” Turning to Minnie, Ava hissed, “You say one more discouraging word to my kids, you’re out of here.”

  “You can’t kick me from your team!” Minnie screeched, and clutched for Ava’s hair, both still on the floor.

  The girl was no slouch. They scuffled painfully for a couple minutes before Ava regained her feet. Then she caught Minnie’s wrist and yanked the girl over her hip to land on the filthy vinyl checkerboard floor again, face down, different spot. Since Minnie mentioned kicking, Ava kicked her in the ass before she dropped to sit on it. This worked somewhat better face-down. She continued to keep her voice low, confident that Germy and Switch eavesdropped on every word. Their honor was on the line.

  “The point here, Minnie, is that I lead this team. What I say goes. And I’m about to say you go. You suck as a fighter, and you’re diarrhea for morale. Are you going to shape up?”

  “Let me go!”

  “Gladly.” Ava got up and waved a hand to the door.

  “Oh no! I’m not leaving like that!”

  Ava advanced on her. “If you stay, it’s because you obey me. You’re helpful, supportive, and pitch in to lead and defend these children.”

  Minnie backed toward the door rather than stand against her, though she made a couple pointless grabs, easily deflected. “Who died and left you queen? You’re nothing, Panic! If Kat and Frosty didn’t back you, you’d be a laughing stock! You’re flat as a board! Frosty must like boys!”

  Ava stood in the doorway, arms crossed belligerently, to watch the delightful Minnie on her way until she turned into an alley. So much for getting help on her position. But the truth was, she and her kids were better off without, if this was the most helpful fighter Kat could give them. Holding 24th was crucial when the battle began. They needed to assure none of Hip Hop slipped through here to 23rd, the White Tigers home block. That was alley defense. If the American blacks from 6th wanted to run through here to the Dominican blacks on 7th, that’s exactly where Jake wanted them to go.

  But Minnie was a loudmouth. This wouldn’t end here.

  “Help!” someone called from above. Ava turned to pelt up the stairs, all 5’1” of muscle backup for her charges.

  23

  February 27, E-day plus 81.

  Ava waited impatiently with the other lieutenants in the dojo for word on tomorrow’s operation. Frosty and Jake were close-mouthed about the plan for security’s sake, but she knew the gist. Another gang had to confirm they were a go for tomorrow to jointly take down Hip Hop on 6th Avenue, the White Tigers’ biggest offensive yet.

  Ava noted Minnie in the room, and frowned. “Minnie, what team do you lead?” The girls tended to clump along the inner wall, the more boisterous guys across from them against the windows.

  “Yours!” Minnie turned her back.

  “Funny. I sent you packing! Kat, why is she here?”

  Kat turned slowly from her chat with Brawnda and Angel, promising to get back to them. “Say what?”

  “I kicked Minnie off my team yesterday. I tell her she’s useless, and now she’s captain on another team?” Kat liked to appoint co-captains, several per team, so her presence didn’t indicate a lofty rank, but still annoying.

  “Panic, your mouth,” Kat grieved, shaking her head. She glanced to Frosty, who scowled. Maz turned his back to shoot the breeze with him. “Minnie works for you.”

  “I won’t have her,” Ava insisted. “Better to do it on my own.”

  “Yeah, how would that work?” Kat demanded. “You have two sides of a street to defend. Attackers coming in from
6th. You just going to scamper back and forth in front of them? ‘Excuse me, horde of rapists, I just need to check on my people over there’?”

  Ava planted a fist on her hip and shook her head. “Better Germy and Switch than her. Useless bitch kept trash-talking my fighters.”

  The Mean Girls snickered. This was their team name, with three co-captains present for Frosty’s leadership meeting. Jake bitched about calling Frosty’s top henchmen lieutenants, and the team leaders captains, inverted from the military sense of the terms. Kat rolled her eyes and did things her way. High school clubs had co-captains.

  Ava glared at the Mean Girls. “I have fighters, same as you.” She turned back to Kat. “Same with Minnie. No respect. Tearing my kids down. Look, I don’t treat them like pampered pets.” PMS and Hairy Whores started snickering too, and she shot them a glower. Ava was often accused of just that. “But I can’t order them to follow a chick who’s mean to them.”

  “Nobody is mean to the kids!” Frosty casually threw his oft-repeated refrain out there, then resumed joking around with Maz and Jake and Hotwire.

  Then Smiley finally burst in with the verdict. “Postponed! Four days, maybe more!” He didn’t risk crossing Hip Hop’s sentries anymore. Communications established, mostly they waved pennants across the intersection from down the block, spotted via binoculars. Mets, Jets, Giants and Yankees pennants were easy to come by.

  A groan and loud sighs spread through the room at the news.

  “Dammit!” Frosty acknowledged. “Good work, Smiley.” He turned back to his guys, looking grim. They needed this attack done, to steal food and ammo. Never plentiful, food was growing critical. Theft between gang members was on the rise, including stealing from the kids.

  Ava returned to Kat. “Minnie shouldn’t be in here. She’s all about her ego and whining. Why anyone would follow her, I can’t imagine.”

  “You ratlike runt!” Minnie squealed.

  Kat glowered at both of them. “Why is this the first I’m hearing of it? I gave you two an order. Hey!” She raised her voice to encompass all the girls. “When I give an order, I expect it followed! Or I will know the reason why!” She lowered her voice for Ava. “And that’s where you screwed the pooch.”

  Ava shrugged unrepentant. “I sent her packing. I was busy, leading kids doing their jobs. She should have gone to you.”

  Kat tilted her head the other way to Minnie, with narrowed eyes and a sneer serving as invitation for her excuse.

  “I had a team, Tricky Bitches. Then you assigned me to Frosty’s little whore –”

  “Don’t call me that again!” Ava shoved Minnie hard into the PMS quartet, who happily rebounded her for more. Minnie returned, and her claws grasped for Ava’s face. Ava grabbed her by both hands and swung her down to knock the girl’s jaw against her knee. Before tossing her aside, Ava broke off one of her excessive fingernails. This hurt like hell, raising Minnie’s shrieks a number of decibels.

  “Cat fight!” the guys yelled appreciatively.

  “STOP!” Kat yelled at them all, several times to achieve compliance, and marched along to dress her lines. “What the fuck, you guys? Got your blood up for a fight, huh? Save it for the enemy! Wow, those latrines will be sparkling for the big battle! And mountains of clean laundry! Morons.”

  She wheeled on Ava. “And Panic, pray tell! Is there a single loudmouth, lazy, incompetent bitch here who rises to your exacting standards? You need a second big to handle your smalls. Non-negotiable. No matter how you twist your panties in a wad. Capiche?”

  “Four!” Jake called over. “Four bigs for the littles.”

  Ava scowled and scanned the sea of hostile female faces. She remained far from popular, in gang life as Before. She didn’t mingle with the older tough girls as much as she should.

  “Ooh, pick me, pick me!” Butch sang out, raising a smiling hand from the PMS ranks.

  “Thank you, Butch!” Kat confirmed sarcastically. “Panic will love you! That’s an order, Panic. This time you make it work.”

  “Thank you, Kat. Thank you, Butch!”

  Butch waded over to trade a hard grip and stand at Panic’s side. Scratching her nose tactfully, she suggested, “Chancy and Pixie like kids.”

  Ava felt her face warm from shame that she needed the advice. “Thanks, Butch. Chancy and Pixie! You’re with us!” As the new quartet coalesced toward the Frosty end of the room, she realized that if two were necessary, four made sense. If their big girl was incapacitated during a fight, the rudderless kids would be torn between defending their position and finding help. So if it was worth doing, it was worth making redundant.

  “I’ll work with Pixie,” Butch offered, before Ava could assign pairs.

  “Good,” she confirmed. “Let’s make another cleaning run this afternoon. What we’re doing –”

  Another kid burst through the street door, one of Ava’s boys this time. “Fire on 7th! Caudillos jumping out the windows!” They’d learned the name of their 7W Caribbean neighbor, a Dominican gang, Spanish speaking in mingled shades of black.

  “Where on 7th?” Frosty demanded.

  “South corner! A Caudillo landed on fire behind the barricade!”

  Frosty slowly broke into a twisted smile. “Roast pork! Let them burn!”

  The leadership ran out of the dojo and down the block to see the fire. The huge building spanned the block on 7th Avenue between their barricade and West 22nd. It burned like a torch. Caudillos and Tigers alike thronged below, to gaze rapt at the mesmerizing flames.

  Ava gagged as Frosty himself crouched to butcher the first body. The skin was burned. The guy was already dead, the meat quite fresh. It wasn’t really cooked, though, and he was a person, however animal. Beside her, Butch tilted her head in horrified fascination. Pixie pursed her mouth, as she always did, and Chancy hid behind her.

  Are you for real, Frosty? Ava couldn’t make out whether he was acting, or lost it. They needed food bad. She persuaded herself her boyfriend was intentionally psyching up the troops. Maybe.

  Taking their lead from Frosty, other guys claimed other bodies already fallen near the barricade. A woman fell screaming in agony to land just to the other side of the corpse piles. Ava gulped, and started running. “Ours!” To her faint surprise, her newly acquired co-captains kept pace with her, and several of her kids rendezvoused. The body was still burning as they dragged her behind their lines along the sidewalk, then out into the street away from the hot blast of the roaring blaze.

  Step one accomplished, Ava stood and gazed at the smoldering dead woman, then stole a sideways glance at other butchering operations in progress. Rather than being mortally offended, the Caudillos took the idea and ran with it, butchering their own in the middle of 7th Avenue.

  Frosty, only his hands bloody, had stepped back as underlings took over his grisly work. These were lean carcasses. They took care to carve the belly, chest, and buttocks for meat. The remainder was only good for stewing. Her boyfriend’s head was cocked to one side, a familiar glittery look to his eyes, detached, calculating. Ava knew that expression.

  Suddenly, he let out a wolf howl. “Roast pig! Falling from the sky! Tigers! Tigers! Tigers!” Others took up the cheer until the whole gang was screaming. The Caudillos tried to summon together a counter-cheer, but their heart wasn’t in it.

  Ava cheered and howled with the rest, as Frosty’s lieutenants must do, to make sure her own charges took up the paean. Yet a part of her seemed to detach to watch blankly. By the time she turned back to her carcass, her own Zoey and Pixie were carving it. Pixie was remarkably deft with a knife, her blade razor sharp.

  Good to know.

  “Your boyfriend’s a little loco,” Butch remarked by her side.

  Ava glanced at her sharply, then away. “He knows what he’s doing. We need food. This one’s for the kids.” Germy and Switch were staring at her. “First taste, guys.”

  They didn’t wait to be invited twice, eagerly crouching to grab some crispy belly meat
. Pixie took the opportunity to sample a bite herself. She pursed her lips even while chewing.

  “Permission to go barf now, boss?” Butch requested.

  “Think I’ll join you.”

  March 1, E-day plus 83.

  Two nights later, Kat and Maz joined Ava and Frosty for supper. Ava called it couples’ night, but only in the privacy of her mind. Though operating as a food-share team, they only managed to convene all four of them once a week. Jake was on duty, a convenient excuse since Frosty didn’t like to argue with the guy after hours.

  Eating together was important. Sometimes she was half afraid to be alone with her boyfriend. They didn’t talk much since the fire.

  Kat set the coffee table while Ava finished cooking on her book-fueled stove. Tonight was a one-book meal. She hopped onto the counter to grab vitamins to go with it. Her stock dwindled. These vitamins cost her hundreds of dollars the day Ebola broke out, charged to her grandfather’s card. She remembered the price gouging that day, $133 a bottle. Or, no – she escaped through the riot that broke out at the checkout counter, so she supposed she stole them. But she’d intended to pay. She’d hoarded them ever since, eking them out to make them last.

  Special occasion.

  She put four in her hand. But Frosty, his legs under the coffee table, called out softly. “Baby? Leave three on the counter for me.”

  She pursed her lips at him. Ordinarily, she wouldn’t even share her vitamins with Kat and Maz.

  “Jake, Hotwire, Johnny.” He gazed at her sadly. “Please.”

  She sighed and did as he asked, then doled out the life-saving pills to her family as the first course. She downed her own, then turned back to carry supper to the table, kneeling on the open side of the table across from Maz. She served the guys two thirds of the food, splitting the rest with Kat, who fetched along the solar desk lamp.

  They gazed at their servings, golden brown soup, tiny yellow oil droplets glistening on the surface. Ava and Frosty picked theirs up to smell it, fragrant steam suffusing their sinuses, rich in cheap pork bouillon and soy. Ava tipped hers for that first slurp and lost herself in the flavor, the slippery noodles, the warm broth flowing down her gullet. Glutted on ‘roast pork’ the past two days, tonight only a few well-cooked chunks swam in the delectable fried ramen noodles, two bricks, original price maybe $1.