"You got my back though, right?" Parker asked.
"As long as you didn't have anything to do with this." Wayne continued to stare into the trashcan.
"Cool."
Junie skulked off, fading into the background of the alley, a rat scavenging for food in a dumpster then scuttling for cover when exposed. Suspicions aside, Wayne wouldn't give him up. To be known as a snitch would cost him the trust of all the kids he worked with. Every day he'd wonder if it'd be worth it if only to rid the world of a Junie or two.
Tying them up for hours, the police had plenty of questions for both Wayne and Parker. They had more questions, more for Parker especially, but were satisfied enough to let them go. Wayne had time to make the afternoon drop at Outreach Inc., a ministry for homeless and at-risk teenagers, so he swung by his house to get Kay. On the television — which he'd left on so that Kay wouldn't get lonely — the news reported that on the other side of town, six year-old Conant Walker had been shot while standing in front of his kitchen window. The day just kept getting better and better. He pushed past the crowd flanked by IMPD officers; onlookers — though not witnesses, as the interrogating uniforms found out — to the latest murder scene. The intersection of 10th and Rural marked one of the city's highest crime areas, yet he ambled about as if he wasn't a walking anomaly against the neighborhood backdrop of decay and violence. Kay tugged against the leash to get a better sniff of the area, but Wayne kept it taut. He knew better than to let the Rottweiler stray too far or to let him get past his guard. Even as he selected him from animal control, he was warned that the dog had no hope of being socialized. He'd been rescued — if rescued was indeed the proper term — from a dog-fighting ring. Abused and taunted for as long as he drew breath, his personality was mercurial on his best days. No, his fate was his scheduled euthanasia, for his sake and the public's. Wayne adopted him without hesitation. If Wayne didn't believe in redemption and hope, there was no point in him taking another breath.
Wayne graduated from Indiana University with a major in Computer and Information Science and a minor in Psychology and joined the staff of Outreach Inc. right out of school on the recommendation of his Bible study leader. As a case manager, he did a little bit of everything, but mostly what he did was build relationships with the teens and early twentysomethings who were his clients. Drop night was when Outreach Inc. provided meals and activities for their clients to get them away from their situations. It was a safe night off the streets for the kids. Funny how they still thought of themselves as kids even though most were in their late teens.
The Neighborhood Fellowship church building offered free space for Outreach Inc. The burnt brick facade, once a public school with the design sensibility of a penitentiary, overlooked 10th Street onto an abandoned gas station with a gravel lot.
"All right everyone, I need twenty seconds of silence," Lady G bellowed. The room fell silent, to everyone's surprise.
Lady G stood tall and proud, a commanding darkskinned beauty if one could see past the layers of clothes with which she wrapped herself: a T-shirt under a long sleeve thermal shirt under a grimy, faded blue hoodie, under a jacket that had seen better days. No matter the temperature, she carefully selected her wardrobe in order to hide her shape. And wore gloves with the fingertips cut off.
A cell phone rang, strains of Soulja Boy Tell'em's "Crank That", Rhianna Perkins' fave, echoed as if muffled. Rhianna clutched at her buxom chest before plunging her hand into her bra — no longer capable of supporting her engorged breasts — clearly visible through the threadbare material which stretched over her protruding belly. She fluffed her breasts after fishing out her phone, her voice a little more than a rasp. "I forgot to check my 'luggage'."
The room raised up in cries of "aw" and "nuh-uh", faux disgust at being silenced for such a phone search, protesting a tad too much to believe over Lady G and Rhianna's latest antics. Rhianna was a foot shorter than her cousin, with more curves, even when not carrying a child, though this would be her second in her fifteen years. She slept with anyone who could provide a roof, with her babies fulfilling her quest to be loved. Having a baby wasn't so hard, she often said. The fact that her mother actually raised the child and likely the second was an irony which eluded her.
"I'm so sick of that song," Lady G said.
"That's my joint," Rhianna said.
"I'm tellin' you, no one older than sixteen can get with it."
"How are you doing, ladies?" Wayne asked. Kay lay at his feet, unassuming yet on guard.
Lady G slipped on earphones, retreating into herself, her hair slicked back and shaved underneath her lengthy ponytail. Despite being seventeen and having already been shot, stabbed, and beaten in the last year, she carried herself no different than her younger cousin. She tugged at her gloves before thrusting her hands into her coat pocket, hiding her scars well.
"Fine." Rhianna turned away.
Wayne was inured to the various armor the ladies donned to protect themselves. It was like this every week, the intervening days between Drop nights allowed the bricks of their walls to fall back into place. Each conversation needed to re-establish the semblance of trust.
"How's the baby doing? We still on for me to take you to your doctor's appointment? That reminds me…" Wayne pulled out a bottle of vitamins. "Those are for you."
"Thanks," Rhianna said. It was only one word, but the thawing had already begun. Appeasing her "what have you done for me lately?" defenses was rarely difficult.
"If you come in next week, we can get you enrolled in food stamps."
"What good are food stamps when you got no place to cook?"
"We're working on that, too. Things improve with your mom any?" Wayne knew there was no point in asking about her father.
"Nope."
"You still see the baby's daddy anymore?"
Lady G balled her hand and punched her thigh repeatedly, drawing their attention. Familiar with her case file, Wayne didn't press her. Her life didn't start easy as her mother tried to cut her out of her stomach while pregnant with her. Despite being born addicted to crack, her mother took to beating her, the worst typically coming at Christmas time when the Christmas lights became an improvised whip. After a house fire, she fell into a pattern of moving from house to house, becoming a couch surfer before she hit her teen years.
"No, I don't see him anymore," Rhianna lied, more to Lady G than Wayne. She planned to meet Prez later on that day.
"Don't waste no time with petty niggas," Lady G said with a sing-song lilt as if along to the words of a new joint.
"I know, I know. 'Do better'."
"I'm just saying, no dude better touch me, much less hit me over no butt. Do better."
"I ain't gonna trip." Rhianna's whisper sounded even more hoarse.
"You stand by yourself, you stay by yourself."
"Girl," Rhianna searched for a retort but found none, "…boo." Then she upticked her chin toward another table. The trio's attentions shifted to the large boy sitting by himself.
"What you looking at?" Lady G's tone raised up in the posture of attack that was now reflex. No perceived slight or challenge went unmet.
"Nothing." Nearly tipping three bills, Percy had been watching them as his personal dinner theater. Mounds of food — half already consumed — filled his plate. Sheets of paper lay scattered next to his plate as he doodled while lost in his thoughts. He had a darker knot above his left eyebrow in the shape of a crescent moon, his downcast eyes searched for the television remote. The batteries for it rolled along the table; he'd taken them out after fumbling with the buttons in an effort to get it to work.
"Oh, I know you're looking at something," Lady G said.
"You want you some of this?" Rhianna rose to the sport. Neither of them knew how to react to someone, a male especially, who was always around without the agenda of getting into their pants. Yet Percy was always nearby, trailing them more like a faithful puppy than anything creepy. They didn't trust his faithful protecti
veness either. "You are way too special."
"You got to get some game. Can't come up in here looking like Super Mario in black face."
"Look here, Negro Gump…"
"Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so," Percy began to sing to himself. He rocked back and forth, contenting himself to wait them out. There was only so much for them to make fun of: he was slow, fat, had yellow teeth, was not especially handsome, and his clothes were secondhand filthy. Though his nose was long numb to it, he knew that he stank. Wayne's eyes filled with pity every time he saw him and it made Percy sad to see him sometimes. Lady G and Miss Rhianna, they'd laugh and laugh and laugh — they had such pretty laughs — but eventually they exhausted themselves. There were worse fates, he knew, like being ignored entirely.
"Ladies, that's enough," Wayne snapped. He made a production of him clearing his plate in disgust, letting the girls' eyes linger on him, and joining the boy at his table. Percy lowered his eyes even more, his shoulders sank and he leaned his head away from him, the same body language Kay assumed when painfully cornered but not wanting to attack. "They didn't mean anything, Percy."
"I know." The world was a simple place to Percy. There were good people (like Wayne) and there were bad people (like Prez). Better to be born simple and not realize the horrors around you. He looked up at Wayne with complete trust in his eyes. Theirs were a simple little band, assembled by loss.
"Sometimes they go a little too far."
"I know."
"I happen to know they care about you." Wayne placed his hand on his shoulder. The boy flinched at the touch then shied away as if shamed by the contact.
"I know."
"You're probably the safest guy in their world and they don't know how to act around you."
Lady G got up and walked over to the piano that sat at the other end of the room. It had been donated by a family which had no further need of it, but hadn't been serviced in a while. She pecked tunelessly at it. Percy closed his eyes as if enjoying a concert recital.
"They can't trust. When you trust someone only to have them do you dirty…" Percy trailed off as he observed Wayne studying a crumpled piece of paper. He pushed the piece of paper under another.
"Who is she?" Wayne noticed the resemblance to Rhianna but said nothing.
"Just a girl," he said. "Little ones to Him belong. They are weak but He is strong."
CHAPTER FOUR
If the corner were a slave plantation, Dollar was the overseer, the Negro chosen to ensure the other Negroes performed their assigned tasks. His tall, gangly frame — like a basketball player with not enough bulk — filled out his white Notre Dame jogging suit, his bloodshot glare held the menace of a whip ready to scourge any who weren't keeping up their end. A poorly grown goatee outlined his jaw. A black wavecap pulled snug under the jogging suit's hood. His crew were the field Negroes, steady grinding, toiling away; from the lookouts down the way to the runner passing product. The fiends? They were house Negroes, come to beg scraps from their master's table. Some he knew, others were just faces. These brokendown fools he knew because they ran with his boy, Tavon. Loose Tooth, the player formerly known as CashMoney, carried quite a bit of weight to him for a fiend. Though he had to be pushing forty, his body hadn't quite given into the wasting yet, but his mouth hadn't seen the inside of a dentist's office probably since the mid-'80s. Miss Jane, on the other hand, her dusty ass had to have an eye on her at all times. Always running games, she'd be the one who'd alert the master to any slaves trying to make an escape. In the end, they were all slaves to the game.
Junie studied the scene with the desperation of a man cramming for finals he forgot were that day. He and Parker had waited until Green left. Though neither would have used the word "preternatural" to describe his mien, they knew that Green cast an aura that filled their veins with water. Once sufficient time had elapsed after his departure — his presence still managing to hold court for a time — they were ready to make their move. While Dollar's crew was occupied bullshitting with a couple of fiends, the pair crept toward them. They kept their weapons pointed toward the ground in their loping gait toward their targets. Young, black, and poor, they were the most dangerous men in America, with no hope and nothing to lose.
"They coming up the block, yo," a lookout on a bike yelled as he whizzed by Dollar.
Dollar chose the entrance of Breton Court for a reason (as if he had a choice once Green told him where to set up). Two rows of townhouses ran alongside the main drag of Breton Court, plus outstretched arms from the court proper, each having another row of townhouses facing each other separated by a grassy yard. The rears of the two rows between the main drag and the outstretched arm of condos formed an alley of sorts, the fenced-in back patios providing a series of nooks where bodies could hide or deals be transacted with minimal intrusion. Rising up from one of the posts that served as his seat, Dollar dispatched his boys to the bushes that decorated the ends of the townhouses, wasted landscaping that served mostly to hide stashes and weapons. Guns were also hidden among the concrete bricks used to prop open the back patio doors. With the choreography of a ballet company, their movements swift and sure, the troops were ready for them.
Parker didn't have much more of a plan than to walk up and start busting caps. Their only other real option was a drive-by, but that lacked the personal touch, the demonstration of heart, that would cause their names to ring out. Hitching up his baggy jeans as he broke into a jog — another gun firmly in the waistband of his boxers hidden beneath his black hoodie and trailing white T-shirt — Parker aimed his Glock 17. The fiends and bystander scattered with the first shot, though Miss Jane ducked into the bushes with the presence of mind to use the distraction to raid Dollar's stashes. Parker turned his gun sideways, the way he'd often seen it done in movies, only dimly aware that he wasn't coming close to hitting anything he aimed at. A hot casing popped up and caught him under his eye, the searing pain causing him to clutch at his face and move between the cars parked in the front lot.
Junie fired, not so much aiming as swinging his arm toward any movement. Dollar's boys hid among the bushes and ran between patio cavities. A couple ran across the grass yard throwing careless shots in the general direction of the parked cars.
A car window exploded over Junie's head. He crouched down even further, both hands instinctively covering his head to shield him from the rain of glass. Guns still in hand, he accidentally set off a round, blasting out another window. Dollar ran into the open, figuring the safest place to be was right in front of them. He fired at the cars, then ducked behind the car furthest from them. Parker threw his arm around the corner and peeled off a few more shots. Junie's heart pounded so hard his chest hurt. The taste of copper pennies filled his mouth, a mix of adrenaline and fear. No one admitted that they didn't want to die, though truth be told, Parker no longer cared much either way.
Dollar's boys could've penned them in at this point, were they not too busy cowering in their nooks or bushes, throwing shots without bothering to see where they were landing. Parker calmly reloaded while crouched behind a car bumper. He nodded to Junie and pulled out his second gun so that he could fire off both as they backed out. He saw that in the movies, also. No control, no discipline, it was no mystery why no one caught a bullet. Little boys playing cowboys having a shootout to prove their manhood to others. Undoubtedly the story would grow in the re-telling, with tales of derring-do and uncanny accuracy.
No matter how many bodies anyone would claim to have dropped, the only casualties this day were innocent cars and the neighborhood tranquility.
"No one saw dick."
Lee McCarrell's hard-boned face was all jaw and forehead with mean green eyes that bore through folks. A street-wise knucklehead all about kicking down doors, he did one year of patrol, did some time as a part of a special detail out of the mayor's office, and now slummed in Gang Crimes until he could move on to do SWAT work. Lee tired of being the white cop, the presumed racist out
to lock up more brothas. His thoughts bubbled with their familiar boil. It wasn't his fault so many brothers were up to no good. He'd be just as happy locking up Koreans or being unemployed entirely if it meant no more bad guys. You'd think these people, if not being grateful, would at least save their anger for the… animals (yeah, he thought it), their own that preyed on the rest of them. No, they protected them, hid them from the cracka devil out to take away their freedom. Hell, they deserved what they got.
Detective First Grade, Octavia Burke sipped from her bottled water, constantly scanning the streets with her large eyes. She wore her brownish-black hair naturally. Freckles dotted her medium complexion on either side of her wide-ish nose. She shifted her broad shoulders along the seat, getting comfortable, her thick frame part of her "100 % po-lice" bearing.
"Not much here either," Octavia said, adopting a rather Zen attitude about her presumed status of police House Negro. The residents of the Phoenix Apartments had closed ranks once again. As bad as they wanted the crime stopped, they didn't want the label of snitch put on them. For every one criminal arrested, that left plenty behind that the good citizens had to live with. So when chased by the police, the greater of two evils, suspects found plenty of open doors and places to hide. Word on the street was that there was even a buried stash of community guns. The "cracker devil" and "house nigger" faced little cooperation. "Seems once the shots started, everyone scattered. No one got a good look at anyone. Can't even get a consistent number of participants."
"Actual detective work. I like this." Maybe it was a trick of the light, but Lee had been letting his hair grow out and it now threatened to become a fullblown mullet, a hairstyle choice which did not combine well with his porn-star mustache. "Deaf, blind, and dumb. No wonder criminals make a home here. What more could they ask for than such cooperative neighbors."
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