New Title 1

by White, Wrath James

  “Is we under arrest?”

  “They call you Snap, right?”

  “My name’s Malik.”

  “Yeah, well Malik, you just might be under arrest if we find out you had anything to do with that shit over by the wrecking yard. And you, Mr. Huey P. Newton, your ass ain’t exactly clean either.”

  “Whatever, man. Are we done here or what?”

  “Where were you tonight, Snap?”

  “My name’s Malik and I was right where you found me.”

  “All night?”

  “Yeah, all night.”

  “And what about you, pretty boy? Where were you?” the cop asked. He started to reach up to grab Huey’s face, but something in Huey’s eyes made the man think better of it. I knew that it was already taking a Herculean act of will for Huey to resist going for the guy’s throat. If the cop had touched him Huey would have almost definitely exploded.

  “I was with him. All night.”

  “Now what was both of you doin’ with one girl all night?”

  “Watching Dave Chappelle,” Huey hissed.

  “And fuckin’.” I looked over at Huey accusingly. He sneered at me and hissed through his teeth.

  What right did I have to be jealous of him fucking some slut when I had gotten his brother killed?

  “Yeah,” Huey growled as his eyes bore into my skull. He turned his head to stare back at the officer, “And fuckin’.”

  The two officers started laughing.

  “Both of you fucking one woman? What? There ain’t enough crackwhores in Germantown for the both of you?”

  “Oh, you should have seen her, Sarge. She wasn’t no crackwhore. She was thick as hell! Titties big as my head and an ass like a beachball. Looked like she could have taken both these boys all night and still had enough left over for you and me.”

  “You little dick mutherfuckers wouldn’t even touch the sides. It would be like trying to stir a bowl of chilli with a toothpick,” Huey said, taunting them. I couldn’t help but to laugh as the officer’s eyes widened in surprise and then narrowed in anger. They wanted to kick both of our asses and probably would have if we’d been somewhere more private and not in the noisy holding cell.

  They separated us and then questioned us again. Hours later, they put us back in the cells and let us sleep for about half an hour before waking us both up and dragging us back into the interrogation room for another round of twenty questions. It went on like this all night. We weren’t allowed to call our lawyers and they never once read us our rights or told us we were under arrest. In the morning they let us go. Yolanda came to pick us up.

  “Damn, Kurt! You were right! She probably could take all of us!” the sergeant said loud enough for Huey and I both to hear as he watched Yolanda walk through the station. His eyes roved over her ass and breasts like a fat kid appraising a box of donuts.

  I could tell by the veins pulsating in Yolanda’s forehead that she was furious. As soon as we left the precinct she let us both have it.

  “Why’d ya’ll have to say ya’ll was both fuckin’ me?”

  “’Cause we knew they’d believe that. Did you see the way those devils were looking at your ass? I bet they’ll be jacking off thinkin’ about it tonight.”

  “You should have heard the way they were questioning me when they came to confirm your alibis. They were all making jokes and shit and I couldn’t do nothing about it. I was so mad at you two muthafuckas that I was tempted to say I hadn’t seen either one of you last night.”

  “Yeah, well at least nobody strip searched you and looked up your ass with a flashlight, though you might have liked that shit.”

  “I know they would have loved to do it.”

  “Fuck both of you bastards!”

  I laughed and then turned to Huey.

  “Uh, man, is we still cool? You know your brother was like family to me. I mean, I just never expected it to go down like this.”

  “Fuck did you think? Ya’ll was bulletproof or something? Shit, ya’ll should have known that sooner or later this shit was gonna happen. Going after Warlock in some dark ass junkyard? Stupid mutherfuckers! You lucky that you ain’t dead too. But I can’t blame you for none of this. Tank knew what he was doin’.”

  “Shit, man! I can’t believe he’s gone. Damn. Damn. Damn!”

  I wept quietly as we drove back home in Yolanda’s little Civic hatchback. My face was a blank mask. The car was so small that the dashboard pushed my knees almost to my chest and I hugged them as the tears trickled down my face. The weight of the previous night came crashing down on me with paralyzing force. I was stunned into mute shock. In the back, Huey stared straight ahead, a psychotic fury burning in his eyes and vibrating through his tightly contracted tendons and muscles. A single tear traveled the course of worry lines in his face and splashed down in his lap upon his clenched fists.

  “That’s it for me, man. I’m done with all this gangsta shit. Scratch can kiss my ass.”

  Huey glared at me unconvinced. He’d heard it before.

  — | — | —

  Chapter 15

  “…The most hellish aspect of America’s racism is that for generations it has warped and twisted innately good black men, causing the vital vine of black family stability and strength to be poisoned, hacked down by the pity, fear and hatred of black children.”

  —Iceberg Slim, “The Naked Soul of Iceberg Slim”

  ««—»»

  The funeral was the following day. The funeral home’s entire parking lot was filled and cars lined the street for two blocks in every direction. The whole neighborhood had turned out to honor our fallen brother. Homies we hadn’t seen in years filed in looking stunned and devastated. There was more leather, fur, and snakeskin in that place than at a Tyson fight. It was like a who’s who of the gangsta elite. Old players from my mom’s and even my grandmom’s generation showed up to pay their respects. They laid lavish wreaths around the casket and some even handed Mrs. Turner little envelopes filled with money. I didn’t know whether that was cool or not. It was the first friend I had lost in the struggle and I wasn’t sure what was appropriate.

  Was there even a such thing as thug funeral etiquette?

  Young gangstas from West Philly to Mount Airy strolled in half high and drunk, but all looking genuinely sad and remorseful. One of hardest playas in the game was gone. One of their own had passed before his time. Everyone was shocked.

  Whenever anyone came over to try to comfort me I turned away from them. I wasn’t deserving of their sympathy. It was my fault he was dead. Darlene and Tina were both there and Darlene was bawling her eyes out hysterically. She had loved him after all. Both my Mom and Mrs. Turner glared at me as if I had stabbed him myself. I felt like shit.

  The funeral quickly turned into a side show as people came up and began laying “tokens of esteem” in Tank’s casket, everything from platinum jewelry to money to handguns. It was like they were all trying to out do each other with who could come up with the most lavish gift for the dead. I was almost expecting someone to come up and try to lay a set of rims in there.

  Women from the local church arrived and began grieving loudly and hysterically. None of the Turners had ever attended the church and they didn’t know any of the women. They wore gaudy dresses in loud primary colors and huge hats with plumes in them. Their outfits would have given any pimp or player in the room a run for his money. They walked up to Huey and Mrs. Turner sounding rehearsed and artificial as they offered their condolences.

  “I’m so sorry for your loss. He was so young. But he’s in a much better place now. All his suffering is over. Now he’s in the arms of the Lord. If you ever need someone to pray with you sister, here’s our phone numbers.”

  I got the impression that they attended every funeral in the neighborhood as some kind of bizarre church duty.

  Tank was laid out in a black tuxedo with a red cumberbund and bow tie looking entirely unlike he ever had in life. I thought they would have buried him as
we all remembered him, with his baggy black Ben Davis pants, his red and white Ecko Red shirt, and his black leather South Pole jacket with that big ugly AK laid across his chest. At least then he would have looked more like he did in life. They even untied his cornrolls and had his hair slicked back and tied in a ponytail. They obviously had some faggot back their dressing up the corpses who thought he was a fucking fashion designer or something. I couldn’t understand how Mrs. Turner could have let them desecrate his corpse like that.

  His white shirt was pulled all the way up to his chin to hide the stitches where the mortician had sewn his head back on. The absence of blood in his veins from when they exsanguinated him and filled him with embalming fluid, made his skin look gray and ashen, not the rich gun-metal black it had been in life. Someone, probably the same queen that dressed him, had rubbed moisturizer on his face to try to counteract the effects, which made his skin glisten as if he was sweating. Flowers were everywhere, encircling the body, making Tank look like the centerpiece in one huge floral arrangement. It all looked fake and gaudy to me.

  One by one, people strolled up to the casket. I could hear them making ridiculous comments about how natural he looked laying there.

  “He almost looks like he’s still alive.”

  I never understood why people said shit like that at funerals. What fucking consolation is that?

  He’s not alive. He never looked like that when he was on the streets! When did you ever see this mutherfucker wearing a cummerbund with his fucking hair all slicked back like an Italian mobster? I hated that shit.

  There was a man nervously pacing back and forth wearing a tight tuxedo that looked worn in the knees and elbows. He had a purple cummerbund and bow tie that fucking glittered for Christ’s sake! His hair was done up in a greasy Jeri curl like I hadn’t seen since the eighties and he was sweating curl activator all down the side of his face.

  He shuffled through some papers that I realized with a wave of disgust were pages of sheet music. Here we were at a funeral and he was treating it like Showtime at the Apollo. I hadn’t noticed it until he began to sing, but the podium where the minister had stood and where this little man now stepped up to sing was in front of the casket. It was off to the side so that you didn’t have to walk around it to get to the casket or anything, but it was still in front. It made it look like the casket was just a prop, part of the background scenery.

  The man cleared his throat and began to whale out a somber gospel tune that I, not surprisingly, did not know. He sang with his heart and soul like he was auditioning for Star Search, and even played to the audience as if he was expecting us to forget we were all at a funeral and give him a standing ovation. When his song was over he actually looked disappointed that there were no applause. I had to leave.

  When I stepped outside Huey was already standing in the parking lot leaning against my behemoth yellow ’72 Impala.

  “What took you so long? I thought you’d have been out of there the minute the church ladies showed up.”

  “You too, huh?”

  “It looks like a fucking variety show in there. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

  “Where to?”

  “Man, I don’t know, Snap. Just fucking drive. Just get me the fuck away from this shit before I kill somebody.” He sighed and tilted his head back to gaze up at the heavens.

  “You want to go down to South Street? We ain’t been down there since we was arrested that time.”

  “Yeah, it’s been a few years hasn’t it? Let’s go down there and pick up some bitches. It would feel good to get my dick wet in some strange right about now.”

  “I thought things were still cool with you and Iesha?” I asked.

  Huey looked at me with his eyebrow raised and his eyes narrowed as if he was trying to decide whether or not I was serious.

  “Of course they are. But don’t get it twisted. A man still has to be a man. You love one, but you fuck another. That’s the only way you can deal with a woman’s bullshit sometimes, knowing that you got someone else you can go to, to make you feel like a man again after she’s done breakin’ you down.”

  “Is that why you fucked Yolanda behind my back?”

  “Why? Is she your woman? ’Cause to me it looks like she’s everybody’s woman.”

  “I know she gets around, but that ain’t the point. You my dog. If you was hittin’ it all you had to do was let me know so I wouldn’t feel like I was gettin’ played.”

  “Leave it, dog. She’s a piece of ass. Just because you gettin’ it more regular than most of the niggas she deals with don’t mean it’s yours. You need to find yourself a real woman. Fuck bangin’ the neighborhood whore. You need to find someone to fall in love with.”

  “I did that once. It didn’t work out.”

  “Fuck it. Let’s just go.”

  We jumped in the car and headed straight for the expressway, blasting a new CD from The Roots as we passed a joint back and forth. We were high as hell by the time we pulled up at Fifth and South.

  It was too early in the day for much to be going on down there. The high schools and colleges hadn’t even let out for lunch yet so there was no pussy anywhere. The place was dead. We walked up and down the street looking into the punk rock stores, comic book stores, record shops, and clothing boutiques. We were just about to find a place to eat when I spotted a familiar silhouette on the next block. I sped up my stride without clueing Huey in on what I was after. I didn’t want to hear his shit.

  “Damn, Snap. Why you walkin’ so fast? Slow down, bro.”

  Huey saw her sooner than I expected him to and he recognized her right away.

  “Don’t tell me you tryin’ to catch up with that White bitch? Ain’t that the same bitch you met down here that night the cops popped us like three years ago?”

  “Shit, it’s been damned near four years, but I still want some of that.”

  I strode up behind her and leaned in close enough so that she could feel my breath on the back of her neck. She sensed my presence before I could speak and whirled around ready to cuss me out. Her face was contorted into a look of outrage.

  “Fuck is you doin’? Back tha fuck up off me!”

  “Damn, you sound like you’ve dated a few brothas since the last time I saw you. You talk just like a nigga now. You still need a thug in your life?”

  Her face relaxed as she recognized me and a smile spread across features.

  “Don’t even talk to me,” She said, pretending to be upset, but obviously excited to see me again, “How come you ain’t call me?”

  “I got arrested that night and I lost your number. I been hoping I’d run into you again.”

  “Well, I still live down here. I’m up and down this street everyday. I wouldn’t have been hard to find if you’d really been lookin’.”

  “I’ve been goin’ through some drama. I got locked up. Just got out.”

  She didn’t even blink when I told her I’d been arrested. No questions, no complaints, nothing. She probably figured black folks got arrested every day. After all, we were all criminals weren’t we? It didn’t even occur to me that my lifestyle would have justified those stereotypes.

  She turned to Huey and smiled flirtatiously. She could have saved all that. Huey ain’t into snowflakes.

  “Who’s this?”

  “This is my dog right here, Huey. Don’t expect him to be nice to you though. He don’t like White bitches and his brother just got killed so he ain’t in no mood to fake it. We’re supposed to be at a funeral right now.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Bitch, I don’t even know you. I don’t want your fuckin’ sympathy,” Huey snarled, freezing her warm condolences with his vicious blast.

  “Let’s bounce, playa,” Huey started to walk off down the street. He stopped at the corner and leaned against a light pole waiting impatiently.

  “Yeah, I’ll be with you in a minute alright? I told you he was a hateful muthafucka.”

>   “You ain’t lyin’. I know he’s had a tragedy and all, but all that wasn’t even necessary.” She looked genuinely shocked.

  “I should be catching up to him though. He’s goin’ through some shit right now and I should be with him. Look, let me get that number again and I promise you we’ll hook up this time.”

  “I shouldn’t be given your ass a second chance, but you just look so good.”

  “Just write your number down on a matchbook or something ’cause I gotta bounce.”