I roared like a lion when I came and she screamed like a murder victim and burst into tears. It was the most passionate sex I had ever had. When it was over I had the strongest urge to tell her I loved her. But my pride and my better sense kept me in check. I didn’t know shit about her no matter how well our bodies had communicated. Still, I felt something tender and powerful when I held her and it scared the shit out of me. Love at first sight was for punks and love at first fuck was for tricks. I needed to put as much distance as I could between me and Christina. I hopped out of bed and gathered up my clothes, dressing in a hurry and trying not to look at her flawless body. It was bad enough that I was working for a white boy without falling in love with some snowflake bitch too. I was pulling my Timberlands on my feet when she reached out and grabbed my arm.
“You have to leave?”
“I gots to get tha fuck out of here.”
Her eyes looked hurt. There was so much emotion in them that I felt something flutter in my heart. I turned away and continued pulling on my boots.
Maybe she had felt something too?
I dismissed the notion. This White girl didn’t know shit about me, besides, the way she fucked she probably had boyfriends all over the place. She damn sure wasn’t no virgin. Just another ho with some exceptionally good pussy. Nothing to get your emotions all twisted over.
“I love you, Malik. I hope you don’t mind me saying that?”
She looked up at me with those big emotion-filled eyes that seemed to implore me not to hurt her. I stared back at her speechless. I wanted to fall back into her arms and tell her I loved her too. I wanted to make love to her all over again and my flesh was signaling its own readiness with an urgent swelling that was almost painful after so much use already. Emotions were swirling within me like a maelstrom. For right or wrong, my pride won the battle.
“Get over it.” I finished lacing up by boots and walked out.
— | — | —
Chapter 16
“It is strangely ironic that the American white man is not really free. He is the victim of his own insanity. The free man is the man with no fear.”
—Dick Gregory, “Write Me In!”
««—»»
Scratch watched passively as fire consumed the decrepit old building. Soon it would collapse and disintegrate into little more than a pile of ash. Scratch leaned against his arterial-red BMW with the gold rims and grille, watching the human shapes within the flames writhe in agony, trying to escape cremation. One burning form flung itself out of the second story window, hit the concrete at Scratch’s feet, and lay still. Scratch nudged it with his boot to make sure the char-broiled body was dead. Another figure braved the front door.
Scratch raised his .44 and pointed it at the burning man as he staggered out of the house completely engulfed in flame. His lips parted wide as if he was trying to scream and fire erupted from his open mouth and poured from his nostrils and eyesockets. The drug-dealer lowered his weapon when the figure stumbled and fell onto the other bullet riddled corpses piled up outside the front door. No sense wasting a bullet. The fire had already killed him. The other smoldering carcasses re-ignited when the flames, still greedily consuming the burning body now convulsing on top of them, crawled down to devour their flesh as well. Scratch had shot each of them dead as they tried to escape the flames and still the fire had found them. Their skin bubbled and ran like frying lard, the subcutaneous fat popping like boiling oil.
Smoke billowed up into the night sky blotting out the stars. Scratch frowned in disappointment. Burning the entire house down had been extremely reckless, perhaps even careless, but Scratch was starting to lose his patience. He couldn’t afford to let that baby live. It would ruin everything, and he’d been almost positive that the bitch and her whelp would be here.
The smell of burning flesh was overpowering. It made Scratch’s mouth water. There were still screams coming from inside the crackhouse, but no one else had attempted to leave. Anyone still inside was already a corpse. Yet, still he could feel the baby’s presence. He’d failed again. Scratch climbed into his BMW and drove slowly away as sirens wailed in the distance heading for the fire.
He had managed to narrow things down a bit though. He’d raided every crackhouse in G-town now except one. Scratch was positive that she had to be there, unless she knew he was coming for her and had already left the neighborhood. Then he would be fucked.
If someone assassinated him while that kid was still alive it would be over, there would be no resurrection. He couldn’t allow that to happen. If man’s sins were forgiven then all his efforts would have been in vain. No matter what, that kid had to die first, but he was running out of time.
He didn’t know why he was so sure that it would be a crack baby. He just knew. It fit the profile. He also didn’t know why he was so positive that it would happen in Philly, in G-town, but over the centuries he’d gotten good at predicting these things. He recognized the patterns, the subtle nuances in the chain of cause and effect that inevitably led to His coming. He was in the right place, at the right time, and he was going to crucify that little fucker again, and again and again. Every time He reappeared, Scratch would be waiting to send Him back to his maker. He’d get him. He always had, always would, and that uppity little nigger, Snap, was going to help him. This time, he wouldn’t even get his hands dirty.
“But where the fuck is the baby!” he shouted as he slammed his fists into the cherry wood-grain dashboard.
Any day now members of the Junior Black Gangsta Lords would be coming for him, to avenge their leader’s murder, and as long as that baby was safe in its mother’s womb Scratch was vulnerable. Once the little bastard was dead Scratch would be almost invincible. It wouldn’t matter how many times he was killed. He’d just keep coming back. Dr. Yaccub had made certain of that. The infernal energy that animated his flesh was eternal. He wasn’t a devil or a demon, but he was the next best thing.
— | — | —
Chapter 17
“Pass me the gat. I gotta stay strapped. I ain’t goin’ out on my muthafuckin’ back!”
—Brand Nubians, “Pass Me the Gat”
««—»»
“Yo, Snap? Yeah, dog. This is Scratch.”
“Da fuck do you want?”
“Look, brother, I’m sorry about Tank.”
“I ain’t your fuckin’ brother, white boy. Now, fuck do you want?”
“I’ve got a favor to ask you.”
“I’m out Scratch. I’m done with this shit.”
“You’re what?”
“I ain’t stutter, muthafucka! I’m out this shit! Your ass is on your own from now on.”
The chuckle that came from the other end of the phone was like a witch’s cackle.
“You trippin’, Snap. You so deep in this shit you can’t never get out.”
“Yeah? And who tha fuck gonna keep me in? Your punk ass?”
“I don’t have to keep you in, Snap. The streets ain’t gonna let you walk away from this. You think you can just body the leader of a major drug crew and then walk the streets unprotected? If you ain’t part of my crew then you all alone and that makes you an easy mark. All the blood you done splashed on these streets? Black folks got long memories, Snap. You may try to ignore what you are, to put it out of your mind and act like a regular citizen, but those same citizens that you want to be like won’t let you forget. You know how the game is. If you ain’t a playa then you gets played. If you ain’t a gangsta then you gets ganked, and if you ain’t a killer—you feel me? There’s only one way out of this game. The same way Tank got out.”
“You threatenin’ me? Well, you can save it ’cause you don’t put no fear in my heart. All that voodoo Satanic shit don’t mean nothin’ to me. You can get smoked like anybody else. Test me.”
“You know I wouldn’t try to threaten you, Snap. I know you’s a real gangsta. Just do this last little favor for me and I won’t bother you for shit else. You want to be a civilian the
n more power to you. But you can’t just leave me hangin’.”
“You want me to spill some more blood then it’s gonna cost you another ten thousand.”
“Ten thousand? You crazy! I ain’t talkin’ about killin’ nobody on the level of Jah Warrior.”
“Then handle it yourself.”
“I can’t go no higher than five.”
My lip curled up in a snarl.
“This ain’t no muthafuckin’ negotiation! You want me to do this then the price is ten muthafuckin’ gees!”
Scratch’s voice came thundering through the phone. Something about it sounded more powerful and threatening than the man had ever sounded in person. It reminded me of the way Scratch had sounded years ago just before he’d blown that Jamaican’s head apart.
“Fuck that! You owe me!”
“Owe you? How you get that notion in your head? You ain’t never did shit for me. Many niggas as I done put to sleep for you for bullshit chump change! I don’t owe you shit and I don’t need shit from you!”
Scratch hissed into the phone and it was like the warning before a cobra’s strike. Rage boiled off him in waves. I could feel his anger like a physical force radiating through the phone, burning into me. I refused to be moved. Fuck him. His voice softened and that con-man smoothness slithered back into his words.
“Alright, bro. You got your ten fuckin’ gees.”
“Then I’m down. Should I come heavy or light?”
“This is light work. I’ll pick you up in about a half.”
I hung up the phone and stared at the yellowing white walls trying to dispel the ominous feeling of dread that had come down on me after agreeing to go on yet another hit. This had to be the last one. If I kept this up I’d never get out. I shouldn’t have even taken this last job, but the lure of money was too strong. I turned and looked across the room at the mirror on the bathroom door. It had been a long time since I’d looked in that mirror and saw the boy I was meant to be instead of the killer I had become. I wondered if I’d ever be a kid again. I wondered if I’d ever be able to hug my mother without the blood on my hands forming a barrier between us. I lifted the holster with the loaded Beretta still inside out of a pile of dirty laundry and hooked it onto my belt. I slipped a box of 9mm. Black Talons into my pocket along with an extra clip just as my mother called up to me from the kitchen.
“Are you going out or are you gonna stay and eat dinner with your Momma for a change?”
It was her none-too-subtle way of saying that she was lonely and wanted company.
“I’ll eat, but I have to bounce pretty soon though.”
“Come down here, boy.”
“Okay, but no arguments, alright?”
“Boy, I ain’t got the strength to argue with you.”
I slipped on my Kevlar vest and pulled a sweat shirt on over top of it before I walked down the narrow staircase into the dining room. It had been a long time since my mother and I sat at the same table together and had a meal without arguing. I was looking forward to it. It somehow made what I had to do tonight seem less horrible.
The table was set with fried chicken, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, and homemade biscuits. My stomach growled. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was.
“Before you eat any of this food you’ve got to make me a promise.”
My eyes narrowed in suspicion. What the hell was she trying to pull now?
“What kind of promise?”
“Promise me you won’t get yourself killed or kill anybody else tonight.”
Her eyes filled with tears and when the first one fell the rest came like a torrential downpour racking her slender body. I ran to her and held her against me as she wept. Her hands slid down my back to my waste, to my belt. I felt her trying to lift my gun from its holster. I wrenched myself free from her.
“What are you doing?” I rolled my eyes toward the ceiling and flung my arms down at my sides in exasperation.
“Promise me, Malik! Promise me! You don’t know the dreams I’ve been having lately. And your grandmother’s been having them too. Dreams about that evil White boy you work for. I saw him sitting on his throne in hell and he was calling you to him. You were trying to resist him, but he was too powerful and he brought you down to hell with him only you weren’t on no throne. You were being tortured down there. Demons were ripping you apart, skinning you alive, and you were screaming for me, but it was too late for me to save you. They threw your broken body in the lake of fire. All your skin had been ripped away and your eyes had been gouged out and…and they’d castrated you and left you there, burning and screaming. That White boy was just watching it all and laughing at you. He’s evil, Malik. Just stay away from him. Promise me!” Her eyes were wild and desperate, bloodshot with tears.
“I can’t make that promise, Mom. Not tonight. Not yet.”
“Why? I’m just asking you not kill anybody and you can’t even promise me that? I’m only asking you not to let that devil talk you into anything that’s going to get you killed or kill anyone else. What’s so hard about that?”
It was the second time in as many days that I’d heard someone I loved refer to Scratch as a devil. Huey was a militant who thought all Caucasians were devils, but Mom was different. When she called Scratch a devil she meant it in a more literal sense. And what the hell was up with that dream?
I knew all that demonic shit was a mystique that Scratch purposely cultivated to frighten the superstitious and add to his rep. I was just surprised at how well it had worked. My mother and grandmother weren’t even in the game, and probably didn’t know shit about Scratch’s reputation in the streets, yet even they were buying into it. I heard a car horn honking out front and Mom and I both turned our heads simultaneously towards the front window.
“Don’t go.”
“Sorry, Mom, I have to.”
My mother’s eyes were full of worry and disappointment as I rose from the kitchen table and started out the front door, but she stayed silent. She had already said her peace. In her mind I was already burning in hell being torn apart by demons. She had wasted all the words she could on trying to save me.
“I love you, Mom.”
She turned her head and refused to look at me as I walked out the door.
“I love you too, son,” she whispered, but I was already gone.
Scratch was parked in the middle of the street in that tacky-ass BMW of his. Gold twenty-four inch rims, gold nugget grille, gold nugget license plate holder with a vanity plate that read $cratch, the subwoofers in the back seat boomed with a thunderous gangster rap beat that rattled the windows up and down the block. Scratch waved me over to the car grinning that sly carnivorous grin, his eyes blazing with malevolence, and probably several lines of cocaine. My Timberlands struck the sidewalk, shattering miniscule fragments of glass as everything seemed to slow down.
I shrugged on my three-quarter length leather coat with the fleece lining and raised the hood against the wind that bucked and galloped through the streets. It was October now and the summer was officially over. Dark tenebrous clouds, like thick black smoke, covered the sky. Every so often the moon would poke its full round face through the layers of nimbostratus clouds to illuminate the streets. My hand gripped the Beretta tight as I walked over to Scratch’s car. He could easily have come here to kill me.
My pulse quickened, my chest tightened, and my scrotum rose up tight against me as I watched Scratch’s smile widen, his ghostly white skin looking even more cadaverous than usual. I could barely breathe as I leaned down face to face with him. It was fear. The constant senses heightening, nerve tingling anxiety that filled every second in the ’hood with a primal fight or flight desperation. Something was different about this night. I could feel it already.
Foul smelling steam came boiling out of the sewers. Street lamps dragged long shadows out of the alleys and doorways, pregnant with potential danger, lurking enemies. My head swiveled like a gun turret. The sickening sweet smell of Scratch’s col
ogne was making me ill and there was another smell beneath it, a fleshier, fouler smell of rot and decay.
“Come on and hop in. We got shit to take care of.”
My stomach roiled as that rancid meat smell rolled off of him. I felt like I was going to throw up.
“Naw, man, I don’t think you want me in your ride tonight. I feel like I’m going to be sick. I’d better take my car and follow you.”
“You alright? You ain’t gonna throw up is you?”
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