"Figured this could be handled man to man. You the one I need to be speaking with?" It was a mild challenge. Give him the chance to puff up.
"Yeah, I'm the one calling shots," Black asked.
"I need to speak on this business with Dred."
"What of it?"
"A lot of bodies are dropping. And for what? So each of you can see who can poison their community the fastest?"
"You seem to know a lot about my business." Black stepped closer in an unveiled act of intimidation. The grip of the automatic showed the gun riding in the waist of his pants.
"It's a nasty business. How are you looking out for your people?"
"I protect my people. I provide for them, me and my crew. If it wasn't for us, fools would come trippin' through here, guns a-blazing. That's the life. I'm not afraid of dying as long as I die strong."
"Not everyone wants to die strong. Or young. Your playing hurts kids. Little girls especially." Lott sensed the situation was about to bubble over. He'd been here before. The precipice of machismo. The best way to handle the situation was to ease off the throttle; give the man room to be a man and space to think. Not to back him into a corner and shame him. Lott knew this. Yet some inner compulsion, the need to do things his way, the need to have others hurt the way he hurt, made him dig into Black. "Girls like your sister."
Black short-jabbed Lott in the kidneys, a punch so fast and with such little movement, Lott didn't have time to react. If anything, Lott was braced for a swing to his face. Lott grabbed him at the shoulders ready to wrestle him down, but Black took a half-step back to throw him off balance, swung his arm over Lott's to break the hold, then rammed his elbow into Lott's neck. Black jammed his knee three times into Lott's side before throwing him to the curb. The sounds of the tussle brought a couple members of his crew out, guns drawn. La Payasa threw a sign for them to stand down.
"How you want to play this?" she asked, a flicker of alarm in her eyes. She was her gang through and through, and yet, the pride she had in her colors had been reduced to yet another thing which had disappointed her.
"We ain't wasting a bullet on this fool and putting him out of his misery. He and his crew are broken. Let him crawl back like the betraying dog that he is."
Black saw her thinking. "Come on. You need a break. Let's go back to the house."
"Not back inside?"
"No. The house."
Finding himself without friends wasn't new to Lott. Running was the thing his mother did best, second only to getting high. Setting down roots terrified her, either that or she so quickly made a mess of her life — shorting dealers, not paying back friends, bailing on family when rent was due — that she had no choice but to move. At one point, Lott had changed schools six times in one year. Each time, Lott was the foreigner, the stranger, the outcast. Most times he was too tired to prove himself, content to live inside his head, writing lyrics and working out beats. Music was his only friend. His only refuge. His only constant. And he was too tired, too resigned to his life, to bother risking himself to invest in someone. Even just to get to know them. Not if he was only going to have to leave them. Each introduction held the promise that he had found a place to belong. Maybe he'd found family. It hurt too much when just the promise of family was torn away. Or worse, they abandoned him.
There were times of quiet lucidity when Lott would return here and cry. Thinking about how badly he had fucked up his life, the route which seemed to make the most sense was for him to kill himself and start over. That voice whispered to him in the void of no other voices in his life. It certainly beat the continual struggle against thugs charged by the thrill of petty power, constant chest-thumping, and the daily need to grind out an existence.
He still hurt, inside and out. Pain bled out of him. Not just from the recent pair of ass-whippings he'd subjected himself to. He could confess his sins to anyone, could recount the details — from loving King and Lady G, to working hard in service to them, to allowing himself to fall for Lady G, to sleeping with her, to busting up the only family he'd ever known and experienced — in a way so unaffected it was as if he was telling the story of someone else. The reality of the immensity of the pain he caused and suffered seared him to the point of him not feeling. That was his one truth today. He allowed himself one, it was all he could handle. He had lied so much to himself in so many subtle ways, he was no better than his crackhead of a mother.
Lott didn't remember how he stumbled to the house. Only when the door opened and Lott nearly tumbled in from his exhausted body leaning against the door did he become aware of where he was. "Wayne."
"Lott, man, you look like you got your ass wawawazupped. What happened?" Wayne ushered him in and plopped him on the couch.
"Went to go see Black."
"By yourself?" He called out from the kitchen, where he dashed off to in order to run some water into a bowl. He returned with a wash rag to damp at some of Lott's cuts.
"Thought it was the right play."
"You need to re-examine your definitions of right and wrong." The words stung despite them not being intended the way Lott heard them. "You get any clarity?"
"I'm stocked on clarity. In fact, I'm in need of a clarity clearance sale. Hope I ain't blowing up your spot. If you got something going on…"
"Nah, man, it's cool. I was meaning to get up with you. See how you were doing."
"Yeah," said Lott, straining to keep any trace of resentment out of his voice. He winced as Wayne daubed at his cut lip. "Lots of folks been meaning to."
Got a touch of pride to him. Wayne wrestled with his internal voice. Course why he got to ask for someone to be with him? Why didn't someone offer?
"I feel so dirty inside." Lott couldn't escape his sense of shame. Everyone wanted to know how/why he let things happen the way they did. After all, he was old enough to know better. He understood the consequences. He certainly was an adult. But he also knew that no answer would help them understand. He wasn't sure he knew "why?" anyway.
"The way I see it, it wasn't really you who did it. Not the real you."
"What if it was?"
"You're a good person. You're still the man we know and loved. You just did something wrong. You have to have faith that people will have your back. In a few months, this will blow over, and be nothing but a memory. But that's only if you handle your business correct from here on out."
"What do you mean?"
"You're trapped, you're scared, you're living in fear," Wayne said. "You push this too far, we'll lose you, too."
Lott wanted to believe him, but Wayne was wrong. The lies, the memories, they were like scars. They might heal over, but it would take more than months. The dreams, the sweat-drenched things he woke from, only now were beginning to fade. Lott considered himself a cancer that needed to be removed for the sake of the health of the community. He'd already tried twice.
"Can I ask you something?" Lott asked.
"What's that?"
"Why don't you hate me?" The whole conversation, Lott had been waiting for Wayne to blame him. For him to yell at him, to tell him that "if you made different choices from the beginning, none of us would be broken or torn up right now."
"Who said I don't?" Wayne asked. Lott slumped in his seat, further resigned. "That what you want to hear, ain't it? I've already said this, I don't know how many different ways that I can say this, you just ain't hearing me. You my boy. You messed up something fierce and it'll be a while before things are okay, if they ever will be. That's on the real. But we say we believe in certain things. Honesty. Responsibility. Courage. That includes the strength it takes to make changes and move on. And forgive. Forgiveness has to begin somewhere. It's the only way we can find our way home. I haven't given up on you. God's not through with you yet. Speaking of…"
"What's up?" Lott asked.
"Now, I hate to get between a man and his need to punish himself, but I do have a problem you could help me with."
"What's that?" Lott perk
ed up at the prospect of being useful to someone.
"Percy and Had."
"What about them?"
"They've run off. I think they've got it in their head to search for some missing cup."
"What?"
"Some Merle thing."
"Where are they?"
"Here, let me play you the message." Wayne played Merle's voicemail. Lott's eyes half-closed as he concentrated. He wound his hand in the air to get Wayne to replay the message.
"I think I know where they went."
"Can you go look after them?"
"Me? You sure?"
"Trust has to begin somewhere, too."
CHAPTER TWELVE
The mayor implored to the city that the erupting violence was not race-related. The last thing he or any official wanted was to let that genie out of the bottle. Even the Concerned Clergy, that coalition of black pastors, was notably quiet on that front, focusing on the need to quell the violence on the streets. The media kept flashing the school picture of Lyonessa Perez, all cherub cheeks and teeth within a beaming smile, long brown hair with a white bow in it. The image of a little girl snatched away by street violence transcended race.
From the police commissioner on down, no matter what side of the political aisle they were on, they vowed to continue to fight their own war on terror. However, down in the unlit places, out of the glare of the media spotlight, reigned little men — big men, too — who knew, without embarrassment, their manhood lay in their guns. Without their guns, birds would laugh at them. But with their guns they could stop you, instill within you the fear. Infatuation was a selfish wildfire, fed by sex, as a masquerade of connection, and blared as a one-night stand even when it attempted to last for a season.
Tired of heating the house by leaving the oven door open, The Boars was the high priest of the corner. He prepared a quiet place, tended to the holy of holies, as the local fiends prepared to make their pilgrimage to his spot. A procession lined up just out of sight of the plasma center. He accepted them no matter where they were in life: sick, tired of it all, in a place of limbo wondering "now what?" In the short space of a walk from the plasma center to the edge of the property line of Breton Court, they transitioned from the daylight world to a sacred space. They headed to worship in a back-alley church, to partake in the ritual of taking communion.
The tips of his fingers scorched, his legs weak, shaky, with the pants falling just short enough to reveal a cigarette package taped to his ankle, the first supplicant brought their offering: a hundred dollars for six marble-size rocks of crack. The Boars knew the lie. The man believed that those would last him for a few days. But the fiend would have them devoured a few hours later. The Boars knew the ritual of inhaling from the fire put to the pipe, the sizzle of crack. How for a few moments, nothing could touch him here. Memories of family gone, time stood still, a shower of color, heat, and light. What Moses must have felt like on Mount Sinai, having glimpsed a part of God.
And The Boars knew what their conversation would sound like if they truly gave voice to how they felt.
"I hate you."
"I hate me, too."
"I need you."
"I need you, too."
The Boars paid some dude a dollar to buy a bottle of Wild Irish Rose for them. He and the crew waited around in the dope house, passing the bottle back and forth, while they smoked weed to pass the time. They worked in pairs and waited for customers, though The Boars found himself missing Garlan's company. Everyone was on point when they suspected Garlan might come through. He hated working with any of the new recruits because he hated having to explain himself and hated schooling young'uns. The street was the street. Too much eye contact, you became a threat. Too little eye contact, you became a victim.
"We ain't supposed to use product on the clock," he said in a waste of breath as the young'un sparked up some herb.
"This ain't Mary Kay, motherfucker. We ain't got to have makeover parties an' shit."
"Boy, you better watch your tone. I will cut you like an umbilical cord."
It was as if Fathead, Naptown Red, and Prez didn't just get popped. But, no, these corner boys didn't worry about cops since they mostly sold to neighborhood folks. One man on peep-hole duty could watch fiends walk up, walk around, getting out of cars. The transactions were simple enough. They'd knock, tell them what they wanted, slide money through the mail slot, the drugs would be slid back out. And he'd keep three hundred of every thousand dollars earned.
If Garlan was here, he'd understand. When he was high, he was on point. He felt better. He learned better. The Boars leaned back in his chair and thought about his high. "Yeah, that's money."
Someone knocked at the door. The young'un slid back the eye slot. "What you need?"
"I need a taste," a woman said.
"Ten dollars."
"I ain't got it. Can't we work out some… other arrangement?"
"Hold up." Young'un slipped the slot back. "The Boars, some fine-ass trick wants to trade some of that good stuff for a taste."
"How fine? We talking crackhead fine or foine fine?"
"Big booty foine."
"Think you can handle it?" The Boars asked.
"I'll lock it down."
The young'un unlocked the door then slid the brace that reinforced the door from push-in — or police battering ram — out of place. The Boars waited in the back corner, to guard the product and get a good look at this chickenhead. It wasn't as if he hadn't had a dope date or two in his time. And he might as well let the little dude have a piece.
The woman stepped in, a pair of handcuffs clicked in her hand as she spun one spindle through the rest of the cuff.
"Oh shit."
The young'un turned to The Boars, the wide grin on his face slowly dying as the panic on The Boars' face registered. By the time he turned back to Omarosa, she had her sawed-off brought to bear and wrapped one of her arms around his throat.
"You know the deal, son. Product and money."
The shotgun held The Boars' complete attention. He chanced a glance at the product on the table. Just like he knew there was a gun behind the table the baggies rested on.
"I…" He couldn't believe his run. First the police, now Omarosa. The only thing saving his hide was the fact that the police grabbed the package Naptown Red was working on his own. Not Dred's. Which meant this was the first he'd been hit for Dred's stuff. Still, there'd be some explaining to do and trouble did seem to be following him.
"Let me clear up the bit of confusion hitting you right now. You might be experiencing a bit of job loyalty. You don't want to report back to Garlan or Dred how you got took off by me. After all, shortie here," she flexed her arm a bit, easily lifting the boy from his feet and pulling him along further inside the doorway, "should've long been schooled on the subject of little ol' me. In fact, I'm offended that he wasn't. I'm beginning to think that Dred's feeling a little too secure in his spot right about now. Thinking he's the only shark in this pool. You've got to ask yourself at this point: is this shit worth dying for?"
Tires screeched outside the stash house. Omarosa peeked out the door to see La Payasa leading four of her crew — clones of roughneck Hispanic boys in oversized white T-shirts and baggy blue jean shorts like they were the required uniform — in a charge toward the house.
"Looks like we all got company." Omarosa yanked the young'un away from the front door as La Payasa stepped in.
"What's this shit?" La Payasa eased in through the open door with a dancer's gait. Thin but sturdy, her lithe physique belied the fact that she knew how to move and did so with determination and purpose. A crease, an old scar truth be told, etched the side of her face, but it was barely noticeable as her face was painted white with clown make-up. Black crosses covered each eye. Bedecked in her war paint, La Payasa was ready to dance.
"Looks like we got us a situation. And either way, it's Dred's very unlucky day." Omarosa kept her shotgun trained on The Boars, careful not to appear fluste
red by the new arrivals, who were uncertain who to train their guns on. La Payasa never brandished a weapon, instead stepped to Omarosa.
"You the one I need to talk to?"
"I'm the one with the sawed-off. Definitely puts me in the conversation." The young'un whimpered a bit, trapped in her arm lock. His pants dampened at his crotch.
The Boars kept his hands in plain sight while calculating the math of his situation. Omarosa was all about survival and take-offs. She enjoyed the game as much as anything else, an agent of chaos who meant to keep everyone on their toes. She'd rob from the Mexicans as quick as she would Dred, though she'd been off her game since the death of her brother, Colvin.
La Payasa was a stone bitch. Other than Mulysa or Green back in the day, only Omarosa had as fierce a reputation. Her fearless stance, unfazed by the complication of Omarosa, calmed her boys, who were rattled enough to just blast everyone in the room and call it a day.
"You here for the stash, the cash, or both?" Omarosa asked. "This here is a… transactional date. Each party has something the other wants."
"We all draw our moral lines in the sand." An elite few pocketed the profits meant to benefit the entire nation. When she had first brought it up to Black's attention, to quiet her up, they offered her a cut. That was when the luster began to fade on the organization. "We're here to send Dred a message. That he has started a war he can't win. And you?"
"Same thing. Plus the stash and cash. So it seems to me the message might get a little muddled."
"I think I can provide some clarity." La Payasa was a blur of motion as she drew her gun, shot The Boars in the side, and returned it to the front of her pants. The Boars clutched his side and scrabbled off to the bathroom. Omarosa watched him slam the door behind him then returned her gaze to the warrior clown. "He'll live. And can deliver my message to Dred."
"And the product?"
"I've sent my message. You can send yours. We good?"
"We good." Omarosa pulled the young'un close and kissed his cheek. "We good, sweetheart? You gonna let Dred know exactly what happened here?"
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