by F. X. Toole
“Just remember,” said Air Jordan. “The punk mine.”
The gym was located in a manufacturing complex two blocks east of Alameda on Vernon Avenue. It was at the rear of one of the newer buildings; many of the grimy old brick sweatshops and poured-concrete warehouses had broken windows and were boarded up. Connected to the west side of Sewing Machine’s building was an empty loading dock several hundred feet long that during the week would be full. The large parking and loading area between the gym and the deserted buildings was used for a soccer field by Latino employees at lunchtime. Kids often used it on Saturdays and Sundays.
Air Jordan backed his car into the loading dock near the front of the lot, which was close to the driveway leading onto Vernon. He told Shareef and Emil to station themselves in doorways of two abandoned warehouses. Fridge was to hide behind some rusted-out trucks near the gym entrance until Puddin got on his bike. Once he started to ride, all four would converge on him from different angles.
“Then what?” said Fridge.
“Then mama start a cry and old man want a die.”
Air Jordan waited like a cat in front of a mouse hole. A dozen or more fighters and trainers left the gym. Puddin wasn’t among them because he was the last to finish working out. The remaining few left while he showered. He rolled his gym clothes and boxing shoes in a towel and put them in his gym bag with his wallet and phone. His blue sweats would keep him warm as he rode home. He was hungry, but put it out of his mind as he pulled on low-top gym shoes. Just before he left, the owner of Sewing Machine congratulated him for his spot on the Olympic team.
“You gonna win, ain’tcha?”
“Damn straight I’ma win.”
“Good man,” said the owner. “Do me a favor?” He handed Puddin a lock. “Lock the gate for me out back? I’ll close up and go out the front door.”
The temperature was in the low eighties, cool compared with the gym. Puddin closed and locked the gate. He unchained his bike from the fence, set his gym bag on the handlebars, and started slowly for home. He didn’t notice anything at first, except that a dark car pulled out of the loading dock near the street. Then behind him he heard someone whistle. He turned and saw Fridge walking toward him. When he looked back the other way he saw Emil and Shareef, each walking quickly toward him from opposite sides of the parking lot. He started to ride for the street, pumping hard. But the dark car moved quickly to block him, and Puddin saw that Air Jordan was driving. Puddin made a run for it, pedaling as fast as he could toward the space between Air Jordan and Shareef, but they closed the distance, again blocking his way. He turned around and rode back toward the rear of the lot but realized that the only exit back there was the locked gate. He swung around, again racing past Fridge. He aimed for another space, this time between Air Jordan and Emil, but they were too quick for him and he retreated, this time riding in a circle within the shrinking space controlled by the approaching gangbangers.
“Say, dick sack,” said Fridge. “It Saturday-night scatter time.”
Puddin rode straight at him, swinging his gym bag as a weapon. Fridge pulled his gun and Puddin veered off.
Air Jordan grabbed his cane, set the brake in his car, and got out yelling. “Put you shit away, fool. It daytime!”
Fridge yelled back. “He fuck wit me, I stop that shit now!”
“You start that shit, all them beaner drivin by see us!”
“They see us now!”
“No good. What the beaner see now a gang a niggas playin basketball on a playground.”
Puddin saw that he couldn’t escape on the bike, so he got off and set the kickstand. He held on to his bag and backed away, hoping to get an angle and break through. He wanted to wade into them, but he knew that wouldn’t work. If he could break through, he knew he could outrun them all to the street. Once there, he’d be gone, running full-bore against the flow of cars on first one, then the other side of Alameda until he lost them in traffic or between a building someplace. They wouldn’t use their guns in plain sight, not in heavy traffic. The trick was to get Air Jordan to lead, so he could counter. He wasn’t afraid of these crooks, he was afraid of losing, because he knew what that meant.
Air Jordan danced toward him, tapped his cane on the asphalt several times, then danced back. “You go in jump, froggy, huh? you goin jump?”
Fridge darted in, then back out. Then Emil and Shareef did the same, closing the circle by another two feet. Puddin knew that if he could break free, he’d zigzag, run low to the ground, and hope they’d miss him if they decided to fire their weapons. It wasn’t much, but he’d seen victims of gang attacks and didn’t want to join them in the ground.
Air Jordan rushed in with his cane again, tapping it near Puddin’s feet and trying to get him to grab for it. If he did, Puddin knew they’d be on him like wild dogs.
“Boy,” said Air Jordan, “that old man, he you daddy?”
“Who wanta know?”
“You brothuh want,” said Air Jordan, trying to distract Puddin with words because he didn’t want any more being knocked out again. “He ain’t you daddy, what you doin wit him?”
“He my friend,” said Puddin, stalling for time.
Air Jordan feinted with his cane, drew back. “No white piece a shit a friend of a brothuh. When a brothuh a friend of a white man, he ain’t no brothuh no more, he a traitor to he race.”
Still hanging on to his gym bag, Puddin moved around behind his bike. “Then check it out. I say Mac my daddy.”
“Say he got a white man for a daddy!” shouted Emil, who began to hoot.
“That right, same as Air Jordan,” said Puddin, taunting Air Jordan where he knew it hurt most. He next used Air Jordan’s own words against him. “What wrong, green-eye froggy, huh?, you ain’t goin a jump froggy, huh?, you four-to-one ain’t enough for you chickenshit white froggy ass?”
“You a honky-lover nigga,” Air Jordan taunted back.
“That right,” said Puddin, “same as you mama.”
“Ohhh,” said Fridge, “dick sack be talkin trash!”
Air Jordan did a stutter step, going in a little closer each time, trying to get Puddin off balance and moving him further back in the lot. Puddin could see that the other three were waiting on Air Jordan, so he knew to go for Air Jordan first and hope to take the fight out of the others when their leader went down. But he had to bide his time, wait for either Air Jordan or one of the others to commit themselves. The circling dance continued.
“Fuck this,” said Emil, walking in, punching.
Puddin threw the gym bag, forcing Emil to lift his hands to protect his face, and then Puddin dropped him in agony, nailing him full force with a straight right to the kidney and a left hook to the face that broke his nose. Emil went down, doubled into a tight ball. He was grunting with pain, and blood rolled from his nose and down along his cheek.
The others started to close in. Puddin swung his bike by its rear wheel and whacked Fridge in the face with the front tire. It knocked him down, but he wasn’t hurt, and he rolled off to one side. Puddin threw the bike at Air Jordan, the handlebars opening a deep cut on the side of Air Jordan’s head and knocking him to his knees.
“Git him!” Air Jordan screamed. “Git him!”
Puddin pivoted to his right and connected with a hook to the solar plexus that dropped Shareef flat, made him think he was dying. But Puddin tripped over his bike when Air Jordan threw it in front of him. Puddin rolled, found his feet, and then took three running steps toward Vernon Avenue as he rose. He thought he’d broken free. He straight-armed Air Jordan, but Fridge tackled him from behind. It didn’t hurt, but it slowed him down enough for Air Jordan to kick him in the eye. The pain knocked him down again, but he kept trying for the street. Air Jordan shoved him off balance, then swung his cane at Puddin’s head. Puddin slid under it, but the duck’s bill ripped a hole in the side of his neck.
Puddin landed a glancing right to Fridge’s face, knocking him down again, then dropped Emil with do
uble hooks to the body that cracked three ribs and made him yelp like a dog. Puddin jumped on his bike thinking he now had room to make it, but Air Jordan jammed his ebony cane in the spokes of the front wheel and Puddin went over the handlebars, striking his head full force on the ground. Half conscious, he still tried to get up, but Air Jordan pulled the sword from the cane and ran him through just below the ribs.
The blade pierced a kidney and the stomach, and Puddin went down face-first, gasping. Air Jordan hopped across him and shoved the sword into his back, the blade going through the A of USA. The sword split a rib and pierced a lung. Blood from the puncture sprayed from Puddin’s nose and spurted from his mouth, bubbled out of his back with each gasp. Puddin swayed to his feet, felt himself going out, and fell again. He clamped his mouth tight shut, trying to keep back his blood, but he coughed and red erupted from his nose and mouth again. He gagged on the blood, which made it gush from him all the more. He wasn’t dead yet, but he knew he had been killed. His body began to jerk and shudder from shock and loss of blood, his heart pumping out of control.
“Shoot the nigga,” said Fridge. “Git it over wit, shit!”
“No good,” said Air Jordan, holding a hand to his bloody head as he extracted the sword. He got down close to Puddin’s eyes. “Punk be dyin on he own blood, can you dig it?, but he still got time a think about me before he check on out.”
Shareef said, “Air Jordan be trippin.”
Air Jordan grabbed up Puddin’s equipment bag, and all four ran for his car. Inside, Air Jordan rifled through the bag, finding the wallet, then the phone. He first covered his fingers with the towel so there wouldn’t be fingerprints and then took three dollar bills from the wallet. He tossed the wallet and scattered the contents of the bag on the ground but kept Puddin’s phone.
“But the po-lice see that wallet, they know who he is.”
“That what we want,” said Air Jordan, holding a rag to his head.
Knowing Puddin was dying back at the rear of the lot, they drove slowly to the driveway at Vernon Avenue, blaring rap music from the car radio echoing between the buildings. They entered traffic as if nothing had happened, and none of the other drivers noticed them.
Puddin gagged on his blood. He tried to rise again but couldn’t; he tried to pull himself over to Vernon but couldn’t.
“Confíteor Deo Omnipoténtí,” he said, the Latin gurgling in his throat. “I confess to Almighty God.”
He couldn’t finish because blood choked the channel of his throat and he couldn’t breathe. He coughed to clear it, then got to one elbow, dipped two fingers in his blood, and fell back. He forced himself up again, and using his blood for ink, printed the letter A ten inches high on the light-gray asphalt. Consuming the last of his life, he dipped his fingers into his blood again, this time printing a ten-inch J next to the A … AJ. He coughed a great spray of blood across himself, then slid back down, the earth spinning off and away from under him.
Henry Puddin Pye cooked in the sun for an hour and a half. It wasn’t long before flies found him, began crawling up his nose. Ants walked across his vacant eyes. At three-thirty that same afternoon, a group of Mexican children eight and ten years old found him, were shocked and intrigued by what they saw. The oldest ran to the gas station on Vernon and Alameda and told the Iranian owner what was there. He dialed 911.
Earlier in the day Mac had stopped in San Bernardino to feed Enrique and Cannonball. Now it was 4:15 P.M. and he had hoped to drop off Enrique and leave, but he and Cannonball had to stay for a bottle of cold Bohemia with Enrique’s family, ecstatic over his win. As Mac and Cannonball swung from the 405 to the 110 Freeway that would take them to Mac’s place in Gardena, Mac was concerned that Puddin hadn’t called him. Air Jordan was on Mac’s mind, so he dialed Puddin’s number. It was answered on the first ring.
“Yeah,” said Air Jordan.
“Who’s this?” Mac asked.
“Who you think?”
“Is this Puddin’s number?”
“Puddin who?”
“Puddin the fighter.” Mac by then recognized the voice, and his head arched back in pain.
Air Jordan heard the worry in Mac’s voice, smiled, and hung up. He flicked the phone to off and smiled again. A white strawberry from Memphis was sucking him off.
Mac called back. A recorded message informed him that his party was away from the phone.
Mac immediately called Señora Cabrera. “You seen Puddin this afternoon?”
“Only this morning.”
“Air Jordan was in there again, right?”
“Pudeen make hin leave.”
“What did Jordan say to you?”
“He want money or he hurt my girls.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
What Mac couldn’t know at the time was that the police arrived four minutes after the 911 call. They reported the murder to the desk sergeant by radio, and he contacted the coroner’s office. While the coroner’s investigation proceeded, several members of the crew saw the letters AJ but at the time couldn’t make a connection. Once finished, they transported Puddin’s body to the morgue and contacted Willa.
“The coroner wonders if you could please come down? We need you to identify someone?”
“Identify who?” whispered Willa, dread fluttering through her.
“We believe his name is Henry Pye.”
“What he look like?”
“He can best be described as being a male African-American, as being eighteen years of age, as being six feet one inch in height, as weighing one hundred eighty pounds, and as having short, black curly hair.”
Father Carey drove Willa, her two boys, and her sister Daisy to the morgue. Willa and Father Carey were ushered to a chilled glass cubicle with one small overhead light that lit the top end of a metal gurney On it lay a body covered in white. Beside it was a stainless steel chair. The attendant pulled back the sheet, and Willa let out a low moan. She kissed Puddin’s closed eyes and touched his lips. She sat down beside him and kissed the torn skin and broken knuckles of his hands.
“Wake up, baby, you my angel child, you my baby man.” She looked up to Father Carey, still unable to accept what was before her. “Wake him up, Father, this my dream baby. This my angel child.”
After speaking with the señora on the phone, Mac forgot about going home and drove straight for Not Long. He wanted to telephone Willa but was afraid.
When they pulled into Not Long’s parking lot, Cannonball said, “Best call.”
Mac dialed Willa’s cellular number, knowing that she always carried the phone with her. A man’s voice answered.
“Who’s this?” Mac demanded.
“This is Father Carey.”
“This is Mac McGee, Father. Is Willa all right?”
“I’m about to drive her home.”
“Where are you?”
“It’s Puddin. We’re leaving the morgue now.”
Mac shouted. “What are you doin in the goddamned morgue?”
“I’m sorry to tell you. It’s Puddin.”
“He can’t be dead! How can Puddin be dead, for Christ’s sake? How could God let that happen? Why not take me?”
“Ah, Mac, if I knew that, I’d be God himself, wouldn’t I now?”
“How did Puddin die?”
“Someone did it.”
“Where?”
“In a parking lot. Some gym on Vernon.”
“Sewing Machine?”
“That was it.”
“How?”
“Some kind of sharp instrument. Maybe a sword.”
Cannonball watched Mac, then lightly touched his shoulder.
Mac said, “I’ll see you at Willa’s, Father.”
The priest said, “Mac?”
“Yeah?” said Mac. His chest had caved in.
“Don’t do anything, understand me?”
“What’s to do, Father? A hundred percent of nothin’s nothin.”
They first drove to the A
capulco. It was busy, but the señora came straight to them, worry in her face.
“Where Pudeen?”
“Puddin’s—” Mac couldn’t say it.
“He passed,” said Cannonball.
“He die for me,” said the señora, reaching for the gold Virgin of Guadalupe medal at her neck. “Where it happen?”
“At Sewing Machine, they say. Other side of Alameda,” said Mac.
“It was the ugly.”
“I think so, too. But I got no proof.”
“I should hab poison hin the firs night.”
It was still light as Cannonball pulled into the parking area next to Sewing Machine. Broken red bicycle-reflector glass and wads of yellow police tape at the rear of the lot drew them to where Puddin was murdered. When they got out of the car, they saw the rusty dried blood. Mac went down on his knees, then down on his face. “My baby boy.” He wanted to die.
Cannonball knelt beside him, patted him. “Puddin a good boy, Mac, he all right now, he fine where he at now.”
Mac got to his feet and stumbled around the wash of bloodied asphalt. He passed near the AJ Puddin had left, but the angle was wrong and he didn’t see what it was.
But Cannonball saw it and knew what Puddin had left them. “Muthuhfucka,” said Cannonball, pointing. His heart felt like it turned sideways in him. “We got proof now.”
Mac saw it and his blood pounded through him like a madman racing down a tile hall. Parts of him flooded, other parts went dry. He covered his mouth to stifle a howl and forced himself to remain on his feet. He squeezed out the words, “Let the good times fuckin roll.”
Cannonball drove to Willa’s, but the house was dark. “C’mon back the gym, res’ a minute. When she home, we come on back.”
At Not Long, Cannonball brought out a half-empty bottle of Manischewitz concord-grape sacramental wine. He filled two jelly glasses.
“This my Manisherry I drink sometimes I be down.”
The two old men each drank a glass of the powerful sweet wine, then a second. Neither felt the alcohol. Mac shuddered, then lost control and wept. Cannonball sat silently in the darkness, his woolen blue cap low over his eyes.