by Nick Lake
— This is it, said Tintin after a while.
We were parked outside this white house with pillars at the front and steps up to the porch. On the other side of the car was the hill, and at the bottom of the hill was the sea, and the garbage heap that we lived in.
— This is what? I said.
— Where the doctor lives, said Tintin. He buys most of our stuff, distributes it to the rich people.
Tintin opened the car door and led the way toward the house.
— Where’s the stuff? I said.
I knew the gear usually left the Site in big sports bags, but Tintin didn’t get anyen out of the car.
— I’ll get it later, said Tintin. Chill.
He went up to the door and rang the doorbell. It made a chime, like, ding DONG, ding DONG, ding DONG, and I was worried it was so loud people on the street would turn and look at us and see our gangster clothes and wonder what we were doing.
We waited, and nothing happened. No one came to the door.
— Oh, said Tintin. I guess he must be busy, or something. Maybe we should check round the back.
He started to walk round on the grass.
— You think this is a good idea? I said to his back.
He shrugged, and I saw the gun butt sticking up from the waistband of his pants, and I started to get a really bad feeling. In my mind’s eye, I could see that dog limping along and the car wheel racing toward it.
Tintin stopped at this high metal fence with barbed wire on top of it. He tapped a code into this little pad, and a gate opened. He beckoned for me to follow him. We walked past bushes covered in small yellow flowers. The whole place smelled like . . . I don’t know, cos I’d never smelled such things before; it was all fresh and nice. If I’d been on my own, I would have stopped and smelled those flowers, but I knew Tintin would say that was some weak-ass shit, so I just followed him.
We came round the corner, and there was this big pool with water in it, blue like the sky. Next to it were white chairs, and there was a BBQ and this big bar thing. I stared at the pool; I’d never seen anything like it. Tintin grinned.
— This is the life, huh? he said.
He walked over to the bar and slid this rolling kind of lid open.
— What can I get you? he said. Whiskey and Coke?
I looked round. Behind us were these huge windows that went all the way up from the ground to the first floor, and behind those was a kitchen, but I couldn’t see anyone inside.
— This isn’t a delivery, is it? I asked. I was feeling nervous, but excited, too.
— I kind of lied about that, said Tintin. Sorry. The doctor is away. Holiday in Miami, or some shit. When we get back, you tell Biggie we had a problem collecting.
— Biggie doesn’t know we’re here?
— Hell, no. We’ll say some asshole from one of the scrap stalls didn’t want to pay. Say we had to fuck him up; he slowed us down.
— But wouldn’t we have to do it? Find some guy and beat him up? I mean, Biggie would check.
— Already done, said Tintin. Already done, and you don’t have to worry about it.
I opened my mouth, then closed it again. I was thinking, shit, Tintin. But I didn’t say anything. I could see right into Tintin’s eyes at that moment and I could see his soul shining inside, but not shining in a good way, like light on a knife blade. I just nodded.
— OK, I said. OK, whiskey and Coke.
Tintin clapped his hands.
— My man, he said.
He started pouring the drink.
I don’t know how many whiskey and Cokes we had. A lot, I guess. We sat in those white chairs and drank, and it wasn’t long before I forgot about the dog in the road, and the guy, whichever guy it was, that Tintin had fucked up so we could have this afternoon by the pool. Tintin was funny – he was making jokes, imitating Biggie, stuff like that. He was always good at imitating people, at making like he was a real person, not a thing that was rotten inside.
Pretty soon, we were drunk. Tintin took off his top and jumped into the pool – splash! – and I jumped in, too. I’d swum in the sea before, in the salt and the sewage, but this was unbelievable. It was warm, but cooler than the air, and the water was smooth and all around, embracing. I thought of Marguerite, how, when we were in the boat with Papa, she would look up at these houses and say that one day she would live in one. It felt weird to be floating under the sun in her dream of the future, swimming in her pool and drinking her drinks.
We swam over to these floating ring things and got into them, and then Tintin said:
— Hey, we should get our drinks.
After that, we just floated around the pool, drinking, drifting. It was the best day of my life.
I closed my eyes. The sun was overhead, just a little to the west, huge in the sky and beating down fierce. With my eyelids shut, it was like an explosion in front of my eyes – red fireworks, sparks flying. I knew the fireworks were my blood, and that was even more amazing.
I opened my eyes and turned to Tintin.
— Man, I said. This is . . . I don’t know. It’s amazing.
— Yeah, he said. I thought you’d like it.
I looked at him seriously.
— I’ll give you the stone, I said. I’ll give you the stone, if you give me the pass.
— You’re kidding, right? Tintin said.
— That pass is freedom. That pass gets you out of the Site. It gets you here.
He laughed.
— Only cos the doctor is on vacation, he said. Keep the stone, Shorty.
It pissed me off that he called me Shorty – he wasn’t much older than me – but I didn’t say anything. I just floated.
— Seriously, man, you can have it, I said. Swapsies.
He shook his head.
— I saw those bullets, he said. The stone is yours. I don’t even want to think about what shit could go down if you gave it to me. But listen, Shorty – you’re fun, yeah? I’ll bring you again.
— Cool, I said.
I closed my eyes again.
I must have fallen asleep, cos when I opened my eyes again I could hear shouting. I sat up quick, felt blood rush to my head. I stared through blurry eyes at the side of the pool. I felt dizzy, like I was going to puke.
Tintin was standing on the tiles, in his baggy jeans. There was still water dripping from his hair, and he was holding his gun out in front of him, flat side down, like a true gangster. He was shouting, but I couldn’t tell what he was saying – I felt like someone had filled my head with engine grease.
— . . . Solèy 10 bitch, I heard.
That really got my attention, cos Solèy 10 is where the Boston crew have their territory.
I rubbed my eyes. Standing in front of Tintin was this girl in a maid’s uniform, a young girl, like, 16 at the oldest. She was trembling, and there were sheets lying on the ground in front of her, like she’d been carrying them and had dropped them. I kicked off the floating ring and swam to the side of the pool, pulled myself out. I walked over to Tintin.
— What the fuck, man? I said.
He turned to me. His shutters were down again, and I could see that sick light.
— There wasn’t supposed to be anyone here, he said.
He was scared, I could see it. I took a step away from him. He was scared, and it would be bad to stress him out more. That would make him act crazy.
— It’s cool, I said. It’s cool. She’s just a maid. Listen, T—
— No names! screamed Tintin.
I blinked. I was seriously wishing I hadn’t had those whiskey and Cokes.
— She’s Solèy 10, said Tintin. She’s Boston.
I looked at her.
— How do you know that?
He smiled this thin smile.
— I asked her, man. You Solèy 10? he asked the girl.
She nodded. Her eyes cut to me, and they were big and terrified. I was thinking, I wish this was a dream, and I could just open my eyes and be back in the
Site.
— Just cos she’s Solèy 10 don’t mean she’s Boston, I said.
She nodded again, harder this time.
— I’m just a maid, she said. I’m just a maid and I didn’t see anything, I swear. Let me go. I’ll keep my mouth shut.
Tintin was stepping from foot to foot, and the gun was swaying like crazy.
— No way, he said. The shit we’d be in . . . No way. She’s got to die.
It was like he was talking to himself. The shit we’d be in . . . He took a deep breath, steadied the gun.
— Chill, I said.
But it was like he didn’t hear me at all.
— She’s hot, huh? he said to me.
— What? I said.
He turned to the maid.
— Take your clothes off, he said.
I was just staring at him. I could see this girl trembling, and she was pretty much the same age as me and my sister; she even looked like Marguerite a bit. Yeah, she was pretty, but she was scared to death. I even wondered if she was Marguerite for one moment, but the eyes were different – no one had eyes like Marguerite. I felt sick. The whiskey in my stomach was swirling round and round, like water going down a drain.
I didn’t think, I just walked toward her, and I put myself between her and Tintin.
— Put it down, I said. She’s just a girl.
Tintin hesitated.
I turned to her.
— You never saw us, right?
She nodded again.
— I never did. I was here, and I put out the laundry. That’s it.
— Get out the way, said Tintin. Get out the way, Shorty.
Before he said, no names, but Shorty was cool. Shorty wasn’t really a name, anyway.
— No, I said.
Tintin’s finger was white on the trigger, and I thought, I’m going to die here. Then I remembered something. I put my hand in my pocket, took out the stone. I remembered Tintin trying to hit me, but just hurting himself instead.
— The stone says she’s telling the truth, I said.
It was total bullshit, but I saw some of that light dimming in his eyes, like some kind of reason was taking hold again, like he was starting to be that real person he sometimes pretended to be.
— Yeah? he said.
I could tell he wanted to be convinced, he needed to be convinced. He didn’t really want to hurt the girl. He was just afraid she’d hurt him, that she’d tell the doctor what he’d done and he’d pay for it, that Biggie would make him pay. Biggie was a ruthless motherfucker when it came to punishing his soldiers.
— Yeah, I said. I swear. That’s why I’m standing over here. We do this, it’ll go bad for us. Bad luck. Bad vodou.
I said we instead of you, cos I figured that might help him get some perspective.
Tintin’s gun was wavering even more now. I turned to the girl again.
— Listen, you got to promise us, I said. Promise you won’t say you saw us here.
— I don’t even know your names, she said.
— Yeah, but you know we’re Route 9. Listen – just promise, please. You say anything, we’d have to come back and find you.
I felt like an asshole saying that, but I had to make Tintin put down the gun. I was shaking inside at the thought of what he’d do if her clothes were off, and I kept seeing my sister. Marguerite was flashing in my eyes like those red fireworks, like the hot shadow of something you’ve been staring at in the sun, something that burns itself into your eyes.
— I promise, she said. Please, just go. I won’t say anything. I promise.
Tintin lowered the gun.
— The lwa are on your side, girl, he said.
I knew he was thinking of the stone, and how it had protected me. He tucked the gun in his waistband.
— Come on, Shorty. Let’s blow this joint, he said. We got to get back to the Site. They’ll be wondering where we gone.
He picked up his T-shirt and walked back round the house, and I followed him.
We never spoke about that day afterward. It was the best day of my life, then it was the worst, and then it was this worry that was always at the back of our minds. But I guess that girl kept quiet, cos we never heard shit about it after. Biggie never even knew we’d left the Site.
I never left it again, till the day I got shot.
Listen. I was with Biggie two years after that.
This is what we would do in Biggie’s crew:
We rode high on chrome bright as sky, rolling to heavy beats.
We had nothing but love for our crew, nothing but steel for the haters.
We sold drugs.
We killed people.
Mornings, we did our deliveries. We rode two or three in the car, one on shotgun – except it wasn’t always a shotgun, sometimes it was an AK or a Glock. The gangs got all these guns from Aristide, back in the day. Now we had anpil guns, but bullets were much harder to find. So most of the time we tried not to use the guns if we didn’t have to. Sometimes we used machetes.
As we passed, everyone said hello.
— Bonjou, they called. Bonjou.
Me, I smiled at them, but I’m not so good at talking as Biggie. I have a tattoo on my arm, though, an AK, to show that I’m a killer. So if I was shotgun I showed my arm out the window, so that people could see. Then they knew not to fuck with me. Me, I know how to cut heroin. I know how to cut people. I know where to shoot people so that they die.
Now, I think these are things I never should have learned.
This one time, we passed my manman. She saw me in the car and she made a noise, like, tssssuuuu, sucking air through her teeth.
Biggie stopped the car.
— Y’a pwoblem? he said.
— Gen pwoblem, said Manman. Not with you, anyway, Biggie. But that’s my son in your car. My kid.
Biggie laughed.
— I don’t see a kid, he said. I see a soldier. My frère chou-chou. This kid’s one of my bodyguards. I love him, man. I love all my soldiers.
Manman looked at the gun in my hand. She said:
— Chita chouter yon jour wap fait goal.
That’s something Manman used to say to me a lot. It means, if you keep shooting, you’ll make a goal. It means, if you keep doing like that, you’ll get what you’re aiming for. It means, basically, stop doing that, or you’ll get what you deserve.
Usually I laughed when Manman said it; it’s such an old woman thing to say. But then I had a gun in my hand and she was talking about shooting and it made me uncomfortable.
— Bullshit, I said in English. I put up two fingers in the peace sign. Peace, Manman, I said. See you around.
Her face went hard.
— What about school? she said. Aren’t you going to finish school? You could have a job, you could make money . . .
— I have a job, I said. I make lots of money.
Manman’s eyes went all narrow, like she was closing something to me.
— You will end in blood and darkness, she said, like the houngan told her when she was ansent with us.
Biggie gunned the gas.
— Wow, your manman is a hard-ass, he said as he pulled away.
— Word, I said.
That’s what I always say when I don’t know what to say.
Biggie was nearly always with us. When we rolled, he leaned out the window. He would be smoking a blunt – he was always smoking. He grinned at people, and he rapped to them about how the government threw him in jail and he was too young for it. I thought he still was pretty young, so he can’t have been in jail long, but I didn’t say that.
We handed out bags of drugs, and people gave us cash. We put the cash in the trunk of the whip. Some of that cash went to the kids in Solèy 19. It was for them to go to school.
Biggie said:
— No moun wants to help us in the Site, so we got to help ourselves. Give the kids an education.
Biggie has a daughter who’s three. She’s cute. Biggie said she’ll go to America, go
to college. I hope so. Sometimes when I looked at her I thought of Marguerite. She wasn’t far away – she was in Solèy 10, where the Boston crew hang. She’s my twin, so she was 14 then, too. I wondered what she looked like; I thought about it all the time. I wondered if she was as tall as me, if she was good at mending things and making things work like I am. I pictured her in my head, but it was difficult – the image was all blurry, and it was hard for me to know how her child face would change as she got older. I hoped she was pretty, and had lots of friends, and didn’t roll with any gangsters.
Afternoons, we handed out food from one of the trucks, or we just chilled. There was a game we played, too, and I was the best at it. It’s called ghost-riding the whip. This is what we did: we took Biggie’s whip and we found a nice long street. Then we took a brick and we jammed it down on the gas – only not too hard, cos then the whip rolled too fast. We made the car roll and we walked alongside, and the game was to rap a whole song before the car drifted and we had to reach in and grab the wheel.
I was good at it cos I’m the best with machines. Sometimes Biggie even let me drive the whip. And I always fixed it if it broke, which was often. Once Biggie got so stoned he fell asleep at the wheel and crashed the car into some people and a wall. One of them had a gun, so some shit kicked off right there, and Biggie had to kill that guy. Me, I had to repair the car. I didn’t have to repair Biggie, cos Stéphanie got him some bandages and she did his stitches herself.
Biggie was pretty good at ghost-riding, too, but he wasn’t so interested in the car; he was more interested in the rapping. He rapped all the time. It got a little annoying, actually. So mostly he just let the car crash while he rapped. He thought that was funny. It kind of was, I guess.
Sometimes they went on missions. Me, not so often. The guys called me the Mechanic. A gun jammed, they brought it to me. Biggie crashed the car, they brought it to me. Dust got in the carburetor – that happened a lot – they brought it to me.
As well, I did the accounts. I wrote down who owed what, how much we’d handed out. I wrote down who we were sending to school. I updated the maps. Biggie loved this. He said before I came we were losing anpil money, and now we were rich. Tintin called me a geek.
But sometimes I did go along. Sometimes we went on missions to Boston, and then I rode shotgun if I could. Usually the fights were for show – everyone hid behind houses and shouted a lot and shot without really looking. No one wants to die.