by D
You once heard a line of dialogue in a movie that explained how every bullet has destiny, how each slug knows whether it will hit or miss. As you fire into the shadows, you witness blood exploding from their necks, arms, and torsos. They fire back, their rounds screaming past, missing by less than inches. It is as if you are being guided by some unknown force, as if you are being shielded from the rain of death heading your way.
Once, years ago, after both of you had gotten your asses kicked by some niggas from Hart Street, you and Chief stood before the small iron pot with the railroad spikes and machete in it that Chief stored in his room. He told you that an angel lived there, one who kept you out of accidents and made sure that you won fights. You remember standing there, dried blood on the sides of your busted lips, asking the angel in the pot to make you bulletproof. It seemed like such a far-fetched thing at the time. But now, as they fall, some probably dead and most wounded, you wonder if that prayer long ago was for this moment.
You don’t check pulses. You don’t kick guns away. You just run past them, over them, around them, moving as if they’re still standing, as if they’re still firing white-hot lead meant to take your life. You run in the direction they came from in hopes that there is someone waiting, someone in an idling vehicle left there to hit the gas once you and Chief are dead bodies.
And he is there, at the wheel. He can’t see anyone coming back through the darkness. The side door is wide open. He doesn’t see you until it’s too late.
You keep your 9 at his neck as you have him drive you to where Will is. The driver is just a kid, maybe nineteen. Had this whole thing gone as it was supposed to, he could’ve bragged that he’d had a piece of the boss’s big play for the night. Now he’s just a terrified messenger.
You have him drive you to Flatbush, to that house off the park where Will’s been holed up. All the lights are on. Silhouettes are moving behind closed curtains. Even if he doesn’t know his boys had a bad day at the office, he’s ready for the news. There’s probably some dude with a Calico sitting by the front door waiting to spray half an army like roaches. Will probably has ten pistols taped to his chair. There’s no way you’re heading in there alone and coming back alive. But you will go in there. Not yet, but soon. And if you’re going to go out, you’re going to take them with you—finish the last chapter and close the whole book. Amen and Amen. You have your boy drive to the top of the park and then onto Fifth Avenue, oh so far away from home.
You hit him in the face with the butt of your pistol enough times to draw blood and knock him unconscious. Then you leave him on a corner sidewalk to eventually get up and move on his way. You never shoot the messenger. After all, you used to be the messenger.
You drive the van all the way back to the boarding house, where you grab the bag that held the guns. It still has an extra clip for your 9, as well as a few other things you might need. You force yourself not to think about Chief. You force yourself not to think about anything but the plan you’re writing page-by-page as you head back toward the end of the line, the house with the moving silhouettes, the building where you will make your last stand.
11.
Luckily for you the house is completely detached, one of those shacks they built for single families. You imagine that it probably belonged to some dead relative who left it to Will or to somebody else who he muscled it out from under. You park the van directly in front of the house and keep it running. The lights are still on but there are no more silhouettes in front.
You take a quick pass around the house. No guards. No cameras. It’s a cakewalk for an ambush. But that whole army-of-one thing is bullshit. Yeah, you’re gonna go in. But you ain’t stupid either.
There’s a ten-second delay on the grenade at the bottom of the bag. That’s just enough time for you to jog up around to the side of the house, a spot where you have a perfect view of the door. Just the right angle. Just the right range.
The van goes up like a Roman candle, hot metal blowing out windows. Car alarms go off. The grass out front catches on fire. Your ears are ringing. But hearing is the last of your concerns. Three men spill out of the house looking like they just woke up. You don’t think about their baby mamas or their kids. You don’t think about how much they know about you. You just keep pulling the trigger until they fall, one flat on his face, another on his side, the third on his back with eyes looking up to heaven.
You wait for the cavalry to come, but nothing happens. You climb onto the small porch, reload, and creep up to the open doorway. You cross the threshold just as Will fires the sawed-off in his lap. He’s been waiting for you. Only a few buckshots graze you, but they feel like hot knives tearing through your flesh. Your eyes tear.
You fire blindly, your legs kicking and scrambling like a bug turned on its back. He shoots again and you’re covered in plaster. You crawl behind what you think is a couch. Seconds later you’re tasting its stuffing when he lets off another round.
Someone else would spend this time taunting you. But Will doesn’t underestimate you. He never has. The minute you stop breathing is the minute he feels safe, even if he’ll never really be safe again. He fires once more and you hear the splintering of glass. A fire engine siren approaches in the distance. Then there’s a click where another blast should be. He’s out.
You jump up, thinking it’s mano a mano, but he starts letting off with a pistol. Something tears through your shoulder. It hurts more than the buckshot. For the first time, your eyes meet his, and you aim. You pull the trigger three times before the slide on your weapon pulls back, telling you that it’s empty.
There are two holes in the left side of Will’s chest. He’s not shooting anymore. You fall to the floor. Your legs don’t seem to work. You slide your pistol under a couch. Then comes the pattering of the FDNY. The police will follow—as soon as you get patched up, as soon as they pronounce him dead, as soon as you know for sure that it’s all over.
Everything goes black.
The next eighteen hours go by without you knowing it. You undergo surgery to have several ball bearings removed. A hollow point broke your clavicle but came out through your shoulder at an odd angle. There may be nerve damage and you will definitely need physical therapy.
On the other side of the bloodbath, you learn that there were others who survived. None of them are saying that you fired a single shot. The gun they match to Will has all the makings of self-defense. It’s not that his crew isn’t carrying a grudge. They just want to handle this on the street.
Detectives A and B, with whom you are more than familiar from your last run-in, are forced to accept your story about coming there on Chief’s behalf, about arriving back in town to try and broker a truce. But Chief never showed for the meet. Will blamed you. The van exploded while you were inside. You heard gunshots. Will assumed you’d set him up. You grabbed a gun off a table and defended yourself. You try to keep the details as close to what you think science and circumstance can support. With no talking witnesses, they can’t stick you with much.
No one can place you in Dumbo. As far as residents of the surrounding buildings were concerned, a bunch of black guys just started shooting at each other. The neighbors all hit the deck when they heard the guns, worried about catching strays. By the time they were done pissing in their pants and tried to call the cops, you and the van were gone and the only thing the crime scene needed was a hose and a meat wagon.
You sweeten your walking papers with info on all the stashes you know about. You give them the addresses for Will’s house and Chief’s mother’s apartment, and all the details Chief told you about the operation. They put out feelers and they find enough drugs and guns to make the front page of the next morning’s Daily News. For them, it’s the stuff of commendations and interviews on NY1, a chance for their work to matter, a chance to get their Fed applications moved higher up on the pile. As a reward, they give you a ride to your rooming house when you’re finally released from the hospital.
Brookly
n Hospital gives you a thirty-day prescription for Percocet and a referral for a physical therapist in Atlanta. In forty-eight hours you’re back on the road.
You sell the CRX to a used car place three blocks from your house. You take 500 for it. The money pays for your plane ticket. You’ll get a new ride to go with your new life. You don’t want to drive all the way back. You want to pop some pills and spend a couple of hours in Never-Never Land.
“So where you from?” the country boy in front of you in line asks.
You can tell that he’s never been up north. You can tell that he’s probably never spent any real time outside of his hometown. The pace all around him is faster than anything he’s ever known.
“Brooklyn,” you say.
“That’s where Fabolous from, right?”
You nod, then ask, “Where you from?”
“Athens,” he says. You should’ve put money on it. Athens is barely two hours away.
The registrar checks your account balance and approves your class schedule. You’re taking a full load. You already have books and you’ve been doing the readings. You eat lunch in a school cafeteria with the ambience of a prison mess hall. One week in and there’s nothing better than getting back to higher learning and higher learning alone.
“I missed you, Daddy,” Jenny says, as she runs her fingers along the outline of the bandage across your shoulder.
“I missed you too.”
When she kisses you, her thighs feel like silk against your own. She smells like peaches.
“I wanna give you something,” she says. After the session you two have just had, you don’t think she could give you any more. But as she straddles you once again, you’re willing to accept that you could be wrong. Her hands pull your eyelids shut.
“What you got for me?”
“Will said to tell you goodbye.”
Your eyes pop open as soon as she removes her hand. You see the barrel of the .25 just as it explodes. One bullet in one brain.
The End.
All that dough and you’ll never get your diploma. You thought it was going to be Star. But he’s as gone as last week’s discount sale. Live through one round with death and he comes back bigger and stronger in round two.
To be honest, you can’t say that this is a real surprise. Living by the sword comes back to you. Living by the gun only accelerates the process. You were never getting out. You were never going free. Time runs out for those who waste. Karma’s a bitch for those who don’t respect her power.
As you hover above your own body, you watch the bitch slip her clothes on far faster than it took for you to get them off. The light shining over you is an express train to the next life. Chief didn’t have it all wrong. You didn’t have it all right. But you’ll get another chance. We all get another chance.