Rage Is Back (9781101606179)

by Mansbach, Adam

  The modern city required a level of coordination between its visible and submerged halves that made the idea of people living underground plausible again. But who would populate it, now that the subterrain was so tainted by both the ascendant heaven-and-hell cosmology and the fact that it was full of things we didn’t want to see? Laborers and slaves, naturally. And thus the underground came to symbolize the silent oppressed, always threatening to breach the bright surface. Your boy H. G. Wells imagined a future in which mine workers degenerated into a depraved new race; Chuck Dickens and Vic Hugo envisioned sewer-dwelling classes totally severed from the world above, their very existence un-guessed-at.

  The mythic journey to the underworld is typically embarked upon alone, but there are exceptions. Like the drunken Athenian duo of Theseus and Pirithous, whose idiotic plan to kidnap Persephone ended in tears. Or my man Odysseus, who brought all his sailors on a roadtrip to the Kingdom of Hades that was more an excuse for Homer to relate the fates of the Greek heroes after Troy than a portrait of hell.

  Or me, Billy and Dengue, whose Sunday morning began with a cab ride to the meatpacking district, and continued with a squeeze through a chain-link flap cut from a razor-wire-topped fence. From there, we clambered through a trash-strewn lot, into the alley alongside an abandoned brick building. A wooden door with a dangling padlock opened into a small room. A man slept loudly in one corner, atop a swirl of newspapers and clothes. In another was a jagged hole, chopped through the cement floor. The top rungs of a rusty ladder breached the opening.

  We climbed down into a stagnant, pissy near-darkness, and started walking: along the ledge of one train tunnel, then through a service door and down a spiraling flight of metal stairs, into another. Then up to the catwalk.

  Billy led the way and I led Dengue, who managed to keep up surprisingly well. What light there was fell in narrow beams, and seemed exhausted from the journey. I’d been forbidden to bring a flashlight. “Cops carry flashlights,” the Ambassador had said, and that was that.

  Tunnel is one of those concepts you think you understand, but don’t—not until you walk through one. We’re talking about a goddamn cylinder hollowed out of the rock and dirt that is our planet, and New York City sits atop hundreds of miles’ worth, eighteen stories deep in some places and three or four in most. You know what an ant farm looks like? That’s what all our apartment buildings and museums and shit are built on. Forgive me if this is all obvious to you, or if it sounds like stoner wisdom. If you’ve never been down there, you only think you know what I’m talking about. Whatever, forget it.

  Another ladder, me spotting Dengue from below and imagining the Ambassador losing his footing, taking me down with him, the two of us shishkabobbed atop a railroad spike for all eternity. And then we were trudging through a deeper tunnel, tar black and echoing with the drip of water so that if you weren’t too busy waving your hands in front of you and being terrified, you might imagine you were in a cave.

  “Couldn’t we have done this at a Starbucks?” I asked.

  Billy was too far ahead to hear me, Dengue too focused on drawing breath to respond.

  “Or at Fizz’s crib. Fizz’s office. A church. A synagogue. A mosque. Maybe not a mosque. Those probably are under surveillance.”

  “Almost there,” my father called. I heard him take off running, then a grunt and a beat of silence and the slap of both his sneakers hitting the ground at once. “Wait till you see this,” he called, sounding like nothing so much as a kid showing off a new Christmas toy.

  He was acting pretty goddamn close to normal, and it seemed clear to me that the idea of revenge was what had nudged him those final, crucial degrees. Which worried me, a lot: revenge was what had taken him away, and I knew it could snatch him up again. And not for nothing? The same obsessive streak or justice-lust or impulse for self-sabotage ran in my veins, too—had ruled my thoughts of Billy all those years he was gone, even if I hadn’t recognized it as such until now.

  “Keep going straight?” I called.

  “Hold on, hold on.” A tinkling sound, like a wind chime, and then light flooded the tunnel. Billy stood above us, beneath an ornate, soot-covered chandelier.

  “Voilà. The Parlor.”

  Four feet up from the tracks, just like a regular subway station, was a huge, semicircular space—not technically a hall, but it felt like one. The ceiling was domed, the fixture suspended precisely in the middle. It was meant to hang much higher off the ground, but the electrical wiring had been yanked loose, presumably so that one might screw in a bulb, as Billy had.

  Inlaid mirrors covered the walls, so sixty watts went a long way. There were benches on one side, rows of them lined up like church pews, angled inward so that anyone seated there would have a perfect view of the piano positioned opposite. It was a grand.

  Billy’s eyes sparkled as he watched me climb up and take in the space. At my expression, I suppose, or the memory of his own first visit. Or the fact that he was sharing this place—hell, sharing anything—with his son.

  “Piano still here?” asked the Ambassador, scrabbling over the ledge and brushing himself off.

  “Where would it go?” Billy took his arm, just above the elbow. “This way.”

  “That’s all right, I can get there.” Billy let go and Dengue beelined to it, pulled out the bench, sat down. He fished a tube of airplane glue out of his pocket, rubbed some on the collar of his T-shirt, and treated himself to a big exhilarating-sunrise-on-the-mountaintop breath. “Any requests?”

  “Since when do you play the piano?” I asked.

  “Shit, if a blind black man can’t tinkle the ivories, who can?”

  “It’s tickle, not tinkle.”

  “‘Straight, No Chaser,’” said Billy. He was seated on a bench, legs crossed at the ankles, smiling wide and calm like all was right with the world.

  “Excellent choice.” Dengue made claws of his hands, cracking the upper joints of his fingers. “I only know one song,” he explained. “But I play the fuck out of it.”

  The piano was so monstrously out of tune that evaluating the performance was impossible. I walked over and sat behind Billy.

  “What is this place?”

  He leaned back, spoke over his shoulder. “It was supposed to be the central station of a private train line they built in the thirties. Company went bankrupt. It was never even used.”

  Dengue murdered Monk for a while, notes ricocheting off the tunnel walls. He’d located an octave in which the keys weren’t even connected to their wires. Hitting them produced a thwack that the Ambassador seemed to believe he could employ as percussion.

  Billy listened like he was sitting in Symphony Space. I wanted to ask him how he could be so comfortable in one tunnel, and so convinced that a nexus of evil energy dwelled in another. Weren’t they all connected? Couldn’t this demon move around?

  Dengue built to a horrific crescendo, pounding the busted keyboard with iron hands, and then it was over. Billy clapped; I did the same.

  I stopped. He stopped. The clapping didn’t.

  We stood up. Dengue too, so fast he knocked over the piano bench.

  “Who’s there?”

  Into the light strolled a reedy black man, head-to-toed in camouflage like he’d just stepped off a troop transport from Tikrit, patchy beard and all. Only he was pushing fifty: a first-generation writer, a graffiti grandpa. The fact that he was rocking wraparound sunglasses in total blackness confirmed it. All those dudes were bonkers.

  “Me.” His voice was hoarse, but strong.

  “What up, Drum?” from Billy.

  Dude swung himself up into the parlor like a gymnast mounting the parallel bars.

  “Kill that, kill that. The handle’s Supreme Chemistry now. I take that Drum shit as a diss, you know what I’m sayin’?” He gave Billy a pound. “Welcome home, kid.
Dengue, what’s good, my ninja?”

  “Supreme Chem, how you livin’?”

  “Yo, ninjas is on some bullshit, B, but what else is new? I been beefin’ with this one sucker ninja all week on some message board stupidness. Ninja talkin’ greazy ’bout how he invented bubble letters. I’m like, ‘Ninja, I been doin’ this since ’69, where you was at? How come I ain’t see no trains with your name on ’em ’til spring ’72? If you was at the Writers’ Bench so much, why true school ninjas don’t even recognize your face?’ Not to mention, they ain’t even bubble letters, the name is softies. Yo B, I had to break down how much of what the world been jockin’ for like the last thirty bullets is just ninjas bitin’ Supreme Chem’s formulas, from softies to three-Ds to the way I dropped my R behind my D when ninjas was off eatin’ Watermelon Now and Laters with Miss Lucy and shit. But let me stop running my mouth. Meanwhile, here come this other ninja, out the woodwork behind the woodwork, ain’t been heard from in ten, twelve years and now he claimin’ he kinged the BMTs in like ’77–’78. Shit is crazy, B. Ninjas wanna act all wild west on the interwebs, like they can’t get mashed in the face when they step out they little no-windows basement apartment. I call ’em lie-oneers, you know what I’m saying? Origihaters. But let me stop running my mouth. What’s the science on this meeting, B? I hope y’all ain’t bringin’ no ninjas I got beef with.”

  “That would be practically impossible,” said Dengue, giving Supreme Chemistry a pound.

  Until the dude smiled, I wouldn’t have thought it possible. “True, true. How they say, B? Heavy is the head that wears the crown.”

  “So that’s why I got a headache.” Cackles in the darkness, from a direction I hadn’t even noticed, and then Nick Fizz and two other dudes emerged.

  You know that thing I said earlier about pink-fur-Kangol gay Puerto Rican b-boy flair? I meant it as a figure of speech. But goddamn it if Nick Fizz wasn’t rocking an actual pink fur Kangol. Funny thing is, it didn’t even look that gay. He had one of those beards you’ve gotta touch up three times a week at la barberia, same as half of all Boriquan males between fifteen and fifty-five, and the hat was cocked at the classic diddy-bop degree. It matched one of his polo shirt’s stripes, sat atop a pair of chunky old-school eyeglasses. By the time you got done looking at him, it seemed totally hetero-plausible.

  Cloud and Dengue had squabbled about whether to invite him, Cloud arguing that Fizz had too much to lose to be trusted, and that his old crew, the one he’d have to reunite, was even more scattered than most. Dengue said Nick was solid as ever, and asked Cloud how the fuck he thought he knew anything about anybody after sixteen in the hoosegow, and in this way the matter was resolved.

  I gave Fizz a hug and shook hands with the infamous Sambo CFC—who indeed had curly hair, though I’d imagine it had covered far more of his head when he took his nom de plume—and a guy who introduced himself as Stoon BMS, then stepped back a full pace as if expecting me to fall forward onto my face at the thrill of meeting him.

  Every few minutes after that, a pair of writers or a trio would step into the light, until I felt like I was watching a kind of reverse play, me standing on stage and the various characters entering from the wings, the aisles. There were twelve people there, plus me, when Dengue sounded a chord on the piano and called the meeting to order. Everybody sprawled on the pews except Supreme Chemistry, who stood behind us like a sentry.

  What happened next reminds me of the most boring scene in all of Homer. Just when the action’s heating up, my man takes a ten-page time-out to run down every vessel that sailed to Troy, who its captain was, how many battalions of troops he brought, and for what heroic attributes and agricultural products motherfuckers from that particular region of Greece were known. A little later, he provides an equally stupefying catalog of armies on the Trojan side.

  How long do you figure it should take a dozen guys who all know each other anyway to introduce themselves? Three minutes, maybe? I’m going to skip the play-by-play—don’t say I never did anything for you—but this is how it manages to take fifteen:

  “Whaddup, whaddup, good to be here, good to be here, Stoon BMS representing Castle Hill, na’mean, BMS president, na’mean, Bronx Most Shocking, Beat Mad Suckers, Best Motherfuckin’ Style, Boogiedown Meets Shaolin, whatever whatever. Original members was myself, Dash 7, who was vice president, um, Ty-Ty 99, Javelin—R.I.P.—and Maser. Then, lemme see, Xerxes and Asap got down in ’79, and then Blaze One, Mug, Swag 3, Phast, and Skizz. I also represent 12 Angry Monkeys, 12AM Crew, that’s me, Lord Ock, Fed 125 . . .”

  And so on. They were a haggard bunch, even taking the dress-down nature of the occasion into account. There was something in their faces, the hang of their skin. They had outlived what they’d invented, and this doomed them to live in the past, and fear the present. That’s my half-assed take, anyway.

  When it was over, Dengue came around and stood in front of the piano. “I’ll get right to it. Y’all speak for the illest subway crews of all time, and we called you here for one reason: because it’s time to take back these trains.”

  His dramatic pause played like an awkward silence. That was punctured by a pudgy, babyfaced Puerto Rican, name of Species, the founder of a comparatively newjack crew from Queens. They’d come late to the party, squeezed in two or three years of intense mayhem as the subway era was winding down. Another contested invite, despite the fact that his squad was the most active on the docket.

  “Yo, Dengue, no disrespect? Your man Rage called this meeting, all mysterious, back from the dead and shit. So first things first, a’ight? How we know he ain’t five-oh?”

  All heads turned to Billy, but before he could respond, the dull thump of a body hitting the ground refocused the collective attention.

  Supreme Chemistry stood over Species, blackjack in hand. And I don’t mean a face card and an ace.

  “No disrespect to you either,” he rasped, and raised his eyes—assuming he had some, behind those shades—to the rest of us. “Those who don’t study their history are doomed to be fuckin’ stupid forever.” He crouched, slipped the blackjack into one of the pockets lining his fatigues, and cracked some smelling salts under his victim’s nose. “Rise and shine, ninja.” Species twitched and woke. “While you was ’sleep we agreed that Billy ain’t no po-po,” Supreme Chemistry informed him. “Next time you feel like talking, count to ten first, and then shut the fuck up.”

  I was beginning to like this guy.

  Species rubbed the back of his head, scowled, arranged his limbs to stand. “Yo, what the—”

  Supreme Chem pressed four fingertips to Species’ chest. “What I just say, B? Check this out: I already forgot your name, but if you on some graffiti shit, then I’m your daddy. You livin’ under my roof, ninja. Now show some manners and apologize to Rage.”

  Species looked around, incredulous that no one was interceding on his behalf. We all waited.

  “Okay. I’m sorry.” Without a sound, Supreme Chem drifted back to his position in the rear. “I apologize. It’s just”—Species looked over both shoulders—“I mean, shit is crazy right now. Vandal Squad is laying fools out. Y’all heard what happened to Hades?” Yes-nods, no-nods. “They ran up in his crib last week with search warrants, took his computer. He’s got six thousand photos on there, and they’re using them as evidence, charging him in four different boroughs. Seven to ten years each.”

  “If he gets convicted, we’re all fucked,” said Fizz. “That shit will set a precedent.”

  “What’s his defense?” I asked.

  Fizz shrugged. “That he stopped writing when his daughter was born, in ’93, and anything more recent is copycats. And that of course he has pictures of graffiti on his computer, he publishes books about graffiti, he’s a historian.”

  “Which is why they want him in the first place,” said Stoon. “Anybody getting paid off this, Bracken
is gunning for.”

  Another patch of dead air, this one more ruminative than awkward. Gradually the attention drifted back to Billy, who didn’t notice. I once saw a clip of Ronald Reagan standing motionless behind a podium for five minutes, looking like a wax statue. Then somebody shouts, “rolling,” and he launches right into a speech. It’s chilling. I nudged Billy’s foot with mine and he reanimated, Gipper-style.

  “Um, so basically, the plan is to bomb every train in the system, all at once. Start Saturday night and work through Monday morning. One crew to a yard. For security reasons, only you guys, the crew presidents, will know the big picture. Everybody else is gonna think they’re just taking out a line.” He glanced over at Dengue. “There’s, you know, a lot of specifics to go over, but we’ve figured most of it out already. We’ve got some money, or we’re gonna have some money, for supplies and—”

  “They watch the paint stores now, Billy.” It was a guy called Vexer, a lightskinned Dominicano. His voice was gentle, like your favorite grade school teacher breaking a piece of bad news. “I don’t know if you knew that, seeing as you been away. Buying more than five cans is probable cause. They be doin’ stop-and-searches.”

  “I didn’t know that. But I wasn’t talking about paint. I meant night vision goggles, trip wires, smoke bombs, tranquilizer rifles. Bail bonds. Any information we might have to pay for.” With each item Billy ran down, the silence deepened. Words like these breathed life into the enterprise. “We’re good on paint already. Cloud 9 is covering that.”

  Snickers around the Parlor.

  “Picking up where he left off, huh?”

  “This is an old stash. A truck he jacked back in the day, and put on ice.” The Ambassador paused. “Any of y’all happen to attend Cloud’s homecoming party?”

  A few guys mumbled that they had.

  “Then you know the stakes. We’re the Committee to Not Elect Anastacio Bracken by Fucking Up His Trains.”

  “He’s ten points behind in the polls,” said Fizz.