Now I wouldn’t have called Abednego Jones a nigger, and I might have killed anybody who did. Unless AJ killed the guy first, because AJ sure did have a temper. But these guys, these gangbanging pieces of shit? They like the name. I mean, you listen to that rap crap, these guys are calling each other nigger all the time. It’s like any other name when you find yourself at the ass end of life: You get it, then you wear it the best you can.
And speak of the devil, there are the U Street guys when I get back to the warehouse floor. I see CK shaking hands with the little one, Juan E, who’s all lit up like it’s New Year’s Eve, and I realize then that the other one, the Yellow Nigger, isn’t paying one bit of attention to his buddy or to CK.
Instead he’s staring at the guy at the bottom of the steps. At me.
the best-laid plans
Sunup on a lazy morning, with one day to go. So it’s Thursday. There’s a Pontiac in a parking lot and a sky that looks like puke. Two Hand and I are backseat to CK and Mackie, laying bets on the Orioles-Mariners game. I’m in for $500, and that dimwit Mackie gave me the Mariners and 3. The Pontiac’s outside the Dollar Bill Motel on Route 1, just south of Alexandria on the road to Mount Vernon, where, after we lay those bets, we lock and load. Time to eyeball the troops.
When it’s time for crime, you need to know who’s running with you. Inside this dump are the six guys who can get us arrested, maybe even get us killed. Our African American brothers.
The place is no flophouse but it makes your average Quality Inn look like the Four Seasons. Two little one-story rectangles. All the rooms—all twenty-five, thirty of them—face in, which means they face each other. A scenic view. We stroll across the parking lot and into this open-air corridor of twenty-bucks-a-night splendor, and Renny counts down the row of rooms to our right: 17, 16, 15, pow. He leans into the black wrought-iron column outside Room 14; and he’s got the oowop, an Uzi, beneath his raincoat. I stand away from the window, right at the door to 15 and make like I’m taking a smoke. CK nods to Mackie, and Mackie nods back, slips a Smith & Wesson .40 from his belt. He keeps the pistol nose down, reaches his left hand across, and knock-knocks the door to 14.
Open sesame.
Mackie’s inside, then CK, and I wink at Renny Two Hand and take the plunge. Renny follows, pulls the door closed behind him, and hail, hail, the gang’s all here.
It’s a tiny room and the double bed doesn’t leave much room for company. The bed’s got Juan E with a blunt, a bottle of brew, and a huddle of his homeys.
I look around and back and what we’ve got is a six-man chunk of the U Street Crew and each one of them is wearing $300 sneakers and droopy pants and a surly smile and the one thing I think is that these guys are kids. Juan E’s eighteen if he’s a day; none of the others can be older than twenty-one, twenty-five tops. Except the Yellow Nigger. And he’s way over in the corner, alone, hidden behind the same old pair of shades, wearing them inside, at 6:00 a.m., lost in some waking dream and watching TV, it’s on ESPN if he can see it. He’s an old-timer in this crew. Ancient. Maybe even thirty-five. Too many of these guys die, by the trigger or consecutive sentences. These guys have been banging, and once you go banging, you don’t ever come back. Come eighteen years, they’ve shot, been shot at, been to juvenile hall six or seven times, been locked up and locked down; they’ve seen it all, maybe more than me. Maybe.
Yo, cuz, says the closest kid, the one with the headband. White meat in the house.
Fuck you, says Mackie, ever the diplomat. But he pockets his pistol.
Then we’ve got the handshakes and jive bullshit all around. The bald one, gangly and grins, is Django, and that’s Lil Ace in the USC sweatshirt, and then there’s Malik, one of those flash-frozen guys who’s most definitely got a body count, and finally the one with the headband, that’s … Headband.
Hey. Hi. Hey there. How ya doin? I mean, just what do you say to a roomful of gangbangers? Well, leave it to Mackie the Lackey:
Who you guys down with? The Bloods? Crips?
So now we’ve got silence.
Juan E gives Mackie the Wile E. Coyote stare, but Mackie keeps going.
C’mon, says fucking Henry Kissinger. What colors are you running with?
Juan E elbows this Django guy next to him, and this Django guy makes some kind of funny sign with the fingers of his right hand. The homeys, all but the Yellow Nigger, who looks maybe stoned or asleep in front of that TV, nod and laugh, nod and laugh, and finally Juan E curls his lip and says:
You don’t know nothin, man. Bloods, Crips, colors … fuck that shit. USC beyond all that, you know what I’m sayin? We ain’t just a set, we the whole damn ball of wax. D.C. is ours, mothafucka. Chocolate City, you know what I’m sayin? We own the street. And the war’s over, baby, ain’t you heard? It’s over. Nigga runnin for the White House now. Pretty soon we gonna call it the Black House.
Another elbow. Hands slapping. Laugh, laugh, laugh.
But Mackie says, Wait a minute. You talking about this guy who wants to be Vice President? Shit, man, he’s no nigger. He’s a Republican.
That gets a good enough laugh, but then out of the chatter comes a low voice, like some deep Hennessy and five-packs-a-day shit, and it’s this iceman Malik and he’s saying:
It’s over, baby. Niggas ain’t killin niggas no more. We gots bigger fish to fry. Like cod and cat. You know what I’m talkin bout? White fish.
Yeah, right. It’s CK and you can tell he’s had enough. You got drugs and you got guns, CK says. Let the revolution begin.
Juan E turns on him. You ain’t listenin, mothafucka. These are righteous soldiers, you know what I’m sayin? New Afrika.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, CK tells him. Well, I’m an old-timer, see. Traditionalist. Believe in family values, school prayer, knowing your place. Guess I kind of like Old Africa better.
Hey, cuz, Headband says to Juan E. I ain’t down with this jainky shit. And I sure ain’t gonna go with no Mzungu.
Mackie leans toward Headband, says: What is that, fuckface, some kind of Zulu bullshit? Muslim talk?
Headband looks at Mackie like he’s seeing him for the first time. You on this planet or you just too busy bein white? Ain’t no Muslim language, man. Ain’t no such thing. Ever heard of Arabic? Kiswahili? That’s you I’m talkin bout, white boy. You the Mzungu, devil.
Cool, Two Hand whispers to me, and before Mackie can squat and drop another stinking turd on this get-together I step up and say:
Hey. Whoa. Time out. Maybe I walked into the wrong room, but I thought this little chat was about something we could do for you, and that you just might do for us. And if we did this thing together, then all of us would make money. Lots of money. It’s a nice thing, money. It’s got nothing to do with colors. Except green. So why don’t we skip the shit-kicking this time and just get the fuck along?
I wave in CK’s direction. This here’s Mr. Kruikshank. He’s running this show. And—
And I’ve got a little something for you, CK says, right on cue. Mackie? You want to get the bag?
Juan E frowns, calls over to the Yellow Nigger:
Yo, G.
Whassup? the Yellow Nigger says, and the guy slips the sunglasses down his nose and looks at Juan E like he’s asked for the time of day. His eyes are blurs of blue. The guy is either stoned or he’s about three days short on sleep.
Juan E says: Well?
And the Yellow Nigger just closes those blue eyes and pushes the sunglasses back over them and I’ll be damned if he doesn’t smile and say: Let Mr. Kruikshank do his thing.
Juan E gives CK the nod and CK says something to Mackie and Mackie heads for the parking lot. Everybody else stands around staring at each other while the Yellow Nigger takes in more of the inside of his shades. Finally Mackie’s back with a bulky suit bag and, when CK nods, he unzips the bag and upends the contents onto the bed. It’s a lot of gleaming iron.
CK tells them it’s a little gift, says: Here’s something that’ll let you peel a few caps back.
So now we get smiles and maybe even some juice.
While his homeys are oohing and aahing, the Yellow Nigger stays bored. That takes him up another rung on my ladder. I wouldn’t touch one of those pieces of shit either. But we move them like crazy, especially in the inner city. Gangsters love this weapon. It’s the Cobray M-11/9, made by the same solid citizens who built the Street Sweeper. A brick of black steel about the weight of a newborn baby, the M-11/9 is descended from the MAC-10, which is a nice piece of work, God bless Gordon Ingram. But you buy a Cobray for the look: evil. It’s the Frankenstein of fullies, the gun that made the eighties roar. Sure they’re sold as semi-automatics, one squeeze, one shot, but with a quick fix, a couple minutes if you know the right guy or read the right book, these little monsters can fire thirty-two rounds in less than two seconds. Sucker torques like a bitch when you squeeze down. You got to use both hands, point and shoot as many rounds as you can, and pray you hit something before it jams.
CK says to Juan E: We have to talk. They’re out the door, buddies for life, with Mackie and Headband in tow, and I’m in here with a roomful of punks with their new guns, not to mention their old ones.
Which means it’s my turn again. So I say to the Yellow Nigger:
Listen, my friend. When we find ourselves in NYC, you’re with me.
Yeah? he says, never taking his eyes off the TV. Who says so?
You say so.
Yeah? he says, and this time he pulls down the sunglasses and gives me the stare, the one about coming close to a line. As if psychos have a line. A straight one, I mean. The kind you can read, the kind you can respect.
Yeah, I say, and I decide to save him some breath. There’s no need to ask why, because I’m going to tell him why:
See, I tell him, the way I figure it, when you get to NYC and you find yourself sitting in some building, lounging in some truck, worrying about a lot of iron and a lot of money with somebody who’s not from your streets and somebody who’s not from your crew, and let’s make that somebody who’s not … somebody who’s white. Well, you need to have the one white guy in the world who you happen to think knows what the hell he’s doing.
Yeah? he says again, and this time he looks back at the TV and tells me:
Fuck you.
That’s when I pull down on him, the barrel of the Glock pressed right into his temple. Renny, I call out, and when I glance back damned if Two Hand doesn’t slap a magazine into the butt end of one of the Cobrays and point it round the rest of the room.
Stay calm, folks, he says. Or this could hurt big-time.
The Yellow Nigger’s eyes don’t leave the TV. Finally he says:
You draw that thing, you better use it.
I will, I tell him. Unless you tell your homey in the bathroom to lay down his gun and get out here.
That’s when the Yellow Nigger smiles and pulls those black-shaded eyes from the TV to me.
You crazy, he says. Ain’t nobody in there.
Yeah, I tell him. And pigs don’t shit and you don’t have a revolver in the bottom left pocket of your jacket. So why don’t we bring those hands up to your lap where I can see them? Nice and slow … nice and slow. Good, good. Now … about your buddy boy in the bathroom. What’s he got? Better be a shotgun for this kind of work. Me, I like the Mossberg. Remington’s not bad, but I like the Mossberg. And you know what? I saw your little video, the First Union thing. And come to think of it, you like the Mossberg too.
The Yellow Nigger’s lips pinch. Maybe it’s a smile. Maybe not.
So, I tell him, let’s get on with it.
That’s when he calls out: Yo, Hitter. Put that fuckin shottie down and get your ass out here.
The bathroom door opens and Two Hand points the Cobray at the slash of light. Hands up and out, he says. And out comes a wiry and nasty-looking dude. With his hands up.
Thank you, I say to this Hitter guy. Just have a seat over there on the bed with your friends.
When he’s done just that, I pull back the Glock, ease my finger off the trigger. I roll it over butt first and hand it to the Yellow Nigger. He doesn’t even blink, just takes my pistol and points it right back at me. I hear that sound, that almost inaudible click, something like a camera, as the Yellow Nigger presses the trigger safety of the Glock, my Glock, aiming fifteen sonic booms into the starboard side of my skull.
I say: I don’t like people pointing pistols at me. Guess you don’t either.
I turn to Renny, tell him: Yank the magazine and put the weapon down.
Then I look at his homeys, say: Your guy here can kill me. But he won’t. There’s a reason he won’t kill me, and it’s a good reason. It’s the same reason I didn’t kill him, and I could have, you saw me, I could have blown his brains to jelly and my friend here could have made you dance the hot lead cha-cha and then we could have gone on down to Denny’s and gotten ourselves some pancakes.
So I could have killed him and I didn’t. We could have killed you and we didn’t. We could have gone to Denny’s, damn it, and we didn’t.
Why? Because we got no fight with you. We got no reason to fight with you. We got only one reason even to be with you. And that’s cash.
I look down at the bed.
Okay, so there’s another reason. Guns.
That guy Kruikshank, the one outside with Juan E, is the man who’s gonna get you both of these things. Me, I’m the guy who’s gonna make sure nobody gets in the way. Or that, if they do, they get hurt.
There’s only one way this is gonna work, and it’s the hard way. Meaning we trust each other, we look out for each other’s back. This guy, his name’s Renny Two Hand, this guy and I are your backup. Which means we’re gonna kill any motherfucker who looks sideways at you. And you guys are our backup. Which means we put our lives in your hands. Just like your lives were just in ours. So listen:
You were all just dead men.
I roll my eyes toward the Yellow Nigger.
Now I’m the dead man. But I think we like each other a lot better alive. So—
But it’s the Yellow Nigger talking now: So this kinda bullshit ain’t gonna happen again, he says. Because right now you a ghost. Least you white as one.
His crew starts laughing as he drops the Glock away from my head and points it toward the floor. Nothing like a little comic relief to make your morning. Then:
Fuck all you all, he says to them. And to me: Fuck you too. Maybe I want to be dead. You ever think of that? Should of pulled the trigger, Snow White. Last chance you ever get.
Only chance I want, I tell him. And: I need my Glock.
Yeah, he says, I s’pose you do. He hands the pistol back to me like it’s pocket change.
You know somethin? he says. You one mad agent.
Somehow I doubt that this is a compliment. I check and armpit the gun. Then I breathe out everything that’s been inside twisting at my guts for the past few minutes.
The Yellow Nigger slumps back down in his seat and into TV land but there’s those words again, spoken louder, to his homeys:
White boy’s one mad agent.
So I tell him: You really got an attitude, pal.
I don’t got no attitude, he says. I got a Mossberg pump.
friday
And then it’s Friday and I’m waiting for Two Hand. We’re picking out a sedan for the road, some drab something with a monster of an engine, and then it’s down to the warehouse for a look-see at the iron we’re moving. We’re cooping there tonight—CK’s orders—so I’m getting my stuff together, and it’s not much but you have to take care. Packed a suit, two shirts, three sets of underwear and socks, shaving kit, six high-cap magazines, and five boxes of nine-millimeter ammunition. That’s the leather case. The duffel bag is always ready to go.
Fiona’s having another one of those mornings, first it was the espresso maker—why couldn’t I have bought her a Braun?—and then it was the contact lens, and there is no feeling more helpless than watching a woman, not just any woman b
ut the woman you love, with her contact lens caught in her eye and she’s crying and she can’t get it out and she is wanting you to do something but you can’t, you have to watch those tears and that eye seeping to pink and then red and you hold her and then you don’t hold her and then you hold her again and you tell her to relax but she can’t relax so you tell her to relax again and again and after a while there’s nothing else she can do but relax, and then she tries again and like magic the lens slips out of her eye and into her hand.
But there goes the time you had, the time you needed to spread her out on the bed, to lick that feral life into her, to taste and touch and try to make it right this time. Right for her.
Instead, you have to say goodbye.
I want to understand her, but she speaks in tongues. Fiery prophecies. Faith. Hope. Love, silent at a distant horizon, waiting to fade in like a made-for-television dawn, so bright it burns.
I met her playing pool at this dive called Spunky’s, getting hustled for nickels and dimes by Two Hand when this jerk—I was taking the 8-ball on a soft bank into the left corner pocket, cozy shot, end of story, end of game, and this jerk bumps into the butt end of my cue and makes me scratch and lose, and of course the jerk is her. This girl—yeah, I know, I’m supposed to say something like woman but this was a girl, she’s even got her long long hair in these two ponytails, like pigtails only without the braids—she’s got these eyes, and though I did, later on, I just couldn’t get past those eyes, those wide brown eyes that shone with innocent intensity—I want to know the world, I want to love the world, I want to own the world—and she says to me:
Oops.
She’s trying to carry a couple beers and a Coke to her friends, these zoned-out big-haired dinner whores at a table across the way, and she’s got these three big mugs sort of wedged together in her hands and she’s not paying any attention but she says it’s like my cue went back and hit her, not the other way around. And she’s got beer on her skirt, this blue-jean thing, and it’s short, really short, and that’s when I see those legs and so what am I going to tell her? Just:
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