At The City's Edge

by Marcus Sakey

  Then, hard as he could, he slammed it down on the counter.

  The impact was shockingly loud, and everyone froze. "Gentlemen," Washington said again, looking back and forth, decided to start with Oscar. He should have known better; he'd been coming here for months. Washington stared, taking in the rage in Oscar's eyes, the pits in his cheeks, mementoes of a driveby. The boy was alive only because the shooter hadn't known the difference between birdshot and buckshot, and yet here he was, falling back to the old ways.

  "You can leave," Washington said, "anytime you like. No one is forced to stay. You can go back to the street, back to putting your work in. I know you're strong enough," glanced over his shoulder, "both of you. I respect your strength." He set the pan down. "But is strength enough?" He paused, nodded at Ronald, who unwound twenty-inch arms from Oscar's chest. "What did strength get you, Ronald?"

  "Four years gladiator school." The man spoke quietly, his voice at once rumbling and soft. "Me shot three times. My l'il brother dead."

  Washington nodded. "That's right. And you know why?" He gestured at the two boys holding Diego. They slowly released him, but stayed close. Diego puffed out his chest, kept his face hard, but didn't make a move. "Because that kind of strength isn't enough." Washington stepped forward, put a hand on the boy's shoulder, feeling the play of muscles beneath. Looked him in the eye. "You know that. That's why you're here.

  "The street says stand up straight. Take shit from no man, right? Murder if you got to." He shrugged. "That's a start. But when everybody gets that same lesson, what happens?"

  Washington scanned their faces. Other than Ronald, not one of them was over nineteen. Most had been banging since they were shorties, twelve or thirteen years old. Children of single mothers, never knew a father figure. That they were listening at all was a miracle, a testament to how badly they wanted out of the life. Even Christ hadn't been able to sell salvation to contented sinners.

  "Everybody here came on their own. Left their set and came to me for help. Climbed past the sign says Lantern Bearers, knocked on my door. Said, 'Dr. Matthews, I'm tired. There got to be more.' " He paused. "And I said, 'Son, there is.' "

  "That vendejo disrespected Vice Lords." Diego turned his head and spat. "Shit don't go unanswered."

  Washington shook his head. "You leave that behind. No street names, no flying colors. If you're out, you got to get all the way."

  "I want out. But he don't get to piss on my people."

  "I understand," Washington said. "They're your friends. Su familia."

  "That's right."

  "You were with them years, they looked out for you."

  Diego nodded at him, wary.

  "So why are you here?"

  "Huh?"

  "Why come here?"

  "Because…" Diego struggled. "My girl, she embarazada, right? Six months. And I don't want my baby growin' up to be no-"

  "Gangster?" Washington asked.

  Diego shrugged, looked away.

  "Coming here, son, that took strength. More strength than the street." He stepped closer, locked eyes with Diego. "I respect that." He held the gaze for a few more seconds, let the boy see he meant it. "Nobody is forced to stay. You want to go," he gestured down the hall, "door's over there. Go back to banging and hustling and always looking over your shoulder. But if you stay, you leave the rest behind. You hear?"

  Diego left his killer face on, but nodded. It was a start. Baby steps.

  "What are we about?" Washington threw out the call.

  "Respect," the response came back.

  "What are we about?"

  "RESPECT." The voices rang together.

  He nodded. "All right. Now let's eat." He bent and began picking up oranges and scattered silverware. And felt that familiar thrill of pride when ten hands joined his.

  The day would be a busy one. After the meal, while Ronald oversaw the cleanup – wisely separating Oscar and Diego, no point rubbing flint and steel – Washington retreated to his office. Lousy day to sleep late. One of his boys had a job interview and wanted him along. He had a shift at the library later. Plus a pile of paperwork, forms that declared the Lantern Bearers a 501(c)(3) organization, stated that he was not-for-profit.

  Shit, he hadn't been for profit since he was seventeen. Only the government would need a form to prove it.

  He settled into his chair with a sigh, laced his hands across his belly. The half-empty bottle of Beefeater on his desk caught the light, split it into slow-dancing rainbows. A couple of swigs would ease the pain in his head, the burn in his belly. He looked away, closed his eyes, watched patterns of red and black as he searched for his own strength. When the phone rang, he answered half-alert.

  "Dr. Matthews, it's Adam Kent." The voice harried.

  "Mr. Kent." Washington jerked upright, eyes snapping open. "How are you?"

  "Up to my ears. I've got a shipment of parts two weeks overdue from South Korea and four separate inspectors asking for bribes." The man sighed. "How's life in the gangster-reform business?"

  "Oh, we're fine here." He put on his whitest voice, trying for a tone appropriate for dealing with a millionaire entrepreneur and philanthropist. "One day at a time."

  "Don't I know it. Your party's in three days. You rent a tux yet?"

  Shit. "Yes."

  "Good. Listen, the alderman just called. He wants to meet again. Some last details he's worried about, something about your history?"

  Talons seized Washington's belly. "My history?"

  "Yeah, I don't know. I'm sure it's nothing. Tomorrow afternoon?"

  "Ah… of course."

  "Good. I'll bring a check."

  "A check?"

  "You didn't think I was going to give you five hundred thousand dollars in a duffel bag?"

  "No, I just…" Washington sighed. "Honestly, Mr. Kent, I'm not used to dealing with this kind of thing. Parties and politics and big donations. Tax forms. I just…" He rubbed his aching eyeballs with his thumb and forefinger. "I help kids."

  "I know." The voice warm. "Don't worry about it. We'll get it cleared up, whatever it is, and let you get back to the important stuff. Okay?"

  "Okay."

  "Good. Tomorrow."

  Washington hung up, head buzzing, the way it did every time he thought about the money. Half a million dollars. Enough to build out the basement with bunks and a bathroom. Buy computers and training manuals. Pay for certification classes. Tattoo removal. Transit cards so the boys could find work. Hell, maybe even hire a full-time tutor. Plus food, utilities, and maintenance for years. Enough to turn the house his mother had left him into a proper gang-recovery center.

  His eyes fell on the silver picture frame on the desk, a faded Sunday portrait. A woman with ink-dark skin, her hair pinned primly beneath a hat with a spray of black lace. Gloves, and her blouse buttoned to the neck. Her lips were smiling, but at the same time she squinted against the sun, and it played like a battle on her features. Beside her stood a boy of twelve, thirteen, wearing a Salvation Army suit and a sullen expression.

  Photos had strange power. A moment frozen in silver and paper. The way the sun fell in the woman's eyes, the blurred motion of summer trees, those things would never come again.

  The boy in the photo didn't know that in four years he would kill a child half his age. The woman dragging her son to church didn't know he was already lost to her. These things hadn't happened yet. Had they been inevitable, even then? Was it just a matter of waiting for the world to catch up?

  He didn't know. The world had kept turning, and things had happened. The relationship between the two, he couldn't say. All he knew was that thirty years ago, Sally Matthews had forced her son to go to church for what had turned out to be one of the last times. And all that remained of that lost moment was a piece of paper.

  I'm trying, Mama. Every day, I'm trying.

  There was a knock at the door, and it pulled him from his reverie. He started to tell whoever it was to come in, but the door was alread
y opening. Something must be wrong. Washington straightened, expecting to hear about Oscar and Diego, their feud continuing.

  Then he saw Ronald's face and realized something much worse had happened.

  CHAPTER 10

  The Good Life

  Jason couldn't remember ever being so uncomfortable in a place he knew well.

  They'd ordered a couple of pizzas, light sauce and extra cheese for Billy, pepperoni and double giardiniera for him. Sat in Michael's living room and watched the first Star Wars movie on DVD. Not the true first Star Wars, but the one Lucas made later, with the fart jokes and the long-eared alien. Jason felt the man should have left well enough alone, but the movie was one of Billy's favorites, and that was doctor's orders.

  "Shock wears off. Don't pull at him. Just take him somewhere he feels safe and make sure he gets some rest." The doctor, a wiry Asian guy not much older than Jason, had written a prescription for Valium, warning not to give more than half a tab. Then he'd left Jason alone in the too bright hallway, forced to face the fact that the place Billy would feel most comfortable was the last place on earth Jason wanted to be.

  "How's the pizza?"

  "S'okay," Billy said around a mouthful, eyes on the screen. The familiar surroundings did seem to be helping. Which was something of a mixed blessing. The physiological purpose of shock was to help you operate through pain. Right now, he suspected Billy wasn't even thinking about what had happened. His mind was protecting itself by screening out the day. But sooner or later, he'd have to deal with it.

  So will I, he thought, and then leaned back on his dead brother's sofa and forced himself to chew another bite of pizza.

  Later, Jason walked Billy up to bed, feeling like an imposter, like at any moment the curtains would pull aside and Michael would step out with an accusatory expression, a look that said I'm dead because you weren't there, and by the way, you're a lousy uncle. He sat on the edge of the bath and watched Billy brush his teeth. Fought to conceal his animal panic at the thought that he was somehow supposed to know all this stuff now. That he had to be responsible. Last night he'd taken home a girl he'd just met and screwed her against the wall of his shitbox apartment, her moans hot in his ear as he buried his fear in sensation.

  Today he was supposed to be Daddy?

  In his room, Billy pulled off his clothes and tossed them on the floor, then crawled into bed and pulled the covers to his chin, leaving the lamp on. Jason didn't really know the bedtime protocol – was he supposed to read a story? His nephew looked so vulnerable, so tiny, that something in Jason's chest tugged sideways. He wanted to promise that everything would be all right, but he didn't even know what that meant, so he just stood and stared, taking in the boy's long lashes, the white spot where toothpaste had crusted on his lip. Through that doughy unformedness of children, Jason could see the beginnings of the man Billy would become. Shoulders just beginning to broaden. Michael's strong chin – a lot of Mikey, actually, in the nose and eyes, too. For a moment Jason felt an odd lightness, like he was untethered to the planet, but then the boy's small fingers curled around his callused hand.

  "Would you stay?" Billy tugged at his hand. "Till I fall asleep?"

  "Sure thing." Jason tried a smile. "As long as you want." He sat awkwardly, butt on the bed and back against the wall. Reached out and tentatively stroked Billy's hair.

  His nephew let out a long sigh and closed his eyes, scrunching them hard enough to carve little crow's feet. He wrapped the blanket tight and flopped on his side. Through half-closed lips, he mumbled, "G'night, Uncle Jason." Yawned. "I love you."

  The words hit like blows. Not the declaration of love – Billy was a sensitive kid, said it all the time – but the recognition that he was the only one to whom Billy could say that now. Panic flooded Jason, and he wished with everything he was that the world would go back to making sense. It wasn't supposed to be Michael who died. Fate had tagged the wrong Palmer brother.

  "I love you too, kiddo." Iron fingers squeezed his chest as he stared down at all that remained of his family. "You sleep now."

  He switched off the lamp and eased himself to lay on the mattress beside Billy, feet sticking off the end of the twin bed. The ceiling was dotted with glow-in-the-dark stars, the whorls of fake constellations and plastic planets forming a canopy above. Wide awake, Jason counted his nephew's soft breaths, counted and stared up at the false sky, stared and wished he knew what he was looking for.

  Oh-one-hundred hours. Back in the living room, the only light was the TV, the DVD menu for Star Wars still up, bright colors showing the Jim Beam was half gone. He poured another two fingers into a juice glass, threw them back in a gulp.

  They'd played at Star Wars when they were little. One of the games they could agree on. Michael always wanted to be Luke, the responsible farm boy who saved the world. Jason preferred to be Han, the pirate who saw the galaxy and got the girl. He remembered the broken concrete and brown grass behind the closed meat packing plant, throwing rocks through the window and pretending they were blowing up the Death Star. Sometimes the police would come, and they'd run away, scampering over wrought iron fences and down the river bank, pleased to be chased, knowing the cops didn't care enough to catch them. Luke Skywalker and Han Solo, shoulder to shoulder.

  Except in the movie, Han came back to save Luke's butt. And you let Mikey die.

  The Worm twisted, stronger and crueler than yesterday. He took another gulp of the bourbon, knuckles white on the glass. Grabbed the clicker and changed the channel to CNN, watched armored M113's, "Hate-wagons," roll through Fallujah. An Iraqi in a striped shirt pointed out where small arms fire had chipped chunks off a concrete wall.

  His brother was dead.

  He tried to grasp the thought, but it was like throwing his arms around smoke. Nothing made sense. Ever since Soul Patch stepped out of the shadows, letters tattooed on his forearm and a chromed-up automatic in his hand, the world had stopped following rules Jason understood.

  No, not yesterday. Before then. It had stopped making sense when Martinez died.

  Martinez, who'd once stuffed sock tits under his fatigues and painted his lips cocksucker-red, then paraded around the FOB with his rifle at his shoulder, a ghoulish, heavily-armed cheerleader. Even the LT had hidden a smirk and turned away, let the grunts have their fun.

  One more brother he'd let down.

  Seemed like every time he dared to care for something, it went away. First Dad, the fucker, and later, Mom. He'd found a home in the Army, and a new set of brothers. But that ended when Martinez died. He'd lost his friend, and then he'd lost his second home, and now he'd lost Michael. If there was a rule to life Jason understood, it was that he was poison.

  The bourbon cut, but he poured another, drank it fast. Conscious of the pulse in his forehead. On the television, a lonely building burned, black smoke bruising the sky.

  Cry. For Christ's sake, cry, man.

  He remembered sitting in the basement of Michael's bar. A tinny radio in the background. The old safe behind the fake radiator, Michael explaining they'd kept money there in the Prohibition years, when the place had been a speakeasy. Michael opening it to get a bottle of Black Label, taking a pull and passing it to Jason. Smiling at him, all arguments forgotten.

  Saying, "To the good life, bro."

  Cry, goddammit!

  He slammed a fist on the muscle of his thigh, then again, feeling the meaty thwack of it. The dull rippling pain that didn't change anything. What was he? How many times since his return to the States had he sat in the dark and tried to cry, and yet the tears never came. No tears for Martinez, and none for himself. And now, none for Michael. What kind of man couldn't cry for his brother?

  Jason remembered the morning, cleaning the Beretta. The strange trance he'd felt as he spun it around and pointed its lethal eye at his forehead. The siren call of gleaming metal, his thumb on the trigger, the urge to squeeze it. He was tired of failing people, tired of infecting them. Tired of moving weightless th
rough the world.

  And inside, the greasy twisting of the Worm.

  Jason leaned forward, his hands clenched on his stomach, fighting the urge to wretch. Gulped deep breaths, then took the bottle by its neck, wrapped his lips around it like he was sucking redemption through the rim. Tilted it and opened his throat, the liquid splashing hard and hot. He breathed through his nose as he swallowed and swallowed, picturing the Worm drowning in it, writhing and screeching, its sick flesh slapping waves of amber.

  He swallowed until the bottle was empty, and then he let it fall numb from his fingers. CNN had switched to talking heads, Rumsfeld spinning vagaries into rhetoric. Jason remembered years ago, shortly after he'd first arrived in country, hearing Rumsfeld's famous line about known-knowns and known-unknowns and unknown-unknowns and thinking that crazy as it sounded, he knew exactly what the guy meant, only it wasn't the war he was talking about, it was life, at least life the way Jason had always seen and never understood it, and for a while he sat and stared at the television, let the light wash over him without touching him, trying to see a way to make sense of things, to knit the world together.

  By the time he gave up, his mouth was dry and he had the beginnings of a head-splitter. The clock on the cable box read two twelve. He reached for the clicker and fumbled around until the television snapped off. Dropped the remote to the table with a thud. Unlaced his tennis shoes, pulled off his socks. Rack time. For a moment, he thought of going upstairs to his brother's bedroom.

  No. No way.

  Jason pulled the blanket off the back of the couch, curled his legs under, and put his head down. A long, terrible day. A day with no sense to be found. Maybe sunlight would make things clearer.

  He was almost asleep when he heard glass breaking.

  July 2, 2005

  Billy's tongue is between his lips. He's gripping the hammer wrong, little fingers clenched too far up, and though he whacks the nail again and again, it never goes in. On the ground beside him lay five mismatched two-by-fours and a tangle of rope.