Haiku

by Andrew Vachss

  “My sister’s husband says I’m—”

  “Fuck that faggot,” Ranger sneered, glaring at Lamont. “What’s he know?”

  “Ho! Throw! Go! Show!”

  Target’s rant went unnoticed by all, as always. But some part of my spirit sensed that his use of my name was not the fortuitous rhyme it seemed. I went very still within myself, creating that pure darkness which is the ultimate invitation for light to enter.

  “Everyone is right,” I said.

  Each man turned to look at me.

  I bowed to each in turn. Then I quite deliberately lapsed into the form of speech I had once used so casually.

  “To be right is not to be correct; it is to be righteous. Not all the questions have the same answer. The same words can have many meanings. The speaker is more than the speech.”

  “Reach! Beach! Leech! Teach!”

  Again I bowed. “I apologize for my pretentiousness,” I said to them all. “I wish for simplicity in all things, yet I speak as if I were some sort of prophet. I mean to say no more than this: Brewster’s sister’s husband is a cruel man. He is small in his soul, happiest when he inflicts pain. He calls Brewster names like ‘crazy’ to cause hurt. Brewster, you know this.”

  The young man nodded, head down.

  “Has Lamont ever called you such things before today?” I asked.

  Brewster shook his head.

  “How often do you encounter your sister’s husband?”

  “Not … not much,” Brewster said. “I stay away when I think he might be—”

  “You avoid him, yes?”

  The young man nodded.

  “You see Lamont every day, Brewster. Do you avoid him?”

  “Lamont?” Brewster replied, his tone implying that my question was absurd. “Lamont? Lamont’s my friend.”

  “Why would your friend call you crazy, Brewster?”

  Michael opened his mouth, then quickly snapped it shut.

  “Because … because he wanted to talk me out of pulling a job!” Brewster said, a smile transforming his features.

  “Took you long enough, fool!” Lamont said, throwing up his hands.

  72

  Ranger abruptly announced he was going scouting. Michael also rose to his feet. The two men moved off together.

  Lamont then launched into an incredibly complex explanation of why an armed robbery could not solve Brewster’s problem. The explanation was purely logistic, heavily laced with the sort of gangster jargon Brewster loves.

  I sat with Target, who was calmer than I had ever seen him, never once interrupting the conversation between Lamont and Brewster. Many times, I have looked into Target’s eyes, seeking knowledge. Each time, he would look away—direct eye contact disturbed him. That afternoon, he held my gaze.

  Is he inviting me in? I thought to myself. Or is he seeking to enter?

  Darkness came, making it unsafe to remain in the park. Our questions still unanswered, we headed toward the dugout. Brewster came with us.

  Michael returned just before midnight. He said Ranger was sweeping the area, and would be with us soon.

  73

  At first light, it was as if an old tape began to replay. Michael was trembling with the intensity that once had propelled him to such high status in the financial world, totally committed to locating the white Rolls-Royce.

  “It’s all lined up, Ho,” he hissed, his words a forceful whisper. “Like ducks in a row. It’s not about the … other thing. Not anymore. See, I get it now. I really get it. Money can’t fix people, like I always thought it could. I thought if I could just get enough money then I’d be … whatever I wanted to be.

  “But you know what? Even if money can’t fix people, it can fix things. If we pulled off this score and we used the money to buy Brewster a safe place for his library—buy it, I’m saying, not stash it—that’d make it a righteous mission, wouldn’t it?”

  “Mission,” Ranger said, as if the word itself was holy.

  “If we had the money, it would be a righteous act to use it as you say,” I told Michael. “But we do not have the money. And we cannot gamble in an attempt to obtain it.”

  “It’s not gambling if—”

  “Michael—”

  “What did I tell you before, Ho? You remember?”

  “Yes. A ‘mortal lock.’”

  “Okay! It can’t be gambling if it’s a sure thing, am I right?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “There is no such … thing as you envision, Michael. The only certainty that truly exists in all the world is uncertainty. Predicting an outcome is a skill. Some may possess it to a very high degree. But you are describing a calculation of odds, not some magical tool which never fails.

  “No matter how you phrase it, we would still be gambling, Michael. That was a choice you made, one for which you have paid dearly. Gambling is your enemy. One you have not yet defeated.” I said this gently, as I once would have done to students who had failed to master a particular technique, always expressing confidence that, one day, they would succeed.

  “It’s not gambling,” Michael insisted. “It’s only gambling when you put up an ante, when you risk something. What have we got to lose? I mean, say I’m wrong, okay? It still wouldn’t cost us anything.”

  “It would cost us time,” I said. “That is our only currency, and we have precious little to risk. What have we to lose? Why say ‘we’ if you mean only yourself, my brother? Would you lose nothing if Brewster lost all that is meaningful to him?”

  Michael deflated, shrinking before our eyes.

  “Your concept is flawless, Michael,” I said, addressing my words to all. “This is not about money. It is about a mission. A mission we undertake for our brother. By forcing us to examine ourselves, you have shown us the way.”

  “No draftees,” Ranger said.

  All turned to look at him. The weight of our silence finally compelled him to explain: “I don’t mean how you get into it,” Ranger went on. “I served with draftees who turned into real fighting men. But when the LT says he needs, say, four guys for a mission, you have to hold up your hand. I mean, you don’t have to, but you’re supposed to, see?”

  “Man’s telling it like it is,” Lamont rasped. “No matter where you go, it’s all the same. Life’s nothing but a fucking war. If you can’t be counted on, you can’t be counted in.“

  “So, Michael?” I asked.

  Michael got to his feet. Then he raised his hand, volunteering for the mission.

  “That’s the man,” Ranger said, driving a fist into his own palm.

  74

  “Even if for the best of causes, theft is theft,” I later told Lamont. Our band had gone their separate ways, except, this time, Lamont had chosen to accompany me from the first step. Target followed along.

  “I ever say it wasn’t?” he countered. “All I’m saying is, if we don’t come up with the coin, that boy Brewster is gonna get himself a gun. You know it same as I do. That look. He needs those books, Ho.

  “Maybe the kid’s no stick-up artist, but he’s just like those punks you see out there every day. All they see is gold chains and a tricked-out Escalade, women dangling all over them like they rock stars. And you can’t be in the dope game without shooters on your payroll.”

  “How is Brewster like those you describe?”

  “He’s exactly the same, Ho. They both sing the same song. The one every gang kid knows by heart: ‘Don’t Mind Dyin’.’ And it don’t take long to find out if they lying.”

  “I do not understand,” I acknowledged.

  “Break it down for you, then,” Lamont said. “When you say you don’t mind dyin’, you saying you not scared of nothing, okay? You gonna take what you need, no matter what stands in your way. For me, when I was bopping, what you needed was ‘respect,’” he said, the last word heavily laced with sarcasm bordering on disgust. “For some, that’s still it. But most of these young boys today, what they want is cash. Big ca
sh. That’s what they get paid for, that rep. You know, if this guy says he’s going to take someone out, he’s either gonna do it or die trying, see?”

  “And so for Brewster—”

  “It’s his books,” Lamont finished for me. “But, in his head, he’s hearing that same song. And I’m telling you, Ho, we don’t figure out a way, that kid, he is gonna die trying.”

  “So a theft to save a life …?”

  “Yeah. Look, somebody will sell that boy a gun, and if he ever has to shoot it …”

  “Boot! Loot! Hoot! Shoot!” Target clanged.

  Lamont and I were struck by the same thought, as if by the same bolt of lightning. I could read on his face what was flashing in my mind. Which word would send Target off was never known in advance, but his pattern had never varied. Four words, each more or less rhyming with the original trigger, but absolutely never repeating the trigger word itself. And yet …

  “Mother fucker!” Lamont said.

  I understood the division into separate words of what would usually be a single vile epithet to be an expression of shock. I bowed my agreement.

  We both looked at Target. Instead of the near-tranquillity into which he always lapsed after an outburst—as if a painful boil had been lanced—Target appeared disturbed, in some way. He was not agitated, nor did he appear to be bristling with tension. If anything, he looked like a man standing in the shade of a tree who could not understand why this gave him no relief from the sun.

  Lamont gestured as if he was shaking dice in his right hand. He looked a question at me. I nodded.

  “Some people, you put a gun in their hands, you know, sooner or later, they’re going to shoot.”

  “Shoot! Shoot! Shoot! Shoot!” Target erupted.

  I searched my mind for a related word that would evoke his clanging. “So it is the gun, then?” I asked Lamont.

  Target did not react verbally. But his posture slumped, as if a weighty depression was imposing itself. It was then I realized that his first attempt at direct communication had drained him dry.

  “Come,” I said to them.

  75

  Target was silent throughout our walk. Lamont and I had made sure of this by not uttering a word. Target never initiates speech; he only reacts to it.

  Still, before today, he had never …

  We reached the alley behind Brewster’s building. I squatted, my back to the wall but not touching it. Lamont did the same, but leaned against the brick. Target squatted as I did. I had long since noted his ability to assimilate kinetic instruction, be it the simpler positional exercises or reverse breathing. He would have made a superb martial artist, I believe. But teaching him even the most rudimentary offensive moves would have been wrong—self-control is the foundational requirement for such knowledge.

  “Try again,” I said to Lamont, who was unscrewing the cap of whatever bottle he held in a brown paper bag.

  Lamont took a short drink, then offered the bag to me. I bowed slightly and shook my head, thus politely declining his generosity. Lamont next offered his bag to Target, who imitated my polite bow and refusal—as we knew he would.

  Lamont, had he been alone with Target, would never have offered to share. Not because he was selfish, or out of a lack of respect. Lamont would not give alcohol to Target for the same reason I would not teach him techniques that might cause great injury to others.

  “Man’s on another planet already,” Lamont had once told me. “Get some booze in his blood, who knows what he’d do?”

  This was not a risk any of us would undertake.

  Lamont took another drink, recapped the bottle, closed the paper bag, and nodded, as if confirming a long-held suspicion. He took a single cigarette from his coat, examined it for a moment, then lit it. After one prolonged draw, he passed it to me. I repeated my respectful declining of his offer, as did Target.

  “Reminds me of being back on the yard,” Lamont said, in a reflective tone. “We’d squat down, just like this, back to the wall, have a smoke, and just shoot the breeze.”

  Target did not react.

  “Is that a prison expression, ‘shoot’?” I asked.

  “No, bro. It just means talking to pass the time. When you’re Inside, anything you can do to kill time is good. I mean, the time is always there, right? It’s not like you could actually shoot it or anything.”

  Target abandoned his correct posture to sit directly on the concrete. His head lolled forward.

  “This ain’t gettin’ it done,” Lamont said. Unnecessarily.

  I reached over and took Target’s hand. He accepted my grip, but did not return it. I extended my other hand to Lamont, who grasped it firmly.

  “Hai!” I barked.

  Target looked up and saw the three of us, linked.

  “Come,” I said, then drew in the deepest breath, expanding my stomach as I did so. Feeling Lamont and Target beginning to connect, I exhaled through my nose, contracting my stomach as if expelling toxins. I repeated this until I could feel the others leave on their own journeys.

  Where they went, I cannot know. I went … searching.

  76

  I shifted my grip so that I could measure Target’s pulse. He had reached a state of deep calmness.

  I brushed a nerve juncture in his wrist. Very lightly, but enough to send an electrical signal.

  With my other hand, I simply squeezed.

  When Target was looking directly at me, I stood up, bringing him and Lamont along with me.

  “Shoot?” I said to Target.

  “Shoot! Shoot! Shoot! Shoot!”

  “Show us,” I half-commanded, half-pleaded, pointing to myself and Lamont.

  Target blinked rapidly. His eyes seemed to change color, moving from dark blue to a much paler shade, as if the blinking were some form of rheostat.

  “Shoot?” I prompted.

  Target’s entire body shook. His face glistened with sweat. A vein throbbed in his temple. He was a warrior in battle, against an enemy only he could see.

  Slowly, he staggered forward and turned to face me, each movement clearly causing him great pain.

  Target stood valiantly, his left hand over his stomach, covered by his right. Again, his body reacted to whatever shock waves were assailing him. Tendons showed in his neck. His teeth ground together.

  “Shoot?” I asked, again.

  Target sucked air through his nose, held it, then exhaled in the same burst. He knife-edged his right hand, then brought it up to his left eyebrow, as if saluting. He held that position, knees wobbling.

  I saw it then.

  “Chute?” I said to Target. “We could slide Brewster’s books down a chute?”

  Target fainted.

  77

  Lamont departed so hastily that he left his bag-wrapped bottle behind. I covered Target with my coat. Lamont quickly returned with a cardboard container of soup. As Target regained consciousness, I fed him sips of the soup until color returned to his face. With slight assistance, Target was able to sit up and finish the soup on his own.

  “So, when my man sounds like he’s repeating the exact word that pops his cork, he’s using a homonym,” Lamont said, in a hushed, awed voice.

  “Homonym?”

  “That’s a word that sounds the same but has more than one meaning,” Lamont explained. “You have to get that from the context. Like, if I just say the word ‘pair,’ you might think I was talking about two of something. But if you saw me pointing at a piece of fruit, you’d know right away what I meant. Yeah?”

  “I believe so,” I said, still not entirely certain. “Would an example be ‘I’ as in myself, and ‘eye’ for what I see with?”

  “Perfect!”

  “And ‘whine’ as in ‘complain,’ rather than ‘wine’ as in a beverage?”

  “You some piece of work, old man,” Lamont said, grinning broadly.

  78

  By late afternoon, Target was back to himself. He gave no indication that he was aware of any of the events th
at had transpired in his absence.

  I could see that Lamont was barely able to suppress his desire to discuss the meaning of Target’s communications, but he realized that it was no longer safe to assume Target could not comprehend the speech of others.

  The next morning, however, before we could have any such opportunity, we came under attack from an entirely unexpected source.

  “What do you call this, Ho?” Michael almost shouted, waving what appeared to be a large amount of money in his hand.

  When I did not respond, Michael spoke so rapidly that each word was sent crashing into the one to follow. “Yesterday, I saw this race on the card at Yonkers. Aged pacing mares. I didn’t need the form. I knew every single one of those girls from when they were fillies. When I saw they had Waspwaist down at thirty-to-one, I couldn’t believe it! Maybe she’s had trouble lately, I don’t know. But when she’s right, she’s a total fucking monster! We only had a couple of hours to get the fourteen bucks, but we pulled it off. And look!”

  This will never stop, I thought, despairingly. Just as Lamont was using Brewster’s need for money as an excuse to return to crime, Michael had found what he would call a “loophole” allowing him to return to gambling. Michael had spread his disease by apparently convincing Ranger that they had a “mission” to obtain a certain sum of money, and I did not wish to contemplate the consequences of this deception.

  Worst of all, Michael had apparently won. As Lamont had once explained to me, “A junkie gets locked up on some bullshit beef, okay? Sits maybe thirty days. Thing is, he goes in with a heavy habit, and he comes out clean. Know what happens next? He goes right out and gets himself fixed up. And that hit, it’s like the first time all over again. Man goes in carrying a ten-bag habit—he needs that much just to keep from being sick, probably doesn’t even get him a real high. But when he’s clean, one bag will send him to Venus, see?”

  “But why would—?”

  “Because he wants to get to Venus, bro. ’Cause he’s been there, and he likes it. Look at Michael. Think that fool would have ever picked up his habit if he hadn’t won? That’s what sets the hook so deep, that feeling you get when it comes. I guaran-fucking-tee you, if Michael had put down a few bets and lost every one, he never gets his nose opened. Every degenerate gambler, he’s chasing that big win again. See, you can’t miss a place unless you been there.”