The Crazy Bunch

by Willie Perdomo

  Instead, he will have a grill contest with a gray pinstripe, and Lucky, with his steel-toe eyes, will win all the way to Grand Central.

  A kind soul will throw two nickels at the Section Eight Gospel Trio because it was still the city of trains that promised good skin & quick memory.

  Right after you process the static of the conductor’s announcement, the quietest woman in the subway car, rocking a natural bun—no balm, no blush—will stand up, point to Lucky & give him specific directions to Heaven with a list of who’s going & who’s staying.

  The train will pull into Brooklyn Bridge station, and Lucky will say, Fuck it, if the judge offers me a two-to-four, I’m gonna take it.

  Bullshit Walks

  Bullshit steps

  To a global beat.

  Buffs a shine for

  His smile from

  A green mile

  Away &

  Daps you a

  Strong pound.

  Says we boys,

  Bro, we boys.

  Styles & profiles

  Two on the

  Hip & Raps

  Along with

  Boom & Parties

  & Bullshit.

  Yawns in between

  Fibs to pregnant

  Women, & flips

  On demand.

  There should be

  A special car on

  The 2 train

  Just for Bull-

  Shitters laughing

  The night away &

  Choking on a snack

  Box with extra lies.

  Drug War Confidential

  Let me just say, right now, that we can’t stop won’t stop. We’re in the trillions and still on the come up. What took the Bunch so long? Your number was called last week. Late then, later now.

  Well, why are we here?

  Tell us, what’s going on up there? We want to know.

  You mean down there.

  No, right here.

  False claims, fake news, old blues, blood & feathers, gold & water, bad weather, black bodies, brown detentions, low retentions, you know, same ole same ole.

  Well, shit, let’s celebrate.

  But we’re supposed to be free now, man.

  Y’all were free then.

  We’re just learning how to love, man. Leave us be.

  Nah, that’s a game for the played, my young brothers.

  This can’t be the end. Where all my people? Where’s my Block?

  Don’t waste our morning, man. It’s time to go.

  Why those Burners all up in my face like that, all mean?

  Well, how many ways did you choose to be alive? Revolution, say amen. Every fight should request a repeat. We ask, you answer. That’s the way it is down here.

  You mean right here.

  Oh, you must think we’re joking.

  Then why you smiling? What’s so funny, man?

  And here we were, right in the middle of building a pill free of time. Who are all these women wearing white and smoking cigars? Why are they looking at the sun, why are they pointing three fingers at us?

  All is fair in love and drug wars, homie. You ain’t the only one taking pictures.

  A SPOT WHERE YOU CAN KISS THE DEAD

  Breaking Night

  In that year of a shot to the head where were you the first time you broke night?

  When you break night, you learn that one puff, under the right circumstance, can give you the right perspective.

  You learn to pick up stories that fall & slip on the right side of knowing.

  What is it, a blizzard? That was a summer riff, should you be confronted with the choice of fight or fun.

  The call from the rooftop used to be boombellumboom, and the sky would go back to its specific blue places.

  The Block wakes to sun & skeleton. You could talk to God for free, water bread swan-dived off groggy trucks, & your soul begged for the breakfast special.

  Bodega gates slammed open like start guns, and that’s when you tried to predict the future.

  A formal wind is all we needed to keep cool.

  On that Sunday sunrise, we laughed because we saw the light for the first time; the light that breaks bread & the light the dead sing when it’s time for that last surge.

  The rock doves atop the light posts coo-cooed our direction home: always north, always uptown.

  There we were, still wearing our hallway hickeys, and someone had to pay for the Buddha Thai, the brown suede Ballys & the party socks.

  Fuck all those bubble-gum-chewing, the-personal-ain’t-political mornings—it was time to swim.

  One by one, we picked each other up until there was enough crew to stock a lineup.

  The park was already fired up with cauldrons of gandules & asopao, all kinds of fricassee, & long-grain Canilla served with the story of an uprising.

  Foils & forks, napkins & wipes, gizzards & tripe, the concept of an extended noon, & learning how to feed someone with a long spoon.

  In the madrugada we found a Big Beat, a homeostatic way of hanging out, spin styles & salvation, word to my mother became our true signature.

  The math was easy that morning. We wanted to open spots where we could feel syncretic.

  Language, the Old-Schoolers used to say, was a lemon running up the stairs, a piano plink, an uppercut & right cross.

  Ain’t you somethin’, you the same one, we’d like to say.

  Metro-North rattles, more battles to be won, & part of the game was to be torn out of one’s frame.

  Cherry blossoms caked on Mount Morris octagons, and the M116 rumbled a tune of transfers straight out the depot.

  Get the sun in your life, son.

  You’re my sun because you shine,

  not because you’re mine, son.

  We ran over the mountain, walked the line on a dead steam pipe like a Wallenda, check it—that’s where all the favors go down.

  The ghost of nasty Rucker Park crossovers. A highlight reel of sucker turnovers.

  Doing it in the dark

  Doing it in the dark

  Oh yeah

  We could’ve been six feet under for all we knew, so we hopped the public pool gates, & swam 400-hundred-meter relays in our soaked boxers.

  Created teams & heats, bets for next,

  & banged out beats waiting for our legs.

  Homeroom & homecomings, study hall & Scholastic had lost their appeal. Being cool, being real, crashing hooky sets, being rookie’d into gang divisions, the smell of sex & grown-up talk, that’s what we knew of freedom. No regulations, no rules made to fit the latest trend, no rules to regulate the fool in us. That morning, all we wanted to find was a smile at the bottom of the world.

  On Sundays

  On Sundays we composed our own music.

  Tapped a nickel against a mailbox,

  pounded the wall with the heel of our

  palms, and sought a demo-type sound.

  Sundays were the sound of a tobacco patch crashing on the tip of a boot.

  The nimbus of gospel & game rejoicing at the feet of laughter & loot.

  Saint Martin held us down in word if not in deed.

  Santa Barbara held us down in word if not in need.

  San Lazaro held us down in pocket if not in feed.

  On Sundays, number slips trickled from Maxi’s

  sleeves, & dream books slept on discount racks.

  Sundays were for your best clothes, which meant that every day was Sunday.

  Two birds sat on a crucifix, and grandma’s church

  hat was damn near auctioned at the Player’s Ball.

  Sundays were for sonnets & aunties, bonnets & Bibles, a mourning dove nesting near your window guard, a rumor upgraded to libel, making babies
to a faint chirp & being late to your Confirmation.

  Everything damn near legal was damn near closed on Sunday.

  On Sundays, we had to give up a piece of our burning.

  Trago*

  Some of us stopped going to wakes since difunto Orlando. Chuna stays outside because he has nightmares whenever he stands near a casket. Loco Tommy cracks the first pint of dark rum and Phat Phil pulls out a Polaroid. You remember when the flick was taken at the Block party because Skinicky spent a grip trying to win a teddy bear for Josephine.

  It was the day Dre, Nestor, Los, Sinbad, and Bam Bam decided to split everything five ways. Dre was looking at the camera like a coyote who wants you to think he’s smiling. His Burner was aimed at the lens; it was the last group shot of a death squad that had long since stopped talking about the latest dances.

  When all the plastic cups are filled, Loco Tommy gives Papá Dios a quick shout and says, Look out for Nestor, man. We’re sending him correct. He got a gold rope wrapped around his prayer hands and he ain’t wearing boots, so he should be okay to get in.

  We all take a trago at the same time and then someone starts talking about Nestor and monsters.

  Loco Tommy squashes it. If anyone asks, he says, it was cancer. Everything is cancer.

  THE POETRY COPS

  COPS: Is it true that you had to bury Dre, Nestor, and Petey at the same time, on the same day?

  PAPO: Just Nestor. Dre had his own mourning rites on St. Nicholas Avenue, and Petey was shipped to San Juan.

  COPS: That much death can’t be easy.

  PAPO: It was like that with the Old-Schoolers. They didn’t like to leave any traces, and they always made a point of keeping us in our places.

  COPS: I imagine that much death makes it hard to measure what’s fate and what’s fair.

  PAPO: You’d be surprised how quickly PTHD sets in.

  COPS: You mean PTSD.

  PAPO: No. I mean PTHD. Post-Traumatic Hood Disorder. You know, semiautomatic, up jump the boogie, olio, neighborhood registers, homegirls & hand grenades, the big smoke, the residue years, the sellout, wild hundreds, in visible movements, bright felons, roses in the mirror, bone shepherds, mongo affairs, all that shit sets in.

  COPS: Can you tell us about this?

  PAPO: Ortiz Funeral Home was a second home, a forever rest stop, a reverse dreaming, free rum, a workshop on novenas, a spot where you could kiss the dead. A place where you learned your friend’s government name.

  COPS: How to remember the dead?

  PAPO: You have to open the door when they knock.

  THE POETRY COPS

  PAPO: German Shepherd Man used to intermission the Block every Sunday night. Black bucket hat, stars & rhinestone, all that. I remember. We were at that age where we still couldn’t play the corner. I was about to shoot for my Killer Diller and Edgar said, “There he goes, there he goes, there goes German Shepherd Man.” (Matter of fact, it was Edgar that gave him his name.) That night, summer was fat. Heat like a vat of hot showers, and closer to Park Avenue, German Shepherd Man’s silhouette glimmered all the way to Mount Morris. I just remember the dogs’ eyes were different shades of steel & cement. When they got below the el, the dogs stood at attention, three on his left, three on his right, and German Shepherd Man commanded them in beats & sharp breaths. Who. What. Ho. Hey. Go. Shoot. Up. Hup. Shameka had just arrived from Savannah—she was scared of dogs, so she watched from a fire escape. The dogs lined up in front of the picnic tables by the community garden. German Shepherd Man said, Who, and the dogs jumped up on the table, turned around, faced German Shepherd Man, and decorated the Block like a museum wing of statues. Then, German Shepherd Man talked in a whisper. And the dogs did an about-face, jumped off the table, three veered to his right, three to his left, and they walked west, back into the mist, and for a blip the Block was a silent film, but you could hear sweat drops rippling down your still-hairless underarms, a hunger knot curling in your stomach, a squad of flies feasting on a dirty diaper, & a dead body wrapped in a linoleum rug.

  Killer Diller

  Used to be

  The end-

  Game for

  Skelsies.

  Now, you jet

  Down the

  B-stair &

  Hope you

  Come out

  Free.

  It might be

  True that the

  Pursuit of

  Liberty &

  Happiness

  Likes to go

  Solo, but

  Like we

  Used to say

  Over & over

  Again:

  Ain’t no

  Fun

  If I can’t get

  None.

  To Be Down

  Who among us believed in the great scheme of life and still had enough stage presence to carry the night?

  To be down, you had to start blindfolded at the top.

  To be down by law, you die for one or you die for all.

  One building, twelve stories of surprise confrontation, a portrait in mean, take as many steps to the end as needed.

  Jet down the stairs all the way to the lobby.

  Every odd-numbered floor was a place to breathe right quick.

  No more than two people on any even floor could attack.

  A death blow might jump out of every door;

  if that was your hobby for real, you were good.

  No fire extinguishers, no belts, no sticks, no

  tricks, no rallies against your inborn dignity.

  If you reached the stoop standing up, you were down.

  You could cry, but you had to cry standing up.

  And by no means would you allow yourself to become a cliché: broke at the end.

  There’s a golden mean that loves with a weak hand; it’s part of our disembodied shade, and studies your face when you land on the come up.

  Some might call it a thirst for manhood.

  Quick to reach, quick to teach.

  When you only have one chance,

  it’s never been about being fair.

  What did it mean to be

  yourself, to practice

  staying alive, to cry

  for those of us who

  couldn’t hit back?

  Bust This, Run That

  To break it down

  You would say

  Bust This.

  To take without

  Permission you

  Would say

  Run That.

  To tell no lies you

  Would say, That’s

  My word to

  Everything I love.

  To make a law

  Unwritten,

  You might get

  Asked for your

  Sneaker size,

  A steady Vic

  In his eyes, &

  You would have

  No choice but

  To reply,

  Your size.

  They Won’t Find Us in Books

  And after we officially gained entry into the Brotherhood of Bad Motherfuckers, what could our mothers do but lose sleep, wake into prayer, prepare herbs & apples, cursive the names of our enemies on loose-leaf & let their names dust in the sunlight.

  Now everything is clean, rezoned & paved, tenements abandoned like wack parties, what is left for us to do but summon bullies from their graves & liberate ourselves from influence.

  Gone are the old spots near the takeout, old flames where we used to make out, the spots where the light used to fade out, and the letters we wrote from burning buildings.

  Our shoulders were made of stone, our evil was translucent. Turn us into mortals, so we can cry without judgment, surrender our cool, and watch us morph into men.

 
; Let it be known that we chased Killer Dillers before the cans got kicked for good.

  We were made from repeating blocks.

  Holler if you hear us.

  There was never a once upon a time because all it takes is one person to get away with it, to get away & get over, to get some & get up, here we go, c’mon, here we go.

  You our history, you said.

  If being free means burning a few things, then play that number for us straight.

  The corner was between us & the world, and sometimes you just needed to be okay with not telling.

  If anyone asks you about your destiny, don’t explain.

  Maybe this is the story we need to turn ourselves into music, bass & bully, a string pulling at both ends.

  They won’t find us in books, you used to say.

  Everybody say, Yeah, and you don’t stop.

  We practiced our lives in lobbies & layaway, ganders & goofs, boosting lines from the radio, breaking dynamite styles.

  We were god bodies, we had God in our bodies.

  That’s what Brother Lo used to say, he used to say,

  A man can stand on the corner long enough to

  see a dream etched on a Herb’s forehead; to see

  desperation exit from a subway station; to see

  a tragic hero come back to reclaim his

  city,

  so we downloaded his bars & gems, and, no doubt, when it was time to tell our story, out would come fire & spit.

  Ghost Face

  The ghost face grills a display of beans & detergent, picks his Afro like a cowboy in a saloon, and reflects on a memory of beatdowns & bruises, super friends & losers. No use in total recall. Remember that night when the muse decided to use the Block and left before the party started jumping? You want to say, I know that walk, but it’s not what you thought because it’s never what you think. And it’s rare that you can get both at the same time. You listen for that volley of rubble king chants from rooftop to rooftop. On the real, coming back is a choice. All the cuchifrito joints are shut down, and the number hall now sells two-for-one pizza slices. Where’s the crew? And someone yells from down the Block, Comemierda, ven acá. And what if you faded into the blackness of black, who would be there to say Try me. You definitely know the answer, but you can’t be the first to say you saw something, otherwise you’ll be the first to get asked.