CHAPTER FIFTEEN

 
 

Watching the natural ebb and flow of the neighborhood, King sat on his porch step. An unusually cool night, the wind caught the storm door of the vacant condo next door and produced a series of crashes and grinding metal squeaks with each gust-driven clang. A smoke-hound on a bicycle peddled up and chain-smoked cigarettes until Prez came out to greet him. A handshake-cum-transaction later, and they parted company. Prez with the bike. Either Prez had impeccable timing, or he was a call-ahead/curbsideservice drug dealer. He eased his new bicycle away from the front door of his condo and rode it across the grass before ducking into the condo for a few furtive minutes. Nodding to King, he rode off to run his errands. King still liked Prez, a young brotha not so far gone as to give up on him, but that was quite a bit aways from saying that he respected him. Having dropped out of school, Prez was one of those no-account niggas: no job, no car, no responsibilities beyond servicing his dick. Prez now crashed at one of the neighboring condos rather than at Big Momma's. With several of Green's boys crashing there, the condo proved to be an oasis of temptation for Prez. King wondered, how you could you tell your momma you were working, leave for "work" every day, within two weeks make up some elaborate scenario detailing how your boss was a racist or simply out to get you and thus you lost your job… but never bring home at least one check? Prez was probably setting up a break-in or some side-ass quick-money gig or buying weed to pass his days.

  Dollar and his crew set up under Green, flashing their easy money. Weed for days with women coming and going at all hours. Other than the occasional humble charge from the cops, from which he'd already been released, life was pretty easy being Prez. Still, he thought it best to avoid the corner for a few days until things sorted themselves out between Dollar and the cops; so he pedaled down the block toward the dirt path separating the rear of Breton Court from one of the strip malls which girded it. Way out of the eyes of Green who had taken to overseeing the corner personally, though none had seen him for a minute.

  Several condos had Asian and Hispanic families crammed into them, so it wasn't merely the presence of the Hispanic man stumbling towards them that caught their attention. Sometimes fifteen to a house, wall-to-wall mats, most of them were in need of some sort of citizenship papers. They worked at the Chinese and Mexican restaurants that littered the area. No, the man hiked up his red shirt across his shoulder like a sling. Wearing a white shirt underneath covered in blood, even his blue saggy shorts were doused in it. A spray of blood speckled his white shoes. As if stanching a bloody nose, he held his hand to his face, a face smeared with caked blood stains. His hand had a gash deep enough to reveal his white meat.

  "You the weed man?" he asked King.

  "Nah, you got the wrong brother."

  "He around the corner," Prez said.

  "What happened to you?" King asked.

  The story went that he got jumped outside of Kroger, by the Eagle Terrace apartments. He assumed it was because he claimed being part of the Treize set. Not that they truly cared. Apparently, they pummeled him anyway, fiends out of control. Supposedly he got a knife from one of them and stabbed them, but they just kept coming. Clawing and biting at him, he was lucky to get away. Now he simply needed a wash cloth and some weed.

  "What you need is some stitches," King said.

  "You got weed? I'll buy weed for everybody," the man said. He danced from side to side as if looking for a partner or someone to take him up on his offer.

  "Now you talking," Prez said. King simply hated seeing smart brothers like Prez turn to drugs, but once school was out as an option, a brother's chances slimmed for any legitimate work. Prez didn't have the patience to start at the bottom of a gig and work his way up.

  The man left and promised to return for some weed. However, the next time they saw him, he had changed outfits and gotten into a car with his buddies, probably to go roll on those anti-Treize fiends.

  Such was life at Breton Court.

  Dogs barked in the distance. They always barked, but the tenor of their barks drew King's attention. A lone figure walked an American Pit Bull Terrier. Baylon prowled about.

 

Late into an Indiana fall could be hard on a body. In the course of one day it could go from raining in the morning, snowing by noon, to a late afternoon blue sky and bright sun that left no hint of either. The cold had a way of stilling activity in Breton Court. A neighbor occasionally stepped out on their porch for a quick smoke and a wave, a groundhog checking their shadow, but for the most part, his neighbors kept indoors. All except Baylon. No, Baylon was out walking the flesh-and-blood weapon that he called a dog, a brown and white Pit Bull with splotches of pink around her mouth. Keeping her chained in his back patio when he wasn't putting her through her various paces, he abused her regularly and called it training.

  "What's up, King?" Baylon called out. He pulled the leash taut, halting the dog. The distance between him and King charged with antagonism, challenge, and even a forlorn sense of regret. A sad anger.

  "B," he said, more out of politeness than anything else. His momma raised him to be polite, lessons he'd kept close to his heart no matter what life brought.

  "Dog looks a little rough."

  "I'm gonna fight her on Sunday. Got to get my bitch ready."

  "You ain't busy enough?"

  "I'm what they call a Renaissance man."

  "Been hitting them books, too?" King asked.

  "Yeah, nigga. Now I'm the scariest kind o' nigga: educated. Anyways, as I see it, life's about finding your niche."

  "And philosopher. How do you find the time to do your soldiering?"

  "That's what I mean. My niche is strictly heroin. That there's a gentleman's operation."

  "Just so I have this straight, you just a misunderstood gentleman and scholar."

  "Exactly. My clientele is stable. And competition? Hell, we like Wal-Mart up in this joint. I'm like the grocery department. Prez and his coke, they like the electronics. Green an' 'em can keep his crack on the corner, like the toy department, far away from us. That draws too much attention. See, we just one big store. No need for beefing."

  "Except for the random shooting."

  "You think they coming out here for a couple caps and no body? Shit, bet they didn't even brush the donut powder off they uniform."

  "Green's boys' caused more than a little ruckus the other day. I heard tell they even left one of your soldiers a little… light-headed," King said.

  "I'm a low-key nigga. Straight cheddar, baby, that's all that I'm about."

  "I don't think you feeling me. That shit's got to stop. We got kids running around."

  "By who? You? You planning on going incognegro on me?"

  It would be easy to drop a dime on Baylon or Prez. It wasn't like they weren't already under surveillance. That had to be the second biggest open secret in the neighborhood, second only to the fact that folks sold drugs on the corner. They were the elephant in the room that no one – no politician, no police of rank, and no reporter – wanted to mention. Everyone knew, but no one wanted to do anything about it. Folks made the most of the opportunities afforded them and played the hand they were dealt. As long as they proved to be good neighbors, how they made their living was no one's concern. Alaina Walker was long forgotten. Conant Walker was a faded image on the occasional T-shirt. And no one wept for Juneteenth Walker.

  "Do I look like some played-out punk? If I got a problem with you, I step to you. Like a man." King wasn't a snitch and didn't care much for the insinuation. Snitching wasn't a long-term career move. Exhibit A: the house down the street that to this day hadn't been rebuilt since it was torched and had the word "snitch" spray-painted on the ruin.

  The dog flared its teeth, a rattler warning of its strike. Baylon stroked the fur along the dog's neck.

  "Better watch yourself. My bitch don't like people stepping up on us incorrect." Baylon spit on the ground. "It's about being the man. This here's a… how they say it?… a consumer-driven market. They come to me. I give them product. They give me cash. No muss, no fuss. I ain't some Jehovah's Witness going door to door with the shit trying to convert nobody."

  "I just don't want it done in my neighborhood."

  "You want to be the king, you got to take the king."

  Baylon turned his back to him, with a casual dismissal, and walked into Prez's little play condo. This was the life they chose. Empty, but free. The prospect of big money versus the lack of flash of menial work: that was the problem with too many brothers: they felt owed, as if the act of being born entitled them to instant coin and high living. That was what they saw on television and was how they thought they were supposed to live. It was stupid and short-sighted, but King understood it. But he had pride in his neighborhood. He lived with good people, good neighbors, and he wasn't going to see it ruined by the likes of Prez. Or Baylon. Or Green. Good men had to stand for something.

  "I hate to break up any internal soliloquy you got going on," Merle said, "but you've got company."

  Merle was worse than a repo man and King hated the way he appeared and disappeared whenever he wanted. An umbra tent, Merle's black jacket wrapped around him. His aluminum foil hat teetered on his head, extra layers having been added since his last visit. He smelled of day-old fish wrapped in spoiled vegetables, flecks of food trapped in his red beard. Terribly lucid eyes focused on the pair approaching them, Wayne and Lott.

  "Yeah, I was expecting them," King said.

  A contrast in dark and light, Wayne had a bucket of Popeye's under his arm. A white down vest covered a blue zippered sweatshirt, his jeans had a picture of a phoenix, an eagle, and a crown reminiscent of a crest, along their sides. His big-boy girth made his belt superfluous. His stylized Yankee cap tilted on his head at such an extreme angle, it defied the laws of gravity by staying on. Lott, with his light complexion, seemed almost white when next to Wayne. His FedEx uniform like layers of blue armor.

  "We gonna do this?" Wayne said between bites of a chicken leg.

  "We still have to figure out what exactly we gonna do," King said. "What do you think, Merle?"

  "I think you need to check with the lady." Merle pointed to the woman standing at the end of the row of condos. A nest of micro-braids crowned her cream complexion. With ears not quite as pointed as that dude from Star Trek, she wore an opened fur-lined hoodie over a T-shirt with the word "Babe" across her chest. Fur-cuffed jeans topped her fur-lined Timbo boots which had pom-poms dangling from them. Walking with the easy stride of a large cat on a hunt, she approached them.

  "Hell-O." Wayne admired the fashioned beauty, trying unsuccessfully to not ogle her chest.

  "You are seriously fucking up my shit." Her piercing green eyes narrowed, focused solely on King.

  "I don't even know who you are," King said. Her beauty enrapturing, he straightened his posture. His palms moistened with nervous sweat.

  "Omarosa."

  "So you're Omarosa," King said with too much lilt to his voice.

  "Of the fey," Merle said, with something short of an elbow to his mid-section. A gentle reminder before the worst instincts of the Pendragon spirit carried him away in a torrent of lust.

  "Stay out of this, mage." Omarosa stared down at Merle, but whatever rules of intimidation she played by were lost on him and his distant musings.

  "That's exactly what I mean," King said to Merle. "It sounds like there's some shit between y'all that we are caught up in."

  "Shining Star for you to see/What your life can truly be," Merle sang.

  "How exactly am I 'seriously fucking up your shit'?" King asked, returning his attention to Omarosa.

  "I don't know what you did, but somehow you've got Night and Dred pulling out every trick they got beefing over this little stretch of real estate. It don't even take in enough to make it worth my time, but they steady squabbling over it. I don't even know if Night knows why, but because Dred seems to want it, he's fighting for it."

  "It's getting bad out there, King." Wayne suddenly sounded weary. "I tried to get up with Tavon earlier today, and seems the brotha was onto something. Half the smoke-hounds out there have been dropped by a bad package. The other half is wildin' out for real."

  "Night gets his package off Dred's consignment and think he's safe over at his place in the Phoenix," Omarosa said. "Dred spiked that shit. Fool fake Jamaican motherfucker."

  "Damn, girl," King said.

  "Nigga plays both sides and then fucks the middle. I don't know if even he knows why he does things besides the fact that it amuses him."

  "From the way he behaves, you'd think he was a half-caste fey," Merle said.

  "Have you seen Mab lately?" The fey were well aware of Merle's long-time feud with his mother, despite the fact that she had long passed through the Veil, remaining in Nod while he still roamed the mortal plane in his pursuit of the true king. "I'll have to remember to give her your love next time I see her."

  "Damnable bitch." Merle adjusted his tin-foil hat. "I'm going to bake you a cake. I like cake."

  "Things are jumping so much, a girl can't make an honest living," Omarosa returned her attention to King.

  "Ripping off both sides?" King asked.

  "A girl's got to earn."

  "I'm surprised you ain't taken him out." King leaned toward her, not threatening but crowding her space. "Isn't that how you operate?"

  "Taking out a drug dealer, that's biting the hand that feeds me."

  "Sounds like you're part of the problem to me."

  "What did you say?" Omarosa's eye arched curiously. There was a royal charge of offense to her question.

  "It's bad enough we've lost so many to this nonsense, but you, you're the…"

  "Carrion feeder," Merle helped.

  "No, I'm a predator among predators. I'm higher up on the food chain." Omarosa was fey and it was a terrible thing to raise the temperature of her blood. Worse still to be the object of her rage. Worse further to be caught in the throes of history, a pawn in a game, fated to misfortune. She admired and pitied this one, but they all had a role to play. Omarosa handed him a heavy box. "This is for you."

  "What is it?" King reached out for it.

  "Your legacy. A client hired me to… procure it for you."

  "You shouldn't accept gifts from her kind," Merle warned, though his eyes recognized the runes on the box.

  "It's no gift. I'm returning something rightfully his. I've been watching you for a long time. Not much slips past my eye. That's a quick way to get dead in my line of work." Omarosa studied the man. "Haven't you tired of playing the reluctant hero? You don't wear it especially well. You need to embrace your calling. Play or get played. But that's not your biggest problem. Do you know what it is, King?"

  "What?"

  "You give a fuck." With the curt dismissal, Omarosa turned on her heel and walked away from them. They stared in appreciation as she left for what good it did them. At the first shadow, the darkness enveloped her, or she merged with it, and disappeared. She'd accomplished what she came to do.

  King turned the box to face him. It warmed in his hands. The strange lock nearly popped open on its own as he barely brushed against it while still examining it. He opened it with great care. Merle sighed.

  "What is it?" Wayne asked.

  "Twin 9mm Springfield Armory custom-ported stack autos, with the frames, slides, and some other parts plated in 24K gold, and gold dragons rearing up on the contrasting black grips," Merle said, without so much as a glance into the box.

  "Twin? There's only one of the… Caliburns?" King picked it up. In his hands, he didn't know how to describe it, but it felt like more than a gun. It was magic. He knew he was meant to wield it from the moment he first touched it. No, from the moment he laid eyes on it.

  "Caliburns? I've never heard of it," Wayne said.

  "Privately made," Merle said. "It's time for the hero to act."

  "I'm not much of a gun guy." King returned it to the box and closed it. "What do you think?"

  "I think we've talked enough. We've come this far and we're ready to follow you to the next level," Lott said.

  "And you?" King turned to Wayne.

  Wayne studied the shadows for any hint of Omarosa. "I love her like a big-tittied play cousin at a family reunion."

  Despite his comment, the moment remained tense. Their assembled little band stood in silence. King, its leader-apparent. Wayne and Lott, his most loyal troops. Merle, his advisor. They were the core, though of what, they didn't know. They were a sword in search of blood to draw. There was one place to begin their journey.

  "You know who we are going to cross before this is over with?" Lott asked.

  "Baylon," King said.

  "You sure you just not looking for an excuse to beef with him?" Wayne asked.

  "Nah." Yeah. History built up between them. Too much unanswered for. A debt of blood and broken promises. "He handles the package. He'd know."

  "So much like the father," Merle said. "Now look, the gang's all here."

  Lady G handed Big Momma a glass of red Kool Aid then walked over to the collection of swinging dicks. She could always spot when men were up to their "men things", ready to prove themselves to whatever fool or fool notion crawled up their behinds to gnaw on their insecurities.

  "What you fellas up to?"

  "Nothing," Wayne said.

  "We're going to the Phoenix Apartments." King stepped to her. Whenever he neared her, he felt he could do anything. He didn't know if it was because he needed to prove he was the man he wanted to be for her or if the power of her faith in him charged him. "Put a stop to some of this nonsense once and for all."

  "Not without me," Lady G said. "Rhee stays up in there."

  "You'd take a bitch into your mess?" Baylon exited onto Prez's porch. He cold-eyed Lady G who sniffed in his direction then sucked her teeth in disgust. Between her obvious disdain and his own growing irritation, Baylon was in a mood to push things. The Durham Brothers. Junie. Parker. No one heard anything from Green or Tavon. With Night buying on consignment from Dred anyway and both sides weakened, Baylon saw an opportunity for consolidation. Perhaps head-hunting the top talent in order to make a move of his own. With their troops getting thin, Prez had risen up the ranks of foot soldiers. Baylon no longer had the luxury of traveling with a retinue of any sort. It was too late to recalculate the strength of his position now staring into the ranks of King's crew.

  "No, I'd take a woman who could handle her business to clean up your mess." King glanced up from his perch to the porch step and stepped between her and Baylon. Although the idea of her anywhere near danger didn't sit well with him, he'd respect her decision.

  "What you doing over here?" Lady G asked.

  "Checking on some business. I had no idea you stayed here if that what you thinking," Baylon said. "Some niggas need them high-drama bitches. They need the bang, the rush. Not me. I need a straight bitch. One that can handle her, and my, business. Say what you will, and Lady G's no joke, but she ain't needless drama."

  "Careful now." King squared off against Baylon. A spirit of over-protectiveness commingled with a surge of jealousy. His face grew hot.

  "What? You don't like it when I talk about your 'friend' like that?" Baylon asked, stepping down to meet his stare. His Pit Bull leapt to the screen door, all thunderous scrapes of paws against glass. It mimicked growls as best it could through its severed vocal cords. "Oh, I see. That's it isn't it. I don't think I like the way you be looking at my girl, dog."

  Lady G wasn't his girl. She knew of his… whatever he was feeling, and never accepted his overtures. She was something he desired that he didn't own and couldn't control. He didn't even know her beyond whatever idealized idea of her that he had built up in his head. Nor was she especially flattered by the pissing contest going on between these two, neither of whom had any particular claim on her. Her affections were hers to place wherever she wanted.

  "How's that? With respect? Like she's a person?" King knew he had crossed a line. He'd called Baylon out, in front of the neighborhood. There was no backing down for him now. Honor, if he could call it that, demanded that Baylon answer this upstart's challenge. No one could afford to show any weakness.

  "It ain't shit to be loved by a saint. Saints have to love everyone. You might as well be a dog. But we devils, nah, we ain't got to love anyone but ourselves. So when we do love a bitch, shit, they know and they ain't going nowhere. Me, I'm straight-up gangsta now, not the boy you grew up with. Gangsta recognizes gangsta… and you lookin' kinda unfamiliar."

  Baylon threw a quick hard punch with his free hand and caught King off guard with a punch to the kidneys. King doubled over at the impact, leaving his head perfectly poised to receive another crashing blow from Baylon. As the roundhouse arced downward, King stood into it, deflecting it. His back slightly turned to Baylon, King thrust his elbow into his belly then stepped to the side to hit him.

  That was the last clean blow landed.

  Fights rarely worked the way that they did on television or in the movies, nor lasted as long. Baylon scrambled from his awkward stance and charged King, wrapping his arms around him. The two of them bowled over into the front lawn. A flurry of movement meant to be the exchange of punches followed, neither one of them doing much more than pushing into one another while entangled.

  Wayne and Lott rushed over to break them up, with Lott holding back Baylon. King glared at him, unflinching. This time he was ready in case Baylon decided to start something again.

  "Let go of me." Baylon shook him off. "This fool just got it in his head to try and step to my girl and I ain't the one to get played out, like some punk bitch."

  "What the fuck?" Wayne asked King. "All the stuff going on and you reduce it all to a jealousy beef?"

  It was all slipping away. Lady G. The crew. The Egbo Society. The world he knew raced toward entropy, decaying from the outside in. Soon King's name would be ringing out in the streets. Baylon could sense the momentum change already. For now they were a small band, but they stood true. Should they come out the other end alive, they would be well on their way to becoming legends. Sometimes survival itself was the stuff of legends. He had no plays left here that would have him save face. Except one. Maybe.

  Baylon slipped the knife into his hand. He lurched forward in a stumbling gait, like a wino tromping through an alley trying to steady himself. He thought of Michelle. And Griff. The history of blood and misfortune on this blade. And he determined that King was the rightful inheritor of its pain. With a flick of his wrist, the steel tooth snapped to life and in a fluid movement, he arced the weapon at King before he could react. A searing pain lanced through King's side. The problem with knives was that once they were drawn, the user depended entirely on them. Baylon, off balance and startled, made an easy target. Stunned for a moment at the utter futility and ridiculousness of the attack, King landed an uppercut that snapped Baylon's head back, even as his momentum sent the two of them tumbling onto the lawn.

  "King. Oh shit." Lady G rushed to his side. "He get you?"

  "I don't… I think so," he said, slow to get to one knee before giving up and supporting his weight with an arm then slumping back to the ground. King raised his hands so that he could see them. Blood stained each of them.

  "Don't move. Don't move," she said.

  "It's all right. It's only a flesh wound. Seriously."

  Baylon didn't move, but instead released a low groan. King stooped over him and snatched the knife he still desperately grasped. He rotated it in his hands, examining it as if its touch told him everything he needed to know. He tossed the blade to the side.

  "Just… just stay down. I'm tired and I'm not here to beef with you. If there's gonna be a fight, I'm gonna take it outside of the family."

  "Time grows short," Merle warned, his eyes studying the mood of the day.

  "What do you want us to do?" Lott stared at the still-stunned Baylon.

  "Leave him." King clutched his side and stood up. "We go to the Phoenix."