ZellJr
04-19-2011, 12:00 PM
I know it's frowned upon on here to post a different thread for each story. But because both the stories I posted are so long, I felt it would be be best.
Please don't hurt me.
I will be commenting on others' stories as well.
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“He's been something else recently” I said. “A bit much, if you ask me.”
“I didn't.”
“I know you agree.”
“Just kick him out of his comfort zone. I'm sure that'll rattle him.”
“Kick him out of his comfort zone, eh? And how do you suppose I do that?”
“I'm sure you know.”
Back in the days, the Styrofoam finger days, where the hours would fly by at the pace of the wind, and the dock boys didn't go in till late, I spent my hours working a different corner a day. Sometimes it would be down Mercury by the jewelry shop, other times by Marlo's, where the fiends flocked in like sheep. I shouldn't put it that way, anyhow; that would make me the shepherd, feeding on his own herd.
But every now and then I'd find myself with Lu. Lucious John was his name, but no one called him that since he was in grade school twelve years back, a bit before my time. He was just a child back then, but in some ways, he still is. Something left him, back then, when he was beat. No one's said anything but we all know it's not coming back. Unfortunately, so does he.
You see, he only came around our side of town once or so a week. The whee hours of the morn, carrying with him his little plastic bag, saran wrap left over from the sandwiches his mother made for him every morning. He'd shake it around, wearing a crooked smile, half falling off his dark face. His eyes, too, were as yellow as his teeth, though they didn't always used to be that way. No one stayed the same down in the fort.
And it was one such morning, when I first met him, on my way out of the house carrying a large trash bag in an attempt to catch the garbage man early.
“What up, young 'peep,” I heard. It was a deep voice, like the engine of a bus. It was dark out, the moon shifting steadily between the haze of the clouds. My hands trembled, but I struggled violently, yet inconspicuously, to hold on. The smell of the trash began to sting my nose and the glistening road became a river.
“I got some product,” he said, pronouncing it “pro-duct”. The voice was much louder this time. It was getting closer.
I whipped my neck to the left in an attempt to catch the figure. A cold finger touched my right shoulder. My body turned numb.
“I got some fresh product for ya' if ya' interested,” he was certain to pronounce every syllable of every word.
It was then I returned to my wits, and turned my head to face him. I merely shook my head at him. He had no facial hair, and his eyes were a dark, cat-like yellow. His teeth were large and had no trouble shining a bright yellow through the black mist.
“I'm bleedin' out here, you gotta help me out. I'm willing to bar-ter, if you will.”
That night went roughly as one would expect. I refused his “pro-duct” and he continually pushed and pushed. I introduced myself to him as a Terrance and he introduced himself as Lu. I ended up going to bed that night, sleeping well, and living life as usual, Lu-free.
However, I met Lu for the second time, during one of my shifts out by Mercury mid-afternoon a week later. I was with a couple of friends of mine, Wallace and Boon(Rashad Jacobs to his mom).
“How are you gentlemen this fine evening, eh?” He was wearing a suit this time, as opposed to his to shirt and shorts, previously.
“Aww, hell naw,” Wallace whined, putting his hands to his hips. “This nigga' again.”
I looked to Wallace. “You know him?”
“This motha****a' been doin' this **** for years now. How the **** you not know him?” He turned his Yankees hat backwards.
I was quite confused at this point.
“*****, go the **** back where you belong, we don't want yo' ****,” Boon explained, his dark lips flapping rapidly. He was thin but he carried words he swore he could back up.
“Easy, people,” Lu exclaimed. He put his hands up, as if being aimed at, exposing his ceran wrap bag containing his “pro-duct”. “Your stash was runnin' kinda low so I thought I'd be able to a-ssist you young gentlemen.”
“How you know 'bout the stash?” I asked, squinting directly into his eyes, attempting to squeeze out the truth.
“Ask them,” he said gesturing behind himself with his thumb. We noticed two people running off with a sack that belonged to us, the passers-by watching apathetically, though knowing full well what was going on. Needless to say, Boon went after them, reaching into his pants as his shirt fluttered through the air.
“The name is Lu,” he began. “How 'yall boys doin'?”
“Yeah, we've met,” I mumbled, sticking my hands into my pocket.
“Pop ain't gon' be happy 'bout the stash,” Wallace said, clearly ignoring Lu. “We doubled up, but still. ****ed up.”
“We met?” Lu said, surprisingly. “Naw, dawg. I don't forget ****. We ain't never met before.”
“Out by my house. 4 in the morning? Terrance? Remember?”
His face clearly showed that he was still baffled.
“Stupid motha****a',” I mumbled under my breath.
Lu squinted tightly, as if trying to draw something from the nethers of his brain, and even went so far as to pound his forehead with palm.
“The **** is wrong with this guy?” I asked leaning towards Wallace.
“Damn, dog,” he started. “Looks like you the stupid motha****a'.” He shook his head and drew a box of Marlboro's from his pocket. He handed me one and stuck the other between his lips. The box returned to his back pocket.
Meanwhile, Lu was making sales. Left and right he was drawing people in, pulling shirts every now and then if he needed to. He'd stick his product into a vial, form a fist, and put the vial between his fingers, close to the knuckle. When selling to a customer, he'd touch fists to them and between his knuckles would no longer be a vial, but a dollar bill.
“This nigga here is Lu,” Wallace said, a cloud of smoke emerging from his mouth. “ Lucious. Lucious John.”
“What he some sorta' celebrity?” I joked.
“Naw, bruh. He's jus' got a history, you know? You a young *** motha****a so I can see why you don't give a **** 'bout history.”
I smirked. I was stupid back then. But it wasn't such a bad thing. Atleast it protected me.
“Back when he was like 11 or 12 or some **** he got caught stealin' from Wolf's stash by Marlo's. They caught him, ****ed him up real good.” Wallace stopped, looked down and shook his head subtly.
“Guess he deserved it,” I remarked. I tried hard back then to be man. Too hard, I suppose.
“****'s ****ed up. Boy was jus' a kid at the time.” He paused again. “Jaw all dislocated and ****. Eyes both swollen shut. Stab wounds all over. ****in' knots all over his forehead. Looked like a ****in' pumpkin.”
I looked over to Lu. His wounds had healed up completely. He looked fine to me.
A few weeks later it was just Boon and I at the City Street corner, profiteering as usual. Wallace was out of commission to attend a funeral in Philly. City Street was was one of the least populated areas of The Fort. It always reminded me of fishing with my dad, sitting out on the street, for long hours, switching your hope on and off. Yeah the waits were long, but atleast you knew that whatever you caught would be quality. And the customers here were assured quality. If they ever came.
The two of us were sitting on a park bench in the desolate, woody area. Only things around us were old abandoned apartments and a shut down swimming pool that was supposed to be reopened six months ago. The fiends weren't biting today. Maybe one of them.
“How are you young fellas' doin' on this this evenin',” Lu said, emerging from behind us. He walked in front of us, and again, was wearing that suit.
“**** this,” Boon said, getting up and leaving, but not without glaring at Lu on the way.
“The name's Lu,” Lu said, reaching out his hand to me. “Yours?
“Marvin,” I lied. It was hard, I admit, to look at Lu in the same way.
“Nice to meet you, Marvin.” He sat down next to me, hands on his lap.
What ensued was atleast an hours worth of awkward silence. Nothing I wasn't used to from days in school, however long ago that was. But this time it was a bit harder to endure, given what I heard of Lu.
“I dunno 'bout you, but I am straight, *** fiendin' right now,” he said, immediately erupting into a howling laugh, kicking and all. “The mama don't like that though. If she found out, **** would pop off, know what I mean?”
“Yeah, my mama don't like it neither,” I mumbled, trying hard to add to the conversation. The awkwardness settled in too tightly though. I shuffled around in my pockets, looking for an imaginary phone.
“****, it's the weekend, ain't no problem with smokin' then, is there?”
“Where'd you get the suit?” I asked in an attempt to change the subject. My eyes didn't meet his.
“It's my dad's. But he don't know I'm wearin' though.” He laughed hysterically before tightening his fist and pounding his lap. “But damn do I look pro-fessional, huh? I'm makin' him proud, I know it.”
“By selling dope?” I laughed and shook my head.
“So? It's his ****. Mostly.”
“Mostly?”
Turns out my friend Lu was stealing his “pro-duct” from other sellers and selling it to make his own profit. The sly son of a *****. It occurred to me then that I was in need of such an acquaintance, as was he.
It was once a week or so that he'd stop by around one of our corners, usually the busiest areas, wearing his dad's suit, dark brown jacket, dark brown pants, yellow eyes and hollow heart. Each week I gave him a different name; first I was Terrance, then Marvin, then Gavin, then, just for kicks, Pablo. Made no difference to him. It was a once a week that Wallace, Boon, and I would inform him of the whereabouts of Treecy's stash, Old Man's stash, Big John's stash, the Parkers's stash, even Z's stash. It was once a week that he'd be sweating in the shadow of the night from forehead to palm, tip-toeing through junk yards, stopping at the sound of his heart beat. And he's return to us, the next week, the same time, with a saran-wrapped bag in his palm, smiling. We could sometimes see the stains and sweat from the night before on his t-shirt he so cleverly hid behind his suit jacket. His heart he kept so carefully tucked away.
Needless to say, for us, business was booming. Our new acquaintance had done us well.
“I'm higher than a motha****a,” Lu said, one evening approaching us, of course, drenched in his suit. “Bidness been boomin' fo' yalll young chaps?”
Wallace looked over to me with a grin. I returned it to him.
“I jus' come across this **** but I'd be happy to honored if ya'll would let me share this corner with you.” He started scratching the back of his neck, his little bag shaking with each curl of his fingers. “We share the corner, we share the profit. Ya'll know how it is.”
Wallace and I couldn't stop smiling. He looked down to try and mask the smile, kicking an imaginary can before looking back up.
“Look, bruh, it's cool,” Wallace began, licking his lips and taking a brief pause. “But we ain't goin' no less than 70-30. “
“The ****?” Lu explained. “The **** I look like?”
“You know we got the hot corner,” Boon interrupted, also trying to fight the smile from his face. “Don't like, take yo' *** back to the boonies.”
There was a slight pause, a brief moment in which everyone exchanged glances. Everyone on the street, in their cars, in the rooms, in their class rooms, in the dirt, everyone. But only one of us knew why.
“Ya'll motha****as lucky I'm high as ****,” Lu said, breaking the silence and walking towards us. He emptied the contents of his saran wrap bag into tiny vials and distributed them amongst us. He then looked up at us and shook his head. “I don't say this **** to nobody...”
I looked towards him. Wallace and Boon pretended to not hear him. Lu was still facing forward, appearing to be watching for customers, cops perhaps, but the facade grew obvious. His eyes were wandering, flipping through memories in head, a scattered heap of papers and the helplessness was worn beneath that suit. That armor.
“****, man,” Lu began, his words slurred. His eyes faded to the heavens. “I've been high for the longest *** time.”
Wallace and Boon were both pretending to not here him, even going so far as to shift back onto the steps of Aunt Bethune's apartment.
“Sleep high. Wake up high.” There was a pause. Similar to the awkward pause at City Street, but not quite the same. “Eat high.” He erupted into laughter, a real hyena laugh. A shame no one joined him. Damn shame.
I got high that night. Smoked myself to sleep in a corner of my room. I'd imagine Wallace and Boon did the same. Don't know why.
It didn't take long for Wallace and Boon to give up on dealing. To give up on me. Wallace said he had to go back to school, but everyone on the block knew he was done with high school, and college wasn't an option for him. As for Boon, he just stopped showing up. I called him every now and then to see where he was. Never got a response. After a month of no responses I heard from his cousin he got shot out at the docks. Primary suspect for the shooting was Rashad Jacobs.
But I was a soldier. I had to make a living somehow, and Lu and I had no trouble with that. But without Boon and Wallace, I admit, I was relieved at the much larger cuts I was receiving as a result of their absence.
In time, I grew weary of waiting for Lu's inevitable visit. I grew weary of waiting, painstakingly for that sound of the soft rustling of grass against plastic and the sight of that child, dressed in a suit of armor that belonged to his fallen father.
The wait became unbearable, and I forced myself to Lu's house, a home long forgotten by the members of the neighborhood.
I approached his steps, knocked twice on the white wooden door and waited, hands in my jean pockets for the yellow eyes. It only took a minute or so for the door to open.
“The **** is yo' problem?” Lu said, opening the door, dressed in nothing but black boxers. “Who the **** you is, comin' to my door early *** in the mornin'?”
“It's noon,” I replied. “I'm Carl. I jus' heard you was sellin' **** so I thought, '**** it, I'll buy'.”
“Nigga,” he said, wiping his eyes with his fingers. “You can't show up to a niggas house fiendin' like this. And my momma's home. Why the **** would I sell you drugs when my momma's home?”
“Yo momma's home? Why you still live with yo momma?”
“Why the **** not?”
“Where she at now?” I peaked around Lu's body to the mess of a house behind him. Every piece of furniture in the house was damaged.
“The **** kinda' question is that?” He stepped closer to me, breathing heavily from his nose.
I held up a stack of dollar bills. “Nigga, you want it or not.”
He vanished into the cloud of darkness that enveloped his house, leaving the door wide open behind him. I stepped insides and made myself home on top of a red couch, blemished with warts of cotton.
“Momma.” I could hear him calling every few seconds. I looked around myself, at the boarded up windows, the scraped up carpet, peeled at one side before abandoned. No television. No radio, and barely even a kitchen.
His steps erupted down the stairs. “Look, dog, I don't know where she at right now? I guess she went to the store or some ****, so we good.”
“The store?” I said, staring into his hollowing eyes. His words weren't his own. His mask was peeling. “The store?”
He looked at me with a frown.
“Nigga yo momma's dead. Been dead fo' a few years now.”
“Who the **** you think you is?” Lu shouted, again, breathing through his noise.
“Is this **** even yo' house? The **** is wrong with you? How the **** you think she still alive? You went to her funeral.”
“Nigga you talkin' some crazy *** ****,” he said, sticking his finger onto my chest. He was clearly taller than me. A few inches or so. It was then I erupted. No longer could I nurture the sympathy of my words.
“You the crazy one. You livin' in a ****in' abandoned home. I don't even know how the **** you get electricity and ****.”
“You best watch yo-”
“Ever since you got you ****ed up by Wolf's boys, you can't remember ****. You probably won't even remember this **** goin' down right now. Every goddamn ****in' day you wake yo *** up and make rounds round The Fort, sellin' **** that you steal, which, ironically, got yo *** beat to begin with.”
“You a real dope fiend, you know that?” His eyes were glazed with water. But I didn't see it.
“Naw, nigga. You is. You ****in' sell drugs every damn day. And for what? You think yo' dead *** momma still alive too. Listen here.”
“Naw, nigga, get the **** out,” he gestured with his thumb to the door.
“I give you a damn different name every time I see you.”
“*****, I ain't never seen yo *** in my life.”
“I was Terrance the first time, some other **** the second time. ****in' Pablo one time. Pablo? Really? You ate that **** up? You'd take any name, huh?”
“If you don't get yo' black *** out...”
I pointed to the suit draped over the couch. “Get yo' damn suit on and get out there tomorrow mornin'. We sellin' hard tomorrow and we need to up our supply so you know what the **** to do.” I exited the room, leaving behind me a frozen statue, a turtle without its shell.
Got high that night. First time in weeks. And I'm sure somewhere in jail Wallace was doing the same. And somewhere in heaven, Boon, yes, Boon was doing it as well. Hell isn't for the ignorant.
A few weeks went by without seeing Lu. I feared the worst, to be honest. Hoped he didn't go out like Boon. The guilt and worry was good though. It made me feel human. Though I can't say it was easy. Nary a day went by without a run in with the cops, having to sprint for a quarter mile down Mercury and Maine, hiding in dumpsters. But worst of all, sitting, by myself on the park bench on City Street. The awkward silence was always there. My only company.
It was one of these evenings out, on City street that I saw him again. The moon was just settling in at the time and the trees formed a canopy over my head as I sat on the bench, watching the moving stillness of the dead city in front of me. I painted the stars in with my eyes.
“That **** ain't right,” Lu said. The voice came from behind me. It wasn't the same voice as I was used to. It wasn't the same deep, dopey voice I was used to, hanging on syllables, exaggerating “O's”. It was my voice.
“Dog, man, you don't tell a nigga that ****. My mama ain't ****in' dead.”
I stared at the painting before me, coloring in street lights, cars, people. Never turning around.
“Terrance, right?”
I paused. I never turned around to see him. But I knew he wasn't wearing that suit.
“You think that bull**** for real? That bull**** you said 'bout my people? You think I wouldn't ****in' know if my momma was dead or not? You think I'm that ****in' cold -blooded? Like I ain't give a **** bout her?”
His voice grew wavy.
“She ****in' raised me, dog. She's my ****in' momma. How the **** you think I can ever lose that **** man? How you think I ain't gonna know if she left me or not?”
Water fell down my shirt. I wasn't sure who they belonged to.
I felt the need to get high, I don't know why. But I felt Wallace and Boon felt the same way. I painted in a small hotdog stand, where me and Wallace spent our afternoons at during grade school.
“**** ain't right dog. I been high as **** fo' the longest time. But that **** don't **** wit' the heart. But, I know how y'all niggas need that **** too. So I look out fo' yall. I jus' pray y'all don't fo'get too.”
I painted in the school yard where I got in my first fight. With a kid named Rashad Jacobs at the swingset. Don't remember how it started. Did I forget?
“Looks like I ****ed up, huh?” His voice, my voice, started to crack. “It's yo *** that made me this way. Then its yo *** that tried to take my momma from me. Niggas like you. Take take take. **** all yall niggas! Ain't gon' let a nigga breathe till you happy.”
I painted a picture of my mother, brother, father, and I, sitting in a circle around the Christmas tree. A beautiful night, lights of all colors, glowing in the air. Stars in the night sky.
“You dead inside.”
I removed the blunt from my mouth and before me was the moving stillness of the dead city, wavering silently beneath the moon. The paintings were gone. And so was Lu.
I was high that night.
“I know just the thing.” I called Wallace to my desk, grinning slyly as he entered, dressed in pompous blue suit and carrying a briefcase at his side. His large body and big gut flattered him not.
“What you need, fam?” He said, sitting down in front of me.
I looked over to my secretary, Catherine and winked. “Wallace, man, you've been a bit smug recently ever since your promotion.”
His mouth opened to speak.
“No no no, wait till I'm done. I just think you should remember where you came from. Just don't get too comfortable. Remember Lu?”
He shook his head a bit. “Yeah, man, you still ****in' with him?”
“Haven't seen him since. I had went -”
“He's dead. Died a long while back. Got shot diggin' through some random niggas stash. Hope you proud.”
I don't remember what happened after that. But I did get high that night. By myself. That's all I remember anymore. It's for the best.
Please don't hurt me.
I will be commenting on others' stories as well.
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“He's been something else recently” I said. “A bit much, if you ask me.”
“I didn't.”
“I know you agree.”
“Just kick him out of his comfort zone. I'm sure that'll rattle him.”
“Kick him out of his comfort zone, eh? And how do you suppose I do that?”
“I'm sure you know.”
Back in the days, the Styrofoam finger days, where the hours would fly by at the pace of the wind, and the dock boys didn't go in till late, I spent my hours working a different corner a day. Sometimes it would be down Mercury by the jewelry shop, other times by Marlo's, where the fiends flocked in like sheep. I shouldn't put it that way, anyhow; that would make me the shepherd, feeding on his own herd.
But every now and then I'd find myself with Lu. Lucious John was his name, but no one called him that since he was in grade school twelve years back, a bit before my time. He was just a child back then, but in some ways, he still is. Something left him, back then, when he was beat. No one's said anything but we all know it's not coming back. Unfortunately, so does he.
You see, he only came around our side of town once or so a week. The whee hours of the morn, carrying with him his little plastic bag, saran wrap left over from the sandwiches his mother made for him every morning. He'd shake it around, wearing a crooked smile, half falling off his dark face. His eyes, too, were as yellow as his teeth, though they didn't always used to be that way. No one stayed the same down in the fort.
And it was one such morning, when I first met him, on my way out of the house carrying a large trash bag in an attempt to catch the garbage man early.
“What up, young 'peep,” I heard. It was a deep voice, like the engine of a bus. It was dark out, the moon shifting steadily between the haze of the clouds. My hands trembled, but I struggled violently, yet inconspicuously, to hold on. The smell of the trash began to sting my nose and the glistening road became a river.
“I got some product,” he said, pronouncing it “pro-duct”. The voice was much louder this time. It was getting closer.
I whipped my neck to the left in an attempt to catch the figure. A cold finger touched my right shoulder. My body turned numb.
“I got some fresh product for ya' if ya' interested,” he was certain to pronounce every syllable of every word.
It was then I returned to my wits, and turned my head to face him. I merely shook my head at him. He had no facial hair, and his eyes were a dark, cat-like yellow. His teeth were large and had no trouble shining a bright yellow through the black mist.
“I'm bleedin' out here, you gotta help me out. I'm willing to bar-ter, if you will.”
That night went roughly as one would expect. I refused his “pro-duct” and he continually pushed and pushed. I introduced myself to him as a Terrance and he introduced himself as Lu. I ended up going to bed that night, sleeping well, and living life as usual, Lu-free.
However, I met Lu for the second time, during one of my shifts out by Mercury mid-afternoon a week later. I was with a couple of friends of mine, Wallace and Boon(Rashad Jacobs to his mom).
“How are you gentlemen this fine evening, eh?” He was wearing a suit this time, as opposed to his to shirt and shorts, previously.
“Aww, hell naw,” Wallace whined, putting his hands to his hips. “This nigga' again.”
I looked to Wallace. “You know him?”
“This motha****a' been doin' this **** for years now. How the **** you not know him?” He turned his Yankees hat backwards.
I was quite confused at this point.
“*****, go the **** back where you belong, we don't want yo' ****,” Boon explained, his dark lips flapping rapidly. He was thin but he carried words he swore he could back up.
“Easy, people,” Lu exclaimed. He put his hands up, as if being aimed at, exposing his ceran wrap bag containing his “pro-duct”. “Your stash was runnin' kinda low so I thought I'd be able to a-ssist you young gentlemen.”
“How you know 'bout the stash?” I asked, squinting directly into his eyes, attempting to squeeze out the truth.
“Ask them,” he said gesturing behind himself with his thumb. We noticed two people running off with a sack that belonged to us, the passers-by watching apathetically, though knowing full well what was going on. Needless to say, Boon went after them, reaching into his pants as his shirt fluttered through the air.
“The name is Lu,” he began. “How 'yall boys doin'?”
“Yeah, we've met,” I mumbled, sticking my hands into my pocket.
“Pop ain't gon' be happy 'bout the stash,” Wallace said, clearly ignoring Lu. “We doubled up, but still. ****ed up.”
“We met?” Lu said, surprisingly. “Naw, dawg. I don't forget ****. We ain't never met before.”
“Out by my house. 4 in the morning? Terrance? Remember?”
His face clearly showed that he was still baffled.
“Stupid motha****a',” I mumbled under my breath.
Lu squinted tightly, as if trying to draw something from the nethers of his brain, and even went so far as to pound his forehead with palm.
“The **** is wrong with this guy?” I asked leaning towards Wallace.
“Damn, dog,” he started. “Looks like you the stupid motha****a'.” He shook his head and drew a box of Marlboro's from his pocket. He handed me one and stuck the other between his lips. The box returned to his back pocket.
Meanwhile, Lu was making sales. Left and right he was drawing people in, pulling shirts every now and then if he needed to. He'd stick his product into a vial, form a fist, and put the vial between his fingers, close to the knuckle. When selling to a customer, he'd touch fists to them and between his knuckles would no longer be a vial, but a dollar bill.
“This nigga here is Lu,” Wallace said, a cloud of smoke emerging from his mouth. “ Lucious. Lucious John.”
“What he some sorta' celebrity?” I joked.
“Naw, bruh. He's jus' got a history, you know? You a young *** motha****a so I can see why you don't give a **** 'bout history.”
I smirked. I was stupid back then. But it wasn't such a bad thing. Atleast it protected me.
“Back when he was like 11 or 12 or some **** he got caught stealin' from Wolf's stash by Marlo's. They caught him, ****ed him up real good.” Wallace stopped, looked down and shook his head subtly.
“Guess he deserved it,” I remarked. I tried hard back then to be man. Too hard, I suppose.
“****'s ****ed up. Boy was jus' a kid at the time.” He paused again. “Jaw all dislocated and ****. Eyes both swollen shut. Stab wounds all over. ****in' knots all over his forehead. Looked like a ****in' pumpkin.”
I looked over to Lu. His wounds had healed up completely. He looked fine to me.
A few weeks later it was just Boon and I at the City Street corner, profiteering as usual. Wallace was out of commission to attend a funeral in Philly. City Street was was one of the least populated areas of The Fort. It always reminded me of fishing with my dad, sitting out on the street, for long hours, switching your hope on and off. Yeah the waits were long, but atleast you knew that whatever you caught would be quality. And the customers here were assured quality. If they ever came.
The two of us were sitting on a park bench in the desolate, woody area. Only things around us were old abandoned apartments and a shut down swimming pool that was supposed to be reopened six months ago. The fiends weren't biting today. Maybe one of them.
“How are you young fellas' doin' on this this evenin',” Lu said, emerging from behind us. He walked in front of us, and again, was wearing that suit.
“**** this,” Boon said, getting up and leaving, but not without glaring at Lu on the way.
“The name's Lu,” Lu said, reaching out his hand to me. “Yours?
“Marvin,” I lied. It was hard, I admit, to look at Lu in the same way.
“Nice to meet you, Marvin.” He sat down next to me, hands on his lap.
What ensued was atleast an hours worth of awkward silence. Nothing I wasn't used to from days in school, however long ago that was. But this time it was a bit harder to endure, given what I heard of Lu.
“I dunno 'bout you, but I am straight, *** fiendin' right now,” he said, immediately erupting into a howling laugh, kicking and all. “The mama don't like that though. If she found out, **** would pop off, know what I mean?”
“Yeah, my mama don't like it neither,” I mumbled, trying hard to add to the conversation. The awkwardness settled in too tightly though. I shuffled around in my pockets, looking for an imaginary phone.
“****, it's the weekend, ain't no problem with smokin' then, is there?”
“Where'd you get the suit?” I asked in an attempt to change the subject. My eyes didn't meet his.
“It's my dad's. But he don't know I'm wearin' though.” He laughed hysterically before tightening his fist and pounding his lap. “But damn do I look pro-fessional, huh? I'm makin' him proud, I know it.”
“By selling dope?” I laughed and shook my head.
“So? It's his ****. Mostly.”
“Mostly?”
Turns out my friend Lu was stealing his “pro-duct” from other sellers and selling it to make his own profit. The sly son of a *****. It occurred to me then that I was in need of such an acquaintance, as was he.
It was once a week or so that he'd stop by around one of our corners, usually the busiest areas, wearing his dad's suit, dark brown jacket, dark brown pants, yellow eyes and hollow heart. Each week I gave him a different name; first I was Terrance, then Marvin, then Gavin, then, just for kicks, Pablo. Made no difference to him. It was a once a week that Wallace, Boon, and I would inform him of the whereabouts of Treecy's stash, Old Man's stash, Big John's stash, the Parkers's stash, even Z's stash. It was once a week that he'd be sweating in the shadow of the night from forehead to palm, tip-toeing through junk yards, stopping at the sound of his heart beat. And he's return to us, the next week, the same time, with a saran-wrapped bag in his palm, smiling. We could sometimes see the stains and sweat from the night before on his t-shirt he so cleverly hid behind his suit jacket. His heart he kept so carefully tucked away.
Needless to say, for us, business was booming. Our new acquaintance had done us well.
“I'm higher than a motha****a,” Lu said, one evening approaching us, of course, drenched in his suit. “Bidness been boomin' fo' yalll young chaps?”
Wallace looked over to me with a grin. I returned it to him.
“I jus' come across this **** but I'd be happy to honored if ya'll would let me share this corner with you.” He started scratching the back of his neck, his little bag shaking with each curl of his fingers. “We share the corner, we share the profit. Ya'll know how it is.”
Wallace and I couldn't stop smiling. He looked down to try and mask the smile, kicking an imaginary can before looking back up.
“Look, bruh, it's cool,” Wallace began, licking his lips and taking a brief pause. “But we ain't goin' no less than 70-30. “
“The ****?” Lu explained. “The **** I look like?”
“You know we got the hot corner,” Boon interrupted, also trying to fight the smile from his face. “Don't like, take yo' *** back to the boonies.”
There was a slight pause, a brief moment in which everyone exchanged glances. Everyone on the street, in their cars, in the rooms, in their class rooms, in the dirt, everyone. But only one of us knew why.
“Ya'll motha****as lucky I'm high as ****,” Lu said, breaking the silence and walking towards us. He emptied the contents of his saran wrap bag into tiny vials and distributed them amongst us. He then looked up at us and shook his head. “I don't say this **** to nobody...”
I looked towards him. Wallace and Boon pretended to not hear him. Lu was still facing forward, appearing to be watching for customers, cops perhaps, but the facade grew obvious. His eyes were wandering, flipping through memories in head, a scattered heap of papers and the helplessness was worn beneath that suit. That armor.
“****, man,” Lu began, his words slurred. His eyes faded to the heavens. “I've been high for the longest *** time.”
Wallace and Boon were both pretending to not here him, even going so far as to shift back onto the steps of Aunt Bethune's apartment.
“Sleep high. Wake up high.” There was a pause. Similar to the awkward pause at City Street, but not quite the same. “Eat high.” He erupted into laughter, a real hyena laugh. A shame no one joined him. Damn shame.
I got high that night. Smoked myself to sleep in a corner of my room. I'd imagine Wallace and Boon did the same. Don't know why.
It didn't take long for Wallace and Boon to give up on dealing. To give up on me. Wallace said he had to go back to school, but everyone on the block knew he was done with high school, and college wasn't an option for him. As for Boon, he just stopped showing up. I called him every now and then to see where he was. Never got a response. After a month of no responses I heard from his cousin he got shot out at the docks. Primary suspect for the shooting was Rashad Jacobs.
But I was a soldier. I had to make a living somehow, and Lu and I had no trouble with that. But without Boon and Wallace, I admit, I was relieved at the much larger cuts I was receiving as a result of their absence.
In time, I grew weary of waiting for Lu's inevitable visit. I grew weary of waiting, painstakingly for that sound of the soft rustling of grass against plastic and the sight of that child, dressed in a suit of armor that belonged to his fallen father.
The wait became unbearable, and I forced myself to Lu's house, a home long forgotten by the members of the neighborhood.
I approached his steps, knocked twice on the white wooden door and waited, hands in my jean pockets for the yellow eyes. It only took a minute or so for the door to open.
“The **** is yo' problem?” Lu said, opening the door, dressed in nothing but black boxers. “Who the **** you is, comin' to my door early *** in the mornin'?”
“It's noon,” I replied. “I'm Carl. I jus' heard you was sellin' **** so I thought, '**** it, I'll buy'.”
“Nigga,” he said, wiping his eyes with his fingers. “You can't show up to a niggas house fiendin' like this. And my momma's home. Why the **** would I sell you drugs when my momma's home?”
“Yo momma's home? Why you still live with yo momma?”
“Why the **** not?”
“Where she at now?” I peaked around Lu's body to the mess of a house behind him. Every piece of furniture in the house was damaged.
“The **** kinda' question is that?” He stepped closer to me, breathing heavily from his nose.
I held up a stack of dollar bills. “Nigga, you want it or not.”
He vanished into the cloud of darkness that enveloped his house, leaving the door wide open behind him. I stepped insides and made myself home on top of a red couch, blemished with warts of cotton.
“Momma.” I could hear him calling every few seconds. I looked around myself, at the boarded up windows, the scraped up carpet, peeled at one side before abandoned. No television. No radio, and barely even a kitchen.
His steps erupted down the stairs. “Look, dog, I don't know where she at right now? I guess she went to the store or some ****, so we good.”
“The store?” I said, staring into his hollowing eyes. His words weren't his own. His mask was peeling. “The store?”
He looked at me with a frown.
“Nigga yo momma's dead. Been dead fo' a few years now.”
“Who the **** you think you is?” Lu shouted, again, breathing through his noise.
“Is this **** even yo' house? The **** is wrong with you? How the **** you think she still alive? You went to her funeral.”
“Nigga you talkin' some crazy *** ****,” he said, sticking his finger onto my chest. He was clearly taller than me. A few inches or so. It was then I erupted. No longer could I nurture the sympathy of my words.
“You the crazy one. You livin' in a ****in' abandoned home. I don't even know how the **** you get electricity and ****.”
“You best watch yo-”
“Ever since you got you ****ed up by Wolf's boys, you can't remember ****. You probably won't even remember this **** goin' down right now. Every goddamn ****in' day you wake yo *** up and make rounds round The Fort, sellin' **** that you steal, which, ironically, got yo *** beat to begin with.”
“You a real dope fiend, you know that?” His eyes were glazed with water. But I didn't see it.
“Naw, nigga. You is. You ****in' sell drugs every damn day. And for what? You think yo' dead *** momma still alive too. Listen here.”
“Naw, nigga, get the **** out,” he gestured with his thumb to the door.
“I give you a damn different name every time I see you.”
“*****, I ain't never seen yo *** in my life.”
“I was Terrance the first time, some other **** the second time. ****in' Pablo one time. Pablo? Really? You ate that **** up? You'd take any name, huh?”
“If you don't get yo' black *** out...”
I pointed to the suit draped over the couch. “Get yo' damn suit on and get out there tomorrow mornin'. We sellin' hard tomorrow and we need to up our supply so you know what the **** to do.” I exited the room, leaving behind me a frozen statue, a turtle without its shell.
Got high that night. First time in weeks. And I'm sure somewhere in jail Wallace was doing the same. And somewhere in heaven, Boon, yes, Boon was doing it as well. Hell isn't for the ignorant.
A few weeks went by without seeing Lu. I feared the worst, to be honest. Hoped he didn't go out like Boon. The guilt and worry was good though. It made me feel human. Though I can't say it was easy. Nary a day went by without a run in with the cops, having to sprint for a quarter mile down Mercury and Maine, hiding in dumpsters. But worst of all, sitting, by myself on the park bench on City Street. The awkward silence was always there. My only company.
It was one of these evenings out, on City street that I saw him again. The moon was just settling in at the time and the trees formed a canopy over my head as I sat on the bench, watching the moving stillness of the dead city in front of me. I painted the stars in with my eyes.
“That **** ain't right,” Lu said. The voice came from behind me. It wasn't the same voice as I was used to. It wasn't the same deep, dopey voice I was used to, hanging on syllables, exaggerating “O's”. It was my voice.
“Dog, man, you don't tell a nigga that ****. My mama ain't ****in' dead.”
I stared at the painting before me, coloring in street lights, cars, people. Never turning around.
“Terrance, right?”
I paused. I never turned around to see him. But I knew he wasn't wearing that suit.
“You think that bull**** for real? That bull**** you said 'bout my people? You think I wouldn't ****in' know if my momma was dead or not? You think I'm that ****in' cold -blooded? Like I ain't give a **** bout her?”
His voice grew wavy.
“She ****in' raised me, dog. She's my ****in' momma. How the **** you think I can ever lose that **** man? How you think I ain't gonna know if she left me or not?”
Water fell down my shirt. I wasn't sure who they belonged to.
I felt the need to get high, I don't know why. But I felt Wallace and Boon felt the same way. I painted in a small hotdog stand, where me and Wallace spent our afternoons at during grade school.
“**** ain't right dog. I been high as **** fo' the longest time. But that **** don't **** wit' the heart. But, I know how y'all niggas need that **** too. So I look out fo' yall. I jus' pray y'all don't fo'get too.”
I painted in the school yard where I got in my first fight. With a kid named Rashad Jacobs at the swingset. Don't remember how it started. Did I forget?
“Looks like I ****ed up, huh?” His voice, my voice, started to crack. “It's yo *** that made me this way. Then its yo *** that tried to take my momma from me. Niggas like you. Take take take. **** all yall niggas! Ain't gon' let a nigga breathe till you happy.”
I painted a picture of my mother, brother, father, and I, sitting in a circle around the Christmas tree. A beautiful night, lights of all colors, glowing in the air. Stars in the night sky.
“You dead inside.”
I removed the blunt from my mouth and before me was the moving stillness of the dead city, wavering silently beneath the moon. The paintings were gone. And so was Lu.
I was high that night.
“I know just the thing.” I called Wallace to my desk, grinning slyly as he entered, dressed in pompous blue suit and carrying a briefcase at his side. His large body and big gut flattered him not.
“What you need, fam?” He said, sitting down in front of me.
I looked over to my secretary, Catherine and winked. “Wallace, man, you've been a bit smug recently ever since your promotion.”
His mouth opened to speak.
“No no no, wait till I'm done. I just think you should remember where you came from. Just don't get too comfortable. Remember Lu?”
He shook his head a bit. “Yeah, man, you still ****in' with him?”
“Haven't seen him since. I had went -”
“He's dead. Died a long while back. Got shot diggin' through some random niggas stash. Hope you proud.”
I don't remember what happened after that. But I did get high that night. By myself. That's all I remember anymore. It's for the best.