Rage Is Back (9781101606179) (17 page)

“I might have some thoughts on that,” my mother said. “We'll talk about it later.”

Before I could wonder what she meant, Billy piped up. “How do you call a meeting these days? I'm assuming there's still enough beef and stupidness that only the right guy can get everybody in the same room.”

“Of course. It's still graffiti, B.”

“So who's that guy?”

Fever thought about it. “Vexer. Blam 2. Possibly Stoon. Possibly me.”

“Nigga,” said Cloud. “You kidding me? That guy is Billy Rage. Everybody will come just to lay eyes.”

My father shook his head. “I can't. I—I'm just not up to it. Plus, I'm an outlaw. If anybody knew I was back—”

“Billy,” the Ambassador interrupted, “
everybody
knows you're back. You went all-city with crazy voodoo symbols in the tunnels, dude. It's only a matter of time before Bracken hears about that—if he hasn't already. The clock is ticking.”

The words kind of thudded to the ground. My father ran both hands over his head, then turned to Dengue. “Okay,” he said, nodding fast, as if to convince himself it was. “Okay. Just tell me who to call.”

8

hat night, Karen and I returned to Fort Greene, and Billy bounced to what your man Dick Cheney would call an undisclosed location, just to be on the safe side. Next morning, when I woke up bright and late, my mother was seated at the kitchen table with her coffee and Cloud 9.

“Yo,” I managed, waving.

“Yo, yo.” He raised his mug in salute.

Karen poured another, sugared it to my specifications. “Sit.”

“Can I take a piss first? Maybe brush my teeth?”

“By all means.”

I staggered to the bathroom, past the closed door of the guest room. When I reemerged, there were three fat slices of coffee cake on the table. I'd never seen Karen so hostess-y. She slid a folder from her work bag, removed two copies of a manuscript. “Read.”

I scanned the first page. It was a cover letter, addressed to Authors' Inc., fairly well written, no red flags, describing a story collection and the sample piece enclosed. It was signed Theo Polhemus.

“Ring a bell?” asked Karen.

“Should it?”

“Read the story.”

I turned the page.

CROWN HEIST

Tap tap BOOM. Birds ain't even got their warble on, and my door's shaking off the hinges. I didn't even bother with the peephole. It had to be Isaac Eleazar, the Jewish Rasta, playing that dub bassline on my door.

BOOM. I swung it open and Zar barged in like he was expecting to find the answer to life itself inside. A gust of Egyptian Musk oil and Nature's Blessing dread-balm hit me two seconds after he flew by: Zar stayed rocking that shit like it was some kind of armor. He did a U-turn around my couch, ran his palm across his forehead, wiped the sweat onto his jeans, and came back to the hall.

“I just got fuckin' robbed, bro.”

Funny how a dude can cruise the road from neighbor to acquaintance to homeboy without ever coming to a full stop at any of the intersections. Me and Zar, our relationship was like one of those late-night cab rides where the driver hits his rhythm and the green lights stretch forever.

He'd come upstairs and introduced himself the day I moved into his building two years ago. When you're moving four, five pounds of herb a week, you've got to know who you live with. He sized me up, decided I was cool, and told me his door was always open. I didn't really have too much going on then—just a half-time shit job in an office mailroom and a baby daughter Uptown who I never got to see—so before long I was coming by to smoke. If Zar wasn't already puffing one of those big-ass Bob Marley cone spliffs when I walked in, my entrance was always reason enough for him to sweep his locks over his shoulder, hunch down over his coffeetable, and commence to building one.

I called his crib Little Kingston. All the old dreads from the block would be up in there every afternoon, talkin' bout how horse fat an' cow dead, whatever the fuck those bobo Ashanti yahoos do. I never said much to any of them, just passed the dutchie on the left hand side. Zar got much love from the bredren, but a domestically grown nigga like me stayed on the outskirts. Whatever. Later for all that I-n-I bullshit anyway.

I flipped the top lock quick. “What?”

“Motherfucker walked straight into my crib, bro, ski-masked up. Put a fuckin' Glock 9 to my head while I was lying in bed. Ran me for all my herb.” His hand shook as he lifted a thumb-and-finger pistol to his temple. Fear or rage; I couldn't tell.

“How many?” I asked. “Who?” In Zar's business, you don't get jacked by strangers. Strictly friends and well-wishers.

“Just one, and he knew where my shit was.”

“Even the secret shit?”

“Not the secret shit. I still got that. But the other ten are gone—I just re-upped yesterday. Son of a bitch filled a trashbag, duct taped me up, and bounced.”

“Didn't do a very good job with the tape, did he?”

Zar shook his head. “He was shitting his pants more than I was, T. And that's when you get shot: when a cat doesn't know what the fuck he's doing.”

“You want a drink?” I didn't know what else to say.

“You got a joint?”

“Yeah. Yeah. Hold on.” I went to the bedroom and grabbed my sack. Zar was sitting on the edge of the couch when I got back, flipping an orange pack of Zig-Zags through his knuckles.

“This might be kinda beside the point right now,” I said carefully, settling into the chair across from him, “but it's probably time to dead all that open-door no-gun shit, huh?”

The bottom line was that Eleazar was practically asking to be robbed. He never locked his door, and the only weapon in his crib was the chef's knife he used to chop up ganja for his customers. He had some kind of who-Jah-bless-let-no-man-curse theory about the whole thing. Plus, all the small-timers who copped off him knew that Zar was tight with the old Jamaicans who really ran the neighborhood. And to top it off, Zar was convinced that he looked crazy ill strutting around his apartment with that big blade gleaming in his hand: a wild-minded, six-two, skin-and-bones whiteboy with a spliff dangling from his mouth and hair ropes trailing down his back. Half Lee “Scratch” Perry, half Frank White.

It was an equation that left plenty out—the growling stomachs of every young thug in the area, for starters. A year ago, all Zar's customers had been dimebag-and-bike-peddling yardmen, and everything had been peace. Then the neighborhood boys found out about him. I told Zar he shouldn't even fuck with them.
I know these niggas like I know myself, I said. They're outta control. They trying to be who Jay-Z says he is on records, dude. You don't need that in your life.

He shrugged me off.
They're babies. I man nah fear no likkle pickney.
Any time Zar started speaking yard, I just left his ass alone. But he should have listened. You could practically see these kids narrowing their eyes every time he turned his back. It had gotten to the point where I'd started locking the door myself whenever I came over.

“It was Jumpshot,” Zar said, as smoke twirled up from the three-paper cone he'd rolled. “It had to be.”

I leaned forward. “Why Jumpshot?” So-called because he liked to tell folks he was only in the game because genetics had failed to provide him with NBA height. Or WNBA height, for that matter.

“Two reasons.” Zar offered me the weed. I shook my head. “Three, actually. One, he sells the most. He's got the most ambition. Two, that shit last month, when he complained and I sonned him.”

“Hold up, you did what? You ain' tell me this.”

Zar cocked his head at me. “Yes I did, bro. Didn't I? He came by at night, picked up a QP. I was mad tired, plus mad zooted, and I gave him a shitty shake-bag by mistake. So the next morning he shows up with two of his boys, dudes I don't even know, bitching. Little Ja Rule-lookin' cocksucker. I was like, ‘okay, cool.' Sat him down, gave him a new bag, took the one he didn't want and threw it on the table. Then I brought out the chalice, like ‘now we're gonna see if y'all can really smoke.'”

He had told me this story. It was funny at the time, hearing how Zar had smoked Jump and his boys into oblivion, burned up half Jump's new herb sack before he even got out of the room. The way Zar told it, Jumpshot's crew had passed out, but Jump himself refused to go down; he'd sat there all glassy-eyed, slumped back, barely able to bring the chalice-pipe to his lips, while Zar talked at him for hours like he was the kid's uncle or something—regaled him with old smuggling stories from the island days, gave him advice on females, told him how to eat right, all types of shit.

After a while, Zar said, he'd put this one song on repeat for hours, just to see if Jump would notice. “Herbman Trafficking,” by Welton Irie, Zar's theme music:
some a use heroin, some a snort up cocaine/but all I want for Christmas dat a two ganja plane/as one take off the other one land/we load the sinsemilla in one by one/they tell me that it value is a quarter million/me sell it in the sun and a me sell it in the rain/ca' when me get the money me go buy gold chain/me eat caviar and me a drink champagne . . .

“So what's the third reason?” I asked.

“I recognized that motherfucker's kicks. He got the new Jordans last week.” Eleazar stood up. “I gotta send a message. Right?”

I threw up my hands. “I'd say so. Yeah. I mean, you gotta do something.”

“Come see Cornelius with me.”

“Man, Cornelius doesn't know me.”

“You're in there all the time.”

“So? I'm just another dude who likes his vegi-fish and cornbread. Whatchu want me there for, anyway?”

“Cause I'ma go see Jumpshot after that. And I'd like some company, you know what I'm saying?”

“What, you just gonna knock on his door? Say you're the Girl Scouts? Why would he even be home?”

“If he's not home, he's not home. If he is, I'll play it like I'm coming for help, like ‘you're the man on the street, find out who jacked me, I'll make it worth your while.'”

Zar looked sharper, more angular, than I'd ever seen him. Like he was coming into focus. “I guess if he wanted to shoot you, he woulda done it half an hour ago,” I said.

“Exactly. Now he's gotta play business-as-usual. Besides, I'm known to be unarmed. Now you understand why: so when I do pick up a strap, it's some real out-of-character shit.”

“I don't wanna be involved in no craziness, Zar.” I said it mostly just to get it on the record. Once you put in a certain number of hours with a cat like Eleazar, you become affiliated. Obligated. It starts off easy-going: you come over, you chill, you smoke.
Ay T, you hungry? I'm 'bout to order up some food. Put away your money, dog. I got you
. Then it becomes
Yo T, I gotta go out for a hot second. Do me a solid and mind the store, bro
. Or,
Man, I'm mad tired. Can you bring Jamal this package for me? I'll break you off. Good lookin out, T.

I stood and walked out of the room.

“Fuck you going?” Zar called after me. I could tell from his tone that he was standing with his arms spread wide, like Isaac Hayes as Black Moses.

I came back and shook my duffel bag at him. “Unless you wanna carry those ten bricks back home in your drawers.”

“Good call.”

We drove to the spot, and I waited in the Cutlass while Zar talked to Cornelius. Most innocent-looking store in Crown Heights: Healthy Living Vegetarian Cafe and Juice Bar. They sold major weight, and only to maybe two or three cats, total. You had to come highly recommended, had to be Jamaican or be Isaac Eleazar.

The funny thing was that Cornelius could cook his ass off. You'd never know his spareribs were made of gluten. All Cornelius's daughters worked in there, too, and every one of them was fine as hell. Different mothers, different shades of lovely. I stopped flirting after Eleazar told me what the place was really about. Started noticing all the scars Cornelius had on his neck and his forearms, too. He was from Trenchtown, Zar said. Marley's neighborhood. You didn't get out of there without a fight.

The metal gate was still down when we arrived, but Cornelius was inside sweeping up. He raised it just enough to let Zar limbo underneath. I watched the face of the barrelchested, teak-skinned man in the white chef's apron darken as the pale, lanky dread bent to whisper in his ear. Then Cornelius laid his broom against a chair and beckoned Zar into the back room.

It wasn't even a minute later when Zar ducked back outside and jumped into the car. He didn't say anything, just fisted the wheel and swung the Cutlass around. His face was blank, like an actor getting into character. I'd always thought his eyes were blue, but now they looked gray, the color of sidewalk cement.

“So what he say?”

I figured he'd probably ignore the question, but I had to ask.

“He said ‘Isaac, there are those that hang, and those who do the cutting.' And he gave me what I asked for.” Zar opened the left side of his jacket and I saw the handle of a pistol. Looked like a .38. Used to have one of those myself.

“I was hoping Cornelius would tell you he'd take care of it,” I said.

Zar shook his head about a millimeter. “Not how it works, T.” He made a right onto Jumpshot's block, found a space and backed in—cut the wheel too early and fucked it up and had to start over. There was another car-length of space behind him, but Zar missed on the second try, too. I guess his mind was elsewhere. He nailed it on the third, flicked the key, and turned to me. Surprising how still it suddenly felt in there, with the engine off. How close.

“It's cool if you want to wait in the car, T.” Zar said it staring straight ahead.

I ground my teeth together, felt my jaw flare. Mostly just so Zar would feel the weight of the favor. “I'm good.”

“You good?”

“I'm good.”

“Let's do this.”

It was a pretty street. Row houses on either side, and an elementary school with a playground in the middle of the block. I used to live on a school block back Uptown. It'd be crazy loud every day from about noon to three—different classes going to recess, fifty or sixty juiced-up kids zooming all over the place. Basketball, tag, doubledutch. Couldn't be too mad at it, though. It was nice noise.