Rage Is Back (9781101606179) (21 page)

“Night camps,” Supreme Chemistry explained, covering his nose with his shirt. “Fuckin' trailer parks of the tunnels. You want a ten-dollar suck-off from a foster-care runaway with trackmarks, come back through here in about six hours.”

“Thanks, I'll set my watch.”

“Oh, Rage-ito got jokes, huh? Let me guess. You're the
funny
black dude up at that hincty-ass school.”

“Yeah, something like that.”

“Where is everybody?” Billy asked.

“Upstairs hustling. We still close to the surface. These mufuckers come downstairs to crash, but they don't
live
here. Cops bust this up like once a week. The real camps are deeper. Harder to find.”

“How do
you
know where?”

“I'm Supreme Chemistry, B. The world is my living room. Here, have a granola bar. I got Peanut Butter Chocolate or Cookies and Cream.”

We stopped before a cement wall. “First the doggie door,” 'Preme said, and dropped flat to arch himself through a sledgehammered opening. Billy and I followed. On the other side was a narrow ridge, overlooking an abyss, though I use
overlooking
loosely. I couldn't see a thing.

“Now the monkey vine.” He reached into the blackness and grabbed a thick cable, like a magician pulling a card out of thin air. Wrapped his legs around it. Vanished.

I went next, and came down a three-count later, atop a layer of trash bags stuffed with clothes—to cushion the drop, Supreme Chem said, but also to make the floor invisible, so that if somebody uninvited made it to the ledge and looked down, he wouldn't risk a jump.

The eyes tricked the brain all kinds of ways down here. You'd catch a flash of light in your periphery, whirl toward it and find nothing, only the darkness spinning itself up around you as punishment for turning your head too fast. Sounds echoed above, in the cubbyholes hollowed from the walls, and you'd look up and see vampiric silhouettes swoop toward you, only to disintegrate an instant before fang found neck. Or your eyes picked out a shape that seemed impossible, and you dismissed it, told yourself no rat could be that big—and then whoosh, the figment brushed against your leg and trundled past like the sale at Macy's was ending in fifteen minutes and you were just one more street-clogging imbecile.

Before long light breached the horizon, cold and pale like it was coming from one of those lamps set toward the bottom of a swimming pool, with none of the flicker or heat of the few campfires we'd passed. I looked away and my eyes seared a bright square blotch onto a charred wall: my own personal Rothko.

“Hold up.” Supreme Chemistry stopped short, and I walked into his forearm like it was a turnstile bar.

“Good guests don't show up unannounced.” He leaned past me, grabbed a stick propped up against the tunnel wall, and thwanged a pipe running just below the ceiling. A few seconds later, someone on the other end tapped back.

We rounded a final bend, and stepped into an enormous natural cavern, so high and wide that for a moment it seemed we weren't underground at all. Light trickled in through a street grate, bounced off the craggy walls and reached the dwellings speckling the flat ground stripped of warmth, more like moonbeams than sunshine.

Cardboard and bedsheets and black plastic were the primary building materials, plus the occasional beam of salvaged wood. Sounds humble, but some of these structures wound on and on, like the pillow-fort a rich kid with mad couches would build in his living room. There were a few proper tents, too, and as I looked up I saw that every suitable nook and hollow in the high rock walls served as a domicile. Candles threw skittish light on bedding and bookcases; clotheslines sagged with wash. From one of those aeries, a radio wheezed a Bob Dylan song. I'm not sure which one, but Kid Capri wasn't DJing, so it wasn't “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” though that is by far the man's best work. Or at least the only joint I found listenable on the
Greatest Hits
CD the Uptown Girl gave me as part of the Advanced Whiteness Studies curriculum that dating her required me to master.

Billy and I just stood there, at the mouth, trying to absorb it all. In front of me, a swarm of kids chased a soccer ball. Behind them, two women cooked over a waist-high metal trashcan, pots balanced on chickenwire, flames oranging their faces.

A sense of peace, of stillness, seemed to permeate the place. That lasted for about thirty seconds, at which point the largest female human being I had ever seen walked straight up to my father, reared back her oven-mitt-sized hand, and slapped Billy across the jaw so hard she turned his head.

“You got a lot of balls, showing up here. And you got a lot bringing him, Drum.”

I waited for Supreme Chemistry to tell her his new name.

He didn't.

Billy rubbed his cheek. “You must be Lou.” If it sounds like a funny thing to say, it wasn't.

She looked him over. “Heard you were gonna be downstairs. Heard you got your life together.”

“You hear a lot,” I said.

She snapped a look at me, the kind the pitcher gives the runner on first base, then stepped in close to Billy. “Half these people think you cursed us, man. Come on, before the whole world sees you.”

Off she loped. We jogged to keep up. It was like crossing the set of a Civil War movie—you know, the scene where you see the whole bustling battlefield tent city laid out, and then come to the general's quarters, full of crystal decanters and elaborate furniture some battalion of assholes had to lug across four states. Lou's residence was a deep natural recess, a cave within the cave. Cinderblock bookcases lined one wall. The other was a pantry, stocked with cans. Near the entrance, two wooden park benches faced off over a milkcrate coffeetable draped with a piece of coarse African-patterned fabric, the kind you can buy at any street fair. It matched the curtain she'd slapped aside to admit us, and the one obscuring whatever lay farther in.

Billy, Supreme Chemistry and I squeezed onto one bench. Our hostess took up most of the other.

“I didn't curse anyone,” my father said. “That wasn't in my training.”

“I don't mean you threw a curse, Billy. I mean you are one.” Lou leaned forward, elbows on her knees, and used one dreadlock to fasten the rest into a ponytail. “Last week, some real nasty cops started fucking with my people. Asking questions about you.”

“Bracken? The one running for mayor?”

“You think I'm living in a goddamn cave so I can follow politics? No pig yet knows how to find my camp, and I don't leave but once a month. A white cop who likes to hurt people, that's all I know. Him and his boys. They been grabbing our runners on the way down. Making threats, and making good on those threats. Look.”

Lou pointed halfway up the cavern wall. I squinted and saw a thick pipe jutting from the bedrock. Below it, on the ground, was a toppled stack of white plastic buckets, the kind painters use.

“He made the Tears of Buddha dry up,” she said. “Without a water source, this place can't last.”

“Maybe the city fixed the leak,” I suggested.

“After ten years?” Lou's bench creaked as she sat down. “‘Bring him to me, or you'll be drinking each other's piss,' that's what he told my guy. Next morning, dry.”

We took that in.

“All your work's been painted over, Billy. You probably wouldn't know where to look, but if you did, you'd see.”

“Who?” I asked. “How?”

“The same way your old man had everybody bringing him paint to ‘defend' us against demons to begin with.” She turned to Supreme Chemistry. “He staggers in a few weeks ago, smelling like year-old ass. No fucking grasp on reality whatsoever, even for down here. Ranting and raving about all type of evil spirits and shit—when he was strong enough to speak at all, which was about an hour a day before these good-hearted, gullible motherfuckers started forcing whatever food they could spare down his throat.” She spread her arms across the top slat of the bench and glowered. “Belief is destiny down here. Folks scare easy, and they do what they think they have to. They listened when he told them he needed paint to make us safe from the fuckin' boogeyman, and they listened when the cop said get rid of it or get their legs broke. Busted their tails until everything was gone.”

“Wait a sec,” I said. “The guy defending you leaves, and you get attacked? You ought to be glad he's back.”

“That's some faulty-ass logic.”

“I know.”

My father stood. “I'm sorry, Lou. I never meant to cause you any trouble. Is there anything we can do to help?”

She eyed Billy from her bench. “Why don't you just tell me what you want, man? I know you didn't drop by to thank me for saving your life, because you haven't.”

“No, no, I . . .” My father clasped his hands behind his back, but they only stayed that way a second. “Thank you.”

“Don't mention it.” Lou raised her eyebrows and treated him to several theatrical blinks.

“We, uh, we were hoping you might . . .”

“Let me guess. Y'all got some fuckin' scheme to paint them trains, and you want my people's help.”

“How did—”

“I hear a lot.”

“Yeah, you sure do, girl,” Supreme Chemistry chimed in. “That's what I always tell ninjas: Don't nothing get by my honey Lou. She the boss of the tunnels and shit, like Don Corleone meets fuckin' . . . fuckin' . . .”

“Save it.” She rose, bent, threw a finger in his face. “Don't try to play me, Drum.”

He shut his mouth. She wheeled toward Billy.

“You're asking me to put this community at risk, when we're already in crisis. It'd be out of line coming from anybody, but from you it's, I don't know. Preposterous. I've got half a mind to hand you over to that cop myself.”

“See, now that's an interesting choice of words,” Supreme Chemistry said, and without so much as uncrossing his legs, he extracted from one of his innumerable pockets what I can only describe as a very large, chromey, decidedly modern-looking handgun. He didn't point or cock it, just tapped the barrel against his thigh and kept on talking, mad conversational.

“Half a mind's what Nina here would leave you with, if I was to squeeze her off. It's all gravy though, Lou, I know you just voicing some frustration and shit—speaking, how you say, rhetorically right now. Even though I bet fuckin' Eggy and Sikilianos and whatever other hard bodies you keep around these days is sitting right behind that curtain, waiting on your say-so.”

For a moment, nobody spoke. 'Preme jiggled his leg against the ground, real nonchalant, like he was waiting for a bus. Lou tried out four or five different scowls before settling on one she liked, sitting down across from him, and leaning in.

“You ever bring a burner into my home again, I'll shove it up your narrow ass and squeeze the trigger.”

They nearly knocked knees, rushing to stand.

“I'm here with love in my heart, girl,” 'Preme said, into her neck. The nine still dangled from his hand. “You the one who brought up cops.”

“Go!” Lou pushed him as she said it, and 'Preme stumbled back a pace, off-balance and off-guard. Billy darted into the emptiness between them, and raised his arms like a tightrope-walker.

“We're outta here. In peace.” He grabbed 'Preme by the elbow, turned him, splayed a hand across his back. 'Preme didn't resist. I scrambled to follow.

“Yeah,
peace
,” Lou shouted, the word practically visible as she spit it.

Billy called over his shoulder, without slowing down.

“You'll get your water back, Lou. I promise. We're gonna take him down.”

She hipped her hands, rocked on her heels. “Get the fuck on, Billy. Everything you touch turns to shit, you know that? Do you?”

“Yeah,” he said through gritted teeth, eyes on the ground before him. “Yeah. I know.”

We stepped into the tunnel. It felt like sanctuary. Supreme Chemistry stashed the gun, removed his sunglasses, and pressed a knuckle to each eye.

“I can't believe I used to date that bitch,” he muttered, and handed each of us a juice box.

10

ince your punk-ass narrator decided he'd rather dick around in the dark with a bunch of degenerate has-beens than see how real money is made, I suppose it falls to The Party-Rockin Show-Stoppin Pussy-Poppin CLOUD NIZZLE NINE to grab the reins. I
can
write, you know—just cause I stole mad shit and did some time doesn't mean I'm not nice with the pen. Don't forget, those things we used to put on the trains were words. We didn't ramble on with em, either. Said what we had to say and stepped. More than I can say for some of the books I read in the joint. Boring a mufucka locked in an eight-by-ten for years on top of years, now that's a fuckin accomplishment.

One thing, before we get into some gangster shit: you sposed to all-cap a writer's name. Youngblood ain know that, but then what he don't know could fill a warehouse. Haha, I'm just fuckin with you, D. You know you fam, baby. Anyway, don't think I'm yelling every time I say CLOUD 9 or whatever.

In prison you learn that the direct route isn't just the most effective, it's the most satisfying. So while RAGE and FEVER were putting a team together down at the Parlor, I was knocking on Theo Polhemus's door in Crown Heights. Dude lived on floor two of a brownstone, which right away set off my Halfway Crook alarm. Mad weight coming in and out? Yardbwoys slidin troo fe re-up all the rasclaat time? And you run shop out of a building anyone could just stroll into? Word? I mean, sure, Everton had the neighborhood on lock and everybody knew Polhemus was his guy, but still. There's always crazy niggas, and they always usually got shotguns. You can take that to the bank.

It was eleven-thirty in the morning. I had on shades, an old trick of mine from back in the click-clack days. A mask says you're scared, amateur, expecting to get caught. Sunglasses say you're chill and in control and as long as everybody cooperates things will go by the books. Masks remind people that you don't wanna be recognized, make them start thinking that if they notice something useful, they could be heroes later on. Next thing you know you're getting IDed off your voice, or a real distinctive fuckin nosehair that was sticking out.

On the other side of Polhemus's door, somebody says Who is it.

I say Tap tap BOOM. Birds ain't even got their warble on, and your door's shaking off the hinges.

He says Excuse me? but in a fake way, like a chick would say it when she means Oh no you didn't.

Don't make me repeat myself I tell him. You and me, we need to talk. And then I listen very closely because either he already had a piece when he came to the door, which I put at thirty percent likely, or he's picking one up now. And sure enough, I hear a hand come off the doorframe, followed by the sound of something being lifted off a table. His door is the kind that opens in and to the left, so I wait to hear the last lock move—you gotta count how many there are and then add one for the deadbolt; I forgot to do that once and kicked the door too early and fucked up my whole play—and then I slam my shoulder into it, hard as I can.

As I believe Dondi has mentioned, I'm kinda diesel with mine. So Polhemus is stuck between his door and his wall, gun mashed against his body. Pointed at his own chin, probably.

Drop the burner I say. It's not necessary. All we're gonna do is talk. He drops it and here comes my first game-time decision: obviously I wanna pick it up, but a dude with the right presence of mind could kick the door back at me when I bend over for the weapon. Which is a thirty-eight from the fuckin days of bell bottoms. With Jumpshot's body on it, most likely, making Polhemus an even bigger asshole.

It doesn't make him a dude who will put his life at risk before even hearing what I have to say, though, so I swoop down and grab the gun and drop it in my pocket. Anybody else in here? I ask him, though it doesn't look like it and the place is only three rooms, living room in the front, kitchen in the middle, bedroom in the back, all of them visible over my shoulder.

There's nobody here he says, in a real calm voice I instantly hate because it's fake, the voice of a guy in a movie who's cooler than the guy robbing him. I kick the door closed, tell him Lock it. I'm watching to see how much he fumbles, how nervous he is. He's not. At least, his hands aren't. Or he might be so petrified his body's gone to autopilot, everything smooth and slow. That happens sometimes.

I've got a hand on the small of his back, and I'm checking out the living room for that next little bit of information that might tell me something I need to know about Theo Polhemus. The prison landscape is so boring that you automatically start to dissect the fuck out of everything, on some oh, hey, what an interesting crack in the ceiling, is it wider than a pencil eraser? I felt like one of Dondi's second-rate superheroes out here in the real world, Observant Man and shit.

No TV, no couch to watch it from. Books stacked up in piles on the floor, but no bookcase. Walls bare except a free calendar from the local Chinese restaurant. Hi, come in, take this, gimme that, get out. It's one way to do business.

Over there I said, waving him into the empty room. With my hand—it was better if both of us forgot about the gun.

What do you want?

Don't you think I'm gonna tell you? I said, and smiled to show him how ridiculous he sounded. My script for this shit was: make it feel like two gentlemen coming to a business arrangement. Every nigga out these days wants to feel like a businessman. I blame Jay-Z. Life was easier when hustlers were just hustlers, not the Chief Executive Officers of imaginary criminal empires.

Dondi had done a pretty good job of describing Polhemus to me, which is why I'm only remembering to do it for you now. Dude was nothing special. Five-eight, darkskinned, round rimless glasses. A buttondown-shirt type, coulda played the computer hacker in a crime movie but not the boss. Kind of thick in the chest and arms, like he worked out semi-seriously.

Me, on the other hand, I look like a one hundred percent freakshow with all these jailhouse muscles. I'd never lifted anything heavier than my own dick before I got sent up, but once you're inside you just keep on lifting and getting bigger, lifting and getting bigger, and the next thing you know you're one of these cartoon-biceps-having weightroom dudes. I'm taking it all off as soon as possible. The shit is useless on the outside, if not worse. Attracts the wrong kind of women, lets convicts know you're one of them.

I took a few steps toward Polhemus, spread my legs, and dropped my hands to my belt. Then I slid my copy of his story from my back pocket, unfolded it, and laid it on the table by the door, the one he'd scooped the handgun from.

I'm a literary agent, I told him. I wanna be
your
literary agent. I really think I can sell
Crown Heist
.

I waited a second, then smiled and said To you. Or to Cornelius, if you're not interested. I mean Everton.

He gave me a long stare, his own reflection boomeranging off my shades.

It's all made up, he said. It's like a fantasy. You know what fiction is, don't you?

I sighed.

I was just thinking that I respected you for not trying to hand me any bullshit about fiction. I might have been born on a Friday, Polhemus, but it wasn't last Friday.

He sighed.

Theo I said. There are those that hang and those who do the cutting. It's a good line.

Thanks.

You're welcome. Although it's not really yours, is it?

Polhemus crossed his arms over his chest.

I'm not here to hang you I told him.

That right.

Yes it is. I'm just here to cut you.

The ones who do the cutting means the ones who cut your body down after you're dead Polhemus said.

I know what the fuck it means. Now here's what I mean. I mean you give me a hundred large and I walk out the door. That's a cut. It stings, but it doesn't kill you.

I don't have that kind of money. He dropped his shoulders and shoved his hands in his pockets, which is a typical thing people do when they're soft-selling a lie.

Look, I said, I'm not one of those guys who take it personal when I get lied to. But do you really think I pulled that number out my ass?

I don't—

That number is based on many factors. The type of weight you move. How long you been moving it. What your home-furnishing expenses are. All kinds of shit. It's not how much I think you have. It's how much a nigga who has the amount I
know
you have should give up without even thinking twice to make a nigga like me go away. If he's as smart as he makes himself sound in his fuckin page-turner of a story.

His hand darted out of his pocket, pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, then disappeared again. The glasses didn't seem to need pushing. It probably meant he thought he was sweating, even though he wasn't.

How do I know you will?

Will what, Polhemus?

Go away. How do I know you won't come back for more?

That's a fair question. You don't, really. Except that I say so, and because if I wanted to I could take everything right now, all your dough and all your product. Plus unless you're some kind of ill blackbelt, I could kill you with my bare hands in about thirty seconds. And if you are a blackbelt, I could use your gun. I mean Laz's gun.

I took it out. Only then did I think to check the barrel.

Well, I could if it was loaded. I put it back in my pocket. What were we talking about?

How you only want a hundred.

Like I said. I'm a reasonable dude. You're a reasonable dude. I got no reason to ruin your life, or make you decide you need to ruin mine. And a hundred's all I need.

Polhemus slitted his eyes. You did time with Lazarus, didn't you?

That type of question, you should keep in your head. You don't need to get to know me. Now go fetch my dough.

I don't keep money here. I'm not that stupid.

Nigga, if you try to tell me you got a checking account with a thousand-dollar ATM max, I swear I will break your fuckin collarbone.

My mom's, Polhemus said quickly. I use her apartment as a stash house. All I got here's petty cash.

And where does Moms live?

One-forty-fifth and Saint Nick.

Then I guess we're going to Harlem. Still got your boy Abraham's Cutlass?

He nodded.

A fine automobile. Let's roll.

I made him step into the hallway first, then shut the door behind us. We were starting down the stairs when I heard the buzzer go off inside Polhemus's apartment. A moment later, the dude on the front stoop got tired of waiting and tried the door. He discovered, just like I had, that the shit was open.

Yo T, he called when he got inside. Fuck you going? We got an appointment.

I poked Polhemus to let him know he should keep walking. The dude met us halfway. It was dark on the stairs, so even Observant Man didn't really take in much beyond some sloppy cornrows and a broad face lined with scars.

I got something I gotta do, Polhemus told him. I'll catch you tonight, cool?

Hell no it's not cool. I gotta get that thing from you. Come on, turn your ass around, it won't take but a minute. I got the scratch right here.

Polhemus looked to me.

Business is business, I said.

Polhemus slipped past, unlocked his door. As soon as we were all inside he said Terry, shoot this motherfucker.

Terry looked confused, but he pulled a .45 from his waist.

You serious? He held the gun by his side, not ready to aim it.

Yes I'm serious, shoot this motherfucker, he's trying to rob me.

If he's trying to rob you, why y'all leaving together?

Polhemus was in a panic, as if with every second Terry didn't act, the chances slimmed. Terry, on the other hand, seemed perfectly content to take all the time he needed to figure the situation out. Being the only dude with heat gives you that luxury.

Because I keep all my shit at my mother's place, Polhemus yelled. Shoot him!

But all your—oh, I get it. You roll up to your old crib and sic your niggas from around the way on him as soon as y'all step out onto the block, huh?

I think my mouth probably dropped open. When had I turned into such a fuckin moron, about to let this fishcake nigga get me ambushed in another borough? Jail makes you hard in some ways, softer than baby shit in others. And you might not realize the softness, the fuckin stupidity, until it's too late or some random-ass cat figures out your fate before you do. Jesus Christ, I was embarrassed. I'm a man, I can admit that.

Terry looked real pleased with himself. He turned toward me, the muzzle a little higher now but still directed at the floor. And just like that, my brain made it up to me, and I realized who Terry was. And vicey-versey.

I know you from somewhere? he asked.

Yes you do.

He clocked me for a sec, then said We was locked up together.

Yes we were. And let me tell you something. All them scars you got there for your cousin's sake, this right here's the man you need to take it up with. That white Rasta might've pulled the trigger, but it was your boy T who set Jumpshot up, made it look like he robbed Lazarus.