Saint And Sinners (70 page)

“One night this little mothafucka, about your age, maybe a year younger or older,
approached me after I and my boys had finished up fighting with the Seven Immortals.
This was waaaaay after that shit with the Ghetto Brothers. Did you know anything about
that?”

“The truce?”

“Yeeeeeah, that shit happened way before you were even born, Saint. There was an agreement
to stop, cease-fire so to speak. I don’t think you were aware of this, but I was way
cool with the Ghetto Brothers after Black Benjie got killed.”

Saint swallowed and nodded. “I’d heard all about that. I had done some research after
I became an adult to find out the history of the shit before I was born since no one
told me. All I saw was the aftermath.”

“Right. We all had formed a truce down there on Hoe Avenue after that shit. There
was a lot of respect for Black Benjie, man. That whole thing was fucked up.” He tapped
his cigarette in the ashtray. “Anyway, I never really had no beef with them but one
night, like so many others, a bunch of us got into some shit. I don’t even know what
the fuck it was about anymore…” He shrugged. “But, some shit popped off; we fought
the Seven Immortals’—it was us and the Savage Nomads actually. We came back to our
turf and was wiggin’. I wanted to get high so bad. That was typical of me after a
fight though.” He paused, and then Saint noticed Bomb’s hand shake with the cigarette
in his grip. A subtle reaction he may have been missed, but like a withered leaf on
a tree tickled by the kiss of a soft breeze, it shook, trembled, and moved about as
if a tiny bundle of nerves inside of his fingers had gone out of whack.

“My adrenaline was pumpin’. You’d think that would have been enough, but no.” He laughed
and shook his head. “I beat their asses, man…beat ‘em
bad
, got a lot of praise for that shit, too. I was sittin’ pretty. All we all wanted
to do was party after that, get into some mess, maybe find some pussy to bust out.
So, we scoured around, tryna score some weed ’nd what not. The police were out pretty
heavy because of the fight, so we had to kinda stay lowkey.” He sniffed, placed his
index finger under his nostril as if expecting a sneeze, but nothing came. “So, uh,
this little Chinese dude—hell, I don’t know if he was Chinese, he may have been Japanese,
I just knew he was Asian—he was kinda standing around, the little kid…

“He pulled my jacket, and at that time, I was real protective of my Savage Skulls
jacket.” He chuckled. “So I snapped at the kid and he was like, ‘Sorry’ ’nd shit.
Then he pulled this little plastic bag outta his pocket and handed it to me. I opened
that crap up…maaaaaan Saint!” Bomb laughed. “Every damn goodie gum drop pill you could
imagine!” He threw his hands up as if speaking of the Promised Land. “Uppers, downers,
you name it! A fuckin’ candy shop. There was even a few little bags of weed in there,
rollin’ papers, too. Little kid says to me, ‘I stole it from my uncle. I want to give
it to you.’ Well, me being the hype and fucker that I was, I didn’t question this
mothafuckin’ gift horse in the mouth. Man, I ran off with that shit and shared it
with my boys along with some warm beers we stole from some warehouse, and we partied
all fucking night! We found some girls, took care of that business, too. I was so
fucking high, I didn’t come down for hours!”

“Then, I caught my first fucking case, Saint. Yeah…I was
so
fucking high, higher than I’ve ever been, I went out and did some shit I don’t even
fucking remember. My boys got wrapped up in some shit, too, but not like me. When
the police got us, they complied. Word had it that I became…what’s the word…?” He
snapped his fingers. “Belligerent! Yeah, that’s what was in the police report, and
that I was swinging on a cop, almost tore his fuckin’ face off with my bare hands,
man! I went to jail and when I got out, you were gone! Vanished!” Bomb’s voice escalated
to the point that he was shouting.

“I went to your old spot, it was empty, like y’all had gotten robbed. A bad feeling
came over me, man.
Real
bad. I asked around; everybody said y’all had moved out. I started yelling, getting
real upset! I
knew
I would not see you for a long ass time, if ever again!” The man’s voice broke in
fragments and Saint melted right there in his seat. It was rare for him to see Bomb
upset to the point of tears. He wasn’t certain if his sobriety and counseling was
making the difference, but from a therapeutic standpoint, it was needed. The man needed
to purge. Saint had no idea he’d been carrying so much heartache over an incident
that literally took less than twenty-four hours—his parents moving him away…

“My heart was fuckin’ broken, man,” Bomb continued. “I was high from that shit that
fucker gave me, and I got into some big trouble. I ain’t tryna sit here and say I
hadn’t had my run-ins with the cops before that.” He laughed lightly. “You know, before
that shit went down, but I’d never been in the slammer that fucking long up until
that point. I was still under eighteen, so they couldn’t keep me as long as they wanted
to, but it was plenty long enough. It was like some huge, underground plot. To this
day, I don’t even fuckin’ remember all the details of what I did, Lil’ Pharaoh. They
say I robbed a store too that night, that I was high on angel dust and some other
shit, I don’t know…how ironic, angel dust…” He shook his head, looking almost ashamed.
“I went crazy looking for you though. I had no idea your old man had moved you away
from there.” He pointed sternly in Saint’s face. “Don’t think I didn’t try for a long
ass time to find your ass—I did! Your mama and pops weren’t listed in the phone books,
neither. No one seemed to know where you all went…”

“My parents didn’t tell anyone,” Saint explained, feeling pangs of guilt that he wasn’t
able to somehow rewrite history.

Bomb scratched his nose and nodded.

“I knew.” His expression morphed into something that made Saint shudder. “That Asian
fucker
got rid of me, so I couldn’t watch over you anymore. He was just a little boy, but
Saint, he ain’t have no fucking light in his eyes, man! I had never seen no little
kid look like that before, but I was too busy tryna get high and have fun. I didn’t
give it much thought at the time. They were black as coal. Never seen eyes that dead
before…’cept on an actual dead man, and even a dead man lying in the damn street had
more life and light in him than this cat.”

Saint’s stomach knotted in a tight ball that threatened to do him in. “Bomb, I have
to ask you a question about this. You may not remember, consider the circumstances,
but I have to ask…do you recall that little boy’s name?”

“Nah, I don’t. And the crazy part was, after that, nobody ever saw him again. After
you were gone, it’s like he vanished around that same damn time. You know we didn’t
have too many Asian people ’round there then, man. They stuck out, like your mama.
Trust me, I wanted to know where his ass was, too.”

The room grew suddenly colder, causing Saint to rub his arms as he swallowed down
a foul taste that had filled his mouth.

I know who the fuck that was… Koki, you sly, slithering sneaky son of a bitch!

“Ahhhhh!” The pain in Saint’s gut increased, this time worse than before. He looked
off into the distance then fell to the floor. Gripping himself, he screamed in pain,
his eyes fixed on the strip of flooring in front of the stove. Curling cream linoleum
blurred as his vision went in and out. He heard Bomb’s seat smack the ground as the
man raced to him, once again pulling him up, forcing him to make eye contact.

“Saint!”

“Shit!” Saint spat between clenched teeth. “Oh God…Oh!” He gripped his shirt tight.
“Just…give me a minute…it’s lessening again. I’m not sick, Bomb! It’s him!” Pressure
and dull pain spread across his chest as if a mild heart attack had begun from his
stomach and crawled its way into his ribs, refusing to let go. Bomb hoisted him up,
placed him into the chair.

“He must be aware that I know now…” Saint gasped as his eyeballs rolled around in
his throbbing head.

“What are you talking about?” Bomb leaned onto the table but kept one arm around Saint’s
trembling shoulder, watching him, refusing to budge.

“Bomb…”

“Yeah.”

“Hold on, give me a minute.” Saint closed his eyes and caught his breath. He laid
his hand across his chest, monitored his inhales and exhales, self-soothing, healing
himself. After a couple of minutes, he deemed it safe to speak. “When I learn something
about him, it hurts, because he can feel I’ve come into the knowledge. So, as we talk…about
this…” Saint took another deep breath. “I’m getting hit, spiritually beat up.” They
were quiet for a moment.

“You know how some people believe there is a demon on your right shoulder and an angel
on your left?” Saint questioned.

“I’ve heard similar shit, yeah…like bad and good influences over our lives.”

“Well, that philosophy is somewhat true. You see, Angel Children, people like me,
are not the only ones here that roam the Earth. There are also Demon Children and
they are created, designed if you will, to play on our weaknesses. It doesn’t matter
who it is. It can be regular civilians such as you. It can be other Angel Children
and at times, probably other Demon Children, since they are in fact human beings.
Everyone I’ve mentioned to you is a human being. That is good and bad because it means
we know all about the human condition; we know what gets us excited about life and
living. Demon Children, though, pride themselves in understanding limitations and
frailties.

“We
all
have weaknesses. No one comes into the world, in this flesh, and does not experience
temptation. There are things we want that we should not have. There are people we
are attracted to that we should not be around. There are places we wish to go, we
should never set foot in.” Saint slid a cigar out of his pocket, then motioned to
Bomb to borrow his lighter. The man reached for it and placed it in his palm. Saint
lit the damn thing and leaned back, a proud smile on his face, despite the physical
pain he continued to endure at that very moment. Oh yes…he’d figured it out now. And
in that, he had some peace.

“Big brother, that little boy who gave you those drugs, the one you suspect did it
to get you into a world of trouble and ensure I was gone before you got back…yeah,
I know who that mothafucka was.” Saint grinned wider, took a long, hard drag on his
cigar and watched the lilac hazed nirvana coil from between his lips. He fell into
a soothing groove, and his eyes warmed. Ahhhh yes, sweet bliss…

“Goddamn,” Bomb said in almost a whisper. “I just sat here and watched your light
brown eyes turn fucking bright ass green…”

Saint nodded. “…And you’re sober. … Problem is Bomb…” He poked out his lips, making
circles of smoke. “There is this guy who has been studying me, trying to stop me from
reaching the point I am at today. He’s done that for a very long time and I just came
to this realization. He’s tried to tempt me, to mess up my life. He couldn’t directly
influence me, but he could do it from the sidelines, by presenting a choice. Now,
thanks to you, I know another part of his motivations that I was previously oblivious
to. I barely remember him. Matter of fact, if it weren’t for a hypnotic trance I entered
thanks to my friend Lawrence, I wouldn’t have understood that, the boy you were referring
to and a current situation I am dealing with now are one and the same.” Saint shook
his head and grinned. “Man, you’re
still
protecting me, Bomb. You
never
stopped.”

They looked into each other’s eyes for a long time; a current of love, electricity
and a taste for revenge passed between them.

“As long as you thought about me, you were protecting me in some way. This is the
third time since we reconnected, that you’ve said something that changed the tide,
made things make sense. You have a lot of wisdom, and…it’s specially designed just
for my ears.”

Bomb looked down, partially veiling his face with his hand.

“Our discussion has unlocked things inside of me, that…damn.” Saint paused, gathering
his thoughts once more lest the emotions choke him up to the point his voice gave
out. “Things that I would have thought were
only
a dream or some movie I saw. It’s almost like…like my memory was erased or something
and now all the shit is coming right back.” He swallowed hard. More and more of the
puzzle was coming together with each word he uttered. “It’s harder, scarier, and worse
than before.” Another tinge of pain tried to reclaim the vessels in his heart, constricting
them and twisting them up like rusty car wires in a junkyard.

“So, you think that lil’ boy had more plans than to just remove me from your life?
This was on a bigger scale?”

“Indeed. He’s grown now obviously, ’round the same age as me. His name is Koki, and
he is a Demon Child. I didn’t expect to be getting into all of this. Do we have time
to discuss this or do I need to come back later or something?” Saint glanced down
at his Rolex, his brows bunching in frustration. He wanted to stay in that man’s apartment
until all of this was discussed, worked out.

“I got all the time in the world for you, little brother.”

Saint reached past Bomb and placed his cigar in the ashtray. “You thought you told
me something wild, well, I got something
wilder
. It all fucking makes sense now.” He shook his head in disbelief. “I got shot about
ten years ago.” Saint motioned weakly towards his back. “I got shot, Bomb, tryna save
Xenia when she was visiting me in New York soon after we got married. … Shot in the
damn back, in the angel wing of my tattoo.”

“Fuck man, you never told me this. What the hell happened?”

“Bomb, due to my line of work, I get harassed sometimes. That’s nothing new.”

“Your black women obsession?” Bomb teased.