Saint's Sacrament - Sins of the Father (78 page)

Sounds Muslim? Dumb ass…

“I asked you a question.”

The cop leaned in closer
. His stale, hot coffee breath crawled into Saint’s nostrils and pressed its stinky self against his nasal membranes, making his stomach cave with queasiness.

Just then, one of Saint’s high school pals, Dan-Dan, came riding down the street on his beat-up ten-speed. The cat’s hair seemed ten-feet tall, a box cut to perfection like a damn
skyscraper, but everyone knew Dan-Dan and was used to it. Dan-Dan was a basket case, but fairly harmless unless some trifling shit was going down, kind of like what he observed on the corner of East 168th Street and Tinton Avenue as he’d watched Saint getting shaken the hell down by two cops that had a reputation in that part of town.

“
Aye! Aye, yo!” the boy screamed out as he clutched his handlebars. “What ya’ll doin’ to him? That’s my dog right there! Saint, yo, son! What up, man?!” he called out from across the way.

Both cops looked up at him, their faces twisted with shock that anyone would have the
audacity to say anything to them, especially one guy who was all alone, his hair looking like the Empire State Building and what appeared to be a Band-Aid smack-dab across the middle of his dark forehead. All of a sudden, people began to pour out of their apartments as if someone had gotten on a megaphone and announced that free ice-cream was available, first come, first served. The night had called her children. They’d ignored the bastard sister, Dusk, and had instead waited on Mama Supreme to come with her black cape covered in twinkling stars that still shined over the ghettos of New York as if whittled out of pure gold.

One by one, then two by two, then three by three blacks, Dominicans and Puerto Ricans came oozing out of their domains, coming alive, making the street vibrate
with crawling angry cells, a taste for revenge and a chance to touch something real. Saint was no longer all alone, and it felt good to see so many faces, most of which he didn’t recognize since he no longer lived in the Bronx, but he appreciated them all the same. It was also uncommon to have the support of others in this territory. These were people that stepped over dying bodies on their way to play the numbers or to pick up a pizza, yet here they were, as if they had a stake in this shit. It was a beautiful thing to see.

“Mind your business!”
the chicken lipped officer snapped, his eyes widened once the crowd got thicker and rowdier.

“Why y’all messin’ with that boy?”
an old black woman asked, her arms real meaty like raw hamhocks and her hips wide as the Hudson. She had a real soft face, round and kind, but Saint knew the type. She was like a ‘Big Mama’. She might move slow, but she hit fast and hard and if anyone messed with her, they’d have to deal with the entire crew. Even the junkies didn’t rob Big Mama; there was something sacrilegious about it.

“Ma’am, and all the rest of you
, get back in—”

“We ain
’t going no damn where. Leave him alone. He wasn’t hurtin’ nobody,” someone else called out.

“Yeah!” someone else
said. “We live here and we want your names and badge numbers. We aren’t taking this anymore. We saw everything from our windows! He was just walking, and you jumped on him.”

“That mothafucka right there
was tryna get a taste!” Dan-Dan cackled like the shit was funny. He was a half black, half Puerto Rican cat with no fucking sense, but he was die hard and loyal. Saint made a face at him, wanting to hug and swing on him at the same exact same time. He didn’t like Dan-Dan screaming that to the rooftops. He felt like his manhood had been compromised when the cop did what his title told him to do—cop a mothafuckin’ feel. He’d have preferred it if his homeboy had just kept quiet.

“Feelin’ on his nicky nicky nuts! You always grabbin’ nuts, Officer Jacob.
I can’t wait until you get canned!” Dan-Dan continued,letting loose a high-pitched insane laugh.

Saint beamed. These people knew this mothafucka. He wasn’t exactly the kind of cat you could forget.
He had the face only a mother could love and maybe that was why he did what he did. Maybe the sexy men, the ones he probably coveted, didn’t want him based on his abysmal appearance, so he had to resort to this sort of thing. Almost everyone could get laid in New York; there was someone for everyone, but not this cat. Saint felt a tug and almost fell over. He knew what that was—a warning to not say shit, not one damn thing. Saint’s hood was gripped in the officer’s hand from when they’d snatched him up like a mariachi doll, in case he decided to get any grand ideas.

This is the sort of thing the police dreaded. These people were tired of the raids, and here was this light-skinned, tall
, lanky, genealogically confusing hood rat that had crawled out the slimy sewer trying to get some nourishment and be on his merry little way to slide into a tender slice of warm pussy. After that, he’d practically skip home, go into his room and smoke some premium weed while his father ritualistically ignored him. All in a day’s work. Saint still fit in, he was home, despite his appearance and the few people he knew. They seemed to recognize their own kind, no matter how long a mothafucka had been away. Saint exhaled in relief as one of the cops shoved his wallet back in his hand—missing the twenty dollars, he discovered later. They’d decided this wasn’t worth it. They left just as fast as they’d pulled up.

He had Dan-Dan to thank for this. He’d spoken loudly, rousing the masses who app
eared to be itching for a fight anyway. All they needed was an invitation. These people had already been to jail, they’d been in the Devil’s ass by no fault of their own, and they weren’t afraid of anything. They had nothing to lose, and those two cops knew it. There’d been a big police profiling and police brutality meeting just a few days ago, unbeknown to Saint at that very moment, so people were still riled up, hanging on a prayer, and refused to take one more damn knot on the head from the folks that were supposed to protect them. It was an uphill battle, but many were used to a struggle since the day they’d been born. Being poor was not synonymous with not giving a fuck. A new day had dawned…

Saint came back into the land of reality and modern day
, shoved the bittersweet memory aside…

He didn’t hate all police. T
here were two police officers that were also Rainbeau Knights, and they were good, quality men. He’d learned a lot from them, and shared with them many candid experiences about his childhood and what he’d endured. He’d learned to trust again, from these men’s example, and understood that just because he’d been tormented during his teens from the bastards didn’t mean they were all the same. He shoved his thoughts aside as they sank deeper into the mouth of the neighborhood and were shitted out the bowels into East Harlem. The gentrification had lessoned a smidge, but the place still stunk of poverty, severe drug abuse and joblessness. This was Manhattan’s dirty little secret. Spanish Harlem sounded pretty, but under her dress was a large barreled gun with white power on the tip. Nope, not gunpowder, but that dust, that shit, that crack cocaine…

Bomb would pick
this place to come for drugs. I haven’t been here since I was like, twenty-three years old…

“Turn right here, man.”
Bomb sniffed and ran his dirty hand under his nose.

Saint looked at him and debated. He knew Bomb was going in that place to buy drugs. He knew he was going to ask him for the money first. He knew he’d have to pay someone and then he’d want to go somewhere close by and get tore up. He knew that high would last a few hours, and he’d be out again, scouring the land, maybe even hurting someone to get his next high, and the one after that. Regardless of all of that, he could see in the man’s eyes that Bomb was tired of this shit. He was tire
d of running around in circles, but, this was all he knew. If he wasn’t high anymore, what would he do? If he wasn’t high, he’d have to really see the world for the fucked up cesspool that it was. Maybe he
did
see the world for what it was, and that was why he stuck to his addiction long and hard. He’d already shared some of his turmoil with Saint when they’d run into each other almost two years prior. The man was a product of his environment. He’d practically raised his own damn self, as well as other peoples’ kids, too. Bomb didn’t give a fuck, but if he saw a kid with no parents, he’d watch over them.

Saint had felt special because the man had taken a special liking to him over all others. Bomb told him he was unique, that he had something about him
—that he felt like he would grow up and do great things. Bomb never felt that way about himself, though. So, he chose the next best option. Have little people look up to him, make him feel like a star, and then, if they are successful, he could hold his head up high, knowing he had a hand in that. And by successful, he meant
still alive
…

“I’m going in with you.”

Bomb didn’t object; he just waited for Saint to park and get behind him. Back in the day, Saint had given plenty of money to people wanting to get high, his friends and folks around the neighborhood who had done a favor or two for him. He didn’t understand at the time that he was contributing to their detriment, but you can’t talk to a junkie once they are going through withdrawal. There is no reasoning to be had and if you try to stop them, you’re likely to get a hatchet in your head if they can get a hold of one. Timing was everything when speaking to them. There was a certain point in their high—though every high was slightly different—when they were willing to do business. He knew this. He also knew something Bomb didn’t know, that Bomb thought was just a big joke: He meant what he’d said about Bomb getting clean.

This was going to be Bomb’s last high. It was going to be the last time anything
went in that mothafucka’s nose, rolled up tight. It was going to be the last time he’d have an illegal jones, whether it be with prescription pain pills or whatever the case may be. Bomb was using anything and everything but heroin, and that was only because he was scared of the shit. He’d seen too many of his boys die fast from the addiction, including, of course, Gloria. Regardless, this was the final curtain call. There would be no more running, no more chasing, no more dodging the reality of a situation, accepting life for the fucked-up way she treated her ilk. It was time to accept what was there, in its ful glory, and figure out his part in it all. Time was ticking nevertheless, and Saint knew he had to move fast.

They went inside, and he was punched in the face with the odor of ammonia
and something sickeningly sweet, like sweet cheap perfume. Someone had sprayed some shit trying to cover an odor, and the ammonia, mixed with whatever it was, made the stench vomit-educing. Two lights swung overhead in the dank hallway when Bomb pushed another door open. This looked like a make-shift blockade, perhaps some sort of warning. Bomb had to rest his shoulder in the damned thing to get it to budge further. They got past and went up a narrow flight of stairs that turned and twisted and gave the feel that one wrong move and they’d fall to their deaths. Their feet pounded and echoed with each step, the stairs like old, tired sheet metal. The damned things were actually made out of iron-rod and just like many of the old buildings around town, this place held tiny reminders that it used to look like something. The stairwell boasted of intricate, woven, swirled designs under rusted, thick-coated layers of dull paint. White, chipping fragments covered the walls along with copious graffiti, with the typical, ‘Pooh loved Amber’ bullshit. There were the gang tags as well, and no one dared to remove the shit.

Bomb rapped on
a door, then looked sheepishly over his collapsed shoulder at Saint. Saint looked down at him, no doubt appearing as an old school marm with a ruler in hand. The man seemed to be shrinking right before his eyes. The roles had been reversed. Now, Saint was towering over the man, not just physically, but emotionally and mentally as well. It had to make Bomb feel some kinda way, but he refused to put much focus on it. It was there—they knew it, and they moved forward without so much as a word. The door to the apartment opened slowly, showcasing a place that didn’t match the exterior. A guy holding a crumpled paper bag skidded away into the recesses of a back room like some rat caught by the early morning sun. Tacky, leopard print rugs and décor were all over the place. Someone threw up yellow and black and walked the fuck away, waving their wand and paint brush as if they’d done a good job. To complete the ensemble, a real leopard rug, pimp circa 1978, lay sprawled across the floor, as if the owner were a hunter and all of his trappings demanded a dwelling in East Harlem—the biggest jungle of all. A framed painting of Jesus hung on one wall, above a table holding red, partially melted candles reminiscent of dildos, and the television was on a low murmur. A re-run of ‘House’ played on the screen.

“Who the fuck is that with you?”
an obese Puerto Rican man asked in Spanish as he pointed to Saint. His high and squeaky voice didn’t match his body, and if you’d only heard the bastard on the phone, you’d think he was a Mickey Mouse impersonator. The rotund man sat on the couch, his legs sprawled far apart because he had no choice. A red T-shirt stretched to its limit covered his swollen body and his tits were larger than Xenia’s. His neck was swallowed by fleshy rolls and his light skinned legs featured knees that were dark and swollen. Regardless of this, the man’s hair was faded to perfection and his goatee looked as if it had been done with the stellar precision of a scalpel. That was a strange thing about some of the people Saint grew up with. They may not have had a pot to piss in, but many of them would not be caught dead with messed up hair, or their clothes in disarray. They just wouldn’t stand for it.