Saint's Sacrament - Sins of the Father (79 page)

“This is my little bro, Saint
,” Bomb answered in Spanish. “He is in town to see his father, so he is just hangin’ with me today. He’s cool.” Bomb shifted his sparse weight, sniffed and plopped down on a nearby chair. The big man sighed and stood, causing the couch he was on to creek and moan. The cushion he’d sat on was indented, and Saint was sure it would never regain its original form. He hadn’t seen cats that big often, and it was something to see. Regardless of his weight, the man moved around and about until he got behind a bar-type partition.

“What you need, Bomb?” he asked
to the sounds of plastic bags being rolled between his fingers.

“I need two of
’em,” Bomb mumbled.

Bomb would typically be
more lively than this and he surely didn’t want Saint standing there, watching him do himself in. It appeared all of a sudden, Bomb had a sense of shame. But what could he do? He was desperate and since he needed the money, he couldn’t boss his little brother around, now could he?

“
How much is it per gram, like sixty?” Saint asked as he pulled out his wallet. Leave it to Bomb to want primo shit. He was like Whitney Houston, felt he was too good to do crack, though he’d do it occasionally if he didn’t have the funds for cocaine.

“It’s $50 for my man, here
,” he guy answered, not looking up as he prepared everything just so.

An honest drug dealer. Imagine that.

The Big-Pun lookalike came from behind the bar table and stood in front of Saint. Shiny metal on the side of his hip glistened, as if it were saying, ‘Try anything slick, and I’ll blow your half Korean, half Egyptian head clean the fuck off.’ Saint handed him one hundred dollars and on a dime, the dealer spun around and placed the bag in Bomb’s hand before returning to his seat and reaching for a large blue and white Big Gulp. He sucked on the straw with due diligence, his full light pink lips a vacuum taking no high fructose corn syrup prisoners as he glared at the television. The man who’d opened the door for them reappeared to show them the way out. It was as if the entire thing was a carefully fine-tuned drug-induced orchestra. It’s amazing how organized illegal activities could be.

~***~

Saint drove Bomb around the block and asked him where he wanted to do it, knowing damn well whatever the man’s answer was, it would be the wrong one. Bomb refused to answer that question anyway. Instead, he kept pointing and saying anxiously, “Why can’t you just drop me off here? I don’t want you with me. Drop me off right there!” But Saint refused. None of those places were any good.

Where the hell is that school?! It must’ve been torn down…Damn!

“Let me the fuck out this car, man,” Bomb finally said, his expression grave as he gripped his bag of heaven and hell with both claws. The green veins in his hands protruded as he palmed the bag, masturbating it to death with anxious anticipation.

“Did you forget our agreement?” Saint purred.

“What agreement, man?!” Bomb was getting more and more agitated. You didn’t want Bomb disconcerted, whether he was high or not.

“The one about you going to rehab after this last hit. You said you would. You owe me.”

“Yeah, yeah, you dropped a hundred for me, thanks,” the man said dismissively. “I’ll pay you back once I get on my feet.”

“I don’t give a shit about the money, man
.” Saint turned the corner. “It’s the principle. I bought coke for you. I don’t want to be wrapped up in some shit like this. I’ve got a family, I could’ve gotten made, going in and buying coke… This was an exception, this was for
you
!” Bomb of all people should’ve known you never get shit for free, even from Saint. It was about to go
down…

“Man, you sure have turned righteous
,” Bomb mocked. “Like it’s the first time you’ve bought cocaine, Mister Preacher Man all of the sudden. Let me outta this car.” Bomb beat on the car like a drummer from a rock band but the doors were locked from the inside. Parliament Funkadelic played in the background. The song ‘Knee Deep’ gave the whole scene an extra kick.

“…she did the monkey! It wasn’t funky, no moooore!…she turned me on and out!”
George Clinton crooned.

Bomb was that desperate where he was willing to jump out of a moving vehicle
…or maybe, just maybe, a part of him knew that Saint wasn’t in on this shit. That he’d paid the cost to be the boss, and now he owned Bomb, lock, stock and barrel. Saint smirked and turned the music up so loud, the car vibrated. Without giving one gram of a fuck, Bomb reached over and snapped it back down, almost snatching the knob off. He was sweating now, at the brink of an uncontrollable rage. Bomb may have been half the fighter he used to be, but that half of a fighter was still stronger than most of the cats roaming the city. Saint didn’t want him messing up his pretty face, but business was business.

“Nah, it ain
’t the first time. I sold it one time. That was one time too many. I did it when my money was low, back in the day. But I was a different person then, I was still a kid. All I knew was that my mama was dead, I didn’t have shit, and I needed some things that my father couldn’t afford.” He shot Bomb a sluggish glance out the corner of his eye. Bomb glared at him, wanting to punch his head clean off with his bare fists. Saint read his thoughts loud and clear. “Found out I wasn’t cut out for it, it attracted too many bad elements, so I just stuck to my weed. I don’t like the shit, you know this. Call it righteous if you want, but you owe me, because I owe you. You saved my life, so I’m going to save yours. We are a circle, we are a family, Bomb.”

“What the fuck are you talkin’ about, Little Pharaoh? I’m sick, man! I need to take care of this—I fucking hurt! Don’t make me jack you up, man
, now you let me out of his car right the fuck now!”

“You really think I could let you kill yourself?” Saint’s brow
wrinkled and he grinned. He’d spotted the old school, which looked like desert ruins. Perfect. “I can’t lose you, Bomb. Sorry.”

“Pharaoh, you’re talkin’ crazy. Why are we over here?” Bomb said pitifully. Saint knew the man had already sized him up, trying to decipher if he could take him
on. “ Don’t nobody come the hell over here anymore,” Bomb spat. “Fuck it.” He opened the bag, prepared to snort right then and there.

“You are here for serenity.” Saint batted his lashes and brandished a lying grin, the kind a henchman of the
Devil would deliver right before sucking a person’s soul and leaving only a carcass in his wake. “So you can get high and get right in peace, man.” Saint leaned back in his seat, getting real quiet as he heard the rumpling noises of Bomb’s busy hands.

“I need something to put this damn shit on, man! You gotta book or something in here? I know you read, you square mothafucka!”

Saint casually reached over to the glove box and pulled out the car manual, handing it to Bomb. The man snatched it from his grip, whipped out an expired train card and went to town on drawing out his lines like he was a damned architect.

“Gimme a dollah.” Saint took a dollar out of his wallet and handed it to the man. Bomb snatched that away, too.

Saint leaned back and closed his eyes while Bomb snorted, sighed and went through all the motions. Cocaine addicts suddenly turned into surgeons with steady hands, balancing acts fit for a circus acrobat as they equalized their product on bended knees. Saint understood addiction and this was something Bomb obviously didn’t get. Sex addiction wasn’t much different. Instead of a hot pipe to spark, it was his own throbbing cock and the merchandise was wet, snap-back ebony pussy. He would go through the same withdrawal symptoms if he didn’t get it at least once on a daily basis, with many different women. He’d tried to fill a void in his heart that was actually the size of a crater, growing deeper and deeper instead of more satisfied after each lay. Shaking, looking for his next piece of ass, he’d find it, telling the woman a bunch of bullshit. He never lied though, but he was a sweet talker as sure as his name was Saint. He’d manipulate a woman to death, especially if she was someone he
really
wanted to get in bed. Saint’s mind worked like that of a seasoned pimp. He’d find out all about her, pretend to care. He would soon discover her weaknesses, and use that knowledge to his advantage. He’d take whatever she told him, find ways to incorporate it in their sexual rendezvous, blow her goddamn mind and then like the wind, be gone onto his next conquest.

Sometimes the women knew whatever the hell he was saying wasn’t anything to take seriously, sometimes they didn’t. It
didn’t matter to him. He wanted to fuck, dig in some guts, become the plumber and lay some pipe. It was the same shit, as soon as he’d slide in, get that first good, deep thrust, he was sent deeper into his sickness, overdosing on sexual euphoria. Now Parliament Funkadelic was going on into, ‘One Nation Under a Groove.’ That’s right. Everyone was gettin’ down for the funk of it…

Bomb was grinning, his dancing eyes mostly closed. They were tiny slithers, no doubt seeing the fucked up world in a whole new way as he nodded and bobbed about. Cocaine usually animated folks, turned them into mission-men, but Bomb was
in a dream world, disappearing within himself. Saint surmised he had other shit in his system already, the all mixing together, creating a custom-made high that would first kiss Bomb sweetly on the cheek then have him tweaking fairly soon.

“
So wide can't get around it! So low you can't get under it!...Daaah, Da-yee do do do do do do!”
the chorus went on…

He glanced at the school building and smiled. It was time.
Turning off the car, he got out and walked over to the passenger side. He opened the door and took Bomb by the knobby elbow, ushered him across the desolate street. Yellow tape, construction lines, a parked bulldozer and signs to keep out were all over the place. Shattered rainbow glass crunched under his feet as he kept moving like a nomad in the desert leading his camel away, until they stood in front of the steps of the school. This place looked bombed out, roped off with tape and boarded up. The buildings didn’t even have complete roofs anymore. It wasn’t fit for prostitutes to take their johns, junkies to get high, or drug deals to be made because it didn’t have a cover of protection and looked more like an old city made of cardboard boxes. Saint was grateful for that.

Bomb moved along with him, slowly, surely, his head still bobbing about.

“Where we goin’?” he slurred. Ahhh yes, Bomb was drifting further away. Perfect.

“Right up in here, Bomb.”

They climbed the uneven concrete steps. Saint tore the tape away and kicked the two plasterboards covering the front entrance. The front double doors were locked with a thick, rusty chain. The damned thing had turned orange-red, as if it had been left under running water. Holding onto Bomb with one hand, he removed a fingernail file and clipper from his pocket. Fidgeting a bit, drawing on his days of hoodlum-ery, he finagled the thing open, exposing a curtain of thick cobwebs and an old sign that read, ‘District 4.’ He hitched his arm around Bomb’s, leading him inside. Initially, Bomb went with the flow. Saint searched his memory banks, trying to find that tiny room he and Raphael used to go into and smoke weed while they waited for the night to fall and the Saturday action to begin. It had been the size of a large closet with a small window, a prison cell, and no one seemed to know about it but them.  All the other bastards running around shooting craps and humping girls were none the wiser. It was his and his best friend’s private retreat.

He knew of many places like that,
which he and his friends had discovered in their travels—places to have sex, to smoke, to hide out and if homeless, to sleep. They were dotted all over the place, and since Bomb wanted to go to Harlem, Saint decided upon this location. It would work just fine. Saint walked gingerly on creaking floor boards as he ushered his brother closer and closer to the tiny closet, still probably tagged with his and Raphael’s names, amongst others. It was too dark inside, the sun was going to sleep and that tiny window that used to allow them to see birds and people mulling about was now covered in thick layers of dust and dirt. Saint whipped out his cell phone and cast light on the situation.

“Here you go, man.” He pushed Bomb inside.
All they had to sit on was a wobbly stool, so small it looked like it belonged in a kindergarten room. Saint scanned the tiny enclosure, noting the scribbling on the walls, covering any work he and Raphael had sketched out. The air hung heavy with the sickening odor of mildew.

“Whu…what’s this?” Bomb fell to the floor. This
was exactly why he let this bastard get high. Not because he felt good about the shit, but he needed Bomb a bit out of his mind to handle him easier. When he was lucid, Saint would’ve had a serious fight on his hands, regardless of Bomb’s age and thin appearance. Bomb was fucking insane, and everyone knew crazy people could fight, and to not mess with them unless you just had to. But Bomb was intelligent, too, and he understood how to move his body around to get the results he wanted while dueling with a chump who mistook him for a fool. If he’d been in the right hands, he could’ve been a prized fighter, better than Jagger and him combined. The last thing he wanted was to frighten Bomb by using psychic strength. Bomb wouldn’t believe his eyes anyway, so what was the point of exerting all of that energy?