The Residue Years (34 page)

Quit bullshittin, he says. Put that on something.

On my mama and baby, I say.

Static cackles across our line and we wait for it to clear.

Damn, so the whitey tryin to pull the okey on us, huh? Hell nah, hell nah. Come swoop, he says, and we'll find this motherfucker.

Next thing I know, I got Half Man barking in the passenger seat, swearing what he'll do when we catch Jude. Serious threats I'm hoping ain't a bunch of fatmouthing on his part, cause about now I'd be happy to see Jude waylaid, flogged, water-tortured, Chinese-style. Sounds extra, but I'm so so serious: When we catch him it's whatever, zero interference on my part. Better yet, why stand aside when I can partake?

Me nursing visions of grave physical harm. Half Man's a mute-mouth, don't utter a motherfucking peep till we wheel into a suburb, and even then, all he asks is how much farther, how do I know that we're headed the right way.

Cause I been here once, I say.

So we're relying on your faulty memory? he says.

Who's the one who's fucked? I say. Who wants to find him more, me or you?

We're in Southwest, which means we're suspects. (Try not feeling suspicious when you're treated suspect.) We journey long suburban blocks, stretches and stretches minus nary a familiar sight. We do this for what feels like an eon of hearthurt, and just about the time I'm about to wail a dirge I see, if my memory can be trusted, Jude's house up ahead. There, it's up there, I say, feeling pleased for a snap.

He asks me if I'm sure, this dude and his assurances, and I park right in the front, lift the armrest, hand him my strap. He tucks it in his belt, and about now it's looking like an amulet, though how long can good fortune last in this zip? We bandit out the car, policelike, hunterlike, bounty hunters who've fallen under the gaze of wish-they-were-circumspect citizen detectives: a woman tending plants in her front yard, a guy reading a paper on his porch, the person spying us from a Red Sea part in a curtain—all waiting for an excuse, legitimate or not, to call Officer Arrest-a-Nigger-for-Nothing's direct line. Maybe they're too preoccupied to notice we don't (or do) fit the neighborhood profile, but maybe, just maybe, they ain't.

Scratch what I said about the pistol offering comfort. It's an onus.

The back and forth, the back and forth, Ibullshityounot, if you snatched off the top of my head, you'd hear me pop and fizzle. Half Man follows me onto the porch, and if he's attentive at all, he mocks my best nonthreatening Negro gait, the one full of
leisure and anti-bounce. I rap the door and stand back and it's déjàfuckingvu. I hit it again, inch closer. I twist and catch a detective (the green thumb lady) peeking up from tending her plants. She sees me see her and don't bother to look away, the white woman's audacity gone in the flesh. Half Man hits the door this time, and bet a life, you could hear it for blocks. That loud, and still no answer, not a sound. Stand close to me this second and hear hope's slow leak.
Ssssssssssssssssssssss
… Half Man says we should go around back, bust in, see what's what.

You call that a plan? I say.

You got a better plan? he says.

Yes, I say.

Oh, he says. How could I forget you're the king of gold plans?

Who the fuck are you, I say.

He crosses his arms and smacks his lips, and we could be anything to each other. We could be not nothing at all.

It's empty, says a voice. It's the green thumb detective. She wipes a tool on her apron and climbs the steps.

You mean not home or empty? I say.

I mean empty, she says.

But my friend lives here, I say.

My friend lived there, she says.

Do you know where I can find him?

Heaven, she says. Let's hope.

Me and Half Man swivel face to stunned face.

Dead, I say. But I just seen him last week.

Saw who? she says.

Jude, I say.

There's no Jude at this address, she says. That was Ted's place. Mr. Rose.

You sure? I say.

He was my neighbor before my boys were born, she says. And they're all grown men.

This is how it feels to have all the thew knocked right out of you, to be one of those fat monster truck tires stabbed flat. Let's go, I say, and slog off the porch. Half Man complains in the car that this don't make sense, that the lady might be lying, that we should circle back, break in, ransack the place.

It's a fool's idea, and I tell him so.

Just trying to look out, he says. But fuck it. You're the one taking the L. Half Man's braids are skinny limp ropes on his neck. I could twist them into a noose and hang him, twist them into a noose and lynch myself.

Because Jude's not there and hasn't been and I know it.

Watch, he says. Next we gone find out we don't know his real name.

Leave it to my homeboy (is he my aceboon?), or else glimpse my bleak-ass future before me.

Here's a foolproof plan for an express pass to prison: Run up in a bank acting a fool. Now, I know this as any mentally fit human being does, but since most days, today being one of them, it's disputable whether Half Man's one of us, I have to remind him to leave the strap in the car. We get inside and Half Man (thank God) finds a seat and chills while I scan the lobby checking to see if by some great change of fortune (my luck?) Jude can be found lollygagging in a line. Is he here? What you think? I stretch my face into a suburban-block-long ersatz smile and bop over, nonthreatening Negro gait every step to a young banker's cube.

Good afternoon. I was wondering if you might be able to
assist me? I say, so pusillanimous somebody should punch me dead in my face.

Sure, sure, he says. That's what I'm here for.

Dude ain't much older than me, which another time, another day, would count for something, but I'm sure it don't count for nothing. Since I can't at present, for my life, concoct an acceptable lie, I settle on the truth, most of it anyhow, which spills out in a fusillade. The banker waits for me to finish. He taps his keyboard and squints at his screen. He says he wishes he could help and blames his punkish ineptitude on bank rules and privacy laws; he prattles a hyperbolic list of bureaucratic bullshit that boils down to this: Hell, no, leave! It's not that I don't believe you, he says, capping his bulletin, but we've got rules, strict rules, and stiff penalties.

I ply longer, fall, fall to the other side of desperate, and when I reach the end of my wits with him, I ask to see the branch manager and the banker calls over this middle-aged dude in a cheap suit and scuffed brogues. Here I go pleading again, asinine, but at least the manager fronts as though he's listening: giving me hammy head nods with a grip on his concave chin. He lets me vent, indulges a second of mock post-speech musing, then quotes, with zero compassion, from the same trite script as his banker.

You can't do nothing? I say. Nothing?

The man's
no
is implacable and I know it. He tells banker to take it from here. He excuses himself and moseys off the way anyone would whose life was still intact.

Half Man's across the room, thumbing a brochure. Long white tee, those killer braids, they might think he's casing the joint. We don't need that heat.

Common sense says it's time to break, but I ring the bell on another round with the banker. This time I describe Jude, his tippy-toe gait, his silvered sides, his hulk nose, his indelible-ass voice, but the banker says he can't recall him, tells me he wishes he could be of more help, asks if he could assist me with anything else, a new checking account, a savings account, a CD, a reply that got me considering a bribe, a threat, of snatching his computer and breaking out the front door, going back for my strap and taking hostages till they unass every copper cent in Jude's accounts—got me thinking all that plus a host of other numbskull moves. Who's fooled? We all know by now or should that I ain't got it in me to be that bold. I ask him (it's a hairsbreadth from a teary plea) to please give me a call if he sees or hears anything, anything at all, and limp out, Half Man behind me, defeated, demolished, fucking disemboweled. Outside, the sky is a battered blue, and I'm convinced the color's a sign for me and me alone. We sit in the car, me with a tick, tick, tick, in my ear and a bully twitch. I bash the wheel and a part shakes loose and clatters. I smack the back of my head against the seat rest and scream a scream that Miller-knots my gut. I look over at Half Man, my terror gauge, who at times is unshakable, and he looks worried beyond belief.

Mister's in the back of his store slapping bones with old heads. A quartet roosted around the table with piles of cash at hand. All told, it's ends that could probably pay off what I owe him and replace most of what I might've lost to Jude. A come-up, I'm thinking, which means it's true, it's true, that bad luck can hatch a wrong idea, yank all the scruples out of even the purest of motherfuckers. There's Mister. Does he see himself as the man with an IOU on my life? A hoary old head calls domino, smashes
the table, and the bones leap and fall rearranged. The players swap bills, and Mister gets up and motions me out of the room.

He tells me he's been calling, asks why I've been hard to find to which I explain about the house and Jude. Mister rubs his slick head and rubs the face of his watch with his shirt. Hate to hear that, he says. But what that have to do with what you owe me? That don't have nothing to do with my money.

I quote him all I have to my name, which is thousands less than I owe, and ask him for few more days to pay in full. He pushes up close and pats my cheek, tender. Time, he says. And patience. In time all patience wears out. He tells me to go and bring what I have, all I have, to go and bring it back tonight. Bill's due, he says. Past due. I nod and drop my eyes to the floor. Counting the most that's inside my safe, what's left of my last package. He stops by his safe and twists it open, takes out a wrapped stack of bills, turns them into a fan, waves the fan. You see this? he says. You don't get this by giving it out. He stuffs the stack in his pocket and marches me to the front and unbolts the door, sounding that fucking bell. A van stutters down MLK, its taillight bandaged with duct tape. Mister claps me on the back. Trust me, he says. Trust me, you don't want this problem.

Tonight's as wet and warm a Saturday as any this month, but MLK is cold and empty, and I stumble to the car with a rock the size of Augustus lodged in my gut—or maybe, just maybe, it's my heart. Half Man snaps up in his seat when I climb in. Damn, homie, that was quick, he says. What's the word?

The word is you go home, I say.

You can guess what time it is when I get home. It's late. Alibilate. No-excuse-late. I hit the lock praying Kim's asleep, but my
girl is wide awake, vivid, with all the lights up in the room. I shuttle in, slide the closet, crank open the safe, empty it but for a few bills, and tramp into the front room. I lay it on the counter and count (it's less than I thought—anemic) and she stalks in behind me and hovers, her belly pressed against my back. She don't say nothing at first. Lets me count and recount in what, on another night, could be peace.

What's this?

This, I say. Is business.

At this hour? she says.

My business, I say.

I grab a paper sack and load the cash in it: the rent, light bill, re-up, the rest.

What business?! she says. Champ, you need to explain.

Look, leave me the fuck alone, I say. Not tonight. Of all the nights, not tonight.

Mister's brother Red lets me back into the store. You can hear the bones sliding across the table in the back and the same old heads barking at one another. I slug into the back room and stand against the wall while someone washes the bones, while they pull their hands, while they eye the black dots as if them shits are talismans. Mister lays big six, lays the rest of his hand facedown, tells Red to stand watch. Give me a sec, fellas, he says, and gets to his feet.

He takes me into the basement and wades between delivery boxes to the bistro where his money counter sits. I pull out the bag (it may as well be a sack of blood) and give it to him and he drops it on the table. He asks how much is there, how much I'm short. I tell him and he warns me to have the rest next week.
Oh, for sure, I say, though I'm not and he knows it. He clicks the overhead bulb, turns the basement blackish, leaves me groping behind him through a maze of dark. He stops in the stairwell and turns to me, the light sourcing behind him. Everybody ain't built for this, he says, and glides the rest of the way up.

Outside the store I get a page. It's a lick, my regular, the one with a spot. One of the ones who buys his work already rocked, and shit, shit, all I have left is soft. All I have left is stashed at Beth's crib. She don't pick up (a theme) when I call, but that don't no matter, I ain't about to miss his bread. Damn right, I can't afford to miss this bread. Under a dying quarter moon, I fly out 26 west, a lone traveler part of the way, to her place. She answers, thank God, (Why is a nigger thanking God?) in a loosened robe and nothing else. She makes a face, asks what time it is. Late, I say. No, early. Time to handle business. She shakes her head and tells me to come back later—this afternoon or this evening, says she's got company. But I need it now, I say. Just give me a few and I'll be out your hair. Just keep him in the room and let me grab my things. She concedes, strolls into her room, pulls her door shut. Swift I gather the work, the scales, the Pyrex, the baggies, an unopened box of baking soda, and I whisk outside in the claws of paranoia. Tough to know whether it's day or night.

It's Sunday. Early Sunday, when I get in, and the apartment's teeming with the orange of dawn. I hustle into the kitchen and empty the backpack. I find a pot, fill it, set it to boil. I knock a chunk off the work (the smell, a nigger never can get used to the stench), weigh it, and dump it to boil. This feels like day one. It feels like the end. I stand by the stove, stirring, adjusting the
heat, praying Kim don't wake, wondering what I could say if she does. There's a knock at the door that, on my life, shoots my heart up into my throat. I freeze and wait to see if whoever it is has the wrong place. The next knock is a statement. She calls my name, and I creep to the door.