Games of State

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

He called himself Streetcorna, and he sold audio tapes from a panther-skin backpack. Every day for more than a year, around seven in the morning, the young man would leave his battered old Volkswagen in the parking lot behind the strip of stores off Laurel Canyon in Studio City, and walk toward Ventura Boulevard. As he walked, his black leather sandals dragged unhurriedly along the sidewalk, propelled by long, lean legs which were visible beneath the dried leaves of his Sudanese pagne. The skirt was held up by a shoulder strap made of leopard skin. Beneath the straps was a sweat-stained black T-shirt with white lettering which read "STREETCORNA RAP." His hair was shaved around the sides, leaving only a large clump in the center which was woven with wood into a latticed cone. His eyes were invisible behind his wraparound shades. The tiny diamond studs in his nostrils and tongue shined. with perspiration and saliva.

Streetcorna always took his time as he walked to his spot. Heading out, he would smile as he drew on a joint to get ready for the day's huckstering and performing. As the smoke loosened him up, he would move his spindly arms and bony hands with the rhythm in his head. His thighs began to move to the beat and he shut his eyes and clapped his hands slowly as he walked.

Each day, he had a new lyric. Today it was, "IgotIgot Igot I got I got what I need if I got my weed. Smokin' gives me creed 'gainst the slick man's greed. Ana greed like his seed 'severywhere while I bleed. I'm not freed no indeed brother heed foll' my lead." Streetconna stopped walking at the corner, though he kept on moving. He doffed his backpack without losing the beat, unzipped it to reveal the prerecorded cassettes inside, switched on a small tape recorder, then continued his performance. He usually sold five or six tapes a day on the honor system. Since he was too busy to stop, a small, handwritten sign on a cardboard instructed potential customers to deposit what they wanted. Most left five dollars, a few one or two, some ten. He averaged thirty dollars a day, enough for smoke, gas, and food.

"AllIallI allI all I need…." His biggest score was the day he was brought to the studios across the street on Radford Avenue. He appeared on an evening sitcom, in a street scene, and earned enough money to prerecord some music. Before that, everything was recorded live, in the street, as he sang it. Everyone who bought a Streetcorna tape had an original. Now, they had a choice.

Streetcorna usually wrapped his day at eight or nine in the evening, after the video store down the street had rented most of what it was going to rent and the drugstore and bookstore closed and the traffic slowed, Then he returned to his car, drove to a side street or a grocery store parking lot, and read in his car by streetlight or candlelight.

On the last day of his life, Streetcorna arrived at his post at 7:10 in the morning. He sold one tape for ten dollars during the next two hours, lit a joint at 9:15, and went into his rap, "I'm a dissin' the Districk, the ho's in Deecee. " As he rapped with his eyes shut, two young men crossed Laurel Canyon. They were blond, tall, and walking slowly as they ate pita sandwiches. They were wearing tennis whites and carrying gym bags. When they neared Streetcorna, one man stopped slightly behind him on his right, the other slightly behind him on his left. As pedestrians rushed by, trying to make the Walk signal on the light, the men calmly took tire irons from their bags and slammed them into the front of the man's knees.

Streetcorna fell with a howl, his sunglasses shattering as his face hit the pavement. People began to slow and watch as the young man screamed again and curled painfully into a fetal position. Before he could turn and look at his attackers, however, the men raised the irons and brought them down viciously on the side of his head. His skull broke on the first strike, splashing the concrete with blood, but the men delivered two more blows apiece.

Streetcorna jerked with each of the blows, then died.

"Jesus!" a young woman screamed as the horrible reality of what had happened made its way through the crowd, like a serpent. "Jesus!" she screamed again, her face entirely white. "What have you done?" As one of the young men stood, the other patted their victim down.

"Silenced his crap," said the man who had risen.

An old black woman leaning on a well-worn cane yelled, "Someone call the police! Someone help!" The youth looked at her, then walked to where she was standing, by the drugstore. People moved out of his way.

The old woman leaned her body away from him but her expression remained defiant.

"Hey!" a middle-aged white man yelled, inserting himself between them. "Back, off—" The attacker drove his right heel down hard on the man's left instep. The middle-aged man crumpled in pain.

The black woman backed against the window of the drugstore.

The savage youth put his face in hers and said, "You shut your stinking hole." "Not as long as I'm breathing American air," she replied.

With a sneer, the youth drove the front of the iron into her mouth. She doubled over and he pushed her down easily.

The young white man lurched forward and threw himself over her.

"Got them," said the other young man as he pulled the keys from Streetcorna's pocket. He rose.

The assailant withdrew casually, as though he were returning to his corner to serve again after hitting a net ball.

The two men stood side-by-side as a crowd gathered and formed a loose, threatening circle around them.

"They can't get us all!" someone yelled.

The man with the keys reached into his bag and withdrew a.45. "Like hell we can't," he said.

The crowd didn't so much part as come apart. The men walked through, up Laurel Canyon, ignoring the glares of the pedestrians and the shouts of those in the back. They found Streetcoma's car and got in. They knew it from days of having watched the rapper. Turning onto Laurel Canyon, they headed up into the Hollywood Hills. Unpursued, they were quickly swallowed in the traffic headed toward Hollywood.

Police arrived nearly seven minutes later, and a helicopter search was ordered. The chopper spotted the car parked near the intersection of Coldwater Canyon and Mulholland Drive. It was abandoned and clean. Employees at the fire station on top of the hill remembered seeing a car idling on the side of the road, but no one could remember what kind it was or what the driver looked like. No one saw the Volkswagen arrive or the waiting car leave.

When the police confiscated Streetcorna's bag, there were no tapes, just four hundred dollars and change.