King's War

CHAPTER ELEVEN

A wanderer by nature, Lott never dreamed of peace or justice or love or being loved. He barely planned into the following week. He hated being trapped in a story that had been written about him. That he was "the betrayer" or "the outcast" or "the unredeemable one" (despite the fact that some of those stories were only written in his own head). He feared that he'd never be able to outrun those stories; that he'd never have the chance to write a new story of himself; that the stories would always define him and he'd be powerless to do more than be moved around more like pieces than characters.

"If you must die, die for something greater than yourself. Better yet, live. Live to serve others."

He longed to believe King's words again. To be a part of King's crusade. To be led by King again. It had been a while since he visited the Eagle Terrace apartments, an obtuse layout of living spaces, a large swathe of pot-holed asphalt surrounded by labyrinthine walls of rooms winding along curving streets. The first time in a long time he walked its sidewalks alone.

"Jesus help me," he cried out to the sky. In his heart he prayed that there was a peace to be had on the other side of war. Lott startled the Hispanic woman carrying two bags of groceries. Keeping a wary eye on him, she paused then walked a wider path around him. On any other evening, he'd have offered to carry her groceries for her. Now her wary eyes could see to his heart and know his sins. Everyone could. It weighed him down, pressed on him with a constant smothering.

Writhing in Lady G's embrace was what he had so longed for. Anticipated. Now the image was burned into his mind and tasted like ashes in his mouth. The cost was too high. He tried to not think about all the relationships he'd damaged, all the people he had hurt, all the damage he had caused. He no longer belonged anywhere. Rootless and wandering not by choice but by circumstance.

Redemption was a dream he tried not to put too much hope in. All he wanted was to be restored in their eyes. For them to look at him and see the Lott of old. Their boy. Not this stain that sullied their memories. The idea came to him that maybe he could nudge the process along. Perhaps if he could come to their rescue, help them in some way, maybe they'd be able to forgive him. Sure, their lips said they forgave him, but he recognized that look in their eyes. The one that said they'd never look at him the same. That look of resentment mixed with distrust. The look of his mother after too many drinks. The look of the endless parade of "uncles" who streamed through his life. The look of something that needed to be flushed out of their lives.

Loneliness gnawed at Lott's reason. Solitude was painful. Isolation the worst form of torture. Scared, longed to reach out. He hopelessly wanted someone to find him. To reach out to him. To hold him. Any attention. The madness of alienation created a desperation which drove folks to strange places, to reach out in strange ways.

So he banged on the front door of Black's grandmother's front door.

Blunt smoke thickened in the air of the house party. Drinks bobbed by freely. Cholos lined the walls, corners, and couches bragging about work they had put in. Whoever told the best story received handstacks in response. Black was offered a hit, out of respect, knowing he'd refuse. Tonight he didn't drink either.

His grandmother had stayed with one of his aunts for a week, Black sprawled along the black leather couch. With his slight build, gaunt face, and his determined eyes, he exuded power and fierceness. In a Celtics jersey and shorts, his extensive tattoos were on full display. Two young women snuggled on either side of him. Stroking his arm, the side of his face and whispering breathy seductions into his ear, their attentions annoyed him more than anything. He needed to clear his head.

Standing abruptly, all eyes turned to him. The room held its breath. They took their cues from him, and of late his mood was foul and brooding. He thought what his people needed was an excuse to let off some steam, but it wasn't what he needed. He nodded and everyone relaxed and went back to chatting. Intimate conversations as his boys chatted up the ladies. The laughter. The bumping music. Marijuana, cigarettes, sweat, and re-breathed alcohol.

La Payasa shadowed him from across the room. When he stood, she stood. When he relaxed, she relaxed. She trailed him into the kitchen. He walked across the green and white tiled floor to the refrigerator and grabbed a Corona. Elbows on the counter, he leaned back and waited for La Payasa. Eyes closed, he imagined a great sea. Born to Tomas and Angelina, he'd always had an affinity for water. Tomas often took him fishing. It wasn't the act itself he enjoyed. Truth be told, the idea of sitting around holding a rod like a limp dick waiting to be pulled never appealed to him. But spending time with his father, those times he treasured. Tomas worked two jobs: one as a butcher, he had been a butcher in Mexico before he moved here; and as an off-the-books security guard at a nightclub. It was at the latter job where three black kids, looking for an easy mark, ran across him. They took his father from him. That was the story he was told. His mother went mad with grief. He had to step up and be the man of the family. He was eleven.

"Everything all right?" La Payasa asked. Black respected La Payasa. Few wanted to actually squeeze the trigger though all would brag on it later. She had heart. Her word was bond.

There wasn't anyone who couldn't be made happy by the thought of deep, placid water. The languid waves lapped the shore, yet stretched out into the horizon. "Yeah, it's all good."

"This business with Dred and his crew…"

"What about it?"

"It's bad for business."

"Then they shouldn't have started it. What were we supposed to do? Let them come around here? Dictate to us how we should handle our business?"

Brothers. Uncles. Cousins. All were members of the nation. This was his birthright. The gang took him in, raised him, and showed him how to become a man. He had been a member of the nation for seven years. At five foot four, Black didn't back down from anyone. The gang didn't take just anyone. They had to have heart. That was what the initiation was about. He was violated. Four or five dudes set to beat his ass. Black went through it two times in a row. He wanted his brothers to know he was down for them twice as much as anyone else. The nation these days had no structure. Not like the old days, when they had a constitution which forbade things like rape, hard drug use, and snitching. Well, some things hadn't changed. But the nation fractured, with every crew going for themselves. Black was a disciple of the old ways. He understood that if you had power, you had control, and control was the endgame.

Too late, Black's mother worried about his affiliation with the gang. She thought the devil took him over. One night, she tried to perform an exorcism. She drugged him and then threw him in the bathtub. Lit candles. Cursed at him. Spat at him. Broke raw eggs to smear on him. Lonzo had little idea what was going on. But then the eggs turned black. And she cried that he was lost to her.

"All the bodies dropping brings too much attention. The police. The reporters. It's a big spotlight on us. You let it get personal."

"They killed Lyonessa. They…"

"I know. But before then."

"All my business is personal. I'm not going to let anyone disrespect me or my shorties. If you're afraid of dying, this is the wrong game for you."

His father came to him in dreams. It was he who first told Black about how his mother hired the boys to kill him. His father watched as he crept into her bedroom one night and wrapped his hands around her throat. Eyes teared up with pleading, she reached up, clawing at his face and arms. A son killing his mother, he knew he was beyond forgiveness. That he was cursed with no soul. And would burn.

He closed his eyes, too afraid of the final death rattle of his mother, when he noticed the smell and her renewed struggle. It smelled of rancid meat set to flame. When he opened his yes, his mother's hands slackened, her arms fallen to her side. But her skin where his hands met her throat blistered. Large pustules swelled then burst like over-ripe fruit, pus spilled out like lactating wounds. Her skin charred.

Black turned his palm upward, only to see strangers at the end of his arms.

Someone banged on the front door.

Black adjusted his gloves.

Lady G's image haunted Lott, creeping into his mind whenever he lowered his guard or sat still long enough. The odd crook of her smile. The press of her skin. His fingers could still trace each supple curve of her body because she had so totally filled his mind and consumed his heart. She was a fever dream that had not yet broken despite the fallout from them getting together. Part of him clutched to every moment they shared, attempting to track back to when it all started. Everything began with a moment. A furtive glance, sultry and lingering, which signaled the okay to become intimate. Unspoken. Between them. Their little secret. Knowing looks and personal touches like their own inside joke. So it was natural, after Garlan kidnapped her and Lott rescued her, that their inhibitions lowered from the adrenaline rush of the adventure. From there it was like coming down from their high, in passion's ebb.

Then things fell apart.

No matter how much he wished, things could never go back to the way they were before. They were broken and someone had to pay.

"You Black?" Lott asked. The man was shorter than he expected. A young girl stepped past them then off to the side, positioning herself to his flank and in the shadows. Her hair, blonde with black roots, flew her colors.

"Who asking?"

"Lott."

"You one of King's crew." If Black had heard about the situation between Lott and King — and Lord knew that word traveled fast on the street vine — he gave no indication. Not that it mattered. Lott knew. Most days he wanted to give in to the desire to get blunted and stop feeling so much. But he deserved to feel it all. The guilt, the shame, pressed in on him with such weight he was convinced everyone could just see it.

"Yeah, that's me."

"What's your angle like, homes?" Black asked. Not quite what Lott was expecting with his bald head and full beard. Five foot four, about a buck seventy, posed in an aggressive stance in order not to convey weakness.

"I come in peace, if you are."

"Seems you ain't got a choice. You traveling awfully light."

"Figured this could be handled man to man. You the one I need to be speaking with?" It was a mild challenge. Give him the chance to puff up.

"Yeah, I'm the one calling shots," Black asked.

"I need to speak on this business with Dred."

"What of it?"

"A lot of bodies are dropping. And for what? So each of you can see who can poison their community the fastest?"

"You seem to know a lot about my business." Black stepped closer in an unveiled act of intimidation. The grip of the automatic showed the gun riding in the waist of his pants.

"It's a nasty business. How are you looking out for your people?"

"I protect my people. I provide for them, me and my crew. If it wasn't for us, fools would come trippin' through here, guns a-blazing. That's the life. I'm not afraid of dying as long as I die strong."

"Not everyone wants to die strong. Or young. Your playing hurts kids. Little girls especially." Lott sensed the situation was about to bubble over. He'd been here before. The precipice of machismo. The best way to handle the situation was to ease off the throttle; give the man room to be a man and space to think. Not to back him into a corner and shame him. Lott knew this. Yet some inner compulsion, the need to do things his way, the need to have others hurt the way he hurt, made him dig into Black. "Girls like your sister."

Black short-jabbed Lott in the kidneys, a punch so fast and with such little movement, Lott didn't have time to react. If anything, Lott was braced for a swing to his face. Lott grabbed him at the shoulders ready to wrestle him down, but Black took a half-step back to throw him off balance, swung his arm over Lott's to break the hold, then rammed his elbow into Lott's neck. Black jammed his knee three times into Lott's side before throwing him to the curb. The sounds of the tussle brought a couple members of his crew out, guns drawn. La Payasa threw a sign for them to stand down.

"How you want to play this?" she asked, a flicker of alarm in her eyes. She was her gang through and through, and yet, the pride she had in her colors had been reduced to yet another thing which had disappointed her.

"We ain't wasting a bullet on this fool and putting him out of his misery. He and his crew are broken. Let him crawl back like the betraying dog that he is."

Black saw her thinking. "Come on. You need a break. Let's go back to the house."

"Not back inside?"

"No. The house."

Finding himself without friends wasn't new to Lott. Running was the thing his mother did best, second only to getting high. Setting down roots terrified her, either that or she so quickly made a mess of her life — shorting dealers, not paying back friends, bailing on family when rent was due — that she had no choice but to move. At one point, Lott had changed schools six times in one year. Each time, Lott was the foreigner, the stranger, the outcast. Most times he was too tired to prove himself, content to live inside his head, writing lyrics and working out beats. Music was his only friend. His only refuge. His only constant. And he was too tired, too resigned to his life, to bother risking himself to invest in someone. Even just to get to know them. Not if he was only going to have to leave them. Each introduction held the promise that he had found a place to belong. Maybe he'd found family. It hurt too much when just the promise of family was torn away. Or worse, they abandoned him.

There were times of quiet lucidity when Lott would return here and cry. Thinking about how badly he had fucked up his life, the route which seemed to make the most sense was for him to kill himself and start over. That voice whispered to him in the void of no other voices in his life. It certainly beat the continual struggle against thugs charged by the thrill of petty power, constant chest-thumping, and the daily need to grind out an existence.

He still hurt, inside and out. Pain bled out of him. Not just from the recent pair of ass-whippings he'd subjected himself to. He could confess his sins to anyone, could recount the details — from loving King and Lady G, to working hard in service to them, to allowing himself to fall for Lady G, to sleeping with her, to busting up the only family he'd ever known and experienced — in a way so unaffected it was as if he was telling the story of someone else. The reality of the immensity of the pain he caused and suffered seared him to the point of him not feeling. That was his one truth today. He allowed himself one, it was all he could handle. He had lied so much to himself in so many subtle ways, he was no better than his crackhead of a mother.

Lott didn't remember how he stumbled to the house. Only when the door opened and Lott nearly tumbled in from his exhausted body leaning against the door did he become aware of where he was. "Wayne."

"Lott, man, you look like you got your ass wawawazupped. What happened?" Wayne ushered him in and plopped him on the couch.

"Went to go see Black."

"By yourself?" He called out from the kitchen, where he dashed off to in order to run some water into a bowl. He returned with a wash rag to damp at some of Lott's cuts.

"Thought it was the right play."

"You need to re-examine your definitions of right and wrong." The words stung despite them not being intended the way Lott heard them. "You get any clarity?"

"I'm stocked on clarity. In fact, I'm in need of a clarity clearance sale. Hope I ain't blowing up your spot. If you got something going on…"

"Nah, man, it's cool. I was meaning to get up with you. See how you were doing."

"Yeah," said Lott, straining to keep any trace of resentment out of his voice. He winced as Wayne daubed at his cut lip. "Lots of folks been meaning to."

Got a touch of pride to him. Wayne wrestled with his internal voice. Course why he got to ask for someone to be with him? Why didn't someone offer?

"I feel so dirty inside." Lott couldn't escape his sense of shame. Everyone wanted to know how/why he let things happen the way they did. After all, he was old enough to know better. He understood the consequences. He certainly was an adult. But he also knew that no answer would help them understand. He wasn't sure he knew "why?" anyway.

"The way I see it, it wasn't really you who did it. Not the real you."

"What if it was?"

"You're a good person. You're still the man we know and loved. You just did something wrong. You have to have faith that people will have your back. In a few months, this will blow over, and be nothing but a memory. But that's only if you handle your business correct from here on out."

"What do you mean?"

"You're trapped, you're scared, you're living in fear," Wayne said. "You push this too far, we'll lose you, too."

Lott wanted to believe him, but Wayne was wrong. The lies, the memories, they were like scars. They might heal over, but it would take more than months. The dreams, the sweat-drenched things he woke from, only now were beginning to fade. Lott considered himself a cancer that needed to be removed for the sake of the health of the community. He'd already tried twice.

"Can I ask you something?" Lott asked.

"What's that?"

"Why don't you hate me?" The whole conversation, Lott had been waiting for Wayne to blame him. For him to yell at him, to tell him that "if you made different choices from the beginning, none of us would be broken or torn up right now."

"Who said I don't?" Wayne asked. Lott slumped in his seat, further resigned. "That what you want to hear, ain't it? I've already said this, I don't know how many different ways that I can say this, you just ain't hearing me. You my boy. You messed up something fierce and it'll be a while before things are okay, if they ever will be. That's on the real. But we say we believe in certain things. Honesty. Responsibility. Courage. That includes the strength it takes to make changes and move on. And forgive. Forgiveness has to begin somewhere. It's the only way we can find our way home. I haven't given up on you. God's not through with you yet. Speaking of…"

"What's up?" Lott asked.

"Now, I hate to get between a man and his need to punish himself, but I do have a problem you could help me with."

"What's that?" Lott perked up at the prospect of being useful to someone.

"Percy and Had."

"What about them?"

"They've run off. I think they've got it in their head to search for some missing cup."

"What?"

"Some Merle thing."

"Where are they?"

"Here, let me play you the message." Wayne played Merle's voicemail. Lott's eyes half-closed as he concentrated. He wound his hand in the air to get Wayne to replay the message.

"I think I know where they went."

"Can you go look after them?"

"Me? You sure?"

"Trust has to begin somewhere, too."