King's War

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Without a home, Mulysa was his own master with nothing to lose. While part of that meant he was free to go wherever he wanted, in his heart he knew that he was a man without a home. Dred hadn't reached out, too busy grooming his next pet, Garlan. Dred had a habit of discarding people who were no longer of any use to him. Or were used up. Broken. It wasn't as if Dred didn't discard Baylon as soon as he was done and Baylon was his boy, yet he followed that fool fake Jamaican like a hobbled puppy. Somehow Mulysa convinced himself that it would be different with him. And though Mulysa still possessed his skills and ferocity, he was tainted. Marked. That was what he assumed, as he slid in the booth at Marble's Cafe. The owner, a Seventh Day Adventist, fisheyed him, not wanting any foolishness, as he didn't put up with dealers or wannabe pimps. Mulling over a plate of Marble's thick, potato-wedge fries, alongside the remains of a sandwich of ham, turkey, and bacon fried up and topped with three cheeses, Mulysa could have been either. Carried on waves of nostalgia — like an old man reflecting on his life, despite barely being out of his teens — Mulysa knew he'd run out of life. The days wound down for him. He was as certain about that as he was about the fact that he had a tail. He had the sense that the sword of Damocles about to fall and split his skull. A fatal intuition he couldn't shake. The engine which drove his life had simply run out of gas and he was exhausted.

He had checked out one of his old spots, a place he stayed before the Camlann, but it was little more than a lot grown over with weeds. He pulled back the flimsy plywood sheet which covered the door, part of which broke off in his hands as he bent to it, to slip into the abandoned house. Beer cans littered the floor. The house had pockets of shadows as little light poured in around the boarded-up windows. The pungent tang of soured meat assaulted his nostrils. Dirty dishes piled in cold, gray water with a strange orange film on them. With a molding layer of macaroni and cheese burned to the bottom, the pot turned on its side provided shelter for a stream of cockroaches. He had stayed here for several months. That was how he had lived and he'd thought he had life by the balls. But seen in dim light against the backdrop of peeled paint and ripped-up carpet, his life amounted to a waste. No one would mourn him if he died.

Pain was something they all had in common, but it looked different on everyone. For Mulysa, no, for Cheldric, the old wound had the voice of his uncle.

"You're ugly. No one will want to get with you. Might as well get used to paying for it. We all do, one way or another, anyway." Then his uncle would get his head up in some herb, some Crown Royal mixed with Pepsi in his glass, and stare at the television whether it was on or not.

"You're dumb. No sense in doing anything that will make you any dumber or careless. So don't do drugs." Then his uncle would clear the books from the table with an angry swipe and glare down on him like he was a ghost of his past, pull out his belt, and beat Mulysa until he was spent.

"You're fat. Watch what you eat. You're young now, but don't become slow or let your body betray you." Then his uncle would send him to his room, without dinner, confining him to the dark to amuse himself or at least be out from underfoot.

"No one wants you. I took you in after they abandoned you. You're lucky you have me." Then his uncle's eyes bulged in surprise and his neck opened up like a screaming mouth vomiting blood when Mulysa ran a box cutter across it. He was eleven.

Ducking out of the hovel, the sun mocked him. Someone jogged after him or something put him on edge. Hunted him. He forgot how paranoid the drugs made him.

Mulysa had never thought much of what it meant to be a man. Women were casualties of his conquests. Bitches. Hos. Chickenheads. Skanks. Less than human. Barely a collection of orifices on which to pleasure himself, reflections of his selfhate upon which he could vent more of the same.

Ever since he'd been out of the Shoe, he'd been directionless. Dred never summoned him, nor set him up with his own package to sell and get on his feet. Didn't use him for any work. Acted like Mulysa was dead to him. Without explanation or warning. Suddenly he was a pariah to all the folks he knew. So he'd come full circle.

There was a bridge under 19th and MLK, across from the Children's Bureau, where he now stayed. The four culverts on either side of the bridge were like little apartments. Crystals hung from the top between the cracks like salt stalactites. The dirt floor, white like chalk, had a moldy mattress, almost a part of the hill, resting on it. The fine sand got into everything: his backpack, his blanket, his clothes, but the concrete walls sealed him up nicely. Entombed him. Alone, in the dark, he reflected on his life. Sometimes he had to chew over the pain of his life in order to write his story. Sometimes that was easier to do with the distance of fiction.

He ate in peace. Despite being the only person in the spot — and the owner having a penchant of passing the time by waxing philosophical with his customers — Mulysa ate alone. In uninterrupted silence. The best sort to speed him on his way. He recognized the hardened eye, the one-handunder-the-counter style readiness, prepared to grab a bat or gun or whatever in case Mulysa broke bad.

In his time, Mulysa might have robbed this place, mugged the man's kin, or killed someone he knew. Mulysa was bold with it. He came up admiring folks like Green, who knew how to get shit done. Folks knew his name, his face, and the details of his do, but no one spoke out. Mulysa modeled his own stalwart career with the same approach. It only took one to speak out, but if no one did it meant he didn't have a wake of ardent admirers.

No one was immune to life's little tragedies just like no one was immune to the potential of drugs to make a good person do bad things. The theory assuaged the emaciated thing he called his conscience. That was what he would say to them, any of them. That it wasn't their fault. His neither. It was the drugs. Faceless, nameless, blameless, because ultimately they were a force of nature and blaming them for the destruction wreaked in your life was like yelling at a hurricane. He tried it out loud to see how it might play.

"You can't blame me. Drugs, they like a tornado or some shit. Can't be mad at them neither. They just do what they do." It sounded like every bit of bullshit to him. Dabbing his mouth with a napkin, he dropped the wadded napkin into his half-eaten piece of peach cobbler and pushed away from the table. He left a five-dollar tip on the ten-dollar tab and didn't know why. He left the building unsettled, something nagged at him. Some detail he'd missed.

The last thing he saw was an empty forty bottle coming toward his head.

How did one refer to the recently dead? They were still alive, still real in the memory of those who knew them in the present. But they were still gone. Past tense. Alive in name only. Baylon had been without power or control for so long he wasn't about to go back to either state without a fight.

"What brings you to the front lines?" Baylon asked Dred.

"Just checking on things." Dred's voice a conveyer belt of shifting accents. A hint of Jamaican patois in one breath, formal English in another, and relaxed hood-cent in the last. Shifting with his identity of the moment.

"Surprised."

"By what?"

"That you still remembered the ones you came up with," Baylon said sardonically.

"I remember." Dred let the slight pass. He'd allowed Baylon the one as long as he didn't cross the line.

"Those you hurt."

"You hurt, nigga?" Dred desired to control everyone and everything around him by the tools at his disposal: fear, threat, intimidation, violence, and death. Remorseless eyes marred his prettyboy looks.

"Look at me. I gave everything to you."

"Listen to you. You sound like my bitch."

"You right. Shit." Baylon hated this. What he wanted to do was break out a sawed-off. But he couldn't raise a weapon to the man. It was as if, despite all Dred had done, Baylon was still bound to him. To the end.

"Guess you had to get that out your system."

"Something like that."

"Now can I get to the business I came to speak on?"

"What's that?"

"Them Julios." Every Mexican was "Julio" to Dred.

"What you need?"

"We need to end this once and for all. You need to put the word out that you want a parlay."

"If we fly the truce flag, you can't do anything. So how's that gonna help."

" We ain't flying the truce flag. You are. They probably still think you speak for me. That's they fault. Call for it at the site of the new Camlann."

Not that Baylon had much of a name to trade on, but he hated that Dred could so casually play it for nothing. Not too long ago, Baylon stood tall. His word was bond. Now he'd been drained of most of his life. By Dred. "That how you going to do them?"

"I'm in a loose-end-tying mood. It's time to tighten up the ranks. I still got to rock the cradle on my latest crew."

The storm, relatively calm now, would soon pick up in intensity. Tristan carefully followed the road along its snaking path. The rain beat a harsh rhythm upon the roof of the car as it snailed its way down the long, winding road. Like cotton tufts churning in oil, the clouds choked the indigoblanket sky, plunging the night into deeper shadow, a foreboding whisper in their overhead passing. Large, looming trees lined each side of the dismal, dark road like protective guards. Tristan wiped away the angry tears that pooled in her eyes, checking herself in the rearview mirror. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction of tears. The windshield wiper danced madly as she continued to fight them back. The rain fell unceasingly in annoying splatters. The low moan of the wind left her undaunted. Headlights sliced through the thin drizzle of rain as the car headed up the forgotten, dimly lit access road. Plenty of sound filled the silence. Birdsong. Gravel spit up by tires. Crickets in dusk light. The gurgle of torrents of water. No words needed to be said, even as the car slowed to a halt in front of a locked fence. A narrow footpath, full of thorny branches, circled him, leading to a denser stretch of woods. Tristan shoved Mulysa in that direction. The constant rain splattered tree branches and leaves, slickening rocks as the pair nearly stumbled several times as they walked. Twigs snapped in their passing processional.

She kicked him in the back of the legs, forcing him to ground. If he tried to defend himself, it only brought on more punches. Her blood pumped with righteous fury. She hooked him in his head, groin, stomach, and throat. He curled into a ball, brain seized up. Mulysa's head fell forward, his chest tightened as if he had shards of glass in his lungs.

"Are you afraid to die?" Tristan asked.

"Yeah. I guess. We all are," Mulysa said like a general tired of war.

"That don't sound like the Mulysa I knew. The Mulysa I knew didn't let anyone's needs come before his own. Didn't back down from anyone. Didn't care whose territory he ran in. He wasn't afraid of anything.

"I'm afraid to meet God." The words came softly, without irritation or bravado. More resigned than anything else. "For Him to tell me that I wasted my life down here. That I pissed over all the opportunities He gave me."

She put a dirty look on him. Meek like a tree trunk, he disgusted her. He was too easy to insult. This wasn't the Mulysa she wanted. This animal was already broken and beaten down. This one sounded too much like the little girl trapped in her that she never gave voice to. The one who was also afraid, not of His judgment, because she was ready for that. She could carry that. No, she feared "… that He loves you anyway."

"Love. I don't even know what that means anymore."

She understood the resignation and the black hole from which he operated… but he was still a dog that needed to be put down. Tristan reached over his shoulder and stabbed him in the chest. He bolted, running on pain and adrenaline, already dead. It hurt to breath. He tripped, his head bouncing off a stone, leaving his ears ringing and his world blurred. Tristan landed on him and stabbed until he quit defending himself.

Classes in school would always have a timeout whenever a student entered holding a note. Prez's heart skipped a beat. If the student knew him, they'd try to catch his eye and give him a nod, but most times the kind of students trusted to run the administrative errands of the principal's office weren't the kind who ran in the same circles as Prez. In the usual routine, the teacher took the note then read it silently. Like they were on some reality show, all of the students studied each other for any tell as they waited to see who had been voted off the island, whose journey would end here. The teacher then called out a name and the student perked up with a "who me?"/"what did I do?" look of complete innocence. Too many times, Prez's name was called. All eyes turned to him, accompanied by a few stifled snickers and some exhales of relief that their name wasn't called. He'd march to the front of the class — under the weight of the glaring eyes — to receive the note like a communion wafer and then pass into the hallway.

His mind turned over the devious things he did, which ones might rise to the level of being called to the office. A dead man walking the green mile to his execution, the journey and the wait did their psychological jobs. He reflected on the cost of his antics. He pondered the various crossroads moments of his life and the decisions he'd made. He'd wonder "what if?"

Prez hated being called down to the principal's office. There was a bench right outside of her door where those awaiting her judgment waited. Not only could she watch each delicious squirm — and she'd let you wait there, stewing in your anxiety, dread, and guilt until you were fit to burst before she called you in — but her office was the first along the corridor. That meant that students and teachers had to pass in order to get to the other offices — the nurse's station, the guidance counselor, and so on — becoming tacit players in the shaming game.

And then he awaited his punishment.

Prez, Fathead, and Naptown Red relaxed at Red's crib. Dred had posted bail for them and assured them that he had lawyers at the ready to defend them. But they were instructed to wait at Red's until he could meet with them. He needed to switch up houses to deflect eyes and they needed to stay low until he had them set up. Prez's stomach bottomed out at the summons.

Naptown Red took his endo in deep, allowing it to work its magic inside him. It mellowed him out in a way that released him from having to play a role. Long as he was free, paid, and high, he was good. The game hadn't changed: get locked up, keep your mouth shut, stand tall, and you'd be taken care of. Naptown Red had all of the angles worked out. Just like how Dred sprang Mulysa, even if he didn't want anything to do with him once he got out, he didn't have much choice but to take care of Red and his crew if he wanted to keep his street cred. It wasn't as if they'd been busted doing their own thing; technically they were on the clock for Dred. Doing their do hadn't made them any more sloppy, just the opposite in fact, as they had to be more careful fearing Dred's retaliation far more than the police. Worst-case scenario, Red would break Dred off a piece of the action and they'd be square, because business was business.

"You think we in trouble?" Fathead asked.

"Where you think we is? Kindergarten?" Naptown Red had the belief that he was a shot-caller. It reeked in the tone of his voice. Play the part, be the part. First these two reacted to him like planets pulled into orbit by this sheer gravity then others, seeing them, would fall into line. That was how kingdoms were built.

"Just saying, won't he be mad? We lost his money and his package, then on top of that, he has to come out of pocket to bail us out." Fathead skittered nervously about. His exhaled smoke didn't seem to stave off his anxiousness. He didn't tell the police much. Certainly they had Dred's name already. No harm in giving them what they already had. And if they had Dred, they had to know who his main lieutenants were. And where some of the stash houses were.

"You give the ghetto a bad name." Red snatched the joint back from him as if he were a child wasting good food. "That's the cost of doing business."

"But Dred…"

"I ain't afraid of Dred. Green hisself couldn't work those corners any better than us. Shit, we out there on the front lines." Naptown Red had a way of sounding like he supported those in charge while undermining them at the same time to rally folks around him. "I got your back. So you better learn to squad up."

"Squad up?" Fathead grabbed a bag of halfeaten Doritos from the coffee table and absently began stuffing them into his mouth.

"Look here." Red reached into a nearby drawer and retrieved a gun. "This here might suit you."

"What is it?"

"A Beretta. Light on recoil. A bitch's gun." Red let the insult fly and sink in before cleaning it up a little. "A starter gun for you. Let you get used to the idea before moving you up to something serious."

"Yeah, I don't think so. It's not my thing." It wouldn't matter if he had fifty guns on him, Fathead didn't have it in him to kill a man. He survived by rolling over, allying himself with whoever could protect him.

"Suit yourself." Red tucked it into his dip. "Probably blow off your joint with it anyways."

Heavy thuds hammered on the front door. Fathead nearly fell out of his seat. Naptown Red eyed him with mild disgust, beginning to re-think their partnership. He didn't need any weak links at the table. Peeking through the eyehole, he sucked his teeth in Fathead's direction.

"Dred, my nigga." Red opened the door and gave him a pound. "You alone?"

"I need to be here with anyone?" Dred stepped inside. His facial hair grew in odd patches, none of which took away any of the boyish nature of his face. But his eyes glared about, ancient and rheumy, caught up in his machinations. "Nah, shit. When you here, you with family." Naptown Red knew better. Dred's king was never alone. Not with as many enemies as he had not to mention Black on the hunt. Probably a soldier at the car as lookout. And Garlan's ass had to be around somewhere. Red glad-handed as best he could, but there was no play with Dred. Only a brooding intensity, like a volcano deciding when, not if, it were going to erupt.

"What is this here?" Dred gave a cursory onceover to the two in the living room.

"Nothing, just chillin' like you said. Staying low."

Dred projected a mien of barely suppressed anger approaching the group, with the tone of personal disgust and irritation. Their first reaction was to give him plenty of space to vent. They knew they were in for getting their asses chewed. Naptown Red lit some incense he had on an end table next to a burnt spoon. The scented smoke proved too cloying.

"You ain't saying one motherfucking think I want to hear." Dred marched to the couch where Fathead rested. He simply stared until Fathead got up to join Prez on the other one.

"We got rules for a reason. Protocols. We do things a certain way to not get caught. We do business with folks we know. Who this motherfucker?"

"This is Prez. He hung out with Green and his crew. I brought him on to do work."

"How you know him?"

"My man Fathead here made the intro." As Naptown Red beamed with confidence and reassurance, Prez sank into himself, dismissed and dejected. "See? We all about protocol."

"Then how did we end up in jail?

"Shit happens."

"Shit happens? Shit happens and I get calls at three in the morning. Shit happens and I got to pay lawyers and bail bondsmen. Shit happens and I gotta make fools ghost so the state ain't gotta case. Shit happens and someone starts talking to po-po like a kid trying to make nice with Santa. What they ask?"

"Didn't ask me shit. I lawyered up soon as they slapped cuffs on my black ass." For the first time Naptown Red sounded nervous, edging into unfamiliar territory.

"They got names." Prez hugged himself.

"Who?"

"Red. Mulysa. Garlan. Baylon." Prez straightened up but stared straight ahead. "That's who they came at me with. Wanted me to confirm who they were."

"They didn't mention Nine. Where she at?" Fathead chimed in.

"She on… special assignment."

"She ain't around, that's for damn sure." Fathead puffed up and shifted on the couch, confident that at least they were on the clock putting in work.

"What about me?" Dred turned to Prez.

"They talk about you like a ghost. A whisper."

"Yeah, I like that. Poof." Dred blew into his fist and exploded it into wiggling fingers. "Still, I don't like folks talking."

Prez wore a cologne of panic. His heart stammered, a foreboding filling his heart. Expectant eyes took in Dred's every move like he couldn't get enough of him. Fathead, in a jackknife crouch more nervous than before, shoveled more Doritos into his mouth to comfort himself.

"You need anything?" Prez asked. "We straight," Naptown Red said.

"Good, cause I'd like to think that I treated you all fair." Dred walked the perimeter of the room. With a casualness, he peeked in corners and checked out the layout.

"Nah, we good."

"We alone?" Dred patted himself down as if he misplaced something.

"Just four fellas kicking it."

"That what you do when you working for me? Kick it?"

"Dred, man, I think you operating out of some kind of misperception," Red started.

"Spare me, Red. I know your kind. You align yourself to those with power and manipulate those without it. You think you the smartest man in the room. Like you the only one that knows something."

"I…" Dred's tone chastened him as well as rubbed Red hard the wrong way.

"You're going to want to be quiet now." Dred raised two fingers, his hand rearing up like a cobra about to strike. "Here's what I know. Niggas always wanna hustle. We'll put in more work, do more dirt, often for less than minimum wage, and act like it's somehow better than working a nine-tofive. No matter how much cash I lay out, product I provide, or corners to sell it from, it's never enough. Ain't that right?"

Prez nearly pissed himself when Dred turned his direction. He curled away from him a bit, crossed his arms over his chest as if to fend him off. Dred's eyes bored through him as if examining for any weakness or flaw. Prez couldn't move under their scrutiny.

"Names have power. You name someone, you have power, dominion, over them. When you call someone by name, you imply knowledge of them, a certain level of intimacy. Names have to be respected. God took three of the Ten Commandments to lay it out. This is who I am." Dred ticked off the first finger. "Don't put anything or anyone above me." Dred raised his second finger. "Do not misuse my name." Dred held up his third finger and stopped in front of Fathead. "What's my name?"

"D-d-dred," Fathead stuttered.

"Every time that name comes off your lips, I know."

"Dred, you ain't got to…" Red protested.

Prez moved into a colder, more frightened place.

"You, I'll deal with in a minute. I don't care if I'm dry-shooting as that joint, my name will not be disrespected. You feel me."

"Yeah."

"What's my name?"

"Dred," Fathead said.

"You want to say my name, fine. You do so to po-po and…"

Shadows erupted from the corners of the room. Strands, ebon ropes lashed at him. Two fear-forms held him fast, vaguely human-shaped, at each arm. Four strands latched on to the corners of his mouth, pulling just taut enough to reveal his bleeding gum line. Two more strands hooked into each eye, holding them open. Thousands of threads sprang from the carpet like a harvest of night. They dug into the flesh around his neck, a penumbra obedience collar.

"Here's the problem as I see it. This one here has been snitching. Gave me up. If I hadn't gotten you all out of there, who knew who else he would have given up."

"Let me at that snitch bitch," Naptown Red said.

"Don't worry, he didn't give you up. You ain't significant enough to warrant police attention. However, you did vouch for him."

Naptown Red pulled out his gun. He was at a crossroads moment and had only seconds to make his play. Were he a man of deep thought and methodical planning — or simply had the time to weigh his options — he might have shot Fathead on the spot and thrown himself on Dred's mercy, banking on the show of loyalty to buy him a few days or weeks. However, Red was a man of intuition and opportunity. Fathead had given up Dred's name but not his. What Dred hurled as an insult, Red interpreted as an advantage. He was an unknown, off the radar of Five-O. And Dred was here alone and preoccupied with binding or torturing Fathead. With a few shots, he could remove Dred as an obstacle and bind Fathead to him. Naptown Red fired off five rounds.

Dred turned and waved his hand. The bullets seemed to move in slow motion. The bullets whirred past, their trajectories marking the air like spinning tracers. He moved out the way of all of them except the last one. He allowed that bullet to tear through the muscle of his arm. With a scientific detachment, the pain stabbed straight into his brain and he watched his blood as if experiencing both for the first time in centuries. With a flick of his wrists, he shot a spear of shadow at Naptown Red. The plume pierced his heart, leaving a frozen expression of surprise on his face. Naptown Red dropped to his knees, the Beretta fell from his hands, and then he toppled forward. Dred strolled over to the gun, scooped it up, and then walked over to Prez.

"Don't let all that fool you. Magic takes a toll on a body. People weren't meant to wield it. We just weren't built for it. That kind of energy, even the dragon's breath, can burn up a person."

Prez remained paralyzed in his chair, still unable to move.

"We still have a problem, don't we? Red vouched for Fathead, but Fathead vouched for you. You see my dilemma, don't you?"

Prez's body tensed as Dred pressed the cold metal of the Beretta against the back of his neck. Prez could feel exactly how many hairs it disturbed, conscious of every quaver in the man's hand, down to his pulse. Though the chaos of his thoughts threatened to consume him, he fought to stay calm. A serene calm, one that came with the knowledge that his life was held in a trigger finger. One twitch and it was like blowing out a candle.

"Nakia."

"What's that?"

"Nakia. King's daughter."

"Oh, now that is a useful bit of information. Names have power."

With a gentle squeeze, the candle's flame was snuffed out.