King Suckerman

Two

Marcus Clay pulled the Hendrix out of the rack, walked it from Soul to Rock, slid it back where it belonged, in the H bin, in the mix between Heart and Humble Pie. That slim boy Rasheed — Karras liked to call him Rasheed X — kept filing Hendrix in the Soul section of the store. Rasheed, with his picked-out ’Fro, red, black, and green knit cap, and back-to-Africa ideology, keeping the flame for racial purity. Clay understood what the young brother was trying to say, and he respected that, but this here was a business — Clay’s business, to the point. What if some pink-eyed white boy with an upside-down American flag patch on the ass end of his jeans came in looking for a copy of Axis: Bold as Love, couldn’t find it, and then, too stoned and too timid to ask one of the black clerks, walked out the door? For what, some kind of statement? Marcus Clay didn’t play that. And anyway, Jimi? That boy did belong in Rock.

“Hey, Rasheed!”

“Yeah.” Rasheed, not looking up, standing behind the counter, tagging LPs with the price gun, mouthing the words to Curtis Mayfield’s “Back to the World” as it came at three-quarter volume through the house KLMs. That was the other thing about Rasheed: always playing the music too loud in the shop. At least he had Curtis on the platter, though. The boy had enough good sense for that.

“I’m not gonna tell you again about moving Hendrix into Soul. I’m getting tired—”

“I hear you, boss.” Copping to it, but still not looking up.

“See that you do hear me, man.”

“Solid.”

“Just see that you do,” said Clay, turning his back.

Rasheed said, “I guess you ain’t heard Band of Gypsys, then.”

There it was. Clay closed his eyes, breathed deep. He stared at the Rufusized poster on the wall, let his eyes linger on Chaka Khan — man, she was fine — to make himself relax. “I heard it. So what?”

“With Buddy Miles on the sticks? Jimi steps up and plays some serious funk, no question. ‘Machine Gun’ and all that. So now you gonna make the claim his catalog don’t belong in Soul? Cause you know funk was where he was headed when—”

“What you think you are, man, the Amazing Kreskin, some bullshit like that? You gonna tell me now where a dead man was headed with his shit? I’m telling you that where he was when he died was rock, and that’s where his shit’s gonna get filed long as it’s in my shop. Dig?”

“I dig, boss,” Rasheed said, with his put-on white-boy enunciation. “I do dig your heavy vibratos.”

The front door opened then, which was a good thing for Rasheed since right about then Clay had gone about as far with all that as he would go. It was Cheek, Clay’s big-as-a-bear assistant manager, entering the store. Cheek, a half hour late and higher than a hippie. Despite his Sly Stone oval-lensed shades, Clay could see from his tentative steps that the boy was damn near cooked.

Cheek stopped, grinned, cocked an ear in the direction of the speakers, cupped his hands around an imaginary mike, went right into a Curtis falsetto. Truth was, Cheek’s tone was too high, closer to Eddie Kendricks than it was to Mayfield. But Clay had to admit the boy was pretty good.

“You’re late,” said Clay.

Cheek stopped singing, removed his shades, wiped dry his buggy eyes. “Yeah, I know it. And I do apologize. But I was out late last night—”

“Gettin’ some of that stanky-ass pussy,” said Rasheed, “from that Hoss Cartwright — lookin’ bitch of his over in Capitol Heights.”

“Naw, man,” said Cheek. “And shut your mouth about Sholinda, too, nigger.” Cheek looked at Clay. “Guess where I was last night, Marcus.”

“I suppose you’re gonna tell me.”

“Listening to some funk. Or should I say, listenin’ to some uncut funk.”

“You went to the P-Funk show?” said Rasheed.

“Damn sure did,” said Cheek. “I’m talkin’ about the Bomb.”

“Dag, boy!” Rasheed shook his head. “I wanted to check that motherfucker out my own self!”

“Well, you missed it.” Cheek paused, waited for Rasheed to lean forward. “Yeah, Cole Field House, man. Seven hours of festival-style throwin’ down with the Funk Mob. Bobby Bennett emceed—”

“The Mighty Burner was there?”

“That’s right. Introduced the opening act.”

“Who was it?”

“The Brothers Johnson. Thunder Thumbs and Lightnin’ Licks.”

“Fuck the Brothers Johnson.”

“Yeah, I know. They was there is all I’m sayin’. But Gary Shider came out next. Wearin’ a diaper and shit. Then Bootsy with the Rubber Band, played the fuck out that bass of his and then let loose with the Horny Horns. Fred Wesley and Maceo. Right after that? Starchild, citizen of the universe. The niggers was trippin’! Doin’ it in three-D...”

“All right,” said Clay, “we get it.”

“We gonna turn... this mu-tha... out,” sang Cheek.

“I said we get it. I’m goin’ out for a couple of hours, so it’s time you got to work.”

“You ain’t gonna be too late, are you?” said Cheek.

“Why?”

“Thought I’d check out this new one they got opening up at the Town.”

“I won’t be late,” said Clay.

“What new one?” said Rasheed.

“King Suckerman,” said Cheek.

Rasheed looked up. “That the one about the pimp?”

“Not any old pimp. The baddest player ever was. ‘The Man with the Master Plan Who Be Takin’ It to the Man.’ ”

“Who be. That’s what the ad says, huh? I bet some white man wrote that movie; produced it, too. Even wrote that line about ‘the Man’ that’s gonna get you in the theater. Like by goin’ to that movie, givin’ up your cash money, you gonna get over on the Man yourself.”

“So?”

“So it’s you they gettin’ over on, blood. Don’t you know it’s those Caucasian producers out in Hollywood makin’ all the money off you head-scratchin’ mugs, pushin’ your dollars through the box-office window for the privilege of watchin’ two hours of nothin’? Puttin’ money back into the white machinery so that they can go right on back and do it again? And all the while they be gettin’ richer, and you just stuck where you’re at, not goin’ anywhere at all.”

“It’s called havin’ a little fun, Rasheed. Ain’t you never heard of that?”

“You’re just ignorant, that’s all.”

“Yeah, I’m ignorant. I’m good and ignorant, bleed. And while you readin’ your Little Red Book tonight, I’ll be out havin’ a good-ass time at the movies. And then, inside my crib a little later on, while you’re still recitin’ your proverbs and shit, I’ll be hittin’ the fuck out of some good pussy. You can believe that.”

“Sholinda?” said Rasheed.

“Got-damn right.”

Rasheed and Cheek were still talking shit as Clay walked to the back room. He washed up and changed into a pair of shorts, put his Superstar-highs on his feet and laced them tight. He was back out front in a few, and now Rasheed and Cheek were arguing about some detail on the Pedro Bell cover of America Eats Its Young. Cheek had laid side two on the platter, and the instrumental that kicked things off, “A Joyful Process,” had come on in. Clay liked that one; the comic-book stuff in their lyrics, that he could do without, but Clinton and those boys in Funkadelic, no question, they could play.

“I’ll be back in a couple of hours,” said Clay, raising his voice over the horns.

Cheek, shaped like a brown snowman with a full Teddy Pendergrass beard, looked up. “What time you want me to cut the register tape, Marcus?”

“ ’Bout an hour from now should do it.”

“Playin’ a little ball today, boss?” said Rasheed.

“Yeah.”

“With your Caucasian friend?”

“He’s Greek.”

“He looks plenty white to me.”

“Claims there’s a difference,” said Clay. “Damn if I know what it is.”

Clay looked back at them before he left the store, standing there, smiling like fools. He knew, soon as he left, they’d be in the stockroom, firing up some of Cheek’s Mexican. It made no difference to him, long as they did their jobs. Way he saw it, if they rang a few sales, didn’t burn the place to the ground, and kept their hands out of the till, he’d be coming out ahead.

Dimitri Karras watched Marcus Clay leave his store, emerge from under the Real Right Records awning, head down Connecticut toward R, where Karras held the ragtop maroon Karmann Ghia idling by the curb. Clay with his smooth, dark skin, a modified Afro and thick mustache, walking with that head-held-high way of his, a kind of bounce, really, not exaggerated but earned. Karras didn’t blame him; if he had Clay’s looks, shit, man, he’d be strutting, too.

Karras checked himself in the rearview: black hair falling in waves to his shoulders, a black handlebar mustache, deep brown eyes picking up the chocolate color of his pocket T. Not bad. Not a stone swordsman like Clay, but not bad. Yeah, Karras, when he smiled — and he was smiling now, giving it to the mirror full on — he could turn some heads.

“Easy, lover,” said Clay, dropping into the shotgun seat. “Next thing you know, you’ll be picking out a ring.”

“I thought I had something in my teeth. I was just—”

“Uh-huh.”

Karras pushed the short-stick into first, checked the sideview before pulling out. “Too hot for you, Marcus? I could put the top back up.”

“Naw, leave it down. That way I don’t have to fold myself up to get in and out of this motherfucker. Course, this toy fits you just fine. Big man like me, though...”

Karras headed up Connecticut. The VW lurched into second, causing Clay’s head to bob involuntarily, like one of those spring-necked dogs set in the back windows of cars. Clay gave Karras a look.

“Poor man’s Porsche,” explained Karras with an apologetic shrug.

“And a Vega GT’s a poor man’s Vette.”

“Some do claim that.”

Karras cut right, headed down into Rock Creek, reached back behind the passenger seat, pulled free a leatherette box filled with eight-track tapes. Clay held the wheel steady while Karras flipped back the lid and looked through the box.

“What you puttin’ in? ’Cause I don’t even want to hear no Mo the Rooster.”

“Mott the Hoople.”

“Yeah, none of that. Put somethin’ in there that’s got some bottom, man.”

Karras slipped a tape into the deck. “Robin Trower. Bridge of Sighs. Rightful heir to Mr. Hendrix—”

“I don’t want to talk about Jimi, now. Okay?”

Karras found a joint in his shirt pocket, fired it up off the VW’s lighter. He hit it, passed it over to Clay. They exited a long tunnel and went by the National Zoo.

“Nice taste,” said Clay.

“The end of my Lumbo. I’m pickin’ up an LB later on today.”

“What you going through now?”

“I move about a pound, pound and a half a week, keep just enough for myself. It’s a living, man, you know?”

“Educated man like you, you ought to find yourself a real job. A good one, too.”

“Smoke a little weed, play some ball, listen to tunes... get some P now and then — I gotta look at it this way: How could my life get any better?”

“For you, maybe. Me, I like to work.”

“I know you do, Marcus.”

Karras took in a deep hit of the pot. He offered it to Clay, who hit it again, passed it back. Karras kissed it one last time, butted what was left, pushed the roach to the back of the ashtray.

Clay checked out the sneakers on Karras’s feet. “Where’d you get those Clydes, Dimitri?”

“Up at Mitchell’s, on Wisconsin.”

“I ain’t seen ’em in that neutral color, though. They look good like that.”

“Mitchell’s,” repeated Karras.

“I’ll have to tell Rasheed. He’s been lookin’ for just that shade.”

“Rasheed X.”

“That boy’s all right. You two just need to sit down and talk.”

“Right.”

“So where we headed, anyway?”

“Candy Cane City, I guess. Always get a decent game up there.”

Clay nodded, then found his head moving to the gravelly Bill Lordan vocals, Trower’s blues guitar working against a thick slab of bass. The Columbian was talking to him now, pushing him to find things in the music he might have otherwise overlooked. “This is a bad jam, you know it?”

Karras nodded. “‘The Fool and Me.’”

“Your boy Trower, he can play.”

“Yeah,” said Karras. “Trower’s bad.”

Clay put on his shades; Karras put on his. The Karmann Ghia moved through the warm summer air beneath a cooling canopy of trees.