The Laws of our Fathers

SUMMER 1995

Nile

Weak, Nile always thought when he entered the jail. The damn guards were so weak, just in a total snooze. Their whole deal was papers and forms. 'Captain wants them forms to be right.' Here they were, with all these bad actors and tough customers, killers and heartless slobs two hundred feet away, and the realest thing to these tools was whether every visitor put down a sign-in time and the inmate's pen number. Probation was the same way. Jesus. Nile sighed and thought about the girl.

Nile was in love. He was always in love, but this was different. It was always different, because he didn't love the girls other men did. He didn't think Julia Roberts was so beautiful. In high school, he wasn't like every guy who thought about boning the whole pom squad. He liked sweet girls, gentle girls, girls who had something special – girls who maybe some way reminded him of himself. Right now he was really in love. Better than ever. He was like the dude in the song who loved being in love. He loved Lovinia.

'Nile, my man, my man,' said the lieutenant. He said that each week. Nile timed it so this sphincter-brain named Eddie was on the desk, because he barely searched him. 'It rainin out there?'

'A little,' Nile said. 'Kind of misting.'

'Shit. That damn pizza boy get slow. Any doggone excuse. Step into my office. Kind of mistin,' said Eddie, as he extended a slightly arthritic finger to the examination room. 'Shit, you know, it been mistin all damn month. That pollution and all's what done it. You think I'm kiddin? I'm not kidding. Mistin. Shit, I'll be havin this damn cough all year.' He ran his arms along the outside of Nile's torso, inside each leg until he reached the thigh. 'Okay, you done. Which one you want?'

'Henry Downs. Sly Bolt.'

'Mr Sly Bolt. Yessir, we gonna tell another gangbanger this week how he got to be a good boy when we let him out. You make sure he listen up.' Eddie laughed and stamped Nile's hand. He said he'd call to have them bring Bolt down.

Nile walked on. At the gatehouse, he stuck his hand under the ultraviolet and the guards inside discharged the lock, admitting him. Nile could feel it there behind him. It reminded him of Bug; every step, every twitch, brought her to mind. She was always with him, like magic. He saw some skinny girl on the street and he remembered her. He saw stocking caps or grey twills; he felt the package in his can. It was like a town where all the roads ran to one place. Lovinia.

Girls always got Nile like that. He was always waking up and trying to remember first thing who he was in love with. His heart was always flying along, airborne with secret love. He was crazy all the time about someone who didn't even know it. There was Emme Perez, a receptionist at Main Probation who had two little babies from two different men. He'd loved her secretly for a long time, with her thin little legs and her kind of attitude. There was Marjorie in his father's campaign office, who had a limp from something she'd had as a kid. There was another black girl named Namba Gates he met at college who seemed to like him, too. Nile thought she was waiting for him to ask her out, and he almost did it, until he realized he couldn't bear to. When he was a freshman in high school, there was a girl in geometry, Nancy Franz, chubby really, but kind of sweet on him, she used to bump him in the hallways and stuff, steal his books; it was fifteen years later and he still thought of her sometimes. There were so many.

Bug was the best. She was so sweet. That was just the word for her was sweet. And shy. She got so she could barely stand to let those huge eyes of hers get near yours, that had to be why they called her Bug, those eyes. It drove Nile crazy when she did that, like she wasn't even fifteen but seven.

'Do you suppose you'd say you were my girl?' he asked this morning, when they were doing the package.

'Not to none of them, I wouldn't. No how.'

'Would you say it to me?'

And she got that look. She batted him on the arm. 'You psychin,' she said.

'No, I'm not. I think you 're my girl, man. That's what I think.'

'Well, you gone think what you think, then. Ain you? Ain gone matter none what I say.' And she skirted away from him, the way she did usually. Not in person. But like her spirit. It was like a ghost. Something you couldn't catch. A part of her was shy. Or hidden. Or something. He didn't have the words. He was inside Department 2 now and he sighed aloud thinking of her.

'What's got you down, men?' asked Runculez, the guard at the desk.

'I'm not down,' said Nile. 'I'm up. I'm happy.' He lifted his arms to show he was free. Then he smiled stupidly. 'Henry Downs,' he said, and the guard shouted. 'Downs!' Two tiers up you could hear them shouting 'Downs!'

'You got the Henry Downs,' said Runculez. They both laughed so that it actually seemed funny.

'Interview room,' said Nile.

'Got some lawyers in there, men. How bout the cafeteria? We don' start in with lunch till e-leben.'

'Got to have an interview room, man. Bureau regs. Got to read the rules of the road in a one-on-one interview room.' Ordell had told him to say that. And he told Core that was strictly crazy. Who'd believe that? Who'd believe there was a rule so dumb? 'Shit,' said Ordell in reply. 'Where you been?'

The Mexican guard shook his head, but he was smiling. They all liked Nile. He was easy. Runculez spoke to another uniform a few feet away.

'Go tell that PD down there we got to hab that room, men. Tell her go by the cafeteria.'

The PD came out with her briefcase in a minute. The guard went to explain, but she was cool. She was done anyway.

The interview room was a little cinder-block square with a folding table and those old-fashioned plastic bucket chairs. Graffitied gang signs on one of them had been scoured off with steel wool, leaving a spot where most of the color was gone from the plastic. A blast of overhead fluorescence interrupted the usual jailhouse gloom and leaked into the hall through a narrow plate-glass panel in the door meant to allow observation by patrolling guards.

Bolt arrived in cuffs and leg irons, accompanied by two solemn correctional officers. Here in the jail, half the guards had something going with one gang or another and they'd kid around a lot, especially with a Top Rank Saint like Bolt, downtalk him or make jokes about the weather. But Bolt presented himself as above that. Hard case. In seg. There was a chain around his belt that attached the manacles and ankle irons. As the correctional officers closed the door, Bolt took a seat. Nile immediately wandered to the near corner, where he could not be seen from the viewing panel, and began speaking.

'Now I gotta give you this pre-probationary briefing thing, Henry, okay? I want you to understand the rules of the road, once you get out of here. You've done eighteen months here, DOC, jail time. You have another year's probation. Okay?'

Sly Bolt was a cousin of Hardcore's. He wore a beard and he was tremendous across the shoulders and belly. Somewhere, Nile had heard he had played good b-ball in school, but it was hard to believe looking at him now. He had the mass of a boulder and an ill-mannered glower.

'Now, I know we've gone over this three times already, but you sign the form today. That's a contract, man, me and you. You keep this contract, you 're on the street. You break it, you 're not just back here, you 're at the Yard in a blink, okay? Are you listening, Henry?'

As Nile spoke, he'd opened his belt. He stuck his hand under the elastic of his briefs and reached behind him and tore the line of tape off. He had shaved his ass. Bug had done it actually, one morning about three weeks ago. God, they both thought that was funny. Fun, he thought and reached back for the package. It was a rubber, tied off at the end, so it was about four inches long. Core made jokes about white guys. Nile just reached back to the crack in his butt and drew the condom out and held it close to himself as he approached Bolt and dropped it on the table.

'Now I'm going through this one by one. Okay? No guns. I don't care what you call it. "Gat." ' 'Strap.'' ' 'T-9. "Any firearm, you 're back inside.'

In a single motion, Bolt had the rubber in his lap, beneath the table, the chain that ran from his cuffs barely clinking on the table top. Nile kept talking. Once he had his trousers hitched, he stood with his back against the glass panel in the door. No leaving the state without court approval, he said. No felonies or misdemeanors. Bolt would go back in, even for DUI.

'And no gang association,' Nile said. ‘I know they 're your homies. But you see them, you better go the other way. I catch you out there with those guys, then it's back inside. No way around it. If you're straight, I'm straight. You understand?'

Beneath the table, Bolt pumped his hands around the condom like it was a bat handle, gradually thinning and extending it. Then he suddenly reared his head back, lifted his chained hands, and dropped the rubber straight down his throat. Gone. Like stories June told about college dudes eating goldfish. Bolt, rarely happy, smiled as Nile spoke.

'You understand me, Henry?' Nile asked again. 'I don't want any b.s. about you didn 't hear this part or that part. This is serious shit I'm talking here.'

'Mmm-hmm,' said Bolt, both hands on his stomach. His eyes were closed. He was concentrating to make sure he kept it down. If that balloon -that's what Ordell called the rubbers, the balloons – if that balloon broke in Bolt's gut, full of straight stuff, pure white, they couldn 't get him to emergency fast enough. He'd be dead. He wouldn't call for a doctor either. Bolt was Top Rank, bar none for his. He'd just smile. They all laughed about it. 'Fuck man, that'd be motherfuckin kickin, man. That'd be a rush. Whoo-ee.'

Whooee, thought Nile. From inside his jumpsuit, Bolt took a wad of bills, loot he 'd collected in here for the dope. Nile couldn't believe there was cash in here, but anything small enough to pass between hands – pills, razor blades, currency – made its way inside if it was useful. On a chair, there was a blue plastic bag, the delivery sleeve from a local paper one of the guards must have been reading. Nile put the bills in there and just stuffed all of it down his trousers. No one searched him on the way out.

He kept speaking the same way ten more minutes, then stepped outside to let the COs know they could take Bolt back. He was led off with his ankle irons clanking. Bolt didn't bother with even a backward look at Nile. In his cell, he'd take a box of Ex-Lax and wait.

Nile dropped dope with somebody new each week. A few whispered, 'You all right, man, you okay.' Nile represented to them by hand: B, S, D, b, 4, me. It was a quick code, sign language, concluding with his index finger jabbed like a dagger toward his heart. They were startled by that, a white guy down for his. Fuck you doin? their looks would say, and inevitably his head rang in a customary instant of shame. Question of his life. People always acted like he was strange. He wouldn't drive his car in the rain. That was one thing people thought was strange. Not that he wouldn't travel. But he thought the rain was bad for the finish. And he got all weird around strangers, not looking people in the eye, but lots of people were like that. Michael was the same. But around Core, around Bug, it was different. I got carried away, he wanted to explain to the Saints who'd give him that look. Ijust got carried away. I'm in love, he'd say. I love being in love. He thought about Bug as he came back into the jail corridor.

How this started, bringing shit into the jail, was strange – Eddgar's fault, Nile would say, though how much could you fade that way? He'd fucked up, too. He had got himself in a bad place with Hardcore, straight off. Nile knew that. Ordell was powerful. Right from the giddyap, Nile felt his strength, this vitality that reached through Core, like the force of nature that drove through a plant from root to leaf. He almost said to Eddgar half a dozen times, 'This guy, Ordell, Hardcore, he reminds me of you.'

He wrote his reports about Core each month, and somehow he started letting Hardcore tell him what to say. Sitting in Nile's cubicle down at Probation in the Central Courthouse, Core would whisper so his raspy voice would not carry beyond the rimpled plastic partitions. 'What-all you scribblin bout me?' Core would clown around, laughing, reaching for the sheet, and finally Nile let him turn it over, like what's the dif, no secrets here. Hardcore read, scratching his long evil fingernails through his scraggly goatee. 'Don't be sayin that, man, don't be gone on bout what a loose-motherfucker I is, you be worryin bout my gangbangin.'

'No, what should I say?'

'You know, bro. Be cool. Put down I got me a good job and shit.' 'What job is that, man?'

'Commu 'ty organizin.' He laughed, because Nile had mentioned Eddgar. Eddgar was already in a heat. This is an opportunity, Nile, he'd say, this is a tremendous opportunity. 'Say I'm like doin that commun 'ty organizin shit.'

He had. Oh well. When Nile went out to the IV Tower for the home visits, Ordell was always there to greet him, standing on the street, waving his arm around in huge swooping gestures, making fun of somebody, probably both of them.

'Park right here, thass good, thass good.' He saved the best spot for blocks for Nile. Hardcore put on a good show. His artillery, his musclemen were all stuffed in one black Lincoln half a block down. There was nobody around to wait on Hardcore, just a few neighborhood kids – 'shorties' – he couldn't keep away, and this skinny little smooth-skinned girl, Lovinia, who carried messages. 'Go tell Bolt, done said get wit it,' Core said to her one day.

'What's that about?' Nile asked.

'Oh, that.' Hardcore laughed. His mouth was wide and on one side he had several teeth crowned in gold. He never answered. He had the decency not to lie. Of course, each time Nile came he saw more. The guns were out, the Tec-9s and AK-47s. The pagers. Kids running and flying whenever Hardcore walked around. 'You the man,' Hardcore would tell Nile. 'You the man, you tell me when I'm bustin on folks or somethin, you say. ' 'Be done, man,'' I gone quit. This here is jus some bidness, man, got to have some bidness.'

'You oughta listen to my father. You oughta talk to him,' Nile said. Why would he say that? Especially when, most days, the last thing in the world he wanted to do himself was talk to Eddgar? Kind of swap, Nile supposed. You talk to him, then I don't have to.

Eddgar always had projects for Nile. In college, when Nile was sort of cutting up, doing ts and blues a lot and watching a shitload of MTV, Nile had his favorite job: he was a messenger. The whole shot, the whole thing, Nile loved it. He had the bike, the tights, the optic safety vests, the weak little Styrofoam crash helmet. He went around ripped half the time, with his Walkman blasting, and a walkie-talkie on his waist turned up full volume. He couldn't really hear it, but it vibrated when Jack started yelling in dispatch. That job was the tits. What Nile liked best was the way you were in the scene and not. All these characters are ricocheting off the walls, like man, where's the messenger? Jesus, where's the messenger? And you bop in there – Okay, here's the messenger, take a pill.

Eddgar hated that job. Nile could just tell Eddgar was waiting him out. He was waiting for Nile to see the job was frostbite city in the winter and stroke city in July. What jacked Eddgar was not so much that Nile was a flunky but that he liked it. Maybe that was part of why it was a great job. Then the second summer Nile was getting fucking prickly heat between his legs from the bicycle seat, and he said something about how they ought to have a union, all the messengers. Eddgar got very intense. He must have asked Nile sixty times if he talked to anybody else, until Nile spent hours wondering what kind of embolism he'd had to even say something like that out loud to Eddgar. Nile quit the job soon after that. He went back to Kindle Community College, he took social-work courses like Eddgar was always saying. It was just easier that way.

Now and then, Core would go off to do his business. He'd put his hand on Nile's shoulder. 'You cool, man. You okay. Back atcha.' Usually he left Nile on one of those broken benches behind T-4, the IV Tower, facing a sealed-off portion called The Chute, or The Shoot; nobody ever spelled it, so you never knew. It was fenced on one side and bounded by the bricks of the IV Tower on the other. This was the domain of the T-4 Rollers, Core's set. They were all kickin here, wallbanging, drinking Eight Ball, shooting dice. Nile sat and watched, with Core's blessings, but it was as if he wasn't there, some white nothing, no more noticeable than the lid from a paper cup amid the trash moldering at the buildingsides. He saw shit, though. One afternoon, late, Gorgo, a long raw-boned cavalryman, pulled his '86 Blazer with deep-dish tires right up on the walk, N.W.A. blastin through the open windows. Gorgoflew out, G-down, black T-shirt trailing, hard-leg jeans sagging. For reasons Nile could not understand, the Saints around knew he'd been rippin.

'Yo, Saint, 't's 'up?' they all demanded.

Gorgo indulged a moment of macho bashfulness. 'Ainnothang.' But soon he was persuaded to share his exploits. 'Just jacked some lames for ten large.'

'In you ride?' There were a lot of shorties – Unborns and Tiny Gangsters – around now, listening, inquiring. They were incredulous that Gorgo had pulled the stickup in his own truck. It would make him identifiable, open to reprisal.

'Yay, foo', I ain hidin from no Goobers. Name is Gorgo.'

'Fat,' these kids all said. But they were flying in a minute. Two Goobers rolled down in different cars, shooting between the buildings from the avenue a hundred yards away. For an instant, as the birds rose, as the kids shouted 'Incomin' and 'Dustin' and dashed for cover, Nile was by himself on the bench, stumped by the resonating sound, which in the open air was somewhat less dramatic than he would have imagined. Eventually, he heard Gorgo screaming, 'Getyo 'self down!' War! he thought, huddled behind the bench. Insane, he thought. The gunfire lasted only a few minutes. From high above, up in T-4, he heard the answering shots as the cars out on Grace Street roared off.

'Ain gone light up no one from so far. Punk asses!' Gesturing in defiance at the departing cars, Gorgo strode back and forth across the bench in splendid white hightops with fancy laces. He was thumping his chest, rallying his fist, screaming. His satin jacket flew around him and a solid gold.45, four inches across with a diamond in the barrel, swung from his neck. On the bench, one corner was newly splintered by gunfire. He looked below to explain to Nile. 'They-all just trippin. Now they gone tell they homes how they ripped the Sissies, but I got all they loot.' Gorgo reached into a bulging pocket and pulled out the bills which he had taken at gunpoint from the Gangster Outlaws. His smile disclosed that he was missing a front tooth. 'It's on now,' he said, meaning there would be shooting for weeks afterwards, which there was. Gorgo was sixteen, seventeen, by Nile's estimate, and crazy. His Tec-9 had come from somewhere and he wore it upside down, slung from the shoulder, like a soldier in a war flick. They said he would kill anyone. The crazy life! That's what they called it, the bangers. The crazy life. Nile loved it. These kids were ex-treme.

War, Nile thought for days afterwards. When he was little, a shorty whizzing in his bed every night, war was what terrified him. There was a war out there which he somehow envisioned: artillery fire and the smoke of bombs, the percussive flashes of light and magnesium flares, the sick odors of smoke trailing on the air. War would take him, break his tiny body. War could not be held at bay, could not be kept outside the door. Eddgar wanted war. And Nile was terrified. And now here, amid the guns, these brave warriors, Nile was thinking, Yeah. He was thinking, Cool. It was way weird. But still. So cool for Gorgo to be standing there pounding his chest, like, 'I don't care, live or die, I don't care, I'm here screamin.' Nothing made any more sense than that. No future. That's what Gorgo was screaming, No! to the future. For him it did not even exist. Cool, Nile thought for days. Cool.

After Nile nearly got snuffed that day, Hardcore had Lovinia look after him when Core went off to do his stuff. She was like Hardcore's secretary is what you'd say. Carrying messages. Keeping things straight. She was just so cute and shy. Nile always talked to her, tried at least. At first he could barely get her to say her name. She had one of those dos, a lot of straighteners and stuff, the front plastered out into bangs that looked like sheet metal, and the back formed into a high roll with a little white bow. They'd sit there on one of those broken benches in front of the IV Tower like two frogs on a stone. Not a damn thing to say. This was one of the things in life Nile was purely worst at, making conversation. With girls, he was a lost cause. But even on the job he was like constipated. Some POs were pretty good with clients. Ninety-nine percent of these kids didn't want to tell you shit to start, afraid you 'd jam them with it later, knowing they couldn't make themselves sound right anyway. With Nile, they all sat there, chewing gum, or looking at their fingers, slouched over in the chair, sort of tip-tapping their Nikes and hoping to figure out what little they had to do to get it over with. Nile kept the radio on, just so the silence wasn 't so bad. He'd read questions off the form. Health? School? Have you looked for work? 'Talk sports. Ask them about the Traps, the Hands. Ask them about songs on the radio.' There was all kinds of advice. None of it did Nile much good. With Bug, he was stuck with the dumb and obvious.

'School?' he asked. 'You go to school?'

'Nn-uh, not hardly. I don't dis my teachers none. Some fool be crackin up, I turn round and tell him, ' 'Shut yo mouth, punk, we all learnin somethin here.'' But you know, I get tired with it, man. Cause they all the time just tryin to turn me out. On account there all them Goobers round.' He didn't understand what Bug meant. 'You know, they in my face, man, bout how I can't bring no strap with me to school.' A gun, she meant. 'Now I don 'thave no weight, how I gone get one block from that school without my ass gone be smoked? All them Goobers waitin for me. On account of my big brother Clyde?'

'Clyde around? He BSD?'

'Top Rank BSD, uh-huh,' she said. 'He slammin. He on vacation.' 'The Yard? '

'Uh-huh. Doin twenty-forty. Some damn Goobers come right up here, representing and carryin on. Right here, be standin twenty feet from where you be. Shit. Clyde popped they ass. I begged him when I saw him takin off with that gat, say, ' 'Whatchoo doin foo'. This Goober's dusted, man, he flyin on some shit.'' He say, ' 'Leave me be, girl, I cain't let this sucker do that shit right here in my house. True Saint, man, he don't bar none.'' So what kin I say? I go down there see him lots. Ride time on them weekends? All us g-girls goin. He doin okay, seem like. But I sure miss him. He out in twenty oh seven, man, make me cry, he talk bout twenty oh seven like it be tomorrow. Anyway, thass how come them Goobers be lookin for me.'

He didn't even bother with the obvious: Get out of BSD. They all said the same thing. 'BSD, man, that's me, man.' And Nile understood. This gang-thing, people didn't get it, white people, grown-ups, however you'd say. But like Bug, man, he could see she needed BSD. It was food to the hungry, someone to look at her and say, 'You cool.' All the time: 'You cool. We be for you, girl, homegirl. You be silly, you be crazy, girl, we be for you.' People didn't see that. They said 'Gang' and like freaked. Gats and Blood. Dope. Holy shit! But it was like sweet at the center, like candy.

Nile didn't know when he started in thinking about Bug. It was sort of an accident almost. He talked about her at work. She was on a juvie probation. Nile knew the guardian's PO, Mary Lehr. Bug had gotten busted selling. Cop named Lubitsch pinched her and then didn't come down on her because she wasn't really a case. Juvie pro. That was like nothing.

One day they were there on the benches and Bug was telling him about her father. He'd spotted her on Lawrence yesterday and took her down to Betty's Buy-Rite, bought a ribbon for her hair. He always did like that, Bug said, getting her things.

'Who-all Eddgar anyway, man?' she asked then. "That you daddy? You ravin bout Eddgar all the time.'

'Bullshit. I do not talk about him all the time.'

'Uh-huh,' she answered.

Who was Eddgar? God, man. That was another question Nile could never answer.

'Yeah, he's my father,' Nile said eventually. 'He somebody big-time?'

'He's big-time. He's sort of a politician, you'd say. He was a preacher to start.' 'Preacher?'

'He was trained that way. He never preached.'

'My auntie, she a preacher.'

'Really?'

'Uh-huh. Over there at Evangelical Baptist. Sister Serita? You done heard of her?' 'Maybe.'

'Yeah, lots of folks heard her, man. She powerful. Powerful. She start preachin and screech – Hoo!' said Lovinia and shook her head. 'She, you know, all the time wantin me to come to that church. Keep me off these mean streets, keep me from slammin and jammin. Back in the days when I's little and shit, you know, I singed in the choir, man.' She closed her eyes momentarily and felt the power of song.

Sometimes Nile wondered about religion. He liked churches, Catholic churches especially, with their mysterious dark murals, the Virgin Mary with that humble, innocent look, a little like Lovinia's, too shy and holy to even look all these grungy mortals in the eye, or else the incredible gore that was on the walls of these places, Jesus getting nailed, or Saint Sebastian with more arrows in him than a porcupine had quills, or some of these horrifying panels of John the Baptist with his head on the plate and his tongue gorking out. But here was the point: people worshipped that, ft filled them with some great sense of spirit.

His father, Nile knew, was into all this stuff. June wouldn't hear of it. To her it was a bunch of stories, important stories, stories she loved to hear told, but stories – what people wished was so, not what was. Religion was some big part of what didn't click in the end between Eddgar and June. When they'd gone freedom-riding, she'd like decided that God, faith, Bible-thumping, it was all just a piece of that whole cornpone tradition that had its foot on the throat of everybody underneath. She just quit on it, and sort of made Eddgar choose almost between God and her. Nile wondered sometimes if his life would have been different if he really was a preacher's kid, instead of the son of whatever it was Eddgar thought he might be. There was a thought and a half: what Eddgar was.

When Hardcore met Eddgar, Core was trippin. He had heard he was a senator and he asked questions about Washington.

'You flied in for this here meet? Where-all in DC you hang, man? I got kin there.'

Nile told him, as they were about to get into the limousine with T-Roc, 'You know, he's not that kind of senator.'

'You mean he ain elected and shit?'

'He's elected. But he's a state senator. There 're two different kinds of senators, man.'

'Yeah,' said Hardcore, then after a moment added, 'but don't be sayin nothin to T-Roc.'

Eddgar talked that day. He was hot-wired. He was so fucking goggle-eyed excited with himself, waving his lean hands around, Nile thought the windows were going to pop out of the car. Eddgar loved these guys, Hardcore and T-Roc, they were like his poster children or something. Sitting there, shrunk back into the corner of the seat, amid the walnut paneling, the crystal liquor decanters, the velvety leather, Nile thought again that there was some fury in Eddgar he would never understand. This was a scene and a half: T-Roc, Core, Nile, Eddgar in back, and two artillerymen in the front seat, one of them rank, just an unbelievable unbathed hard-sweat odor hanging on him. Eddgar talked. The future, he kept saying, the future. Here is the future, I see the future. They didn't want to hear it.

'Brother Kan-el, mon,' T-Roc kept saying. 'We here kind of seein bout arrangements. Somethin maybe we can be doin?'

Eddgar had said, 'You think I want money? No, it's not like that. Money, if anything, you 11 get money.' T-Roc sat forward then. He was a very stylized character. He wore a full beard, a derby, a silk vest with dice and roulette wheels on it, and impenetrably dark glasses, Murder Ones, they called them. Core laughed at him behind his back, but not to his face. T-Roc was one of those guys, dude who knew every bad thing and had it all swimming in him, like some septic pool, could grab hold of the meanest piece of himself any time he needed it. And smart, too. Look you in the eye and suck your brains out. He was short, with thick legs that strained the seams of his black trousers. And a slight Bimini accent. He hiked himself forward on the ribbed black leather seats of the limousine. He figured Eddgar for a psych now.

'Money? How we all gettin motherfuckin money from dis, mon?'

So Eddgar slid into it. It could be arranged. This was what politics really was about.

'Well, you get him dat motherfuckin money, we see bout dat,' said T-Roc and waved them out.

Core was in Nile's shit then, all the time. 'That all was just bogus, that motherfucker was just playin us, man.' Nile couldn't say anything but no, he didn't think so. ‘I ain down for that. I go head up any motherfucker, man, play me like that, daddy or no. I'd cap that mother soon as look at him. T-Roc, man. T-Roc rip-all on me. "Lame motherfuck. " They wasn 't shit he ain call me.' Core was deep.

What could he say? Eddgar would do it. That was the truth. Eddgar loved this kind of shit. He loved to 'move the system,' make the walls come down. And sure enough, two weeks later, no more, Eddgar told him he had the money coming and Nile told Core. And then June was on the phone three nights in a row. Nile could tell it was about Michael. There was always a certain tone Eddgar took on. Like he'd gotten some icy fluorocarbon up the heinie. Like, 'Hold tight, team, I am in charge, Comrade General of the Revolution, ready to die for the cause. 'After the third night, Eddgar, who was on the way to the state capitol, handed Nile the check from the DFU and told him to cash it and send the money to Michael, overnight mail.

'Michael?' Nile had asked. Were other people raised like this? With secrets? Not like Aunt Nelly nips the strawberry wine or Uncle Herman has the hots for the summer girl. But fucking secrets. Like: Don't Tell! Like, if you tell, the Black Hole of Calcutta will open, we’ll fall in, we 'll die, we’ll fucking worse than die. That's how Nile was raised. When he was seven or eight, when they moved to Wisconsin, June had taken him by both arms, gripping him hard enough to hurt. 'Listen to me,' she said for the third or fourth time. 'Listen. You may never tell anyone about Michael, Nile. Do you hear? Never. This is important, Nile. This is critical. You should never say that you knew him before. If anyone makes a mistake, if you do, or I do, if Michael does, if Eddgar does, we will all be apart for a long time. Do you understand? This is important!' That was how he grew up. Jesus.

'He's in some trouble, Nile,' Eddgar said.

'What do I tell Core?"

'We 11 take care of Core. We 11 take care of everybody. It's just a matter of time.' Eddgar was in that mood – the democracy of problems, each one solved as well as it could be in five minutes, and then put on hold. The legislative session was drawing to a close and Eddgar was on the phone all night; the fax machine upstairs was curling out paper in what seemed to be a single message. Every time Nile answered the phone it was somebody else, asking urgently for Eddgar – constituents, legislators from around the state, reporters, downstate staffers. Eddgar took each call and allowed himself an instant of reflection before making a terse response. 'We 11 take care of it,' he said again, and left with his small overnight bag.

One day Bug and he were doing what they usually did, just hanging on the benches by the IV Tower.

'Don't be listenin to him, man,' she said quietly. 'He sell you out.'

'Hardcore?'

'Dude gone sell you out.'

Nile shrugged. He already knew that, he supposed, was afraid of it at least, but it felt bad to have some skinny little girl say so. ‘I don't think so, man.' 'Uh-huh. I seed him, man.'

'He's cool.'

'Okay. 'She did that girl-thing, flapped a loose wrist, and started to walk away. Nile followed her. 'Don't pay no mind to me, man. No man got to listen to no bitch.'

'I didn 't say that, man. Did I say that?'

'Girl can see what you thinkin too easy, man.' She turned, her huge eyes full of the world. 'I's just try in to help you, man.'

‘I know.'

She stepped back his way. 'Don't say nothin to him, man. Hurt me bad.'

Wo,' he said.

It was all too late by then anyway. By then, Nile had started thinking about her. She was fifteen. Sometimes he'd hit on that number, he'd think, Whoa. He'd shake his finger at himself. Fifteen. Cradle robber, he'd think. Jailbait. It didn't really matter, though. He was swept. It was in his head. Like it always was. Captain Sex in the Head. Even when he got with a girl, that was where it was mostly. Not that he was like a virgin or anything. Nile had fucked four girls. He remembered their names and everything about it. Before Bug, he would count them up each day, as if there might be a surprise. He thought about each time at least once a day, except for one girl, Lana Ramirez. That was a total thing for Nile, it had gone on months and he could only remember the sort of general idea of being with her. She was a big girl, red-headed, she worked in the place where Nile was a messenger. They'd have a few pops after work, she had her own place, they would fuck. That was love for Nile, that was definitely total love. She moved to Miami. He wrote her and tried calling once or twice. But what the fuck? He'd wonder, How'd she get away from me? It seemed impossible. He 'd been her slave. Slave.

Sometimes in the middle of the night, when everybody gets weird thoughts, Nile would think, Eddgar doesn't. Like that. That clear, man. Eddgar doesn't. Who ever told Nile that? Well, who had to? He'd been around the guy for nearly twenty years now, and so far as Nile knew, Eddgar'd never been interested – not girls, not boys, not mountain goats. The guy was like immune. Well, that was Eddgar's problem. Not his.

His problem was the money. Hardcore would never let up about it. It was like this circle. Nile would explain what Eddgar had explained to him. First, BSD gets a political organization going, a legitimate presence. Then they have a voice. Then Eddgar can help them be heard. On Kan-el. So it always came back to the money.

'Where that fuckin loot, Jack?' In Core's head it was like a job he'd do when he got ten large. You couldn't tell him the money wasn't for him, it was for organizing, because he already had the organization. He could snap his fingers tomorrow and say, 'Yeah, you-all, better do this registering-to-vote thang.' But until they saw the money, they weren't going to start. Core was always giving face. No letup. If Nile said he'd make changes in a report for Core or some other Saint, if he said he'd talk to somebody about a pending beef Core would give him a big 'hmpf' and say, 'Same as you gone get us money.'

So one day Nile – he was crazy, he knew he was crazy – but one day Nile said, 'It's going to take a while for the money, because we had to spend it on something else, so why don't you do this other part, you know, you and T-Roc, work on this voter thing, there's an election in the fall, then you 'll be started, you 'll be going good, and I'm sure the money will come through.' Core just stared, that look, his street cred, which boasted he was a stone killer.

'No,' said Hardcore. He said 'No-o-o' many times. 'You spent my money? Now idn't that somethin? You spent my money. Ain nobody spend my money but me.'

Nile tried to reason with him. It wasn't his money. It was political money. It was walking-around money. It was for political organizing and Core hadn't organized and Eddgar hadn't given him the money. But Core was like a tracking dog, or a mosquito, or a shark. Something that smelted blood. 'Where all hell my money gone to?' He must have asked that seventy times.

'Ordell -you want the money, I'll get the money back.' This was maybe the most ridiculous thing Nile Eddgar had said in his entire life and Hardcore knew it, like he knew everything else.

'Damn motherfuckin right, you get my loot back. Get out my face, man. Just stop comin round here till you got me that money in you dogs. Gone get me a new PO. I ain down for no more this friendly shit, like you some homie. You ain no homie. Get you ass far away, motherfucker, fore I do somethin I ain s 'pose.'

So where was that going? When Nile came back a few days later, Core ripped him up again.

'What you doin here, no money in you hand, told you go.'

‘I don't want to go,' said Nile.

They were in front ofT-4, where Core held court. All the little Unborns with their close haircuts, looking like pebbly sandpaper, watched this exchange; a covey of Rollers, hats turned three-quarters, kept an eye on them too. Hardcore was looking straight at Nile now, his brown eyes overfull. Hardcore had a face. He had wrinkles and little brown marks. He had a scar over his nose, and the teardrop beneath his eye. Hardcore's face said Time.

'Mmm-hmm,' said Core. And Nile knew he'd told him way too much now.

'How it is,' Hardcore said a few days later, 'is I got this little thang I need for you to be doin. Need you to take me somethin over in the jail.' Ordell had a way, when there was something he wanted – he lowered his face so his eyes rose to you like dark suns. Eddgar did it, too, funny as that was. Core was up on 17. Central, he called it, like it was some military command or police headquarters. It was really just some old lady's apartment that BSD like essentially stole.

'Just this here one time,' Core said. 'We tight, you know. Then, you know, this whole money thang, man, that be back in the days, we go do our commu 'ty organizin shit, vote for you daddy and who-all. Right?'

Core never said what Nile was supposed to do. But Nile knew, he wasn't that out of it, he knew it wasn't good. And he took a pass. The first time. Just made a face like, 'Get a grip,' and walked out. But of course Hardcore was back at it the next week.

'Bug gone show you,' Core said this time, when Nile finally asked what he had in mind. Hardcore scratched his face and looked away, down to the street, where he could see his trade at work. From this apartment on 17, he looked right down on the intersection of Grace and Lawrence, a one-way street where he could observe Tic-Tac coming from every direction. Core was a genius, Nile thought suddenly as he saw the point of being up here.

Finally, Nile said, 'Show me.' 'Homegirl gone show you, I said.'

'I'm not saying I'll do it. I just want to, you know, kind of see.' 'See if you gone get gaffled?'

'The whole thing. How I'll feel. I want to kind of figure the whole thing.'

'You ain gone get cracked. You get cracked, man, first word out you mouth gone be Hardcore, ain that right? Ain that how it is? You gone lighten the load, man. So, I ain gone let you get cracked.' ‘I just want to see.'

'Lovinia show you.'

So she walked him down the street, to one of the crummy buildings on Lawrence, broken-down three-flats, brick buildings with boarded windows and lawns scuffled away to dirt. This was one of Core's stash pads. Lovinia led him along, three steps ahead of him, talking to herself.

‘I done tol' you,' she said. 'You think you way past cool, and I done tol you.' She shook her head sorrowfully.

The building was empty. On the first floor, one door was broken in, just smashed in half, the wood veneer broken off in crazy pieces. This was a crackhouse. Tic-Tac was in and out of here once a month. The acerbic reek of the smoke remained, even though this week, with the last raid only days past, the place was deserted. There was no electricity and the broad old stairwell in the walk-up was lit solely by a window on the fourth floor which wasn't boarded. They moved upward through the cone of falling light. The railings had been ripped off the walls, the light fixtures stolen, the carpet runners, even some of the hardwood from the flooring, had been scavenged. Gang signs were written in paint and marker on the walls. At the fourth floor, Bug stood with her finger across her lip. She wanted to see if they'd been followed. After quite some time, she led Nile back down to the second-floor. There were heavy padlocks installed on each front door of the four apartments. Bug opened one of the middle ones with a key.

The place was cold and empty. The linoleum floor had been picked up in places and was soiled in huge spots, which had lain under built-in units, now removed. Bug piled through the cabinets in the kitchen till she found the balloon. Someone had left it there, hours before. Probably Hardcore. They both stood looking at it in her hand. About half a pound of straight coke in the condom, Nile figured. Ten years, minimum mandatory.

'Where do I carry it?'

'Didn't he tell you nothin? You got to put it where they ain gone feel. Them suckers shake you down.' 'Barely.'

'Yeah, man, you cain't be gettin cracked with this shit.' ‘I know that.' He actually laughed at that point 'Got to put it where they ain gone feel.' 'Which is where, man?'

Lovinia got shy. Her eyes shot away like fish in water.

'Oh man,' she said, 'how come I got do everything?' She had the tape and some extra condoms in her pocket. She laid them down on a small wooden table in the kitchen, beside the package. 'This got to go in you little booty. Okay?'

‘No.'

'Uh-huh. Don't you be sayin no. Here.' 'I'll do it. That's okay.'

'Come on, man. I gone do it. Just that damn Hardcore get me sometime. Okay, boy. Come on.' 'Come on, what?'

'Leave down you damn pants, man.' 'Jesus.'

She took the balloon and massaged it. She took it in her two thin hands, working on it with her long fingers, squeezing it out. Just that was enough to get him started.

'Come on, dude. Get wit' it.'

He loosened his belt. He worked the pants down his thighs. She got behind him and pulled the elastic on his briefs down herself.

Wait a minute, he thought. Wait a minute. He remembered then he had told Hardcore he just wanted to see. But there was nothing to say now. Bug had told him that on the way over. Core 'd be ripping her if Nile didn't go ahead.

'Okay now, bend you over. Thass right. Come on. Put you hands on you cheeks. Okay.' Her fingers were chill and startling, but she started laughing. 'You know, I don't think I ever seed a white one. Like for-real and all.'

'Really?'

'Nn-uh. Weird, you know. Man, you pale, man. Be kind of frightnz'n.'

'Yeah, well, that's nice,' he said.

'Oh, you know, you okay.' She touched him soothingly. 'Only I ain used to it is all. You seed a black girl?'

'Yeah.' He wasn't lying. In high school, there was one girl.

'What her name? Now hold 'em apart. Go right there.' She ran her fingernail along. 'Now it go like that. Now you cain 't put no tape over it, or it tear and burstes itself apart. You get that powder over that interview room, man, that's big-time shit. So you put some threads and we tape over them threads. Okay?' She told him what he would have to do, who he'd be going to see. Core had planned it all. 'So you been gettin busy wit some black chick, huh? You think that's right, huh? Black is best, huh?'

It hadn't come to that, but he didn't say so now. She had her cool, thin fingers all over. She was playing, he knew it, she did too, and he started getting hard. Shit, he thought, shit. But something told him. He really had no will to stop it. His briefs were still up in front, but he was sure she'd notice.

'So you was likin that chick, huh?' She rubbed his ass with both hands. He had no idea what she thought she was doing.

'It was a long time ago.'

'Cain't barely 'member, huh?'

'Man, you 're playin me.'

'You don't seem to mind none.' She said it and he didn't say anything. 'Yeah, you don't seem to mind.' She came around the side, looked down, and then, shy as she was, dared his eyes. 'What you got there? What you hidin?' She poked it, and he flinched. She laughed, laughed. ‘I knowed you be likin me.'

He didn't move. He didn't say anything either.

'You think I ain never seen that? You don't wanna know what I seen. I seen that.' She skirted her hand inside his briefs. 'You gettin scared now?' She laughed. She touched him. Just touched and drew her hand back, and laughed some more. 'Ain you got nothin to say?'

He was up now, stiff as steel.

'Don't that feel good?' she asked.

'Yes.'

They both looked, her hand wrapped all around him.

She sucked. That had never happened to Nile. That had never happened. She went around him in that cold apartment and took him in her mouth and dug her hands into his backside and pushed him back and forth the first few times. It didn't take long for him to be done. She went to one of the back rooms and spat.

'Some girls say it make you sick. You think?'

There was the virus, but he was clean. All county employees got screened each year.

'I don't think so. I learned something about it. Health class or something. I don't think it makes you sick.'

Health class. She loved that.

'Don't say nothin to none of them,' she said when she reached the door. 'God, no.'

Then she smiled. ‘I knowed you be likin me.'

After that, it happened each week. He brought the dope in; the second or third time, he started bringing money out. Core handed him half back and Nile returned it. 'Oh, man,' said Core with disgust. He stuffed it into the pockets of Nile's trousers. 'Damn, man. You too much,' he said. Nile kept the money in a carton in his closet. He figured he'd send it to Michael sometime. Or buy something for Bug.

Sometimes Lovinia and he fucked. There was a mattress there and Bug rode him. She had tiny little pouchy breasts and her ribs showed. She was so thin it was frightening. There never seemed to be much in it for her. She was working. He was a man and this was what men wanted. One thing Bug knew about was the world. She liked it when he said it felt good. She liked it when he said stuff afterwards. There were a hundred things Nile wanted to ask her. Did Hardcore know? But Nile was pretty sure he didn't. Was it because he was white? But that was crude. Was it because he was nice? Which is what she was always saying. Had she ever done it for money? Had she done this for Hardcore?

'Ain you gone touch me?' she asked him the next time, once they were in the apartment.

He wanted to ask her a hundred things. But nothing so much as this: What does it mean to you? Do you think about me all the time, the way I think of you? Do you feel your skin surge, do your hips and heart ache? What does it mean to you?

He never really knew.

'Dang,' Eddgar said. He stood by the refrigerator, a hand planted on his forehead. This was how Eddgar spoke in the privacy of his home, when Nile was around, as if Nile were still three years old. Imagine a person, a human being, ripping out a 'Dang' like he was Gomer Pyle or something. At moments, his father could do things – sniffle, pick his teeth, scratch – display a sign he was just as fucking dumb as everybody else, and Nile would hate him worse than any other person in his life. Because he couldn't get past him, couldn't get away. Sometimes, Nile felt like some poor yapping mutt, a dog in the yard running this way and that, barking at you, charging in your direction, and never remembering till he was jerked back so powerfully his forepaws left the lawn, never recalling, Hey, I'm tied to this goddamn stake in the ground. That was Nile. That was Eddgar. ‘I keep forgetting about this,' Eddgar said. He was holding the wad of notes he carried in his shirt pocket. It was strange to Nile how his father had turned into an old man. He was one of those strange old birds now with everything he had to remember written on a paper in his pocket.

'What?'

'The money. Make sure you tell Ordell I'm going to get to it. I just don't know where it's supposed to come from.' 'He's okay about it.' 'You didn't tell him?'

'No. You mean where it went? No. I just said, you know, it'd be a little longer than we expected. He's cool, though. You know, I've been giving him some help.'

'Help?'

'Yeah, you know.' 'What kind of help?' 'Help. H, e, l, p.' 'As his probation officer?' 'Sort of. It's not important.'

'Wait, wait. Nile. Pay attention. Look at me.' His father was at the kitchen table. 'What are you doing?' 'Eddgar – '

'Wait. What are you doing, Nile?'

Fuck you doing? He stood in thefiery furnace. Fuck you doing? The question of his life. Eddgar

You could never really judge Eddgar without seeing this. That's what he told himself. Those who scorned him – there were many, the reporters, the statehouse guttersnipes, the ugly claque tittering about Loyell Eddgar and his life of endless plotting – they could never really take account of him without seeing him as he lived here, in a three-room apartment carved out of the large house. He'd bought this house for June twenty-five years ago in the most grandiose gesture he could conceive of to reflect personal reform. It never mattered to her. She left anyhow, and over time he cut away the space. He had student roomers during the term, and in the winter a flophouse in the basement for homeless men. But privacy, solitude, remained precious. Those parts of the house where others dwelled were sealed off from the smaller area Eddgar and Nile occupied.

Eddgar's rooms were spartan. He never bothered with carpets. The hardwood was chilly. He still fell wearily upon the same Danish Modern sofa which had traveled from their place in Damon, its orange cushions covered with Guatemalan prints. There was nothing on the walls, only a single picture in a frame on an old maple coffee table: Nile, June, Eddgar in the late sixties, the boy with flossy curls, a hand upraised in childish jubilance. Bulwarks of books and papers were piled neatly. In his bedroom, the spread was tucked precisely beneath the outline of the pillow, leaving no sign of the man who was here in the middle of the night with the covers in turmoil.

What did he think then? Did he wake with longing? And for whom? That is what people wanted to know, he realized. But he could not fully say himself. He recalled coming to in that state and instantly feeling somehow thwarted and ashamed, his mind quickly diverted. He spoke then to God, as he had done in moments of utter privacy all his life. For years – the bad years as Eddgar thought of them, when so much seemed beyond his control – in those years he would hide from himself the fact he did this, so that the disarming knowledge that he was still secretly conducting this conversation with Him would come flying at Eddgar out of nowhere, like a levitating object at a seance. He would think, How can it be? But he never stopped. For one reason. He listened. At that age offour or five or six, somewhere far back there, one thick summery Southern night, with the locusts sawing themselves in shrieks of desiccated passion, the intimation came to Eddgar of the vast presence above who heard with welcome Eddgar's inner thoughts. God listened. Not always with patience or admiration. At times, Eddgar grappled with God, as Jacob wrestled the angel. Sometimes in his dreams, Eddgar saw them locked together, tussling, their naked flanks sweat-glistered and etched in shadow. He felt the overheated breath, the ferocious violent embrace of God nearly squeezing life from him, a sort of ecstasy arising amid the pain.

Now fresh from bed, he imagined everything he must do today, how he would be in the world. He recollected meetings, a staff lunch, committee members he needed to persuade, calls to Farmers Alliance members downstate, a constituent requiring help at the U. Tonight he would speak at a dinner in the South End in DuSable at a Legal Aid Center function. Eddgar had gone for years – good folk, Irish, Italians, and Mexicans, organized around one of those parish priests, Father Halloran, still lean and energetic at sixty-four, who'd been there thirty years, full of hope, kindling kindness amid the lives that would stand parched and lonely without him. Halloran kept his parishioners supporting this little clinic where the poor received free advice about overbearing landlords, their sad divorces, the kids in trouble on the street. Eddgar loved these events, finding people, ordinary people, secretaries and shop-floor managers, who cared to see the world made better, whose feelings ran beyond the boundaries of their lives. Their kids came, too, half of them grown, moved off to the far-flung corners of the suburbs, but still drawn back to this, to the flame of their beliefs.

He would talk about the pure good of this enterprise. No sentiment. But he'd say that good faith and caring are not government responsibilities alone. And they'd ask: 'Senator Eddgar,' they'd ask, 'what else can we do? What can we do?' And for a minute, this hall, a basement room in a K. of C. Hall, a place with cheap paneling and magenta carpeting worn to a number of blackened spots, would be quiet. What can we do? The whole place would throb with the pained life of the poor. He did not know exactly what he'd say, but he savored the moment in prospect. In the statehouse, they could laugh at him all they liked, the staffers and media thugs could be smug, but this was still his work, still where he knew just who he was, when he felt both the torment of people warring all their lives against the dim weight of poverty and scorn, and the furious strength of his dedication to them.

They never understood, men like Hardcore, men like Huey, they never recognized that it was a thrill to Eddgar to see them – black men, powerful, rigid with anger. It thrilled him to think these men were the heirs, the successors of the beaten, woebegone souls he'd watched chop tobacco during his childhood, men and women who grasped the spiny stems Eddgar could not even touch, migrants, moving listlessly, hopelessly up the dusty roads, carrying with them the odor of the thick aromatic sap. He had loved those people, so cruelly thwarted by the likes of his father, adored them with a mighty, towering, limitless love. He did not love Hardcore or Huey. They did not want his love, which was one reason they frightened Eddgar, much as they frightened everybody else. But he was thrilled, because their strength, their anger equipped them to move forward in the world. Now we must move beyond anger. That is what he would say tonight. We must move on to gratitude, participation, responsibility. Wide awake, at the lee end of the night, he stared toward the ceiling fixture, the textured glass that captured the glaring light of two bulbs, and saw the brightness only as a tangible sign of his own commitments.

Downstairs, at this hour, past 5 a.m., he heard the ruckus of Nile readying himself for departure. He was gone early on these days to avoid the traffic. It was an hour and a half sometimes from Greenwood into Kindle Probation. He has been getting better, Eddgar thought, knowing he had told himself this nearly Nile's entire life. But it seemed to be true. He was less edgy, more responsive, holding this job, a real job, with which he seemed legitimately involved. Yes, all right, he was still under his father's guidance, still hovered over at moments like a small child. But he was working where there was so much good to be done. Eddgar proceeded downstairs to find his son in a denim shirt and a leather tie, eating cereal and watching the TV.

'Hey,' said Nile. His son still slept here two or three nights during the work week, if Eddgar was not downstate. Nile's place in town was a lonely closet. Nile also passed the weekends here. The boy, the man Nile had become, six foot one, sloppy with loose flesh, sprawled on the sofa, unshaved, unwashed, drinking name-brand beer in the living room downstairs and watching TV. They did not speak much. He was not sure what Nile wanted. Free food? A place to lounge and be looked after? There were a hundred sarcastic answers. But he welcomed the boy's presence. Eddgar liked to have him here, in sight. They both felt better that way. Eddgar had put on yesterday's shirt and found his notes in the pocket.

'Dang,' he said. He touched his forehead. 'I keep forgetting. The money. Make sure you tell Ordell I'm going to get it. I just don't know where it's supposed to come from.'

'He's okay about it,' Nile had offered, fixed on the TV. But the alarm had started faintly clanging. It was experience, nothing else. Eddgar began to pursue him, until Nile said he had given Hardcore some form of help.

'Wait, wait. Nile. Pay attention. Look at me.' His father was at the kitchen table. 'What are you doing?' How did he know? There was a look Nile had, a sly, shamed, hound-dog look, confronting the fact that the internal realm where he resided did not mesh with the one recognized at large. It was always frightening to observe this, and Eddgar was petrified now. 'I'm just helping out.'

'Helping what? On probation beefs? Are you throwing files away?'

'Nothing like that. I do my job.' 'Where? What are you doing?' 'In the jail,' Nile said finally.

It had come out in pieces. Eddgar, who thought of himself as stoical and strong, had his head down on the table by the time the discussion was through. He wrapped himself in his own arms. He asked Nile many times, many times to say it was a joke. As a boy, a teenager, Eddgar thought every day of Jesus on the cross, as the nails drove through the flesh of His hands first, then His feet. Even as the nerve and bone was crushed He must have welcomed his pain, knowing it would soon bring the world salvation. All his life, Eddgar had tried to welcome pain, but he could not welcome this.

'It's cool,' said Nile, actually hoping to comfort him.

'No, it's not cool. It is the most uncool, stupid, dangerous thing you could possibly be doing. It's crazy.'

'You think someone else wouldn't do this, Eddgar? There's so much shit in there. Just money, for Godsake. They 're not supposed to have a nickel, and I bring out 5,000 bucks a week.'

'Oh, Nile.' In the rising biliousness, in the sense of delirium taking over the moment, the most sickening thought to Eddgar was that he was going to have to call June. He was going to have to say, "This is the worst yet.' He was going to have to give her news which would only drive her down further. He was going to have to say what they had been saying for years: 'We have a problem. A crisis. You need to come here. We have to straighten this out.' He was going to have to ask her again to rise, memorably, to the occasion, to closet her own suffering and to focus on the desperate task of salvaging Nile.

'Lord, Nile,' he said. He was sick.

There was a fantasy Eddgar had, a grisly impossible vision that had come to him once and repeatedly beckoned him back, the cruel Lorelei of the sickest kind of self-punishment. He was eighty-five and terminal. And trying to figure out what to do with Nile, how to protect him from the savagery of the world, much as he tried when Nile was twelve and thirteen to protect him from the insolent, heavy-lidded-looking boys at school who beat Nile and stole from him with utterly no fear of reprisal. Cowering, so desperately in need of his father's protection, Nile could seem precious to Eddgar. But in this fantasy Eddgar realized there was no way to save Nile, he would not grow wiser or stronger. In mercy, Eddgar would have no choice but to kill them both. It was a dream, actually, that was how these thoughts had started, but it had been enough to make him weep, seeing the gun in the dream and waiting, hoping his son would turn his head, because there was no way to do this if he had to face him. Shoot fast, he always thought, when he tried to turn the vision away and could not, shoot fast so you don't have to live for that instant in between.

'We have to fix this, Nile. We have a chance to make this right before any real damage is done. I want to know how I can get in touch with Hardcore. And your career as a drug courier is over. It's done. Right now.'

'No,' said Nile. He stood up. He actually seemed horrified by Eddgar's declaration.

'Right now.'

'Fuck you,' he answered. He was gone from the house in a few minutes and did not return. Hardcore

They was some motherfuckers, some white motherfuckers, who knowed they owned the motherfuckin world. You could tighten up on these motherfuckers, jam them up, put you a strap right in they motherfuckin face, and it don't matter none, cause this motherfucker, till the minute he be motherfuckin dead, he still thinkin, Damn, nigger, I am the motherfuckin owner of this motherfuckin world. And what-all you gone do with a motherfucker like that?

One o 'clock, bright in the daytime, Nile daddy rolled in. Homies get up under him, soon pop his ass as see his face, and he still goin, Where-all Hardcore at, man? Damn, la senator and shit, I want to talk to his ass.

Core told Bug, 'Bring that fool up here, motherfucker make me laugh.'

And then he come through the door up at Central on 17, not so much as 't's'up, not so much as How you do, he just rainin on Core how he can't be havin none this shit.

'I'm sorry you think I've shortchanged you, or misled you somehow, but what Nile is doing for you, that has to stop, that cannot and will not continue, I'm sorry.'

He sorry. Core just shook his head at the thought.

'Damn, man, you in my crib.' He pointed to the cement floor, where there was nothing but three telephones and their cords. 'You don't be tellin me where I sit, where I stand, in my crib. Cause it's my crib. This son of you, he a growed-up man, idn't he?'

'You know Nile.'

'Yeah, he my PO.' Hardcore could not suppress a minute smile, a moment of pure whimsy at the notion of the state, in its bureaucratic ineptitude, allowing such a pitiful mismatch. 'He can decide for his own self.'

I've decided. This is done, Ordell. I'm in this now. I know, so I'm implicated. I can't take that chance myself. And I certainly can't take it for Nile.'

'Damn, man, so what you aimin for me to do here? Just gone say, "Hey, homes, ain gone be no shit this week, you-all just get yo'self strung out and shit, cause Nile daddy say No, cause he complicated?'' That how I s'pose to do all mine? No, motherfuck.

When I say ' 'Cool,'' then it be motherfuckin cool. And it ain now.'

Nile's daddy just stood and did him a minute with his eyes. This mother, just some lumpy little white man, but he got him eyes like a spook, goin like, 'It's on, motherfucker, cause ain no nigger gone work on me.'

'Ordell, if I hear you 're trying to involve him in any more, I'm going with Nile and the best lawyer I can find straight to the PA.'

Core laughed then. Core came right up in his face.

'You gone tell the PA what a dope-peddlin fool he been? I don't think so, motherfucker. You gone turn on yo own kin? I don't think so. Damn motherfuck, he may as well plead guilty to murder. Kind of quantities that boy carried? Pounds of that shit. He a damn organizer, don't you know? He a drug kingpin. He gone be on the wall for life, Jack.'

Nile's daddy, he be shakin his head the whole time Core spoke. 'Not if he talks, Ordell. Not if he gives them you.'

Core very nearly busted a cap in Eddgar right here. Like to took his own dogs and beat the motherfucker dead. Only he needed time for that. He needed to think.

'No,' Hardcore said, 'you sure enough right about that. He beef me out, ain gone be life, no parole. Only gone be fifteen, no parole. That all the minimum mandatory. He could kill somebody's ass and get out sooner. Ain you one them mothers thought that shit up? That be the law, man.'

'Ordell, for Godsake, do you know who I am? If I get on that telephone, the PA himself will be on the other end. You really think I can't work this out? It's not the same for me as it is for you. You know it, Ordell, and I know it. So let's not kid ourselves. Because we're both too intelligent for that.'

That was it. Too much! He told Bug to get him out. He sighted Eddgar down the length of his finger.

'Head up, motherfucker: Yo ass here any more, you gone have a dead ass. I ain talkin no shit here. Word up.' Motherfucker come in his crib and do him like that. Be a dead motherfucker now, and he don 't know it. Motherfuckin owner ofthe motherfuckin world!

Core had Bug call Nile at Probation. Took him three whole days to get hisself there, but he come. Hardcore knew he would. He jumped in his shit soon as Nile was out his ride. Ripped him right there on the street.

'Man, what the fuck you done and done?' he asked. And Nile, this silly Opie motherfucker, with all that greasy hair and shit, hippie motherfucker or somethin, he like he got whooped in the gut, he can't even talk.

'Core,' he said, 'I just told him, man. I had to.'

'Had to what? So he kickyo butt? Man, I don't fall to none of this shit. I don't compre-hend it. You know? My daddy, man, he just some fool on the corner, man. I see him, I book. What kind of shit you puttin down here? "Had to tell him. " ' Core worked his mouth around to spit, then did it, a long glob to the dirty, broken walk. This was just some unbelievable shit, Nile and his daddy, like to make him wanna smoke them both. 'That daddy yourn, man, he piss off the Good Humor Man. You hear me? He one of them uptight motherfuckers think he always runnin changes onyou. See? You know, like he be fuckin Charlie Chan or somethin, you know? Number-one son, all that shit. He a cold, deadly motherfucker. Stand right up on me and say he gone snitch me out. Ain't no motherfucker on the street down me like that. I kill they ass soon as look at them.' Core walked a few paces in pure agitation and turned back to Nile. 'So you gone beef me out, motherfucker?'

'Of course not.'

'So what-all gone jump off here then, huh? You hate this motherfucker or what?' 'Eddgar?'

'Fuck yeah. Charlie Chan. You hate him? You gone let him do you like that?'

'No,' Nile said mildly. 'But I mean – ' He got dumb like he do, can't even think to talk or move. 'I mean, what choice do I have?'

On the street, man, standin round chillin, every dude say he a man. Every bro is down for his. But it ain but half strap up. And in the joint, you see the same. All these proud, tough motherfuckers claimin Goobers, whoop them some and they be beggin, 'Don't do me like that, I ain representin no one.' But Nile, man, he was the lamest, the weakest. Like to think he was a punk, but the stiff-dick motherfucker busy now with this skinny little ho, she suck you dick, man, ain no better than she polishin you shoes, but Nile, he like that too.

'Straight down, man. You tell that daddy of yourn this. You tell him, Core say you be here 6:15, tomorrow mornin. Gone meet in the street, man.'

'For what? What are you going to do?'

'Gone tell him the word, man: Ain no foo'. He ain even think, that motherfucker. He think he the owner of the motherfuckin world, man, and he don't even know I got plans of my own. What kind of dumb motherfucker he think I bein? Man, you insurance now. I got you fingerprints and all over all that dope money, man. I been savin that shit up like in the bank. I dime on you, man, PA gone call me 'sir.' Best do like I say. And he be sayin, you gone beef on me? Bullshit. What proof got?'

Nile made a face. 'Don't be an asshole, man. We been cool. You don’t have to dis me like that.'

'I ain dissin. I ain hissin or dissin. I ain fuckin you momma. This just how it be, man. It cold, man. Thass all I'm gone tell yo daddy. Tell him, ' 'Daddy, man, it's too late. Too late. Trust me or bust me, man, and you ain gone bust me.'' Hear?'

Nile looked at him, those lame eyes, skittering like bugs. Hardcore could hardly stand it.

'Listen up, dude. You hate this motherfucker worse than I do. Ain that straight shit, now? Ain nothin gone happen here you wudn't done youself. You do like I'm sayin. Ain nothin for you to do after that. Hear?' Core took Nile's chin. He made him look at him, like he hated to do. 'Listen here,' he said. ‘I be you daddy now.' June

Fear and danger. Well, she'd been here before. Driving, June felt her pulse stirring in unlikely places – above her elbows, in her neck beneath the points of her chin. Anxiety, danger, always had divided her. A fat old woman, cheerful and controlled, gripped the wheel of Eddgar's Nova, careful not to let the needle of the speedometer drift even a mile over the limit. Shrunken down inside her was someone else, ready to sing out in terror. She'd been here before, her hair roots, her nipples, herfingertips juiced with adrenal output. She tuned in Dusty radio for a second, hoping for some great old tune, and then thought, No, no, too much, way too much, and laughing at herself drove on, into DuSable toward Grace Street. The large forms were somehow shocking after the low, soft shapes of the prairie. How could humans live like this, exist at such close quarters, with the sacred, saving earth, from which life sprang, paved over beneath their feet? A kid who looked to have been up all night gunned by in an old jacked-up blue deuce and a quarter, mouthing dirty words in Spanish, the decorative fringe of an old bedspread shimmying in his rear window.

Were those the best years, she wondered suddenly, those years of danger? How could they be? She had been so miserable by the end – frightened of everything, of Eddgar and of herself, of what she had done. She was the one who demanded they look after Michael. She parted from Eddgar to do it, insisting they could not simply leave wreckage in their wake. How could it seem so wonderful now? She asked Eddgar a few years ago, when she was in town, apropos of absolutely nothing, she asked, 'Do you ever think about that time?' He answered, 'No.' Not an instant's hesitation. No. It was gone. It could not be reclaimed. It was gone, like his childhood, like their marriage, like the many events of everyone's past that meant something when they were happening but would never return.

When she looked back to those years, the years with Eddgar -from the start to the end – there was always a universe of stalled feelings inside her. At the planetarium here in the city, you could sit and watch the stars turn about you as the earth moved through a season, a year. Living with Eddgar was like that. It always seemed as if he were the single point around which the whole moving panorama of the sky turned – him, and her because she was beside him. She never spoke to anyone about Eddgar. There was never anyone else who understood. Not now. Not then. Perhaps she did not understand herself. In bed with various men years ago, she sometimes mentioned his problems, as if trying to save somebody's opinion. It was always the same routine, lying there, smoking cigarettes, watching the ceiling, because she did not want to think about who in particular was next to her. And in this mood of celestial detachment, she would remark how Eddgar had been more or less incapable since Nile's birth. Did she want them to know she needed less than they might think? Of course, in those days, she would have laughed at the word 'unfaithful.' Doctrine forbade chattelizing any relationship. She was not Eddgar's possession. It was a piece of regressive patrimony to say that her pleasure was not her own business. But she remembered all of that, sleeping with his colleagues, stretching her body against a dozen men she did not know well, allowing them inside her – she remembered it with shame, because Eddgar was there anyway, and they both knew it.

She had never loved anyone the same way. Not before or since. Thank God. Thank God. He was a divine, beautiful thing when he started out; she loved him in the illusion-haloed manner of a teen, this beautiful young man with incredible eyes who spoke about God with an unnerving intimacy. She'd been raised in a religious home. Her mother passed hours on the veranda, with an iced tea and the Bible on her lap. She died rocking and trying to decipher the same verses she'd read her whole life. Secretly, from childhood forward, June had believed none of it. And yet when Eddgar spoke, she believed she had met the man – there had to be a man – to take her to the greater life out there. It was some variant, she supposed, on the idea of heaven, that there was a better life here on earth, too. He was inspired, on fire with the rage to make that better life. Teach me! she thought. Share it! She was so jealous of his faith, the more so when she realized years on that the only real expression of Eddgar's passion was for the people who were not close to him. He loved the poor like puppets, like dolls, a love that left him in complete control. For Nile, for her – 'impotent' was the right word. But his passion was like the heat of the sun. She always knew it was really the love he wanted to feel for them.

In the years since, Eddgar and she had both come to assume, without ever saying it, that their demise was her fault. She'd wanted his faith and could not have it. She could not believe what he believed and so she took it from him. Believe something else, shesaid, something I can share. Rev-o-lution! Oh, she had believed in that. Sanctified by revolution. Reformed by revolution. Everything errant in her life would be corrected. She challenged poor Eddgar. Because he was always her example. How much can you believe? she wanted to know. How much faith can you have? Are you still pure? If I let other men inside me? That was her challenge. And he took it up in his own way and eventually invited himself into those beds. Not in the lurid sense that he ever wanted details. But her love affairs, her animal needs, had to serve the revolution somehow. And in that way, Eddgar, with his stillborn loving, remained, in the way he always had to be, supreme.

'I think this could be dangerous,' Eddgar had said, holding the car keys this morning.

'He's my son, too.'

'I'm not questioning your devotion, June. I don't think it's safe. I know it's not safe. Ego and self-esteem are what really move the folks down there. I think we should do what I told Ordell we were going to do. We should take Nile and go to the PA. I know him.'

'Eddgar, stop. Stop the heroism. And the scheming. It's no answer. That's a disaster. For you. And especially for Nile. Even Michael will be jeopardized if you're not careful. That's asking to destroy everyone. You should speak to a lawyer before you do anything, and you shouldn 't do that until I've talked to this fellow now.'

'June. It's dangerous. I wouldn 't be surprised if he's got half a mind to kill me. Maybe more than half. This is too dangerous for anyone.'

'It's not as dangerous for me as it is for you. I'm a fat old woman. I'm not going to threaten anyone. Give me the keys. I'll call as soon as we 're through.'

So here she was again, on one of Eddgar's missions. God, the places she had gone in this life. She thought about the Panther safe houses to which Eddgar used to send her. What a crazy scene. With the guns all over. The automatic weapons, fully loaded, leaning against the wall, much as a farmer would lean his hoe, bandoliers of rounds in full metal jacket looped over the rifle barrels. The windows were newspapered so the cops and FBI could not see inside. Near the end, after the Oakland Armory raid, there was military issue about: M-16s and M-79s, ammunition boxes, blasting caps piled into a green duffel marked by stencil company a, 92nd engineers and the M-18 smoke grenades and C-4 plastic explosives. Sometimes there was cocaine piled up on a table like flour. And always women, and babies crawling under foot, among the men in berets and boots.

Eddgar had nearly been shot half a dozen times in those places. Someone was always pulling a gun on him, angered not so much by his opinions as by his manner. He looked down the barrel of the gun, implacable. She – everybody there, everyone but Eddgar – saw the same thing in him, a Southern boy refusing to bend to their rage. But Eddgar would not flinch. He thought about his death, the need to die for the revolution every day. And he never let those incidents pass. He believed in discipline. When poor Cleveland was released from the Alameda County jail, when they bailed him after he had snitched out Michael, Eddgar could barely wait to get to the inevitable denouement. He made a show of good cheer, but the last time they saw Cleveland, the morning he was killed, Eddgar took a.44 and fired off a round and laid the muzzle, hot enough to burn, right against Cleveland's temple. He left a mark and didn't say a word, even as Martin Kellett and two Panthers grabbed Cleveland. The mark of Cain, she thought now. It was all so crazy.

About much of it, about Cleveland's death, for example, she had been too sorry since to live much of a life. She had gone down, fallen helplessly into the chasm. She had made a silly marriage to a handsome, empty man, a man who was even somewhat cruel. He gave her drugs, and she took that for love. They broke up. She took the cure, but started drinking again seven years ago, and now she drank too much every day. She sat up nights, lapping up cheap Bordeaux by the liter and playing computer solitaire.

Now she made a right and came closer to the projects. She could see the blunt towers looming over the rows of industrial buildings, the final structures before the blocks of wasteland around Grace Street. There were old foundries with smokestacks, like arms raised in warning, warehouses with huge gantry doors, all the buildings guarded by razor wire atop their fences. What was in there to steal? The few faces on the streets now, as the early morning dark was starting to dissolve, were black, and in her present mood of recollection she thought of Mississippi in the old days and the God-fearing simple people they wanted to help, people who were so good, so radiantly good they seemed almost angelic, suffering their life of deprivation and toil. Lord, she loved to leave the churches, the meetings on Sunday nights in summer. The Southern air hung like a damp sock and the broken light of the moon silvered the trees and the bosks of the heavy landscape. She loved to hear the singing voices rising, gathered together and holding, like the voice of history, to a single note. How could we have gone from there to here with so little gained? she wondered. How could we have raised up these despairing children, dispossessed, who felt from their first moments there was no place on earth for them, who were untouched, unsaved by any tradition of human nobility? How could this have occurred? We were right! she thought, suddenly, desperately. We were right. That was why she was here now, in the cold hand of danger. She was doing what she'd done a hundred times before, saving him, saving Eddgar, this beautiful passionate boy, because she had to save everything he believed in, because she had no faith herself. But oh, oh, she had believed in him, in revolution, and she claimed some fragment of that surging feeling now as she swung onto the street. She rolled the window down and smiled absurdly.

'Lady,' a young woman said, a perfectly beautiful young woman with flawless chocolaty skin. She had a stocking cap tugged down over most of her face. 'Lady,' she said, 'you in the wrong damn place.'