Yaccub's Curse

“Bitch, who you fuckin’ in there? Open this mutherfuckin’ door ’fore I kick it off the hinges and smoke both ya’ll asses!”

“Nigga, don’t come around here tossin’ threats cause you know I ain’t impressed and you know damn well you don’t own this pussy!”

“Bitch, I don’t give a fuck about your old, used up, dug out pu…pus…pussy.“

My voice seized up and tears flooded my eyes.

“Tank’s dead.” I finally managed to squeak out.

Yolanda’s eyes widened with shock. Her hand flew to her mouth and she cast another quick look behind her into the house. There was sorrow and surprise in her face, but there was something else. Fear.

“What did you say, boy?” she whispered.

“I said, Tank was just killed.”

“Oh my God!”

When she opened the door it was Huey standing behind her with murder in his eyes. He had obviously just finished fucking Yolanda and hadn’t even bothered to put his clothes or underwear back on. He stood in the doorway butt-naked. The whole scene would have been hysterical if it wasn’t for the hatred twisting his features, directed at me. He grabbed me by the front of my shirt and flipped me over his shoulder. I tumbled into the hallway, landing hard on the tiled floor.

“It wasn’t my fault, Huey! It wasn’t my fault!”

Huey pulled his Sig Sauer out of his jacket pocket as he passed the coat rack. He jacked a round into the chamber, walking toward me in long determined strides like some unstoppable naked juggernaut. Yolanda had started screaming and was trying to hold him back.

“Huey, listen. It was Warlock who did him. We were tracking him through the junkyard and he must have snuck up on him. I got him though. I took that nigga out for Tank. He was like a brother to me. You know I’d have died for that nigga. I’d have died for him!”

“Here’s your chance,” Huey said, raising the gun until it was pointed directly at my skull.

Tears were streaming down my face in torrents. It hadn’t even occurred to me to go for my own weapon. If Huey was going to kill me then I was going to die and that was all there was to it. I stared into Huey’s eyes and I could see my own death in them. I saw his finger tighten on the trigger and I closed my eyes and waited, wondering if I would hear the gunshot before oblivion. Then Huey’s shoulders slumped and he uncocked the pistol. Tears were streaming down his face now, but his eyes didn’t soften or stray from my own. He didn’t look weak or vulnerable at all when he cried. He looked focused, determined, and pissed-da-fuck-off.

“Yeah, you right. It wasn’t your fault. You just as lost as he was, and it wasn’t Warlock’s fault either. It was that white devil you work for. It was his fault and he’s gonna pay for this shit. I owe him some pain now.”

That night I sent Yolanda to bury my gun in the woods in Wissahickon Park so the cops wouldn’t be able to pin Warlock’s murder on me. Huey stayed with me at Yolanda’s, but didn’t say a word. I jumped in the shower to wash off the gun powder residue while my clothes went into the washer. I was in the shower for maybe five-minutes when the police broke down the door and dragged me out. By the time they dragged my Black ass, soaking wet, kicking, and screaming, out of the shower they already had Huey in handcuffs. They allowed me to get dressed and I made sure to put on a pair of old clothes I had left there previously just in case they got smart and decided to test the clothes for gunpowder or blood splatter. Those fools would have nothing on me.

They placed Huey and I in separate cars so they could work on us individually and try to make us turn on each other. I played deaf mute and just stared out the window.

“You know Huey’s gonna give you up, don’t you? You got his brother killed. He told me he wants to see you rot in prison for that. He hopes you wind up on death row. He’s in the next car giving a full statement right now.”

I continued to stare out the window as we rolled through the neighborhood. The cop’s voices were just white noise in the background. When the old burly black cop reached over and punched me in the head I slumped down in my seat to avoid further blows and continued to stare out the window, secretly wondering if this was the same house-nigger that held Huey’s mom down eighteen years ago while that white cop raped her.

They put both of us in a cell together down at the fourteenth precinct. It was a big concrete room with one glass wall two-inches thick that faced out into the squad room. Outside the temperature was sixty degrees. Inside that room the temperature was ninety and rising. Police officers walked by and glared at us trying to make us nervous. We laughed at them, grabbed our dicks, and waved our middle fingers. I started singing “Fuck Da Police” by NWA at the top of my lungs and Huey joined me. An inmate in the cell next door began pounding a beat on the concrete wall that divided us. Other inmates joined in on the chorus and soon we had a full scale party going on. The officers started cursing and threatening us, pounding their fists on the desks like they wanted to come in there and start some shit. So we changed the tune to Ice T’s “Cop Killer.” That seemed to agitate them enough to make them come in and talk to us. Huey was livid over being arrested. If the cops weren’t wearing guns I think he would have tried to take them on.

“You guys settle down and cut out all that noise.”

“Fuck you got us locked up for? We ain’t been fingerprinted. Nobody read us our rights. We haven’t been allowed to make a phone call. My brother gets murdered and you muthafuckas are harassing us? Fuck you bitches!”

“Just calm down a minute. We just want to ask you guys some questions.”

The cop looked like a younger, fatter, uglier Rodney Dangerfield. He had livid red and purple liver spots all over his face, a big hooked nose with a wart on it, and big bubbly eyes that appeared blood-shot from lack of sleep and too much alcohol. His partner looked like a runway model. His hair was spiked with mousse and his eyelashes looked like he’d brushed them with mascara. He was obviously gay.

“Is we under arrest?”

“They call you Snap, right?”

“My name’s Malik.”

“Yeah, well Malik, you just might be under arrest if we find out you had anything to do with that shit over by the wrecking yard. And you, Mr. Huey P. Newton, your ass ain’t exactly clean either.”

“Whatever, man. Are we done here or what?”

“Where were you tonight, Snap?”

“My name’s Malik and I was right where you found me.”

“All night?”

“Yeah, all night.”

“And what about you, pretty boy? Where were you?” the cop asked. He started to reach up to grab Huey’s face, but something in Huey’s eyes made the man think better of it. I knew that it was already taking a Herculean act of will for Huey to resist going for the guy’s throat. If the cop had touched him Huey would have almost definitely exploded.

“I was with him. All night.”

“Now what was both of you doin’ with one girl all night?”

“Watching Dave Chappelle,” Huey hissed.

“And fuckin’.” I looked over at Huey accusingly. He sneered at me and hissed through his teeth.

What right did I have to be jealous of him fucking some slut when I had gotten his brother killed?

“Yeah,” Huey growled as his eyes bore into my skull. He turned his head to stare back at the officer, “And fuckin’.”

The two officers started laughing.

“Both of you fucking one woman? What? There ain’t enough crackwhores in Germantown for the both of you?”

“Oh, you should have seen her, Sarge. She wasn’t no crackwhore. She was thick as hell! Titties big as my head and an ass like a beachball. Looked like she could have taken both these boys all night and still had enough left over for you and me.”

“You little dick mutherfuckers wouldn’t even touch the sides. It would be like trying to stir a bowl of chilli with a toothpick,” Huey said, taunting them. I couldn’t help but to laugh as the officer’s eyes widened in surprise and then narrowed in anger. They wanted to kick both of our asses and probably would have if we’d been somewhere more private and not in the noisy holding cell.

They separated us and then questioned us again. Hours later, they put us back in the cells and let us sleep for about half an hour before waking us both up and dragging us back into the interrogation room for another round of twenty questions. It went on like this all night. We weren’t allowed to call our lawyers and they never once read us our rights or told us we were under arrest. In the morning they let us go. Yolanda came to pick us up.

“Damn, Kurt! You were right! She probably could take all of us!” the sergeant said loud enough for Huey and I both to hear as he watched Yolanda walk through the station. His eyes roved over her ass and breasts like a fat kid appraising a box of donuts.

I could tell by the veins pulsating in Yolanda’s forehead that she was furious. As soon as we left the precinct she let us both have it.

“Why’d ya’ll have to say ya’ll was both fuckin’ me?”

“’Cause we knew they’d believe that. Did you see the way those devils were looking at your ass? I bet they’ll be jacking off thinkin’ about it tonight.”

“You should have heard the way they were questioning me when they came to confirm your alibis. They were all making jokes and shit and I couldn’t do nothing about it. I was so mad at you two muthafuckas that I was tempted to say I hadn’t seen either one of you last night.”

“Yeah, well at least nobody strip searched you and looked up your ass with a flashlight, though you might have liked that shit.”

“I know they would have loved to do it.”

“Fuck both of you bastards!”

I laughed and then turned to Huey.

“Uh, man, is we still cool? You know your brother was like family to me. I mean, I just never expected it to go down like this.”

“Fuck did you think? Ya’ll was bulletproof or something? Shit, ya’ll should have known that sooner or later this shit was gonna happen. Going after Warlock in some dark ass junkyard? Stupid mutherfuckers! You lucky that you ain’t dead too. But I can’t blame you for none of this. Tank knew what he was doin’.”

“Shit, man! I can’t believe he’s gone. Damn. Damn. Damn!”

I wept quietly as we drove back home in Yolanda’s little Civic hatchback. My face was a blank mask. The car was so small that the dashboard pushed my knees almost to my chest and I hugged them as the tears trickled down my face. The weight of the previous night came crashing down on me with paralyzing force. I was stunned into mute shock. In the back, Huey stared straight ahead, a psychotic fury burning in his eyes and vibrating through his tightly contracted tendons and muscles. A single tear traveled the course of worry lines in his face and splashed down in his lap upon his clenched fists.

“That’s it for me, man. I’m done with all this gangsta shit. Scratch can kiss my ass.”

Huey glared at me unconvinced. He’d heard it before.

— | — | —

Chapter 15

“…The most hellish aspect of America’s racism is that for generations it has warped and twisted innately good black men, causing the vital vine of black family stability and strength to be poisoned, hacked down by the pity, fear and hatred of black children.”

—Iceberg Slim, “The Naked Soul of Iceberg Slim”

««—»»

The funeral was the following day. The funeral home’s entire parking lot was filled and cars lined the street for two blocks in every direction. The whole neighborhood had turned out to honor our fallen brother. Homies we hadn’t seen in years filed in looking stunned and devastated. There was more leather, fur, and snakeskin in that place than at a Tyson fight. It was like a who’s who of the gangsta elite. Old players from my mom’s and even my grandmom’s generation showed up to pay their respects. They laid lavish wreaths around the casket and some even handed Mrs. Turner little envelopes filled with money. I didn’t know whether that was cool or not. It was the first friend I had lost in the struggle and I wasn’t sure what was appropriate.

Was there even a such thing as thug funeral etiquette?

Young gangstas from West Philly to Mount Airy strolled in half high and drunk, but all looking genuinely sad and remorseful. One of hardest playas in the game was gone. One of their own had passed before his time. Everyone was shocked.

Whenever anyone came over to try to comfort me I turned away from them. I wasn’t deserving of their sympathy. It was my fault he was dead. Darlene and Tina were both there and Darlene was bawling her eyes out hysterically. She had loved him after all. Both my Mom and Mrs. Turner glared at me as if I had stabbed him myself. I felt like shit.

The funeral quickly turned into a side show as people came up and began laying “tokens of esteem” in Tank’s casket, everything from platinum jewelry to money to handguns. It was like they were all trying to out do each other with who could come up with the most lavish gift for the dead. I was almost expecting someone to come up and try to lay a set of rims in there.

Women from the local church arrived and began grieving loudly and hysterically. None of the Turners had ever attended the church and they didn’t know any of the women. They wore gaudy dresses in loud primary colors and huge hats with plumes in them. Their outfits would have given any pimp or player in the room a run for his money. They walked up to Huey and Mrs. Turner sounding rehearsed and artificial as they offered their condolences.

“I’m so sorry for your loss. He was so young. But he’s in a much better place now. All his suffering is over. Now he’s in the arms of the Lord. If you ever need someone to pray with you sister, here’s our phone numbers.”

I got the impression that they attended every funeral in the neighborhood as some kind of bizarre church duty.

Tank was laid out in a black tuxedo with a red cumberbund and bow tie looking entirely unlike he ever had in life. I thought they would have buried him as we all remembered him, with his baggy black Ben Davis pants, his red and white Ecko Red shirt, and his black leather South Pole jacket with that big ugly AK laid across his chest. At least then he would have looked more like he did in life. They even untied his cornrolls and had his hair slicked back and tied in a ponytail. They obviously had some faggot back their dressing up the corpses who thought he was a fucking fashion designer or something. I couldn’t understand how Mrs. Turner could have let them desecrate his corpse like that.

His white shirt was pulled all the way up to his chin to hide the stitches where the mortician had sewn his head back on. The absence of blood in his veins from when they exsanguinated him and filled him with embalming fluid, made his skin look gray and ashen, not the rich gun-metal black it had been in life. Someone, probably the same queen that dressed him, had rubbed moisturizer on his face to try to counteract the effects, which made his skin glisten as if he was sweating. Flowers were everywhere, encircling the body, making Tank look like the centerpiece in one huge floral arrangement. It all looked fake and gaudy to me.

One by one, people strolled up to the casket. I could hear them making ridiculous comments about how natural he looked laying there.

“He almost looks like he’s still alive.”

I never understood why people said shit like that at funerals. What fucking consolation is that?

He’s not alive. He never looked like that when he was on the streets! When did you ever see this mutherfucker wearing a cummerbund with his fucking hair all slicked back like an Italian mobster? I hated that shit.

There was a man nervously pacing back and forth wearing a tight tuxedo that looked worn in the knees and elbows. He had a purple cummerbund and bow tie that fucking glittered for Christ’s sake! His hair was done up in a greasy Jeri curl like I hadn’t seen since the eighties and he was sweating curl activator all down the side of his face.

He shuffled through some papers that I realized with a wave of disgust were pages of sheet music. Here we were at a funeral and he was treating it like Showtime at the Apollo. I hadn’t noticed it until he began to sing, but the podium where the minister had stood and where this little man now stepped up to sing was in front of the casket. It was off to the side so that you didn’t have to walk around it to get to the casket or anything, but it was still in front. It made it look like the casket was just a prop, part of the background scenery.

The man cleared his throat and began to whale out a somber gospel tune that I, not surprisingly, did not know. He sang with his heart and soul like he was auditioning for Star Search, and even played to the audience as if he was expecting us to forget we were all at a funeral and give him a standing ovation. When his song was over he actually looked disappointed that there were no applause. I had to leave.

When I stepped outside Huey was already standing in the parking lot leaning against my behemoth yellow ’72 Impala.

“What took you so long? I thought you’d have been out of there the minute the church ladies showed up.”

“You too, huh?”

“It looks like a fucking variety show in there. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

“Where to?”

“Man, I don’t know, Snap. Just fucking drive. Just get me the fuck away from this shit before I kill somebody.” He sighed and tilted his head back to gaze up at the heavens.

“You want to go down to South Street? We ain’t been down there since we was arrested that time.”

“Yeah, it’s been a few years hasn’t it? Let’s go down there and pick up some bitches. It would feel good to get my dick wet in some strange right about now.”

“I thought things were still cool with you and Iesha?” I asked.

Huey looked at me with his eyebrow raised and his eyes narrowed as if he was trying to decide whether or not I was serious.

“Of course they are. But don’t get it twisted. A man still has to be a man. You love one, but you fuck another. That’s the only way you can deal with a woman’s bullshit sometimes, knowing that you got someone else you can go to, to make you feel like a man again after she’s done breakin’ you down.”

“Is that why you fucked Yolanda behind my back?”

“Why? Is she your woman? ’Cause to me it looks like she’s everybody’s woman.”

“I know she gets around, but that ain’t the point. You my dog. If you was hittin’ it all you had to do was let me know so I wouldn’t feel like I was gettin’ played.”

“Leave it, dog. She’s a piece of ass. Just because you gettin’ it more regular than most of the niggas she deals with don’t mean it’s yours. You need to find yourself a real woman. Fuck bangin’ the neighborhood whore. You need to find someone to fall in love with.”

“I did that once. It didn’t work out.”

“Fuck it. Let’s just go.”

We jumped in the car and headed straight for the expressway, blasting a new CD from The Roots as we passed a joint back and forth. We were high as hell by the time we pulled up at Fifth and South.

It was too early in the day for much to be going on down there. The high schools and colleges hadn’t even let out for lunch yet so there was no pussy anywhere. The place was dead. We walked up and down the street looking into the punk rock stores, comic book stores, record shops, and clothing boutiques. We were just about to find a place to eat when I spotted a familiar silhouette on the next block. I sped up my stride without clueing Huey in on what I was after. I didn’t want to hear his shit.

“Damn, Snap. Why you walkin’ so fast? Slow down, bro.”

Huey saw her sooner than I expected him to and he recognized her right away.

“Don’t tell me you tryin’ to catch up with that White bitch? Ain’t that the same bitch you met down here that night the cops popped us like three years ago?”

“Shit, it’s been damned near four years, but I still want some of that.”

I strode up behind her and leaned in close enough so that she could feel my breath on the back of her neck. She sensed my presence before I could speak and whirled around ready to cuss me out. Her face was contorted into a look of outrage.

“Fuck is you doin’? Back tha fuck up off me!”

“Damn, you sound like you’ve dated a few brothas since the last time I saw you. You talk just like a nigga now. You still need a thug in your life?”

Her face relaxed as she recognized me and a smile spread across features.

“Don’t even talk to me,” She said, pretending to be upset, but obviously excited to see me again, “How come you ain’t call me?”

“I got arrested that night and I lost your number. I been hoping I’d run into you again.”

“Well, I still live down here. I’m up and down this street everyday. I wouldn’t have been hard to find if you’d really been lookin’.”

“I’ve been goin’ through some drama. I got locked up. Just got out.”

She didn’t even blink when I told her I’d been arrested. No questions, no complaints, nothing. She probably figured black folks got arrested every day. After all, we were all criminals weren’t we? It didn’t even occur to me that my lifestyle would have justified those stereotypes.

She turned to Huey and smiled flirtatiously. She could have saved all that. Huey ain’t into snowflakes.

“Who’s this?”

“This is my dog right here, Huey. Don’t expect him to be nice to you though. He don’t like White bitches and his brother just got killed so he ain’t in no mood to fake it. We’re supposed to be at a funeral right now.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Bitch, I don’t even know you. I don’t want your fuckin’ sympathy,” Huey snarled, freezing her warm condolences with his vicious blast.

“Let’s bounce, playa,” Huey started to walk off down the street. He stopped at the corner and leaned against a light pole waiting impatiently.

“Yeah, I’ll be with you in a minute alright? I told you he was a hateful muthafucka.”

“You ain’t lyin’. I know he’s had a tragedy and all, but all that wasn’t even necessary.” She looked genuinely shocked.

“I should be catching up to him though. He’s goin’ through some shit right now and I should be with him. Look, let me get that number again and I promise you we’ll hook up this time.”

“I shouldn’t be given your ass a second chance, but you just look so good.”

“Just write your number down on a matchbook or something ’cause I gotta bounce.”

I produced a pen and I couldn’t find a matchbook so she wrote her number on the back of a pack of rolling papers and handed it to me.

“You smoke weed?”

“I sell weed now that my Mom bounced on me. That’s how I’m payin’ the bills while I’m goin’ to college.”

I laughed to myself at the way she tried to incorporate my slang into her dialogue.

“Yeah, well why don’t you sell me a couple dimes so I can get my boy’s head straight?”

“I’ll give you some if you come by tonight.”

“Cool, I’ll be there.”

She slipped me a fat-ass sack of green bud. The kind of shit nobody can get in Philly. The smell alone was starting to get me high.

“Where the fuck did you get this from?”

“My sister lives in Northern California, in Marin County, and her fiancé grows the shit.”

“You a little hustler, huh? Yeah, we’re most definitely gonna hook up.”

I caught up to Huey and we walked around the corner, back to the Impala. We drove over to the State Store on Second Street. State Stores, as the name implies, are run by the State of Pennsylvania and are the only legal place where you can buy liquor in Philly.

We were both still under age so we had to bribe this old derelict into going in there for us. We bought a bottle of M.D. 20/20 and some Tangueray. Then we went to the corner store and bought some orange juice and a couple forties of Colt 45.

We snuck the orange juice and the Tangueray into a movie theatre on Chestnut Street and kicked back to watch Steven Seagal’s overweight ass do some weak Aikido moves while his gut protruded over his jeans and with arms as skinny as a woman’s wrist. We were so high that we were actually enjoying it though.

“Look at that fat mutherfucker. I’d whoop that bitch’s ass!” Huey whooped at the screen.

A fight broke out in the back of the theater and for once we didn’t get involved and make shit worse. We turned our backs on the movie screen to watch two gangs of kids just a few years younger than us threaten each other loudly without throwing a blow. It went on for almost twenty minutes before fists finally began to fly.

“Either start throwing or shut the fuck up so we can watch the damn movie!” an Old Gangsta yelled from the front while his girlfriend—who was decked in fur, platinum, and enough ice to chill a twelve pack— hugged his side.

Once it began it lasted less than a minute. The smaller group was chased out of the theater by the larger group and we all just went back to watching the movie.

An hour and a half passed before we staggered out of the theater and piled back into my Impala. We were torn down from the Tangueray and juice, but we were still not high enough to stop thinking about Tank. As soon as the movie ended the image of him lying in that casket came rushing back to us. We started talking to keep our minds off of it.

Huey seemed to be in a much better mood. We laughed and joked as we drove down the Parkway and onto Kelly Drive. The Schuykill River was the same shit brown it had always been, yet in our intoxicated state, with the setting sun sparkling over the waters, it looked like the most tranquil and beautiful place on earth. We pulled into a parking area along the riverfront and cracked open the Mad Dog.

Huey and I sat there for hours talking about nothing. Anytime the memory of Tank’s murder tried to intrude its way back into my consciousness I would tell a joke or something. But it was unavoidable. Eventually the conversation lulled and we both started thinking about Tank.

Tears streamed down our faces as we drained the bottle of MD and reminisced about our dead brother.

“Why don’t you roll up some of that Cali weed you got from that gray bitch? I ain’t fucked up enough yet,” Huey slurred.

I pulled out the baggy and the box of papers and rolled us the fattest joint I could manage. We lit up and passed it back and forth as we watched the sun crash into the horizon and explode across the sky in fiery reds and oranges.

“Tank would have loved this shit. You know how that nigga loved his weed.”

“Yeah, he stayed high. I don’t know how he could function as much weed as he smoked.”

“I remember one time we were doin’ a driveby on these JBGL muthafuckas and Tank had just lit up this fat ass joint. So we roll up along side these niggas and Tank pulls the AK out of his lap and while he’s swinging it out the window he knocks the joint out his mouth. You know that crazy muthafucka puts the AK down to pick up the joint? By the time he picked the rifle up again them fools had scattered. I laughed my ass off. Scratch was mad as hell that night and Tank just looked at him like ‘Hey, shit happens,’ and kept on smoking his blunt.”

Huey and I laughed hard at that even as the tears continued to fall. When we finally left the river I could hardly see straight I was so high.

“Damn, that was some good weed!”

“Hell yeah it was. Maybe I was wrong about that gray bitch. She might come in handy after all. Where you want to go now?”

“You ready to go back ’round the way?”

“Naw, ain’t shit to see there now. Besides, I don’t want to go watch my mom cry or deal with Iesha askin’ me a bunch of annoying ass questions trying to get me to express my feelings and shit. Don’t bitches realize that men ain’t like that? The last thing a man wants to do when he’s depressed is sit around and talk about why he’s depressed. You just want to forget about that shit. Get high. Get fucked. Whatever. You just want to forget. You know what I’m sayin’?”

“True indeed. Let’s just drive around for a while then.”

I hadn’t intended on driving back to the cemetery but somehow we both knew that was where we were going. We pulled through the gates of the Cheltenham Cemetery just as twilight darkened into night.

There were no lights in the cemetery. Huey and I staggered around in the dark for the better part of an hour trying to find Tank’s grave. Since we hadn’t attended the burial we didn’t even have the faintest clue which direction to look in and checking each headstone with no illumination except my disposable Bic lighter was tedious.

Huge gravestones, monuments, and crypts the size of small garages crammed every corner of the century old cemetery casting eerie shadows that recalled memories of old horror movies. We were so intoxicated that we were actually enjoying the search and the crawling superstitious dread that followed us as we stomped on earth beneath which the dead slumbered. We giggled as we tripped over gravestones and bumped into the large statues that marked many of the older graves.

“This is the older section. He ain’t buried over here. He should be over there where all those little plaques are.”

We were in total darkness by the time we found Tank’s modest little headstone, which was little more than a plaque stuck in the ground as Huey had said. We collapsed upon it in exhaustion and cracked open our forties. I eulogized our brother in my own way as Huey stared on in silence.

“I remember how we all met. Remember how we almost killed each other and then wound up becoming best friends? Who’d have believed that shit? We terrorized that neighborhood so bad them niggas ain’t never gonna forget you. I won’t ever forget you, bro. You were my dog, my brother. Even if we didn’t share the same blood or come out of the same womb we shared the same spirit, the same soul. We been tighter than any two muthafuckas ever could be. We fought together. We laughed together. We got high together. We killed together. After all that time it was just in the last two or three days that I really got to know your big ass. I loved you man. You was one bad ass-kickin’ muthafucka and the game won’t be the same without you. I’m gonna miss you, bro.”

We poured our forties out on his grave.

“I wish there was some way we could have gotten him a cheesesteak hoagie to take on his journey. I know he’s hungry. That nigga’s always hungry.”

“I was just thinking about planting some weed on his grave. That would guarantee everybody from the hood would visit him.”

I stared at Tank’s modest little gravestone and something about it started to annoy me. They had put Tank’s real name on it, Anthony Turner, instead of the name by which he was known to all his friends and family. I took out a paint marker and wrote over the name in big silver letters; “Tank”.

“Rest in peace, my brother.”

We laid down on Tank’s grave, resting our heads on his stone. We rolled up some more of the weed and I took the seeds out and planted them in front of the headstone. We both inhaled deeply, choking and coughing, as we watched the clouds uncover the moon and the few stars that were visible through the city pollution wink on and off like Christmas lights. We were both wondering if Tank’s soul had made it into heaven.

“I hope Tank is up there kickin’ God’s ass right now.”

“Man, don’t say shit like that, Snap.”

“Why not?”

“’Cause it ain’t cool to be talkin’ about God like that.”

“Don’t tell me you still into all that Muslim shit? I thought you gave that shit up when the Trade Center got smoked.”

“Man, don’t start dissin’ my faith. You could stand to have Allah in your heart.”

“No offence my brother, but Allah has done about as much for the Black man as any of these other gods, which is to say not a damn thing. You might as well be Catholic or Jewish for all the good any of that shit does.”

“Allah is the only way we can save the Black community. If Tank had been down with it he might still be here today.”

“Tank was down with the only God that ever helped anybody out ’round the way, the all-mighty dollar fuckin’ bill. But let’s not get into this. You don’t want to have this conversation with me now, Huey. You might get your feelings hurt. I just wish there really was a God up there. At least then I’d have somebody to blame for all this shit. It’d fuck me up to think we brought all this shit on ourselves and that White folks were able to fuck our shit up for hundreds of years without any help from the Great White overseer in the sky.”

“See, that’s just what your problem is. You always lookin’ to blame somebody else rather than admit that you’re responsible for your own fucked up destiny. Now, I ain’t sayin’ them White devils ain’t conspired at every turn to keep the Black man on his knees. You know that don’t nobody hate crackers more than I do. I’m just sayin’ that brothers have sabotaged themselves so much that it ain’t been hard for them to do it. And if it wasn’t for Allah, the God of the Black man, who loves and protects us despite our ignorant self-destructive behavior, we would have never survived half the shit them devils have put our people through.”

“Naw, man. It don’t work that way. I mean I hear what you sayin’ and all, but it don’t work. See ’cause this Black God who’s supposed to love Black people, he created White People. And Yeah, I know you’re gonna say that Satan or Dr. Yaccub or some aliens from space created White folks, but see god created Satan and if there are aliens then God created them too. If God is truly all knowing then when he created Satan, before he created Satan, he knew the man would rebel against him and create White people and that they would oppress and enslave black people. So if God knew what Yaccub or Satan or whatever was gonna do, but he created these muthafuckas anyway, than he’s directly responsible for what happened to Black Folks as a result. And I ain’t even sayin’ I believe that all White people are devils. I’m just sayin’ that, based on your theories, that’s what you get. If they were all devils then there wouldn’t be any nice ones. They would all be evil, but there’s no more evil ones as far as I can see than there are evil niggas.”

“You just sayin’ that shit ’cause you bouts to try and fuck one of them devils. Muthafucka gets a little weed in him and wants to start getting’ all philosophical,” Huey laughs, “Okay, Socrates, what about personal responsibility? What about free will? Maybe nobody knew what damage these White devils would do until after they were created because of the unpredictability of free will. And Dr. Yaccub was a man too. Maybe God couldn’t predict what he would do either.”

“How unpredictable are most muthafuckas you know? Free will ain’t that fucking confusing that it should throw off even a muthafucka of average intelligence let alone a muthafucka that’s supposed to be all-knowing. I could drive through this city and tell you who a muthafucka is gonna vote for in the next election just by the size of their house, the car they drive, and the neighborhood they live in. People just ain’t that deep. If God is all-knowin’ then free will is an illusion anyway because he already knows everything you’re ever going to do, every decision you will ever make, before you ever make them, before he ever even created you. Because that’s what all-knowin’ is, knowin’ all! Not knowin’ most or knowin’ some, knowin’ all. So if he created you knowin’ everything you would do then you could say that he created you to do those things because he had the choice not to create you. See what I’m sayin’?”

“How you figure? You lost me, my brother.”

“Put it this way. Suppose you was takin’ the Pepsi Challenge. You remember that right? When there’d be this little guy at a booth and they’d have a glass of Pepsi and a glass of Coke and you were supposed to taste it and pick the one that you liked best?”

“Yeah, yeah, I remember that shit. So what?”

“Now if God knew before you ever sat down to take that test that you would choose Coke instead of Pepsi and he would know because he created your very nature and the environment that shaped your character plus he’s all-knowin’ and infallible, could you then choose Pepsi and prove God wrong? See, because if God can be wrong then he ain’t perfect. He ain’t omnipotent. So if God knew you would choose Coke before he ever created your ass, what sense does it make to say you had the free-will to chose Pepsi if you had wanted to? When God knew that you wouldn’t want to? It wouldn’t make sense. That’s what I’m sayin’. Since God already knows every decision you’re going to make then free will is an illusion and he is ultimately responsible for every evil in the world. Since he created it all, he’s the first ’cause, then he’s to blame ultimately.

“I mean if God knew that Hitler would kill eight million Jews before he ever created him then could Hitler have decided not to kill Jews or if God thought Hitler would just be a shoe salesman could Hitler have fooled God and gone out to kill Jews instead? Would you really want to worship a creator with so little control over his creations that some little punk like Hitler could fake him out? That would mean God wasn’t omnipotent or all-knowin’ and not really even all that smart. And if God knew that if he created Hitler what the man would do and he had the option of creating a Hitler who wouldn’t kill Jews, I mean if Hitler had been born in the Bronx in nineteen eighty I don’t think he’d have started World War II, or he could have not created him at all, but if God did do all this knowingly then he ain’t really such a nice muthafucka is he? The same thing with White folks, if God knew that the White man would murder, rape, enslave, and oppress the Black man for centuries, yet he created him anyway then just like they say in court, he ‘acted willfully and with malicious aforethought’ and caused the oppression of our people through his action or inaction. It’s his fault so how could you have any love in your heart for him? The muthafucka gets no love from me. None.”

“So you sayin’ God is either evil or stupid?”

“That’s exactly what the fuck I’m sayin’. If God is supposed to be all powerful then he could end the plight of the Black man at any time. He could have prevented it from ever occurring in the first place. You feel me, bro? He could end poverty and crime. He could get niggas good jobs so we didn’t have to kill each other to survive. But he don’t do he? Why? ’Cause he don’t give a fuck about us that’s why. We live like this because of him so how can you be worshipping him? It’s like worshipping the slavemaster’s whip. It don’t make no sense!”

“My brother, you is one to talk.”

“So, what you sayin’?”

“I’m sayin’ you contribute to the hardships of the Black community by helping Scratch pump that poison, but you still expect people to love you.”

I sat bolt upright in the grass.

“Fuck that! Nigga, I don’t expect nobody to love me!”

I knew Huey hated for anyone to call him “nigga”, even though he often used the word himself. It was part of that Black Consciousness thing he was into. But he had pushed my buttons so he deserved to have a few pushed back. I took some small pleasure in watching him struggle to ignore my use of the word.

“Yeah, you do. You expect your Mom to love you. You expect your Grandma to love you,” He pointed to the grave on which we sat and I winced, “You expected my brother to love you…and you expect me to love you. Now tell me I’m wrong?”

It was weird to hear another man say he loved me, even if he was like a brother or whatever. But I knew I loved him too. He had always been like family to me.

“Yeah, Huey, but it ain’t the same.”

“Ain’t it, Snap?”

“I didn’t start this shit. I damn sure ain’t controllin’ it, and I ain’t in no position to stop it. I ain’t supposed to be all powerful, or all-knowin’, or anything. I’m helpless in all this.”

“As long as you think of yourself as a victim that’s all you’ll ever be. You need to stop blaming God and take a look at the man in the mirror, dog.”

“Man, fuck you!” I roared as I jumped up from Tank’s grave.

I started to storm off into the dark, frustrated, and angry, and hurt, and knowing that I was right, wishing that I wasn’t so damn emotional so that I could make Huey’s ass understand my point. But my emotions just got so hyped up that I couldn’t get my point across correctly. When I get mad it’s so hard to think straight.

I felt a hand grip my shoulder with tremendous pressure, causing pain and no doubt leaving a bruise as Huey spun me around to face him. His face was a mask of inhuman rage. I watched him struggling to get it under control so he could speak to me.

“Fool, my brother is lyin’ in the ground over there partially because of your Black ass and I haven’t turned my back on you so you damn sure better not turn your back on me again unless you want to be lyin’ right beside him! You hear me, muthafucka? If you want me to understand then you sit here and fight it out with me and make me understand, but don’t you dare walk away from me!”

I looked in his eyes and saw nothing I wanted to challenge.

“You’re right. You’re right, man. My fault, dog.”

I plopped down at the foot of a huge life-sized statue of the Virgin Mary. I sat with my chin on my chest, my elbows resting on my knees, and my hands dangling down between my legs. It was a posture of exhaustion and defeat. I remained in this position for several long seconds before I spoke. I never once looked at Huey who had sat down beside me and was waiting to hear what I had to say.

“You know I’ve thought about all this stuff before. I didn’t just start trippin’ off it when Tank died. It’s worried at me for as long as I can remember. I ain’t just tryin’ to take the blame off myself. I know what I am—what I do. And I know that even with all the cards stacked against me I still had a choice of what direction I could have taken. But knowing who I am could you honestly have seen me making any other choices? I mean, I could have stayed in school and gone to college. I could have gotten a real job. I could have just lived off welfare or my mom or something. But could you really see me doin’ any of that? I chose this and I regret it everyday, but I made these decisions because of who I am and if there’s a God then I did it because of what God made me. I regret it all, but what’s done is done now and there’s no going back. I guess come Judgment Day I’ll burn in hell with the rest of the sinners, but is that fair if I really didn’t have a choice in what I became, if I was damned from the moment I was created?”

“Come Judgment Day all Black men will ascend to heaven with Allah. It’s the White man that will burn.”

“Yeah, but right now the white man is in paradise compared to us. We’re the ones in hell. It seems to me that judgment has already been passed right here on earth and we’ve all been damned!”

“It’s just part of Allah’s plan. You have to have faith that he’ll make everything right in the end. Order will be restored. Believe that.”

“Freedom after we are dead, or after our parents are dead, or those first Africans who were snatched from the Motherland and thrown in chains, is too little too late. We shouldn’t have had to go through all this.”

“God had to test us to make sure we were worthy.”

“Brother, please! If God is all-knowin’ then what the fuck does he need to test us for? He already knows if we are going to pass or fail.”

“The Lord works in mysterious ways his miracles to perform.”

Like a tidal wave, my anger came crashing back down upon me. Huey was starting to sound like a mindless fanatic. I had always given him more credit than that.

“Fuck his plan! If one little innocent child has to suffer for him to bring about his plan when he’s supposed to be so damned powerful then his plan is bullshit. It’s an injustice! You mean to tell me an all-knowing all-powerful creator couldn’t get his plan off the ground without the suffering of Black folks? And how the fuck are we supposed to deal with all this suffering and still love his ass when we don’t even understand his plan? What kind of God would ask that of us, dog? God expects us to suffer in the name of some divine plan, but he doesn’t even bother to clue us in on what the fuck this plan is all about and why he can’t do it without our children starving, and getting poor educations, and shot down in the streets, thrown in jail, excluded from jobs, denied proper healthcare. What kind of shit is that?”

“That’s where faith comes in, my brother. We have to have faith in his wisdom.”

“Is that what Allah said? Or was that Yaweh or Jehovah? ’Cause that don’t sound like no Black God to me. That sounds like the totalitarian philosophy of a rich, white, ends justifies the means, elitist, Republican God, who thinks it’s his duty to make decisions for these poor savages who are too ignorant to understand what’s good for them.”

“Totali—what? Man, I don’t even know what the fuck you just said.”

“I’m sayin’, only a White God would view human beings not as thinking, feeling, individuals, with their own hopes and ambitions, but as pawns to be sacrificed in the name of some grand cause without even allowing us to have a say-so. God believes in free will, but how can there really be free will when we have no choice in whether or not we want to participate in his great plan and don’t even know what the fuck it is? As if our opinions were irrelevant. We would assassinate a President for some shit like that or impeach his ass at the very least. But you don’t turn against God because you’re afraid of going to hell. A loving God that rules through threats and intimidation? Go along with the program or suffer eternal torment? Does that sound right to you, bro? Is that what muthafuckas mean by God-fearing? Worship God and he’ll save you from the hell he created for those who do not worship him? That’s a fucking extortion racket! And niggas just bow down to that shit like the slaves we’ve been conditioned to be. Well, this nigga right here ain’t bowing for nobody no more. Not God. Not no White muthafuckas. Not no niggas. Nobody! Any muthafucka that wants to see me bow better have the balls to face me and the strength to put his boot on my neck and press my forehead to the floor ’cause I damned sure ain’t doin’ it willingly!”

“Then your ass should start by raisin’ up out of that Scratch situation. ’Cause whether you realize it or not, that devil’s got you on your knees and you’re takin’ it in both ends.”

“I’m done with that shit, dog.”

“Yeah? We’ll see.”

Sitting there watching the clouds swallow the moon and stars and the darkness congeal into a solid wall of blackness, a turbid veil that hung between us, I began to wonder how I was going to make this big change and if it was even possible. Tank hadn’t thought so. He was sure that we would die in this game and he had been right, at least about himself. But did that mean that I was doomed too?

Killing wasn’t just something I did. Like I was trying to tell Huey, a killer was what I was. A metamorphosis had taken place within me as I sat cocooned inside the violence and desperation of my neighborhood and I had emerged from that cocoon as a monstrous killing thing. I was a predator of my own species, which somehow put me outside of it, made me something other than human.

Could the change be reversed?

Death was now a shadow that followed me wherever I went and that I animated with every gesture.

Yeah, though I walk through the shadow of the valley of death, I shall fear no evil…because I’m too damned ignorant to recognize it when I see it. Because the evil is me.

I sighed a long exasperated breath that emptied me of all my strength. The weight of my thoughts pulled my forehead earthward. I sprawled out on the ground and rested my head on the pillow made by my forearm and bicep.

Huey was so quiet that I wondered if he was still there. I had said a lot more than I had meant to say. I had attacked his faith like a mortal enemy. His faith would survive the beating though. The belief in a just and loving God isn’t based on any empirical evidence so no evidence can refute it. It doesn’t matter how many innocents suffer and die, the faithful will always believe in the love of God because it makes them feel safe and happy and the alternative is too horrible for them to contemplate. Better to be a happy fool than a suffering genius.

The marijuana and alcohol began to work their magic and spirit my consciousness away. Slowly Huey and I both succumbed to the somnolent effects of intoxication and passed out on the cool dewy grass, our heads resting on an unknown grave at the feet of the Virgin Mary.

As I snored and drooled on the freshly manicured lawn, I dreamt that I was lying in a casket. A light set in the bottom of the casket shone through the Swiss cheese hyper-profusion of bullet holes some overly enthusiastic assassin had put in my corpse. Huge sub-woofers thundered with rapid fire sound bites of various gangsta rap songs in a cacophonous stew of rumbling bass as if someone had entirely neglected to add treble to the mix. My casket vibrated and pulsed with the sound. Each truncated lyric seemed to be some commentary on the life I had lead. Every single one of them was about death.

Scores of Black faces crowded in to gawk and point at me. None of the faces seemed mournful. They all seemed to be having a great time celebrating my passing. I heard the voice of an usher, who sounded like a tour guide, tell the group of jubilant mourners to keep moving so the next group could file in. Someone who sounded like Malcolm X opened the casket and and placed my nine on my chest as he solemnly intoned: “The chickens have come home to roost.”

I thought he might have given me the nine to smoke the tourists who had started poking at me and posing for pictures with my corpse, but I couldn’t move. I heard one of the revelers say something that chilled me.

“He’s the bastard that started the race war. He’s the reason the White folks are hunting us down. His name’s Malik. They call him Snap because he’s crazy. He betrayed his entire race. He doomed us all.”

I tried to speak to them, to tell them that I was innocent, but I was paralyzed.

“Everyone’s dead now. His mother, his grandmother, he even got his best friend killed. If he’d had any balls he would have just killed himself. That evil nigger!”

I screamed out loud, but the sound never left my lips. I was suddenly being pulled out of myself. The earth literally dropped out from under me leaving me floating weightless a million miles in space. I could see heaven from where I was, but as I turned to it the pearly gates slammed shut. There was a sign on the door that said “No dogs or niggers allowed.”

The top of the gate was covered with razor-wire and had shards of broken glass cemented into the surrounding walls. I didn’t care. I charged the gates and began pounding on them until my fists bled from where they had been punctured and lacerated by the jagged glass. Slowly the gates opened and all these Brooks Brothers suits wearing white boys came spilling out carrying shotguns. Their faces all looked like Scratch. There were police officers with them dressed in riot gear, they grinned at me with teeth plated with gold.

“Can’t you read the sign, boy? Go home. We don’t want your kind around here.”

“I’m dead. Where am I supposed to go?”

“Go to hell, nigger!”

They all started laughing at me. I started firing my nine even as the first shotgun blast blew open my chest leaving a ragged steaming hole. I didn’t feel a thing except my rage. Even in the afterlife I was getting fucked over. I was going to get in there no matter how many of these motherfuckers I had to kill. I wondered how long I could hold out with my lungs and heart obliterated by shotgun slugs. I tried not to think about it. I just kept shooting, aiming right for the head and watching as they popped like balloons and sprayed blood and brains across the pearly gates.

My aim was uncannily accurate. Each shot caught one of the suits flush in the forehead. But there were too many of them. They started to overwhelm me. I was taking so many hits that my body was coming apart. I heard a familiar sound coming from behind the gates, the stuttering staccato of automatic weapons fire. The suits began flying to shreds as bullets raked through them. Behind them I could see Tank with that big AK in his hands covering my ass as usual. He laid waste to the entire heavenly host and then turned a forty oz. up to his lips and winked at me. He walked over and passed the forty to me. I lifted it to my lips without bothering to wipe his spittle from its rim. We were brothers. Tank started to head back toward the gates while jamming another banana clip into the AK. He stopped and waved for me to follow.

“Come on, dog. We got to finish this.”

I ejected the spent clip from the Beretta and popped in a fresh one as we passed through the gates into heaven.

When Huey and I finally awoke the darkness was absolute. I couldn’t see a foot in front of me. Lights from the road helped us find our direction as we strained our eyes and made our way, mostly by memory, back to the car. It was past midnight when I dropped Huey off at his house.

“Yo, dog, you welcome to crash here if you want.”

“I just live around the corner, bro. I’m cool. Do you need me to stay?”

“You’ve helped a brother out enough today. Thanks for getting’ me out of that whack-ass funeral.”

“Yeah, is your Mom gonna be cool with that though?”

“She’ll understand.”

“My Mom won’t.”

“You can still stay here if you need to, dog. My door is always open.”

“Naw, brother. I’d better get my black ass on home.”

“See you tomorrow then, Snap.”

“Later, dog.”

I didn’t tell Huey about the dream or premonition or visitation or whatever it was I’d had. As I drove through the deserted streets, the image of Tank up in heaven still puttin’ in work and covering my ass soothed my mind a little. I pulled up to the twenty-four hour convenience store on Washington Lane and Germantown Ave and called Christina from my cell phone while I filled up my tank.

“Hello?”

She picked up on the first ring and her voice was bubbly and expectant.

“Yeah, it’s Malik. I’m coming over.”

“I thought you was gonna stand me up again. It’s damned near one o’clock in the morning.”

“Don’t sweat it. I’m on my way now, unless you don’t want me to come now?”

“Just get here and I’ll make sure you cum.”

I jumped in the Impala and flew down Wayne Avenue. I slowed the big Chevy to a crawl as I made the sharp turn onto Lincoln Drive and then floored it again as I exited Lincoln Drive onto Kelly Drive. I inhaled the sweet smell of pine trees as I sailed pass Wissahickon Park remembering when my mother and I used to go down there to swim in the creek, catch crayfish and salamanders, and hike through the woods. I missed my mother. I missed that close relationship we once had. The only way to get it back was to extricate myself from the evil shit I was involved in.

The smell of the trees and the cool breeze coming off the river helped raise my spirits as I headed down Kelly Drive and onto the Parkway. By the time I made it to Christina’s house I wasn’t thinking about anything but sex.

“Damn, that was quick. It seems like I just hung up the phone.”

“Don’t worry. Getting here is the last quick thing that’s gonna happen tonight.”

My boys would have been ashamed of me that night. That white pussy turned me out like a trick. I acted like some lovestruck punk instead of the bonafide playa that I am, but that was the best pussy I’d ever had. Even though I had swore to myself that I would never do it to any woman except the woman I married, I went down and licked Christina’s sweet pussy like it was a coke spoon. Her tremendous breasts heaved as her breath caught in her throat and her hips ground against my face, her pelvis thrusting up to meet my eager tongue. Her body moved like electricity was coursing through her. I felt like a sucker, but I was enthralled by her. I had never seen a woman so beautiful outside of a movie. After her own orgasm tore through her making her buck like a wild stallion, she threw herself on me like a wolf lunging for the throat of a deer.

She made love to my dick with her mouth like it was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. She was adoring of it, lavishing her affection upon my manhood as if it were an object of worship. When I came she lapped up every drop of my seed, gobbling it up like it was her only source of nourishment.

I fucked her in every orifice and she seemed to enjoy every position equally. She came with me in her ass as easily as she did with me in her vagina and even seemed on the verge of climax while giving head. There wasn’t a moment during the course of the night when she wasn’t stimulating me in some capacity. If I withdrew from her vagina she guided me straight into her mouth. If she took me out of her mouth she jacked me off between her luscious breasts. If they came out from between her breast she would guide me into her ass. On and on it went until we had more than half a dozen orgasms between us.

I roared like a lion when I came and she screamed like a murder victim and burst into tears. It was the most passionate sex I had ever had. When it was over I had the strongest urge to tell her I loved her. But my pride and my better sense kept me in check. I didn’t know shit about her no matter how well our bodies had communicated. Still, I felt something tender and powerful when I held her and it scared the shit out of me. Love at first sight was for punks and love at first fuck was for tricks. I needed to put as much distance as I could between me and Christina. I hopped out of bed and gathered up my clothes, dressing in a hurry and trying not to look at her flawless body. It was bad enough that I was working for a white boy without falling in love with some snowflake bitch too. I was pulling my Timberlands on my feet when she reached out and grabbed my arm.

“You have to leave?”

“I gots to get tha fuck out of here.”

Her eyes looked hurt. There was so much emotion in them that I felt something flutter in my heart. I turned away and continued pulling on my boots.

Maybe she had felt something too?

I dismissed the notion. This White girl didn’t know shit about me, besides, the way she fucked she probably had boyfriends all over the place. She damn sure wasn’t no virgin. Just another ho with some exceptionally good pussy. Nothing to get your emotions all twisted over.

“I love you, Malik. I hope you don’t mind me saying that?”

She looked up at me with those big emotion-filled eyes that seemed to implore me not to hurt her. I stared back at her speechless. I wanted to fall back into her arms and tell her I loved her too. I wanted to make love to her all over again and my flesh was signaling its own readiness with an urgent swelling that was almost painful after so much use already. Emotions were swirling within me like a maelstrom. For right or wrong, my pride won the battle.

“Get over it.” I finished lacing up by boots and walked out.

— | — | —

Chapter 16

“It is strangely ironic that the American white man is not really free. He is the victim of his own insanity. The free man is the man with no fear.”

—Dick Gregory, “Write Me In!”

««—»»

Scratch watched passively as fire consumed the decrepit old building. Soon it would collapse and disintegrate into little more than a pile of ash. Scratch leaned against his arterial-red BMW with the gold rims and grille, watching the human shapes within the flames writhe in agony, trying to escape cremation. One burning form flung itself out of the second story window, hit the concrete at Scratch’s feet, and lay still. Scratch nudged it with his boot to make sure the char-broiled body was dead. Another figure braved the front door.

Scratch raised his .44 and pointed it at the burning man as he staggered out of the house completely engulfed in flame. His lips parted wide as if he was trying to scream and fire erupted from his open mouth and poured from his nostrils and eyesockets. The drug-dealer lowered his weapon when the figure stumbled and fell onto the other bullet riddled corpses piled up outside the front door. No sense wasting a bullet. The fire had already killed him. The other smoldering carcasses re-ignited when the flames, still greedily consuming the burning body now convulsing on top of them, crawled down to devour their flesh as well. Scratch had shot each of them dead as they tried to escape the flames and still the fire had found them. Their skin bubbled and ran like frying lard, the subcutaneous fat popping like boiling oil.

Smoke billowed up into the night sky blotting out the stars. Scratch frowned in disappointment. Burning the entire house down had been extremely reckless, perhaps even careless, but Scratch was starting to lose his patience. He couldn’t afford to let that baby live. It would ruin everything, and he’d been almost positive that the bitch and her whelp would be here.

The smell of burning flesh was overpowering. It made Scratch’s mouth water. There were still screams coming from inside the crackhouse, but no one else had attempted to leave. Anyone still inside was already a corpse. Yet, still he could feel the baby’s presence. He’d failed again. Scratch climbed into his BMW and drove slowly away as sirens wailed in the distance heading for the fire.

He had managed to narrow things down a bit though. He’d raided every crackhouse in G-town now except one. Scratch was positive that she had to be there, unless she knew he was coming for her and had already left the neighborhood. Then he would be fucked.

If someone assassinated him while that kid was still alive it would be over, there would be no resurrection. He couldn’t allow that to happen. If man’s sins were forgiven then all his efforts would have been in vain. No matter what, that kid had to die first, but he was running out of time.

He didn’t know why he was so sure that it would be a crack baby. He just knew. It fit the profile. He also didn’t know why he was so positive that it would happen in Philly, in G-town, but over the centuries he’d gotten good at predicting these things. He recognized the patterns, the subtle nuances in the chain of cause and effect that inevitably led to His coming. He was in the right place, at the right time, and he was going to crucify that little fucker again, and again and again. Every time He reappeared, Scratch would be waiting to send Him back to his maker. He’d get him. He always had, always would, and that uppity little nigger, Snap, was going to help him. This time, he wouldn’t even get his hands dirty.

“But where the fuck is the baby!” he shouted as he slammed his fists into the cherry wood-grain dashboard.

Any day now members of the Junior Black Gangsta Lords would be coming for him, to avenge their leader’s murder, and as long as that baby was safe in its mother’s womb Scratch was vulnerable. Once the little bastard was dead Scratch would be almost invincible. It wouldn’t matter how many times he was killed. He’d just keep coming back. Dr. Yaccub had made certain of that. The infernal energy that animated his flesh was eternal. He wasn’t a devil or a demon, but he was the next best thing.

— | — | —

Chapter 17

“Pass me the gat. I gotta stay strapped. I ain’t goin’ out on my muthafuckin’ back!”

—Brand Nubians, “Pass Me the Gat”

««—»»

“Yo, Snap? Yeah, dog. This is Scratch.”

“Da fuck do you want?”

“Look, brother, I’m sorry about Tank.”

“I ain’t your fuckin’ brother, white boy. Now, fuck do you want?”

“I’ve got a favor to ask you.”

“I’m out Scratch. I’m done with this shit.”

“You’re what?”

“I ain’t stutter, muthafucka! I’m out this shit! Your ass is on your own from now on.”

The chuckle that came from the other end of the phone was like a witch’s cackle.

“You trippin’, Snap. You so deep in this shit you can’t never get out.”

“Yeah? And who tha fuck gonna keep me in? Your punk ass?”

“I don’t have to keep you in, Snap. The streets ain’t gonna let you walk away from this. You think you can just body the leader of a major drug crew and then walk the streets unprotected? If you ain’t part of my crew then you all alone and that makes you an easy mark. All the blood you done splashed on these streets? Black folks got long memories, Snap. You may try to ignore what you are, to put it out of your mind and act like a regular citizen, but those same citizens that you want to be like won’t let you forget. You know how the game is. If you ain’t a playa then you gets played. If you ain’t a gangsta then you gets ganked, and if you ain’t a killer—you feel me? There’s only one way out of this game. The same way Tank got out.”

“You threatenin’ me? Well, you can save it ’cause you don’t put no fear in my heart. All that voodoo Satanic shit don’t mean nothin’ to me. You can get smoked like anybody else. Test me.”

“You know I wouldn’t try to threaten you, Snap. I know you’s a real gangsta. Just do this last little favor for me and I won’t bother you for shit else. You want to be a civilian then more power to you. But you can’t just leave me hangin’.”

“You want me to spill some more blood then it’s gonna cost you another ten thousand.”

“Ten thousand? You crazy! I ain’t talkin’ about killin’ nobody on the level of Jah Warrior.”

“Then handle it yourself.”

“I can’t go no higher than five.”

My lip curled up in a snarl.

“This ain’t no muthafuckin’ negotiation! You want me to do this then the price is ten muthafuckin’ gees!”

Scratch’s voice came thundering through the phone. Something about it sounded more powerful and threatening than the man had ever sounded in person. It reminded me of the way Scratch had sounded years ago just before he’d blown that Jamaican’s head apart.

“Fuck that! You owe me!”

“Owe you? How you get that notion in your head? You ain’t never did shit for me. Many niggas as I done put to sleep for you for bullshit chump change! I don’t owe you shit and I don’t need shit from you!”

Scratch hissed into the phone and it was like the warning before a cobra’s strike. Rage boiled off him in waves. I could feel his anger like a physical force radiating through the phone, burning into me. I refused to be moved. Fuck him. His voice softened and that con-man smoothness slithered back into his words.

“Alright, bro. You got your ten fuckin’ gees.”

“Then I’m down. Should I come heavy or light?”

“This is light work. I’ll pick you up in about a half.”

I hung up the phone and stared at the yellowing white walls trying to dispel the ominous feeling of dread that had come down on me after agreeing to go on yet another hit. This had to be the last one. If I kept this up I’d never get out. I shouldn’t have even taken this last job, but the lure of money was too strong. I turned and looked across the room at the mirror on the bathroom door. It had been a long time since I’d looked in that mirror and saw the boy I was meant to be instead of the killer I had become. I wondered if I’d ever be a kid again. I wondered if I’d ever be able to hug my mother without the blood on my hands forming a barrier between us. I lifted the holster with the loaded Beretta still inside out of a pile of dirty laundry and hooked it onto my belt. I slipped a box of 9mm. Black Talons into my pocket along with an extra clip just as my mother called up to me from the kitchen.

“Are you going out or are you gonna stay and eat dinner with your Momma for a change?”

It was her none-too-subtle way of saying that she was lonely and wanted company.

“I’ll eat, but I have to bounce pretty soon though.”

“Come down here, boy.”

“Okay, but no arguments, alright?”

“Boy, I ain’t got the strength to argue with you.”

I slipped on my Kevlar vest and pulled a sweat shirt on over top of it before I walked down the narrow staircase into the dining room. It had been a long time since my mother and I sat at the same table together and had a meal without arguing. I was looking forward to it. It somehow made what I had to do tonight seem less horrible.

The table was set with fried chicken, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, and homemade biscuits. My stomach growled. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was.

“Before you eat any of this food you’ve got to make me a promise.”

My eyes narrowed in suspicion. What the hell was she trying to pull now?

“What kind of promise?”

“Promise me you won’t get yourself killed or kill anybody else tonight.”

Her eyes filled with tears and when the first one fell the rest came like a torrential downpour racking her slender body. I ran to her and held her against me as she wept. Her hands slid down my back to my waste, to my belt. I felt her trying to lift my gun from its holster. I wrenched myself free from her.

“What are you doing?” I rolled my eyes toward the ceiling and flung my arms down at my sides in exasperation.

“Promise me, Malik! Promise me! You don’t know the dreams I’ve been having lately. And your grandmother’s been having them too. Dreams about that evil White boy you work for. I saw him sitting on his throne in hell and he was calling you to him. You were trying to resist him, but he was too powerful and he brought you down to hell with him only you weren’t on no throne. You were being tortured down there. Demons were ripping you apart, skinning you alive, and you were screaming for me, but it was too late for me to save you. They threw your broken body in the lake of fire. All your skin had been ripped away and your eyes had been gouged out and…and they’d castrated you and left you there, burning and screaming. That White boy was just watching it all and laughing at you. He’s evil, Malik. Just stay away from him. Promise me!” Her eyes were wild and desperate, bloodshot with tears.

“I can’t make that promise, Mom. Not tonight. Not yet.”

“Why? I’m just asking you not kill anybody and you can’t even promise me that? I’m only asking you not to let that devil talk you into anything that’s going to get you killed or kill anyone else. What’s so hard about that?”

It was the second time in as many days that I’d heard someone I loved refer to Scratch as a devil. Huey was a militant who thought all Caucasians were devils, but Mom was different. When she called Scratch a devil she meant it in a more literal sense. And what the hell was up with that dream?

I knew all that demonic shit was a mystique that Scratch purposely cultivated to frighten the superstitious and add to his rep. I was just surprised at how well it had worked. My mother and grandmother weren’t even in the game, and probably didn’t know shit about Scratch’s reputation in the streets, yet even they were buying into it. I heard a car horn honking out front and Mom and I both turned our heads simultaneously towards the front window.

“Don’t go.”

“Sorry, Mom, I have to.”

My mother’s eyes were full of worry and disappointment as I rose from the kitchen table and started out the front door, but she stayed silent. She had already said her peace. In her mind I was already burning in hell being torn apart by demons. She had wasted all the words she could on trying to save me.

“I love you, Mom.”

She turned her head and refused to look at me as I walked out the door.

“I love you too, son,” she whispered, but I was already gone.

Scratch was parked in the middle of the street in that tacky-ass BMW of his. Gold twenty-four inch rims, gold nugget grille, gold nugget license plate holder with a vanity plate that read $cratch, the subwoofers in the back seat boomed with a thunderous gangster rap beat that rattled the windows up and down the block. Scratch waved me over to the car grinning that sly carnivorous grin, his eyes blazing with malevolence, and probably several lines of cocaine. My Timberlands struck the sidewalk, shattering miniscule fragments of glass as everything seemed to slow down.

I shrugged on my three-quarter length leather coat with the fleece lining and raised the hood against the wind that bucked and galloped through the streets. It was October now and the summer was officially over. Dark tenebrous clouds, like thick black smoke, covered the sky. Every so often the moon would poke its full round face through the layers of nimbostratus clouds to illuminate the streets. My hand gripped the Beretta tight as I walked over to Scratch’s car. He could easily have come here to kill me.

My pulse quickened, my chest tightened, and my scrotum rose up tight against me as I watched Scratch’s smile widen, his ghostly white skin looking even more cadaverous than usual. I could barely breathe as I leaned down face to face with him. It was fear. The constant senses heightening, nerve tingling anxiety that filled every second in the ’hood with a primal fight or flight desperation. Something was different about this night. I could feel it already.

Foul smelling steam came boiling out of the sewers. Street lamps dragged long shadows out of the alleys and doorways, pregnant with potential danger, lurking enemies. My head swiveled like a gun turret. The sickening sweet smell of Scratch’s cologne was making me ill and there was another smell beneath it, a fleshier, fouler smell of rot and decay.

“Come on and hop in. We got shit to take care of.”

My stomach roiled as that rancid meat smell rolled off of him. I felt like I was going to throw up.

“Naw, man, I don’t think you want me in your ride tonight. I feel like I’m going to be sick. I’d better take my car and follow you.”

“You alright? You ain’t gonna throw up is you?”

“Naw, I’ll be alright. I’m just sayin’, just in case. I’m sure you don’t want me hurlin’ all over your leather interior.”

“True dat. Go ahead and take your ride. Just follow real close so we don’t get separated.

We drove slower than usual as we made our way down G-town Ave passing row after row of abandoned businesses whose front steps were now home to bums and derelicts. We made our way through rundown neighborhoods with houses that looked long condemned. I squirmed uncomfortably in my seat as eyes seethed in the shadows of windows and doorways, following us as we drove slowly past. I wanted to empty my nine into every dark corner we passed. I was supposed to be above these kinds of feelings, but nobody in this game really was. Anyone who didn’t see enemies at every turn wound up getting crept on and blasted into the arms of his maker. My cell phone rang and I almost wet myself.

“Yo, Snap, it’s me. You ready for this, dog? ’Cause I got some real unpleasant shit for us to handle. It ain’t dangerous or nothing. I’m just hopin’ you ain’t got no moral objections.”

“Why would I? Who we doin’?”

“This crack whore snatched some product from us and she’s goin’ around braggin’ about that shit. Dog, she’s dissin’ us all over the hood. We gotta blast this bitch ’fore she fucks up our whole rep. There’s just one thing though.” He pauses for dramatic effect.

“What?”

“Last I heard she was pregnant—about nine months.”

“You know damn well I don’t give a fuck about some knocked up ass crack ho. One less for the welfare lines.”

“Yeah, well I just gotta be sure. You know some brothas get all soft about doin’ women and kids and shit. I should have known you wouldn’t sweat it though. You just like me, mad, bad, and dangerous to know, a thug for life.” Scratch laughed and the sound made me want to toss the phone right out the window.

“I ain’t shit like you, Scratch. I’m just like, if a bitch is dumb enough to get her trick ass hooked on that shit then she’s probably already killed herself. So fuck should I trip on it for? If she don’t value her life, I damn sure don’t.” I hung up and stared straight ahead at Scratch’s tail lights.

A pregnant woman? What tha fuck was I doin’?

I could talk all that cold-blooded shit, but it did bother me, more than I even knew. It was quarter to eight when we pulled up in front of the broken down crackhouse. I hopped out of the Impala and met Scratch on the porch.

“You ready for this, Snap?”

“You shouldn’t even have to ask.”

“Yeah, I shouldn’t.”

He looked me up and down like he was still trying to make up his mind about me. Then he pulled out his .45 and checked the clip.

“Nothin’ to it but to do it.”

We went inside.

— | — | —

Chapter 18

“There are in every man, at every hour, two simultaneous postulations, one towards God, the other towards Satan.”

–Charles Baudelaire

««—»»

The steps creaked, splintering and cracking beneath the weight of our cautious steps and I wondered if they might give way entirely and send us tumbling down into the dark basement below. I could hear the junkies and crackheads scurrying around in the opaque blackness. The hoarse whispers and agitated breathing from below informed us that they were aware of our presence and had at least some clue of why we had come, making ambush a very real possibility.

A crackhouse had burned to the ground the previous night and everyone inside had been immolated. Those who had not died in the fire were gunned down as they tried to escape. Every piper around the way was now on alert for the arsonist. I was pretty sure I knew who it was. I just didn’t understand why. It made no sense to me why Scratch was killing his own customers.

The crackwhore we were after was somewhere down in the mildew and filth below and these steps were the only exit. She was trapped. I had no idea how many pipers and hypers were down there nodding and scratching among the rats and roaches, but I had a fifteen shot clip in the Berretta and anyone who tried to interfere with business was gonna catch a bad one.

My senses were screaming. I could smell the sweat, the foul breath, the burning cocaine, heroin, speed, the dried blood and urine, the jungle funk of recent sex and something altogether foreign yet unnervingly familiar. Scratch pressed up against me breathing excitedly. He could sense it too. We were nearing the kill. I still couldn’t figure out why Scratch wanted to come along on this one. Why he hadn’t just given me the location and the bitch’s description and sent me to do the dirty-work myself. Killing a crackwhore in a shooting gallery wasn’t a very glamorous assignment.

“You hear that, Snap?” Scratch whispered nervously. His white skin seemed to glow in the near pitch darkness making his head look like a glow-in-the-dark Halloween skull.

“I don’t hear shit. Now shut the fuck up.”

I was still trying to place that strange smell and wondering about a new scent…burning wax, as if someone had just blown out a candle.

“Yeah, these muthafuckas know we’re here,” I thought to myself, and then I heard what Scratch was trippin’ on. It sounded like someone trying to smother a baby’s cries. That’s when I placed the smell. It was used diapers. Somebody had a baby down here. I guess she wasn’t pregnant anymore. The thought of an infant crawling around in that house among crack vials, hypodermic needles, and broken liquor bottles sickened me.

When we reached the bottom of the stairs, Scratch turned on the big halogen flashlight he had brought with him and waved it around the room. There were over a dozen people huddled there in various corners of the room. They shied away from the light as if they truly were the lifeless ghouls they appeared to be. There was an amalgam of young, old, male, female, White, Black, Puerto Rican, and even Korean crowded together on the dusty floor. Addiction did not discriminate.

They were the living dead. Skin drawn tight to muscles atrophied to the point of near uselessness, animated only by their addiction. Bones showing through the thin layer of flesh, brittle from malnourishment to the point where each step drew pain, their souls suppurating with infected wounds that even the hardest narcotics could not remedy. They gathered around the dim flicker of lighters heating crackpipes and heroine spoons like settlers around a campfire fervently engrossed in their quotidian ritual of self-destruction. It looked like some modern day leper colony, a mirthless carnival of woe where society quarantined its diseased misfits.

We had intended to just smoke anyone we found down here, but there were too many. Spillage from the crackhouses Scratch had already raided. This many bodies would attract too much attention after the damage Scratch had done last night. One or two crackheads dead wasn’t going to make anyone’s priority list, but a massacre like this would start tongues wagging about conspiracies and bring the heat down hard.

I spotted the girl we were after way in the back clutching a bundle of rags to her face, trying to hide.

“Is that the bitch right there?”

Scratch aimed the big light at her and smiled even as he took an involuntary step backwards as if he were suddenly afraid.

“I want all ya’ll crackheads and hypes to raise up out of here unless you’re lookin’ for a quick end to your misery,” I yelled, pointing the gun for emphasis.

The walking dead started to scramble, shuffle, and drag their tired asses out into the street. The girl with the rags pressed to her face didn’t even bother to move. She knew that we were there for her and that she was as good as dead. Death would be no great divergence from her current condition.

“Here, take my baby,” she said to a man who was busy gathering up his works and trying to get out of the line of fire.

“Bitch, we ain’t gonna hurt that little bastard!” Scratch roared “Fool get your shit and get the fuck out!”

The old man promptly complied, kicking up a trail of dust as he scurried up the basement steps.

The woman’s eyes were full of fear and almost looked innocent despite her addiction. But starring out from a face hardened by drug use, chapped and burnt lips, disheveled hair, sunken cheeks, reminded me that she was just another treacherous ho strung out on that shit. Still, in order to get burned by a crackwhore, you had to first be stupid enough to trust one and I couldn’t imagine Scratch being that stupid.

“This the bitch you said played you for your shit?” I asked, staring at the notorious drug kingpin like he was the world’s biggest fool.

“Yeah, bro, this the bitch.”

“You must’a been slippin’ majorly for some nasty-ass hooker like this to clown you.”

“Nigga, ain’t nobody clown shit here! The bitch slipped some shit out my ride while I was handlin’ some business with Yellow Dog.”

“Fool, you call me nigga again and they’s gonna find two bodies down here in the dirt. I don’t play no peckerwood usin’ that word around me no matter how down you supposed to be. Ain’t no cracker ever that down. Stupid ass shouldn’t have been holdin’ in your car no how. You supposed to be a playa you should know better.”

“You gettin’ a little too free with your tongue yourself, Snap. You forgettin’ who works for who.” Scratch walked up to me and stood with his chest swelled out against mine and his foul carrion breath steaming in my face. I put my hand out and softly but firmly shoved him back. He swatted at my hand but kept his distance.

“I ain’t forgot shit. You just watch who you callin’ nigga and it’s all good.”

Scratch glared at me like I was some poisonous insect that he was trying to decide whether or not to swat at the risk of being stung. My skin crawled and tendrils of ice slithered up my spine.

“You ain’t invincible, Snap, and you damn sure ain’t bulletproof. So you better watch how you speak to my white ass. I can have you bodied as easily as anyone else.”

“Now we both know that ain’t true and ain’t neither of us invincible so you watch yourself too, nigga!”

This time it was I who walked up to stand chest to chest with Scratch, bumping him backwards and rotating my face inches from his as I purposely spit out my words, spraying him with minuscule droplets of saliva. I had my hand on the trigger of my nine and I would have hollowed out his chest right then if he hadn’t plead to a lesser and backed down like a little bitch. His punk ass couldn’t draw down on somebody who was set to fire back. Either that or he just didn’t consider me worth the effort.

“See, Snap, that’s the difference between you and I. To me, you callin’ me nigga, that’s a compliment. I guess I’m just ignorant like that. Now cap this bitch and lets get the fuck up out of here!”

She looked like the ghost of Christmas past with her skeletal frame wrapped in designer clothes that were five or six years out of date. Her faded black, pinstriped, skintight, Gloria Vanderbilts gave testament to just how long she’d been tweakin’.

“I ain’t steal shit from this white boy! He just don’t want me to have this baby. He wants to kill my little boy!”

“What…this your kid, Scratch? You got a thing for crackwhores?”

“Shut the fuck up and pop this bitch!”

“I’m just fuckin’ with you, dog. Move the kid and I’ll do this hooker for you.”

“Naw, you pop ’em both.”

“Fuck dat shit! I ain’t doin’ no kid!” I started to turn and leave.

“Fine then, you pussy ass mutherfucker!”

Scratch reached over and snatched the child from the whore’s arms. She tried to hold on to her baby but Scratch drew back and pimp slapped her. The back of his hand collided with her jaw with the sound of a gunshot. Snot flew from her nose as her head whipped around damned near three-hundred and sixty degrees and her chapped lips split and ran with blood. She fell to the ground sending up a cloud of dust.

“Now, Nig-uh- I mean, Snap, cap this pipe smokin’ hooker!”

“No sweat, my man.” I pointed the gun at the woman’s head…

“Pleeeeeease!”

…And pumped three rounds into her skull, tearing it to pieces. The top of her head went first and then the left side of her face. She laid there with her left eye staring at me in the dark from across the room and her right eye closing slowly.

I stood in the darkness, stunned by my own cruelty. Scratch began to laugh. His huge flashlight was still trained on the woman’s brutalized corpse.

“Oooooh shit! That was vicious, dog!”

“Get that flashlight off her face, man! I don’t want to look at that shit!”

“Okay, but we got to get rid of this kid though. I know how you feel, but we can’t just leave him here. It’s a mercy killing now. Would you rather leave him down here with these fiends? Yo, I don’t believe this shit! I know you ain’t cryin’ over this little crack baby?”

But I was. I couldn’t believe it myself, but tears were streaming down my face. I was overcome with such a profound remorse that I was almost paralyzed by it. This killing raised my personal death toll to an even two dozen, but this was the first time I could recall feeling anything for the marks I took out.

“Give me the kid.”

“You gonna do him?”

“Just give me the muthafucka!” I barked and Scratch obliged.

“Forgive me,” I said, looking into the brown-skinned baby’s warm trusting eyes. The child’s eyes sucked me into them like a whirlpool, swallowing me whole and dragging me under. I drowned in them and died. I saw my whole life play out like pictures in a ViewMaster. It was all anger and pain, hatred for myself and others. I didn’t like anything I saw.

“Forgive me,” I begged as the tears continued to fall.

“Kill that little bastard!” Scratch bellowed. His flashlight was turned upwards to illuminate his face. His blue eyes narrowed into serpentine slits. His gold capped teeth looked like a mouthful of fangs and his white skin was the pale bloodless pallor of a corpse. In my heart, I knew that it was the face of Satan.

I looked down at the child in my arms and it all made sense. Scratch was Satan and I was the whore of Babylon, this child, my last hope for salvation, perhaps even everyone’s last hope. Maybe this was the reborn baby Christ, and if Christ died this time then the world would belong to Scratch, and drugs, and greed, and murder. The idea sounded absurd even as I thought it, but like the chimerical voices and hallucinations of a schizophrenic or chronic drug addict, telling myself that it was all an illusion did little to dispel it. The more I stared at the pallid fright mask that danced and raged, glowing in the darkness, the stronger the idea became. I decided not to wait for him to grow horns and a tail. I pointed the gun at Scratch and pulled the trigger.

The flashlight fell from his hands and spun off into the darkness casting shadows in every direction as he flew backwards crying out in pain. The flashlight hit the ground and continued to spin illuminating the basement in brief flashes like a strobelight. I watched as each flash of light revealed Scratch’s laborious rise from the ground clutching his bleeding chest. His muscles seemed to be reshaping, elongating and hypertrophying into something massive and powerful. Scratch’s jaw appeared to come unhinged and his gold teeth seemed to grow into long tusks. His hands curled into huge claws and his arms grew until they touched the ground even as his head touched the ceiling. Each turn of the flashlight revealed an even more horrible change. It could have been the adrenalin coursing through my veins, a trick of the light, my own guilt and fear feeding some sort of schizophrenic episode. But as far as I was concerned, Scratch had just turned into a demon before my very eyes. When Scratch charged toward me he did not look even remotely human. The roar that erupted from his throat was like the sound of an oncoming train.

“Snap!!!”

I took the stairs two at a time as I ran holding the tiny infant tight against me. Scratch’s voice boomed in the darkness below.

“You’re dead, motherfucker! You hear me, fool? I’m going to kill you and everyone you ever knew!”

I flew from the house, down the front steps, and flung open the door to my Impala with my heart beating against my chest as if it was trying to break free and run. I was hyperventilating, trying to suck oxygen into my cramped lungs as panic and shock crushed down on me threatening to stop my heart in my chest.

“What the hell did I just see down there? What tha fuck was that?”

The child was still silent as I buckled him up as best I could and struggled to fit the keys into the ignition with a hand shaking violently with an overdose of adrenalin and a blood pressure that must have been in the one eighties. A bullet smashed through the driver’s side window and whistled past my nose. Scratch stood in the doorway aiming that big shiny .45 at my head. He looked normal again and he looked pissed. I ducked down and finally managed to fit the key into the ignition. More bullets whistled by over head as I started the engine and raced away from the withered crack-house with the raging white demon slumped in the doorway, his chest stained crimson, firing carelessly into the night.

««—»»

A deluge of gunfire thundered down upon the tank-like ’72 Impala as it rocked and swerved up G-town Avenue at heart-stopping speeds. It kicked up trash and garbage as it barreled through the somber deserted streets pursued by the gold-encrusted red Beemer. The entire time I couldn’t help but to doubt my sanity.

Why on earth was I trying to save this child? Why hadn’t I just blown him away along with his crackhead mother? It wouldn’t have been the first kid I’d killed. Why was I risking my life for this little crackbaby? Had all that talk from Mom and Yolanda started to get me? Was I developing a conscience? Was I getting soft? Was I looking for forgiveness? Redemption? If so it was too little too late. I had too much blood on my hands to ever be forgiven. Not by myself and not by God.

But then darker questions, more terrifying questions invaded my head making me want to cry out in terror.

Did I really just see Scratch turn into a monster down there? Is this mutherfucker really goddamned Satan? What the hell have I gotten myself into?

I tried to shut those thoughts out. What I thought I saw couldn’t have been real. It couldn’t have.

A cascade of glass rained down upon my head as bullets ripped through the Impala like a stinging swarm of angry bees. I ducked, closed my eyes, and moaned like a bitch. I was scared to death, confused, and lost without that cocky, ignorant, madness that usually protected me from fear and doubt. It had been a long time since I had run from anything outside myself and I didn’t like it. It was funny, just hours ago I would have never doubted that I could take Scratch out with ease, yet here I was fleeing for my life as he chased my black ass all over creation. Under normal circumstances I would have just turned and capped this punk. But these were not normal circumstances. There was no way I could have missed Scratch at that range, even in the dark, yet there he was ten seconds off my ass. And then there was that bizarre transformation. It might have just been the shadows. It was pretty dark down there.

But what if it wasn’t? What if Scratch really is some kind of fucking monster?

Still, running from a battle just wasn’t my thing. I hated the idea of catching a bullet in my back when there was at least the opportunity to die like a man and maybe take him out with me, but I couldn’t risk getting the child killed too.

The tired, old car gasped and wheezed and seemed to cry out in pain—leaking fluids and spraying steam and noxious blue smoke from burning oil. The tires screeched in protest as I forced it into turns that would have taxed vehicles half its years. I was a terrible driver and for the umpteenth time it occurred to me how senseless it would be to avoid Scratch only to kill us both by crashing into a pole.

Burning rubber mixed with the smell of sulfur and oil, the sound of shattering glass, the whine of bullets, and the screams of tortured metal. Yet, the baby lay passively in the passenger seat as if he didn’t have a care in the world. He was staring at me soothingly. A loving, trusting smile played across his face. Even amid the roaring chaos my heart began to lighten. If he lived he’d make one hell of a pimp or a con-man someday. He was playing me like Nintendo. His soft vulnerable-looking, brown skin and carelessly nappy hair alone made me want to protect him or die trying. Looking at him gave me the courage to keep my mind from shutting down and giving in to the desire to curl up on the front seat and just wait for the fatal bullet that would void my brain from my skull onto the dashboard. If any nigga on earth deserved such a fate it was damn sure me. I wondered if this little baby would forgive sins as profound as mine? If he truly knew what I was— a killer without a conscience being pursued to the death by another.

I decided to try to buy us some time by emptying a few rounds into Scratch’s BMW to see if I could slow his ass down. My blood was jackhammering through my veins so hard and fast I could feel it pounding in my ears. My mind felt like it was wading through thick mud and fog. Everything I did seemed a few seconds off. Aiming was a joke. I would’ve been lucky to hit the car at all let alone to hit Scratch.

I held the nine-millimeter Beretta in my lap trying to cock it with my right hand while steering with my left as the accelerator slowly crept toward ninety and traffic grew denser.

Come on, Brother. Get your shit together! I screamed to myself, still trying to fight off panic, emotional exhaustion, and eventual collapse.

This white mutherfucker can’t win! You can’t let that devil win. That bitch-ass peckerwood wouldn’t be shit without you—

That thought chilled me to the bone. Certainly Scratch didn’t owe his entire success to me. He was well on his way to becoming a serious ghetto star before I even met him. But I had helped. I had helped a lot.

Maybe I was supposed to pay for my sins by getting my cap peeled in a moving car and dying with the Baby Christ in my arms?

The Baby Christ? What tha fuck am I talkin’ about? Do I really believe that this little crack baby is Jesus? His pipe-smokin’ mother certainly wasn’t the Virgin Mary. What a fucked up twist of fate that would be for Christ to be reborn as some helpless little crack baby in the middle of a war zone with no one to protect him, but a crazy murder-for-hire nigga like me. Didn’t the church have secret orders dedicated to this sort of thing? Trained Vatican bodyguards or something? Maybe I should get him to a church and let them handle it? I thought as I fought to keep the Impala on the road whipping it around tight corners at over 80 miles per hour.

“Oww! Shit!”

A bullet ripped through my ear and seared a small furrow alognisde my head, inches from my temple. That familiar berserker rage, which had served me in so many street fights, descended on me like a black cloud blotting out fear and reason.

“Oh, you have got ta die now. I don’t give a fuck what you are. You’ve got to die.”

I switched the gun to my left hand and swung it over my right shoulder, aiming with help from my rearview mirror. I could see Scratch’s face through my shattered rear windshield. I slowed down to let the BMW get closer as I pointed my gun right into the face of the devil. White flame leapt into his eyes and his pasty face split wide with a gold-toothed grin. Calmly he raised the big shiny Colt .45 and pointed it at me. At this range he couldn’t miss and he was aiming much better than I was. The back of my head and center of my forehead started to itch and I knew that the bullet would enter and exit there if I allowed him to pull that trigger. I squeezed the trigger frantically and the obnoxious red Beemer swerved into a parked car, going up on two wheels and nearly flipping end over end. When it came to rest I could have sworn I saw something scamper out of the car on four long gnarled legs…something with wings and claws and eyes that burned like stars. It staggered and collapsed in the street and I turned my attention back to the road just as I ran a red light and barreled through the intersection of Germantown and Chelten Avenues.

Twin headlights bore down on me as I hit the accelerator, leaving the wreckage of Scratch’s vehicle behind. I barely managed to maintain control of the car which was now doing over 90 miles per hour when my rear bumper was demolished by an old Chevy Nova heading down Chelten Ave. My bumper dragged on the asphalt shooting up sparks as I continued up the street with my foot firmly planted on the gas. I kept the speedometer at 90 until I hit Tulpehocken Street, then I slowed it down to 35. Now that I had escaped Scratch I couldn’t risk getting jacked by the police for speeding and having them discover a smoking gun in my car. In jail I would be a sitting duck and the child would be left unprotected. I made a right onto McCallum street and flew across Washington Lane. I came to a rest in front of Huey’s house, scooped the child up in my arms and leapt from the car leaving it still running. There were so many bullets in the seats and dashboard that it seemed almost impossible that none of them had hit us.

I know Huey will help me. He’ll know what to do. I know he’ll understand what’s going down.

The Impala belched out its last noxious breath and died as I staggered toward Huey’s front porch. The infant was still eerily calm. I crept up the crumbling concrete steps on legs that wobbled and shook from exhaustion as the adrenaline rush died off and I started to crash. I was staring into the child’s eyes again as if awaiting revelation. None came.

Huey’s house hadn’t changed a lot in the years since our childhood abortively ended in that abandoned lot with a child’s body dropping at our feet, a gun smoking in my hand, and the gold-toothed grin of a blue-eyed gangsta. The porch’s wooden deck was warped and splintered from water damage and neglect and the patio overhead was sagging as if preparing to succumb to gravity and crash down upon me. The cracked windows, old blue and white paint that was peeling and flaking revealing the bare brick beneath, the front door that was so badly warped that you could see light from inside all around the edges of it, was all just as it had always been. Nothing had changed but our ages and my predicament.

Huey answered the door on the first ring. “What’s up, dog? You in trouble?”

He drew his Sig Sauer .40 from his waistband and cocked it, looking past me out the door. His eyes widened when he saw my Impala riddled with holes and then he did a double take when he noticed the baby in my arms.

“Where’d you get the kid, man? What’s goin’ down wit’ you? Somebody after you? You ain’t kidnap this kid did you?”

He looked at me with more concern than my own mother would have shown. Tears welled up in my eyes and I took a deep breath to clear them away and compose myself. From behind him I saw Iesha looking at me with critical eyes. Even at eight months pregnant she was just as beautiful as she’d been when I’d first met her back when I was ten years old. And I still loved her. Her eyes told me she didn’t reciprocate the emotion.

What’s this evil nigga about to get my man involved in now? They seemed to say.

I felt terribly self-conscious and foolish.

“Look, man, maybe I shouldn’t have come. This is my shit. I’ll handle it. I didn’t mean to disrupt your evening and bring all this drama to your doorstep. My bad.”

Huey held my eyes with his and it was evident that he was dismissing everything I was saying. He could tell that I needed help.

“Go upstairs, Iesha. Me and Snap have some things to discuss.”

“Don’t let him talk you into no dumb shit! I don’t want to see you wind up like your brother.”

It was the wrong thing to say. Huey’s head whipped around like someone slammed the brakes on too fast in a speeding car.

“What the fuck did you just say to me?”

Iesha’s defiant eyes drifted to the floor and she started to stammer, clearly afraid.

“I-I was just saying…I love you and I just don’t want to see anything happen to you.”

“Go upstairs, Iesha. Now!”

His fierce stare pushed the pregnant young girl out of the room and up the stairs. This relationship couldn’t be healthy.

“What kinda trouble you in, my brother? Who did that to your car?”

I took a deep breath and slipped slowly to my knees as the weight of the evening, of everything I had to tell Huey before the night could end, overcame me. Huey lifted the child from my hands before my face hit the stained and tattered wool carpet.

“Scratch… Scratch is tryin’ to kill me. He’s tryin’ to kill me and the baby and…and I don’t even think he’s human.”

Huey’s eyes clouded over with that murderous rage smoldering just beneath his icy cold front. His hazel eyes darkened and narrowed into slits and his deep gravely voice came out as a hoarse whisper.

“Then we gotta do that White nigga first. If that fool wants to try and take you out then he’s gonna have to deal with my black ass. And I swear I’m gonna split that devil’s wig!”

— | — | —

Chapter 19

“…Everlasting good and evil do not exist! From out of themselves they must overcome themselves—over and over again.”

—Friedrich Nietzshe

««—»»

“So who’s the kid?”

Huey was standing above me holding the child. I must have passed out or something because I was laying on the couch looking up at him. I cupped my head in my hands as I rose to a sitting position.

“I must have been out of my fucking mind.”

Huey sat down next to me cradling the baby in his lap.

“So who is he? Where’s his parents?”

“I don’t know how to even begin explaining all of this.”

My head was still in my hands, refusing to look at Huey until I had the right words.

“Why don’t you start by telling me where you got this kid so I don’t think you’re some kind of child abductor or kidnapper or something with some perverted interest in babies. ’Cause then I will have to kick ya ass up out of my house.”

Huey’s voice lowered again to that gravely rumble, letting me know that he wasn’t joking.

“That baby…is Jesus Christ.”

“Fuck did you just say?”

Huey grabbed me by my shoulder and jerked me around to face him.

“I know this shit is going to sound off. I don’t know, maybe I just flipped out or something. Maybe I’m losing my mind. I mean, I was all set to blast them, both of them, the kid and his mom, then I got like this hallucination or revelation or something. I don’t know, dog. I don’t know.”

Huey leaned in closer, his voice softening.

“What did you see?”

“I saw Scratch’s face and— and he didn’t look human. It was like he turned into a demon right in front of my eyes and shit. I thought I saw his face tear away, burn away like the celluloid in those old movies that would get too close to the projector bulb and melt. And Yo, underneath his face, there was this other face. Satan’s face. A grinning devil. Then I looked down at this baby in my arms and I’m tellin’ you dog, it was Jesus Christ. There was no doubt in my mind that I was holding our savior in my arms about to blow his damn head off with Satan standing right at my side urging me on. It was like this moment of clarity, you know, like when you’re high and you ain’t makin’ no sense and then suddenly the fog clears and you can think straight. That’s what it felt like, like the fog had cleared and I could see everything for what it really was. And yo, Scratch ain’t fuckin’ human, dog! He’s some kind of fuckin’ monster. I’m tellin’ you, dog. He ain’t human!”

Huey was staring at me as if he was trying to decide whether to believe me or not. He looked down at the kid for a long time before he looked back up at me. His mouth kept opening and closing as he struggled to decide what to say.

“I don’t know, dog. That’s some deep shit. I mean, I can relate to Scratch being a devil and all that, I been telling you that all along, but not like…literally. Not like from hell, Prince of Darkness, Lord of Lies, and shit. That’s some other shit you on right there. And this little crack baby? Jesus Christ? I ain’t no Christian, but don’t that seem a little off to you? Jesus Christ showin’ up here? This ain’t exactly Jerusalem.”

“Yeah, that’s the part I can’t figure out. Why here and why me? But if none of this shit is real then why is Scratch tryin’ to kill me?”

“’Cause you fuckin’ shot at him, fool! ’Cause you don’t want to work for him no more. ’Cause he figures somebody from one of the other gangs flipped you and now you’re out to take him out. Or he thinks you went crazy after all the killin’ he’s had you doin’ for him and he’s afraid of you. Either way he figures you’re too dangerous to have around now. He’s got to kill you.”

I looked down at the baby. It was looking up at me intently as if it had something it wanted to say to me.

“I don’t know why I should care even if this is Christ. He ain’t our savior, never was. He saved the Jews and damned the Black man as far as I can tell. I mean, fuck has he ever done for my Black ass? Christ or Satan, fuck is the difference? Niggas still gettin’ fucked over either way.”

“Fuck do you mean by that?”

“I mean God don’t give a fuck about niggas.”

“Come on now, you know I hate when you talk that shit. You can say all you like about that white Christian god, but the black god, Allah, he loves the Black people.”

“Yeah, and look how he shows it.”

“So, what you sayin’?”

“I’m sayin’ there ain’t no way you can believe in no God of the Black people. Not how fucked up shit is for us. Look how we live brother! “

“I’ve heard all this before, Snap. You’re starting to talk in circles.”

“But you ain’t listening. You ain’t feelin’ me though.”

“Snap, my brother, did you ever hear that poem about the man walking through the sand arm in arm with God and as he takes each step he sees his life unfolding before his eyes. Then he looks back at the footprints in the sand and realizes that at the hardest times there was only one set of footprints. The man asks God why he didn’t walk beside him in those hard times and God replies that there are only one set of prints because during those hard times God carried him upon his shoulders. Have you ever heard that poem?”

“God ain’t never carried Black folks and we have the bleeding callused feet to prove it! It seems to me that during the hardest times it was us who carried God!”

“Man, that’s just your pain talkin’.”

Huey waved a hand at me dismissively. I grabbed his hand in mid flight.

“That’s exactly what’s talking. Pain! Pain I shouldn’t ever have had to deal with if God truly loves us.”

“So, then if you don’t love God and you don’t believe He loves you and you don’t think you owe Jesus anything, then why even bother trying to save this little mutherfucker? Why fuck around and get yourself killed over him if it’s like that? Why don’t you just body this kid and try to get back in Scratch’s good graces?”

“’Cause Scratch is the devil. He’s fuckin’ Satan, dog. And I don’t care how fucked up God is, I know his plan has got to be better than what that mutherfucker has in store for us.”

“Well, then you must still have a little faith in your heart after all. ’Cause if you ain’t got no reason to love God then you’d have just let Scratch have this little bastard, but you didn’t. You saved him. There had to be some reason for that.”

“Man, I was just pickin’ the lesser of evils. I ain’t sayin’ I got it all figured out. I don’t know what the fuck is goin’ on truthfully. But I know it’s something much bigger than me and somehow I’ve been chosen to play a part in it. What I need to know now is what we gonna do about Scratch? Ain’t like he can’t figure out that I was headed here. Where the fuck else would I go? So, what do we do?”

“True that. He’s gonna be right on your ass. We can’t sit around here waiting for him to roll through here with every nigga he can find and do my crib like he did your car. If you ask me we should do just like I said and bring it to that mutherfucker first. This shit ain’t gonna rest until one of ya’ll is dead. You know that. So, if you don’t want it to be you, then you’d better take some action and I mean with the quickness.”

“Then that’s how we playin’ it then. Let’s take your car. Bring the kid with you.”

“We’d better take my car ’cause yours is tore down. How the hell did he put that many holes in your ride and you walk away with just that little nick in your ear?”

“I don’t know. Maybe God was on my side.” I smirked and rolled my eyes sarcastically.

“Whatever, dog. Let’s just get ghost before Scratch shows up.”

“But what about Iesha? We can’t just leave your pregnant woman here for Scratch to find. You don’t even want to know the type shit this devil does. All that Satanic voodoo shit he’s into. I don’t want to think about what he’d do to Iesha if he caught her here alone.”

“Man, I got a shotgun in the kitchen, My Mom is on her way home too and you know she don’t play that shit.”

“Bro, call your mom and tell her to meet Iesha at my house. Why take any chances?”

“What makes you think Scratch won’t be checking your crib?”

“I know that’s the first place he’ll check, but by the time they get there Scratch will have already come and gone. Now let’s move.”

We herded Iesha into Charlotte Turner’s avocado green ’78 Monte Carlo and threw the shotgun with a box of shells on the seat as they slipped into the back of the car. Iesha glared at me murderously as she scooted onto the backseat next to the Mossberg pistol grip pump, but remained silent. I had no words to console her or change her mind about what I was. She already knew that I loved her, but she had chosen Huey. What more could I say? Don’t worry, I’m not gonna get your man killed like I did his brother? Somehow it just didn’t seem like the appropriate sentiment.

I noticed a small vehicle sitting down at the end of the block with the headlights off and all my alarm bells went off at once. A massive dump of adrenaline hit my bloodstream like a shot of nitro and my hand reflexively went to my holster. Huey saw it too and he already had his Sig out and in his hand. He turned the Monte Carlo’s headlights on and illuminated the block. It was the red BMW sitting there with its windshield starred with bulletholes. I passed the baby to Iesha and motioned for them both to get down on the car floor.

“Get the fuck down!” Huey hit the accelerator so hard that my head whipped back against the seat. I shook it off and reached onto the backseat for the shotgun. Iesha handed it to me along with the shells. Her skin touched mine and sent a chill through me. God I loved her!

“Hold on!”

We whipped a U-turn that rolled us up onto the neighbor’s yard and demolished a withered row of bushes. From the red Beemer came the stuttering report of automatic weapons fire, cracking and smashing through telephone poles, windows, windshields, ripping up the Turner’s ailing porch and thunking into parked cars like coins in a wishing well. He was sweeping the entire street with the weapon rather than just aiming at us and destroying everything in the rifle’s arc as it swung our way. He was tearing the whole block apart with it as the bullets chased us through our frantic turn back out onto the street and down to the corner. The BMW’s lights flashed on and it began to accelerate as we made the left onto Ambrose St.

“Get that fucking shotgun ready!” Huey commanded as a sinister smile broke the surface of his face. “I got an idea.”

We could hear Scratch turning the corner as we passed my house and I noticed that all the lights were out.

Where’s Mom and Grandma?

Huey hit the gas and we rocketed toward Duval Street. By this time I had the shotgun on my lap jamming shells into it while dropping most of them onto the floorboards.

“You got that shit loaded yet?”

“Yeah, it’s loaded.”

“Then get the fuck out!”

“What?”

“Get the fuck out and blast that fool when he turns the corner!”

Huey whipped the car into a three hundred and sixty degree turn leaving a donut in the street. He leaned across me and opened my door.

“Get the fuck out!”

I dove from the car and sprinted to a parked car just three car lengths up from where Huey had stopped the Monte Carlo. The BMW rounded the corner leaving half the rubber from its tires on the road. Its brakes squealed and the tires smoked when Scratch spotted the Monte Carlo sitting there in the middle of the street waiting for him. The BMW fishtailed and side-swiped three cars before coming to a halt. I rose from behind an orange Toyota and unloaded both barrels into the driver’s side window. Blood splattered the inside of the vehicle and I felt a great weight lift from my shoulders as I watched the blood pour from the driver’s side door in thick sheets that glistened like oil in the scant light. Then I saw something that enraged me so much that I grabbed the shotgun by the barrel and beat the tricked-out Beemer with the butt of the rifle. There was only one person in the car and it wasn’t Scratch. Even with his entire face and upper torso pulverized and flayed open by the buckshot, I could still recognize the face of one of Scratch’s most faithful soldiers— Yellow Dog.

Yellow Dog was perhaps the closest thing Scratch had to a true friend in the game. He looked almost like a white boy himself. He had red hair and freckles and skin the color of buttermilk, yet his features were decidedly African. Thick lips, wide nose, and hair that was thick and wooly despite its rusty hue. Both his parents were Black but very fair skinned. He had always wanted my job and I guess he had gotten it. I always knew he wouldn’t last long as a hitter. Yellow Dog was a money man, a street accountant. It took a different type of calculation to be a killer. You never rushed in, especially when it came to taking out another killer. Who the fuck does a driveby from halfway up the block and waits until his marks are in the car with the motor running before he fires? Amateur. He hesitated and so he’d gotten his ass capped. But Scratch was still out there somewhere looking for me and the baby. He could keep sending his soldiers at me one at a time until he finally popped me or he could come at me with everything he had. He had an entire ghetto full of desperate killers to pull from. We had to get that son of a bitch. It was the only way to put an end to the madness.

Yellow Dog’s decimated corpse slipped forward and struck the steering wheel with what remained of its face. The horn blared loudly and lights began going on in the surrounding houses including my own, which was just a few doors away. Doors and windows opened abruptly as the neighborhood awakened to the smell of sulfur and blood more familiar to them than the aroma of hot biscuits and morning coffee. Another brother was dead because of Scratch and I had once again acted as the instrument of his death.

“Mourn that house nigga later. We gots to get ghost before the police get here!”

Huey was right. In the grand scheme of things Yellow Dog was just spilled milk. It was more important now that we didn’t get caught standing over his body with a smoking gun in our hands. The police had gotten into the habit of not turning on their sirens when they responded to a scene so there was no way of knowing how near or far they were from us. But there was little doubt that they were on their way. Huey was already turning the Monte Carlo around and opening the door for me to get in when I saw my mother come to one of the windows wrapped in her robe and wiping the sleep from her eyes. Her eyes locked with mine as I slipped into the car beside Huey and he hit the accelerator. Our eyes remained locked as the Monte Carlo charged down the street not breaking until we disappeared around the corner. I slumped back into my seat and covered my eyes with my fists.

“Damn.”

— | — | —

Chapter 20

“Be careful, be courteous, obey the laws, respect everyone, but if someone puts his hands on you, send him to the cemetery.”

—Malcolm X

««—»»

“I need to rest somewhere and Iesha and this kid of yours ain’t gonna last too long either unless they get some sleep. We can’t go back to my place though and we damn sure can’t go to yours. It’s probably crawling with cops about now.”

I thought for a minute. Only one solution came to mind.

“I know a place where we can go, but you ain’t gonna like it.”

I directed him onto the freeway and soon we were headed downtown towards Center City. I picked up my cell phone and dialed a number. Huey watched suspiciously as I made arrangements for us. I hung up and smiled at him.

“It’s cool. I got us a place to crash for a few days.”

“With who?”

“Just make your next right. You’ll see when we get there.” I was still smiling and Huey was still glaring at me skeptically.

Huey sneered and shook his head in disgust as Christina opened the door to her tiny one bedroom apartment overlooking South Street. Without modesty or pretension she flew into my arms, greedily sucking my lips and tongue as she kissed me passionately, grinding her pelvis and opulent breasts against my body, which responded despite my fatigue. The girl was amazing.

I gently pulled her off of me and turned to Huey. He rolled his eyes up toward the ceiling and let out a sigh then turned as if searching for an exit. Iesha was behind him urging him forward so he relented and stepped into the apartment. He had to admit, there was nowhere else for us to go. Christina was bubbling over with excitement at seeing me. It almost made me blush.

“I can’t believe you’re here! Come in, all of you. This is Huey right?”

“Yeah, and this is his lady Iesha and this…” I gestured toward the baby who was now soundly asleep, “…is one long fucking story.”

“What happened to your ear? You’ve got blood all over the side of your head.”

“It ain’t nuthin’. I’ll tell you all about it in a minute.”

We sat down on Christina’s couch while she went to get a washcloth to wipe the blood from the side of my head. After I was clean she stuck a huge Band Aid over the wounded ear and dabbed the abrasion alongside my head where the bullet had traveled with peroxide. Huey’s immutable scowl had not diminished in the least.

Annoyingly, I felt every bit the shuffling, shucking, Tomming, white man’s dog Huey’s eyes accused me of being as Christina attended to me.

Fuck that hateful bastard! This bitch treats me like a goddamned king. Who gives a fuck what color she is? I thought to myself. Then I closed my eyes and enjoyed her ministrations.

“Anything else I can do for you baby?”

“I think the kid needs to be changed. Why don’t you and Iesha go to the store and get him some diapers and formula and stuff.”

I peeled off a hundred dollar bill from a roll that included the ten thousand dollars I’d gotten from hittin’ Jah Warrior just a week ago and handed it to her. Her eyes widened as they spotted my bankroll, but she didn’t comment. I’m sure she had assumed my gangster lifestyle was just some sort of act and she was now starting to realize that it was all real. I was curious to see how she’d handle it. Shit was about to get deep now and there would be no way I could keep her out of it.

After Christina and Iesha left, Huey and I sat and discussed the best way to bring the pain to Scratch as the baby slept calmly between us, surrounded by pillows to keep him from rolling off the couch.

“It don’t make no sense for us to be kickin’ back in this white bitch’s crib while that fool is out there spreadin’ the word all over the city about your ass. Pretty soon we won’t be able to go nowhere in this town. We need to peel this fool’s cap back tonight!”

“You’re the one who said we needed to get Iesha and the baby safe first and get some rest. Scratch don’t know nothin’ about Christina. He won’t be lookin’ for us way down here. He’ll still think we’re in the hood somewhere. This is the best place for us to kick it until we can figure out how to finish this. We can’t just stroll up into the Raymond Rosen projects and blast that mutherfucker. We need a plan.”

“Yeah? And why can’t you just walk the fuck up in there? He ain’t shit and them fools who work for him is just as scared of your ass as they is of him. They ain’t got no loyalty to him and if they think the mantle of power is shifting hands they’ll step in line to back the successor to the throne. You know I’m sayin’? Instead of walking in there like you tryin’ to run away and get out of the business, you walk in there like you takin’ over the mutherfucker. That’ll cause enough confusion to give you a chance to take his ass out.”

“True. That might work. It might also get my ass killed.”

“You a dead man right now anyway. At least this way you might have a chance. Now,” Huey picked up his cup of ginseng tea and crossed his legs atop the smoked glass coffee table, “Fuck is up with you and this white bitch?”

“Dog, don’t even go there with me right now. That Black consciousness shit is played out anyway. Ain’t nobody tryin’ to hear that shit no more.”

“I’m just sayin’, you was workin’ for a white drug dealer killin’ other brothers and talkin’ all that bullshit about God fuckin’ up your life and shit and now,” he shook his head and chuckled to himself as if he were discussing the ridiculous antics of some pathetic moron, “And now you all hugged up with this Caucasoid trick. Do you have that much self-hatred? You hate your own skin that much?”

“I told you I ain’t tryin’ to hear this shit right now! Don’t you think I got enough shit goin’ on without your bullshit?” I started to rise from my seat when Huey reached out with one hand and shoved me back onto the couch. Huey and I have never fought again since that first meeting when we were little kids, but the memory of that long ago ass-kicking still cowed me. I stayed put.

“Sit the fuck back down and listen to what I got to say. This white bitch is lookin’ at you and seein’ every stereotype she’s ever heard about Black men. You think she really knows what you do out there? You think she knows who the fuck you are? She looks at you and sees gangsta rap videos with young playas sittin’ in million dollar homes filled with naked women, guns, and mountains of cash like little Black Capones. She sees romance novels where African warriors turned slaves risk hanging to fuck the massa’s flat-assed dick hungry wife. She sees natural athletes with ten-inch dicks who can’t get enough of white pussy, the bad boy from the other side of the tracks that her parents will hate and her friends will envy as a sign of her liberal rebelliousness. You’re her little Mandingo, her Tupac Shakur, her Mike Tyson. You feel like some big time Mack Daddy when you’re with her don’t you? She play the innocent little white girl who’s been turned out by her charismatic Black pimp? She even calls you Daddy don’t she? It’s all some kind of fantasy to her. She ain’t no less prejudice than them fools in the white sheets just because she spreads them lily white thighs for you. When she looks at you she sees the same vicious sub-human animal they do only she sees one with a big dick.”

“You finished now? You got that shit off your chest? ’Cause you ain’t said shit as far as I’m concerned. How you gonna be in her house, drinkin’ her tea, and talkin’ shit about her while she’s out there tryin’ to help our asses?”

“Whitey guilt. That’s all that is. They do a little charity work and they don’t feel so bad when they pass us over for promotions and tell nigger jokes around the dinner table. Look, just answer me one question, what’s wrong with Black women?”

“I love Black women. They just…”

“They just what? Don’t talk to you if you ain’t got no money? Argue too much? Talk too loud? Dress too flashy? Wear too much jewelry? Expect too much from a brother? Won’t let you treat them like hoes? Act too much like hoes? Too bossy and domineering? Too hard and unfeminine? They don’t suck your dick and let you cum in their faces? All that’s bullshit and you know it. Those are just more fucked up stereotypes.”

“I was gonna say they’re too damned religious and they don’t give me no play anyway. Everytime I like a sista she disses me for some other brother. They all want light-skinned pretty boys with hazel eyes and wavy hair like you or big buff brothers with two percent body fat. An average nigga like me ain’t got a chance with nuthin’ but the neighborhood chicken heads and I ain’t willin’ to stoop that low. I want a woman that wants more for herself than the average bitch in the street. That’s why I don’t fuck with no sistas but Yolanda.”

“That’s ’cause that heavy bitch spoiled your ass. Now you done found another stupid hoe to kiss your rotten ass.”

This time it was my turn to shake my head in exasperation.

“Can’t a brother just have a little fun without it having to get all political and shit? Damn. I don’t understand why you hate White people so much anyway. I mean, how can you already hate people you’ve never even met? You got your mind made up about the whole race based on what you know about the handful you’ve met. There’s like two hundred million White folks in America. It ain’t like you know all of ’em.”

Huey poured more tea into the imitation Japanese tea cup with pictures of little Bonsai trees on the sides. He raised the cup to his lips and loudly slurped down the Ginseng brew.

“You should be asking yourself why you don’t hate all of them. You blame God for everything and let them devils off the hook when they’re the ones with our blood on their hands. That don’t make no sense!”

“I can’t hate them ’cause they ain’t did shit I wouldn’t have done myself if I was in their position. You think that if brothers was runnin’ shit we’d be anymore fair and compassionate? Just take a look at Africa. Brothers is always talkin’ about the white man’s nature but conquering and exploiting is just man’s nature. Fuck do you think would have happened four or five hundred years ago if Africans had guns and bombs and shit and traveled to Europe and found White folks over there chuckin’ spears? We would have kicked they asses and took all they shit. They would have been cleanin’ our houses and plowin’ our fields and we would’ve been rapin’ their women and sellin’ off their families just like they did to us. White folks would be the ones callin’ us devils. Shit, we was already conquering and enslaving our own people before the white man ever came to Africa. I ain’t sayin’ I don’t hate them in general. I ain’t got no love for no peckerwoods. I mean if there was a war goin’ on and we had to pick sides I’d have no problem droppin’ bombs on faceless White enemies, but when you deal with them one on one you realize that they’re just people like you and me. They ain’t no devils.”

“Except Scratch?”

“Yeah, except him.”

“And yet you worked for his ass too, killin’ your own brothers for him.”

“Dog, I’m all out of excuses for that shit. I just want to cap that devil and be done with it.”

Christina and Iesha stepped back into the apartment, each carrying a grocery bag and chatting excitedly. Iesha had been as suspicious and cynical of Christina as Huey, but now the two girls were gossiping like old friends. Huey glowered menacingly at the noisome duo and Iesha immediately fell silent, casting one last smile at the tall white girl before they shut the door behind them and walked into the kitchen to put their groceries down.

“Have you called your mother yet?” Iesha asked, and then, seeing the shock and fear wash over my face, added, “I—I’m sure she’s alright. It’s just–you know—don’t you think you should check?”

Horrible images flashed through my head as I looked over at the phone. My eyes, wide with fear and a sadness in the pit of my stomach, scanned the ashen faces of Huey, Iesha, and Christina. Their expressions were sympathetic, as if they had already assumed the worse.

I took a deep breath and told myself that everything was okay, that Scratch hadn’t gone to my house and murdered my mother after we’d left.

I’ma kill you and everyone you ever knew!

Scratch’s enraged voice boomed in my head as if I was still down in that basement with him. I rose to my feet and staggered over to my cell phone. Huey, Iesha, and Christina followed, crowding around me and placing consolatory arms around my shoulders. We didn’t even know for certain that anything had happened and I already felt like I was at a funeral mourning my mother’s death. I dialed the numbers in a daze as I thought of the reconciliation my mother and I had never had and the look of disappointment and disgust on her face as she watched me speed away from the scene of Yellow Dog’s murder. My stomach tightened painfully as the phone began to ring.

“Hello?”

I nearly fainted. I was so relieved.

“Mom? It’s Malik.”

“Yeah?”

There was a strange tremor in her voice as if she’d been crying.

“Is everything alright? Did anybody come by looking for me?”

“You mean like the police or friends of that guy you murdered right in front of our home last night? The cops were here for hours asking me about you. They wanted to take me down to the station. I can’t believe you would kill someone right in front of me like that! I saw you! Is this the type of shit you’re into? Killing people? Is this what I raised you to become? I don’t even know you anymore. But don’t worry, I didn’t tell the police nothing. You’re still my child.”

“I— uh…I’m sorry.”

She snorted contemptuously.

“Nobody else came by while I was home, but I left about an hour after the police did,” her voice choked up again and now it was clear that she was crying, “I spent the rest of the night at the hospital.”

“Why were you at the hospital? What happened?”

“Your grandmother had a stroke last night. I would have called, but I didn’t know where you were.”

“Is she alright?”

“No…,” her voice softened and became very small, quivering with emotion, “…she passed away this morning. The funeral is tomorrow at 9:30 am.”

Mom continued talking, mostly chastising me about not being at the hospital to comfort my dying grandmother who loved me more than anything. I barely heard a word she said.

“Grandma?”

My friends had returned to their seats laughing at themselves in relief when they heard me talking to my mother, then when they saw the grief-stricken mask that my face had become, and heard the soft helpless, “God, no.” whisper from my trembling lips, they returned to where I stood once again throwing their arms around me. I closed the flip-top cell phone and stood there staring at it as if it had wounded me and not the cold tactless tongue of my mother. Tears flowed freely down my face as I stood trembling with a profound sadness I could not express and an anger I could not understand.

“What’s wrong? What happened?”

“My Grandmom died this morning. She had a stroke last night and went into a coma. Then she just passed away. The funeral is tomorrow.”

“Oh my God, Malik. I’m so sorry.” Christina’s eyes were filling up with tears as if she had just lost a relative. Irrationally, I felt possessive of my grief and resented her attempt to share it with me.

“Malik, I—,”

“You can’t go.”

Huey, who had sat silently, staring at the floor, interrupted Iesha before she could offer her condolences. He was looking right at me and shaking his head. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. My grief ignited in an explosion of white-hot fury.

“Don’t you fucking dare! Don’t you fucking dare! Who the fuck do you think you are?”

Huey looked down at his feet as if he was sorry for what he was saying. Still, he repeated it.

“You can’t go, Snap.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” I punched a nearby porcelain lamp and shattered it into a dozen pieces. Both girls jumped and let out a squeal. Huey didn’t budge.

“There’s just no way you can go.”

“Why the fuck not? What the fuck are you talking about? My grandmother is dead! Didn’t you hear me? What are you tryin’ to say I can’t go to her damn funeral? Who the fuck do you think is going to stop me?”

Huey kept his eyes glued to the floor watching my shadow rage across the carpet.

“Scratch. That’s who. If you go, that entire funeral will turn into one big bloodbath. You’d be a sitting duck at that funeral and you and I both know that Scratch wouldn’t miss such a perfect opportunity to take you out along with half your friends and family. It would be the perfect revenge. And that’s why you can’t go. Your Mom will be there. Your aunts, uncles, cousins, it would be ridiculous to risk it. I can’t protect you in a crowd like that and even if I could I couldn’t protect your entire family. I might accidentally shoot one of your relatives myself trying to get to Scratch. I know how you feel, but it’s just too much of a risk.”

I collapsed into the seat across from Huey. Iesha and Christina took the baby into the bedroom to change his diaper while Huey and I talked. I felt completely empty, like a used tube of toothpaste that had been rolled all the way up from the bottom until every drop was squeezed out of it then slit up the middle and scraped clean. No way I was gonna let Scratch rob me of the opportunity to properly grieve.

“You can’t possibly know how I feel. I spent the last four years raising hell in the streets and my grandmother still loved me despite all the rumors flying around about me. Even though they whispered behind her back at church because of the shit I was doing. She still loved me. Even when the cops showed up on her doorstep and ripped her house apart looking for evidence of one of my crimes, she never spoke bad about me. But, I can’t remember the last time I sat down and talked with her for more than two minutes. I was too busy doin’ dirt in the street to give my own grandmother the time of day, even when I knew she was old and sick. I can’t even remember the last time I told her I loved her. I know it might not make sense to you, but I need to tell her I love her before they put her in the ground forever.”

Huey issued a long sigh of capitulation and finally raised his head to look me in the eyes. Tears were stubbornly holding at bay in his eyes, pride preventing them from spilling. He reached out and placed his hand on mine. His palms were softer than a woman’s.

“Malik, you’re my dog and I love you, but the hurt you’re feelin’ now ain’t nothing compared to what you’ll feel if Scratch decides to spray the whole congregation to take you out and winds up killing your Mom or something. I really don’t think you should go— but if you insist, you know I ain’t gonna leave you hangin’ out there by yourself.”

For a moment I couldn’t say anything. This was the most emotion I’d ever seen from Huey aside from when Tank was murdered. I stared at him for so long that he self-consciously dropped his head back down to stare at the inarticulate shadows on the floor. I reached out for Huey’s hand and he looked up once again and met my gaze.

“I love you too, brother, and I’m going to grandma’s funeral.”

Christina and Iesha finished changing the baby’s diaper. They carried him back into the room fussing over him like two schoolgirls playing with a doll. Iesha held the bottle in his mouth, while Christina cooed and kissed at him. My eyes followed them as they paced back and forth. I couldn’t stop staring at the child. He smiled, gurgled, cooed, threw-up, pissed, and shit, but never seemed to cry. His eyes stared back at me without love or hate, but with expectancy and patience. He seemed to be waiting for something. Something I wasn’t sure I was willing to give. I would kill Satan for him, but I would never forgive him for my people’s pain. I had no right. No one man did. He could forgive me if he liked, but I would keep my hate. I needed it for what I had to do.

“You still think that kid is Jesus Christ?”

“What?” Christina asked, half giggling.

“Oh, that’s right. We didn’t tell you two yet. Your boyfriend here thinks he rescued the baby Christ from Satan and now Satan is gunnin’ for both of them.”

Iesha and Christina both turned to look at me.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that Scratch is Satan. So, I guess that means I believe that kid is Jesus too.”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me?”

“No, baby, I’m serious. You didn’t see what I saw. If you did then you’d believe it too.”

“But why, dog? I mean, what about him has you so convinced? He’s just a kid.”

“Huey, man, just look at him. I mean just look at his eyes. You see that pain? You see that peace? You see that love? How could an infant have such ancient eyes? This is Jesus, dog. This is Jesus Christ.”

“I thought you always said the Black man didn’t have no savior?”

“He don’t. But I guess Jesus does. Us.”

“A damn crackbaby,” Huey walked over to the baby still cradled in Iesha’s arms and looked at him for a long moment, “If this is Christ then he’s been damned too.”

“Just look at his eyes. You ever see a baby with eyes that wise?”

Nothing I said would have convinced Huey, but I could tell that when he looked into that child’s calm peaceful eyes he saw. He knew. He believed. He knew like I did, with some primal metaphysical awareness that defied both faith and reason and went straight to instinct, to some genetic memory of our creator. But Huey would never admit it to himself. Even though I could see his legs tremble. Before that moment, I had never thought it possible for him to be afraid.

“S-so if he’s really Jesus then you really think Scratch is…”

“Satan. And not just figuratively or metaphorically. I ain’t talkin’ about that racist Muslim shit. I’m not just sayin’ he’s got evil in him. I’m sayin’ he is evil. Evil made flesh. I’m sayin’ that Scratch is the literal Satan. Lucifer himself. And if we let him get his hands on this kid the sun is gonna set on all of us forever.”

“Yeah, well, as long as this mutherfucker can bleed ain’t no way he’s gonna do shit to this kid.” Huey reached out to rustle the baby’s thin whispy hair and drew his hand back quickly when the child turned his tiny head and smiled at him.

“See, fool! Now you got me all spooked.” Huey chided with half a frown and half a smile fighting for control over his face. Christina and Iesha were both staring at the baby trying to see what we had seen in him. Huey was frowning, trying hard not to believe.

Christina and I had finally adjourned to the bedroom leaving Huey and Iesha alone on the long tattered couch. The baby was once again lying in the center of the bed between the pillows. We left him there and lay down on the floor beneath her queen-sized comforter. A sheet lay between the thin carpet and our naked bodies. Christina was wound up tight with sexual tension, but trying to hold back, not sure if I would be in the mood so soon after hearing of my grandmother’s death. Honestly, I was trying to mourn, remembering the strong, loving, cantankerous old woman that used to bake me pies every Sunday for desert, but my flesh was responding to the heat radiating from her, the wetness of her sex against my leg, and the subconscious gyrations of her hips. I rolled her over and entered her.

“Thank God.” She gasped as my manhood slid deeper into her, “I thought I was gonna explode if you didn’t take me soon.”

We made love slowly, with uncharacteristic warmth and affection, both of us delaying our orgasms until they built into a massive eruption that shook us violently; our juices commingling in a rushing wave of mutual ecstasy. I drove myself so deeply into her that I could feel her heartbeat. When it was over we held each other in silence. I slept almost immediately and had a pleasant dream in which I never woke up— then the morning came and the dream ended.

It was a windy, October morning, cloudy and damp. The trees were ablaze with reds, yellows, and oranges that fluttered to the ground in pastel colored heaps. A thick layer of clouds covered the sky to the horizon with a somber ceiling of gray. Funeral weather.

Huey and I drove through the winding turns on Lincoln Drive with the windows down and the wind whipping through the car’s interior like a minor hurricane. I didn’t mind. It kept the tears out of my eyes. Iesha and Christina had awakened us early in the morning with bacon, eggs, corn flakes, and kisses. Huey wolfed down the bacon without a thought.

“I thought Muslims didn’t eat pork?”

“I never said I was Muslim. That was your interpretation of it. I just agree with some of their beliefs…” He forked another slice of bacon into his mouth and smiled slyly, “…but not all of them.”

Christina was growing attached to the baby and had already changed and fed him by the time I had finished showering. He was lying on the couch staring at an improvised mobile of cat toys Christina had bought from the supermarket and attached to a hanger.

“What can we do for a crib?”

“My mom used to keep Tank in a dresser drawer when he was that little.”

“Tank wasn’t never that little,” I joked and then my heart sank and silence descended like the final curtain of a failed play. We were all just going through the motions, pretending as if everything was okay. As if all the death that had surrounded us for the past week was inconsequential…nothing but a thing. But after a while it became impossible to suspend our belief and we simply stopped talking rather than have to articulate the fears, angers, and sorrows, that had plagued us through the long night. Huey and I finished our breakfast and dashed outside into the street as if we could somehow leave the pall of death behind us locked in the apartment. We raced Huey’s Monte Carlo out of Center City trying to out run the ghosts that were forever chained to us. My house appeared sullen and empty as the Monte Carlo pulled up and disgorged my long frame out onto the sidewalk. The ghosts caught up to us and wrapped their whispish forms around our shoulders sending small shivers across our skin.

“I’m gonna go home, change, and make a few calls. I’ll pick you up in half an hour… tell your mother you love her.” He sped off around the corner before I could reply, leaving me to face the lifeless building that loomed above me. I took the first few steps toward the house and instinctively looked up at the second story window, as if by some magic Grandma would be there smiling down at me, only to find the curtains drawn closed and the blinds lowered like a shut eye.

Mom was already dressed and ready to go when I walked through the door. Her hair was straightened and pulled back into a tight bun. A black pill box hat with a dark veil sat atop her head held in place with half a dozen Bobby pins. She wore a long black shawl wrapped around her shoulders over a form fitting black dress. Through the veil I could see that her eyes were red and swollen with tears.

“I almost thought you weren’t coming.”

“I’ll be down in fifteen minutes.”

“I already laid out your black suit and I pressed a white shirt for you to wear.”

“Mom,” I was halfway up the stairs when I turned back towards her with my eyes wild with grief, “I’m trying to get out. I mean…” I swallowed hard and cleared my throat, “I’m already out of that crap, but there’s just a lot of stuff going on. I’m trying though, Mom. I’m really trying. You’ll see.”

I ran up the stairs to the bathroom leaving her to absorb what I had said.

I showered quickly and dressed even quicker. As I fastened the top button on my shirt and slipped into my jacket it occurred to me that I had no idea how to tie a tie. Mom had always done it for me. Shame-faced, I walked down the stairs holding my tie in my hands and staring at the floor.

“Boy, you ain’t ready yet?”

“Uh-um… I-I don’t know how to tie this.” I looked so pitiful that Mom couldn’t help but laugh. It rolled out of her full and honest, not a mocking laugh, but one full of love. It was the most beautiful sound I had heard in years. She grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled me toward her. I bent down to place my head against her chest and listen to the sound of her heartbeat as she hugged me tight against her.

“Boy, I love you so much.”

“I love you too, Mom.”

She reached a black lace gloved hand under her veil to wipe away the tears, holding me at arms length and appraising the genius of nature’s work.

“Damn, I make some beautiful kids. Let me fix that tie for you, boy.”

She had just finished knotting the tie when Huey pulled up and honked the horn.

“Huey’s driving us?”

“Yeah— uh, my car had an, um, accident.”

Seeing the disapproving frown twist her face as she eyed me suspiciously, made me blush with shame. We had just reconciled and I had already disappointed her.

“Yeah, well, we’d better be going.”

We passed the bullet riddled corpse of my old Impala as we headed up Pomona Street on our way to the funeral parlor. Mom stared at it long and hard then turned her head to look straight ahead without saying a word. The wall between us that had melted away just minutes before was now almost fully rebuilt.

It was the same tacky funeral parlor that had performed the ceremonies for Tank. The same impatient morticians ushered the mourners into the parlor, checking their watches nervously for fear that our funeral would overlap the one they’d scheduled after us, and throwing out words of sympathy with practiced sincerity. The casket was once again placed behind the podium amid the flower arrangements. This time I had to say something. I pulled the head mortician aside.

“Look, bro, I want you to put that podium back behind the casket somewhere.”

The slender old man lowered his wire-framed glasses and looked me up and down as if he were fitting me for my own pine box. He smiled and patted my shoulder lightly the way one would comfort a disgruntled child.

“And why would you have me do that young man?”

“Because it’s disrespectful to have my Grandmother tucked back there like a prop at her own funeral. Like she’s just part of the fuckin’ background.”

“I understand what you are going through right now young man, but I can’t disrupt the whole program—“

“Fuck the program! This ain’t some damn performance. This is my Grandmom!” Realizing that my voice was getting loud, I paused to collect myself. “Now either you get somebody to move that damned casket or I’m going to do it myself,” I lowered my voice to a rumbling growl and leaned in close to his ear, “And then I’ll be looking for a casket to put you into. You feel me?”

The old man looked at me like I was crazy. He was about to protest when something in my eyes changed his mind. He was familiar with how grief could violently ignite tempers and recognized that he was standing in the path of a possible explosion.

“I’ll have it moved right away.”

He shuffled away quickly and a few minutes later the other funeral workers assisted him in relocating the podium on a hastily erected platform behind the casket.

The services went on like a carbon copy of the previous one. The reverend read from the Bible and talked of Grandma’s love and kindness, how much she loved God, and how dearly she would be missed. My great uncle Milton, Grandma’s little brother, got up and told stories about growing up back in the ’50’s with Grandma. I laughed, imagining her in a poodle skirt and Bobby socks doing the twist. The soloist sang and the church ladies cried. We walked up in single file to view the remains. Grandma was laid out in one of her finest church dresses; pink with a white bow on the shoulder and a white sash around the waist and a white pillbox hat with a veil. She was wearing her favorite wig, the one that made her look like a Supreme. I kissed her forehead and told her that I loved her. My tears were dripping down her face when I turned away and walked back to my seat.

After the funeral, I helped carry the casket out to the waiting hearse with the other pallbearers. Huey was across the street in the Monte Carlo nervously checking up and down the street. My left hand was inside my jacket wrapped around the cocked and loaded Beretta while my other arm strained under Grandma’s weight. We made it to the hearse without incident.

The drive to the cemetery, traveling in that long procession of vehicles like sitting ducks, was the longest drive of my life. Were I planning a hit, that would have been the time I would have executed it, while the mark was sandwiched between a row of cars. I’d have had a car pull up right next to the one I was in and ventilate it with gunfire. I was so worried about being attacked that I couldn’t fully concentrate on my own grief. That bastard was even interfering with my mourning.

We left the mortuary behind, and my anxiety increased with every passing block. I couldn’t believe it when we finally passed through the gates of the cemetery.

Had Scratch given up on us? Perhaps that bullet he took during our skirmish in the basement was more serious than it looked? Maybe I had killed him during the car chase when I shot the BMW full of holes? Perhaps Yellow Dog had come after us on his own and now that they were both dead we were safe?

I wanted to believe it all so much, but I knew it was wishful thinking. It was more likely that Scratch just wasn’t smart enough to make the easy hit and was still waiting to make his move, waiting to try something more dramatic.

The burial was a long tedious affair. I kept staring at the road, unable to concentrate on a word the reverend was saying. Just as Grandmom’s casket was being lowered into the ground, a brown Chevy Tahoe followed by a gold Lexus and a black Range Rover came creeping up the road with brothers hanging out the windows carrying assault rifles. One grinning white face with his arm in a sling was among them. Huey slid up beside me.

“Tell your family to get down.” He waved to someone and it was then that I noticed the Twins along with Fat Greg and little Drew hiding behind trees down by the road.

“How did you know he was gonna do it here?”

“You shot him and killed his boy Yellow Dog. He needs to set an example. He wants to wipe out your entire family and here they are all grouped up out in the open. This is where I would have done it. Now tell them to get down!”

“Everybody down! Get down!” I yelled, pulling my Beretta out of the holster in the back of my pants and Huey’s Sig Sauer from my jacket pocket.

They all looked at me as if I had gone mad until Huey whipped Tank’s old AK 47 out from under his trench coat and it began belching death in a stuttering staccato. He was running towards the oncoming cars in a full gallop. I saw my mother’s mortified expression as she dropped to her knees and rage blinded me. I chased after Huey firing both pistols into the advancing vehicles.

“Duck!” I heard Huey yell as return fire came from the three cars, ripping up the sod at our feet. I jumped behind a tombstone, narrowly avoiding being cut in half by nine millimeter slugs.

We crouched behind the tombstones and trees as the hail storm of bullets shredded the manicured lawns and sent chunks of sod and chips of gravestone flying. We returned fire with our own torrent of flaming alloy. Bullets rained through the air like we were in the middle of a war. The sounds of gunfire continued without a break for almost a full minute then it just stopped. Scratch’s cars continued up the road while Drew, and Fat Greg chased after it popping off a few desperate rounds. None of our guys had been hit and despite several hundred rounds sent into the three vehicles, it didn’t appear that any of their guys had been hit either. I popped the clips out of the two pistols and reloaded them.

“Come on, Huey. Let’s finish this shit right now.”

We jumped into the Monte Carlo and sped off after Scratch, leaving my family behind, rising from the grass terrified and confused.

“They’re splitting up.”

The cars reached the exit to the cemetery and took off in different directions.

“Scratch is in the Lexus. There it is up ahead.”

The gold Lexus cleared the cemetery gates and kept going straight toward West Oak Lane. The Range Rover and the Tahoe both turned right and headed towards Cheltenham. It was midday and the streets were too crowded for a high-speed chase, still we were doing more than seventy miles per hour in pursuit of the Lexus, stopping for most of the red lights, but blowing through stop signs. Scratch was driving conservatively as if he were unaware that he was being chased or else he wanted us to catch him.

We knew he had to get rid of the Lexus. No way they would drive their own vehicles to a hit and driving stolen vehicles filled with guns around in the middle of the day was too dangerous. As soon as the cops arrived at the cemetery and questioned my family, every squad car in the vicinity would be looking for that Lexus. Sure enough the Lexus stopped in a parking lot behind the First Black Pentecostal Church of Christ where a black Mercedes covered in more gold than the BMW had ever had, sat idling. The license plate said, “Scratch”. The man was definitely in love with himself.

We pulled up next to the Lexus and Huey unloaded an entire fifty round clip into it, killing the three soldiers inside beyond any hope of resuscitation. I took out the driver of the Mercedes with six shots from the Sig. Scratch broke out into a loping run and I leapt out of the car and took off after him. He headed away from the Mercedes in the direction of a small fence that surrounded a yard adjoining the church parking lot. He tried to hurtle the fence in a single leap like he was Carl Lewis or something, caught his pants leg on the top and flipped over, landing on his back in the yard. He jumped right back up and started running again using his good arm to balance himself as he vaulted over the next fence and into the neighboring yard. I followed him, hopping fence after fence until we wound up in an empty lot.

Suddenly Scratch turned and fired a single shot, catching me right in the chest and throwing me backwards onto the ground in a cloud of dust. I stared up at the sky breathing laboriously with a sucking chest wound pulling air into my thoracic cavity and slowly collapsing my lung. Scratch’s grinning face abruptly blotted out the sky. I stuck my finger into the bullet hole to stop my lungs from sucking anymore air into my chest. Now I was able to breathe a little. The Beretta lay by my side and Scratch kicked it away. The Sig was still in my pocket though, with my finger on the trigger.

“Thought you was so slick didn’t you, nigger? Thought you was the baddest muthafucker on the planet— Bad-ass Snap! Well, you’s a dead mutherfucker now.” He pointed the big Colt automatic down at my head and then bent down to place the barrel right between my eyes. “Tell me where the kid is and I’ll do this shit nice and quick.”

“Fuck you! You fucking devil!” I spit in his face and his grin widened even more.

“Devil? You startin’ to buy all that Black Muslim shit about all white people bein’ devils? You done let Huey get into your head? Well, that shit ain’t true. All white people ain’t devils. Naw, little nigger, not all White people.” His smile widened further still until it looked like his jaw would unhinge again like it had down in the basement of that crackhouse. His eyes flashed a fiery red as if someone had lit a fire in his retinas, “Just me. Let me tell you a little story about me. Just so you know what all this has been about. Why your people ain’t never goin’ to rise no higher than they are.

“In the year 8400 BC, twenty miles from Mecca, an albino child was born named Yaccub. He was ostracized by his people for the color of his skin and he grew up hating those bastards that had rejected him. But Yaccub was also a fuckin’ genius. A genius like the world had never seen, you know I’m sayin’. He knew things about genetic engineering that scientists today still haven’t figured tha fuck out. Frankenstien ain’t have shit on him. He’d broken the DNA code thousands of years before the rest of the world knew what tha fuck DNA was. But his people didn’t trust him, they saw his experiments as witchcraft and so they banished him into exile on a tiny island in the Aegean sea.”

I shook my head and laughed, spraying blood from my lips into Scratch’s face.

“They banished that twisted freak because he was using his own damn people as Guinea pigs for his fucked up experiments!”

Scratch scowled and his face shifted again as if it was getting harder and harder to retain the façade of humanity he wore.

“You must have read those lies in Elijah Mohammed’s book. That’s all bullshit. They banished him because they were afraid of his genius and envious of his white skin. That’s why they sent him to the island of Paean. So they wouldn’t have to look at him anymore. But Yaccub’s followers came with him and they helped him launch his greatest revenge against the African people. He created a man from genetic material he’d harvested from his disciples. Only Yaccub used magic to alter the genetic structure of the DNA he used. He changed the pigment of the skin, the color of the eyes, the texture of the hair, and even the mind and soul of his creation. He used a combination of science and magic to create a new man that would forever live as a torment to the Tribes of Shabass who had banished him. But he didn’t create an entire race like they say in those Muslim books. There were already Caucasians living in caves all over Europe. Dr. Yaccub only created one White man because he knew enough about human prejudice and stupidity to know that he’d only need one. He knew that the entire White race would be blamed for the actions of this one evil man and the two races would forever be at war. He also knew that other White men would follow this devil and his actions would become the norm for all Caucasians. So he created one malevolent Caucasian man to live forever as the adversary of the African people, stirring up shit between the two races. He created me.

“I’ve lived for thousands of years, starting wars, initiating the slave trade, the KKK, Apartheid in South Africa, Jim Crow laws, the urban drug trade, and the war on drugs. Shit, nigga, I even invented gangsta rap. I’ve been here forever, wearing different faces in different lands, but always there, whispering in the White man’s ear and shouting in the Black man’s ugly fuckin’face. Making sure you ignorant monkeys never got a moment’s peace.”

“You tryin’ to say that Dr. Yaccub created you? An evil white muthafucka that kills niggas and eat their brains? Just so he could fuck with us?!” My finger tightened on the Sig Sauer’s trigger, but Scratch’s own pistol was still pressed against my forehead.

“There’s a lot more to this shit. More than you could ever imagine. See, Dr. Yaccub had to be certain the two races would never unite. Never ever. And he couldn’t be sure that just having a White man running around raising havoc would be enough. I mean, what if Black folks got wise to what was going on and forgave White people? What if White people failed to take this devil’s lead? He had to make sure that the hate went both ways and White people hated Blacks just as much. He needed a Black devil. That’s you, Snap. Yeah, nigger. He created you too.

“Every generation we are born, we fight each other, and we die and then we are reborn, resurrected, to do it all over again. Even our battles against each other help keep the races divided. What do you think will happen when your friends find you dead at the hands of a White drug dealer? What do you think is going to happen all over the city when it hits the news? And if you had managed to kill me it would have caused a backlash in the White community. I have many respectable businesses in the suburbs and there are many people out there who know nothing about what I do down here in the ghetto. It would look like another innocent White man killed by a Black thug. When you die some industrious Civil rights lawyer will uncover enough dirt on me to make it look like a great big conspiracy among middle class whites to flood Black ghettoes with crack. The racial disharmony will continue all because of you.”

I shook my head slowly. Then I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to unhear his words, to convince myself that he was lying even though a part of me, a large part of me, knew he was right. I could feel it. I was every bit the devil he was accusing me of being.

“Bullshit! You’re lying! I had a mom and a dad. I was born in a hospital in front of witnesses. I ain’t some monster a mutherfucker made in some laboratory!” I wanted to shoot him so bad I was trembling but I was afraid that he’d still have enough time to kill me before he died.

“You weren’t born, Snap. You were reincarnated after we killed each other sixty years ago in a Civil Rights demonstration in Alabama. Your cells decomposed in a grave somewhere and then they started to multiply again and reform into a new body. The first thing you did when you were born was crawl your way out of a grave. Then you climbed into some newborn’s crib, murdered it, and replaced it. Just like I did. You’re not Malik Black. That was the name of the baby you killed so that you could steal his life. Reborn but with all the same instincts, the same genetic programming that Dr. Yaccub gave you.”

“That’s bullshit! I ain’t believin’ none of this. You’re just fuckin’ lyin’!”

“Am I? Look at your life, Snap. You are a walking stereotype. You’re what White America fears the most. You define the word nigger. Your lifestyle validates it. You live in a ghetto murdering people for drug money. Murdering your own people! You travel to middle class White neighborhoods and kick the shit out of innocent kids just for being White, and you even date a White woman that you treat like shit because she’s White. You’re a fucking racist who blames White people for every fuck up you’ve made in your life, taking no responsibility for your own actions. All your ideas and opinions about your own people and mine are racist as fuck. You are every redneck’s worse nightmare. You are what the Grand Dragon of The Ku Klux Klan describes to his congregation when he preaches hate. Your example makes it easy for White supremist groups to recruit new members. You have performed your role perfectly. But now it’s time for you to die so the cycle can continue.”

I loosened my grip on the Sig Sauer and let it slip from my hand.

“So why even tell me all of this? Why not just shoot me?”

“Because I need that Baby! You tell me where that little mutherfucker is and I might even let you live… for a little while anyway.”

“But why? What’s the deal wit’ this baby? Why do you give a fuck about a damned crack-baby?”

“DON”T FUCK WITH ME! You know damn well he’s more than just some crack-baby!”

“You’re tryin’ to tell me that baby’s really Jesus Christ?”

“I’m tellin’ you that if you knew who he was and how he fit into all this you’d kill him yourself. As long as he lives he’s a threat to both of us. That’s why I ain’t shot you yet. That’s why I’m tryin’ to talk some sense into you.”

“But why? I don’t know what tha fuck you tryin to say.”

“Alright, you really want to know? That baby is God’s attempt to intervene. Deus Ex Machina in a fucking diaper. He is forgiveness. His life will mean peace between the races, unless he dies before we do. Once he’s dead then we can kill each other, be reborn, and start this war all over again for the next generation. But, if he’s still alive when we die, then we don’t come back. You see what I’m sayin’? If that baby lives then there’s no resurrection. We’re dead for good and the races will come together just like in Dr. King’s naïve little dream. Yaccub’s curse would be ended. You see? That’s why I can’t let that little mutherfucker live. Because I like what I do and I want to keep doing it. Forever!”

“If I’ve been around for as long as you have, then why don’t I remember any of this?”

“Because, maybe the doctor figured you wouldn’t go along with it if you knew what you were and what damage you were doing to your race. We are still human despite Yaccub’s spells and potions. Maybe he figured that if you were just some angry misguided hoodlum that thought the world owed you a favor then you’d do all the evil he needed you to do without even knowing it. I’m hopin’ you’re smarter than that. That’s why I’m tellin’ you this shit now.”

“You’re wrong. You’re wrong! You’re the devil! Not me! I know who I am!”

“I can’t waste no more time with you. The cops could be coming any minute. You don’t want to tell me where he is, I’ll just have to find him myself after I body your ass.” He licked his lips and started to squeeze the trigger. I closed my eyes and thought about my life, all the pain I’d caused my family, my friends, my entire neighborhood, and perhaps even my entire race. I thought about my Grandmother and my mother and how they had tried so hard to raise me right. I thought about Christina and how I had taken her love so lightly. I waited for the bullet in complete calm. If Scratch was right, then this would be a blessing. Maybe the baby would still live and it would all be over.

I heard a loud crack and waited for the pain and the welcome oblivion, thinking he had pulled the trigger. Then I heard it again and again. I opened my eyes and Scratch was gone. When I turned my head to look for him I saw Huey standing on his chest smashing the butt of the AK 47 against his skull over and over again.

Breathing short shallow breaths and with spots dancing before my eyes, I scrambled to my feet and tried to join Huey in stomping the devil back down to hell. My feet rose and fell with all my weight behind it and Huey continued to pulverize bone and muscle with the butt of the assault rifle until Scratch’s skull came undone and his brains decorated the ground with globs of pink and red pulp. I brought my dusty leather Stacy Adams down on his mouth and knocked out the last of his gold teeth. They tumbled to the ground and lay there catching sunlight. I stopped to stare at them and the world tilted and rolled. I collapsed on my ass in the dirt as my consciousness began to fade, my ruptured lungs no longer able to take in any oxygen. Just before the darkness swooped in and sucked me down into dreams, I saw Huey kneel down and scoop Scratch’s brains up in his hands.

“What are you doin’, bro?”

It was the last thing I said before everything went black.

— | — | —

Chapter 21

“The lower socio-economic Black male is a man of confusion… He faces a hostile environment and is not sure that it is not his own sins that have attracted the hostilities of society… He looks around for something to blame for his situation, but because he is not sophisticated regarding the socio-economic milieu… He ultimately blames himself.”

—Huey P. Newton, “To Die For The People”

««—»»

I think the gun will fit now. Now that all the words are out. My guilt is no less though. That wasn’t the point. I’m not seeking forgiveness or absolution. If Dr. Yaccub really did create me to be a pawn in his plan for eternal racial disharmony then forgiveness is impossible, absolution is impossible. Perhaps I could still have been a good person despite the genetic instincts programmed into me by that mad man long ago. Maybe there is something to the Christian’s free will argument. Perhaps I could still have been an asset to my race somehow. All I know is that I wasn’t. I murdered my own people for money. I assisted in the drug trade that has crippled the Black community out of greed. I lived my life as the very stereotype so many of us have fought to overcome. I am every bit as evil as Scratch ever was.

The baby is safe. Huey and Iesha are raising him. I tried to talk to Huey about what Scratch told me. About how all White People are not devils and how Yaccub had manipulated us all into believing they were by exploiting our own natural tendencies toward prejudice and bigotry. How the same trick was being played on the White community. I don’t know if he understood. Maybe he will after I am gone. Maybe the baby will teach him. Scratch said the baby represented harmony, peace, and forgiveness. God’s gift to the world. I can only hope that the kid will do his job. I can only hope that Scratch and I will never be resurrected.

I pick the Beretta up again and slide it back into my mouth. I slide it back until it touches my tonsils and makes me gag. The taste of metal and gun oil is overpowering. My eyes water. I think of Christina and realize that I love her. I want to pick up the phone and tell her goodbye, but I know the sound of her voice would steal my nerve away and this has to be done if my people will ever have a chance at peace. I think of all the rap songs and videos, movies, and video games that glorify the type of life I have led. It’s so much to overcome. I think of the baby again, the soft ancient eyes filled with wisdom and patience. He has his hands full.

The trigger is taut and anxious. So many nights I have sat with this gun in my mouth and every time I have found a new reason to live. This gun has hungered so long for my blood. Now, I have finally run out of reasons. No more excuses. I pull the trigger and quench the weapon’s thirst.

— | — | —

Epilogue

Huey looks over at the baby as he pilots the Monte Carlo through traffic. Iesha mockingly named the kid Jesus. Huey smiles at the name as he whispers it at the child and watches his tiny head turn in response. Already he knows who he is, understands his destiny.

The sun is setting and the shadows have begun knitting together into large patches of darkness. The Monte Carlo cruises to a stop at the entrance to Wissahickon Park. Huey tries not to look in the child’s eyes as he unstraps him from the car-seat. He hugs the child tight to his chest as he walks into the park.

The trees have formed a ceiling over the trail, hiding the moon and stars and making the darkness total. The trickle of the creek water running down stream helps give Huey direction as he walks. The sounds of animals he can’t identify follow him every step. The chirp of the crickets and the whisper and giggle of the creek water enhance the feeling of solitude.

He leaves the trail and carries the baby down the side of the embankment to the edge of the water, careful not to drop him. When Huey reaches the creek he steps out from beneath the trees and the sky opens wide above him. The moon and stars light up the night, twinkling off the miniscule waves rippling across the creek. Huey sits down on a fallen tree and lays the baby beside him. Only now does he look down at the baby. His eyes peer deep into Huey’s and he frowns, those ancient eyes still patient and unafraid.

“I know you know who I am. You’ve known it all along. I could see the recognition in your eyes the first night I saw you. I want you to know that this ain’t got nothing to do with any hate towards you. It’s the White man that I hate and I just can’t let you forgive them. I don’t want peace. You understand? I don’t want it. I want all those bastards to die even if I have to kill them myself one by one. I didn’t mean for Snap to kill himself though. I didn’t think he’d really believe Scratch about Dr. Yaccub creating him to encourage White folks to hate our people. If I thought he really believed it, that he was really going to off himself, I would have said something. I’d have told him the truth. It’s too late now. Too late for all of us.”

Huey takes out the Sig Sauer and puts it to the baby’s skull.

“Goodbye, little bro.”

The sound of the gunshot echoes across the surrounding hills and out over the highway. A flock of ducks take off into the sky, startled by the loud report. Huey watches them disappear across the horizon before turning back to look at the baby’s ruptured skull. He reaches down into the pile of chunky gray matter leaking out of the infant’s head with both hands and begins to feed.

When Huey finally stumbles out of the woods back to his car he feels no better than when he left the house. Killing the baby did nothing to quiet the unease in him.

How could it have been the wrong fucking baby?

He drives home with his emotions running from rage, to fear, to panic.

It’s all over. If that baby lives it’s all over.

The house is silent when Huey bursts through the door and collapses onto the couch with his thoughts whirling through his head like a tornado. This had never happened before. Scratch had failed and now Huey had failed as well.

I know that baby is close. I just know it is.

Iesha walks into the room smiling from ear to ear, oblivious, as usual, to Huey’s foul mood. She sits down next to him on the couch and smiles at him, trying to get his attention.

“I felt the baby kick. You want to feel?”

She grabs Huey’s hand and places it on her belly as what looks like a footprint stretches against her skin from inside.

It has to be somewhere that neither Scratch nor I would have ever thought to look.

He feels movement beneath his hand as the baby kicks against Iesha’s stomach.

“See? Can you feel that?” She beams at him jubilantly

Huey looks down at Ieasha’s distended belly as it continues to undulate with their child’s movements. He looks back up into Ieaha’s eyes and smiles, then the smile falls hard into a twisted scowl.

“What’s wrong? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Because God has one fucked up sense of humor. That’s why.”

Iesha’s eyebrows knit together in puzzlement as Huey gets up off the couch and walks into the kitchen. Seconds later he comes back with a knife.

“Jesus!” she shrieks as he plunges the blade into her stomach.

“Let’s hope it is.” Huey replies.

— | — | —

WRATH JAMES WHITE is a former World Class Heavyweight Kickboxer, a professional Kickboxing and Mixed Martial Arts trainer, distance runner, performance artist, and former street brawler, who is now known for creating some of the most disturbing works of fiction in print.

He is the author of Succulent Prey, The Book of a Thousand Sins, and His Pain. Wrath is also the co-author of Teratologist co-written with the king of extreme horror, Edward Lee and Poisoning Eros co-written with Monica J. O’Rourke. Wrath lives and works in Las Vegas, Nevada with his two daughters, Isis and Nala, his son Sultan and his wife Christie. When he isn’t writing or working he continues to compete in kickboxing events and train mixed martial arts competitors.