by Teri Woods
“What the fuck?” was all Roberto could stammer out as Dutch retucked his gun and leaned against the wall calmly. Mrs. Piazza stared blankly at Dutch. Her heart told her it was all over, but her mind couldn’t compute the chain of twisting events that had left a dead black man lying at her feet quickly enough. Just moments before, she would’ve paid anything to see Dutch lie in a pool of his own blood. But now she found herself thanking Mary, mother of Jesus, that he had been there. No one spoke but Dutch.
“Gimme the keys to the van and I’ll take care of the body,” Dutch told Roberto.
Roberto was still too shocked to say anything. He merely reached into his pocket and handed Dutch the keys.
When Dutch returned, Mrs. Piazza was sitting behind the counter sipping a cup of black coffee. She had calmed down by then. It wasn’t the blood or even the body that shook her up. She had seen more than her share of those, being married to the mob. It was the way this young black boy had so correctly calculated the situation and moved so swiftly. Dutch approached the counter and dropped the keys by her hand.
“Roberto in the back?” he asked politely.
She nodded. It was then that she knew this young black child was a cold-blooded killer. Only the cold-blooded could do what he had done and return with the innocence of youth. As Dutch went toward the back, she called to him.
“Hey,” was all she said because she didn’t know his name. Dutch turned to face her.
“Thank you.” She smiled.
Dutch returned her smile and then disappeared in the back.
Two days later, Dutch was on her front porch. She answered the door to find him standing there.
“Hello, Mrs. Piazza. How are you?”
“Fine, young man, fine. Please, come in,” she said, standing aside to allow him to pass. Her husband had invited young Dutch over for dinner and to meet Fat Tony Cerone, to whom the safe and its contents belonged. She walked Dutch into the living room where Tony and Roberto were sitting waiting for dinner. She returned to the kitchen, which was separated from the living room only by a cabinet-counter partition. Roberto stood up to shake Dutch’s hand. Fat Tony, who was too fat to get up even if he wanted to, sat through the introduction.
“So, this is him, huh? This is the kid we owe sixty-five thousand to?” Fat Tony asked through teeth clenched tight around an equally fat cigar.
“What’s your name, kid?”
“Dutch.”
“Dutch? Strange name for a black kid; how’d you get a name like Dutch?” Tony asked.
Dutch just shrugged his shoulders as if he didn’t know, but he knew it just wasn’t important. Young as he was, he realized he was in the presence of power and knew the potential of such a situation.
He’d learned from Roberto that Italians may be clannish and not particularly fond of his kind, but he knew they could recognize a thoroughbred at first sight.
“Sit down, Dutch. Take a load off,” Roberto suggested, gesturing to the love seat across from Fat Tony.
“How old are you, Dutch?”
“Fourteen.”
“Fourteen, huh? When I was fourteen, I had a BB gun, a hard dick, and both were shootin’ blanks,” Tony said and they all shared a laugh.
“I guess times have changed since then,” Dutch replied, wearing what would become his trademark smile.
“Yeah, I guess so. Listen, I want you to know I really appreciate what you did for me,” Tony said as his expression lost its humorous touch and became serious. “But, of course, I wouldn’t have to be here if you hadda kept your mouth shut, huh?” Tony concluded, but Dutch didn’t answer because he knew Tony had answered his question himself.
“So, let me ask you somethin’, Dutch. What were you thinking about when you just fuckin’ blurted out to the fuckin’ guy about my safe, huh? What the hell was on your mind jeopardizin’ my fuckin’ money for fuckin’ pizza money, huh?” Tony was huffing from the energy he expended, so he sat back, puffed his cigar, looked at Dutch, and waited for a response.
“I like Roberto,” Dutch simply stated.
“You what?” Fat Tony asked as if he didn’t hear Dutch the first time.
“I like Roberto,” Dutch repeated.
“Izzat so? Well, what would’ve happened if the fuckin’ guy didn’t take your suggestion, huh, then what? Suppose he hadn’t believed you and ran out leaving you to deal with the fact that Roberto trusted you and you fuckin’ betrayed that trust, then what? You think Roberto would’ve liked you then?”
“To me, it wasn’t just pizza money. It belonged to Roberto, and since I consider Roberto a friend, stealing from him was like stealing from me, and any man is gonna do what they gotta do when what belongs to him is threatened. So, I did what I had to do, but if I woulda been wrong, then we wouldn’t be having this conversation and I’d probably be dead,” Dutch explained as Fat Tony just sat there looking at him like he was crazy.
“You afraid to die?” Tony asked as he paused for a moment, intensely studying Dutch.
“You askin’ me am I afraid to die or am I afraid of you?” questioned Dutch as he stared Fat Tony in his eyes, never blinking, never looking away.
“Whichever one’s more appropriate to the question,” Fat Tony responded with a smirk as he looked at Roberto.
“Then no,” Dutch replied, his eyes locked on Fat Tony.
Cigar smoke drifted between the two and the eye contact was broken. Tony dumped his ashes in the ashtray as he looked back at Dutch.
“But,” Dutch continued, “I do respect you, Mr. Cerone.”
Dutch stood up and held out his hand to Tony. Tony looked up at the small, black hand extended to him, then up into the eyes of the young man it belonged to. This kid’s gotta future, he thought to himself.
After a few lingering moments he placed his hand in Dutch’s and grasped it firmly.
“I like you, kid. You got balls.”
“Dinner’s ready!” Mrs. Piazza called out. It had been ready for over five minutes, but she had waited and listened to every word and saw every gesture between the men and the boy. She thought about her childless womb, and how she wished it had been filled with a son like Dutch. That was the first time she wished Dutch was Italian.
Brought back to reality by a bunch of rowdy young black kids walking past with a handheld radio blaring, she placed the key in the ignition of her Volvo.
“Moulies,” she remarked and pulled off.
CHAPTER FOUR
LOCK DOWN
Craze looked up from the blunt he was rolling in his money-green 911 Porsche Turbo to see Mrs. Piazza’s blue Volvo drive by as she left the courthouse. Dutch had Craze outside in the parking lot watching everything and everybody. Dutch wanted to know who came and left the courthouse, what time, who they was with and what they was driving. Craze understood the importance of his assignment, but that didn’t make it any less boring. He needed the weed to break the monotony. And his Dutch-style Coronas and Scarface CD.
He looked around self-consciously as he lit the blunt thinking how Dutch felt about his people and drug use. Dutch didn’t get high and was so tight on his people about using drugs, Craze thought he might even implement a piss test or some shit. Craze knew the golden meaning of getting c.r.e.a.m. Don’t get high on your own supply, but he sold or rather oversaw the sale of heroin, not weed, for Dutch’s organization.
It had been years since he had actually touched the brown powder that gave him the ability to retire at twenty-eight. But to Dutch, drugs were drugs, no matter what kind.
“How many crackheads you know started drugs wit’ weed?” Dutch would ask in anger whenever he found Craze’s stash or caught him smoking.
“Nigga, you sayin’ I’m a crackhead?” Craze would shoot back.
“Shit, neither was G-Money at first,” referring to New Jack City. “And you know what happened to him,” Dutch would jokingly add.
“Muhfuck you, nigga. You can’t kill me. You’d go crazy without me, baby. That shit would be like Tony wit
hout Manny, Bonnie without Clyde, the Rat Pack without Sammy and shit. Just wouldn’t be right, nigga.”
Dutch knew he was right. Not only because Craze was so instrumental in Dutch’s organization, but because the two men were like brothers. They had grown up from being babies together, even rode in the same baby carriage together. Craze’s mother died when he was only eight and he went to stay with his aunt. Up until then, if you saw one, you saw the other. Craze, aka Christopher Shaw, had gotten his nickname just trying to keep up with Dutch. Dutch’s craziness was psychotic and only those who were truly close to him knew the risks he took. But Craze’s insanity was worn on his sleeve like stripes. Everybody knew Chris was crazy, so there was no need to call him Chris anymore. Crazy shortened to Craze over the years and he eventually mellowed out. Actually he hadn’t mellowed, but everybody felt he had because he had fewer and fewer opportunities to prove his nickname.
But seeing Mrs. Piazza again after so many years stimulated Craze’s mind with vivid pictures of how he and Dutch got in the position to be attempting what they were now planning to carry out.
As Mrs. Piazza’s taillights faded into traffic, he thought back to the first time he saw her at the pizza parlor. He saw her as a nasty old bitch who was always running them off from her video games if they hung around too long without buying anything. He hated Roberto, too, because of the way he handed him his change whenever he did buy something. He would half throw it or half drop it in Craze’s hands, like he was contagious with color.
That’s why he questioned Dutch whenever Dutch would be sweeping the floor or helping Roberto unload trucks.
“Man, why you always doin’ shit for that muhfucker? You know he don’t even like us?”
But, even at such a young age, Dutch was able to see an opportunity in even the most insignificant situations.
“I don’t give a fuck about him. He’s just a pizza man. It’s who he fuckin’ wit’, and you don’t hang around shit like that without something falling your way.”
“Well, damn, you can at least get a couple of dollars or somethin’, like some free video games, fuckin’ somethin’. You damn near workin’ for free,” Craze complained.
“Naw, man, that’s what he expects, some little petty-ass black kid starvin’ for chicken change. Naw, when you dealin’ with cats like him who outweigh you, always keep ’em off balance. ’Cause then the weight don’t mean shit to a muhfucka wit’ leverage.” Dutch would always philosophically explain shit.
He had always been smart. In school—whenever he and Craze actually went—he would ace tests without even studying and devour books while Craze chased girls and fought over candy money. But it got to a point when Dutch got bored and graduated himself from school at the age of twelve. For Craze, school didn’t matter to him one way or the other. So when Dutch stopped going, so did he. While Craze ran the streets doing the things ghetto kids do, Dutch put in time gaining Roberto’s confidence.
Craze didn’t know what to do with himself, and his small life felt monotonous. He was bored with stealing cars, joyriding, and ducking the truancy officer, who had placed Craze on a 9:30 P.M. curfew.
As he sat in his bedroom window smoking a cigarette one night, he heard Dutch’s bird-call from outside. He looked down and saw Dutch.
“Yo! Come here! I gotta show you somethin’,” Dutch hollered.
Craze was out the window and down the fire escape as if it was the normal way to exit the premises. Moving like a cat, he jumped down onto the ground and walked over to Dutch.
“What up?” Craze asked.
“Just come on.”
They walked around the corner and Craze saw Roberto’s white van sitting halfway down the block.
“You finally got smart and robbed his old ass, huh?” Craze asked as he lit another cigarette.
Dutch just looked at him and wondered why he would think that after everything he’d been trying to tell him.
“Yo, Craze, I love you like a brother, but once I open this door and show you what’s inside, ain’t no turning back, nigga. You either wit’ me or go on and walk away now,” Dutch solemnly declared.
Craze looked Dutch in the face and in his eyes. He had never heard such words from him before. He considered Dutch his brother, his heart. If he didn’t die for the motherfucker, he would certainly die with him, and he knew Dutch knew this. So, for Dutch to say what he just said, Craze knew whatever was in the van was nothing like he had seen before. His stomach knotted at the thought and tightened as he spoke.
“Yo, Duke, you know how we get down. You and I, do or die, you ain’t got to tell me to walk nowhere,” Craze stated with all the sincerity his heart could muster.
Dutch looked him in the eyes and, when he was satisfied, nodded and opened the back doors of the van. He and Craze stepped up into the van and Craze saw a long, bulky object lying between two garbage bags. Dutch snatched back the top-layer garbage bag to reveal the dead gunman. Craze took one look and threw up all over the inside of the van.
“Damn, nigga! We got enough to clean up wit’out yo’ ass addin’ to it!” Dutch told him over Craze’s bowed head. For years after, Dutch stayed in his ass, always teasin’ Craze about his first sight of a dead body.
“Damn, nigga, took one look at that shit and his whole asshole turned inside out!” Dutch would say among the trusted.
After Craze emptied his stomach, he turned back to the body in amazement. It was the first time he had ever seen a dead body, but it wouldn’t be the last.
“What the fuck happened to him?” Craze finally got the wind to ask.
“Never mind. We need a whole lot of cinderblocks and some rope,” Dutch said, looking like they needed to find that shit right now.
They ran through neighboring backyards, tearing down clotheslines along the way until they found some cinderblocks in a vacant lot to carry back to the van. When there were enough blocks, Dutch told Craze to drive while he tied the blocks to the clotheslines and secured the lines to the dead body.
“Go to Weequahic Park cross town,” Dutch directed from the back.
“Why you want to go all the way over there with them police they got and shit?”
“Will you drive?” Dutch asked, looking at Craze, questioning why he was being questioned.
It was a long and dangerous way to cross town to that side. Newark police were keen on stolen cars. They knew the young car thieves running around and Craze knew they knew him. So, he took the safest, most direct route, Elizabeth Avenue, straight out. The trip was tense but uneventful. He pulled into a secluded area of the park near the lake and pulled over.
“Help me drag this muhfucker to the water,” Dutch told Craze.
Craze jumped out the driver’s seat and made his way to the back of the van. Dutch already had the back door open. They began to struggle with the body, but they weren’t strong enough to drag it out of the van.
“Damn, this muhfucker’s heavy,” Dutch huffed.
“Yeah, he is,” Craze agreed. “Untie the cinderblocks,” he suggested, wondering how the fuck they were supposed to carry the motherfucker all tied to cement and shit.
He and Dutch first carried the cinderblocks to a wooded area near the edge of the lake, then came back for the body. It was still heavy, but they managed to drag it over to the cinderblocks and reattach them. Then they rolled the body to the water and carried it out a bit as it began to sink into liquid darkness. The two boys watched as the body quickly sank to its watery grave. Dutch looked at himself, then at Craze, and saw they were covered with blood and sweat.
“Take off your shirt and go get those garbage bags out the van. Make sure ain’t no blood in the van. If it is, try and wipe it up wit’ your shirt,” Dutch told him.
Within minutes, all the contents of the van were piled in a clearing in the woods. Dutch set the pile on fire and watched as it was reduced to ashes. Then he and Craze returned to the van and drove off.
For the next three days, Craze was worried sick. He hadn�
�t seen Dutch and neither had Ms. Delores, who, unlike Craze, wasn’t worried a bit.
“Bernard can take care of hisself,” was all she said, then hung up the phone in his ear.
Various scenes flashed through his mind about where Dutch could be. On the bottom of the lake next to the body they dumped or on the run from Roberto and God knows who else, like the police. The only good sign was there was no mention anywhere in the paper of any body or bodies found and there wasn’t anything in there about Dutch getting arrested.
Craze, through his own personal contact, learned the identity of the dead man he had buried in Lake Weequahic. He was a local drug addict named Chester. Chester’s sister was one of Craze’s many young conquests. He had been pestering her about letting him hold her pop’s handgun.
“Boy, is you crazy? You ain’t gonna get me killed. My daddy will go crazy. Besides, Chester took it and ain’t been home in damn near a week,” she said as Craze pushed her head back down into his lap.
A light came on, though, as she was gunnin’ him. Chester, that’s where I saw them old-ass Pro-Keds before. He remembered them on the dead man’s feet. He hadn’t thought of it at the time, but it came through crystal clear now that Chester’s sister mentioned it. He felt funny to have her giving him head after having gotten rid of what was left of her brother, and he felt the vague sense of superiority you feel when you know the answer to the question that is perplexing to others.
“He’ll turn up,” he said with a slight smirk, amused at the hidden meaning behind his words.
“He better. My father gonna kill that boy one of these days.”
So, he knew where the body was, but where was Dutch? That was his last thought that night before drifting off to sleep, only to be awakened in the middle of the night with the answer to his question. He heard the familiar bird call as if it was a dream, and at first he thought he was dreaming until he heard it again.
Dutch.
He hopped up and was down the fire escape before he was dressed.
