Staten Island Noir

by Patricia Smith

  After that semester's end, I did not return to Wagner College.

  Time passed and I can't say that I gave John or his wife a whole lot of thought, but when I did, I wished for them a rosy scenario: that the light of the next morning brought clarity; realizing how perilously close they'd come to being George and Martha was sobering, so they decided to make a fresh start and move to a small town where he would teach school and write bad poems and she would be super-snooty to all the rubes and it would all turn out happy in the end. That's what I wished for them because—why not?

  More time passed. Years. It was three years later when I got the envelope in the mail, a five-by-seven manila envelope, the return address a post office box in Maine. No name, but I recognized John's handwriting as surely as I had recognized his voice that night.

  There was no Post-It affixed to this "book" but there was a letter paper clipped to the "cover," which read:

  Dear M.,

  I look back on our days at Wagner College with love. Yes, I loved teaching there. I loved having an office in Parker Hall (which, did you know, was once an orphanage), and I loved having you as my friend and colleague. I greatly valued our talks, our time on the ferry. I believed that you understood me, and I continue to believe that to this day. It is that very faith in our friendship that enables me to swallow my pride and tell you that, although I live modestly, I am not always able to find work. I now have found myself in difficult circumstances of a financial nature. It is terribly awkward to ask for money, and I am intending this request to be a loan, but on the chance that I can't pay you back, I will give you the publishing rights to my books. Please know how hard this is for me.

  One thousand dollars would make a world of difference right now. I hope you are well.

  Love,

  John P. Lodge

  p.s. I saw you hiding behind the tree. I know you were there.

  PART III

  BOROUGH OF BROKEN DREAMS

  . . . SPY VERSE SPY . . .

  BY TODD CRAIG

  Park Hill

  I don't understand how niggers do it to themselves, ya know?" Officer Lillmann exclaimed in the middle of the PS 57 community playground. Even Schmidt stepped back and looked at him.

  "I mean, better they do it to themselves than us, right? Seriously, say I woulda shot one of 'em . . ." Everyone looked. Another officer on the scene grabbed at Lillmann's shoulder as if to say, Quit while you're ahead.

  Detective Schmidt grimaced and mumbled under his breath, "Are you kidding? You do realize we're in the middle of a crime scene surrounded by hundreds of black people? At a Troy Davis rally sponsored by Wu-Tang? Really?"

  But Lillmann was a standard-issue blue wall dirty cop. "If I did this, it'd be a whole big thing," he bellowed. "And I'd get off at the end of it all, cuz that's how we work, but good it's one of their own that did it. So now, no big deal. Badda-boom-badda-bing. What do they call it, black-on-black crime? What a waste of bullets!"

  Lillmann jeered, sawing sugar away from his mouth with the back of his wrist. They called him D2 in Park Hill . . . he spent more time in Dunkin' Donuts on break than on patrol or on duty. The whole Killer Hill loathed Lillmann. But D2 was po-lice, so what could they do? One thing was for sure, though . . . in the midst of the Raekwon and RZA–sponsored Free Troy Davis rally, tolerance for police foolishness was little to nil, especially for Lillmann's racist politricks.

  * * *

  Mease sat in the car, waiting. He looked around, getting pissed at his brother's constant lateness, which was happening again. While waiting, all he could do was constantly check his cell phone to see if the newest text message had arrived. While Mease scanned the street on the left, he suddenly heard on his right:

  Click-CLICK . . . SLAM!!!

  "GOGOGOGOGO!!!"

  Sy's shouts shot Mease right out his yin and into the thick of all yang. Without even looking, Mease slammed the tranny into drive, swerved out of his parking spot and into the street. Sy guarded the rearview, while it took everything Mease had to swerve back. Mease and Sy leaned hard left. Then Mease swerved back right, away from oncoming Manhattan traffic, and back into his lane.

  The only thing they seemed to avoid was death, as a redheaded woman stopped running, flipped open her cell, and started dialing.

  "Hahahahahahaha!!!! You shoulda seen ya fuckin' face, sun!" Sy squawked. Mease realized his brother was not only late, but joking with antics Mease hated with a passion.

  "Yo, is you fuckin' crazy? I almost killed people, almost killed us!"

  Sy giggled at his brother's reaction to impending death, but he could tell Mease had been pushed beyond the edge.

  "Word to mother, I should pull over and take your stupid ass out myself! Where you goin', sun? Cuz I'ma drop ya crazy ass off e-mediate-ly!" Mease proclaimed.

  "I'ma go uptown real quick and git right."

  "Yeah, a'ight," Mease said as he switched lanes, speedballing up the West Side Highway, hoping no police had seen his jeep or license plate. Little did Mease know that po-lice would be the least of his worries.

  * * *

  The brisk winter wind blew party fliers across the windshield. Sy jumped, coughing up chronic smoke. Mease slowly turned his head. They were sitting in the jeep a couple blocks away from The Tunnel. A few blocks off the West Side Highway—and the water—it was no wonder the wind curled in the quick of this night. It was cool, though . . . all Mease had to do was push the button on the dashboard to adjust the climate control, and all indications of frío in the Land Cruiser were nil. Problem was, Mease was so damn high and that button was so damn far away . . . when he reached for it, he could hear the ticking sound like when the Six Million Dollar Man flexed his bionic muscles to make some superhuman physical movement.

  "Damn, sun . . . that shit . . . took a lot," Mease said, finally lowering his arm after pressing the button to increase the blower speed.

  "Oh, you fucked up, B. You only turned the heat up, it's that deep?" Sy snickered.

  To Mease, it had been ten minutes . . . in real life, a twenty-second motion, the longest twenty seconds of his life.

  "I told you, sun!!! I got the Billy Joel, cuzzin!"

  Mease couldn't front on Sy for this one. He didn't even want Sy to pass it back to him. As far as their peoples were concerned, his younger brother was his twin. Only a year younger, Sy stuck to Mease like glue; thus, their street names: Symease Twins. They were sneaky, moving with a stealth unlike any other two-man crime team. Where you saw Sy, you always saw Mease.

  Sy held the eL below the window and turned toward Mease as two people walked past the blood-maroon Land Cruiser that Mease had bought with straight cash. Out the corner of his eye, Sy saw this dude's coat: a bubble leather bomber, the identical color as the Land Cruiser.

  They didn't even have to go in The Tunnel anymore. After all, why pay forty dollars–plus when you could do laps around the block with liquor and weed in the car and have your own party? Since it was Sunday night, Hot97 broadcasted Funk Flex live from The Tunnel. And everybody knew the system in Mease's car—it was legendary in his hood, you could hear it clear all up and down Vanderbilt Avenue. And that made it harder to understand how these two moved in absolute silence.

  But The Tunnel wasn't their modus operandi tonight. This was a business trip—and they sat and smoked, waiting for Quentin to return so they could take flight back to Shaolin.

  "You know you're a dickhead?!? Who's gon' believe that you, of all people, got Billy Joel's weed connect? Better yet, who the fuck's gon' believe Billy Joel even smokes weed?" Mease's words slid off his tongue like molasses. He couldn't even begin to conceal his highness.

  "Nah, sun, fuck that . . . If these fools don't believe me, fuck'em—I just won't sell them shit! Dudes on these streets'll have to respect my pedigree after this one!" Sy took another pull, but coughed his lungs up. After he found oxygen again, he said, "That's my word! Kids that don't believe me don't need to be fuckin' with me anyway, strictly because they not ac
knowledging how gangsta I am with this shit, yo, word up."

  Mease shook his head. He tried real hard to make it fast, but everything was slow. Mease dreaded the moment when Sy would pass the eL . . . and that was when Sy extended his arm, pinching it in his fingers. Mease turned his whole body away, toward the driver's-side window. Even blinking his eyes to focus became hard as all hell.

  "BA-uuuh-Bah-Bah-Battle anybody, I don't care you TELL!" Funkmaster Flex blared through the Land Cruiser system. They sat there listening to Flex scratching double copies of "Rock the Bells." Mease finally focused in the mirror to observe a redheaded woman on the phone. As quickly as she noticed Mease through the mirror, she turned and scurried off. Mease didn't even really see this woman . . . but she most certainly saw him and Sy.

  Mease was too stuck in perpetual tortoise trots—his mind felt like it had just stopped moving. He looked back over at Sy, a task that felt like a short moment in forever.

  Sy started laughing. "Damn, sun, it got you like that? I told you."

  Mease couldn't even argue.

  As Sy opened the ashtray and outted the eL, he said, "Besides, look at the dude—mufucka's just like us, yo! You ever listen to that 'Uptown Girl' joint he made? You ever see the video? That mufucka's a broke-ass mechanic tryin' to get wit the high-siddity rich bitch . . . Man, that nigguh just like us, and we smokes weed!"

  Mease started giggling, and knew once he started he'd be laughing entirely too hard for the next ten minutes. They were each other's other side. Mease was always so serious, he needed to laugh. And his comedic younger twin was known for splitting stomachs, stitches, and tear ducts with his sharp tongue.

  "Homie bleeds just like us, and I'm sure he choke just like us on this shit too!!! That's what I'ma do: put this shit out on the streets and tell nigguhs I got that Uptown Girl . . . better yet, I got that BJ!"

  Mease was trying with all he had to stop laughing. As he finally caught his breath, he said to his brother, "You really think people gon' buy yo shit? They gon' think you got that blowjob, stupid mufucka!"

  Sy screwfaced his brother. Mease always shot down his get-rich-quick schemes. Mease always felt Sy should let him do the thinking . . . all little bro had to do was follow. But Sy wouldn't let Mease's reality-based pessimism take the glimmer out of his eye, which he felt was clearly on the prize.

  "Nah, dude, it's the BJ . . . it's that Bomb Joint from Billy Joel's connect. They gon' feel me on this one. Just taste that shit, it's crazy . . . I'ma have the hood fucked up like the guy on the couch in Half Baked, sun! Watch me . . . I may even sell this shit as doobies on some real old-school shit. They ain't gittin' no chronic like this in the whole tri-state fam."

  "Yeah," Mease jeered, "there's one thing you do got right about this shit . . ."

  Unable to moderate himself, Mease reached into the ashtray, lit the eL, and took another pull, inhaling then pressing chronic steam out his spout just before he choked. Pounding with a closed fist, hoping to thump the cough outta his chest cavity, he pulled in enough air to say, "This some good-ass shit! Nigguhs in the hood ain't smoking nuffin' like this. Shiiiiit, you could call it the flying chocolate-dookie-smellin' bombazy and mufuckas gon' buy it. And if they don't come back, they fools!"

  Mease put the eL back in the ashtray; he couldn't take anymore of the pure bubonic goodness. He looked at Sy and shook his head. For the first time, Mease really felt his brother was onto something. He reached over and gave Sy a pound. "I can't even front—this might just work."

  Sy's eyes immediately brightened. "I told you, sun, what I tell you?!" Sy couldn't contain his happiness. He'd reached his long-awaited goal—his older brother's approval on his street-corner operations. Normally, Sy stayed getting shut down by Mease. His schemes were always missing something. But this time, Sy got it right.

  Mease looked at him and said, "Tomorrow we'll get up, I'll use some of this paper Quent's gittin' right now, and we'll cop a couple pounds of that shit. I can't believe I'm financing the fuckin' Billy Joel."

  Sy started bouncing up and down in his seat.

  Mease immediately sobered up. "A'ight, sun, chill—yo, chill!!! I just got the leather detailed, yo, be easy on that shit!"

  As Sy calmed down, Mease began to settle back into his seat, remembering why they were parked there in the first place.

  "Where's Quentin?" he asked, as he glanced past the rearview mirror. "Damn, dude's coat is ill, that shit matches my car."

  Mease sank into his seat, not really paying attention to the motions of the coat . . . and the three other dudes with the wearer of the coat. As he closed his eyes and opened them again, he leaned over and his vision lazily landed on the driver's-side mirror. When he focused, he realized the wording was indeed true . . . Caution: Objects In Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear.

  Now Mease could not only see the blood-maroon leather bubble, he could also make out the mask and the all-too-familiar hand motions. Neither Sy nor Mease were unidentifiable, and this was part of the problem. And Sy didn't realize this. He'd meant to tell his brother about the robbery he did earlier in the day, on his way to cop the Billy Joel sample. Sy's blooper session was a joke, but every joke contains an ounce of truth. Normally they always filled each other in on the solo dirt they did. Yet Sy was so high, he'd forgotten about this particular ounce he owed Mease.

  But dude who walked past the car had confirmation that the dude sitting next to the dude was starring as the dude who had robbed him earlier in the day, who now played the role of the dude playin' Big Willie, suckin' down ganja smoke. He thought it was luck. Sy thought it was Billy Joel. Mease thought it could never happen, but now it was.

  "Oh shit, sun—move, git down!!!"

  Mease wasn't quick enough to put the car in reverse and navigate out the parking spot this time. Bullets riddled the car. Mease and Sy yelled to each other between the cannons blasting at them. Innocent bystanders ran for cover. Mease and Sy balled up in the foot panels as they heard shots whizzing around them.

  Pingpingpingpingpingping . . .

  Everything was slow motion like empty shells hitting the concrete in The Matrix. Mease couldn't see Sy, but heard him screaming. Sy couldn't see Mease, but even the voice of his older brother didn't slow the sparks where metal ripped through metal, where hollow points pointed at their target. Who was it? And how had this happened? Normally, a shootout this close to The Tunnel made squad car sirens light up and wail.

  Four and a half clips worth of slugs later, all that could be heard were screams, blaring car alarms, and the footsteps of people fleeing in every direction. As quick as it started, as long as it lasted, it came to a screeching halt.

  Mease slowly lifted his head, and banged it on the steering wheel. It all happened so fast, neither he nor Sy had a chance to reach into the glove box and handle their own business with the Desert Eagles. They weren't usually that slow.

  As Mease eased his way up the seat, he checked himself to make sure he wasn't hit.

  "Fuck was that shit? Yo, Sy . . . yo, sun . . ."

  Mease quickly got up to see his only brother slumped in his seat. Blood oozed from Sy's body, which was peppered with gunshots.

  "Yo, Sy . . . no . . . NOOOOOOOOO!"

  Mease slapped his brother's face, trying to wake him up.

  "C'mon, Sy, stay with me, stay with me, yo!!!"

  With what little life he had left in him, Sy coughed up blood, then slowly whispered to his brother, "My fault . . . I meant to tell you . . . on the way to git the Billy Joel, I robbed thi—"

  "Yo, Sy . . . Sy!"

  Mease cupped his brother's face as Sy's life slid through his fingers. Mease had always been his brother's keeper. What would he keep now? He kissed his brother's forehead.

  Mease stepped out of the truck and gave himself a thorough looking over. Not a drop of blood, no trace of gunshot residue. The cold didn't even bother him. He was in a daze, high off his brother's death, and sober to the Billy Joel. Now he looked at the bullet holes that splatt
ered the back door of the truck. Still dazed from what happened, Mease saw the blue and white lights approaching as he walked over to the other side of the truck.

  The blood-maroon Land Cruiser was bullet-riddled on the passenger side too, just like Sy. But Mease was not even scratched.

  "How the fuck?"

  Mease was in awe. And for a split second, what locked his brain wasn't the fact that his brother was slain, but that he was still standing there in one piece.

  "MEEEEEEEEEEASE!"

  Quentin, with gat in hand, screamed at his man from the opposite corner. He tucked the weapon between his jeans and hipbone, and ran over. "What the fuck is this, sun?"

  Mease stood in utter shock. "Yo . . . I really don't know—"

  "C'mon, sun, we gotta motivate! Them boys is on the way!" Quentin could see Mease wasn't moving, and the people who had fled the street were starting to return. He leaned through the shot-out window to grab Mease's coat, then went to the side of the truck to pull Mease away from the scene of the crime.

  "My broth—"

  "We gotta fly, Mease. If they catch us here, we finished! We gon' find out who did this, but right now, we gotta motivate!" Quent pulled a shell-shocked Mease away from the horrific sight while trying to force him into his coat.

  In a moment of clarity, Mease broke away, leaned back into the truck, reached into the ashtray, and took the only memento left from his brother. They quickly skated around the block, into the entirely too long Tunnel line, then blended into the night on their way to the subway.