The Hook

by Tim O'Mara

Boo came back in about five minutes. ‘Made two calls, Teacherman. One to Tio.’ He looked around. ‘Just ’cause I can run this place, don’t mean I do. Had to ask for some time off. When I told him it was for you, he said take it and he’d settle up with you later.’

  ‘And the other call?’

  ‘Me and you gonna have some dinner and then we taking a field trip.’

  I called Allison and left a message that our quiet evening at home was going to have to be rescheduled.

  Boo and I were on the L train heading to Bushwick Avenue. After our meeting at Tio’s pizza place, he had barely spoken a word to me except to remind me which stop we were getting off at and to keep my mouth shut as much as possible when we got there. At the moment, he had his eyes glued to his phone, probably playing one of the myriad of games available to young men of his age. I took a look at his screen and smiled. I could not have been more wrong.

  ‘Somethin’ funny, Teacherman?’ he asked, without taking his eyes off his phone.

  ‘Nah, Boo,’ I said. ‘Not funny. Just surprising.’

  ‘What so surprising? That I’m readin’?’

  ‘Sorry. It’s just that most times I see teenagers on the train—’

  ‘I ain’t most teenagers,’ he cut me off. ‘Didn’t you just see me at the store? Ya think I’m one a them knuckleheads can’t go an hour or so without answering the call of duty or some shit?’

  I had insulted him. ‘I’m sorry.’ In all the years I had known him – even when he was a ‘kid’ – I had never once thought of Boo as less than highly intelligent. And, yes, he had just proven that back at the pizza place.

  ‘That’s like me lookin’ at you and thinking “Oh, there goes another white man home to his wife and two-point-three kids out in the ’burbs.”’ Now his eyes were on me. ‘Guess I’d be wrong about that, right?’

  ‘Pretty much.’ I was afraid I’d crossed a line and he was going to stop talking altogether. Again, I was wrong.

  ‘Besides,’ he said, tapping his phone with his index finger. ‘This here’s Langston Hughes. You ever hear of him?’

  ‘I teach middle school, Boo. Of course I’ve heard of him. I’ve taught his poems.’

  ‘Thought you guys only taught stuff written by white men that been dead for a hundred years. Or am I wrong ’bout that?’

  ‘With me you would be,’ I said. ‘I’ve taught Langston Hughes, Toni Morrison, James Baldwin. I even throw in some Tupac and Missy Elliot from time to time.’

  He nodded. ‘You ain’t one a them white teachers think they cool teaching black artists, though. I can tell.’

  ‘How can you tell that?’

  ‘Way you talk to Tio,’ he said. ‘Way you talk to me.’

  ‘How’s that?’

  He was looking for the right words. ‘With respect,’ he came up with. ‘Like I may not know what you know, but I’m smart in my own ways. I know things you don’t. Shit, that’s why we on this little trip right now. You got something to learn and you came to Tio – and now me – to get schooled.’

  He was right. I had the urge to stick out my hand for a fist bump, but controlled myself. That would be a white guy thing. Instead, I said, ‘So what are you going to do when you’re done working with Tio?’

  ‘Whatta ya mean by that?’

  ‘You’re what now? Nineteen? Tio told me you have your GED and here you are riding the L train reading poetry. Then there’s all that stuff back at the pizza place. The numbers, the menus. There must be something more you wanna do.’

  He looked down into his lap and shook his head. ‘This ain’t one a them “Where do you see yourself in five years?” questions, is it? That’s one a the reasons I did the GED and not the regular sit-through-high-school-classes diploma thing. Too many questions like that.’

  I almost apologized again but decided against it. I had asked a question I wanted an answer to. I asked the same thing to all my graduating eighth-graders.

  ‘You gonna stay at the pizza place the rest of your life, Boo?’ I asked. ‘There’s nothing wrong with that, I’m just asking.’

  He looked down at his phone again. ‘What? You worried about me having a dream deferred, Teacherman? It ain’t like that.’

  Quoting Mr Hughes to make his point. Nice. ‘What is it like?’

  He shrugged. ‘I’m good where I’m at right now. Still learning from Tio.’ He looked me dead in the eyes. ‘I’m good.’

  The way he said those last two words made it clear the conversation was over. And for the third time in less than five minutes I was proven wrong when he mumbled something I couldn’t quite make out.

  ‘What’s that?’ I asked.

  ‘Said I’m also taking a cooking class. Over at the Culinary.’

  ‘Shit, Boo. That’s great. After that you can—’

  ‘Shhh,’ he said, his index finger touching his lips. ‘This our stop.’

  We walked in silence the two blocks to the bodega where we were supposed to meet with Tio’s … I don’t know … colleague? As we crossed the street, I saw a huge black guy – twenty maybe? – sucking on one of those vapor things that are all the rage these days. He and Boo exchanged a complicated handshake and, glancing at me, the guy said, ‘You sure he’s OK, Boo? He looks like a cop.’

  ‘Used to be, Missouri. Now he’s a teacher.’

  The guy was wearing a St Louis Cardinals baseball cap and a Kansas City Royals sweatshirt. His black sweatpants had the word Mizzou running down each leg.

  ‘I can see where your allegiances lie,’ I said. ‘That why they call you Missouri?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘They call me Missouri ’cause I love company.’ He smiled at his own joke and put his fist to his chest. ‘I’m from Ferguson, man. Left just before that cop killed Michael Brown.’ He waited for a response. I gave him none. ‘So, yeah,’ he continued, ‘I’m from the Show-Me State. You got something you wanna show me?’

  I reached into my pocket, pulled out my cell phone and handed it to him. Boo told me to expect that. I raised my arms just in case he wanted to search me.

  ‘Nah, you a’ight, man. Tio and Boo say I can trust you, I trust you. Just these other guys we gonna go see, they don’t want no strangers – ’specially Caucasian strangers, no offense – with cell phones comin’ a their game, you feel me?’

  I nodded. ‘I feel you.’

  He and Boo smiled at that. A white guy saying he feels you must sound pretty funny. It did to me.

  ‘Let’s go then.’

  We were outside the building in less than five minutes; it was a four-story brownstone that had seen its best days about three weeks after it was built. If what I guessed was true, each floor had three apartments and – even given the condition of the building – each went for a few thousand a month, given how close they were to the subway. We went around the back through a small alleyway that smelled like garbage, piss, and something with a lot of fur had died recently. When we got to the back entrance – which looked like the doors to a storm cellar – Missouri knocked twice, then three times, then twice again.

  ‘What’s the deal here again?’ I asked.

  Missouri blew out some vape smoke. ‘My cousin’s the super a the building. He’s got a basement apartment. Not much, just a room, a hot plate, and a bathroom with a shower stall. The other part of the basement’s a … recreation area, ya might call it.’ He took another puff. As he let that one out, he said, ‘That’s your last question for awhile, Teach. Like the man said, you need to be seen more than heard.’

  I nodded my understanding and the cellar door opened a few inches. A voice said, ‘Missouri Man,’ and then the door opened wider. When the owner of the voice looked up and saw Boo, he nodded. When he saw me, he said, ‘You bring Eminem whichoo?’

  We all laughed at that; I was the only one who sounded less than amused.

  ‘Nah,’ Boo said. ‘This Tio’s man, Raymond. S’all good. He here to learn.’

  I got a good look at the voice as he stepped up to join us: he
was black, about six feet tall, all dressed in red sweats with white high tops and a backwards blue baseball cap. He took the time to look at me, too.

  ‘Any friend of Tio’s,’ he said, and opened the door to let us inside.

  I followed Missouri and Boo down a barely lit set of steps. The Voice stayed at the door. ‘Watch y’all’s steps now,’ he said. ‘I’m the only nine-one-one ’round here and I’m just as fast as the real one.’ He chuckled at his own joke as we descended. The metal door shut behind us.

  According to what Missouri had just described, I assumed we were stepping right from the stairs into the ‘recreation area.’ Some work lights hung from the six-foot ceiling above a piece of plywood on the floor that was at least eight feet by eight feet. Most of the players in the room – seven, eight? – were slouching, careful of the low ceiling. The air in the basement was a mixture of must, something lemony, sweat, and testosterone. I was again reminded of the boys’ locker room at school. The area contained two unoccupied chairs – metal and folding – and a teenager stood off to the side manning a cooler and a stand of bagged snacks.

  All eyes – eight pairs from what I could now make out – turned to see who the newcomers were. When that was established all sixteen eyes settled on me. If I had a dollar for every time I was the only white guy in a room, I’d probably have enough to get in a few rolls of this dice game.

  ‘He cool,’ Missouri announced. ‘Friend of Tio’s.’ He raised his hands like he was preaching. ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell.’

  With that, everyone went back to the game, which, as we got closer, I could see involved three dice: a pair of reds and one blue. If the colors meant anything, I didn’t know what, and I knew enough not to ask. I watched as the roller, clad in a Yankees jersey and blue jeans, shook his hand up by his ear, whispered something to the dice, and rolled. Nobody reacted so I figured the roll didn’t mean much.

  ‘That’s Clack Clack,’ Boo whispered to me. ‘He always come with a lot of cheese.’ He rubbed his index finger and thumb together in case I didn’t get the lingo. ‘Don’t always leave with all that much, though.’

  I nodded as Clack Clack picked up the dice again, went through the same motions as before, and rolled. This time the other men murmured amongst themselves. This roll had some meaning behind it.

  ‘That’s a point,’ Boo whispered. ‘He got a pair a twos and a four. Four’s the number to beat now.’ The next guy picked up the dice and rolled them between his hands like he was warming them up. He was wearing a white collared shirt and dark pants, like he’d just gotten off work. His shiny new shoes were as out of place in that basement as I was. ‘That’s Trips,’ Boo said. ‘Wall Street boy. He roll more triples than anyone I ever seen. Triples hard to beat. Three sixes you automatically win.’

  I did the math – one sixth times one sixth times one sixth – and whispered, ‘One out of two hundred and sixteen chance of rolling a triple six. That’s less than half a percent.’

  ‘See,’ said Boo. ‘There’s somethin’ I didn’t know.’ He paused and added, ‘Not sure I need to.’

  I watched as Trips, as if on cue, rolled and all the guys let out a slur of words, the slurriest coming from Clack Clack, who apparently had just been beaten by a triple.

  ‘Damn, Trips,’ he said. ‘How you do me like that?’

  ‘Good Lord loves me, Clack,’ Trips said. ‘Loves me like a rock.’ Trips picked up the money off the plywood and handed the dice to the guy next to him. Boo touched me on the arm.

  ‘That’s the guy you wanna talk to, Teacherman,’ Boo whispered. ‘Hex.’

  ‘Hex? Does he do a little voodoo on the dice or something?’

  ‘You can ask him after he lose,’ Boo said. ‘Shouldn’t be too long a wait.’ He looked over at the kid with the cooler. ‘Why’nt you get Missouri and me a water while we’re waiting.’

  ‘Sure.’ I ducked under a work light and walked over to the kid at the cooler. ‘Three waters, please.’

  The kid reached through the ice – I noticed a few beers in there – and pulled out the waters. I hated that crinkling sound the plastic bottles made as he handed them to me. ‘Fi’teen dollars,’ he said.

  ‘Fifteen dollars?’ I said. ‘Five bucks a water?’

  ‘White man can divide,’ he said. ‘Ballpark prices, m’man.’

  The last time I had paid ballpark prices for a drink, I was pretty sure was at a ballpark. ‘Anybody ever walk out and get their own water at the corner?’

  ‘Not sure,’ the kid said. ‘If they did, they ain’t come back in.’

  I reached into my pocket and pulled out a twenty. The kid gave me back five ones. I turned to go back to the game and he said, ‘What, no tip?’

  I looked over my shoulder. ‘Don’t ride between subway cars.’

  As I walked back over to Boo and Missouri, the guy they called Hex had just finished rolling the dice. ‘Got damn,’ he yelled with his mouth inches from the ceiling. ‘Tell me, God,’ he screamed. ‘Why you love Trips so much and hate me? Why?’

  Trips and the others all laughed. Within a few seconds, Hex joined in with them. He bent over, picked up the dice and handed them to the next guy. ‘Be careful now, Polo. Somethin’ wrong with them bones, boy.’

  I handed Boo the water and he said, ‘Hex just rolled a 1, 2, 3. Automatic loser.’

  I considered telling him the odds of that and decided not to.

  When I gave Missouri his water, he thanked me. ‘Now Hex gonna go outside. Either he gonna blow off steam and hit the pipe, go home and lick his wounds, or tap the money machine at the bodega on the corner. Depends on the kinda week he had.’

  I figured that to mean how much Hex had made slinging heroin along this part of the L Train route. I didn’t like that the info I was looking for was going to be given to me by a drug dealer, but when you’re looking for the person who sold heroin laced with fentanyl, you’re not going to find the answers at the library.

  Hex made his way over to the three of us, and bumped fists with Boo and Missouri. Then he looked at me. ‘You get off at the wrong stop, Magnum?’

  ‘This here’s Raymond,’ Boo said. ‘Tio’d like it if you spoke to him.’

  ‘Tio’d like if I spoke to him,’ Hex repeated. ‘Since when I do what Tio like?’

  That question was met with silence, as if Boo knew the answer would come to Hex if he just took the time to think on it. I’ve done the same in my class. If you wait long enough, most kids can answer their own questions. While Hex was considering the plusses and minuses of the situation, he looked at my unopened water bottle. ‘You gonna drink that?’

  I handed him the bottle and kept my mouth shut. Hex unscrewed the top of the bottle and chugged down the water like a college freshman on a beer-drinking dare. When he finished it, he screwed the lid back on, handed me the bottle, and said, ‘Make sure you get your nickel back on that now. That way it only four-ninety-five a bottle.’

  Again, we all laughed. Hex continued. ‘Let’s go outside for some air.’ We all followed Hex as he made his way up the stairs and 911 let us out. I tossed my empty to the guy selling water. There’s your tip, son. After being in the basement for almost half an hour, the outside air came as … well, a breath of fresh air.

  Without even thinking, the four of us ended up in a square in the alley between buildings. The air stopped feeling fresh again.

  ‘Whatchoo wanna talk about, Magnum?’ Hex asked me.

  I looked at Boo, then Missouri. They both nodded. I wasn’t used to keeping my mouth shut and even less accustomed to having to ask for permission to speak.

  ‘A friend of mine was killed the other day,’ I said. ‘You might’ve heard about it. Shot by an arrow on top of my school’s building.’

  ‘Read about that in the news. Some real cowboy-and-Indian shit. What’s that got to do with me?’

  ‘Turns out he had heroin laced with fentanyl in his system. If he hadn’t been shot by the arrow, he probably would’ve OD’d up there.’
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  ‘Again,’ Hex said. ‘I don’t feel what that’s got to do with me.’

  I swallowed before saying, ‘He used to buy off you. You used to sell him—’

  ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa, Mister PI. I ain’t know this guy up on your roof and if I did I sure didn’t sell him whatever you think I sold him.’ Hex turned to Boo. ‘This what Tio sent this guy here for? To jack me up? Catch me saying I sold someone some Murder Eight?’ He took a step toward me. I held my ground.

  ‘Chill, Hex,’ Boo said. ‘Ain’t nobody jacking you up. All he wants to know is—’

  ‘If you didn’t sell the fentanyl to him, I need to know who did,’ I interrupted. ‘Victim’s name was Maurice Joseph. You might have known him as MoJo.’

  That took about five seconds to sink in and when it did, Hex said, ‘Ah, shit, man. That was MoJo? I didn’t know it was him. They didn’t say that name in the newspaper. Damn, man. That’s some weird fuckin’ shit right there.’

  I guessed in Hex’s world, murder by arrow on a school rooftop only becomes ‘weird fuckin’ shit’ when you knew the victim. We were silent for a while as Hex pondered the sky. He let out a long breath. ‘I ain’t … conducted business with MoJo for a few years now. He told me he was done with that shit. I heard he got – had – a kid comin’ and his lady was giving him all kinds of shit about shapin’ up and whatnot. This ain’t on me, Magnum, and you can tell all your cop friends that.’

  ‘I’m not a cop, Hex. And I’m not a private investigator. I’m a school teacher who was friends with MoJo, and I promised his wife I’d check some shit out.’ I let him think on that before asking, ‘If someone was conducting business with MoJo, you have any idea who it might be? Packages his shit with dice, specifically double-eights.’

  ‘What? You think ’cause I’ma businessman, I know all the other businessmen in the same business?’ He challenged me with his eyes, but I knew he knew what – or who – I was talking about. ‘You know all the teachers in the teaching system, Magnum?’

  ‘I think,’ I said, holding his gaze, ‘that a smart businessman such as you would know his competition. Especially along the L train. Tio thought you’d know, too. He said if anyone would, it’d be you.’