by Richard Dry
They lumbered back up onto the sidewalk, and it was clearly time for another rest. They were still just a few windows away from Curse’s place, so Love kept pulling them forward, their arms hyperextended, the trunk straps at the ends of their fingertips. Then Li’l Pit let it drop.
“Let’s go,” Love whispered.
“Naw. I got to rest.” He walked away from the trunk, across the cement yard toward Curse’s window.
“Where you going?” Love whispered.
Li’l Pit didn’t turn around. Love didn’t want to shout, so he ran after him and grabbed him by the arm of his sweater.
“What you doing? Curse’ll kill you if you wake him up.”
“I’m just gonna look in.”
“We don’t have time.”
“I’m just gonna look. We got to rest, anyhow.”
“No. We got to go now.”
“Not yet. I’m still tired.”
“We don’t have time.”
“Let go a my arm!” Li’l Pit yelled.
Love let go quickly to prevent more yelling. Li’l Pit turned and walked toward the window. Love watched, frozen, staring hard, like he hoped he could draw his brother back magnetically. He could tackle him but he’d just scream. Li’l Pit walked up to the bars on the window and looked in. Love ran up beside him, but against the wall so that he wasn’t visible through the window. He whispered: “It’s against the rules to be here.”
But Li’l Pit was too fascinated to care. He could see only one room. There was a mat on the floor next to a phone, a table with a lamp and a glass of unfinished juice sitting on it next to the mail. There was a poster of Snoop and Dr. Dre on the wall above a metal cage with Curse’s snake in it.
Curse wheeled himself into the room, naked from the waist up, lifted the glass of juice, and sipped from it. Love walked away from the building, hoping to draw Li’l Pit back with him. But Li’l Pit stayed to watch. Curse then picked up an envelope but accidentally knocked the glass onto the floor. It didn’t break, but spilled the juice and then rolled under the table.
“Fuckin shit. Fuckin goddamn it,” Curse yelled. He took a few napkins, backed up, and dropped them onto the puddle. The glass had rolled to the wall and he had to back up more to see it. He unstrapped his legs and then lifted his body with his arms and nudged himself to the edge of his chair. Slowly, he dropped himself down so that he sat on the floor, his legs folded awkwardly underneath him, like a baby just learning to sit upright. He pulled himself forward and onto his belly, then stretched his arms out in front of him and pulled himself flat along the floor, his deadened legs trailing behind him. When he reached the glass, he held it in one hand and stopped to rest under the table, his chest heaving with exhaustion.
Li’l Pit knocked on the window.
Love ran back to grab him but saw that it was too late. Curse stared up at them.
“Hey, what up, niggas!” Curse yelled, muffled through the window. “What you doin lookin in my house, faggots?”
Love smiled and waved. “We’re on our way now,” he yelled back.
“Stay right there. I’m comin out.”
“Come on,” Love said and walked toward the trunk.
“Naw,” Li’l Pit said. “We supposed to wait.”
“But we got to leave!” Love pleaded.
Li’l Pit crossed his arms and faced the building.
“Aw, man. You don’t understand. This is s-t-u-p-i-d, stupid.”
“You stupid.”
Curse came out, his hands in the front tube pocket of his sweatshirt.
“What the fuck you doin peepin in my house?”
Neither of them answered.
“Well, where you been, niggas?”
“Here,” Love said.
“Here? You ain’t been here. Let me see your beepers. I been callin you all day yesterday. We have business. We coulda lost money on account a you and your grandmother. You better tell that old bitch what’s up.”
“We don’t got ’em,” Love said.
“What you mean, you don’t got ’em?”
“You said they was tapped,” Li’l Pit chimed in.
“Can’t tap no beeper, fool.”
“That’s what he said.” Li’l Pit pointed at Love. Love turned and spit on the ground.
“We’re on our way now,” he said.
“What you mean?”
“I thought we had to stay off callin you cause of Poh-Poh,” Love said. Curse looked down the block cautiously and then back at him.
“What you mean, you’re on your way now? Where you on your way to?”
“We’re on our way to take care of that business. I just came by to let you know we’re taking care of it so you don’t think we’re trippin or nothin.”
“I’m the one who came by,” Li’l Pit said angrily. “I’m the one who stopped.”
“Why you didn’t call me back, Li’l Poet?” Curse asked.
“’Cause he told me not to.”
“Why you tell him that, nigga?”
“You know, man.” Love looked away and spit again. “Cause of Poh-Poh. You told me on the phone you was hiding out. Then our grandmother took us to dinner and we couldn’t say no or it would have looked whack.”
“You got to tell that old bitch what’s up.”
“I’ll tell her,” Li’l Pit said.
“Awright, Li’l Poet, you a true player.” Curse backhanded Li’l Pit in the chest affectionately. Li’l Pit smiled and nodded.
“We got the trunk, too,” Li’l Pit added. He pointed to the green trunk sitting on the pavement twenty feet away from them. Love shook his head. He thought about running again. It didn’t matter where, just keep going, maybe back to the house with the lemons and tomatoes, or even farther back, to Los Aspirantes.
“What you got a goddamn trunk for?” Curse asked.
“To carry it in,” Love said.
“What you need a trunk for? You ain’t pickin up no dead bodies.” Curse headed over to the trunk. Love didn’t move. If he stayed far enough away, he could still run if he had to. He had the bag of money on him. If nothing else, he could save his own ass and get away. He watched Li’l Pit follow Curse over to the trunk.
“Wait,” Love yelled. Curse fumbled with the lock on the trunk, and Li’l Pit looked just as eager to see what was in it.
“Listen,” Love said. “You and Freight got busted, and we ain’t takin any chances. You can go ahead an open it if you want, but you ain’t gonna find nothin in there but clothes. Fine. Here, look.” Love walked over indignantly, almost hyperventilating. He unlocked the trunk with the key and flung the lid open. Li’l Pit’s Dallas Cowboys jacket and two sweatshirts covered the contents below, and on top of that, two baggies of meat-loaf sandwiches Ruby had made them. “Look, dog. What’d I tell you. See. Look. We hide the shit in here, cover it up with all the clothes, and then, even if we get stopped and Poh-Poh opens it up, we awright. Right? But no.” He slammed the case shut before Curse could dig below the clothes and find the gun. Love walked away from the trunk to get the attention off of it. “You gonna keep us here all day and let everyone know what’s up. Damn, dog. Can’t you just let us do our job? I mean, let Li’l Pit do his job. You give him a job, now let him do it. Awright? Damn, nigga.”
Love had worked himself into a state of irreproachable anger. “We’re gonna do what we say, if you just let us do our business. Damn, we don’t tell you how to do what you doin, dog.”
“Don’t call me dog,” Curse said.
“Whatever. Cat then. Mouse. Snake. You gonna worry bout the animal kingdom when we got business to do?”
Li’l Pit giggled and Curse glared at him. “You think that’s funny? You fucking li’l punk, I’ll stuff you inside this trunk and throw you in the ocean.” He wheeled over to Li’l Pit, grabbed him by the collar of his red sweater, and threw him down onto the pavement.
“I oughta bust a cap in your ass right here.” He wheeled back toward Love but then stopped between him and the trun
k. “Now, get your fuckin beepers back, and don’t be lookin into my house no more like two perverts.” He pulled the hood of his sweatshirt up over his head and wheeled himself back into the building.
Love walked over to the trunk and picked up one of the handles. Li’l Pit brushed himself off and took the other strap, and they started off down the block again. It was brighter now, and cars were on the street. Love looked up past the shoes hanging on the telephone wires to the cloudless light blue sky. He took a deep breath of the yeasty smell coming from the bread factory. He didn’t understand why things had worked out—or why things went wrong when they went wrong. His legs began to shake, and at first he thought it was from the weight of the trunk, but then the shaking spread through his shoulders and chest, and by the time he reached the edge of the bus-terminal parking lot, he was doing everything within his power to keep from crying in front of Li’l Pit.
* * *
NEITHER BOY HAD ever been outside the Bay Area. The bus hadn’t even gotten on I-5 before the city gave way to dry yellow hills and giant power-line towers. They passed Santa Rita Road, in Pleasanton, and the tripod windmills, mounted like alien spaceships on top of the mountains.
When Ruby sent them on their way, she knew from experience that there are at least two ways people leave what they know: one person feels the chains loosen and sees the possibilities of a whole new life and even a whole new personality for themselves in that life; while another person seeks out the familiar everywhere they go, and if the familiar doesn’t present itself, this person re-creates it, like a caged lion that still stalks its prey.
Love knew this too. Love had lived a different life at Los Aspirantes, but he’d always been returned to the streets of Oakland and had no reason to doubt that he’d return again after he delivered Li’l Pit to South Carolina. But he could imagine another life for his younger brother, like those of other kids at the home who’d left with foster parents and called back to tell about the house and cars and new life they had, though he knew sometimes it was a bluff. It was the kids who didn’t ever call back who must have really made it.
For hours, Love sat in a window seat of the bus with Li’l Pit next to him. As the sun rose across the midmorning sky, it filtered down through the tinted windows and heated Love’s forehead while the recycled air cooled his chin from the vent below. There were fields on both sides of the road, the east side plowed and green with dark, rich soil in perfect parallel rows, and on the west side, rough, wild yellow.
“Can you imagine, people actually live out here,” Love said.
“You ever been to L.A.?” Li’l Pit had seen that the sign on the bus said Los Angeles.
“Naw.”
“They got a lot of drive-bys down there,” Li’l Pit said.
“Locos sureños.”
“Uzis.”
“You don’t want to be mixed up in there.”
Across the aisle from them sat an older, balding man with a frown. Li’l Pit nudged Love with his elbow and imitated the old man by drooling out of the corner of his mouth. The man glared at them.
“Yo, potato head,” Li’l Pit said. “What you lookin at?”
“What are you dissin him for?” Love whispered sternly at his brother. “You want to go and mess this all up right from the start? You better take some chilly powder till we get where we going.”
“Shut up. You ain’t my mama.”
“You ain’t my son neither, so just remember that.”
“That’s right.”
“That’s right, that’s right.”
The reek of manure filled the bus as they passed hundreds of cows corralled together by the side of the road.
“Oh, man, what’s that smelly fart?” Li’l Pit covered his nose with both hands. A high dust cloud formed above the animals as they battled one another for the troughs.
“What would you do if you was one of them cows?” Love asked.
“I’d kill myself for bein so ugly and smelly.”
Love shook his head. “Naw. I’d bust on outta there. I’d get all my homies and we’d knock them small wooden posts down and run on out into that open field with all that grass out there.”
“Yeah, and then they’d come out after you and plah-plah-plah.” Li’l Pit imitated the sound of a MAC-10. “They turn your ass into beef jerky.”
The man across the aisle turned again at Li’l Pit’s swearing. He seemed to hold himself back for a moment, then reconsidered.
“Where are you kids headed?” he asked.
Li’l Pit was about to make a biting remark but then turned to Love, just as interested to hear the answer. Love slid his tongue over the front of his teeth and cleaned the back corners of his mouth. He looked the man up and down suspiciously.
“We’re going to visit relatives in South Carolina,” Love said. At first Li’l Pit squished up his eyebrows and shook his head, but then, as if he’d gotten some wise joke, he smiled and nodded.
“That’s right.” He turned back to the man. “We going to South Carolina, to see our family and go to church with them, and hold hands.”
“You’re Christians, then.”
“That’s right. We Christians for Jesus.”
“Well, now, didn’t your mother tell you that it’s a sin to swear and make a lot of noise?”
“Don’t you talk about my mama,” Li’l Pit yelled. “My mama don’t care what we do. She’s a millionaire and she’s gonna buy this whole bus company and tell them to throw you on out of this bus and you’ll have to sit out there with them stinky cows.”
The old man straightened his neck and lowered his chin. “Don’t you raise your voice at me. I’ll ask the bus driver to let you off at the next stop if you can’t behave yourself. Your mother may not care, but I certainly do.”
Li’l Pit stood up and burst toward the man, but Love caught him by the sweater and pulled him back down into the seat.
“My brother’s just clowning. Tell the man you’re sorry. Tell the man you’re sorry, dog. He’s sorry.”
“I ain’t sorry. He the sorry fool. He a sorry-ass old potato head.” The woman seated in front of the old man turned around. She wore a scarf tied around her head and a pair of octagonal, oversize glasses.
“What you lookin at, telescope creature?” Li’l Pit yelled, and the woman turned back around.
“How old are you?” the bald man asked Li’l Pit.
“That ain’t none a your business.”
“How’d you get to be so angry? Only a boy, and you’re out here making enemies with everyone you see. Wouldn’t you rather make friends than enemies?”
“Why you all up in the mix and didn’t bring no nuts?” Li’l Pit laughed.
“I’m trying to be your friend. Don’t you want friends?”
“Why I want a old dinosaur friend like you?”
“You like ice cream?” the man asked. Li’l Pit didn’t answer. “How do you know I’m not the head of an ice-cream manufacturer? Maybe I could get you all the ice cream you want.”
“You’re not the head of any ice-cream m-a-n-u-f-a-c-t-u-r-e-r,” Love said quietly, looking at his hands.
“Very good. I see you’re a bright young man. So tell me, why do you think I’m not?”
Love looked right at him. “Because you wouldn’t be riding this stupid bus if you was the boss of a store; you’d have your own Ferrari driving past us at a million miles an hour.”
“Maybe I’m riding the bus so that I can meet little boys and give away ice cream. Did you ever see Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory?” Love was silent for a second. They’d shown that movie ten times at Los Aspirantes, and he’d even dreamed about floating in a river of chocolate. He looked at the old man’s face to see if he could be telling the truth. The man smiled and Love smiled back.
“You can get us all the ice cream we want?” Li’l Pit’s eyes widened, and he looked half the size he’d been when he was yelling. Love hit his little brother with his elbow.
“See, fool, I tol
d you you shouldn’t a been playin like that. Now he’s not going to give us anything. Say you’re sorry,” Love yelled at his brother.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
“See,” said the old man. “Now, how do you know that woman in front of me isn’t my wife?”
“Oh no. My bad. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, lady. I’m sorry. Please.” The lady didn’t look back. “Can you get those kind with the nuts and chocolate on top?”
“Drumsticks? What if I can? Are you going to be nice to me?”
Li’l Pit nodded his head vigorously, and the man smiled at the boy’s jutting ears. Love looked at his brother, so eager and polite. At that moment, he knew they could make it.
“So…” The man leaned into the aisle. “You’re telling me that if you can get something from me, you’re going to treat me very nicely, but if you can’t, you’re going to threaten me and talk filthy. You think I should really believe you’re my friend? Or should I just think you’re trying to use me?”
Li’l Pit blinked at the man in confusion. “Are you going to give us some ice cream or not?”
“I’m trying to explain that you don’t know who I am, and you should start off by trying to make friends. You catch more flies with honey than you do with glue.”
“Yuk! What nasty kinda ice cream you make, anyhow?” Li’l Pit grimaced.
Both Love and the old man laughed, and Li’l Pit laughed with them.
They rode in silence as they passed a small town with gas stations and motels. Within a few seconds, the town was gone and there was nothing but dry grass and fields again.
“You been to L.A. before?” Love asked the man.
“I live there. I was just in San Francisco visiting my brother.”
Love nodded and looked out the window. A few seconds later he turned to the man again. “Where does your brother live?”
“Well, I’m not very familiar with the area.”
“Did he live by the park?”
“Yes. Not too far from the park.”
“Then that’s the Richmond. Or the Sunset.”
“I see. Thank you.”
“No problem.” Love looked out the window again. He could feel the man watching him.
