Cracker Bling

by Stephen Solomita

  ‘What about his voice? You were listenin’, right?’

  Hootie shrugs. ‘What could I say? The dude made all the right noises, especially when he was bein’ sympathetic. Like he knew what he wanted and how to get it. Like he’s done this before. But the alarm bells didn’t ring. I’m talkin’ about the ones your buddy set off a few minutes ago.’

  ‘Fernando? He’s a pussycat.’ Bubba grins, then quickly become serious. ‘What about suspicion? Did he sound suspicious?’

  ‘Suspicious? Not that I remember.’

  ‘See, that’s what bothers me. Sherman Cole, if he gets busted, his life is over. The job, the house, the wife, the kids … I’m talkin’ about everything. So why isn’t he worried about a sting? Especially if he’s done this before and he knows the risks?’

  The answer, to Hootie, is simple enough. ‘Because Amelia looks like a kid, Bubba. In case you forgot. The cops wouldn’t use a kid.’

  ‘Yeah, you’re right. They wouldn’t. Plus, there’s tons of evidence on Amelia’s computer that can be traced back to him, not to mention the phone calls. There’s nothing the asshole can do and I gotta stop worryin’, right? But I still wish I could’ve seen him.’

  Later, in the early hours of the morning, Hootie slowly awakens from a dream. A dream about dreams. He’s in the massive dining room at Otis Bantum, he and his mentor, Eli Scannon, and a battle is under way. Two Latino gangs, one Dominican, the other Puerto Rican, are settling a score. Shanks flash, clubs fly, chairs smash unprotected skulls. The air is filled with tear gas and pepper spray and the curses of guards and inmates. Hootie and Eli wander through this mêlée, calm and indifferent. They breathe in the gas and the spray with no apparent discomfort.

  ‘The white man’s dream,’ Eli tells Hootie, ‘is the black man’s opiate. Like religion is the opiate of the people. The black man doesn’t even know these dreams are dreams. He thinks they’re real, and that if he could only wake up one morning with white skin, they’d be his. I knew a woman once, liked to lie on her back and look up at the sky. Claimed she could read the future in the clouds.’

  There’s blood now, blood everywhere, and the cries of the wounded surround them. But Eli is oblivious. He laughs softly and says, ‘There was time when I believed her. Swear to God, I was crazy in love with that gal.’

  ‘What was her name?’

  ‘Amelia.’ Scannon lays a hand on Hootie’s shoulder, bringing him to a stop. ‘Amelia lived way up in the clouds, as far from the Earth as she could get. And what I’m sayin’ is that I don’t hold it against her. A girl comes up as hard as Amelia, she’s got to dream. If it wasn’t for them clouds, she wouldn’t have nothin’ at all.’

  As Hootie’s eyes finally open, Scannon’s voice instantly disappears, replaced by Bubba’s: ‘All great fortunes,’ he explains, ‘begin with a crime.’

  And Judson Two-Bears Hootier will no longer be a frightened nineteen-year-old, lost somewhere between boy and man, no longer be futureless, no longer be hopeless.

  Hootie gets out of bed and walks to the window. He parts the curtain and looks across a chain-link fence at the back of a six-story tenement. It’s four o’clock in the morning and only a single window is lit, a kitchen window. Hootie can see a woman through the window, sitting at a table. The woman is white and elderly and she leans forward, running her finger across the page of a book. Wispy tendrils of gray hair dangle in front of her face and a liquor bottle off to her left glistens.

  Hootie’s brain opens up a bit as he turns away. The conversation with Eli Scannon, real as it seemed, never happened. Not so for the riot, a battle between the Latin Kings and Los Trinitarinos. Hootie hadn’t known what they were fighting about, only that it wasn’t any of his business. Like most of the other prisoners in the dining room, he’d instinctively moved to the furthest wall as a Quick Reaction Squad pounded the rioters with steel batons. Unfortunately, that wasn’t far enough to escape the gas and the pepper spray. By the time Hootie was escorted back to his housing area, he was coughing blood.

  Hootie returns to the bed. He lies down on his back and lets his head fall to the pillow. The black man’s dreams and the white man’s schemes. Salt and pepper. Or pepper and salt. Many of Hootie’s doubts were erased when the mark made his appearance. The man was a baby raper, no doubt about it, so hot he was on fire. That means the deal’s going down. Twenty-four hours from now, they’ll be in Amelia’s room, burning a $30,000 DVD. And worth every nickel, surely, to Mr. Sherman Cole of Bayside Gables?

  $30,000 equals $300,000 equals $3,000,000? Dream, Hootie, dream.

  Hootie fishes out his new ID and examines the name and the photo. Then he looks at himself in the mirror on the bureau, moving closer until the image in the glass is confined to his head and shoulders. He’s thinking that his past is behind him, that he can be anybody, anybody at all. He’s thinking it’s easy to be anybody when all your life you’ve been nobody.

  TWELVE

  The studio apartment they enter at eleven o’clock on the following morning is perfect. The mismatched furniture is straight out of IKEA, a blue table, a green double-dresser, a wood-frame couch bearing maroon cushions, a tweed area rug. Amelia/Veronica’s sister is supposed to be a recent college graduate and there’s not a single item in the entire apartment that doesn’t fit.

  Bubba carefully places the two surveillance cameras. The clock goes on top of a small bookcase, positioned to cover the double bed. The air purifier goes on a nightstand tucked into a corner. This camera will cover the rest of the single room, including the front door.

  When Hootie plugs the air purifier into a wall socket, it hums away, the sound oddly contented, almost a purr. Amelia has kept her promise. She has a gun in her bag, a .32 caliber automatic. The weapon holds only five rounds and appears small enough to be a toy, but Hootie’s not fooled. He knows the most important factor isn’t the size of the gun, but the intentions of the lady holding it. Amelia’s eyes seem harder today and she’s no longer projecting doubt. Her bag will be on the floor next to the bed where she can get to it in a hurry.

  Hootie’s relaxed about his role in the day’s events, which as far as he can tell comes to exactly nothing. He’s thinking about the Asian girl in the club. He wants more of that life and screw the risk and fuck the straight world. There’s a felony on his record now, so he can forget about career choices like New York’s bloated civil service. As far as New York’s concerned, he’s not fit to sling garbage. So, what’s his fate? By dint of hard work and due diligence? Shuffling boxes in a warehouse for ten dollars an hour, no health insurance, no pension? Not to mention never being able to support a family?

  Outside, the clouds are bunching together, growing darker as they get closer to the earth. The heatwave is about to crack wide open. Hootie watches the process while Amelia calls the mark. He listens to her slow tease. Yes, she’s at her sister’s apartment in Queens … But no, she’s not quite ready to give him the address. There’s talk of the Playboy Channel and Internet pornography (Amelia/Veronica’s fascinated by pornography) and how experience matters. But still, but still …

  Bubba’s in the kitchen when Amelia hangs up. He’s found a cache of takeout menus stashed behind the microwave. After some debate, they order in a pizza and a six-pack of Cokes from an Italian restaurant that boasts a coal-fired oven. Hootie doesn’t care for the pizza – not enough cheese – but he manages to eat a couple of slices, as he manages to feign interest when Bubba tunes the little television set to a Yankees game. Hootie’s never liked baseball.

  The first thunderstorm explodes over New York just after two o’clock, the clouds spitting rapid-fire bolts of lightning. At the Stadium, the grounds crew rushes to cover the field while the fans beat a hasty retreat. Bubba watches the action from the apartment’s single armchair. He sits with his hands folded across his chest, his thin lips compressed. For once, there’s no pep talk. Amelia lies on the bed, staring up at the ceiling, her thoughts her own. The rain is loud enough to drown conversat
ion anyway, slapping against the windows like a swarm of invading insects.

  Bubba reaches out to adjust the volume. With no end to the rain in sight, the YES channel has switched to a biography of Lou Gehrig, the Yankees legendary first baseman. Hootie is drawn into the story despite himself. One of the greatest hitters to ever play the game, Gehrig was at the height of his career when he was struck with the illness that came to bear his name. In 1937, he batted .351. In 1938, he could barely field his position. In 1941, he was buried.

  Hootie’s fascinated by the rapid fall, the man who had everything reduced to a paralysed husk in a wheelchair. As he watches the funeral, he recalls an Eli Scannon lecture on the black man’s superstitions. Borne by events as unpredictable as they are malevolent, disaster comes to the black man as a random act. Any place can be the wrong place, any time the wrong time. This is a natural outgrowth of the Jim Crow era. Find a white woman murdered and every black man within a hundred miles was at risk.

  ‘I’m gonna call,’ Amelia finally says.

  ‘It’s early.’ Bubba shuts down the TV. ‘Plus, if he wants to get here, he’s gonna have to take a boat.’

  Amelia grins. ‘Maybe I wanna test his devotion, find out if he really loves me. I mean, if hail and rain can’t stop a mailman … Anyway, it’s four o’clock now and I’m gonna tell him that I have to be home at nine. That means I have to leave at eight, which means he has to leave at seven thirty so I can straighten up the apartment. I should call you with an all-clear by a quarter to eight.’

  Bubba stands up and thrusts his hands into his pockets. He’s not happy and Hootie knows why. They’ll have to confront the storm and the car is parked two blocks away. Bubba doesn’t argue, though. He rummages in a closet and comes up with a folding umbrella, one of those five-dollar jobs sold by street pedlars. Hootie thinks it’ll function for maybe ten seconds before turning inside out.

  ‘Alright, go ahead,’ Bubba tells Amelia.

  The conversation this time is marked by long silences at Amelia’s end. Timidity is the order of the day, a young girl drawn in two directions, frightened and excited at the same time. Amelia finally tells the mark that if he comes over, he’ll have to leave at seven thirty, ‘… because if I’m not home by nine, my father will kill me, OK?’

  Hootie doesn’t have to hear the other side of the conversation. He knows that Sherman’s yessing away. Anything she wants, however she wants it. Or even if she doesn’t want it. Toward the end of the conversation, just before surrendering the address, Amelia asks, ‘If … if, like, nothing happens … would that be alright?’

  Bubba’s standing by the window, his attention focused on Amelia. Outside, the wind has dissipated somewhat, though it continues to pour. Hootie drinks in the scene. Now that he’s gotten past his instinctive distaste, he finds himself admiring his new partners. Amelia’s performance is without a false note, as it was on the prior evening in Washington Square.

  Hootie imagines Bubba passing the entire ten years of his sentence preparing for the day he got out. Always positive, always making the best of his situation, always hustling. Which is not to say that he isn’t crazy. That business with the rat was about as crazy as it gets.

  ‘You ready?’ Bubba asks.

  Though Hootie’s not sure who’s being asked the question, he heads for the kitchen where he finds a large garbage bag. He cuts holes in the bag for his head and his arms, creating a poor man’s poncho. He’s wondering what to say to Amelia, finally deciding to let Bubba do the talking.

  ‘You up for this?’ Bubba’s small gray eyes are as penetrating as Hootie has ever seen them.

  Amelia raises a steady hand. She cocks her head to one side and winks. ‘Get outta here, the both of ya.’

  Bubba’s not finished, though. He wags a finger as he lectures. ‘You get in trouble and don’t feel like shooting the prick, hit the speed dial on your cellphone. I won’t be more than five minutes away, promise.’

  Hootie’s improvised poncho is of no more value than Bubba’s umbrella. Both men are soaked before they reach the end of the first block. Hootie wants to make a dash for it. Not so Bubba. He’s got the little umbrella wrapped around his head like a turban and he’s looking down at the sidewalk, his long stride deliberate. When they finally reach the car, he stands for a moment with the keys in his hand, looking back toward the apartment where Amelia waits.

  ‘Alright, let’s go,’ he finally says, sounding as though he just made up his mind.

  They drive along Queens Boulevard through slackening rain, from Hillside Avenue to Continental Avenue and back again, at no time more than a few miles from the apartment. Amelia’s not expected to call for another four hours and Bubba’s too keyed up to sit in a parked car. Or to remain silent.

  ‘You ever see the commercial for the Stick-Up Light?’ he asks.

  Hootie pulls his wet shirt away from his skin as he rummages around in his brain. Finally, he says, ‘Yeah, maybe. That’s the one you’re supposed to put it in a closet.’

  ‘That’s it. A fluorescent light that works off a battery. You stick it up on the wall, pull the little chain and you have a light for those dark corners. Even comes with a holder so you can slide the unit out and take it wherever you want.’

  ‘OK, so what?’

  ‘Well, the guy who invented the light, man named Paul Belvedere, started out doin’ low-end infomercials in Mississippi. That was all he could afford, even though he begged and borrowed from everyone he knew. You hear what I’m sayin’? This was a one-shot deal, Hootie. If he didn’t move every single unit, his entrepreneurial life was over. But he did move them. He sold out and shifted his advertising to a regional market in the south-east, then to the big nationals, CNN, FOX – even the networks. Finally, he sold the patent to a manufacturer for ten million dollars. Now you can find a Stick-Up Light in every little drug store. Or you can buy one online at hundreds of websites.’

  Hootie stares through the windshield. The clouds are pulling away, the sky rising. The rain has all but stopped and a stiff breeze rattles the parking signs along the curb.

  ‘You an inventor, too?’ he asks.

  ‘No, you’re missing the point. You hear about the guys who started Google, how much money they made?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Well, that way’s not open to us. We don’t have the knowledge and we never will. So the point I’m makin is that there’s another way. Paul Belvedere was drivin’ a truck when he started out. If he can do it, we can do it. All it takes is will.’

  They drive for another half-hour before Bubba runs out of will and decides to park the car. They’ve got the heater turned up high, with the hot air blowing out through the vents and on to their wet clothing. Hootie thinks he’s sweating fast enough to replace the moisture in his shirt before it evaporates.

  Bubba turns off Queen Boulevard on to 82nd Avenue. Parking spaces are at a premium in Kew Gardens and residents commonly pay three hundred dollars a month for a space in an underground garage. Bubba doesn’t expect to find a legal parking place and he’s not disappointed. He pulls up next to an SUV the size of a tank and prepares to back into the curb beside a fire hydrant. As long as they don’t leave the car, they can stay here as long as they want.

  Which doesn’t turn out to be very long at all. Bubba’s cellphone goes off as he shifts the transmission into park, projecting a tuneless rendition of a Mary Blige tune. He yanks it from his shirt pocket, glances at the caller ID screen and presses the ‘on’ button. The faint voice on the other end of the call belongs to a man and it comes from a distance.

  ‘You made a big mistake,’ the voice says, ‘and now you gotta pay for it.’

  Bubba comes out of the space fast, in the process managing to crack into both cars, front and rear. He tears up to the corner, then gets himself trapped on a one-way street running away from the apartment. Hootie’s heart is now in his throat and it’s pounding away at his Adam’s apple. He can see that Bubba’s scared, but other than a murmured �
��holy shit’, Bubba’s chosen not to explain. So maybe it’s not happening, maybe it’s not a false alarm, maybe when they enter the apartment, they’ll find the mark happily engaged in the activity he came for. In that case, the shakedown will just have to start a little early. No big deal, right?

  The trip takes less than ten minutes, with Bubba running a pair of lights, but they’re too late, nevertheless. The apartment is empty, the two cameras and Amelia’s bag gone as well. Hootie’s head swivels back and forth, a metronome, as he fights to maintain some minor semblance of outward calm. This is dread, this is the monster in the closet, the one his mother told him didn’t exist. This is every nightmare suddenly proven real.

  ‘There’s blood over here.’

  Bubba’s voice pierces Hootie’s thoughts, slicing them neatly in two. If there was ever a time for doing and not thinking, this is it. Hootie walks over to Bubba and examines the drops of blood on the wall and floor. The blood is fresh and shockingly red, but there isn’t a lot of it.

  ‘I gotta clean this up,’ Bubba says.

  ‘What are you talkin’ about? We have to find Amelia.’

  Bubba heads for the sink. He wets a sponge, tears off a fistful of paper towels and returns to the bloodstains. The blood on the floor comes up easily, but the blood on the wall smears. Bubba continues to scrub until the stain is barely visible, then shoves the paper napkins and the sponge into a plastic bag before heading out the door. Hootie stares at the expanse of Bubba’s shoulders and back, trailing him out to the street where Bubba dumps the bag in a garbage can. Then they’re in the car and Bubba’s moving through and around the traffic on Queens Boulevard.

  ‘We’re goin’ back to the apartment. I got a piece stashed in my bureau.’ Bubba pauses, though he doesn’t look at Hootie. Then he says, ‘You wanna bail, Hootie, I won’t hold it against you.’

  Hootie bites at his lower lip. He’s thinking Bubba’s right. What he should do is yell, ‘Stop the car and let me the fuck out.’