I’m like, I should apologize. But then I’m like, You already did and she accepted it. Ain’t shit else to say.
But look at her, she’s wrecked. I decide on one more sorry.
The window’s clean. I’m wiping the sill down with a towel. I put the squeegee in my belt and the scrubber in the bucket.
I put on my sincere face and take a deep breath.
When I turn around to speak, she’s already gone.
the mongol
Natasha won’t let go of the fact I threw a diamond when I shoulda thrown a heart and set us back seventy points. I’m trying to tell her it’s ’cause I’m really fucked up off this science drug. I could barely see shapes; all I saw was colors. We’ll get ’em next game, I can feel it wearing off already.
I say, “Let’s just take this as an opportunity to get comfortable with each other, see how we play together.”
Ross is in her ear, “I don’t know, y’all probably coulda won this game if he ain’t fuck that hand up.”
She’s biting her lip, nodding. I can see the wheels in her head turning.
I say, “Natasha, don’t listen to that motherfucker, he’s on the other team. We need to stick together. Let them fall apart.”
Toni gulps down her rum. I’m sobering up and they’re getting drunker. We’ll get ’em yet.
Ross grins at me, gets back in her ear and says, “Coulda won though…”
I shake my head. “You motherfucker…”
That’s why we can’t keep a fourth man in our card game. We bring a brand of shit talking common in Pontiac, but unseen in these parts of LA.
Jeff ran Spades with us once. He brought over fancy whiskey and hazelnuts. By 10:30 p.m. we’re all wasted, arguing over cards. Jeff’s sitting there quietly eating nuts. That was the last time he played.
Me and Natasha are getting mopped up. I ain’t seen more than two spades in my last three hands. We’re going blind, getting set. Ross is laughing and drinking all the whiskey. Toni’s pleased with herself too.
Natasha’s fuming. She keeps talking about the renege. That was like six hands ago. I don’t even bring up the fact she’s been cutting my queens, wasting spades, fucking up books. I’m just trying to take this beating like a man.
In a calm moment, Natasha says, “My parents used to play cards and some nights they’d have to sleep in separate rooms afterwards.”
I say, “Clearly.”
I’m guessing her mom’s a real ballbuster. I don’t understand that: how you punk on your guy all day and then fuck him at night? Face in his crotch, knowing you’re the brains of the operation.
She’s still shitting on me and I don’t know if I’m being gracious or a bitch. As a man, do I check her or do I just smile and take it?
I think about what Z would do. He knows grace.
One time we’re at a steak dinner talking politics with a client and it gets heated. The dude buying tells Z to be quiet ’cause he don’t know nothing about Afghanistan. Z’s from there, he reads The Economist, he knows a lot.
I’m ready to flip the table over, cuss this dude out, and bail. But Z sits there, crosses his legs, folds his hands on his thigh, and leans in closer to him. He’s smiling, he don’t mean it, but the guy can’t tell, he’s rolling his eyes going on about it.
I follow Z’s lead ’cause I’m his guest, I smile and nod too. I guess this is what grown-ups do: eat shit and smile doing it.
So now I’m at the table trying to be like Jesus and turn the other cheek. And Natasha’s yammering on about my ineptitude. I’m thinking, It’s easy to be the bigger person when God’s your dad and you can come back from the dead and shit.
Game over, we lose by two hundred. Let’s run ’em back.
We play again.
We’re finally catching some cards. We’re cracking their heads now.
They’re drunk and imploding. Ross is scolding Toni for not bidding right. Toni’s clamming up and bids worse the next time. My science drug is all the way wore off, I’m sober. The only problem is, now Natasha’s drunk too.
She’s really feeling herself, slapping cards down. “Okay, it looks like we’re going to win this match. We had the chance to win two matches, if Jude hadn’t blown it that one hand. You know which ones are the diamonds now, right?”
Ross laughs a little too loud. “Aaaaaaah!!”
I shake my head. “Don’t hype her up, man.” I look at Natasha. “I swear to God that’s the last time you bring that shit up. I already apologized twice.”
The very next hand, she fucks up then cusses me out for it. I snap. I stop being Jesus and tell her about herself. It’s 10:30 p.m. and we’re arguing over cards. By eleven the house is clear.
I’m drinking poppy tea, thinking about what makes a man. I don’t know, but I like the tea.
It’s like drinking a Vicodin.
It’s the same shit that opium comes from. You gut the pods, dump out the seeds, grind up the pods, steep those in water, and that’ll getcha high.
It’s weird when you think about it, one part of the plant is a narcotic and the other part goes on bagels.
First time I try it, I’m in New York with Brad. We got the tea in Snapple bottles, sipping it like it’s lean, cruising through Manhattan with a monster buzz. We start arguing on the comedown and drink some more.
I fly out at 8:00 a.m. on Saturday. I don’t wanna waste any so I pound the bottle in the cab on the way to JFK. I’m in the line for security, nodding off, but I’m dressed like a science teacher so I get through.
The hangover’s brutal, two days of aches and being irritable. I quit it for a while, but jumped back on the tea during the pill drought.
Before I know it, it’s 4:00 a.m. Time for bed, but I’m too wired to sleep.
I’m listening to a history podcast on the Mongols. They’re talking about some Russian city that defied ’em and lost. They took the survivors, made ’em dig a trench, stacked them on top of each other in the hole, then had dinner on top of ’em and crushed ’em to death. Turned ’em into a floor.
I like the Mongols. It’s nice to hear it’s not just white people who were into raping and taking people’s shit.
I’m dozing off and waking up to more Mongolian atrocities. I hear Rachel come in from her man’s house. My room is dark but the sun is out, a sliver of light shines across my bed through a crack in the curtains.
Maybe I’ll get up. I look at the time, it’s six in the morning. Fuck that. I shut my eyes and go back to the Khans. I wonder what I woulda done if those motherfuckers showed up outside of my city. Prolly gone out like a bitch, run and got slaughtered anyway.
Am I a coward? It’s hard to tell in this day and age, we never get tested.
I fall asleep on that thought. I wake up to my sister in my bedroom. My eyes are closed but I can hear her moving. It’s not like her to just walk in and not knock, I’m too grimy for that. Some things you can’t unsee.
I’m ’bout to ask her what she wants. I open my eyes and there’s a shape at the end of my bed. I can’t make it out. I squint to focus and it’s not my sister. It’s a man. There’s a man in my room.
I don’t think, I freak. I jump out of bed and attack him.
“You motherfucker!” I yell. “Get the fuck outta my house!”
I snatch him up and run him into the wall. He’s scared, I don’t think he saw me lying there. He’s not even fighting back. I don’t give a fuck what he’s doing, I just want him out of my house and I wanna hurt him on the way out.
My kitchen’s big, I run him through it and smash his head into the cupboard. I bang it in a few more times, calling him a bitch every time his head hits the door, dishes clattering.
“Bitch! Bitch! Bitch!”
Now he’s broken-English begging, sounds like he’s some type of Spanish. “Ples, ples…ples!”
I run his face into a couple more doorways on the way out.
We’re on the side of my house in the driveway. Making a racket in the morning sun. But none of my neighbors come out ’cause no one sticks together.
I got him hemmed up on the wall, swinging like an orangutan. He’s got his head covered; he stopped begging, now he’s apologizing.
“I’m soooorry, I’m sooooorry.”
“Fuck you, bitch! You up in my fuckin’ house!”
There’s a five-foot drop on the other side of the wall. I decide I’m gonna throw him over it on his skull. I lift him, I got him halfway over when Rachel comes out the back hollering.
“Jude, what’s going on!? You okay!?”
I stop what I’m doing, I look back. “This motherfucker broke in the crib. Call nine-one-one!”
She runs back in the house. Now instead of doing, I’m thinking. And I’m thinking, If I throw this motherfucker over the wall, he might get away. So I better hold him. The problem is he’s halfway over the wall already and I gotta hold his weight.
His back’s to me, I got him in my arms. I’m spooning him.
He keeps on with his sing-songy sorrys.
“I’m soorrrrry.”
Holding this little asshole, I see him for the first time. A Mexican tweaker, he looks about twenty, probably been up all night. He’s got a thin mustache and acne. He’s holding wire-framed glasses in his right hand away from his body, so they don’t break. I can smell the cigarette smoke on his hoodie. I can smell his bug spray cologne. There’s a clump of dried gel in the hair on the back of his head. I can feel him breathing.
I get an adrenaline dump. I go weak.
I’m gonna have to hold this guy for a long time before the cops come. I don’t even like the fucking cops.
This is some bullshit. I thought I was like the fourth generation of white motherfuckers to come gentrify this area. Looks like I’m only the second. I shoulda known that when some asshole stole my garden hose the third day I was here.
I didn’t even wanna move here. But I had to leave my old spot on Melrose because some bleeding-heart liberals set up a needle exchange on my block and it got taken over by hobos and meth heads. I was tired of coming outside in the morning to busted-out windows and human shit right next to the dog shit on the sidewalk.
They don’t got a word for that though, When poor motherfuckers come to the neighborhood and ruin things.
I sigh.
Now the tweaker’s singing sorrys in hushed tones, like a lullaby.
I feel his body weight shift to the other side of the wall and fall over slowly. I got two fistfuls of hoodie and he’s hanging there.
He whispers like he’s cooing a baby, “Soooorry, I sorry. So soooorry.”
His body goes limp and dead-fishes out of his sweatshirt, out of my grip, and slides onto the concrete on the other side of the wall. I watch him fall and land on the sidewalk. I hold his hoodie as he staggers down the walkway into the street.
I throw down his shirt and say, “That’s right motherfucker, you better run.”
He turns around, sees the hoodie lying on the sidewalk, comes back, grabs it, and stumbles away.
rocky iii
I wake up with my dick stuck to my boxers. Prolly just a wet dream. I haven’t had one of those in a while. Then I take a leak and it feels like I’m pissing espresso. That Thai chick from the trailer park burnt me.
I ain’t even mad. She had good pussy; it was worth it.
I get dressed, throw on my shearling, and head to the clinic before my shift at Cooker’s starts.
The free clinic takes forever.
I’m stuck in the waiting room sitting next to this couple listening to them talk ’bout Wiccan spells. The warlock’s going on about turning some rival hedge witch into a statue. I’m thinking, If this dude’s a wizard, what the fuck they doing here? How come he can’t just magic the VD out of his dick?
Annoyed, I turn my back to ’em and see this big black motherfucker sitting across in the corner.
I’m trying not to stare, but I know I know him. It takes a second to get there. Then it hits me—that’s Quan. He looks giant sitting in that plastic chair.
I ain’t seen him in a minute. The years have been hard on him. His haircut’s busted, his clothes are out of style, and he looks meaner than ever.
He’s looking at me too, trying to place me. I’m older now. My balls have dropped, I’m not a fat little kid no more.
I’m waiting for him to figure it out and have my moment of triumph.
He never gets there, so real dry, I say, “What up, Quan?”
It takes a second, then I see it register, and he nods, “What up.”
I say, “Where you been at?”
He says, “Locked up.”
I nod. “How long?”
He says, “Ten months this time.”
I say, “Welcome back.”
We’re quiet.
Then I say, “Yeah, this Thai chick burnt me.”
And he just looks at me—that’s it.
We sit in silence staring off in the distance. Then they call his name and he leaves.
I watch him go.
I’m looking at that empty chair again, thinking about Quan. Man, I haven’t thought about him in a minute.
I start daydreaming about him, about that ass-whoopin’ he gave me.
Can I see him with my hands now? Nah, probably not. Maybe I’ll go outside, get a big-ass rock from by the flagpole, hide on the side of the vestibule, and sneak him with it when he comes out.
I’m thinking about cracking his skull, his blood on the concrete, and my getaway route. And when he’s down, maybe I’ll stomp him in his face and spit on him. I probably won’t be able to go to Velvet Lounge for a while, a lot of the south side dudes be there on Sundays.
I’m rocking in my chair. That’s what I’ll do. I’ll settle the score. See how he likes it. But first, I gotta handle this chlamydia.
Then the nurse calls my name and takes me to the back. She sticks a Q-tip in my dick hole and makes me pee in a cup. She gives me this banana-flavored drink with a bitter aftertaste and tells me I can’t fuck for a week.
She gives me condoms and sends me away.
I go home. I put on my tie and my apron. I go to work and bring families spinach-artichoke dip for 10-percent tips.
I save up my tips and I leave this town. Then I save some more and I leave Michigan for good.
That was a long time ago. I been in LA for years now and I’m still homesick.
I’m shining my shoes, talking to Dont on the phone. He’s catching me up on what’s happening in Pontiac.
He’s real upset. He says, “The other day, Quan was robbing a store on Opdyke. And when he came out, the cops was there and shot him.”
Dont sounds like he’s about to cry, he says, “They ain’t have to do him like that, man. They killed him, man…Quan’s dead.”
I let that sink in.
I say, “Oh well.”
Then spit on my shoes and finish buffing my wingtips.
abraham
I’m in the Hollywood Hills, talking to my dad’s AA buddy. He acts in films, he bought his house with movie money.
Gabby’s sitting next to me. I got my feet up. I’m drinking the lemonade his wife brought me.
I like what he’s got going on here. I think I’ma get some too. I tell him I’ma move out here myself.
He says, “Oh yeah? Whatcha gonna do when you get to LA?”
I say, “Blow up.”
He’s eyeballing me. “How you gonna do that?”
I smack my lips. “I don’t know, just blow up.”
He laughs. “Blow up, huh? Good luck with that.”
I raise my glass and say, “Thanks, Mike.”
I drink my lem
onade, thinking he can suck my dick.
Two years in LA and I’m dead broke. Gabby and I broke up. I got a tooth rotting out in my head and when I open my mouth, you can smell it.
I was s’posed to be on TV by now.
I’m not. I’m a dishwasher and I can’t make rent.
I’m taking the bus to work, sitting across from this cholo tongue-kissing his girl and mean-mugging me at the same time. I look off to the side to give ’em their privacy and there’s a fat lady next to him. She’s sitting there smiling, wearing reindeer antlers, it’s Christmas.
I’m thinking, Where the fuck am I?
It’s hopeless. I’m done. I’ma go back to Detroit a failure.
I woulda split if I had the money to leave. But I don’t, so I stay and get that radio job a month later and move to New York.
I’m out there getting it for three years. Then I meet Julie and move back to Cali for her.
I wanna grow up. I’m wearing loafers trying to be a man, but I don’t know how.
I got a career, I got a girl. I’ma start a family. I’ll have a relationship with this next kid.
Me and Julie keep fighting and tearing each other down. We’re breaking up and making up with new scars every time.
We’re in another fight. I’m feeling slighted over some dumb shit.
Julie’s exasperated, saying, “Why can’t we just be kind to one another?” She touches my arm. “Be kind.”
I pull away. “’Cause you ain’t never wrong, Julie.” I’m mean-muggin’ her. “I don’t know why you always wanna argue wit me, I do this shit for a living. You not gon’ win.”
She’s crying. I’m shaking my head thinking she’s dumb and don’t get it. She’s not dumb, she’s just passive aggressive.
I’m not good at arguing, I’m just insecure. And we stay beating each other up until finally, I just quit.
Now she’s gone and I’m left in LA driving back and forth to a job I don’t like. Every day, passing the bars and grocery stores where we had our blowups. It’s the trail of tears and this place ain’t home.
I think back to my first trip to LA. It’s me, Rachel, and Gabby; we’re at some coffee shop in Toluca Lake. There’s an open mic night going.
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