Corrupts Absolutely?

by Peter Clines

  “Do you feel responsible for Lateesa?”

  I shrug.

  “Grammaw said I was.”

  “You’re not. She was your older sister. Anything she did, anything that happened to her, was because of choices she made, not you.”

  “Okay.”

  “I understand why you’re scared and why you’re angry. I want to keep seeing you. Is that alright?”

  I nod.

  “I want to talk to you about what the goal of our therapy is going to be. I want you to remember the breathing exercise and something else. I want to you to keep your head up when you walk. Don’t slouch. Try not to hunch up your shoulders. I see the way you carry yourself, and I see that you’re afraid. There are people, like the ones who hurt you, that will see it too and jump on that fear. It’s okay to feel afraid, and there are places that it’s appropriate to show that, like right here with me. But you and I know that there are places out there that it’s better to look like you’re not. I think you’ll find too that if you start carrying yourself like you’re not scared, you’ll be scared less and less. If you start to believe in yourself, you’ll find you’ll hardly be scared at all anymore.”

  “I’m always goin’ be scared,” I say.

  “You only think that because of where you are right now. I don’t mean just in this neighborhood. In this school. I mean in your life. You don’t have to always be this way. I know you feel like everybody has power over you. The GDs, your grandmother, your teachers…but if you have conviction…”

  “What?”

  “Conviction. Belief. If you believe in yourself, I mean really believe, like, how you believe that every step you take your foot will touch the ground. If you believe like that—that you can change things for yourself—you can.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Yes you can, Abassi. You can control it, you just have to convince yourself. I’ll help you. But we’ll talk about that later. Our time’s almost up for today. I wanna give you some homework…”

  I suck my teeth, and she smiles.

  “Yes, I get to assign homework,” she says. “I want you to practice visualizing goals that you want to attain.”

  I shake my head. I don’t know what she mean.

  “I mean making a picture in your mind of how you’d like things to be. I want you to draw me a picture tonight, Abassi,” she says.

  “Of what?”

  “Draw me a picture of yourself.”

  “I don’t wanna.”

  “Then draw me anything at all. And I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

  “Awright.”

  She stands up and shakes my hand. Her hand is clean and smooth and warm.

  “It was nice to meet you.”

  #

  I walk home.

  “Yo yo yo! Whatchoo want? Whatchoo need? ‘Got that rock. ‘Got that weed. ‘Ay! ‘Ay, my man! Give it up! ‘Sup, folk? Got my squares? Yup yup! What up, nigga? Hangin’ bangin’ slangin’ natamean? Right-right. Where my nigga Mike-Mike? Yo! ‘Ay, yo! ‘Sup, GD? ‘Ay, here go Punkinhead. ‘Ay nigga! Draw me a picture, nigga! Draw yo sista on my tip! Haaaaaaaaaaaah…bitch ass…”

  I go up to Grammaw’s.

  “’Bassi! Where the hell you been? I need you to go to the ‘sto! I need smokes!”

  “The man at the store say you got to get them, Grammaw. He won’t sell ‘em to me no more.”

  “Well what fuck good is you then?”

  I close my door. I get out paper. I draw for Miss Orozco. I think about what she say. About believing I can change things. I make a picture about how I want things to be. I draw the projects, the reds and the whites all broke down and the GDs all up under the bricks. TreySix and Caveman, BillDawg and Mike-Mike. They can’t shoot nobody. They can’t jump nobody. I start to color in the blood, but I stop. I want to draw something nice for her, so I draw grass growing over the bricks. Grammaw say they used to be grass in the projects till the white folks paved it over to save money. I draw it green like I seent it on cartoons, not like the yellow shit that grows in the Killin’ Field where the crackheads go. I draw pink flowers so thick you can’t see the bodies no more. Pretty soon, the bricks look like a hill. I draw myself on top. I draw Miss Orozco too. I give her a pink and yellow flower. With the projects gone, you could see the sky in my picture. I draw it blue, and I make the clouds big and white. I draw a smile on the sun. That fucks it up kinda. Makes it look like a little kid’s picture. I make the sun orange. That fixes it. I don’t draw no po-pos. I don’t draw no ghetto birds even though I hear one outside, see the light comin’ down, lookin’ for somebody.

  I hear shootin.’ Back back back. I should go lay down in the bathtub.

  But I look at my picture. It’s a nice picture. I hope Miss Orozco will like it. She say I’m a good draw-er. I think she will like it.

  I breathe.

  I fall ‘sleep looking at it.

  At school, Mr. Wade tells me I won’t see Miss Orozco no more.

  I feel like somebody bust a cap in my chest. I ask how come.

  He say somebody shot her in the parking lot after school yesterday. He say they found her car out by the reds. He say it was too nice a car to drive around Cabrini and she ought to have knowed better.

  I get up and go. Mr. Wade tell me to come back, but he don’t do nothing. Like always.

  I go out to the parking lot. I see some yellow tape, but it rained sometime last night, and they ain’t no blood. They ain’t nothing left of Miss Orozco. It like I dreamed her. I feel worse than when Lateesa died.

  I stare at her picture. I want to believe it could be like that. I got to believe it.

  But she say the picture got to come from my mind. So I leave her picture layin’ in the parking lot. The water makes it gray.

  I go home and I wait. I breathe like she taught me, till the hurt in my chest and in my neck hurt less.

  I wait in the Killing Field between the reds and the whites, where the crackheads go and the po-pos won’t ‘cause they get shot at from the windows. Them windows is like hundreds of eyes, and the red and white buildings be like giants looking down on you. I wait by the wet mattresses and the busted stones and the bottles and the pipes and the crinklin’ chip bags and the yellow grass that ain’t never been green.

  I stare at the ground while I wait. It’s wet from the rain. Rain s’posed to make things grow. They ain’t no reason it shouldn’t be green. They ain’t no reason they can’t be flowers.

  Yes they is. The poison. The poison in the dirt from the blood and the rock and the puke and the dog shit and the people shit and the glass, which is the only green they is.

  I think about the grass bein’ green. I breathe.

  From where I sit, it turns green like it always should’ve been. The green spreads out across the whole lot. The grass drinks up the rain and spits out the poison into the street where it belong. It grows up my ankles so thick you can’t see the glass and the garbage no more. There are pink and yellow flowers like the ones in my picture.

  I get up. I know what I can do now. I got conviction.

  I go to the liquor store.

  #

  “Know what I’m sayin? This is how we do, folk. All day every day, nigga. Right-right. LK Killa! ‘Ay nigga! Who this ‘lil nigga? Who you steppin’ to, nigga? What set? What set? Man chill, BillDawg. S’that trick nigga Punkinhead. Whatchoo lookin’ at, Punkinhead? Ugly ass bitch! God-damn you ugly! Go on in, nigga, get yo grammaw’s diapers.”

  They laugh and jump. They pound they fists and twist they fingers and throw signs.

  The pictures are in my mind. I breathe, and I think about the field, how I made the picture real.

  They stand there lookin’ at me. They stand in front of the wall. They tags is all on the wall like dog piss. They stars and pitchforks and sixes. The upside down crowns, dissin’ the LKs who don’t even come around Cabrini. They wearin’ they blue and silver, they Georgetown gear and they nice big coats
and they jumps, all bought with dope. They saggin’, and I can see they straps. They like the minutemen on the ave. Grinnin, laughin, like they own me. Like that night with Lateesa.

  But I ain’t afraid, ‘cause this ain’t the picture in my mind.

  I start with Caveman ‘cause he the biggest. I scratch him out like that smile on the sun. I color over him. I use red. They hate red. They jump you just for wearin’ it. Red for Vice Lords, red for Kings. But Caveman goes all red. I use his blood to color him with, and the pencil’s in my mind. To get at the color, I open him up right in the middle and dip my mind in his chest. He screams, but it sound like he underwater, the blood bubbling up in his mouth, runnin’ out his eyes, over his face, all down his expensive gear.

  Caveman’s big. I need more red for the others. Most of his is all over the wall and the street. I pull Mike-Mike’s skin and clothes off him like a glove. He falls down screaming, painting red wherever he rolls.

  This all goes down as fast as I can think it.

  TreySix and BillDawg are still laughing when Mike-Mike rolls over their kicks, paintin’ em. They kill you for that, but killin’ Mike-Mike would be the best thing they could do for him now. He wanna die. He cryin’ like a bitch to die.

  “What the fuck, Dawg?” TreySix say.

  I don’t want him to die yet.

  BillDawg gives me an idea. He takes out his strap, a big silver one, shinin’ like ice cream money from his belt. He don’t know it’s me he needs to shoot. He looks stupid, looks up and down the ave, tryin’ to figure out what poppin’.

  I think about him eatin’ his own gat, and just like that, he does it. I think about him painting TreySix, and he does. He blows red from his dome all over TreySix.

  TreySix takes out his gat.

  They found Miss Orozco by the reds, the Extension building of the projects where TreySix and his clique slang. I don’t know if it was him, but I bet it was. I want it to be. I take his gat away so fast and so hard his whole arm comes off with it and flies off down the street.

  He falls on his knees like Lateesa, the blood pourin’ out his shoulder.

  He looks at me, and for the first time, that loud mouth nigga ain’t got shit to say.

  I know how to do this now. It’s easier than breathing. All it takes is conviction. I like it. I put up my hand like they do on Star Wars, and TreySix floats off the ground, the blood slappin’ on the curb sounds like when the pipe bust under the sink at Grammaw’s. Believe your feet touch the ground with every step, Miss Orozco said. But I believe TreySix’s don’t, so they don’t.

  I do like they do in them movies. TreySix hits the wall hard. I bring him back, and I push him to the wall again. Again. I smash him against his stupid GD sign in the middle of the stupid star and the pitchforks and all the shit they tag on the walls of everything they see. Their stupid ass cartoon drawings of big-tittied g-queens with fat onions that look like a baby drawed ‘em. I’m a better draw-er than any of ‘em. I spread my fingers and turn the star into a red sun, and parts of TreySix come apart and out like a map of the planets.

  The man at the liquor store looks out the window. His eyes is all white. He on the phone.

  I let what’s left of TreySix slide and drip down the wall.

  I go home to Grammaw’s. I hear the sirens, and a ghetto bird goes across the sky. The light shines down on the liquor store and the picture I made there.

  “You get my smokes?”

  I go to the TV.

  “You know that mo’fuckin’ thang’s broke, you dumb shit,” she say.

  But I turn it on, and it does work. Because I want it to.

  They show the liquor store on the news. They’s lots of yellow tape and flashin’ lights. The man on the news talks a lot but don’t say nothin’ cause he don’t know what happened. The man at the counter din’t say shit. I know he din’t ‘cause wouldn’t nobody believe. The writing on the screen say ‘Gang Violence At Cabrini-Green.’

  I don’t like that. I ain’t in no gang.

  Then I think about Miss Orozco’s picture. All the GDs under the red bricks with the grass over ‘em. That’s what I want to happen. That’s the goal I visualize.

  #

  I don’t go to school no more. I walk the projects all day and night. I go to the reds first. On the left of the building by the street is where they slang weed. I go there night after night, and the po-pos come night after night with they yellow tape to clean up the mess. Pretty soon, they ain’t enough GDs in the reds to slang weed no more.

  Then I go to the front gate. The GDs are scared now, but they don’t know what to be scared of. They smoke water, and they carry shotties and zoo-zoos and Tec-9s out in the open like soldiers.

  “Whatchoo want, nigga?”

  “Rock,” I say.

  “Who know this nigga?”

  “That Punkinhead. He live with his grammaw up in the whites. He ain’t no crackhead.”

  “The fuck you want, son?”

  “Abassi.”

  “The fuck you say?”

  “My name Abassi.”

  They don’t want me to go in. They shout and they holler, but I take the iron gate off, and I go in anyway. When the elevator opens, the one inside starts shooting soon as he peeps all the red. I make all the bullets stop in the air and go back into the end of his Tec. It blows his hands right off.

  I ride the elevator up to the fourth floor where the crack is. I pull the drippy ceiling down on the crackheads, and I push the GDs through the walls and through the floors like nails. When I’m done there, I go up to the ninth, and I get rid of the heron and all the slangers and bangers and hangers there too. I send ‘em through the bars the white folks put over the balconies to stop us from throwin’ each other over, and they drop out in little pieces on the other side.

  They ain’t no livin’ GDs in the reds when I finally leave.

  I go to Miss Orozco’s field, and I sit on an old chair with the pink flowers and watch the po-pos across the way. They all in blue and silver like the minutemen too. They stand around a lot. More come and go. They lights bounce between the buildings, and the hundreds of eyes look scared. Others come and clean up the pictures I made. It takes till morning.

  I go upstairs and watch TV.

  On the news, it say Gang Massacre At Cabrini-Green.

  “Fuckin’ animals,” Grammaw say. “Somebody ought to kill ‘em all.”

  “Maybe somebody is,” I say.

  “Shut the fuck up, boy, and go buy me my smokes.”

  I go but not to the store. I walk around all day. I walk away from the projects. I don’t think about going back. Pretty soon, the houses get nicer. It’s crazy how short a walk it is. It’s crazier that I never been here. Everything is so clean, and each house got its own patch of green grass and flowers. I would eat off the streets here before I’d eat off Grammaw’s kitchen table. White faces turn to look at me.

  Pretty soon, the 5-0 roll up.

  Two big, fat one-timers get out, so big the car sits up when they get out.

  “You lost?” one of them say, steppin’ up to me like he own me.

  “Naw.”

  Then he say what he mean.

  “You’re lost, boy.”

  “Get in the car,” his partner say. “We’ll take you home.”

  But that ain’t my home no more.

  “Come on,” he say.

  I keep on walking.

  “Hey, motherfucker,” say the first cop. “Get your black ass back here.”

  I keep walking.

  “Get the fuck back here, or I’m gonna light you up.”

  I turn around and look at him. Minutemen. GD. Blue and silver. All the same. Always fightin’ the red.

  He point somethin’ at me. Look like a space gun.

  “Go on, Carl,” say the other one. “Fry that stupid nigger, and let’s haul his ass back.”

  Somethin’ come outta the space gun, slower than a bullet. It�
�s easy to catch. It’s a pair of hooks on wires. They hang in the air for a minute, then I turn ‘em around and put the hooks in the fat cop’s eyes. He screams and jumps around, and I hear this fast clickin’ sound. I make it faster. Hotter. He starts to smoke.

  The other cop don’t grab a space gun. He pulls his strap. I wave my hand at him and paint him red, so red there ain’t nothing left of him but his gun.

  Across the street, a white lady screams.

  I sit down on the curb. I pull up my hood. It’s cold.

  The fat cop shakes on the ground, blacker than I am now.

  More one-timers come. More than came to clean up the GDs even. They close off the street. They come in big vans, and I crush ‘em like pop cans. They climb up on roofs where they think I can’t see, but I seen movies. I do to them what they try to do to me, and they roll off the roofs with no heads.

  I never even get up off the curb.

  Night comes, and the ghetto birds buzz around in circles over my head like the hungry, baldheaded birds in the cartoons when somebody’s dyin’ in the desert. They shine they lights down on me.

  I paint the light red, and what comes down is on fire and smashes through the roofs of the nice houses. Ain’t nobody inside. The white people have all run away. I let ‘em go.

  On a dead man’s radio, I hear them say they goin’ send soldiers next and tanks. I never seen a tank, but I seen soldiers. I think about how they tanks’ll look comin’ apart.

  Over the roofs of the burning houses, I can see the reds and the whites a ways off like big mountains.

  The moon is behind ‘em. I can see the light, but I can’t see the moon, so I put up my hand and I pull the projects down.

  When the dust clears, I see the moon real nice. It’s not the sun, but I put a smile on it anyway. I think about the moon shinin’ down on the green field, of the pink and yellow flowers openin’ up to catch the light. I know flowers ain’t s’posed to open at night, but the ones in my picture do.

  Miss Orozco would’ve liked that.

  Threshold

  Kris Ashton

  The pain is only mild now, a faint throb behind the eyes. But it won’t stay like this.

  Eighteen hours was the longest I lasted. How to describe the agony? Imagine your skull shrinking until it felt like the contents might spurt out your nose.