The November Criminals: A Novel

by Sam Munson

  “I tole you I ain’t even know the muhfuh, ain’t I?” You had to admit, his lingo was holding up well. I’d upset him with my importuning. When you’re that fat, all changes in your vital signs and emotions are apparent: sweating, breathing, they all get magnified by the effort of your suffocating heart. David was bouncing himself off the wall, using his back muscles, nothing else, making these deep slaps. Out of impatience or something.

  “Ain’t I say that,” Noel almost pleaded, his voice going soft. “Ain’t I say that.” He looked frightened. I thought at the time it was of Short Mike. Later events convinced me that this could not be true. I think it must have been fear of exposure.

  I’m getting ahead of myself. I had no time to worry about his motives, because Digger started talking. She was using her most reasonable voice. Which is always a sign of deep disturbance.

  “You fat motherfucker,” she began, “you’re going to help us. We’re going to deal with this. And if you don’t, if you don’t come up with some kind of contribution to this whole problem, I mean, not the problem but whatever, you know what I mean, I swear to God I’ll beat the shit out of you, right now. I can do it! I know I can! I will beat the shit out of you. I’ll hit you with that fucking plank. And your fucking boyfriend in the corner over there won’t do anything.” David shouted with laughter at this, and jogged over to and up the stairs, as if in confirmation.

  Digger yanked the crumpled banner out of her bag and hurled it into Noel’s huge lap, as he was emitting the obligatory I ain’t no muhfuh faggot stutters.

  “Dude, I mean, I don’t necessarily think that violence is indicated? But she’s right in principle.” I found myself addressing the white cloth, with Lorriner’s message clearly visible in reverse. Noel had the banner up, screening his torso, two slices of which were visible on either side. Blue-white-blue, the arrangement of Israel’s flag.

  “Man, gimme like two gees and I like think about it, a’ight?” Noel mouthed this from behind the swastika, now reversed into its correct orientation. He let the banner fall and shroud his lap and asked us again if we wanted to smoke.

  “Sure,” I answered, an eye on Digger. I was worried. But she kept calm. She’d gotten it out of her system, I guess. Noel is a guy you can scare, yeah, and mercenary to boot, but you also have to play along with the whole notion that you’re friends. So we’d smoke, and he’d tell us about Lorriner.

  “Is David like pissed or something?” I asked while Noel was crumbling weed into a blunt wrapper he’d split with his horny thumbnail and reamed of its tobacco. He eyed Digger, and then the planks, before he answered. He believed her threat, ladies and gentlemen, and he was right to. Like I said, she’s going to achieve greatness.

  “Naw, son, he juss like mad. Nigga juss get like that.” David was still stomping around upstairs. He was rummaging: you know, clanks and muffled self-questioning. The walls in Noel’s house are sound-conducive, and the emptiness of the place doesn’t help either, as far as acoustic amplification goes. Even your own speaking voice can blare into an aggrieved shout.

  Blunt time! I told you Noel considers me a friend, and that’s why he shares his made-up sex stories with me. He gets high with me as another unrefusable token/proof of this friendship. It’s a little gross, the idea of a blunt, because it gets finished—the wrapper gets sealed up, I mean—with an intimate slurp: the whole thing goes into the roller’s mouth and then is drawn out, moistened, and closed. Kind of horrifying, when it comes out of a cavernous, fat-guy mouth. But we were all polite. Digger’s sole indication of hurry was her drumming heel, which made all the beads on her bag click. This solid-sounding bony click. She had a severe coughing episode after her initial puff. Blunts are harsh, the drags are copious, and the acrid cigar paper around the weed doesn’t mollify the taste.

  “My shit be crucial, though,” cooed Noel. He was staring at Digger’s tits again, brought to heaving prominence by her coughing fit. With the white cloth covering his legs, and his goggling eyes, he looked like some deviant, obese and prematurely aged, used to having his whims satisfied. Hermann Göring or something. I was also—I’ll be honest—transfixed. By her tits, I mean. We were both lucky she was too busy coughing to notice our joint gawp.

  And isn’t this the essence of all social situations? A group in which lines of relationship exist as fragments failing to connect the whole? I mean, I was connected to Digger, and I was connected to Noel. But they had nothing to do with each other. I had taken a long drag on the spit-wet, limpish blunt. Smoking weed always makes you think, even if it makes you think stupid things; it loosens you up, at first. I mean, we were sitting there with nothing holding us together. How did this serve my higher purpose? I wanted to stand up and shout. But it was too late. David quieted down upstairs. Digger got her coughing and her tits back under control. Noel had slapped on the fake-confident smile that means he’s about to assent. All the stupid, senseless elements were in place. For your sake, I’m going to distill what Noel told us into somewhat reasonable English, condense it. It took him an über-long time to finish. He kept having to grab breaths, to squirm around in his seat. He speaks at a canter anyway, when he’s stoned. Which just made everything take for-fucking-ever. So: Mike Lorriner, Noel said, was

  like this nigga from like Maryland who like be friends with that shorty Kelly, you know that one with the mad thick ass? So like he like this real redneck nigga, nahmean, like real racist and shit, and he like came into D.C. like to handle his bidness and shit and like party. So like one weekend he had like been at the party like in fucking Chevy Chase, some shit like that, at some white nigga name D’s house, nahmean, just like chillin’. And this nigga Kevin like was talking all this shit about how like Maryland was some like shit or whatever, so like Mike started talking shit back, and like then they was like pushin’ each other and screamin’ at each other and shit, and like Mike called him like a nigga, and then Kevin got like real pissed and shit and like took this cup of like rum or some shit and like dump that shit right in Mike’s face. And then like Mike punched that other nigga, I mean that nigga Kevin, and like Kevin punched him back, and they was all like hittin’ each other and like shoving each other and shit and everyone was like yellin’, but like then these two other niggas like broke up the shit and like all the other niggas calmed down, and like Mike left but he was all like “I’m a fuck you up, son!” Then that nigga said like some crazy shit about graveyards, nah-mean? At least, that’s like what Kelly said, man, and she was like at this nigga’s house, man, it like some fuckin’ mansion she said. I think you prolly know that nigga whose house it is, man, anyway. Nigga like play lacrosse and shit. So like that’s all I know about Mike, man, he just like a crazy white nigga, you know, like all racist and shit.

  “Man, he like you, Addison,” Noel finished, exhaling an impressive curlicue of smoke. “’Cept you ain’t like racist and shit.” He spoke as though we were being interrogated. Noel picked the banner up and began to fold it, hand over curdy white hand. Digger took another nostril breath. We would have had to go through another cycle of this, of her demands, his balks and feints, and my limp conciliation, if David had not, with his loud assured steps, come back downstairs, carrying something wrapped in a green-checked dish towel. No smile or frown. Just the same shut-eyed look—of disdain?—he’d been flashing us the whole time. There was a stitchwork dog on the cloth, and the excess gingham spilled over David’s smooth left fist. Holy fuck! My balls retreated as soon as David unwrapped it, just the butt. You could see the gun’s textured gray grip plate, which glinted in the subtle way concrete does.

  “Shit, nigga, is you crazy?” Noel screeched, slamming his feet to the ground in an effort to lever himself off the couch. (Which failed.) David hushed him with a raised palm.

  “It’s for him. He should get something useful out of this, you fat motherfucker.” This was the longest sentence I’d ever heard him speak. It gave voice to my own feelings on the matter, and to what I imagine were Digger’s. But at
the time all I could think, if you can even call it thinking, was, Holy fuck, it’s a fucking gun! For fucking shooting people! Do you know what it means to have a gun? It’s amazing! Not in some my dick is bigger than yours way. You have this thing that puts you in touch with the absolute. Everyone dies, no matter what. No matter what you do. Everyone dies. Including you, ladies and gentlemen, including all of you. David tucked the cloth back over the grip and handed the bundle to me.

  “It’s a Glock. You know how to use it?” I nodded: a complete lie. This moron’s grin had smeared itself across my face. I could feel it. “Nigga all smilin’ like it Christmas. Don’t he have like a Christmas smile,” Noel sandpapered out. It was heavy. It was so heavy.

  “I gave you a clip, too. It’s like folded up in there. I ain’t load it, though,” David told me. Though he might as well have said, Four score and seven years ago our forefathers brought forth upon this continent, etc., for all the attention I was paying. I was floating.

  “Hey, Noel,” I said. “Noel.” I wanted to ask him about Huang and Baltimore, if he knew anything about them, too. But I realized this would require telling him I’d gone to the cops. Which looked to be perhaps the stupidest thing I’d ever done.

  “Whutchoo want, nigga? You scurred or suh’in?” His whale’s lips parted in derision. Just wanted to get back on the controlling side, I guess. But! My hands were moving now, unwrapping the rest of the weapon. Of their own volition. Amazing, right? I slipped the clip into my pocket and cradled the denuded gun. A Glock. Who even knew what that meant? Then, in the grip of a sure and perverse impulse, I aimed it at Noel’s bobbing, pointed head and squeezed the trigger. “Addison, don’t, come on, don’t do that, Addison, please,” he gasped, raising his arms in defense.

  It took all my strength to pull, to make the gun give up its dry, thirsty, prefatory sound. Lick your lips and separate them. Like that. Much louder, more metallic. Much scarier. But identical in spirit. You know? Like it was preparing to speak. Like it had something complicated and awkward to say.

  “Nigga, shit, naw, man, don’t fuckin’ play like that,” Noel gargled. He’d recovered his lingo.

  “Okay, man,” I said. I mean, I was ready to rush home and bring him all my money, as long as it meant I got to keep the gun. To put a final shine on everything, I wrapped up the gun again, and offered to pack a bowl for everybody. Digger fished out her pipe, without objecting. She looked from Noel to David as though she were deciding between victims. She even took a hit after Noel, who lipped the pipe way too much. Even David partook, and he never smokes. He told me once it was bad for the heart. I tried to refute him—“It actually has many medical benefits,” like what the legalization people say—but he just walked away from me without listening or saying anything further.

  “So it’s like a Glock?” I asked Noel.

  “Yeah, nigga, just point and it’s like bladow! Y’all can pay my ass lata, though.” David was making the muscles on his neck fan out. He does this when he’s bored, to kill time.

  “And how much did you like want? Like two thousand?” I asked. Two thousand was less than 25 percent of my cash hoard. An über-reasonable fee for all this glory. David, emerging from glowering silence, cut this conversation off, shouting at Noel.

  “FUCK you, nigga.” This was the first time I had ever heard him raise his voice. We all stopped moving in astonishment, including David, who was now wearing a surprised half smile. Digger released a squib of smoke. I swear to fucking God she gave a quiet accompanying laugh. Nobody argued. Nobody said anything more about money.

  X.

  THE REST OF OUR EXIT? Shrouded in a mental haze. Noel had sulked his way downstairs to his monk’s room. David watched us leave. Stokey the junkie was still muttering to himself in the dark. That much I remember. We drove not speaking, at least for a while. We were both solemn and stoned. Then Digger said, “I’ve never seen a gun before.” No criticism. No moral lecture. Just the same druglike, frightening delight coursing through me. Do you even understand how rare coincidences of feeling like that are? Another reason I value her company so much. It won’t surprise you to know that, despite the late hour—it was seven minutes after eight o’clock at this point—we headed to the Dump. It’s a second home to us, sad though that may be, so confident are we of our solitude there.

  “Like what the fuck are we going to do with it,” I breathed. She didn’t answer me. I was speeding, which I never do, for professional reasons. The lights of the city rushed by in two low glittering wings.

  “I can’t believe I’ve never even seen one, not a real one,” Digger whispered, as my engine groaned and struggled.

  We got there in twelve minutes, record time from Noel’s house. We parked in the jagged shadow of a trash hill, a tangled heap of junked car chassis, and crouched in the brown dark. Digger unwrapped the gun with visible tenderness, lifted it, hefted it. We could hear each other’s breathing.

  “Do you have to oil it or anything?” she asked. I slotted the clip in. By some miracle of instinct.

  “We didn’t get the like instructions.”

  “What happens now?” Digger asked, fumbling with her lower lip as she spoke.

  “What do you mean, now?”

  “Aren’t you going to fire it?”

  “I like don’t know. Should I?”

  “How do we know it works? Right? I mean, consider the source. So I think you should at least fire it. It could be like a setup or something.” A setup, ladies and gentlemen. How can you fail to admire someone so detail-oriented? We had a wealth of crap to use as targets, anyway, so we ambled around choosing. At random, with our appraisers’ chin lifts, we chose a sturdy cardboard box and balanced it on a yolk-yellow chair. Then we placed a filthy bottle on top of the box and backed away comically far, as though the chair were armed. Digger quickstepped off to the side and palm-cupped her ears, crouching and ready. I lifted the gun—the weight strained my wrist—and pulled the trigger.

  A huge percussive cough, from nowhere. A simultaneous kick from the gun itself. My nerves sang. And a reverberant gong-beat rose from the car heap and indistinct night birds took flight on both riverbanks. “Jesus fuck,” Digger screamed, scuttling even farther away and shifting her hands: the right now tented over her heart, the left still over her ear. Posed like an old-timey phone operator. You know, a switchboard girl or whatever? Listening to some outrageous conversation. The swift, tremendous noise of the shot itself thrilled me. Just that simple: it thrilled me. I won’t lie. Although the weird target we’d set up had survived my assault untouched. Digger walked back and slumped against me, shoulder-to-shoulder, in comradely praise. Her heart was vibrating, and I caught her scent as I massaged my tingling shooting arm. “Holy shit, man,” she whispered. “Holy shit. Can I try?”

  I handed the gun over, barrel first, and it slipped between our reaching hands and clunked into the floury junkyard dirt. We leaped back, screaming our heads off. It didn’t fire. So Digger picked it up. “I feel like I don’t know what I feel like,” she said through clenched teeth, and turned her blue stare on the bottle. The river birds had calmed down. The yellow dump-light tinted everything. She dug her neat heels into the dirt, with two discrete squeaks. And pulled the trigger. Her entire small body was involved with the shot. The recoil shocked her; her shoulders heaved, like she’d let out one precise sob. There was the same from-everywhere percussion. The bottle shattered this time, and the pile of metal gave out a second lugubrious bong. Birds took panicked flight again. “Holy shit,” she crowed. “Holy fucking SHIT.” No humiliation! I’m not that kind of guy, I swear. I have a lot of problems—as you can no doubt tell—but it seemed fair, somehow, that Digger was a better shot. A natural.

  I always keep a map in my car, a map of D.C., Virginia, and Maryland, which the map company considers part of the same unit, I guess. It’s old and water-damaged, the pages scarred with creases, marked with the anonymous shit-colored stains that paper picks up when neglected. Or (in this case) cram
med into the crumby, dank underseat on the passenger side of my car. I inherited this map from my father, as well as the paranoid tendency to keep it around. Digger, always, has change for pay phones. It’s a neurotic habit of hers. Though we had given Lorriner’s banner to Noel, the brick it had clothed was sitting in my backseat. And now we had a gun. I know it may be hard for you to understand. But out of these simple and everyday components, we developed a plan. Or the plan came into spontaneous existence because these particular objects stood in close proximity for the first and last time in the history of the universe. That’s how it goes. Think of those experiments with proteins and simulated lighting, in the sixties or whatever, that produced amino acids. You get the idea. We didn’t even have to discuss it. We both knew what would happen: we would drive out to bumblefuck Maryland and return Lorriner’s brick by throwing it through his window. The gun was just insurance. Which we didn’t even need. We wouldn’t write a message. We weren’t a couple of racist hicks. Just a quick toss and “viola,” as my father says. (He chuckles every time.)

  Events conspired with us. We found a pay phone right after leaving the dump, columned in baleful and buzzing light, cradled against the wall of a urine-stinking gas station on New York Avenue. I can be sort of terrified by these places, because they’re desert-empty, and because the name of one follows, eight times out of ten, the phrase, She was last seen at. Serial killers’ natural terrain. But the 411 lady was just as helpful as she’d been the first time I’d inquired about Lorriner, and sounded just as delighted to help me. Although it was a different operator now. I remembered the bizarre name of Lorriner’s street, even. I flatter myself that this impressed her. She gave me the exact address, which I’d forgotten. Then I was back in my retarded car, where Digger had lit a cigarette in mute joy, and we were off into the darkness.