The Entropy of Bones

by Ayize Jama-everett

  Cover your mistakes is what you’re saying.

  “If you want to put that taint on it, sure. Come on, look, I’ll smooth things over with Mr. Khan for you, keep buying from your boys and throw in ten thousand dollars for every party you come to. If I need you in between parties, I’ll kick you another five grand just to see you. Plus you can stay in the suites whenever you want.”

  You just want me close by, I meant to say to myself.

  “You’re right about that.” Rice smirked, looking me up and down. It felt gross . . . and good to be desirable. “But I swear this is all business. Say yes. Please?”

  I’ll think about it. The early morning light was beginning to reflect off of his clear patio causing a flare to lance across my eyes.

  “I know you, you’ll say yes. I can tell.” Rice moved his hand in some odd motion and the blinds went down. He fished in his fridge for another beer and an apple as well. “Besides, you have too many questions you want answered to not hang out.”

  Careful what you think you know, I tried to quip back without sounding harsh. I’m going to go scoop up my friend from your girl’s spot now.

  “He’s not yours, is he?” Rice asked.

  What? Like boyfriend? Nah.

  “Boyfriend, right. Yeah I think he belongs to Poppy now. Might be a while before he’s ready to leave her side. Just chill out. Finish your beer.”

  I told you I don’t drink. But when I looked down I’d drunk half of it. Rice did that half smile from last night and I knew the correlated emotion for its true name: Mastery.

  I left the room quickly and banged on Poppy’s door until she let me in. I half dragged Shotgun out of the room with the cash. When Poppy tried to get in the way, I put both the cash and Shotgun down and squared off for her. She got the message and promptly moved. After Matt recovered from the shock of being away from his woman, he had one insistent request, “Please don’t tell my uncles.”

  I wasn’t sure what not to tell them, but silence was my preferred mode anyway. After dropping me off at my harbor, Shotgun pulled out a prepaid cell phone from the glove compartment and gave it to me. I was already out of the car.

  “I was supposed to give this to you last night. But you know, so we can call you instead of just showing up.” I nodded and walked away.

  Back on the boat I threw up four times before I could lie down. I felt a deep sickness beyond anything half a beer would’ve done. Dizziness was where it started, but with each memory of the night, nausea crept up. The beautiful ones, I’d seen them before. Not them, but someone or something that looked like them. And it was cruel. People so attractive should not be allowed to be so hard, I thought. But when I searched for evidence of hardness, I saw only my own. They negotiated in a way that was fair, that benefited Shotgun’s family in the end.

  But then there was the slap. It had been a while since anyone got the drop on me, sure. But even when they did, it was never a full-on slap like that. I rubbed my cheek and felt it still slightly swollen. There was no way a normal man in his late sixties should have that type of power and speed. But if Rice’s story was to be believed, Mr. Khan was no normal man. So what kind of man was he?

  And there was something else about all of them. Something to do with their mouths and the way they spoke. Maybe it was that accent that I couldn’t place. Maybe it was they sounded a bit like me when I spoke. But I didn’t use my mouth when I spoke, and they did. Didn’t they? Even the stamp on my hand to gain entrance had faded. I wondered if this is what it felt like being drunk, being sure something had happened but not knowing what.

  I twisted and turned in my bed for hours trying to get the smells and images of the previous night out of my head. I’d found the entropy in a man’s bones and he lived to tell about it. That just shouldn’t be the case. The most infuriating part of it was my strong desire to go back. All at once, I felt the inadequacies of my life, living hand-to-mouth on a boat. At that moment, I could be staying in a luxury suite. I could be eating fine food and drinking the best drinks.

  I sat up from my bed, Narayana’s bed, furious, my back slightly hot. What the fuck am I thinking? I don’t eat or drink like that. These are not the fucking things I want.

  I jumped in the shower enraged but with no direction for it. Finally I settled into my katas. It was two in the morning so I didn’t see any reason to dress. It was only then, in that cold night air, that I was able to lose what had been done and what I did in the previous night.

  Chapter Eight: Riot

  By the tail end of senior year Mom pretty much stopped talking to me. I took that. She also stopped worrying. When I came in with lightweight wounds my opponents could land—a sprained finger one night, a scorched shoulder the next—Mom didn’t even ask. I took her disregard as a form of respect, like she knew I could handle myself, though I knew that wasn’t her intent. Mom acted like I did drugs or like I was sleeping with Narayana. I wanted to scream, “He’s turning me into a bona fide badass, Mom!” But I was afraid of my own voice.

  The Little Kid invited me to his after-prom party. His mom owned an open-faced sandwich shop in downtown Oakland and she’d be gone that weekend. He told me he’d pay me a hundred dollars.

  What are you asking me now? I asked. He thought he’d offended. Really, I just hadn’t been paying attention until he mentioned money.

  “No! Not for sex.” A little too loud. The catty bitches on the school’s lawn giggled. I stared until I vanished their Forever 21 asses.

  “Security. I think that’s when I’m going to make my debut.”

  You gay?

  “No. My debut as . . .”

  A woman?

  “I already said I’m not gay . . .”

  Yeah, but you could be like a woman trapped in a little kid’s body. That’s not the same as being gay . . .” I kept a straight face until he looked like he was about to cry. Your debut as what?

  “A DJ,” he chirped like a small bird as he searched his backpack and pulled out cards and posters in bright red and yellow. I’d seen them already posted around school, though there was no way I could have known they were his. Under DJ it said “Special Guest.”

  What makes you so special? I asked as we headed to our homeroom.

  “Nothing. But if I suck, I don’t want it ruining my chances to spin someplace else.” He was off like a squirrel after nuts in his bag, looking for essentials for the next class. I’d given up learning anything at school almost a full year earlier. Even the pretty black teacher stopped trying with me by this point.

  Fair point. But why are you trying to molest me on the loot? I demanded, pointing to the five dollar cover. Half the door and I’m in.

  “No,” he said, so forcefully I wondered if he was reacting to something else. His posture didn’t change, he didn’t stop rooting through his bag, just his voice got definitive. I waited until we got to class and he was sitting to speak again.

  Come on, Little Kid. Even if just half your science geeks come that’ll be . . .

  “Look, I budgeted properly,” he fumed. At me. The Little Kid fumed at me. “My mother’s business hasn’t been going well. If can do this right, I can pay rent for a month. I need that money. I wouldn’t even be asking you for this but . . .”

  But what?

  “Well, I kind of went crazy and announced it on my website so I don’t know how many people are coming.”

  On the Mansai, Raj told me I’d done the right thing by taking the job. We discussed it as we went through the seventy-seven forms of motion he’d first taught me. I’d never forgotten one of them, but senior year was when Narayana taught me their names.

  “He see you fight?” Raj asked, retracing his arm from Excise Griffin; a hard wrist, soft finger strike designed to paralyze from the diaphragm down to the distal phalanges, and arching his back for Medusa’s Rise, a single-leg overhead strike.

  Nah. Just the trouble I gave a wannabe gangster at school. But you know, rep, I said after landing from the rise and extending my
right arm to the side for the Phoenix Bow—from extended right arm, hip twist into right elbow, move left hand back to the cheek like you’re stringing an arrow in a bow, then forward approach driving left fist into the target.

  “He not hire you.” Narayana laughed, his bulletproof belly not betraying a single shudder as he did. “He hire your rep. Know what that means?”

  Testing the rep, I said, twisting and crunching into Flame’s Descent—front leg kicks out back leg of opponent while back finger rakes the eyes of falling opponent, while I squat low to prevent an attack on my legs.

  Only ones who come are the ones who need the rep the most. It would be the gang banger. He was not happy that a girl had punked him. But he had it coming for going after the Little Kid for no reason one lunch period. If he was dumb, he’d come alone. Either way he’d be strapped. As my calves ached from the Demon’s Tears pose—legs parallel and bent, weight on the left, right ankle loose for a snap kick to groin or face, right arm protecting vital trunk organs, other arm chambered and relaxed, ready for whatever came, Narayana smirked.

  “Good girl.”

  But I didn’t do anything, I said, my concentration broken.

  “Sometimes you good girl without knowing,” was all he would say as he descended into the main cabin. Just as I was about to give up Demon’s Tears, Raj came stomping back up the stairs.

  “How come he only ask you for after prom?”

  Huh?

  “He should take you to prom.” I almost choked laughing. “You not ugly,” Narayana barked, like my laugh had insulted him. “Where I’m from, many man pay good money for night with you. Bring flowers, food for your whole family, and money.”

  Thanks? I smirked, really trying to take it as a compliment. Here, though, these dudes want white chicks, or light-skinned black girls at least. They’ve got to be able to do whatever they want to them, like control them, you know? Girl stands up for herself, doesn’t dress like a slut blow-up doll, it just doesn’t work, you know?

  I was speaking purely speculatively, I realized, as the dark small man crossed his deck to me with an inspective eye. Slower than I’d ever seen him move, Narayana reached his manicured hand to my face, bracing my Mongolian father’s cheeks in between his hand. Fish sauced wafted off his breath as he gently pulled me toward him.

  “I am Narayana Raj. You are my one and only pupil. Between me and you, no lie. I tell you this and you listen like when I teach Ashes Ascent or Salamander Strike.” He waited until I nodded before speaking again. “You are beautiful.”

  Not sure why that hit both of us so hard, but we held each other for a while after that. Me holding back tears, him singing gently in whatever his home language is.

  I’d prepared the way Narayana had told me to; I’d gone to the indoor shooting range with a bow and arrows he’d forced me to make two weeks earlier, and practiced my aim as small-caliber fire went off all around me. I perfected the light-touch pulse interruption Narayana called Ember’s Kiss, and made my blade dance in my hand like a crackhead trying to earn enough for her nightly fix. For the final touch I waited until the last minute. I needed Mom.

  I got this thing, I mind muttered, interrupting her Carolina Chocolate Drops listening. Mom was reading sitting on the couch in the living room downstairs. She’d stopped with the hard liquor but still sipped on large goblets of wine. She turned in her chair slightly to me. I need to get dressed up for this thing tonight.

  “What kind of thing?”

  It’s a dance. I’m . . . It was like we hadn’t been distant and cold for a year plus. I’d never seen her so animated. My closets were filled with decomposing skeletons and weird weapons. Mom’s were filled with pseudo silks, rainbows of short, mini- and long dresses. The variety of sizes told me she’d never thrown a dress away. She had dresses in there I vaguely remembered from my childhood, back when she was still an elegant drunk. When she pulled out a deep blue skintight pencil dress, I almost ruined the moment.

  I’ve got to be able to move, you know? The flash of despair in her face made me want to pull my words back into my mouth. But Mom took a gulp of wine and kept her eye on the prize.

  “Good point. You don’t know what these boys out here will try. Besides, you can’t go from jeans, T-shirt, and hoodies to a piece like this. Might cause some heart attacks.” We laughed. Together. In the end she fitted me with a gray blouse that left my back exposed and a blood red skirt that showed more ankle on one leg than the other. I let her do my makeup but disappeared before she could say anything about my toe socks. I lived near barefoot and a hundred bucks wasn’t enough to get me to try heels.

  From his deck Raj looked over the pier to see me and nodded a noncommittal affirmation. His attention was split by the small TV he had playing UFC fights or, as he called them, comedy fights. “Remember Peacock’s Forever Glory requires clear mind as well as contracted diaphragm.”

  I look all right, Raj? I twirled in front of him on the pier to show the trickery that Mom had worked. He threw me the keys to his rusty Cutlass Royale.

  “Clothes, paint on face don’t make you good. Has to come . . .”

  For the love of Christ, Raj . . .

  “Yes, ok? You pretty. Make good money if you sell it. Now go protect Little Kid.” With no one else around I felt ok to grin.

  While everybody else was at prom, the real prom, Little Kid and I were transforming his mom’s sandwich shop into a den of music, dancing, and underage drinking. When he first saw me, Little Kid looked like he wanted to say something, but then couldn’t find the words so resorted to trying not to look at me directly.

  Little Kid was smart; once we moved the trash cans out of the small enclosed back area, it made a great keg garden and smoker’s refuge. I didn’t bother asking where he got the three kegs. A storage balcony that usually served as an office for his mom was the perfect DJ booth. We moved the meat coolers to the back—luckily they were on wheels—and rearranged the lunch tables so that they made the borders of what would be the dance floor. He’d already taken the chips and sodas out of visual range by the time I got there. I only had time to demand Little Kid play jungle once before the chess club came a-knocking. Half of them were already drunk.

  Little Kid was spinning his slightly alternative top forty tunes for an hour before anyone I didn’t recognize from school began showing up. Eye checks and the occasional Ember’s Kiss kept the five-dollar tolls coming easy enough.

  Around one in the morning I noticed the lack of my favorite Latino gangster wannabe. The loss of that ass-kicking wasn’t that severe, but it alerted me to the lack of new bodies coming in. I stepped outside for the first time in an hour plus and saw Oakland on fire. Turned out it wasn’t the gangster I had to worry about. Just the overtaxed, underprepared, and trigger-happy Oakland Police Department.

  A moron of an undertrained Oakland police officer had fired a gun at point-blank range at a twenty-two-year-old Oakland kid who was unarmed. And handcuffed. Facedown. The cop was white and lived in the rich suburb of Antioch. The kid was black and lived in a part of Oakland known as The Bottoms.

  The cop’s excuse was that he thought he was pulling his Taser. Oakland wasn’t buying it, but the jury did. They gave the cop the lightest sentence possible. Oakland answered by lighting its streets on fire. That’s what the news reports said, at least. In truth, it wasn’t the mourners of the dead Bottoms kid or the righteous anger of the Oakland protestors that started lighting garbage cans on fire. It was bandanna-faced trustafarians who got off calling themselves anarchists alongside the usual opportunistic infection–type people that avail themselves of whatever tragedy they can find to grab whatever they can. They were the ones who maintained the chaos in the streets.

  In response, the Oakland Police Department strapped on their riot gear and swung for the fences, trying desperately to maintain what crumbs of order they could find. Of course I knew none of this at the time. I just walked out of my first and only high school party and found a full-scale riot
jumping off.

  Party’s over! If anyone wondered how they could hear me over the music, they didn’t bother asking. I had to use my Voice. They were all following instructions, packing up and figuring out how to get out of the sandwich shop, except the Little Kid.

  “What the hell?” he yipped at me as I went up to his balcony.

  Riot. Big time. All downtown, by the smell of the fire. He understood quickly enough and killed the music just as the sound of breaking wood from the beer garden made him jump. Me too, only I leapt from the small back window on the second floor balcony to the beer garden. A skinny dread anarchist had already made his way over by the time I landed. His friend was trying to make it over the fence as well. I let his ass meet my knee.

  You’re not welcome here, I whispered as I threw him back over the fence.

  “Fucking pigs are everywhere,” the remaining white dread moaned as I stepped off the keg, resting on the balls of my feet softly.

  Your problem. Not mine. The smell of his fear came in waves almost masking the smell of burning tires from Franklin Street. You get one chance to leave here on your own.

  He did not choose wisely.

  Back inside, nine mathletes and debaters formed a circle around the Little Kid. He’d been smart enough to lock the front door and turn off all the lights. The front gate to the plate-glass shop window had already been locked down. Across the street we saw a troop of helmeted baton-wielding police officers making their way from their headquarters on the border of Jack London Square to the main riot center in front of City Hall.