King's Justice kobc-2

by Maurice Broaddus

  The living room of his Breton Court town house doubled as his bedroom. He might as well not have owned the second floor as he never ventured up there. He lived without roots. Sweatshirts, T-shirts, and jeans in their respective piles between where the futon stretched out into a bed and the wall. A large television was on another stand, a tray of burning incense beside it. A small stereo system and a stack of books were the only other furnishings in the room. A basket held folded socks and underwear (which he covered when Lady G was over). An end table held an array of colognes, an odd affectation, as if he were never pleased with his own scent and was constantly in search of his true one.

  This was their time, their special time. Away from their friends, away from their family, away from their responsibilities, they carved out this space, this time for them, if only to sit and hold one another. They shared the little things, the secret things and the unspoken things.

  "What is it, King?"

  "I haven't wanted anything in a long time. Haven't felt…" He didn't know if he could find the words to express that, around her, the pain in his chest ebbed and died. It was dangerous to love anything too much. Better to love just a little bit. How he feared that he might be desperately in love with a woman, little more than a girl, whom he should not risk loving because he couldn't afford to lose her. How he had spent a lifetime shying away whenever he thought he found such a love, but she managed to slip under his radar, his wall, and sneak upon him. He leaned down and whispered. "I don't want to give you up."

  "I have no intentions of letting you."

  "You're a… I should know better." He couldn't stem the spread of weakness, love, when it came to her. His foolishness made him think fondly of himself. So feeling. So ordinary. So full of the helplessness of love. What was it about her that penetrated his defenses? Her woundedness, her strength, her light, her innocence? She had a bird-like defenselessness, fragile pieces of glass, which was his to protect. And he swelled at the idea of being her champion. In his arms, she came to feel unorphaned. He had grown addicted to their moments together and often bent his schedule to maximize their time together. To live for her, to die for her, to never want to let her go. She was his drug of choice and he planned to ride the high for as long as possible.

  "You're a child molester!" She exclaimed in faux shock. He talked to her, really talked to her, not talking down to her. He not only listened to her, but expected intelligence and great things from her. She liked being seen and treated that way, though she wasn't always present with him. Not in any real way. Bereft of a part of her soul, she thought. Stingy with her affections, she guarded a virtue only present in her own mind.

  "Don't joke." He touched her face. "You're not just eighteen. You talk and act much older."

  "There are no children out here."

  "I should have the sense and strength to send you off to find someone your own age. Some simple boy."

  "You want to be with me. I want to be with you. Eyes wide open." She thought there was space for her in him. Not love, possession. The longing for her. When she looked at him, the thoughts behind the gaze were distant. He wanted to be pulled into her view. He wanted those eyes, that attention, that hungry intent for himself.

  The fine bulges fascinated his fingers as he caressed her neck in body worship. She exposed more of herself to his touch. His breathing deepened. Trailing to her breastbone, without protest, he traced the swell of her breasts. He slipped his hand down her top. Her head nuzzled him. Cupping her full breasts and encircling her nipple with his thumb, he found the edges of her areola and circled it. Even a flick failed to elicit a response. No low moan, no sound of any sort. Only non-protest. It was as if she couldn't feel. She didn't feel the kiss he pressed on her. Her internal elusiveness, preserving part of herself as if by instinct.

  He turned her head and kissed her. Hungry and probing, his tongue pushed past her lips. He ran his hands along her belly, pressing his hand along her shirt. He kissed the underside of her neck. Pulling at her jeans, he lowered them. To a tremble, a hint of resistance. He slowed. He turned her onto her belly and tugged at her shirt. Her hand gripped it. He knew her worry. The scars. He held firm to the shirt, determined, until she let go. Her back a filigree of scars, spider webs of raised welts and keloids. He followed each delicate bend with his finger. Then with his mouth. Tender, he kissed her back, each kiss an acceptance of her body, of who she was, of her sum of scars. He lowered his attentions, trailing further down her back.

  And she offered no protest.

  Two broken lovers poured out their sorrow on one another. Not making love as much as reaching for a life preserver before they drowned in a sea of their own pent-up pain. Theirs was the connection of tragedy, even if they never spoke a word of it.

  King laid next to her, watched her the entire night, indifferent to his fatigue. He matched his breathing to hers as to not disturb her. To listen to her more clearly. Anything was better than the silence. Yet even her sleeping form threatened to overwhelm him, fill every part of him.

  And he couldn't afford to lose her.

  CHAPTER SIX

  On the corner of New York Street and Rural Avenue, Outreach Inc. bustled with newfound life and excitement. Not that their old ministry home was a bad place: they had shared space with Neighborhood Fellowship Church, however, the penitentiary-styled refurbished school wasn't quite… "them." It didn't achieve the atmosphere they wanted, unlike the renovated double home they now inhabited. Home being the key word.

  Brown furniture and wood shelves filled the olivegreen walls of the great room. A television armed with Nintendo 64, which had been donated: the ministry always a generation or two behind the latest game system.

  Wayne stood in the adjoining dining room which also ran the width of the house yet seemed so much brighter than the great room. Perhaps the sky-blue walls reflected light better. Five teens studied the blank pieces of paper in front of them, as if they contained alien script they struggled to decipher. Baskets of crayons, colored pencils, and markers filled their respective baskets in the center of the table. Wayne's Rottweiler, Kay, lay at their feet, his head on his paws. He lifted his head high enough to loll his tongue over Wayne's outstretched hand. Kay chewed up furniture at home, more out of boredom and loneliness rather than anything malicious, but Wayne didn't have the heart to crate him. Instead, he brought him to Outreach Inc.

  "You are making this too hard. Just draw a picture of what you think it means, what it would look like for you, to 'Make It.'" Wayne clapped his hands on the back of Lamont "Rok" Walters.

  Rok's mind danced with images of new cars, a Benz, with new rims. Jewelry, lots of fat rings. A house, maybe one for his granmoms, too. New clothes from which he could pull a roll of money from his pants. Huge speakers for his system. Resting poolside with some honeys pouring Cristal for him. Then he realized he was in an MTV video and that his imagination had run dry. The last time they did this exercise, Rok drew a close-up of a black arm with a swollen vein like a bulging blue python throbbing as if nearly sated. Dangling from the arm was a needle, the pink swirl of a load about to be plunged into the arm, a thin trickle of blood escaping the piercing point. All against a backdrop of dark clouds, bulbous and threatening. The assignment was to draw a perfect day.

  Rhianna crayoned a page from a coloring book merrily to herself. It didn't matter her age, she was suddenly six again, her tongue stuck out in fierce concentration as she chose her colors and stayed within the lines. The purple, violet red, and mauve, for the wings of the smiling butterfly, its body black and its smiling face peach. Not brown, which Wayne found interesting. Not content to simply color the picture, she drew in the background, adding a lawn, a few flowers, and sun and clouds against a blue sky.

  As Wayne prattled on about the possibility of any of them becoming doctors or lawyers, or having a spouse and kids, he might as well have been talking about discovering that they were really a Jedi or a superhero.

  "This is bullshit." Rok pushed
away from the table. All eyes fell on him and rather than face their curious scrutiny, he dashed up the stairs.

  "Esther, you…" Wayne gestured for Esther Baron to watch to the rest of the kids. She nodded that she could handle supervising them. Wayne hadn't initially thought much of Esther. She was a nice enough volunteer, but volunteers came and went and he thought she had the whiff of a suburban girl slumming to make herself feel good, so he'd all but dismissed the possibility of her lasting. Still, she was there the night the Durham Brothers attacked Prez and Trevant, associates of some of his clients. And she returned without a mention of the evening.

  The stairs creaked in alarm at Wayne's heavy-set frame in quick ascent. He understood the simmering frustration most of the kids — like Rok — experienced. Like never having the right words to express the confluence of complex emotions swirling within him. How he had to break them down into simpler things he understood. Hurt. Anger. The call and response of the streets. Quietly, and he'd never admit this to anyone except a fellow staff member, Wayne was pleased with Rok's retreat. Not that he had run from the table, but the fact that Rok chose to run upstairs rather than out the door. Positive steps had to be measured and counted differently, Wayne had long ago learned. In this case, whether Rok realized it or not, he had fled to the prayer loft.

  Rok huddled in the back corner of the room, arms around his pulled-up knees. A hint of the lost boy inside the fifteen year-old budding man struggling to burst free. Haloed by prayers other folks had scrawled upon the walls. I give up. I'm so sick inside. Just give me a little hope, something to hold onto through the night. I want my baby back. I want my mommy back. I want my family back. I want to be whole.

  "You OK?" The words sounded terribly naive to even Wayne's ears, but he had to start somewhere. Rok simply eyed him. Not cold or hard, but wary as if wanting to lower his guard if only once. Wayne was good at reading faces, to know when someone was struggling and needed prayer for them to hang in there, struggling alongside them as if willing hope upon them. Praying for God to use him like a mirror, for them to see themselves as he saw them: precious, beloved. And he knew he couldn't always wait for them to make the first move. Believing in the power of presence, Wayne scooted near, but without crowding him.

  "Have you ever lost anything?" Rok asked the air.

  "Yes." Wayne brushed some accumulated dirt from his Timberlands, careful not to meet Rok's eyes. It allowed the boy a measure of privacy, space to be vulnerable.

  "Have you ever lost everything?"

  "No."

  "Well I have. About twelve times. Maybe I'm tired of losing everything."

  The words hung in the air without the need for comment or the reflex of offering a contrived platitude. Wayne didn't pretend to have all the answers, and as much as his heart wanted to wave a magic wand and make all the hurt go away and make everything better, nothing lasting was ever built that way. So Wayne simply listened, reassuring Rok that he'd be there as much as he'd let him and help him develop a plan to get to where he wanted. By the time they walked downstairs, the other kids were leaving, papers in hand. Rok walked out without meeting either Wayne's or Esther's eye.

  "That go OK?" Esther asked.

  "Okay as can be expected. Even baby steps are steps forward." Wayne began to clear off the table, returning the crayons to their boxes and stacking the unused paper.

  "That how it is?" Esther brushed a curl of hair back behind her ear, then collected the scissors and bottles of glue.

  "Yeah, you learn to re-evaluate how to measure success doing this work. Don't matter their situation, they're just like the rest of us: too often can't get out of the way of their own bad decision-making and instead take ten paces back."

  "Oh."

  "But you seem to be getting the hand of how things work around here." Wayne flashed her a reassuring smile. Some people weren't built for the continual heartbreak the job entailed. Pouring themselves into a person only to have them make bad decisions, or continue to hurt themselves or worse.

  "I guess." Esther Baron believed in hope. She had been raised in a family who believed in hope, and strove to pass on that hope. She had been with Outreach Inc. for nearly a year now because she wanted to be a part of the hope. Quiet, though not shy; more thoughtful than anything else, maybe lacking the confidence to share her thoughts, she plunged into Outreach Inc. with both feet. To this day she couldn't describe what she did: mother, sister, friend, confidante, advisor. She was… there. If she had business cards, that's how they would read: Esther Baron — There.

  "Don't sell yourself short. The longer you stick around, the more you'll see some stuff that will make you question the world you live in."

  "Like…" Esther's eyes widened and she blushed as if wanting to swallow that last syllable and pretend it didn't happen. Yet there was the pleading of unasked questions yearning for answers behind the strained grin masking her face.

  "You want to talk about it?" Wayne asked out of mercy, reading her need to finally talk about what happened that night. That was another thing he had learned about people: they talked when they were ready.

  "It's just…"

  "You don't know where to start?"

  "Is that normal?" Esther eased into one of the dining room chairs.

  "Ain't nothing normal out there. Actually, it may be better to redefine what you think of as normal." Wayne pulled a chair out across from her and straddled it backwards.

  "People being killed."

  "Too often."

  "But…" Esther hesitated. "Ripped in half?"

  "I…" Wayne started then thought better of his initial response. There was no immediate transition into a world of trolls, sorcerers, zombies, and dragons unless there were some ten-sided dice involved. Better to start in an easier place. "You see the kids we work with? They're invisible. No one sees them. They may have a sense about them, the same way you could be in a darkened room and know that you weren't alone. People know when to walk around them or speed out of the way of a bum begging for change. Their powers of invisibility are huge: if you stop to talk to a homeless person, you seem to disappear also. People turn their eyes from you as if you no longer exist. That can do something to a person's psyche."

  "So you're saying I'm nuts?"

  "Not at all. Your eyes have been opened. Most people have no idea what goes on in this city. At night. In other neighborhoods. In the shadows of downtown."

  "The kids whispered about dragons over at the Phoenix." Esther let the words float out into the ether, not knowing if she hoped he would deny it or pray that he wouldn't. She sensed she was opening a door she wasn't sure she could close later.

  "That would explain why we've had trouble catching a cab."

  "I'm serious."

  "There's a whole other side to the city. Probably every city. I'm not going to say you get used to it, but you learn to be open to the ideas of other lives and possibilities."

  The moment of silence between them gestated. Then, suddenly aware of it, they glanced down. Maybe he meant to just be reassuring, but without realizing he did it, he had reached across the table and taken her hand.

  Many of the boarded-up buildings surrounding the spot at 30th and Central looked like bombed-out brick shells. The sidewalk was chewed up, dented in and split as if something heavy had been dropped onto it at regular intervals. Rush-hour traffic sped along, the snap of car doors making sure they were locked whenever they were caught at a stoplight. The faded purple awning was an oasis, a reclaimed spot within the blight of the neighborhood left to decay. The name Unleavened Bread formed a cross around the "E" s. Amber lighting suffused the cafe. Two rows of long black tables — topped with glass bowls filled with artificial flowers and surrounded by uncomfortable, tall-backed, wooden chairs with wicker seats along them — led to a formica countertop. Off to the left, a space had been carved out for community or church groups to meet. A mountain vista had been painted on a wall by a local street artist. Wood paneling ran halfway up the wall, the top
half of the wall stenciled with gold and purple script of Bible verse references. Revelation 21:1–3. Psalms 34:1. Romans 13:1 and 10:9. Deuteronomy 30:19. And of course, John 3:16.

  A woman everyone called Queen took in ex-addicts and ex-cons to employ, believing that everyone needed a chance to turn their life around. A jowlyfaced woman, with short curly hair and dark blotches on her face and thick lines worn about her mouth, wandered from the kitchen to the counter complaining that her sugar was up. With a slow amble, stiff-jointed thick legs and swollen ankles, glasses dangled about her neck by a chain over her orange and black frock. Her heavy bosom rested on her belly.

  "Name on the ticket?"

  "Percy."

  "Hello, Percy. I'm Sister Jackie, but folks round here call me Queen. What can I get for you?"

  "I'll take a bowl of beef vegetable soup." Percy pointed to the daily special. He tended to order whatever was written on top. Or by picture. Queen also let folks who couldn't afford a hot meal stop in to fill their bellies without question or shame.

  "Good choice. Everything in the soup is from our garden in Mulberry, Indiana."

  "You have any toast?"

  "We know how to improvise. It's how we do. Make the best of what you got." Queen smiled then ambled back into the kitchen.

  Not wanting to flip through the copy of Our Daily Bread devotional tucked between the salt, pepper, and sugar, Percy found a discrete corner and plopped down to read until his food was ready. A comic book, Cullen Bunn's The Damned, caught his eye. The idea of demons and gangsters had a newfound appeal to him. Sister Jackie brought him out his soup, which he ate without thought or muster. So he never noticed the man sliding into the chair across from him.

  "I knew your daddy." Born Robert Ither, Naptown Red smiled as he settled into the chair. Naptown because Indianapolis was always so far behind all the other big cities, always sleeping. Nothing going on. Red because of the slight reddish tint to the man's hair. Like soldiers, everyone had another name. His back to the wall, he surveyed the other customers and kept note of anyone entering the cafe. Black pants, slick purple shirt, and a crocodile smile under "cut-you-fornothing" eyes, he didn't look like anyone Percy wanted to hang out with.