"Who are you?" Percy rolled up his comic book. Black moles circled each of the man's bloodshot, heavy eyes. Splotches checkered his face, parts of his skin closest to his hair line lighter than the others. His long feral auburn hair had been straightened but kept unkempt. Percy smelled the alcohol wafting off him. The man rubbed his belly, a sated chieftain, and tugged at his privates too often. Percy always looked into the details of everything.
"Folks call me Naptown Red. What you going to do with your life?"
"I don't know. School. Got to get through that."
"Thinking about the future. What part you want to play in this here game." Red fancied himself maneuvering to pick up where Night left off, gambling that it would be easier with the would-be heir in tow. To do right by the boy would give him added street credibility. But as he studied the overweight and alltoo-soft boy, Red took Percy for weak. All knightly virtue seen as a weakness to this would-be next king of the streets: courtesy, patience, gentility, chivalry. All such things needing to be mocked or punished.
"Ain't thought none on it. Don't seem like it's for me."
Queen brought out his soup without comment. Red eased back until she left. Percy smiled and nodded his appreciation.
"I'm offering you an opportunity. I got a package coming in. Thought I might take care of you with it."
"Why?" Percy asked. The man bothered him. All of the talk of taking care of him, of looking out for him reminded Percy of his momma. All of her fiendish attempts at parental provision always had the taint of using you for her own ends.
"Like I said, I knew your daddy."
"Nah, I don't think so." Percy brought his spoon to his mouth, blew, winced at its heat and blew again before taking the bite.
Naptown Red cut his eyes. There was nothing hard about the boy. He had trouble believing he was any kin at all to Night. Night was one of the baddest motherfuckers he knew. He came up fierce. Hard. Feared.
"Are you finished?" Queen said without any trace of disdain in her voice despite her wary gaze cast at Red.
"Yes, ma'am." Percy cleared his arms as she took the bowl from him.
"You could be running the sweeper on them rugs out there," a voice yelled from the kitchen.
"Right after my cigarette break," Queen said. "Gonna take two pulls and call it a break."
"Look here, boy." Red leaned towards him once Queen was out of earshot. "You got to choose which side of the line you going to stand on."
"I think I have."
"You in church or something?" A man for bad plays, Red gave him another once-over as if he'd misread the menu. That thing ticked in his chest. Weed took the edge off his anger and he'd been angry for a long time. Pushed into the life, he fucked the world because he felt fucked, but the first and foremost victim was himself. The boy wasn't the one. He'd have to make other arrangements. "You sure ain't your daddy's son."
"No, I guess not." If Percy was insulted, he gave no indication. He simply opened up his comic book and kept reading.
Good Hope Missionary Baptist Church was dedicated in 1891. The church had a lot of history. A lot of history. There used to be a dirt road out front where folks would hook up their horses and buggies. The streets had changed, living in their own separate world, with the economics of poverty: extortion, prostitution, gambling, stolen property, drugs. All enforced by the violence of gangs and subsidized by welfare checks thus tacitly approved by government neglect. Police rarely patrolled for fear of their own safety.
"Lord have mercy, you'll see me on the TV." Big Momma scooted out of her chair with a dancer's grace heedless of her stiff hip, sore legs, and swollen arms when she saw King come through the front doors. She raised one hand, palm out, and hopped in place. Then she suddenly stomped five times. "That's how good it was. Do you hear me?"
"I hear you." King stopped in his tracks. A portrait of Redd Foxx cast his eyes to heaven from his shirt.
Big Momma was hyped up to a near-wail, stoked on a spiritual high, a one-woman amen corner. "Who did it?"
"God did it," voices from the hallway called back.
"I just can't keep it to myself. Do you hear me? I done cried and shouted and danced, OK? And I thank God for the rain. When you get the Lord in you, you can't just keep Him to yourself. You got to share Him. It just keeps getting better and better and better. I'll go on a mountaintop telling people what the Lord can do. He'll carry me through. He answers prayer. We been praying 'send some help' cause His people were struggling. Then you rose up."
"I didn't do anything special." King stepped back, uncertain if she was actually talking to, or even about, him.
"And He ain't through blessing us through you yet. You know how they say if you take one step, He'll take two? Who did it?"
"God did it!" the voices from the hallway called out.
"Is he in?" King asked.
Big Momma stepped in front of him with a conspiratorial whisper, as if requiring a code word for him to pass. "Who did it?"
King let out an exasperated sigh. "God did it."
"He in his office."
Pastor Ecktor Winburn felt his calling to evangelize the unsaved as well as the un- and under-churched. Hustlers, drunks, prostitutes, drug dealers, drug addicts, all the left-behind, fall-through-the-cracks folks. He was also in King's life, the man who showed him how to be and live as a man.
King's father, Luther White, ran the streets, hustled, and stole, and thus ended up dead before King had entered pre-school. His mother rarely spoke of the man, though when she did, it was like he was two different men: the would-be gangsta and the man she knew and believed in. When others talked about his father — uncles, friends — there was a near-reverent air. Luther was cool. Admired. Half of them wanted to be him.
All King knew was that he was dead and gone.
He missed having a father, that firmness that could put him in check. Then his mom got hooked on drugs. King could never remember having a one-on-one conversation with her after that. By the time Pastor Winburn came into his life, he'd already seen his share of trouble. Smoked a little weed, getting into fights, telling teachers what they could go do. Because he imagined himself in charge of his life. His life changed after he got caught and arrested for stealing. The court put him in contact with Outreach Inc., who helped get him back on track. It was his then case manager, Wayne, who put him in contact with Pastor Winburn. Once King started going to his church, Pastor Winburn became a bit of a father figure, affecting him whenever they chatted. He helped King learn how to rein in his temper. They went on spiritual patrols, walking through the neighborhood, praying for and talking to folks. Pastor Winburn taught him discipline, and how to be a man, but the life still called. And though many years had passed, King still had a lot of unanswered questions about God. And still struggled with his temper.
"Someone certainly got her praise on this morning," King said.
"That's what we do here. We praise God not only on a Sunday, but it could be a Wednesday. A Thursday. A Tuesday. If it ends in 'day' we ready to praise." Pastor Ecktor Winburn leaned back in his chair. A low-cut Afro with gray streaks drew back from his forehead lengthening the appearance of his face. A black suit hung from him as if he was a scarecrow funeral director, his tie too thin. He hunched his shoulders close and bridged his spider-like long fingers, his suspicious eyes taking the measure of him. "The lesson was on One Accord. If we can't come together down here, what we going to do in heaven? We should be a foretaste of heaven, but we pretty much taste-testing hell."
"It's bad out there."
"I don't need to hear tales of how bad it is on the streets. I know all about the rapes, drugs, murders, and violence. You think it's bad now? Fifteen years ago you couldn't slow your car down here without twenty folks running up to you to sell drugs." Pastor Winburn hesitated, choosing his words with care. King remembered a time when the man shared freely with him. "Only God has the remedy."
"God is not my friend. Not these days. Not while things are like t
his."
"You ought to come by some time. We a live wire here." Pastor Winburn lowered his voice.
"I remember."
"Look here, churches plant where they plant and deepen their roots by drawing on the community they dwell in. When we in the hood, I don't look for my members to come up over the mountain. We're made up of who we are, where we are." Pastor Winburn smiled and spread his arms in his all-are-welcome embrace. King had heard the sales pitch before. "This is our neighborhood. I know I taught you that. Not what you been doing."
"You mean this?" King pulled the Caliburn from his dip. He let the light reflect from it for a moment, then laid it like a sacrificial offering before Pastor Winburn.
"So what I been hearing is true? Is this what I taught you? Is this how you solve problems now, to return fist for fist and gun for gun?" The pastor rubbed the bridge of his nose, the gesture managing to convey disappointment. "What is this, King? You set up a private police force? Your own little army with you as the general? Are you making your own gang?"
"It's the best defense, because the police don't show. I'd like to do things your way, pastor. But it's hard when it seems no one cares or no one is around. Not the police. Not the church. Not God."
"Look at you." Pastor Winburn got up and circled King. "You always worried about doing something big. You as flashy as any of these other knuckleheads. Forget that all you have to do is reach one, teach one. No, you might as well go ahead and get yourself a cape and put a big K on your chest."
The no-nonsense edge of him keened against King, as well as the sweetness of the man. "It's not like that."
"What's it like then? If you fight your enemies with what tools you have, you'll be defeated. Maybe killed. The system is part of the problem."
"Exactly." King finally jumped in. "That's what I been fighting against."
"I don't know why you so quick to amen somebody. Your wild ass is part of the problem, too. Look here, you can't give someone a block of cheese a day and then ask, why are you hungry? Cause, damn, I only got some cheese. But next day, where am I? Down waiting for my next piece of cheese. The system provides a chain, not a safety net, just enough to string us along, not enough to let us go free. On the other side, if all I'm doing is waiting for the next crumb from master's table, I ain't no better. And you just out there shooting up all the cheese you can find."
Pastor Winburn came up from Alabama, working everything from oil to iron, until he ended up in Indianapolis searching for new job opportunities. He'd made so much money in his little businesses, he thought it was time to give back to the community. So he decided to become a pastor. He leaned against his desk in a conversational pose, but he'd caught the fire of his rhythm.
"From the pulpit to the back door, we scared of these folks. Scared of our own. People who had leprosy had to stay so many feet from you because they were scared you were going to catch it. Here's the thing: a doctor can't examine you unless he touches you. And we have to lay hands on this neighborhood. People don't live here cause they want to. They didn't look all over the city and say 'I want this slum.' They live here cause they have to. There are two kinds of black folks: those scrambling to get out and those who give up and stay here. See, those scrambling to get out, they always looking to live where white folks live. I don't mean that in no hateful way, I mean they chase the same picket-fence dream white folks do. Always dreaming to get away from 'bad elements' and such. Not a bad dream, I guess. Other folks get a different story trapped in them. They don't think they can do any better, believe the world is against them, since they don't got any opportunities nor any point of dreaming, white folks' dreams or otherwise. So they spend they days trying to get by or get over. They do whatever they have to do to survive. That's a bad story. If not bad, then venomous. Defeated.
"Now, me? I'm a been there, done that type. I don't believe that a person who's never done anything can help anyone here. It takes a certain type of shepherd. We relate well. We can show that God did it for us. So I have a mission here. Built a third type of folks. Those who choose to stay here and commit to making a difference. And the mission has to get down on its knees to get results." Pastor Winburn fully slipped into the comfortable glove of his sermon rhythm, straightening and letting his arms go to add emphasis to his words. "The people have a desire to work, they just need to be coordinated. You remember the story of Nehemiah? Before he got there, no one was doing anything. But when he got there the whole city got together and started working. The people had a mind to work. Now there were those who were standing around in the first place not doing anything, and when he started doing something, they wanted to come up and talk. Come on down and let's plan what we're going to do. Well I'm on the wall and I don't have time to come down."
He'd come in hoping to catch a word, not be blasted by the fire-hose torrent of judgment. He didn't have time to formulate any response before Pastor Winburn continued.
"I guess that's my warning to you. Serving as your personal prophet. The role of a prophet is to bring the word of the Lord to bear on a specific situation, to shake up your spiritual life. You have to make a choice. What the future holds if you stay on your present course frightens me.
"On the other hand, God is a God of restoration. He's restoring hope in this neighborhood. He's restoring lives. He's restoring dignity. And you do it one person at a time. You need to be a part of His program, not Him getting on board with yours. A leader leads by example. You can say what you want from the pulpit, but you have to go where your people are. Model what it is you're teaching. Christ met needs then preached the gospel."
King shifted his weight under the appraisal. Part of him still sought the old man's approval. "I'm just one man."
"One man makes very little difference. I don't care who you are, King. But all of us together, we can do anything. Now choose." Pastor Winburn had always challenged him, pushed him to be a better man. He laid the facts out like a dinner spread on a table then said "now choose." Right or wrong, it was always his choice to make and Pastor Winburn would be there.
King stood up to leave. Pastor Winburn spread his arms in a way that reminded him of holding his hand out to a dog to let it catch his scent before petting him. The pastor put his arms around him in an embrace. King didn't exactly return the hug, but he didn't pull away either. He returned his Caliburn to his dip.
Cool air cut through King, his T-shirt offering little protection against the elements. Sitting on the front stoop of the church, he needed a few moments to collect his thoughts, to sift through Pastor Winburn's words. The old man had a way of getting under his skin and pushing his buttons. The neighborhood smelled of car exhaust and backed-up sewers. Damp sidewalk and pooled water against the curb provided evidence of the rain burst. The cars sped along, too many in a need of muffler repair, their tires rumbling over the uneven strips in the road. The church faced a network of alleys, carving up the block and snaking between homes. Brown vines filigreed the fences. Pairs of sneakers hung from the lines overhead. A shuffling from the alleyway caught his attention, putting King on high alert. A figure staggered out of the alley, and then collapsed. King darted across the street to the wail of screeching tires and blaring horns. King crouched over the crumpled form and rolled him over. It took him a moment to place the emaciated face.
"Prez?" King asked.
Somewhere between what should have been his sophomore or junior year of high school, the boy stank of nicotine, stale beer, and crack sweat, shaking like a pair of dice. Cuts on his face were half-healed, jelly-like wounds of having been raked with talon-like fingernails. His face bruised to blue, his lips swollen and split. His hair littered with flecks of fuzz and pebbles. A series of scrapes and scratches along his long, lanky arms.
"King?"
"It's me, Prez."
"They're out there. And they're coming for us."
CHAPTER SEVEN
Rellik was a jailhouse nigga through and through. He'd spent more time inside the system than out an
d found the rhythms of prison life more natural than the existence folks called freedom. By the age of fifteen he'd already entered the system and had to bury his mother from prison. Running the Merky Water set from inside; since his family couldn't afford it, he sent his gang to the funeral home to make the arrangements and pay for it. If he wanted the prison shut down, it got shut down that day. The guards and superintendent were impotent and apathetic: they were there to make sure no one escaped. Everything else was just paperwork. Even the chaplain was scared to talk to him about Christ. Heaven would be better off without him as far as clergy was concerned.
The streets ran little differently than The Ave. There were crews to be overseen. Po-po, be they Cos or FiveO, to deal with. Product to move. Rival factions to navigate. Power to be seized. No one operated in a vacuum and he knew no one could survive without allegiances and loyalty.
The lines of territory were ambiguous at the moment. Everyone respected the space Dred had carved out, too afraid to outright move into it for fear of his retaliation, despite his general absence. It was as if he haunted the streets, and his ghost terrified them. Back in the overly romanticized day, none of the crew were allowed to touch drugs, but they could strong-arm around it, make sure a dealer broke them off some. Eventually money, especially with so much of it to be had, drove things out of whack and dudes started selling it. It got so good that when the original kings got locked up, the dons never said anything against the drug-dealing. They allowed the selling to keep going. Back then, the gang was a unit. They talked of family. Old school.
New crews set up shop along the edges of Rellik's reclaimed territory, though none ventured into Breton Court. King blocked that. King. That young buck might prove to be a problem later, so Rellik made a note to keep an eye on him. Night's crew was in chaos, easily absorbed into Rellik's Merky Water. The Treize carved up the far west side, just south of Breton Court but inching ever northward. Which left ICU and other independent operators. That was always their mistake. The Nights and Dreds of the world viewed themselves as operators, the game little more than a means to an end. Business. New school.
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