do-gooder type who was probably used to his looks getting doors opened for him.
'Your son, he was down paintballing the candy lady's house. He needs to get down there and clean it up.'
'DeMarcus? Get over here, boy.' Pipe-cleaner arms ducked behind his mother. Ten years old if a day, unsure of the stranger at the door and instinctively seeking shelter behind his formidable mother. 'This man says you out shooting up a woman's house with that paint gun of yours.'
'Wasn't me.' The words sputtered out as reflex. He stared without shame at King.
'Don't lie to me, boy,' his mother said, used to coaxing the truth or at least navigating the lies of boys.
'Before we get po-po out here. Clean it up or FiveO.' King met the boy's eyes. Treating him like a man capable of accepting responsibility for his actions. He had to catch them while they were young. 'Which one he want?'
'I'm sorry, Momma.' The voice was barely audible.
'What you do that for?' The mother grabbed him by the shoulders, more embarrassed than anything else.
'That old lady was talking crazy to me,' the boy whispered, cornered by truth.
'So you go down and tear up her house?' King pressed.
'Thanks, we got this.' The mother's still-respectful tone didn't invite dispute.
'Got my eye on you. Be checking on that house tomorrow,' King said as a parting reminder to DeMarcus.
'You too much, man,' Wayne said as they turned up the corner heading toward their actual destination.
'What do you mean?'
'You too much. What a brother can't ease up for nothing?' Wayne nodded up the way to the figure approaching them. 'Lookee here, lookee here.'
Poured into her jeans, braless beneath her halter top, her sashay had men erect from half a block away, Rhianna Perkins sauntered up. Always down for a party, a party that needed to be paid for when it was over, her eyes glimmered with recognition. Her hair flared, interlocked locklets in need of re-twisting. Despite the swell of her belly, she carried herself with a fierce sexiness. Upon closer inspection, her worn, bruised skin added a hint of purple to her sepia complexion. Something about her easy crocodile smile made her appear much older than her sixteen years.
'When you gonna come see about me?' she asked.
'I do. I never forgot about you. You're still part of our neighborhood,' King said. 'We got to all pull together.'
'You all harambee like a motherfucker now.' She licked her lips as if appraising a freshly prepared plate of filet mignon. 'I know, you gone all crusader now.'
'Just a man on a mission.'
'You never struck me as a missionary man. Lady G don't give it up easy, so it must get lonely. Maybe I can help.'
Scenes like this normally amused Wayne. King was a visionary type. It wasn't as if he considered himself above other people, he just wasn't as much a man of the people as he liked to believe he was. He was so caught up in how things ought to be, the behavior of people often left him confused. So whenever he was confronted with a situation he couldn't talk or punch his way out of, he was left with an awkwardness with belied his level cool. However, the sight of Rhianna hurt both of their hearts. The daily reality they had to relearn was that not everyone could or wanted to be saved.
'Come on now, sister. You better than this.'
'I'm just open about what I do. Those other girls do dirt, too, they just like to hide it.'
King had a reputation for being largely indifferent to women. Most blamed his break-up with his baby's momma and his subsequent estrangement from his daughter, Nakia. Yet, despite his protestations and the various walls he'd built around himself, Lady G got under his skin and invaded his heart like a hostile takeover. She held his interest and attention in a way few women had. And part of him feared that in the sharing of this tiny part of himself, he had done something dangerous. Which he had, for her. Lady G. King was drawn to her and she to him. He decided to risk loving Lady G, then and always.
'Come on, man,' Wayne said, 'let's get inside.'
The Church of the Brethren was a victim of a spate of local fires. Fire investigators suspected drug addicts illegally squatting. Without the necessary insurance to rebuild, the standalone building was left as little more than a warehouse lot. Burn marks scored the edges of the sallow, off-white facade. Sheets of plywood — with the date of its condemnation spray-painted across it — served as the door. The stain glass windows above the doors remained intact. Off-white and yellow painted wood mixed with brick which had been equally painted, marred by scorch marks.
'I heard what you did down at Badon Hill,' Wayne said.
'What'd I do?' King pulled at the rear door, the nails of the board pulling free with ease.
'Brought down another gang trying to get a stranglehold in the neighborhood.'
'Man, I haven't done half the stuff they say I've done,' King said.
'That's how legends get born.'
'That's how fools get dead.'
'If that's the case, we in the right place.'
The inside of the building had been gutted, the stripped, water-damaged walls and seared columns stood revealed like charred bones. The remains of a soot-covered choir loft split down the middle before toppled pews which couldn't be salvaged. Black rocks scattered across the floor, like fossilized cockroaches. A giant cable spool commanded the center of the room.
'No chairs?' Wayne asked.
'No coffee and donuts either. We ain't going to be here that long, so I figured we could stand. I just thought it was important that we met.'
'A symbol, good and round. You think like a king.' Merle scratched his thigh, abating the itch of whatever had crawled on him during the night. The old man had his back to them though he seemed to appear out of nowhere. Unlike King's leather jacket, Merle wore a long black raincoat whose lining had been removed. A tall man, but the coat hung loosely on him, like a scarecrow lost within a blanket. A cap made of aluminum foil crowned his head. He stroked tufts of his scraggily reddish beard as he searched about the room as if he had whispered something.
'Each of us has a role to play,' King continued, unperturbed.
'What's his? Minister of Drunken Crazy Talk?' Wayne asked.
'Hand holder. Life guider. Purpose pointer. Gift shaper,' Merle said.
'Ass painer.'
'Hold up. Here come the others,' King said.
King didn't need to even turn to know Lady G had come into the room. His heart knew and leapt at her presence. His mood, so fierce and dark before, lifted like a breeze blowing away storm clouds. A shock ran up his body, his breath shortened in shivering excitement. In the same way, when she left a room, his world grew a little bleak.
Percy ducked under the door entrance. King didn't know what to do with him. Everywhere they went, the big boy-man was there. Not quite underfoot, but always around. He meant well, knew the players, and had a heart to match his girth, but King wondered if that was enough.
Lott trailed in Percy's wake, his head bobbing as he walked. His face only betrayed his thoughts if you knew what you were looking at. He studied the structure with an eye toward its integrity, possible ways it could be attacked, and escape routes. A quiet, pensive man with a restless heart, and who often let moments pass when asked a question, unafraid to allow an intimidating silence to build. Connected, instant and deep, King and Lott shared a strange kind of intimacy, a wary bond of old friends. Their shadows clashed against the wall like black swords.
'What you listening to?' Lady G made room for Lott next to her. She thought him too much of a roughneck pretty boy, but she put fingers on his arm as he sat down, an innocent, friendly gesture. He hesitated, a slight hitch to his movement before he sat down. Part of her enjoyed the effect it had on him.
'Going old school. Something King turned me on to.'
Lott pulled the earphones from his ears and plugged his iPod into a set of speakers he withdrew from his
