Down in the Zero

'It's…hard.'

'So's life, kid. Me too. I'm not a fucking guidance counselor, okay? Spit it out or go back where you came from.'

Clarence slid out of the booth, moved over to a seat directly across from us. The kid didn't move.

'Shove over, Rover,' the Prof barked at him. The kid moved to his right, breathing easier. Clarence watched him the way a pit boss watches the dice roll— any way they came up, he'd deal with it.

'I think I'm next,' the kid said.

'You said that before. On the phone. Next what?'

'Next to die,' the kid said, a ready–to–break bubble under the surface of his voice.

'You do this a lot?' I asked him, leaning forward. He wouldn't meet my eyes.

'Do what?' he muttered, surly now.

'Tell melodramatic stories to people you don't know.'

His hands gripped the counter but he wouldn't look up, mumbled something I couldn't catch.

'What?'

'Fuck you ! I didn't come here for this…you don't care…'

'You got that right, kid. I don't care.'

'My mother said…'

'It doesn't matter what your mother said. She thinks I owe her, I just paid it off. I said I'd listen to you, not hold your little hand, wipe your nose for you. All your mother knows, I'm a man for hire. You understand what I'm saying? Not a goddamned babysitter, okay? This is a simple deal— even a punk kid like you could get it. You want to talk, talk. You don't, walk.'

The kid jumped up so suddenly that Clarence had the automatic leveled at his chest before the waiters even had a chance to pull their own hardware. The kid gasped, flopped back down like his legs had turned to jelly. He put his face in his hands and let it go, crying.

Clarence watched him for a minute or so before he reholstered his gun. I exchanged a look with the Prof. He shrugged his shoulders.

We waited.

The kid sat there crying, ignored. The rest of the joint moved into what it does: phones rang, people came in and out the back door, Mama's messengers and dealers and traffickers went about their business. The kid sat through it all, unmoving, a stone in a stream.

Starving to death in a restaurant.

When he looked up at me, his eyes were yellow–flecked with fear. If he was faking it, he was the best I'd ever seen.

'They have a way of coming for you. Getting inside. I didn't believe it at first. When Troy and Jennifer did it, everybody said they just wanted to be together. You know what I mean? Together forever. Kids talked. Like, maybe, she was pregnant or they wanted to get married and their parents wouldn't let them. But those kids…they don't know us. Our parents…it wouldn't matter. They wouldn't stop us from doing anything. Then Lana did it too. And Margo. They all did it.'

'Did what?' I asked him.

'Died,' the kid said. The way you explain something simple to someone simpler.

'They got done?'

'Huh?'

'Somebody killed them?'

'No. I mean…yes. I don't know. Suicide, that's what they called it. In the papers. Suicide.'

'And you think it wasn't?'

'It was…I guess. I mean…they did it to themselves and all. But I think, maybe, they had to do it. And I will too.'

'I don't get it, kid. People kill themselves. Kids kill themselves. They go in groups. Couple of kids, they're so sad, they play around with the idea, push themselves over the edge. The next kid sees all the weeping and wailing and special funeral services and how everyone knows the dead kids' names for the TV coverage. He doesn't focus on how they won't be around to bask in the light. He puts himself in that place…like he could have the funeral and be there too. And then goes to join them. It's a chain reaction— they call it cluster suicide. It's okay to be scared— that's a natural thing. But you don't need a man like me, okay? What you need, you need someone to talk to, like…'

'That's how it started !' the kid blurted out. 'In Crystal Cove.'

The Prof threw me the high–sign. I got up, left the two of them alone.

Clarence followed me out the back door. I stood there, watching the alley. It was empty except for my Plymouth and Clarence's gleaming British Racing Green Rover TC, both moored under a NO PARKING sign. The sign didn't have any effect on the community, but the graffiti did. You looked close, you'd see the spray–painted scrawls were really Chinese characters. Max the Silent, marking his territory with his chop.

I lit a smoke, thinking about Cherry. I left it alone— I'd play the tapes later.

'That is one weak sissy whiteboy, mahn,' Clarence said, the Island roots showing strong in his young man's