Soul Circus

Mario hadn’t told Donut why he needed to lay up with him for a few days, and Donut hadn’t asked. But he was itchin’ to tell somebody, and he needed some advice. Donut, who got that name ’cause he loved those sugar-coated Hostess ones so much when he was a kid, was his boy from way back.

Donut was on the couch, holding a controller, playing NBA Street. Over the television was a rack, plywood on brackets, holding Donut’s blaxploitation and exploitation video collection. He favored Fred Williamson’s and Jim Brown’s body of work, and also the low-budget, high-grossing B films from the seventies: Macon County Line, Jackson County Jail, Billy Jack, and the like. He had his pet actors from that period, too. He liked Carol Speed and Thalmus Rasulala, and especially Felton Perry, played in the second Dirty Harry movie and the first one in that series about the redneck sheriff. There was a time when Donut had fantasized about being an actor his own self, but every mirror he looked into told him different, and eventually reality had beaten down those dreams.

The remains of a fatty sat in an ashtray on the table before him, as did a can of beer. Donut was small like Mario and close to ugly, and he hadn’t ever held any kind of payroll job. But he did all right. He sold marijuana to his network of friends and dummies to the suckers drivin’ by out on the street.

Donut’s window air conditioner rattled in the room.

“You feel better?” said Donut.

“Shower did me right,” said Durham.

“I’m goin’ out in a little bit, need to pick up some shit.”

“I’ll just rest here, you don’t mind. Kinda hot to be walkin’ around.”

Donut looked over at his skinny friend, standing by the couch looking at him like a dog waitin’ on a treat, one hand in his pocket, jingling change. Long as Donut had known him, that was the way Mario stood: slouched, his hand in his pocket, needy eyed, always wanting something.

“What’s up?” said Donut.

“Need to talk to you, Dough.”

Donut’s eyes went to the couch, then back to Durham. “Then sit your ass down and talk.”

Durham sat down beside Donut as Donut put some fire back to the joint. They passed the marijuana back and forth.

Slowly, building it up with drama, Durham told Donut what he’d done. As he related the murder of Olivia Elliot, he began to embellish the story, making her an all-out bitch, making himself stronger, more heroic, and more justified than he had been. His head had gotten up quick from the chronic, and the tale sounded good to his ears.

“Damn, boy,” said Donut, “you did it for real.”

“She took me off, and my brother, too. What was I supposed to do, let it ride?”

“They gonna find that girl. You know this, right?”

“I put her deep in the woods. But yeah, eventually they will. After that, shit, I get by a few days without no one pickin’ me up, maybe I’ll be all right. Seems like the whole police force is out there lookin’ for that white girl was fuckin’ that congressman, so maybe they’ll just forget. Cases get cold quick down here anyway; you know that. If the police are lookin’ for me, well, everyone knows who my brother is. Ain’t nobody gonna point me out. But maybe they won’t come lookin’ for me. I done fixed all the evidence, I think.”

“What about that gun?”

“It was a hack. I rented it from that dealer does business with Dewayne. Ulysses Foreman, lives over in PG? I already gave it back.”

“You tell him it was a murder gun?”

“Sure,” said Mario, still embellishing, still bragging. “I mean, he took one look at me, he knew what I’d done. You can’t hide something like that.”

“What you gonna do now, then, just wait?”

“I guess.”

Donut nodded his head, his eyes pink from the chronic. Durham could tell that Donut was just trying to think things out.

“You can lay up here for a little while, I guess. But not forever, hear? You my boy, but I can’t be no accessory to no homicide. With my priors, I’m looking at long time.”

“I won’t stay long. The thing of it is, I could use some money to stake me, so I can move on out of Southeast for a while.”

“I’m light right now.”

“Oh, I wasn’t askin’ for you to give me no cash. I got some in my pocket, my brother gave me. What I was thinkin’, I could double it, maybe triple it, with your help. I’ll give you what I got for some dummies I can sell out there on the strip. I can make a quick rack of money like that. The quicker I do, the quicker I’m gone.”

“Yeah, but you need to be careful behind that shit.”

“You don’t have to worry about me, Dough,” said Durham, shaking his friend’s hand. “I’m harder than you think I am. I’ll be all right.”

Donut looked down at Durham’s feet. “You get some money, first thing you need to do is buy you some new sneaks.”

“I do need to get myself into the new style.”

“Looks like some of that bitch’s blood got on ’em, too.”

“I guess it did.” Durham looked stupidly at the PlayStation 2 controllers lying on the floor. “You wanna play some Street before you tip out?”

“I will, if you’re ready to lose.”

“I’m done with losin’,” said Durham. “Do I look like I could lose to you?”

HORACE McKinley snapped the lid down on his cell as he crossed the parking lot with Mike Montgomery, walking toward the hair shop. He was moving slow, and his stomach hurt some. He had eaten too much barbecue at lunch, but it had tasted too good for him to stop.

“That was James,” said McKinley. “Him and Jeremy circled around that Strange’s car a couple of times, then went back to their place.”

“They make an impression?”

“Some white boy was in the car. But they say they got their point across. I told them to stay where they’re at for a while. Sun ain’t down yet, and James sounds like he’s all fucked up on somethin’ already.”

“He usually is.”

“Yeah, but those two earned it. They done enough for today.” McKinley tipped his large head in the direction of Devra Stokes’s Taurus. “She’s in there. There go her car.”

They went into the shop. Devra was painting the nails of a woman her age, a goosenecked lamp throwing light on the table between them. Juwan sat at Devra’s feet, his plastic wrestlers in his lap and on the linoleum floor. Inez Brown was seated behind a desk, reading a magazine. She stood and smoothed out her skirt as McKinley lumbered through the door.

Devra and the young woman had been talking, but they stopped at the sight of the fat man and his long-armed companion. The new Eve was coming from the store stereo, and it had become the only sound in the room.

McKinley took a half-smoked cigar and a silver lighter from the pocket of his warm-up suit and flamed the cigar’s end. When he was satisfied with the draw he replaced the lighter in his pocket. He looked at the cigar lovingly as he exhaled, then gazed at the young customer as if he were noticing her for the first time.

“Sorry to interrupt your session, baby,” said McKinley, “but you’re gonna have to leave for a while, come back later on. Me and my employee need to discuss some business up in here.”

“She ain’t even done with my nails,” said the young woman.

McKinley lodged the cigar in the side of his mouth, reached for his wallet, withdrew a