I found a box of sanitary napkins and a roll of duct tape under the sink. Sanitary napkins made pretty good street dressings, sterile and absorbent: I remembered once back in Oakland, watching a guy use a tampon from his girlfriend’s purse to plug a sucking chest wound in his partner, sticking it into the bullet hole.
I took out the napkins and tape, forcing myself to look at the wound for as long as it took to cover it up. The napkin deodorant’s daisy fresh scent was a little overwhelming at first.
When I was done, I took a little longer to make sure nothing showed but the undamaged portion of my plug ugly mug. I’d never been the kind of guy who was always eying his own image in reflective surfaces, but I figured me and mirrors weren’t going to be on particularly friendly terms for a while, maybe for good.
I opened the bathroom door to find my clothes on the floor outside, clean and neatly folded. There were still stains on them pre-wash would never take out, and they were pretty ragged. It looked like I was trying to make some kind of goofy fashion statement.
When I came out Natalie took one look at me and snorted, and then laughter flowed joyously through her large shapely frame. But she quickly stopped, appearing guilty.
“You look like you have a patchwork quilt wrapped around your head,” she said, as if defensively. “That’s a very creative use of feminine hygiene products.”
I smiled as if I’d cracked a deliberate joke to make her laugh. I wasn’t too proud to be this beautiful young thing’s buffoon if she’d allow it.
Her gaze dropped to my raggedy clothes. “I almost gave you one of Wayne’s shirts to wear, but I thought that would be inappropriate.”
“You figured right,” I said. “Look, I’ve imposed on your hospitality long enough – and your mercy.”
“What makes you think you’re a guest?” she asked. “Last I heard Big Moe hadn’t given you permission to go.”
There was a knock on the door. Natalie scowled and picked up the butcher knife from the coffee table as I took a wary step backward. Her hips rolled as she stepped to the door and put up the security chain before opening it a crack.
One of the crew I’d seen in my delirium stood there. “You got a smoke?” he asked Natalie – but he stared past her at me.
Natalie pulled her pack of cigarettes from her blouse pocket, put one in her mouth, and sparked it with her butane lighter. “Not for you, Leo,” she said, shutting the door in his face.
“Leo and Wayne were partners,” she said, catching my look. “He got Wayne into boosting car stereos, got him into doing drugs and staying out all night. Wayne was a big boy, but I think if it weren’t for Leo, my man would be here with me instead of on a slab at the coroner’s office.”
She sucked at her smoke, then held it between extended fingers with her palm up and exposed. “Wayne was never any good, but he was so pretty. I guess I always hoped he’d just want to be with me, and that we could just be happy together. Is that so much to ask of anyone?”
Natalie chuckled unpleasantly. “He always liked those action movies – you know, the kind where the hero beats up all the bad guys and saves everyone?”
She stubbed out her cigarette in a handy ashtray. “In the end Wayne got to star in his own movie, only he was the bad guy, and you were the good guy.” There might have been a note of irony in her voice, referring to me as good.
“Yeah, Wayne made his own bed to lie in all right,” she said. “And now I’m the one left to make my own choices, for me and my boy.”
Her eyes flashed at me. “At first I let you live just because my brother Moe said so, he’s always got good reasons even if I don’t always like ‘em. But I had to look at your face hour after hour while you were out, not able to do what I wanted to most. You talked some while you were in that delirium, you remember any of that? Angela – I’m guessing she was your wife.
“Still, Moe finally wasn’t enough – I had to do some praying on it cuz I needed God to tell me not do. I come to believe it’s a miracle you saved those kids and survived; it’s a miracle Big Moe convinced me to spare your life, and it’s another miracle I managed to do so.
“I’m not about to forgive you anytime soon. But I believe God has some purpose for you, else you wouldn’t be here right now.”
“Yeah, well, if this is a purpose I’m having a hard time seeing it,” I said. “God’s a fool if he’s working through the likes of me.”
“Are you disrespecting the Lord in my house, Markus?” she asked, voice stern and eyes ablaze.
I back-pedaled fast. “No ma’am.”
“God is watching out for you, Markus, and you’re the fool if you think you can thwart his will. You weren’t alone that day at the school and, when the time comes, you’ll know what he wants you to do next.”
As I opened her front door and stepped out on the stoop, she said, “The couch is yours until Big Moe says otherwise.”
Chapter 21
Those same dozen-odd young hard men were still out there around the porch; maybe they camped out on the lawn or something. This was like a miniaturized fish-bowl version of street life down in the East Bay; it was hard to feel threatened here at all. Hick kids or not though, they sure outnumbered me if I really was a prisoner here.
They huddled around a duct-taped antique of a boom box, listening as a newscaster spoke my name several times. They noted my presence and Big Moe changed it over to the CD player. Dre and Tupac commenced going on and on about ‘California Love’ – given the mood I was in, that sounded like a contradiction in terms.
Looking around at these kids was pretty strange. Here we were in the sticks, in a hillbilly town buried up on the Lost Coast behind the Redwood Curtain, and these young bloods were all dressed up banger style in starter jackets and colored bandanas; many of them wore pants half-mast in baggin saggin style, living large. But they seemed a little awkward about their ensembles, like they knew they were play acting – my take was they’d watched one too many gangsta rap video.
Big Moe came my way; it was hard to reconcile his friendly demeanor with him being my Kiddy Korral prison guard. A skinny white boy walked with him, as close as if they were welded together at the hip. “Hey,” Moe said. “You’re looking almost human today.”
A car pulled up, a Volvo with a couple college students in it. Moe’s skinny little partner trotted over to the passenger door. A transaction took place involving a greenback and a plastic bindle. The Volvo sped off without a word having been exchanged.
“A man’s got to eat,” Moe said, as if defensive.
“I ain’t judging,” I said, wondering why this mopey kid seemed to take everything personally.
“That’s mighty white of ya,” he snorted. “Shit dude, they ain’t even burger flipping jobs in this town. They’s a lot of construction jobs around lately, but I ain’t the right color to get hired even though I was born here. This is it if I want to earn; this is all I got to feed my son and his mama.”
A husky Indian kid with a big, shaved cranium worthy of Lex Luthor came from the direction of the liquor store, carrying an armful of paper bags. He passed out several forty-ouncers and packs of smokes. Then it was apparently his turn to earn and he ran to the curb to deal with a van-load of tweakers.
“Thanks, Mackie,” Big Moe called after him.
Moe offered me a hit off his forty but I shook my head. He shrugged took a healthy swill himself.
Big Moe’s skinny white partner finished his own beer and disposed of it in the garbage can at the end of the stoop. A coffee can was next to the trash, filled with sand and cigarette butts. There wasn’t a speck of litter in front of Natalie’s crib, either on the lawn or in the gutter.
Moe saw my gaze. “Natalie takes care of us, and we make sure nobody litters. We keep the noise down for her too; keep all our biz on a professional level. And as long as the 18th Street Crips are around, both Natalie and Randy will always be well protected. I’d skin a motherfucker alive for either of ‘em.”
“Sounds like a good deal all around,” I said. “The 18th Street Crips, huh? That’s your clique’s name?”
“Yeah,” Mackie the big-headed Indian kid said. “We’ve even got a secret handshake. We’re getting some of
