No Dominion

– Digga want you to clean me up for my big match?

– What? No. Shit no. He don’t care none what yo ass look like. I care. Got me some pro-fessional pride.

– Gonna do it now?

– What? You stupid in the head? Got no time ta do it now. Got ta get yo ass out of here.

– What?

– What? What? Man, Digga right, you one stupid-ass white boy. Get up, we got ta get gone.

I get up. He walks over to the open door.

– Come on.

The rhinos are on the floor in the hall. I look at the barber.

– You do that?

– No one else here, is they?

There isn’t.

– They dead?

He scratches his head.

– Well, that the million-dollar question, ain’t it?

– Sure is.

He points at one of the rhinos.

– They just out. Now get that coat off him. An’ that sweatshirt underneath.

I tug off the rhino’s jacket and the hooded sweatshirt beneath, seeing the huge knot on the back of his head.

– Put that shit on. An walk while you doin’ it.

I walk, following the barber away from the shower room, wrapping myself in the rhino’s clothes and noticing the massive build of the barber’s left arm and shoulder. I think about putting the knife in his ear. I should wait ’til he leads me out.

We climb some stairs; different from the ones that had been guarded by Papa’s man. These are narrower; the back way in. The barber looks me over.

– Put up the hood. Yeah, that right. An keep yo head down. An yo hands in yo pockets. Yeah. OK. An keep yo mouth shut.

He opens a door and we walk onto the blacktop playground behind the Jack. I keep my head down, my hands in my pockets and my mouth shut. We walk past the basketball courts. I can hear the jingle of chain nets in the breeze. The barber tugs my sleeve.

– This way. Keep yo head down. Just follow me. Doan look up none. Things quiet, but still they got a watch on. Gonna climb some steps now.

We climb some steps. A lot of steps. We’re climbing the concrete stairs that cut up the side of that cliff I saw earlier. The barber pauses at the top.

– OK. I think we cool. You kin look up, but keep that damn hood on.

I look up. We go down Edgecombe for a couple blocks. At the corner of 150th, he stops. There’s a house with a spiked iron fence around it. He unlocks a gate and lets us in. The house is huge. It’s red brick with black shingles and shutters, looks like a haunted house straight out of an old Universal horror flick.

The barber walks around a cracked stone path that takes us to the rear. We go down a couple steps to a basement door.

He looks at me.

– Place got atmosphere, doan it?

– Yes, it does.

He unlocks the door, steps in and switches on a light. I follow him in, expecting Digga and his crew to jump out and yell surprise and beat the hell out of me. It doesn’t happen that way. Instead, the barber takes me through a small parlor, neat but dusty, and into a kitchen where most of the living is clearly done. I take my hands out of my pockets, without the switchblade.

He points at a chair. I sit. He takes off his coat and hangs it on a hook on the back of the kitchen door. He looks at me. I look at him.

He rolls his eyes.

– Well?

– Well, what?

– Ain’t you got no questions?

– Sure. What do you want?

He shakes his head.

– Stupid white boy. Ain’t figured it out?

I shake my head.

– I’m Percy, asshole.

He bugs his eyes and wiggles his fingers at me.

– The craaaaazy one-ahmed neegro in the bazemint is yo contact.

He unbugs his eyes.

– Now you got any questions?

– You got a smoke?

– Funny thing ’bout cigarettes.

Percy sticks a Pall Mall between his lips. He fishes a book of matches from his breast pocket, folds a match around ’til the head rests against the strip of rough paper on the back, and flicks it with his thumb. The match ignites and he offers me the flame. I lean forward and light my Pall Mall. Percy lights his, waves the match out, pinches it from the pack and drops it in the red-and-white tin ashtray between us.

I take a drag and exhale.

– What’s that?

He smokes some.

– Funny thing ’bout cigarettes and the Vyrus. Vyrus attacks anythin’ bad yo ass could care to stick in yo body. Booze, junk, rat poison, whatever it is, it can’t hurt you none. Got no stayin’ power whatsoever. No boozehound Vamps. Can’t get hooked on shit. But cigarettes.

He blows a ring of smoke.

– They always good. Just as good as if I was still jonesed on the nicotine. Which I know I ain’t. Still I crave ’em. And still they always good.

I take a drag.

– Never thought about it.

– Uh-huh?

I take another drag.

– But you’re right.

– Yep. Funny, ain’t it?

– Yeah, it is.

We smoke.

– So what you need up here?

I’ve smoked my cigarette down until the cherry burns my lips. I stub it out.

– That shit they stuck in the dogs and that enforcer.

– Yea-huh?

– What the fuck is up with that?

He puts out his own cigarette.

– That a good question.

The ceiling of the kitchen has a big, brown water stain above the sink. He stares at it.

– A good question. Lemme ask you somethin’.

– OK.

– See that man at the pool? Papa Doc?