most of them were in need of some sort of citizenship papers. They worked at the Chinese and Mexican restaurants that littered the area. No, the man hiked up his red shirt across his shoulder like a sling. Wearing a white shirt underneath covered in blood, even his blue saggy shorts were doused in it. A spray of blood speckled his white shoes. As if stanching a bloody nose, he held his hand to his face, a face smeared with caked blood stains. His hand had a gash deep enough to reveal his white meat.
'You the weed man?' he asked King.
'Nah, you got the wrong brother.'
'He around the corner,' Prez said.
'What happened to you?' King asked.
The story went that he got jumped outside of Kroger, by the Eagle Terrace apartments. He assumed it was because he claimed being part of the Treize set. Not that they truly cared. Apparently, they pummeled him anyway, fiends out of control. Supposedly he got a knife from one of them and stabbed them, but they just kept coming. Clawing and biting at him, he was lucky to get away. Now he simply needed a wash cloth and some weed.
'What you need is some stitches,' King said.
'You got weed? I'll buy weed for everybody,' the man said. He danced from side to side as if looking for a partner or someone to take him up on his offer.
'Now you talking,' Prez said. King simply hated seeing smart brothers like Prez turn to drugs, but once school was out as an option, a brother's chances slimmed for any legitimate work. Prez didn't have the patience to start at the bottom of a gig and work his way up.
The man left and promised to return for some weed. However, the next time they saw him, he had changed outfits and gotten into a car with his buddies, probably to go roll on those anti-Treize fiends.
Such was life at Breton Court.
Dogs barked in the distance. They always barked, but the tenor of their barks drew King's attention. A lone figure walked an American Pit Bull Terrier. Baylon prowled about.
Late into an Indiana fall could be hard on a body. In the course of one day it could go from raining in the morning, snowing by noon, to a late afternoon blue sky and bright sun that left no hint of either. The cold had a way of stilling activity in Breton Court. A neighbor occasionally stepped out on their porch for a quick smoke and a wave, a groundhog checking their shadow, but for the most part, his neighbors kept indoors. All except Baylon. No, Baylon was out walking the flesh-and-blood weapon that he called a dog, a brown and white Pit Bull with splotches of pink around her mouth. Keeping her chained in his back patio when he wasn't putting her through her various paces, he abused her regularly and called it training.
'What's up, King?' Baylon called out. He pulled the leash taut, halting the dog. The distance between him and King charged with antagonism, challenge, and even a forlorn sense of regret. A sad anger.
'B,' he said, more out of politeness than anything else. His momma raised him to be polite, lessons he'd kept close to his heart no matter what life brought.
'Dog looks a little rough.'
'I'm gonna fight her on Sunday. Got to get my bitch ready.'
'You ain't busy enough?'
'I'm what they call a Renaissance man.'
'Been hitting them books, too?' King asked.
'Yeah, nigga. Now I'm the scariest kind o' nigga: educated. Anyways, as I see it, life's about finding your niche.'
'And philosopher. How do you find the time to do your soldiering?'
'That's what I mean. My niche is strictly heroin. That there's a gentleman's operation.'
'Just so I have this straight, you just a misunderstood gentleman and scholar.'
'Exactly. My clientele is stable. And competition? Hell, we like Wal-Mart up in this joint. I'm like the grocery department. Prez and his coke, they like the electronics. Green an' 'em can keep his crack on the corner, like the toy department, far away from us. That draws too much attention. See, we just one big store. No need for beefing.'
'Except for the random shooting.'
'You think they coming out here for a couple caps and no body? Shit, bet they didn't even brush the donut powder off they uniform.'
'Green's boys' caused more than a little ruckus the other day. I heard tell they even left one of your soldiers a little… light-headed,' King said.
'I'm a low-key nigga. Straight cheddar, baby, that's all that I'm about.'
'I don't think you feeling me. That shit's got to stop. We got kids running around.'
'By who? You? You planning on going incognegro on me?'
It would be easy to drop a dime on Baylon or Prez. It wasn't like they weren't already under surveillance. That had to be the second biggest open secret in the neighborhood, second only to the fact that folks sold drugs on the corner. They were the elephant in the room that no one — no politician, no police of rank, and no reporter — wanted to mention. Everyone knew, but no one wanted to do anything about it. Folks made the most of the opportunities afforded them and played the hand they were dealt. As long as they proved to be good neighbors, how they made their living was no one's concern. Alaina Walker was long forgotten. Conant Walker was a faded image on the occasional T-shirt. And no one wept for Juneteenth Walker.
'Do I look like some played-out punk? If I got a problem with you, I step to you. Like a man.' King wasn't a snitch and didn't care much for the insinuation. Snitching wasn't a long-term career move. Exhibit A: the house down the street that to this day hadn't been rebuilt since it was torched and had the word 'snitch' spray-painted on the ruin.
The dog flared its teeth, a rattler warning of its strike. Baylon stroked the fur along the dog's neck.
'Better watch yourself. My bitch don't like people stepping up on us incorrect.' Baylon spit on the ground. 'It's about being the man. This here's a… how they say it?… a consumer-driven market. They come to me. I give them product. They give me cash. No muss, no fuss. I ain't some Jehovah's Witness going door to door with the shit trying to convert nobody.'
'I just don't want it done in my neighborhood.'
'You want to be the king, you got to take the king.'
Baylon turned his back to him, with a casual dismissal, and walked into Prez's little play condo. This was the life they chose. Empty, but free. The prospect of big money versus the lack of flash of menial work: that was the problem with too many brothers: they felt owed, as if the act of being born entitled them to instant coin and high living. That was what they saw on television and was how they thought they were supposed to live. It was stupid and short-sighted, but King understood it. But he had pride in his neighborhood. He lived with good people, good neighbors, and he wasn't going to see it ruined by the likes of Prez. Or Baylon. Or Green. Good men had to stand for something.
'I hate to break up any internal soliloquy you got going on,' Merle said, 'but you've got company.'
Merle was worse than a repo man and King hated the way he appeared and disappeared whenever he wanted. An umbra tent, Merle's black jacket wrapped around him. His aluminum foil hat teetered on his head, extra layers having been added since his last visit. He smelled of day-old fish wrapped in spoiled vegetables, flecks of food trapped in his red beard. Terribly lucid eyes focused on the pair approaching them, Wayne and Lott.
'Yeah, I was expecting them,' King said.
A contrast in dark and light, Wayne had a bucket of Popeye's under his arm. A white down vest covered a blue zippered sweatshirt, his jeans had a picture of a phoenix, an eagle, and a crown reminiscent of a crest, along their sides. His big-boy girth made his belt superfluous. His stylized Yankee cap tilted on his head at such an extreme angle, it defied the laws of gravity by staying on. Lott, with his light complexion, seemed almost white when next to Wayne. His FedEx uniform like layers of blue armor.
'We gonna do this?' Wayne said between bites of a chicken leg.
'We still have to figure out what exactly we gonna do,' King said. 'What do you think, Merle?'
'I think you need to check with the lady.' Merle pointed to the woman standing at the end of the row of condos. A nest of micro-braids crowned her cream complexion. With ears not quite as pointed as that dude from Star Trek, she wore an opened fur-lined hoodie over a T-shirt with the word 'Babe' across her chest. Fur-cuffed jeans topped her fur-lined Timbo boots which had pom-poms dangling from them. Walking with the easy stride of a
