The no-nonsense edge of him keened against King, as well as the sweetness of the man. 'It's not like that.'
'What's it like then? If you fight your enemies with what tools you have, you'll be defeated. Maybe killed. The system is part of the problem.'
'Exactly.' King finally jumped in. 'That's what I been fighting against.'
'I don't know why you so quick to amen somebody. Your wild ass is part of the problem, too. Look here, you can't give someone a block of cheese a day and then ask, why are you hungry? Cause, damn, I only got some cheese. But next day, where am I? Down waiting for my next piece of cheese. The system provides a chain, not a safety net, just enough to string us along, not enough to let us go free. On the other side, if all I'm doing is waiting for the next crumb from master's table, I ain't no better. And you just out there shooting up all the cheese you can find.'
Pastor Winburn came up from Alabama, working everything from oil to iron, until he ended up in Indianapolis searching for new job opportunities. He'd made so much money in his little businesses, he thought it was time to give back to the community. So he decided to become a pastor. He leaned against his desk in a conversational pose, but he'd caught the fire of his rhythm.
'From the pulpit to the back door, we scared of these folks. Scared of our own. People who had leprosy had to stay so many feet from you because they were scared you were going to catch it. Here's the thing: a doctor can't examine you unless he touches you. And we have to lay hands on this neighborhood. People don't live here cause they want to. They didn't look all over the city and say 'I want this slum.' They live here cause they have to. There are two kinds of black folks: those scrambling to get out and those who give up and stay here. See, those scrambling to get out, they always looking to live where white folks live. I don't mean that in no hateful way, I mean they chase the same picket-fence dream white folks do. Always dreaming to get away from 'bad elements' and such. Not a bad dream, I guess. Other folks get a different story trapped in them. They don't think they can do any better, believe the world is against them, since they don't got any opportunities nor any point of dreaming, white folks' dreams or otherwise. So they spend they days trying to get by or get over. They do whatever they have to do to survive. That's a bad story. If not bad, then venomous. Defeated.
'Now, me? I'm a been there, done that type. I don't believe that a person who's never done anything can help anyone here. It takes a certain type of shepherd. We relate well. We can show that God did it for us. So I have a mission here. Built a third type of folks. Those who choose to stay here and commit to making a difference. And the mission has to get down on its knees to get results.' Pastor Winburn fully slipped into the comfortable glove of his sermon rhythm, straightening and letting his arms go to add emphasis to his words. 'The people have a desire to work, they just need to be coordinated. You remember the story of Nehemiah? Before he got there, no one was doing anything. But when he got there the whole city got together and started working. The people had a mind to work. Now there were those who were standing around in the first place not doing anything, and when he started doing something, they wanted to come up and talk. Come on down and let's plan what we're going to do. Well I'm on the wall and I don't have time to come down.'
He'd come in hoping to catch a word, not be blasted by the fire-hose torrent of judgment. He didn't have time to formulate any response before Pastor Winburn continued.
'I guess that's my warning to you. Serving as your personal prophet. The role of a prophet is to bring the word of the Lord to bear on a specific situation, to shake up your spiritual life. You have to make a choice. What the future holds if you stay on your present course frightens me.
'On the other hand, God is a God of restoration. He's restoring hope in this neighborhood. He's restoring lives. He's restoring dignity. And you do it one person at a time. You need to be a part of His program, not Him getting on board with yours. A leader leads by example. You can say what you want from the pulpit, but you have to go where your people are. Model what it is you're teaching. Christ met needs then preached the gospel.'
King shifted his weight under the appraisal. Part of him still sought the old man's approval. 'I'm just one man.'
'One man makes very little difference. I don't care who you are, King. But all of us together, we can do anything. Now choose.' Pastor Winburn had always challenged him, pushed him to be a better man. He laid the facts out like a dinner spread on a table then said 'now choose.' Right or wrong, it was always his choice to make and Pastor Winburn would be there.
King stood up to leave. Pastor Winburn spread his arms in a way that reminded him of holding his hand out to a dog to let it catch his scent before petting him. The pastor put his arms around him in an embrace. King didn't exactly return the hug, but he didn't pull away either. He returned his Caliburn to his dip.
Cool air cut through King, his T-shirt offering little protection against the elements. Sitting on the front stoop of the church, he needed a few moments to collect his thoughts, to sift through Pastor Winburn's words. The old man had a way of getting under his skin and pushing his buttons. The neighborhood smelled of car exhaust and backed-up sewers. Damp sidewalk and pooled water against the curb provided evidence of the rain burst. The cars sped along, too many in a need of muffler repair, their tires rumbling over the uneven strips in the road. The church faced a network of alleys, carving up the block and snaking between homes. Brown vines filigreed the fences. Pairs of sneakers hung from the lines overhead. A shuffling from the alleyway caught his attention, putting King on high alert. A figure staggered out of the alley, and then collapsed. King darted across the street to the wail of screeching tires and blaring horns. King crouched over the crumpled form and rolled him over. It took him a moment to place the emaciated face.
'Prez?' King asked.
Somewhere between what should have been his sophomore or junior year of high school, the boy stank of nicotine, stale beer, and crack sweat, shaking like a pair of dice. Cuts on his face were half-healed, jelly-like wounds of having been raked with talon-like fingernails. His face bruised to blue, his lips swollen and split. His hair littered with flecks of fuzz and pebbles. A series of scrapes and scratches along his long, lanky arms.
'King?'
'It's me, Prez.'
'They're out there. And they're coming for us.'
CHAPTER SEVEN
Rellik was a jailhouse nigga through and through. He'd spent more time inside the system than out and found the rhythms of prison life more natural than the existence folks called freedom. By the age of fifteen he'd already entered the system and had to bury his mother from prison. Running the Merky Water set from inside; since his family couldn't afford it, he sent his gang to the funeral home to make the arrangements and pay for it. If he wanted the prison shut down, it got shut down that day. The guards and superintendent were impotent and apathetic: they were there to make sure no one escaped. Everything else was just paperwork. Even the chaplain was scared to talk to him about Christ. Heaven would be better off without him as far as clergy was concerned.
The streets ran little differently than The Ave. There were crews to be overseen. Po-po, be they Cos or FiveO, to deal with. Product to move. Rival factions to navigate. Power to be seized. No one operated in a vacuum and he knew no one could survive without allegiances and loyalty.
The lines of territory were ambiguous at the moment. Everyone respected the space Dred had carved out, too afraid to outright move into it for fear of his retaliation, despite his general absence. It was as if he haunted the streets, and his ghost terrified them. Back in the overly romanticized day, none of the crew were allowed to touch drugs, but they could strong-arm around it, make sure a dealer broke them off some. Eventually money, especially with so much of it to be had, drove things out of whack and dudes started selling it. It got so good that when the original kings got locked up, the dons never said anything against the drug-dealing. They allowed the selling to keep going. Back then, the gang was a unit. They talked of family. Old school.
New crews set up shop along the edges of Rellik's reclaimed territory, though none ventured into Breton Court. King blocked that. King. That young buck might prove to be a problem later, so Rellik made a note to keep an eye on him. Night's crew was in chaos, easily absorbed into Rellik's Merky Water. The Treize carved up the far west side, just south of Breton Court but inching ever northward. Which left ICU and other independent operators. That was always their mistake. The Nights and Dreds of the world viewed themselves as operators, the game little more
