let him down. You let the whole family down. You had one simple job. One damn thing I wanted you to do: look out for you brother. Guard that spark. But… damn.'
Now was that precarious time. She either found her way into a bottle of something cheap to get her head up, or she'd lash out, grabbing whatever was handy — broom, bottle, one time the cast-iron frying pan — and slam it into Lott. It wasn't his fault. He tried, he'd once tried to defend himself. That was the last time he attempted to mount a defense. The frying pan slammed into him with the force of a hurled brick. Though maybe she'd spend the worst of this attack in her slap, perhaps taking enough of the edge off so she wouldn't explode. Knowing how not to catch the predator's attention, Lott stirred from his seated position, on the love seat — the threadbare material allowed the sharp corners of the couch to scrape him — arms and legs untangling not too quickly to draw undue attention, but with furious intent.
Not that he could point this out to his mother, but Morris was always half a fool himself. Always running around playing gangsta. At the ripe age of eleven…
… talking shit about jacking fools up and giving paybacks. On one shoulder, a six-pointed star with the letters B, G, D, and N in four of the points; on the other, two crossed three-pronged pitchforks drawn in permanent marker. They strolled through the parking garage next to Market Square Arena. The lot mostly deserted, they trolled about for hood ornaments to take off. The parking lot wound about, serpentine concrete walls little more than waist high. They often spit on those coming up the lower levels when more people were around.
'I'm straight up Black Gangsta Disciple.' The words echoed with a boom with the strange acoustics of the concrete structure. He didn't notice the hard-faced diesel brothers up the way behind him. Lott elbowed him in the side and ticked his chin toward them, warning him to be easy. But he would have none of it and didn't care that, too late, he had their full attention.
'Da fuck? Say that shit again,' a brickhouse of a brother said. Wide as he was tall, a poorly grown goatee outlined lips, his mouth as big as Lott's fist.
'He didn't say nothing,' Lott stepped between them and his brother.
'Wha? Nah, for real, what did he say?' the second one said in a measured tone meant to convey calm and complete reasonableness. Lott heard the echo of a snake's rattle in the timbre of his voice.
'Nothing,' Lott repeated.
'I ain't scared,' Morris said. 'My boys got my back. Black Gangsta Disciples.'
'Oh yeah? Spit your lit.'
'What?' Morris asked.
'A prayer better come off your lips real soon, boy.' The first man crowded Morris, the other barring him from Lott.
'I don't…'
The two men caught each other's eyes and upended Morris over the side of the parking garage. They each held fast to a foot.
'Say that shit again,' the first man demanded.
'Say it again and I will end you,' the second man dared.
Morris thrashed about, the street loomed beneath him. Lott punched at the two men. 'Let him go!'
'Say that shit again. What set you claim?' the first asked again, ignoring Lott's swats.
'Black Gangsta Disciple.'
Moments.
The surreal passage of time, life-changing instants occur with Lott frozen or with things moving so fast he couldn't react. Lies clouded memories, all dark whispers unchecked as guilt and shame longed to take root. Perhaps he sensed his mother's favoritism and wished it extinguished. Perhaps the need to finally be seen was born from wanting to see his brother gone. Perhaps part of him resented his brother. Perhaps any of that held him to his spot.
The two brutes released him then leaned over the concrete balcony further to better study the piece of street art they had just created. Morris's cry unfroze Lott. He tore ass down the main stairs. By the time he reached the ground level, a crowd had already gathered. Starlings bobbed around it like curious children, scattering at his approach. Morris's face was an agonal mask, lips drawn upward. A grotesque statue with his arms rested at unnatural angles to the body. His jaws hinged. The blood soaked his clothes black. Eyes open, fixed on…
… him, filled with rage and resentment. Nothing close to the love one would expect from their move. Accusing, blame-riddled.
Lott didn't know what or how to feel.
Sadly, it wasn't even the worst thing he'd seen in gangsta life. He studied the scars on his hands. Remembering how Lady G held his hand, ran her hands along them, he thought about how they matched. All their scars, they were a patchwork.
Prez sought out craziness. His dreams were all fat rolls of dollar bills, girls on each arm, and respect accorded from the neighborhood when he came through. The drugs gave him purpose and focus: get money, get high. Life was a simple equation. Yet nothing fixed that torn-up sense within him, nothing stitched together the fragments of himself he hadn't realized had been rent asunder. The abandonment of his father. The shunning by teachers. His mother's misplaced rage. The low value he placed on himself. Knowing the whys didn't help.
Reduced to a collection of emaciated bones shrinkwrapped with grayish skin, Prez writhed in silent panic on the couch, the sheets kicked off and around his ankles. Wide-eyed disorientation and mouth half-opened in an unvoiced scream, he looked absolutely lost. Like he didn't know who he was, where he was, or how he got there. His arms flailed in sudden panic, attack, or defense landing weak punches. Then he pissed himself. Lacking the strength to put his foot back under the sheets, he never imagined himself sinking to such a point. Bitter. Broken. Hurting, too bad to see who he was or how he could live.
No different than King, really, if King were truly honest with himself. Most of his days were like this, even if he gave no indication of it on the outside. This was his daily internal war.
Mouth twitching, eyes jumpy, hands shaking, Prez was a ghost of the boy King had moved into Big Momma's house so many months ago, barely recognizable. The boy's feet drew King's attention. Both were ashy, but one was ragged and raw as if it had been caught in a food processor. King felt compelled to wash them. Getting a towel from his bathroom, he wiped the excrement from Prez's feet. During the best of times, Prez slept a lot during his detox. King had brought him back to his place, explaining to Lady G that he owed it to Prez. He never quite found the words to explain how he blamed himself for failing Prez as a friend and as an example. As a leader. That perhaps he could find redemption for them both if he could see Prez through this dark time. Walk beside him through the worst of it, even if it meant wiping shit from the boy's feet.
His sheets soaked through, his pillow smelling of thick sweat and the bite of body odor, Prez's lucid dreams bubbled up, little more than memory fragments.
'How much you make on a package?' Prez asked, slouched against the couch with warm butter coursing through his brain.
'Why? You lookin'?' Naptown Red asked. He had once waved a gun around in a misunderstanding with his live-in girlfriend not too long ago. By all rights, po-po should've shot him on the spot the way he was carrying on. Instead, the tale growing with each re-telling, he found a measure of a reputation as six officers wrestled him to the ground. He was out in less than a day.
'Maybe.'
'So you want to get into dealing this nasty shit?' The two passed the pipe back and forth. 'It's one thing to dabble in this shit on the side…'
'Recreational use and shit,' Prez repeated from previous schooling.
'Exactly. It's a whole other deal getting in on the business side of things. You sure about it?'
Prez took another hit from the pipe. 'Yeah, money. Let's do this shit.'
With Night out of the picture, the crew dissolved into chaotic disarray, patches of crews working independently and sometimes at odds with one another. Prez was only the mildly ambitious sort. While he branched out with his ill-fated ESG — Eggs, Sausage, and Grits — venture with Trevant, he didn't feel comfortable striking out on his own. Security rested in working under someone like Night and Green. Or Red.
Red wandered back in from the bedroom, closing his cell phone as he flopped back down. Prez offered him the pipe again, but Red waved him off.
'Folks'll be by in a few.' He took a tone of sudden seriousness. 'I give you my connect, it's my ass on the line.
