Cousins. No one noticed her or her gifts. Except for an uncle. He crept into her bed late at night. His breath on her neck, light kisses on her back, lost in her dreams. Next thing she knew, a weight pressed on her chest. Some folks called it witch riding: when you think you're awake but can't move anything. You wanted to move and you know something bad was going to happen. If you could move anything, wiggle a finger or something, you snapped out of it. But it wasn't a witch sitting on her chest. She awoke to him on top of her. Then he was in her and her virginity was taken from her. That was the last time anything was taken from her. The world taught her that it was out to fuck her so she had made up her mind that she was going to fuck it first. The next night, he had the nerve to once again crawl into bed with her as if he had done her a pleasurable service the night before. She slit his throat from ear to ear and was sent away.
'You have not perfected your faults. Does your son know who you are?'
'He'd kill me if he knew. He's already tried once.'
'You nestled the serpent too close to that poisoned sac you call your bosom for too long. You need to punch him in the throat like a space ninja.'
'Oh, mad mage. You know who I am, yet you wanted to see me again.'
'Because you are my end,' Merle said.
'And you come willingly into my arms?'
'That's the story that has been written.'
'Show me your magic. Teach me the ways of the dragon.'
'My final lesson?'
'Yes.'
'When King needs me at his side most?'
'That's the story that has been written.' At the mention of King's name, she stepped back in pause. The final battle loomed and those too near were liable to fall.
'And what do I get in return?'
'I offer you the pain you inflict on others.'
'I fear Sir Rupert will never let me hear the end of this.'
La Payasa had no time for foolishness.
Black wanted his power to be felt, his name to ring out. He'd fought too hard to reach his spot for him to be pushed aside. He wouldn't be punked. The streets would know his rage and acknowledge his presence. For La Payasa, it meant making sure his own house was in order.
Black's mother's home was holy ground. No one neared it without facing La Payasa. Not any chavalas. Not the police. Not even broken down old men repairing cars in the parking lot. She approached with a lilting step, at first glance no one to take notice of. Her yellow hair had black roots. Black and gold, the colors of her crew, and her way of proudly displaying their colors.
'You go to move this shit.' Menace filled her eyes.
'I got to earn, too. You ain't the only one who needs to get over,' said an old man with a head too small for his body, from beneath the hood of a car. Revealing a teak complexion, and gray goatee, when he fully stepped from behind the car, he fumbled inside his shirt pocket for a pair of thick, black-framed glasses as if double-checking a vision.
'I said you gots to go, old man.' La Payasa repeated. She hated repeating herself as it lowered her in the eyes of her men. And she'd worked damn hard to rise to her rank.
'That's some bullshit, girl,' the old man said in front of her men. 'It ain't fair.'
'You just don't listen, do you? Got to make this harder on yourself. I got something for you.'
A wall of vatos in white wife beaters and baggy shorts crowded around, blocking the scene from prying eyes. La Payasa couldn't let challenge to her authority go unanswered. Especially openly. The five-point crown was peace. Violent only when necessary. She raised the cross that dangled from her neck, kissed it, then tucked it into her shirt. She went to a different place when she had to put in work. A place of raised voices, when a raised voice meant violence soon followed like lightning to the storm's thunder. The place of the lie. When the words 'Hija de la gran puta, desgraciada no sirves para nada!' may as well have been her name. To be condemned as a disgraceful daughter of a bitch, good for nothing, then beaten with whatever she could get her hands on. Extension cords. Brooms. Belts. Shoes. All were fair game. All were layers of gasoline and timber, ready fuel for the fire she would have to unleash. Even on herself. Fed up, one day she snatched the belt from mother's hands. 'This is how you spank someone,' she shouted, then beat herself so bad she bled. Her mother left her alone after that. She no longer lived in the flinch, that state of readiness, of expectation of the raised voice. She was the raised voice.
Punched in the face, stomach, and kidneys until he dropped, the old man didn't resist as he was hauled away. Swatting their hands, he crawled off. 'Fuck you,' he spat out a drool of blood.
'Se la sale como agua,' she said to herself.
An unmarked berry idled slowly toward the scene, the siren chirping once for them to disperse. At that, Detective Cantrell Williams stepped out of the car and marched toward La Payasa. His partner Lee McCarrell lingered closer to their car.
'La Payasa.' The detective introduced them in Spanish. Cantrell had taken Spanish in high school more because Amanda Fisher took it and he was a thrall to his teenage crushes, though he never did work up the nerve to ask her out. Lee spoke English and demanded that the world, or at least its representatives that crossed his borders, spoke it also. Lee made scowling faces, the international language of increasing displeasure.
'Detective.' La Payasa sucked at something stuck in her teeth.
'You ain't afraid to let your people see you chatting with me?' Cantrell had ducked out on the cameras, claiming a personal errand. He had been working on building up relationships within the Hispanic gangs. He figured if he were more of a presence, not just the face of police to lock folks up, he could get more cooperation. La Payasa he knew from her numerous run-ins with the police, from all kinds of petty drug stuff to attacking her mother.
'What's to see?'
'That old man looks like he had a rough day.' Cantrell nodded in the direction the old man stumbled off to.
'You need to talk to him about that. Find some witnesses and build you a case.'
'Still, wasn't no need to fuck him up like that.'
'I know. It's the cost out here. It's the message. You can't show no weakness.'
'Cost is too high. Taking a piece of your soul every time.' La Payasa was a bright girl, the kind that both gave Cantrell hope and broke his heart. She had so much leadership potential that went wasted on the streets.
Her hands danced in a frenetic dance, her hands twisting in odd contortions as she spelled out the name of her crew. Inverting her arms to nail down some of the more intricate finger placements — her pointer finger under her middle, curving thumb to make an 'S', crossing her ring finger and then spreading her other three fingers — each hand pose was a point of pride as she stacked their clique.
'You done?' Cantrell took mental notes.
'You know how we do?'
'Yeah. But I'm here about her.' Cantrell flashed a picture of Lyonessa. He painted a picture of a girl in the wrong place at the wrong time. Caught up in the foolishness of an older brother and those meant to watch out for her. And that perhaps she was cute enough that despite her not being blonde and blue-eyed, her image might get some play on the evening news.
'Nobody cares.'
'We do.' Cantrell said with a touch too much earnestness in his voice.
'You wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for them.' La Payasa picked up a newspaper. 'A few Mexicans get killed too publicly and no one can sweep them under the rug.
'Look, we're still collecting information, but so far, no witnesses have come forward.'
'Around here bullets go off like car alarms and folks ignore them just the same. And folks're so scared to be thought of as snitches, gave them the case of the mutes for their own health.'
'No one wants to admit that they think of a little brown girl being killed as neighborhood beautification.'
'You're right. Lyonessa was invisible. To us, to most folks because staying below the radar was part of her job. Doesn't mean she was any less important.'
'What do you want?'
'I want the violence to stop. No more bodies to drop while we have a chance to get into this. We know where
