Rhozier Brown - DC Noir 2 - The Classics

Lucus nodded. Pushed his chair back from the table slowly and felt the meats close in by his sides, ready.

“Whatever happens,” said Lucus, “remember I gave you heads-up, fair warning. Nothing coming your way from me. Or my boy.”

“We’ll see,” J.C. shrugged. “If we’re square on that, we’re square.”

On his way out the library door, Lucus checked the clock: 2:01. Less than ninety minutes until the turnout in the yard.

What was left was the hardest thing.

Lucus found them in the TV room, backs to the wall, street cool — running their mouths and eyeing beautiful people on the tube.

“Well, what’s up here?” said one of them as Lucus neared.

Brush past that fool like December wind.

Look at yesterday’s mirror — a young man against a wall, thick hair with no gray, taller and flatter muscles, no scar across the bridge of the nose, but damn : a mirror.

“We gotta talk,” Lucus told the apparition.

“Say what?” said the young man. Lucus smelled pruno on the boy’s breath. Fear in his sweat.

Fuck your fear! telepathed Lucus. If you can’t kill it, use it and ride it smart! But he said: “Say, now .”

“Old man,” answered his son, “anything you got to say, you say it right here, right now, in front of my bros.”

“I thought you grew up to be enough of a stallion you didn’t need nobody to protect you from facing your old man.”

Catcalls and laughs bounced off Lucus — bounced off him and hit his son. Lucus knew they were all measuring Kevin, seeing how he’d handle this. Wondering if maybe Lucus could wolf their bro down. And if the old man could do it …

Kevin knew all this too, sensed Lucus. Damn yes: My son ain’t all fool .

“Well, shit!” said Kevin. “You been worrying ’bout talking to me for nineteen years, you might as well get it off your back now.”

Kevin swaggered out of his crew, headed toward an empty corner by the moth-eaten pool table whose cues and balls hadn’t been replaced after the last riot. Pressed his back against the wall, made Lucus turn his eyes from the distant crowd.

Good move! thought Lucus. “We haven’t got much time.”

“You never did have the time, did you?”

“I never had much choice. Your grandma didn’t want to be bringing you down to no lockup, get you thinking that was just another part of family life, and your mother—”

“She’d have sold me for a nickel bag.”

“She did what she could by you, got you to her mother. Gave up the only thing she ever loved all-out.”

“I should drop by the cemetery, spray tag Yo, thanks! on her stone.”

“Don’t throw your shit on her grave.”

The chill in Lucus’s voice touched his son.

“Why’d you two go and have me anyway?”

“Wasn’t what we were thinking of,” answered the father.

“Yeah, I know. A little under-the-jackets action sitting in chairs in minimum security’s visitor hall.”

“Least you know who your father is.”

“Hell of a family that gives me.” Kevin shook his head. “I don’t know who the hell you are. You’re the big Never There.”

“Nothing kept you from catching a bus out here when you turned eighteen, signing the visitor’s log, calling me out.”

Kevin shrugged: “I figured I’d make it here soon enough.”

There it is, thought Lucus. Got to tend to business! But he said: “Outside … you got a woman?”

Kevin looked away, said: “They’s all bitches and whores.”

“Thinking and talking like that,” said his father, “no wonder you’re in prison. No woman who’s worth it will stick around you when you got that attitude.”

“Yeah, well … no ladies no how was beating down my crib door.” Kevin looked at his father; looked away, said: “That woman Emma, works down at the dry cleaners for them Koreans. She calls herself your wife.”

“We ain’t got no law on it.” Lucus shrugged, prayed for the clock not to tick. “Her old man died in a bust-out, I got to know her through that. Phone calls, letters. We understand each other.”

“You don’t even have minimum-security visiting privileges. The glass stays up when she visits you. What’s she see in it?”

Lucus shrugged. “Safe sex.”

Made him laugh!

“We got no time,” said Lucus. “There’s a hit on you today. Likely in the yard.”

Kevin blinked: “Jerome said—”

“Words are weapons! Ain’t you learned that?”

“You ain’t been my teacher, so you can’t give me grades.”

“If I’d been learnin you, you wouldn’t have got drunk, got in a chump beef over yard basketball! And if you had run up against it, you would have done it right.”

“Yeah? Like how?”

“Like you’d have kept it personal! Man to man. Walked into Jerome’s crew and called him out — put him on the spot. Then you’d have had a chance.”

“What chance did I ever have for anything?” hissed Kevin. “You think I’m chump enough to ask him—”

“You don’t ‘ask’ for anything from anybody!”

“Force a throw-down, strap our arms together, toss the blade on the floor, and—”

“And you got an even chance! You let it buck up to you dissing him and his whole crew, you got a war, not a battle.”

“I got my own crew!”

“Yeah. There’s more of the other dudes, and the guys on your side would never sell anybody out. Or dodge getting cut up. They gonna die for you.”

“That’s the way it is.”

“If that’s the way it is, this wouldn’t be Plea-Bargain City.”

“So what do you want me to do, Mr. Smart-Time Con?”

“You got one chance. Go to the admin. Feed them a pruno still: Robinson, Building 2, Tier 2, in the bus the auto mechanics practice on. Trade that bust for a crash transfer to—”

“You want me to rat? You a fool? That’s evil! And suicide!”

“No, that’s smart. Robinson wants to kick the juice — like you need to. He knows lockdown cold turkey is his only way. I already cut a deal with him. You just gotta make your move — and right now.”

“You’re one treacherous mother,” said Kevin.

“Believe it.”

“But I go to the Farm, the Orchard Terrace guys—”

“They got no crew there.”

“They will.”

“That’s tomorrow. You’re scheduled to die today. With the time you done, keep your jacket clean and when the courts make the admin thin the herd, you’re prime for early release. Could be outta here in a year. Besides, we’ll fix tomorrow when—”

“The Farm boys would know I ratted.”

“Not if Robinson puts out the Word how you two tricked the admin.”

“My crew would cut me loose.”

“No loss.”

“They’re all I got!”

“Not anymore.”

Lucus heard the babble behind him; knew a hundred eyes were checking them out. Knew the clock was ticking.

“You just don’t understand,” said Kevin. “If I run from—”

“You’re not running from , you’re running towards . And don’t tell me I don’t understand.”

“I just gotta do what I gotta do. If what’s gonna happen’s got to happen, that’s just the way it’s gotta be.”

“Kevin?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t hand me bullshit street jive. That’s all hollow words you stack up in front of your face to keep from seeing you’re too lazy or too stupid or too scared to walk smart. What’s gotta be, gotta be — shit: You sit there where the ‘be’ shit is, you ain’t being stand-up strong, you’re making yourself the most powerless chump in the world.”

“You don’t get it, do you, old man?”