Joe Ide - IQ

Isaiah had seen Dodson twice since the war. The first time was at Mozique’s funeral. The second time he was coming home late and saw a patrol car with its lights flashing and Dodson sitting on the curb with his fingers laced on top of his head. One officer was searching the car, the other talking on his radio. Dodson was outraged. “We got terrorists and serial killers running around everywhere and you muthafuckas ain’t got shit else to do but profile a law-abiding brutha on his way to a job interview? Yes, I know it’s one in the morning, you think a nigga ain’t got a watch? I what? I smell like marijuana? Oh you know that for a fact? You one of them drug-sniffing dogs disguised as a big-ass white man? Yes, I recently completed a sentence at a state correctional facility but what’s that got to do with anything? I’m out now. I don’t deserve this kind of harassment. I paid my debt to society.”

Isaiah drove on, thinking that was what angered him most about Dodson. The way he could hustle himself out of his own conscience and his simple-minded equation for all the wrong they had done. Do some time, see your probation officer once a month, and it was over, it was done. Your debt was paid.

When Flaco saw Margaret his eyes lit up and he grinned his lopsided grin. Jermaine, the physical therapist, put the boy in his chair and he wheeled over, trying to put words together. His brain knew what they were but his lips would forget how to say them. Oh my God, that’s so cool! came out Oh… ny… gone… nats… tso coo.

Isaiah made the cutout stand up by itself, Flaco gaping at it, steam on the inside of his glasses. “I tweet her every day,” he said. “She invited me to her concert at the Greek.” Which probably meant he got a group email.

“We’ll try to get some tickets,” Isaiah said. Flaco had always accepted Isaiah’s explanation that he was a volunteer and Isaiah was content to let it stay that way. Flaco was seventeen now but he looked twelve. He had a narrow, undernourished face and searching eyes, his shiny blue tracksuit draped over a body made of pickup sticks, his hair like somebody chopped at it with a meat cleaver. Isaiah used to pay Ira to come in and cut it but it didn’t make any difference.

A girl on crutches arrived. “Is that Margaret Cho?” she said.

“Isn’t she cool? She invited me to her concert at the Greek!”

Isaiah sat on the leg press machine with Jermaine. “What’s he going to do when he turns eighteen, stay with you?” Jermaine said.

“I offered but he wants to have his own place,” Isaiah said. “He wants to be independent, be his own man.”

“Does he know how much it costs to be his own man?”

“His social worker talked to him about it but I don’t think he understood her. He told me he wants a cool place by the beach.”

Flaco would have to leave the group home after his next birthday. He’d get an SSI check and food stamps and Isaiah had arranged a part-time job for him packaging dog biscuits for a pet boutique. Add all that up and even with a housing voucher he wouldn’t be able to afford more than a Section 8 apartment. Maybe get one at the Capri next door to that Loco with the hairnet. Isaiah considered renting him a place but that was money down the drain. Then he found a condo that would work. One bedroom, ramps, flowers in the flower garden, close to shopping. It needed repairs but nothing he couldn’t handle. A short sale, a hundred thirty thousand. But Isaiah already had a mortgage and would need a second. Tudor, his mortgage broker, said if he came up with a thirty percent down payment he’d consider it. Two or three payday cases and Isaiah might make it if he stopped eating and paying his utility bills.

“What’s with Flaco and Margaret Cho?” Isaiah said.

“Do you know about her?” Jermaine said.

Jermaine grew up in San Francisco like Margaret and he knew a lot about her. She was raised in the Castro District, a haven for misfits. Hippies, bikers, hookers, drug addicts, drag queens, and artists of all kinds. Margaret was a misfit too. Not white and she didn’t feel Asian and she was bullied and ostracized at school.

“She wanted to be a comedian,” Jermaine said. “You wonder where that idea came from. Asian girls weren’t exactly known for their sense of humor but Margaret didn’t care. She was going to do her thing no matter what and she went ahead and did it. Broke the stereotype and blazed her own trail in her own way.”

“I thought Flaco would go for one of those teenage pop stars,” Isaiah said. “Somebody closer to his age.”

“No, it’s more than a crush,” Jermaine said. “Look at it this way. If you were going to be in a wheelchair for the rest of your life and you wanted to be independent, be your own man? Margaret Cho isn’t a bad person to idolize.”

As he rode back down in the elevator, Isaiah checked his emails hoping to find a new payday case, but there was none. He checked them again when he got home, hoping something had come in during the fifteen-minute drive from the hospital. He ran through his list of options but nothing was viable the first two times he’d gone through it and surprise, surprise, nothing was viable this time either. He stalled, eating some soup even though he wasn’t hungry. Writing checks for bills that weren’t due. Mixing up a solution to clean some LPs that didn’t need cleaning. He thought he’d almost rather go back to thievery than do what he had to do.

Call Dodson.

May 2005

Isaiah’s cell buzzed. It was probably Dante, wondering why he wasn’t at the practice for the academic decathlon team. They had a meet tomorrow against Crenshaw High but Isaiah couldn’t have cared less. He’d been lying facedown on the sofa since last night, the tweedy fabric imprinted on his cheek, his mouth dry as burnt toast. He was waiting. Hardly breathing. The kitchen faucet plinking slow. Any second now, Marcus would come out of the bathroom in a cloud of steam, smelling like ocean-fresh deodorant and singing some old Motown song. “Let’s Get It On” or “I Wish It Would Rain” or “Sugar Pie Honey Bunch.”

“I like a melody,” Marcus said whenever Isaiah looked at him funny. “I like a song .” And Marcus didn’t hedge when he sang. None of that humming with a few lyrics thrown in. He sang out, full-throated and he did the moves too. Rolling his hands like a hamster wheel or throwing his arms out because he couldn’t keep himself from loving you and nobody else. When he sang “My Girl” he wanted Isaiah to join in on the my-girl-my-girl-my-girl part but Isaiah refused, saying it was too corny. But he wished he could be that way. Act a fool and not be embarrassed. Not caring what anybody thought.

The faucet was plinking faster now. Isaiah could sense the anguish and horror crackling toward him, curling his edges, burning away his denial. Marcus wasn’t coming out of the bathroom and he never would again and Isaiah felt himself turning to ashes and crumbling into nothing.

They were on Baldwin walking home from McClarin Park. They’d just played two-on-two with Carlos and Corey and got their butts kicked, Isaiah hardly getting off a shot.

“Corey’s too big,” Isaiah said, “he’s a grown man.”

“So why were you trying to muscle him?” Marcus said. “You’ve got to stay aware of yourself, keep your emotions in check, see the big picture, see the situation. Instead, you got all macho and played Corey’s game instead of your own. You’re quicker than he is, you should have made him chase you. And your defense, if you could call it that. Corey was scoring like you weren’t even there.”

“He kept taking me down low.”