Joel Goldman: Shakedown

“Can’t keep pretendin’ Javy and Bodie Grant ain’t squeezin’ our ass. Wuhju gonna do ‘bout it?” Rondell asked, stepping up in Marcellus’s face.

The way Rondell asked the question was more important to Marcellus than the question, Rondell telling Marcellus maybe he’d do somethin’ ‘bout it if Marcellus didn’t. That’s the way it always was, Marcellus thought to himself. Somebody always watchin, askin’ wuhju gonna do ‘bout some shit, waitin’ for his turn to make hisself head nigga. Best way to cool that shit was to give Rondell someone else to take a few swings at, calm his ass down.

“You and DeMarcus go see Mr. Tattoos-Up-His-Ass Bodie Grant, mess wit his mind a little bit, tellum peddle his shit some other place.”

“What about Javy?”

Marcellus gave Rondell a?at, street stare. “Let him know what’s what. I don’t care what shit he puts on the street long as he keep it out of Quindaro. Tell him take his shit back to Argentine.”

“I’m all about that,” Rondell said, satisfied for the moment, coming back that night, his chest puffed up like he’d gotten laid for the first time, telling Marcellus he and DeMarcus done delivered the messages.

Marcellus had started out like Oleta’s son, standing on a corner, selling rocks. He made a name for himself when he killed a soldier from a rival Hispanic gang. The soldier had thirty pounds on Marcellus and a gun under his shirt. One day he shoved the gun in Marcellus’s eyes and grabbed him by the balls, telling Marcellus it was his corner and to take his skinny black ass home.

Marcellus waited until it was dark before he came back and hid in an alley with a baseball bat. When the soldier walked past, Marcellus stepped out behind him, swinging the bat like he was in a slow-pitch cage. The soldier was dead when he hit the ground, Marcellus’s gang calling him Barry motherfuckin’ Bonds. That was six years ago, a couple of lifetimes in the crack business. He’d survived by taking care of his own and doing business with the right people.

His strategy had paid off when the cops came crashing through the front door of his house two weeks ago. He was ready, watching TV in bed with Jalise and Keyshon, the only shit in the house belonging to the dog. The cops kicked them out while they searched, saying they had a fugitive warrant for some cat named Darrell. The next day, when the Winston brothers asked what had happened, Marcellus told them it waddn’t nothing.

Then Oleta’s boy got hisself shot the day after Rondell and DeMarcus delivered their messages. Marcellus suspected the shooting was either Javy’s or Bodie’s way of answering back, though, in some ways, it didn’t matter who did it.

What mattered was what his people thought happened and what he was going to do about it. If Marcellus didn’t hit back at someone, they would think he was weak or afraid. Worse, they would think he didn’t value them. As soon as that happened, they’d want someone else to tell them what to do. Marcellus shook his head, knowing he had to do something even if it was wrong. He walked to the screen door, tapping on the wire mesh.

“Gitcho asses inna house,” he told the Winston brothers.

Latrell Kelly blinked, ducking his head from the sun, his eyes stinging. He’d slept in the cave again and the daylight was painful. The night before, he’d watched from the shadows on his back stoop while the Winston brothers took turns with some girl in his backyard, the bitch hollering, Rondell smacking her till she shut up. Latrell was mad, seeing his mother taking that beating instead of the girl.

He’d lived in his house more than half of his thirty-two years. The closest thing to a father he ever knew was Johnny McDonald, the man who used to own the house. Johnny sold dope and pimped his mother out, sometimes slapping her, sometimes him, sometimes both of them, until Latrell buried Johnny and his mother in the basement.

He was fifteen then, doing odd jobs at the rail yard in Argentine when he wasn’t in school, eventually hiring on full-time after he graduated. Now he worked as a file clerk in the terminal building. He had paid off the taxes Johnny owed on the house with money Johnny had stuffed under the mattress where his mother had earned her share, and then kept the rest for groceries. When he wasn’t working, he kept up his house and yard and tried not to think about his mother.

Then Marcellus come along, him and his girlfriend, Jalise, and their little boy, moving in right behind him, the three of them making it so Latrell couldn’t stop thinking about Johnny McDonald and his mother and him when he was the same age as the boy, until he had a hard time telling the dead from the living. The whole neighborhood knew Marcellus was dealing dope but nobody did nothing about it. The more Latrell couldn’t put them out of his mind, the closer he got to making things right. The Winston brothers waling on that girl in his backyard was it. He couldn’t take any more.

Growing up, he was a small, soft boy, easy prey for bullies, gangs, and any kid looking for someone to pick on who wouldn’t fight back. The cave, a remnant of a mining operation, had saved him. He’d stumbled onto the entrance one day after work while walking in the woods not far from the rail yard. It was nothing more than a seam in a rock wall till he pulled down some bigger rocks, learning how to put them back so no one who didn’t know about it could tell it was anything.

After that, Latrell spent his spare time exploring the inside with a?ashlight, storing batteries and candles on a rock shelf, comfortable in the shadows. Most of the cave was underwater, his hideaway confined to a series of chambers ending on a rocky beach. He never did know how far the water went or how deep it was, only that it was so black there was no bottom and no end.

Johnny McDonald had had a pair of.45 caliber Marine pistols and some night-vision goggles he stole off a guy at a gun show, that and the cash under the mattress Latrell’s inheritance. When he was old enough, Latrell went to a range and learned how to shoot the.45s. Then he’d practice in the cave wearing the night-vision goggles, dry firing ‘cause he was afraid of ricochets, ready in case he had to make things right again one day, same as he had with Johnny and his mother.

A few years ago, some kids out canoeing had found their way into the cave from a small lake and gotten lost, making a big deal about spending the night in the cave like they was gonna die. He read about it in the paper, the article calling the cave the Argentine Mine and saying it covered thirty-four acres underground. The county promised to seal it up before anyone else got lost and they did just that except they never did find Latrell’s way in.

He spent several nights in the cave imagining how, late at night, he would walk through the front door of Marcellus’s house and kill everyone inside. He could do it. Soft, shy, quiet Latrell, stronger than any of them, could kill them all. He’d practiced and practiced. It wouldn’t be hard. It would be a good thing. He replayed the scene over and over in his mind, opening his eyes to find that nothing had changed until simply imagining wasn’t enough.

On the day he first decided to do it, he changed his mind when he saw the camera installed on the utility pole down the street from Marcellus’s house. He had seen men climb those poles before at the rail yard. He knew the kind of tools they carried, the kind of work they did, and how they did it. The man on the pole never touched his tools, the tool belt slapping against his right thigh like it didn’t belong. The man was some kind of cop, maybe even FBI, he decided, not caring so long as they got rid of Marcellus. So he waited.