Maurice Broaddus - King's Justice

"Come on now, sister. You better than this."

"I'm just open about what I do. Those other girls do dirt, too, they just like to hide it."

King had a reputation for being largely indifferent to women. Most blamed his break-up with his baby's momma and his subsequent estrangement from his daughter, Nakia. Yet, despite his protestations and the various walls he'd built around himself, Lady G got under his skin and invaded his heart like a hostile takeover. She held his interest and attention in a way few women had. And part of him feared that in the sharing of this tiny part of himself, he had done something dangerous. Which he had, for her. Lady G. King was drawn to her and she to him. He decided to risk loving Lady G, then and always.

"Come on, man," Wayne said, "let's get inside."

The Church of the Brethren was a victim of a spate of local fires. Fire investigators suspected drug addicts illegally squatting. Without the necessary insurance to rebuild, the standalone building was left as little more than a warehouse lot. Burn marks scored the edges of the sallow, off-white facade. Sheets of plywood — with the date of its condemnation spray-painted across it — served as the door. The stain glass windows above the doors remained intact. Off-white and yellow painted wood mixed with brick which had been equally painted, marred by scorch marks.

"I heard what you did down at Badon Hill," Wayne said.

"What'd I do?" King pulled at the rear door, the nails of the board pulling free with ease.

"Brought down another gang trying to get a stranglehold in the neighborhood."

"Man, I haven't done half the stuff they say I've done," King said.

"That's how legends get born."

"That's how fools get dead."

"If that's the case, we in the right place."

The inside of the building had been gutted, the stripped, water-damaged walls and seared columns stood revealed like charred bones. The remains of a soot-covered choir loft split down the middle before toppled pews which couldn't be salvaged. Black rocks scattered across the floor, like fossilized cockroaches. A giant cable spool commanded the center of the room.

"No chairs?" Wayne asked.

"No coffee and donuts either. We ain't going to be here that long, so I figured we could stand. I just thought it was important that we met."

"A symbol, good and round. You think like a king." Merle scratched his thigh, abating the itch of whatever had crawled on him during the night. The old man had his back to them though he seemed to appear out of nowhere. Unlike King's leather jacket, Merle wore a long black raincoat whose lining had been removed. A tall man, but the coat hung loosely on him, like a scarecrow lost within a blanket. A cap made of aluminum foil crowned his head. He stroked tufts of his scraggily reddish beard as he searched about the room as if he had whispered something.

"Each of us has a role to play," King continued, unperturbed.

"What's his? Minister of Drunken Crazy Talk?" Wayne asked.

"Hand holder. Life guider. Purpose pointer. Gift shaper," Merle said.

"Ass painer."

"Hold up. Here come the others," King said.

King didn't need to even turn to know Lady G had come into the room. His heart knew and leapt at her presence. His mood, so fierce and dark before, lifted like a breeze blowing away storm clouds. A shock ran up his body, his breath shortened in shivering excitement. In the same way, when she left a room, his world grew a little bleak.

Percy ducked under the door entrance. King didn't know what to do with him. Everywhere they went, the big boy-man was there. Not quite underfoot, but always around. He meant well, knew the players, and had a heart to match his girth, but King wondered if that was enough.

Lott trailed in Percy's wake, his head bobbing as he walked. His face only betrayed his thoughts if you knew what you were looking at. He studied the structure with an eye toward its integrity, possible ways it could be attacked, and escape routes. A quiet, pensive man with a restless heart, and who often let moments pass when asked a question, unafraid to allow an intimidating silence to build. Connected, instant and deep, King and Lott shared a strange kind of intimacy, a wary bond of old friends. Their shadows clashed against the wall like black swords.

"What you listening to?" Lady G made room for Lott next to her. She thought him too much of a roughneck pretty boy, but she put fingers on his arm as he sat down, an innocent, friendly gesture. He hesitated, a slight hitch to his movement before he sat down. Part of her enjoyed the effect it had on him.

"Going old school. Something King turned me on to."

Lott pulled the earphones from his ears and plugged his iPod into a set of speakers he withdrew from his backpack. The gentle strains of the Impressions' "It's All Right" began.

"Oh yeah." Lady G closed her eyes and gyrated to the building groove.

"All right now." King joined them.

Wayne took a seat around the makeshift table, then patted the spot next to him for Percy to join him. Wayne was always partial to Percy, reminding him of one of his brothers. Wayne carried around a silence with him. They all had pain in common, each of them with that bit of them which remained closed off. It reared itself, a creeping shadow, whenever the topic of brothers or family came up. A set jaw, clenched teeth, a determined silence. Resolute. Final. A pain unspoken.

An awkward lumber into place, Percy glanced around with a huge grin — the joy of acceptance — on his face. He wished Rhianna were here to see this. He studied the others for a moment as if gathering the nerve to fall in with their swaying.

Merle stood on the outside allowing them to take their seats. It wasn't his role to sit among them.

Without comment or planning, everyone chimed in on the chorus. "It's all right to have a good time, cause it's all right." Looking around at each other, they burst into a fit of laughter. It was a perfect moment.

"We a band of misfits," Lady G said.

"Surely the flower of the ghetto," Merle said.

"So what we doing here, King?" Wayne sniffed, though he otherwise ignored Merle.

"It's kind of like a brain-storming session. Trying to figure out our next move." King rubbed the back of his head, letting the coarse stubble across his neck scrape his fingertips. The razor bumps read like Braille, but he was due to get his cut trimmed up. Lady G could handle the twists. "We need to go bigger."

"Why us?" Lott asked.

"Why not us? If everyone kept asking that question, nothing would ever get done. I want us to be about something. A mission. Be about granting mercy and stopping murders. Defending and honoring women rather than using and degrading them. I want to end the fighting. I want to quit letting our community poison itself."

"You want to take the ghetto out of black folk," Wayne said.

Everyone chuckled except King. He wore the pained expression of not being taken seriously. Maybe he did dream too large. The wasted lives of good people troubled him; even if that was the life they chose for themselves, he couldn't help but pity them. Good people. Drugs were here to stay. Like cigarettes and alcohol, it was only a matter of time before the government and laws made their peace with them. Until then, someone was going to service the demand. Which meant gangs were here to stay, too. These were times of crises and opportunity.

"It's absurd to build a tower atop of two combating dragons. Such was Vortigern's error," Merle said.

"We need to do more." If King heard the doomful note in Merle's prophecy, he ignored it. He wasn't quite in the mood to divine if Merle spat out gibberish or was obliquely providing one of his lessons. Either way, it was less trouble to simply move on. That was King's way.