Maurice Broaddus - King Maker

"Balan."

"Owe."

All eyes fell on Griff. He stared into the fallow liquid swirling in the cup. Then Griff drank.

"Now you are one of the Ndibu, the high order of the Egbo Society. We are bound to one another and only by our hand are we released."

Waves of heat shimmered off the pavement. Percy wandered the alleyway ticking off his mental checklist Miss Jane had so painstakingly instructed him. He had to be more aware of his surroundings, know the score in order to stay out of trouble; or worse, let trouble find him off guard. He surveyed the alley. Lone roughneck in a long wife-beater tee, baggy black pants. The beginnings of a beard along each side of his face. Toothpick protruding from his mouth, the man hard-eyed him.

"What you need?"

"How many lookouts do you have?" Percy began amiably enough, then pointed down the way to a group of kids sitting on their bikes with no particular need to go anywhere. "Those kids down there?"

"What the fuck?" Anger flashed, a lifetime of lessons and reinforced habits snapping into place without a thought. "You better quit playing and get on. Simple motherfucker."

"Where's your stash?" Percy examined how the man stood in front of the garage, careful not to wander towards the side with overgrown weeds and an abandoned tire. "I bet it's in those bushes around the corner of the house."

"Boy, what you doing?" Miss Jane yelled at him.

"Do you have a gun? Can I see it?" Percy asked, nearly reaching to pull up the man's shirt.

"What the fuck's wrong with you?"

"Don't mind him. He simple. I was just trying to school him on what's what out here and he wanders off for some… extracurriculars."

"Well, you need to teach him how to watch his mouth. Could get him killed up in this piece."

"I doubt that."

"Why? He bulletproof or something?"

"You know whose boy he is?"

"Who?"

"You better check out that scar on his left eye."

"Oh snap. My bad." The soldier took a step back.

"Yeah, your bad, motherfucker. Now let me get two." Miss Jane shorted him the cash and dared him to rise up on her to collect the rest. He decided she wasn't worth the effort.

He hated watching her inject herself.

"Momma, who's my daddy?"

"Shit, boy, you trying to blow my high?"

"I want to know. Can I meet him?"

"Let me see if I can arrange something. He might as well see the man you turned out to be."

Not that Miss Jane or Night were up for parents of the year, they had both agreed to keep Percy far from the game. Well, as far as possible. The streets weren't meant for people like him. Soft. Innocent. Miss Jane told him as much about Night as she could, but for what he wanted to know, the questions he was ready to ask, he needed a face-to-face.

The naked light of the bar bleached most of the details away. Already stoked in sweet Scotch fumes and liquor-loose, Night slowly drank. Percy studied the man's face, searching for something familiar. Dark as he was, he had a scar about his left eye in the shape of a crescent moon. He fought the compulsion to scratch his own scar.

"You still with that girl?" Percy asked. Apparently there was always some girl, so it was a generic enough question. It wasn't as if Night kept track of any of their names. To hear Miss Jane tell it, Percy might as well have asked about one of his other babies. There was always some baby. Automatic. Impersonal. The wall.

"That what you want to talk about?" Night's sleepheavy eyes turned to him. He had a power to him, a force of will, much like hypnosis. Part of his way was his ability to suck you into his web of half-truths, deceit by omission, and out-and-out lies. He had a smile. A broken smile, Percy thought. The smile that usually intimidated others into silence.

"No. I…" Percy didn't know how to form the questions he wanted to ask. He half-closed his eyes, a child pretending to be asleep, trying to get through the conversation, unaware that his body language mirrored Night's. He kept his voice light. He wanted Night to like him. Percy hunched over, making himself appear smaller, more the picture of a little boy. He only wished they were a family. The tidal wave of questions slammed against his cautious spirit and he blurted out, "Didn't you want me?"

"Accidents happen." Night read the sting of the words in Percy's heart-sick looking face. "Shit. This ain't going right. Don't know why Miss Jane insisted on this. Just said it was time. Time for what? Me hurting you?"

"So you didn't want me." Percy's face scrunched up, flat and sullen; his voice tentative and mournful.

"Not just you. I always go in bagged. I had the feeling Miss Jane set me up. Wouldn't put it above her to run a pin or some shit through the whole box of rubbers. Look here, kids bind you. Keep you from doing what you want to do. I'm out here hustling, getting it done. and don't have time for all that daddy mess. Can't be the man out here if I'm doing the Cosby thing. I have to be the man because without leadership, folks run in circles and reach into your pockets."

His job was important, Percy thought.

Night tightened his mouth. His gaze roamed about then suddenly fixed on him in a cat's pounce. He scowled, half-disgusted, feeling cornered and uncomfortable. Then his grimace relaxed. Percy had a way about him, one Night secretly wished would rub off on him. An innocence, maybe?

"It's a terrible feeling when you can't stand the sound of your own kids. The little things. Coughs in the middle of the night. Little sniffles, throw up, sick business? That's a mother's job to take care of shit like that. The stink they make, diapers, I ain't got time for that domestic shit. That's bitches' work. I ain't got time for that." As if repeating it would demonstrate the truthfulness of the situation. Touched by his innocence, he owed him the truth. "So you decide to wait till he got a little older. Show him some shit. My world. Let him see what I do and how I do it. Teach him how to be a man. Then you realize you don't know what to show him. Better off not being around. Put word on the street to take care of you. Keep you safe. We look after our own best we can."

Night searched Percy's eyes, hungry for any sort of understanding.

"So you wait a little longer. You get to the point where he was about grown. Don't really need you to show him nothin'. Can barely face him knowing you had no hand in who he became. Can only hope he do a'ight. Maybe better than you.

"Where I come from, we have a code. We carry it like that." Night leaned back and gave Percy some space. He peeled off a handful of twenties, the only thing he knew how to do.

The neighborhood preyed on itself, an ouroboros of poverty. The irony of taking from people with so little eluded Miss Jane to a nearly painful degree. An anguish Percy experienced as he pushed open the window. The first-floor apartments of the Phoenix were better off without windows. To stare at the outside world through bars. They were an "open for business" sign for the local crackheads opting for an easy score. Most tenants occupied the first level only until they could move to a higher floor. But not too high as the stairwells offered their own dangers.

Miss Jane convinced him to break in. Rumors of the household hoarding money and jewelry, eccentric ghetto millionaires. Such tales bubbled up from time to time, excusing would-be treasure hunters their Robin Hood ethos, though the poor who were targeted by their charitable impulse were usually themselves.

Two windows in the apartment, one with an airconditioning unit in it, though it too was stolen from a first-floor apartment down the street. The bedroom window slid open easily enough. A young girl stirred, disturbed by the rush of traffic sounds from the outside. Percy closed the window behind him. Pausing, he bent over the frame in case the girl fully woke and he needed to make a hasty retreat. He sensed her in the dark, could hear her breathing. Fumbling along her dresser, his large, nimble hands found no jewelry. He ran them along a chalice; inside was a lone ring. He picked up the ring, holding the metal goblet in case it clattered against it. He peered over his shoulder. The sleeping figure didn't move.