Charlie Huston - Every Last Drop

enough to get that straight. Island cant last. Future is over here. Where there's room to spread.

She lifts her chin.

— Wait and see. Years go by, it's gonna be the other way around. Gonna be their asses trying to cross over. Get to this side.

I take one of my custom-cut smokes from the pack. -No argument. But it don't change things.

I light up. -I need to get over.

She throws her hands up and walks away. -Like you're not even listening.

I study the scratches on the cement floor. -I'm listening. I'm just not hearing anything that helps me.

She turns. -If that's what you're waiting for, you should get moving.

I look up from the floor and study her young face.

— I'm not asking you to hold my hand. I'm not asking you to carry me across. Way I figure, chances are no one will even see me. How many subway

platforms can they cover? How many trains can they ride looking for refugees? Coalition cant keep everybody from crossing their turf, someone always slips through the cracks. Coalition has cracks, the Hood has to have holes you can walk through. All I'm asking is, Where are the holes? I get snatched, I get taken to Digga, I got a history with the man. Maybe he cuts me loose. Doesn't matter. Time is an issue. Sides, I don't want anyone to know I'm over there. I don't want anyone to know I'm back.

She touches her earlobe. -What's that about?

I smile. -I'm hoping to surprise a couple people.

I hold out my pack and she comes over and takes a smoke.

She leans in to the lit match and looks at me. -That's a nasty smile you got, Pitt.

The smile stays where it is.

She blows out the match. -I like it.

She takes a deep drag and exhales.

— That girl you got over there. Turns out she don't know what she has in you, you bring that smile back over to this side of the river. We could get some things done here.

I put the smile away.

She lifts her shoulders. -And there it goes.

She reaches past me and pulls open a drawer and takes out a pair of knee-length cutoff jeans. -They move around.

She puts the smoke between her lips and pulls the cutoffs on. -Only got so many people to watch their border, so they move them around. Got apartments they move in and out of with views of the bridges. Shift others from station to station and line to line, sniffing for refugees. Buses and trains. Got some guys work the graveyard in the toll booths. Hows that for security? Others got MTA jobs, down in the tunnels. Conductors. Motormen. Maintenance. Only the Hood can do that. What's the last time you saw someone white working the subways? First of never, that's when. Coalition tried to put one of theirs in a job underground, everyoned be like, What the fuck?

She points at a Starks jersey on the back of the chair. -Toss me that.

I toss it to her and she peels off her WNBA top. -Don't be staring at my tits. You had your chance.

I take a drag and look away as she pulls on the jersey.

She's right, I had my chance.

And I passed on the best the Bronx has to offer.

So.

Back to the fire.

I stand at the foot of the Macombs Dam Bridge, leaning against one of the Tudor abutments, smoking, looking down the length of the swing bridge at the Island, a little over two thousand feet away.

Esperanza watches the approach. -Should be a gypsy around anytime. -They don't like to stop for me. -Why not? — Why do you think? I'm white. They think I'm a transit cop or something.

Looking to bust them for hacking without a medallion. -I can flag one for you.

I flick my butt over the rail of the bridge. The wind off the Harlem grabs it and spins it away. -III walk.

I take the cash Predo gave me out of my pocket. -How much?

She shrugs. -Guy I called, he'll need a couple bills.

I peel off two hundred. -And you?

She points over the river at the FDR. -That stretch of road, just that couple blocks, know what it's called?

I look at it. -Nope.

— Three Hundred Sixty-ninth Harlem Hellfighter's Drive. Black regiment. First fought in World War I. Spent one hundred and ninety-one days under fire. Suffered over fifteen hundred casualties. Guy named Private Henry Lincoln

Johnson, and his buddy Private Needham Roberts, they fought off twenty-four Germans. Just the two of them. When Roberts was shot, Johnson used his bolo knife and rifle butt to hold off the krauts.

She turns, looks over the Bronx. -Johnson won the Croix de Guerre. First American ever.

She looks at me. -Good to have someone to put your back against when the close work starts.

She spits over the rail.

— So how about you owe me on this one. Sometime I need someone to have my back, maybe I give you a call.

I fold the bills over.

— Can't say It's a safe bet III be around long enough to pay off. -Ill take that chance.

I put the money in my pocket. -If that's how you want it. -That's how I want it.

She starts to walk backward, away down the bridge approach. -Guy said the bridge was clear. No watchers. Grab yourself a ride on the

other side. Said steer clear of Marcus Garvey Park. Said Malcom X is clear all the way to One Ten. Once you cross to Coalition turf, who knows what the hell you find. But in a car, I don't know how they go about spotting you.

I raise a hand. -Stay alive.

She raises a hand. -That's the plan.

She turns away, takes a couple steps, turns back. -Joe. -Yeah. -Little advice. -What's that?

She points at my trousers. -Lose the khakis. They do nothing for you.

She turns again and breaks into a trot, jogging smooth and easy till she boosts herself over the rail, dropping into Macombs Park, lost from view.

I find a cigarette to put in my mouth and start over the bridge.

Summer wind is blowing, taking the smoke downriver. A couple cars roll

past, vibrating the bridge plates. I slap one of the beige-painted trusses and it tolls like a low bell. I cross the midpoint, feel my feet start to hurry, make them pace slow.

Is my breath short?

It is.

Past the little stone hutch where the operator sits when the bridge swings open, I hit the western approach. Look down, see the river disappear behind me, land under the bridge.

Crossing Hellfighters, coming onto the Island, fingering the straight blade in my pocket.

At Adam Clayton Powell Junior and One Fifty-three I raise my hand in the air then step in front of the gypsy that tries to drive past me. The driver looks at the color of my skin and his door locks snap down. I show him the color of my money and the locks pop up.

He watches me in the rearview as I slide into the back.

I point. -South.

He starts rolling. -How far?

I lean into the leather, light a smoke. -Not too far. But take Malcolm, will you.

He takes the left onto One Forty-five. -Right. The scenic route.

I roll the window down and smell the summer stink of Manhattan. -Sure. The scenic route. Why not.

How you know you're being watched is, you have clandestine arrangements with someone you don't trust under any circumstances that don't involve that individual being tied up and held at gunpoint. It also helps if the individual involved shares a similar attitude toward you.

The rest is easy.

See, once you've established a level of trust like that, the only question you have to ask yourself is, Assuming I don't want to be followed, where do I go?

The obvious answer being, / go where they expect me to go.

And then I go somewhere else.

The gypsy drops me at the corner of Second Avenue and Seventy-third. For a

moment I sit there with one foot out on the sidewalk, thinking about pulling my leg back in, closing the door and telling him to roll farther south.

It passes, and I get out and close the door and he drives off.