Charlie Huston - No Dominion

He sips his beer.

– But lately, that pressure keeps climbing. Heat stay on. Know why?

– Nope.

He wipes some foam from his lips, lights a fresh smoke and drops the pack on the table.

– On account that shit you askin’ ’bout. On account that shit comin’ in up here an fuckin’ up some our young people. On account Digga say it comin’ from across the border, from the Coalition as part a they plan to poison us and take the Hood back. He talkin’ war. Papa, he preachin’ we don’t need no war. Everythin’ cool, need diplomacy. Need elections and diplomacy. Need some normalized relations with the Coalition and everythin’ be cool.

I drink some beer. He watches me.

– Well, boy, what you think ’bout that? What that all sound like to you?

I pick up the pack of Pall Malls and shake one out.

– Sounds like Digga killed Luther X himself and he’s thrashing around trying to keep his office. Sounds like maybe he’s the one behind that shit.

He lights another match and holds it out to me.

– Yeah, it do sound like that, don’t it?

I light up.

He blows out the match.

– Let’s fix up that haircut.

– See that picture up on the wall next to the phone?

I sit in a chair in the middle of the kitchen, a tablecloth draped over me, newspapers spread under the chair.

– I see it.

– What you see?

What I see is a black and white photo of a group of people at some kind of meeting in a school gym or someplace.

– Looks like Luther X and some other folks back in the day.

– That right.

He runs a wet comb through my hair.

– That man off to Luther’s right, that his original warlord. Man gonna come to be known as Papa Doc. Gonna form his ton tons macoute an challenge Luther’s leadership one day.

He starts to clip my hair.

– Holdin’ Luther’s hand, that his wife. Good woman. Long gone.

He pushes my head to the side and snips at my sideburns.

– That big nasty negro to the side, the badass with the shotgun? That me.

I look again. The man in the picture has two arms.

– Back before shit happened. Move yo head back.

I move my head back.

– An’ that weedy thing with the glasses? That Craig Jefferson Wallace. Soon to be known as DJ Grave Digga.

I look again. He was a weedy kid.

– That boy born in Scarsdale. Come down here to do community work. A more Oreo negro you never met in yo life. Got hisself infected first month he here. Luther brought him in. Saw somethin’, made him over. Spread stories how he a hardass De-troit niggah. Groomed him for warlord when he saw Papa sneakin’ round tryin’ to make some moves. Not many left know that story now. Just us old folk. You say natural in the back?

– Yeah.

He pushes my head forward.

– Yep, far as the man in the street know, Digga just what he seem: ex-gang-bangin’ roughneck that muscled hisself into the throne. A wartime ruler. An’ lots them folk like that just fine. Got a focus, got a reason to be. Got a cold war with the Coalition. Got a enemy. Life always easier with a enemy. But behind all that?

He walks around in front of me and tilts my head this way and that, inspecting the cut.

– Behind all that, he one sneaky mutha.

He snaps the tablecloth off of me.

– You done.

I stand up and move the chair back to the table.

Percy gathers up the newspaper, careful not to drop hair clippings on the linoleum.

– Yeah, he sneaky.

He stuffs the paper in a garbage pail under the sink.

– But he sure as shit did not kill Luther.

He comes back to the table and lights up.

– Luther done that to his own damn self.

He looks at the clock above the stove.

– Let’s go see ’bout makin’ you a place to sleep.

We’re in the parlor. I help Percy tuck a sheet into place on the couch.

– Why?

He pins one end of a pillow under his chin and works a pillowcase around it.

– Why what?

– Why’d Luther kill himself?

– Don’t know.

He drops the pillow on the couch.

– Tired of livin’, I guess.

He goes to the closet and pulls down two musty afghans.

– Know how that is, don’t ya?

I take the blankets and spread them on the couch.

– Not yet.

– That so? Don’t get tired of life yo ownself?

He sits on the old recliner that faces the TV. I accept the cigarette he holds out to me.

– Yeah, I guess sometimes I do.

– Sure you do. Me, I feel that way most all the time now.

We light up.

Percy touches the remote. The TV blips on. He flips a couple channels, then turns it off. I lean over and knock some ash into the tray resting on the arm of his chair.

– How’d he do it?

– Like they say, stabbed hisself in the eyes.

– How’d he manage that?

He looks at me.

– Ever meet the X?

– Nope.

– Man had willpower.

– Why you think he did it that way?

He pulls the lever on the side of his chair and it tilts back until he’s looking at the ceiling, blowing smoke at the fixture above his head.

– Didn’t like what he saw no more. Didn’t like what he saw comin’.

He talks to the ceiling.

– See, back when that picture was taken, we had us a time. Had us a fight. All this up here was Coalition. Till the X. He made it happen. Revelation. Revolution. Once that was done, once we was our own masters, things still wasn’t easy. No more of that Coalition welfare blood comin’ in. Had to work, find new ways to keep people fed. Had to integrate the brothas and sistas with the Latinos. Havin’ the revolution, that was just the start. But we got there, the X made damn sure we got there. An’ for awhile then, things was easy. People start forgettin’, don’t remember what the cost was. Got people like Papa sayin’ it time for a change. Sayin’ Luther had his time, now we stable, now we at peace, now we start communicatin’ with the Coalition again. Time to let bygones be bygones. War was war, but now we got prosperity. Hook up with the Coalition and it be even more prosperous. Bull. Shit. They just comfortable. Want to be more comfortable. Ask me, Papa’s on the Coalition tip. Ask me, that spook Dexter Predo whisperin’ in his ear.

Saying Predo’s name, he turns his head and spits at the floor.

– So maybe Luther looked at all this. Saw his people getting fat, saw his old friend gunnin’ for him, saw another fight on the way, maybe he saw all that, and he decided he didn’t want to see no more. Maybe he said to hisself, Time to go out. Go out on my terms. Go out and maybe leave a little gift behind, something my boy Digga, my smart boy Digga, can turn to his hand. So maybe that why he did it that way, the hard way. Man’s got daggers in his eyes, ain’t no way no one gonna say he did it hisself. Somethin’ like that, it like to cause an outrage when Digga stand up an’ say, Coalition did it! White devils assassinated our king! That a rivetin’ image: a king with knives in his eyes. That rallied the troops alright.

He picks up the ashtray and hands it to me.

– Put that on that table there.

I put it on the table.

– Yeah, Digga got us back on that war-foot. Galvanized the people. Got they’s heads right again. But that talk comin’ back now. That appeasement talk. Digga can throw as many dogs as he wants in that pool. Bite as many as he want. Keep puttin’ on a show. Sooner or later, boy gonna have to show the people the devil’s face. Prove to them they got enemies outside they borders. That enforcer comin’ up here was a help, but he need more than that. Need to show that poison comin’ in for real. An’ it comin’ from Predo. He show that, no one gonna take his crown nohow. He show that, Papa gonna have to mind his P’s and his Q’s.