Mitchell Jackson: The Residue Years

OneverythingIlove. We. Won’t. Lose.

The woman from a few seconds ago, she’s hocus pocus in my rearview — poof. Vanishes, and when I swivel to see where to, there’s an unmarked patrol car idling at the crosswalk. Your boy keeps cool at first (clean records create reckless confidence), but when they start towards me, I push the sack in my boxer briefs, hop out my ride, and shuffle towards the nearest house, a place that favors our old house on Sixth — home. Two sets of stairs to reach the front door, and I climb each one slow. As if I’m cursed with early arthritis, a janky hip, a trick knee. Truth be told, I’m giving the kind officers time to get busy with another call, to find more pressing work elsewhere, anywhere but here, but wouldn’t you know it, there must be nothing pumping in Northeast, nada, and since it ain’t, I’m the object of the officers’ affection, their one and only true love, and right about now they’re sending their amore through a searchlight, stabbing it all inside my ride, which, Ibullshityounot, bucks my eyes the size of silver dollars, and buries my breath down deep where it’s hard to find.

And peoples, trust me, you’d be breathless too, or worse, if you knew what I know about the Feds’ famous math: 100 to 1—a.k.a. the Bias Effect, à la Len Bias, the former college star who overdosed himself into old glory’s cocaine demigod.

What I see: a porch junked with trash bags big as boulders, old bike parts, rusted tools, busted cardboard boxes, a mound of soggy clothes. What I feel: my heart stall, a vein in my neck grab. When my heart gets to pumping again, I pound at the door. No — my bad. There I go being a hype man for myself. On the forreals, it’s a feathery-ass knock, but I’m ready to strike a convo with whoever answers.

Hello, sir, I don’t mean—

Excuse me, miss, I know it’s late, but—

Hey, lil man, let me holler at—

But see here’s the problem: Through the thin curtain covering the window the whole house is black. Ain’t enough light in there to make a shadow. In a nimbus I harvest my cell and make a Broadway show of dialing my homeboy Half Man. No lie, it sounds as if someone installed an amp in my earpiece. Wouldn’t be surprised if the whole block heard it ringing over and over, heard me calling my homeboy to no avail, which shouldn’t be no big old surprise since dude could make a career of being absentee: Gayle “Half Man” Kent: the CEO of Mr.-Never-There-When-Need-Be, Inc.

A car splashes past, bass turning its trunk into a booty music live show. Soon after I lay a second round of heavy-ass knocks on the door, pounding that sets (sans self-hype this time) my knuckles afire and ratchets my pulse to the sound of a siren. And peoples, let’s call that siren freedom’s theme song cause that’s what it is, trust and believe, cause the ones who disbelieve are either doing time or indicted.

Police pan the light across the yard, the house, then relentless again on me, and meanwhile, I’m glancing this way and that, and feeling the sack crawl down my crotch towards the loose elastic of my boxer briefs. Any second they’ll order me off the porch with my hands held high. Another second and they’ll trap my wrists too tight behind my back. And right between these fates sits the crossroads.

Run or stay?

Toss or keep?

Felony or misdemeanor?

Life has options! This is what they preached to us in my old youth program, what I tell my bellicose brothers whenever they’ll listen, which ain’t if ever often enough.

Options. Options. Calling Kim, my sweet thing, is on the list. My girl don’t sleep sound at all, so she says, unless we’re lying side by side which means she’s likely up, but since she’s also a first-rate worrier, it probably ain’t worth the trouble. The trouble of lying. Of inventing an excuse for why I’m breaking my embargo on hitting licks this late, a rule I let her impose in the first place. Not to be no sucker, never that, but Kim is special, so special. Yeah, most, if they could, would choose the chick of their dreams, but if you ask me, fantasy girls are never seen in full. My girl’s the girl you’d pick if you were wide awake with time to think, and though, between you and me, I may here and there indulge in a shot of ancillary pussy, I ain’t in earnest down with risking our good thing.

Life has options, my old program preached, but on the other hand, here’s the incontrovertible truth about those options: Act too slow and they put on track shoes and sprint right the fuck off.

The patrol car shifts into park. The doors swing open. A pair of officers hop out and plod my way. I swing around just in time to see them (those flashlight-bearers of love) stop at the base of the first set of steps. Them looking up at me and me squinting into the inscrutable. You live here? the one without the flashlight asks. He’s heads taller than his partner (picture a giant on his tiptoes in heaven), with a voice that sounds beefed up on performance drugs. No sir, I say, hoping the sir sounds sincere, honorific. I’m looking for my friend. Haven’t seen him in a while.

The officers turn towards each other, black silhouettes set in effulgence. And on my life, it should be a crime how long they stay silent.

They busted this place the other day, one says.

Busted! You sure? I say, and start towards them.

So let’s get this straight. You haven’t been here in all this time and you stop by at almost midnight to say hello? the taller one says.

The three of us stand on the sidewalk, face-to-face; face-to-chest. They’re older and maybe slower, but they’ve got those radios no mere man can outrun, and even if by chance I could, I’d still have the problem of this slithering sack in my crotch. Check it, if it’s true that life has options, it’s also true those choices are full of fast-twitch muscles.

How about you show us some ID, says the shorter officer, though calling him short is gratuitous to the utmost. Homeboy’s all of five feet nothing — no lie, we’re talking centimeters off a certified dwarf. With hands no good for shooting pool or poker, I give the dwarf my license and watch him (in a hundred frames per second slowmo) march to his car and sit with the door swung open, one foot inside, one foot hovering. He runs my license on speaker, and just like that, my legs are no better than a beat-up ride with bald tires and alignment shot to shit.

The taller officer asks my name once more, and before I can answer, his partner shouts it out.

Wait, aren’t you the one that used to play ball? he says, and shakes a finger. Aren’t you the kid that wore those colored socks in the tournament that year? The homunculus appears, looking smug and slapping my license, neither of which are good signs.

Here comes the chorus of freedom’s theme song. Here it comes and here’s why. One of my homeboys (dude probably never so much as jaywalked) spent almost a week in the county thanks to a handful of faulty warrants in his name by way of false reports to officers by his full-time, lifetime, thug-life cousins. Now, I should be straight, but that’s the thing about this business: You think you know, but you can never know for sure whether you’re in the system.

The legal-sized dwarf returns my license and turns his eyes into hot flares. Tonight’s your night, he says.

This boy here could shoot that ball, the taller officer says. I seen him score thirty-something points one game, must’ve been five or six three-pointers. He turns to me. Youngster, you supposed to be in college somewhere scorching the nets.

Oh, you were at that game? I say, and offer my best impersonated smile. It was seven threes that game, sir, I say, still hoping the sir sounds sincere and honorific. I tell him how I’m in college, about how close I am to earning my degree.