Yeah, I’m fucked.
I just wish I had my cigarettes. And that jacket. I do love that jacket.
The music finally stops. I look out the window again; the rhinos are still there. Someone has brought them coffee and more cigarettes. I go back to my spot against the wall.
I close my eyes. But I don’t sleep. I do that for a long time.
The door opens. I keep my eyes closed. Someone walks across the room toward me. My thumb is over the silver button on the side of the switchblade. Whoever it is stops at my feet. I smell baby powder and Bay Rum.
—We kin fix that right up.
I open my eyes.
—No trouble a’tall. Fix it right up.
The one-armed barber is standing over me.
—Fix what up?
—That nasty-ass haircut I wuz givin’ ya. Make ya look proper.
I touch my hair.
—It’s fine.
—No, no it ain’t. Looks like shee-it. Fix it up right.
Across the shower room, the door to the hall is open. No sign of rhinos. The switchblade is cupped in my palm, unopened.
I watch the barber’s eyes.
—Digga want you to clean me up for my big match?
—What? No. Shit no. He don’t care none what yo ass look like. I care. Got me some pro-fessional pride.
—Gonna do it now?
—What? You stupid in the head? Got no time ta do it now. Got ta get yo ass out of here.
—What?
—What? What? Man, Digga right, you one stupid-ass white boy. Get up, we got ta get gone.
I get up. He walks over to the open door.
—Come on.
The rhinos are on the floor in the hall. I look at the barber.
—You do that?
—No one else here, is they?
There isn’t.
—They dead?
He scratches his head.
—Well, that the million-dollar question, ain’t it?
—Sure is.
He points at one of the rhinos.
—They just out. Now get that coat off him. An’ that sweatshirt underneath.
I tug off the rhino’s jacket and the hooded sweatshirt beneath, seeing the huge knot on the back of his head.
—Put that shit on. An walk while you doin’ it.
I walk, following the barber away from the shower room, wrapping myself in the rhino’s clothes and noticing the massive build of the barber’s left arm and shoulder. I think about putting the knife in his ear. I should wait ’til he leads me out.
We climb some stairs; different from the ones that had been guarded by Papa’s man. These are narrower; the back way in. The barber looks me over.
—Put up the hood. Yeah, that right. An keep yo head down. An yo hands in yo pockets. Yeah. OK. An keep yo mouth shut.
He opens a door and we walk onto the blacktop playground behind the Jack. I keep my head down, my hands in my pockets and my mouth shut. We walk past the basketball courts. I can hear the jingle of chain nets in the breeze. The barber tugs my sleeve.
—This way. Keep yo head down. Just follow me. Doan look up none. Things quiet, but still they got a watch on. Gonna climb some steps now.
We climb some steps. A lot of steps. We’re climbing the concrete stairs that cut up the side of that cliff I saw earlier. The barber pauses at the top.
—OK. I think we cool. You kin look up, but keep that damn hood on.
I look up. We go down Edgecombe for a couple blocks. At the corner of 150th, he stops. There’s a house with a spiked iron fence around it. He unlocks a gate and lets us in. The house is huge. It’s red brick with black shingles and shutters, looks like a haunted house straight out of an old Universal horror flick.
The barber walks around a cracked stone path that takes us to the rear. We go down a couple steps to a basement door.
He looks at me.
—Place got atmosphere, doan it?
—Yes, it does.
He unlocks the door, steps in and switches on a light. I follow him in, expecting Digga and his crew to jump out and yell surprise and beat the hell out of me. It doesn’t happen that way. Instead, the barber takes me through a small parlor, neat but dusty, and into a kitchen where most of the living is clearly done. I take my hands out of my pockets, without the switchblade.
He points at a chair. I sit. He takes off his coat and hangs it on a hook on the back of the kitchen door. He looks at me. I look at him.
He rolls his eyes.
—Well?
—Well, what?
—Ain’t you got no questions?
—Sure. What do you want?
He shakes his head.
—Stupid white boy. Ain’t figured it out?
I shake my head.
—I’m Percy, asshole.
He bugs his eyes and wiggles his fingers at me.
—The craaaaazy one-ahmed neegro in the bazemint is yo contact.
He unbugs his eyes.
—Now you got any questions?
—You got a smoke?
—Funny thing ’bout cigarettes.
Percy sticks a Pall Mall between his lips. He fishes a book of matches from his breast pocket, folds a match around ’til the head rests against the strip of rough paper on the back, and flicks it with his thumb. The match ignites and he offers me the flame. I lean forward and light my Pall Mall. Percy lights his, waves the match out, pinches it from the pack and drops it in the red-and-white tin ashtray between us.
I take a drag and exhale.
—What’s that?
He smokes some.
—Funny thing ’bout cigarettes and the Vyrus. Vyrus attacks anythin’ bad yo ass could care to stick in yo body. Booze, junk, rat poison, whatever it is, it can’t hurt you none. Got no stayin’ power whatsoever. No boozehound Vamps. Can’t get hooked on shit. But cigarettes.
He blows a ring of smoke.
—They always good. Just as good as if I was still jonesed on the nicotine. Which I know I ain’t. Still I crave ’em. And still they always good.
I take a drag.
—Never thought about it.
—Uh-huh?
I take another drag.
—But you’re right.
—Yep. Funny, ain’t it?
—Yeah, it is.
We smoke.
—So what you need up here?
I’ve smoked my cigarette down until the cherry burns my lips. I stub it out.
—That shit they stuck in the dogs and that enforcer.
—Yea-huh?
—What the fuck is up with that?
He puts out his own cigarette.
—That a good question.
The ceiling of the kitchen has a big, brown water stain above the sink. He stares at it.
—A good question. Lemme ask you somethin’.
—OK.
—See that man at the pool? Papa Doc?
—Yeah.
—What you make of him?
—Looked like the competition.
He gets up and walks to the refrigerator.
—Competition.
He opens the fridge, pulls out two cans of Schaefer and takes them to the sink.
—Let me tell you somethin’ ’bout competition.
He takes a couple glasses from a cupboard.
—Digga, he Luther X’s warlord. When the X got taken out, Digga, he step in, declare martial law, move his rhinos out on the street. Say, We in a state of siege. Coalition agents done assassinated our fearless leader. That two years back.
He snaps one of the cans of beer open and empties it into a glass.
—An’ he prove it. Brings us the heads a two enforcer types he say was the ones stabbed Luther in the eyes. Good enough. All the peoples think it a good idea: Close the border and tighten the belt. Digga, he gets support from all over the Hood. Harlem, Washington Heights, Spanish Harlem, shit, even the Dominicans up Inwood come to the meetin’ and stand with Digga. But, like the man say, that two years ag
o.
He pours the other beer.
—Time pass, people want to know, When martial law gonna end? When we have elections? When we get a new elected president? People agitatin’. Now these people agitatin’, they mostly come in one flavor, they Papa’s ton tons macoute. Them boys in the shades.
He brings the glasses to the table and sets one in front of me.
—So for ’bout a year now, they do this little dance, pokin’ and proddin’, seein’ how far they push things, see if they break. Digga, he nobody’s fool nohow. He see the pressure risin’, he look for ways to let it off. So sometimes he think it a good idea ta get the dogs in the ring. Let the dogs bleed so the people ain’t got to.
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! T
hat 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.
I start another smoke.
—How you know all that about Luther?
He sighs.
—I cut the man’s hair din’t I? Now switch off that lamp.
I switch it off and we sit in the darkness. Just some light coming from the luminous dial of an old clock on top of the TV and from the tip of my cigarette.
—You stay up an’ smoke you want to. Gonna get me some sleep.
He settles deeper into the easy chair.
—Percy?
—Huh?
—What’s your end in this?
He turns his head to face me.
—Shit, boy, I’m Enclave. Just doin’ a solid for Daniel.
I study his black skin by the glow of my cigarette.
—You don’t look it.
—Well, theys Enclave and theys Enclave. Man can be a Baptist without he got to be no holy roller.
He closes his eyes and turns his face away.
—The can is down the hall you got to take a piss.
—Pitt.
—Hmmn?
—Wake it and shake it. It time.
—Hn?
I feel like I just closed my eyes. I open them.
Percy is sitting on the edge of the couch. I boost myself up.
—What?
—It time. Here.
He hands me an unopened pack of Pall Malls and a book of matches.
—Now doan forget what we talk about.