'Clyde around? He BSD?'
'Top Rank BSD, uh-huh,' she said. 'He slammin. He on vacation.' 'The Yard? '
'Uh-huh. Doin twenty-forty. Some damn Goobers come right up here, representing and carryin on. Right here, be standin twenty feet from where you be. Shit. Clyde popped they ass. I begged him when I saw him takin off with that gat, say, ' 'Whatchoo doin foo'. This Goober's dusted, man, he flyin on some shit.'' He say, ' 'Leave me be, girl, I cain't let this sucker do that shit right here in my house. True Saint, man, he don't bar none.'' So what kin I say? I go down there see him lots. Ride time on them weekends? All us g-girls goin. He doin okay, seem like. But I sure miss him. He out in twenty oh seven, man, make me cry, he talk bout twenty oh seven like it be tomorrow. Anyway, thass how come them Goobers be lookin for me.'
He didn't even bother with the obvious: Get out of BSD. They all said the same thing. 'BSD, man, that's me, man.' And Nile understood. This gang-thing, people didn't get it, white people, grown-ups, however you'd say. But like Bug, man, he could see she needed BSD. It was food to the hungry, someone to look at her and say, 'You cool.' All the time: 'You cool. We be for you, girl, homegirl. You be silly, you be crazy, girl, we be for you.' People didn't see that. They said 'Gang' and like freaked. Gats and Blood. Dope. Holy shit! But it was like sweet at the center, like candy.
Nile didn't know when he started in thinking about Bug. It was sort of an accident almost. He talked about her at work. She was on a juvie probation. Nile knew the guardian's PO, Mary Lehr. Bug had gotten busted selling. Cop named Lubitsch pinched her and then didn't come down on her because she wasn't really a case. Juvie pro. That was like nothing.
One day they were there on the benches and Bug was telling him about her father. He'd spotted her on Lawrence yesterday and took her down to Betty's Buy-Rite, bought a ribbon for her hair. He always did like that, Bug said, getting her things.
'Who-all Eddgar anyway, man?' she asked then. "That you daddy? You ravin bout Eddgar all the time.'
'Bullshit. I do not talk about him all the time.'
'Uh-huh,' she answered.
Who was Eddgar? God, man. That was another question Nile could never answer.
'Yeah, he's my father,' Nile said eventually. 'He somebody big-time?'
'He's big-time. He's sort of a politician, you'd say. He was a preacher to start.' 'Preacher?'
'He was trained that way. He never preached.'
'My auntie, she a preacher.'
'Really?'
'Uh-huh. Over there at Evangelical Baptist. Sister Serita? You done heard of her?' 'Maybe.'
'Yeah, lots of folks heard her, man. She powerful. Powerful. She start preachin and screech - Hoo!' said Lovinia and shook her head. 'She, you know, all the time wantin me to come to that church. Keep me off these mean streets, keep me from slammin and jammin. Back in the days when I's little and shit, you know, I singed in the choir, man.' She closed her eyes momentarily and felt the power of song.
Sometimes Nile wondered about religion. He liked churches, Catholic churches especially, with their mysterious dark murals, the Virgin Mary with that humble, innocent look, a little like Lovinia's, too shy and holy to even look all these grungy mortals in the eye, or else the incredible gore that was on the walls of these places, Jesus getting nailed, or Saint Sebastian with more arrows in him than a porcupine had quills, or some of these horrifying panels of John the Baptist with his head on the plate and his tongue gorking out. But here was the point: people worshipped that, ft filled them with some great sense of spirit.
His father, Nile knew, was into all this stuff. June wouldn't hear of it. To her it was a bunch of stories, important stories, stories she loved to hear told, but stories - what people wished was so, not what was. Religion was some big part of what didn't click in the end between Eddgar and June. When they'd gone freedom-riding, she'd like decided that God, faith, Bible-thumping, it was all just a piece of that whole cornpone tradition that had its foot on the throat of everybody underneath. She just quit on it, and sort of made Eddgar choose almost between God and her. Nile wondered sometimes if his life would have been different if he really was a preacher's kid, instead of the son of whatever it was Eddgar thought he might be. There was a thought and a half: what Eddgar was.
When Hardcore met Eddgar, Core was trippin. He had heard he was a senator and he asked questions about Washington.
'You flied in for this here meet? Where-all in DC you hang, man? I got kin there.'
Nile told him, as they were about to get into the limousine with T-Roc, 'You know, he's not that kind of senator.'
'You mean he ain elected and shit?'
'He's elected. But he's a state senator. There 're two different kinds of senators, man.'
'Yeah,' said Hardcore, then after a moment added, 'but don't be sayin nothin to T-Roc.'
Eddgar talked that day. He was hot-wired. He was so fucking goggle-eyed excited with himself, waving his lean hands around, Nile thought the windows were going to pop out of the car. Eddgar loved these guys, Hardcore and T-Roc, they were like his poster children or something. Sitting there, shrunk back into the corner of the seat, amid the walnut paneling, the crystal liquor decanters, the velvety leather, Nile thought again that there was some fury in Eddgar he would never understand. This was a scene and a half: T-Roc, Core, Nile, Eddgar in back, and two artillerymen in the front seat, one of them rank, just an unbelievable unbathed hard-sweat odor hanging on him. Eddgar talked. The future, he kept saying, the future. Here is the future, I see the future. They didn't want to hear it.
'Brother Kan-el, mon,' T-Roc kept saying. 'We here kind of seein bout arrangements. Somethin maybe we can be doin?'
Eddgar had said, 'You think I want money? No, it's not like that. Money, if anything, you 11 get money.' T-Roc sat forward then. He was a very stylized character. He wore a full beard, a derby, a silk vest with dice and roulette wheels on it, and impenetrably dark glasses, Murder Ones, they called them. Core laughed at him behind his back, but not to his face. T-Roc was one of those guys, dude who knew every bad thing and had it all swimming in him, like some septic pool, could grab hold of the meanest piece of himself any time he needed it. And smart, too. Look you in the eye and suck your brains out. He was short, with thick legs that strained the seams of his black trousers. And a slight Bimini accent. He hiked himself forward on the ribbed black leather seats of the limousine. He figured Eddgar for a psych now.
'Money? How we all gettin motherfuckin money from dis, mon?'
So Eddgar slid into it. It could be arranged. This was what politics really was about.
'Well, you get him dat motherfuckin money, we see bout dat,' said T-Roc and waved them out.
Core was in Nile's shit then, all the time. 'That all was just bogus, that motherfucker was just playin us, man.' Nile couldn't say anything but no, he didn't think so. ‘I ain down for that. I go head up any motherfucker, man, play me like that, daddy or no. I'd cap that mother soon as look at him. T-Roc, man. T-Roc rip-all on me. "Lame motherfuck. " They wasn 't shit he ain call me.' Core was deep.
What could he say? Eddgar would do it. That was the truth. Eddgar loved this kind of shit. He loved to 'move the system,' make the walls come down. And sure enough, two weeks later, no more, Eddgar told him he had the money coming and Nile told Core. And then June was on the phone three nights in a row. Nile could tell it was about Michael. There was always a certain tone Eddgar took on. Like he'd gotten some icy fluorocarbon up the heinie. Like, 'Hold tight, team, I am in charge, Comrade General of the Revolution, ready to die for the cause. 'After the third night, Eddgar, who was on the way to the state capitol, handed Nile the check from the DFU and told him to cash it and send the money to Michael, overnight mail.
'Michael?' Nile had asked. Were other people raised like this? With secrets? Not like Aunt Nelly nips the strawberry wine or Uncle Herman has the hots for the summer girl. But fucking secrets. Like: Don't Tell! Like, if you tell, the Black Hole of Calcutta will open, we’ll fal
l in, we 'll die, we’ll fucking worse than die. That's how Nile was raised. When he was seven or eight, when they moved to Wisconsin, June had taken him by both arms, gripping him hard enough to hurt. 'Listen to me,' she said for the third or fourth time. 'Listen. You may never tell anyone about Michael, Nile. Do you hear? Never. This is important, Nile. This is critical. You should never say that you knew him before. If anyone makes a mistake, if you do, or I do, if Michael does, if Eddgar does, we will all be apart for a long time. Do you understand? This is important!' That was how he grew up. Jesus.
'He's in some trouble, Nile,' Eddgar said.
'What do I tell Core?"
'We 11 take care of Core. We 11 take care of everybody. It's just a matter of time.' Eddgar was in that mood - the democracy of problems, each one solved as well as it could be in five minutes, and then put on hold. The legislative session was drawing to a close and Eddgar was on the phone all night; the fax machine upstairs was curling out paper in what seemed to be a single message. Every time Nile answered the phone it was somebody else, asking urgently for Eddgar - constituents, legislators from around the state, reporters, downstate staffers. Eddgar took each call and allowed himself an instant of reflection before making a terse response. 'We 11 take care of it,' he said again, and left with his small overnight bag.
One day Bug and he were doing what they usually did, just hanging on the benches by the IV Tower.
'Don't be listenin to him, man,' she said quietly. 'He sell you out.'
'Hardcore?'
'Dude gone sell you out.'
Nile shrugged. He already knew that, he supposed, was afraid of it at least, but it felt bad to have some skinny little girl say so. ‘I don't think so, man.' 'Uh-huh. I seed him, man.'
'He's cool.'
'Okay. 'She did that girl-thing, flapped a loose wrist, and started to walk away. Nile followed her. 'Don't pay no mind to me, man. No man got to listen to no bitch.'
'I didn 't say that, man. Did I say that?'
'Girl can see what you thinkin too easy, man.' She turned, her huge eyes full of the world. 'I's just try in to help you, man.'
‘I know.'
She stepped back his way. 'Don't say nothin to him, man. Hurt me bad.'
Wo,' he said.
It was all too late by then anyway. By then, Nile had started thinking about her. She was fifteen. Sometimes he'd hit on that number, he'd think, Whoa. He'd shake his finger at himself. Fifteen. Cradle robber, he'd think. Jailbait. It didn't really matter, though. He was swept. It was in his head. Like it always was. Captain Sex in the Head. Even when he got with a girl, that was where it was mostly. Not that he was like a virgin or anything. Nile had fucked four girls. He remembered their names and everything about it. Before Bug, he would count them up each day, as if there might be a surprise. He thought about each time at least once a day, except for one girl, Lana Ramirez. That was a total thing for Nile, it had gone on months and he could only remember the sort of general idea of being with her. She was a big girl, red-headed, she worked in the place where Nile was a messenger. They'd have a few pops after work, she had her own place, they would fuck. That was love for Nile, that was definitely total love. She moved to Miami. He wrote her and tried calling once or twice. But what the fuck? He'd wonder, How'd she get away from me? It seemed impossible. He 'd been her slave. Slave.
Sometimes in the middle of the night, when everybody gets weird thoughts, Nile would think, Eddgar doesn't. Like that. That clear, man. Eddgar doesn't. Who ever told Nile that? Well, who had to? He'd been around the guy for nearly twenty years now, and so far as Nile knew, Eddgar'd never been interested - not
girls, not boys, not mountain goats. The guy was like immune. Well, that was Eddgar's problem. Not his.
His problem was the money. Hardcore would never let up about it. It was like this circle. Nile would explain what Eddgar had explained to him. First, BSD gets a political organization going, a legitimate presence. Then they have a voice. Then Eddgar can help them be heard. On Kan-el. So it always came back to the money.
'Where that fuckin loot, Jack?' In Core's head it was like a job he'd do when he got ten large. You couldn't tell him the money wasn't for him, it was for organizing, because he already had the organization. He could snap his fingers tomorrow and say, 'Yeah, you-all, better do this registering-to-vote thang.' But until they saw the money, they weren't going to start. Core was always giving face. No letup. If Nile said he'd make changes in a report for Core or some other Saint, if he said he'd talk to somebody about a pending beef Core would give him a big 'hmpf' and say, 'Same as you gone get us money.'
So one day Nile - he was crazy, he knew he was crazy - but one day Nile said, 'It's going to take a while for the money, because we had to spend it on something else, so why don't you do this other part, you know, you and T-Roc, work on this voter thing, there's an election in the fall, then you 'll be started, you 'll be going good, and I'm sure the money will come through.' Core just stared, that look, his street cred, which boasted he was a stone killer.
'No,' said Hardcore. He said 'No-o-o' many times. 'You spent my money? Now idn't that somethin? You spent my money. Ain nobody spend my money but me.'
Nile tried to reason with him. It wasn't his money. It was political money. It was walking-around money. It was for political organizing and Core hadn't organized and Eddgar hadn't given him the money. But Core was like a tracking dog, or a mosquito, or a shark. Something that smelted blood. 'Where all hell my money gone to?' He must have asked that seventy times.
'Ordell -you want the money, I'll get the money back.' This was maybe the most ridiculous thing Nile Eddgar had said in his entire life and Hardcore knew it, like he knew everything else.
'Damn motherfuckin right, you get my loot back. Get out my face, man. Just stop comin round here till you got me that money in you dogs. Gone get me a new PO. I ain down for no more this friendly shit, like you some homie. You ain no homie. Get you ass far away, motherfucker, fore I do somethin I ain s 'pose.'
So where was that going? When Nile came back a few days later, Core ripped him up again.
'What you doin here, no money in you hand, told you go.'
‘I don't want to go,' said Nile.
They were in front ofT-4, where Core held court. All the little Unborns with their close haircuts, looking like pebbly sandpaper, watched this exchange; a covey of Rollers, hats turned three-quarters, kept an eye on them too. Hardcore was looking straight at Nile now, his brown eyes overfull. Hardcore had a face. He had wrinkles and little brown marks. He had a scar over his nose, and the teardrop beneath his eye. Hardcore's face said Time.
'Mmm-hmm,' said Core. And Nile knew he'd told him way too much now.
'How it is,' Hardcore said a few days later, 'is I got this little thang I need for you to be doin. Need you to take me somethin over in the jail.' Ordell had a way, when there was something he wanted - he lowered his face so his eyes rose to you like dark suns. Eddgar did it, too, funny as that was. Core was up on 17. Central, he called it, like it was some military command or police headquarters. It was really just some old lady's apartment that BSD like essentially stole.
'Just this here one time,' Core said. 'We tight, you know. Then, you know, this whole money thang, man, that be back in the days, we go do our commu 'ty organizin shit, vote for you daddy and who-all. Right?'
Core never said what Nile was supposed to do. But Nile knew, he wasn't that out of it, he knew it wasn't good. And he took a pass. The first time. Just made a face like, 'Get a grip,' and walked out. But of course Hardcore was back at it the next week.
'Bug gone show you,' Core said this time, when Nile finally asked what he had in mind. Hardcore scratched his face and looked away, down to the street, where he could see his trade at work. From this apartment on 17, he looked right down on the intersection of Grace and Lawrence, a one-way street where he could observe Tic-Tac coming from every direction. Core was a genius, Nile thought suddenly as he saw the point of being up he
re.
Finally, Nile said, 'Show me.' 'Homegirl gone show you, I said.'
'I'm not saying I'll do it. I just want to, you know, kind of see.' 'See if you gone get gaffled?'
'The whole thing. How I'll feel. I want to kind of figure the whole thing.'
'You ain gone get cracked. You get cracked, man, first word out you mouth gone be Hardcore, ain that right? Ain that how it is? You gone lighten the load, man. So, I ain gone let you get cracked.'
‘I just want to see.'
'Lovinia show you.'
So she walked him down the street, to one of the crummy buildings on Lawrence, broken-down three-flats, brick buildings with boarded windows and lawns scuffled away to dirt. This was one of Core's stash pads. Lovinia led him along, three steps ahead of him, talking to herself.
‘I done tol' you,' she said. 'You think you way past cool, and I done tol you.' She shook her head sorrowfully.
The building was empty. On the first floor, one door was broken in, just smashed in half, the wood veneer broken off in crazy pieces. This was a crackhouse. Tic-Tac was in and out of here once a month. The acerbic reek of the smoke remained, even though this week, with the last raid only days past, the place was deserted. There was no electricity and the broad old stairwell in the walk-up was lit solely by a window on the fourth floor which wasn't boarded. They moved upward through the cone of falling light. The railings had been ripped off the walls, the light fixtures stolen, the carpet runners, even some of the hardwood from the flooring, had been scavenged. Gang signs were written in paint and marker on the walls. At the fourth floor, Bug stood with her finger across her lip. She wanted to see if they'd been followed. After quite some time, she led Nile back down to the second-floor. There were heavy padlocks installed on each front door of the four apartments. Bug opened one of the middle ones with a key.