I Kill Monsters: The Revenants (Book 2) (9 page)

DeAndre watched a fiend stumble across the
grass on a crack attack, guy looking like a zombie. If Old Toke was
down there somewhere, DeAndre couldn’t see him from up here. Most
of the lights down below were shattered, vandalized by groups of
kids with nothing better to do, casting most of the quad in
gloom.

DeAndre’s room was well lit, a naked hundred
and twenty watt bulb burning from the ceiling. DeAndre’s room: a
bed, dresser, closet with no door. The room not tidy but not overly
messy either, his momma vacuuming it at least once a week when the
woman home. A row of books on top of his dresser, held in place by
a stack of books on either side.

A decorative metronome counting off
beats.

tic
tic
tic
tic

Only a few of his books’ spines broken, tomes
he’d found or been given him in that condition, books he’d bought
for half a dollar from the library. DeAndre had few possessions he
could call his own, but he took care of his things.

His bed rumpled, unmade since last night, the
sheets pushed down near the foot of the mattress. The sheets
decorated with crossed baseball bats, punctuated with baseballs.
DeAndre not a huge fan of the game, the sheets hand-me-downs from
his brother.

Not that DeAndre didn’t like sports. He did.
He’d enjoyed PE class at school before they’d done away with it,
make more time to study for the State tests every spring. Need a
man on a team, he’d play, but DeAndre’s neighborhood wasn’t the
type where you were going to have a touch football game. The
pick-up basketball games down at the hoops were another way for the
rock boys to pass their time. Not like there was a Little League to
join. There were rec rooms in the buildings, but most of the time
they were closed. Was a boy’s and girl’s club over across the way,
but it meant walking there, every foot of the way hostile
territory, predators like Yuri looking for dollars and trouble.

No, DeAndre’s “thing” was reading, losing
himself in the books.

He sat back against his wall, turning his
attention to the paperback in his hands. His decorative metronome
did its thing—
tic
tic
tic
—its pendulum
swinging back and forth. DeAndre much preferred the world of his
books to the world outside his window. He was a hundred pages into
his latest find and engrossed. The author—some dude named
Jablonsky—DeAndre had never heard of before, had him hooked.

This barbarian slave, Tamarak of the
Yurek-Ungaar, sent to man the wall at Kar Dap-Salam, the wall
standing between the civilized Five Lands and the foreboding
Northland tundra. The other men stationed at the wall with Tams
were volunteers and indentured servants. The harvest these last few
years in the Five Lands suffering something terrible as the warlock
Mazalon worked his black magic, driving farmers to soldiering in
order to feed their families.

The barbarian stood out because of his size
and fighting prowess. Jablonsky had established that in the first
chapter when the bandits had confronted Tamarak at the lake, Tams
stopping to get a drink, water his horse. Fools gonna try and jump
him
. Nah-uh. Tams the only man standing when it was all
over.

No one was going to mess with Tams on that
wall either. His reputation preceded him. Sure they were talking
junk behind his back, plotting on him even, but wasn’t that just
like some fools? DeAndre imagined a bad ass like Tams would make
short work of mugs like Luke, Marquis, and that peanut head
Yuri.

Tams all brolic like The Rock. No one gonna
step to someone built like that, someone could fight like that. No
one on this side of the wall, at least. North of that wall though,
where Mazalon’s orcs and trolls were gathering…well, DeAndre
thought he saw where this story was going.

For all their differences—DeAndre a black kid
in the projects, Tams a fantasy character; DeAndre kind of small
and frail for his age, Tams a beast of a man; DeAndre some kid
nobody but his momma and his friends ever heard of, Tams the main
character in this kick ass book no doubt millions of people were
reading or would be reading—DeAndre identified with the
barbarian.

Tams was alone. He had no one. Even among the
Yurek-Ungaar, his tribe, before they sold him into slavery, Tams
had been a man alone. Now here he was with a bunch of punks talking
trash behind his back, an army of monsters massing for the attack.
Sure there were others who were supposed to stand by him in
whatever battle was coming, but Tams was very much on his own on
that wall.

Tams all alone at Kar Dap-Salam and keeping
it real. Thinking on his girl, T’lina, back in his village. T’lina
arranged to marry Darburry, the punk responsible for Tams
predicament to begin with. Tams thinking on his girl the way
DeAndre thought about Amy, this girl from school. DeAndre couldn’t
wait for class, sit there and look at Amy without anyone seeing him
looking at her, kind of the same way Tams stood on that wall
thinking on T’lina.

Not that DeAndre knew what to say to Amy.

Not that Amy even knew DeAndre existed.

Tams was staring into the cold Northlands on
top of the wall when Juan in his living room shouted
oh
shit
son
and broke the spell. Juan, his brother’s
friend; Tamarak, DeAndre’s friend. And Tamarak didn’t even exist.
DeAndre had dubbed the barbarian
Tams
; not something
Jablonsky called his character.

“Oh shit son!” Juan called out again, amused
by something they were watching.

Hungry, DeAndre put the book down on his bed,
opened his door, and stepped out into the living room.

DeAndre’s momma at work, as usual, Terrence
and his friends had commandeered the living room. The stench of
weed heavy in the room, the windows open to air the place out.
Terry on one end of the couch, his boy Caprice on the other. Big
Ronald seated on the floor against the sofa, eating out of a
Chinese food container. Fred over by the stereo and its speakers,
standing in place. Juan lying on his back on the carpet, smoking a
bone. Probably getting ash all over the floor.

Luke on his momma’s chair, had his legs up
hanging off the side like he shouldn’t. What was Luke doing here
anyway?

“S’up little man?” Luke greeting him like
they were friends, like he wasn’t witness to Yuri’s assailing
DeAndre a couple days back.

“What you doin’ in there, shorty?” Ronald
stuffing Lo Mein into his fat head. “Rubbin’ one out?” The Lo Mein
supposed to be DeAndre’s lunch. Who’d Ronald think he was comin’ in
peoples’ houses, eating they food? Sitting there now, eating last
night’s Chinese, laughing at his own attempt at a joke. Now DeAndre
was gonna have to settle for grilled cheese or some garbage,
whatever was left.

“Yeah, what you doin’ in there, Dre?” Juan
was half-black, half something else, one of the islands but not the
one DeAndre’s mom was from.

“Readin’.”

“Reading. Damn. Be careful with that little
man.” Juan took a hit off the bone, held it. “White man’s books,”
exhaling, “poison your mind.” Juan giggling, amused by something
he’d said or thought.

“Yo niggas, be quiet,” Caprice nodded to the
television, “this is the best part.”

The young guy behind the counter on the
screen was asking Larry Fishburne if he could help him, Fishburne
saying, “Can you
help
me
? Yeah, you can start by
giving me fifteen pieces of chicken motherfucker.”

DeAndre knew the movie well.
The
King
of
New
York
. One of his and
Terry’s favorites.

“I got yo chicken fo’ ya, Jimmy.” Terry
dropped one of Wesley Snipes’ lines from later in the film.

“This movie is whack, yo.” Ronald paused with
his fork to say. “Let’s watch
Scarface
.” DeAndre glanced
over at him. Fatso couldn’t even use no chop sticks.

“You whack, Ron,” Caprise told him. “Be
quiet.”

DeAndre looked in the cupboard. Not much
there he’d want to eat except maybe a box of mac and cheese. Thing
was, he was in no mood for mac and cheese.

“And don’t be droolin’ on it man,” Fishburne
warned the counter man. “And I betta not get any of that cat. I
want chicken!”

“’member five-oh pulled up on us that time,
Torell? Jacked us up.”

“Word,” said DeAndre’s older brother. Their
momma named his brother Terrence when he was born. DeAndre and his
moms calling Terrence
Terry
for short. DeAndre sometimes
calling him
Terr
. DeAndre had no idea where Terrence had
come up with
Torell
from, neither brother knowing anyone by
that name. The thirteen-year-old had to give it up to Terry for
that though.

Torell
sounded hard. It’d been Juan
started calling Terry
Toro
. Toro because of Torell. Toro
like a bull. Which Terry liked, because bulls were tough.

“Where was you niggas at?” Luke with his legs
up there in their momma’s chair. “Ain’t no police come into Moses
unless someone dies or somethin’.” Luke another one whose real name
was something else. In his case,
Luther
. Liked to be called
Luke, like that rap guy did the same thing.

DeAndre had found what was left of a loaf of
bread—Ronald hadn’t gotten that yet—and the cheese out of the
refrigerator. He melted a little margarine in a pan on the
stove.

Terry told new people he was meeting his name
was Torell. He also told people he was from Jamaica because
everybody knew Jamaica and Kingston whereas no one ever heard of
St. Vincent and Kingstown. Kings-
town
, not Kingston. DeAndre
would never call his brother on it, not in front of his friends at
least. Most of the time the fabrication didn’t bother him, DeAndre
comfortable with fiction and down with the beef patties and jerk
chicken. Sometimes though, when Terry started in with his
shottas
and
bombaclots
, he lost DeAndre and his
little brother would roll his eyes in his head because Terr was
frontin’, even if his fool friends couldn’t tell.

Not that Terry or DeAndre had been born in
Kingstown or Kingston. That was where their momma was from. Terry
and DeAndre both born in St. John’s Hospital on Queens
Boulevard.

“This the bomb right here, yo,” Fred turned
the knob on the stereo, raising the volume, Butsa Nuts rapping
about the days of way back.

DeAndre pressed the spatula down on his
grilled cheese, looking up at Fred. Fools had the t.v.
and
the radio on, wastin’ electricity like that. What did Terry and his
friends care? Was momma gonna foot the bill.

“Turn that shit down, Red.” Caprice and the
others called Fred
Red
because of the shade of Fred’s hair,
his high yellow complexion. “Tryin’ to watch this movie.”

“…
cuz
in
the
days
of
wayback
/
brothers
would
lay
back
/
cut
a
line
drop
a
line
and
press
the
playback
…”

Fred was blazed off the weed making its way
around the room, staring at the stereo speaker like it was talking
to him.

DeAndre flipped his grilled cheese, the one
side browning the way he liked it.

DeAndre recognized his brother and his
friends as older boys playing at being men, at what they thought it
meant to be men. Most of it harmless, but sometimes crossing the
line. Like Juan that time jacking that base head, but it wasn’t
really jacking because the junkie was half passed out and didn’t
put up no fuss.
Put
up
no
fuss
, as
DeAndre’s momma would indubitably put it. Didn’t put up no
stink—another of his momma’s little things she said—when Juan went
through his pockets, clucker barely responding at all.

Not that DeAndre’s moms knew about that
incident.

She did, Juan wouldn’t be sitting here in her
living room.

That for sure.

“…
crazy
Fahrenheit
outside
but
still
snowin
in
my
mind
/
every
time
that
I
bip
I
find
myself
cutting
new
lines
…”

“Yo, Red,” Terry telling Fred now. “Turn it
down!”

Crossing the line was something Luke and his
boys Marquis and Yuri were good at. Like that time earlier in the
summer when they brung that slow girl from across the way over,
talkin’ bout can they use DeAndre’s moms’ place to run a train on
the hoe.
Running
a
train
and
hoe
the
words they used; DeAndre would never refer to a female that way.
His momma had taught him to respect women. Terry that time having
the good Christian sense to tell Luke and them
hell
no
.

Well, maybe his brother hadn’t said
hell
no
, but what Terr’d said, he’d said their
momma’d be coming home from work anytime and that’d sent Luke and
them somewhere else.

The rec room of building four from what
DeAndre heard.

Carlotta was the name of the girl they’d
called a hoe. DeAndre knew her from school. ‘Lotta in the special
class. Wasn’t right.

“…
lines
that
astound
me
/
lines
that
confound
me
…”

“Red!”

“Huh? Whut? Sorry.” Fred lowered the volume
on the stereo, Larry Fishburne on the television handing the kids
in the fast food place coins for the video games, saying
no
offense
to their grandmother, handing her a hundred, telling
her to get the kids whatever they wanted.