Rage Is Back (9781101606179) (24 page)

“I've got something called cambiafuerza. It's the peyote of the rainforest. You harvest the flowers of this vine that grows on dead logs, grind them into a powder, swallow like a milligram, puke it up, and you're in another world for the next thirty hours. I don't know how I feel about giving it to the guards, though. It's a sacred plant. Only supposed to be used in a few rituals.”

“Think of it this way: you'll be guiding them down the path of spiritual enlightenment.”

He pondered that awhile, head slumped toward his lap, then nodded loose and sloppy, like a marionette. “We'll have to instruct our people very carefully on how to treat them. Cambiafuerza requires a guide who is attentive and caring. It's very important that the journey feel safe.”

“Sure,” I said. “Definitely. You can explain it to them yourself.”

I clenched my jaw, told myself I wasn't bullshitting Billy, Billy was bullshitting himself. My father knew better than to think anybody could feel safe melting on force-fed psychotropics inside the putrid black guts of the transit system. It was an act of enormous will for him to believe otherwise, and no less willful of me to pretend I didn't know it. In that instant, both of us edged a little closer to obsession, to the kind of labyrinthine rationalization I'd imagine Billy perfected back when he was dissing his family to go paint the town. I flicked my eyes at Karen. She'd seen it too.

“How 'bout we get out of here?” said Dengue. “There's moves to be made, and we already lost a day.”

My parents rose. I summoned the elevator. Billy jabbed the lobby button, and the doors slid closed.

Stuck to one of them, with still-warm chewing gum, was Anastacio Bracken's business card. I pulled it off, handed it to Karen. She stared at it a moment, working her own wad with her jaws, then dropped it in her purse.

12

obody designated Vexer's apartment mission control; it just sort of happened. He had the garden and parlor floors of a Clinton Hill brownstone a handful of blocks from Karen's crib—which wasn't trashed when she dipped in that evening to grab us both some clothes, so either Bracken hadn't gotten to it yet or else he'd wised up and thrown a pair of eyeballs on the place. Vex had futons for us refugees, he'd never been on Bracken's radar, and to round out the solid-citizen profile, dude taught ESL at a high school in Sunset Park. Coached fucking volleyball.

When we got there, Stoon and Blam 2 were hunched over the kitchen table, strategizing amidst maps, notepads, falafel crumbs. By the time I crashed out, Sambo and Fizz had joined the huddle, and when I woke up the next morning Supreme Chemistry was making omelettes, decked out in shades, jackboots, and a blue-patterned camouflage ensemble he must have selected to match the wallpaper.

“Dengue needs help getting here,” Karen announced, by way of good morning. “He's bringing supplies.” She tossed a set of keys. I let them hit me in the shoulder and fall to the floor, just to prove a point.

“Whose are these?”

“Mine,” said Blam. “Gray Civic, corner of Willoughby and Grand.”

“So you get him.”

“He's busy.” Karen picked up a clipboard. “You're not. Here's the address.” She handed me a slip of paper.

“Since when do I have a license?”

“Cab it, then. Your choice.”

I drove, which turned out to be a mistake. You spend your whole life in a city, you think you know your way around. Get behind the wheel, and suddenly you're an idiot. I merged from the wrong lane and ended up on the fucking BQE, Verrazano-bound, instead of the Manhattan Bridge. Next thing I know I'm cruising the Hasidic part of Williamsburg, trying to surface-road-surf my way back to something recognizable. I'll spare you the details, but by the time I reached Dengue, loaded the Civic with a cache of small electronics, wound my way back through the East Vill, endured bridge traffic, found parking, and lugged everything inside, it was mid-afternoon and I was sweatdrenched, starving, and abstractly furious.

“Where the fuck have you been?” Karen asked, opening the door. Before I could answer, she grabbed my arm. “We got the guards' info. We'll make the first round of calls tonight.”

“Dope.” I dropped onto the couch, next to a passed-out Fizz, and kicked off my shoes. “How?”

“Ate 910,” Fizz answered, without opening his eyes. “Old apprentice of mine. Boy works clerical in the main office. Xeroxed the shit, told us what to say, the whole deal.”

“Nice.” Not a single writer has ever joined the Vandal Squad, but more than a few draw paychecks for track repair, tunnel maintainance, that type of thing. Funny how a passion finds a vector, how a guy who spent his teens destroying trains grows up and realizes he just wants to be around them.

Blam snorted. “‘Apprentice,' huh? That what you all are calling it these days?”

“Why?” Fizz asked, his eyes still closed. “Wanna make sure you know your terminology before you hit the bar scene?”

“Man, apprentice yourself to these nuts.”

Fizz smiled, and tipped the brim of his Yankees lid lower over his face. “I rest my case.”

Billy nudged my shoulder, and when I looked up, he handed me a glass of water.

“Thanks.”

“Once an apprentice, always grateful,” he said, and walked away.

I nodded, and thought about a speech Dengue liked to give about how professional photographers broke graff's mentor-apprentice backbone, changed the game more than anything short of crack. Before they started taking an interest, burners were only visible for seconds at a time, pulling into the station or blazing along an elevated track, and the only place to learn style was from an older writer. Maybe you started by playing lookout, then advanced to doing fills on his joints. After a few months of that, he'd draw you an outline, help you execute it. Secret recipes stayed that way—passed down, for instance, from Drum One to Dengue to Billy, or Kool Kizer to Cloud 9 to Amuse, or Wildchild 77 to Rosa 151 to Wren 209. Being able to pore over flicks meant you could study and synthesize and improve strangers' styles. Different can of sperms.

A cell phone shimmied across the coffeetable, emitting a tinny rendition of that Average White Band song Eric B. & Rakim sampled for “Microphone Fiend.” Dengue leaned forward, scooped it up.

“Dígame, papi. Word. Yeah, yeah, divide it up and cats will meet you at the spot. A'right. One.”

He snapped it shut. “Dregs brought back Cloud's paint. Said it's mostly silver, red, flat black, and white. So there's our palette.”

“Like the original Jordans,” said Stoon. “The butter joints. Remember?”

“You're thinking of the Twos,” Fizz corrected from behind his hat. “The Ones were all black, with red piping.”

My mother drummed her fingers against her clipboard. “Where was I?” she asked, a little louder than necessary, and I realized she'd been running a meeting or something when Dengue and I arrived. Deny my mother control over one aspect of her life, and she'll choke another into submission every time.

The guys on the chairs and the couch did some shifting, some settling, and Karen cleared her throat and made a show of waiting for their full attention. Vexer finished pouring water into the Mr. Coffee, raised his chin to her. Supreme Chemistry went right on scrutinizing the contents of the refrigerator.

“Okay. As Blam has pointed out, the best way to tie up the Vandal Squad is not by having them chase down fake tips, but by giving them paperwork. So we're gonna feed them some arrests.”

“Who?” asked Stoon.

Dengue crossed his hands atop his stomach. “Few young cats with no records who can take one for the team. If the city even bothers prosecuting shit like that, once Monday rolls around.”

“Hold on,” I said. “Won't asking guys to get arrested tip them off that we're up to more than just bombing a line?”

“Eh. We were stupid to think we could keep our crews in the dark.”

“So, what? Everybody knows?”

“More or less.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“They keeping it close?”

“No doubt.”

“What else?” I asked Karen. “How we handling the first shift?”

She glanced at Billy, consulted her clipboard, and changed the subject. “We've got all the fake tips and decoy arrests mapped. Idea being to keep the Vandal Squad spread as thin as possible, and as far from the yards. Blam, you find somebody to phone them in?”

“Yup. Paco BMS is laid up with a broken leg, so he and his girl will make the calls.”

“That nigga does mad accents,” put in Stoon. “Polish, Israeli, whatever. Dude is straight comedy. We used to have him play a building owner all the time, back in the day.”

“We got the welding equipment,” Karen continued, refusing to stray from her course. “One set to a team.”

“But do they know how to use it?” called Supreme Chem, voice bouncing off the inside of the fridge. “One of these amateur-night ninjas might could mess around and barbecue his hand off.”

Karen shrugged. “Guess we'll find out.”

“Yo, 'Preme, you hungry?”

“Naw, B, this cold air just feels good on my face.”

Stoon smiled. “There's takeout menus in that drawer right there.” It was strangely comforting, the way these guys all knew their way around the place.

I raised my hand, waved it at Karen. “Uh, for those of us who came late, what exactly are we welding?”

“Uh, for those of you who came late, this idea goes back days.”

“Then why don't I know what you're talking about?”

“Yo, who else want sushi? I'm 'bout to order.”

“Get me a dragon roll,” said Vexer.

“Billy?”

“Sure.”

“What, ninja?”

“I don't know, whatever you're having.”

“I fucks with the wild shit, B. Sea urchin, monkfish liver. I don't know if you can hang.”

“I've eaten rats. Bring it on.”

“You serious, Dondi? You don't remember?”

“I'm telling you, I never knew. And if you're ordering from One Greene, I'll take Sashimi Combo B, extra salmon instead of squid.”

“Stoon? Blammo?”

“I'm good.”

“Now cipher, god,” said Blam. “The god don't fuck with swine.”

I turned to him. “How is raw fish swine?”

“Just is.”

“What's that, Lesson 121? The secret bonus lesson? You like a six percenter or some shit?”

Blam craned his neck to eyeball Billy. “Yo, your son got jokes.”

I glanced over to see how the phrase
your son
hit Rage, found him impassive.

“The welding thing was Cloud's idea,” said Karen, looking about half as chagrined as she should have. “In the middle of each train, there's an extra conductor's booth, with a microphone in it. Guys used to break in, turn it on, and talk shit.”

“Notably Cloud and Sabor,” said Fizz, still pseudo-asleep.

“You crazy, dude? Dash 7 pioneered that.”

Everybody started talking at once.

Karen's voice cut through the din. “Later for that shit!” They glared, but they clammed up.

She turned to me. “We're going to record a message, run it on loop, and weld the door shut.”

“In every train? We got six hundred and thirty-eight tape players?”

“More like eighty-five.”

“How much did that cost?”

“We boosted them from Radio Shack. Tapped out the stock in three boroughs.”

“Oh. What's the message?”

Fizz stretched and yawned, deciding to commit to consciousness. “You know the first thing that happens after a terrorist attack, Dondi?”

“Bush and Cheney high-five?”

“After that.”

“Condoleezza gives them both slow head?”

“Yo, your son got jokes. Stop playing.”

“Somebody claims responsibility.”

“Correct.”

“And that would be . . . ?”

“Me,” said Billy. “Me alone.”

I spun to face him. “Who the hell is gonna believe you rocked six hundred and thirty-eight trains all by your lonesome?”

Fizz high-stepped over my legs and headed for the kitchen. “You have to look at it from a marketing perspective,” he said, pouring coffee for himself and Vexer. “What's going to capture the public's sympathy? A big conspiracy of spics and niggers uniting to destroy the city's transportation system? Naw. Already tried that. It could play into Bracken's hands, even. Let him style out like he's the candidate criminals are afraid of.”

He dumped a heap of sugar into his mug, and then another. “It's gotta be personal. One man, on a righteous quest. To stop the cop who murdered his best friend.”

“Talk about ‘already been tried.'”

That earned me a withering look of the kind in which Fizz specialized. “There's obviously no comparison.”

“Alright, well, answer me this: if Billy did it on his own, why do the trains say all these different names?”

“They don't,” said Karen. “They all say the same name. In the same colors.”

“You're telling me that fifty some-odd crusty-ass egomaniac writers are all cool with painting
Rage Rage Rage
for forty hours straight?”

“No, I'm telling you they're cool with writing
Amuse Amuse Amuse
.”

“Huh. What . . . Huh.”

Karen grinned. “My son is speechless. Savor the moment.”

“Too late, I remember what I was gonna ask. What happens after Billy takes the weight? Where does that leave him?”

My father raised his mug for Fizz to fill. “No more of an outlaw than I am already.”

“What happens when the guards step up and explain that what actually happened was—was what? You still haven't told me how we're dealing with the guards, Wren.”

My mother shrugged: one of her fakest gestures, pure misdirection. I knew it well. “Nothing really to tell.” She looked everywhere but at Billy. “Just a good old-fashioned bum-rush. We incapacitate them as quick as we can, and feed them Billy's whatever-it's-called. They go on their magical journey of discovery. We babysit. And paint.”

I waited for Billy to say something. He didn't. Apparently, his pacifism had suffered a few setbacks. I thought of what Theo Polhemus had said about Laz suddenly looking sharper, like he was coming into focus.

Then I thought about T himself, and a shudder went through me like bad Indian food. A cat I knew and liked—a guy I'd earned with, hustled for, seen weekly—was glued to the floor of his apartment with his own blood, and if the fault wasn't mine it wasn't not-mine either. Had I mourned? Wondered if his mama's phone number was listed? Reckoned with any aspect of the horrible thing that had happened?

No and no and no. I'd completely blocked it out. Compartmentalized that shit, Billy Rage style. Fuck.