Random Acts of Senseless Violence (24 page)

‘Weez steal Jude's gun?' I asked Iz. ‘Look that way Jude's checking now' Iz said. ‘Jude said no one was supposed to touch it but her' I said. ‘Known Jude wouldn't even let me finger it. That girl gonna get exed runnin around firepowered like that. And if Jude catch her watch out. Jude come by that Kalishnikov hard' Iz said. ‘What's meant?' ‘She had to trade heavy to get it' Iz said. ‘Trade what?' I asked. ‘You hear Jude wording you tonight bout picking the right hands to hand yourself into?' ‘Sure.' ‘Jude mean you let yourself out to trade you gotta trade equal or better. Jude had to do lowlife rough trade to get that heavy artillery. She usually aims for a higher class when she cats around but you do what's needed.' ‘When she goes downtown by herself is that when she's trading and catting around?' I asked. Iz nodded. ‘Understand?' she asked and I nodded. ‘Should we go to Jude's house and see if she's there or wait for her?' I asked but Iz shook her head. ‘She gotta solo this. I think we oughta just home it. Anything happen tonight gonna happen bad. Damn Weez's worthless ass' Iz said.

It was dark by the time we reached Broadway. Farther up I saw that the Army had put up big searchlights between the storage buildings and the subway on both sides that were aimed up at the sky but made the whole street a lot brighter. I couldn't tell how far up they went. ‘Do you want to sleep over at my house?' I asked. ‘Mama expectin me home and she don't like short notice. Otherwise I would. Sometime yeah.' Iz said. ‘You don't think Weezie will shoot Jude do you?' I asked. ‘Maybe' Iz said. ‘Jude probably see her first though.' She held hands a minute and then she ran across 125th to her side. I walked home worrying scared that Weezie might shoot Jude and if she did she might want to shoot me next. Boob noticed and said ‘What's wrong?' ‘Nada. Nothing' I said. ‘Now you're a pot calling kettles black again' she said and she was right but so what.

Iz called fifteen minutes ago. We'll hook later. She hasn't
heard from Weez or Jude so far. I'll tell more when it happens Anne.

MAY
10

Daddy didn't go to work today because it was his special Sunday off. We didn't do anything family because Mama got three manuscripts Friday she had to turn in tomorrow and she's working overtime. It's good when she's got a lot to do because it distracts her and she doesn't dope constant. In fact Anne Mama only takes one or two pills a day and only at night. Daddy sat at his computer and typed but I don't think he wrote anything just letters. Boob watched TV this morning. She's clamming again and scoots away if I touch her when she's sitting next to me. Im not going to rape you dammit' I finally yelled pissed at how she acted. Boob went pale and I wonder how mean I looked when I said it. Mama and Daddy didn't hear me or didn't say anything if they did. It racks me the way her friends stuffed her empty head with these ideas. She still octopusses me come nightside and I wake up every morning covered with arms and legs. So that's home news which is usually as bad and boring as school news.

Weezie's somewhere but nobody knows where. Yesterday I met Iz and Jude at McDonald's. It's certified Weez has Jude's gun. ‘She trash it up too. Slash the mattress. Toss all the candles out the window. Stole my box and my tapes. She's bitchin plain and that's one side but she overstepped jerkin my peacemaker' Jude said. ‘Any leads?' Iz asked. ‘Too much sideshow last night to trail and she been underground today. Her folks deadheaded me when I ask' Jude said. ‘Jude if she with Bad Conrad and Blood T then you know where she be she must' Iz said. ‘Where she maybe must be. Better in knowin not guessin' Jude said. ‘It past that now. We got to go you know that' Iz said. ‘Go where?' I asked. ‘In with the Pit Bulls' Jude said. ‘Her main men hang there nights doing their business' Iz said. ‘Weez only
daytime the Pit. If she there last night she either been exed or banged thirty time runnin by the gangstaboys or worst a all she lost my long arm' Jude said. ‘We got to check Jude what if Blood T prompted her action or what if they did the lifting theyselves?' Iz asked. ‘She's your old one Jude you got to act.'

Jude sat there watching greenasses putting sandbags down the middle of 125th Street. ‘Known known known. Well let's go fore it darkens' she said and then turned to me. ‘Not you though.' ‘Why?' I asked. ‘Pit's nearly the worst of worst. You not goin there' Jude said. ‘Weez blew at you because of me right?' I asked. ‘Weez blow bout anything it just happened that way' Jude said. ‘But I caused it and I should go too if it's dangerous. I'm a Death Angel too Iz said.' Jude looked over at Iz who nodded. ‘Uh-uh. It's bad evilness in there.' ‘I'm going' I said. ‘I'll heart you sis. You goin for white reasons and I thought you above that. Goin cause you guilty, not cause you care' Jude said. ‘Don't care about Weez no but I care about you. That's what is. And if it's a bad place if there's more of us aren't we safer?' I asked.

Jude stared at me for a long time without even blinking. At first I thought she was mad but then I could tell without knowing that she wasn't. ‘As Death Angels go you not official just yet' Jude said and we stood up and walked out of McDonald's. ‘She's willing and able Jude but it's up to you' Iz said. ‘All right but you do the overseein, I can't interrogate and safeguard both in real time' Jude said. ‘AO' Iz said. ‘Only time I see you mayhem you went freehand. I spec you clean?' Jude asked. ‘Clean how?' I asked. ‘You weaponed?' I shook my head.

Jude eyed the dumpster by the side of the building. Going over to the side she picked up a round wooden pole that was about three feet long and gave it to me. ‘Swing like a cane en route' Jude said. ‘Swing like a bat if we call.' ‘What do you carry?' I asked her holding the pole in one hand like a shepherd's crook. Jude pulled a switchblade knife from her jacket and clicked it open. ‘Both sides bladed.
Unfeelable when it slip in' she said. Jude I expected but it surprised me to see Iz unpocket a bicycle chain out of her jacket. ‘Iz a
qualified
plastic surgeon' Jude said and Iz smiled. They put their things back and we started across 125th Street walking by the soldiers like we were going to school. ‘If the Pit's not the worst of the worst what's worst?' I asked. ‘Where the DCons live' Jude said. ‘Where's that?' ‘Wherever they go' Iz said.

We walked east on 133rd Street which at first didn't seem any worse than any other up there. When we crossed Amsterdam Jude told us to keep in the street along the parked cars. We hadn't gone a hundred feet when a toilet bowl crashed on the sidewalk near us. Looking up we didn't see anybody. The buildings were abandoned like Jude's house, that is they were boarded up but you had the idea somebody housed there. The parked cars were either shiny new or stripped totally. The fire hydrants were open but empty.

‘This the Free Enterprise Zone unofficial' Jude said as we crossed the street. In the next block were thousands of people standing around drinking and arguing and huddling in little groups. We edged lightfoot through them so they wouldn't notice us but I don't think they would have anyway they were so busy buying and selling. A row of trucks covered with graffiti was parked in a vacant lot and people sold TVs and VCs and stereos from them. Men wearing hoods over their heads and with rifles slung around their shoulders loaded brown paper packages into the trunks of cars. Black and white women in their underwear all with dyed blond hair were climbing into vans and being driven off. ‘Pimps haulin loser lalas downtown to work tunnel trash' Jude said and she spit in their direction not hitting anybody. Two older women stood by a bookcase with cellular phones on the shelves for sale. ‘Everbody needin fundin these days. They hustlin high that way look look' Jude said nodding across the street. Mercedes and BMWs were parked along the curb. The windows were
dark so you couldn't eye who was riding. People got in and out of the cars patting their pockets. Two men lifted a blanket off the back of a pickup truck showing all sorts of big and small guns underneath. ‘My peacemaker calmin three states distant by now' Jude said shaking her head. ‘Let's hope so' Iz said and grabbed my arm whenever she caught me wandering. It wasn't as scary as I thought at first Anne because everyone was too busy. There weren't any greenasses in the Pit though people hustled Army equipment like gas masks and electrical equipment and boxes stamped with red crosses or yellow smiley faces. There were a lot of police cars around but the cops were busy buying and selling too all the way to St Nicholas Avenue. ‘Glue tight now' Jude said. ‘Jungleland next stretch.'

The next block was much more frightening Anne. Even though it was still daytime it felt like night. The cars parked along the curb there were old and beat up and had their radios on full. People sat in them with their feet stuck out the doors and sat on the roofs and hoods. We stepped over people nodded off in the middle of the sidewalk. There were men and boys standing on all the stoops of the buildings that were still standing. Almost as many people were in the street here as in the block before but they weren't selling anything large, they just milled around whispering saying Ten get you twenty I got that magic Good weight good weight. Everything smelled horrible like pee and vomit and worse.

The men on the stoops looked at us when we walked but didn't catcall. Everybody looked like serious junkies or people with AIDS. Whatever they were men or women they had droopy eyelids and scars and missing legs and teeth. The women were bony with blank faces usually. Some of the people had sores all over their faces and cuts that were still bleeding. ‘Jude if she here she gone let's go' Iz said. ‘Little further' Jude said and we kept walking east.

In the middle of the street a minister stood on the roof of a van holding a microphone. He shouted Wake up Wake up
Wake up but nobody even looked at him. On the side of the van was painted a devil with a smiley face and skeletons and they were throwing people into fire. Underneath were thousands of words like he drew the Bible on the van. Copters flew over and people threw rocks and bricks in the air but they didn't hit the copters, only the people who threw them. It was noisy when they were flying over but when they passed everything the crowd was saying mixed into kind of a hum like a machine that you hear so often you don't hear it anymore. ‘Any signs?' Iz asked. ‘Nada. This way then we fly' Jude said. We walked into another vacant lot and that was the worst Anne.

A bunch of men were ringed around people in the center watching chickens fight. On the other side were more men each leading pit bulls on long leather leashes. They were starting to look at us now and I held my piece of wood like a club. I saw Iz had her chain out. There were old bricked up buildings surrounding the vacant lot and people were lined up to get packages lowered on ropes outside from high windows. Some of them were shaking and they all looked sick. ‘There's Blood' Jude said.

Blood T stood leaning against the side of a building with some other boys. He wore a hooded jacket and sunglasses and baggy pants stuffed into boots with sharp metal points. They weren't cowboy boots because they didn't have heels only thick soles with spikes in them. He wore rings that slipped over all the fingers of his hands and he fiddled with the strings that tightened his hood around his head.

‘Word me Blood I want knowin' Jude said walking up to him. The others he was with walked away. Why you here slummin? Blood T asked with a deep growly voice. ‘Where Weezie be?' Businessin somewhere mama what you aimin to trade? Blood T asked. ‘Nada no way it Weezie I want cause she owe me for her thievin.' Break the girl mama none a my sayso said Blood T. How's little Izzie? he asked but Iz didn't do anything but nod and hold her chain tight. ‘Don't string me Blood I know you know' Jude said. Not stringin not
knowin. Say girls you get youself a new spic already? Blood T asked looking at me. ‘Unlip' Jude said. Guess Weez right when she say she be replaced Blood T said. ‘Once more I ask you' Jude said. Weez she prefer chorizo to liver I wonderin how this one feel Blood T said but then shushed. Jude moved fast and I hardly saw what she was doing till she'd done it. With one hand she hooked her fingers into his nose pulling his head forward and with the other she stuck her knifepoint against the side of his neck. Me and Iz stood in front of them so no one could see what was doing.

‘Talk or bleed you decide' Jude said pinching her fingers together in his nose and keeping her knife at his neck. Blood T whimpered like a puppy and hopped up and down kicking his boots. ‘Talk don't walk' Jude said. Yokay yokay yokay Blood T said. Jude took her fingers out wiping them on his shirt. ‘Where Weezie roamin?' Jude asked not moving her knife. Inwood tonight Blood T said. ‘Doin what?' Mayhem Blood T said. ‘Who with?' Bad Conrad and that boy a hers Alonso they keen to pillage Blood T said. ‘Gracias' Jude said shoving him against the wall. He stepped forward as if to grab her but before he could Jude slashed and he stopped and felt his stomach where his shirt was cut. When he took his hand away there was blood all over it.

‘Straightaway' Jude said turning. We ran through the lot to 134th listening to them scream behind us. Rats ran ahead of us getting out of our way. At the entrance to the street a couple of men tried to nab us but Iz whipped one in the face with her chain and the other stopped where the first one fell. It was so exciting I forgot to be scared Anne it was amazing. Jude outraced us crossing Eighth Avenue as the light changed. So many cars and trucks were zipping uptown we had to wait and while we did a man ran out of the building at the corner grabbing Iz. He had his hand over her mouth and the other holding her arms and she dropped her chain. I swung out with my club without even thinking
and hit his head. It broke in half making a whacking sound like if you dropped a watermelon. He fell down groaning and I took Iz's hand and we jumped out into traffic. We sidestepped the cars coming at us though they were coming fast. Before we reached the corner a gypsy cab almost hit us but stopped short. I hit the hood with what was left of my club as hard as I could and we kept running finally catching up with Jude. Then we ran and ran and ran the long blocks to Bway.