Random Acts of Senseless Violence (26 page)

It was late but I wanted to stay awake to be with Iz and know I was with her. ‘Tell me about the DCons' I said. She necklaced me with her arms and put her lips on my ear and started whispering inbetween kissies. ‘The DCons be bad evilness, the worst of worst' Iz said. ‘They prime night-crawlers, they soulslashers, they roll when it darken and nobody see their shadow. Everbody run when the DCons come. Naturals, Intercrime, Pit Bulls, all of em. Anything
bad happen nightside gets done by DCons.' ‘What do they do?' I asked. ‘They steal the babies. They pack the crack. They do the driveby make everbody bleed. Nobody know who the first DCon be but whoever they was they did the king strut early on. DCons in total control in the end. When the streetlight blink they snuff it. When the rat sneak streetways they right behind. You get in the subway and you solo in the car you jump back out at that stop cause the DCons get you fore the next. Police can't catch the DCons. Army can't catch em. Gangstaboys couldn't catch em if they wanted. Nobody catch the DCons but even if they caught they still be round.'

‘Jude said Weez was a DCon now. How did she join?' I remember asking feeling sleepier and sleepier. ‘The DCons know where the lines be before people. The lines they never crossed before. They get you to cross your line. When you cross it, you with the DCons. You never come back' Iz said.

Even though Iz put the scare in me the way she did it rocked me eyeshut. When I woke up in the morning Boob was sitting on the foot of the mattress holding a pillow and looking at us. I pulled the sheet up so she wouldn't see we didn't have our clothes on. ‘About time you woke up' Boob said shouting enough to wake Iz who groaned. ‘Go away Boob' I said. ‘Get enough sleep?' she asked. Iz sat up holding the sheet in front of her. ‘Who plugged you in last night?' Boob asked looking at Iz. Iz's hair was sticking up in places and some of her dreads were bent. We all started laughing. ‘Now go away Boob' I said and she did. I was glad she was acting like her old self again. Me and Iz put our shirts on under the covers and then we got up and Mama fixed breakfast for us before she went home. It was eleven by the time we woke up and Daddy of course had already had to go to work so he still hasn't met Iz.

I've been writing you this afternoon Anne but have to stop because it's time to meet and greet. Maybe we find Weez maybe not. I tell you tomorrow. I'm scared but I'll be with them so I'll be all right. I'll be with Iz.

MAY
17

Last night Anne we subwayed downtown changing trains twice. We had to bank on the way Jude said so we did even without Weezie. I did the lookout Iz did the lift and Jude boosted a man in a suit. He was dressed to strut but all his wallet had was fifty. We finally went street on Houston near Second Avenue walking into Loisaida which is also the Lower East Side. It always nerves you walking a neighborhood you haven't walked before and I was scared Anne. I've only been there once or twice before and always with Mama and Daddy never solo or with friends. Greenasses are all over Loisaida just like Harlem and Washington Heights. Since they aren't on the Upper East Side or below 125th I didn't think they were anywhere else but I was wrong.

It was darkening and everything hopped. There were as many people out as uptown and all dressed for action. Loisaida's mixed so there were whites and Asian and Spanish people as well as black. I didn't feel placeless but I was still more wrought cause everybody stared us down when we passed because they probably figured we were strangers come to harm. But Weez was the only one we were after. We took Avenue B to Tompkins Square which looked worse than the Pit Anne. Hundreds of people hang and bed in the park. They had fires burning and tents up and the trees had their limbs cut off. A big apartment building was cross the street. The entrance was razorwired and men with machine guns guarded the front. The first floor was graffitied so much it looked like they'd tried to paint it badly. Army trucks were curbsided with their soldiers all round. Loisaida's Army boys were testier than the ones in Washington Heights. They dissed us whistling and grabbing themselves like they had to pee and yelling hey sweetie come here and do me. Me and Iz and Jude stuck glue tight walking past. An old man stood in the street yelling over and over to himself I'm an American I'm an American like he just found out.

At the northeast corner of Ninth Street was an old tenement with broken out windows with newspaper curtains. ‘That's it. Mico say Weez and her boy Guillermo home it right in front fourth floor' Jude said pointing to where lights made the newspaper glow. ‘We heading up to call?' Iz asked. ‘Not everbody no' Jude said. ‘She eye all of us she might flip. You solo Iz in case they in the hall. Lola and me we backtrack.' ‘How?' I asked. ‘Roofways from the next buildin over, down the fire escape and then pop in. Window might be trapped.' ‘What if Weez come up shooting?' Iz asked. ‘We'll divert. Think it handleable?' Jude asked me. ‘I got fingers. I can poke' I said. ‘They be armin not fistin. Pack this' she said handing me a small meat cleaver she had tied on a loop inside her jacket. ‘Swing it if they spring. Hit wherever but hit somethin' she said. Then she turned to Iz and said ‘Start climbin once we in next door. Ear careful till you hear us then you pop too. Set?'

We nodded. Me and Jude ran up the stoop of the next door building kicking away beer bottles. Jude unpocketed a wire and poked the lock jiggling it till it opened. She nodded to Iz and we went inside. Fluorescent lights in the inside halls made everything look dead even the mice. The stairs were shaky and worn down in the middle. There were six flights and another door at the top. Downstairs we heard dogs bark and babies squall and salsa music loud as airplanes. Jude kicked the door open and we roofed.

‘Foot careful' she said. My feet sank in the roof when we walked sagging boards but nothing gave. Loisaida buildings aren't high and we saw everything for blocks and farther, apartment lights and Tompkins Square trees and Brooklyn fires and white Army beams sticking up like needles all over town. Pigeons roosted topside not flying away when we lightfooted through them crossing to Weez's building. Jude shook the railings on the fire escape when we reached it. ‘Tight solid that's good' she said. I'd never been on a fire escape before. It feared me to have nothing underneath but
little bars. We started down looking in the windows we passed. The sixth floor looked empty and if anybody lived there they lived dark. The fifth floor window was wide open and the ceiling light was on. The room we saw was empty except for a dirty mattress and a suitcase. We didn't see anybody inside. Jude waited on the ladder before going down to the fourth floor. ‘Gotta tizzy em. Gimme that' she said whispering and pointing at a flowerpot on the fifth floor landing. It was full of dirt. I gave it to her and she threw it like a ball into Weez's apartment hard as she could. The newspaper tore away and we heard the flowerpot break. When we didn't hear anything else she hopped the railing of the ladder and slid windowways inside.

‘Iz you there?' I heard her ask. I was starting to climb down when I got yoked and pulled off my feet. For a second I thought I was falling and dropped the cleaver. I didn't fall though because somebody octopussed me yanking me up and then back through the window. I kicked the fire escape and wall as he dragged me hurting my feet like I broke my toes. He handed my mouth too tight to bite and shoved me on the mattress falling on me. Oh Anne it was so horrible I could hardly think I was so scared. The man who grabbed me was a Spanish guy in his twenties or thirties with an awful mustache that smelled. He smelled too like he never took a bath. One of my arms was loose and I hit his back but he didn't act like he felt it. He pushed himself in between my legs laying on me so I could hardly breathe and then he used his free hand to try and undo my pants. The man kept talking in Spanish which I hardly know. I wriggled and kicked and his hand slipped so I bit him real hard between his thumb and finger. For a second he let go and I sirened out help help. Cono he said sitting up on top of me so I could hardly wiggle. He sucked on the hand I bit and with the other hand he started slapping me in the face as hard as he could. It brainrattled me Anne he hit so hard and I cried I couldn't help it.

Then he got off me sudden like he'd jumped backwards
but when I looked I saw Jude had a rope round his neck yoking him. She dragged him up and then I saw Iz she had something she swung it and hit him on the head while Jude gripped tight with her knee in his back. He staggered and Jude let him long enough for Iz to start rib punching him. I lay there watching like it was a movie until I stopped crying. My feet were sore where I'd kicked them on the brick and my neck felt like he tried to tear my head off. When Jude and Iz got him down on the floor they started booting him full leg in the head and stomach not stopping or saying anything. His face was bloody and he moaned like they were breaking all his bones.

‘Pile on Lola pile on' Iz shouted. I stood up getting off his filthy mattress and I felt headspun at first but then I started kicking him in the back as hard as I could really wanting to hurt him. Like the time it happened with Weez when I go post office like that Anne my reptile brain just thinks kill kill kill. And while I was kicking him the same thing happened again too, it was like there wasn't any time anymore everything just froze. The man was still moving some when we stopped kicking him but not much. ‘We calmed him' Jude said out of breath and panting. ‘Let's out.'

We ran down to the fourth floor and into Weez's place slamming the door behind us. All of us fell down trying to catch our breath and think ourselves clear again. It was like I was electrocharged Anne I saw everything so sharp I was dizzy and I could feel blood beating my neck and head. We just panted for about five minutes resting. Then Iz helped me sit up putting her arms around me. ‘You viable?' she asked. ‘Sure' I said not sure if I was. The more I settled the worse I felt Anne stomach sick like I was going to spew. He didn't rape me but I felt like he had. My skin didn't seem to be mine anymore it was like greasy all over. I hurt all over my neck and face especially and I wondered if he bruised me. Jude slid over hugging both me and Iz and that's how we sat for a while until we all felt safe again.

‘Well here we come callin and nobody home' Jude said
looking around the room. ‘No Weez. No gun. No nothin nada.' ‘You think they've been here?' I asked. ‘I spec they close. However circumstanced Weez not gonna leave her dress boots behind.' Weez's boots with the tape on them were thrown onto a pile of used yellowy bandages. ‘Foot still achin her look like. She racked bodywide probably' Jude said. ‘We waiting for em?' Iz asked. Some jeans were tossed on the mattress. Weez and her boyfriend didn't have sheets or pillows. There were empty soda cans and wine bottles piled in one corner. The flowerpot Jude threw in broke into a hundred pieces and sprayed the dirt round in a splash. Little empty glass crack capsules were all over the floor. The breeze coming in the window rattled the newspaper still ahang there. ‘She gone' Jude said. ‘Let's home it.'

Leaving the apartment we walked down the stairs. My legs were still wobbly but I managed. We couldn't tell how quiet it was upstairs because the salsa downstairs deafened so but I didn't think the man would chase us. Two little kids maybe eight years old sat on the stoop outside the building. They stood up when they heard us downstairing. One was a little girl with black hair. Her arms and legs were stubby like a dwarfs and she hissed at us like a snake. The other kid was a little boy who smiled at us. All three of us startled Anne because when he started smiling he didn't stop. He knew he scared us I think and did it deliberately. He could have put two or three oranges in his mouth it was so big going from ear to ear nearly.

We didn't talk much on the way to the subway we just tried to fade in. I kept itching I feared I got liced by the man though I didn't. I didn't know it then though. ‘Did we exe him?' I asked Jude. ‘Who's tellin?' she asked. Until she spoke and I heard her voice sound normal I couldn't tell if she was going to cry too. ‘Keep minded it was him or you' Iz said. ‘No choice. Happen to everbody' Jude said. Iz nodded.

The subway was like home sort of, at least it wasn't
Loisaida. We rode the conductor's car because that's always safest from mugs and thugs. At 125th we detrained and went down streetside again to our neighborhoods. Army trucks and police with sirens going headed uptown and we specked there was trouble due. ‘Want to home it with me tonight?' I asked them but they shook their heads. ‘Got that churching come morningside' Iz said. ‘You sure Jude?' I asked hoping that she might want to, not in the same way as when me and Iz bed but to talk to her about whatever. ‘Gracias no. I'm keen to solo' she said. Iz hugged and kissed me goodnight. Jude eyed us without seeming to care. So they went up and I went down.

It was ten thirty by the time I homed and Mama and Boob were asleep in their room. Running water in the tub I took a long hot bath scrubbing all over with lots of soap. Last night even when I tried to think of what happened I couldn't yet though I can today. Baths always feel so nice though they were better in our old place, there weren't any roaches there.

This afternoon Iz called. She met Jude after escaping from church and says she's moody but settled. Iz seemed more fixed on me, she probably heard trouble in my voice. ‘You still fretting on last night?' she asked. ‘Yes. I bring down too much evilness' I said. ‘What's meant?' ‘Maybe Weez'd be AO if not for me' I said. ‘Weez caused Weez's troubles that's truth twice over. What else aching you?' Iz asked. ‘What the man tried and how we did him. It sickens.' ‘Mean what he did or what you done?' ‘Both' I said. ‘If punishment fit the crime everything evens out. You hear me? Let me truth you plain on this' Iz said and then she told me that she and Jude have both been raped. A boy Iz schooled with who she liked attacked and unvirgined her one night. His name was Kevin and he was two years older and housed downstreet from her in her old neighborhood. ‘He was a class boy. Months after I think I musta made him do it but I didn't. Boys be that way unmattering if they street or not, they all got pokers and always wanta start a
fire goin' she said. ‘I don't want them to stick me ever' I said. ‘They don't have to but that won't stop em trying' Iz said. ‘You must hate him' I said. ‘Sometime. He gone though even fore I move. Lowlifing catch up soon or sooner. It's liveable these days' Iz said. ‘What happened to Jude?' I asked. ‘I shouldn't spill cause it shame her.' ‘I'm safe' I said. ‘I know that' Iz said. ‘Then please tell me she'll never know' I said. ‘It heartsicks, Lola. Her daddy like his little girls overmuch' Iz said. ‘That why her little sister cracked last year, Jude was already homin solo and not around to deflect no longer. He work that peacemaker till memorial day. Jude, she took off first time he did her. Once be too much for Jude.'