Saint And Sinners (25 page)

Predecessor…I knew it.

“Nah, baby.” She patted her lips, pretending to have a cigarette to calm her nerves.
“You will be your own man, Hassani. You don’t have to do what yo’ Daddy do. You need
to set out your own path. You ain’t got to follow his. For instance, baby, I’m going
to tell you something about your grandmamma Pam. If I followed my mama’s path, I’d
have been in a world of trouble. I was already going down the wrong road for a mighty
long time but when I was pregnant with your mama and aunt, I got off of there right
quick and in a hurry.”

“Yeah…but…but what if, Grandma, I
want
to be like my Daddy?” His eyes looked sad and syrupy, as if he were fighting back
tears. It broke her heart a little to see such a thing.

“Well.” She shrugged. “That still don’t mean you must do everything like him. If God
wanted you to be a carbon copy of the man, he’d have just done that on his own…no
need for Saint to have a son to be it. Everyone is their own person, even twins, like
your mama and Aunt Porsche.”

She took notice that Dakarai was drinking in the conversation, his lips tight, as
he possibly fought the urge to interrupt and say his own piece.

“But Grandma, I
am
a carbon copy of him. I can’t help how I was born.” He quickly wiped a tear away,
then popped up from his seat and raced away.

Just then Porsche returned with little white bags of fries and foil-covered chicken
sandwiches, while trying to balance several drinks on a brown cardboard tray.

“Talked to my baby girl. She likes spending time with her friend and—”

“Wait a minute, Porsche!” Pam called out as she saw her grandson darting farther and
farther away. “Hey! Hassani, where you goin’, boy?!”

“To tha bathroom!” he yelled, not looking back.

Porsche set the items down, her movements slower, and confusion spread across her
daughter’s face.

“He is really taking this move hard, Mama.”

“He not mad no more about moving to New York, Auntie.” Dakarai interjected as he picked
up Hassani’s game and began to play with it. His golden eyes almost glowed as a smirk
creased his handsome, little face. “’Sani don’t wanna be different, but he can’t help
it.” It was the oddest thing. In that moment, Dakarai didn’t sound like a little boy
anymore. He sounded like a wise old man, and his face reflected such a nuance. Dakarai
was rather immature for his age, though his natural charm and cunningness made him
extremely loveable and the people really took a liking to him, even at first glance.
Right now, that ‘fun-time’ persona had been left by the wayside. The boy seemed to
be stepping up to the plate, as if wanting to give his brother a shoulder to lean
on, even though Hassani was long gone, no doubt pouring pain into tears he didn’t
want anyone to observe.

“What do you mean he don’t wanna be different?” Porsche questioned as she plopped
down in her seat. “And come get some food. You haven’t eaten in hours…you so skinny.”
She grinned.

Dakarai grumbled, stood on his green and yellow gym shoes and made his way over, his
ponytail continuously bouncing behind him with each step. He plucked a few fries from
the white container, then took a wrapped sandwich into his other hand. Without saying
anything, he returned to his seat and slumped in it, as if dying of boredom. The only
sound to be heard was the paper wrapper unfolding between his busy hands. He took
a huge bite of the thing, and with his jaws stuffed to capacity, he looked at them
both square in the eye for quite some time, as if his silence should suffice.

“I can’t say nothin’,” he finally offered. “Daddy told us not to say nothin’, Grandma
and Auntie.”

“You tell me right now, you hear me?!” Pam demanded, her chest heaving as she pointed
at the little charlatan. Isis’ eyes fluttered open reminding Pam of rolling window
blinds, and like the habitually hungry little girl that she was, she immediately zoomed
in on the feast before her. The little girl looked darn right insulted that she hadn’t
been promptly aroused before the spread had commenced.

“Fries! Fries!” she blurted eagerly as she lunged towards them with both hands wide
open. Porsche removed the pint-sized girl from her mother’s grip and began to feed
her. Instantly quieting the little one’s hunger pangs.

“I can’t, Grandma! I promised!” Dakarai yelled, his mouth full of food and his eyes
brimming with tears born from fright. He chomped a bit then took a hearty swallow.
The boy was practically pleading with her to just drop it; his knees had turned inward,
as if he were going to piss himself right then and there and worst of all, she knew
if she kept pushing, he’d shut down altogether or offer some elaborate lie that she
wasn’t in the mood to entertain. In a nervous gesture, Dakarai ran his palm along
his arm, picking at an old scab, then turned away when the quiet stretched between
them. Porsche quickly rose and offered him a chilled juice. He gripped the thing with
a shaky hand, downing half of it in record time.

Oh Lord Jesus…what have they been doing to these boys?! What the hell is going on
with this family?!

Pam knew that as soon as she stepped foot in her daughter’s new front door, she was
going to demand answers.
No one
, not even their parents, had the right to cause this sort of distress. She realized
at that moment, Dakarai was right. It wasn’t about the relocation. Something else
was going on, something much more severe, and she was going to get to the bottom of
the shit, once and for all…

*

I
t was the
kind of place that burrowed into the hollows of one’s subconscious and created wicked
internal mélanges of repulsion. The once attractive couple had sold their looks to
a lesser God. They slid against one another, their bones clinging to darkened, taut
skin wrapped around a slither of life pumping from their over-worked, hardened hearts.
Koki walked leisurely behind them, following them into their abandoned apartment building
that smelled of rotten rat carcasses and piss. His presence was not even noticed.
He sniffed the air; the scent of the death lurked so close, making him salivate, glad
to be a part of it all. Koki flipped his white leather collar down and pushed his
hands into his black pants pockets. The weather had turned wickedly cold; he much
preferred the heat. Nevertheless, he had business to attend to.

The female of the duo tucked her thinning dark hair behind one pointed ear and struggled
to find the right spot, a working vein that wasn’t tapped the fucked out. She bit
into the thick, worn belt, her teeth gnashing as she bumped her head against the peeling
wallpapered wall in frustration.

“Come on,” her husband groaned, his lifeless eyes roaming about in his awkwardly shaped
head. He’d taken some hearty lumps and bruises, sold his ass for the little they had
to share between the two of them. The man moved a bit closer to her and waited impatiently
until he couldn’t stand it anymore.

“Get over here!” He did the shit himself, fixed her up, turned her on her damn side,
and stabbed her roughly with the needle. She whimpered a bit, then her eyes turned
to hazy discs wrapped in darkened memories. She made odd noises as she fell into some
sort of heroine induced trance. Koki knew that reverie well. He’d witnessed the sight
too many times to count for it boosted his quota, made his promotion all the more
a sure thing. He did his work with dignity and grace; he made the ugly beautiful,
and the beautiful grotesque. He reflected the true heartbeat of the city.

Koki reached into his pocket, pulled out the small bag of blood-covered dreams, and
handed it to the man. Well, not exactly… The bag magically appeared beside the fellow,
as if it had fallen from the damn sky. The addict grew startled, his muscles clenched
as he reared back. The man had just then realized that someone was there in the room,
that Koki was in their midst, and he probably wondered how long he’d been standing
there.

“What you have won’t hold you long, and she’ll be right back up. Here is a bit more,”
he offered softly with a friendly smile.

The man grabbed it greedily from the filthy ground, his dirt-caked nails moving with
urgency as he turned the plastic bag in various directions, studying the contents.
He opened his mouth, revealing an abyss of blackness due to missing and rotted out
teeth. Koki matched the man’s expression, breaking out into a sly smile.

He took several steps backward until his spine was rigid against a nearby graffiti-covered
wall, crossed his ankles and watched as the guy leaned over his incapacitated wife
to shoot a bit more of the magic into her vein. Content with the way she lulled about,
her eyes finally closing, he returned the favor to himself, using the remainder to
send him on a one way trip to the place he was running to each and every time he twirled
on Death’s razorblade-covered dance floor dreaming about his long lost, almost forgotten
partners—longevity, love and life. It took longer than expected, but the reward finally
arrived like a slightly delayed cash settlement in the mail. Jackpot.

Koki stooped over the man’s slumped body and gently shut his eyelids with the swift
maneuver of a two-finger roll.

By the time the stench of the decomposing bodies of the 1980s sitcom celebrity couple
hit the air, he’d have fifty more tempting temptations under his golden belt to deliver.
Forty-nine of them went off without a hitch. He catered to weakness, and when he got
in the ring with the shit, his work became as simple as plucking a daisy from a valley.
Life was good; work was plentiful and fantastic. This week had ended in a Koki driven
TKO…

*

Here he was
again. This time, his eyes focused on the meandering clouds gravitating towards one
another with a magnificent, magnetic pull. They appeared livid, invigorated with hatred
and alive with remorse.

Clouds aren’t supposed to move that way…

Saint shoved his hand in his pocket and studied the damn things with parted lips and
narrowed eyes. No way could he explain why he was out at four in the morning, walking
around the hoary, tall brick building with five stone troll-like gargoyles, all wearing
their respective sinister grins and sneers at the front entrance to a partially dilapidated
hellhole in the Bronx. He’d been drawn to the thing as soon as he’d gotten back in
town, and this was his fourth visit to it, as though it were some secret lover he
couldn’t keep his hands off of.

The damn clouds hovered right above him now, clustered in the darkness, running all
on top of one another, vying for top billing. He’d never seen such a thing. A sense
of panic ran through him. Taking hold of his arms, he tried to muster a semblance
of control. He moved slightly to the left…they followed. He moved marginally to the
right, they traced his steps as if he were teaching a dance class. They appeared to
be full of rain, the shapes swollen and disposed to give birth to a torrential storm
right above his damn head. But…they didn’t dare.