The Residue Years (19 page)

We rush to his car while the rain thumps trash cans and metal awnings and parked cars. The girl hands me and Michael napkins. He dabs his face and asks where I'm headed.

Piedmonts, I say.

Well I'll be gotdamned, he says, eyeing me in the rearview.

Got you right there in the hurricane, huh?

He shifts the car and we stall and pitch forward. Check this out, he says. We got to make one stop. Just one stop is all, but it's on the way.

What happens?
—Champ

Peoples, Peoples, have you been wondering how I got in this shit in earnest?

How it starts is this: I'm a freshman in a polytech high school and homecoming is coming soon, too soon cause Mom's been out for days doing what I know she does plus a whole bunch of shit I don't even want to imagine with a welfare check that won't be a welfare check when she comes home. How it starts is Mom's on a mission, which means the chances of her, as promised, copping me a homecoming suit, homecoming shirt, homecoming tie, of her having the ends to give me to cop my homecoming date (a pretty young thing it took a whole quarter of school for me to step to) a box of chocolate and corsage, the chances of her footing one penny of my homecoming expense when she slogs in, is looking about the same as the odds for us (me, mom, and my bros) making a year in any one place without a shutoff notice: lights, phone, heat. So what do I do? What I do is approach my friend who's only a year older than me but already a young star in the curb-serving cosmos. My friend agrees to front me a “sack,” which ain't a sack, but a few blonde shards wrapped and tied off in plastic. He offers me the dope on consignment and tells me that if I do it right I'll double-up. Both petrified and excited, I carry the
dope home, carry the package in my fist and keep my fist in my pocket the whole way, terrified it might slip through an unbeknownst hole into the abyss or, worse, into plain view. That same night (no need to sneak, cause Mom is still MIA) I wait till my bros fall asleep, lock the windows and both the doors, and strike out wearing a hoodie and jeans with my tiny package held so tight this time it leaves an imprint. That same night, I head out dreaming of easy double-up, of a sale, a sale, a sale. I dream of returning triumphant to school the next day to pay off my debt and cop another package, dream of hustling the cash I'll need for fresh new homecoming gear, a flower for my pretty young thing, and enough left over to line my impecunious-ass pockets with loose bills. I trek to a part of Northeast everybody with an active brain cell knows is crack central, a mise-en-scène chockablock with aspirants like me, with not-so-young dealers, with dopeheads darting in and out of shadows or grumbling up in cars with their windows dropped low. Only I go out that first night without clue the first of the protocol, not to mention with a heart much too meek for the comp, serious motherfucking competition. I'm talking a wannabe or in-the-midst-being D Boy on every corner. Talking one man shows, two man shows. Motherfucking triumvarates. And all accosting, without a second's fear it seemed, each and every would-be buyer. Me out in the thick of it, bones a-rattle, too punkish to open my mouth, and after a while cursing myself for being out at all. Me posted on one corner and then the other with hope rocket-blasting out my chest towards the stratosphere. Plus the brand-new dread that my mother, that Grace, might be wandering this dim universe.

What happens? I don't make a dime that first night. Don't
make a nickel, nor penny either. Don't make a cent that next night or the one thereafter. It takes about a week (I have to sneak out after Mom comes home) of dry runs to realize I ain't built for this business, that if this is how it has to happen, my too-soon homecoming will come and go without a working budget. Yeah, I catch a tiny epiphany, but what about my what I owe my friend? I'm new in the game, but smart enough to know the rules, the tacit laws on returns and refunds. It takes a week of ducking and dodging my friend (known for his quick temper and quicker fists) in the halls before I work up the nerve to approach him in the lunchroom, to explain that I tried and tried but couldn't get it off, to admit I ain't cut out for the game, to say sorry, sorry, but can he please take it back and squash my tab.

My luck, sometimes it's luck. And lucky for me he does.

So I quit. That's it. Quit and don't see another one of those plaque-colored pills (Mom's always managed to keep them from us) in person till right after high school. But the week after graduation, with my corner shortcomings worn down just enough, I buy a sack with part of the scholarship I won, buy the sack dead set on being discouraged, buy it with the intent of softening (I didn't win a D-1 hoop scholarship) the fact my D-1 hoop dreams are all but deceased, that for the next two years of life it's community college and a twin bed at my mom's. But of course I take the scholarship loot and cop a big double-up sack from my quick-fisted high school homie and trek one night to a brand-new crucible. But this time I make a sale. This time I make a second sale. Translation: this time it's on! I go from double-up to a quarter ounce, from a quarter to a half, from that half to the full oz. Go from one oz to two oz's, two to three oz's, three to four and half oz's, and some nights I feel as if I can't be stopped. In a half year, as if by some stroke of the blackest
magic, I'm buying quarter kilos (along the way graduated from copping from my high school patna) from a dude with a mint-condition old-school Benz and a bevy of gold chains.

You want to know how this starts in earnest? You listening?

It gets better. Or bigger, I should say. A year or so later, it's drought status, and my gold-flossin connect has been out-of-pocket for so long I'm thinking the nigger may never be in-pocket again. So I make a few calls to see if I can get a pack to last until the golden connect re-ups. This friend of a friend gives me the number to Mister, who I hit up and ask to speak about business. Mister (his voice is hella-whisperish over the phone) tells me to swing through. I count the ass-end of my re-up funds (got dough enough for a couple and I mean a couple, of oz's) and drive to meet him. It's an early Sunday, so the streets have that empty apocalyptic feel they do before the city stirs. Mister's store is closed, and I knock an eon before he answers. He locks a behemoth bolt behind us and leads me to the back of his store, but instead of discussing what I came for, he goes on about this mentor he had as a boy growing up in South Central. He explains the mentor was a white man from London who ministered to him and his boys on British culture, about places like Buckingham Palace and the houses of Parliament, on shit like bespoke tailoring and the King's English. Mister tells me that years after he started clocking the kind of bread he needed machines to count, he'd spend a few weeks a year in England, every time copping a closet of Savile Row suits, spread-collar shirts, and silk ties fat as a forearm. He gives me the monologue, and only when he's done does he lead me downstairs. He stands at a bistro table stacked with bills (he's crazy insouciant about the shit too, as if it's no more than a table scattered with old copper pennies) and asks what he
can do for me. I show him the cash and ask if he can sell me a little something till my connect gets right. Mister flashes the kind of teeth Hollywood types pay a grip for and tells me its too bad about my boy being out-of-pocket, but that he's a man of abundance. He waves off the money I brought and digs into a duffel bag at his feet, and takes out a duct-taped package the size of a book—the first whole one I've ever seen with my eyes. He quotes me the price (complete with a new customer discount) and tells me to bring him what I owe him off the top. He leads me upstairs, unlocks his many-bolted door, pushes it open, says, Be safe, hella-dispassionate. With the first brick I've
ever
lay eyes on tucked in my sleeve, a trillion doubts knocking around my hard skull, and a ruthless rapid-ass heart, I totter out into the maw.

How this began in earnest, there it is, peoples, there it is.

How goes it? Mister says, standing beneath a light that makes his bald head glow. He's wearing a white shirt that's almost iridescent, a double Windsor tie knot (Mister's your
GQ
uncle or spicy grandfather, depending) as big as a baby's fist. Ain't but a few customers inside, a wino clutching a jug of Rossi, a clique of youngsters wearing creased jeans, and an old lady pushing a walker past canned goods. The wino staggers up to the counter smelling as if he'd soaked overnight in his potion. Mister, I'm a little short on my medicine, he says, searching for a Lagrangian point in his shifty balance.

How short? Mister says

All of it! the wino says, and flashes a jagged, yolk-colored grille.

Mister touches his gray-speckled goatee, tells his brother Red
to grab a broom so the wino can sweep out front, and Red (he's laconic as they come) slogs into the back.

You know we quit drinking once, the wino says, at last un-swaying.

That right? Mister says.

Yes, sir. It was four days back in '82. As it happens, I blew out my knee and couldn't make it to the store, he says, with a laugh that hacks up a mouthful of phlegm.

Mister gives up a grin. Red reappears with the broom.

Make sure you sweep out front and out back, Mister says. Get it good and clean around those cans. And don't crack my wine till your done.

Sir, yes, sir, the wino says, and bends his arm in a broken salute. Not a sip until I'm finished.

The youngsters stroll up to the counter. Mister eyes his gold watch, the only piece of jewelry I've ever seen him wear, and asks the boys about a missing member of their crew. The boys snitch that their patna is home faking sick.

Oh, you don't say, Mister says. Well, I tell you what, you all hold on to that chump change and pick what you want. Take it and tell your boy I let you do it. Tell him I said when he don't go to school, he misses out.

You'd think these youngsters just finished a booster's prep school, the way they stuff their pockets to balloons and airwalk for the door screaming, Mister, you tight.

Mister calls Red to cover the till and waves at me to follow. We stroll past a partially opened safe and a card table scattered with dominoes (he's no joke on the bones, knows your next move before you do, and on the dice, forget it, he'll lick you for
everything in your pocket, plus whatever's in your stash), down the steps and into his dusty basement. Barred widows. Pinstripes of wispy-ass light. He shuffles over by a table decked with a cash-counting machine and an unopened bag of rubber bands. And below sits his famous duffel bag. I give him what I owe on my tab. The money is stuffed in a paper sack.

Now, not then. There's no time. With the baby, with what it might cost for the house, our home, this is the time to ask. You think we could bump it from one to two? I say.

One to two whole ones? he says.

Yes, I say.

He takes the bills out of my sack and stacks them in the counter. We could, he says. But you'd need to be sure you can move it. Your ambition and your business match up.

Oh, they do, I say. They do, trust me, I got it, I say, though why should he trust, with so much of me that doesn't believe?

Mister's phone rings. He answers, tells the caller, Everything is everything, his code for being in-pocket. At his age, middle age, Mister's the best you can hope for in this life or else the worst of dooms. He lifts two bricks out of his duffel and passes them to me. One or two or twenty—get all you can while you can but not a gram or dollar more than that, he says. You want to last, that's how you last. He moves closer. He clicks on the money counter and the bills whir. Listen, don't forget this. Don't let this slip your mind. Most of us, if we're lucky, we see a few seconds of the high life. And the rest are the residue years.

Red is helping a customer when we get upstairs. Mister tells me, Be safe, on my way out.

Half Man, my transport guy, twists his face when I climb inside.

Took you long enough, he says.

I hand him the packages and on everything the nigger's eyes look bedazzled.

Damn, two, homie! You doing it like that? he says.

This fool, it's nothing to see him at the gambling shack, high as a neutron star, spluttering my business in earshot of a hear-fast hustler with hopes of snagging a get-out-of-jail-free card. You think you can move em? he says.

Who's sure about what? I say. They mines now. What choice do I have?

This fool, right hand to God, he leans out the car and empties a blunt. He's my boy of all my boys, no doubt, but sometimes he's straight imbecilic.

C'mon, dog, you can't be serious. We got all this work and you rolling a blunt! I say, my voice close to breaking. Is this some kind of spoof?

This is for later. Not now, he says. Quit being chickenshit. They ain't arresting niggers for no blunt.

Man, put that shit away, I say. Now! I strap my seat belt and eyesweep the lot.

Damn, dog, he says.

You keep on, I say. You just keep on and you'll see. Guess who the fuck won't be with you when you do.

If you believe the streets, Mister's store is under surveillance, under the attentive eye of a task force team. Agents crouched on rooftops with long-range mics and long-lens cameras. No lie, every time I step out this joint, I get the feeling I'm the blind subject of a secret photo spread, one destined for a precinct or judge. The only way to keep sane, to keep a pulse that ticks on pace, is to say not me. It's not me they want. Why would they,
when they could have him? My self-talk is self-deceit at its finest, AKA a reckless heart. And what they
should
say about that kind of heart is this: It breeds state charges, bow-legged bids in the feds.

Half Man lifts his tall tee, loosens his belt, and stuffs the bricks in his waist. We pull onto MLK, with me working my mirrors with monk-like vigil. I make a turn and another a turn, doing a mile or two over the limit since a mile or two below looks hella-suspicious. I cruise the block twice to be cautious, which ain't in no handbook, but should be. While I'm stopped at a light I see a ghost, alive, but three-quarters dead or more. Dawn, Mom's ex-best friend, is sloped against a pole, a PSA for crack life specialist. She wobble-head totters into the crosswalk. She stops and peers into the car and squints and stutters around to my side. She shakes her finger, does a happy dance. Nephew. Is that my nephew? she says.