King was the first to notice the car slow. It wasn't the car which drew his attention, but like a piece of his soul returning home which alerted him. For King, life slowed to a crawl. His nose flared. Spit flew from his mouth. A sudden heat swept over him. He seemed to sweat from everywhere at once. For a brief few seconds, there was a sudden calm. His eyes grew wide as his mind took in what he was seeing. He hoped his voice wouldn't crack as he called out. "Get down!"

Dred raised his gun. King recognized the Caliburn immediately and the sense of another betrayal overwhelmed him. The report thundered. King's ears rang. His balance thrown off, time slowed. A bullet slammed into his shoulder and spun him around, like a warm knife slid into him with ease. Another pop followed as a second bullet tore through the side of his neck. The smell of blood was the odor of death. Perhaps his body went into shock, but King did not feel any pain, only the peace of acceptance washing over him. Perhaps it was relief. The earth fell from underneath him and shadows engulfed him.

Across town, from within Nine's embrace, Merle cried out "No!"

"What is it?" She wrapped her arms around him even tighter.

"The dolorous stroke."

"Then the end draws near."

CHAPTER EIGHT.

The Security and Housing Unit often called the Shoe housed everyone who was under the age of eighteen detained in the Marion County Lock Up. In the protected block of juveniles, its guests spent twenty-three hours a day in cells. Artificially set by their lights, their days were out of the prisoners' control. They were told when they could eat and when they could shower. Privacy was a dream of another life.

The previous night Rondell "Mulysa" Cheldric dreamed he was a child, lost in a forest, trying to make his way home. The brush grew thicker as he ran. All he knew was that something chased him. Though unseen, the prey's sense of an impending threat, that a creature stalked him and had been after him for a while, remained with him. His lungs burned with each breath. The muscles in his legs ached. Pain shot up his shins. The joints of his shoulders grew sore. Exhaustion overtook him. A weariness that seeped down to his bones. Slumped over in a collapsed heap, he waited. The predator still in the shadows. Nearby. Salivating at its soonto-be-had kill. Mulysa woke as he always did: bone-tired and resigned.

In juvenile, he used to imagine himself as a top-secret spy caught by enemy agents and imprisoned. His days idled along with daydreaming plots to make daring escape. His imagination was his true escape. His fantasy was, if nothing else, consistent. When he was younger, he imagined it was his father that was the spy, always called away on important missions. As he got older, within a few years actually, after a lifestyle filled with danger and intrigue, though heroic, he decided that his dad had been killed in action. Only in the last year did he conclude that fantasy was for children.

Life in the Shoe was about boundaries and limits. The cell closed in on his mind. Lonely, confined, a lack of privacy; the tedium alone could drive someone to madness. The darkness made noises. Tears sobbed into pillows. The rutting sounds of rage and power being rammed into any who gave the appearance of weakness. His life was a prison.

He was two men: Mulysa and Rondell, battling it out, and Rondell was about dead. Reduced to an animal going about with survival instincts on high alert, constantly on the lookout for any of the innumerable enemies he'd made. He was a fallen man. Weren't but two ways to go from here: up, or embrace the darkness and finality of his life. And the game itself was slow suicide. All of the devilish things he'd done, each act a step in his journey toward here. Being locked down, swept under society's rug, allowed him to see the bigger picture, and his life for what it was worth.

A big steaming pile of s.h.i.t.

Today, he was due in court. His public defender a.s.sured him that this was just a matter of going through the motions. The police could have him under suspicion for any of a number of things, but with only a circ.u.mstantial case, he was going to walk. He wore his orange jumpsuit with a measure of pride.

A young boy with an old face and eyes which had lost their innocence too soon was next up before the judge.

"What's up, homie? Are you a thug?" the boy asked.

"Who asking?" Mulysa eyed him with bored wariness.

"I'm just sayin'. I got my own hoes," he said with too much enthusiasm and empty braggadocio. "I do some crazy s.h.i.t. I ain't got time for that mess. My a.s.s hurts from doing all this sitting. Waiting on my Johnny to get me off."

"Nukka, you still got your baby teeth." Mulysa couldn't be bothered to muster a bemused smile more of a sneer masking a mild state of melancholy.

"I know how to jail," the boy said as his case was called. "Straight-up thug."

Never show weakness, never back down, never step aside. The boy had already internalized some of the basic rules. The boy reminded Mulysa of how he was at that age: already a lost cause, beyond redemption. He knew what fate awaited the young'un, what few true options he had, and how he had embraced them.

They had pulled Judge Rolfingsmeyer, a fairminded jurist, with just an independent enough streak to p.i.s.s off liberals and conservatives alike. This made him popular among the people. A jovial face, the judge's robes draped like a muumuu over him. At the moment, he appeared to be suffering a migraine as he rubbed his temples.

"I never wanted to hurt n.o.body. I just want to be a terrorist and blow stuff up," the boy shouted out.

"You're too young to be doing these kinds of things. I mean, look at you: you haven't even grown out of your cute stage," Judge Rolfingsmeyer said. "I just want to eat you up."

"f.u.c.k you, judge." The boy flipped him off. A bailiff immediately escorted him out. The judge ordered him held over for family court to decide the best course of action.

"Well, my, my, my. They grow up fast," the judge remarked to his bailiff.

The hood was the main world Mulysa knew. Life in the Shoe was like a vacation in his summer spot. But in the court, mostly white faces greeted him from the judge to the bailiffs to the lawyers. He was in their world now. When they called his name or his case number, all he heard the word "n.i.g.g.e.r". Everything dripped with contempt. From the bench, the judge's words ran down his nose to him.

On the streets, he could defend himself. He'd go toe-to-toe with any fool who dared step to him. But in this world the a.s.sumptions weren't always physical. The pain crushed him in inner s.p.a.ces, places he couldn't trace and rarely let himself acknowledge. He didn't know how to defend himself against this kind of attack. He only had his anger, and he stacked onto the kindling pile of his previous resentments and hates. His fist clenched out of reflex and his public aid lawyer nudged his arm and he relaxed.

Mulysa strode toward the judge, eyes meeting his, unafraid. Pride marched him forward now, as he was under the careful scrutiny of those in the gallery as well as those whose cases were up next. It was time for the show. Never show weakness, never back down, never step aside.

His court-appointed lawyer took apart the state's case, such as it was. He was little more than a person of interest, suspected of having knowledge in a few crimes. The death of Lamont "Rok" Walters, even the fire at the Camlann apartments. Because the search was ruled illegal, the police didn't even have the drug charges to hold over his head. Not to mention how he was treated while a guest of the state.

"Son, sounds like you been into all sorts of mess," Judge Rolfingsmeyer said. "But it's not like the state has much of a case left. Got no reason to hold you on remand. A bit of an overreach, wouldn't you say, counselor?"

The state prosecutor mumbled to himself. Mulysa didn't like to be talked to that way. He tolerated it from Colvin. Mulysa grimaced under the pain of his own headache. They were getting worse now. Like a metal spike driven into his eye to stab him in his brain.

"You're going to be on a nine o'clock probation. You understand?"

"Yes, your honor."

"So if your friends show up at ten-thirty at night and say 'Hey, we got a big ol' bag of weed'," the judge put on a street affect to perfection, "'let's go smoke,' what should you do?"

"I'd have to tell them 'Man, y'all shoulda been here earlier cuz I'm on curfew."

Mulysa's public defender lowered his head.

"Right..." Judge Rolfingsmeyer glanced up from the stack of papers before him. "The correct answer is 'weed is illegal and I still have to drop a p.i.s.s test.' But I suppose that's as good as I'm getting."

With that, Judge Rolfingsmeyer signed the papers and Mulysa was once again back on the streets.

Prez hated to visit his father. He knew in his heart of hearts that no one begrudged him his visits with his old man, especially now. Imminent death had a way of forcing that: cancer ate at his father's insides. Death rarely weighed on Prez, though its specter hung like a shadow over his soul.

Especially now, considering King. It wasn't as if Prez could talk to King. Though King had said it best before he was shot: "Forgiveness is the only way to let go of the past. Relationships are fragile. Repair the rift between you and your father before much more damage is done. You don't know when the people you love will be called home. Time is always short." Some things were morbidly expected, no, not expected, but rather unsurprising; only the method of his father's eventual demise had been up for grabs. Diet was never a particularly high concern as he ate pig's feet and barbecue ribs, and fried everything, washed down with vodka and c.o.ke. Or brandy and c.o.ke. Or rum and c.o.ke. The man loved c.o.ke. Say what you will, the man was brand-loyal, thus his twopack-a-day Kool habit. And exercise? Only if you counted his four-hundred-videotape p.o.r.n collection, some of which he inherited from his father; and his predilection for chasing women other than his mother. So Prez had long resigned himself to the fact that his father was not long for this world. The only surprise was that he lasted so long.

The family had a cancer scare a few years back. Months of agonizing waits, treatments, and surgeries culminated in the removal of a lung. The crisis seemed over, the doctors confident that they got it all. His father lost a lot of weight ("the chemo diet", he called it) and gave up smoking. The family took its cue from him, hanging their hopes on his own l.u.s.t for life. That was then.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Prez suspected that his father started smoking and drinking in earnest again in the hopes of dying. Like maybe he took a look at the measure of his life, realized what a waste his was, and decided that it wasn't worth it. Prez wasn't even sure things worked that way, but the thought stayed with him. The cost of treatment had strained the family's resources to the breaking point, but all they thought about was getting him better. However, Prez recognized the anger in his father's eyes, behind the laughter and bravado. Anger that he was ineffectual as a provider; anger that his body betrayed him; anger that he was no longer his own man.

So when the cancer returned, he chose to die the way he lived: at home.

Prez hadn't been home since he left a couple years back to stay with Big Momma. She had brought him up here, cause kin was kin, and she wasn't trying to get between folks, and she wanted to help mend things when she could. The way she saw it, that's how good church folks did: stay up in your business and help, whether you wanted it or not. Folks didn't always know what was good for them. She was G.o.d's little busybody.

The family set up home hospice care. Big Momma didn't say anything as they entered the house, politely not commenting on the odor of mothb.a.l.l.s, old people funk, and medicine. The day nurse a squat, buxom woman with the face of a teamster wasn't dressed in all-whites like Big Momma a.s.sumed she would be. The nurse escorted Earl Parker Wilc.o.x from the bathroom to the couch. She untangled the array of tubes from his medicinal pump and oxygen canister, then excused herself to see about lunch. Prez and Big Momma waited until the door closed behind her and Earl to settle into the couch before they exhaled their pleasantries.

"Dad? It's me and Big Momma."

"Boy, you know I'm a grown-a.s.s man. A dying grown-a.s.s man, but still a grown-a.s.s man. And I'm too grown to be calling a grown-a.s.s woman 'Big Momma.' How you doing, miss lady?"

"Just fine, baby. You lookin' good."

"s.h.i.t. 'Preciate the lie though. You all clear a s.p.a.ce and sit down. All that standing around on occasion is making me nervous."

Prez had forgotten how much he missed the raspy baritone of his father's voice. A filigree of wrinkles radiated from his mouth. His face was much thinner than he remembered, but he was still his father. Prez never understood all the angst most folks had about their fathers. He decided early on that his father was not someone he wanted to pattern his life after. They could be... he didn't know the best word to describe the kind of (adult) relationship he wanted to have with his father. "Friendly". Something that took the onus of responsibility off his father having to try to be a father. And Prez having to live up (or down) to it. Maybe that's why he took off. To be his own man; find his own way. And he f.u.c.ked it up. Charting his own course ended him where he began: fragile and tired and no better than his old man.

"Another player done got caught up," Prez said, hoping his father had grown some. "All that 'he said/she said' stuff."

"The DA dropped the charges. Bet he won't see the inside of another court room for a while," Earl said.

"She'll probably see some cash though. Nuisance change to make that civil suit go away." Prez baited him. "That's all she was ever after."

"The cost of doing business. They all the same, only the rates ever change."

"They all alike, huh?" Prez's face grew hot, but he didn't know why. Maybe King's judgmental tone haunted him. Something close to rage mixed with resentment threatened to bubble up. Big Momma put her hand on his knee.

"Most of them." Earl turned to him as if annoyed by the interruption.

"Even Mom?"

"I said 'most'."

"I need a gla.s.s of water." Big Momma stood up as if hearing her mother call her from the kitchen. "Either of you need anything?"

"Help yourself. I'm good," Earl said. "You look like you got something on your mind."

"It's just that... you don't have that much time left."

"Uh huh."

"And I feel... I don't know... d.a.m.n it, Dad, it's like you're a stranger to me."

"I'm your father, boy."

"I don't know what that means."

"It means watch your tone."

Prez knew that his father never respected him, or, at best, considered him as a soft punk. The only time that his father seemed to like him, to really talk to him, was when Prez was keeping one of his secrets. Prez studied the man. This old man. He'd never seen his father look weak... so old. The epiphany struck him: he was a boy. Not a boy in a man's body, a boy masquerading as a man. They both were. Boys who had gotten older, only the toys changed. The thought of playing at the role of being a father never sat well with him.

Prez never knew his father. Because he was little more than a man who left sperm in his mother. Prez knew the man who offered to smoke pot with him on occasion in lieu of actually bonding with or parenting him. But he didn't know anything about him. His childhood, how he was raised, events that shaped him, how he saw the world.

Sperm donor. Bill payer. Big brother. Protector.

My daddy's dying.

"I am who I am. Who do you want me to be?" Earl asked.

Real. "I don't know."

Fathers and sons. Everything kept coming back to that. He knew, whether being taught directly or simply absorbing it from the culture around him, that he was supposed to complete the work his father began. Follow in his father's footsteps, even if it wasn't a path he'd have chosen for himself. He was a son wanting to please his parent, to hear his father say that he was proud of him. Some part of him, some tiny voice, wanted his father's approval. Just like part of him wanted to prove his own worth, if only in his mind, by doing a superior job of being a parent. A husband. A man. It occurred to him that in order to grow, a son had to reject his father sooner or later. What he feared was, if faced with the possibility of rejection or disappointment in his offspring, his father would reject him first.

s.h.i.t. This was like breaking up with a woman. It didn't matter if both knew the relationship wasn't going to work, what mattered was who did the actual breaking-up.

Fathers and sons. That was some s.h.i.t.

Garlan's mother was a nurse. That woman knew how to work a system. An opportunity which presented itself, she played it for maximum advantage. The way she put together her work schedule, she could hit overtime by a Wednesday, which meant by Sat.u.r.day, working doubles, she was deep into the man's pocket. She wasn't married to the dude they lived with, so with everything in his nonworking-a.s.s's name, they qualified for welfare and other benefits. The name of the game was getting over. His whole life was training for a doctorate in the art of getting over.

"Who's that young n.i.g.g.a that likes to run with you?" Dred asked. Everything was a system, from school to a job, or the street. Teachers, bosses, ballers, cops. His job was to run game on them. That was the life.

"Who? The Boars?" Garlan asked, knowing who Dred meant.

"Yeah, that's him. He got promise?"

"Yeah, he tight. Got some game to him." Keep your eyes open. Don't trust anyone. Keep the count straight. Make sure folks respect your name. The Boars had the makings for a good soldier. He internalized that s.h.i.t. Garlan had his eye on him for a minute.

"Whatever, man. Put him on."

"What's with the change-up?"

"I gotta explain myself to you now?"

"Nah, man." Garlan took his cue to be quiet. He loathed meetings with Dred. It was worse than being called down to the princ.i.p.al's office. He'd call for a meet someplace random, like today they were just two n.i.g.g.as kicking it at Mr Dan's burger joint. But Dred had a way about him. The way he looked at you, through you most of the time, like you weren't there. Garlan tugged at his ring. It was, who was that crazy white dude always up in Batman's grill? The Joker? Yeah, how if you were part of the Joker's crew, you never knew when he'd turn on you and cap your a.s.s.

"Naptown Red stepped to me wanting points on a package."

"That n.i.g.g.a is scandalous. Would run a game on his momma to turn a few ends."

"That's why I decided against it. But keep your eye on him. Too much side action will bring FiveO down on us. Keep him close."

"What about Mulysa?"

"What about him?"

"You always quick to bring up his name. You kin or something?"

"Naw, man, it ain't like that. Just making sure the crew's taken care of."

"I got him out. But he's too hot right now. He needs to cool out for a minute."

"So he on his own."

"He a survivor. He be all right."

Naptown Red considered himself a ghetto griot: soothsayer, truth-teller, keeper of the neighborhood history. He grew up hearing tales of the great shot-callers. Green. Speedb.u.mp. Bird. Bama. Luther. Night. Dred. Dred had consolidated various crews under him. Bardigora Street. Estonce Posse. A hundred Knights. And that was how he imagined himself. As a player, a man with secret agendas, moving people about like pieces. A man of style and influence. Today, he held court.

Having a.s.sumed that he had some Indian in his blood, his straight hair had been pulled back, which accentuated the blotchiness of his skin. It p.i.s.sed him off that no one saw him as a threat, that no one took him seriously. In his capacity as evolving historian, he knew about most of the various tendrils of the crew: extortion, fencing, prost.i.tution, drug-dealing. His father carried a bullet in his back, which kept him from doing most kinds of physical labor. As a result, he rarely kept a job. Red asked him whether he'd received the wound in a war like Vietnam. Close, he said, a street war. Vice lords. Gangster Disciples. Whatever. All Red knew was that he was meant to follow in his footsteps: drinking, smoking weed, breaking into houses. Even absent parents taught and pa.s.sed along lessons. From early on, Red's folks would go into one of the back bedrooms with their friends, drinking, and carrying on. He could smell the pot from the other end of their house.