The Cold Academy
"The Backpack Generation"
Part Four
By Jericho Vilar
25.
"Cocaine is a crystalline tropane alkaloid."
The polaroid stood silently, paper clipped to a fresh page on her open notebook. In its eye, the moment in time that it held prisoner followed her every movement, mockingly indifferent to her every breath, each flutter of her eyelids. It was a memory made tangible of an encounter with a man, a ghost, who was never there in the first place. It was a portrait of the impossible.
The tip of her index finger skated softly over the film's glossy surface, behind it a sea of blue lines and college ruled margins. She felt him there in that room and imagined vividly the heat from his breath and the sound of his ruffling collar. He was there with her. She was sure of it.
The polaroid didn't blink when it assured her he wasn't.
"If you could only see how much I want to hold you right now."
She recited the words, his words, his tremor.
Rafferty.
The polaroid whispered to tell her that he wasn't there.
Zoe Ahern sat Indian style staring at the notebook on the low glass coffee table, the fibers of the plush carpeting tickled the soles of her feet when she moved them to regain blood flow. She was surrounded by opulence, the only inhabitant of the Peninsula Hotel's finest penthouse suite. Held on permanent reservation, the room had been her motherıs secret hideaway. When situations became too tense at home, she would always find refuge at the Peninsula
As a child, Zoe was reminded of the special visits to the Peninsula, usually ferried by one of the hotel's drivers at her mother's request. After having been away for weeks on end because of filming or worldwide press junkets, the call would come from one of the hotelıs concierges asking her what time would be best suitable for her to be picked up. Nine years old and standing in the middle of the vastness of her driveway clutching a little Strawberry Shortcake bag at her side, Zoe would wait for the nondescript car to take her to see her mother, parenting by appointment. Years later, after the passing of a certain age, the act of waiting on her driveway was no longer necessary. It was on the day her father left when the penthouse officially became hers.
Almost all of her days at the Peninsula were spent alone. Far enough from the city below, it became one of the few places where the tremors didn't bother her. Halfway to heaven, miles away from hell was how her mother used to describe it. Zoe never entertained company at the Peninsula, but looking back at the polaroid made her realize that fact to be untrue.
Ryjan Allen.
Jacob Byrnes.
Charles Daniel Rafferty.
The three, back then they were the only three that mattered.
The lights of Chicago flickered in the distance.
Never again will her fortress be compromised.
The watch on her cell phone read half past two. The second day back in Winterville would be soon upon her. Nimble fingers freed the polaroid from the paperclip, she would need sleep soon. The bottom edge of the photo made a hollow sound when it started quickly tapping on the glass of the coffee table.
A small pile of white powder was molded into a line.
As much as Zoe needed sleep, deep down she knew sheıd also need a bit of courage.
***
26.
"I want y'all to listen close cause this shit's about to get official."
With his chin snug over the nest of his folded arms, Jack flirted with the notion of sleep, seduced by the position of comfort he held in his seat. The hangover's radiator hum in his head, one blink made four class periods disappear. He opened his eyes to an empty lecture hall, quiet as a grave, his only company the steady throbbing of his skull and the words Khalil spoke under a single hanging bulb in the back room of the record store.
"Two four runners will be parked outside the west towers. That's how we'll know they're here. They'll roll six deep, three in each, and Pastel so seven total. Two of them'll be townies, soldiers from his last go-around. They'll run point cause they know how Harmony moves and how we move in her. They'll carry pocket nine milli's and they won't be shy to flash 'em. They've been around too long to know better, so keep 'em in front. I ain't in the mood for no surprises cause when them niggas clap they don't clap once. They go for the standing O."
"The other four'll be clockers, privates, prolly kids fresh outta high school who donıt know shit outside Biggie lyrics. They'll be the ones doing the finger passes and the stack drops and if they do good enough they'll graduate from the swamp to the rooftops. They may look like nothing, but they'll still drop you if you dirty up their dunks. Maybe once they figure out how to take the safeties off. Maybe. The grind starts with them, but they ain't the ones we're after. No pawns. That night, we go after the king."
"Jamal 'Pastel' Perkins, his brother was a G from way back and their daddy before them. Don't let the gear fool you, this queer type will bust trademarks in your eyes if you think ill about his laces. He's a shark nigga, just like his brother Marcus, but this bitch has something to prove. Sıa little brother thing, know what I'm saying? He never got to play with the big boys, now he thinks he got a place at the table. He's the last one left of the major families since the capes wiped their asses out and half of Harmony with them. He'll know that the only ones still moving are the nickel and dimmers copping for the college kids. He wants them organized. He could do it, too. The way his daddy did back in the day. Like father like son my ass. These niggas just too stupid to think up something original. Fuck that! The shit stops there, with him. He ain't got no one worth a damn backing him up. Get him and we get a few more days before the next Scarface nigga comes rolling through the projects. Don't get him and the poison'll be flowing through the streets all over again. That happens and the capes come back to finish what they started. Y'all know what goes down after that."
"The shit'll be in the back, the rig that youıd sell your momma over will be hollow. When they come through they'll be bumping shit off stock systems. Lil Rob and his boys'll take care of the clockers, Jack and I will handle the rest, but we all torch the product together. Its our message, our statement, and that we do together."
"I ain't gonna lie to you. This shit's gonna get bananas, so if you wanna bail then you do it now. We need to stand tall on this. Niggas gotta know they can't do shit to Harmony without shit getting done to them. Risk, that shit weıll have to keep on point, but if its down to you or them...remember this. They sell dirty coke to innocent kids for money. They'll do it to your brother, your sister, your cousin, and your kids. If bodies gotta drop then you drop 'em. Harmony's with you to the fullest."
"It hasn't been like this in a long time, maybe it'll stick, maybe it won't, but it'll sure as hell be remembered. Why? Cause of Jack here. You're our new ace, money. Harmony's never had someone like you getting down for it. Don't think y'all aren't important, hear? Everyone has to do their part, its just that, honestly, Jackıs the one bringing the hook."
"So that's that. Before we go in deeper, before shit starts moving faster, that's what y'all gotta know cause now the ball's in your court. So...the fuckıs it gonna be?"
"..."
"A'ight then. Two days. S'what we got and the two ways they leaving Harmony is either cold or shook."
At that moment, Jack closed his eyes and nodded.
Just like how he did the night before.
***
27.
"1885, the Parke-Davis Company promised that its cocaine products would supply the place of food, make the coward brave, the silent eloquent, and render the sufferer of insensitive to pain."
The night had taken its toll, the hunger hadn't subsided. She woke to screaming veins and nerve endings on fire. Their begging and pleading gave way to barked orders and undeniable commands. Logic and restraint were the first to be held hostage as the sun peaked through the skyline. Backs to the wall, they were obliterated the second she stepped foot into the halls of Winterville. Panting, she closed her eyes and prayed for mercy, for forgiveness for one night's indiscretion, but the deed was done, the bloody coup de' teat inside her waking consciousness had reached fruition. When she opened her eyes, they sparkled with a new knife's edge. She moved without hesitation, with purpose. The choice wasn't hers anymore. She was under new management.
The morning bell rang.
Zoe Ahern stalked through the cracks of Winterville looking for her next fix.
She found him behind the drama theatre, almost hidden among the carcasses of old set pieces. He was leaning languidly next to a facade from last year's production of 'South Pacific.' He was taking a bump off the recessed filter of a Parliament Light. Surrounded by various states of decay, he stood where he always stood, ready and waiting. There are no small parts, he would often recite, just small actors. In the grand scheme of things, he knew that the role he played within the drama circle was a major one. A role that he was born for, some might say. A role that he played with style and grace and glory hound aplomb. That was one man's opinion, and only one man. He thought about it every time the edge of the filter licked the flesh of his nostril.
Zoe didn't approach him with any trepidation. His tremor was easily drowned out by the hunger. Only a sliver of it managed to sneak through.
It whispered, "...pig tails and a school girl skirt..."
Brandon Thorpe squinted to make her out, the realization of her identity was quickly followed by a mental stripping off of her clothes.
"Zoe, Zoe, Zoe," he softly sang as he placed the cigarette to his lips. "Long time, no see."
The hunger had no patience for words. Her hand shot into her bag retrieving a stack of crumpled bills which she held out to him.
"Down to business, I see."
His scarlet ribboned eyes widened at the sight of her shivering fist.
"No time for love, huh Dr. Jones?"
The hunger growled. The thought of a plastic palm tree impaled into his chest danced in her imagination.
"I...I...need..."
The words stumbled out of her lips, but was stopped by Brandon's fingertip on her nose.
"I know what you need, Zoe. Zoe the ghost, Zoe."
The finger began to trace the outline of her profile. Bile rose from the pit of her stomach. She wished for the sound of bullets and the splatter of his brains against the wall.
"But this isn't about what you need. This is about what I want and, baby, your money ain't one or the other."
He took a drag from his cigarette and, with his free hand, produced a small, off-white ball from the shadows of his blazer. Lyrical in his movements, he dangled the ball inches from her face, batting it on her chin ever so slightly before craning it down purposefully next to his zipper. He stared at her intensely, the ball between his ring and his pinky finger.
"We've known each other how long now?" he whispered, the sound snaked through the broken spines of wood and gaudily painted cardboard. "You already forgot how this works?"
His index finger and thumb calmly felt for the metal in his slacks. A moment of silence was shared before the snapping of the zipper's teeth ruined it.
The hunger held the controls firmly and without fail. It showed no signs of weakness. A cloud of smoke polluted her cheek bones, strands of it moved into her mouth. The hunger didn't care for chivalry. Its intentions were pure and true.
The room was still when Zoe's hand met Brandon's.
Winterville held its indifference when her hand disappeared into his shadow.
The second bell found her cold, formless, floating through the day empty, waiting for something that never arrived.
The third bell saw her head swimming, hiding between lockers, gasping at the memory of him inside her, cursing her willingness, her part in the disaster.
The fourth bell followed her as she ran through doors, through rooms, slicing between crowds and empty seats, dodging knowing glances and spiteful looks. She fled from one storm to another while chasing the contents of the plastic bag that earlier held the most important object in her life.
When the ringing stopped, there was a crash. It called no attention to itself. It caused no one to halt the trivialities of their daily routine to witness the birth of its wreckage. It was just two people outside a vacant lecture hall, a boy and a girl. The boy shaken and silent when he held out his hand to help the girl off the floor. There were no shouts or placement of blame or insincere apologies. Just a boy and a girl and the slipping off of dark glasses. A silence obscured by baited breath and the limp thud of a backpack hitting the ground.
Mouths became open, but no words were given freedom. Just a boy and a girl and a single tremor that pulsed between them.
It spoke to her with a sense of wonder and unadulterated amazement, a secret that should have been left a secret.
It said two words.
"Beautifully tragic."
That was how Zoe Ahern and Jack Street first met.
***
28.
"I didn't come here to apologize, tail tucked between my legs like some prodigal son begging to get back in your good graces. I'm my own man now. I do what I do of my own villition. I've grown too tall to fit under your thumb. Besides, we both know its far too late for stupid shit like that."
Rafferty stood underneath an open doorway, the light from the empty hallway cut around his frame. Back straight and chin up, he was a monolith only moving to place a cigarette on his lips. Covered in darkness, one could only make out the whites of his eyes and the bright red tip of his cigarette that flared upon each inhalation.
"I'm here," Rafferty continued, "to appeal to your sense of civic duty. I'm here to discuss your stance on pertinent issues, ones that have reach their boiling points. The major reason being that I've finally decided to take control of the kitchen."
On the other hemisphere of the room, a figure laughed a single booming eruption that touched every inch of wall, floor, and ceiling. It say indian style behind a ravaged couch surrounded by spent liquor bottles and a skyline of stacked books and torn take out boxes. Back bent leaning forward, its head bobbed slowly shaking loose long strands of unwashed hair from behind a pair of sweat encrusted ears. Dark drown and shoulder length, each fiber released a stench of decay, the aroma found strongest and most potent at its epicenter, the haphazard hub that held it into a ponytail.
When it spoke, its voice sounded like a long forgotten song played from a long forgotten radio.
"Charles, Charles, Charles. What has happened to make you sound so convince that I won't kill you where you stand?"
Aimed from cracked lips and fired from the barrel of a rangy, thick bearded jaw, the words hit their mark. Although the figure's voice told the story of every cigarette it smoked and every lie it told, it was the vials and lonely syringes spead all over the table that gave the most truthful and accurate account of its conception.
The collar of his blazer shifted slightly. The closest thing to a reaction that Rafferty allowed himself to show.
"Still with the idle threats," Rafferty answered. "You'd think old age would change a person. Maybe even for the better."
The figure smiled a genuine smile despite being engulfed by the blanket of its beard and was reminded of better days when such exchanges with Rafferty were commonplace and fueled purely by mutual respect and cock sure one-upsmanship. The days of Rafferty being around his orbit, the good old days.
"Thus us the folly of youth, Charles. When a child thinks that an old man's threats are just spoken and never planned. The folly of youth."
Rafferty fell silent. He watched glimpses of the figure's bare chest expand and contract when it chuckled under its breath. He discovered new shapes and colors on the pale landscape of its skin, new tattoos of ancient woodcuts and scenes from Japanese silk screens. The most jarring discovery was the canvas' lack of weight, the disappearance of muscle once proudly displayed on the abdomen and the carefully sculpted hip bones. The figure was a man he knew once, a loud man who most perceived to be born from greatness. A man who he believed to be a prophet.
Once, a long long time ago.
"You idea of youth is of it being brazen and foolhardy, ready to leap before realizing where its leaping to," Rafferty countered. "I'm not like that anymore, not like how you were my age."
The figure turned its neck to one side, cracking it, and turned back to reveal a map of sever angles and sunken cheeks when it happened upon a slice of light. It narrowed its eyes forming a stare that tore through Rafferty's being layer by layer, piece by piece. Just as it had the day Rafferty first arrived at Winterville.
"To me, you're an open book, Charles. The level of understanding we had can't be so easily forgotten, so however much you think you've grown or evolved isn't something you could just tell me and have me believe it. That's something that has to be shown, not told, and whatever it is you're trying to show I'm not seeing it. You're still the sam angry child I've always known you to be. Its just that this time, you have a better haircut."
The Winterville uniform tightened around Rafferty's body. His tie constricted around his neck. All he wanted to do was look away, but he didn't. He couldn't.
So a sneer curled around his lip.
"One chance," he stated. "A proposal, a gesture of respect from me to you. Things are going to start happening. You're either an ally or an obstacle, your choice. In all honesty, I don't want you to have to be collateral damage, but if thats what happens then I'm sure it won't be keeping me up nights. One chance. What's it going to be?"
The figure folded its hands together into a woven mass of painted black nails over which he laid his chin on.
"You're a born leader, Charles, but you cause will be the first to fall. You never learned from history, all you ever wanted to do is change it. Yours will be a spectacular fall even more than mine was. I'm going to let you disappear now, Charles. One last token from me to you. I suggest you take it."
Rafferty chuckled, relieved that the time for pleasantries were over, before he turned to leave.
The figure's voice followed him down the hall and out onto the streets.
"Oh and Charles. Please do tell Zoe hello for me."
Rafferty was never one for being haunted, but there's always a first time for everything.
"Goodbye, Jacob."
Rafferty uttered the name and with each passing step he became haunted more and more.
Jacob Byrnes was a prophet once.
A man wise beyond his years, glamorous in his eccentricities and heroic in his fervor.
Once.
That man disappeared a long time ago, only to be replaced by the rancid, pariah that no one in this world could have ever mistaken for being Jacob Byrnes. Jacob Byrnes was gone. The figure that Rafferty walked away from wasn't the man he knew. The figure that he left behind was a stranger. Just another casualty.
Jacob Byrnes was dead.
On his way back to Winterville, Rafferty had to make sure it stayed that way.
29.
Oxytocin was the fuel he burned to power the internal narrative in his head.
She shook, she was shaken. The collision was magnificent, spontaneous but extremely well-timed. Like a shooting star or an eclipse, coordinated serendipity. He wanted his blood on the floor. He finally had a reason to spill it.
Jack stood at attention, every molecule of his being searched for the one perfect position that would, without a doubt, exude cool. His mouth was open. Was it open? It may have been open. Would closing it be considered trying too hard? The gears in his brain shifted to second. He hoped against hope that she found it endearing.
"I...uh..."
He crumbled like a house of cards.
"Watch where you're going, jerk."
Zoe intended for the words to sound meaner, heavier, like a bomb from an overworked taxi driver's mouth. They came out weightless and delicate, notes from a melancholy string section. They curled gently from the corners of an unexpected grin.
She had eyes the color of glory. Her smile spoke the language of art and music. He was a mess littering the floor.
Jack nodded, eyes flirting with hers.
"Yeah...uh..sorry...I'm..."
Zoe chuckled and patted him on the shoulder as she began to walk past him.
"Sorry? Yeah, I got that."
He questioned the fight inside him. Would he let a person like her disappear into the ether that she was born from? Or would he stick his hand into the fire if for no other reason than to feel getting burned?
Three feet away and counting, Jack spun around with his arms raised, his last attempt to give chase.
"Hey! Zoe, right? Zoe Ahern?"
She was a compassionate soul. He could tell by the she stopped and graciously turned back to answer a poor boy's cries of desperation. He didn't deserve her pity. Her eyes told him that it was something she'd never offer him.
"Yeah," she shouted back. "You're Jack, right? Danyell's friend? Jack something?"
Dangling off the side of a building had nothing on this, Jack thought. Going to war with the city's up and coming drug traffickers couldn't hold a candle to it.
"Yeah, Jack Street! Weren't you in honors art with her last year?"
"Danyell? Yeah! Fourth period, Butcher! She ever come back?"
"Who?"
"Danyell!"
"Nah, she moved down south or something! Arizona, I think!"
"That sucks! She was really good!"
"Cause she painted with menstrual blood?"
Zoe giggled.
She's laughing! All he had to do was walk towards her.
"I thought you two were dating!"
What? No, wait!
"What? No! We were just friends!"
"Really? Could've fooled me!"
Convince her! Walk, you dumbfuck, walk!
"Nah, I was new so I guess she wanted to show me around! That's all, I swear!"
"Joking! Don't get so defensive!"
Fuck fuck fuck...
Jack groaned when he bent to pick up his backpack. It was an anchor as he tried to make his approach, both of his legs strained in traversing the length of hallway between them. Finally reaching his port in the storm, Jack dropped the anchor back into the sea.
There was no where else he'd rather be.
"Seriously, though. I didn't know anyone. She was practically my only friend."
Zoe's gaze turned to the backpack on the floor. It was a telling sign and to help state the obvious, she lightly kicked it twice with the tip of her sneaker.
"You must've been a nerd or something. Were you socially inept back then? Couldn't make any friends? Are you still like that now?"
"I was in track," Jack barbed back. "I still like comic books. Yeah, I must've been."
"But are you still like that now?"
"Maybe, but at least I'm trying."
Then silence, a perfect moment of silence.
The silence of understanding.
"What about you? Haven't seen you around in a while."
"Yeah, I guess," Zoe answered. "I've been trying to keep a low profile."
"That's cool. I feel that, but didn't you hang out with..."
Don't say it! Don't say it!
"Whatever! Who cares?! I'd rather not talk about him...THEM!"
"Sorry...so, what would you rather talk about then?"
Zoe chuckled and began to back pedal away from Jack.
"Photography, music, film, but I can't now. I got class."
He did all he could, yet she still retreats. Make her stay. Say something! Anything!
"But if you did want to talk again or whatever. I'm not gonna have to throw another door at you just to get you to stop am I?"
Zoe turned away to keep him from seeing her smirk.
"Would it freak you out if I said yeah?"
She waved at him before she disappeared into the stairwell. Jack held his breath and stared into the space she once occupied. The sound of her footsteps were all that remained.
For a girl like her, he'd have to try harder.
The second the thought passed, so did her footsteps. The void it created was suddenly filled by a voice, her voice, the melody of her tongue.
"Not too hard OK, Jack?"
Then the sound of her footsteps on stairs, remerging then fading away.
Naturally, he should've been confused, but he wasn't. It all seemed right, proper, and fitting. She was in his thoughts and that was that. It was as natural as a grown man in spandex hurtling through the skyline above and as mundane as kids staining the sidewalks with other kid's blood.
Jack heard Zoe's voice in his head and he was alright with that.
It was a phase that won't soon be likely to pass.
For a girl like her, I'll be an open book.
***
30.
On the night before the night to come, a storm began to gather.
Jack impatiently knocked on the hood of a suspicious '87 Cavalier curbed on the corner of Ontario and Wells, the first thunderclap.
He was answered by the loud, squeaking descent of the front passenger side window, crudely tinted for effect. A large column of smoke poured out of the tiny orifice and behind it sat a pair of bloodshot eyes tucked underneath a tilted Kangol brim. The eyes blinked once then narrowed its glare.
"The fuck you want, nigga?"
The threat, accompanied by the scent of week old marijuana, made Jack's eyes roll into its sockets.
"The four fifty you owe me, Luscious. Now open the fuck up!"
"Damn! Fucking hookers getting ruder and ruder everyday!"
Jack waited for the click of the locks unlatching before he climbed into the dingy, grimy wreck. Sliding his way on the ravaged, cigarette burnt upholstery, Jack was greeted by Marquis Walker in the driver's seat, Lil Rob to his right in the passenger seat, and Marquis' brother Angelo in the back. The Walker brothers, notorious for their proficiency in the high pick and roll, lived two flights above Lil Rob and were one of the more memorable denizens of Harmony. Born from the same circumstances, it was their resourcefulness that set them apart from the rest. Marquis, the elder of the two, has successfully marketed his brother, Angelo, as the all-world champion eating machine in all of Chicago. From drunken frat keggers to corporate sponsored events to neighborhood block parties, the Walker brothers conquered in events contests ranging from hot dog to pie to baby back ribs. Angelo "Gimme Some More" Walker, along with a roomful of cheap plastic trophies and gold painted medals, could usually be found boasting about the day Oscar Meyer offered to sponsor him in the fight against the Japanese at the World Championship of hot do eating. A dream that was scuttled, against his brother's wishes, purely because of the fact that Angelo preferred Hebrew Nationals. The betrayal, still left unforgiven to that day, was quickly answered by Marquis' recent foray into selling off brand diet medication from the trunk of their Cavalier.
"Sup, Jack," Maquis nodded from behind the wheel.
"Marquis," Jack nodded back. "How's business?"
"Stayin' live, money. You know how we do."
"Nice."
"You ever get bored, I got a position in the company poster bombing walls. I heard you're into shit like that now."
Jack laughed and patted Marquis on the shoulder.
"I'll keep it in mind."
"Whenever you want, money. Just holla at your boy."
"Groovy."
The labored throb of a grizzly bear's breathing next to him, Jack made a slow motion pan from one side of the car to the catching the blur of Lil Rob clipping Marquis on the shoulder.
"The fuck, nigga? I been asking you for a job! I thought you was full up?!"
"M'fucker, I am out! I ain't got room for lazy, cheese eatin' niggas like you!"
The front side rhetoric fading, Jack stopped to focus on the 324 pound goliath sitting quietly next to him. Fingers folded neatly on his lap, Angelo Walker's head bobbed contently to the beat that blasted from his headphones. comprised of mammoth slopes and complete serenity, the young Walker was the definition of the term gentle giant. Prone to long bouts of silence, Angelo Walker's every second of living has rarely ever crossed the boundaries of his inner calm. Jealous of his zen, Jack often imagined the day, the person, the moment that would trigger him into unleashing his fury. That'll be that the ground beneath them will shake like an earthquake ready to shatter the world.
With that, Jack tapped Angelo Walker on the shoulder.
"Hey, big man."
Eye lids fluttering, the pair of peaceful orbs turned to Jack and softened at the point of recognition.
"Jack."
The pair clasped hands and bumped shoulders. Space being an issue, Jack could only reach out for a nudge the middle of his arm and watched as the headphones were carefully seated next to the iPod that it was attached to.
"Haven't seen you in forever, Gimme. How you doing?"
"Cool, money. Stayin' live, you know."
"I hear, I hear. How's the iPod treating you? You digging it?"
"Oh f'show, money, f'show. Thanks for sending it over. You didn't have to, but I sure do appreciate it, know what I'm saying?"
"No problem. Glad to do it. Besides, you made me so much scratch after you rocked that Illinois lineman, you don't even know. Its the least I could do."
"Yeah. I remember that fool. I told him ribs was my thing, remember I told him that?"
"You told him that, Gimme. Yes you did."
Angelo's double chin danced when he nodded, but one's attention would always be directed to his sparkling porcelain teeth.
"Yup, I did. Nigga went to the hospital right after, too. I remember. Stupid ass bitch. Where he at now?"
"He signed with the Rams, Gimme."
"Dumb motherfucker couldn't even get with the Bears."
Angelo laughed his infectious laugh. Jack, caught trying to light a cigarette, couldn't help but join him.
They slapped hands two times to toast the nameless offensive lineman's signing.
"Yo yo yo," shouted Lil Rob. "Eyes up, bitches!"
The string of the night became taut as four pairs of eyes turned to the frost dappled windshield and to the street corner a block away where two flashy Hispanic kids congregated with a well dressed group of smokers under lamp light.
The second thunderclap.
Over Lil Rob's shoulder, Jack leaned in closer, eyes squinted, looking for a better view.
"That them?"
Marquis, arms draped over the wheel, rested his chin on his thumbs.
"That's them."
Lil Rob started to rub his chin.
"That's them, a'ight. They been moving all night. We got them clockin' outside Buddha Lounge when we was passing through. S'when we called you, money. Thought you should see these m'fuckers before you and Khalil do what you and Khalil gone do, y'heard? They must be working their way down to the towers. They prolly hit all the spots in the Loop already. Oh shit! There they go, look!"
Pointing to the scene, their collective gazes followed a path down Lil Rob's arm to the edge of his fingernail. Before the crowd dispersed, the Hispanic kids each performed three one handed passes to six of its members. Race, gender, creed, and occupation didn't stop them from their appointed rounds. From jacket pocket to palm to slap to shoulder bump and back to jacket pocket, they were quick and efficient. Anyone not paying close attention would've missed it completely, it took one of their own to witness and truly appreciate the subtlety of their performance.
From the back seat, Angelo shook his head.
"They're good."
Lil Rob, naturally, wasn't impressed.
"Whatever. Fucking kid moves. These niggas been doing them all m'fucking night. Hittin' the Buddha's one thing, every nigga on the block hits the Buddha, but these bitches...damn."
Not looking away from the corner, Jack finally lit his cigarette.
"Damn what? What's the damn for?"
Lil Rob flashed a look over his shoulder at Jack.
"Where you been, money? You even know where we are? See that spot behind them? That's the Spy Bar. Rich, well off cats like you is what that spot's all about. These m'fuckers are opening up their shit. S'like they after the whole city."
Marquis massaged his temple.
"Smart m'fuckers. They puttin' the taste out."
Lil Rob held his stare at Jack.
"You can't fuck this up, money. Whatever you m'fuckers do better fucking stick or we all fucked."
Jack turned and glared right back.
"You don't think I know that?! I fucking know that! What I don't know is what the fuck we're going to do now! Where's this Pastel fucker that everyone's so fucking keen on?!"
Three fourths of the car shuddered at the sound of the name. Lil Rob turned back to the corner.
"Nothing. We ain't seen him. Way I figure, we wait 'till they need to re-up, follow them, and they show us where they keep the shit at. Maybe even right to where their boss' hid at. Maybe both."
Business concluded, the Hispanic kids scrambled to cross the street. Four heads slowly tracked their movements, each one noting the eerie synchronicity of their feet hitting the sidewalk and their cell phones flipping open. Numbers were dialed and phones were planted firmly onto ears.
Out of the corner of his eye, a familiar face appeared under the street light of the recently vacated corner. The only one who turned back, Jack, for the life of him, could've sworn it was Ry...
"Oh shit!!!"
Time stopped. The moment became magnified. It passed as soon as Lil Rob's yelp turned back to silence. It was a ghost. It moved like a wraith or a vicious blanket of fog.
It wore a hooded sweatshirt.
It made no sound, outside of the loud crunch of the Hispanic kids' bodies slamming onto the concrete, but by that time it was gone. It made jaws drop and lit cigarettes fall helplessly onto stained back seats. It made situations change. It laid the best laid plans to waste.
Marquis Walker, Angelo Walker, and Lil Rob all turned to Jack.
They've never seen anyone or anything move the way it moved. They searched among each other for answers, directions, orders.
A sense of overpowering dread burrowed its way into Jack's chest. His blood turned to ice when he forced himself back to investigate the destruction.
It was on the tip of his tongue.
It wore a hooded sweatshirt.
It was the city's vengeance.
It wore a hooded sweatshirt and it stole the Hispanic kids' phones and jackets.
Jack didn't have to read anyone's mind.
All he needed were five words.
"Who the fuck was that?"
The last thunderclap.
Then came the rain.
( e n d o f p a r t f o u r )