Achilles inhaled deeply, and deeper still. And held it. Remember to breathe.
“Pretty-talking zigga like you, you know you got matching sheets and an old lady who don’t want to deal with this shit, who does not want to contend with these muchos problemos. I hope I’m not making your record skip. I admire the way you come after your kin. That’s righteous. It’s straight country. Too bad it’s probably a waste of time. Most of these cats end up ziplocked, on the shelf at the cop shop, or on the six-eight-ten. But I’ll keep my eyes open. We’ll talk again.” He smiled wide enough for Achilles to see that the jewels in his teeth spelled Devil Dog, a glint that in some circumstances was an invitation to a bullet, and shined brightly enough that with an ACOG sight, he could reach out and touch him from up to eight hundred meters away, at night.
“We will,” said Achilles, stepping away from the door. Ziplocked? He smiled, picturing the bastard’s grinning head as a ripe melon rolling off a high counter, as Merriweather liked to put it.
“Not even you want to ante up for this. For true.” Wexler even knew their names. Pepper was the man with the cornrows. The big man in the letter-man’s jacket was Cornelius. Even after hearing that Pepper knew his full name, Wexler remained calm, telling Achilles, “My grandmother used to say, ‘Even a crooked limb can cast a straight shadow when the sun is right, and ain’t no one with good sense won’t stand in that shade.’ The dealers do some good stuff around here. They keep people from breaking into cars and houses. It isn’t like there’s a lot of opportunities around here.”
As he spoke, he worked steadily, up on a ladder removing strips of crown moulding with the care of one peeling back a bandage. His movements economical and precise, he moved along the ceiling two inches, removed a nail, pried the moulding out a bit, moved down two more inches, removed a nail, and pried the moulding out a little bit more. Achilles had heard the term “dental moulding,” but only while watching Wexler did he realize that the notches indeed resembled teeth. Wexler said to himself, “Nope. Not a lot of jobs around here. Even the local laborers only get a few hours of work at a time, and they’re paid hot shit.”
For the past few months, Achilles had gophered part-time at Boudreaux’s law firm on Camp Street. He envied Wexler’s focus, that he had a job actually doing something, not running errands for his potential uncle-in-law; that his only coworkers were the day laborers that helped load lumber for a few hours every few days, not guys like Keller, who insisted on speaking to Achilles in slang. After the film Big Dog City was released, downtown came uptown, and the vernacular went mainstream. For the last few months at the office, Achilles had been haunted by underhanded references to drugs because the white-collar workers had started talking like rappers. “Hello” and “What’s up, man?” were replaced by a catalogue of hip phrases that they tossed around like enthusiastic tourists armed with a new phrase book.
They stopped sharing rides to lunch and started rolling to the joint. “Call me” became hit me on the hip. Achilles said, “Hello.” They said, What up, folk? If Achilles made the mistake of saying, “What’s up?” they said, You know how we do it. And when he stopped nodding and starting saying, “No, I don’t,” they laughed. And when he said, “No really, explain it to me,” they only laughed harder, Keller’s sharp cackles ricocheting around the law library like trapped birds. Only a few years older than Achilles, Keller was a prodigy, the newest partner, a shining star, so Achilles said nothing, not even when Keller’s favorite celebratory catchphrase became the Chapelle Show’s infamous Fuck your couch, Zigga.
It didn’t take long for the saying to catch on throughout the office (in Keller’s words, Hitting the corners faster than a paralegal afraid of being fired). After a fruitful deposition, once the deposed was out of earshot and the recording equipment powered down: Fuck your couch, Zigga! After hanging up with the DA’s office: Fuck your couch, Zigga! After a successful court appearance, the young turks charged into the building like linebackers into the locker room, ties loose instead of helmets off, doing everything except patting each other on the ass, yelling, in harmony: Fuck your couch, Zigga!
He imagined them trying that at Kikkin Chikkin, but he never mentioned any of it to Ines. Where would he begin without appearing accusatory and ungrateful? How could he explain the problem without inviting Keller or someone else to ask, “Why can’t we use zigga if you can?” Never mind that Achilles had only used it once; he was indicted by every black person who used it routinely, and he had no logical answer for why his white coworkers and bosses shouldn’t use it except that it made him uncomfortable. But how could he explain that without sounding like he was whining? How could he explain it without Ines thinking he wasn’t man enough to handle himself? Then there was always the chance that she might go off the chain about it, fly down there for an emotional drive-by and leave Achilles feeling like a child, when he was no one’s victim, no crybaby, no snitch.
Besides, it’s not like they knew he heard them making those jokes behind closed doors. And he liked some aspects of the job. He enjoyed going to the courthouse to look up deeds and delivering documents. It was easy work, and he liked the uniform. Maybe Wexler was smart to work alone, but in the army no one did anything alone; they operated as a team, a group, a collective, a brotherhood, and there was security in knowing your team had your back, that even if they wouldn’t die for you, they wanted to live badly enough to return fire. So you forgave them every other deficiency, because man knows no trait more valuable than loyalty. He knew Wexler was loyal, but his rant about drug dealers having no other options was ridiculous. Even Ines didn’t think that. They should be lined up and shot! she always said. “That’s the dumbest fucking thing I ever heard you say. Poor drug dealers can’t get a job. What the fuck?” barked Achilles.
Sighing, Wexler moved along the ceiling two inches, removed a nail, pried the moulding out a bit, moved down two more inches, removed a nail, and pried the moulding out a little bit more. He stuck his finger in one of the many holes in the wall and ripped off a strip of wallpaper. “I know you’re thinking, ‘Why not just tear it down? Why not tear it all down?’” Wexler tapped his temple with his finger and said, “But people like old houses. When it’s put back together, this will be better than anything new you can buy, because they don’t make this stuff anymore.” Wexler set down his hammer and crowbar and glanced around the room with a smile. “This is history. Do you know how many people it took to put this together? And it was hard work back then. Manually operated drills. No such thing as nail guns. If you knock it all down, you’ll lose the good with the bad. And there’s a lot of good that went into this house, too. Can’t just come in and say you’re going to knock out a busted wall. Whole thing might cave in on you.”