"That so?"
"He's a ghetto nihilist. Life don't mean anything to him. Any of them. They got no reason to value it… Now they done gone and killed somebody. Part of them dead too."
"You ought to become a philosopher."
"I got nothing out here and I'm too old to start over."
"I ain't mad at you. It's a color thing, I got that," Lee said.
"You're my forty acres and a jackass," Cantrell said.
"I'm trying to relate to you… my brother. And all you got for me is names. It ain't your fault some politicians need to feel better about their beaner nannies and gardeners and decide to force a rainbow coalition on your behalf."
Life pressed in on Garlan from all sides. Everywhere he turned, there were crossroads, each folding in on itself like a Gordian knot. In charge of a few knuckleheads, overseeing a corner or two, he enjoyed a comfortable spot with Dred. A little money coming through, set him up nice. Some wheels too, though he had to ditch them with Five-O on the hunt for them. But a car could be replaced; freedom couldn't. And he had no interest in being locked up.
All the death haunted him, however. Each body a new weight on his conscience and it wasn't as if he had nothing but time to pass in a prison yard. He knew Rok from back in the day, but he got caught up in that Colvin mess and being between a player like Colvin and Dred and King was a bad place to find oneself in.
Then Noles and Melle and that business with the little girl. That kind of drama would have po-po in his Kool-Aid forever or until they found someone to put it on. Catch a young black buck like The Boars, get him in the back seat of a sheriff's car, and he get mysteriously shot with them claiming suicide or some shit. Po-po notwithstanding, the hood was hot, jumping with pissed-off Mexicans and brothers alike. Shit, it was barely safe to walk down the street of his own hood.
Which was how he found himself in Broad Ripple. On a Thursday night, the strip hopped as college kids crawled from bar to bar in a press of bodies and a good-time vibe. The lights of the Vogue flashed with a spotlight's glare. Live bands came through on a regular basis: Madonna's Abortion, The Chosen Few, Saving Abel, The Why Store. Nothing Garlan would every listen to. Every so often some old school hip-hop he could get with would come through: Rakim, De La Soul, Method Man, Redman, Cypress Hill. Tonight was some wannabe heavy metal band, so he kept stepping, pushing past the crowd of folks milling about out front. The young college-age kids without sense enough to recognize a shark in their midst or not wanting to appear racist by profiling him. Not wanting any drama, he cruised through them without even bothering to flex his game face.
An old man danced on the corner across the street. Drunk. Homeless. People walked by as if they couldn't see him. Garlan crossed the street and put three dollars in his cup. It would go to whatever cheap booze wafted off him at that moment, but Garlan wasn't going to deny the man a taste. Whatever got him through the night.
Melle was dead. Naptown Red. Fathead. Prez. The bodies kept stacking up all under his watch. He was supposed to look out for them. Hunters were on the prowl. Too many hunters and a thinning school of prey.
And Garlan had the distinct impression that he was prey.
Nature's dark opera played unabated. The frightful melody of the rain combined with the mournful wail of the wind to tear through the trees. Lightning scampered all around, chasing some unseen prey, the radiance of the full moon shining vividly through the oppressively low clouds. The thunder roared with its terrible echo. Garlan swore that it was less than a mile that he'd walked, yet it seemed interminable. Or maybe it was the silence that lengthened the trip. Turning north up College Avenue, he walked away from the main strip of Broad Ripple Avenue, away from the lights, until he got to the bridge that crossed the canal. Way he heard it, way back in the day, folks who lived in downtown Indianapolis used to build their summer homes in Broad Ripple. Large show-off houses with lots of rooms and windows. And there used to be an amusement park, like Coney Island, along the canal. Though the rides burnt down, the city kept the park. Lots of folks hung out at the bridge.
Garlan scrabbled over the edge of the limegreen girders of the bridge out of view of the patrolling officers, and landed in the dirt. Usually the bridge thrummed with activity. Bridge kids, the kind of folks Garlan would have no trouble blending in with. Most of them were rich white kids from the suburbs, Carmel, Noblesville, Fishers, singing that "My parents don't understand me" song while driving their daddy's BMW back and forth. Others were skateboarders. A few punks. Goths. B-boys. Some were hoppers, folks who followed the train lines cross-country. And on Thursday nights it should have been bumping. But it was deserted. The lights of Broad Ripple filled the sky above him, but didn't seem to cut through the shadows under the bridge. It was just Garlan and his ghosts.
"It all catches up to you after a while," a voice said from the shadows.
"Who that is?"
"It's just me." Baylon shuffled toward him.
"What you need?" Garlan balled his hand, but kept it at his side. He didn't find Baylon's presence especially reassuring.
"You."
"What you want with me? Dred need me to come in? He could've hit me up on my cell. He didn't need to send-"
"His errand boy?"
"I wasn't going to say that," much as he believed it. "Much respect."
"You underestimate your value. You Dred's number-one dude. His new number one."
"I don't know about all that." Though the thought did please him.
"A dog always returns to his master, especially when his master needs him most. Between Black, Dred, King, and the police, it's been hard out here for Dred's lieutenants. You his last one. The rest are gone or preoccupied. Soon it will just be a cozy little gathering. But… what to do about you?"
Baylon lunged toward him just as Garlan turned his ring and disappeared. Garlan threw himself against the concrete embankment, evading the initial grasp. He turned to kick him. Garlan tried to brace himself as much as possible. With all the strength he awkwardly managed, he stomped.
Baylon barely flinched, but the impact pushed him toward the river's edge. He couldn't hear above the roar or the current. Landing on his back, mired in the mud of a puddle, he locked eyes on Garlan. His heart pounded in his head. His mind, however, focused with clarity at the task at hand, detached, like he was playing a video game. Baylon's piercing howl cut through the noise of the storm.
Garlan bumped against a barbed-wire fence. He cursed the Private Property — No Trespassing sign that swung wildly in the wind. He scanned for a weapon of some sort. A discarded piece of rebar was jammed between some concrete debris at the base of the bridge, but it meant rushing past Baylon to get it. The rain dumped down in sheets, creating a haze over the water against the lights overhead.
Baylon slowed as he realized he had cornered himself. Garlan edged along the fence, never turning from Baylon, his hands feeling for any break in the fence. His pupils dilated, thick blood vessels wrapping his eyes like jealous lovers. Leaves crunched and twigs snapped underfoot with each lumbering step, his feet sliding in the thickening mud.
Baylon's stride stiffened, each step requiring that much more effort. His laborious breathing sounded like wind tunnels. The mud by the fence bulged then oozed forward as if something plopped in it. Rain outlined the shadow of a figure. Baylon stiffened his hands. Without warning, he dashed forward and drove his fist through the center mass of the rain-occluded wisp. Blood sprayed the bridge embankment.
Garlan faded back into view as his pulse lessened, the last beats of his heart bringing him into full view. Baylon grabbed Garlan's hand and slipped the ring from it. Placing it in the center of his palm, he examined it. Then he flicked it into the air, caught, and pocketed it before police came to investigate the scuffle.