He jets to his red Jaguar. Melts into it. Sits a moment, his clothes slippery, puddling on the red leather seat. Beyond the glassed-and-metaled outsides, the rain falls light now, spaced, fine and fresh. He teases the engine into life, and it purrs like a zoo cat house. The liquid world dissolves under the wipers’ squeaky swath. Forms again, dissolves. He eases the car into the street. Works up speed. Streetlamps run in two straight lines. The g ride runs silk patterns in the rain. A rooster tail of water arcs behind.
The rain shuts off. He kills the wipers. The world looms close. A star-blanched night. The heavens wheel and march overhead. The road flies past in the cold glitter of the moon.
He poplocks out of the g ride into a wet, cold, shining world. The street shimmers and swims beneath the streetlamps. The rain has washed the air clean. He inhales deeply, savoring the taste. Pure breath.
Inside the store, he shakes off rain like a bird. His hands blunder upon the counter, shedding coins. He tries to pick them up, but they run and jump from his fingers. He feels the counter edge against his stomach. His hands return the last coins to his pocket.
The slant-eyed slope — gooks, John called them, gooks — opens his mouth in disbelief. Toothless. His gums loom red. A flame opens in Jesus’s stomach. Swells through his blood and makes all his muscles loose and warm. Something kicks him in the back of the head. The slope’s face spills into red dots.
YOU LOOK LIGHT, Jesus said. He surveyed the apartment. I’m gon help you change the weight of your pockets.
What you mean?
Change yo cents to centuries.
Huh?
Damn you stupid.
No Face looked blank, an empty gun.
We can hang.
No Face raised his head. Thought you said you don’t represent?
I don’t.
Then—
We can hang.
No Face fed on silence. Really? The eye watched Jesus in disbelief.
Yeah.
You jus sayin that.
Really.
Really?
Yeah.
And we can hang?
Yeah.
Really?
Straight up.
On the for real?
For real.
In one movement, No Face bounded out of his seat and dropped down like a shoe salesman before Jesus’s feet. Thank you.
Hey!
Thank you. His tongue dripped hot saliva on Jesus’s canvas kicks.
Just relax, Jesus said, feeling saliva seep through shoes, socks, between his toes.
Thank you.
Hey!
Thank you. No Face sat there panting at Jesus’s feet.
Hey! Stop actin like a lil bitch.
Still on his knees, No Face raised his head, eye and patch studying Jesus’s face. When we roll?
I should kick yo teeth out, Jesus said.
Sorry.
Damn.
When we roll?
We don’t, Jesus said.
What?
I’m at another level.
Tell me about it.
What’s to tell. It’s a twenty-four-seven thing.
What?
Nigga, get off yo knees.
He did.
Find a seat.
He did.
Kick back.
He did.
It’s like this. Everything you do parlays into the next day. All yo life. And that’s the jacket you got to wear. Forever.
No Face looked at him, face slack.
Forget it.
No Face watched with his single eye.
Forget it. Just relax. Kick back.
No Face put a big glass pipe on the table. Jesus couldn’t tell what it was shaped in imitation of, a trumpet, a rocket, or a dick.
Beam me up, Scotty.
Where your father? Jesus really wanted to know.
Ain’t you already asked me that?
Ask you again.
No Face looked at him. He gone to work.
Jesus took off his shoes and removed the hot, wet socks. He put the socks inside the shoes and placed them neatly in front of him.
Turn off the lights.
No Face did.
Now close the shades.
Why?
Jesus looked at him.
No Face rushed over to the shades, snapped them down one after the other. Know any stories? Word, I heard you can tell some good lies. Tell me one.
Tell you bout the time yo mamma sucked my dick.
Hey, can’t you stop talkin bout my mamma? Show me some respect.
Jesus didn’t say anything for a moment. Then he told a lie about the nigga who could catch his own farts, the only story he could remember at the moment. No Face laughed all the while, uncontrollably, twisting and shaking, slapping his knees.
Know any more?
Jesus thought about it. Should he tell one of John’s war stories? See, West-side was tired of humping. So he shot himself in the foot. One problem. The bullet ricocheted off his anklebone and hit him square in the forehead. Wait, that was one of Lucifer’s stories. The one or two he told. John told this: Water. We wanted water. Our feet was burnin after all that humpin. So we was beaucoup happy when we saw the resupply choppers flyin in. Beaucoup happy when we saw those choppers drop us down some buckets, some buckets of what we knew was some good cool water after a long thirsty hump. So we hurried up and opened one bucket and another and another. Fuck. Ice cream. Those lifers had brought us buckets of ice cream. Can you believe that? So we took off our boots and started stompin marchin in that ice cream. Humpin all over again. No.
Come on.
I said I don’t know any mo. Damn.
No Face went silent.
Jesus blew the trumpet. It hissed. Light began to glow in his chest, particles of smoke creeping outward through his bloodstream, penetrating muscles and bones, washing his stomach hollow, his whole body slipping inside it, a pit where heat and light coiled around him, a nest of snakes.
He closed his eyes.
THE AIR CONDITIONER HUMMED like a speeding train, you snug in the bed under a winter blanket, staring at the ceiling, which seemed strangely close. You heard the creaking of Lula Mae’s sleeping bones from across the hall. Smelled her odor (Ben-Gay). Took stock of the day’s wrongs. Wrongs inside of wrongs, this onion that you peeled from one layer of stink to another, from one eye-watering sight to another. Each wrong deed joined like stones on a path.
Hatch?
What?
You sleep?
Sound like I’m sleep?
Lula Mae mean.
Yeah.
Real mean.
Yeah.
Let’s fix her.
How?
We gon walk home.
Kinda far, ain’t it?
A million miles.
Oh.
We can make it.
You sure?
Positive.
Okay.
You packed your bags, you and Hatch. Moved ghost-silent through the house, sensing the presence of the attic far above — the roof slanting inward with the pitch of the rafters. You unlocked the front door — it always stuck when you tried to open it; the rusty hinges were informants — and moved out into the black reaches of night. You stood on the front porch, where a yellow light burned — a swarm of insects — and saw a world in full bloom. The sky like a dark open flower. A full-eyed moon. The sound of covert crickets. And the short, discontinuous fire of lightning bugs. When they hold they breath, Hatch said, they fire come on. When they blow it out, they fire go off. Heat. Yes, even the nights were hot in West Memphis. Dark forgot its connection to cool. You waded out into the night, waded, then dolphin-leaped the fence, a red arc of light. Damn! Hatch said. He lifted the silver cuff that latched gate to post. You waded. Hands jammed in your pockets, head thrust forward, you scowled down the empty road. Stepped onto the red noisy gravel. Luggage dragged you to the corner. Dragged too by the pulley of a fresh act.