He and Hatch were close then, the very name Hatch as familiar and comforting as his own. They were related by blood, and though they differed in shade — he as yellow as sunlight on an open field, and Hatch, evening shadow — he could see in his cousin some trace of his grandmother’s appearance. Kin in will and act. Cutting the fool with John. John, bet you can’t catch us! John chased them round and round the courtyard, them running on three-, four-, five-, six-year-old legs, their screams lifting from the mouth of the copper-filled fountain. You boys scream like girls! John said, chasing them, but actually restraining himself, moving slow, cause his short bulldog legs contained a terrible momentum, the blurred speed of hot pistons. Close then. Double-teaming John on the basketball court. (John always won.) Cutting the fool in church, propelling their farts with paper fans. Or pitching and batting in the living room with a broom handle and a rolled-up pair of socks. And basketball with a bath sponge and lampshades for hoops. Standing tall in the swings, the chains tight in the tunnels of their hands, pumping their legs and knees, carrying the swings in arcs above the ground, slanting into the sky, the chains shaking and creaking. Pedaling their bikes with slim strong ankles, pedaling, fast eggbeaters, guiding the bikes zigzag through the streets, wind whistling past the ears, drawing back on the handlebars, like cowboys pulling back on reins, balancing their bikes, and the front wheel rising for the wheelie, a cobra raised and ready to strike, and the two of you rode the snake for a half block or more. And in quieter moments, doctoring the broken wings of dragonflies with Band-Aids or cutting the lights from fireflies with a Popsicle stick and saving the sparkling treasure in a mason jar. Driving down to Decatur, the speed of flight, fields of cornstalks bent like singers over microphones, the sun sinking into the fields like spilled wine, and the headlights stabbing through the darkness, and scattered trailers like discarded metal cartridges, where John bought Buddha—weed, he called it — from white trash.
Your seventh birthday John stormed out the front door, you and Hatch two in kind, seated in a high-backed chair, clutching the armrests, Dogma the chameleon — confused about color — caged in plastic across your shared laps, and Gracie — the woman you know as mother, the woman who grunted you into this world — holding her massive Bible at her side, weight that anchored her, kept her from being swept away.
Every hair on your head is counted, she said. Each strand has a name.
Well, John said. You ain’t got to worry. I ain’t coming back. He let the door close.
Without hesitation Gracie turned from the shut door and slipped into the spell of habit. Bathe, put on her perfumed gown, rub Vaseline under her nose, grease the skin above her upper lip, lotion her body for the motions of love, cook John’s favorite meal, salmon or trout, place the food beneath two glowing steel dishes for warmth, then retire — her small hesitant walk, steps of a little bird — to her bedroom rocking chair before an open window overlooking Tar Lake, her Bible open on her lap, and patient as a fisherman, waiting for her John to arrive with his Cadillac ways. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. Rocking robin, rocking robin, beak-hungry for the spermal worm. Come moonlight, John bounds through the door, and a burning awakens her, wine color brightens her black berry face. John leaves quiet as dew the next morning, and she returns to her rocking chair.
JESUS HEARD A SOUND, corn popping over an open fire. Hooded niggas circled a corner, drinking from a swollen paper bag.
What up, homes?
What up. He measured his words. He didn’t look into the cave of the hood.
Want some? A hand extended the paper bag out to him.
No, thanks.
Yo, g. You kinda tall, ain’t you?
You shoot hoop?
Yo, black. Kinda red, ain’t you?
Funny-lookin muddafudda.
Blood-colored.
Three quick full steps took him beyond the voices’ range. A can rolled down the gutter, its source of locomotion invisible. Red Hook shoved his head back — as if tilted for a barber’s razor, straining the neck. Red Hook. Twelve buildings, each twenty-six stories high, a red path of brick thrusting skyward, poking the clouds, bleeding them. Each building a planet in configuration with the next, a galaxy of colors. Sharp structural edges challenged anyone who entered. Word, heard stories about project niggas throwing bikes on unsuspecting passersby. And sure-eyed snipers who could catch you in the open chances of their sight. Can’t miss me. A tall nigga like me stand out. And red too.
Jesus spit, saw the thought rise and fall. Above him, birds cried. He lifted his face to the sky — black specks of birds high above the buildings, their cries changing in pitch as they shifted in direction — and let it crush him. The sun was almost blinding. Thick clouds of black smoke, a ship’s smokestack puffing up from the buildings. Word, used to be able to drop yo garbage in the incinerator. Every floor had one. Til people started stuffing their babies down wit the garbage. The shiny brick more like tile. A scorched dog black-snarled from the wall. In a rainbow of colors, weighted words screamed. Too much of it, lines and colors running together, a mess of messages. Inside a sickle, a half-moon, letters darkened and deformed, scrawled in a giant’s hand: BIRDLEG WE REMEMBER.
Birdleg? Jesus inhaled the word into his lungs. Fact? Fable? Ghost? Memory was so deep as to silence his footsteps. Somewhere here was an honoring presence. Jesus felt it at his back. Shit, Red Hook! The jets! You can get caught in the middle of something. Rival crews. But he refused to allow this possibility to slow him. If it’s gon happen, it’s gon happen. His shadow swooped high and huge above him.
He entered a vestibule the size of a bathroom. Felt it, more than saw it. A cramped doghouse of shadows. Every vestibule inch quilted with more rainbow-strands of words. Bare shattered floors. Long rows of metallic mailboxes, most broken and open like teeth in serious need of dental work. And bottled-up summer heat. A metal stairwell rigged up and out of sight. Metal stairs? A broken escalator? Word, stairwells often carried fire throughout an entire building. Jesus knew. Stairwells are chimneys. Up ahead, the elevator caved. Word, in the jets, elevator motors were mounted on each building’s outside, victim to vandals and weather. What if the elevator stopped between floors, caught in midair, like a defective yo-yo? What if flame climbed the yo-yo string? Are elevators chimneys too? Jesus entered. A hard aroma of piss. He pushed the button for seven.
DOORS SHUT. Pulleys groan into motion. Cables whine. Tug at the muscles of his legs and belly. Rust metal walls compress on him. He extends his arms scarecrow fashion, the walls in-moving as the car rises, and water rising inside him, cold, making him swell. He shuts his eyes.
Black weight drops like an anchor and knocks him flat.