Just relax.
Put your head down.
Iron fingers mine for the diamond in his ear. Hey, he warns. Be careful. That diamond cost me … Iron fingers squeeze his throat and crush the words. He chokes. Voices spin above him. He feels caressing fingers on his back—whose? — strokes of bird feather. Easy, boy. Calm down. His hands move rakelike in Gracie’s plush living-room carpet. I said calm down. The anchor lowers. Two steel loops snap click and lock around his wrists. (He hears them, he feels them, but does not see.) Spikelike leaves rise high above him from the coffee table (ancient, he has always known it) — supported by four squat curved legs, wooden ice-cream swirls — above but close enough for him to make out small red-and-green buds. Wait, he says. I’m money. The two cops work on the pulleys of his arms — he is heavy with Porsha’s cooking and the coin of life — drawing them, lifting him high above the carpet, table legs, table, plant pot (glossy green paper), the spiked leaves — bright red on the front side, but colorless on the reverse; veined and tissue-thin, lizard skin (Dogma the chameleon) — and small red-and-green buds, small planets from his height, small planets dissolving in distance. In his fury, he melts into his deep essential life, hard and heavy, a red stone, a fossilized apple. Gravity. The cops raise their nightsticks like black trees. Don’t give us any trouble. He fights the anger shooting through his stomach. The door flies (or hands shove it) open. The two cops, Jack and Jill, thunder down three nightmare hills of stairs. A blast of winter wind, a cold wind whipped up by Tar Lake. His tongue covers, blankets his teeth against the chill.
Jack looks him in the face.
He smiles. Can’t break me. Smiles. Gravity. Or frowns. His face is so cold he isn’t sure. His red eyes shove two fossilized apples into Jack’s teeth. Jack yanks down on the cuffs. Get in. He ducks his head under the siren roof and squeezes into the low ride. The engine squeals into life like a slaughtered pig. A thin rapid shimmer of exhaust and the cool wind of motion. Sweat cools out of him. His wrists itch raw with the rub of the handcuffs. He gazes through the wedges of mesh partition that separates him from Jack and Jill. Studies the back of their two capped heads. Then he sees a face in the rearview mirror. Bitten by sin, Gracie said. Bitten by sin. Two wild eyes burning in the darkness. Yet, man is born into trouble, as the sparks fly upward. The car takes a heavy curve. He shuts his eyes. Circular momentum.
He flutters up through the roof into the domed siren, red light spiraling through his veins. Springs out into wet darkness. Flares, flame to sky. Shines. Settles.
A particle of light enters his cell. Spreads like spilled ink on paper. He feels a flutter in his spine, his back, his shoulder blades. Peels away from the floor and starts to rise. White. Cold. Weightless.
Distance steadily shortens between himself and the light’s point of origin. He discovers that he is actually part of the light, caught, a red worm on a bright line.
THE SKY MOVED IN WINDOWS. Windows without screens. Lean forward and look out and feel you are peeking over a mountain’s edge. Jesus was thankful they were shut on this hot day. He stood very still. Here, one might stand forever and watch the world go by. Cars zooming across the highway. Birds circling above boats bobbing on the river (one of twelve). And the river itself reaching away into the horizon’s gaze.
I said Buildin One.
No, you didn’t. You said first building.
Same thing.
No. Big difference. Jesus turned and surveyed the cramped, narrow room. Ancient walls that had seen no paint for decades. Mushroom-shaped water stains. Exposed heating pipes dripping like a runny nose. He suddenly felt he was submerged, in a submarine.
Make yourself comfortable. No Face was kicked back against the couch, his feet on the coffee table, his shoe heels run-over, completely flat. His one eye followed Jesus’s every move like a surveillance camera. He was as tall as Jesus — Jesus hadn’t noticed this the night before — but all muscle, the legs and arms of his red jumpsuit swelling like pressurized pipes. He had groomed the previous night’s mustache into a fine streak of soot.
Jesus flopped down on the love seat.
Where you park?
I didn’t.
What?
I took the train.
You ain’t drive?
Jesus looked at him, hard.
Yeah, No Face said. What am I thinking about? Fine car like that. Round here.
A single stream of sunlight, bothered by flecks of dust, flooded the room. Spread a bright patch like a tablecloth in the middle of the floor. Jesus squinted at the stark whiteness. Shadows spotted the walls.
Nice earring.
Jesus fingered his diamond stud.
Where you cop?
Downtown. At the Underground.
My nigga. No cheap stuff.
Word. You’ll get one too. Look in the Cracker Jack box. Save your prizes.
What?
A woman entered the room from a box-sized kitchen. Like his cousin Porsha in age — late twenties — but not in appearance. Black and skinny. Legs thin as wineglass stems. I can’t dick nothing skinny. Ah, No Face’s mamma. A legend. Word had it, she once coldcocked a Disciple with her Bible and saved No Face from getting smoked.
This is Jesus.
The woman looked at him.
Boy, where yo manners? Lula Mae said. Can’t you speak? Cat got yo tongue?
No, ma’m.
Lower yo eyes. Don’t look at me like that. I’ll slap that frown off yo face. Gracie may stand fo some sass but I won’t.
We bout to handle our business, No Face said. Take them over to Mamma Henry or Mamma Carrie. No Face talked with a nervous, jerky flow of words. Take yoself too.
She looked at him for a moment. Soon as I get them ready.
Well, don’t take all damn day. Stay in the kitchen til yall ready. Me and Jesus need some privacy.
She sailed out of the room and, once in the kitchen, shuffled across the linoleum in red cloth slippers, moving cautiously as if she didn’t know her way around.
Who those mammas you mentioned?
Just these two old bitches that babysit them crumb snatchers sometimes.
Jesus could see No Face’s mother through the kitchen door, washing the face of a little boy. Several breadboxes lined up like shoes along the counter.
Yeah, these BDs ran a train on her daughter and threw her off the roof.
Jesus looked at No Face.
Mamma Henry. Threw her daughter off Buildin Three. I sexed with her.
Who, Mamma Henry?
No Face looked at Jesus. Funny. Real funny. It’s all good though. No Face grinned.
Jesus watched the woman. Where yo daddy?
Something flitted across No Face’s mouth, jaws. He handlin his business.
In the kitchen, the mother extended a white plastic teacup to the boy. Go see if Mr. Lipton can put me a lil dish soap in this cup.
The boy headed out the door without a word.
Damn, that’s how yall do it in the jets? Give and borrow soap?
It’s cool. See—
Yall that po?
No Face’s one eye widened, shocked, trying to see if Jesus had truly insulted him. You don’t know me from Adam.
Yall some real country niggas — Jesus shook his head. Country. Thinking: Country like Lula Mae, who always buy that thick nasty syrup. Mole asses. He and Hatch wouldn’t touch it. Too thick. Mud. So Lula Mae would give Jesus a coffee cup. Go ask Miss Bee for some syrup. Say please. And he’d go get a cup of thin buttery Log Cabin syrup and share it with Hatch.
A knock on the door. The mother hurried from the kitchen to answer it. A little girl, about six or seven. My mamma, she say can you give her some sugar.