I’ll bring some. I’m fin to come see her.
Who that? Jesus said.
My sister.
Yo sister?
My play sister.
The mother stepped back into the room, one hand on the shoulder of each child. She looked at Jesus. Looked at No Face, expectant.
Go now, No Face said. Later, I make you straight.
She opened the door with no change of expression.
Nice mamma you got, Jesus said.
No Face looked at him, face working, as if trying to decipher Jesus’s statement.
The doings of No Face’s life circulated all over the city like the sewers. Everybody knew how No Face the Thief ran with a Stonewall unit, Keylo and Freeze, way way on the wild west side of South Lincoln. A coupla ole niggas — well, not real ole, late twenties — two jacks who always kept an inch beyond reach of the law’s long arms. When they got high or bored, they would flip on him, take turns beating his ass, further damage to his already ruinous anatomy.
Where yo play daddy?
No Face looked at Jesus. He at work.
What bout yo smoked-out sister who suck dicks?
Ain’t my sister. A slender thread of something in his voice.
I heard—
I don’t care what you heard.
Jesus saw something in No Face’s one good eye.
I ain’t got no sister like that. You don’t know me from Adam.
Whatever. Anyway, a blow job don’t mean blow.
No Face tried to adjust his eye patch, fingers thick with anger. Tell you who my daddy is. My real daddy.
Who?
No Face was blank.
Where yo real daddy?
I already told you.
Tell me again.
Where yours?
Nigga, I ain’t the one who frontin.
Who say I’m frontin?
Then what you doin hangin out in Stonewall?
Another stretch of silence. Aw, man. You don’t know me from Adam. Those my peeps. Where you come from?
From out my mamma’s ass.
What?
A round smelly hole.
No Face chuckled. You got to be somebody. Ain’t nobody born naked. People.
People? We all People round here.
Jesus watched No Face hard. Nigga, you ain’t no—
Why you always be wearin red? Who you represent?
Myself.
Yourself?
Jesus nodded.
It’s like this. If you stand for something, you should show it.
Jesus said nothing.
You got to represent something.
The words sounded across the entire length of Jesus’s mind. Jesus red-rolled up one sleeve and revealed two lines of scars running up his forearm.
No Face cleared his throat with a scratch of sound. How’d you—
A Roman shanked me.
Man! No Face’s eyes traveled the length of the scar. Look like a railroad.
Check it. Jesus nodded. See, you up here doin all this frontin at Stonewall, but I learned from the source.
What source?
You know.
Tell me about it.
Jesus thought hard and fast, brain working. Bright wings fluttered in his dark mind. Birdleg, he said. I used to roll with Birdleg.
Birdleg?
That’s right.
Who—
Birdleg.
No Face thought a moment. Jesus’s bald head gleamed in the room like a bright egg. What he learn you?
Listen and learn. Jesus repeated the words from memory. Learn to listen. More will be revealed in the end.
What?
Birdleg. The source.
Then, you got to represent something.
I told you — Jesus rolled down his sleeve and covered the scars — myself.
You selfish.
It ain’t like that.
How it like then?
See—
Even T-Bone represent.
That crippled motherfucka, Jesus said. He pictured T-Bone. Wide bodybuilder torso and slim ballerina legs, riding a wheelchair like a Cadillac in Union Station, patrolling the platform, digging in the scene, racing the subway trains. Word, everybody knew T-Bone. Kickin up dust in his wheelchair, crippled but still kickin it.
Yeah, but he got more heart than some niggas wit three good legs. He ain’t sorry bout what happened to him. I was there when it happened, No Face said, proudly, chest puffed out. See, it’s like this. We had jus jacked that Jew, Fineberg.
You was in on that?
Yeah.
Jesus looked at him. I see. He tryin to bullshit the bullshitter. And once I caught one this big — Jesus held a fabled fish in his parted hands.
No, straight up. You don’t know me from Adam. We had just changed that Jew, Goldberg—
Thought you said Fineberg?
Naw. You said that.
Nigga—
Like I said, we change that Goldfine Jew, then we get on the train and this crazy white man, this other Jew-lookin muddafudda, pull out his gat and start shootin at us. Jus like that. So I pull out my shit. I’m like — No Face rises to demonstrate — Boom boom boom. No mercy. And—
Nigga, you weren’t even there.
No Face retakes his seat. How you know?
I know.
See, that how I lost my eye. I had the long demonstration like this. No Face took a sniper’s pose. Then I went Boom boom boom and hot oil popped in my eye. No Face raised the patch and used two fingers to open the eye socket like a clam.
Jesus peered into the gray-pink insides. Nigga, that’s disgustin. Why don’t you get a glass eye or somephun.
No Face laughed. Stick yo finger in.
Make a nigga wanna throw up.
Go head. Stick yo finger in.
Jesus shook his head.
See, I’m down fo the hood.
Nigga, the only hood you down fo is the one I’m gon put over yo ugly face.
See, you don’t know me from Adam. No Face closed his cavernous socket. I put in work. When I see a number three, my enemy. That’s it. Devastation take over.
Nigga, stop dreamin.
But I don’t use no street sweeper, mowin fools down on the run. No innocent bystanders and all that. See, me, I’m like this. If I want somebody, I park in fronta they house, camp out all night, drink me a little Everclear, smoke me some Buddha and jus wait fo em. Soon as they leave they house, I be like bam! Peel they cap. Staple a navel if I jus wanna fuck em up fo life. You know, make em carry one of those plastic pee bags. Make em wear diapers.
Like that, huh? A mission.
Hard-core. No Face patted his heart.
Then how come you ain’t got no rep?
He looked at Jesus for a long moment. You don’t know me from Adam. I got a rep. You jus ain’t heard about it.
Yeah. I heard you a busterpunklyinmotherfucka.
Now why you come at me like that?
Jus stop frontin. I got proof. Real proof.
Man, you don’t know me from Adam. I got proof too. I—
Jus fire up the Buddha.
No Face grinned at the words. Aw ight. Stroked his bare chin. You already sampled my fine products.
I can tell you something. Jesus thought about it. He approached the words slowly. I got plenty enemies. Last Christmas. No, last Thanksgiving. No, Christmas. Yeah, Christmas. My family — But he didn’t say any more.
No Face sucked his teeth. Can’t trust nobody these days.
Jesus said nothing.
Can’t get no respect.
Jesus nodded.
Tell me about it.
PORSHA MOVES like a mule. Slow and strong. A young, shapely woman in a tight black dress, bright red belt boasting her slim waist. She drapes a white cloth shroudlike over Gracie’s long supper table. Sets the table. Lace doilies, cloth napkins (folded and ironed), silver utensils, gold-edged plates, and glass goblets. She positions two crystal decanters of dark dinner wine — Mogen David by the looks of it, tasty Jew wine that Sheila, her mother, my aunt, had stolen from the Shipco liquor cabinet or that Gracie, her aunt, my mother, had lifted from the Sterns — at each strategic end of the table. And two pitchers of minty eggnog. Balances steaming serving dishes on her raised palms. Carefully sets them down. Everything where it should be. The table creaks, sags from the weight.