You never knew out here anymore. He had seen this one boy shot over nothing but a misunderstood glance at Chapter III one night down in Southeast, convulsing in the parking lot with a bullet in his back, froth and shit coming out of his mouth like overflowed laundry suds as the life leaked right out of his eyes. Rogers had dreamed about it a few times since. Sometimes he’d keep himself awake at night in fear that he’d dream of it again. He had the walk and the look down, because you had to, but Alan Rogers didn’t want none of that, the death part of being in the life.
But you had to do somethin’, right? Couldn’t just be like some raggedy-ass welfare case, or one of those pee-smellin’, wine-breath old mothafuckers sleeping on the subway grates in the middle of the winter. You needed things, needed to look sharp to get respect from your boys and the looks from the girls. But how would you get those things when you couldn’t do much better than write your name? His teachers had moved him up, grade by grade, but they hadn’t really taught him shit. Not to read and write all the way, or to add things up in his head, not really. Not even how to go out and get a job.
One time, when he’d applied for this busboy thing at this bar over on 2nd Street, this white boy who ran the place, after he told him he couldn’t hire him, decided to give him a little advice. “Next time,” the white boy said, “when you’re applying for a job, act like you want it. Wear a clean shirt and sit up in your chair; smile, maybe; look the person you’re dealing with in the eye. Ask for the job. And don’t keep looking at your prospective employer like you want to kick his ass.” Right about then Rogers had wanted to kick Pretty Boy’s ass, but later, when he was thinking about it, he realized that the white boy had been right. Alan Rogers never had examples. Never had anyone to explain even the simple shit, like what to wear, what to do when you apply for a job, how to act. How to get along.
At a house party in Shaw, a friend who was now in jail had introduced him to Tyrell Cleveland. Next day, Tyrell called him up. Asked him if he wanted to make a little bit of change. Rogers knew what time it was as soon as he had met Tyrell, but he couldn’t get a clear picture of a future anywhere else. Rogers saw other people looking good, getting new things, wearing designer clothes, driving nice rides, on the streets and every time he turned on the TV. He needed some of those things, too. Decided, yeah, it was time to get paid like everybody else.
“Hey, girl,” said Rogers, smiling broadly.
“Hey.”
“Been lookin’ for you all night.”
“You have, huh.”
“Lookin’ for somethin’ jazzy and fine. Didn’t know it was you till I saw you. You know you got to be the finest one here tonight.”
“Go ahead, Alan.”
“You know my name?”
“Sure. You know mine?”
“Call you Neecie, right?”
“That’s right.”
“See?” said Alan Rogers.
Denice Tate had her hands clasped behind her back. “See what?”
“You and me, we got that ESP thing goin’ on. We was meant to hook up, girl.”
Denice laughed. Ashley rolled her eyes and giggled.
Rogers said, “Let’s go for a walk, okay? This is a bad show, but I can’t hear nothin’ but the band this close to the stage. I want to talk to you.”
Denice looked at her friend for a moment and said, “All right.”
They went to the back of the hall, where it was less crowded, and found a place in the corner. Alan Rogers did most of the talking. Denice liked his voice, his style, the way he moved his strong hands in the air to make a point. And his beautiful brown eyes. He made a joke, and both of them laughed. Then he leaned in to kiss her. She closed her eyes and let him. He was a nice boy. The kiss felt good.
Clarence Tate looked at the March calendar that the Ibex Club sent out to all the folks on their mailing list. He figured Denice would be out for a few hours at Ashley’s house. He thought he’d treat himself for a change, go out, have himself a drink.
He put on a sport jacket over an open-collar shirt, got into his newly tuned Cutlass Supreme, and headed out, listening to an old Stylistics tape on the stereo all the way uptown. He parked off Georgia and Missouri, a block south of the club. He knew one of the club’s owners, a dude he had gone to Roosevelt with, now on the D.C. boxing commission. He mentioned this dude’s name to the doorman, who nodded to a second doorman, which meant he had beat the cover. The first doorman ran one of those U-shaped metal detectors over his clothes before letting him in. Something new here, but he could dig it, what with all the guns out there now. Still and all, the Ibex was a pretty nice place.
Tate went up red carpeted stairs. He passed the landing on the second floor, where he could see younger people congregated and hear the thump of bass from a hip-hop group playing in the adjoining hall. He continued on up to the third floor and went into the big room. It was people closer to his age here, dressed nicely, drinking from glasses, listening to the man up on the stage.
Tate ordered a Remy with a side of ice water, leaned against the bar. He closed his eyes for a moment, listened to Gil Scott-Heron’s rich voice singing the beautiful words to “95 South,” one of Tate’s favorite songs. Gil was solo tonight, just him and his piano, right for this setting. He looked thinner than the last time Tate had seen him, and his hair had gone gray.
Tate remembered how he used to play the Winter in America LP for Denice, sing her to sleep when “Your Daddy Loves You” came around. What was that, ten years gone already? Damn, she was growing up too fast.
At the set break, Tate struck up a conversation with a woman at the bar. She was a handsome woman with a nice way about her, heavy in the hips and with plenty of leg on her, but that was all right. Tate was no show prize either, what with the weight he’d put on.
They talked with one another and had a few laughs. The two of them had a real nice evening. The woman had an easy smile. He got her phone number before he left. She seemed a little surprised that he didn’t at least try to make a play for her that night. But he hadn’t even considered it. He had to be getting back home to Denice, and anyway, it wouldn’t be proper to bring a woman back to the house with him. Not while he was trying to set an example for his sweet little girl.
Dimitri Karras and Donna Morgan stood well to the back of the St. Augustine School auditorium off 15th and V. They could hear fine there, could feel the music pulse right through them as the mostly male crowd got off on the sounds of Scream, one of D.C.’s hottest bands. Karras had gray hair, and Donna was nearly thirty years old. They didn’t belong in the fray.
But Karras had wanted to check out this show. Scream, a band on the local Dischord label, was one of those punk-metal outfits that turned it out with melody and drive. He liked the crowd, too — not all the way head-banger or absolute punk. It was a rock-and-roll crowd he could relate to, some sober and some half fucked up and some nearly out of control. Karras didn’t exactly get this Straight Edge movement, the postpunk kids who were anti-alcohol and anti-drug. Some of these kids, they’d even put Xes on their own hands before they entered the clubs these days, proud to show that they were booze free. Shit, drugs went hand in hand with rock, didn’t they? At least in Karras’s mind they did. Minor Threat and those other Straight Edge bands, he dug the energy in their music, but the other part he couldn’t comprehend. He figured it was just a new generation of kids carving out their own identity, trying to separate themselves from the beards and the potheads who came before them. And though he didn’t care to admit it, he knew his confusion had a lot to do with his age. There were plenty of things lately he didn’t understand.