When the morning rush hour ended, Fariq and Charley surrendered to the tedium. Turning their clipboards in to Inez, they abandoned the struggle, going home to catch up on the sleep they’d lost the night before. Winston spent the rest of the day fending off the advances of aggressive women who were just glad to see a young nigger doing something positive, listening to people’s problems, and shrugging his shoulders when they asked what would he do for them if elected. “At least you honest,” they’d say, signing the petition while prattling on about an inept mayor, a do-nothing school board, disrespectful kids.
It was now late afternoon. The old-timers were out in force, trolling the streets for opportunity; yet their protégés, those wild-eyed, disrespectful kids, were missing in action. Now that Winston had noticed it, their absence was off-putting, and he was angry with himself for not being aware of it earlier.
Winston counted the number of signatures on his petition. Eighty-six. That ain’t so bad. With what everybody else got I’m probably damn near halfway there.
A voice came to Winston from above. “You got my vote, you fat motherfucker! Anything to keep your crazy ass off the streets, moreno.” Tuffy looked skyward, not bothering to shield his eyes from the sun. “Amante, what up, bro? Where the party at?” Perched on a rooftop, Edgar Amante, the local party promoter, was running wires from a small transformer into a washtub-sized satellite dish, working his day job. “Qué te pasa, papi? I heard you was running for City Council, I ain’t believe the shit till I seen the poster.”
“But I’m saying, where the set at tonight? I need to get loose.”
“No party tonight. Everybody’s gone to the Rock or to the Tombs.”
“What?”
“Word up, son. You ain’t know? The task force was rolling deep last night. UCs was popping niggers left and fucking right, bro. The news said it was something like nine hundred niggers arrested. Matter fact, what you doing out here?”
“I was in Brooklyn last night.”
“You lucky, B.”
“Thanks, yo. I’m out.”
“How’s the descrambler I hooked you up with working out?”
“Straight.”
Winston ran across the street toward Inez, Yolanda, and Jordy. “Honey, I’m going down to the precinct. I know where I can get some signatures.”
Winston kissed Jordy, then reversed course and tromped up the hill to 102nd Street. He was headed for the police station with a dumbfounded Yolanda and Inez in tow. Halfway down the block he spotted a police cruiser backing out of its parking space and blasting hip-hop music through the PA system. Winston threw himself into the backseat, slamming the door behind him. Both officers stopped bobbing their heads and wheeled about, guns drawn, yelling commands over the music: “Hands, motherfucker!”
Slowly, Winston peeked around the barrels of the guns pointed in his face. “Bendito, that you?” he asked the driver.
“Tuffy? Puñeta, I almost blew you away.”
“Bendito!” Tuffy lowered his hands, “You’re a real cop now? Gun, badge, and everything? Shit, man, congratulations.” Bendito’s partner went ballistic. Leaning over the seat, he jabbed the gun into Winston’s cheek. “I said hands, you son-of-a-bitch!”
Winston glowered at the officer and dropped his hands into his lap. “Son, you best to get that gun out my face before I take it from you and beat you to death with the butt end. Bendito, you better tell your boy something.” Bendito lowered the music and his partner’s gun. “It’s okay, I know this one.” The officer holstered his weapon, “You don’t know how close you were to getting lit up.”
“You don’t know how close you were to a bagpipe funeral and a plaque on the walclass="underline" ‘In memory of Officer—’ “—Winston tugged on the officer’s nametag—” ‘Officer Bitch-Ass.’ ” Insulted, the officer raised a fist, but Winston slapped him before he could deliver the punch. And until Bendito separated them, the two flailed at each other like children fighting over dinner scraps. “Tuffy, get out of the car, now!”
“Naw, Bendito, man, you’ve got to arrest me.”
“It’s our first day, I can’t arrest you. And it’s not Bendito anymore, it’s Ben.”
“I need to go to jail and I don’t feel like taking the bus, Ben.”
Bendito turned the music off. “Listen, if I arrest you on day one, fifteen minutes into my tour, we’ll look like gung-ho supercops out to impress the brass and none of the other guys will trust us.”
“Officer Negro here a new jack?”
“Dave’s been on a year. Why do you want to get arrested anyway? Because you rappin’ now, you want some bad publicity for your album or something?”
“I’m not rappin’,” Winston protested.
“I had breakfast at Delia’s, I seen the poster.”
“I’m running for City Council.”
“You’re what?”
“I not really running, I’m …” Winston looked hopelessly out the window. He could see Inez and Yolanda, carrying Jordy like a bag of groceries, huffing their way toward the car. “Look, do me this solid. Just take me in.”
“And charge you with what?”
With the heel of his hand, Winston cuffed Dave in the temple just hard enough to knock the officer’s hat askew. “Slapping Officer Negro upside the head.”
“First arrest, assault on an officer? I don’t think so. I’d be the laughingstock of the precinct.”
“Bendito, why you acting like I shot your dog? Just give me a break.”
Fueled by memories of his beloved Der Kommissar lying dead in the gutter, Bendito gunned the car into reverse, just as Inez, Yolanda, and Jordy reached the passenger-side door. “Winston, where in the hell you going?” Yolanda asked, holding on to the door handle and jogging alongside the car.
“Jail.”
“Motherfucker, if you leave me to go to jail, don’t bother comin’ back. You hear?”
“Calm down, damn. It ain’t serious. I’ll be out tomorrow — Wednesday at the latest.”
Winston knew that if he had any outstanding warrants Tuesday or Wednesday could easily be February, and as a precaution, he peeled off two one-hundred-dollar bills from his bankroll, then, knowing Bendito wouldn’t say anything, brazenly reached into his sock for his gun. “Hold this for me,” he said, tossing the pistol and the rest of the money out the window. They continued to back down the street, while Inez and Yolanda stared at the money and the automatic. Yolanda picked up the gun. “Somebody get my money from out the goddamn street!” Winston ordered, his head sticking out the window. Inez and Yolanda both reached for the money. Inez yielded, and Yolanda slipped the cash into her purse.
As Bendito backed the cruiser into the precinct parking lot, Winston, hoping to speed up the time it took to process him, removed his belt and shoelaces. Hands cuffed behind him, struggling to keep his baggy britches from falling to his knees, he entered the station looking like a maladroit circus clown. His size-fourteen boots flapped against the linoleum floor like shower slippers. Bendito shoved him into an empty cell and Winston began the interminable wait. Thinking the worst, he resigned himself to being Rikers Island — bound. Three dull months in a hangar-sized white fiberglass tent, trying his damnedest to stay out of trouble. Yolanda, right. I need to stop being so “impetuous.” Fuck am I doing? It’s easier to get jail time in jail than it is on the outside. I’ll be in Rikers forever. Fucking with them niggers and catching charges just for defending myself. In the cramped dampness of the holding tank, head against the bars, Tuffy heard his name. Someone reported to the process officer that the check came up clean, he didn’t have any outstanding warrants. The desk sergeant asked Bendito what charges he was filing. Bendito cited cruelty to animals and illegal possession of a firearm. Then the sergeant began adding what he termed “obligatory counts”: loitering, endangerment of public safety, criminal negligence, resisting arrest.