In the Light of You Page 10

  “We was jumped. Big gang of blacks. A drug gang I bet.”

  “You have any drugs on you now, son?”

  “Oh NO, sir. Never.”

  It was true. No weapons either at the moment. I’ll take my pluses where I can get them.

  Phil was rushed to Mercy Hospital (and so had been Trey McKinley). I was taken to the police station and given an obscene amount of ancient, tar-thick coffee. After I became more lucid I gave the police my report. Seems my friend and I had been driving home from a party when we were car-jacked by a gang of thugs. The leader had a mouthful of gold teeth and said something about payback for Rodney King. Then they beat us up and stole my 92 CRX hatchback, which my friend had been driving for me. And that’s exactly how it was, officers, I swear to The Good Lord Above.

  “Well, what did y’all expect driving through that neighborhood?” A cop scolded. “You boys should have more sense when it comes to those people.” They bought it. Cops always buy that story. Try it, you’ll see.

  “Believe me, sir,” I said, laying it on, “we tried to get through there as quick as all git-out, but the car ahead of us stopped to talk to another driver coming the other way. They was blocking traffic both ways! We was sitting ducks.”

  “That sounds about right,” the officer said nodding. Hook. Line. Sinker. Almost too easy.

  They decided that, although I’d probably be pissing blood for a couple of days, my injuries were relatively minor, provided my tetanus shots were up to date (not likely). I did get a stern lecture about being an underage drunk. “Son, you’re playing a loser game here.” Thinking they were really giving it to me tough they threatened to call my folks, then proceeded to do just that. I pretended to be all worried and scared straight. It was hard not to laugh when the officer who called my parents came back looking vexed and perplexed.

  “I … don’t … think … your father is in any … condition to drive.”

  I offered to call “my brother” to come pick me up.

  Richard arrived at the station wearing a baseball cap and varsity football jacket from some school I’d never heard of. I suppose that was his stab at looking like a “regular guy.” He yelled at me in front of everybody about being intoxicated, then said we had to “pray extra hard at church tomorrow.” It was simultaneously overdone and half-baked, but the boys in blue ate it up.

  All joking around had blown away on the early morning breeze by the time we got out to the van, however. The rest of the guys sat there huddled down, beaten to shit, bashed, and bandaged up.

  “Well … that went good, huh?”

  “We didn’t want to leave y’all, Mikey,” Brian said.

  “It’s all right. You did what you had to.”

  “Fucking niggers,” said Geoff.

  “They did what they had to,” Richard replied.

  We didn’t speak again until we pulled up outside Reeba’s brother’s house to collect the girls.

  “From now on,” Richard said in full boss voice, “No one leaves the house without a pistol.” He looked right at me as if I had done something wrong. “No one.”

  As shotgun it was my job to run up to the house and do the collecting. Reeba’s brother Kevin answered the door. Seemed like a nice enough guy.

  As we slid the van door open to let the girls in, Reeba instantly noticed Phil’s absence and fell into screaming hysterics. I wanted to slap her.

  Shut up, cunt. Nobody asked for your input.

  12.

  IT was a long night. Sherry was exhausted. She felt grimy and sick. It was close to 8:30 AM when they entered Mercy Hospital. They were told Phil would get into surgery as soon as possible, but there was no point in waiting around.

  Richard dropped Sherry off at her dorm and they made plans to go see Phil later.

  Had she not been so exhausted Sherry would have laughed out loud when her roommate Sarah laid eyes on her. It hadn’t occurred to Sherry until just then, but this was the first time they had been in contact since her “makeover.”

  “Sharon?” Sarah asked blinking.

  “It’s hell out there kid,” Sherry replied, re-hanging her giant poster of Norma Jean that had obviously been ripped down. “I’m going to sleep for long, long time. You wake me up and I’ll suck your eyeballs out of your goddamn skull.”

  Richard, Reeba, and Brian came to pick Sherry up around 7:45 PM. It was after visiting hours, but Richard had worked something out so that they could see Phil. It was hard not to notice that Reeba had already begun the process of “unloading Phil,” and Brian was perfectly willing to fill that vacant hole.

  “Don’t worry, Phil,” Richard said. “We’ll find the cocksucker who did this. He’ll be maggot breakfast by end of the week.”

  Phil lay in bed with both his arms elevated and his swollen jaw bandaged and wired shut. I’d been at the hospital all day. Promised I’d stay by him. I don’t know why exactly. I felt that I owed it to him.

  “Shorget adout it, Rish. Goezh wit ta territory.”

  He looked deformed. Misshapen. His left eye was swollen closed. But the worst bit of it, and he knew it, we all knew it, was that he was different from us now. He didn’t look like us anymore. He couldn’t do what we could do. He was no longer a soldier. He was a cripple. Even in the world of low-rent fascism, there’s nothing lower than the cripple.

  He looked up at Reeba with his one working eye. She ran her fingers lightly over his ravaged, broken face. He knew she wasn’t his any more. Brian would fuck her and that would be that. He’d never have her again. And he’d have to choose between sitting around eating through a straw, with his hands so bound and bandaged he can’t even jerk off, while the woman he loves is gobbling his friend’s cock in the next room … or he could leave for good and be completely on his own. Tough call.

  After a while, whatever Richard, Brian, and Reeba had to say to Phil became nothing but low static to me. Sherry and I stared silently at one another. Pretended we weren’t. It was ridiculous, but we shared a secret. A stupid, pointless secret we shouldn’t be keeping. Tell them, or I will. Tell them, or I will. But I didn’t.

  When it was time for everyone to leave I walked down to the lobby with them. Richard said he would come pick me up in the morning. I said okay, although I planned to be alone the next day and would just as soon take the Metro. Whatever.

  Heading back to Phil’s room I stopped in the men’s room, sweating and anxious. Anyone who can watch a stream of blood spray out from the end of his dick and not want to take his own life right then and there is a stronger man than I. As I steadied my left hand against the wall and prepared for the searing gasoline burn of another red piss I wondered how many blows to the kidney I had delivered in the past couple of months. Twelve? Fifteen? More? I tried not to think about it. Fuck it! That’s just the way it is! You take it as it comes. The second an Aryan Warrior starts sweating about karma is the moment he may as well cash it all in for tie-dye and some groovy crystals.

  As I walked down the hall toward Phil’s room I heard him trying to yell at someone. I ran in just in time to hear, “What shou want? Tanks?! I owe ‘ou shit, houshe nanny!” And catch Niani Shange walking out. What the hell?

  “Excuse me,” she said as she squeezed past me out into the hallway. I didn’t breathe. I shut my eyes. Even for such a brief moment, it was surreal being that close to her. Be gone.

  “Dring ne ny dinner too, cunt!!!” Phil hollered.

  I walked into the room to see a milkshake sitting on his tray table.

  “Strawberry?” I asked. He turned his head away from me.

  And then she spoke …

  “Mikal? Mikal Fanon, is that you?”

  I spun around to see her standing in the doorway. My mouth went completely dry and I felt like I would choke if I tried to swallow. She looked right at me. Right into my eyes. “Mikal Fanon. It is you, isn’t it. I remember you from the old neighborhood. How are you? It’s been a long time. Couple years anyway.” I was stone cold silent, staring at her like a feeb. “Do you remember me? I lived in the house three down from you. On the left.” Nothing. “What have you been up to?” I opened my mouth but there was no sound. Talk! Speak! Grunt! Gesticulate! Something!!! “Do you remember my brother ‘Zekial?” FUCKING RETARD! “How are your folks? How is your dad’s hand? Is he better?”

  Nothing.

  I … got … nothing. I got nothing for you …

  Finally she just nodded. “Okay,” she said.

  And she walked away.

  I went and sat down in the chair next to Phil’s bed. Not a word. Still. He made no indication that he wanted a drink of the shake. It just sat there. With my throat hot and dry like the goddamn Mojave I had half a mind to just grab it and slurp it all down. But I didn’t. So we sat there in silence as the shake melted. Then it got warm and spoiled.

  I turned on the TV and it all sucked. I turned it off again. I was just about to curl up in the chair and try to get some sleep when the last visitor of the night crawled out of the hottest pit in Hell and popped by for a “sweet dreams.”

  Upon seeing Jack Curry, Phil panicked and went to reach for the nurse call button, which was attached to a cord by his right hand. Jack grabbed it and stopped him flat.

  “Hey hey hey. No need for that now, buddy.”

  “Whak ta fuck do zhou wonk?”

  “Just stopping by to see how you’re doing. That’s all.”

  I wished I had a knife. For just a moment … I wished I had a gun.

  “Dey hat ta show ny fuckin zhaw shuk!”

  “Sewed your jaw shut, huh. That’s a pisser.”

  I stood up and was about to lunge at Curry when he said, cold as a reptile, “Sit back down or I’ll slash your throat all the way open. Go ahead and test me.” He didn’t even look my way. I doubt he even saw me out of the corner of his eye. He just sensed me. I didn’t sit, but I stood paralyzed. Paralyzed and mute. And stupid. And worthless.

  “GET TA FUCK ARAY FRON NE!!!”

  Curry put his hand over Phil’s mouth. Phil thrashed and shrieked in agony from the pressure.

  “If you settle down, I’ll take my hand away.”

  Phil tried to calm himself as tears began to stream down his face. I couldn’t move. I’m a lifeless fucking husk. I wished I was dead.

  “You know … Philip is it? You know, Philip, I understand the bind you’re in. I mean, shit! You’re white! You should be running the damn show, correct? Your ancestors kicked ass. Massacred, enslaved, and infected everybody. So why aren’t you calling any shots. Poor? Ignorant? No education? Couldn’t keep a decent job even if you could get one, right? God. It’s just so unfair. And the minorities get everything handed to them on a silver fucking platter, don’t they. I feel for you, my strong white brother. I really do.”

  “Shou’re a got tan rayshe traitor,” Phil hissed.

  Curry laughed.

  “Race traitor? Did you say ‘race traitor,’ Philip? Do people even still say that? Guess you do.” He slapped Phil in the jaw. Phil winced and shook off the pain, trying to stifle the scream welling up. I looked about the room for something to smash over Curry’s head. “I’m sorry. Shouldn’t have done that. I’ll make it better.” He bent over and licked a teardrop that was streaming down Phil’s cheek. Just at that moment, a nurse walked in … froze in her tracks … giggled … gave a little “my bad” salute … and walked away. And Jack Curry laughed and laughed. And Phil shook with rage. And I wished I was dead.

  “I’ll be seeing you guys,” he chuckled. “Stay strong. The white race needs men like you.” And he was gone.

  You’re fucking worthless, I thought to myself. Goddamn fucking worthless.

  “What tah fuck, Nikal,” Phil said softly, sniffling.

  “I’ll kill him for you, Phil. I promise. I will kill him.”

  It was late. Midnight maybe. Maybe one. Hospitals at midnight are like sterile catacombs, but without the comfort of knowing the worst is over. I went for another fire piss. Not as horrible that time. Let the healing begin.

  I didn’t want to go looking for Trey McKinley’s room. But I knew I would. Auto-pilot took me there.

  I stood in the doorway watching him sleep. His neck was braced and his face was bruised, both eyes puffy and knotted. But he didn’t look too bad. It certainly wasn’t his best day, but he didn’t look all that bad. And he appeared to sleep in relative comfort. Cards and flowers all about the room. Already. An empty milkshake cup in the trash.

  “I ain’t sorry,” I growled under my breath. “You got what you deserved. You hear me, nigger? I said, I ain’t sorry.”

  “I hear you,” he said without opening his eyes. And I wished I was dead.

  13.

  THE phone rang at about 11:30 AM. To say the very least, I was not entirely awake.

  “Helluh? I’m lookin’ fer Mikal Fanon.”

  “You found him.”

  “Dude!”

  “Holy shit! How you been, man? You still living in Louisville?”

  “Yep ‘er. Can’t complain too much. I’ve had a bitch of a time tracking you down, hoss.”

  “Yeah, I’m off the radar these days.”

  “Chup to?”

  “Nothin’ really.”

  “School or anything?”

  “I’m a Fifth Reich Skin.”

  “A who?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Is … that what, like a gang?”

  “Yeah … sorta …”

  “Like the Crips?”

  “Yeah … well, no … kind of …”

  I don’t know how long we talked. Maybe and hour. I kept falling asleep. He was working in his dad’s auto shop. He got married, had a son, all that dull shit.

  “Hey Mikey, you remember that guy I had to … you know, the guy I had to shoot?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “I got a hold of his autopsy photos. You wanna see ‘um?”

  We made plans to get together. I never followed through. I try to make it a point to leave the past in the past. When possible. Talking to him, I walked past the bathroom and looked in the mirror at myself. This isn’t even the guy he knows, I thought. So long, bud. Best of luck to you.

  The angry gash in my left cheek kept me from shaving, which yielded a thoroughly unimpressive teenage beard. It was enough for Richard to start calling me “Jerry Garcia,” however. I actually earned a string of nicknames at that time. Although I was no longer shaving my face, I was still shaving my head, which was not a good look at all, so I had taken to wearing a knit skull-cap. And so I became “Johnny Grunge,” “Mikal-In-Chains,” and one of Sherry’s invention, “Mudhoney,” which everyone thought was hilarious but only Richard understood. Because of said misunderstanding I also ended up as “Mud Pony,” “Mud Bunny,” and often just “Mud.” I was a good sport about it, though, and danced about singing the song “My Name is Mudd,” which also no one got. Good times.

  The first week after the downfall of Phil was fairly rough for me as Brian and Reeba had taken to spending all afternoon in the abandoned apartment next door rutting and caterwauling like feral felines.

  “Goddamn,” Reeba said to me passing through to get to the fridge. “I never knew it could be that good.”

  “Your thighs are bruised up.”

  “Why you lookin’ at my thighs, Mikal-in-Chains?”

  As I would sit there turning up the TV or the stereo as loudly as I could the thought crossed my mind that perhaps having to listen to other people fuck is my lot in life, my destiny, and maybe it’s punishment for some wrongdoing from a past existence. I also wondered if that thought had ever occurred to Suzi’s mother.

  The heavens did smile upon me after that first week, however. Reeba’s brother Kevin and his wife and two daughters had decided to take an extended trip down to Huntsville, Alabama to stay with some great-grandaunt who was dying of throat cancer. So Reeba and Brian moved in over at their house to keep an eye on things.

  I got to enjoy being home alone more and more, and I found that the time spent completely by myself was by far my happiest. Richard and I, by that time, had become something of a crotchety old couple, not really speaking around the house except to bitch about there being no food or the place being a mess. I’ll admit that I’ve never been much of a housekeeper, but I usually kept the kitchen pretty well stocked. We lived right behind an IGA and I’m a fairly skilled thief. It’s a talent, not a gift. It pissed me off when he griped about the food situation because I did my best to make sure we always had his favorite things, even at the expense of my own preferences. And it was my ass risking arrest every time I went “shopping.” But it was never good enough for him.

  I was rummaging through Richard’s room one day looking for the phone when I discovered his chest o’ weapons. He kept everything in fairly neat order: knives in sheaths, firearms in shoe boxes. I pulled out his nine and inspected it top to bottom. You always hear how heavy those things are, but you really don’t think about it until it’s in your hand. Richard’s was perfectly polished, of course, oiled, and well maintained. And loaded. I flipped the safety off, slid the long barrel into my mouth, and pressed the muzzle to the back of my throat. It clicked against my incisors, which almost made me bite down reflexively. I cocked the hammer back and shut my eyes tightly, trying not to gag, rubbing my index finger against the trigger. Just then I heard the front door slam.

  “Mikal?”

  “I’m in here, Sherry.”

  “Can I come in?”

  “No. I’m sleeping.” I put the gun back in the box and closed the chest.

  “Are you naked?”

  “What?”

  “I’m tired too. Can I go sleep in your bed?”

  “Knock yourself out.”

  I came out to the living room and found her usual heap of stuff by the door. Why I decided that day to look through her book bag I don’t know. But I did. That’s just the way it was. Usual stuff: textbooks, floppy discs, crumpled up papers. There was also a small plastic bag of weed. Huh … I unrolled it to take a sniff, then closed it back up again. I didn’t want to get a contact buzz. I also found a flyer for a party that Friday night. An “all-campus block rocker.” “Come one come all.” On Jamestown St.