Leaving: A Novel Read online

  “Where is it?” she demanded. She pulled the clothes off his shelf, then ran to the bed at the far side of the room and thrust her hands under the mattress. “Where’s it at?”

  Marcus walked slowly into the bathroom and locked himself in. She ran after him and banged on the door, but he ignored her, so she went back into the living room again, which worried Marcus more; at least he knew where she was when she was trying to break the door down. He knelt on the wooden floor in the bathroom closet and moved a white board covering a hole in the wall. From the hole he pulled out a blue shoe box and then a red shoe box, and put the blue box back. The box was filled with baggies of coarse, brown-grain Mexican heroin rolled into tight tubes and taped. He took out the first baggy and put the rest of the box back into the hole, locked the closet door, and dropped the key into the toilet tank. From inside the medicine cabinet, he took a needle and an eyedropper, which he wrapped up with a towel.

  In the living room, he found Lida sitting like a stone gargoyle on the bare canvas of the couch, her knees up to her stomach with a pillow in between. He went into the kitchen and took a canteen cup out of a drawer and gently shook the baggy so that a pinch of heroin slid down the edge and onto the metal surface. He added a drop of water into the cup. A strip of paper from an open envelope fit as a collar at the opening of the dropper to keep it tight as he pushed the needle in and made a syringe. He heated the needle over the burner and then brought the cup to the stove. His hand shook as he cooked the mixture over the low flame, watching it bubble and congeal, pulling it away when the handle heated up.

  He brought the cup and syringe into the living room and placed them on the wooden table in front of her. She glanced at them and then away, her body still shaking. Marcus sat cross-legged and filled the dropper from the cup, then pulled off his leather belt with one hand.

  “You got to tell your mama about him,” he said, and knelt down at Lida’s side.

  “He says I’m gonna be the next president.”

  Marcus shifted onto his feet in a crouch and took her bare left arm in his hands.

  “I shoulda never wore this dress,” she said. “It only makes him crazy.” Marcus wrapped the belt around her biceps and pulled it tight through the buckle.

  “I ain’t messin with no needle,” she said, but she didn’t pull away, she just watched as if he had someone else’s arm in his hands.

  “It’ll calm you down.”

  “It’s gonna hurt like hell.”

  “I wouldn’t ever hurt you.” He kissed her shoulder near the scratches. “I’m not like that.”

  “Fine.” She closed her eyes and shook her head. “I don’t care if you kill me. I want you to kill me.”

  “I don’t sell no hot shots. This is good for you when you’re low. It’s medicine, same as like the doctor gives you. Same as I take when I’m low. Horse medicine.” He pulled the leather belt tighter around her biceps and handed the end to her. “Hold this and pull. Now make a fist like you gonna hit him.”

  She clenched her fingers tightly and stared at the needle. He jabbed it into the crook of her arm, and the mixture in the dropper filled with little red clouds of her blood. He waited a second, then squeezed it all back into her.

  THE NEXT DAY, Easton sat on the bus-stop bench, his legs crossed, with The Black Panther paper open on his lap, reading an article about the election. He laughed and shook his head, turning the page by the corner so no ink would get on his fingers. He was dressed meticulously in black slacks, a powder-blue shirt, black tie, and black leather jacket, his face and neck shaved smooth.

  He adjusted his gold-rimmed rectangular glasses, stood up, and looked at the bench, checked for sticky stains, then sat back down.

  Marcus walked up to the bench, the gun tucked under his letterman’s jacket into the waist of his blue jeans. He stopped at the end of the bench and put one foot up on the seat boards. He leaned over and crossed his hands onto his lifted knee, looking straight at the side of Easton’s face.

  “Paper good?”

  “Mar-cus! How you doin, my man? You seen my niece?”

  Marcus shook his head. The winter day had been sunny, but now the evening brought with it a windy sting. Marcus looked up and down San Pablo. Directly across the street was an empty storefront that used to be a packaging company, then farther down was a Kentucky Fried Chicken and a fenced-up mechanic’s lot with a dog. On their side of the street, behind them, was a closed hardware store; two houses, curtains drawn; and Tobias’s liquor store on the corner.

  “You want it right now?” Marcus asked. “Or back at your place?”

  “Naw, Ruby’s back in the shack. You best give me the goods now.”

  “Sure?”

  “Sure. Here.” Easton held the paper out to Marcus. “Put it under this and hand it back to me.”

  A woman came around the corner and they both turned to watch: her copper-colored bangs were greased up into a ducktail, and she wore a thin brown sweater open at the shoulders and large gold hoop earrings.

  “Where’s the beauty contest at?” Easton said. She smiled at him and kept walking to the liquor store. He turned back to Marcus. “Come on, man. Let’s get this done.”

  Marcus took the newspaper and held it over his ankle. He reached into his sock and pulled out a baggy, rolled it into the paper, and handed it back. Easton opened the paper and looked at the baggy.

  “Tremendous. I’ll just have to trust that this is what you say. I wouldn’t know horse from a horse’s ass.”

  “That’ll get you a hundred grains.”

  “What do you think I’ll get for it?”

  Marcus shrugged. “About ten a grain. What’s Jonny’s bail?”

  “We’ll make it. The Party thanks you. I’ll nominate you for Minister of Fund-raising.” He put the baggy into his jacket pocket and stood up. A police car passed by them on the other side of the street. They both watched as it slowed, its brake lights coming on. Easton didn’t brush his cheek fully anymore, it was more of a flick with one finger. The police car got into the left lane and made a U-turn at the end of the block, then drove slowly back toward them.

  “Time to fly,” Easton said. They both walked up the block toward Cranston. They bent their heads humbly and looked at the ground, then turned the corner at the liquor store.

  The car’s tires screeched as the cops sped to the corner and pulled in at an angle just in front of Easton. A bearded officer with a slight paunch opened the passenger-side door and took out his club.

  “Officer Monroe,” Easton said, and nodded.

  A skinny, younger policeman got out of the driver’s side and ran around the back.

  “Both of you on the ground,” Monroe said. “Lay down. Facedown. Hands on your head.”

  “What’s the problem?” Marcus asked.

  “Get your ass down on the ground.”

  Marcus and Easton slowly bent down, first to their knees and then flat on their stomachs.

  “Hands on your head. On your head, now.”

  “We were just walking home,” Easton said. “You know I live right across the street.”

  “Shut up and get your hands back on your head.”

  As Marcus stretched his hands up, the back of his jacket lifted.

  “This one’s got a gun!” the skinny officer yelled. He drew his own gun and backed up, stumbling off the curb and behind the car, as if Marcus were aiming at him.

  Monroe stepped back to the car and slowly drew his gun. “This one too,” he said.

  “I ain’t got a gun. I ain’t got a gun,” Easton yelled. He put his hands in the air and shook them.

  “I said drop the gun or I’ll shoot.”

  “I ain’t got a gun, motherfucker. Shit!”

  “I said drop it.” Monroe shot Easton in the side of his head, and the skinny cop turned quickly and shot Easton twice in the back. Easton’s hands fell to his sides, his face down on the pavement.

  Marcus kept his hands locked above his head, his eyes cl
osed. Monroe put his foot between Marcus’s shoulder blades and pulled the gun out of his pants. He handed the gun to the skinny cop, then cuffed Marcus and pulled him to his feet, wrenching his shoulders. Marcus looked at Easton, at the dark blood on the sidewalk by his head.

  Two women stared out their windows.

  If Ruby had come out on the porch, she would have seen the whole thing. But she was sewing, and when she heard the gunshots, she pressed harder on the pedal. revved the small machine’s engine until the needle moved faster than her eyes.

  SANTA RITA JAIL

  TODAY, I READ from Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom: The Escape of William and Ellen Craft from Slavery:

  There are a large number of free Negroes residing in the Southern States; but in Georgia (and I believe in all the Slave States) every colored person’s complexion is prima-facie evidence of his being a slave; and the lowest villain in the country, should he be a white man, has the legal power to arrest, and question, in the most inquisitorial and insulting manner, any colored person, male or female, that he may find at large, particularly at night and on Sundays, without a written pass, signed by the master or someone in authority; or stamped free papers, certifying that the person is the rightful owner of himself.

  If the colored person refuses to answer questions put to him, he may be beaten, and his defending himself against this attack makes him an outlaw, and if he be killed on the spot, the murderer will be exempted from all blame; but after the colored person has answered the questions put to him, in a most humble and pointed manner, he may then be taken to prison; and should it turn out, after further examination, that he was caught where he had no permission or legal right to be, and that he has not given what they term a satisfactory account of himself, the master will have to pay a fine. On his refusing to do this, the poor slave may be legally and severely flogged by public officers. Should the prisoner prove to be a free man, he is most likely to be both whipped and fined.

  The great majority of slaveholders hate this class of persons with a hatred that can only be equalled by the condemned spirits of the infernal regions. They have no mercy upon, nor sympathy for, any Negro whom they cannot enslave. They say that God made the black man to be a slave for the white, and act as though they really believed that all free persons of color are in open rebellion to a direct command from heaven, and that they (the whites) are God’s chosen agents to pour out upon them unlimited vengeance. For instance, a bill has been introduced in the Tennessee Legislature to prevent free Negroes from travelling on the railroads in that State. It has passed the first reading. The bill provides that the president who shall permit a free Negro to travel on any road within the jurisdiction of the State under his supervision shall pay a fine of five hundred dollars; any conductor permitting a violation of the act shall pay two hundred and fifty dollars; provided such free Negro is not under the control of a free white citizen of Tennessee who will vouch for the character of said free Negro in a penal bond of one thousand dollars. The State of Arkansas has passed a law to banish all free Negroes from its bounds, and it came into effect on the 1st day of January, 1860. Every free Negro found there after that date will be liable to be sold into slavery, the crime of freedom being unpardonable. The Missouri Senate has before it a bill providing that all free Negroes above the age of eighteen years who shall be found in the State after September 1860 shall be sold into slavery; and that all such Negroes as shall enter the State after September 1861 and remain there twenty-four hours, shall also be sold into slavery forever. Mississippi, Kentucky, and Georgia, and in fact, I believe, all the Slave States, are legislating in the same manner. Thus the slaveholders make it almost impossible for free persons of color to get out of the Slave States, in order that they may sell them into slavery if they don’t go. If no white persons travelled upon railroads except those who could get someone to vouch for their character in a penal bond of one thousand dollars, the railroad companies would soon go to the “wall.” Such mean legislation is too low for comment; therefore I leave the villainous acts to speak for themselves.

  But the Dred Scott decision is the crowning act of infamous Yankee legislation. The Supreme Court, the highest tribunal of the Republic, composed of nine Judge Jeffreys, chosen both from the free and Slave States, has decided that no colored person, or persons of African extraction, can ever become a citizen of the United States, or have any rights which white men are bound to respect. That is to say, in the opinion of this Court, robbery, rape, and murder are not crimes when committed by a white person upon a colored person.

  CHAPTER 6

  OCTOBER 1993 • LOVE 14, LI’L PIT 10

  “HERE. THIS IS just for now until I can get you into the house.” Love handed Li’l Pit a white plastic plate with mashed potatoes and a barbecued chicken leg. Love had taken his brother, and the bikes they’d stolen from Ace Trey, into the charred structure of the house across from Ruby’s. He had to wear a pair of Easton’s loafers, which he found in the back of his closet. As night approached, Love lit a candle on a rusted coffee can so they could see. He then sat back on the springs of a half-burnt couch.

  Li’l Pit attacked the chicken leg from the top like an ice-cream cone, biting off the bone with the meat. His hands were big already before the rest of him, his nails rotted and covered in the barbecue sauce.

  Love smiled, and his high, round cheeks shone in the light of the candle. “You sure are hungry. Didn’t anybody teach you manners? You’ve got the sauce all over your chin.”

  “Take your stupid chicken, then.” Li’l Pit chucked the bone through the rusted security bars still locked to the inside window frame. “I don’t need nothin from you, you funny-talking gray boy.”

  “Don’t trip, dog. Don’t trip. You hungry, that’s all I’m sayin.”

  “What you laughin at?”

  “Nothin.” Love shook his head, but then he did start to laugh. “I just recallin you in the lot today, yelling up ‘East Side. East Side.’” He looked Li’l Pit in the eye the whole time he spoke. “You like one of those short Li’l Gs, ain’t scared of no Mac Daddy. ‘East Side.’ You crazy, man.” He bent over laughing, and his brother laughed too. “That’s why you a pit, like me. It doesn’t matter how little you are if you’re unpredictable. Even big people afraid of a little, uncontrollable dog.”

  Li’l Pit stood up and danced; his head jutted forward and back like a pigeon’s, his hand out in front of him in the East Side flash. He rapped:

  Yeah I’m Li’l Pit

  Don’t fuck with me

  I am

  The Mac Daddy

  My brother is

  A punk OG

  My daddy up at

  Santa Ree.

  Love shook his head as Li’l Pit sat again on the ground. “You crazy, dog. You crazy.” He looked away to the bars on the window. “You know our daddy ain’t up at Santa Rita no more, don’t you?”

  Li’l Pit cracked his neck and then looked at the food on his plate. “Sure.”

  “He out in some backyard, toe-up.”

  “I know.” Li’l Pit dipped his index finger into the mound of mashed potatoes and sucked off a scoop.

  “You remember him?”

  “I met him when I was just a kid.” Li’l Pit scooped up more potatoes with his finger. The light of sunset cut through the bars onto the sickle-shaped part in his hair.

  “That’s a tight fade you got,” Love said. “I’m gonna get me a wasp right here over my ear.”

  “By who?”

  “Myself.”

  “Give me a skull and crossbones right on the back.”

  “You don’t need none of that shit. You too young to be a playah. You should be in school. I’m gonna take you to Prescott next week and set you up.”

  “No you ain’t.”

  “I’m gonna send you to college.”

  “No you ain’t.”

  “You’re gonna be a computer scientist.”

  “No I ain’t. I’m gonna be a ballah and have me a
cherry red Impala.”

  “You gonna be toe-up, that’s what you gonna be if I catch you bangin.”

  “I ain’t got to do what you say. You ain’t my daddy. I ain’t gonna go to Prescott. I’m gonna kick it wit you and my homies. Yay-eh. I’m West Side now.” Li’l Pit stood up and danced again, poking his head back and forth, this time holding up his fingers in the West Side flash.

  I gotta hoo-ride

  ’Cause I’m West Side

  Gonna have pride

  ’Cause my daddy done died

  But now I’m West Side.

  “I ain’t gonna let you be down with no punks,” Love said.

  “You down.”

  “No I ain’t.”

  “Yes you is so.”

  “Well I say I’m not.” Love stood up and went to the window to see if anyone was walking around outside. The street was full of tired men and women returning home from work, but the crew was nowhere to be seen. As the sky darkened, a long pink cloud turned gray.

  Li’l Pit rubbed his chapped hands over his naked shoulders, which stuck out of his jersey like two thin pencils.

  “I’ll get you some blankets and a shirt,” Love said.

  “How come you don’t take me in the house?”

  “Shoot, dog. I can’t just take some strange niggah into her place.”

  “I ain’t no stranger.”

  “You is to her.”

  “No I ain’t. I came here for Mama once and almost got my shoes took. I ask her for Mama’s dress and she give it to me, the yellow one, but it don’t fit Mama neither way, and she just sell it for a rock. Anyhow, she know me. She my Nanna too.”

  “She just got used to being my Nanna last month, dog. You think she want two of us crazy kids wreckin up her place? ’Sides, you got all that lice all in your head. So you got to stay out here a while.”

  Li’l Pit looked down at the ground lit by the candle. In the dirt lay the remains of someone’s crack binge, a half-burnt matchbook, some tinfoil, and an empty box of Arm & Hammer baking soda.

  “That’s all right. I been use to it anyhow.” He reached down and picked up a sheet of newspaper and wadded it up. He held it over the candle’s flame until it caught fire. The boys’ faces glowed orange as the ball of paper burned toward Li’l Pit’s hand. He looked up at Love. The flames reached the tips of his fingers, but he didn’t move. He held it for a second more, then threw the ball under the collapsed walls of a baby crib a few feet from them.