King Maker: The Knights of Breton Court, Volume 1 (14 page)

  
Dred began to speak, the purple and black robe draped around him like a poorly fitting hoodie. His face fell into its shadows. "Ours is the house without walls. We call upon Obassi to guide and protect us."

  
Baylon and Night joined with him. "
Okum ngbe om mobik ejennum ngimm, akiko ye ajakk nga ka ejenn nyamm.
"

 

  
"You want to run with us, you need to be marked. Take off your shirt," Dred said.

  
"What is it?" Griff asked.

  
"A sigil. It's like a name."

  
Dred lifted a small bowl and dipped his finger into it. He daubed each of Griff's arms with white chalk. From another bowl, he marked his forehead with camwood dye. Then lastly, from another bowl, he marked Griff with a yellow dye on his abdomen and back of his shoulders.

  
"And thus, the Ndibu are complete." Dred raised a goblet from the table. "
Medraut
."

  
"
Owe,"
Night and Baylon said in unison. Griff stared at them.

  
Dred sipped from the goblet, handed it to Night.

  
"
Barrant
."

  
"
Owe."
Griff joined Dred and Baylon.

  
Night drank then handed the cup to Baylon.

  
"
Balin
."

  
"
Owe
."

  
Baylon handed the cup to Griff. He held it with a look of uncertainty.

  
"
Balan
."

  
"
Owe
."

  
All eyes fell on Griff. He stared into the fallow liquid swirling in the cup. Then Griff drank.

  
"Now you are one of the Ndibu, the high order of the Egbo Society. We are bound to one another and only by our hand are we released."

 

Waves of heat shimmered off the pavement. Percy wandered the alleyway ticking off his mental checklist Miss Jane had so painstakingly instructed him. He had to be more aware of his surroundings, know the score in order to stay out of trouble; or worse, let trouble find him off guard. He surveyed the alley. Lone roughneck in a long wife-beater tee, baggy black pants. The beginnings of a beard along each side of his face. Toothpick protruding from his mouth, the man hard-eyed him.

  "What you need?"

  "How many lookouts do you have?" Percy began amiably enough, then pointed down the way to a group of kids sitting on their bikes with no particular need to go anywhere. "Those kids down there?"

  "What the fuck?" Anger flashed, a lifetime of lessons and reinforced habits snapping into place without a thought. "You better quit playing and get on. Simple motherfucker."

  "Where's your stash?" Percy examined how the man stood in front of the garage, careful not to wander towards the side with overgrown weeds and an abandoned tire. "I bet it's in those bushes around the corner of the house."

  "Boy, what you doing?" Miss Jane yelled at him.

  "Do you have a gun? Can I see it?" Percy asked, nearly reaching to pull up the man's shirt.

  "What the fuck's wrong with you?"

  "Don't mind him. He simple. I was just trying to school him on what's what out here and he wanders off for some… extracurriculars."

  "Well, you need to teach him how to watch his mouth. Could get him killed up in this piece."

  "I doubt that."

  "Why? He bulletproof or something?"

  "You know whose boy he is?"

  "Who?"

  "You better check out that scar on his left eye."

  "Oh snap. My bad." The soldier took a step back.

  "Yeah, your bad, motherfucker. Now let me get two." Miss Jane shorted him the cash and dared him to rise up on her to collect the rest. He decided she wasn't worth the effort.

  He hated watching her inject herself.

  "Momma, who's my daddy?"

  "Shit, boy, you trying to blow my high?"

  "I want to know. Can I meet him?"

  "Let me see if I can arrange something. He might as well see the man you turned out to be."

 

Not that Miss Jane or Night were up for parents of the year, they had both agreed to keep Percy far from the game. Well, as far as possible. The streets weren't meant for people like him. Soft. Innocent. Miss Jane told him as much about Night as she could, but for what he wanted to know, the questions he was ready to ask, he needed a face-to-face.

  The naked light of the bar bleached most of the details away. Already stoked in sweet Scotch fumes and liquor-loose, Night slowly drank. Percy studied the man's face, searching for something familiar. Dark as he was, he had a scar about his left eye in the shape of a crescent moon. He fought the compulsion to scratch his own scar.

  "You still with that girl?" Percy asked. Apparently there was always some girl, so it was a generic enough question. It wasn't as if Night kept track of any of their names. To hear Miss Jane tell it, Percy might as well have asked about one of his other babies. There was always some baby. Automatic. Impersonal. The wall.

  "That what you want to talk about?" Night's sleepheavy eyes turned to him. He had a power to him, a force of will, much like hypnosis. Part of his way was his ability to suck you into his web of half-truths, deceit by omission, and out-and-out lies. He had a smile. A broken smile, Percy thought. The smile that usually intimidated others into silence.

  "No. I…" Percy didn't know how to form the questions he wanted to ask. He half-closed his eyes, a child pretending to be asleep, trying to get through the conversation, unaware that his body language mirrored Night's. He kept his voice light. He wanted Night to like him. Percy hunched over, making himself appear smaller, more the picture of a little boy. He only wished they were a family. The tidal wave of questions slammed against his cautious spirit and he blurted out, "Didn't you want me?"

  "Accidents happen." Night read the sting of the words in Percy's heart-sick looking face. "Shit. This ain't going right. Don't know why Miss Jane insisted on this. Just said it was time. Time for what? Me hurting you?"

  "So you didn't want me." Percy's face scrunched up, flat and sullen; his voice tentative and mournful.

  "Not just you. I always go in bagged. I had the feeling Miss Jane set me up. Wouldn't put it above her to run a pin or some shit through the whole box of rubbers. Look here, kids bind you. Keep you from doing what you want to do. I'm out here hustling, getting it done. and don't have time for all that daddy mess. Can't be the man out here if I'm doing the Cosby thing. I have to be the man because without leadership, folks run in circles and reach into your pockets."

  His job was important, Percy thought.

  Night tightened his mouth. His gaze roamed about then suddenly fixed on him in a cat's pounce. He scowled, half-disgusted, feeling cornered and uncomfortable. Then his grimace relaxed. Percy had a way about him, one Night secretly wished would rub off on him. An innocence, maybe?

  "It's a terrible feeling when you can't stand the sound of your own kids. The little things. Coughs in the middle of the night. Little sniffles, throw up, sick business? That's a mother's job to take care of shit like that. The stink they make, diapers, I ain't got time for that domestic shit. That's bitches' work. I ain't got time for that." As if repeating it would demonstrate the truthfulness of the situation. Touched by his innocence, he owed him the truth. "So you decide to wait till he got a little older. Show him some shit. My world. Let him see what I do and how I do it. Teach him how to be a man. Then you realize you don't know what to show him. Better off not being around. Put word on the street to take care of you. Keep you safe. We look after our own best we can."

  Night searched Percy's eyes, hungry for any sort of understanding.

  "So you wait a little longer. You get to the point where he was about grown. Don't really need you to show him nothin'. Can barely face him knowing you had no hand in who he became. Can only hope he do a'ight. Maybe better than you.

  "Where I come from, we have a code. We carry it like that." Night leaned back and gave Percy some space. He peeled off a handful of twenties, the only thing he knew how to do.

 

The neighborhood preyed on itself, an ouroboros of poverty. The irony of taking from people with so little eluded Miss Jane to a nearly painful degree. An anguish Percy experienced as he pushed open the window. The first-floor apartments of the Phoenix were better off without windows. To stare at the outside world through bars. They were an "open for business" sign for the local crackheads opting for an easy score. Most tenants occupied the first level only until they could move to a higher floor. But not too high as the stairwells offered their own dangers.

  Miss Jane convinced him to break in. Rumors of the household hoarding money and jewelry, eccentric ghetto millionaires. Such tales bubbled up from time to time, excusing would-be treasure hunters their Robin Hood ethos, though the poor who were targeted by their charitable impulse were usually themselves.

  Two windows in the apartment, one with an airconditioning unit in it, though it too was stolen from a first-floor apartment down the street. The bedroom window slid open easily enough. A young girl stirred, disturbed by the rush of traffic sounds from the outside. Percy closed the window behind him. Pausing, he bent over the frame in case the girl fully woke and he needed to make a hasty retreat. He sensed her in the dark, could hear her breathing. Fumbling along her dresser, his large, nimble hands found no jewelry. He ran them along a chalice; inside was a lone ring. He picked up the ring, holding the metal goblet in case it clattered against it. He peered over his shoulder. The sleeping figure didn't move.

  Percy leaned over her. Rhianna. The warmth of her brushed against his cheek. He took in a deep breath. Flowers and powder, a gentle scent. Peaceful. The ring grew hot in his hand. He lost the heart to continue going through her things. It was a violation. He ran his finger along her face. Gripped by the panic that always seized him when around her, that sense that he might break her, he scuttled out the window.

  "Anything?" Miss Jane demanded.

  "No, Momma." The ring burned in his pocket. A memento.

  Miss Jane read his face. The boy was flushed to the point of blushing and refused to meet her eyes. He was lying about something. His pants bulged in front. She smiled.

  "Come on. Nothing going on out here. Let me see if I can get you taken care of."

  Burger Chef to Hardees to Burger King to Big Belly; the restaurants which occupied this spot changed with the neighborhood. Ghetto to projects to hood. The evolution of poverty. The names changed but the problems remained the same. Miss Jane leaned heavily against a car.

  "What are we waiting for, Momma?"

  "Between your father and mine…" She broke off her initial sentence, re-thinking the tack she wished to take with him. "Pussy makes you stupid. Remember that, boy. You can't be in it for love. There's no love in pussy. Only want."

  The bad words made Percy turn his head.

  "You like Superman."

  "I am?"

  "Yeah, you know. He all super strong an' all, but he has to go through life all cautious. He can't just relax. He fuck around and break a ho. That's you. Everything you do is so… tentative."

  "Tentative." He rolled the word around in his mind. "I like that."

  "Here's my girl now."

  A woman sauntered toward them in an exaggerated gait. Her burnt almond complexion and high cheekbones framed a generous mouth, with lips filled to an exaggerated fullness. Her blonde extensions twisted into braids. Wearing low-cut blue jean shorts and a green halter top, her full breasts too easily visible, Percy was embarrassed for her.

  "Girl, how you been?"

  "Still in the game," Miss Jane said.

  "You a soldier to the end. Who do we have here?"

  "This is my oldest. Percy."

  "He turning out to be quite the man."

  Percy wondered if he ought to open his mouth and let her check his teeth, the way horses did when being appraised.

  "Sometimes a momma has to look out for her boy. Teach him to be a man." Directly in front of him, Miss Jane unbuttoned his shirt and lifted it over her head. She beamed with pride at her baby boy. His premature "out of shape with middle age spread" of a body not all that different from the baby she bathed in the kitchen sink so long ago. She tugged at his belt, slipping it free from the pant loops. His pants fell to the ground, but his gaze remained fixed on hers. "He's always been a shy boy."

  "I don't mind the shy ones." Her friend ran her hand up along the inside of his leg. He was suddenly aware of two things: one, just how close he had been standing to her, and two, that he had a raging hard-on that threatened to poke her eye out if she leaned in any closer. "I wanted to confirm how deep you were."

  "Momma?"

  "Hush, baby. Momma knows what she's doing. You'll be all right."

  She stripped him to his boxers and thermal kneehigh tube socks – it was cold out and he always made a point of dressing properly. Folding his clothes, she set them in a pile next to her. He didn't want to lose his virginity, especially this way. Percy began to cry.