Saint And Sinners (42 page)

Pebbles ain’t got no feelings, they only rocks. How do we know that though? Maybe
a pebble is like the grass. Maybe they are alive. Maybe the science people got it
all wrong… I sound dumb. Now I sound like Day-Day. That’s some lame mess he’d say…

“Why…why is everyone scared of you?” He broke out of his thoughts of kush, rocks and
grass and met eyes with Angel, desperately wanting to know.

“They aren’t scared of me, Hassani.” Angel’s tone grew serious, and his eyes grew
darker. “It’s called
respect
. I drew my line in the sand. Like you, I came to school and people tested me. A few
broken bones later, none of which belonged to
me
, I set the record straight.” His face cracked in a satisfied smile as his jaw poked
out from him running his tongue along his inner cheek. “I let them know that if anyone
touched my baby brotha, they’d be in the damn grave yard…ashes to ashes, dust to mothafuckin’
dust, and I wasn’t playin’. And they knew it.”

“My father will kill me if I get in a fight. I can’t get into no fights. I promised
him.”

Angel rolled his eyes. “So yo’ old man will just let you get beat up, huh? I bet he
wanna those give ‘peace a chance’ mothafuckas, huh?” Angel cackled again, angering
Hassani to the point he felt the burn in his eyes.

“Man, this the real world! Don’t nobody understand shit here in New York besides bloodshed
and money. Hell, it’s probably like that everywhere ’cause that’s how mothafuckas
roll. Yo’ Daddy don’t know what the fuck he talkin’ about… He must be a lame. That
type of advice ’ill get your little pea-sized nutsack rammed up to ya damn throat,
soundin’ like Mariah Carey’s ass hittin’ them high notes so good a record contract
will come yo’ way.”

“…Don’t talk about my daddy. You take that back!” Hassani could feel the burn even
stronger now as the tunnel glowed crimson from within. He was certain he wouldn’t
be able to turn it off any time soon. He’d controlled it all week, but the hell with
this. Angel knew what he was, so why keep pretending?

“You so young to be able to do that, man…” Angel’s pupils turned to slits as his voice
demonstrated a mixture of astonishment and possibly envy. “I ain’t
never
seen a cat as young as you, eyes change colors, man… You a hot blooded mothafucka.
I take it back…” Angel had a sneer on his face and his last statement didn’t sound
sincere, but Hassani accepted it nevertheless. The glow in the tunnel began to subside.

“One of your parents must be an Angel Child, too… Must be your Daddy, the butler…
since he was the one that told you not to fight.”

Hassani offered no information as he dropped to his knees to study the artwork on
the ground.

“I did all of that…” Angel offered, taking a puff of his cigarette. The smoke gathered
around Hassani’s nostrils, almost making him cough.

“The walls, too?” Hassani looked up, meeting his eyes.

“Everything. This is all mine.” He waved his hand around, gripping the cigarette as
he pointed to the walls, claiming the drawings as if they were his children.

“You’re really good. I ain’t nowhere near this good.” Hassani wished he could draw
as well as Angel. He was amazing.

“You good enough. You’ll get there. It takes practice… Shit, I ain’t have nothing
else to do for the longest. I spent a lot of time drawing and writing rhymes. It was
the only way to get my mind clear.”

Hassani fixed his gaze on one of the nude women on the wall. Her body curved like
the letter, ‘S’ and long flowing dark brown hair waved behind her body. He noticed
most of all how big her tits were and though he felt wrong for looking so deeply at
them, he couldn’t help himself. The woman looked as if she were really standing there,
giving him attention. She even had a sly grin on her face, as if to say she wanted
to be his girl. He wanted to kiss her dead on the lips.

“You won any awards or anything like that?” Hassani questioned as he gulped down a
bit of shame.

Angel looked down at the ground, his cigarette loosely dangling from his hand as if
he’d fallen asleep.

“Yeah…a few teachers entered me in some. I won first prize more times than not. It
may have been a medal, a trophy…got some money sometimes. Sometimes my foster parents
would take the money. I stopped tellin’ them when I won because of that.”

“Yo Angel…” Hassani gripped his privates, feeling as if he may explode at any moment.

“What?”

“I gotta pee
real
bad!”

“Well piss then, lil’ nigga! You want me to hold ya dick, too?! Man up and handle
ya business.” He pointed towards a blank space on the wall.

Hassani quickly got to his feet, raced a few feet away, turned his back and quickly
unzipped his jeans. He positioned himself closer to the wall, careful to avoid spraying
a scaly green dragon with orange fire coming out of his mouth as he felt the warm
relief flood from his body.

“Ahhhh…” He closed his eyes, relishing in the moment until it was over. When he was
done, he zipped his pants back up and turned back towards Angel who seemed to be caught
between a daydream and a fantasy. His mouth twisted in a lopsided grin.

“You know what kills me about me and you?” he asked.

“What?” Hassani sat back down next to his book bag, feeling ten pounds lighter.

“If the kids at school really knew what we were capable of, they’d bow down to our
asses. But,” he said, shrugging, “we can’t do that. It fuckin’ sucks. You can feel
it in you, you know?” His eyes narrowed. “Just when you are on the brink of showin’
your ass, to get a mothafucka to back the fuck off, there is like a tickle in the
back of your throat and you know your damn air will be cut off if you say the wrong
shit. It’s checks ’nd balances…keeping us in line. Karma is a bitch!” He laughed mirthlessly.
“We here to help otha worthless bastards out…but they don’t give a fuck about us.
It’s a selfless job. Sometimes I wish I was just ordinary, man. That way, I could
just beat somebody ass to near death and not have to worry about it.”

Though deeply disturbed by Angel’s confessions, Hassani could relate. Too many times
he woke up wishing he was just an ordinary little boy and could do
exactly
as Angel admitted.

“But…at least I know my purpose now. It’s a damn start.”

“What’s your purpose?” Hassani questioned, his eyes wide open, wanting to hear every
word the older boy had to say. Angel looked at him with complete confusion, as if
he couldn’t believe his own ears.

“What?” Hassani asked, feeling on the spot and a tad bit stupid once again. It seemed
to be the running theme. He had to figure out a way to stop looking so silly in front
of the guy. He racked his brain, unable to figure out what he’d done incorrectly.
Had he said something wrong?

“You
really
don’t know?”

“No…how could I? I don’t know you, not like that, anyway.”

“Man, I have to watch over you.” Angel spat, graveness in his tone.

“What are you talkin’ about? I can watch over myself!” Hassani got to his feet, feeling
like his father had sent this punk to him as some sort of babysitter.

Wait a minute. What if Daddy is behind all of this?! I’d never live this down!

“Bullshit!” Angel screamed, getting to his feet and tossing his cigarette butt across
the tunnel in a huff. “Once a little more time passes and people get a whiff of you,
they are gonna
really
try you, then! This shit you go through ain’t nothin’ compared to what you’ll get
when you get older. Everywhere you look, everywhere you go, they will be comin’! New
York is the Angel Child metropolis! We stay outta sight until someone like you comes
around. Everybody wants to be close to a superstar, including me, but at least I got
the balls to admit it and more importantly, I wanna help.”

“What the hell are you talkin’ about?!” Hassani couldn’t believe he was now cursing,
too. Angel had a horrible mouth, almost worse than his daddy’s. The shit was contagious…oops,
there he went again.

“What you mean, what the hell am I talking about, little man?! Are you brain dead?
How can you be so psychically strong and so fuckin’ naive?! Look, you attract people
to you, Hassani. Have you not noticed that, this entire goddamn week?!”

“Yeah, I noticed, but it ain’t like that and you don’t make any sense.” Hassani’s
heart beat out of his chest.

The boy began to count off his fingers. “As soon as your father dropped your ass off,
a crowd gathered around you. You had to push your way through. I was walking past
but didn’t give it much thought until I had to bring my brother his lunch. Regardless
of that, I guess that just went right the fuck over your head, didn’t it? The next
moment, you were in the school hall and the same damn thing happened. Some of those
people weren’t gathered around because there was a fight, it was because of
you
! They see fights all damn day, big deal! Next, Frederick’s bitch ass was trying to
shake you down, that happens to the best of us though. But because of that situation,
I caught your scent real strong because you were amped up. You were fucking glowing
man, but no one could see the shit but me! You glow from the inside out. You are powerful,
strong. You’re multi-tiered!”

Hassani had heard that term several times before. The last time, Daddy was talking
to Uncle Jagger on the phone…

“Then, all this week, crowds keep coming around you. You can’t even eat in peace.”

A terrifying truth hit Hassani like a subway train. While in L.A., he
did
notice people always seemed to hang around him, no matter where he went. Yes, he’d
noticed but dismissed it, figuring it may have just been all in his mind. After all,
Manhattan was crowded. But that didn’t account for the other incidents. An area on
the playground would be practically empty, so he’d go to it, hoping to get a moment
to himself. Then suddenly, teachers and students alike would be talking to each other
close by him…almost following him. It wouldn’t take long before he was swallowing
air, claustrophobic, wishing and praying everyone would just go away.

“It’s because you’re so young, so fresh, so unaware. It will pass, little man, don’t
worry.” Angel seemed to sense his fear. “You said you had a little sister, right?”

“…Yeah.”

“Maybe you can remember when she was born. People like little babies; they come around,
want to hold ’em. That’s how multi-tiered little kids are, man. People wanna hang
around y’all, but they don’t know why. Sometimes people want to hurt you, too. You
have a light in you and evil people have darkness. They want to snuff your little
ass out. Something in them knows, each damn day that passes, the stronger your little
ass will get. Once you get about my age, it will lessen quite a bit. You won’t have
that newborn smell on you no more, but your powers will still be growing.”

Hassani was once again riddled with fear. Daddy had sat him down and explained in
detail what was going on, but hearing it from Angel sounded so much different, as
if it were something to run away from.

“Well, thanks for telling me. I can handle it though. I’ll be alright,” he lied, repeating
his rehearsed, stand-by line. Hassani sat back down with a sudden urge to try out
a cigarette. Things were out of control. He wanted to be like Angel—carefree, and
loose. He didn’t want caution to rule his every move anymore. He hated how Daddy had
put restrictions on him. If he didn’t do as told, some boogie man would come get ’im.
Even Angel spoke of such things. You do the wrong thing, your butt was in deep trouble…
Maybe being scared wasn’t a little kid thing after all. Angel had said he’d been scared
before, and look how cool he was? He bet Angel had already tongue kissed a girl, maybe
even gone to second or third base.

“Most multi-tiered Angel Children have to have a guardian, Hassani. It’s just expected.
And…it can’t be your parents,” the boy said out of the blue, making him pay attention.

“Is that a rule?”

“Nah.” Angel grinned. “It ain’t no rule, little man, but it will help you a hell of
a lot.”

“Are you mult…multi…”

“Tiered. The word is ‘multi-tiered’ and the answer is no. I only have three gifts
that I’m aware of, and that’s all I have and ever will have, but it works for me.”

“What can you do?”

“I can see through shit…behind walls. It’s weak right now though. Once I get older,
I can do it clearly. I can spot other Angel Children a mile away. I knew you were
an Angel Child as soon as you got to school, just didn’t know how powerful you were
until later in the day. Not all of us can do that, you know, spot someone from a distance.
Some of us have to be up close on one another… Also, I can move shit without touching
it.”

“I can do that too! Tha last one!” Hassani said excitedly. “Maybe you’re wrong. Maybe
you
are
multi-tiered and just don’t know yet. It could happen,” he said excitedly, wanting
Angel to be just like him.

“Nah, I ain’t gonna change, even after I get older though, Hassani. You can just kinda
tell, you can feel it. I’ve accepted that. You have to have four or more to be considered
multi-tiered. Plus, I smell different than you. Hassani, that’s your first lesson,
son. You have to start inhaling,
hard
. You need to start knowing who is around you. You bastards are pungent!” He grinned
wide. “The more powerful you are, the sweeter you smell…like a blooming rose, but
only to the trained nose.” He pointed to his and grinned. “When a multi-tiered Angel
Child is an adult, they can hide it, turn it down or off for short intervals if they
want to, though. Sometimes you don’t want to be discovered, but you’re not at that
stage yet.”

They were quiet for a while.

“Don’t you have to get home? I do.” Hassani suddenly took notice of the time as he
peered at Angel’s digital watch but couldn’t quite make it out.