The Laws of our Fathers (78 page)

    Core never said what Nile was supposed to do. But Nile knew, he wasn't that out of it, he knew it wasn't good. And he took a pass. The first time. Just made a face like, 'Get a grip,' and walked out. But of course Hardcore was back at it the next week.

    'Bug gone show you,' Core said this time, when Nile finally asked what he had in mind. Hardcore scratched his face and looked away, down to the street, where he could see his trade at work. From this apartment on 17, he looked right down on the intersection of Grace and Lawrence, a one-way street where he could observe Tic-Tac coming from every direction. Core was a genius, Nile thought suddenly as he saw the point of being up here.

    Finally, Nile said, 'Show me.' 'Homegirl gone show you, I said.'

    'I'm not saying I'll do it. I just want to, you know, kind of see.' 'See if you gone get gaffled?'

    'The whole thing. How I'll feel. I want to kind of figure the whole thing.'

    'You ain gone get cracked. You get cracked, man, first word out you mouth gone be Hardcore, ain that right? Ain that how it is? You gone lighten the load, man. So, I ain gone let you get cracked.'

    
‘I
just want to see.'

    'Lovinia show you.'

    So she walked him down the street, to one of the crummy buildings on Lawrence, broken-down three-flats, brick buildings with boarded windows and lawns scuffled away to dirt. This was one of Core's stash pads. Lovinia led him along, three steps ahead of him, talking to herself.

    ‘I done tol' you,' she said. 'You think you way past cool, and I done tol you.' She shook her head sorrowfully.

    The building was empty. On the first floor, one door was broken in, just smashed in half, the wood veneer broken off in crazy pieces. This was a crackhouse. Tic-Tac was in and out of here once a month. The acerbic reek of the smoke remained, even though this week, with the last raid only days past, the place was deserted. There was no electricity and the broad old stairwell in the walk-up was lit solely by a window on the fourth floor which wasn't boarded. They moved upward through the cone of falling light. The railings had been ripped off the walls, the light fixtures stolen, the carpet runners, even some of the hardwood from the flooring, had been scavenged. Gang signs were written in paint and marker on the walls. At the fourth floor, Bug stood with her finger across her lip. She wanted to see if they'd been followed. After quite some time, she led Nile back down to the second-floor. There were heavy padlocks installed on each front door of the four apartments. Bug opened one of the middle ones with a key.

    The place was cold and empty. The linoleum floor had been picked up in places and was soiled in huge spots, which had lain under built-in units, now removed. Bug piled through the cabinets in the kitchen till she found the balloon. Someone had left it there, hours before. Probably Hardcore. They both stood looking at it in her hand. About half a pound of straight coke in the condom, Nile figured. Ten years, minimum mandatory.

    'Where do I carry it?'

    'Didn't he tell you nothin? You got to put it where they ain gone feel. Them suckers shake you down.' 'Barely.'

    'Yeah, man, you cain't be gettin cracked with this shit.' ‘I know that.' He actually laughed at that point 'Got to put it where they ain gone feel.' 'Which is where, man?'

    Lovinia got shy. Her eyes shot away like fish in water.

    'Oh man,' she said, 'how come I got do everything?' She had the tape and some extra condoms in her pocket. She laid them down on a small wooden table in the kitchen, beside the package. 'This got to go in you little booty. Okay?'

    ‘No.'

    'Uh-huh. Don't you be sayin no. Here.' 'I'll do it. That's okay.'

    'Come on, man. I gone do it. Just that damn Hardcore get me sometime. Okay, boy. Come on.' 'Come on, what?'

    'Leave down you damn pants, man.' 'Jesus.'

    She took the balloon and massaged it. She took it in her two thin hands, working on it with her long fingers, squeezing it out. Just that was enough to get him started.

    'Come on, dude. Get wit' it.'

    He loosened his belt. He worked the pants down his thighs. She got behind him and pulled the elastic on his briefs down herself.

    Wait a minute, he thought. Wait a minute. He remembered then he had told Hardcore he just wanted to see. But there was nothing to say now. Bug had told him that on the way over. Core 'd be ripping her if Nile didn't go ahead.

    'Okay now, bend you over. Thass right. Come on. Put you hands on you cheeks. Okay.' Her fingers were chill and startling, but she started laughing. 'You know, I don't think I ever seed a white one. Like for-real and all.'

    'Really?'

    'Nn-uh. Weird, you know. Man, you pale, man. Be kind of
frightnz'n.
'

    'Yeah, well, that's nice,' he said.

    'Oh, you know, you okay.' She touched him soothingly. 'Only I ain used to it is all. You seed a black girl?'

    'Yeah.' He wasn't lying. In high school, there was one girl.

    'What her name? Now hold 'em apart. Go right there.' She ran her fingernail along. 'Now it go like that. Now you cain 't put no tape over it, or it tear and burstes itself apart. You get that powder over that interview room, man, that's big-time shit. So you put some threads and we tape over them threads. Okay?' She told him what he would have to do, who he'd be going to see. Core had planned it all. 'So you been gettin busy wit some black chick, huh? You think that's right, huh? Black is best, huh?'

    It hadn't come to that, but he didn't say so now. She had her cool, thin fingers all over. She was playing, he knew it, she did too, and he started getting hard. Shit, he thought, shit. But something told him. He really had no will to stop it. His briefs were still up in front, but he was sure she'd notice.

    'So you was likin that chick, huh?' She rubbed his ass with both hands. He had no idea what she thought she was doing.

    'It was a long time ago.'

    'Cain't barely 'member, huh?'

    'Man, you 're playin me.'

    'You don't seem to mind none.' She said it and he didn't say anything. 'Yeah, you don't seem to mind.' She came around the side, looked down, and then, shy as she was, dared his eyes. 'What you got there? What you hidin?' She poked it, and he flinched. She laughed, laughed. ‘I knowed you be likin me.'

    He didn't move. He didn't say anything either.

    'You think I ain never seen that? You don't wanna know what I seen. I seen that.' She skirted her hand inside his briefs. 'You gettin scared now?' She laughed. She touched him. Just touched and drew her hand back, and laughed some more. 'Ain you got nothin to say?'

    He was up now, stiff as steel.

    'Don't that feel good?' she asked.

    'Yes.'

    They both looked, her hand wrapped all around him.

    She sucked. That had never happened to Nile. That had never happened. She went around him in that cold apartment and took him in her mouth and dug her hands into his backside and pushed him back and forth the first few times. It didn't take long for him to be done. She went to one of the back rooms and spat.

    'Some girls say it make you sick. You think?'

    There was the virus, but he was clean. All county employees got screened each year.

    'I don't think so. I learned something about it. Health class or something. I don't think it makes you sick.'

    Health class. She loved that.

    'Don't say nothin to none of them,' she said when she reached the door. 'God, no.'

    Then she smiled. ‘I knowed you be likin me.'

    After that, it happened each week. He brought the dope in; the second or third time, he started bringing money out. Core handed him half back and Nile returned it. 'Oh, man,' said Core with disgust. He stuffed it into the pockets of Nile's trousers. 'Damn, man. You too much,' he said. Nile kept the money in a carton in his closet. He figured he'd send it to Michael sometime. Or buy something for Bug.

    Sometimes Lovinia and he fucked. There was a mattress there and Bug rode him. She had tiny little pouchy breasts and her ribs showed. She was so thin it was frightening. There never seemed to be much in it for her. She was working. He was a man and this was what men wanted. One thing Bug knew about was the world. She liked it when he said it felt good. She liked it when he said stuff afterwards. There were a hundred things Nile wanted to ask her. Did Hardcore know? But Nile was pretty sure he didn't. Was it because he was white? But that was crude. Was it because he was nice? Which is what she was always saying. Had she ever done it for money? Had she done this for Hardcore?

    'Ain you gone touch me?' she asked him the next time, once they were in the apartment.

    He wanted to ask her a hundred things. But nothing so much as this: What does it mean to you? Do you think about me all the time, the way I think of you? Do you feel your skin surge, do your hips and heart ache? What does it mean to you?

    He never really knew.

    

    'Dang,' Eddgar said. He stood by the refrigerator, a hand planted on his forehead. This was how Eddgar spoke in the privacy of his home, when Nile was around, as if Nile were still three years old. Imagine a person, a human being, ripping out a 'Dang' like he was Gomer Pyle or something. At moments, his father could do things - sniffle, pick his teeth, scratch - display a sign he was just as fucking dumb as everybody else, and Nile would hate him worse than any other person in his life. Because he couldn't get past him, couldn't get away. Sometimes, Nile felt like some poor yapping mutt, a dog in the yard running this way and that, barking at you, charging in your direction, and never remembering till he was jerked back so powerfully his forepaws left the lawn, never recalling, Hey, I'm tied to this goddamn stake in the ground. That was Nile. That was Eddgar.

    
‘I
keep forgetting about this,' Eddgar said. He was holding the wad of notes he carried in his shirt pocket. It was strange to Nile how his father had turned into an old man. He was one of those strange old birds now with everything he had to remember written on a paper in his pocket.

    'What?'

    'The money. Make sure you tell Ordell I'm going to get to it. I just don't know where it's supposed to come from.' 'He's okay about it.' 'You didn't tell him?'

    'No. You mean where it went? No. I just said, you know, it'd be a little longer than we expected. He's cool, though. You know, I've been giving him some help.'

    'Help?'

    'Yeah, you know.' 'What kind of help?' 'Help. H, e, l, p.' 'As his probation officer?' 'Sort of. It's not important.'

    'Wait, wait. Nile. Pay attention. Look at me.' His father was at the kitchen table. 'What are you doing?' 'Eddgar - '

    'Wait. What are you doing, Nile?'

    Fuck you doing? He stood in thefiery furnace. Fuck you doing? The question of his life.

    

    
Eddgar

    

    You could never really judge Eddgar without seeing this. That's what he told himself. Those who scorned him - there were many, the reporters, the statehouse guttersnipes, the ugly claque tittering about Loyell Eddgar and his life of endless plotting - they could never really take account of him without seeing him as he lived here, in a three-room apartment carved out of the large house. He'd bought this house for June twenty-five years ago in the most grandiose gesture he could conceive of to reflect personal reform. It never mattered to her. She left anyhow, and over time he cut away the space. He had student roomers during the term, and in the winter a flophouse in the basement for homeless men. But privacy, solitude, remained precious. Those parts of the house where others dwelled were sealed off from the smaller area Eddgar and Nile occupied.

    Eddgar's rooms were spartan. He never bothered with carpets. The hardwood was chilly. He still fell wearily upon the same Danish Modern sofa which had traveled from their place in Damon, its orange cushions covered with Guatemalan prints. There was nothing on the walls, only a single picture in a frame on an old maple coffee table: Nile, June, Eddgar in the late sixties, the boy with flossy curls, a hand upraised in childish jubilance. Bulwarks of books and papers were piled neatly. In his bedroom, the spread was tucked precisely beneath the outline of the pillow, leaving no sign of the man who was here in the middle of the night with the covers in turmoil.

    What did he think then? Did he wake with longing? And for whom? That is what people wanted to know, he realized. But he could not fully say himself. He recalled coming to in that state and instantly feeling somehow thwarted and ashamed, his mind quickly diverted. He spoke then to God, as he had done in moments of utter privacy all his life. For years - the bad years as Eddgar thought of them, when so much seemed beyond his control - in those years he would hide from himself the fact he did this, so that the disarming knowledge that he was still secretly conducting this conversation with Him would come flying at Eddgar out of nowhere, like a levitating object at a seance. He would think, How can it be? But he never stopped. For one reason. He listened. At that age offour or five or six, somewhere far back there, one thick summery Southern night, with the locusts sawing themselves in shrieks of desiccated passion, the intimation came to Eddgar of the vast presence above who heard with welcome Eddgar's inner thoughts. God listened. Not always with patience or admiration. At times, Eddgar grappled with God, as Jacob wrestled the angel. Sometimes in his dreams, Eddgar saw them locked together, tussling, their naked flanks sweat-glistered and etched in shadow. He felt the overheated breath, the ferocious violent embrace of God nearly squeezing life from him, a sort of ecstasy arising amid the pain.