The Tragic Flaw (27 page)

“Oh, ain't this a bitch, this is Jesse's shit. Fuck,” he says of some hallucinogens left in his car by one of his Mexican friends. The plush seats begin to foam like Alka Seltzer tablets and the aroma of freshly bottled Sprite fills the air.

“Shit. I gotta ride this shit out. This is some bad timing,” Kam acknowledges. Then he hears a voice.

“This ain't bad timing. Quit being a pussy,” the passenger seat yells. Kam quickly turns to the right and sees the headrest on the passenger seat looks just like his incarcerated brother. “Look at you, all high and shit. And you stink. Gimme a sandwich!”

Kam leans back away from the chattering seat, only to feel the seatbelt trying to arouse him by blowing in his ear. “A, seatbelt, chill out, cuz,” he whispers.

“Dude, where's my motherfucking sandwich? And no goddamn pickles this time,” the seat demands in a demonic tone. “The world is topsy-turvy and no one wants to die.”

Kam's breathing becomes deeper and his heart rate intensifies. He's slowly losing it. Sweat beads on his forehead and rolls down his face and goatee.

“I gotta ride this shit out,” he says, panting. Mushrooms bloom from the floor and tiny elves and frogs frolic in lily fields in the backseat.

“Yea, ride it out, asshole. Ride it out! Yee-haw,” screams the passenger seat.

Kam closes his eyes and sweat continues to flow down his face before he passes out in his Regal in the empty parking lot of Ward Parkway Mall.

 

Birds chirp again and Kameron stirs. His mouth is dry and his eyelids are heavy and tightly closed. But his body stirs and he awakens. The parking lot is still empty, but it's now ten hours later and his Regal is the only car in the pitch-black parking lot. Lana is long gone.

“Shit.” It's the only word he can muster. He sluggishly regains his faculties and turns the key in the ignition, revving the engine, then smashing the gas pedal back north to his midtown apartment.

He does about ninety down Ward Parkway when his cell phone rings.

“Yea,” he answers abruptly.

“Hey.”

“Yea, what's up?”

“What you doin' tonight?” his baby's mother asks.

“I don't know. I got shit on my mind right now.”

“Well, I was gonna stop by for a little bit, maybe cook something.”

“Yea, that's cool.”

“Where you at?”

“I'm on my way home right now. When you comin' by?”

“I guess in about an hour or so.”

“That's cool. I'll be there.”

“Okay. I'll see you then.”

“All right.” And Kam snaps his phone shut, tossing it into the now silent passenger seat.

 

Beads, trinkets, toys, aluminum doubloons, plastic cups, necklaces, dolls, and other throws litter the black pavement.

Cameras flash in the foreground and in the distance, capturing exposed breasts and genitals. Cicero mixes in with the jam-packed crowd of thousands on the New Orleans Rue. He wades through ankle-high rubbish, sipping a cold beer. The triad of green, purple, and gold adorns everything in sight under the bright full lunar orb.

Flash
. A coed of simple beauty lowers her halter top in the summer-like weather, in exchange for worthless baubles from a total stranger.

“Thanks, honey! You sure earned these,” the guy says to her before kissing her on the cheek.

“Thanks. Have a good Mardi Gras,” she drunkenly replies as her girlfriends hand her her yard-long strawberry daiquiri. Her upper body is weighted with layers of intricate crap and doodads.

Cicero takes it all in, strolling down the street, when he notices his boots are covered in a revolting dark-brown muck.

“Fuck. Why did I wear these,” he laments out loud. The perpetual motion of the multitude prevents him from wiping them. Catholics and atheists alike gather in the Big Easy to drink themselves stupid, see some skin, and hopefully have unprotected sex with someone whose last name they don't know.

Twenty-year-olds in LSU and Ole Miss T-shirts carry massive alcoholic drinks just like those in Southern and Grambling shirts and hoodies. Cicero steps through while drunk and sober women caress his bald head and make eyes at him. He stares back as a crackle of thunder bursts through the sky.

“Whoa! God don't like this down 'chere, shan,” some drunk Cajun slurs, bumping into Cicero. He looks at the local as if he's got shit on his face.

“Fuckin' idiot,” Cicero says in a low voice.

“Hey, don't make love, I mean, don't make war, make love,” mutters a cute blonde with a nice buzz. Looking up, she gazes into Cicero's eyes as her half-sober friend clings to her arm trying to pull her up the Rue.

Her looks and her spirit catch Cicero's attention, and hold it.

“So are you the love ambassador?”

“Yep. You wanna open up some negotiations?” She flirtingly motions. Her bright blue eyes beckon.

“Look, let's cut the shit. I got a suite at the Ritz-Carlton. You comin' with me?”

She thinks for a moment and can't resist Cicero's bluntness.

“Yea, let's go.”

Her brunette friend angrily protests but the blonde pulls away from her grasp.

Cicero turns with his blonde date following and is about to head back to his room when a dazzling rainbow catches his eye.

Sparkling, shining prisms snatch energy from available light sources and toss it back to the world. The diamonds hang from the neck of a rapper with a familiar face.

Cicero stares as he stands between his two flunkies and his massive bodyguard.

“Man, it's some bitches out here,” Scrill expresses with joy, exposing the brilliant diamonds and platinum in his mouth. He wears sunglasses with reflective lenses. Girls wave at him and others run up to get hugs, only to be thwarted by his hired protection.

“A, ya'll, I got to piss. Those grenadine Zimas are running through me,” the rapper tells his crew, which is preoccupied by the groupies and free-flowing liquor.

“Yea, that's cool, man. Don't get lost,” one of his boys yells above the noise of the Quarter as he fondles the breast of a young Scrill fan. His bodyguard has a face full of saggy breasts and doesn't hear the rapper make his Johnny-on-the-spot announcement.

Seeing the rapper walk away, alone, Cicero unceremoniously calls off his date, to the chagrin of his new lady friend.

“Hey, do you have a cell phone?”

“Yea,” she slurs, swinging her long straight hair back over her shoulder.

“Well, give me your number. I'm gonna call you in a few minutes. Is that cool?” Cicero says, looking directly into her eyes.

“Oh. You don't wanna hook up? You're gonna stand me up?”

“Naw, not at all. I just need to do something.”

The shouting in the streets reaches a fever pitch when the Playboy girls begin flashing their silicone from one of the Bourbon Street balconies. Cicero's girl raises her voice so he can hear her.

“Okay. Just be sure to call me.”

“I will.”

She types her number into his cell phone and hands it back to her suitor.

Meanwhile, the short millionaire rap superstar sneaks off to an alley where a few drunken stragglers stumble through. Afraid to just whip it out and piss, Scrill looks for a darker, more secluded spot, as the sounds of Bourbon Street lessen. He is unaware someone is close behind, watching his every move.

A large navy dumpster nearly wedged between two of New Orleans' oldest shotgun houses seems to offer Scrill what he's looking for. It's an alley known to be the home of several ghosts and phantoms.

“Yea, that will work.”

He skips over a puddle of rain runoff and spent beer, causing his large platinum chain and medallion to smack his bird-like chest.

His back is to the dark alley as he faces the blue dumpster. He unzips his baggy jeans and releases his urine. It flows down the rancid asphalt that has seen piss for at least two centuries. His sunglasses reflect the river of waste coming from his body.

“Ah, I needed that,” he exclaims.

Once finished, he shakes, then zips his baggy jeans. Scrill turns to leave the alley and is stunned to see a bald man standing just a foot away, staring at him with intense eyes.

“Yo! What the fuck is your problem, man? Don't be sneaking up on people like that!”

Brash, the short rapper pushes Cicero in his chest and tries to walk off, but Cicero quickly grabs him by his loose basketball jersey and forcefully thrusts his back into the metal dumpster, causing a loud crash.

“Help!” the rapper screams. His award-winning songs often include lyrics of murder and strong-arm tactics, but in reality he's a punk from the suburbs that had only been in one fight in his life, which he lost. The hubbub of Mardi Gras is too thick for his pleas to be heard.

Cicero leans his two-hundred-plus pounds of body weight on the much smaller man, then places his right hand over the rapper's mouth, preventing further screams.

“Remember me from the airport? You thought that shit was funny, didn't you,” Cicero grumbles in a low voice. Tears well in Scrill's eyes and his heart pounds to be set free.

Cicero leans in closer, nearly putting his mouth on the terrified rapper's ear, as Scrill struggles in futile gestures to wiggle free.

“I got a rap for you, big Scrill,” Cicero whispers, then mockingly starts to rhyme: “You should stay in your place, it would be more nutritious.”

The rapper squirms even harder, and Cicero continues.

“Your life ends tonight, revenge is so delicious.”

Still powerfully pinning him against the dumpster, Cicero swiftly clutches the rapper's platinum chain and wraps it around his neck, pulling it skyward with his left hand. The resplendent noose gleams in the moonlight.

The small man panics and struggles with all his strength, but it's not enough to free himself. Veins pop out on his neck and forehead. Reflections of Cicero's scowling face bounce off Scrill's designer sunglasses, warping his assailant's fine looks.

His eyes bulge bloodshot and wet. Cicero pulls the chain higher and harder, preventing any air from entering the star's starving lungs. He fidgets, and fidgets, until he suddenly collapses to the filthy street, lifeless.
Carne levare
.

Cicero releases the chain and stares at the rapper's cold body, as it lies in its own piss.

“You weak bitch. Talk shit now.”

Partying voices become louder so Cicero acts fast. He lifts the wide lid of the dumpster, then picks up the rapper's dead body and throws it in, tossing it amongst the other flamboyant rubbish of Mardi Gras. He gently lowers the lid and hurriedly leaves the wrought-iron balconies, shuttered windows, and stucco of the Quarter, under the cover of darkness and ruckus. He escapes being caught
en flagrante delicto
.

That same night, he packs his suitcase at the Ritz and hops in a taxi bound for the first flight to Kansas City, Missouri. Cicero will not see the finale of Mardi Gras in the Crescent City, the symbolic last day of depravity before Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. His decadence and transgressions go on without a metaphorical day of closure, as he zooms 25,000 feet above the country's midsection.

O
nce the product began selling, every Saturday at noon Brad would drop money off to one of Jimmy's restaurants in the River Market area. In turn, he would walk out with a nice to-go box of pasta primavera, passing by Amish and Vietnamese merchants.

But for three weeks, no deliveries have been made. Certain people of Mediterranean descent are becoming more than anxious, as feathers fall delicately from the ceiling in Kam's loft. Hollow orbs jettison among time and space.

This phenomenon transpires as brain cells buy the farm in Kameron's head and he puffs a cigarette dipped in embalming fluid. The formaldehyde rivals peyote and even mescaline in its hallucinogenic potency, but it makes Kam no difference. He's depressed. Not only did he lose Lana, his drug connection in Canada needs him to come ASAP, and he can't.

Flames crackle in his fireplace and water trickles down the large stone fountain in the corner.

Various drugs befoul his system. Kam has called Cicero's cell phone all night, but he still hasn't heard from him, and his nerves simply can't take it. Tonight, he's wasted off every opiate and stimulant available in the eight-one-six and nine-one-three area codes. Chemicals contaminate his mitochondria.

Tiny feathers the color of warm oatmeal float about.

Water runs in the kitchen sink and long painted fingernails make dishes clatter. The mother of Kam's son prepared a meal earlier that evening, and now she washes the dishes. Black roots interrupt her dyed blonde hair, as her full-figured physique bursts out of blue jeans.

Then the phone rings.

Kam, lying on his futon, ignores the ring.

“Kam, get the phone,” Keisha demands.

Dazed, Kam leans over to his left and fumbles for the loft's cordless phone. Calls to his home are rare, so he struggles to find the phone as it rings and rings.

“Kam, pick the phone up,” Keisha yells again from the kitchen.

“Hello,” he answers. His voice is dry and rough.

“Hey, you fucking piece of shit, Jimmy wants his money,” a man's voice says.

“What?” Kam slurs. He's groggy and his mind isn't clear as he stares up at the ceiling with nearly closed eyes. “Who…who the fuck is this?”

“Jimmy wants his money, cocksucker.”

Kameron laughs, flashing his diamond-rich teeth.

Some of the orbs Kameron sees are idle, while others scoot in awkward directions at varying speeds. These orbs exist in a different dimension, so they never mingle with the feathers, which continue their nonstop descent from on high.

“Who is it, baby?” Keisha asks, now drying the dishes. “Is that Yolanda? She said she was gonna call.”

The drugs have altered reality for Kameron and his thoughts are impaired as he wipes saliva from his mouth.

“Hey, fuck you, cuz,” Kam tells the guy on the phone. “This is Kameron Brown, you fuckin' wit. You think you scare me? You don't scare me, mothafucka!”

The rushing waters in Kam's fountain sound like a tidal wave to him, pounding the beach in his thoughts. Serotonin and dopamine socialize in his brain's avenues and causeways as the deep voice on the phone laughs.

“Oh it's funny,” Kam questions, becoming angry. “I'll take on your whole army, mothafucka.”

“Baby, who is that?” questions Keisha, concerned. Gold outlines one of her front teeth.

With that, Kam leans over and pulls a semi-automatic pistol from under the futon and cocks the hammer back.

“I got heat for bitches like you.”

“Yea, you're gonna need it, cocksucker,” the man says, laughing.

“Oh yea! Oh yea! Mothafucka, I'm a gangsta,” an enraged Kam yells in his deep voice as he wobbles and rises to his feet. “I'm a fucking G!”

Laughter spills from the phone.

Keisha walks from the kitchen and sees Kameron drunkenly wielding the weapon, and she panics. His drug abuse has caught up with him.

“Oh, my God. Baby, put the gun down,” she pleads with both her hands in the air. “Kam, put the gun down, baby.”

But the chemicals circulating in his body mute her words.

“You mothafuckas can't touch me! Ya'll mothafuckas can't take me out,” he screams into the telephone. “I'm the only mothafucka that can take me out! You hear me, bitch? I'm the only mothafucka that can touch me.”

“Kam, please stop,” Keisha begs. Tears now run down her face, smearing her heavy mascara. “Please, Kam. Stop it, baby.”

The man on the phone once again bursts into sadistic laughter, further angering a deranged Kam.

“Oh, it's funny,” Kam rages. “I'm the only one that can take me out. I'll take my own self out! I ain't scared!”

He quickly puts the shiny black pistol to his temple and pulls the trigger.
Bang!

“No! No!!” Keisha screams, still standing in one place, unable to move. Her hands cover her face.

Chunks of gray matter and bone fragments splatter the white futon as Kam's frame quivers and the pistol drops harmlessly to the floor. With one shot, he put himself to rest.

Hearing a woman's screams on the other end, the man on the phone calmly hangs up.

“Oh, my God! Oh, my God,” Keisha stutters. She drops to her knees, about five feet from Kameron, and tears flow freely from her big brown eyes.

Kameron Brown's body is motionless and bleeding. He dies with his mouth open, exposing his precious smile in a final show of distasteful irony, so full of luster, and yet lacking life.

Crime scene investigators will determine narcotics and hallucinogens induced his suicide. It is indeed a dreadful end to a sad and tumultuous life. He was just a young man.