Young Junius, page 9
part #4 of Jack Palms Series
“I mean take your shit off, niggah. Strip down and show me each piece of your clothes when you take it off.”
“Huh?”
But Junius could see they’d just gotten all the explanation there was. He started to unzip his jacket, already pulling off his hat with one hand. He showed Pickup his hat inside and out and handed over his winter jacket to have its pockets and lining checked. Pickup started squeezing his hands through the fabric and down the sleeves.
Junius undid his belt. If asked, he would strip naked and spread his butt cheeks to see the Oracle.
Marlene had finished showering and was sitting in her living room when the phone rang. She’d been planning her discussion with Malik for that afternoon, what she wanted to say about Rock and how best to approach the topic of the crack invasion that she saw around her. The question wasn’t necessarily of taking over Rock’s tower, but of whether crack could be stopped from spreading—if it was even possible.
From inside Billerica, Malik didn’t know all she was facing in this new drug or what it did to their people. But sometimes he surprised her, and if there was one place a crack addict would wind up, Billerica was it. If he’d seen it with his own eyes, he’d know something needed to be done. If not, he’d know as soon as their sales numbers changed.
Seven Heaven came out of the office and stepped across the carpet.
“Pickup downstairs with the young buck who waxed Lamar,” he said. “Boy name Junius. His brother Temple. They from Willie Stash crew.”
She turned to face him, noticed that she’d been wringing her hands. “Temple that got killed?”
Seven Heaven nodded.
“This kid did Lamar?”
“Most definitely.”
Marlene exhaled, then found herself nodding. “What he want from me?”
“Been asking to see you. Wants to see the Oracle.”
She sighed. The older she got, the more tired the Oracle idea became. She hadn’t had a dream about anything significant for years now: no visions, premonitions, or lucky picks at any street fairs. She was just a person, but people still wanted to come to her, expected her to be special.
Stupidly, they believed in her, and either because she didn’t want to take any small hope away from them or because she didn’t know how to stop it, she had yet to refuse an appearance.
Seven asked, “What you want me to say?”
Marlene was still nodding. There was no doubt in her mind what she had to do. “Tell them I’ll be down.”
She exhaled. Behind her, the door to the office closed after Seven Heaven.
She shook her head, leaned back into the soft couch. Rock was always ready to pop off, eager to start the kind of gunplay and killing that could cripple business for weeks at a time. He truly did not care.
The police could come down, park in front of the buildings, shut down their space altogether, and Rock’s anger would not fade. He was stubborn, she knew, and maybe from his point of view it made sense. Maybe from the place he saw things, with just one of the three towers, he had a lot less to lose. She shut her eyes. Trying to predict what would make sense to the man called Rock would get her nowhere.
But as sure as she knew anything, she knew that he would want revenge on Junius for killing Lamar. He’d already been to Willie Stash, she’d heard, and Willie did the diplomacy, left his young soldier out in the wind. And Rock left Willie alone. Why not? He avoided any small war Willie could bring and had Junius all to himself to put a target on. No worries, no danger of anyone coming back for revenge.
The boy was alone.
She thought hard about who he was, but couldn’t come up with a face. It made perfect sense that he’d come to her now, seeking shelter and support against Rock, support that she couldn’t give. Maybe he’d also want to know who killed Temple. If he was truly crazy, he’d still be filled with a desire for death and the stupidity to think she knew more than a person would.
If he was that far gone, she’d tell him who did his brother and then she’d sit back and see what he would do.
26
Stripped naked with his clothes in a pile before him, Junius watched Pickup squeeze through his jeans, wondering if the big man would actually check his drawers. Junius knew he wouldn’t. Pickup threw the jeans at Junius’s chest. “Get dressed,” he said, kicking his pile of clothes, not touching the blue-and-white boxers.
He started on Elf’s jeans as Junius hurried his clothes back on and shoved his feet into his Nikes.
When Pickup finished Elf’s jeans, he stared at the two of them.
“This what you wanted, young guns?” He shook his head, then turned and walked out of the apartment, back into the hall, and shut the door behind him. Junius heard it lock from the outside, saw there was only a keyhole on the inside of the lock.
He checked his pockets to make sure everything was still there: his pen, his little pipe, the money his mother had given him for the bus.
Elf dropped onto the floor to pull on his jeans, socks, and sneakers—he was already back into his drawers.
“The fuck is this place?” Junius asked.
“Antechamber, probably. Back in the old days they had special rooms like these to make the suckers wait before they got to meet the king or someone.”
“Marlene?”
“Oh, fuck yes. In this case? She the queen.”
Junius crossed the room to try one of the other doors. It was locked, but even without opening it he could smell a strong scent of weed. “Damn,” he said. He took a deeper breath and smelled: some of the sweetest and strongest fresh herb he could get his nose around, the smell like the door was a baggie itself, the room just full.
“There so much weed behind this door,” Junius said, “we could catch lift just standing here.”
“Oh word?” Elf got up fast, checked the door while he was still pulling on his shirt. His eyes popped. He tried the handle again. Still locked. “That is some good shit.”
Elf crossed back to the middle of the room and put on his jacket and hat. Then he walked to the back wall to sit on the floor below the blacked-out windows. Junius crossed to the second door: it was locked and didn’t smell of anything he could recognize.
“When she gonna come?” he asked.
Elf just shook his head, his eyes already closed.
She walked into the apartment at the end of the hall, in past Seven Heaven after he unlocked the door and stood back out of the way. The small one they called Elf was sitting down. The other one, Temple’s brother, stood in the center of the room. She had to look at him twice to convince herself he was only fourteen. Even then she remained uncertain.
He looked resigned, as if everything had been determined already; no room for going back or changing how he’d move forward. He stared right at her, unabashed.
“I’m Marlene,” she said.
“Tell me who killed Temple.”
“Ho!” Seven Heaven held up a hand. “That ain’t how you speak now. You best show respect.”
Junius glanced at Seven, then said his own name. He waited for her to speak. She turned to Elf, who promptly stood and nodded.
“You two came here to talk to me?”
“They say we go to the Oracle to find out who killed my brother.”
Seven Heaven turned to her and raised an eyebrow. He was the only one who understood what Rock’s Ready could do to their whole economy, that it could kill the goose that laid the golden eggs. These boys presented an opportunity to change that; they were practically standing before her asking for guns and a set of names to cross off her list.
It was almost too easy.
“Rock,” she said.
The smaller one’s face went wild. “Rock?”
She nodded. “He the one you want. You want to know who did Temple? That your answer.”
“He pulled the trigger?” Junius asked.
Seven Heaven stifled a smile. This boy was smart. They both had to recognize that. They could either use it to their advantage or get caught behind it at some point down the line.
“You right,” she said. “He wasn’t the trigger. Didn’t step behind the gun and do it his own self, but let our towers want his crack and he kill us all.”
“What? Who shot him?”
The boy didn’t blink, didn’t ask about the crack, what Rock was doing, or whom she was worried about. He asked who held the gun that killed his brother. It’d be easy to tell him Lamar, tell him he’d done that part of the job, and send him straight on after Rock, but he might not believe that. Give him too much and he’d think things were too easy in this life, might even get soft. Looking at her now, he was anything but that. His eyes didn’t waver or leave hers. He had no quit.
“Black Jesus,” she said. “He the one shot Temp.”
“Why?”
Now Seven Heaven didn’t smile or even look her way; he just studied the boy, trying to figure how far he would go.
“You wanted who did this, I told you. He did it because Rock said to.”
Now Junius looked at Seven. Seven nodded. “Rock fixing to take on more spots,” Seven said. “He come at us, now he coming at Willie. Your brother just in his way.”
“Nah,” Junius said. Now for the first time since she came in the room, he looked down at the floor. There was some feeling in him, some bend. That could work to her advantage. To get anything done right in this world, you had to have a part of you that was human.
Seven said, “No rhyme or reason in this game, son. You should know.”
“No rhyme or reason to you coming up on Lamar, was there? Now he got people who want to come back at you.” She paused for a few breaths to let it all sink in. “That’s the game, young gun. It’s all a circle. The snake that eats its own tail. You want this, you have to see it for what it is. And you already in deep.”
He pursed his lips and started nodding in small movements. “Temple didn’t go for no reason. I’m a be sure I see that.”
Marlene stepped back. The way Junius looked at her—like he was ready to go through her, through the door, and out into Rock’s building to do whatever needed to be done—gave her pause. For a second she considered going back upstairs and finding out what really happened to Temple, the short answer that might give this kid peace and get him away from her troubles.
But that wouldn’t do anything for the people in the towers—her people. They had to be able to live their lives. She had to fight the changes, the new poison and what it would leave behind.
That was what it came down to, what made her turn away and head for the door, leaving Junius with just a lie.
27
Outside, Clarence rolled into the towers’ parking lot with Dee and Ness. He’d angrily sucked down a cigarette driving them over from Porter, watching Dee roll a blunt on the way. At least this boy was good for something.
Clarence parked in front of 412. Dee lit the blunt and then passed it over. Clarence took a big hit, swallowed, and pulled in another on top. He clenched his teeth and let some of the smoke seep up in front of his face.
“We gonna fishbowl this motherfucker,” Ness said from the back seat.
“Clambake,” Dee said. “This Boston, bitch.”
Inside the lobby of Rock’s tower, Clarence could see Roughneck running the day trade, sending his boys out to cover the neighborhoods up to Davis and down to Porter. Pretty soon Dee and Ness should get back outside Alewife to make his money. If he came up short this week, Rock wouldn’t just let it slide because he’d been chasing Junius.
“The fuck kind of name Junius?” Clarence asked. Smoke came out when he spoke, and he considered whether asking was even worth that. His lungs were already starting to tire, but he would hold the hit longer.
Dee took a hit and said around the blunt, “Fuck I know. Moms just got creative and shit. Trying to come up with something original.”
“Junius Caesar!” Ness reached into the front seat for Dee’s pass.
Clarence coughed. Something about Junius Caesar tickled him, and he started to laugh, the smoke busting out of him in quick gusts. “Fucking hail Junius,” he said, his voice high. “The niggah who would be king.” He coughed and laughed.
Dee broke up laughing then too, spewing out his puff. “Some shit,” he said, then handed the blunt to Ness, who sat back into the leather.
Clarence reached across Dee to the glove compartment and pulled out a baby vial of coke. Dee’s eyes widened.
“None for you, son.” Clarence unscrewed the cap and used the spoon attached to bring a scoop to his nose. Bang. Zoom. Now his morning was starting out right and becoming legitimate. He dipped the spoon back for another hit and did his other nostril. Pop.
He pushed in the car’s lighter as he screwed the cap back on the vial.
Roughneck looked out through the front doors of 412 into the cold. A few minutes ago, Clarence had pulled up, and now the windows of his car were fogged. Fogged or smoked up: in the time he had been able to see inside, Dee lit up a blunt. The dumb fucks.
Clarence broke the first rule: don’t get high on your own supply. Probably never even watched Scarface, tried to know the rules or apply them to his life. Regardless of the rest of the movie, that one rule was worth everything, made all the difference between being a steady fuckup like Clarence and an actual businessman like Roughneck.
Already that morning he’d sent out six crews bound for various parts of Cambridge and Somerville, kids who would make good cash today with school out and everyone lounging at the crib, their moms and pops at work.
School vacation week was as much money as they could handle, and what was Clarence doing? Smoking his ass out in his ride.
Roughneck started to crack his knuckles—all the knuckles in his fingers—and do his stretches. He’d been taking classes at the Fred Villari in Union Square for four months now and was learning the forms, the katas. Fuck if old Fred wasn’t a class-A white Italian prick, but some of the teachers up there knew shit and could drop real knowledge about kicking ass.
Roughneck threw a punch combination that began one of his new forms and then pulled back. Doing the forms or acting like he was studying was definitely not cool here in the lobby. He liked to sneak up to the roof to practice. Even in the cold, he liked the open space and the feel that no one could see him.
From up there he could see the Fresh Pond Mall and the movie theatre he went to every Thursday night for the Hong Kong Cinema. He started going when they first showed Scarface, watched that shit every Thursday night for a month, and then when they switched to the kung fu, he always made the move to be there.
During the movie, people would start puffing, actually pull out their weed and puff right in the theater. Rough wanted to say that he minded, tell them to stop, but he knew they were his own customers, from one connect or another, and how could he tell them not to smoke? So he learned to be cool with it. Even if he didn’t smoke, he could still chill with his popcorn and the movies with their fake-ass sound effects and budget subtitles. It was fun.
He looked out at Clarence’s car again, the Olds 98, and laughed. They were still inside smoking up the windows. He pushed the door open and headed out to see what the fuck.
“Yo, Rough!” his boy Milk said. “You want me to come?”
“No. You stay here.”
Roughneck walked the twenty feet to the car in the cold. When he reached the 98, he rapped on Clarence’s window. Inside, they were still puffing, Dee in the passenger’s seat holding the roach of a blunt, Clarence laid back in his seat, smoking a Kool, and that fool Ness half-asleep in the back.
“Yo, C Dub,” Rough said.
Clarence rolled his window down a few inches. He had the fancy new automatic windows in his Olds. Rough would be getting automatic windows in his car, once he had the funds for the black Pathfinder he was saving for. He had no real need for a car: he didn’t go to school, bought his groceries at the store next to the towers, and could walk to the movies when he wanted to go. At nineteen, he had his whole world right here. But status was what any of this was about, and since he first saw one, he knew the new Pathfinder was the car he had to have.
“The fuck you want?” Clarence said through the open window. Smoke puffed out of his mouth.
Roughneck shook his head. “Damn, Dub, is that any way to greet a brother?”
“You like a son, son. A stepchild to me.”
Still shaking his head, Roughneck put his hands on the top of the window and pushed it down. Ever since he’d gotten the nod to be by Rock’s side more than Clarence, it was nothing but bile from the older man. The window started to lower just a bit as Roughneck pushed on it.
“The fuck you doing? You trying to fuck with my ride?” Clarence’s hand went for the window control, and Roughneck could feel its push. He held it where it was, a feat that was much easier than actually pushing it down. The door made a whirring noise, but the window didn’t move.
“Ok,” Clarence said, opening the window more. He brought his face closer to Rough and their eyes met. “Yeah, niggah,” he said, and opened the door into Rough’s thigh.
Rough stepped back, letting go of the window and bending over to absorb the blow. He smelled the weed smoke curling out around the edges of the door: a thick, strong smell.
“Not even noon yet,” Rough said. “And you fucking rocked, old man. Smoking up all your profit.”
“Yeah? Then maybe I should—” Clarence reached inside his jacket for what would most likely be a gun.
“Take mine?” Rough said, reaching into the car and catching Clarence’s wrist. He held it inside the jacket, keeping the hand against Clarence’s chest. “Take it, then.” Rough bent down to put his face right in Clarence’s. “Take it.” He could smell more than just smoke on the old man, something deeper, more disturbing.
Clarence opened his hand and held up the other one. “Easy,” he said. “I got nothing in here that’ll hurt you.”
“What you got?”
“Matter of fact?” Clarence said. “Nothing. Ain’t shit.”
