of us. People come by, show the right kind of ID, fill out the right forms, pay with the right bills, what’s he supposed to do? So Lennie Skittings pleads guilty, closes down his store, and then one fine Saturday he takes a long ride into the country and blows his mind out with a .38.
Gangbangers started simple. Back in the days, they would break into houses, usually one of the neighbors, to steal their guns. Then they got on to the straw-man game. Now they got the drugs, so they got the money, and they get volume discounts. They get deals. They get all-expense-paid trips to New York City.
Like CK says, as if it needed saying: You got to remember one thing. You can’t trust these guys. They’ll kill their brother; shit, they’ll kill their mother if she gets in the way. They kill each other all the time. And if they kill each other, where do you think a white guy stands when he comes round the neighborhood?
So: You can eat with these guys, you can drink with these guys, and, if Jules Berenger says it, you can goddamn work with these guys.
But you cannot trust them.
A couple black guys used to run with me. One of them, guy namedAbednego Jones, was smart. I’m not talking street-smart, though he had all that stuff too. AJ was
smart
.
Tell you how smart this Abednego Jones guy was: He retired. AJ was putting his money aside, or maybe he skimmed some here and there, and one day he just said: Thanks, but no thanks. Bought himself a little house in Sarasota and moved his wife down there and sits in the sun all day long, feeds the birds, goes fishing when he wants. I wonder if he gets a tan.
Now I wouldn’t have called Abednego Jones a nigger, and I might have killed anybody who did. Unless AJ killed the guy first, because AJ sure did have a temper. But these guys, these gangbanging pieces of shit? They like the name. I mean, you listen to that rap crap, these guys are calling each other nigger all the time. It’s like any other name when you find yourself at the ass end of life: You get it, then you wear it the best you can.
And speak of the devil, there are the U Street guys when I get back to the warehouse floor. I see CK shaking hands with the little one, Juan E, who’s all lit up like it’s New Year’s Eve, and I realize then that the other one, the Yellow Nigger, isn’t paying one bit of attention to his buddy or to CK.
Instead he’s staring at the guy at the bottom of the steps. At me.
the best-laid plans
Sunup on a lazy morning, with one day to go. So it’s Thursday. There’s a Pontiac in a parking lot and a sky that looks like puke. Two Hand and I are backseat to CK and Mackie, laying bets on the Orioles-Mariners game. I’m in for $500, and that dimwit Mackie gave me the Mariners and 3. The Pontiac’s outside the Dollar Bill Motel on Route 1, just south of Alexandria on the road to Mount Vernon, where, after we lay those bets, we lock and load. Time to eyeball the troops.
When it’s time for crime, you need to know who’s running with you. Inside this dump are the six guys who can get us arrested, maybe even get us killed. Our African American brothers.
The place is no flophouse but it makes your average Quality Inn look like the Four Seasons. Two little one-story rectangles. All the rooms—all twenty-five, thirty of them—face in, which means they face each other. A scenic view. We stroll across the parking lot and into this open-air corridor of twenty-bucks-a-night splendor, and Renny counts down the row of rooms to our right: 17, 16, 15, pow. He leans into the black wrought-iron column outside Room 14; and he’s got the oowop, an Uzi, beneath his raincoat. I stand away from the window, right at the door to 15 and make like I’m taking a smoke. CK nods to Mackie, and Mackie nods back, slips a Smith & Wesson .40 from his belt. He keepsthe pistol nose down, reaches his left hand across, and knock-knocks the door to 14.
Open sesame.
Mackie’s inside, then CK, and I wink at Renny Two Hand
Gangbangers started simple. Back in the days, they would break into houses, usually one of the neighbors, to steal their guns. Then they got on to the straw-man game. Now they got the drugs, so they got the money, and they get volume discounts. They get deals. They get all-expense-paid trips to New York City.
Like CK says, as if it needed saying: You got to remember one thing. You can’t trust these guys. They’ll kill their brother; shit, they’ll kill their mother if she gets in the way. They kill each other all the time. And if they kill each other, where do you think a white guy stands when he comes round the neighborhood?
So: You can eat with these guys, you can drink with these guys, and, if Jules Berenger says it, you can goddamn work with these guys.
But you cannot trust them.
A couple black guys used to run with me. One of them, guy namedAbednego Jones, was smart. I’m not talking street-smart, though he had all that stuff too. AJ was
smart
.
Tell you how smart this Abednego Jones guy was: He retired. AJ was putting his money aside, or maybe he skimmed some here and there, and one day he just said: Thanks, but no thanks. Bought himself a little house in Sarasota and moved his wife down there and sits in the sun all day long, feeds the birds, goes fishing when he wants. I wonder if he gets a tan.
Now I wouldn’t have called Abednego Jones a nigger, and I might have killed anybody who did. Unless AJ killed the guy first, because AJ sure did have a temper. But these guys, these gangbanging pieces of shit? They like the name. I mean, you listen to that rap crap, these guys are calling each other nigger all the time. It’s like any other name when you find yourself at the ass end of life: You get it, then you wear it the best you can.
And speak of the devil, there are the U Street guys when I get back to the warehouse floor. I see CK shaking hands with the little one, Juan E, who’s all lit up like it’s New Year’s Eve, and I realize then that the other one, the Yellow Nigger, isn’t paying one bit of attention to his buddy or to CK.
Instead he’s staring at the guy at the bottom of the steps. At me.
the best-laid plans
Sunup on a lazy morning, with one day to go. So it’s Thursday. There’s a Pontiac in a parking lot and a sky that looks like puke. Two Hand and I are backseat to CK and Mackie, laying bets on the Orioles-Mariners game. I’m in for $500, and that dimwit Mackie gave me the Mariners and 3. The Pontiac’s outside the Dollar Bill Motel on Route 1, just south of Alexandria on the road to Mount Vernon, where, after we lay those bets, we lock and load. Time to eyeball the troops.
When it’s time for crime, you need to know who’s running with you. Inside this dump are the six guys who can get us arrested, maybe even get us killed. Our African American brothers.
The place is no flophouse but it makes your average Quality Inn look like the Four Seasons. Two little one-story rectangles. All the rooms—all twenty-five, thirty of them—face in, which means they face each other. A scenic view. We stroll across the parking lot and into this open-air corridor of twenty-bucks-a-night splendor, and Renny counts down the row of rooms to our right: 17, 16, 15, pow. He leans into the black wrought-iron column outside Room 14; and he’s got the oowop, an Uzi, beneath his raincoat. I stand away from the window, right at the door to 15 and make like I’m taking a smoke. CK nods to Mackie, and Mackie nods back, slips a Smith & Wesson .40 from his belt. He keepsthe pistol nose down, reaches his left hand across, and knock-knocks the door to 14.
Open sesame.
Mackie’s inside, then CK, and I wink at Renny Two Hand
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