Dominion (62 page)

Ty stared at a crack in the concrete.

“In one of his clearer moments, I asked Petey what he thought of his life. Know what he said? ‘I may not be in hell yet, but I can see it and smell it.’ That what you want, boy? Answer me now.”

“No. But don’t want no white man pullin’ my strings neither.”

“Question is whether you’re going to pull your own strings. You really think the Man is making all this happen, putting the liquor stores everywhere, floodin’ the streets with crack? The white sheets aren’t smart enough to pull off this kind of program. This is straight from the devil. It’s right outta hell.”

“But it’s honkies that brings in the drugs and make the big money. They’re the ones that wants us to kill each other.”

“Well, boy, if you’re right, then you’re doing just what they want, aren’t you? Are you really that stupid? Come on. People taking the drugs and shooting the guns, they only got themselves to blame. You want to take on the Man, fine, go slug it out, get smarter than he is, beat him at his own game. But don’t hide in the ghetto and whine about injustice while you smoke the vapors. When white boys went to the moon, these brothas here were doing just what you’re starting now. Well, take a good look, Ty, because if this is the life you want, here it is. If you’re lucky. I mean. If you don’t end up in a casket before you’re twenty. They’re losers, man. Their big prize is when somebody drops a cigarette with a half inch left on it. Then they suck that baby down to the filter, and it’s like they repaired a car or taught a class or fixed a roof. Like it was some big deal. All the gangbangers, they’re losers just like these dudes.”

Ty glowered.

“Don’t care what you think of them, they’re still losers. They whine about how white folk treat black folk, then what do they do? Kill black folk. Break up black families. Steal black kids from their parents. Turn smart kids like you into stupid ones.” Clarence searched for the words that might get through. “Our ancestors were slaves, Ty. Their hands and feet were chained, but they learned to use their heads. Your hands and feet are free, but you’re going to be a slave, a prisoner, if your mind doesn’t get back on track. You know why blacks kill blacks, boy? Answer me. You know why?”

“No.”

“Because they hate the color of their skin and they take it out on anybody that looks like them. Is that how your mama taught you to think?”

Ty shook his head. Tears started flowing. Clarence hugged him. “Let’s go home, son.” As the two walked past the liquor store, an audience of curious addicts watched a fight for purpose and dignity, a fight each of them had lost years ago.

Clarence pulled Ty close. “I want better for you, son. With your mama gone, somebody’s got to be her voice. That’s why I hammer on you, boy. Not because I don’t care about you. Because I do.”

The next day Clarence walked into the Main Street Deli and saw Ollie sitting at the far corner table, reading the front page of the
Tribune.
His eyes squinted at the words under the headline “Economic Problems Plague Country.”

“I thought you didn’t read the
Trib,”
Clarence said, taking the seat across from him.

“It’s not that I don’t read it. It’s just that I don’t believe it. There’s a difference.” Ollie flashed Clarence a serious expression. “There’s a real economic crunch, huh? I hear it’s so bad in New York City that the Mafia’s had to lay off five judges.”

“Ollie, before we get to anything else, I want to thank you for all your hard work on this case.”

Ollie looked surprised. “It’s my job.”

“You didn’t have to include me, and I really appreciate it.” Clarence cleared his throat. “Listen, I got some great seats for the playoffs—the Mariners and Yankees on Saturday. I was wondering if you’d want to go up to Seattle with me and my daddy and Jake?”

“Wow, no kiddin’? I’d love to. Count me in!”

They went to the front counter. Clarence noticed the girl taking his order seemed friendlier to him than usual. The two men settled back at their table.

“What’s the word on 920 Northeast Jack?” Clarence asked.

“Okay,” Ollie said, flipping through his notes. “Solid family. Father Bob Fletcher, he’s a mechanic, hard worker, well respected. Mother Georgene—housewife, used to be a third grade teacher before they had kids, but she’s been a full-time homemaker. She’s a gem, everybody says. Four kids. The youngest is six, then ten, then thirteen. All good kids, well behaved, not runnin’ with the wrong crowd. But here’s where it gets sad. They had an eighteen-year-old daughter.”

“Had?”

“Yeah. She died about six weeks ago from a heart condition. Really tragic.”

Clarence’s throat felt scratchy. “Her name was Leesa, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah. How’d you know that? You read about it?”

“Was her bedroom on the front right side of the house?”

“Yeah. How’d you know
that?”

“Check the autopsy report. Talk to somebody about her real cause of death.”

“What do you mean
real
cause of death? What are you telling me, Clarence?”

“That’s all I can say. Just check into it.”

Clarence drove Ty an hour south to the state penitentiary in Salem. They went through high security, including a metal detector, into the visitors room. The guard took an extra long look at Clarence.

They’d arrived half an hour early. Clarence sat quietly, tired of trying to engage Ty in conversation. He hoped this place would make an indelible impression on the boy.

Ellis was only two years older than Clarence. In 1972, the year Clarence graduated from high school, Curtis Mayfield’s song “Superfly” blared everywhere among black youth. In the movie of the same name, the main character, Priest, was a slick drug dealer out to make a million dollars so he wouldn’t ever have to work for white folk. Priest succeeded, riding off in his shiny El Dorado. To Ellis and thousands of other young black men, Priest became an instant cult hero. Ellis and his friends had been bouncing around like pinballs for years. Now they had a role model. And an opportunity—the drug trade was urban capitalism.

A grieving Obadiah had confronted Ellis time and again. “You’re breaking the law, but what’s worse you’re gonna hurt kids with this dope stuff. Work for an honest livin’. Don’t break your mama’s heart, boy. Learn you a trade and go into business for yo’self—a good honest business. I’ll help you, Son. I’ll do anything to help you.”

Ellis was smart. He knew all the arguments. He pointed out the Kennedys got their money bootlegging liquor during prohibition, and nobody cared about that because they were white. So why shouldn’t a black man get his foot in the door, since everybody was trying to shut him out anyway?

“Your sins will find you out,” Obadiah warned him. “When you cross God’s boundaries, there’s always consequences.”

Ellis became the prodigal son. He started by selling reefer, learning all the tricks, such as padding it with oregano to maximize his profits. Soon he graduated to aluminum foil packets of cocaine, with a much greater profit margin. He dabbled in acid, mescaline, Quaaludes, and speed. He dressed like a Priest wannabe, down to the platform shoes and crushed velvet outfits, wide-brimmed hats and maxi coats. He hung a gold coke spoon around his neck. He carried a piece. He cruised around in a red Cadillac. He and his buddies, several of them dealers, did the dap, a handshake greeting consisting of a series of syncopated motions, slapping each other’s palms, wrists, and elbows and playing out from there according to the improvisations of the moment. Ellis became all style, no substance.

For years Ellis got by. He spent nine months in jail and came out a stunning figure. He’d pumped iron three hours a day, his muscles bulging so he couldn’t button his shirts, his biceps unbelievably thick. He could curl one-hundred-pound dumbbells fifteen times as if they were paperweights.

Three months after he got out, Ellis was a seller again and got taken down on a big bust. Some white kid had died of an overdose, sold to him by a black who fingered Ellis as the original dealer. The white boy’s daddy was a politician and put pressure on the DA. Clarence was there when they arrested Ellis. He still remembered the clicks of the handcuffs, the wince on Ellis’s face that told him they’d closed on a fold of flesh, the awkward motion of his brother into the backseat of the police car. He remembered the officer’s hand on top of his brother’s head, pushing him down with an extra shove of contempt. Clarence vowed to himself he’d never get arrested, never go through that humiliation. Ellis was sentenced to ten years for three felonies—selling a controlled substance to a minor, armed robbery, and assault and battery. Still cocky he boasted, “Ten years—man, I could do that standin’ on my head.”

The lawyer said the ten years would mean he’d be out in three or four easy. But that wasn’t what happened. In prison, he got into more trouble. He swore to Clarence he was just protecting himself with a shank against a guy who was going to rape him. His time had been extended for that, extended again for attempted escape and for attacking a guard, extended five times. The time had added up. He’d now been in twenty years. He’d lived nearly as many years inside prison as outside.

Clarence thought about how smart Ellis was. For years they’d played chess through the mail. The brother who once joned on Clarence for wearing last year’s rags now had worn the same thing every day for nearly twenty years. He hadn’t been allowed out even to go to his sister’s funeral.

Clarence loved his brother, felt sorry for him. But he also felt sorry for all the kids hooked on the stuff he’d sold them, for all the kids who ended up stealing from their own families to support their addictions.

Suddenly on the other side of the glass came Ellis in his faded greenish-blue prison uniform. His muscles bulged, not quite as thick as Clarence’s, but much more defined. He still worked out a few hours every day. What else did he have to do? But his skin was dull, a prison pallor created by a world of fluorescent lights and drab prison colors.

“Hey, bro,” Ellis said to Clarence. “Good to see yo’ mud-ugly face.” He put his big right hand flat on the glass. Clarence matched his even bigger left hand to it on the other side.

“Hey, Ellis. I’ve missed you, bro. Remember Ty?”

“This my nephew? Hey, Ty. What’s happenin’?” Ellis put his hand up to the glass again.

Ty shrugged, looking as awkward as he felt. He put his much smaller hand up on the free side of the glass.

Ellis looked at Clarence, tearing up suddenly. “Wished I coulda been at the funerals, man.”

“I know.” Clarence had visited Ellis twice since the funerals, and he’d said the same thing.

“Dani and her baby too? It ain’t right man. Musta been Bloods. Had to be.”

“A witness says it was two Latinos.”

“Spics? What they doin’ in that hood? Lot of guys in here that knows the streets, what comes down in Portland. I put word out to see if anybody knows anything. Nothin’ yet.”

“I’m poking around myself,” Clarence said. “Let me know if you find anything.”

“Count on it, bro.”

“You been goin’ to the Bible study?” Clarence asked. He’d heard there was a great Prison Fellowship chapter here, a fine chaplain, and some growing Christian inmates. He always made a point of encouraging Ellis to get involved.