Everyday People (16 page)

What would he do there? Something with money, a desk with a computer and neat stacks of paper, contracts from other businesses.

But Nene wasn't good with money, he was always getting behind with B-Mo, asking him for another week, doing all his product then begging B-Mo to front him some.

He couldn't picture it, Nene in some fine suit like the prom or the awards dinner he missed. This was always the hard part, finding him a job. Cleaning him up was easy; he remembered in eighth grade girls phoning him every night, so many their Granmoms said he couldn't take calls after nine o'clock. She locked him in his room after she caught him getting into it on the back porch with Danita Coleman—the same Danita Coleman who turned into a straight headhunter later, skanky raspberry who'd do anything to get her mouth around that glass dick one more time. What was the difference between her and Nene?

She was alive, tricking downtown. Nene was over in Homewood Cemetery, under the mud. That was the difference.

At Highland LJ had to wait for a bus, and he turned down the heater before pulling across the oncoming lane. The streetlights were still on, even though it wasn't that dark. He was out of the side streets now, no longer protected, part of the overall flow of the city yet hidden, safe behind the thin windshield. He sat up straighter in the seat, as he imagined race-car drivers did, checking his mirrors
without turning his head, keeping the needle at the precise speed, following the car in front of him at a reasonable distance. He took pride in facing the danger quietly, of being the only one aware of it, separate from the other drivers, and at the same time felt part of a larger body, the Caprice one cell in the blood of traffic pumping through the country, every street and road and interstate open to him, a possibility, as if he could leave. It was an illusion. He was nearly invisible, yet a second could change that, drag him out onto the wet pavement facedown, police's knee in his back, a gun to his ear. No other feeling seemed so true to him, and it filled him like a drug, gave him strength.

Around Penn Circle now, staying in one lane past the basketball courts by the cop station, the cruisers lined up outside, parked on the sidewalk. They had Caprices too, it was like a joke to him; maybe that was why he couldn't get rid of the car. He flicked his eyes at the rearview mirror; none of them had moved.

He caught the light at Baum Boulevard and headed up past the Chevy dealer where U worked. He glanced over at the rows of used cars, the rain dotted on their fresh wax jobs, and wondered if U would have to do them again. O.G. Trey cleaning up after white folks, all because of Jesus.

“'s fucked up,” LJ said.

He stayed sharp across Penn and around the other side of the circle, over the muddy busway and past the old-folks high-rise. The lights were on in the laundromat, some mothers filling the machines. There wasn't much traffic, just enough to keep him busy, making sure he knew where everyone was behind him. He turned the heat off and got
in the right lane to go straight on Collins, but the light was changing and he had to brake and then stop.

Beside him, a raggedy station wagon pulled up, a jitney, an older woman in back with her groceries, the driver waving his hand and laughing, telling tales. With the rain it was tough to see, but for an instant LJ thought the woman was his Granmoms, and a rush of panic shocked him, then evaporated, leaving him weak. The light dropped to green and he let the jitney beat him down the straightaway to Negley Run where it made the light and was gone.

She was keeping Nene's clothes for him. She didn't have to say it. They were almost the same size. He used to borrow Nene's Raptors jersey, but now it didn't seem right. He'd open the closet and under the sweet cedar and harsh mothballs he could smell him. And forget about shoes.

The hard part was over. Negley Run was a bypass cut out of the hillside; it connected East Liberty to Washington Boulevard so people could book out of there faster. No sidewalks, no shops, no stoplights, just grass and trees on both sides of the slope, and LJ laid back against the headrest and let the weight of the Caprice take it downhill through the long, easy curves.

At the bottom it T-boned Washington by the fire school, an empty brick building they pretended to burn down each week. He was going left, toward the river. If he went right, he'd end up in Homewood, and now he wished he did have a gun to settle his beef with B-Mo, bust some caps in his dumb, ugly ass. It didn't matter that Fats had his soldiers smoke those two punks. Everyone in his set was waiting for LJ to take care of his business.

He could see it. He'd spent the last week thinking of it—here, at home, just hanging on the corner. It's what everyone was thinking, but it was up to him to put it together, to put the shit into effect.

He couldn't do it alone. He'd have to get someone to drive—Cardell, cause he was always talking garbage. Nighttime, a Friday while it was still warm enough to party outside. A dark car, four-door. He'd be in the backseat with the window open, Tek Nine ready in his lap, extra clip between his knees.

“Pull up,” he'd say. “Pull up here.”

There'd be people hanging out on someone's porch, smoking on the steps, lounging on someone's brokedown couch, passing a 40 of Private Stock and clowning on his brother, how they wasted the cluckhead motherfucker. “Sliced and diced,” they'd be saying, Master P booming out the windows.

“Ha! Chipped and chopped that trick-ass bitch.”

“For real.”

He'd roll down on them, serve them straight off the top.

“Show 'em what you got,” Cardell would shout, and the shit would be on.

He'd see B-Mo sitting there with that fat, ugly grill of his, skeezer hanging off his arm, trying to figure out who was sweating his clique.

It wouldn't be a secret; LJ would turn on the light inside so they'd know. “What's up, punk?” he'd say. “My name is L-to-the-motherfucking-J,” and they'd see him and know what was up and try to bounce, but he'd have that Tek
spraying, holding it with both hands, ripping that shit up, saying, “What's my name?”

“Yeah,” he said, taking the left. “That's right.”

There was another version where he walked B-Mo down Moreland to the spot Nene had fallen, holding a chrome magnum under his chin. People came out of their houses to watch. No one tried to stop him; they knew it was justice, point-blank.

They got to the spot and LJ moved the muzzle to B-Mo's forehead, pressed it in so it left an O. He had him up against the fence, and people were crowding around.

“You got any last words?”

“I—”

“Shut the fuck up,” he said, and blew his whole head open. Then they tie-wrapped him to the fence and let the birds pick at his brains, let the little wannabes cut him for fun.

While he was driving around, these dreams of his soothed him, as if they'd already come true. He could pretend he'd already avenged his brother, that he'd earned back the respect they'd taken from him. He could drive like this all day, he knew, but eventually he would have to turn around and go home, and Cardell would be there, asking him what he was going to do, how soon.

U knew that. Everyone knew that, but U was the one asking him not to do it. U was asking him to forgive B-Mo's people.

“Fuck that shit,” LJ told him. They were in his living room, and he was trying to be polite.

“You can't keep living like this,” U said, like that was some kind of answer.

Now he was gliding past the old state police barracks on one side, the road up to Schuman on the other. He'd been in there once, GTA, possession and evading. It was basically the same thing he was doing now, except that time he was dumb enough to have some bud on him, so he had to do drug school too, read these stupid pamphlets the social worker gave him and take tests. He had to pass or do the course over, so he read the stuff. Wasn't anything he didn't already know.

Down alongside the driver's-test place, deserted now, a sign on the chained gate saying they moved. Spray kicked up from the car in front of him, misting the windshield, and with a touch the wipers slapped it away. A flat, dirty patch on the road was a squirrel. He got in the right lane so he'd be in position to get on the bridge, made the light and jogged the car into the chute for the on-ramp, the traffic in front of him bunching up for the turn even though they had their own lane. He braked, swearing at them, but once he was on the bridge itself and the view opened up, he forgot everything.

It was like flying. A hundred feet below, the Allegheny ran high and wide and gray as mushroom soup, poured frothing over the low dam. On the far shore a fleet of derelict barges bobbed, one half sunk in the mud. Upriver stood a black railroad bridge he'd only seen a train on once, and beyond it on the near shore, topping the wooded cliff like a ship, the VA Med Center. Now he wished he could slow down to absorb everything, to appreciate the way it filled
his mind so he didn't have to think of anything. He knew if he stopped the car in the middle and got out and stood at the rail that the view would lose its power and he'd turn in on himself again, think of Nene. He had to keep moving, that was the one rule; why did he keep forgetting it?

Toward downtown there was an island with nothing on it, just a rusty dredge that had been there since he was a kid. He used to want him and Nene to build a cabin there and swim all the time and make rafts and fish for their dinner. When he told their Granmoms, she laughed out loud. “I don't think you want to eat anything that comes out of that river,” she said, and he was hurt, his plans demolished. He'd never been there, and the island still held some mystery for him. He would never get there, he thought. It wasn't right. The thing was so close.

At the end of the bridge, the ramp for downtown curled around a box factory, a lit billboard above it advertising frozen food that used their product. The car in front of him went right, peeled off toward Fox Chapel—where he would be stopped, searched, the cop kicking his ankles apart, a gloved hand on his neck—and LJ stayed left, gunned the Caprice up onto Route 28, headed downtown, flying along beneath sheer cliffs covered with lovers' graffiti, the rock dark in the rain. On the other side the shiny streets of Sharpsburg passed below, the houses just roofs, antennas, chimneys smoking as if it was winter. Pigeons sat on a tarnished cross atop a church's greening dome. By the river, a scrap-yard magnet rocked its load toward a waiting gondola car, silently dropping rusty beams like straight pins. He could see across to Highland Park, the houses crowding the
hills of Morningside. A mile beyond that lay his neighborhood, where Cardell would already be on the corner, slinging rock, his beeper set on vibrate.

He wanted to tell U he knew he couldn't go on living this way. He wasn't stupid. But what was he supposed to do?

“Turn yourself around,” U said, “or someone or some
thing
is going to do it for you, believe that.”

He believed it. All he had to do was think of Nene.

“That right there should be enough,” U said. He shook his hand before leaving, thanked his Granmoms, all official. He was putting together a group down at the church, he told her. He'd be real happy if Leonard—if LJ—might give it a try.

“Tell me what time,” she said, “and he'll be there.”

The first meeting was tonight. He hadn't decided what he was going to tell her, what kind of lie. Why bother? U would come by after, so she'd know he didn't go.

He thought of driving out to the airport and watching the planes take off, an endless line of them, all going somewhere he'd never been. No, you had to pay for parking, and there were cops everywhere.

Past Etna and down toward Millvale, where the road changed and the lights started again. On his right, between peeling billboards, a few houses were pushed up against the hillside, set on top of buckled retaining walls. In one yard, a chained dog stood on top of its house, barking at the traffic. Farther on, an old white lady with a black scarf over her hair sat in a bus shelter, waiting with her purse, and he thought of his Granmoms at the library, pushing the cart
along, helping shelve the books. She was the only reason he stayed.

He could admit it here, alone in the Caprice. He didn't have anyone else.

Nene used to tell him stories about their mother, how beautiful she was, how she loved to hold LJ when she was eating. Their Granmoms would tell her to leave him in his crib when she came to the table, but she'd just cut everything with the side of her fork and sit there rocking him. Nene always thought she loved LJ better, but it was just because he was the new baby.

“Jealous?” Nene'd say. “Why I wanna be jealous of you? Stringy, big-head motherfucker. Look like a Tootsie pop and shit.” Then they'd slap fight. LJ could never beat him, with those long arms. “Stick and move,” Nene'd say, making him flinch.

He'd show LJ pictures of her, taking down their Granmoms' albums and sitting on the couch.

“Hold up,” LJ would say, needing to look at every page a little longer, to hear the story of where and when just one more time. So he'd know. Now his Granmoms had Chris's drawing of Nene framed and hanging over the fireplace, like it was something from the past. It was—but not that far past, he wanted to say. It was like the drawing was the same as the photo albums, like Nene was gone like their mother, and that wasn't true. He could still feel Nene leaving him.

He'd drifted close to the white line, and he straightened his nose out. He was almost across from downtown now; he could see the skyscrapers, the top of the Gulf Building flashing blue to let him know it was raining. The Heinz plant
came up on his left in a wall of steam, the tilted bottle on top spilling neon lines of ketchup above a clock. He checked his gas—a little less than half. Even self-serves were too risky. When he ran out, he'd have to ditch it. Another day, maybe two if he didn't go too far.