The Vulture (10 page)

‘You got time, Junior,’ Spade would say. ‘Jus’ lay an’ dig whut iz an’ whut ain't, an’ when you think you time iz here, don't ask no questions, jus make you move. Even if you got to move on me to git whut you're after. It ain't how old you are, it's how well you carry the years you have.’

I was waiting. I was waiting for the days when the older guys on the block who were running things now started to settle back and fade inside the bars. Then the street would belong to me and those who ran with me. There would be no more Spade. There would be no more of the wild rumors like there were now. John Lee was supposed to be the new man since Spade wasn't on the corner anymore. All Spade would have to do would be to snap his fingers, and John would be decoration on the stage again. When Spade walked down the block in the summertime and everybody was on the stoop, you could tell. The look in his eyes, maybe, or the way he dressed. He didn't say much, only nodded to the people he knew, but there was a certain thing happening, and you could tell if you were there. The way he moved said that the Spade was back and still the man, and anybody who didn't dig his thing could settle it in
the middle of Ninth Avenue. Very few people stepped out with him, and he was paid his due respect as a man who had come the hard way. I was going to have my respect too.

‘You guys gimme yo bread,’ I said to the group. ‘Me an Cooly gonna fin’ Lee an’ git the stuff.’ I looked at my watch. ‘It's ‘bout nine-thirty, an’ we gon’ be back inna hour.’ I looked up and down 17th Street. ‘I want you cats travlin’ light. No more than three cats togethuh. If you see the Man, you jus’ came outside. When yawl see Ricky, tell ‘im whuss happnin’.’

A hat was passed up with everybody's bills. Cooly took the money and put it in his wallet. The hat was passed back through the crowd.

‘Look here,’ I said before we broke, ‘if the Man stops you, you don't give out no lip. Ansuh whatever he wants to know an’ tell ‘im you been watchin’ TV an’ stay on the block. Stay away from the 13th Street park an’ stay in the open where a lotta old people can see you. That way the Man can't rough you up an’ claim you fell while you tellin’ all you know.’

The crowd started out of the park when I finished. Cooly and I strolled down 17th Street toward Ninth Avenue. We acted as though we owned the sidewalk. Even though it was going on ten o'clock, the block was still lit up with domino games, and crapshooting was on full blast. The Puerto Rican boys on the stoops were drinking beer and rapping to their little painted women. When we passed, they waved and whispered. I grinned to myself. I like to see them spreading the word about me. Soon everyone would have to know me. It would be an unwritten law.

The gambling had started right after work, and now only the beer cans and cake wrappers could say for sure how long Jose, the store owner, had worked to keep the games going. They kept him rich when they gambled all night, and he didn't give a damn if he had to do a little extra sweeping every morning. Most of the storekeepers didn't want the men
gambling anywhere near their place, because the old ladies complained and went elsewhere to buy their cat food. José evidently had no concern for old ladies and their cats.

As we moved closer to Ninth Avenue, the sounds of the night took on a Latin beat. Eddie Palmieri and Joe Bataan were the music heroes of the neighborhood. The Met game was coming out of some window or other, and the Mets were getting their asses kicked again. The blasts coming from off the rooftops told us that a few Spanish boys were having a ‘love-in’ under the sky. The old ladies crowded the sidewalks in folding chairs and sped through Spanish in no time at all. All I could ever catch was Puerto Rico and something-something ‘MeeAmi.’ They could rap a whole book while I hung back trying to translate the first word they had flown over.

Aretha was coming from a window. She was singing ‘Do-Right Woman,’ and for a second I thought I heard Isidro's voice. Every time I heard that side I was reminded of Isidro, because I had been sitting in Tommy's Coffee House the day after school listening to it when Seedy barged in. I was surprised when he walked in, because I had only talked to Lee the day before and found out about my new deal.

I was drinking a Coke with a little rum Tommy had thrown in, and there was my girl Aretha building the atmosphere. It was early afternoon, and very few people were up and about. None of the chicks that I wanted to talk to were around the place, so I kept the back table busy and played sides.

‘I wanna talk to you, man,’ Isidro said, dropping into the seat opposite me.

‘Talk,’ I said. From the broken English I hadn't had to look up to identify the speaker. I was cursing under my breath for being caught off guard.

‘Who you gize gon’ buy you stuff from? Me o’ dis odder cat?’

‘We gonna deal with Lee,’ I said.

‘Why?’

‘You know good and damn well why! You been beatin’ the hell outta us for too fuckin’ long! Dirty smoke! Bad pills! Fuck you!’ I looked around, but there was no one near enough to hear us. Tommy was watching from up front, however.

Isidro made a gesture with the middle finger of his right hand. His eyes widened, and he pulled closer to me across the table. I could smell the wine on his breath and the odor of coffee.

‘Look ‘ere. I jus’ wan you to know somsing. I heard ‘bout dis sheet you wan pull on me. It ain’ gon work. Oye? I wan you to know I ketch one pussy near my sheepment, I gonna keel ‘im. I don give a fuck you got Spade to back you up. A boolet can kill Spade like any man. I'm gon carry a gun from now on. I can kill too!’ Isidro leaned back in the chair. I didn't move or change expression, but my mind was working fast. How could Isidro have found out what I was going to do so fast?

I talked to Lee about it yesterday, I was thinking.

Tommy came over and asked if I wanted anything. He was talking directly about Isidro. I told him that everything was all right.

I only mentioned things vaguely to Lee, my mind went on. Then I brought it up yesterday afternoon to Cooly, and we talked about it somewhat last night. Then I told the gang my plan, and we agreed on it. We were going down to the docks about three Sunday morning when Isidro left to pick up his stuff. At least we would follow him. That's where we thought he got it. Then we were going to jump him from behind. How could he know about it the next morning? Who squealed?

‘I don’ know whut you're talkin’ ‘bout,’ I told Isidro.

‘I'm talkin’ ‘bout you motherfuckuhs tryin’ to take my stuff. Eef you think you can make eet, try eet. I'm gon’ kill somebody.’

‘Look, man. You mad ‘cause somebody beat yo’ racket. Fuck you! I don’ need you.’

‘You don’ need me now, but eef somsing happens to the fat one, don’ come back to me. Comprende?’

‘I dig you, amigo,’ I said. ‘But if Lee gets busted behind some mysterious phone call, you gon’ get picked up the same way. Do
you
comprende?’

Isidro left in a hurry, and I sat in the booth trying to figure out who had turned me in. The logical suspect would be one of the Puerto Rican boys who ran with me, but that was too obvious. It had to be a brother – a twentieth-century Uncle Tom. The setup had been good. We could have robbed Seedy and taken the stuff to Lee. He could have kept us high for a while, and we would have had Seedy up Shit Creek! Now it was the other way around. I was in trouble, because I had to figure out who the rat was. If I didn't, something else might happen, and I could get blown away, and we all end up in jail or juvenile court at least.

I met Cooly about six and told him that the hit was off. I didn't tell him why, but I know he got the idea that somebody was onto our setup.

‘What if Lee ain’ in Chelsea?’ I asked Cooly.

‘We'll find ‘im. He know we lookin’ fo’ him.’ Cooly gave me a thick smile. ‘Where yo min’ at t'night, man? Clarice ketch you yet?’

‘What you mean?’

‘You been in yo’ own worl’ all night. Daydreamin’, o’ just heavy thinkin'?’

‘It ain’ no bitch,’ I told Cooly. ‘Jus’ heavy thinkin’.’

We passed the projects on Ninth Avenue, walking up-town. The projects stretch from 15th Street and Ninth to 19th and Ninth. Across the street from the projects, on the northeast corner of 19th Street, I could see that the lights were out in my apartment. It meant that my mother was out somewhere,
either with my baby brother and the neighbor's boy, or alone while somebody watched the brat. My older brother was in the Navy.

Across the street under the low-rise apartment buildings, the young whiteys were drinking beer and macking while they listened to WABC radio. It seemed like they drank enough beer to wash out the whole goddamn neighborhood. The way things lined up, God put black people on earth to blow bush and take a lot of shit, and white people were for drinking beer and dying of boredom.

My thoughts changed to John Lee again. Until he started dealing, he had been just another nowhere cat. The black cats had been going to Brooklyn and Harlem or buying their stuff in school. All at once John was on the street with all kinds of stuff. Most of the older cats said that they knew where John got his supply, but I was sure that they didn't know. John was a smart cat. He was seldom early or late. He seldom carried any more than he would deal. He found out in advance what you wanted and disappeared right after he gave you what you ordered.

John carried Red Birds, Yellow Jackets, Purple Hearts, and Blue Heavens in quantity. They were the genuine pops that everybody had heard of. If you wanted, he could get some depressants, or ‘downs,’ but black people don't dig that too tough. That stuff was for the hippie poets and folk singers who liked to go around singing the blues and talking about the total destruction of mankind and all that wild shit. They liked to feel like they carried the weight of the world on their shoulders. They convinced themselves when they got high that the message in their poems and flimsy melodies were the true salvation of civilization. It was always that nobody would listen to them. I guess that's why they wore their hair long and had freak-out sessions with psychedelic music. They felt that they might as well cram as much of life as possible
into their few remaining days on this doomed planet. You could always hear them ranting and screaming when you got out of the subway at West 4th Street. I figured it was a lot of bullshit and another excuse for lazy cats and chicks to get down without getting married, and stay high all the time without ever getting a job.

John's dealing made him a big thing on the block. He arrived during a time when there was basically no man on the avenue. John started dealing at the end of June. Spade hadn't been around for a long time. You heard less and less about him. The arrival of John Lee prompted more talk. The arrival of a new adventurer. When I was twelve, the man had been Hicks, the leader of the Chelsea Berets. Spade was fifteen or sixteen and saved Hicks's life. That meant that the man owed his life. Spade captured the neighborhood. The women dug him because he never said anything to them. The older cats were scared of him because he knew karate. The old people hated him because he didn't have any manners, and his parents couldn't control him. He was so slick, though, that he never gave them any real reason to call the cops.

I thought about how Lee came to fame, and I was almost mad. I made a quick decision that I would be the man soon. I was going to deal. Then I would walk down the block, and all the girls would dig the things I did, and all the cats would stay their distance. I was going to be the ‘somebody.’

Just as the word ‘somebody’ was repeating itself in my head, Cooly spotted Lee. We had passed the projects and all the stores between 19th Street and 25th Street. We were walking through the Chelsea Houses, another group of apartment buildings. Lee was sitting between two other cats in the play area peered down on by two high-rise apartments. He was dressed in the familiar green trench coat. There was a can
of beer in his hand and a brown paper bag protruding from his pocket.

‘Happnin’, Lee?’ I asked as Cooly and I approached.

Lee grinned his same moon-faced grin and slapped me five.

‘Juneyuh,’ he said, as though he still hadn't caught his breath, ‘I wuz jus’ tellin’ these cats whut you did. That was nice as hell.’

‘You the one burned the cop car?’ one of the cats asked. There was a look of admiration on his face.

‘He did it,’ Cooly drawled. I said nothing. I just sat back and listened to Cooly and Lee describe the thing. They had to be exaggerating, because both of them were running in the opposite direction. The net result was a picture of me looking like a cross between Napoleon Solo and James Bond. Lee handed me his can of beer, and I lit up a Kool.

‘I tol’ you,’ Lee concluded. ‘It wuz jus’ like the time Spade put that stretch a wire across the roof and tripped Happy Stick Kinkaid. The sonuvabitch broke his arm in two a three places and wuzn’ on the block for months.’ Lee stopped and related everything to me. ‘Happy Stick was this whitey who tried to ketch me an’ Spade allatime when we drank wine and smoked on the roof. That motherfuckuh wuz fixed good!’

There was a pause. Across the park square, teenagers loafed and pretended to wrestle so that they could sneak in a few public feels. The small kids ran around and did whatever they damn well pleased, while the oldsters listened to the Mets and played checkers.

‘Can we git our stuff?’ I asked Lee. I handed him the can of beer.

‘Sure.’ He looked around to see who was watching and then took the brown paper bag out of his pocket. He placed it on the bench between us and slid several packets of pills and small manila envelopes to me. Cooly pocketed the pills and
the grass and handed John his green. I noticed that he didn't even bother to count it.

‘Mañana,’ I told Lee as Cooly and I departed.

Lee and the two other cats waved.

‘Hey, Junior!’ Lee called. ‘Anybody get grabbed?’

‘Naw, man,’ I assured him. ‘Rest easy.’

The thought of Lee hung in my mind. His fat face had been a picture of worry, perspiration dripping down his nose. Some of the Juniors called him and Spade the ‘Dynamic Duo,’ but I really didn't know why. Spade was six feet and muscular. Lee was short and fat. The best thing that could be said for Lee was that he smiled a lot. Spade was a very noncommittal type of cat. He rarely smiled. When he did laugh, it wasn't because everyone saw something that was funny. The older cats said that when Spade smiled, it generally meant that he had thought of another way to give somebody a hard way to go.