Moonlight & Vines (42 page)

Cray remembers the last stretch he pulled. He's been clean a long time, but you never forget what it's like inside. He swore he'd never go back, and he's held good to that promise, but he's thinking now that maybe there are some things worth giving up your freedom for.

All he has to do is ask himself, what kind of freedom did Juanita's kid have?

Cray squares his shoulders and crosses the street. As he walks up to the entrance of the brownstone, he hears the sound of a steel door closing. The sound's in his head, only he can hear it. A piece of memory he's going to be reliving soon.

It takes him maybe six seconds to jimmy the door—the lock's crap. It's been ten years since he's creeped a joint, but he could've done this one in his sleep.

He cracks the door, steps inside. Starts up the stairs. Takes them two at a time. He's not even winded when he reaches the third floor landing.

The sound in his head now is that of a children's chorus.

“Let it go,” Mona says before he leaves for the day.

She's standing in the door to his office, tall and rangy in purple and pink Spandex shorts, black halter top. Red hair pulled back into a tight ponytail. She's got an aerobics class in ten minutes. Anywhere from eight to fifteen out-of-shape, well-heeled yuppies who never come up against the kind of thing he can't get out of his head.

Guys like Erwin know the drill. They're hitting the poor and the illegals. The ones who can't complain, can't defend themselves.

The closest Mona's class is going to come to it is maybe a couple of lines in the morning papers—if one of the kids gets even that much
coverage. Most of them simply disappear and nobody hears about it, nobody cares except for their families.

“Juanita's got to come forward,” he says. “Without her, they can't do a thing.”

“She's got three other kids. What's going to happen to them if she gets deported?”

“That's what I told Danny.”

She waits a beat, then says, “We did what we could.”

He can see it cost her to say that, but she's got to know he can't let it go now.

“And the next kid he snatches?” he asks.

She looks at him, knows where this is taking him.

“I should never have told you,” she says.

He shrugs.

“You'll never get away with it.”

“I don't plan to,” he tells her. “If there's one thing I've learned, you've got to take responsibility for your actions.”

“But Erwin—”

Cray knows how cold his voice is. “That's something Erwin still has to learn.”

It goes easy. Three
A.M.
and Erwin doesn't even ask who's at the door. He just opens it up, smiles. He probably gets deliveries all the time—whenever opportunity presents itself to those who're snatching the kids and babies for him.

The thing that gets to Cray is, Sonny Erwin looks so normal. Just an average joe. The monster's hiding there in his eyes, but you have to know it's there to see it.

“You know why I'm here?” Cray asks.

Erwin's brows rise in a question. He's still smiling. Cocksure.

Cray straight-arms him and sends Erwin backpedaling for balance. He follows him into the apartment, kicks the door closed behind him with the heel of his boot. Erwin's finally lost the smile. The switchblade drops from Cray's sleeve, into his palm. The blade slides into place with a
snik
that seems loud in the confined space of the apartment.

“Somebody's got to stand up for those kids,” he says.

He never gives Erwin time to reply.

* * *

Danny Salmorin shows up with his partner in tow. Cray doesn't know why he's here. All Cray did was call 911; he never mentioned Danny to the dispatcher. Never even mentioned his own name. Just said, “There's a dead man here,” gave the address, then hung up. Sat down and waited for them to come.

Roland Johns is a tall black man, almost as broad-shouldered as Cray. He's from the neighborhood—like Danny, he's one of the few of them that made good. He looks at the body sprawled in the middle of the living room floor, takes in the cut throat, the blood that's soaking Erwin's thick plush.

“What are you doing here?” Cray asks. “Where's the uniforms?”

“I like him in red,” Roland says around the toothpick he's chewing on. “It's really his color, don't you think? Someone should've done a makeover on him years ago.”

Danny ignores his partner. “We were in the area and caught the call,” he tells Cray.

Cray gets the sense that maybe they were waiting for the call. But that's okay. Dealing with people he knows'll make it easier to get through this.

“Was he carrying?” Danny asks.

Cray shakes his head. He watches Danny reach behind his back and pull a .38 from the waistband of his pants. Danny wipes the piece clean with a cloth he takes from the pocket of his jacket, then kneels down. He puts the .38 in Erwin's hand, presses the fingers around the grip, then lays the gun on the carpet, like it fell there.

For a moment Cray doesn't understand what Danny's doing. Then he gets it. The .38's Danny's throwdown, serial numbers eaten away with acid. A clean weapon he's been hanging on to for an occasion like this. No history. Can't be traced. Lots of cops carry them.

“This is the way it went down,” Danny says. “Sonny sets up a meet. When he tells you he wants access to the youth programs in the gym, you argue. He pulls his piece. You struggle, next thing you know he's dead. You call us like a good citizen and here we are.”

Cray shakes his head. “I can't do it. That's playing the game his way.”

“You already played it his way,” Danny says. “He's dead, isn't he?”

“That's right. And I'll take the fall for it.”

“Bullshit. You want to do time for getting rid of a piece of crap like that, makes his living selling kids to short-eyes and worse?”

“Maybe we should start arresting people for killing rats and roaches, too?” Roland adds.

“It's not right,” Cray says. “I did what I had to do, but now I've got to stand up for it.”

“Let me tell you what's not right,” Danny says. “You going back inside, the gym closing up—that's not right. You think we don't know what you do in there? The women's self-defense courses. The youth programs. The sliding scale on memberships so nobody gets turned away. You're bringing some sense of community back into the neighborhood, Joe. You think losing that's worth this dipshit's life? Play this my way and you're not even going to court.”

“I crossed a line—”

“Yeah, and now you're crossing right back over it again. Sonny Erwin
lived
on the other side of the line, Joe, and we couldn't touch him. You did us all a favor.”

Beside him, Roland nods. “You broke a big link in the chain,” he says. “This is going to put a serious cramp in a lot of freaks' lifestyles.”

“I still broke the law,” Cray says. “Where are we going to be if everybody settles their problems this way?”

“You making a career of this?” Danny asks. “You gonna be some kind of superhero vigilante now?”

“You know it wasn't like that,” Cray says.

Danny nods. He looks tired.

“Yeah, I know,” he says. “Thing I need to know is, do you?”

The next day Danny catches up with Cray outside the cemetery, after the service. He offers his condolences to Juanita, treats her respectfully. Holds the door of the cab for her so that she and her kids can get in. Mona's sitting in the front with the driver. She nods to Danny.

Cray and Danny watch as the cab pulls away from the curb, drives away under skies as dirty grey as the pavement under its tires.

“You clear on last night?” Danny asks.

Cray shakes his head. “Not really.”

“You think Roland and me, we're on the pad or something? Running our own businesses on the side?”

“I've got no reason to think that.”

Danny nods. “We're living in a war zone now, Joe. The old neighborhood's turned into a no-man's-land where a freak like Sonny Erwin can
market kids and we can't touch him. When we were growing up we could leave our doors unlocked—remember that? Sure, we had to deal with the wiseguys and their crap, but things still made sense. Now nothing seems to anymore. Now there's no justice, no forgiveness—it's like we're not even human anymore. Nobody's looking out for anybody but themselves. Christ, half the department's on the pad.”

“What're you trying to say?” Cray asks.

“I'm saying it's not right. We've lost something and I don't know that we can ever get it back. All of us who live down here, who don't have the money or the moneymen in our pocket, we get tarnished with the same brand, like there's no right, no wrong. Just us. The unforgiven.”

“What I did last night wasn't right,” Cray says. “I'm pretty clear on this.”

Danny shakes his head. “It was against the law, but it was right, Joe. It was something that had to be done only nobody else had the balls to do it. Who wanted to do the time?”

“I could've done it.”

“You're already doing time,” Danny says. “That's what I'm trying to tell you. The way we're living now . . . we're all doing time. That's what it's come to.” He shakes his head. “You tell me. Where's the difference?”

“You ever been inside?” Cray asks.

“No, but you have. Why do you think I'm asking you?”

Cray nods slowly. He looks down the street, but he's not seeing it. He's thinking about being kept four to a cell that was built to hold two. How you couldn't scratch your ass without a screw watching you. How you had to walk the line between the sides, the blacks and the Aryans, and if you couldn't fit in, you did your time in the hole. How you fought back with whatever it took so you didn't end up somebody's girlfriend.

“We have choices out here,” he says. “We can make a difference.”

“You make a difference,” Danny says. “With the gym and with what you did last night.”

“Last night I deliberately set out to kill a man. I never knew I had that in me. Never knew that I could plan it and do it, like I was ordering a new piece of equipment for the gym.”

Cray frowns as he's speaking. The words seem inadequate to express the bleakness that has lodged inside him.

“There's a big difference,” he adds, “between what I did and killing someone who's in my face, somebody jumps me in an alley, tries to hurt
my family. I got through this by knowing I'd have to pay for it. You understand? But now. . .”

“Now you have to live with it.”

Cray nods.

“You see what I'm trying to tell you?” Danny says. “You
are
paying for it. You're doing your time, only you're doing it on the outside where you can still make a difference. Same as me.”

“Same as you?”

“Accessory after the fact.” Danny gives him a long, serious look. “You think I don't respect this badge I'm carrying . . . what it stands for? You think what went down with Erwin didn't keep me up all night? I'm asking myself the same questions you are and I figure we handed ourselves life sentences. We're doing time like everybody else, except we know it. And we know why.”

Cray nods again.

There's a long moment of silence.

“So if you could roll back time,” Danny finally asks. “Would you do it the same?”

Cray wonders if Danny hears the children's voices, the sweet angel chorus that echoes faintly in the back of his head and makes his heart break to hear. He wonders if it ever goes away.

“I don't know,” he says. “I'd have to stop him.” Their gazes meet. “I'd have to do whatever it took.”

“Yeah,” Danny tells him. “Me, too.”

There's nothing more either of them has to say.

From the August, 1996 issue of the Spar Distributions catalogue:

The Girl Zone
, No. 10. Written & illustrated by Mona Morgan. Latest issue features new chapters of The True Life Adventures of Rockit Grrl, Jupiter Jewel & My Life As A Bird. Includes a one-page jam with Charles Vess. My Own Comix Co., $2.75 Back issues available.

“M
Y
L
IFE AS A
B
IRD
”
M
ONA'S MONOLOGUE FROM CHAPTER THREE:

The thing is, we spend too much time looking outside ourselves for what we should really be trying to find inside. But we can't seem to trust what we find in ourselves—maybe because that's where we find it. I suppose it's all a part of how we ignore who we really are. We're so quick to cut away pieces of ourselves to suit a particular relationship, a job, a circle of friends, incessantly editing who we are until we fit in. Or we do it to someone else. We try to edit the people around us.

I don't know which is worse.

Most people would say it's when we do it to someone else, but I don't think either one's a very healthy option.

Why do we love ourselves so little? Why are we suspect for trying to love ourselves, for being true to who and what we are rather than what someone else thinks we should be? We're so ready to betray ourselves, but we never call it that. We have all these other terms to describe it: Fitting in. Doing the right thing. Getting along.

I'm not proposing a world solely ruled by rank self-interest; I know that there have to be some limits of politeness and compromise or all we'll have left is anarchy. And anyone who expects the entire world to adjust to them is obviously a little too full of their own self-importance.

But how can we expect others to respect or care for us, if we don't respect and care for ourselves? And how come no one asks, “If you're so ready to betray yourself, why should I believe that you won't betray me as well?”