Murder at the Foul Line (30 page)

I spent a few more minutes listening to the radio and checking myself in the mirror. Pattin’ my natural and shit. I got a
nice modified cut, not too short, not too blown-out or nothin’ like that. A lot of the fellas be wearin’ cornrows now, tryin’
to look like Iverson. But I don’t think it would look right on me. And I know what the girls like. They look at me, they like
what they see. I can tell.

Moms has been ridin’ me about my college entrance exam. I fucked up the first one I took. I went out and got high on some
fierce chronic the night before it, and my head was filled up with cobwebs the next morning when I sat down in the school
cafeteria to take that test. I’m gonna take it again, though, and do better next time.

I’m not one of those guys who’s got, what do you call that,
illusions about my future. No hoop dreams about the NBA, nothin’ like that. I’m not good enough or tall enough, I know it.
I’m sixth man on my high school team, that ought to tell you somethin’ right there. My uncle Gaylen, he’s been real good to
me, and straight-up with me, too. Told me to have fun with ball and all that, but not to depend on it. To stick with the books.
I know I fucked up that test, but next time I’m gonna do better, you can believe that.

I was thinkin’, though, I could get me a partial scholarship playin’ for one of those small schools in Virginia or Maryland,
William and Mary or maybe Goucher up in Baltimore. Hold up—Goucher’s for women only, I think. Maybe I’m wrong. Have to ask
my guidance counselor, soon as I can find one. Ha, ha.

The other thing I should do, for real, is find me a part-time job. I’m tired of havin’ no money in my pockets. My mother works
up at the Dollar Store in the Silver Spring mall, and she told me she could hook me up there. But I don’t wanna work with
my mother. And I don’t want to be workin’ at no
Mac-
Donald’s or sumshit like that. Have the neighborhood slangers come in and make fun of me and shit, standin’ there in my minimum-wage
uniform. But I do need some money. I’d like to buy me a nice car soon. I’m not talkin’ about some hooptie, neither.

I did have an interview for this restaurant downtown, bussin’ tables. White boy who interviewed kept sayin’ shit like, “Do
you think you can make it into work on time?” and do you think this and do you think that? Might as well gone ahead and called
me a nigger right to my face. The more he talked, the more attitude I gave him with my eyes. After all that, he smiled and
sat up straight, like he was gonna make some big announcement,
and said he was gonna give me a try. I told him I changed my mind and walked right out of there. Uncle Gaylen said I should’ve
taken that job and showed him he was wrong, for all of us. But I couldn’t. I can’t stand how white people talk to you sometimes.
Like they’re just there to make their own selves feel better. I hired a Negro today, and like that.

I
am
gonna take that test over, though.

I changed my shirt and went out through the living room. My sister was watchin’ the BET videos on TV, her mouth around a straw,
sippin’ on one of those big sodas. She’s startin’ to get some titties on her. Some of the slick young niggas in the neighborhood
been commentin’ on it, too. Late for her to be awake, but it was Friday night. She didn’t look up as I passed. I yelled good-bye
to my moms and heard her say my name from the kitchen. I knew she was back up in there ’cause I smelled the smoke comin’ off
her cigarette. There was a ten-dollar bill sittin’ in a bowl by the door. I folded it up and slipped it inside my jeans. My
mother had left it there for me. I’m tellin’ you, she is cool people.

Outside the complex, I stepped across this little road and the dark courtyard real quick. We been livin’ here a long time,
and I know most everyone by sight. But in this place here, that don’t mean shit.

The Black Hole had a line goin’ outside the door when I got there. I went through the metal detector and let a white rent-a-cop
pat me down while I said hey to a friend going into the hall. I could feel the bass from way out in the lobby.

The hall was crowded and the place was bumpin’. I could smell sweat in the damp air. Also chronic, and it was nice. Back Yard
was doin’ “Freestyle,” off
Hood Related
, that double CD they got. I kind of made my way towards the stage, careful not
to bump nobody, nodding to the ones I did. I knew a lot of young brothers there. Some of ’em run in gangs, some not. I try
to know a little bit of everybody, you see what I’m sayin’? Spread your friends out in case you run into some trouble. I was
smilin’ at some of the girls, too.

Up near the front I got into the groove. Someone passed me somethin’ that smelled good, and I hit it. Back Yard was turnin’
that shit out. I been knowin’ their music for like ten years now. They had the whole joint up there that night, I’m talkin’
about a horn section and everything else. I must have been up there close to the stage for about, I don’t know, an hour, sumshit
like that, just dancing. It seemed like all of us was all movin’ together. On “Do That Stuff,” they went into this extended
drum thing, shout-outs for the hoodies and the crews; I was sweatin’ clean through my shirt, right about then.

I had to pee like a motherfucker, but I didn’t want to use the bathroom in that place. All the hard motherfuckers be congregatin’
in there, too. That’s where trouble can start, just ’cause you gave someone some wrong kinda look.

When the set broke, I started to talkin’ to this girl who’d been dancin’ near me, smilin’ my way. I’d seen her around. Matter
of fact, I ran ball sometimes with her older brother. So we had somethin’ to talk about straight off. She had that Brandy
thing goin’ on with her hair, and a nice smile.

While we was talkin’, someone bumped me from behind. I turned around and it was Antuane, that kid who ran with James Wallace.
Wallace was with him, and so were a coupla Wallace’s boys. I nodded at Antuane, tryin’ to communicate to him, like, “Ain’t
no thing, you bumpin’ me like that.” But Wallace stepped in and said somethin’ to me. I couldn’t even really hear it with
all the crowd noise, but I could see by his
face that he was tryin’ to step
to
me. I mean, he was right up in my face.

We stared at each other for a few. I shoulda just walked away, right, but I couldn’t let him punk me out like that in front
of the girl.

Wallace’s hand shot up. Looked like a bird flutterin’ out of nowhere or somethin’. Maybe he was just makin’ a point with that
hand, like some do. But it rattled me, I guess, and I reacted. Didn’t even think about it, though I should’ve. My palms went
to his chest and I shoved him back. He stumbled. I saw his eyes flare with anger, but there was that other thing, too, worse
than me puttin’ my hands on him: I had stripped him of his pride.

There was some yellin’ then from his boys. I just turned and bucked. I saw the bouncers started to move, talkin’ into their
headsets and shit, but I didn’t wait. I bucked. I was out on the street pretty quick, runnin’ towards my place. I didn’t know
what else to do.

I heard Wallace and them behind me, comin’ out the Hole. They said my name. I didn’t look back. I ran to Morton and turned
right. Heard car doors opening and slammin’ shut. The engine of the car turnin’ over. Then the cry of tires on the street
and Wallace’s boys laughin’, yellin’ shit out. I kept runnin’ towards Park Morton. My heart felt like it was snappin’ on a
rubber string.

There were some younguns out in the complex. They were sittin’ up on top of a low brick wall like they do, and they watched
me run by. It’s always dark here, ain’t never no good kinda light. They got some dim yellow bulbs back in the stairwells,
where the old-school types drink gin and shoot craps. They was back up in there, too, hunched down in the shadows.
There was some kind of fog or haze out that night, too, it was kind of rollin’ around by that old playground equipment, all
rusted and shit, they got in the courtyard. I was runnin’ through there, tryin’ to get to my place.

I had to cross the little road in the back of the complex to get to my mother’s apartment. I stepped into it and that’s when
I saw the black Maxima swing around the corner. Coupla Wallace’s boys jumped out while the car was still movin’. I stopped
runnin’. They knew where I lived. If they didn’t, all they had to do was ask one of those younguns on the wall. I wasn’t gonna
bring none of this home to my moms.

Wallace was out of the driver’s side quick, walkin’ towards me. He was smilin’ and my stomach shifted. Antuane had walked
back by the playground. I knew where he was goin’. Wallace and them keep a gun, a nine with a fifteen-round mag, buried in
a shoe box back there.

“Junior,” said Wallace, “you done fucked up big.” He was still smilin’.

I didn’t move. My knees were shakin’ some. I figured this was it. I was thinkin’ about my mother and tryin’ not to cry. Thinkin’
about how if I did cry, that’s all anyone would remember about me. That I went out like a bitch before I died. Funny me thinkin’
about stupid shit like that while I was waitin’ for Antuane to come back with that gun.

I saw Antuane’s figure walkin’ back out through that fog.

And then I saw the spotlight movin’ across the courtyard, and where it came from. An MPD Crown Vic was comin’ up the street,
kinda slow. The driver turned on the overheads, throwing colors all around. Antuane backpedaled and then he was gone.

The cruiser stopped and the driver’s door opened. The
white cop I’d seen earlier in the night got out. Sergeant Peters. My moms had told me his name. Told me he was all right.

Peters was puttin’ on his hat as he stepped out. He had pulled his nightstick, and his other hand just brushed the Glock on
his right hip. Like he was just lettin’ us all know he had it.

“Evening, gentlemen,” he said easylike. “We got a problem here?”

“Nope,” said Wallace, kinda in a white-boy’s voice, still smiling.

“Somethin’ funny?” said Peters.

Wallace didn’t say nothin’. Peters looked at me and then back at Wallace.

“You all together?” said Peters.

“We just out here havin’ a conversation,” said Wallace.

Sergeant Peters gave Wallace a look then, like he was disgusted with him, and then he sighed.

“You,” said Peters, turnin’ to me. I was prayin’ he wasn’t gonna say my name, like me and him was friends and shit.

“Yeah?” I said, not too friendly but not, like, impolite.

“You live around here?” He
knew
I did.

I said, “Uh-huh.”

“Get on home.”

I turned around and walked. Slow but not too slow. I heard the white cop talkin’ to Wallace and the others, and the crackle
of his radio comin’ from the car. Red and blue was strobin’ across the bricks of the complex. Under my breath I was sayin’,
Thanks, God.

In my apartment everyone was asleep. I turned off the TV set and covered my sister, who was lyin’ on the couch. Then I went
back to my room and turned the box on so I could listen
to my music low. I sat on the edge of the bed. My hand was shaking. I put it together with my other hand and laced my fingers
tight.

After the Park Morton incident, I answered a domestic call over on First and Kennedy. A young gentleman, built like a fullback,
had beat his girl up pretty bad. Her face was already swelling when I arrived and there was blood and spittle bubbling on
the side of her mouth. The first cops on the scene had cuffed the perp and had him bent over the hood of their cruiser. At
this point the girlfriend, she was screaming at the cops. Some of the neighborhood types, hanging outside of a windowless
bar on Kennedy, had begun screaming at the cops, too. I figured they were drunk and high on who knew what, so I radioed in
for a few more cars.

We made a couple of additional arrests. Like they say in the TV news, the situation had escalated. Not a full-blown riot,
but trouble nonetheless. Someone yelled out at me, called me a “cracker-ass motherfucker.” I didn’t even blink. The county
cops don’t take an ounce of that kinda shit, but we take it every night. Sticks and stones, like that. Then someone started
whistling the theme from the old
Andy Griffith Show
, you know, the one where he played a small-town sheriff, and everyone started to laugh. Least they didn’t call me Barney
Fife. The thing was, when the residents start with the comedy, you know it’s over, that things have gotten under control.
So I didn’t mind. Actually, the guy who was whistling, he was pretty good.

When that was over with, I pulled a car over on 5
^th
and Princeton, back by the Old Soldier’s Home, that matched a description
of a shooter’s car from earlier in the night. I waited for backup, standing behind the left rear quarter panel of the car,
my holster unsnapped, the light from my Mag pointed at the rear window.

When my backup came, we searched the car and frisked the four YBMs. They had those little-tree deodorizers hangin’ from the
rearview, and one of those plastic, king-crown deodorizers sitting on the back panel, too. A crown. Like they’re royalty,
right? God, sometimes these people make me laugh. Anyhow, they were clean with no live warrants, and we let them go.

I drove around, and it was quiet. Between three a.m. and dawn, the city gets real still. Beautiful in a way, even for down
here.

The last thing I did, I helped some Spanish guy try to get back into his place in Petworth. Said his key didn’t work, and
it didn’t. Someone, his landlord or his woman, had changed the locks on him, I figured. Liquor stench was pouring out of him.
Also, he smelled like he hadn’t taken a shower for days. When I left him he was standing on the sidewalk, sort of rocking
back and forth, staring at the front of the row house, like if he looked at it long enough the door was gonna open on its
own.

So now I’m parked here near the station, sipping coffee. It’s my ritual, like. The sky is beginning to lighten. This here
is my favorite time of night.

I’m thinking that on my next shift, or the one after, I’ll swing by and see Tonio Harris’s mother. I haven’t talked to her
in years, anyway. See how she’s been doing. Suggest to her, without acting like I’m telling her what to do, that maybe she
ought to have her son lie low some. Stay in the next few weekend nights. Let that beef he’s got with those others, whatever
it is, die down. Course, I know those kinds of beefs don’t go away. I’ll make her aware of it, just the same.