The Shooting (32 page)

—I am not, Lee says.

La Cuzio says, —In fact he even once
viciously
screamed at and chased the young children living in his building for having the nerve to play in the hallway outside his door. One of those children? A young Clayton Kabede, who Fisher would go on to one day slaughter in almost that exact same spot.

—Now hold on, Lee says to the jurors, —I don't know what he's talking about. I remember the kids who lived in my building thought I was Boo Radley, you know, from
To Kill a Mockingbird
? They used to come up to my door and knock and try to get me to come out. It was kind of a game. And once or twice I thought it would be nice to kind of play with them and so I gave them a little knock back. When I did they all shrieked and ran away. It was a game.

La Cuzio ignores him and says, —If you want to put this entitled man and his gun away, now is the time to do it, folks. If you want to make an entitled man who thinks he is above the law finally,
finally for once in his life,
face the consequences the rest of us have to face, now is the time to do it. The power is in your hands. The choice is yours. Put him away. Don't let another entitled guy with a gun get away with murdering someone. La Cuzio stops abruptly and looks at Lee. —Mr. Fisher, you're shaking your head. Do you disagree with what I'm saying?

—Well, yes, sir, I reckon I do.

—
I reckon I do,
La Cuzio mimics. —You think you're a real cowboy, don't you?

—It's just the way we talk, is all, where I come from.

—Is it? And where's that?

Lee tells him about the mountain.

—Was it a real mountain?

—Yessir.

—Does it still exist?

—No, sir.

—It never really did, did it? It was fake.

—I grew up on it, so it was real to me.

—It was a landfill. Are you
sure
that's the kind of guy you are? A cowboy?

—Yessir.

—But that kind of guy is not real, is he? He's never existed. He's a myth, isn't he?

Lee's answer is immediate but calm, —He ain't a myth. He's real.

—Uh-huh, well, which part do you disagree with? By all means, explain to these hardworking people who have real problems, explain to these people of color, explain to these women, these people who work full-time,
more
than full-time, these people who have gone through hell and high water to come to this country, these people who are sick and can't afford treatment, these people who grind themselves to the bone each and every day just to keep their heads above water, who live in neighborhoods where bullets whizz by their heads, where they get mugged, where kids shoot each other to death outside their door, explain to
them
why you have it so hard that you need a gun. Please, by all means, do what you have foolishly and needlessly and dangerously been trying to do all your life: defend yourself. La Cuzio sits on the corner of the table with an expectant smile like he is about to watch stand-up comedy.

—I don't know. You keep saying I have so much, but I don't feel like I have a whole hell of a lot.

La Cuzio laughs out loud, turning toward the jury as if to say,
Are you getting a load of this guy?

Lee says, —I mean, my father's a piece of work, he ain't never been much of a father to me. My mother never cared about me as much as herself. Neither of them have been in my life since I was
a kid. So no family. Several properties, yes, but never a home. No love. So really I ain't never had nothing at all. Until my son. Now that I have my son, I have everything. Everything. The rest of it—my property, my money, all that—go ahead and take it, I didn't earn it, it's never meant much to me. But you've already tried to take my ability to keep my son safe, and now you want to lock me up to keep me away from him altogether, just for doing what I have the right to do? You do that, you're taking everything I have. You're taking it all. Does that seem right to you? They tell me it's up to y'all: if you think I did something wrong that deserves going to jail for, then go on ahead and indict me. But if you don't, then you're free not to. So I'm asking: Does it seem right to you?

(Sheeple X & XI)

 

I wander from car to car throwing the fastball: —Please, mang. I been out since six o'clock this morning, mang, looking for a job, mang. I'm tired, mang. I got sick, mang, I lost my job. I ain't got no family, mang, I'm just trying to get something to eat, mang, I can't even afford a cup of coffee, mang, please help me out, this ain't no joke, this could happen to anybody, mang, y'all don't know how easily, mang.

Car after car and they all ignore me so I get mad, and at the next stop when doors open I steal a white lady's phone out her hand, book it. Doors close, train continues, white lady still looking at her hand like the phone still in it. Cop chasing me. Shit, they was one right there on the platform, saw the whole damned thing! Now to run the bases, inside-the-park homer, mang! Bounce up the stairs and out to the station, up to the street. Cop chasing. Run into the street, through traffic, cabs almost killing me, cop yelling. Turn real quick, use the phone to snap a photo of him! And then still running, text them shits to all the white lady's people! Get away, hide out in NY Public Library. Read books, or look at them at least, I can't understand them shits, mang, foreign language. Looking at teenage tourist ass. I can be charming with the
chicos.
—Hey, dude, hey, bro, where you from? Why am I so dirty, you ask? Aw, mang, I'm in a band, mang, we been on tour, living that rock 'n'
roll lifestyle, mang, we been in Japan, Paris, Los Angeles. Where you staying, bro?

Go back with two of them. Skinny Oklahoma Justin Biebers, fifteen or sixteen. I use their computer to find some music, say it's mine, they believe me. One of them's more into me than the other and it's the other who's finer one but you take what you can get, and this one and I start trying to fuck and the finer one sees what we doing and acts shocked and says, —Oh my God, dude, and the one says, —What's the matter? and the first asks if he's serious, then leaves.

Then there's a knock on the door, mang, a mean cop knock. And I'm pulling my pants on and yanking up on the window, but them shits don't open but an inch or two, mang. I'm trying to squeeze through anyway, mang, and a stern white man voice outside is saying, —Kevin, goddammit, open up this instant!

It's the dude's dad, mang, and he got hotel security with him, and I know firsthand that hotel security beat you worse than the cops, mang. And they do, mang. They take me downstairs, beat the fuck out of me, tell the cops I did it to myself and cops believe them, mang. Arrest my ass for rape, mang, they saying the kid fifteen years old, mang, like I'm some old man, but I'm only eighteen, mang.

Put me on the bus with blood and snot dried all over my face and some white fat dude sit next to me and I'm in no kind of mood, mang, and he just look like one of them security guards who was calling me faggot and beating my ass in the basement. So I want this dude out of my sight right now, for real. I want him ejected from the game, mang. I know my life fucked now, mang, I ain't never getting out, and I'm trying not to cry, there ain't no crying in baseball, and the only way to not cry is to spit at this dude and scream at him and tell him he is what those motherfuckers told me I was, mang. So I call him that and he ain't leaving like he need to, so I keep calling him it. And I can see that he going to cry now too, and that feels good, not being the only one. And he says, voice breaking and shit, —Dude, you understand my predicament here, what am I supposed to do?

That make me go off harder on his ass, but when we get to the Tombs, mang, all I'm thinking is
Predicament? What the fuck is predicament?
I don't know the word. I get obsessed with it, mang. I
gotta know what
predicament
mean. It's like a bug in my ear canal, mang. I ask everyone I can inside: —Hey, bro, what
predicament
mean? They think I'm crazy. First thing I do they put me back up in Rikers, I don't even wash the snot and blood off my face, I go to the library, find a dictionary, look that shit up. Definition of
predicament
is a bunch more words I don't understand, mang, so I gotta look up each of them too. Now all I'm doing is looking up word after word. Truth is, I like it, mang. I like looking up words. And I start reading. And understanding that shit too. It all clicking for me right now, mang. And I come to realize, mang, my life a whole big goddamned predicament—of my own making, mang.

I start writing, mang. Using the words I'm learning now. I write about baseball, mang. I love baseball, but baseball, mang? Baseball? Back when I played Little League there was this kid on my team and I was in love with him. And I told him that, mang, I told him
I love you.
It was stupid but I didn't know, mang—I didn't know. And he said,
You faggot
, and he raped me, mang. He beat my ass and raped me. That's what I get, mang, for not knowing better. And I write about that and people like it, my writing teacher inside here, mang, he sends it to
Sports Illustrated,
mang, and they publish that shits, mang. And all these dudes start sending me letters up here saying it happened to them too and that what I wrote helped them, mang. And that feel better than anything I've ever experienced before in my life, mang, and I decide I want nothing from life but words and helping people, mang. And that's all I been doing in here ever since, mang, and that's all I'm gonna be doing rest of my life, mang, either in here or out there but most likely in here, mang: helping people like me out of our predicaments.

 

Joseph came tearing down the stairs, baseball bat in hand, and beat the old man coming through the door.

He was a sweet baby, rarely cried, became very happy when laid out on a blanket on the floor having his diaper changed. His mother was sixteen, his father was either sixteen too or forty-six, depending on which man it was, Spoon or Spoon's father, James. Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. James denied responsibility, family could not afford to pursue the matter in court. When Spoon found out about his girl and his father, he went and stood on the Manhattan Bridge to jump off it. Looked down into the winter gray of the East River. Thought about how long it had been gray like that, how even a hundred years ago it was the exact same color, even two hundred years ago, even a thousand, even ten thousand. While all these buildings were going up and coming down and all these people were being born and suffering like how he was suffering right now and dying like how he was about to, this river had been gray.

Did not jump, went home, and on the way saw her and the baby, she was pushing him in the stroller. It was a slushy winter, baby was bundled up and grinning out at Spoon; evening was coming on, the lights on the storefronts starting to glow, the block strangely deserted but for the three of them in that moment in time, and she said, —You know I didn't want to, you know I love you, let's be
together, just the three of us. He could never tell any of his friends this or even say it out loud, but
just the three of us
sounded like poetry to him, it was perfect and right, and he chose to believe that she was telling the truth. —Just the three of us, he said, and leaned in and kissed his baby, Joseph, his son, no matter what anyone else said.

The next day went around to get a job. He'd have to provide now. But no one in the neighborhood trusted him—used to run with these dudes who ripped people off and broke into cars and sold heroin, everyone thought he was still like that—and they knew about what his father did and don't want anything to do with anyone whose own dad would do that to him. After being turned down at a grocery store, he saw his father on the corner playing dominoes with some old cracked-out islanders, and he decided he would kill him. He'd kill him. Couldn't get a job but he could easily get a gun. So many guns here you were just about tripping over them in the street. Went into the city, to Central Park, walked up to a white lady, said, —Give me your purse. She did. He took out the cash, gave her back the rest. Went up to another white lady, did the same thing. Counted what he had now. Five hundred dollars.

Went back to the neighborhood, by that evening he had a loaded semiautomatic nine-millimeter in his hand. Found his father coming out of a bodega scratching off lottery tickets. Followed him. Stayed a half block behind. Twice his father sensed something behind him and turned, but Spoon would duck into the shadows so he didn't see him. Then on a long block, it was just the two of them.
Just the two of us.
Spoon sped up. Now he was close enough to slip the gun from his pocket and fire as many bullets he wanted into this motherfucker's head.

But then he thought of his son. He thought of how bundled Joseph was in his stroller when he saw him and her in the street, and Spoon felt her lips on his and heard how she laughs when it's just the two of them being stupid. And he realized that it didn't matter what his father says or what any tests might say: she loved him and that baby was his—these are facts that belonged not to the world but to him, they did not need the world, they were truth without it, all they needed was him—he, Spoon—to believe they were true and
they became true and stayed true, and believing they were true was better than the world telling him they were true. This is something he would never even try to explain to anybody else, because if he were to have tried, if he were to have taken it out from inside himself like that and exposed it to the air, it would have died. But having it within himself made him better than his father, he realized, and killing the man was suddenly meaningless. So the same way he kept the truth inside himself, he kept the gun inside his pocket and he just said, —What up, Pop?

His father jumped, terrified. —Shit! Sneaking up behind me. Gonna kill a nigga.

—I wouldn't do that, Spoon said.

He went left, father went right. Spoon had no idea that up above a woman was watching from her window and she could see Spoon's face clearly in the streetlights, had just gotten a fresh prescription on her eyeglasses, recognized him too, knew his name, where he lived, had called the cops on him before for loitering on her stoop with his friends playing music at all hours. She'd have called them again in a heartbeat. Testify as a witness in court. Put him away for life.

Next morning Spoon went into the city—no one knew him there—got a job at Radio Shack near where he was robbing white ladies day before in the park. Saved every penny he made for Joseph, for
just the three of us.
He was not Spoon anymore at his job in the city, he was James, his real name, not James like his father but James like himself. Did the job well and boss liked him, promoted him to shift supervisor, then assistant manager. Soon he was making enough money to get a place for
just the three of us
out of the neighborhood. Got married, he went to night school, first GED, then work toward a bachelor's in business. Baby grew. Suddenly he was a little boy.

Spoon-James went in with his boss on a new Radio Shack franchise outside Union Square, it was successful, moved
just the three of us
to a white neighborhood with a great public school—Joseph could avoid the kind of people Spoon-James ran with at his age, instead ran with children of architects and writers and attorneys and entrepreneurs. The influence paid off, Joseph was second in his class at his high school, one of the best sprinters in the state, worked nights and
weekends at his dad's stores, of which there were now three in the city. Got into Boston University on a full scholarship for track.

Few days before classes were to start, Joseph was at home packing when there was a bunch of noise downstairs. It was his grandfather at the front door arguing with his father. Joseph had never seen the man up close before, only at a distance when his dad pointed him out on the street to say,
Stay away from him, that man's a bad dude.
Went down now to help his father with the bad dude. Brought a baseball bat. Stood on the stairs. His father was trying to close the door on the bad dude who was yelling, —Lemme see my muthafucking son 'fore he go, that my muthafucking child, that my baby! Joseph found himself jumping from halfway down the stairs and pushing his father out of the way, father saying, —No, no, no, and the bad dude coming through the door, which swung open so hard it put a hole in the wall. Joseph started swinging the bat and will never forget the look on that man's face when those ribs cracked. Cops came, arrested Joseph, put him in the Tombs to await arraignment.

Where he sits now looking at the floor, which is gray and ten thousand years ago it was also gray.
Like a river,
he thinks. Life is ruined. Trying not to cry. Scholarship gone.
Should be on my way to Boston right now, meeting my roommate, meeting my teammates, meeting girls.
There's a white guy in here, one of the only ones, they're saying he killed a kid tonight. Black kid.
Guaranteed he'll be out before I am.
Fat white guy. They're calling him Pillsbury Doughboy. Joseph hates him. He hopes somebody fucks him up, so when he walks out of here and gets off for what he did, at least he'll be fucked up. It feels good to focus his hate on this motherfucker. They're saying when he made his one phone call he had no one to call so he just called the time.

Joseph doesn't know what to do, there's nothing to do here but sit and wait and hate yourself and feel guilty but try to think of ways you're not, because even though you feel guilty, you know you aren't. Freezing in here too. They're trying to give everybody pneumonia, hoping they can kill some of them off so they don't have to deal with them. Well, his father knows one of the COs, so Joseph gets him to bring a bunch of blankets and goes around handing
them out, because he wants one for himself and figures if everybody has their own, then there's less likelihood of them stealing his. He's saving Pillsbury Doughboy for last, hoping he runs out before he gets to him. He hands them all out, and then he has one left, for himself, but on his way back he walks by Pillsbury, almost steps on him as a matter of fact, dude's curled up on the floor whimpering and shivering so bad his lips are purple and Joseph feels bad, can't help it, he can even hear his teeth clacking.