Clockers (2 page)

The white guy fanned out the singles to The Word as if he wanted The Word to pick a card, any card. The Word swept the bills into his hand, said “Two-oh” to Horace, and Horace vanished into 6 Weehawken.

The Word walked away and the white guy said, “Hey…” For a minute he stood there alone, blinking and confused, but then Horace came back out of the building holding a crumpled-up paper bag. He dropped it in a garbage can, hissed “Yo” to get the customer’s attention, then walked away too. It took a few seconds for the guy to figure it out, but then he snatched up the bag and hustled off toward the street.

It was Strike’s idea to move the store to the benches at the edge of the projects. Whites were too scared of walking all the way in and copping their bottles while being surrounded by the towers, too scared that they wouldn’t make it back out. Working from the benches also made it a lot easier to spot the Fury when it rolled, especially when the knockos pulled a pincers move, trying to sneak attack from both sides at once.

Strike had suggested it to Rodney, Rodney saying, “Hey, you’re the man,” letting him run his own show as long as he moved half a kilo a week. And in six months on top out here, Strike had never failed to hit that figure, partly through his vigilant fretfulness, partly through marketing novelties like two-for-one Happy Hours, Jumbos, Redi Rocks and Starter Kits, but mainly because he understood that good product rules. People always knew who had it; all Strike had to do was not get greedy and step on Rodney’s bottles when they came in. That way he’d always have the best, because all the other lieutenants stretched out their re-ups by diluting the product. Strike counted on the greed, knowing it would drive all the pipe-heads right to him.

“Five-oh!” Peanut hissed, whirling, spinning on one foot.

Shit. Strike looked past Peanut to the street, saw the knockos still in the car and heard one of them, Crunch, calling to the white guy, “Hey, you!”

Strike looked to Horace and The Word, both of them flying back into the building. Strike sat tight, just watched as Crunch stepped out and escorted his grab to the rear of the Fury.

Blasting from the open door was some Rolling Stones garbage, one of the tapes the knockos played in order to get pumped up when they were hunting bounty.

Strike saw Spook and Ahmed walk away as if they had something to hide—wannabes, the only idiots who walked. He heard Big Chief still in the shotgun seat whisper into the hand radio: “Batman Hat guilty, Red Hat guilty.” Then Strike saw Smurf and Thumper sneaking up on foot from the Dumont side, closing the pincers, grabbing Spook and Ahmed and throwing them up against the chain fence.

The white guy was pleading with Crunch, yammering, “Oh Jesus, oh Jesus, look listen I’m, look listen,” then babbling on about how he was a caulker, how he just got the job this week.

Crunch began cutting a deal right on the street, and Strike heard him say something about “just a desk appearance if you ID the kid who served you.” The white guy was barely able to talk, wanting to say so much so fast. He called The Word “stocky” instead of fat: “Stocky kid in a St. Louis Cardinals cap, Officer.” Officer, like he was in the army.

Strike, hunched over on his perch, watched Thumper press a splayed palm on Ahmed’s chest, saying, “What’s up, Yo? Where you going?,” saying it with that honking street lisp he liked to use. Trembling and pop-eyed as if he was really holding, Ahmed squeaked back, “I ain’t going nowhere, Thumper!”

“Whatta you so nervous about, Home?” Thumper was already in his pockets, shaking out the snotrag, scrabbling through his vinyl wallet.

“I ain’t nervous!” Ahmed sounded like a fire alarm at noon.

“Ya ain’t nervous? Feel ya heart!” Thumper squawked, moving his hand on Ahmed’s chest,
whump whump,
as if it was pulsing. He pulled out Ahmed’s money—two dollars, a real big-time gangster—then put the bills back in Ahmed’s pocket and pulled off his Batman hat, checking inside before flipping it over the fence, into the grass.

Big Chief was giving Peanut the same drill, while Smurf sniffed around the benches, picking up paper bags and looking for bottles, rooting around in the garbage cans like a bum. They all looked like bums, except they were healthy bums, six-foot, two-hundred-pound white bums with lead saps and Clock Nineteens on their hips.

Strike had no idea why, but the Fury definitely had a thing for the Weehawken benches. Knockos, whether Housing, City or County, were just
like
that, getting fixated on one corner, one building, one dealer, even though their arrest turf took in entire cities. It was known as the Knocko’s Prerogative.

“Pea-nut, Pea-nut, gimme some bottles, Pea-nut.” Big Chief towered over him, crowding him against the fence. “You ain’t no raiser, Pea-nut. Where them bottles?” Then he saw the bang on Peanut’s cheek. “You do something bad, Peanut?”

Big Chief turned slowly, looking over to Strike.

Strike stared at his own sneakers, taking a breath, recalling the exercise the speech therapist had taught him back in school: envision a scene that relaxes you, she’d said, and now Strike conjured up a picture of palm trees and ocean, literally a picture, since he had never seen a real palm tree.

“Strike,” Big Chief said, “Peanut do something bad?”

Strike took a swig of Yoo-Hoo, shrugged, said nothing. Futon ignored it all, bobbing his head to his Walkman, his fingers orange from Cheetos dust as he scraped the bottom of the bag.

Peanut did his gooney-bird dance: arms raised, elbows cocked, wrists curled. “C’mon, Big Chief, you know I ain’t
do
nothin’, ‘cause how come I ain’t
run
nin’ nowhere?”

Big Chief pulled at the front of Peanut’s pants, looked down into his crotch, growling, “Pea-nut, Pea-nut, lemme see ya pea-nuts.”

“Watch out it don’t bite you.” Peanut laughed. Big Chief laughed right back.

Strike heard the white guy going on to Crunch about how he just got engaged, how he did A.A., a hundred meetings in a hundred days, how his father was a fireman in Jersey City. Strike could see Crunch’s eyes going dull.

White people. Strike thought the Fury was OK but most of the others, in his experience, were for shit. Whenever they got grabbed, they got so scared they babbled; at least most of the boys around here knew to get stony stupid when the police came down. No matter what the knockos did to you, whatever they called you, all you had to do was weather it out, because the knockos couldn’t do shit if they couldn’t find nothing, so anybody who understood survival out here just hung tight and took the abuse until the knockos went away.

But if Big Chief or Thumper caught one of the boys dirty, someone like Peanut, then got him alone … well, everybody was out for himself. Peanut was being cool and funny with Strike sitting there, but Peanut went to Catholic pay school, his mother was a working woman and he was scared of her. If Peanut ever got caught, he might turn.

Big Chief had finished with Peanut, and now both of them were looking over at Strike. Big Chief knew Strike was clean, but here it came anyhow, just like always. Strike took a swig of Yoo-Hoo to brace himself.

Big Chief clomped over, six foot five, reddish-gray hair, bounce-lurching on the toes of his sneakers like a playground Frankenstein, wearing his Fury T-shirt—six wolves hanging out of a police car—growling, “Strike, Strike, Strike.” Thumper shoved Ahmed away and chimed in, “No, Big Chief, it be S-S-S-Strike S-S-S-Strike.”

Strike eased off the bench top, raising his arms, looking deadpan, solemn, enduring.

“You got bottles there, Strike?” Big Chief began finger-walking his front pockets, pulling out Strike’s money—ten dollars, never more—his house keys and the house keys for three other people who held his dope, his money.

“What are you, a janitor?” Big Chief jingled the keys, giving them to a baby in a stroller, and lazily scanned the curious and growing crowd around the benches.

Strike’s eyes went straight to Big Chief’s throat, then shifted over his shoulder, across the projects to where his mother lived with his brother, Victor. Strike imagined them looking out now, seeing this, drawing down the shade.

Thumper barked to a few eight-year-olds, “What’s up, yo, you got bottles?”

“I ain’t got no bottles,” said one little kid, rearing back in disdain.

“Who’s Mister Big?” Thumper leaned down, growling like Big Chief.

”
This
Mister Big,” the kid said, grabbing his own crotch, then running away.

“Open your mouth there, Strike.” Big Chief checked his teeth as if he was a horse, or a slave.

Strike, yawning wide, saw Rodney roll by in the beat-up rust-colored Cadillac that he’d bought from a pipehead for two hundred dollars cash and another hundred in bottles, kicking the guy in the ass on his way out the door. Rodney in his Jheri curls, his gold wraparound sunglasses and his Cadillac: an old-timer, thirty-five, maybe older.

Strike saw Rodney smirk in disgust, shake his head and raise a lazy hand off the seat back. But he kept moving; he never even slowed down.

“OK.” Big Chief looked right, left, then moved close. “Drop your drawers there, Strike. Dicky check.”

Strike hesitated as always, holding it in, weighing his options, finally unzipping and pulling down, some of the tenants in the crowd looking away and talking under their breath, some cursing out the Fury, some cursing out Strike.

“Drop your drawers, bend over, say ah-h-h,” Thumper said, getting in on it now.

Strike held his underwear band out so Big Chief could look in.

“Short and sweet there, Strike.” Big Chief frowned. “Let’s see under your balls, there. See what you got taped under your balls.”

“Strike’s balls,” Thumper drawled. “Strikes and balls, three and two, full count.”

Strike pulled up his scrotum, caught Peanut grinning on the sidewalk and then looking away quick when he saw Strike watching him, Strike thinking, Peanut’s a dead man.

Thumper peeked in. “Jesus, Strike, you got some bacon strips in there, brother. Where’s your hygiene?”

Strike bugged out: it was a damn lie. Nothing sickened Strike more than filth,
any
kind of filth. He was
clean,
cleaner than any of them. Losing it, Strike looked right into Thumper’s eyes, totally blowing his own play.

“W-w-w-what’s a m-m-m-matter, S-S-Strike? Y-y-you OK?”

Strike looked away, pulled up his pants, took his keys back from the baby. It was all Thumper’s show now, Big Chief moving off to look under the bench for bottles.

“How come you never smile, Strike? You’re clean, man. Crack a smile.”

Strike looked off sourly, although he was smiling a little on the inside as he caught sight of the twelve-year-old mule with his two-hundred-bottle lunch box zooming right by Big Chief—Big Chief even stepping out of the way, the kid going into 6 Weehawken to make his delivery.

“Look at Futon.” Thumper used his chin as a pointer. “We bust Futon every month, right, Futon?”

Futon smiled, holding the bottles in the Gummi Bear jar.

“See? Futon smiles all the time. What’s
your
problem, man?”

Strike stayed mute, glancing over at Futon doing the gooney bird.

“It takes six muscles to smile, two hundred forty-eight to frown, you know that?”

“C’mon there, Thumper.” Big Chief rummaged in the garbage can now like a hungry bear. “Strike’s got rights.”

“I never said that,” Strike protested, flinching as soon as he opened his mouth. Shit.

“Hey, you didn’t stutter, that was very good.” Thumper put out his hand, forcing Strike to shake it. “Now say, ‘She sells seashells by the seashore.’”

Strike’s stomach turned red, pulsing. Thumper held his hand, waiting.

Big Chief yawned, going up on tiptoe, then grabbed a bunch of Gummi Bears from Futon’s jar, chewing them open-mouthed and then lazily sticking his big paws in Futon’s pockets, feeling around in his socks, up his legs.

”
Cold,
Big Chief, cold, cold …
warm,
getting warm now,” Futon said. He offered the Gummi Bears to Thumper. A dumb play, to Strike’s eye, but at least Thumper let go of Strike’s hand to take some candy.

“Yo, Big Chief,” Futon said, feigning anger. “What you doin’ back here
any
how? You said if I won Thumper, you leave off on us for a
month.
”

“You know not to trust the police,” Big Chief grunted. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Gah-damn, ain’t
that
right? Man, I dint even get out of first gear. I was like
lopin’.
“ Futon was talking to Strike now, as if Strike hadn’t been there. “Thumper was like, huh huh huh. Man, he was huffin’ so bad I thought he was gonna drown me in wheeze snot. You alls
drink
too much,
eat
too much,
smoke
too much.” Futon counted off their habits on his fingers, making a face.

“See, the problem is, I don’t like to run.” Thumper flashed teeth. “So how ‘bout next time we get into an elevator, push fourteen, and have us a one-on-one?” Strike could almost smell the rage coming off Thumper now, behind the grin. “‘Cause I hate to run.”

“Yeah? I put my whooping crane style on you?” Oblivious to Thumper’s heat, Futon went up on one leg, wrists high over his head like the Karate Kid, lashing out a kick, switching feet, trying to come off delicate and lethal. “You be
beggin’
to get off by three, bawh.”

The Word came out of 6 Weehawken too soon. Big Chief saw the St. Louis Cardinals hat and went after him with a little hobbleskip, snatching him up against the fence, a big hand on his heart. “What’s up, yo?” Big Chief plucked a fat roll of singles, fives and tens out of The Word’s pocket.

The Word started to whine. “I dint serve no one, Big Chief! It’s for mah mother’s birthday, I
swear.
”

All the knockos bellowed in chorus, “Mother’s Day! Mother’s Day!,” everybody having a good laugh as Big Chief escorted The Word to the car.

“Please, Big Chief … My mother, I
swear.
”

Strike forgot about Thumper for a second, thinking, What’s that nigger doing still holding all the money? Was he stealing? Will he set me up? Rodney just met guys in diners, made payoffs over coffee like a gentleman. Strike swore to himself: If I don’t step up, I’m stepping out. I can’t take it no more.