Clockers (52 page)

“That guy, I thought he was pretty solid—he worked, you know.
He
did the Ahab’s? Huh, you never know, right?”

“What went down on that thing with you? I’m just trying to put this kid together.”

“Ah, yeah, that was fucked up. Between me and you? That was fucked up. We were doing a roll-up on the Dumont side of the projects, and there’s this kid, Dunham, and at first I thought he was on his own because he’s got this Hambone’s monkey suit on, like he’s going to work. But I see this other kid raise up right next to him, then
he
raises up, you know, a real big healthy sky hook, says ‘Five-oh’ clear as a bell, and he’s looking right at me like ‘Fuck … you.’ It’s like if they raise up on the sly, there’s some kind of respect in it at least—fear, something—but this kid, ‘Five-oh’ right in my face, plus, plus, I thought I saw him throw something, you know,
drop
something, so I’m out of the car like a shot, I get excited sometimes you know, upset? So I grab this arrogant disrespectful shit-skin sneak, I throw him against the fence and the kid goes all like, startled on me. I say, ‘You raisin’ up on me?’ He says,
‘What?’
like I’m crazy and then he says ‘I was
goof
in’,’ like I’m supposed to believe he was just making fun of the real raisers, right? I get him up against the fence I say ‘What You drop?’ He says I didn’t drop nothin’. What You doin’to me?’ I go ‘Shut the fuck up.’ Then I go through his Dockets He’s got a set of car keys but that’s it I make him drop his pants check up under his Johnson go into his socks, nothing, I say,‘Stay the fuck there.’ You know, SOP?”

Thumper looked to’ Rocco as if for verification and Rocco nodded. “OK, so, meanwhile the peoples be starting to come around saying, ‘Yo Thumper, this a workin’ man, this a workin’ man. This
Vic
tor, Thumper, he a
work
in’ man,’ you know, the usual bompie bullshit? Big Chief and them are down a ways doing some other scumbags, I’m alone, I got this kid against the fence and”—Thumper narrowed his eyes—“I wanted to nail him
bad.
I mean Rocco, ‘Five oh,’ he said it right in my fuckin’ face. So like now we got a crowd. I tell this kid, ‘Don’t fuckin’ move,’ and I’m on my knees, looking in the garbage for the bottles he threw. He’s standing there, acting all fucking outraged, the people are gassing up his head, gassing up
my
head, ‘Yo Thumper, this boy be OK,’ ‘Thumper, this boy a father,’ ‘Yo Thumper this ain’t right that ain’t right ‘ And I
hate
being called Thumper by them, and it’s hot and I’m on my knees in the grass, in the garbage, and this kid’s starting to
talk
to himself now saying’, ‘I’m gonna be late damn shit damn shit ‘ I tell him ‘Shut the fuck up, I tell the herd the same thing, but like it’s a party now And all of a sudden this fuckin’ kid starts waging, just walking away I couldn’t believe it. I got a fucking audience on my hands and this nigger’s walking I get un he’s mumbling ‘I got to get to work, I got to get to work,’ not even to me, like to himself. I throw him back on the fence I say Don’t fucking move or I’ll flatten your ass right here and ‘now.’ People start going ‘Whoo’ and ‘Oh! Oh” like they do right? I go back into the grass and the kid starts
walkin
‘ again, I don’t fuckin’ believe it and the crowd’s yellin’, ‘Fight the power’ Fight the power’ Fight the power” like I’m some kind of fucking symbol or something. So I grab him Not
grab
him just … All did was I just flicked his hat You know, a fingertip’ like a little fucking, head slap to flip that stupid Hambone’s hat off his head, get his attention Next thing I know the kid
wigs,
he turns and he shoves me
boom,
right in the chest. The herd goes nuts right? Right? I gave him shot like—”

Thumper flicked his cigarette into the street, then put the heel of his hand under Rocco’s jaw and slightly pushed upwards. “I almost snapped his fuckin’ neck. So Big Chief and them come running, I got this yomo down, knee in the back, cuffin’ him up, the kid’s crying, ‘I got to get to work,’ like crying, like tears. Everybody’s going ‘Fight the power, fight the power,’ and I’m thinking we gots to go, every old-time nigger in the projects is like inching up, saying ‘Officer, Officer,’ you know, like trying to get me to cool out? But, hey, like this little prick shoves me in front of a fuckin’ herd and I’m all alone? I’ll show you fuckin’ cool out. So we get him up, all of a sudden his
mother
comes running, she’s all bug-eyed an’ shit. She’s screaming, ‘Where’s my boy?’ putting her hands on me, and I’m yelling at her friends, ‘Get her the fuck away from me’ and I’m draggin’ this kid to the car and she’s shrieking, ‘Don’t worry baby, don’t worry baby,’ bugging her eyes, and now she’s doing this
wheezing
number.”

Thumper put his hand on his chest, opening his eyes wide and breathing deeply but strained, as if the air was coming through a pinched straw. “So now I’m thinking, she’s fuckin’ puttin’ it on, let’s
jet,
but then, but then, she tries to snatch the fucking car keys from me like,
snatching
at them, and I start screaming, ‘Keep your fuckin’ hands to yourself!’ She’s screeching, ‘That’s
my
car keys, that’s
my
car keys,’ but like, hey, I took them off the kid, I’m not giving them up. But she’s coming off like she’s gonna have a heart attack or something. ‘They
mine,
they
mine,
I’m gonna follow you!’ Everybody’s yelling, ‘Give her the keys, fight the power,’ and Roc” — Thumper gripped Rocco’s wrist—“you know, if that lady had asked me for the keys like a human being you know,
maybe.
But she fuckin’ snatched at them, I mean, fuck her, I got a hundred niggers watching me like a
hawk
so I say ‘Keen your fucking hands to yourself,’ fuck the keys, because like if I backed down I don’t care
who
it is … they’re’ watching me like a hawk So anyways she’s yellin’, ‘Don’t worry baby don’t worry baby ‘ the other niggers are yellin’, ‘Yo Thumper that’ain’t right that ain’t right ‘ and now the kid is crying but like
angry
You know? Not like a crybaby like angry because you know I’m like tellin’ his mother to fuck off and all and she’s buppin’ out all over him with this heart attack routine.

“Anyways, we get him in the car, and his mother’s banging on the window, ‘I’m comin’ baby, I’m comin’ baby, don’t you worry.’ The crowd’s all raw, any second they’re gonna start throwin’ shit, believe me, I
been
there. So we pull out, we’re going to the Western Precinct, right? The kid’s in back with me, crying. The minute we’re offstage, I’m cool. Offstage I’m always cool, I say to the kid, ‘See what you started? See what you did? Get your mother all upset?’ Kid don’t say nothin’. Anyways, we take him over to the Western Precinct, he’s in the cell, I’m typing up the arrest report—
boom,
the door blows in, here comes that fucking lady again. She’s got a whole bunch of friends, bunch of old-timers, she’s wheezing and doing that ol’ Fred Sanford bullshit like when he talks to his wife in heaven? She’s saying, ‘Where’s my boy!’ Then she like, sees him in the cage, she goes
nuts,
her friends are like restraining her, she’s wheezing and gasping and popping them bug eyes, and I’m getting really fucking pissed, but you know alls I say is, ‘Lady, you should give up cigarettes,’ like a joke to break the tension? And she gets all fucking blinky on me. ‘What you say! What you say!’ I say, ‘You heard me.’ Meanwhile, I’m just heads down typing, I got my glasses on, tap-tap, she says, I got emphysema! How
dare
you make comments like that! My doctor says I got a
year!
I got to go into the hospital next week. He says I got a year! How dare you say that to me.’”

Thumper took a breather as two cops escorted a middle-aged barefoot man through the garage to the BCI stairs, the guy laughing to himself and talking a line of gibberish.

“Like … anyways, maybe I shouldn’t have mouthed off, but Rocco, this fucking lady, I don’t know if she was telling the truth about this emphysema thing, I mean, I’ve seen her around and all since then, she’s walking an’ shit, but anyways, so like to change the subject, I just tossed her the car keys like, ‘Here, take a ride.’ I didn’t
throw
them at her, I just, you know, like underhand. She starts screaming again. ‘Don’t you throw things at me!’ Meanwhile, the kid starts going nuts in there like a fucking rabid ape, I don’t think he knew his mother had emphysema or whatever, because he went
nuts
when she said that, I mean, who knows, she could’ve just said that for effect, and then when I tossed her the car keys, like ho shit, they start yelling to each other, mother and son, everybody’s crying, she starts running around the fucking room, he’s punching the
bars
now, hurting himself a lot fucking more than I did, right? And who do You think got blamed for
those
goddamned bruises? She’s yelling I want to file a complaint” I say ‘Hey do your worst ‘ I give her my name my number. Then all of a sudden this fuckin’minister waltzes in,‘some fucking Donovan-looking motherfucker’s got big blond curls, sandals, these Banana Republic shorts on with the thigh hairs sticking out all of a sudden it’s ‘Hi I’m Reverend Bob Gould from Most Holy?’ He’s got his arm around this lady she’s wheezing ‘Look a mv boy look a mv boy.’ The kid’s sobbing, fucking cursing me out, ‘You leave my mother alone.’ This
folk
priest says, ‘Can I help in any way? I know the family. Can I help?’

“The prick
helped
OK. The cocksucker helped the lady file a Six Twenty on me for abusiveness. He helped the kid file a Six Twenty on me for excessive use of force. ‘Can I help?’ So like I file
my
charges, they file theirs, you know, and with all the filing, counter-filing, all that bullshit, everybody wound up dropping everything. It was just a whole big bunch a bullshit. The kid told his lawyer he just saw everybody raising up and he just did it as a goof, he didn’t run with any of that crowd, he was on his way to work, who knows, he said he just … did it. Like, who knows?”

Thumper shrugged, looked off unhappily down the quiet side street, then turned back to Rocco. “You know, I’ll tell you what the whole shouting match came down to.
Dis.
It was all about
dis.
The kid disrespected me by raising up in my face. I dissed him by throwing him up against the fence and doing the Johnson check. He dissed me by walking off. I dissed him by flicking his hat in front of his people. He dissed me by giving me a shove. The mother comes along, she disses me by snatching the keys. I dis her by making fun of her wheeze. Everything’s
dis.
Because, you know, out there all you got to your name is your heart. You got a crowd around You you got to show
heart
Not just them but us too We go in we don’t show heart, we let ourselves get dissed, Jesus Christ, they’ll be all over us we might as well disband the unit, you know what I’m trying to say? I mean, I
know
you know what I’m trying to say. The whole thing’s a trap You got a crowd on You you best got to act the part or you’re noting. It’s unfortunate but them’s the rules. I don’t know see the kid ‘around I see the^ mother I don’t say we’re friends now but like everything’s cool more or less We all understand everybody did what they had to do and … you know, life goes on.”

Thumper lit another cigarette, walked off a few steps, walked back, flicked the cigarette in the street. He flung a leg up on the steps leading to the courthouse and retied his sneaker.

Rocco sighed and jammed his hands into his pants pockets. Thumper’s story made him think again of that lady in the window almost applauding the drug collar earlier that night, made him think of all the cops who went into the projects as if it was enemy territory and treated everybody like criminals, made him wonder if the class-action insult was really worth the handful of ineffectual arrests. On the other hand, Thumper was a brother officer and no matter what had gone down, Rocco would defend him and his actions without blinking; he would no more criticize or in any way turn on him than he would his own flesh and blood.

But he hated hearing about this kid getting treated that way. At least it explained something: why Victor’s mother and his wife hadn’t given him the time of day.

This kid Victor … he was starting to get under Rocco’s skin a little, but the feeling was not altogether unpleasant. In fact, for Rocco this wasn’t turning out to be a bad day at all: his concentration was good, he felt alert and genuinely curious about the stories he’d heard, intrigued by the small discoveries of character and attitude, how names and circumstances were starting to click and connect in some vague but tantalizing way. He felt engaged,
present.

“Mikey, you think this kid Victor’s any kind of dirty?”

“Like how?” Thumper arched his spine, flung alternating elbows behind his back to stretch his ribs.

“Like drugs.”

“Nah. I tell you, I almost wish he was. I’d feel a lot better about what went down.”

“His brother’s this kid Strike?”

“Strike.” Thumper whacked his knuckles into an open palm. “Now
there’s
another story altogether. That kid drives me nuts. Nice-looking, clean, bright, you know, all things considered, so what’s he do with himself? He sits out there running a crew like clocking’s all the world has to offer him, you know what I mean? It’s like, ‘What’s your
problem?
‘ He
irks
me.”

“Yeah, so this kid’s brother is Strike, and now I’m thinking maybe this shooting was a drug thing.”

“To tell you the truth, I see Strike all the time, I see the other Dunham kid now and then, but I tell you I never seen them together. I mean, you got what, how many thousand people in Roosevelt? Somebody keeps his nose clean—you know, runs a tight ship—I’m not gonna know them, how would I ever get to know them?” Thumper hunched his shoulders, covering his chest with his hands. “What am I gonna do, arrest somebody for going to work?”