Drama City

'Long as I change the oil regular,' said Joe. 'What about your runner?'

'Fine, thanks to you.'

'You miss them pretty whips we used to drive?'

'Not really.'

'Neither do I. They weren't ours no way.'

That's right, thought Lorenzo. None of it was real.

Joe's chair creaked under his weight. He was a big man who'd gained forty pounds since his release. His slowing metabolism, his aunt's cooking, and his nightly intake of beer had gotten the better of him, despite his hard daily labor as a bricklayer.

'I was thinkin' on us and those whips earlier tonight,' said Joe.

'Why's that?'

'I saw some boys out here earlier., jawin' in the street. Couple of 'em was Nigel's. I seen their car before, a black Escalade with spinners, over there on Sixth, where Nigel like to rally the troops.'

'I know who those two are,' said Lorenzo.

'Yeah?'

'I saw Nigel and them earlier, up near his office on Georgia. I stopped to visit.'

'How Nigel look?'

'Fit,' said Lorenzo. 'What happened with his boys?'

'They was just talkin' mad shit with these other two boys who had blocked the street. All of 'em got out the cars and showed their teeth. Then Nigel's got back in their Escalade and the others got back in their BMW and all of 'em went on their way.'

'Other car was a BMW?'

'Three-Series. Silver or blue, hard to tell, way the headlights was on it.'

Lorenzo stroked the whiskers of his chin. 'Describe the two came out the BMW.'

'I couldn't make much out.'

'Don't make no difference. I'm pretty sure it was Melvin Lee. Him and some hard kid named Rico.'

'How you know that?'

'I had a call today, some dogfights down around Fort Dupont. Lee was there, and we had some words. You remember Melvin, right?'

'I'm the one told you he came back uptown. People I know say he workin' for Deacon again. Got a front job, up at the car wash on Georgia, 'cause he's still on paper.'

'Right.'

'Melvin ain't shit. Never was.'

'I know it.'

'Why you interested?'

'I'm not. Only…'

'What?'

'Melvin and his shadow were watching Nigel when me and Nigel was talkin'.'

'So he watchin' Nigel and them. It's his job to scout the other team. That ain't got nothin' to do with you.'

'You're right.'

'Anyway,' said Joe, 'it just reminded me, seein' them out there, how it was for us.'

'Ain't nothin' changed.'

'Look around you. Why would it change?'

'But if these kids knew how it has to end… I mean, if you could only tell 'em.'

'But you can't tell 'em shit. They ain't gonna listen to no old heads, that's for damn sure. Same way we didn't listen. We knew it all.' Joe chuckled. 'Now I got to pee in a bottle to remind myself of all the ways I failed.'

'You're doin' fine.'

'Tell it to my PO.'

'He on you?'

'Like a motherfucker,' said Joe. 'Yours?'

'Mine's on me too. She good, though.'

'Yeah?'

'Yeah,' said Lorenzo. 'She's good.'

Lorenzo and Joe finished their beers.

'Well,' said Joe, getting up laboriously out of his seat, 'let me get on inside. I got to be on that construction site at seven.'

'I'm on early shift myself.'

'It works if you work it.'

'No doubt.'

Lorenzo and Joe shook hands and patted each other's backs. Joe went inside the house, moving quietly so as not to wake his aunt, as Lorenzo leashed Jasmine and walked her down the steps. The two of them headed for their apartment, a short way down the dark street.

Morton Street at night, east of Georgia and back toward Park Morton, was alive with traffic. Touts, runners, fiends, drive-through customers with Virginia plates, and neighborhood residents walking to their row houses and apartments crowded the strip.

A couple of times every night, Fourth District cruisers would slowly make a pass down Morton and through the Section Eight apartment complex, their uniformed occupants shouting from the open windows of their Crown Vics, telling the dealers and users to move on. Less frequently, in the wake of a publicized fatality or a Washington Post investigative piece, a special unit would descend on the area and do jump-out busts. This would result in some arrests and a few convictions, but it did not in any way stop the flow of business. Drug sales of one kind or another had been ongoing in this area, and west into Columbia Heights, for over thirty years.

DeEric Green drove the Escalade down Morton, Michael Butler by his side. They had just picked up the count from a boy named Ricky Young. Young had handed the money, stashed in a T-MAC 3 Adidas shoe box, to Green, who had in turn handed it to Butler. The money, in various denominations, now sat in the shoe box on the carpeted floor of the backseat. Green had put a Rare Essence PA mix, recorded on May 15 at the Tradewinds, into the CD player and was rocking it loud.

'Busy,' said Butler.

'Summertime,' said Green.

On a hot corner up ahead, they could see some of their people, all in street clothes. On another corner stood Deacon's, wearing long white T-shirts and loose-fitting jeans. A bandanna worn around the neck meant the seller had heroin. Around the leg, it meant coke. This type of coding, in variation, had become common in the East Coast urban trade. Deacon insisted his people use the bandanna system and made it mandatory that they wear the T-shirts. He liked the idea of them in uniform. Also, it differentiated them from the competition. Nigel let his soldiers wear whatever they pleased.

Butler hit a joint as they neared the end of Morton.

'Boy,' said Green, 'you actin' like you the only one in this car like to get high.'

'Here,' said Butler. He passed the weed, tamped into a White Owl wrapper, to Green.

The circle at the end of the block had been the gateway to the Park Morton complex until recently, when yellow concrete pillars had been erected, blocking the entrance to an asphalt road that ringed the apartments. The pillars kept dealers and killers from doing their dirt where mothers walked and children played, but they hampered the police from driving back there too. Now it was an avenue of escape for those who wanted to book out on foot. Nothing worked back here. No one was going to stop a thing.

Green swung the Cadillac around the circle and headed west, back toward Georgia.

'I got to pick up the count again, one more time, before the night's out,' said Green. 'You worked a full day. You want, I could take you home.'

Butler thought of what he would find at his apartment. If his mother wasn't hitting it, she was looking to. Wasn't unusual for him to come in and find her giving up her face to a strange man for the price of a high. She had no ass and few teeth, and her hair was never combed. If Butler stayed out late enough, she might be asleep. He wouldn't have to look at her when he got home.

'I'll hang with you,' said Butler, 'if that's all right.'

'Sure,' said Green, who was getting used to having the boy around. 'This hydro's got my hunger up, though.'

'Mine too.'

'Let's get us somethin',' said Green. He turned right on Georgia Avenue and headed north.

Rico Miller, idling in the convenience store lot on the corner, saw them through the windshield of his BMW. He had been cruising the neighborhood, hoping to spot Green and Butler, and had stopped here, at one of the city's many fake 7-Elevens, to get a Sierra Mist. Miller put the car in drive.

Up at Kennedy Street, outside the Wings n Things, Green parked the Caddy near a row of brightly colored racing bikes, Ducatis and such, that always seemed to be out front in the warmer months. Butler listened to music while Green went inside and returned with a large bag. He wasn't in there long; he had called in the order from his cell.

'Dag, DeEric,' said Butler, wide-eyeing the bag. 'You got a whole rack of wings.'

'All drums.'