Drama City

Lorenzo drove around to the alley and waited. Five minutes stretched to fifteen. He whistled softly at the rottie, and when the dog came to the fence, Lorenzo put his knuckles through the diamond space of the links. A dry muzzle touched his hand.

'All right, girl,' said Lorenzo. 'You all right with me.'

The dog's eyelids had curled inward and appeared to be growing into its eyes. Besides this bit of sickness, it seemed to be well fed and in decent shape. Its owner had left a stainless steel bowl of water beside the car, though the water, most likely, had now been rendered hot by the moving sun. Health issues aside, there was no real shelter for the dog, except under that shaky car. Maybe the owner felt he had done enough. Lorenzo surmised that this was not a crime of deliberate abuse, but rather ignorance.

The alley smelled of excrement, garbage, and something that had once been alive and was now in decay. The August heat and the lack of breeze made the smell strong and sickening.

Two boys wearing long white T-shirts over blue jeans walked down the alley, going by Lorenzo Brown. They chuckled at the dog, which moved back a step as they passed. The T-shirt-and-jean combination was the uniform of choice for young men in the lower ranks of the drug game, but Brown had noticed both white and black kids in the suburbs, straight kids, honor students, whatever, wearing the same hookup. The suburban kids got their fashion sense out of The Source, off CD covers, and from the hip-hop videos run on 106 and Park. For all Lorenzo knew, these two could have been playing studio gangster as well. They gave him cursory eye contact but made no remark as they passed. If it had been his partner, Mark, white and therefore fair game, back here, these boys would have said something, made him the butt of some quick joke. They'd have to, because it was in the contract. But Mark wouldn't have cared.

Jefferson came up the alley and stood near Lorenzo. He smelled more strongly of liquor than he had before.

'Awright, then,' said Jefferson.

'Let's start with the shelter,' said Lorenzo.

'Go ahead, I'm listenin'.'

'Dog needs a structure, some kind of real shelter. And I ain't talkin' about leaving her to lie under that old Plymouth.'

'That's a Chrysler.'

'Whatever it is. Car ain't even on tires, could come off those cinder blocks and crush that animal. But the point is, the dog needs to be out of the elements. Needs to be protected, case some of these kids around here go throwin' rocks at it, somethin' like that. You understand?'

'Some kids just be evil like that.'

'I left a notification, last time I visited, for your friend. I detailed all this.'

'I know for a fact he got it, 'cause we discussed it. Said he was gonna act on it too. When he got the time.'

'Time is now. This animal needs some attention.'

'Look at her, though,' said Jefferson, smiling with forced affection at the animal. 'Dog's healthy. Ain't nothin' wrong with that dog.'

'Not exactly. You see how her eyelids are growin' in like that?'

'She been sleepin'. Her eyes be puffy, is all.'

'Called entropia. It's a disease, something rottweilers are prone to get.'

'She gonna die from it?'

'Nah , you can treat it. Antibiotics — you know, pills. Or it can get cut out. Point is, this dog needs to be cared for.'

'Uh-huh.'

'We got a misdemeanor law in this city for failin' to provide veterinary care.'

'That right.'

'And you see the feces there?' said Lorenzo, pointing to the turds strewn about the paved backyard.

'Fences?'

'No, feces. Crap.'

'Dogs do that, young man.'

'So do folks. But we don't leave 'em layin' out in the yard. It needs to be cleaned up, 'cause that crap there, it carries disease and attracts flies. Not to mention the stink.'

'I'll tell J. J. he got to clean it up. But that ain't gonna make no difference. You know, this alley just stinks natural.'

'I heard that,' said Lorenzo, writing on his clipboard, finishing the form. 'What you're smellin' today is a rat. A kitten, maybe. Somethin' got itself dead in this alley.'

'Whole lotta shit stay dead back in here,' said Jefferson.

'Give this to the dog's owner,' said Lorenzo, handing the form to Jefferson. 'Tell him I'm gonna be back, check on the progress he's made with this animal. Tell him it's gonna be soon.'

As Jefferson rounded the corner at the T of the alley, Lorenzo turned the dial of the radio to 1500 AM for the traffic report, issued every eight minutes. He needed to get over to Northeast, down by the big wholesale food market off Florida Avenue. There was a Subway shop near there, made good tuna salad. He had an appointment in the parking lot with Miss Lopez. They could have lunch and do their business, all at once. Miss Lopez liked the tuna they made there too.

CHAPTER 3

'I was in New York City this mornin',' said a man named Rogers, seated in the chair

reserved for the guest speaker at the head of the room. 'Well, it was New Jersey, way up north in Jersey, if you want the exact location. I was doin' some business up there, buying some automobiles at this auction, for my lots? I left out of there, like, two and a half hours ago. Now, I know you thinkin' it takes three and a half, four hours by car to get down to D.C., right?'

''Less the car got wings,' said a man in a green Paul Pierce jersey, seated in the front row.

'Oh, it had some wings on it today,' said Rogers. 'Like an angel has wings. 'Cause this morning, it felt like an angel was driving the car. I mean, I was on some kind of divine mission — to get to this here meeting, you feelin' me?'

'Yes,' said a small young woman in a halter top, seated in the second row.

'I didn't care how fast I was goin'. One hundred, one hundred and fifteen miles an hour. I ain't even glance one time at the speedometer, 'cause I just didn't care. I wasn't worried about no police or nobody else. I'm sayin', I would have rather gone to motherfuckin' jail before I missed this meeting. I'd go to prison before I'd go back to where I was. 'Cause where I was, when I was at the bottom? Boy, I was tired.'

Now, thought Rachel Lopez, you're going to tell us just how tired you were.

'What was I tired of? I was tired of seein' my grandmother staring at the floor when I spoke to her. 'Cause if she looked in my eyes, the woman who raised me and held me in her arms as a child wouldn't see nothin' but a lyin'-ass thief and fiend.' Rogers, gray salted into his modified Afro, snaggle-toothed but handsome in a Lamont Sanford way, paused for effect. 'Tired. Tired of watchin' my children turn their backs on me when I walked into a room, for fear that I might put my hand out for a ten-dollar bill. Knowin' their pops was gonna go right out the door with that Hamilton and cop the first rock he could.'

'Tired,' said a few people in the group, getting into the rhythm.

'Tired of smellin' the shit in my dirty drawers,' said Rogers, lowering his voice dramatically. ''Cause most of the time? I had so little love for my gotdamn self that I was too disinterested to wash my own ass.'

'Tired!'

'Lord,' said Rogers, 'I was tired.'

Rachel sat back in the folding chair. She'd heard Rogers speak before. He'd lost a business and a family to crack, hit bottom, gone straight, and come back as the owner of several used-car lots east of the Anacostia River, starting a second family well into his middle age. Clean for ten years, he still attended three meetings a week.

Rachel was in the back of the room, which held a scarred lectern, a blackboard, and about fifty seats. Many of the seats, situated in a four arcing rows, were taken.

The room was in the basement of a church on East Capitol Street in Northeast. Rachel attended Narcotics Anonymous meetings throughout the city but preferred those held in this part of town. The most honest stories, both poetic and profane, were to be heard in the classrooms, church basements, community centers, warehouses, and bingo halls of North- and Southeast.