Saiquan looked away, rolling his eyes. J’s girl Ramona was probably talking to the cops right now - why wouldn’t she after somebody killed her man and tried to rape her ass? Shit, the cops would probably show up at Marcus’s crib tonight to bust his ass hard, if they weren’t waiting there already. After that, how long would it take Marcus to say the name Saiquan? Once them cops took him into the back room and started Louima-ing his ass with a motherfucking plunger he’d cop a plea real quick. Then the cops would be busting into Saiquan’s joint, slapping the damn cuffs on him, telling him all that you-got-the-right-to-remain-silent bullshit. Saiquan never understood why they said that shit for. What kind of fucking right was it to shut up?

  Wiping sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand, Saiquan started thinking about how it was gonna go down. While the cops were cuffing him, his kids would be standing there screaming and crying, just like he used to scream and cry every time the cops came to take his old man away. And Desiree . . . Damn, Saiquan couldn’t even imagine the shit that’d be flying out of her mouth. Then the cops would take him out of the building, and the kids from the projects would be out there, looking at Saiquan like he was a hero. Saiquan would have to play it up, acting like getting picked up for murder was cool, and no big deal, and that he was down with all that shit. The cops would push him into the backseat, cracking his head against the top of the car while they were doing it, because cops always cracked niggas’ heads against the top of the squad car - must’ve been some bullshit they taught them all in the police academy. He’d probably need five stitches in his head to sew that shit up, but the cops wouldn’t care. They’d stop off for some Mickey D’s or White Castle and start talking shit about how good the food tasted -Ain’t these fries great? I love these little cheeseburgers. Then they’d book him and stick his ass in jail. First night in the pen he’d have to put on more of that cool, ril-fuck-you-up-if-you-look-my-way shit so he wouldn’t get his ass greased. But then, when the lights went out and he was alone on his cot, he’d start crying like a bitch into his pillow, wondering how his life got fucked-up all over again.

  ‘It’s only, like, nine o’clock, man,’ Marcus said. ‘Let’s go party.’ Saiquan felt a tear drip over his upper lip. He licked it up quickly and looked away, out the window.

  ‘Come on, man,’ Marcus said. ‘They got this new ho house open on Argyle Road. Only been there one time, but they got some tasties there, yo. West Indian bitches like to swing low, know what I’m sayin’? And they got drinks there too, so you sip on a margarita while you watchin’ yo’ dick get sucked. . . . Yo, ‘less you gotta get back home. Yo’ bitch got a curfew on yo’ ass?’

  Saiquan remembered the way Jermaine had screamed when Marcus shot his feet off. The man wasn’t lying. Nobody goes through that kind of pain and starts making shit up.

  ‘Whatever,’ Saiquan said.

  ‘You serious?’ Marcus said. ‘You comin’?’

  Saiquan knew he was going away for thirty to life. When he got out he’d be a stupid old man, if he got out at all. Why not go to the ho house with Marcus? It was gonna be the last night of his life anyway.

  ‘Whatever, man,’ he said.

  ‘Shit, I can’t believe it,’ Marcus said. ‘Maybe you ain’t such a pussy after all.’

  At a red light Marcus took out his crack pipe. He put some more rock in, lit up, and took a hit. When the light turned green he handed the pipe to Saiquan.

  ‘Want some?’

  Thinking, What fuckin’ difference does it make? Saiquan took the pipe. He lit up and inhaled as long as he could. A few seconds later everything went away. There was no more jail, no more being poor - no more nothing except that good, fucked-up-on-crack, not-giving-a-shit-about-nothing feeling taking over his whole body.

  Then the good high faded as fast as it came, and he wanted more.

  As Saiquan lit up again, Marcus said, ‘See? You based with me before, maybe you wouldn’t be freakin’ so much.’

  ‘Where the fuck’s that ho house at?’ Saiquan asked.

  ‘Chill, man, chill. Gotta get some money for the honeys first, know what I’m sayin’?’

  ‘What you mean? Where’s all yo’ money at?’

  Marcus turned right onto Glenwood Road and started driving slowly. A couple of brothers were hanging out in front of a candy store on the corner, but no one else was around.

  Picking up the empty Baggie, Saiquan said, ‘Where’s the rest?’

  ‘Ain’t no more.’

  ‘What about all that shit you had at your crib?’

  ‘Don’t worry, you’ll get all the rock and all the hos you want.’ Marcus pulled over and stopped the car. ‘C’mon.’

  ‘What you—’

  ‘Just c’mon.’

  Marcus took out his piece and got out of the car. Saiquan waited, then followed him.

  Marcus stopped in front of a parked van and held out his hand to block Saiquan. After a few seconds, an old dude carrying two shopping bags came by. Marcus let him pass, then went up behind him and put the piece up to his head.

  ‘Give it up,’ Marcus said.

  ‘Hey,’ the dude said, ‘what the hell’re you—’

  ‘I said give that shit up, yo, ‘less you wanna die right now.’

  ‘C’mon,’ the dude said, ‘I don’t got nothin’ on me. Lemme alone.’

  Still holding the gun up to the guy’s head, Marcus let go of him with his other arm and reached into the dude’s front pocket and took out his wallet. The guy wasn’t as old as Saiquan thought. Maybe he was forty.

  ‘C’mon, man,’ the dude said. ‘I ain’t lookin’ for no trouble with y’all. What’d I do to you?’

  Marcus handed the wallet to Saiquan and said, ‘What he got?’

  Saiquan opened the wallet and took out the bills. ‘Twelve, thirteen, fourteen dollars.’

  ‘Where the fuck’s the rest?’ Marcus said to the dude. ‘In your shoe? In your damn Fruit Of The Looms? Maybe I should pop a hole in yo’ head and look there.’

  The dude shoved Marcus backward with his elbow and ran down the sidewalk.

  ‘Stupid motherfucker,’ Marcus said, and he shot the guy in the back. The guy made it a few more steps, then went down, falling on his face.

  ‘Shit,’ Marcus said.

  Saiquan was staring at the man who was lying on the sidewalk, blood leaking out of his back through his coat.

  ‘Let’s get the fuck outta here,’ Marcus said, walking fast back to the car.

  Saiquan stood there for a few more seconds, staring at the man on the ground. Then Marcus shouted, ‘Yo, c’mon, man!’ and Saiquan went back to the car too.

  Driving away, back onto Rockaway Parkway, Marcus started laughing, saying, ‘See that shit, man? I shot that nigga in the back, right up where the heart is, but he was still runnin’ - was probably already dead ‘fore he hit the ground.’ He laughed harder. ‘They should put that shit in one of ‘em Jackie Chan movies. Shit was fucked up.’

  Life. Saiquan thought. I’m goin’ away for life now for damn sure.

  ‘Don’t worry, yo, don’t worry,’ Marcus said. ‘We’ll find more cash. Next nigga we see we gonna bust hard, gonna get enough money for some titty for both of us.’ He looked over and saw that Saiquan was still holding the dead dude’s wallet. ‘Yo, you crazy, nigga? Chuck that shit.’

  Saiquan just sat there, dazed. Marcus grabbed the wallet from him and tossed it out of his own window.

  Marcus was driving slowly again.

  ‘Life,’ Saiquan mumbled.

  ‘What?’ Marcus said.

  Saiquan didn’t answer.

  Life. Motherfiickin’ life.

  ‘Yo, check out my man Eminem,’ Marcus said.

  Saiquan saw the white guy in a Ronnie Lott jersey, new LeBrons, and a backward Spurs cap, stumbling along the sidewalk.

  ‘Man’s so fucked-up he can’t even walk straight,’ Marcus said. ‘It’s like my man be tryin’ to get his wallet jacked. He might as well have a sign hangin’ off his ass sayin, “Take my money. Please take my money”.’

  Marcus pulled over and took out his piece.

  ‘Wait,’ Saiquan said.

  Marcus looked at him. ‘What?’

  Saiquan wanted to say, Fuck it, man; let’s go home, but he needed to get high again.

  ‘Nothing,’ Saiquan said.

  Marcus and Saiquan got out of the car.

  ‘Shit,’ Marcus said.

  The drunk white dude stumbled into the Canarsie Bar and Grill.

  ‘Fuck it, man,’ Saiquan said. ‘We’ll find somebody else.’

  ‘Naw, naw, man,’ Marcus said. ‘White boy’s so fucked-up, shit’ll be easy. Prolly got money on him too - get us some rock and some booty. C’mon.’

  Ryan was waving, trying to get the bartender’s attention, when somebody grabbed his forearm. He turned his head slowly to his left and saw Aretha Franklin. At least, she looked like Aretha. She must’ve weighed three hundred pounds, and her eyes looked as glazed over as Ryan’s must’ve.

  ‘Hey, baby, wanna buy me a drink too?’

  ‘Sorrrry,’ Ryan slurred. A few seconds later he realized the woman was still holding his arm, and he yanked it away.

  ‘Don’t be like that, baby.’

  Now the woman was squeezing his right ass cheek, rubbing her huge tits up against his back. He moved closer to the bar and shouted, ‘Hey, hey!’ to the bartender, over the loud Missy Elliott song.

  The bartender was having a conversation with a guy at the other end of the bar. He glanced at Ryan, then ignored him.

  Ryan headed toward the end of the bar where the bartender was when his foot caught on something - maybe the leg of a bar stool - and he stumbled and fell onto his side. It didn’t hurt as much as he knew it should.

  He made it back onto his feet and stood next to the guy the bartender was talking to.

  ‘Rum and Coke,’ Ryan said. His lips felt numb, and he wasn’t sure he was talking clearly.

  The bartender ignored Ryan and said to the guy, ‘That’s what I tell her. I tell her that all the time.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ Ryan said, talking extra slowly, just in case the bartender couldn’t understand him. ‘I want a rum and Coke.’

  ‘I saw you,’ the bartender said without looking at Ryan. Then he said to the guy, ‘But that’s just the way she is, know what I’m sayin’? She don’t listen. . . . Hey, you know who I saw yesterday? You remember that brother with his dog who used to come ‘round here?’

  ‘Dog?’ the guy said.

  ‘Yeah. One of ‘em rottweilers.’

  ‘Oh, yeah.’

  ‘Well he come in here and—’

  ‘Can I just get my drink?’ Ryan asked.

  ‘Wait,’ the bartender said. Then he said to his friend, ‘What was I sayin’? Right, the brother with the rottweiler. So he come in here yesterday and . . .’

  Ryan stood there, staring at the bartender, who was going on, bullshitting to his friend. After a few seconds Ryan realized he was swaying, and he stumbled over to an empty bar stool. He sat down, feeling some pain in his hip from the fall he’d taken. Then he looked around, noticing for the first time that everyone in the bar was black. He tried to remember how he’d gotten there, but, like just about everything else about the day, it was a blur. He remembered having his hands around Jake’s throat and drinking at Vinny’s Bar on Ralph Avenue and then not being able to find his car, but that was about it.

  He figured he was probably on Rockaway Avenue, maybe near Avenue D? It was definitely a shitty part of Canarsie, a place he would’ve avoided, especially at night, if he were sober; but right now, as long as there was alcohol to drink he really didn’t give a shit.

  Ryan was about to scream for his rum and Coke again when he saw the bartender coming over with it.

  The bartender put the glass down in front of Ryan, but before he let go of it he said, ‘Five bucks.’

  Five bucks sounded like a rip-off, expecially in a dive like this, but Ryan didn’t feel like arguing. He opened his wallet and stared at it, forgetting what he was looking for, and then he thought, Oh, yeah, money. He took out a single, stared at it for a couple of seconds, then took out another bill. He was pretty sure it was a ten - yep, there was a one and a zero - and handed it to the bartender.

  The bartender released the glass and brought Ryan his change. As Ryan guzzled the drink he could barely feel his lips. He couldn’t taste much either - he could’ve been drinking piss on the rocks, for all he knew. But the alcohol was giving him a nice buzz, and at least he wasn’t thinking about them anymore, which was all that really mattered.

  As Ryan was finishing the drink, he felt a hand touch his arm. Expecting to see Aretha Franklin again, he turned his head as quickly as he could, and it took him a few extra seconds to realize that the woman wasn’t standing there. There was just a skinny guy with long braids, smiling, showing a mouthful of braces. He had a few long scratches on his face.

  ‘What up, money?’ the guy said.

  The guy wasn’t alone. Another guy - bigger, with cornrows -was with him, but hanging back.

  Even ripped out of his mind, Ryan knew he was in deep shit. He looked away, hoping the guys would leave; then the skinny guy grabbed his arm again, harder this time, and said, ‘You should look at a man when he talkin’ to you.’

  Ryan looked at the skinny guy, but the skinny guy didn’t let go of his arm.

  ‘That’s better, man. What, yo’ mama don’t teach you no manners?’

  Ryan felt his body swaying. He suddenly had to piss.

  ‘I’m not lookin’ for any trouble,’ he slurred.

  ‘Yo, you hear that?’ the skinny guy said to the big guy. ‘My man Eminem ain’t lookin’ for no trouble.’ Then to Ryan, ‘If you ain’t lookin’ for no trouble you came into the wrong fuckin’ place.’

  Ryan looked away from the skinny guy, at the mirror behind the bar. In the reflection he saw the door to the outside. He thought about making a run for it, but decided that would be the stupidest thing to do. The guys would have a much easier time mugging him outside the bar than inside.

  The skinny guy grabbed Ryan’s San Antonio Spurs cap off his head and flung it away.

  ‘We in New York. You should be wearin’ Knicks shit.’

  The bartender had seen the skinny guy toss Ryan’s cap, but he and his friend were talking again, obviously not giving a shit. Some old guy at the other end of the bar was slumped over, probably asleep. The fat woman who’d approached Ryan before was at a table, talking to some guy. The few other people in the bar weren’t paying attention either, and Ryan knew none of them would help.

  ‘Look, man, you got it all wrong,’ Ryan said, trying to keep it real. ‘I just came in here to chill and have a drink, know what I’m sayin’? I ain’t tryin’ to start nothin’, know what I’m sayin’?’

  The skinny guy started laughing. Then he said to the big guy, ‘Check out my man Eminem talkin’ with his “ain’ts” and “know what I’m savin’s” and shit.’ He looked back at Ryan, said, ‘You be gottin’ all you ebonies down real good, huh? What you gonna do, start rappin’ now?’

  ‘I love rap, man,’ Ryan said.

  ‘Ooh, you be lovin’ rap too?’ the skinny guy said. ‘Next you be tellin’ me how you be lovin’ fried chicken and watermelon, ‘cause then I definitely ain’t gonna fuck with yo’ grits-and-collard-greens ass.’ The skinny guy backed away a couple of steps and opened his coat, showing the handle of a gun sticking out of his jeans. ‘Give it up, yo.’

  Ryan’s gaze shifted slowly from the gun back up to the skinny guy’s face.

  ‘Come on,’ Ryan said.

  ‘Why you gotta—’ ‘I said give it up, yo, or I’m gonna pop you in the head - give you a third motherfiickin’ eye to see outta. ‘Cept you won’t be able to see outta it ‘cause you be dead.’

  Ryan reached down and patted the side of his pants a few times. Finally he found the opening to his pocket and he reached in and pulled out his wallet. He opened it and took out six dollars. He was surprised he had so little; he thought he’d left his house with sixty or seventy bucks this morning.

  Holding the bills out toward the skinny guy, Ryan said, ‘There, six bucks, that’s all I got. Take it - it’s yours.’

  The skinny guy didn’t take the money.

  ‘What about yo’ ATM?’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘There a bodega right ‘cross the street - got a money machine inside. How ‘bout we go take a walk?’

  Even ripped, Ryan realized that if he went to the cash machine with these guys they’d probably kill him afterward, just for the hell of it.

  ‘I don’t have any money in my account,’ Ryan said.

  ‘Bullshit you don’t,’ the skinny guy said, ‘wearing ‘em new LeBrons an’ shit. Prolly got a million dollars in the bank.’

  ‘All right, I’ll give you my code. It’s NOLAN. YOU know, like

  Nolan Ryan. Go ‘head - take out the pennies I got in there.’

  NOLAN was actually Ryan’s old code; he’d changed it to TUPAC after his baseball career fell apart.

  ‘Yo, you think I’m a stupid motherfucka, don’t you?’ the skinny guy said. ‘Givin’ me bullshit digits and shit. Naw, naw, man, you comin’ with us. You gonna type that Nolan Ryan shit in yo’ self. And you better hope motherfiickin’ pennies don’t come out.’

  Ryan looked away from the skinny guy, toward the big guy. Suddenly the big guy looked familiar. Ryan didn’t know where he knew him from - high school? junior high? - but he knew he knew him from somewhere.

  ‘Wait,’ Ryan said. ‘I know you, man.’

  ‘No, you don’t,’ the skinny guy said.

  ‘Yeah - yeah, I do.’ Ryan wasn’t sure anymore. He was just stalling, praying he could find some way out of this mess. ‘Your hair was different, but your face is the same. I went to South Shore. Where’d you go?’

  ‘No place,’ the big guy said. It was the first word he’d spoken, and his deep voice sounded familiar to Ryan; he didn’t think he was just making all this up.

  ‘Wait, what do you mean, no place?’ Ryan said. ‘You from Canarsie?’