Five Days of Bleeding

Ricardo Cruz

Department of English
University of Illinois-Normal

PLANET ROCK

 

“I’m the DJ, he’s the rapper,” Chops said, pointing his big finger in my face as if the planet had just begun to spin.

 

It was night, and the white clouds laughed at Chops until their stomachs bust and they cried. Linton Johnson, a Rastafarian-feeling Black nigger with mustard seed, scronched down in front of our faces and yelled out that New York’s Central Park was Nigger heaven.

 

“Wait a goddamn minute!

 

“Is Nigger heaven a Carl Van Vechten novel or a cabin in the sky or a Black place or a sanctuary where August hams grow wild or haven for blues or what?” I asked.

 

Johnson blew happy dust in my face. “Bottle it,” he said.

 

Along with Johnson, there was a slew of negroes celebrating and doing their thang in the park like it was nothing. Indecent exposure, pure and simple. A Black Monday. The stock market had crashed, so niggers played the numbers once they got back to Harlem. They picked out their numbers based on Neo-hoodoo and wrote them down during the party they threw for themselves in the park.

 

Meantime on television: “The problem is that when these films like New Jack City play there are so few of them until Blacks flood the theatres and make a major event out of them.”

 

Whites gazed out of their windows and saw dinge and charcoal everywhere, dope as art, Guns N’ Roses taking over their houses sky-high above the Harlem juke-joints.

 

ONE NATION UNDER A GROOVE

 

Chops’ joke was very funny, but Johnson was seriously looking for more entertainment to exhibit in the park, protest the absence of social reform, his forehead fucked up like the pavement on a bad road.

 

“The race problem in the United States had resolved itself into a question of saving black men’s bodies and white men’s souls,” he said.

 

“Are you Lyndon Johnson or James Weldon Johnson or Johnson & Johnson from Jet and Ebony magazines?” I asked. Under the moon, I passed for white.

 

Mr. Johnson, calm, slender and immaculate, stood on the narrow strip of stage between the footlights set up in the park and the green grass.

 

“The name is Linton. If you can’t say or play it, then take yourself, the girl and that little fat-ass fucker and go home.”

 

“Who made you head negro, Lint-head?” I asked. He ran up and pushed us into the grass, then laughed.

 

“That shit was cold, wasn’t it?” Johnson asked.

 

“Yeah, baby,” I answered. “Yeah.”

 

BIRTH OF THE COOL

 

Chops and Zu-Zu Girl were cutting up, tripping over sharp blades of wet brown grass they found in the park. Zu-Zu was singing the blues. We got up and sent Johnson off with a smile that we inverted once Johnson turned his back. We sat down on a familiar bench in the park, our boodies itching for a scratch. My cheeks slid along the hard wood. “Wiggle it, baby,” the bench said.

 

Zu-Zu laughed. Chops laid out.

 

“You got it good and that ain’t bad,” said Zu-Zu.

 

“Murdah in the first degree,” I told Zu-Zu.

 

“You can’t keep a good man down,” said Zu-Zu.

 

Chops was laid back, doing statues of liberty with his fingers. “Lucy’s in the sky with diamonds,” said Chops, downing a Third Stream from his bottle. He was a chaser of the American Dream.

 

Zu-Zu snatched the pastries out of Chops’ other hand and went off. “Straighten up and fly right,” said Zu-Zu. “Your jelly roll is good.”

 

The pigeons picked crumbs out of Zu-Zu’s palm. Chops offered Zu-Zu his bottle.

 

“Excuse me,” said Chops, “but would you like a heavy-wet, cherry bounce, gooseberry wine, fine, cold-without, Tom-and-Jerry or mountain dew?”

 

Zu-Zu whipped Chops with a coke stare and flicked her remaining crumbs into the trash can.

 

“I’d like a John Collins or blue ruin or apple-jack or black velvet or twopenny or white-ale or dog’s nose or whisky toddy or London particular,” said Zu-Zu.

 

Zu-Zu sung the “Laughing Song.” Then she leaned over and smacked Chops in the face, her dark nipples giving us a mean look because they couldn’t sag against her boob-tube.

 

I grabbed Zu-Zu’s punch and told her to stop. “Excuse me, pardon me, don’t let me get in your way,” I told Zu-Zu, “but this ain’t Queens or Manhattan or Long Island or Greenwich or Harlem. This downtown. You just can’t go around smacking everybody in the face. Dig?”

 

Zu-Zu sung “Dead Drunk Blues,” booze trickling out of her mouth. She unfastened her bra and took it off.

 

MERCY, MERCY, MERCY

 

“You sho’ is big, Zu-Zu,” said Chops. Chops was about to fly away over a bird chest. Meantime, I wondered what she was doing with a bra on under a boob-tube and how we managed to see her nipples.

 

“Incredible,” I said.

 

Zu-Zu moved over and smacked Chops in the mouth. “Bop,” she said, her boob-tube shaking a teeny-tiny bit as she danced in the park.

 

“I wish I could shimmy like my sister Kate,” said Zu-Zu.

 

I’M SHOUTIN AGAIN

 

We are nomads, rebels, revolutionaries, but not homeless. I’m dancin on the benches while Chops sit and stares, his mouth open, his eyes on tits and money.

 

“Get up, get into it, get involved!” I yell. It’s as if I’m shouting at the tits.

 

Zu-Zu breaks down and does a war dance downtown, pulling her boob-tube up and down, lots of black people gathering around her and jeering.

 

I grab Zu-Zu around her waist and we do it to a little east coast swing.

 

“You can swing it, too,” said Chops.

 

Zu-Zu laughs and smooches with me while we slowly spin around in the soft, thick mud. “My Man-Of-War,” sings Zu-Zu, like we’re in the trenches. Then she sings “That Thing Called Love.”

 

RUM AND COCA-COLA

 

Zu-Zu was a mighty tight woman, moaning blues, caffeine and alcohol keeping her going.

 

“Swing low, chariot,” Zu-Zu whispered. She was ready to drop dead. She sung “New York Tombs.”

 

Chops, who had been collecting money in a can, came over and whispered in my ears. “What’s wrong with Zu-Zu?” he asked.

 

Zu-Zu was off into her own world, everybody drinking moonshine but her.

 

“What did I do to be so Black and blue?” asked Zu-Zu. She threw her bottle away like it was water.

 

“Take it easy, Zu-Zu,” I said. I dropped my bottle and gave her a warm-fuzzy.

 

Zu-Zu pulled back. “Don’t hug me,” she said. She was as tender as the night, black and blue bruises all over her body.

 

WHAT IS THERE TO SAY?

 

Zu-Zu peeled my fingers off her skin and turned away. She sung “In A Silent Way.”

 

“She’s been sleeping with the enemy,” said Chops. “She’s got it bad and that ain’t good.”

 

“That niggah you’re seeing is just gonna drag you down, Zu- Zu,” I said.

 

“I need love in the worst sort of way,” said Zu-Zu. She took off her skirt and her boob-tube for the twelfth time.

 

Chops unzipped his pants, pushed Zu-Zu down on the bench and hit her on the side of her face, smearing her rouge into blood. Chops jumped her bones. “Stop!” I yelled. I was afraid for Zu- Zu. Chops had white man’s disease. He could barely jump, the fat on his stomach rippled like tidal waves.

 

Against the two boards that made the seat of the bench, Zu- Zu looked like the heroine of a silent movie laid down on some railroad track waiting for the train to come. Chops leaped back- and-forth over her collar, his hair standing straight up like Don King’s.

 

Zu-Zu blew her cool. “I hate a man like you,” she said. “Are you going to jump my bones all night or take off your pants and do me?”

 

TOO HOT

 

“I can’t perform under these conditions,” Chops said. “Cross my heart and hope to die. If I’m lyin, you can take this money I collected and buy yourself a little engine that can.”

 

Chops pulled out a doo-rag and wiped his fat face.

 

“Just give me some old-fashioned love,” said Zu-Zu. “I want hanky-panky.”

 

Chops wanted Zu-Zu to stretch his pants but wasn’t confident he had the skills to do her. He stood still and tried to catch his breath while men with nickel-hearts came up and offered to do Zu-Zu for him.

 

THEY GOT TO GO

 

“I want to be the only one who gets it,” Chops said to Zu- Zu.

 

“Okay, okay, okay,” said Zu-Zu. “I’m a mighty tight woman. Do me in a place where it’s warm and where your hooch won’t turn bad. I don’t care where you take it.”

 

PARADISE

 

“Behind the garbage,” said Chops. “Seven steps to Heaven.” Chops pulled out a bomb and lit it, weed all in Zu-Zu’s face, smoke getting in her eyes. Zu-Zu started singing “Dope Head Blues,” Chops high as a kite.

 

“Give me that old slow drag,” said Zu-Zu.

 

Chops gave Zu-Zu the bomb, and she sucked on the edges of it until it exploded in her mouth. She spat the paper out, and the ashes came out, too, like her mouth was a volcano.

 

“Spit in the sky and it fall in your eye,” Chops said.

 

“That niggah is just gonna drag you down,” I said to Zu- Zu.

 

Chops glared at me, his eyes like obsidian pieces. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked.

 

“Don’t ask me, Chops,” I said. “I’m just a jitterbug. When I hear music, it makes me dance.”

 

Zu-Zu became restless. She started singing “Tired of Waiting Blues.”

 

“I’m dying by the hour,” said Zu-Zu.

 

“She’s gotta have it,” I told Chops.

 

“Knees up, Zu-Zu,” Chops said. Then Chops fell down and pounced on top of her stomach. Zu-Zu spat in his face.

 

“Bring back the joys,” said Zu-Zu. “I’m a mean, tight mama.”

 

Chops slung off his leather and whipped her. The scorching and burning and hot fire turned Zu-Zu’s hair nappy. With a bottle of moonshine in his big, black hands, Chops looked like Prince Buster trying to make love to Zu-Zu, pastry crumbs all over her lips like caviar and ashes still coming out of her mouth. Use your imagination.

 

“Ooh!” she screamed. “O, Carolina! Olcum!” She called out Yoko Ono’s name as well.

 

Chops ran Zu-Zu along the wood while she moaned, grunted, huffed and puffed and blew into his bottle, making it blown- glass.

 

Two niggahs heavy on the bottle, Flukie and Sterling Silver, staggered by with a stolen television set as Zu-Zu kicked over the garbage can. They went crazy.

 

“Dis bruddah is tearin dis hooch up!” shouted Flukie, his mouth full of gold fillings.

 

“I wish I had some of that, baby doll,” Sterling said.

 

“You can get it if you really want it, Bro-ham,” said Zu-Zu.

 

Chops held out the bottle. “It’s almost all gone,” said Chops. Flukie and Sterling Silver dropped the television set, ran over and snatched the bottle of Chops’ hand. Meantime, Zu-Zu looked ’em up and down.

 

“Dang, girl, you sho’ is big,” said Flukie and Sterling Simultaneously. “Look at you, girl. Your stuff is all over the place.”

 

Chops grabbed the bottle and pushed them away from ZuZu.

 

“Take your black bottom out of here!” Zu-Zu cried.

 

“Go home!” Chops shouted.

 

Meantime, Zu-Zu pushed the buttons on the television set to see if she could find the niggah news.

 

“Keep going!” Chops shouted.

 

LONG ROAD

 

“Which way do we go?” asked Flukie, his hand directly over his cock. Sterling followed suit.

 

“Follow the yellow bird,” I said. They looked at me like I was crazy.

 

“It’s a long walk home!” they shouted. Chops gave them the finger.

 

They cracked up and then kissed Chops’ black ass goodbye. “See ya’ lata (chee, chee).”

 

WALKIN

 

With a cock-of-the-walk stride, Flukie and Sterling Silver followed the yellow bird to get out of dodge, Zu-Zu scrambling to pick up her stuff, Chops on top of her doing Spike Lee’s joint with his finger.

 

Flukie felt the urge to shine Sterling’s head. Sterling wondered whether or not Flukie was good luck. Both men were bluing, unable to get their hands on moonshine or Kool-Aid or Grape Juice or anything that looked like it could have some alcoholic content.

 

Flukie fell out. “It’s a dizzy atmosphere,” he said. Sterling said nothing as they passed a monk standing in a puddle at the corner and dipping while drinking moonshine.

 

“Don’t stand in muddy waters,” said Flukie, out of it. “Dig?”

 

“I’m bad,” said Monk.

 

Sterling Silver, in a moment of epiphany, pointed at Monk’s socks. He was floodin.

 

Flukie tried to play it off. “What’s that in yo’ pocket?” Flukie asked.

 

“Watches,” said Monk, “from yo’ momma.”

 

Flukie started to tag him. But, Sterling Silver held him back.

 

“How much they cost?” asked Sterling Silver.

 

“They not for sell, niggah,” said Monk.

 

“Then what you selling?” Flukie asked.

 

“Time,” said Monk. “I stole the watches from Penny’s so I could sell time. You ain’t got to buy any, but if you don’ t I’ll take you out.”

 

Flukie and Sterling Silver looked at one another and backed up.

 

“You ain’t that bad,” Flukie said.

 

“You don’t know nothing!” Sterling Silver shouted. “You just a pusher. You ain’t shit!”

 

“I’m yo’ pusher,” said Monk. “Pay me, niggahs, or I’ll close yo’ big lips forever.”

 

Flukie pinched Sterling Silver on the arm. “We should have stayed behind with the skeezer,” he said.

 

Sterling Silver cleaned his throat, then spoke up. “What do you know about karate?” he asked.

 

“Jujitsu,” said Monk. “Before I studied the art, a punch to me was just a punch, a kick was just a kick. After I studied the art, a punch was no longer a punch, a kick no longer a kick. Now that I understand the art, a punch is a punch, a kick is just a kick.”

 

“Damn, I’m a big niggah, but you got me scared,” said Flukie.

 

“Um, excuse Mr. Monk,” said Sterling, “but I have a question. That’s some deep shit you just gave us. Is that Taoism? Are you from the temple of Shaolin? Or, are you quoting from Bruce Lee’s Chapter on Tools?”

 

“Man, why don’t you take a chill pill, come and get blowed with us?” Flukie asked.

 

“Humph,” says Monk. “it’s Monk’s time. I got no papers. And LuLu’s back in town.”

 

“Bitches brew,” said Flukie. “Let’s go get some pussy den.”

 

“Die hard,” said Monk.

 

Flukie backed up some more. “Don’t mess wit me,” warned Flukie. “I’ll rock your world.”

 

“You’re out of time,” said Monk. “And after I get through wit you, I’m going back to find the skeezer and get her, too.”

 

SOMEDAY MY PRINCE WILL COME

 

said Zu-Zu. “But, you sure as hell ain’t him.”

 

Chops exploded. He let go of his bomb and slid Zu-Zu from left to right on the wood, putting splinters in her booty. Zu-Zu screamed, caught in the middle of a wang-dang with her face under cork.

 

“Ooh!” she screamed. “O, Carolina. Olcum.” She threw in Olive Oyl’s name for good measure.

 

Chops grabbed an empty bottle and held it over his big head, Zu-Zu moaning and groaning and asking “Can Anybody Take Sweet Mama’s Place?”

 

IN CASE OF EMERGENCY, BREAK GLASS

 

I rushed over and tapped the bottle against Chops’ nappy head. Chops looked at me like I was crazy, pieces of glass snagged inside his afro, blue rain dripping down his black forehead.

 

Chops squeezed his head with his fingers.

 

“Peace out,” said Chops. He fell flat on his fat face, smashing his cheeks up against the seat of the bench.

 

Zu-Zu picked up her boob-tube and spat on the back of Chops’ head. “My handy man ain’t handy no more,” said Zu-Zu.

 

I’M ALWAYS CHASING RAINBOWS

 

said Zu-Zu. “One minute, they there. The next minute they gone.”

 

MILES IN THE SKY

 

“Baby, you send me,” said Monk. He held two nigger flickers in his hands and put the blades together to form scissors, giving Flukie’s big head the evil eye.

 

Flukie’s squinted at the sight of the sharp metal. He tried to play it off. “Kronka,” he said. It meant “let the games begin.”

 

Sterling Silver was at the top of an elm tree, singing “Freddy’s Dead,” brothers throwing down fishbone a couple trees further away, the whole thing a nightmare.

 

“Man, can’t we eat?”

 

“Why you doing us like this?”

 

“There’s too many fine women walkin around for us to be in the treetops.”

 

“If you going to kill somebody, kill the niggah and come on.”

 

“Fuck him up.”

 

“Castrate the niggah.”

 

“Jack his body.”

 

“Use the body parts for spareribs.”

 

“Cut and mix.”

 

“Do it til you satisfied.”

 

“Drain the blood out like it were black cherry Kool-Aid.”

 

“Pump that body.”

 

“Niggah, you can be Blacula.”

 

“Have all the pussy you want.”

 

“Dip into anybody’s Kool-Aid without knowing the flavor.”

 

“Aa-a, bat around.”

 

“Nobody could stop you, baby.”

 

“Call me Bernard Wright.”

 

“Al B. Sure!”

 

“You can turn yo house into a home.”

 

“Take a chance, baby.”

 

“Cut the crap, then go back where you fell.”

 

“Come on wit it.”

 

“You just stepped into the comfort zone.”

 

“We up here in the trees hollywood swingin.”

 

“I always wanted to see the Kool & the Gang show.”

 

“Get off.”

 

“Yeah, yeah.”

 

“Take that coon out.”

 

“We got high hopes.”

 

“But, we’re not the S.O.S. Band.”

 

“That’s fo’ damn sho’

 

“No one’s gonna love you.”

 

“Looking like that.”

 

“You got to give it up.”

 

“Why you wanna dog me out?”

 

“Can’t find the reasons.”

 

“True devotion.”

 

“Look at the man in the mirror.”

 

“You gotta make a change for once in yo’ life.”

 

“You ain’t as bad as you think you are.”

 

“Shut up!” screamed Monk. He stabbed a tree behind Flukie’s big head.

 

Flukie stepped back. “Give me tonight,” he said.

 

From the top of the elm tree, Sterling Silver lowered his cotton handkerchief and long gold rope chain. “Hang him high,” he said to Flukie.

 

As if on cue, niggahs in the trees stuck their heads out of the branches and started talking smack again, twigs falling to the ground like it was nothing. It was like a mixing board where thangs jumped in and out at random.

 

“What’s all this noise?” said Monk.

 

“Look around you,” said Sterling. “What you want? You can have it, baby.”

 

“I need love,” said Monk. “I want an around-the-way girl. I want base.”

 

“We all do,” said Flukie.

 

“But we can work that sucka to the bone,” said Sterling Silver.

 

“Around the way, I saw a slim, no thicker than a twig, but with big titties,” said Flukie.

 

“Let us walk, and we’ll make a special delivery,” said Sterling.

 

“Yo’ call,” said Flukie.

 

“Titties taste like watermelons,” said Sterling.

 

“Make her come my way,” said Monk. He gave Flukie and Sterling a drink of his moonshine.

 

“I thought you’d see it my way,” said Flukie. He gulped whiskey and heard niggahs tripping, his head starting to ache.

 

“What’s all this noise?” Flukie asked.

 

“The sounds of 52nd Street,” said Sterling, swallowing shit from the cup as if he had found the Grail.

 

Flukie and Sterling took off, one step closer to Heaven.

 

SOUTH STREET EXIT

 

Miles ahead.

 

BLUE GRAY

 

Downtown, people celebrate, Linton Johnson splashing rhythms together after the thundering bass. But, there is a Blue Vein Circle where mulattoes practice color snobbery and diss the blacks. Yet, all of these people are in the park cause the earth has music for those who listen. This is Tabu. In the park, “the rhythms jus bubbling an back-firing, ragin and rising, then suddenly the music cuts: steel blade drinking blood in darkness.” Johnson records his LP for Virgin entitled “Dread, Beat and Blood.”

 

“It’s war amongst the rebels,” says Johnson. He’s cutting the rug and mixing the vinyl. Girls love the way Johnson spins, but he is careful to avoid the trap of stardom.

 

“I don’t want to be like Bob Marley,” he says. He’s got a bomb in his mouth bigger than the mike in his hands.

 

Chops wakes up and tries to remix Johnson’s speech. “I don’t want to be chop suey.”

 

Johnson grins and steps on Chops a little harder with his combat boots.

 

Women scream.

 

“I refuse to divorce myself from the realities of life,” says Johnson.

 

“I don’t want to be chopped liver either. Living in the bottle where everything is distorted or distilled.”

 

Johnson kicks Chops in the mouth. “Everybody’s got to find their own groove,” says Johnson. “You a sorry case, if you can’t.”

 

He holds his black thang and scratches it in front of the ladies.

 

His beat is so fonky: Men holler “it’s sweet as a nut–just level vibes.”

 

Chops pulls his upper lip away from a cleet and spits the dirt out of his mouth. Suddenly he’s starting to gain a little more respect for Johnson.

 

“Let the beat hit ’em!” Chops shouts. “Let the music take control! Let the beat go round & round and up & down!”

 

Johnson kicked Chops in the head and walked away.

 

Johnson is downright unfaithful. People following him as if at a golf tournament. They fight to see him, cutting out each other’s hearts and giving them to dippers with paper asses and buckets of blood. Everyone is high on brew or drawing a pound or two of kally, Johnson passin naturals on niggahs. Black boys stand in the weed and hold their dicks. Niggahs for life.

 

I WANNA THANK YOU (FOR LETTING ME BE MYSELF)

 

I told God. I told him good.

 

“God,” I said. “God, please don’t let me spend the rest of my goddamn life in this park. If you gotta take me, take me to higher ground. But, please don’t let me go in the park.”

 

“God,” I said. “You are the man. You are the man. You are the man. I want muscles.”

 

I gazed around to look at New York.

 

PRETTY CITY

 

But, it wasn’t the promised land.

 

Shawon Dunston grew up in Brooklyn. Now the niggah’s playing baseball in Chicago.

 

Eddie Perry was from around-the-way, Harlem, but after he moved the crowd to go to school, Exeter, he was shot by a white undercover cop and quit it.

 

MURDER IN THE FIRST DEGREE

 

said Zu-Zu. “You shall reap what you sow.”

 

“Maybe,” I said, “but I can’t be no ordinary Mo. I got to get out of the ghetto, too. If I live life by tripping, at least I did it my way.” I got this Frank Sinatra song in my head.

 

Zu-Zu rolled Chops over and spat in his face.

 

“He got it good and that ain’t bad,” said Zu-Zu. “You chopped his fat head into pieces.”

 

“Sing sing prison,” I said.

 

“Someday, Sweetheart,” answered Zu-Zu.

 

AFTER TONIGHT

 

I said, “I’m a dead man.”

 

I covered Chops’ body with a blanket. Zu-Zu spat once more in his face.

 

“Excuse me, pardon me, don’t let me get in your way,” I said to Zu-Zu. “But, this ain’t Soho or Staten Island or Tribeca or Brooklyn. This is downtown. And we way down. You just can’t go around spitting in niggahs’ faces. I ain’t eighty-sixin no more niggahs for you. Dig?”

 

Zu-Zu cracked up. “I killed him first,” she said.

 

She pulled a set of lines out of her shoe that looked like Chops’ forehead peeled from the bottom of her foot and did a little number.

 

“I am the laughing woman with the black black face,” said Zu-Zu.

 

“Lighten up, honey,” I said.

 

“Living in cellars and in every crowded place.”

 

“Get it together.”

 

“I am toiling just to eat,” she says.

 

“When life gets cheesy, you put on the Ritz.”

 

“And I laugh,” said Zu-Zu.

 

“Fine and dandy, Zu-Zu, except you forgot one thang. You ain’t a woman but rather a confessional little girl who ran away from Queens umteen times before you finally escaped or so you say.”

 

“Why you gotta call me out?” Zu-Zu asked. She scooted over on the bench and kissed me on the lips, leaving a taste of wild cherry in my mouth.

 

“My daddy likes it slow,” she said.

 

“You don’t know what love is,” I told Zu-Zu.

 

“Sweet rain,” she said.

 

“Things ain’t what they used to be,” I said. I dreamed of chocolate Kisses. And mumbling.

 

“Such sweet thunder,” Zu-Zu whispered in my ear.

 

I flew to move away from Zu-Zu. Her heart was a singing bird. Everytime it fluttered, it gave me Flack–“The Closer I Get To You,” “Oasis” or “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.”

 

“What are you singing this time, Zu-Zu?”

 

“The Song Is You,” she answered.

 

“What’s wrong with ‘Paper Moon’ or ‘Kind of Blue’ or ‘Hand Jive’ or ‘Emotions’ or ‘Forms and Sounds’ or ‘Anatomy of a Murder’ or ‘Sara Smile’ or ‘I Don’t Know What Kind of Blues I’ve Got’ or ‘Dat Dere’?” I asked.

 

“No more talk,” said Zu-Zu. “For me, life is like the black plague, the bordellos in Bedford-Stuyvesant full of disease that the white man carries back home to Bensonhurst, Queens, and gives to his wife.”

 

“We’re bigger than life, Zu-Zu.”

 

“When women talk that way, we dye,” said Zu-Zu, “our lips dark.”

 

MOOD INDIGO

 

All we ever do is talk.

 

Like flatliners, we die several times. But, we keep coming back for more.

 

“I can’t do no more,” said Zu-Zu. She’s lying her ass off.

 

“Hush, girl, be quiet,” I said.

 

IF I COULD SAVE TIME IN A BOTTLE

 

Zu-Zu got a bottle in her hands and a lake in her mouth. It rained for hours in the park before night stole our faces and painted them blue in watercolor. I wore the mask, Zu-Zu dragging me through the mud, everyone celebrating and stomping on muddy waters even after the thrill was gone. The music cut, our dark faces bleeding through our masks.

 

The small trees in the park were bent, dropped by big niggahs and east rains that slashed their arms and legs like it was nothing. During the storms, the trees twisted and shook and danced in the wind, their leaves like hair washed with no soap and black water.

 

New York stood tall as a dirty city with a mouth the size of Frank Sinatra. Zu-Zu and I sat on the bench, our shoes heavy with mud, and ate crab apples, Zu-Zu’s stomach wining and dining her until she finally belched.

 

New York was a home where men and women ate alone in public and nobody talked. Zu-Zu smoked a cigarette from the garbage and blew cool mint in my face. Then, she spat pieces of cigarette paper out in the sky as if she were throwing up a fistful of dollars.

 

Zu-Zu reached inside her blouse, wondering if she any money left. I sat on the bench with a box of Kool, singing “woman don’t you know with you, I’m born again.”

 

It was time she knew.

 

“Time,” I told her.

 

“Time,” she stopped.

 

New York was a dirty city with a mouth as big as Frank Sinatra’s, but nobody ever talked.

 

“No more dancing girl Zu-Zu?”

 

Zu-Zu shook her head, “No.” Her soul had already flown south for the winter.

 

Zu-Zu pulled a handgun out of the garbage can where she stored her stuff and raised it to her head.

 

Black Monday was the first day of autumn. The fall season came with a bang.

 

Zu-Zu dropped to the ground and fell out.

 

“Toy gun,” said Zu-Zu. She cracked up. She showed me the black plastic handle.

 

I handed Zu-Zu some fire, and we burned while lying in front of one another on the bench.

 

PURPLE HAZE

 

I sucked my joint, blue-faced, dragging like Jimi Hendrix with a guitar pick hanging over a bottomed-out lip. We smoked all the grass we could find. Heaven was a smoked-up black skillet holding the earth together, Zu-Zu toiling in the soil. The sky was pasta-red. The low clouds puffy and stuck together like cooked macaroni shells.

 

Behind the haze, the skyline felt blue, niggahs walking around on depressants and dressed like starving artists. Some brother even claimed he did J.J.’s paintings in Good Times.

 

I watched the brother walk away, then turned and looked at Zu-Zu. She was dope.

 

NEFERTITI

 

There was swinging on 52nd Street. Zu-Zu listened for it, Zu-Zu in pursuit of the 27th man, gold as plentiful as dust on the street.

 

Zu-Zu was octaroon, 1/8 negro, her hair worn in cornrows. Most people couldn’t tell if she was white or black. Her family was from Queens. One day she woke up and threw away all of her money and moved into Central Park.

 

“Goodbye, mother. Goodbye, Bojangles. Goodbye, heartache,” she said.

 

Her daddy had the nerve to cry. “God bless the child who’s got his own,” her daddy said the day Zu-Zu ran away for good. Ramseys Bojangles Girl hated her for not being a boy. He tossed his sandal behind her.

 

“The day I see yo’ face again will surely be the day you die,” said Ramseys.

 

“Goodbye heartache,” said Zu-Zu. It could have been “good morning.” Zu-Zu was the only one who knew for sure.

 

As Zu-Zu told me her story, we sat drinking moonshine and collecting Zu-Zu’s stuff together. Inside I was crying, Zu-Zu’s black-and-blue face half-white under the moon.

 

STELLA BY STARLIGHT

 

“Now was it goodbye or goodbye morning?” I had to know.

 

“It was blue cellophane over my nose and mouth, easy living, my foolish heart, a frame for the blues,” Zu-Zu answered. She was referring to life with her family in Queens before she was exiled.

 

“What did you say when left that hot house?” I asked.

 

“I sung ‘It’s So Hard To Say Goodbye To Yesterday,'” said Zu-Zu.

 

Zu-Zu stood up to straighten her boob-tube for the hundredth time. It was like watching a nudie flick. I looked up to Zu-Zu while white popcorn and seeds dropped from her colored bust to the bench.

 

“You got a lot of nerve, Zu-Zu.”

 

Amazing. How in the hell did she get popcorn inside her boob-tube, I asked myself, wondering why it wouldn’t just fall out. Zu-Zu picked a yellow umbrella out of the trash and opened it up.

 

“Put this over your thang,” said Zu-Zu, using the wet plastic to keep me from mooning. She was inventing prophylactics.

 

EVIDENCE

 

Once, Zu-Zu crushed a Styrofoam cup and stuck it inside my pants. Zu-Zu got on her knees and begged me to let her feel the cup.

PRAYER FOR PASSIVE RESISTANCE

 

“Please baby baby please,” Zu-Zu whispered. Singing “Don’t Be That Way,” she glared at Heaven.

 

FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE,

 

Zu-Zu.

 

“What’s your problem?”

 

“My blue heaven,” Zu-Zu replied.

 

“Blue heaven is full of coppers,” I told Zu-Zu.

 

“Conception,” she said. She kicked Chops’ fat stomach and spat once more in his face.

 

TOW AWAY ZONE

 

Zu-Zu flagged a cop and pointed towards Chops. “Get this fat fucker out of here!” she shouted.

 

The cop looked like who-me.

 

“Yeah, I’m talkin to you,” said Zu-Zu.

 

The cop glanced at his black lizards to see if he was standing in muddy waters.

 

“You with the blue uniform.”

 

The whistle dropped out of his mouth.

 

“You with the big stick and gun on your hip.”

 

He called for help.

 

“That’s right,” said Zu-Zu. “Bring your buddies.”

 

The copper came up to Zu-Zu with two other blues. “I’ve never had a thang blacker than you,” he said.

 

Zu-Zu smacked him in the face. “Wake up, white boy,” said Zu-Zu. “You stepped out of a dream.”

 

“Pick up your trash, you black dog,” said the copper. Just like that. “How would you like to marry Liz behind bars?”

 

“Don’t try to punk me,” said Zu-Zu. “Do your job for a change and take this overweight lover to pig heaven.”

 

“What’s wrong with him?” asked Charlie Irvine.

 

“He’s dead.”

 

“What happened?”

 

“He tried to fuck me but got smacked on the head by a bottle.”

 

“No wonder he’s dead,” said Charlie Irvine. The coppers chuckled.

 

“You’re funny,” said Zu-Zu, “but your thang is too small to be cracking those kind of jokes.” With her index finger and thumb, Zu-Zu showed him about an inch of air.

 

“Take care of the body yourself,” said the cop. “The spook can rot there in the earth for all I care. I can’t tell him apart from the dirt and mud anyway (hee, hee).”

 

Chops woke up and gave him the finger. “Fuck you,” he said. He covered his mouth so the cop couldn’t hear him.

 

MOMENTS LIKE THIS

 

AFTER YOU’VE GONE

 

I said, “You’ve come back as lemon drop.”

 

Chops was bitter.

 

“Eighty-six all that,” said Chops. “I’m gonna take you out once and for all.”

 

“About that bump on your head, Chops. I had to do it. You was out of control.”

 

Chops’ eyes went to the back of his head while he rolled around in the mud, trying to get up. “When I get through with you, you gonna wish you were back in Compton,” Chops swore, “yo’ ex-wife and niggahs chasing you from Carson to Crenshaw.”

 

“Shut up!” I said.

 

Zu-Zu laughed in his face.

 

Chops did a circle with his fingers and then pointed to Zu- Zu’s skirt. “I’m gonna tear it up,” he promised.

 

Zu-Zu spat in his face. “You done lost your good thang,” she said.

 

Chops got up on his hands and knees and then fell back down. “The world is spinning,” said Chops, “and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

 

“Quit talking smack and go to sleep,” said Zu-Zu. “Your head has gotta be killing you.”

 

Chops closed his eyes and groaned. Minutes later, we heard him snoring.

 

CONFIRMATION

 

“Did you really live in sunny California?” Zu-Zu asked.

 

I shook my big head as if it were a beach ball being blown by a basement breeze.

 

“Who are you really?” Zu-Zu asked. “Fess up.”

 

“I’m Jerry Butler, Count Basie, too legit to quit,” I said. “I couldn’t fall in love with a woman, so I left Compton and came here. When we met at the Metropolitan Museum, I was eating a ketchup sandwich and trying to save myself from the cold, waiting for a train to go through the desert and back to California.”

 

“Nothing is sadder than the man who eats alone in public,” said Zu-Zu.

 

We sat talking and smoking dope from the pipe like a tribe called quest.

 

LONELY BOY

 

Zu-Zu said, “That’s what you are.” She grabbed my hand, twisted it and we ran several yards to a pale blue tent in the park in search of our future.

 

SKETCH 1

 

There were earrings and cheap gold-electroplated costume jewelry and colored scarves and doo-rags and shawls and dolls and poultry and blue racers all over the ground. On a coffee table stained by black coffee, Zu-Zu squeezed a 60-watt lightbulb in a lamp with no shade. A very Black woman fixed Zu-Zu good, turning on the light, holding her hand on the bulb and asking her what she wanted.

 

“Let go of my hand!” Zu-Zu screamed, the hot bulb burning her skin into a darker shade.

 

The gypsy woman finally let go. “What’s the matter, bitch? You feeling a little hot?”

 

“What yo’ problem?” Zu-Zu asked. “You want my man?”

 

“Shut up, yellow-ass bitch. Nobody likes you anyway. If I wanted yo’ man, I’d take him. Everything I want, I take it. That’s how I am. There ain’t nothing you can do about it. I’m the boss. And I own a doll for every niggah in this park. I can put a spell on you in a minute. Make you mine. So shut up before I find your own personal mojo and give it that whip appeal.”

 

“Enough with that voodoo shit,” I said. “We ain’t marked for death. If I was Steven Seagal, I would break yo’ bones so you could hear the sound of them cracking.”

 

“I would be out for justice then,” said the black woman. “It wouldn’t make any difference,” I said. “I’m hard to kill.”

 

“Maybe,” she said, “but I know how to take out the garbage.” “She’s wacked,” said Zu-Zu. “Let’s blow this joint.”

 

“Not so fast, Zu-Zu. If this bitch has got something to say, let her say it.”

 

“I can read you your fortune, but it’s gonna cost you a lot of motherfuckin money,” she said. “You got to pay to play.”

 

“Here’s twenty dollars, whore–make it good,” I said.

 

GYPSY WOMAN

 

My black ass. I turned around and looked for a seat.

 

“Where are we?” I whispered to Zu-Zu.

 

“Don’t talk, just listen,” said Zu-Zu.

 

“Let me look into my crystal ball,” the black woman said. She gazed into the light bulb, the light giving her a headache.

 

“Damn,” she said. “You goin have to wait a while. The spirits are tripping.”

 

“She’s higher than all of us,” I whispered to Zu-Zu.

 

“You want your future told or a muzzle on your mouth?” she asked.

 

“I paid for mumbo-jumbo,” I said.

 

“Where did you get the money from anyway?” Zu-Zu whispered. The black woman ignored us. She shuffled a deck of tarot cards, laid five cards out on the table and then turned one over picturing a faceless man with an ax on his shoulder.

 

She screamed. “Fear death by chops!” she said.

 

SPEAK NO EVIL

 

“Black woman,” Zu-Zu warned, “I’ve killed niggahs for less.”

 

The black woman handed Zu-Zu a leather string of dangling rubbers, signifying the phallus.

 

“Take this talisman and wear it round yo’ neck,” she said. “Use it to fight the powers that be.”

 

“You tryin to be funny or something?” I asked. “You don’t care about her.”

 

“I ain’t got to care,” she said. “That’s yo’ job. Now get out of here. I’m tired of looking at you.”

 

HAVE A NICE DAY

 

Bitch.

 

TROUBLE EVERYWHERE I ROAM

 

I looked at Zu-Zu, the talisman around her neck as we walked nervously away.

 

“Why me?” I asked. I thought about the woman I left behind and the fact that maybe Zu-Zu would never give up any, no matter how nice I was.

 

We strolled below the trees in silence.

 

NOW’S THE TIME

 

Flukie told Sterling Silver, their raw hands snapping off twigs at the top of an elm tree.

 

“Shut up,” Sterling Silver whispered. “This ain’t a concert for cootie. Speak low.”

 

“Let’s jump her now,” Flukie muttered.

 

“Be patient,” said Sterling Silver. “We will.”

 

IN THE SMALL WEE HOURS

 

“We ain’t got all day,” said Flukie. “If we don’t get her, it’s our asses.”

 

“It’s yo’ ass,” said Sterling Silver. “You the one that thought up this shit.”

 

“We ain’t got to keep our promise.”

 

“There’s no way we can hide,” said Sterling Silver. “Not with that niggah loose.”

 

Sterling Silver tried to look down the inside of Zu-Zu’s boob-tube. “Let’s just do it and get it over with,” he said. “The sooner the better,” said Flukie. Sterling Silver could see Zu-Zu’s titties. “Word,” he said.

 

He and Flukie sat on the heavy branches, emulating dark shadows. No way Zu-Zu could have seen them hovering over her big head like buzzards.

 

Flukie started thinking about his momma. “If they laid a finger on my momma, it’s over,” he said, fiddling with the red doo-rag on his head so the leaves couldn’t fuck up his wave.

 

Sterling Silver watched Zu-Zu smear cocoa-butter on the soft spot of her hand where the gypsy had warmed her up like a chicken bone. “Word to the muther,” said Sterling Silver, recklessly eyeballing Zu-Zu’s honey-brown thighs while she bounced, her hips singing “Streetwalker blues.”

 

Flukie snatched a pointed stick and aimed it at Zu-Zu’s chest. “I put a spell on you,” he said, glycerin and activator gel from his doo-rag dropping slowly on Zu-Zu’s back.

 

THE MIDNIGHT SUN WILL NEVER SET

 

Zu-Zu started singing “Vampin’ Liza Jane,” the moon’s glow fully cast upon her now since it was after midnight, the girl seemingly pale from fright night, fog developing by her feet.

 

“I will cheat death the same way I do a spade in a tabletop game,” Zu-Zu said.

 

“You will live forever,” I said. We strolled past a water fountain, Zu-Zu looking back at it.

 

“Do you hear laughter?” Zu-Zu asked.

 

“I hear the trippin’ and ailing of the gods being cheated by you and your queens and kings,” I told Zu-Zu.

 

“You a lying motherfucker,” she said. She spat in my hair.

 

“Excuse me, pardon me, don’t let me get in your way, Zu-Zu. But if you gonna spit like that, save your breath for a niggah that’s worth it.”

 

“Did you spit on me?” Zu-Zu asked.

 

“Hell no,” I said.

 

“What’s all this shit on my back then?” Zu-Zu asked.

 

“Droppings,” I said.

 

We stood and looked at each other. Zu-Zu gazed down at the fog by her feet.

 

“Enough of this Ten Commandments stuff,” said Zu-Zu, feeling her heart.

 

MY FUNNY VALENTINE

 

“Kiss me, and I’ll kiss you back,” I said to Zu-Zu, every Tom, Dick and Harry in the park trying to get her.

 

“Let’s wait awhile,” said Zu-Zu.

 

“I want you,” I told Zu-Zu. “And I want you to want me, too.”

 

“What you won’t do for love,” said Zu-Zu, feeling herself for a pulse.

 

“Let’s get it on,” I said.

 

“Keep on truck in’,” said Zu-Zu.

 

“We got a love thang,” I said.

 

“You can’t hurry love,” said Zu-Zu, trying to see herself in a wine bottle.

 

“You can’t hide love,” I said.

 

“I’m a private dancer,” Zu-Zu said, “dancing for money.”

 

“Baby love,” I said. “I ain’t got nobody.”

 

Zu-Zu watched as a mosquito bit my neck. “Ain’t nobody better,” she said.

 

I slapped the mosquito with one hand and it dove off my neck, doing a full-twisting somersault with about a 3.5 degree of difficulty. It looked up at me from the ground.

 

“What do you think?” it asked.

 

“Got to give it up,” I said. I put my foot down. “C’mon, Zu-Zu, take one helluva of a chance.”

 

Zu-Zu was not paying attention. She kept looking around, noticing that everybody had suddenly vacated the park.

 

“What happened to all the spooks?” Zu-Zu asked.

 

GHOST TOWN

 

“Take anything you want,” I said. We walked over to a trash can and dug up a couple of black western costumes, Zu-Zu throwing everything to the ground.

 

“You got a gun?” she asked.

 

“Yep.”

 

I showed it to her. She turned and looked the other way like it was nothing.

 

“You want it?” I asked.

 

Zu-Zu popped me on the head. My knees buckled, Zu-Zu sticking her pretty face between my bowlegs.

 

“Giddy-up,” she said.

 

I got myself back together. “Where are the clowns?” I asked.

 

“Get up!” Zu-Zu shouted. Her neck was caught between my legs, glad that they weren’t clippers. She had always been told that the L.A. Clippers were bad.

 

“Get off!” Zu-Zu shouted.

 

“Why you sweatin’ me?” I asked.

 

Zu-Zu rolled her head, trying to shake out the cobwebs. “I’m foggy,” she said.

 

I stepped to her smooth and direct. “Yippee-ky-yea,” I said. “I’m the fastest gun in the west. Let’s do this with a quickness and get it over with. Let’s do this like bam after a glass of whiskey.” I slung my gun around and opened up the cloth cape I was wearing.

 

Zu-Zu spat in the dirt. “You must think you Superman or Clint Eastwood or hard to kill. You got to have a bigger gun than that to do me. You couldn’t shoot Melba Moore with that. Melba toast would have nothing to worry about. You couldn’t knock a hole in a slice of brown bread. Even if you knew how to shoot, your six-shooter ain’t loaded.”

 

“I can pull the trigger,” I said.

 

“What’s wrong?” Zu-Zu asked. “Gun jammed?”

 

“All it needs is a little lubrication.”

 

“Lubricate it yourself,” said Zu-Zu, digging deeper into the trash. “What I want is a shot of whiskey. The only way you’ll do me is if I’m drunk and slobbering over you like a saloon gal.”

 

I drew a bottle of Jack Daniels from the can with a little booze left in it.

 

“Check you out,” said Zu-Zu. “You like Mr. GQ Smooth now.”

 

“Yep,” I said, industrial spurs spinning around on my black dingo boots like throwing stars mowing the grass.

 

“Don’t touch me,” said Zu-Zu, staring at my spurs like they were wheels of fortune.

 

“Shut up, Zu-Zu. This ain’t Dodge City, and you ain’t Kitty. But even if that fog was gunsmoke, we’d still be in trouble cause that’s how we’re living. Saddle up so we can split this ghost town. I feel like Matt Dillon in love with a skeezer.”

 

“Johnny,” said Zu-Zu, “you’ve come back to me.”

 

“What the hell you talkin’ about?”

 

Zu-Zu pointed at an inscription on the handle of my gun. “Why Johnny, you can’t read.”

 

I waved goodbye with one hand.

 

“Five-card stud,” Zu-Zu said.

 

“Five fingers of death,” I replied.

 

Zu-Zu started shouting: “Johnny’s got a gun, and is goin’ cap a woman. A 22-year old motherfuckin’ punk with an AK-47 he paid 18 hundred for and a vow to himself that he’d rather be in jail than six-feet under. He’s a black cowboy, roping cattle and catching dogies in a pair of rawhide boots instead of killing for a pair of Cons.

 

I did a few tricks with my gun and pointed at Zu-Zu’s booty. “Out here, everybody got a piece,” I shouted.

 

WARM VALLEY

 

“A little closer,” said Sterling Silver, waiting in the tree until he could see straight down Zu-Zu’s boob tube and into her drawers.

 

TALLEST TREES

 

They started talking smack. “Why is it the tallest trees are climbed by the littlest niggahs?” they asked themselves.

 

“Shut the fuck up,” said Flukie.

 

The tree dropped Sterling Silver and Flukie in the dirt, their big heads rolling through the mud and down the prairie until they crashed into my boots and stopped, their faces stuck on my toes like black olives stuck onto toothpicks.

 

Zu-Zu cheesed. “Howdy, boys,” she said.

 

“Who are these guys?” I asked Zu-Zu, like she knew.

 

“Guess,” said Flukie.

 

“Gucci,” said Zu-Zu.

 

“No, I mean guess who we are,” said Flukie.

 

“Amos and Andy,” I said.

 

“D.J. Jazzy Jeff and Fresh Prince,” said Zu-Zu.

 

“Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall,” I said.

 

“Chuck D and Flavor Flav,” said Zu-Zu.

 

“What are you, stupid?” asked Sterling Silver.

 

“Give you a hint,” said Flukie. “We villains.”

 

“Batman and Robin,” said Zu-Zu.

 

“Lone Ranger and Tonto,” I said.

 

“Shut up,” said Sterling Silver. “This ain’t Jeopardy or Name That Tune.”

 

“Whatever happened to Name That Tune?–I used to like that show,” Zu-Zu whispered.

 

Flukie stood up and waved his gun at my mouth. “Don’t fuck with him,” Sterling Silver said. “He’s got a trigger-finger.”

 

“What do you boys want?” Zu-Zu asked.

 

Sterling Silver would not talk to her. “Give us the girl, Bronco Billy, lest your balls are in double jeopardy.”

 

“Don’t do anything nutty, homey,” said Flukie. “This is fifty-eight magnum. It can blow your head clean off with one shot. If you don’t believe the hype, go head and make my day, Billy boy.”

 

“Step off,” said Zu-Zu. “Every dog has his day.”

 

“Stop that cow from chewing,” Sterling Silver told Flukie. “She got a mouth bigger than Aretha Franklin but sings like Omar Shariff.”

 

Zu-Zu looked shamed and insulted. “Take care of ’em for me, Johnny,” she said.

 

“Alright, Billy The Kid, it’s your show,” said Sterling Silver. “Are you gone give us the girl, or do we have to take her?”

 

“Where you want your bullet, homey?” Flukie asked. “This fifty-seven magnum is gettin’ awfully itchy.”

 

Sterling Silver peeped at Flukie. “When you gonna get your GED?” he asked. “You don’t even know what kind of gun you got.”

 

“Fuck you,” said Flukie. “I tell you what. I betcha’ I know the number of times I had my dick sucked.”

 

Zu-Zu spat in his face. “You’re disgusting,” she said.

 

“Yep,” said Sterling Silver. “Now let’s get on with the show.”

 

“You bad,” I said. “Go ahead and do something.”

 

“Bad,” said Flukie. “Three syllables. B-A-D.”

 

“Shut up, Flukie,” said Sterling Silver. “This ain’t Romper Room.

 

“Damn–whatever happened to Romper Room?” Zu-Zu whispered. “That was a great show.”

 

“This bitch thinks she’s in Kansas with her dog Toto,” said Sterling Silver. “I can’t wait to do her.”

 

Flukie walked up and grabbed Zu-Zu’s tit, grinning from ear to ear.

 

“You so ugly you scared all the crows away,” Zu-Zu said.

 

The tallest elm trees kneeled and said a prayer for Zu-Zu.

 

TAKE THE “A” TRAIN

 

Flukie grabbed his crotch and stood in Zu-Zu’s face. “Oh, so you a livery-bitch,” he said. “How would you like to come service me? I’ll whip that weak ass into shape.”

 

Sterling Silver chuckled. “Look, Flukie. She can let it go, and, like dust, that rickety booty is gone with the wind. Chee, chee.”

 

“Enough talk,” I said. “Draw.”

 

Flukie searched his baggy pants for a pen or pencil or etch- sketch.

 

“Shoot,” Sterling Silver shouted. “Finish this kindergarten cop before I get mad and blow away Monk’s girl.”

 

“Draw,” I said.

 

“Smoke him,” said Sterling Silver.

 

“Draw,” I said.

 

“I ain’t got no papers!” Flukie cried.

 

Sterling Silver whipped Flukie with a coke stare. “What are you, caining or something? Take that boy out and smoke him!”

 

“See ya,” said Zu-Zu. She gave me that cheek-to-cheek comfort and then moved the crowd.

 

We stood silent in a triangle, each man beginning to backpedal, drawing lines with their feet.

 

THEME FROM THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY

 

It was early morning. We stood recklessly eyeballing one another, our hands covering our guns.

 

“This feels good,” said Flukie, the zipper open in his baggies, his big head surrounded by shadows under the armpit of a tree.

 

“What’s up with all this black?” said Sterling Silver, pointing his index finger at me as if it were filled with a shitload of mean bullets.

 

“Good guys wear black,” I said. “So why you wanna dog me out?”

 

“It’s the ho we want,” said Flukie. “Give us the ho and we’re outta here lickety-split.”

 

“With a quickness,” Sterling Silver added. “Otherwise, you’ll get a taste of these silver bullets.”

 

They took a few more steps back. I spread my cape and showed them my holster, running my fingers over the encased bullets like they were a line of condoms. “Shoot,” I said.

 

Sterling Silver squinted. Flukie started getting nervous, his hands sweating.

 

“Let’s go,” said Flukie.

 

“Why you sweating me?” Sterling Silver asked.

 

“No more talk,” I said.

 

The theme music played as we backed up even more, standing with our legs apart. Flukie started checking out me and Sterling Silver, his trigger-finger twitching, sweat on his brow, his clothes sticking to his skin, his Reebok Pumps leaving footprints in the dirt and mud and jacking him up to stand tall. He jerked on his penis some more to stay hard and cool.

 

“When the music stops, you niggahs are dead,” I said.

 

The theme music played. Sterling Silver stood where I could barely see him, his big lips singing Michael Jackson’s song “Bad,” his dark figure shaded by trees, his right leg crooked, his black belt sportin’ a silver buckle, his dirty hands moving over the buckle, his black hair cut into a V at the back, his teeth rotten. He stared around for a black hat. When he couldn’t find one, he pulled a bent silver spoon out of his shirt pocket and stuck it in his mouth.

 

“When the music stops, hasta la vista, babies.”

 

As the music played, I put a bubble gum cigar in my mouth and chewed on it, quickly working my way down to the butt. Flukie took off his doo-rag and used it to wipe his face, StaSof beginning to roll down the side. He wrung the rag for several minutes and then put it back on his head. He stood erect in muddy waters, acting like a laughing hyena to try to play off his nervousness.

 

“Watch where you shoot those silver bullets,” Flukie said to Sterling.

 

“Die, you dog!” Zu-Zu shouted from somewhere.

 

Flukie looked behind himself to see if there was a cemetery there, a tombstone marked “unknown.”

 

“What’s the girl name?” he asked.

 

I picked up a rock and wrote on it with a crayon. Then I threw the rock back down and opened my cape a little more, the butt falling out of my mouth, my eyes squinting, the musical chimes beginning to slow down, Flukie staring at the rock like it was gold, Sterling Silver covering his precious buckle and pretending to be Ready For The World singing “let’s get straight down to business.”

 

DAY-BREAKING BLUES

 

A fine-ass woman walked by tripping. “Can’t we have one day where there ain’t no fighting?”

 

SPUR OF THE MOMENT

 

“Thing,” said Zu-Zu. She was jealous. She saw the woman checking me out.

 

PEACE

 

“I ‘m outta here,” the woman said.

 

SO WHAT

 

“Nobody asked for your two cents anyway,” said Zu-Zu.

 

BLACK, BROWN AND BEIGE

 

As the chimes winded down, we felt for our guns–Sterling Silver’s face black, Flukie staring at the rock and wiping the glycerin off of his brown lips, Zu-Zu shouting that a gunfight would kill a light-skin niggah like me.

 

That’s what I liked about Zu-Zu. She was always looking out for me.

 

“It’s over,” said Zu-Zu. “You don’t stand a chance.”

 

“Be optimistic,” I said. The line was from The Sounds of Blackness.

 

“I like their concept!” Zu-Zu shouted. “Very positive! They got some strong black men and women!”

 

“Yep,” I said. I spat a chaw of gum out and let it hit my boots. I wished that it had been baseball card gum instead. It cost more, but the cigars were stale.

 

“Hubba-Bubba,” said Zu-Zu, “it looks like this is your last dance. I hear footsteps, niggahs scattin’. It’s all bop to me.”

 

“Boplicity,” I said. “These niggahs ain’t shit. The situation looks deeper than what it really is. It takes two to tango. Don’t make me over. Me and you got more bounce to the ounce. I can jam. When the popping starts, yoyo get funky.”

 

I threw Zu-Zu a weak shovel. “Dig,” I said.

 

“You talking to me?” Zu-Zu asked. Flukie pulled his hand out of his pants.

 

“Yep.”

 

“I can’t believe you,” said Zu-Zu. “You’re sugarfree. Instead of being a good guy, you acting like A Rage in Harlem. One minute, you’re nicey-nicey. The next minute, you treat me like my name was Slim.”

 

“Shut up, bitch!” said Flukie.

 

Sterling Silver cracked up again, breaking up into pieces, the spoon going shake-shake-shake in his mouth, his cheeks stretched out like he was the Joker. “Tell me,” he said, standing in the dark. “Have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?”

 

Here was a man who gave up being brown and beige.

 

DARN THAT DREAM

 

Black must have been all he ever wanted to be.

 

KOKO

 

Hot chocolate.

 

BODY AND SOUL

 

The mouse and the man.

 

RUDY A MESSAGE TO YOU

 

“Two sevens clash,” I said. “Things a come to bump. I’ll wear you to the ball. Rule them, rudie. [I pointed to the melee of cowhands surrounding Sterling Silver.] Be Prince of Darkness, but if you can live, if you can live, if you can live…pray for me, man.”

 

SILENT PRAYER

 

Sterling Silver refused to say anything else aloud. Flukie’s fingers started twitching. Zu-Zu sang “Trouble in Mind Blues.” I opened my cape some more, the gun and holster slinging up-and-down my hip. With the wind gusting–my pants flaring out, I could smell Flukie’s Brut cologne and musty armpits, the sweat rolling down the side of his chest, darkening his shirt and wetting the inside of his pants. The showdown was the climax. Flukie felt his gun withdraw. He reached down and pushed it forward. Zu-Zu ducked down. I spat again, as if to dedicate this gunfight to her. Zu-Zu wanted nothing to do with it. She gave me the finger, then began to polish her nails. Sterling Silver cracked up, his gun shaking and vibrating. Flukie couldn’t take it. He drew his gun. I drew my gun and fired a shitload of mean bullets. I heard bullets cussing and fussing and discussing who to fuck up as they went everywhere. Niggahs started crying and dying and falling to the ground like shredded leaves. Zu-Zu crawled into the brush and fell out, the talisman barely able to hang on to her little neck. The trees leaned over to get out of the way of pissed-off bullets. Pandemonium erupted. Ashy niggahs and dusties ran everywhere, forgetting about looking dap. Hot shells played pepper with chicken legs. Sterling Silver’s gun licked his lips like Colonel Sanders taking part in Custard’s last stand. I saw wooden spears go flying by my big head, rapper Tony Scott and Zulu Nation trying to get people to stop the violence. While black people did their war dance, Flukie darted over to the brush, tore the talisman off Zu- Zu’s neck and dragged her pretty head away. I kept trading bullets with Sterling Silver like they were basketball cards. I stopped for a moment to ask him if he had any bubble gum. He hesitated. It was as if he was thinking I’ll-trade-you-Kareem- for-Magic. Kareem, of course, was a playground legend at nearby Power Memorial High when he was Lew Alcindor, but Magic would undoubtedly end up being a collector’s item; it seemed like niggahs had to have it in order to survive AIDS, gang-bangin’ and all that jazz. Zu-Zu screamed for help. She clung to a condom while Flukie shredded her blouse, Zu-Zu reaching back for anything she could grab and hold on to. She uprooted small trees and plants, creating a trail of leaves and murdered flowers. With his gun out of bullets, Flukie stared at Zu-Zu’s breasts like they were milk duds only good for suckers. He yawned when he realized that her nipples were no bigger than a penny. She stuck a root in his mouth. He chewed it until rootbeer dripped out. I aimed my gun at Flukie and tried to smoke him, but I ran out of bullets; they wanted no part of the blood and took off. Sterling Silver cracked up. He thought it was funny. He kissed my bullets goodbye as they crawled away. His dirty skin looked like an earthquake had hit it. He shot at my head. I kneeled down and begged for forgiveness.

 

“Pardon me,” I said. “My behavior was inexcusable. I was neglected as a child, so I never learned to respect others.”

 

Zu-Zu was still screaming.

 

“Take her away!” Sterling Silver shouted. Flukie smacked her, then dragged her off, Zu-Zu’s face bleeding lipstick.

 

“God,” I said. “You are the man. Help me.”

 

Sterling Silver squeezed harder on his gun. “You think I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth?” he asked. “What makes you think God is a he? He could be a she. After all, if God was a man, why would he let us fight and kill each other like this?”

 

“The Lawd works in strange ways,” I said.

 

“Fuck that,” said Sterling Silver. “We the ones smokin’ one another. It’s called survival. It’s a jungle sometimes. It makes me wonder how I keep from going under.”

 

He walked up and pushed me in the chest.

 

“Don’t push me,” I said, “cause I’m close to the edge. I’m bout to [pause] lose my head.”

 

Sterling Silver pressed his gun against my big lips and fired.

 

YOU’RE NICKED

 

He cracked up. I looked at him, blood running down my chin tripping and shit.

 

“Jesus!” I said.

 

He stuck the gun inside my mouth and ordered me to suck on it.

 

“Jesus!” I shouted.

 

He kicked me in the crotch, put his finger on the trigger and mumbled “pop go da weasel.”

 

I heard one shot. I closed my eyes and thought “Adios, Amigo.” When I opened them, I saw Sterling Silver sprinting away, busting out. Even his gun was laughing, smoke coming out of his mouth.

 

I stayed on my knees until I finished my prayer. “Thank you, God,” I said. “But if you were really a woman, you would have taken that gun away from him.”

 

As I watched Sterling Silver take off, I thought about something Zu-Zu once said: “Man is the shuttle, to whose winding quest and passage through these looms God ordered motion, but ordained no rest.”

 

I GO CRAZY

 

“Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Will Downing…”

 

I sat down at a table in the park and reminiscenced about the time me and Zu-Zu snuck through the back door of a jazz club, bogarted our way through a waiting line, sat down at a non- smoking table and had candlelight dinner with white wine. Zu-Zu had black velvet and said that she never felt so good.

 

When we left, Zu-Zu stole the China plate for a souvenir. I swiped two cloth napkins, a wine glass, the incense burner and a long black candle.

 

“Put the candle back,” Zu-Zu said when we got up from the table.

 

“What for?”

 

“I don’t like it.”

 

That was vintage Zu-Zu. She was forever sensitive. She dedicated her life to discussing problems of women, color and money. She was always tripping, always resisting, always crossing the boundaries. Chops once said that the only way he could ever get Zu-Zu was if he whittled her down.

 

BLUES INSIDE AND OUT

 

Zu-Zu was 100% woman.

 

I lowered my head so low while thinking about Zu-Zu that I hit it on the table and cut a small bit of skin off the braille on my forehead. I sung “Heart-Breaking Blues,” now that Zu-Zu was gone.

 

JUST ME & YOU

 

DJ Herc has got it going on. He started playing a ballad by Toni, Tony, Tone, and scratching it, both deferring presence and reinforcing it by repeating the same line.

 

JUST ME & YOU

 

Ooo-o, baby. It’s just us two. I don’t need nobody else, Zu-Zu.

 

JUST ME & YOU

 

“Where you taking me!” Zu-Zu screamed.

 

“Just keep on walkin’,” said Flukie.

 

“What we had was good,” Zu-Zu said. She was thinking of both the time when she was free and when she was with me.

 

JUST ME & YOU

 

Niggahs around me are talking about the rumor that Mister Magic might play for New York and Knickerbocker coach Pat Riley.

 

“Bring back the days of Grover Washington Jr.,” I tell them.

 

JUST ME & YOU

 

“There’s fifty bucks in it for you if you just cooperate,” Sterling Silver told Zu-Zu.

 

“Money can’t buy you love, can’t buy you happiness,” ZuZu replied. “The best things in life are free.”

 

JUST ME & YOU

 

“Don’t worry about a damn thing,” I said, believing that somehow Zu-Zu could hear me.

 

JUST ME & YOU

 

“Whatever you want,” Zu-Zu said. Flukie has got his gun inside her skirt.

 

“Shut up unless you want to get a shot in the ass.”

 

JUST ME & YOU

 

Chops came running up out of nowhere and said that it was up to us now to get Zu-Zu back. [Break]

 

“Another Marley remix!”

 

HOLD ON

 

“To your love,” I said. I dedicated my life and my next move to Zu-Zu. Then I grabbed Chops and moved the crowd, Chops shouting that we were Batman and Robin in Gotham City.

 

“Somebody phone commissioner Gordon’s office,” I heard some crank say.

 

IF YOU’RE NOT PART OF THE SOLUTION, YOU’RE PART OF THE PROBLEM

 

I had to tell that buster off.

 

EASY DOES IT

 

Zu-Zu was getting a little annoyed with the way Flukie was handling her. She pulled away and showed him her tits and ass.

 

“Dickie’s dream,” she said.

 

“Lady be good,” said Sterling Silver.

 

“She ain’t nothing but ham n’ eggs,” said Flukie.

 

“I am what I am,” Zu-Zu said. She sounded like Gloria Gaynor singing “I will survive.”

 

They finally reached Monk at the Rumsey Playfield, and he checked her out closely.

 

“I want a little girl,” he said.

 

“Swell,” said Zu-Zu. “I’m about to be raped by Lester Young.”

 

He slapped her, and she spat in his face.

 

He pushed her down to the ground. “Since you like using yo’ mouth so much, why don’t you try this?”

 

He unzipped his pants and showed her his gun.

 

“You must be kidding,” Zu-Zu said. “I’m not your shoe shine boy.”

 

Monk did a moten swing but missed her. “You lucky,” he said. “Usually I never miss.”

 

Monk whistled through his fingers to summon his boys. Then he sat down and waited. He tried to make the mind and body one like Buddha.

 

FOUR AND MORE

 

Monk’s boys rushed in, carrying guns and poker cards, and sat down beside Zu-Zu. They roped her and gagged her mouth with a dirty bandanna.

 

“Suck me until I tell you to stop,” the bandanna told ZuZu. Zu-Zu sang a lonesome lullaby, hoping that Monk would go ahead and doze off since he was trying to reach the spirit world anyway.

 

Monk opened his eyes. “That’s not the kind of spirit world I’m trying to reach,” he said. He asked his boys if they hit the drugstore like he told them. They busted open three cases of Old Milwaukee and a carton of cigarettes. Monk grinned from ear-to- ear, then swung at the long ponytail of one of his boys.

 

“Boss, you missed,” said another one of his boys.

 

“So I did,” said Monk. “Tsk, tsk. What of it?”

 

Ben Hodges sneaked away, holding his big head, in order to get himself back together.

 

RUBBER NECK

 

As we run through the park, me and Chops feel our heads wobbling as if they were on necks made of latex.

 

“You think we’ll ever find her?” Chops asked.

 

“Be optimistic,” I said. I couldn’t help wondering where Chops had been all this time.

 

Chops couldn’t run for long. He stopped to listen to a fat lady singing. “It’s over,” Chops said. “We’re too late.”

 

“Shut up and run!” I shouted.

 

“I’m dead,” Chops said.

 

I snatched his big head and tossed it forward. “Run,” I said.

 

Chops sighed. “I’m tired of running,” he said. “You go ahead.”

 

I called him a “rudie.” Then I moved the crowd without him.

 

MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE RANCH

 

Monk and the boys sat around and played poker like they were waiting for Loop Garoo Kid to ride out of the sunset from Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down. As legend tells it, the infamous Loop was a bullwhacker so arrogant and unfeeling that he would stamp “ship to Thailand” on the rears of virgin women, then demand their coin for postage.

 

Loop was an icon for Monk, but an anti-hero for Zu-Zu. “Why don’t you just get on with it?” she asked. They readied themselves like musicians in a jazz set, home on the range.

 

Monk poked out his lips to play alto sax. Flukie was on the serpent, his hands inside his pants. Sterling Silver on bass, booming in Zu-Zu’s face while talking yin-yang (Chinese principles of good and bad borrowed from Confucius). Ranchhand Arthur Walker on dumb-piano, standing silent behind the rest of the homeboys. Black cowboy Bill Pickett on guitar, plucking strands of Zu-Zu’s hair, his doggie Spradley eating dry Tang nearby. Cattle rustler Isom Dart did drums, musical glasses, nose-flute, Moog synthesizer, small-pipes, bazooka and glass harmonica. He tried repeatedly to go straight but was unable to give up his addiction to trying anything. Hodges got on the horn, talking fast between breaths and clutching his long rifle. Nat Love, better known as “Deadwood Dick,” liked virginals but agreed to take a mouth-organ.

 

Zu-Zu sat tied up like Mary Fields, a.k.a. Stagecoach Mary. She clenched her hands, making them shake like fists of fury.

 

The men all paused. They knew that they was looking good. They were holding on to their guns. Their hair was fierce. And, they saw themselves riding in Zu-Zu’s coach like it was a copus limousine.

 

Pickett restarted the action by snatching crumbs of caked-on makeup off Zu-Zu’s face.

 

“Leave it on!” Love demanded. “The more makeup and mascara, the merrier.”

 

Hodges called her “painted woman,” thinking he was clever. It wasn’t clever or even ornery, but the name stuck.

 

Zu-Zu spat in their faces. Monk walked over and swung at her.

 

“Boss, you missed,” said Dart.

 

“So I did,” Monk said. “Tsk, tsk. What of it?”

 

Love’s lips were bleeding. He dashed for a washcloth, blood falling to the ground.

 

“You popped him good, boss,” said Walker.

 

Monk threw a can of beer and spat in Zu-Zu’s face. “He’ll be back.”

 

The men all paused like they didn’t know if he would come back. Meantime, Monk realized that Zu-Zu had managed to spit and talk and sing with her big mouth gagged. He was pissed.

 

“Who put that weak bandanna over her mouth?” Monk asked. He untied the knot and threw the thing away.

 

“Give it back to me!” Zu-Zu shouted. “It’s dirty, but it’s good.”

 

The bandana cried tears of joy. “Look at me,” it said. “Did you see the way she sucked me? I’m all wet, and she wants me back. I don’t know what to say. I guess I’m all choked up.”

 

“You’ll be choked, period, if you don’t shut yo’ mouth,” Flukie said. He was always the violent one.

 

“Say you love me,” said Zu-Zu. She cut loose from the ropes and retrieved the bandanna.

 

“Silence, painted woman!” said Monk. He walked over and rubbed the bandanna against her face. “If you want the bandanna, you can have it. Wipe the makeup off your face before I steal your riches.”

 

“No!” Love screamed, running back to the gang. “Why give her the opportunity to be herself, a woman. Let her stay an artificial nigger. Love her the way she is, or leave her and let another man dominate her.”

 

Monk stretched his face and thought of “Teacher” back in Shaolin:

 

“Why the tonsure?” Monk asked.

 

His teacher tossed a porcelain saucer, making it skip along the surface of the drinking water in the well. “They want you to be like Mike,” he grudgingly said. “It is not my will, but rather the will of the school.” Teacher flung another plate, once again making it skip along the water before breaking on the ground.

 

“Why must I emulate Michael Jordan?” Monk asked.

 

“You cannot leave the 35th chamber until you do,” Teacher said. He threw a sword, making it skip along the water.

 

“But Teacher…”

 

“The goal of the 35th chamber is submission!” shouted Teacher. “If you cannot submit, then you must go!”

 

Monk kneeled by Teacher’s sandals. “Yes, Teacher. I beg forgiveness. I kissed the very ground you walk on. I shall do what the school asks of me.”

 

“Um.” Teacher hurled a little Japanese girl and made her skip along the water.

 

Monk opened his eyes and stood up. “That’s live!” Monk said. “How did you do that, homie?”

 

“This ain’t Kung Fu,” Teacher said. “Quit asking so many questions.”

 

Monk grabbed a piece of porcelain and glass, waving the sharp edges at Teacher’s throat. “Tell me, or I’m going to tell the school how many dishes you’ve broken.”

 

“Okay, okay, okay,” said Teacher. “But after I tell you, I never want to see yo’ face again.”

 

Monk sat back down while Teacher meditated and spat out the secret. “Speed, plus pressure, allows the object to skip, that is, pass over the waters.”

 

Monk rose and kicked Teacher in the shin. “Thanks,” said Monk. “I promise not to tell the school that you’re the nigger busboy they’ve been looking for.”

 

“Hey man, where you going?” Teacher asked.

 

“To Harlem!” Monk shouted.

 

“Haarlem in the Netherlands?” Teacher asked.

 

“In America!” Monk shouted. “I’m catching a ride with that honky Christopher Columbus!” Monk sprinted away to be a part of New York immigration.

 

SHOW ME THE WAY TO GO HOME

 

Walker wanted nothing to do with what he thought was going to be a cosmetic make-over.

 

“Follow the travelin’ light to Forty Second Street,” Monk said. When Walker turned away, Monk swung at him.

 

“Boss, you missed,” said Love.

 

“So I did,” said Monk. “Tsk, tsk. What of it?”

 

Dart was holding his crotch in pain. “What you hit me for?” he asked.

 

“I never liked you anyway,” Monk said. “You remind me of a busboy I once knew. Now shut up and tie her up real good. Speed, plus pressure, will only make matters worse. She’s deliberately trying to skip the torment. She’s spitting in our faces in hopes of making us mad so that she can’t be broken.”

 

The homeboys all looked at each other. “Did you give him the right pack of cigarettes?” Love asked Pickett.

 

“I gave him Kool,” Pickett said.

 

“Then why is he tripping like this?” Dart asked.

 

“What is this?” Monk asked. “A meeting in the ladies room? Hurry up and rope her before she gets loose! Brand her “government inspected,” then let’s move the crowd and herd some more young black girls before the other gangs corner the market!”

 

Sterling Silver ordered Flukie not to budge. “Our money first!” Sterling Silver insisted.

 

“I don’t owe you nothing!” said Monk. “Get going before you get hurt!”

 

“I’m going home to momma,” said Flukie. He took off.

 

“Look at that spook go!” The boys all laughed heartily, Monk busted up.

 

“We’ll be back,” Sterling Silver promised. He turned and chased after Flukie, Spradley barking at him.

 

“Let’s get out of here before those lugheads come back,” Monk said. “Hide the girl by the telephone pole and tall trees lined up over there. She should feel at home with all those dicks standing in line.”

 

Monk liked hangin’ with the homeboys because they always laughed at his jokes.

 

FEE FI FO FUM

 

Monk enjoyed being a giant. He strutted towards nirvana.

 

GIANT STEPS

 

Making impressions. Monk improvised his ascension. He was live at the village vanguard. He was Soultrane. Meditations. Africa/Brass. “One of my favorite things,” said Love “Supreme.”

 

Monk climbed a steep hill, yelling for the new DJ, Shep Pettibone, to remix his life. Pettibone started scratching Blue Magic and B B & Q’s “(I’m a) Dreamer” into Smoke City’s “Dreams” and “(We’re Living) In The World of Fantasy.” That’s how bad he was. The niggah could cut-up. He was better than Clivilles and Cole put together. He could jam on vinyl like Michael Jackson. He could take four Gemini 1200 turntables and mix them all at once, without using scratch or brake pads. As Angela Bofill would say, the boy was “too tough.” Shep was the only DJ that Monk ever liked.

 

“Let’s go,” Monk said. He wanted to see his boy spin. Off in the distant horizon, Pettibone broke out with a megamix.

 

“This stuff is really fresh…”

 

SINGLE LIFE

 

“I’m living the single, single, single–life!” I kept running, despite the fact that I was all by myself, in search of Zu-Zu. I could hear the DJ flipping the tracks like it was nothing.

 

JUST A TOUCH OF LOVE

 

“All I want to do before we leave is feel her breasts, see if she’s a milk-giver,” said Nat Love.

 

ALL AROUND THE WORLD

 

“I can’t find my baby.” I was frustrated.

 

NO ONE’S GONNA LOVE YOU

 

Zu-Zu spat in Love’s face.

 

“When did you first spit on a niggah?” Pickett asked. “Do you remember the time?”

 

“Send me forget-me-nots,” said Zu-Zu, “to help me to remember.”

 

PUMP IT

 

A brother cheered as I raced past him.

 

U CAN’T TOUCH THIS

 

Zu-Zu spat in Pickett’s face. “To Sir with Love,” she said.

 

CONTROL

 

“I need her alive,” said Monk.

 

CAN’T STOP

 

I told an old man, “I’m looking at you, you’re looking at me.”

 

The old man chuckled. “I’m walking down the street watching ladies go by, watching you.”