LITMIR.BIZ

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and hands shaking like old folk through to miss lady lawyer in her expensive suit, coming up from downtown to wait patient with the rest of them every Tuesday and, lately, Saturdays too. The street’s egalitarian that way. But they don’t tend to hang around after.

      This man just standing there, right on the steps of them abandoned tenements, looking about like he owns the joint. Maybe he does. Rumors going round that they aiming to gentrify Cabrini, but you’d have to be one crazy motherfucker to try that shit out in Englewood with these rundown shitholes.

      Mal doesn’t know why they even bother boarding them up no more. They all been long stripped of any pipe or brass handles or other Victorian whatnot. Broken windows, rotten floors, and whole generations of rat families living on top of each other; granny and gramps and mammy and pappy and baby-boo rat. So only the really hard-up tweakers would try their luck using ’em as a shooting gallery. Those places a wreck. And in this neighborhood, that’s saying something.

      Not a realtor, he figures, watching as the man steps down onto the cracked concrete, his shoes scuffing the faded hopscotch grid. Mal has already had his hit, the dope sitting in his guts, slowly turning them to cement. It takes the teeth off his day, so he’s got all the time in the whole world to watch some white man acting weird.

      The cracker crosses the lot, skirting the wreck of an old couch, walking under the rusting pole that used to have a basketball hoop attached ’til kids yanked it down. Self-sabotage, that’s what that is. Fucking your own shit up.

      Not police neither, way he’s dressed. Which is badly, in floppy dark-brown pants and an old-fashioned sports coat. That crutch under his arm speaks to a sure sign of someone who has gone spiked up in the wrong place and done themselves some damage. Must have traded his hospital cane to the pawn shops already to have ended up with that clunky old thing. Or maybe he didn’t go to hospital at all ’cos he got something to hide. There’s something wack about him.

      He’s interesting. A prospect, even. Could be the guy’s hiding out. Ex-mob. Hell, ex-wife! Good place for it. Could be he’s got some cash stashed in one of those old rat nests. Mal peers at the row houses, speculating. He could sniff around while the white boy’s out about his business. Alleviate him of any valuables that might be troubling him. No one the wiser. Probably doing him a favor.

      But looking at the houses, trying to figure which one he mighta stepped out of, makes Mal feel strange. Could be the heat rising off the asphalt giving everything the shimmers. Not quite the shakes, but close. He should have known better than to buy product off Toneel Roberts. That boy been dipping, for sure, which means he been cutting too. Mal’s stomach cramps like someone’s got their hand right up in there. A little reminder that he hasn’t eaten in fourteen hours and an indication, oh yes, that the dope’s been cut. Meantime, Mr Prospect is heading down the street, smiling and waving away the corner kids shouting out to him. He gives it up for a bad idea. Least for the time being. Better to wait ’til the white boy comes back and he can check it out properly. Right now, nature calling.

      He catches up with him a couple of blocks down. Luck plain and simple. Although it helps that the guy is staring at the TV in the window of the drug store, so hypnotized that Mal is worried he had a seizure or something. Not even aware he’s obstructing people’s way. Maybe it’s some big news. World war fucking three broke out. He sidles up to see, innocent as you please.

      But Mr Prospect is watching commercials. One after the other. Creamette’s pasta sauce. Oil of Olay. Michael Jordan eating Wheaties. Like he’s never seen someone eating Wheaties before.

      ‘You okay, man?’ he says, not willing to lose sight of him again, but not quite steeled up enough to tap him on the shoulder. The guy turns with such a ferocious smile that Mal almost loses his nerve.

      ‘This is amazing,’ the guy says.

      ‘Shit, man, you should try Cheerios. But you blocking traffic. Make some room for the people, you know?’ He gently guides him out of the way of a kid on rollerblades barreling down on them. His man stares after him.

      ‘Dreads on a white boy,’ he agrees, or he thinks he does. ‘Just can’t do it. How’s about that one?’ He pretends to nudge him with his elbow, not making actual contact, to indicate the girl with tits that God himself must have sent down from on high, barging up against each other under her tank top. But the guy barely looks at her.

      Mal senses he’s losing him. ‘Not your type, huh? That’s all right, man.’ And then, because the jonesing is already beginning to gnaw at him: ‘Say, you got a dollar to spare?’

      The guy seems to see him for the first time. Not like the normal white-man-glance-you-over neither. Like he gets him right to his core. ‘Sure,’ he says and reaches into the inside pocket of his jacket to pull out a bundle of banknotes held together with a rubber band. He peels one off and hands it over, watching him with the intensity of some rookie trying to pass off baking soda as the real thing, putting Mal on his guard even before he looks at the note.

      ‘You fuckin’ kidding me?’ he scowls at the $5,000 bill. ‘What am I supposed to do with this?’ He has his doubts now about this whole damn enterprise. Cracker is crazy.

      ‘Is this better?’ he says, and flicks through the bills to hand him a C-note, looking for his reaction. Mal is tempted not to give him the satisfaction, but hell, who to say he won’t give him another if he gets what he’s looking for. Whatever that is.

      ‘Oh yeah, this’ll do fine.’

      ‘Is the Hooverville still down by Grant Park?’

      ‘I don’t even know what you talking about, man. But give me another one of those and I’ll walk you up and down the whole park ’til we find it.’

      ‘Just tell me how to get there.’

      ‘Hop on the green line. Take you all the way downtown,’ he says, pointing to the El tracks visible between the buildings.

      ‘You’ve been a great help,’ the man says. To Mal’s dismay, he tucks the bundle back into his jacket and starts limping away.

      ‘Hey now, wait up.’ He breaks into a little jog to catch up with him. ‘You from out of town, right? I can be your tour guide. Show you the sights. Get you some pussy. Whatever flavor you like, man. Look out for you, know what I’m saying?’

      The guy turns to him, all friendly, like he’s giving him the weather report. ‘Leave off, friend, or I’ll gut you here in the street.’

      Not ghetto bluster. Matter of fact. Like tying your shoelaces. Mal stops dead and lets him go. Doesn’t fucking care no more. Crazy cracker. Better off not getting involved.

      He watches Mr Prospect limping down the street and shakes his head at the ridiculous fake bill. He’ll keep it as a memento. And maybe he’ll go back to those broke-down houses to have a poke around, while the guy’s gone. His stomach clenches at the thought. Or maybe not. Not while he’s still flush. He’ll treat himself. Blue caps. No more of Toneel’s inferior shit. He might even buy for his boy, Raddison, if he sees him. Why not? He’s feeling generous. He’ll make it last.

       Harper

       29 April 1988

      It is the noise that bothers Harper the most – worse than being huddled in the sucking black mud of the trenches, dreading the high whine that precipitated the next round of artillery fire, the dull thud of distant bombs, tanks grating and rumbling. The future is not as loud as war, but it is relentless with a terrible fury all its own.

      The sheer density is unexpected. Houses and buildings and people all crammed on top of each other. And cars. The city has been reshaped around them. There are entire buildings built to park them in, rising layer on layer. They rush past, too fast and too loud. The railroad tracks that brought the whole world to Chicago are quiet, subdued by the roar of the expressway (a word he will only learn later). The churning river of vehicles just keeps coming, from where he can’t imagine.

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