And I don’t fucking look back …
PART I
THE CRIMES IN QUESTION
When citizens destroy neighborhoods because of rage and we are asked to “understand” and “sympathize,” what we are being asked is to have compassion for rage. Well, what about the rage of the cops who see their efforts thwarted daily by a system that returns an endless parade of human debris to the streets to commit more crime?… How about a little “understanding” and “sympathy” for them and what they face every day? At present, there is less than one chance out of a hundred that a criminal who commits a serious crime will serve time in jail. Law-abiding people are fed up with this.
—RUSH H. LIMBAUGH III,
THE WAY THINGS OUGHT TO BE (ABRIDGED)
Augustine Clark, a.k.a. Augie
December 6, 1993 • 9:18 p.m.
1
I’m standing on the corner of Josephine and Long Beach Boulevard saying to myself how I need to walk eight houses down Josephine or I’ll die. And right then is when this earthquake goes off inside me. It bends me in half. Feels like my bones are breaking from the inside. I got to use the sidewalk to hold myself. I got to put two hands on concrete and it’s cold and I’m looking like I’m trying to be an animal on all fours.
These earthquakes I got are major. Every one’s like a mouth in the middle of my body trying to eat what’s left of me. And this one’s swallowing me up.
It lets me go and I know I need to be moving before another comes. I wipe my nose on my shoulder when I feel wetness going down my lip and I’m real glad when I find it’s not blood.
A car rolls up slow. Lights hit me in my eyes and I flinch out of them. It’s got the windows down and some girl singer’s singing out the speakers. I can hear it. But I can’t tell the words.
“The fuck’s wrong with this fool? He’s got them malias or what?”
I hear that from the driver. And then he’s gone. The lights too.
Me and him both know how this’s no neighborhood to get caught in being dope sick. South of the new 105 like this? Off Long Beach like this? This is gangtown shit. After dark? That’s asking for bad things to find you.
And I sure as hell’d not be here if I had other types of options.
But this is what happens when you sleep for a day and a half and you wake up and you need fixing up worse than you ever needed anything.
I feel the next earthquake coming in shaky at first. Like a little aftershock. So I lean on a wall I got next to me and ride it out like I’m in a storm. I’m five houses down now. Almost there. Holding a wall and looking like I’m trying not to get picked up by some hurricane winds.
The smell of beef comes at me. Meat. It’s Tam’s. Or it’s Tacos Mexico. And my stomach’s acting like it’s grabbing on that just to mess with me. The earthquake right after is the worst one ever. So bad I think I’m gonna scream right there.
I would. But it wouldn’t make the pains better. And it wouldn’t fix this calling I got inside me. The calling’s more major than major.
It’s above the pain. Around it.
The calling pushes my steps and I fight right through some type of spaz move that makes my legs go sideways but I somehow keep walking. I’m used to these pains. I hate them. But I know them. And always the calling’s on top of me. It’s a need. Up there with breathing.
I worked nights in the port. Till my accident. I know how the night sounds of the boats go. And these feelings are like the front ends of foghorns. All up. No down. Not beeeee-uhhhh. Just like a beeeeeee that trails off. That’s how dope calls me. How it keeps calling me. How it’s out there in the night and telling me to come to it. Telling me if I get there I can keep floating after.
And that’s what makes me get to this door right now. And knock on it. I know better than to do it at night. Than to do it here. But I got to. It’s do this or die. It’s talk to Scrappy or die. That’s what my stomach’s saying. What my brain’s saying. They’re both agreeing on how I got no options left.
So I knock on the metal screen door and it rattles and then I lean all over the house and tell it to hold me.
* * *
The first person opening the door is a little kid. A boy with no shirt on. Behind the screen I see him with a popsicle in his mouth and he blinks at me.
That’s when I hear somebody shouting, “No!” and coming at us from the living room.
And me and him both know how he’s in trouble for opening the door at night. And the little boy turns in time to catch a swat across his butt from Scrappy.
Scrappy’s looking pissed too. Only in a T-shirt and shorts. No bra. But she got a game face on. All types of anger come at me through the holes in the metal screen.
“Bitch, get on,” she says. “I got nothing for your hype ass.”
She slams the door in my face. I feel the air from it hit me and I know then that this’s what it feels like when you’re drowning and somebody motors up to you in a boat and looks at you sinking and then rides off.
It’s fucking humiliating. It’s sad. It’s embarrassing. It’s everything at once.
But then another earthquake hits me and nothing else matters.
Fuck Scrappy. I decide that right now. I’m here. I’m gonna do whatever till she comes out. I don’t even care. You kill me? Fine. You’re putting me out my misery.
I go to the window and start tugging on that wood shutter it’s got attached. I’m yanking on it. I’m putting my weight on it. And it makes this goddamn terrible sound. This sound that’s like teeth scraping when one of the hinges decides to break out of the stucco.
I feel bad about that. I do. But I keep going.
I see bodies through the white curtains at the windows and then the curtains open. And it’s got to be Scrappy’s mother or whatever. And it’s Scrappy behind her looking horrified and telling me to get the fuck out with her eyes but knowing I’m not about to. Knowing I’m all the way in and she better deal with me before I fuck shit up for her worse.
Right then I fake like I’m about to upchuck everywhere. Like I’m about to be Scrappy’s big problem if she leaves me out here. She sees in my face how I’ll be on this lawn all night. I’ll use her mom’s bushes like a bed. And maybe I’ll be there in the morning to deal with. I’ll either be dead and she’ll need to call an ambulance and have authorities through here and answer questions or just run my ass out right now.
We have this moment right after another earthquake hits me and I got to stare at her grass and how it’s had no water in weeks. How it’s mostly dirt. And then I look up and we stare at each other and we both know how we hate each other but we know how it goes.
This’s the game. I need something bad. So bad I’ll do whatever has to be done for it. She knows that and she knows she has what I need to get fixed up. And she knows she better give it to me because I definitely got nothing to lose. I’ll fuck her whole house up from outside. What’s she gonna do? Call some sheriffs?
She points at me and slings her arm like she wants me to go across the street and then she pulls the curtains closed fast and I walk back a little.