Chicago Hustle (11 page)

“We'll try to see what we can arrange.” Jackson smiled pleasantly at him in the rear-view mirror. “Yeahhh, we'll try to see what we can arrange.”

The weeks in the county jail, the filth of it, the sight and sound of the homosexual assaults on the younger, more innocent prisoners, the clanging of steel doors, the involved legal language, the torture of not really knowing what was going to happen flashed through Elijah's mind as he stood in front of the crusty-headed old white man in his black robes.

He had resisted Leelah's pleas to get a “good Jewish lawyer,” somebody that Browney the Fence had recommended, decided instead to have a brother defend him.

“'Ey mon,” Nick the Geech had warned him during a visit, “you'd best be dahmed careful ya don't get forty years with the brother defendin'.”

Elijah had laughed at him and kept the faith. Now he was at the moment of truth, the point where all the legal hassling gave way to the decision that the judge would make.

“I hereby sentence you to a term of one year and one day in the county jail,” came to him as though someone were speaking through a foghorn.

“Bailiff, remove the prisoner, next case!”

A year and a day. A year and a day. A year and a day … Elijah muttered in his mind being led away, smiling sickly at Leelah crying, Nick the Geech, Big Toe, Zelma, Precious Percy and three other fringe members of their circle who had decided to brave the daytime in order to see him sentenced.

His lawyer gave him a soul shake and a pain-filled look. “Sorry, blood … I did the best I could.”

“I ain't got no complaints, man,” Elijah spoke between clenched teeth, on the verge of tears … not because of the year and a day itself, but because he was going to have to do it in the lousy ass county jail.

He sat over in a corner of the bullpen casually studying the weirdos, the diamond-hard cliques, the homo triangles, the chess game that seemed to have started from the day he was brought in, nine months earlier.

Nine months. Elijah slumped down on the wooden bench, feeling gritty under the arms from not washing, a strong crotch funk floating up to his nostrils.

Nine months in the county jail. He turned his attention back to his fellow inmates, avoiding the seductive looks of a couple drag queens … nine months in the county jail, dead time, nothing to do but scrounge, scheme, connive and sit up in the bullpen listening, looking, thinking.

“Hey man, you got a cigarette?”

Elijah looked up into the face of the figure in front of him and almost answered, automatically, no, buy your own, motherfucker. But, in a moment of compassion—like, after all, the dude was just a simple alimony hostage who didn't know his ass from a hole in the ground—he flicked him a cigarette from his pack … what the hell. The man took the cigarette, nodding gratefully, lit up and stood near Elijah puffing deeply.

“Wowwww, sho' feels good to smoke, 'specially when you ain't done it in a li'l while.”

Elijah frowned at the late middle-aged black man, turning him off. He had enough to think about, the last thing he needed was the clammy friendship of a dumb sap doing bad time on an alimony beef. The man made a few more hesitant attempts at conversation and then wandered away after receiving no encouragement.

Elijah looked at his back, a dozen descriptions of what he thought of the man swelling up in his head. Mark. Chump. Sucker. Sap. Asshole. Fool. In jail for non-payment of alimony. Shit! the chump had probably been supporting some jiveass bitch for days, missed two payments and she had gotten him locked up, incarcerated, as they said in the joint.

He stared at the man's back as he took his place on the fringe of a circle of dudes arguing, jawing at each other, as usual. What else was there to do in the county jail, after the watery oatmeal, crusty toast and slimy coffee?

“All I'm sayin' to you, stupid ass, ignunt motherfucker, is that, in order to believe the truth, you have to first hear it, and I'll bet you two cartons of cigarettes against your grimy asshole that you wouldn't recognize the truth if you heard it, simply because you've never been told anything but lies, all your black ass life!”

Elijah slumped a little lower on the bench, tired of the sounds of the eternal discussions, debates, that started from the time they were clanged awake 'til the time they were told, “Lights out, beddy bye!”

“I know what the truth is, chump,” a bass voice thumped back at the other voice. “The truth is … listen to me! goddamn it! don't be standin' there playin' with your nuts and lookin' all smug!”

“I am listenin' to you. I can play with my nuts if I want to, they mine!”

The group of men in the circle around the two men laughed, subconsciously thankful that anyone could provide them with some kind of outlet.

The two debaters, recognizing jailhouse debating etiquette, paused to allow the cynical laughter to die down.

“Awright, here is the truth. Damned near every one of us in here is a hostage of the state.”

“A what? What's that you say, brother?” a voice deep in the circle called out for clarification.

“I said that damned near every one of us in here is a hostage of the state. The reason why, mainly, is because we, us black folks, have never realized, not since they lied to us and told us we were free, that we were being conditioned to be slaves in another kind of way.”

Elijah glanced across the large enclosure at a small, tightly knit group of motorcycle club members, the Nazi Brother Group, someone had nicknamed them. The group turned red in the face collectively as they attempted to ignore the black speakers.

Elijah decided to join the circle around the speakers.

He slouched with a cigarette in his jibbs, a cynical attitude showing for all to see. The same old bullshit. Every monk in the cell had been a major league player out in the world, every holdup man had been a bank robber, all of them were innocent.

The talk was so often lost in the stars, abstractions poured out by semi-literate mack men.

“The only difference between you and him, between you and the upper echelon rip-off artist, who is the white boy, don't make no doubt about that! you unnerstand! The only difference between you and them is that they've convinced and conditioned your black ass to a certain level!

“Dig it!” The speaker, a bull-voiced toad of a black man, with biceps running all up behind his neck, flung his arms out to have his statements embrace the whole group. “Do you realize how devastatin' the white boy's game has been on your ass!? huh!? do you!? Are you aware, brother?! are you aware that we got geniuses standin' 'round here, right now! motherfuckers who be standin' out on corners dealin' with mo' complications, mo' bullshit and I don't know what all, than the average college boy ever dreamed of?”

The man speaking opposite him attempted to pop back in, on an ego trip more than anything else.

Elijah felt surprised to hear his voice joined to those who shouted the ego tripper down. “Be cool, man! Let brother speak on! brother speaks well!”

The bull voice looked around the group with a cold glint in his eye, hard to tell whether he was trying to dish out sincere info, or play the new game.

“When I say that we all are hostages of the state, what I mean is that because they've never had any categories for the various sections of streetologists, which takes in most of us, we wind up doin' shit that is declared illegal, but actually is shit that they be doin' legally, and gettin' away with it! Now what I'm sayin' to you, about truth, is this! As an element of nature and consequently, one of being, is this!”

Elijah wandered away from the group, back over to his corner, a slightly irritated frown on his brow.

It never failed. No matter how much sense some of the jailhouse debaters seemed to be making when they started off; somehow, to his mind, they always seemed to veer off somewhere.

The brother did have a point, though, he admitted to himself as he slumped back down into his spot. Yeahhh, the brother did have a point … they
were
hostages. He had two points. They were also conditioned like hell to stay where they had been programmed to be. He smiled, in spite of the sadness he felt settle over him. “Conditioned to be slaves in another kind of way.”

Yeahhh, they were slaves all right. New World slaves in another time, another dimension, playing the same old games.

The sounds from the men across from him became noises. He nodded to himself, as though agreeing to something someone had said. That was the other thing about the whole business.

No matter how logically they started off, it always seemed to degenerate into some kind of formless merry-go-round, something like a group of pick-up conga drummers in the park who refused to play together because they feared success.

No wonder niggers have such a helluva hard time gettin' it together … we all afraid that we'll lose our whatever it is we got to lose if we get together.

Elijah looked at one of the drag queens filing his nails and thought about his woman Leelah, and Dee Dee, and Mabel Stewart. He crossed his legs, trying to push his hardening jones down between his thighs, to keep his thang cooled out, like, after all, three more months was a pretty good piece of time to remain unfucked. Three more fuckin' months! He found himself wishing that they had laid a case on him strong enough to stick him into the penitentiary anyway.

The penitentiary was clean, the guards were long-winded civil servants doing time along with the cons, looking forward to a vacation every year and a pension at the end of thirty-five years on the job.

“Could I get another one of your cigarettes, brother?” the alimony man asked politely, trembling from his nicotine addiction.

“Buy your own cigarettes, motherfucker!” Elijah bristled up at him, wanting, for some reason, to kick the square in the ass.

The man backed off, startled to find the generous type that he had conned out of a cigarette a short time ago so mean and evil.

Elijah uncrossed his legs and enjoyed the feeling of having his dick swell up along the side of his thighs.

Three more fuckin' months. Ninety more days. He uncoiled himself to wander over to the drinking fountain, and back to the edge of the circle, two more speakers scuffling with each other's logic, or lack of it.

Oh well, what the hell … who knows? somebody might lay something on me that I can use when they cut me loose.

Wonder what Leelah's doing? Haven't heard from her in three weeks now.

An endless parade of bowls of watery oatmeal, dried-out toast and slimy coffee-days slid back and forth in front of Elijah's eyes.

Why in the fuck don't they come on and cut me loose? As he restlessly wandered around the bullpen, it seemed that his fellow inmates were constantly bumping into him, getting in his way, causing him to be pissed off about one thing or another.

“Baker! Barker! Brookes! Burns!” the guard bellowed out to a suddenly silent group of men.

Elijah tossed his cigarette pack over into the alimony man's lap and gathered his shoebox bull of belongings together.

“Thanks, man,” the alimony man called out to him, hating him for being freed.

“Brookes, Elijah?”

“Righteously!”

“Don't be funny, asshole,” the guard spoke in a monotone, checking names off on his clipboard.

Elijah kept a straight face, his armpits suddenly damp from nervous perspiration. Anything! Anything! anything at all, Mr. Guard! just please let me out of this terrible fucked-up hole! Let me out of this open shithouse with all the do-do running down the dank, gray, institutional walls, filled with the scratchings 'n scribblings of a thousand penned-up minds. Let me out, please, let me out, please …

“Okay, you dudes are being processed for release, follow me.”

The four men followed the guard and his precious clipboard through one clanging, barred gate after another.

Funny, Elijah thought, as they came into the administration section, all clean and sterile. Funny that the only dudes getting out with me are last-named B. Ohh well, what the hell! I'm getting out! damn coincidences.

Look out streets! here I come!

CHAPTER 6

Elijah braced himself up on his knuckles and stared down into the woman's face.

What difference did it make that it wasn't Leelah, or Dee Dee? What difference did it make? pussy was pussy.

He studied the contorted expression on her face. Was she in pain, or did it feel good?

He “smiled … had it been that long? so long that he couldn't tell whether or not he was causing a woman pain or pleasure?

He frowned, studying her expression more closely under the dim blue bulb … yes, it was pleasure. What bitch wouldn't feel pleasure snatching a nigger's nuts out of the sand that had been dragging as long as his had.

She looks a li'l bit like Mabel. Wowwww! the thought jarred his movement to a sudden stop. Mabel …

For the first time since they'd picked each other up in the Swan Song, she asked him a question. “What's the matter, baby?”

“Nothin', ain't nothin' wrong”… he answered her lamely, revving himself back up to a slow jelly, trying to come again.

Nawwww, ain't nothing wrong, Momma … nothing at all. I just got out of the slams, my true blue lady didn't come for me, and ain't where we used to be, my gritty-nitty girlfriend is shacked up with a jealous card player, one half of my so-called friends don't know me and the other half don't want to know me … like, what good is a player with no play?

He jacked the tempo of his movement up and gently curled the woman's thighs up over his hips … she responded to his movement with a belly dancer's thrust of her pelvis.

Wowwww! this bitch really knows how to fuck!

“Uhhh, what's your name?”

The woman went slack for a moment and then tightened up all over him laughing.

Her laughter was so contagious that he found himself caught up in it, each muscular contraction of her stomach forcing him closer to a climax.