Kill Kill Faster Faster (9 page)

C
linique’s mother saw the name Clinique on a jar in a house where she was cleaning, and liked it.

People called him Clink for short, had his whole life. The perfect irony, Clink wound up in the clink when he was sixteen years old for two murders on a street corner in East New York, Brooklyn, his old neighborhood.

It was a contract job, some kind of drug double-cross payback time, but the thing was when the double-crosser, this guy on the corner, went down, a four-year-old kid was killed too, the guy on the corner was holding the baby, his baby, and the execution went down anyway, the shooters shooting through the little kid to get at their target, and according to him, to Clinique, him and his brother, Olay, was the logical choice, the two biggest niggers on the block, so the cops just went after them, nevermind who really did it, made the cops’ lives so much simpler, wrapped the case up quick, and who cared? Clinique and Olay? Their mother? The cops never gave it or them a second thought. That was the reality of being the biggest niggers on the block in East New York.

Olay was a year older than Clinique, and, according to Clink, an inch taller.

I never seen him, although I’d read his letters. Clink showed them to me. They came on a periodic basis. They were both into letter writing. They both drew life without parole even though neither had been arrested before. Olay was serving out at Attica. They was never, ever in the same institution at the same time.

I asked after Clinique:

So you didn’t do the crime?

I’m doing the time, so I must’a done the crime.

We looked at each other.

Eventually I told him about Kim, spilled my guts about my brown wife, even though he never asked.

He listened, got all solemn, asked me why I done it.

I said I didn’t remember killing her. I had only a vague recollection. I remember beating the shit out of her lover, pathetic little sunk-chest freckle-dick bastard that he was, but I don’t remember killing her.

He said, Didn’t have nothing to do with her being a Negro, did it?

There are guys in the lockup who couldn’t live nowhere else. You know what I’m saying. They like it being incarcerated. Three meals a day, a clean well-lighted place, a bed to sleep, friends of a kind, plenty of enemies cut out your heart for a pittance, like a family.

It came around to eventually where Clink stepped in, made a proposition, I look out for him, he look out for me. Make both our lives easier.

He had respect.

He published the lockup newsletter,
Tales from the Crypt.
No one messed with him.

What Clink really was in love with was poetry.

Clink call himself a poet.

Poor naive, self-delusioned Clink.

You want to be my bitch or you want to be someone else’s bitch, bitch?

Poor determined, self-educated, self-motivated Clink.

He wrote every day. His poetry was so bad. So bad. But it was his and it idled away the days for him and it gave him a sense of accomplishment, he took it really seriously, and it excited him, and every once in a while he hit it, I got to admit that. He would read it out loud to me in the yard or in our cell after he finished writing it. I didn’t pull no punches, I shot from the hip, told him his writing was shit, but at the same time I never once discouraged him, I always encouraged him. Always said he was a lucky man to have what he had. He took a lot out of calling himself a poet, a writer, and doing it every day. Never forgetting it or letting it slip. There was nobody in that institution going to take that away from him.

A lot of men thought of him as a hero.

You want to be my bitch or you want to be some other asshole’s bitch, bitch?

He said, How you fuck up your life so bad, Joster? How you do that?

He shook his head, said, Me, I didn’t have no choice. The hand of destiny come down and whisk me away. But you, you a white man, you had everything going for you, and you act like an asshole, and look where you is. You is fucked and you is cooked and you is over. Lest you do something about it.

And what am I going to do? I says.

You can sit here and you can make a decision like I made a decision and you can decide you ain’t going to let them have you, you can improve yourself and accomplish something.

He wanted me to start writing my own self.

He couldn’t believe when I said I went to college, even if it was only general studies.

Didn’t know what the fuck general studies was until I explained it to him. Community outreach.

Then he just grinned, whistled.

He said, College, man. He said, White man’s college. He said, I can close my eyes and picture that. He said, I like that.

Kneel down, bitch.

What you do in that college, man?

I told him. I told him, Fuck all.

He recited his poetry to himself, nodding his head, repeating softly, his poetry, poetry, poetry.

Finally he come out of his reverie, come out of it, his music, look at me, raise his head to meet my eyes, his eyes dancing, glowing, says, So there is poetry and poetry is good.

So tell me again what you do in that college, those classes, man.

I told you, nothing. Not shit. I had a scholarship. I had no idea about anything. I was a lost soul, trying to get away from myself, trying to find out what was what, but I never found out.

No, he said, you found out how to be a drug addick and a murderer.

That’s right.

Oh man, oh man, he said. You is one pathetic white boy. You be sitting there on top of the world, you had it made, the privileged class. You made it, you didn’t even know it.

I knew it, I said. I knew it and I knew I didn’t like it. I knew I didn’t belong. I wasn’t from their class. They didn’t want me there. Don’t you know people like us, we don’t have no rights, Clink. We don’t belong. The world’s a rich man’s game. Sure, every year they pick their one or two, their chosen people, but that ain’t us. That ain’t our fate. You don’t get it, do you, you don’t know nothing about social class? You a black man, look where you is, man. You don’t belong in this world, there ain’t no room in this world, not for you, not for me. That’s the lesson I learned at fucking college.

Clink looked at me like I was crazy. Lucky you had your scholarship then, he said. Would have been a shame you have to pay for that shit, waste all that bread. His eyes was liquid and it was like through his eyes you could see into his brain and see the wheels and cogs working.

He said, You are an asshole, Joey. You know that. He said, They didn’t let you into that college for nothing.

I said maybe.

He said, Why don’t you start writing, quit wasting your time. Why don’t you try write some poetry or something? Write some articles for the paper. It do you good. As it is, he said, you got the death penalty on you. He said, Your life here, right where you is, is a death penalty. Don’t let them do that to you.

I don’t remember the first time he kiss me, man.

It was bad business.

You so lonely. You so lonely you could die.

We was fucked.

You wind up in a situation like that, there’s no out.

He push me against the wall, his anger welling, he said, You had a black bitch, man, now I got myself a white one.

I said, I could kill you, man.

He said, No you can’t.

We come full circle. We go round and round.

He say, In the shower don’t let that man do that to you, he come after you, he kill you, you leave it like that. At the same time protecting me, and I don’t even know it.

I knew he was right and I went back.

I didn’t run when the screws come. I stood my ground.

They say, What happened? Who did this?

I shrug.

Clink hadn’t moved neither, he says, Man do it to himself, sir. He shit himself and choke up on his own vomit.

Screw looks at him. He shit himself on the face?

It’s the damnedest thing, sir. Damnedest thing I ever done seen.

I
’m a tough guy.

A tough guy.

A man’s sexuality, it builds and builds. It comes upon him in a rush. I been away too long. Too long of my life has been spent in lockup, in isolation, to function normally.

Girl, you listening?

Fleur? I’m trying to figure this out.

When it starts up it’s like search and destroy. You start up with me and you’re automatically the enemy. Nobody else in sight, you’re the enemy. You my searchlight, you my way out, you my threshold, my exit door. You the exit door.

What I want from you, Fleur? What I’m looking for? What do I have to lose?

It’s like nothing. Nothing to lose. I kill. I’m a killer.

Don’t try to stop me. Nothing out of bounds for me. I transgress all humanity and much of the animal kingdom.

I kill myself if necessary.

But I don’t want to kill myself.

When I see a woman I don’t think violence.

Believe me.

No. I think something else. I think sex. Something tender. That’s what I think.

Fleur, for whatever reason, you bring me back to where I come from, my roots. I don’t kill my roots. That ain’t like me. My roots is all-important. My roots is who I am.

Let me tell you something.

When I was away I thought about it. I really did. All that time to yourself. All them years in the lockup, you got time to ponder. Time to consider. Nothing but.

A man kill his wife.

A man murder his wife.

Action speaks louder than words, ain’t that what they say?

But what happened between me and Kimba, that was deeper than that, deeper than words, deeper than any action I might have taken. At least that’s what I tell myself.

No, what happened between Kim and me was personal, down deep and dirty, just between us. It was love gone awry, it was love gone hellacious and haywire.

I loved her.

I loved my wife.

I still do.

I loved my Kimba.

I loved her then.

I love her now.

I got two daughters with her. We got two daughters of our own. Two daughters together. All grown up now.

Once we were responsible together and now I’m responsible alone.

A child transforms your life. Children transform your life.

My children transformed me. Maybe not for good and maybe not forever.

What made me get involved with Fleur? What drew me to her?

I knew it was wrong.

Flowers? I’m calling out to you. I need you, girl. Flowers?

You have a code.

You have a moral code.

You have a moral code and you try to keep to that code. For whatever good. For whatever good it does you. The worst thing you can do is you start thinking about it. You start wondering. A code got to be inside you to do you good. If you got to think about it and weigh it and ponder it, if you got to consider—
Am I doing right or am I doing wrong?—
then it ain’t no good. Then you already lost.

Everybody knows that. Everybody knows.

M
arkie Mann walk into Joey’s office. Sit down.

Sit down like he own the place.

Like he own Joey.

Joey, he says.

Joey look up, says, Yeah?

Markie ask Joey Joey have any ideas yet about the lyrics
shark cut into the night
, has he jotted down any thoughts he might have had, what happening, where it going, where it might go,
shark cut into the night.

Joey shrug. Joey glare at Markie. Joey thinking he don’t like Markie very much, justify what he doing with Markie’s wife. The long and the short of it is Joey doing what he doing. He tell Markie he read over the lyrics a couple of times, mull them over, seem to him the story all there, within the confines of the lyrics that is, maybe he should hear the original song, Blades rendition, maybe give him some ideas, you know what I mean, he confused, what Markie want him to do, the story all there, right there, on the page, in the lyrics, what Markie want Joey to do exactly?

Markie say, You the writer, you tell me, boyo. That’s what I’m paying you for, that’s why I broke you out.

With a tone. Like Markie own Joey.

No man own Joey.

So go ahead, Joey, Markie says, tell me what you think.

I just did.

You just did what?

No one push Joey around. Joey a contrary spirit. Joey a contrarian. Like I said. Joey say, Whyn’t you give it over to you other writers, you staff writers, you intellectual hack writers, why you need me? Like that. You don’t need me.

Joey feeling something in his gut. Joey feeling something unsaid with Markie.

Joey have the guilt and the guilt color Joey’s response, how he respond.

Still and all, Joey cut Markie some slack. Joey ease off. No reason to be snide or snotty with Markie. Joey think to himself Markie doing his job. That’s all. Lot of responsibility sitting in the seat where Markie sit.

There tension in the room, across the desk, and they are both aware of it and into it and it is palpable. It is a palpable, thing, this tension between them, Joey One-Way and Markie Mann. After all, Joey in a love affair with Markie’s wife, Joey fucking Markie’s wife, and maybe Markie know it and maybe Markie not. Even though Joey think and pray it not.

Fleur.

Flowers.

The reality is, bottom line, Joey fucking the man.

Joey fucking Markie.

Joey fucking Markie with his wife.

Joey fucking Markie royally.

Joey fucking him and them.

Joey fucking him and them and all.

Sex with Fleur is crescendo. Instant crescendo for Joey One-Way.

He dream of her. He can close his eyes and feel her lips on his cock and he can see her dark eyes looking down at him, he can see her hair, and he can smell her cunt, her juices dripping in his mouth, and across the desk Markie be looking at him, and his look is inquiring and he is saying, Joey? Joey? Joey, you there? Joey, what the fuck?

Joey is that way. When you nail him down, when you put him on the spot, Joey’s back go up and he see red and he is hard to fathom. His vengeance is real and it is palpable, like I say, O my brothers, like a red haze. Joey not to be reckoned with when he feel corner, like a wild animal, Joey is tough in the clinches, he across the desk and his eyes are dead, but his spirit alive, and he smell her cunt and he wipe his mouth and his nostrils twitch and he say, Yeah, here’s what we do, Markie, shark, shark cross through the friggin’ night.