31.

Reymundo “Rey Rey” Salazar believed in the power of shine.

Painstakingly decked out in the finest gear, Rey Rey’s five foot four frame bobbed languidly on the corner decked out in crisp grey LRG jeans and the latest A Bathing Ape’s attention hungry hoodies. The severe angels of his birdlike jaw supported a pair of thirsty eyes and a stone chiseled grimace. His head moved to the beat of Mobb Deep’s “Trife Life” despite of his obvious indifference to his current situation. To him at that precise moment in time, rocking to the poetry of Prodigy’s flow was a mere formality, adornment as necessary as the ice on his ear and the platinum chain on his neck. They too were nothing more than pieces of wardrobe he slipped on like the shirt on his back.

Standing on the corner of Cleveland and Erie at three in the morning wasn’t enough for Rey Rey. With every throb of the bass, he wore the glow of probable cause with pride.

Being born into the rugged culture of Harmony projects taught Rey Rey about life as the target of suspicion, but it was the sting of the blunt handle of a patrolman’s pistol the first time he got rolled that schooled him in the futility of fighting it.

“It is what it is,” someone told him once. “Why the fuck fight it?”

Words that opened whole new worlds to the once fresh faced Reymundo Salazar, words the never came from parents or teachers. The same words that inevitably transformed an angry, naive young man with the potential in the world into the brazen, hard bitten soldier trying to keep warm on the corner in the middle of the night.

Back then, Rey Rey was intrigued by the power of developing a knee bending curve-ball. Now all he was concerned about was copping the freshest pair of dunks and the stash of crack cocaine he hid behind an empty tenement that, by the end of the night, would enable him to do so.

Rey Rey was a tout pushing for Jamal “Pastel” Perkins. His job was to stand outside key locations around the projects and rekindle to certain parts of the public a love affair with a special little something that they long thought lost. He was the pimp, the matchmaker and the lighthouse that would lead the most wayward of souls back to safe harbor.

All for a modest fee, of course.

Ever since the capes pushed the beast out of the projects during the fall of Harmony, this line of work was scarce and hard to come by. When word came down from the Heights that a new heavy was rolling into town and needed footmen, Rey Rey couldn’t pass up the opportunity. The lifestyle of his cousins before him made it impossible not to. A future bagging groceries at his uncle’s bodega couldn’t provide him the kind of glamour Rey Rey longed for.

He only regretted it for a second as he tried to breathe warmth into his numb fingers.

“Fuckin’ fiends,” Rey Rey blew into his hands. “Where they at when you really need ‘em?”

Rey Rey cursed not having cigarettes and the fact that he wasn’t addicted to them. They would’ve added that little extra juice to the thug image he so fervently fostered. They would’ve at least warmed him up a bit in the meantime.

With a quick flip of his cellphone, it was decided that it was finally time to cuts his losses and call it quits. He did have early classes to ditch after all.

After a barely audible curse at his luck, Rey Rey started his trek back to his ground stash.

It sure ain’t like this in the movies, he thought.

“Just wait ’til the real shit gets here,” Rey Rey told the empty streets. “I’m gonna be ballin’ for real.”

He crossed Huron St. without incident and wondered if last night’s sales were a fluke. Three days on the job and Rey Rey already worried if he was over the hill. One step onto W. Superior with The Diplomat’s “Crunk Musik” beginning its assault on his headphones, and a strange rattle stopped him in his tracks.

“Who’s there?”

Rey Rey turned around, stupidly hoping for a harmless customer to come stumbling out of an alley with a fistful of hundreds.

The rattle then became a series of rapid thumps, like sneakers slapping concrete. The sound surrounded him. Rey Rey’s head swung from one direction to the other, empty sidewalk to sleeping cars to darkened windows.

Nothing.

The echo of what he knew to be footsteps were replaced by the banging of his pulse in his ear. The adrenaline shot through his system, suddenly reversing his body temperature. He began to sweat inside his $400 hoodie.

“Yo, who the fuck’s there?!”

Rey Rey instinctively grabbed for the back of his jeans for a gun that he knew wasn’t there.

“I ain’t playin’ man!”

“Shhh…”

Rey Rey felt a whisper in his ear.

Nothing.

Rey Rey’s body twisted behind him expecting something along the lines of a pop followed by eternal darkness, the gangsta’s fate. He caught himself before he tasted pavement and booked it for his stash.

Rey Rey surprised himself with the speed of his retreat. He imagined himself at Wrigley Field wearing the pinstripes at the bottom of the ninth of a tied game stealing second. With each passing gallop, Reymundo Salazar suddenly regretted his choice more and more.

Pants halfway down his ass, Rey Rey grabbed at a street light and launched himself right down Chicago Ave. Hurtling back towards Harmony, his lungs in flames, Rey Rey thanked himself for not having cigarettes.

“Shit! Shit! Shit!”

When his sneakers felt the sensation of soft dirt, Rey Rey stopped and skidded on his knees. His hands dug furiously at the ground, fingers squirmed for the shape of his hidden treasure. Its bulk firmly in his shaking hands, Rey Rey yanked it out of the ground like the broken root of a tree, like his father did a million times before on the lawns of Chicago’s suburbs to put food on their table.

It was after he slammed the plastic baggie into his hoodie when Rey Rey realized that the sound of whatever was after him was gone.

As he sat there on his knees with enough weight on him to put him away for a very long time, Rey Rey held his breath and prayed.

“Padre nuestro, que estás en el cielo…”

Rey Rey felt that back of his skull crack. He felt weightless as he fell face first into the hole he dug with his own hands. The last image he would remember was that of a person not unlike himself shrouded in a ratty blue hooded sweatshirt relieving him of his cargo.

It was faceless and framed in the growing darkness of unconsciousness, faceless except for the grey bandana it wore over its mouth.

As Reymundo Salazar lapsed into slumber, the hooded sweatshirt leaned down to feel for a pulse before it worked its way into its victim’s jeans. It held Reymundo Salazar’s cellphone in his hand and examined it for a moment.

Satisfied by its bounty, the hooded sweatshirt gently turned Reymundo Salazar on his back and playfully patted him on the chest.

“Fresh gear,” it said.

Three days later, the hooded sweatshirt would appear again outside the Spy Bar for two more of Rey Rey’s associates.

Out in public and against higher numbers, the results would be the same.

The hooded sweatshirt’s confidence grew with each run.

And why shouldn’t it?

Its training was finally over.

The Cold Academy #5
“The Backpack Generation”
Part Five
by Jericho Vilar

32.

Khalil Caldwell sat silently on the stoop of his apartment. His gaze boiled inside the milky white of his eyes as they scanned the lifeless crater across the street. Nothing happened, nothing changed in the 18 years worth of sleepless nights he spent on that stoop. Nights he spent waiting, wishing, hoping for something to appear, bright and new, that wasn’t there the night before.

After the first three months, he was teased by the construction of wire fencing that circled the crater. Six months after that, his heat skipped a beat at the sight of earth movers and various other machinery littering the scalded soil. Two weeks of gut churning inactivity later, his soul was broken when, in the middle of the night, the one clear cut sign of progress disappeared from right under his nose.

Khalil Caldwell was 9 years old when the city of Chicago first wounded his spirit.

Months turned into years and Khalil felt every second of it from the bottom step of his stoop. Each passing tick of the clock callously mocked his patience, yet his determination didn’t waver. They won’t leave it like this, he would tell himself as the lights of what was once the Cabrini-Green Housing Projects were extinguished for the night. They wouldn’t leave us like this.

With his childhood riddled with abandonment, adolescence provided Khalil with the gifts of height, body hair and an anger far from the standard fare usually given to young people in his age bracket. Instead of lashing out towards the world, his parents or authority in general, his anger was sharpened and focused on the void created by the crater and the specific body of government that promised to fill it. Khalil Caldwell never banged, he studied. He never slang, he worked. He didn’t write rhymes, he wrote petitions. Every one of his movements were naively calculated and painstakingly planned. Every free moment desperately chugged towards the moment when someone would finally listen to a young boy’s plea to save his dying neighborhood.

Khalil Caldwell was sixteen when the city finally broke his heart.

The letter was cold and impersonal. There were no emotions behind the blocks of type written words. It was the kind of response someone much better than you would send out to the hundreds of thousands of people who it didn’t have time for or enough status for it to care. It was crafted to appease the ignorant and sound graciously polite while doing it. To Khalil, the worst insult came in the form of the Mayor’s office letterhead emblazoned on the top.

Khalil Caldwell stood in front of the wire fence partition that separated him from the scar cut into the flesh of his home the night he received the city’s answer to his cries. Fingers locked through the rings of steel, he forced himself towards the realization that some wounds would never be healed and the only way for someone to understand your pain was to inflict it on them.

He spat on the ground where cracked sidewalk met disaster zone.

“Maybe then, they’ll listen,” Khalil uttered.

Khalil, now 26, replayed each moment from his lonely post and finished the statement he started years ago.

“Now they’ll have to.”

From behind him, the front door of his building opened allowing Tyronn Pines to reach down and slap him on the shoulder.

“E’yo.”

Turning his head, Khalil broke sight from the dream that had always eluded him to the stern menacing visage of his unofficial second in command.

“You got word?” he asked bluntly.

Tyronn motioned his head for them to head back up to the apartment.

“Rob and your man Jack are on the line. They sayin’ we got a problem.”

Khalil shook his head, he wasn’t a stranger to disappointment.

“Story of my life, nigga,” Khalil replied as he made his way up the stairs.

***

33.

Mother of Tears: The Third Mother trailer

Hostage movie full

Standing silently on the corner of E. Superior and Rush, Ryjan Allen knew the importance of proper accessorization. Despite the effortless elegance of how the crisp black suit hugged his frame, he still felt the nagging sensation that something was missing. After adjusting his tie for what seemed to be the millionth time, Ryjan carefully considered the lighting situation of the scene he found himself in. The warm glow from the bustling Giordano’s Restaurant behind him and the moonlit skyline above were quickly measured like stage lighting before he took a short step backwards consciously letting the clean lines of his suit melt into the shadows. Looking down towards the sidewalk and tilting the short brim of his black porkpie hat to his nose, Ryjan smirked and imagined how the angles of darkness played on his handsome features. Main in black standing on a gritty corner of Chicago with an Italian restaurant as a backdrop bathed in shadows, he mused. This is film noir at its finest.

“Sam Spade, eat your heart out,” he whispered to himself.

Ryjan secretly held the pose and hoped some quick thinking photographer would somehow cross the street and instinctively immortalize him in celluloid for posterity. He was interrupted by the cellphone pulsing from his jacket pocket.

“Goddamnit,” he hissed before putting the phone to his ear.

“Having fun?”

Rafferty’s voice sent shivers down Ryjan Allen’s spine.

“More than most, not as much as some,” replied Ryjan as he began loosening his tie. “And yourself?”

Even from the other side of the phone, Ryjan saw Rafferty pushing aside any hint of small talk.

“News?” rumbled Rafferty, more order than question.

Shaken, Ryjan stepped into the light and turned his head skyward, searching for something in the heavens.

“Not surprisingly,” Ryjan started. “Our young Mr. Street has gotten himself into some nasty business. Cruising around town with ruffians of the most alarming sort. Stopping outside of bars and watching good, honest, hardworking people walk in and stumble out. Then driving into a neighborhood with an obscene lack of property value. Plus, I have the sneaking suspicion that he neglected to do any of his homework tonight.”

Proudly, Ryjan chuckled into the phone. He was answered with silence. In his head, he imagined a packed audience, stone cold and waiting. Just waiting.

Ryjan started to grasp at straws.

“Also…also,” he struggled to continue. “We have a new player joining the stage.”

The audience waited still.

“Continue,” Rafferty finally answered.

Ryjan let out a sigh of relief.

“He wore a hoodie, department store quality, nothing fancy. Outside the Spy Bar, he pounced on two other boys and was gone. Poof, like a ghost. In a blink of an eye and all that good stuff.”

“Was this individual…gifted?” Rafferty asked, the interest in his voice obviously piqued.

“Definitely,” Ryjan stammered. “Most definitely. Fast, precise, no hesitation. So fleet, in fact, that I couldn’t even get a good read on him.”

“Sadly, that doesn’t say much to me. Regardless, in your estimation, is this whoever it is a candidate?”

Stung by the words, Ryjan took the phone off his ear and stared at it with gritted teeth. He took a moment to cool off before returning it back to its rightful place.

“Maybe. Possibly. At this point, its inconclusive.”

“And Jack. Is there a connection between the two?”

The mere mention of the name caused a sneer to form on Ryjan’s lips.

“None. Judging by his reactions…none whatsoever.”

“Excellent,” Rafferty announced with an almost giddy delight.

The blur of a dollar cab screeched past the intersection, a chorus of horns and profanity trailed behind it.

Rafferty waited for the noise to pass.

“And our other item of business?”

Completely having slipped his mind, Ryjan choked out a cough and quickly turned back to the sky.

“Well, you know, Charles. Its…”

His head rapidly shifted from left to right, up and down, until his line of sight finally locked onto its target. His squinted eyes having scoured through dozens of windows on its way to the roof of the majestic Peninsula Hotel, gratefully relaxed when it reached its destination.

“I mean considering your history…and, y’know? Yesterday…”

From the corner of E. Superior and Rush, outside of Giordano’s Restaurant to the very peak of the monolith of modern decadence that was the Peninsula Hotel, it was the faintest of shapes. Distinguishable by the fact that it was the only object in motion, Ryjan’s primary senses settled into recognition only after a considerable amount of effort.

But even from Ryjan’s vantage point, the sight of a girl ballet dancing on the edge of the Peninsula’s roof was pretty hard to miss.

“…Zoe’s being understandably dramatic.”

Almost in a whisper, Rafferty stated, “Keep me posted” before a dial tone closed the conversation.

Still transfixed by the girl’s performance even on the cusp of certain death, Ryjan stood in his black suit and black hat every bit the voyeuristic private eye that he dressed himself to be.

Suddenly, he realized what was missing.

“Huh…”

Theatricality will forever be part of Ryjan Allen’s fashion sense.

“…all I needed was a cigarette.”

***

34. Replicant dvdrip

“This is it, man! Vendetta shit! You niggas know beef?! This kind of beef ain’t never been seen!!!”

Jack leaned against the window and watched Lil’ Rob pace the length of Khalil’s living room in the reflection of the glass, like a wind-up toy permanently set on panic.

“Project beef, my ass! Y’all saw where they got hit! Out in the open like that, was no projects in sight for days!”

Jack tried to tune out the noise by looking out of the eighteenth story window hoping to find something, anything, to distract him from Lil’ Rob’s ranting. He pressed his forehead to the cool of the glass.
This was Khalil’s window in Khalil’s place, the only home he’d ever known. Jack closed his eyes for a second and opened them wanting to see what Khalil saw every time he passed this window.

Eighteen stories below him, all Jack saw was the crater.

“Pastel was project beef! Us and him, doing what we gotta do to protect what’s ours? A’ight, cool! We take care of all the shit down here, in Harmony, in our yard! But out there, in the wide white world?! Who the fuck knows what’s gonna happen?!”

From where he stood, Jack realized that the only thing Khalil ever saw was the place where his brother died. Behind him, Lil’ Rob caught what he had said and patted Jack on the shoulder.

“No offense, money.”

From that fateful day to the years and years that crawled after it, Khalil lived with this window and the only sight it afforded him. Disgusted with himself, Jack turned his back on it and went into his pockets for a cigarette.

“None taken,” he answered.

Nine minutes after the incident outside the Spy Bar, Jack, Lil’ Rob and the Walker brothers were summoned back to Khalil’s apartment. Having not made the call himself, Jack spent the whole ride back to Harmony Projects in the back seat of Marquis Walker’s Cavalier silently dreading their next course of action. Playing stick up kid with Lil’ Rob and his boys was one thing, but, with the memory of the assault on the two clockers constantly cycling in his head, dealing with the hooded sweatshirt was something completely different. Taking his first deep drag off his cigarette, Jack regretted accepting the rare piece of vinyl that Khalil offered as pay back days prior.

“Kinda funny, huh?”

Tyronn Pines’ voice had a sharp quality about it. Born and bred on the corners of the projects, it held none of the carnival barker showmanship that flavored the rap radio ready voices of most young men his age. From the get go, Jack always equated Khalil’s voice with strength and, in contrast, Tyronn Pines’ voice with speed. It was flexible and had range. It could go from street to stage without missing a beat. It was textured with a different kind of intelligence, the kind that gave off the notion that he knew something that most people didn’t.

Like a card shark or a con man.

“The second we get you on the team, they go and get one, too.”

Tyronn Pines took the slice of open wall next to Jack, close enough so that they uncomfortably touched shoulders. Never being one of his staunchest supporters when Khalil brought him into the group, Jack felt a little uneasy that it took such a dire situation for Tyronn to finally interact with him. The tangy scent of marijuana thickly hung itself next to Jack’s cigarette smoke.

Even in odor, the two didn’t meet eye to eye.

“Smart though. S’a good play. Khalil’s always clucking on about how we got all these eyes on them. He ain’t never considered them having they own eyes trained on us, know what I’m saying? Hey, s’just good business, right?”

Tyronn chuckled and softly elbowed Jack in the ribs as he took two small pulls from his joint.

“You get up on some good product, they gotta compete so they get up on some better shit. That’s just slinging 101, don’t matter what or where you slinging from, feel me? Rules of the game n’shit. Now you get some crazy ass white boy doing some off the wall stunting for you, then what? How’s a nigga supposed to answer that?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Jack watched Tyronn’s brows furrow and a nasty grin stretch from lips to cheek. The effects of the weed didn’t alter the whites of Tyronn’s eyes. Having felt Jack sizing him up, Tyronn Pines turned and did the same.

“They go and get themselves a Kobe stopper,” Tyronn stated between pulls from the joint. “S’about damn time, I’m thinking. Fair is fair and this is as fair as it gets around here, know what I’m saying? All this time, I’m watching these faggot ass white boys flying around the city throwing fucking lasers and cars and shit at each other. I’m like, where the brothas at? Ain’t no god I know that blesses one kind of folks with all that shit and not no one else. So I wait cause I know, we got blessed, too. Maybe we’re just smart enough not to be parading that shit in front of the evening news. I’m hoping, but now? I’m kinda hyped this new kid showed himself, man. Real talk. Not for nothing, cause this fucker’s prolly gonna be a pain in our ass, but I know he’s from the Pj’s. Ain’t no one bucks like he bucked ain’t from around the way, y’heard? He may not even be a brotha, he may P.R. for all I know. One thing I do know though to the fullest, this m’fucker ain’t white.”

Jack clenched his jaws. He thought about the window and how this joker fit perfectly through it.

“No offense, dawg,” needled Tyronn, this time he slapped Jack open palmed on the chest.

“I know you’re on our side and all,” he continued. “But I’m just saying. Y’know how genetically we’re stronger, faster, all that shit? Hell, we gots to be after all them years out on the fields and shit. Well, as fast as you are, money. How much faster you think this nigga is?”

Just as the words left his mouth, Tyronn knew Jack would bite. As casually as he could, Jack turned to face Tyronn, nose to nose with a murderous gleam in his eye.

“Jack!”

Khalil boomed from behind his bedroom door intentionally postponing Jack and Tyronn’s title bout years in the making.

“Get on back here!”

Letting the tension linger for a moment longer, the two men made sure that the message was received loud and clear, that a rain-check was undoubtedly been made. Jack broke off first, taking one last drag off his smoke before he headed towards Khalil.

Tyronn Pines took a couple careful steps towards the window and stood in the exact spot Jack had been. He even looked out the window to boot.

Somewhere in the room, Lil’ Rob sighed.

“You fucking stupid, Ty.”

The comment from the youngster barely registered in his periphery, Tyronn stared off into the distance. He didn’t bother to see what Jack saw or what Khalil saw for that matter. As he focused onto the glass, Tyronn Pines never noticed the crater or the projects or the sleeping city that loomed behind them.

All Tyronn Pines saw was the hazy reflection of his face and the knowing smile that came with it.

***

The Man from Earth trailer

35.

The Unborn move

The line was a sliver of rooftop, the last solid piece of earth that stood between her and the night sky. From the highest peak of the Peninsula Hotel, the air tasted cleaner, better and the world below her smaller and easier to contend with. She imagined herself on the tip of the tallest mountain staring at the doorstep to heaven. A point of light pierced through the darkness, it flickered and shone greater than every star in the sky’s grand canvas. It spoke to her, beckoning her to follow as it moved slowly towards the horizon.

Breathless, she took one step up and toed the line.

The line was a sliver of rooftop.

She felt her heart beat faster as she reached for the departing beacon with an outstretched arm before a strong draft of wind pushed her backwards.

The adrenaline surging through her system, she regained her balance with a ridiculous flapping of arms. She giggled when her lungs steadied itself. The blinking light disappeared behind a monstrous cloud bank as she silently cursed the force of nature that kept her from following it. The audacity of wind, she thought. Doesn’t it know who the fuck I am?

“Don’t you know who my mother is?!” she screamed to the indifferent night.

Zoe Ahern was a girl who was rarely ever denied access.

And she was stoned out of her mind.

Not even a full week back at Winterville, Zoe was already in one of those moods. After months of peace and quiet, it only took him one day to destroy any sort of equilibrium she had built up in his absence. His name was tattooed in her subconscious, despite the handful of Xanax she took to cloud it.

Rafferty.

The powder from school already gone, Zoe was forced to cop pills from one of the Peninsula’s valets just to get through the night. Even though the haze of pharmaceuticals shielded her from the tremors of the outside world, Zoe still found herself thinking about Rafferty and the ramifications of his return.

Secretly, Zoe had hoped that it was because of the pills that she was standing on the edge of the Peninsula’s roof.

Deep down, she knew it wasn’t.

She shook her head desperately trying to free herself from the numbness and looked down to the city below. Suddenly, the breath blew out of her lips.

She remembered she was scared of heights.

Every one of her nerve endings stood on end as the sensations of being a petite girl dressed only in a white tank top and underwear dangling on the top of an extremely tall building came rushing through her senses.

Another gust of wind, the one with a sense of irony, rocked Zoe forward. The split second of panic quickly occupied her long enough to open the floodgates.

Hysterically trying to keep from falling, Zoe pleaded on quivering limbs.

“Not now. Please, not…”

The tremors from every person in a two block radius answered her.

“This is a fat tip, easy. I don’t care what you have to do, sell it! Where’s the scaloppini for one twelve?! Fuck it, I’m taking the Jag for a spin. Maid service on six. Is four eighteen clear? Gotta comp that bitch again?! Where is this fucking cab?! That ain’t his wife. Gotta be back in five. Who is it? Take it, yeah yeah! Feels so good. Who are you? Not again! Not again!!!”

One after the other, the tremors split her head wide open. She felt the rough texture of cement dig into her palms as she clung onto the end of the rooftop. She knelt on the precipice like a gargoyle of the weirdest sort and wept. Her chest tightened and the back of her head set on fire, Zoe absorbed the weight of hundreds of people’s thoughts square in the jaw. She was a girl on a beach standing in front of a tidal wave. Zoe felt a warm trickle from her nose.

“Please…stop…” she begged.

“You gotta be kidding me! Stupid rich fucks! Finally, clocking out! Dry cleaning then milk. This dog is gonna kill me. Another day, another dollar. Oh, she’s cute. Hey, mami! Party, mister, party? Gotta go, gotta go! Stay laced / well dressed with finesse in a white tee / lookin’ for wifey. That hurts, stop stop stop!!!”

Zoe was grinding teeth and rolled up eyes, her upper torso seized up in such a high rate of motion that it looked like she was about to disappear from the visible spectrum.

In the inferno of her mind, she furiously dug through the onslaught of tremors looking for something, anything, to hold onto.

“Steady breath, read the music, one, two, three…”

There!

Five stories below, Natasha Makhoulf waited for the music to start. A week away from flying to New York to audition for a dance troupe prepping a production of Phantom of the Opera, Natasha Makhoulf waited for the opening score to begin so that her third rehearsal of the day could finally get underway.

“Straight leg, straight back.”

The tremor was calm, focused. From the roof, Zoe heard the swell of the music and listened as Natasha Makhoulf mathematically broke it down to cues and movements.

Zoe found her anchor and dove straight into Natasha Makhoulf’s tremor. Completely submerged, Zoe heard and felt everything. She felt the rush of joy whenever Natasha Makhoulf hit a flawless petit saut. She heard the trepidation in Natasha Makhoulf’s heart whenever the notion of her failing the callback crossed her mind. She lived the memory of Natasha Makhoulf’s first ballet recital at Woodrow Wilson Junior High School in Glendale, CA, age eight. Lost in Natasha Makhoulf, Zoe relaxed. All the other tremors faded into nothingness.

So lost, in fact, that when she opened her eyes Zoe found herself following Natasha Makhoulf’s routine to the letter, from jete’ to reitre’ devant to pirouette and everything else in between.

Zoe Ahern danced on the cliff of the rooftop of the Peninsula Hotel.

Then she bowed.

Five stories below her, Natasha Makhoulf dreamt of the applause of a packed Carnegie Hall. Five stories above Natasha Makhoulf, Zoe reveled in silence.

After a sigh of relief, Zoe began to reconsider the good doctor’s methods, at the same time she felt shamefully disgusted of hers. Maybe its time to catch another meeting, she thought.

Maybe.

The fatigue finally settled as Zoe carefully stepped off the edge. The clarity forced through her body left her vision with blurred corners. Despite it all, she still took a moment to look back down at the city.

“Rafferty.”

Rafferty?

The voice wasn’t her own, but she still recognized it. Zoe swallowed hard and prepared herself to follow the tremor.

She closed her eyes again.

“Rafferty. Hooded sweatshirt. Jack Street.”

Zoe’s eyes snapped open, her hands covered her mouth.

“Oh fuck,” she muttered.

Jack Street, the boy with the backpack that she ran into at Winterville earlier that day.

What did he have to do with Rafferty?

The tremor subsided and left Zoe with an unmistakable taste of bile and venom on her tongue.

“Ryjan,” she whispered.

“Oh fuck.”

Then, as fast as she could, Zoe Ahern ran back to her penthouse.

***

36.

Night bled into day, moonlight to sunlight, and Jack somehow woke to find himself back at Winterville. The fabric of his blazer not feeling right, Jack uncomfortably tugged at his collar completely conscious of one undeniable fact.

Later that night, Jack would be involved in a very violent and potentially fatal incident.

Scanning the half empty classroom as it slowly began to fill with hung over skeletons in burgundy and grey uniforms, Jack knew that he had nowhere else to be. Spending the day holed up in his apartment would’ve driven him up the walls in anticipation. Hanging out with Khalil as he got his war party ready was completely out of the question, too. The thought of breaking Tyronn Pines’ face was too tempting. Jack understood enough that doing that would probably put a crimp in Khalil’s itinerary.

So off to Winterville he went.

Powered with a couple hours sleep, Jack lumbered into its halls and collapsed on the back row of first period English Lit. almost an hour before the sound of the first bell.

Jack felt out of place being right where he was supposed to be.

“Stupid tie.”

His fidgeting moving further south, Jack undid the Windsor knot at the base of his neck and relieved the top two buttons of his dress shirt.

As anticlimactic as it was, Winterville provided him with routine, calm, quiet, check your brain at the door routine. First period English, second period Physics, third period Calculus, fourth period Global Economics, lunch, fifth period Art History and sixth period study hall. Gossip, shit talking, drug abuse, lunch, then more gossip, player hating, study hall. No abrupt turns, no change of plans, no surprises and lunch. Jack wanted the certainty of routine to fill the hours of the day before the unpredictability of a night on the streets took over.

Idle hands, after all, were the devil’s playground and he’d be spending enough time there once the sun went down.

“You hear who’s back,” someone muttered to someone else as they took their places in the front row.

The news was still making the rounds, Jack thought. He figured by it should’ve reached the furthest layers of the Winterville social strata, but even a place like this still had its version of outcasts. No matter how much one’s parents made, a nerd was still a nerd regardless.

The door closed as Jack dug into his backpack and cupped one side of his headphones to his ear. His head bobbed to the final thirty seconds of The Clipse’s “Virginia”.

From behind him, a firm hand gripped his shoulder and squeezed twice. Jack turned to find Mrs. Stephanie Samuels smiling down at him. Her hand entered his backpack and turned off his CD player.

“Time for me to tell you a story,” she whispered.

Then the first bell rang.

***

“So tell me, Mr. Street. Who do you fancy yourself being today, Odysseus or Sisyphus?”

Mrs. Samuels leaned against her desk and asked with a telling hand on her hip. The second period bell left them to face off alone in the classroom. From the back row, Jack gave her a weary sideways smirk. Already three minutes tardy from sleeping through his next class, Jack kissed the idea of routine goodbye.

“I don’t follow,” he replied.

Mrs. Samuels laughed heartily at the remark, her hair swooped behind her shoulders when she threw her head back with the guffaw. She wore her hair down for some odd reason. Jack wondered how long it would take before it was imprisoned in the bun she usually sported. Having basically slept through her lecture with his eyes open, Jack resigned himself to being the reason for the bun so early in the morning. She probably hadn’t even had her coffee yet.

“Please don’t take this as any sort of offense,” she half pleaded, “but that is the exact reason why you’ll find yourself in this sort of situation time and time again, Mr. Street. You don’t follow.”

Jack let a chuckle rumble in his stomach. Self consciously, he ran a hand through his ratty nest of hair. His smirk started to show some teeth.

“So again, I ask. Who are you today? Odysseus or Sisyphus?”

“Look, Professor Samuels,” Jack began but was immediately cut off.

“The bags under your eyes, the disheveled way you carry yourself, even more so than usual, the general lack of balance you’re exuding. I’m not an idiot, Mr. Street. I’ve seen the signs before. You slept with a weight on your shoulders last night, if you even slept at all.”

Jack wanted to protest but he was only able to utter a half syllable before Mrs. Samuels raised an open palm at him.

She continued.

“Odysseus had to navigate through an entire world’s worth of obstacles, everything from the gods on down was out to get him. Sisyphus, on the other hand, was left to trudge the same boulder up the same steep hill only to have it roll back down again for all eternity. So again, considering the symptoms that are not so subtly plastered all over your face, are you one or the other?”

With that, she let the palm hang down. Now both hands were on her hips. Jack shuddered at the sight of it and considered the question as if it was one of life and death.

“I guess,” he answered. “I guess a little bit of both, Professor Samuels.”

She nodded and walked the distance toward him. Along the way, Mrs. Stephanie Samuels went from sarcastic to maternal in a matter of feet. Her features softened when she took the seat in front of Jack and twisted around to face him. Jack couldn’t look her in the eyes, his gaze quickly shifted to the classroom floor. That kind of genuine interest was alien to him.

Carefully crossing her legs, Mrs. Samuels bent her head down to the same floor.

“Is it your mother? Are you worried about her?”

The mere mention of the word hit Jack like a slap of cold water. His neck shot straight up.

“No no no. God, no,” he rattled off shaking his head. “It is not about her.”

She raised both palms to him and motioned for Jack to calm down.

“Jack. I ask because I know the situation. I know she’s halfway around the world covering all of that nonsense in Australia. I’ve read the papers and I could only imagine the things that she’s had to go
through. What I don’t know is if its affecting you at all or how its affecting you, if it did. You are one of my best students, Jack. Despite your attitude, I see it in your work. I don’t mean to pry into your family life, but I don’t know if you have any sort of support system here. For lack of a better tern, I’m concerned. I don’t want you to fall on the wayside.”

The sentiment left Jack cold. He knew she was concerned, genuinely concerned for his well being, but he just couldn’t wrap his head around it. All he thought was how much of an easy out his mother would’ve been. How 90% of the student body used an excuse just like it to justify their acting like complete bastards with no regard for anyone other than themselves. Frankly, Jack could have used his mother in that respect. He just didn’t want to give her the pleasure of it.

So Jack reacted the way Jack always reacted.

“Thank you, sincerely, Professor Samuels, but I’m fine.”

Jack flashed his trademark shit eating grin and gathered his belongings into his backpack.

“I just haven’ been home enough the past couple of days. With everyone just getting back in town, a lot of stuffs been going on, y’know? Stupid kid’s stuff and what not.”

He popped up from his seat and stood at attention, a ploy to show her how awake and energized he was.

“I promise to buckle down, get some rest and hit the books. Tomorrow, I’ll be a new man. You won’t have to worry about me, Professor Samuels.”

With his backpack firmly secured, Jack nodded to Mrs. Samuels and playfully gave a military salute.

“Scout’s honor,” he concluded before marching to the door.

Jack felt a twinge of regret at the thought of the stunt he just pulled. He really hoped he hadn’t offended his favorite instructor, but unfortunately he had bigger fish to fry. The brief sensation ended the second he slapped on his dark Aviators.

Through the crack of the closing door, Jack looked back just long enough to see Mrs. Stephanie Samuels gather the length of her hair in her hands and roll it into a bun on the back of her head.

***

• For a Few Dollars More movie

Gran Torino dvdrip

Dragon Heat aka Dragon Squad film

Replicant trailer

Jack’s cellphone rang on the way to Physics. Bringing it out halfway from his pocket, he snuck a peek at the flashing LCD screen.

Khalil Caldwell.

After flipping the phone open, Jack ducked into an open door of the Science building’s stairwell. He hadn’t noticed how far back he passed the entrance to his second period.

The text message read: Need you at the shop ’round six.

Jack’s fingers tapped his reply on the keyboard.

Anything you want me to bring?

Jack sat on the third step of the empty staircase and waited until his cellphone rang again.

Khalil’s response: Bring your backpack.

“What the hell,” Jack asked his phone.

He typed back: Got it. See you at six.

As he sat by himself on the stairwell, Jack thought about Khalil’s order. The sound of his cellphone snapping shut reverberated loudly against the walls and down towards the floors below. If someone invited me to help assault and possibly abduct a known drug trafficker, Jack pondered. What else could I possibly bring to the party? Chips? A bag of ice? Those red plastic cups?

His backpack?

Jack cursed his naiveté.

“You ask a stupid question,” he huffed.

Jack groaned and put his face in his hands. At that moment, he wanted nothing more than to smoke a quiet, uneventful cigarette.

“Hey Jack!”

Of course, if would have to wait.

His wide eyes almost popped out from behind the web of interlocked fingers when he heard the strangely familiar voice.

“How about this for a stupid question?”

The sound of the voice was so loud he could’ve sworn that it came from the back of his mind. Quickly to his feet, Jack twisted and turned in every direction looking for a face to put the voice to. No one in front and no one behind, Jack ran to the railing and leaned over to see if there was anyone on the stairs below him.

“Hey you!”

Jack turned the opposite direction and there she was. Four flights above him, a girl had climbed over the railings of the staircase and stood precariously over the edge.

Jack’s heart skipped a beat.

“Zoe?! Stop! Zoe, don’t move!”

Just like the day they first met.

“Wanna play catch?”

When Zoe let go of the railing, time stopped. Four floors above him, Jack watched her fall. Right in the center of the open that ran straight through up to the ceiling and down to the basement, Jack saw Zoe’s small frame hurtling closer and closer towards him.

Inside his chest, Jack’s lunged expanded and his joints tensed. Fueled by pure instinct, he coiled up into a starting crouch and closed his eyes. On the count of three, he told himself. On the count of three.

One.

An ankle bends to breaking and an old sneaker digs so hard into the polished floor that it cracked the tile.

Two.

An ornate steel railing will be severely damaged by the hand of a young man whose blood turned to gasoline for a few glorious seconds.

On the count of three, a girl he barely knew would die if another count of three was allowed to pass.

Two and a half.

Four floors and counting above him, Zoe wanted to scream.

Jack became a blur.

Three.

Jack wasn’t going to give her the chance to.

GO!!!

On the first set of stairs, Jack took three leaps to get to the landing, the amount of force with each footfall so great he thought it might turn his bones into powder. His sneakers screeched into an impossible turn and Jack was transformed into pure momentum, a mass of kinetic energy. Like a bolt of lightning rising from the ground, Jack crackled through another turn.

He had one last set of steps then he had her, one last point of intersection before its curtains.

Zoe flailed her arms like a dying bird.

This is it.

With both arms, Jack braced himself on both sides of the staircase’s railings and pulled his body back as far as he could.

Human slingshot.

Jack pushed, released his grip and flew. He took the last staircase in one leap, not once did his sneakers touch floor.

SLAM!

Jack crashed on the landing chest first and, with momentum still pushing him forward, he slid on the floor’s smooth finish. From his vantage point, the only part of Zoe that Jack still made out were the fingertips of her outstretched arms. Jack contorted his body sideways and went into a feet first baseball slide. The bars of the railing rushed past him, it alternated between steel bar and empty space, steel bar, empty space, steel bar and empty space.

Where’d she go?!?!?!

Steel bar and empty space, steel bar and empty space.

OH SHIT!!!

Steel bar and empty space.

Jack threw both arms into the pattern.

Steel bar and empty space. Steel bar and empty space. Empty space and steel bar.

CRACK!!!

“RRRRRRRAAAAAAAHHHH!!!”

Then it was over.

Jack felt the cold of the steel bar against his cheek. Mixed with the moisture of his sweat and the heat that radiated from his skin, Jack saw faint ribbons of steam wafting from the metal. His breath came in shallow bursts. He huffed and puffed and wondered where the feeling in his arms disappeared to. Jack grimaced and extended his tired eyes for a glimpse for something, anything, beyond the railing. He saw the downward spiral of the staircases and, from the corner of his eye, the pleating of a grey skirt.

The numbness from his shoulders clearly stated that they were both dislocated, Jack took a deep breath and pulled with whatever strength he had left.

In the most unlikeliest of manners, the frazzled bob of Zoe’s hair rose from the chasm. Her face was a mask of fear and disbelief when Jack finally managed to pull her up enough to see it. He held her like that for a second, her legs still dangled in mid-air, and thought of something witty to say.

“Hi there.”

The fact that she still may fall to her doom not enough of an issue to notice, Zoe furrowed her brow and let the cold knives of her eyes cut through Jack’s exhausted bravado.

“Whatever it is he wants you to do,” she scolded. “DON’T DO IT!”

Confused, Jack coughed out a rebuttal.

“You’re welcome?”

Zoe angrily shook her head.

“Don’t you get it, you dumbass?!” Zoe yelled.

“RAFFERTY IS GOING TO GET YOU KILLED!!!”

Ladies and gentlemen, the damsel in distress.

***

37.

Luscious “Lil’ Rob” Roberson rarely ever acquainted himself with the eight o’clock that ended in a.m. He was more comfortable with its brother that stood under the moonlight.

“Hrm…”

Laying almost comatose on the front passenger seat of the Cavalier, he grumbled like a petulant child as he readjusted the black do-rag on his scalp.

“Who in they right mind be up at this hour,” he mumbled his displeasure.

Marquis Walker drove with a crooked elbow hanging out of the window and shook his head at his fare’s incessant whining.

“Niggas that got shit to do, you little bitch,” he whispered to himself. “That’s who.”

Lil’ Rob heard the snide remark and licked his lips.

“Just drive, jeeves,” he snapped back in the same hushed tone.

For the remainder of the trip, all three of the car’s inhabitants, Lil’ Rob, Marquis and Lil’ Rob’s cousin Four Five, kept quiet. The sunlight shone brightly through the unwashed windows ungratefully received by half closed eyelids. It mixed with the sounds of traffic and the smell of car exhaust, the stew of Chicago Ave. on its early morning hustle.

The Cavalier winced when Marquis took the right on Ashland, slightly tossing everyone in their seats. Marquis gave the brake pedal an extra jolt when they pulled onto a curb. He took some pleasure at the sight of Lil’ Rob jerking forward then getting smashed back into place by his safety belt.

Marquis punctuated the “accident” with a sheepish grin and a sideways glance.

Lil’ Rob, on the other hand, threw daggers with his eyes.

Supremely proud of himself, Marquis turned back to the road ahead and thumbed for Lil’ Rob and his cousin to get the fuck out of the car.

“You ladies go make something out of yourselves,” Marquis snickered.

Lil’ Rob threw open the door and let his Jordans taste pavement. He held the door with a palm and leaned down to get one last look at his
driver.

Lil’ Rob nodded and held his fist out for a bump.

“Peace, nigga.”

Just as Marquis was about to return the gesture, Lil’ Rob turned his fist over, gave him a one finger salute and slammed the door shut right in Marquis’ face.

Lil’ Rob paid no attention to the tidal wave of curses that came from the Cavalier’s driver side, its volume muffled by the closed door. Instead, he took a step back and locked his thousand yard stare towards the palpable throb of activity across the street. His cousin, Jason “Four Five” Tavers took the patch of sidewalk next to him. The Cavalier peeled back into traffic.

Watching as a gap opened up ahead of them, Four Five slapped Lil’ Rob on the chest and crossed the street.

Lil’ rob let all the feeling melt away from his face until it settled into his meanest corner boy facade. He took the street in a slow, staggered strut. Pulling up the backside of his low slung jeans, Lil’ Rob stepped onto the other side and felt his jaws tense.

Back into the jungle, he thought and hummed a single word under his breath.

“Grinding.”

Back into the jungle.

Back into the same old song and dance.

Back into William H. Wells High School.

***

The metal detectors were still broken, just like how he left them three years ago. Unlike three years ago, the mandatory pat downs apparently weren’t enforced anymore which made sliding into the procession of William H. Wells High School student body all the more quickly. Not that either of them were holding anything more than their wallets and cellphones, Lil’ Rob and Four Five still took the time to thank the Lord for the kindness of a hassle free entrance.

Seamlessly, the two cousins disappeared into the crowd of extremely baggy pants, loudly patterned hoodies and crisp new ball caps worn extra low just above the eyelids. The dotting of colored polo shirts that were interspersed throughout the sea of bodies didn’t go unnoticed as Lil’ Rob looked over this year’s crop. The colors were an all too familiar sign of demarkation and status in the petri dish that was William H. Wells High School. Those enrolled in the business and technology programs wore blue polos, students in the law program wore grey and the lowest of the low, the freshmen, still were forced to endure their social hardships in white. Dirty snow, Lil’ Rob remembered them being called back in his day, the fresh white garments usually connected to young, snot nosed project kids he knew or grew up with in Harmony. Nowadays, he didn’t know what they were called.

Probably something worst, he imagined.

After finding each other in the slow crawl to first period, Lil’ Rob and Four Five shot the other a nod and went their separate ways.

In both their minds, the two men went over their mission.

They both recited Khalil’s orders.

The night before:

“There ain’t nothing worse than looking for a rat that don’t want to be found. It takes time, too much time, and time ain’t something we got too much of. Pastel’s smart and he runs a tight crew but to do what he wants to do he’s gonna have to reach out. Whether its him himself or through one of his boys, one of them is about to get visible. We gotta find the one that’ll lead us to the rest of them. We may not know them even if we see them right in front of us…or maybe we spot ‘em a mile away announcing they shit, whatever. But ain’t no one staying invisible, not in our hood. So we start at the start. Pastel may be smart, but I know he’s too dumb to think outside the box. He’ll do what he’s always done, the way his brother did and they pops before them. They’re always gonna get a boy to do a man’s job. So we spread the fuck out, hit the parks, all the usual spots. We get Harmony to lock all they boys for the night then we see where they at. Where will that nigga go for his army? How long before they get desperate and reach out to one of us? That’s the plan. Lil’ Rob and Four Five’ll hit Wells. Tyronn’ll get Dap and Curb to hit the Linc. Spread the word. If you of your brother or your cousin or your cousin’s cousin out on the streets tomorrow and you on the wrong side…well? You let them think on what might go down if we catch them out and about. This Pastel fucker… Man, the apple don’t fall far from the tree. I want y’all to burn down the tree and let them smoke signals blow right back to his dumbass and let him know we here. Ain’t no one stay invisible forever.”

Lil’ Rob roamed the halls of William H. Wells High School trying to trace his way back to his old homeroom. His search took him to the east wing boy’s bathroom, the locker room of the gym, the bleachers on the far side of the baseball field, the back tables of the courtyard where wannabe hard boys rolled blunts and tried to pick up chicks, the alley behind the auto tech garage. He never did recollect how to get to his homeroom, but along the way he relayed Khalil’s message to every hungry eye and interested ear who he thought knew someone who knew someone who knew someone who might have been on Pastel’s shopping list. At each stop, Lil’ Rob put the fear on the brothers, sisters, cousins, boyfriends, girlfriends or every known clocker in the projects. With each passing speech, Lil’ Rob felt the gravity of his warning grow behind him. It went from student to student, classroom to classroom, mouth to ear, ear to phone and on and on. Within a few hours, Lil’ Rob and Four Five forced William H. Wells High School to fall into silent anticipation. A fog of paranoia had engulfed thewhole campus.

Lil’ Rob’s final stop found him leaning on a bank of lockers outside a half filled study hall talking to two members of the varsity basketball team. Both of whom had older siblings Lil’ Rob knew were part of a stick up crew that worked Elkhart Park.

“We gotta stick tight on this,” Lil’ Rob ordered. “Fam gotta protect fam, know what I’m saying?”

The taller of the two, a second string center, nodded confidently and held a fist out to Lil’ Rob.

“Fo’ show, my nigga. Fo’ show,” he replied.

Lil’ Rob threw on a gangsta sneer and gave the center a pound.

From inside the study hall, a young man listened from behind an opened Algebra book.

“We the heroes,” Lil’ Rob continued. “Those assholes flying around up there thinking they the heroes? Nah, man. They just up there feeling each other up, trying to see who could throw the most cars at my building, feel me?”

“Yeah, yeah,” the smaller of the two, a back up point guard, chimed in.

“We the ones protecting the block. We the ones on the street dealing with the real shit. We the ones getting the young’ns out the way when they start dropping buses and shit on our yard. We the ones gotta take care of our own, man.”

The young man, caught up in Lil’ Rob’s soliloquy, slowly put the book down and unzipped his backpack. Calm eyed and quiet, he nodded along with the center and the point guard.

“Tonight, man. Tonight. They ain’t gonna be there. They ain’t gonna be nowhere in sight. The dope game is small shit to them. It ain’t like its they kids its being sold to, know what I’m saying?”

The young man slipped the book into the backpack and sat up straight. The calm slowly transformed into an intense focus. Unconsciously, he played with the collar of his white polo shirt.

“You with us or you against us, that’s it. Plain and simple. Tonight, everyone’ll see who the real heroes are.”

The sentiment caused a swelling in the young man’s heart.

“A’ight then,” the young man whispered.

Inside the backpack, the young man’s fingers tightened around the thick fabric of an old hooded sweatshirt. Rough, caked with dirt and torn along the edges, the young man twisted the sleeve of the sweatshirt as hard as he could.

“A’ight then.”

It wasn’t a cape, the young man thought.

But it’ll do.

( e n d o f p a r t f i v e

The Punisher trailer

)