Bad Break: A Novel

Chapter Seventeen

Thirty minutes later, I am parking my newsroom Taurus outside the sky-blue house on South Twenty-Seventh Street, wishing I'd driven my Jeep instead.

I'm angry that this house call is an indirect result of Chief Watson hounding my bosses into pushing me to do a job his detectives, including my guy, Allah, should be doing better and faster than me.

But —and I'd never admit this to him— I appreciate Watson's confidence and trust in me.

The chief does have a few tendencies of the old-school cop who will fiercely argue in defense of his officers. But that doesn't mean he has a reputation for helping to uphold the figurative blue wall.

On the contrary, I've watched him hang dozens of crooked cops out to dry during his tenure — turning his back on them and leaving them at the mercy of prosecutors and the press. It tells me the oath really means something to him.

So maybe his pressuring everyone at the Midway who will listen to lean on me to find detailed answers in the triple shooting is rooted in some trial and error he's experienced before.

I step out of my car, over a soiled diaper, around a car battery with the top pried open, exposing the acid, and onto the sidewalk.

A boom box stereo sits on a nearby porch blasting the first verse of Pain, the best-selling single ever of the late rapper and actor Tupac Shakur. I recognize snippets. I loved this song in college, and I could never understand why then. It was already old enough to be considered "old-school rap." And I certainly didn't identify with the imagery back then.

"My city's full of gang bangers and drive-bys.

Why do we die at an early age?

'He was so young but still a victim of the 12 gauge.'

My memories (are) of a corpse, (my) mind's full of sick thoughts,

And I ain't goin' back to court.

So fuck what you thought; I'm drinkin' Hennessey

Runnin' from my enemies.

Will I live to be twenty-three?

There's so much pain."

I checked city property tax records and found that Bessie Stone owns both halves of the duplex at fifty-four seventy South Twenty-Seventh. And apparently, the top half is unoccupied.

You can tell the property is owner-occupied. It's like a brick and lumber oasis in the heart of a morally ambiguous desert. A sturdy, rust-free chain link fence guards the perfectly manicured lawn. A bed of perennials borders the front porch, and the blue painted asbestos shingles on the walls have not a scratch, not a flake on them.

There are fifteen residences on Stone's block. Hers sits squarely in the middle. The other fourteen buildings lean on weak, crumbling foundations, as if bowing toward Bessie's place.

Gotta remember that in case I ever get rich. Bessie's Place would make a great name for a corner tavern.

Graffiti covers the street-facing sides of the other buildings, marking them as belonging to the 27th Street Hustlers, a fast-growing franchise of the Gangsta Disciples.

I don't care what the politically correct say. I am officially in the 'hood.

No judgment here. I feel bad for the residents of Bessie's block, angry for them.

I catch my breath when I'm within ten feet of the front gate. I've been so caught up in my thoughts that I haven't paid attention to the gaggle of young men crowding the sidewalk in front of the duplex next door, the source of that haunting song.

At six-foot-three-inches and one hundred ninety-five pounds, I'm no pushover. I hold a black belt in Shotokan karate, and between college bar beefs and occasionally defending a girlfriend's honor I've had to block and throw a punch or two. But there's no toughness like that which comes from the struggle to survive to remind a suburban kid like me where he comes from.

These guys hanging out next to Stone's house have me scared to death, and listening to a dead rapper wax poetic about struggle-life making him willing to die and take everyone with him isn't helping.

I've been shot at. I've had bricks and glass bottles thrown at me. I've been cursed out and spit on — all for just showing up and asking tough questions: Why was your fifteen-year-old daughter out at three a.m.? Do you know who she was with? How was she doing in school? Is it possible one of her late-night friends may have killed her? Could she have been hanging out with a bad crowd that lured her in and harmed her?

And always the anger has been thrown at me in predominantly Black neighborhoods.

I'm not angry about the anger. There are partisan political types who try to make hay of it. They go on TV talk shows and bluster about the anger being misplaced and how it proves poor people (especially poor black people) don't self-reflect enough.

But it isn't misplaced anger. The folks who live in the 'hood are trapped by the 'hood. They may be perfectly happy with their geography.

What they don't like is that jobs are scarce. In that scenario, young men don't become disillusioned. They're born disillusioned. They grow up disillusioned.

I take a deep breath, avoid eye contact, and silently count each step I take, noting that each brings me closer to the safety of that immaculate screened porch, which my imagination tells me is something like the sacred ground at a church in medieval times, where fugitives could find respite from the chase.

I'm almost to the gate when a tire rolls into my path.

"Where ya goin' homie?"

The question comes from a short, muscle-bound guy straddling one of those old beach cruiser-style bikes.

My rising indignation tells me to answer "Mind your got-danged business!" But my good sense forces me to stammer "to uh, the Stone house."

That same instinct tells me that, unlike the Billy Goat Gruff, this guy wouldn't accept a password or solution to a riddle to let me by, even if I guessed it correctly.

His friends laughing at my discomfort, Gruff is feeling the beginning of a nice game of cat-and-wounded-mouse. But suddenly his demeanor changes and he rolls his bike off the sidewalk and out of my way. His buddies clam up too and no longer seem to see the joke.

I'm dumbfounded but don't stick around to find out what made them part like the Red Sea for Moses, especially since Allah had declined my invitation to tag along and wasn't there to back me up.

Three huge leaps later, and I am inside the gate and up the stairs to the front porch. If I'd known I could cover that much space in that few steps I'd have tried out for long jump in high school.

I reach up to knock, but the wrought iron screen door swings open.

Another second, and my ready-to-rap fist would've tapped Bessie Stone square on the nose and likely knocked loose one or two of the hair curlers she's wearing.

She shakes her head and looks down at me, also wearing something between a smile and a smirk.

"You know why they let you go, don' you?"

I shake my head no.

"That danged radio you carry. They think you five-oh."

My handy police scanner squawks from its belt clip. Gruff and company must've heard the sound of a dispatcher or an officer requesting backup and assumed, since I'm in a suit, that I'm a detective or something. Just like my rookie year.

"Thank you, Jesus, for the police," I whisper, making a mental note to ponder the sincerity of that comment later over a glass of rye, before turning to follow Stone indoors.