Bad Break: A Novel

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Paul "Pookie" Chambers always prided himself on giving his best effort, regardless of the pursuit.

Whether sports or chores or dating or chess or jobs, Chambers relished the hunt.

But work is where he really excelled. Chambers loved being a cocaine dealer.

Sort of like the proverbial fifteen minutes of fame, every person gets one claim to it. In fact, staking that claim is what starts the clock.

And Chambers' claim to fame was that when he was seven, he was featured in that old Midway article about Corrine Barkley. The article didn't name him but did cite another child who'd been snookered by Barkley and had given her real money for her fake drugs.

Unlike Barkley, though, Chambers never became a media darling. Instead, his role in that debacle led Child Protective Services to his mother's door with questions about who he was buying drugs for. Surely not himself? More likely, CPS investigators decided, Chambers was a proxy, trying to make a purchase for his mother or older sister. And so they removed him from that home.

The system kept Chambers in foster care for six years, but as he aged, he became obsessed with Barkley and her trajectory. With every visit from his mother and grandmother, he demanded more details. They had no news of her GPA, plans, if any, for college, or participation in intramural sports or glee club. But the streets talk...too much. And so the ladies in Barkley's life were able to scratch his itch with whispered rumors of Barkley's prowess as a dealer, her increasingly powerful affiliations. Barkley was jealous and applied himself.

Between the two hours a day he had internet access —one hour theoretically for homework, one hour for leisure— he poured over countless articles about the economics of sidewalk pharmacies and investigative stories detailing the manufacturing differences, including costs, between powder cocaine, crack cocaine, methamphetamine, and heroin.

By the time he was released from "Ike," as seasoned veterans of the place referred to Illinois Youth Center - Chicago, Chambers possessed graduate-level knowledge of the drug and was recruited as heavily as a D-1 quarterback prospect.

Where shopkeepers and all manner of traditional retail clerks and service people liked to tell satisfied consumers, "thank you for your business!" and "Have a nice day!" a now twenty-year-old Chambers liked to yell at customers, "Capitalism is the greatest religion in the woooooorld!"

And he believed it too. Chambers took pride in his work, reasoning it was a service that would be provided by someone else if not for him and his. He was always early for his shift as a raven —a step below lieutenant— in his Southwest Quick Clique.

He always remained on the job late to ensure a smooth transition to the next shift, taking the time to explain how traffic —vehicle, foot, and sales— had gone while he was on duty. He shared anecdotal observations about the types of buyers most prevalent during a shift. And he even offered his replacement a hand-written log, chronicling how frequently and at what times police officers had driven by.

As dusk settled in and the sun retired this mid-July evening, Chambers was two hours into his shift — on a brief break for diet Pepsi and a candy bar from the corner store, after having chased down a thief on foot.

Chambers hated thieves. His crew worked hard to produce, package, market and distribute their product. Anyone willing to just take it without even attempting to pay must lack character.

The walk from the store to his perch on the stoop of a burned-out brownstone row house that appeared to be undergoing renovation was a short one. But Chambers didn't like to be gone long because, though just two blocks, the walk required him to turn a corner, which took away his direct line of sight from his workplace.

He shuffled as fast as he could without shaking up his soda too much or dropping the chili-cheese dog he'd splurged on.

By the time Chambers saw the car next to him, it was too late to run. And he didn't bother. He had been taught to never engage in futile acts.

"Who you wit?" a voice called from behind the partially rolled-down front passenger window.

Chambers couldn't match the voice to any face in his memory and couldn't see who'd spoken because the windows on the dark-colored sedan were blacked out like a limousine.

"I, I don't know what you mean. I, I was just g-g-g-getting a hotdog."

Damn! Damn! Damn!

Chambers cursed silently. He wasn't afraid of the voice in the car. His stutter was real - like diagnosed and inconsistent. It was not triggered by emotional events. It was always there, lurking. But this guy didn't know that. He and whoever was driving probably thought Chambers was scared.

"Don't lie, Pook," the disembodied voice called. "Why's your boss starting stuff? You know he's gonna get got, right? He don't need any smoke but he's asking for the smoke!"

Now, Chambers was scared. No one had called him any variation of Pookie since he was fourteen. No one outside his neighborhood even knew that nickname.

But he didn't know these guys and reasonably concluded that whoever was in the car was not from 'round the way.

Pookie took three steps backward and held up his chin. If he was going to get taken out, he would face it like a man. No fear. None visible, anyway. Maybe he would give 'em a little speech about reppin' his set and that this was just business. Maybe...

Boom!

The muzzle sticking out of the tinted window looked about three feet long, from Chambers' perspective. In reality, it was less than twelve inches - fairly standard for a .357 six-shot revolver. But it sounded like a cannon.

Boom!

They shot me again!

Chambers raised a finger as if to protest.

Boom!

As is standard in the streets when shots are fired, time stood still till a buffer of quiet and calm settled in, indicating the attack was over. And then residents came running.

"Yo! Somebody shot Pook!"

"Ayo, anybody get that license plate? That look like one o' them funeral cars!"

"Hey, hey! I got part of it - 3LY. Mighta got it on my phone, too!"

"Call the police!"

"I got it. Called 911!"

"And hey, anybody call the man! Somebody better call him!"

For their part, the men who had moments before confronted Chambers found the whole thing amusing.

After shooting Pookie Chambers, the men dialed out on a burner cell phone and tossed it out the car window, so that it landed on the street, against the curb, obscured by leaves and a paper bag.

As they cruised casually, not at all in a rush, they listened on speakerphone to the frantic scene around Chambers.

Another plea for a description of the shooter's getaway car, followed by a scream from a woman pronouncing Chambers dead brought them back to the phone chatter.

"Guess people didn't get the stop snitching memo," the driver chuckled, before turning down one of those tree-lined streets.