Michael told about the day when he was sixteen and started working for Fin: his first job was secret shopper, just walking around buying drugs off everyone to see were they doing it right, were they straight, did they treat him right, what did they charge? Every hit he bought, he had to report. At the end of the day he had so much cocaine on him, he’d have gone inside, ten years mandatory, if he’d been hooked. His first day.
A motorcycle flashed by them in the left lane, doing ninety, a hundred, maybe more, a chainsaw roar in the dark. They watched the single red light shrink in the darkness.
“Never catch that,” Michael Wilson said with conviction. “Those dudes got it made. Cops don’t even try.”
Then Michael Wilson asked East what it had been like, who was on his crew again, how long had he been on, when his house got policed. East stirred. Maybe he’d been dozing. His sleep was messed up.
“How was that, when it all came down?” asked Michael Wilson. And Walter, yawning, echoed, “Yeah, how was that?”
East didn’t answer. It had been a weird day, all day a weird feeling, the fire trucks lost on the street, the old guy lying down to sleep in the backyard. For the first time he remembered that guy, the one who said he owned the house. For the first time since they’d pulled out of Los Angeles, he thought about his crew, thought about the police coming down.
He wished he’d gotten in touch with them, Dap and Needle, the ends who hadn’t called in when the police cars had gone by them. He wished he’d found out why.
When he’d run, it had felt like he’d ditched everything. He’d been ready to accept whatever came—whatever Fin or one of his guns dished out. He was no different than the U’s scrambling out, on a fix or wishing they were, trying not to get caught. From the castle of their getting some into the cold should-have-known.
In the darkness inside the van he remembered the whole yard—the porch, the walk, the beaten grass the color of dirt. The fingers of morning light spilling onto the street, the houses across. The helicopter and fire trucks.
And the girl who’d been shot there. He wasn’t ready to think about that.
—
Walter snored once loudly and jerked. “Damn,” he wheezed. “Fell asleep.”
“You can move back,” East offered. “I’ll ride up front.”
Michael Wilson stopped along the highway so Walter could maneuver out and climb back in. East tried to make out Walter’s face as they traded places. But the night was unreasonably black.
He buckled in as Michael set the van rolling. It was just them and the white lines, one car fading away a mile ahead, a pair of red eyes.
“?‘My crew is mad deep, I hope you niggas sleep,’?” recited Michael Wilson.
“Oh, now you gonna rap for us?” East said. He lowered his seat belt and brought the seat forward a notch. “So, at the casino, man.”
He watched in the dashboard lights as Michael Wilson reset his lips, then ducked low under the visor to read the road sign. “Make sure I get east on I-70, man.”
East set his feet. Ignore the ignoring. “What was that, man? That mad-dog shit?”
Michael just rode his hands up on the wheel and bit his lips again. East stopped staring at him after a while, watched the reflectors pass instead. Little blots of light. A million of them already. His eyes were tired.
“Mad-dog shit?” Michael Wilson said at last. “You make that up last night standing yard in The Boxes?”
Now East stayed quiet. He’d cast his line.
“Listen,” Michael Wilson came up with eventually. “You ain’t gonna hear it. But when I stopped, I did it for you.”
East snorted. “For me.”
“For y’all. All of us. All right? It didn’t work out. But I was trying, you know, to fire y’all up. I thought you’d like it. I thought we might win or lose, man, but go in and look, play a bit. Come out as a team.” Michael Wilson muttered as if the world were lined up against him. “Every good coach don’t win every game.”
“You ain’t a coach is why.”
“East, honey,” Michael Wilson said. “You want to fuck with me? Do it straight. Not sideways.”
“All right, then,” said East. He took a pleasure in letting it out. Let everyone wake up. “You ain’t a coach. This ain’t a team. This is a job. Keep on the job.”
Michael Wilson nodded. “You done? Is that all?”
“If you can. If you can keep on the job,” he taunted.
“You all, ‘The boy stood on the burning deck.’?”
“Well, I don’t know what that is,” East sniffed.
“I know you don’t, my brother,” said Michael Wilson. “I know. It’s okay. Be a pal. Don’t let me miss east I-70.”
East let it rest. He didn’t trust Michael Wilson.
“I went skiing up here one time,” Michael said. “I went on this, like, black-diamond motherfucker. Dudes barreling past me on snowboards, I thought I was gonna die. I figured, okay, watch out for them two motherfuckers, then here comes another—”
“There it is.” The sign. The wide green banner across the road. They were already under it. “Go that way, man.”
Neither of them had been watching.
“You sure?”
“East I-70. Go right.”