South Central Noir

He jumped up to face the intruders. “What are you doing here?”

“Just stopped by to see yer new crib.”

“You’re the one who’s been following me?” Olin asked.

“Wasn’t hard with that ugly-ass truck.”

“I paid you your money.”

“Uh-huh. You know, my kid brutha says you talk in yer sleep.”

“I don’t even know your brother.”

“I think you do, motherfucka,” another voice said, stepping out of the shadows. It was Linwood Earle and he looked bigger, stronger, and meaner. He walked from the door to where Olin was standing in three big steps. It was dark but Olin still recognized the hatred in his eyes. That same dead stare he saw every morning in juvie. When Linwood whipped his right arm sideways, Olin leaned and ducked just in time. Linwood regained his footing and grabbed him by the neck.

“I been waitin’ for this for a minute,” he said sneering, up in Olin’s face. He stank of body odor and malt liquor. “I heard you talkin’ in yer sleep every night. Cryin’, screamin’, and sayin’ all kinds of shit. That’s when I knew you killed our brutha.”

Olin flailed and thrashed to get free. His eyes bugged and bulged. Linwood finally released his grip and Olin fell against the wall gasping for air. “What do you want from me?”

Linwood shoved him backward. “You got some fuckin’ nerve axin’ me that. How ’bout some street justice for my oldest brutha Derrick? He was the closest thing to a real father I ever had. Then he goes and dies in a fire at a home for orphans. Same one you stayed at!”

“That doesn’t prove anything,” Olin responded.

“But that can of gas does,” the dealer said, taking a step toward him. “Maybe the law couldn’t prove shit, but we can.” He slid a Glock semiauto out of his waistband and raised it up to his chest in a two-handed grip.

Olin didn’t have anywhere to run. He could taste the fear in the back of his throat. He flinched and stumbled, and clumsily yanked out his own gun. He squeezed the trigger and braced himself for the blast. Nothing happened.

The dealer snickered and said: “That one don’t work. Made sure of it after we knew it was you.” He aimed again, but before he could fire, Linwood picked up a wooden board and swung it hard and wide, cracking Olin in the back of the head. He dropped like a sack of wet meat.

“Is he dead?” the big thug muttered.

“Let’s get the fuck outta here!” the dealer shouted.

Linwood threw his fist in the air and yelled, “Light this place up!”

They slopped gas on the floor around Olin, who was limp and moaning. Linwood lit a match and dropped it in the oily puddle. The dirt and sawdust smoked. The vivid yellow flames swirled and danced like arms reaching for Olin in a tender embrace. The golden-orange and radiant red flashes of blistering heat flared in a deafening blast. Olin’s gray world exploded into brilliant colors. Everything was on fire, everything was burning. It was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

Jayson and the Liquor Store by Larry Fondation

Imperial Highway

Jayson robbed the liquor store at gunpoint. He doesn’t know why he did it. He didn’t then and he doesn’t now. He just did it. At least that’s what he tells people. Even years later.

The gun wasn’t loaded, he says. (If he even had a gun.) But he doesn’t tell anyone anything about the gun. (Like what kind of gun.) Least of all Marta.

The cops never came. So he says.

He said he stole a car, and that the car busted an axle in the potholes before he abandoned it outside the Hawkins’s joint on Imperial, aiming to come back to the projects that, back then, we all called home. They call them “the developments” now — just to make it sound good and fancy — but we still say projects. Concrete blocks stacked upon concrete blocks forming shoebox units, with thick steel doors to resist bullets and intruders, and bars on the windows. Built as temporary housing for retuning World War II vets — but sixty-plus years later, still standing. Nickerson Gardens, Jordan Downs, Imperial Courts. Nice-sounding names. But inside the apartments are cramped spaces and the same cinder-block construction on the interior, no drywall. You can’t nail anything to the walls. No wedding pictures, but it’s mostly single mothers. No graduation pix either, but me and my brothers and sisters all dropped out of school. They weren’t teaching us jack. So, we don’t take photos of nothing. But it’d be nice to have the option.

Jayson had a story. And fifty bucks for his efforts, he claimed. The fruits of his labor. The store didn’t carry much in the way of cash. So he says.

I don’t know if Marta was impressed. She didn’t act like it. But she’s never acted impressed in any way whatsoever. Not for nobody. Beautiful, aloof Marta.

We all wanted her. We all talked but never did shit.

That’s what happens most of the time — not doing shit, meaning nothing has happened.

I remember one time we asked — “Jayson, what liquor store?”

“The one on Central Avenue.”

Like that narrowed it down.

“What one? R & R?”