—Champ
No mights or maybes to it, in the public my homebody is a helluva right-hand man, but minus a crowd, he’s a jabbering voice of dissent. Prove it! he loves saying, which is second only to his favorite: Man, what kind of fool-ass shit is that!
Was making my case on the ride over, schooling the homie that a generation was all it takes. For evidence I used the Kennedys and Joe Sr. (John, Bobby, and Teddy’s pops), he, who clocked beaucoup bread doing stock business that, these days, would get a motherfucker locked up under a jail; he, who made a king’s ransom off his side hustle as a grand, maybe the grand puba of prohibition bootlegging.
Tell me the Kennedys ain’t American royals, I said.
And your point is? he said.
This is when I mentioned Big Ken’s oldest brother, Uncle Cluck, who well before his passionate crusade for crackhead of the century graduated cum laude from the U of O and ran a profitable legal businesses while becoming (per the newspaper headlines of his bust) the biggest dope dealer in the land.
My point is you’ve got to be more than ambitious. You got to have that capital-V vision. Just think where Big Ken’s fam would’ve been if Uncle Cluck was farsighted.
Half Man made the sound of a fat stabbed balloon. Bro, your uncle Cluck was a dope dealer, he said. Not no politician. You got a bunch of book smarts, homie. But I do believe sometimes you lack in common sense.
Maybe he wasn’t, I say. But what if it ain’t who you end up, but who you were or could’ve been?
It’s the Shamrock, but we call it the Sham. And the Sham wouldn’t be shit without Sweets. Sweets, Ms. Do-It-All here, is chatting up a guy with a grizzly beard. The TV bolted to the wall plays a football game on mute. A pair of chicks hunker near the poker machines, one with a head of frozen ripples, the other trawling a purse you could use for baptismals. Ain’t but a few working bulbs above the pool table, which makes for terrible light, but once your eyes adjust, you can make out rips in the felt and sight a clean shot. I hunt a pair of straight sticks and check the table for warps and Half Man slinks over to buy the brews.
Oh, you trying to get me buzzed, I say. It won’t work.
No, I’m trying to cut trips to the bar, he says. Besides, your luck has run out.
Since when, I say, is luck a synonym for skill?
The sun shines on a dog’s ass every now and then, he says.
My favorite unc, Uncle Sip, was the one who schooled me on how to hold a brew, how to lap it before you swallow, a skill at which (I’ve seen him down 40’s on the hour every hour all the day long) he must’ve been an expert. But Unc didn’t bestow me his tolerance. Me, who’s almost always buzzed from the first swig on. Liquored or not, though, Half Man ain’t half no comp on this felt. The homie don’t know nothing about my Shaolin secret. The key to a straight shot is balance. The trick to balance is accepting the fall.
I break. Balls scatter but nothing drops.
Losing your touch, Half Man says.
Or touched, I say, by another loose rack.
Half Man scouts a shot, eyes a solid, and sinks it. That’s your ass, he says. You luck done run out.
Bet money, I say.
What, now I’m supposed to be spooked? he says.
We both know I’m not to be bluffed by quasi-cool. I slap a couple bucks on the rail and, true to form, he short-sticks his next shot.
So much for being fearless, I say. Let’s hope we never get into another event with the police. You was damn near an albino.
Sheeit, he says, and catches his brew by the neck. What you know, when you ain’t been locked up?
You ever check on that? I say.
Bro, who checks on warrants? he says.
Boom! This dude burst though the saloon doors hauling a bloated garbage bag. He struggles over and drops his bag by us and scans the room from Sweets and the bearded man, to the chick gamblers to me and Half Man. He digs a black box from an inside coat pocket and asks us if we like gold and diamonds. Check this out: Knocked All That Glitters for proper shine, he says. He pulls out a thick copper-colored chain and a men’s diamond ring. Chain worth a few hundred. Ring worth a few grand, he says. But I’ll take half a stack for both. That’s a bargain right there.
You call that gold? We must look like marks, I say.
Nah, nah, not at all, boss. Check it out. Got the fourteen-K stamp and all that. The shit’s authentic plus ten percent, he says. Ask anybody. I do my business on the up-and-up day- and night, seven days out the week.
Half Man asks what’s in the bag.
Oh, this right here? he says. This what I happened upon this morning. A few personal items. Household necessities and such. Got a twin sheet set with a thread count high as a house note. Got a nice comforter too. Calvin Klein drawls, got T-shirts, the premium kind with that thick-ass cotton, got flashlights and batteries, a coupla pairs of leather gloves. And you know them gloves gone come in handy. Be cold as an Eskimo’s balls out here fore you know it. Altogether the shit come up to bout rent on a one-bedroom. But I ain’t gone stick you up like I do them white folks. The shit’s all yours for the fair bid.
Half Man slaps his bottle down and digs in his pocket. He spreads his offer into a fan.
You serious, dude says. For almost five times that worth of merchandise. All brand-new with the tags attached. Damn, boss, I know I’m fucked up, but you ain’t got to do a brother like that!
Man, you want this money or what? Half Man says.
But that’s bad business, he says. Can’t do it for that.
Half Man stuffs his cash out of sight and dude tucks his black boxes and reties his bag. He fathoms the room and idles, begins to schlep off with his wares.
Hold up, I say. How much for the bedding?
He stops and turns and brightens and asks me what I think is fair. We haggle a second or two and settle. He throws in a pack of batteries, which is, as he calls it, a new business perk.
Me and Half Man split games and finish the rest of our brews. I’m good and buzzing by the last one but miles from slurring or swaying. Or so it feels. Meantime, one of the gambler girls wins big and brags about it to her friend. Sweets asks if we’d like another round, but I order water instead—another tenet of Uncle Sip’s drink-for-life manifesto.
The side door swings open and in rushes a clique of dudes wearing black parkas and blue Chuck Taylors. There’s a funny-ass joke running between them right up until the time they see us. Seeing us is the same as someone muting the laugh track on a sitcom. These clowns (in a city this small we all do) look hella familiar, but I couldn’t tell you from where or name a single name. They pull up seats, place an order for a round of Rémys, and keep right on snickering. They glare at us and bet money they’re measuring their reps against ours. I walk over and ask Half Man if he thinks there might be a problem and he says, Shit, if it is, it’s for them, maybe.
Got to dig the homie for that. True, there ain’t no superheroes here (all of the tough dudes end up dead or defeated), but some guys, guys like Half Man that live by pistols and pathos, there’s just ain’t no persuading them they’re capeless, that, no matter, white tees over flesh never amounts to Kevlar.
The wannabes spread out. One of them (dude smells like a lit blunt) spreads quarters on the rail and hovers without a word. We take our time finishing, and play another game just because we can, and when we’re done, Half Man snatches our bets off the rail, while I grab the stuff I bought for my mom. We blasé to the other side. It crosses my mind to hum.
On the other side we order our usual: burgers big as Frisbees, crispy fries, biggie pops. We grub by the big picture window. Outside, the wind throws trash across the lot. A trucker climbs into his semi. A woman flits towards the hospital with a thick parka up top, scrubs down below, and gleaming white nurse shoes.
Half Man asks about Mom.
She’s cool, I say. But she needs to get out of that spot. I need to get her out of there.
Where she stay again? he says.
Piedmonts, I say.
The Piedmonts, he says. Damn, dog, I see your point.
She gave me a key, I say. I’ma shoot this bedding there ASAP. If she don’t see me leave it, she might keep it.
Why wouldn’t she keep it? he says.
Man, she been trippin, I say. Asking about where I get the money to help. On her holy shit again.
You still scheming on ya’lls old house? he says.
Yeah, that’s the plan.
Oh, so they selling it now? How much?
Ain’t got that far, I say.
You can bet that shit gone be a jug, he says.
Why you think I’m into it like this now? I say.
Half Man scopes the restaurant and cranes across the table. Dog, what you think about fuckin with meth? he says. It’s crazy-low startup cost and stupid net. My homeboy knows some white boys in Southeast that be making bank.
Bad idea, I say.
No, serious, he says.
Me too, I say. How about we stick to what we know fore we get knocked?
My pager goes off and it’s a lick. I chomp another bite of burger and scribble a fry in ketchup. You ready to roll? I say. Let’s be out.
Peoples, peoples, keep it one hundred with me. You’ve been wondering about us improvidents—my uncs, the booster, Half Man, the antiheroes on the other side of the Sham, me. You’ve been wondering, what is it that sets us apart, haven’t you, wondering how are we all, all, all, all, one in the same?