Black Buck(119)

“And what does that have to—” I stopped, the blood in my veins turning to lead. I did know a Percy once. Mr. Percy Rawlings. Rosewood, of course. I recognized that cane.

Trey smiled. “Now you see, huh? You kicked my grandfather out of the home he had lived in for decades, you piece of shit. Do you know what happened to him when he left? Where he went?”

All I could do was shake my head.

“He went to an old people’s home. He and my mom didn’t speak anymore, but when a nurse called our house, I picked up and said I’d go to see him. Even though my mom never let him visit us, I remembered and loved him. He was the kindest man I knew. Not one!” He was shouting now. “Not one bad bone in that man’s body.

“But when I went to see him, all he could talk about was you. The kid he wronged by not letting you have a last word with your mom. He would say your name in his sleep and repeat it all day, tears covering his wrinkled face as he stared out the window. Within a few weeks of me getting there, he had a stroke. Nurses said he was under a lot of stress. That his body just couldn’t take it.

“So I went to where he used to live, to confront you, but when I saw what you all were doing, I figured I could make my revenge even sweeter—that I would hurt you and everyone you loved in the process.”

“And when he came to me,” Clyde interjected, “I didn’t hesitate. It was Trey’s idea for me to start WUSS, and he always helped me stay one step ahead of you . . . except when your friends went all Taken on me.”

“That was the only thing I missed,” Trey added. “But it didn’t matter. Jason was always running his mouth about his drug-dealing past. So, knowing he wouldn’t be able to pass up a quick buck, I convinced him to start dealing to Clyde without knowing it. He always just came here, dropped the bag off, took the envelope, and left without ever seeing Clyde.

“We were the ones who got people from WUSS to jump him and told him he had to deliver the cocaine today or that we were done,” Trey said, looking at me with a face full of satisfaction. “This was chess, Buck, not checkers. You never knew what game you were playing, but all roads still brought you here. And that’s what matters most.”

“That’s right,” Clyde said, rounding the table and getting so close that I could smell the fermented grapes on his breath. “You took Rhett away from me!” he shouted, spitting in my face. “The only brother I ever knew. You’re scum, which is why I named you Buck. Because I knew you’d never be worth more than that.”

I looked from one to the other, wondering what they were going to do to me, if there was some staircase I could run down, or maybe even a window I could jump out of and somehow survive the fall. I needed time to think. “What now?”

Clyde unclenched his jaw, sat back down, and poured himself another glass. “You just delivered a quarter pound of coke to me, Buck. What do you think?”

“No,” Trey said, opening up a cabinet, taking out other packages. “He delivered a few pounds of it, actually. And we have it all here.”

“You both are insane. I never did that.”

“No?” Clyde said. “We have you walking into my apartment, placing the bag on the ground, and taking the money. When we told my dad’s DEA buddy that we knew about a big drug dealer parading around as some civil rights activist, he jumped at the chance.”

Clyde took out his phone and brought it to his ear. “You can come up.”

I turned to the elevator, saw the numbers slowly rising, and ran to the window. I stuck my head out and saw tiny people pausing on the sidewalk as more cop cars arrived, sirens blaring. It was a long way down—there was no way I’d make it. And even if I did, they’d be there to stop me. I looked back at the elevator—the numbers kept climbing.

“Trey,” I said, running over to him. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry about Mr. Rawlings, man. About everything.”

“I’m sure you are,” he said, hard eyes boring into me. “I would be too if I were about to go to jail for a very, very long time.”

“Clyde,” I said, rounding the table.

“No, Buck,” he laughed. “It’s too late for—”

I blasted my fist through his face, breaking his jaw, nose, and some other smaller bones in that blond head with those bluer than blue eyes.

Just then, when the elevator rang and the doors opened, I could think of only one thing. A question.

Was it all worth it?

Reader: You tell me.





Epilogue





On May 8, 1973, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller signed what are known as the Rockefeller Drug Laws. If you were caught selling two ounces or more of narcotics or weed, or even just possessing four ounces of either, you were going to prison for a minimum of fifteen years and a maximum of twenty-five years to life. I know, fifteen years of your life gone for just two ounces of weed. The prison population in New York tripled, and ninety percent of those incarcerated under the drug laws were Black and Latino males.

In 2004 Governor George Pataki signed into law the Drug Law Reform Act, which reduced the minimum sentence from fifteen years to eight. So now a Black or Latino male would spend only eight years of his life in prison for selling or possessing drugs that had seemed to them like the only way out of their circumstances.