False Idols by K'wan

Author:K'wan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Akashic Books, Ltd.

PART III

MY BROTHER’S KEEPER

CHAPTER 14

“Look at you boys, y’all as clean as the Board of Health!” an addict named Herm declared as he ambled up. He was tall and had always been thin, but drugs and hard living had him hovering somewhere between malnourished and skeletal. Back in the day, Herm had been a talented ball player, but he’d traded in hoop dreams for pipe dreams.

His comments were directed to a trio of neighborhood kids sitting on a stoop, the oldest being no more than nineteen. They were who you came to see when you needed narcotics, which is what had brought Herm out before sundown. His monkey couldn’t sleep, so it wouldn’t allow him to either.

“What’s up with you, Herm?” one of the young men greeted with a friendly slap of his palm. This was Boone, a brown-skinned cat who wore his hair in fuzzy cornrows that always looked like they needed to be done over.

“Living like I do,” capped Herm, “always out the way, and always in some pussy.”

“You stay talking that talk!” Boone laughed. Herm may have been a junkie, but he was also a good dude with an infectious personality who could always make people smile.

Herm turned his attention to the kid sitting on the step below Boone. He had a splayed cigar laid across his palm and was breaking up buds of weed into it. “What up, Lou? How you living?”

“Better than you, nigga,” Lou spat. He was light-skinned with a shaved head, and seemed to always be wearing a scowl.

“I swear, you gotta be the only nigga in the hood who just wakes up angry,” Herm said. “Put a smile on your face, youngster.”

“How about I put a smile on yours?” Lou removed a box cutter from his pocket.

“Chill, Lou,” the third kid spoke up from the highest step. He had brown skin with chestnut eyes and thick lips that were never chapped. Three-sixty waves glistened atop his head in the afternoon sun. A modest gold chain hung from his neck with a depiction of St. Peter dangling from it. The sneakers on his feet were so white they looked like they had just come out of the box.

“See, that’s why you’ve always been my man, Fresh. You always treat people with respect, no matter what their story is. Even when you started getting a little money out here, you didn’t let it change you. Not like some people.” Herm cut his eyes at Lou.

“I advise you to stop poking the bear and state your business. What you need?” Fresh asked. He liked Herm well enough, but he never lost sight of the fact that the man was an addict and, as such, liked to play dope-fiend games. With addicts, everything was always an angle.

“Can I talk with you for a minute, Fresh?” Herm asked.

Fresh shrugged. “Speak.”

Herm hesitated. “In private … if it ain’t too much trouble.”

Fresh let out a sigh before standing. “Y’all hold it down. I’ll be back in a second.” He stepped between his two friends and off the stoop.

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