Chasing Taboo

Knock. Knock. Knock. Olivia could feel the corner of the crisp hundred dollar poking into her thigh as she waited for someone to open up at 912 Branden. The scorching yellow sun was hanging low in the cerulean sky, clinging desperately onto the fading day, and Olivia was doing something stupid yet again.

Stone opened it. His expression pulled weightily on his ever glowing skin. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Nice to see you too.”

The sarcasm flew right past him.

“Look, I’m just here to do some business.”

“What kind of business?”

She pulled the money out of her pocket. “You know. Business.”

Despite his better judgment, he moved aside to let her in. If ‘8th Block’ had taught him anything, it must have been you never turn down a buck.

“Where’s Hero?”

Stone shut the door. “He ain’t here. What you looking for?”

“Um, a gram?”

Mixer was playing a video game in the living room. “Ya gotta wait for Hero, Stone. He gotta open the safe.”

“I know that,” grumbled Stone.

Mixer and Olivia exchanged enthusiastic pleasantries.

“Why don’t you have a seat, alright?” said Stone, walking his guest to the couch.

Olivia made her way inside and sat behind Mixer. He was planted on the floor, swaying his body with the racing game in front of him like a little kid.

“So Hero’s the only one who can get to the drugs?”

“Yeah,” said Mixer, his eyes not leaving the screen. “Yeah, it’s like a security thing, like if shit go missing, we know who done it ‘cause Hero the only one who got the combination. It’s in the code.”

“The code?”

“Yeah, the Blades code, like a code, like we got rules, and shit, you know. Hey, ya wanna go look at pichers? Oh snap, that fool got me, fuckin—”

“Hold up, Mixer. Look at me.” Stone walked up to Mixer, grabbed his face, and pointed it toward his. “You fuckin’ bitch, you high!?”

“Well, a little, yeah.”

“Ain’t it a little early for that!?”

“I didn’t wanna be up all night, hy’ung! Don’t worry. I ain’t that fucked up.”

Stone looked back at Olivia. “Look, don’t listen to any shit he’s sayin’ right now, alright? He’s high as shit, he doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

“Hey, it ain’t even like that!”

“Fuck you, you motherfuckin’ monkey, don’t talk to strangers about the code. Do I gotta babysit you? You twenty years old, you ain’t a baby no more. Stop acting like one.”

“I won’t. But hey, can I show the snow bunny some pichers?”

Stone looked like he didn’t want to say okay, but he did anyway. “For a little bit, ‘til Hero get back.”

“When will Hero be here?” asked Olivia.

Stone looked at her. “Hero’s good at making people wait.” And he left the room.

Mixer stared into Stone’s exit with a protruding bottom lip. As soon as he was gone, he scurried across the floor and shut off the TV. “Hey, O, you wanna look at pichers?”

Olivia lifted one eyebrow. This wasn’t how she expected things to go tonight. “Um, sure?”

Mixer exploded into a smile. “Come on, I’ll show ya pichers!” He was nearly at the bottom of the stairs before he was got onto his feet again. “Here! Here! Come on!” He zoomed up those steps with Olivia trailing behind. “Come on!” She couldn’t possibly have been fast enough to satisfy him. A twenty year old man had retrogressed to age eight.

He went into a bedroom, leaned under the bed and pulled out a plastic box. After removing the lid, he pulled out a Wal-Mart photo album. With an ear-to-ear grin, he invited Olivia to sit next to him on the floor. “Look! Look!” He flipped a couple pages into the book to a photograph of himself and a couple of other guys Olivia didn’t recognize. “Look, that’s me with Om’bai and Kei’kei.” Om’bai had one of those faces that looked angry no matter what his actual mood might be.

 “Are they ‘Blades’ too?”

“No. They Dragons now.”

“Dragons?” She remembered the word written in the graffiti in the alley.

“Yeah, but that ain’t what I wanted to show you. I wanted to show you this.” He turned the page. “That’s my sister, Kai’lah.”

Kai’lah was not a beautiful girl, but she wasn’t ugly either. She was a young, flat-chested woman with long, straight, black hair, and the scale of her smile made her eyes look smaller. She was sitting on a man’s lap, her legs on either side of his thigh, and the elation on her face proved her to be proud of that positioning. The man was looking to the side, a red cup on his lips as something off camera clearly held his attention. His hair was long and messy, and his muscular arm rested passively on the side of Kai’lah’s hip.

“Is that Hero?” Olivia asked, leaning her face in closer to the page.

“Yeah, that’s Hero,” said Mixer. “Always looking the other way when Kai’lah’s in his face, look at that.”

“Were they together?”

“Fuck, no, he ain’t havin’ it. She tries and tries and tries and he just ain’t havin’ it.”

“Why not?”

“Roger Williams,” said Mixer.

Olivia questioned him with a baffled pause.

“Roger Williams,” repeated Mixer. “It’s somethin’ Hero always says, it means somethin’ like it’s the choices you make when you ain’t bein’ forced or when nobody’s lookin’ that define you. It’s a part of the code. A Blade gets punished if he don’t do right, but one of the one true five, that’s me-Stone-Hero-Wildcard-Ace, we don’t need no threats to do right, that’s why we got trust between us.”

“Right, but what does that have to do with your sister and Roger Williams?”

He was gravely serious. “Everything.”

Something made a beep sound. It sounded like some sort of alarm, but Mixer didn’t seem to notice it.

“Um, okay. Where is she now?”

“She outta town. Hope she come home soon, ‘cause I need a haircut.”

“I could cut your hair for you.”

“Nah, I don’t let nobody touch my hair but Kai’lah.”

Olivia smiled wryly, but judging by Mixer’s scraggly do, he really need to give another stylist a chance.

Mixer turned the page. “Oh snap, look, look, that’s the block party.”

“8th Block party?”

“Yeah, 8th Block. We was celebratin’ ‘cause Hero just bought the house – first Asian out of the block to own his own home. He shoulda stopped flossin’ at the club after that, but he was always up to no good – look, there’s Kai’lah, and Om’bai, and there’s me.”

“But he’s still ‘flossing at the club,’ isn’t he?”

“Nah, he gave that shit up years ago. Now we own the club, so that’s different, everything’s different than it used to be, since we got the code.”

“So is everyone at this party a Blade?”

“Nah, we was Dragon Blades.”

“I thought the Dragons and the Blades were different.”

“They are now. They wasn’t then. Then, we was family.” He turned more pages. “Oh, snap! Look at that – Pansy doin’ the keg stand. She found out she was knocked up a couple days later, and we was like, oh, damn!”

He flipped through a few more photographs, presenting a steady montage of other people’s alien memories. She saw Wildcard asleep in the bathtub (she only recognized him because of the fire-engine hair), a close up of Orchid and Seneka touching tongues and making silly faces, Ace and Crash arm wrestling, a newborn baby—apparently Pansy’s, little Kang’ju—and a lot—a lot—of photos of Mixer’s beloved older sister, Kai’lah.

The heavy creaking sound of the opening door made its way to the room.

“Shit, that’s probably Hero,” said Mixer. “Gotta put this shit up.” He put the book away. “Isn’t Kai’lah pretty?”

“Yeah, she’s pretty.”

“Wish Hero thought so. She loves him so much. Back in the day, wherever he went, she was gonna follow him. She’d follow him anywhere.”

“Mixer?” She looked at his eyes. His pupils were so big, his chocolate irises were reduced to feint halos.

“Hm?”

“If you don’t mind me asking, what are you on?”

He grinned. “Bliss. Blades brand, best shit in the world, world’s best, best shit.”

“What does it feel like?”

Suddenly and with great cheer, he grabbed her shoulders and pressed his forehead against hers. She could have sworn she could feel his eyelashes on hers, tickling her, but it may have been her imagination.

In a deep, silly voice, he boomed, “Look into my eyes.”

Beep.

Stone’s voice interrupted his childlike reverie. “Hero’s here. Come on downstairs.”

Olivia followed Stone down the stairs and toward an obscure door tucked in the corner of the house. At first, based on the nature of the door, Olivia assumed they were going into the garage, but instead she saw a creaky set of stairs leading toward a basement lit by color-sucking fluorescent lights. Each step shrieked upon impact.

When they got to the bottom step, she saw what looked like a teenager’s attempt at a science lab. A long counter with a sink framed the corner of the room, boasting a strange contraption built out of a laundry detergent bottle and a scattered array of tubes, funnels, and tools.

Hero was sitting at a table, his back turned to the staircase with a phone on his cheek. He was wearing loose-fitting pants over bare feet, his torso covered by a nearly translucent white tank.

“And I’m looking at about twenty kilos of white girl,” said Hero. “Half in powder form. Cut the other half into twenty-dollar rocks. I’ll have someone pick it up in one week. Seven days, no fucking joking, alright? Alright. Peace.” He turned around, expressionless. “And now I’m looking at a buck twenty of white girl, it would seem. How’s it going, snow bunny? What you need?”

Olivia put the hundred on the table. “I need whatever I can get with this.” She swallowed what was left of her uncertainty. “Bliss.”

Beep.

Hero frowned. “I thought you said you didn’t do drugs.”

“They’re not for me,” I said. “They’re for my co-worker, Taylor.”

Hero nodded. “Taylor.” He looked at Stone, then back to Olivia. “Taylor done business with us before?”

“He said he normally works with Crash.”

Hero nodded slowly before looking past me. “Crash. Alright, well Crash is out of commission at the moment, so his clientele has been transferred to Stone.” He looked at Stone. “Since he’s your client, so you get ten.”

“Hy’ung!” Stone scoffed. “My cut is twenty, you know this.”

Hero’s face opened. “Do you want to fight about this?”

“O ain’t here for business, she’s running a fucking errand,” said Stone. “Taylor is my client.”

“Watch it,” said Hero. “You didn’t bring this in, O brought it in. Remember we had that talk about being consistent? I cut O out, fucking floodgates are open. You’re splitting it.”

“Fifteen,” Stone said sternly.

Hero rolled his eyes before he looked at Olivia. “You cool with five percent?”

Olivia weighed her options and the situation. Beep.

“No,” she said. “No way. I’m taking this money and walking out the door if I don’t get all twenty percent.”

Her words sucked the air out of the room, leaving only the men’s astonishment to fill the space between the walls.

Hero nodded respectfully. “Alright. Plead your case.”

“Crash is out of commission,” Olivia recalled. “Stone wasn’t answering Crash’s phone for him when Taylor wanted to buy, and the first person Taylor came to was me. I’m obtaining and delivering his product and the only effort that Stone here has put into this transaction is opening the goddamn front door. I want twenty.”

Hero tried to stop himself from smiling. “Stone? Retort?”

Stone glared at Hero. “What, is this bitch in the fucking gang now!? No bitches, Hero. It’s in the code!”

“Don’t call her a bitch,” said Hero. He looked at Olivia, and though his lips were straight as an arrow, the aura of a smile was there. “Normally a gram is one twenty-five, but I’m feeling generous tonight. Hang tight, I’ll go get your product.”

As Hero walked toward the safe, Olivia leaned into her chair smugly. She stuck her tongue out at Stone.

The next day, Olivia was well into another unfulfilling shift at work. Hello, how are you?! Who helped you out today? Interested in signing up for a Barrington’s Card? It only takes five minutes and you can get five percent off your entire purchase! Sign here, please. Thank you, have a great day. Hello! Who helped you today?  Interested in a Barrington’s Card? Five percent! Sign. Thank you. Hello! Who? Interested? Five! Thank you. Hello!

“Hello—” Before Olivia looked up at the next customer, a twenty dollar bill and a torn piece of paper with a short note on it were on the counter in front her. She knew who it was. She smiled at him. “Are you stalking me?”

 “No,” said Hero. “You forgot something.”

With a smile, she took the money and the note into her hand. She didn’t need to read it, she knew what it said. She had written it herself ten minutes before she left his house the previous evening.  It’s not about the money, said the note. It’s about the respect. She has placed it beside her twenty dollar cut on the counter as she left the basement.

He glared at her. “My home is not your playground to addle in the brains of men with craft, chag’ya. Don’t insult my intelligence by pretending you came over as a pro bono delivery girl. What were you really there for?”

“Maybe I’ll answer that as soon as you admit why you asked me to dinner.”

“Christ, chag’ya. Get the fuck over yourself. I wanted to offer you a job—what do I gotta do to get that through that over-grown head of yours?”

Customers began to form a line behind him.

“Hero, I am at work. There are customers in line behind you. Come back when you’re ready to admit you’re into me. Until then, I don’t care about anything you have to say.”

Hero looked behind him. The two women in line looked a bit perturbed. He looked back at Olivia, seething with rage. “I am taking you to dinner. I am not asking you out, I am commanding you out. You will change clothes here and you will be ready when I come pick you up at six. Do you understand?”

“Change into what? I don’t have a change of clothes here.”

Hero pulled out his wallet and slapped a black American Express card on the table. “There are plenty of dresses here. We’re going to Premier Cru so try to resist the temptation to buy something slutty.”

“Shoes too?”

“Do I look like I give a shit?”

“What’s my price limit?”

He smirked and put his wallet back in his pocket. “What do you think?” And he left.

Once the line died down, Erin and Lana in customer service gawked at their co-worker. Olivia tapped on the counter, thinking and rethinking the choice she had just made.

“Did that guy give you his AMEX and tell you to buy whatever you want?” asked Erin.

“Uh,” said Olivia. “Yeah?”

Lana stood silent in awestruck wonderment. “Marry him.”

Olivia was raised affluently. When she wanted a new CD or a new DVD, she bought it without question, and there was always fresh food in the top-of-the-line fridge, always immigrant workers keeping the grass trimmed and the floors mopped. But she had never in her life seen anything like what Hero showed her that night. If she had, she might have had the proper vocabulary to describe it.

She supposed the word “shiny” could describe the wood in the walls and floor that framed every room like a work of art. She could use “pretty” to describe the paintings on the walls or “classy” to describe the overdressed serving staff. “Elegant” might have worked for the chandeliers or “soothing” might describe the music playing. This place was going to be well over a hundred bucks for a plate of food, of that Olivia was certain.

“Mr. Vem,” said the maitre d.’ “Always a pleasure. Your regular table?”

“Yes, if you don’t mind,” nodded Hero. Or Mr. Vem. Olivia chuckled.

They walked over to ‘Mr. Vem’s’ regular table, which had the most intricately folded napkins and astonishing array of silverware she had ever seen. It was right by a large window and the moonlight made its way to the table with graceful radiance.

“Would you be interested in seeing our wine list this evening?” asked the host.

Hero frowned. “Where’s Lou Ann?”

The host paused. “My apologies, sir. She is actually off tonight.”

Hero raised his eyebrows. “But Larry, you know Lou Ann is my favorite.”

“I deeply apologize Mr. Vem.”

“Why don’t you call her?” Hero asked. “I’m sure she wouldn’t mind. I really want her to meet Miss Cunnington here.”

The maitre d’ gave a submissive nod. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you,” said Hero. “And in the mean time could you bring that 1976 Chateau Latour?”

“As you wish, Mr. Vem,” he said, and briskly walked away.

“Hero!” Olivia cried. “You’re calling in a girl who’s off work?”

“I tip very, very well,” said Hero. “She’ll be fine.”

She grimaced. “Well, you can at least tell that nice man he can call you Hero instead of Mr. Vem.”

Hero frowned without looking at her, his face pointed at the menu. “But he can’t.”

A couple moments later, a new waiter came holding the bottle. The way he did it, the process of taking the cork out and pouring the wine into our glasses looked like an elegant, choreographed dance. It put the waiters at Olivia’s dad’s country club to shame. He bowed a little before he walked away.

She picked up the glass and took a small experimental sip. When she put it back on the table, she shuddered to think what that bottle was costing him.

After she excused herself to the restroom, she saw a Mexican attendant sitting on a stool in there, flipping through a magazine. Olivia crossed the threshold, and as soon as the attendant took a fraction of notice, she skyrocketed to her feet, put her hands to her sides, and looked at the floor. Interesting.

She walked to the very last stall before doing her business. Once done, she opened the stall door as slowly as she could and took off her shoes so she could step silently across the narrow bathroom hall. When she got to the end of the toilets, the attendant was sitting comfortably looking at the magazine again. Olivia smirked.

Now, Olivia was only a couple feet from the sitting attendant. She took in a deep breath, and, “Hah!”

That little lady must have jumped about five feet in the air, as if that stool had burst into flames. The magazine was airborne, the colors of the pages scattering about my view like confetti. Naturally, onto her feet she went, arms and head jerking downward. Olivia laughed.

She returned to her seat with a pleasant skip to her step.

“So are you going to admit that you like me now?”

He glared. “No.”

“Are you sure?”

His glare increased intensity.

“Fine, then I’m gonna ask for a straw and start blowing bubbles into this Chateau Latour.”

She started to lift her arm, but Hero grabbed it and jerked it down.

“Stop it. Will you listen? I have a very serious offer for you.”

“Always so serious. Fine. What can I do for you, your gangstaness?”

He smiled. “Okay. Here’s what’s going on. Despite some of your less desirable personality traits, you are clearly very observant and intelligent.”

“Aww, that’s so sweet.”

“And as you may have noticed, white people aren’t very popular with my family. We’ve had problems in the past.”

“The white man always trying to put you down?”

“Not exactly. The fact is, I don’t believe that a person should be judged by their ethnicity, but by the content of their character. A ‘gang’ is nothing more than a business, and employment needs to be based on the capacity to perform needed skills. Assembling a functioning team based on race is primitive thinking, and I’m a forward thinking man. Do you follow?”

“So you want to hire a white girl to prove a point?”

“Well, not exactly. A woman can’t be a Blade. It’s in the code.”

Olivia squinted one eye. “So racism is primitive thinking, but sexism is the new Ed Hardy?”

“I can’t reformat my entire business overnight, chag’ya. The idea is that you stay with me. You look good, you keep an eye on shit, and you answer to me. You are seen by my side at parties, at functions, at the club. It’s a political move – if Hero Vem is seen with a white girl, the message is out that Blades are not defined by their ethnicity but by their fully-functional operation and their consistent values. You understand?”

Olivia took a sip of her wine. “You want to hire me as arm candy?”

“Yes. Yes, I do.”

“Sounds to me like you’re trying to make an excuse to keep me close to you.” She wiggled her eyebrows.

A 30-something woman with long blond hair came through the door like a gust of wind. She gave a nod of acknowledgment before disappearing toward the back, and she came back in proper waitress attire, her face with a clear message of exhaustion woven with ready attentiveness.

“How you doing Hero?” she asked. She called him Hero.

“A lot better now that you’re here,” he said. “Olivia, this is Lou Ann. Lou Ann, this is Miss Olivia Cunnington.”

Olivia smiled. “Can I have a straw?”

Hero frowned. “She’s joking.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Lou Ann said with a nod and a smile. It wasn’t the host’s phony kiss-ass smile, Lou Ann was genuinely happy to meet Olivia.

“Hope you didn’t mind coming in,” said Hero.

She shrugged. “It’s not like I have a life. I live but to serve you.”

Hero laughed. “The burden of being the best, my lady. The burden of being the best.”

“Ah, yes,” she chuckled. “I take orders like a pro.”

“Miss Lou Ann, you sure do look pretty,” said Hero. “You ain’t wearing all that make-up for me, are you?”

She laughed again. “I was on a date, actually.”

Olivia sat up. “You left your date to come to work?”

“Hero calls, you come,” said Lou Ann. “If you’re his girl, you should know that.”

They gave Lou Ann their orders.

 “I’ll be right back. You two need anything else?”

“That will do us fine,” said Hero. “Thanks so much for coming in. My evening would have been incomplete without you.”

“Feeling’s mutual, Hero,” she smiled and walked away.

“Hero!” Olivia said. “She was on a date!”

“She’s in the service industry,” said Hero. “It’s her job.”

“But on her own time?”

“I gotta work on my own time every day,” said Hero. “Every minute of your day is your time, it’s up to you if you wanna make money with it.”

“How come she’s allowed to call you Hero but the other guy isn’t?”

“She earned it,” said Hero. “So do you want the job or not?”

Olivia kicked her feet. “If I can’t get a straw, maybe I’ll tuck this napkin into my new Chanel cocktail dress, hop and the table and sing my ABCs.”

“Olivia, stop it.”

She started to tuck her napkin in. “I’ll do it. Watch me.”

She started to stand, but Hero pulled her back down and jerked the napkin out of her dress.

“Fine,” he said. “Fine. I like you. Are you happy now?” He took a sip of his wine and looked away.

Olivia grinned. “So what is it about me that you like? Is it my devilish good looks? Or my immeasurable charisma?”

“You already got me to say I like you,” he said, looking down at the table. “It’s going to take some time and some trust for me to tell you why.”

“Fair enough.” She took in a big, triumphant breath. “Okay. I’ll be your snow bunny arm candy.” Battle won. On both their ends.

Tags: Hero, Lou Ann, Mixer, Olivia, Olivia's Point of View, Stone

This entry was posted on Monday, August 3rd, 2009 at 7:56 pm and is filed under The Story. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.