Chasing Taboo

Ace didn’t like pimping. He only had one ho, and that was all he needed—he had no idea how Hero managed three. Bambi was half black, half Asian, but all sexy. She had a seductive stare that she didn’t fully intend on giving a lot of the time, but it was there, and when she danced she knew how to look at a potential trick to get his blood flowing to his southern head. She was a little on the flat-chested side, but most of her black genes went straight to her ass. She brought in good money.

However, Ace preferred drug money. You didn’t have to worry about bliss mouthing off. You didn’t have to worry about bliss getting hurt. You didn’t have to feed or clothe bliss, and you didn’t worry about bliss when it didn’t come home on time. You didn’t have to feel guilty for the future you may be stealing from bliss, and you didn’t need to give bliss respect. There was a reason drugs were referred to as a controlled substance. You can’t control a human being.

Ace and Bambi were waiting for Roy at A’pa Sei’s market on 13th. Some bridge-and-tunnel tricks didn’t like to get their girls at the club or on the block, but it was no problem—they had various shops in their pocket all over their turf where their girls could be picked up. Roy was new, but Ace looked forward to doing business with him. 30-something white guys were very good to their ladies. And this one, like the others, was on time.

Roy was nervous. There was a table set up in the back with a few folding chairs, secluded from the front business area where they could discuss the rules. Roy sat quietly and dodged eye contact, folding his fingers together, awaiting instruction.

“Here’s how this works,” said Ace. “We run a good, clean business—all our women are top notch quality and provide a variety of services. She’ll let you know her rates, and I’ll let the two of you discuss what you need—but there are things that she will do and there are things she will not do. We want to keep our customers happy, but Blades women are our family. That means that if she comes back damaged in any way—I’m talking bruises, cuts, or if there are impurities on your part—that shit will come back on you tenfold, you got me?”

Roy nodded.

In the shop, Ace met the gaze of a 20-something white boy looking through the beer selection. He was there with a couple friends, goofing off and talking shit, but this one kid—a blond with dark eyebrows, was giving Ace one heavy look. Ace shrugged it off.

“Alright,” said Ace. “Now I’m going to need the exact address of where you’re taking her. If you change your mind, that’s fine, but I expect a text message with the new location. Bring her back here at ten AM tomorrow morning—at the latest. Got it?”

Roy nodded again.

“Great,” said Ace. “You two have a good night.”

As Ace watched the two of them leave, the blond kid’s eyes only got darker. Meaner. His friends seemed to be trying to talk him down, but the kid kept jerking his arm away and looking back at Ace, mad dogging him like nobody’s business.

This kid, whoever he was, had something to say.

Hero depended on his own brain. Granted, everyone does, but not like Hero did. There were talents he had developed and instincts he had honed that were vital to his business; his arm was as precise as a scale when holding a bag of packed product, and he had internalized the patterns on his spreadsheets so precisely he could catch it immediately if the slightest thing was amiss. But not tonight. Tonight he was counting, recounting, rechecking—his brain automatically reset after every small effort. For the first time in years, business was not his top priority.

Seneka walked down the stairs and into the lab. “Hey, Hero? O?” She surveyed the room. “Where’s O? I want her opinion of my new top—”

“She’s not here.”

“Oh. When she gonna get here?”

Hero was barely done sucking in a breath to speak when Mixer popped into the room. “Hey, where’s O? Eddie brought Madden.”

Seneka looked at Mixer, relieving Hero of the obligation to repeat himself. “She ain’t here.”

Mixer frowned and looked at Hero. “Well, when she gonna get here?”

Hero looked down at his books. “She’s not coming.”

“Oh,” said Mixer, a little baffled. “She coming tomorrow?”

Just as the rooms annoying code went from yellow to orange, Wildcard came down the stairs with his regular swagger. “Yo! Where’s O at? I just saw her mom online!”

Hero sighed. “Olivia is not here, and she’s not coming.”

A perky Mixer looked at Wildcard. “You saw O’s momma online?”

“No,” Wildcard snickered. “It’s some chick fucking a donkey.”

Seneka hit him in the chest.

“What!?” said Wildcard, raising his arms in defense. “Some chick fuckin’ a donkey! I say, ‘hey O, look, it’s your mom!’ That’s funny shit!”

Mixer was puzzled. “Would that make… Olivia… half… donkey?”

Ace was next, trampling down the steps. Code red. “Hey, have you guys seen—”

Hero held up his pen. “If you ask me where Olivia is, I am going to shank you with this ballpoint.”

Ace twisted his lip. “I don’t think you could get enough power out of that pen to pull that off.”

Hero lifted an eyebrow. “You wanna find out?”

“Not really, but I do need to talk to O. There was this guy—”

Hero threw himself back into his chair. “Why do all of you want to see Olivia so badly all of the sudden? Jesus Christ.”

Mixer’s face perked up. “Did she break up with you?”

Hero’s eyes narrowed. “Olivia and I were not together, remember?”

Mixer nodded. “She broke up with you. Did you piss her off? Call her and apologize so she’ll come over and play Madden.”

“She didn’t dump me,” Hero said, looking down. “I fired her.”

The boys and Seneka stopped in their verbal tracks. That was, until the eruption of complaint began.

“—fired her!? Why!?”

“—but she was off the clock and—”

“—wasn’t her fault, I was the one—”

“—you should have thrown the—”

Hero stood up. “Enough!” He stared at all their faces. “She was fucked up on bliss in front of family and associates. I made up my mind.”

Seneka shook her head and turned to leave.

Wildcard followed. “Whatever, dude, ask me if I give a fuck.”

Mixer stood for a while, submerged in sadness. “She was gonna cut my hair.” And he followed the others up the stairs.

Hero stayed firm, failing as he attempted to trudge through more of his work.

“Hero,” said Ace. “I seriously do need to talk to Olivia. There was this guy—”

“Can you not see that I’m busy!?” cried Hero. “I don’t want to hear her name the rest of the night, alright? Christ.”

Ace folded his arms, his eyes piercingly direct. His mug twisted into sharp disgust. “You know what? Fuck you.”

“Not listening. Counting.”

Ace turned around. “I miss when you were a human being, you know that?” And under his breath, “You deserve whatever you get.”

Hero was calming down. He’d put his supplies into the safe, but just as he was about to slam the door shut, there was yet another interruption. It was a matter of time before Stone stomped down the stairs, irate.

“You fired Olivia!?” Stone sat down at the table. “How could you do that without discussing it with us first?”

Hero put his hand down. “I thought at least you would be in my corner about this.”

“You thought wrong.” Stone took his pen away. “After everything she’s done for us—what’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing is wrong with me.”

“You used to smile sometimes. You used to be a pretty nice person. Every day you’re getting worse, it’s like you’re slipping away, everybody’s worried about you—”

Hero put his hand up. Once Stone had been silenced, Hero lowered his hand slowly, and let both sets of fingers grip the edge of the table. His eyes were shifting, deep in some sort of shadowed ping-pong game in his head. Left, right. Left, right. A couple of bulges on each side of his jaw showed that he was clenching and unclenching his teeth, taking in audible breaths through his nostrils. “Stone… I need you to leave this room.” He looked up. “Please.”

Stone fell back, and looking away in defeat, stood up. “I won’t let you use me for this.” He shook his head. “Not this.” He left with a thousand words in his head left unsaid.

It was the first time in a few days that Olivia appeared to be in a decent mood at the dinner table. The nearly-psychotic rage that had been roaring in her eyes that week seemed to have died down, and her demeanor had been rendered unthreatening. She sat up straighter in her chair, her table manners returned to normal, and she had actually eaten more than a mouse’s portion of her meal. Her parents may have thought she was making peace with her house arrest, but that was not even close to the case.

Margaret moved Olivia’s glass from the edge of the table. “Come on, Olivia. You’re going to knock it over.”

Olivia wiped her mouth with her napkin, grabbed the glass, and moved it right back to where it was. “No I won’t. I’m not five years old.”

Margaret sighed. “I know that.”

Olivia looked up. “Do you?”

Her parents didn’t respond, they just quietly continued eating.

“After dinner,” began Olivia. “I’m going out.”

Margaret chuckled. “Oh no, you’re not.”

“Oh, yes, I am.”

Margaret stared at her. “Where exactly do you think you’re going?”

“I’m not going to tell you.”

“And why is that?”

“Because I don’t want you to follow me.”

Dan put his glass down with a sharp, angry thud. “Jesus Christ, Olivia. You aren’t going anywhere without telling us where you’re going. Do you understand?”

“No, I don’t,” said Olivia. “And I am going. So you’re better off accepting it.”

Margaret rolled her eyes. “Fine. But if you’re going, you may as well pack up your suitcase because you’re not coming back.”

“Really?” said Olivia, still and calm. “You really feel that way?” Olivia put her napkin on the table. “I’ll tell you what. If I can present a valid argument as to why you should let me go, could you reconsider your position?”

Margaret’s mouth twitched. “You better take that attitude and—”

Dan lightly touched his wife’s arm. “Let her say what she has to say.”

Olivia smiled. “Okay. Dad. Would you agree that it’s the responsibility of a parent to prepare their child for adulthood?”

Dan nodded. “Sure.”

“Would you also agree that the purpose of punishing your child for wrong behavior is to teach them not to behave wrongly? And in doing so, instilling values?”

“Yes, I would.”

“This implies that one becomes an independent adult when their values are solidified, during which time punishment for wrongdoing is no longer necessary. Right?”

Dan frowned. “What’s your point?”

“My point is that if you punish me for leaving tonight, you are implying that I’m not an adult,” said Olivia. “You’re implying that you still have control over my values, which you don’t. I am an adult, and even if you use force or threats to keep me here, you can’t change what I believe or, more to the point, what I want to do. There is no point in not letting me go.” Her eye contact with her father was solid and courageous. “It’s the choices you make when you aren’t being forced that define you.”

Margaret’s face was begging Dan to fight Olivia on this, but Dan didn’t even meet her gaze.

“So this is what you want?” asked Dan. “This is really the kind of behavior you want to defend? Is that really the person you want to be?”

“I want to be the person who is leaving this house tonight after she’s done doing the dishes, and whatever you think that implies.”

Dan finally looked at Margaret, and then turned back to his daughter.

“Dan,” pleaded Margaret. “You can’t let her do this. We don’t know who this guy is, where he lives—you have to be kidding me.”

“Olivia’s right,” said Dan. “She’s an adult. We can’t stop her.”

Margaret jaw dropped. “Yes, we can. This is our house—”

“What are we going to do, throw her out on the street?” snapped Dan. He looked at Olivia. “If you can’t respect us as your parents, at least respect us as roommates. Be quiet when you let yourself in, and if you’re spending the night, please call.”

Olivia smiled. “Thank you.”

Hero’s chair rocked back and forth as he stared blankly into the monitors. He found himself doing stupid, meaningless things, like counting the amount of girls he saw in halter tops or seeing how many times the same person went in and out of VIP. Anything to keep his mind busy. It didn’t work. He still felt like an asshole.

His intercom beeped.

“Hero,” said his doorman. “Olivia’s here. Says she needs to talk to you.”

Hero tapped his chin. “Ask her what she wants to talk to me about.”

He waited a moment for an answer, his adrenaline beginning to surge.

“Roger Williams,” replied the doorman.

Hero frowned. “Send her up.”

Olivia was at the door within a couple minutes.

“What do I have to do to make you go away?” he said.

Olivia closed the door behind her and shrugged. “I don’t know… set a baby on fire in front of me? Be inventive.” She took a seat.

“What do you want to talk to me about?”

She put an envelope on his desk. A big, thick, full envelope. He reached forward, opened it, and pulled out the contents. A fat stack of hundreds and piece of notebook paper.

“It’s all the money you ever paid me,” said Olivia. “Plus the winnings from my poker game with Stone.”

Hero looked at the piece of paper.

“It’s not about the money,” Hero read with a smirk. “It’s about the respect.” He put it down. “I still don’t think I understand what you want, chag’ya.”

“I don’t want to be paid for the time I spent with you,” said Olivia. “Because I think I’m in love with you. And I think you’re in love with me too.”

Hero paused, tried to hide his involuntary gulp, and chuckled. “Why, because I kissed you? I’ve done a hell of a lot more than that with girls I don’t even like.”

“Maybe, but that doesn’t change the fact that you love me.”

Hero scratched his forehead, feeling a tremble he hoped was slight enough that she couldn’t see it. “Christ, look, I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong idea.”

“Listen, I can back this up. When Mixer showed me his photo album he said something about somebody named Roger Williams, and at the time it just sounded like drug induced rambling or something. He said something about the choices you make without fear of punishment, and how they’re the only ones that really count.

“So when I went home, I looked up Roger Williams, and I read about how he was a Puritan minister, and he established the separation of church and state based on the idea that a person can’t prove they are righteous or one of the ‘Elect’ unless they choose the path for themselves. He knew if a religion was mandated by the state, you could never believe in someone’s faith, and he was right.

“And then it dawned on me, why you are the way you are. You drown yourself in this Machiavellian belief structure, that whole idea that the force that pushes people away from what they fear is stronger than the force that pushes them toward what they love. But I think, in your heart, what you want and need more than anything is to trust people. To trust people without the threat of violence, and without the promise of cash. Just pure trust.” She shrugged. “So here I am. I don’t want your money, I don’t want your power—well, maybe a little bit of your power—but more than anything, I just want you.”

Hero tucked the paper back into the envelope. “Olivia, the last girl who told me she loved me is dead.” He looked her square in the eyes. “And I killed her.”

Olivia froze. “I’m sure you had your reasons. Maybe she deserved it.”

“I don’t think she deserved the extent of what happened to her, no.”

Olivia cowered into her ignorance. “What happened to her?”

Hero laced his fingers together. “She took a few dicks and then she took a few bullets.”

Olivia retreated. “No. There’s no way. You aren’t capable of something like that.”

“Oh yes, I am,” he said.

“I don’t believe it.”

“I’ll prove it.” He pressed his intercom. “I need Mixer up in here.”

Within the minute, Mixer came through the door. “What’s up, hy’ung?”

“Mixer, who killed your sister?”

Mixer’s alert demeanor melted into defensive frailty. “What?”

“Olivia wants to know the truth,” said Hero, inviting Olivia into the exchange with eye contact. “Tell her. Who called the shots when Kai’lah was murdered?”

Mixer looked at Olivia and Hero, back and forth, looking for any escape route from this conversation. “Hero, why are you—”

“Tell her,” Hero snapped. “Tell her whose fault it is that your sister is dead. Who gave the order?”

Mixer’s lip gave a tiny, meek tremble, his arms stiffly affixed to his sides. “You did.” He looked at Olivia, and then the floor. “You did, hy’ung.”

“Very good,” said Hero. “You may leave.”

He did, leaving Olivia and Hero in the coldest, emptiest office in the world.

“What did she do to deserve that?” Olivia gasped. “Why did you kill her?”

“Does it matter?”

“Of course it matters!”

Hero shrugged. “She did the ultimate get-rich-quick scheme of a desperate chick in the hood. Get with a shot-caller and poke a hole in the condom. She was pregnant when she died.”

Olivia went nauseous. Her voice was quieter than a whisper. “She was pregnant with your child?”

“She was.”

The reveal was dizzying. She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes as if it would block out the information.

“Why do you think the Dragon Blades split?” he asked. “Kai’lah died, everyone took a side, and Sequoia Grove has been divided ever since.”

Olivia stood up. “That’s not the whole story. It can’t be.”

“It is the whole story,” said Hero. “Go home. Go back to your family.”

Olivia adjusted her purse and pressed her lips together. She envisioned herself making a snarky remark before her exit, but she resisted the temptation to speak. She just bowed her head, averted her eyes, and made her exit. She wobbled out the door and made it out the exit on the brutal edge of tears, looking at no one. She tightened her teeth as her feet pounded the sidewalk on the way to the station.

She sat down on the bench, staring into the city lights and listening to the buzz of Second Circle activity. She huddled into her own body, thankful that no one was giving her unwanted attention. A fat, black prostitute stood at the corner, batting eyes at the male pedestrians. Her harsh voice was cutting through the air, but Olivia didn’t acknowledge the meaning of her words. She smelled the remnants of drifting cigarette smoke and cheap perfume. She sniffled.

Someone took a seat next to her, slow and steady, like she might run if he moved too quickly.

“Hey,” said Stone. “You alright?”

She looked up at him, and as if his very presence was warm enough to invite her emotion, her eyes began to sting. She challenged the emotion with a sarcastic smirk. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

He shrugged. “Trying to talk you out of going home, I guess.”

She stared out into nothing. “Hero told me about what happened to Kai’lah.”

“Figured he might.”

She looked at him. “And you’re going to talk me into staying after that?”

“Yeah.”

She lowered her head and shook it slowly, like it had the weight of a pendulum. “I’m tired. I just want to go home. I can’t go back and forth with him forever. My parents are… Stone, I’m just tired.”

“But you keep coming back anyway,” said Stone. “Like… you ever heard of eternal return?”

She shook her head.

“I don’t know, Hero’s all into philosophy, and I remember him talking about this thing, eternal return,” he said. “Like, okay, the universe is eternal right? So if the past is infinite, and the future is infinite, then, don’t it stand to reason that history repeats itself? Forever?”

She looked up at him, waiting for his point.

“So that’s why somebody you never met before in your life, I don’t know,” shrugged Stone. “Why they can still feel like home.” He looked at her. “And I think that’s why you can’t let Hero go. And why he can’t let you go neither. Maybe it really is fate.”

She laughed. “Wow, Stone. You’re kind of a girl for a gangster.”

He frowned. “Well, you’re kind of a gangster for a girl.”

“I’m not that gangsta,” smiled Olivia. She looked at the prostitute on the corner. “One of yours?”

Stone looked. “Nah, that’s Baby, she’s Big Poppa’s. Some 8th Block nigga, she’s probably gotta stack her paper tonight so she don’t get her ass beat. He’ll get himself paid, then he’ll fuck her, and then history will repeat itself tomorrow night. Typical story around here.”

“Good thing there are honest pimps like Hero out there, right?” snickered Olivia. “He’s above that shit, isn’t he? He doesn’t hurt women. You know, unless he’s killing and raping the mother of his child.”

“He didn’t kill or rape Kai’lah,” snapped Stone, tensing with offended anger. “White people did.” He pointed an accusatory finger. “White fucking psychotic wannabes from Monarch Hills trying to slum it in the hood—people like you.”

His tone disarmed her. She shifted her bag and pushed out heavy breaths, waiting for his explanation. He was more than willing to oblige her—he spoke with aggression.

“It all went down about five years ago,” said Stone. “She was gone for three days before anyone knew where she was. They said they wanted ten thousand dollars or they were gonna put a bullet in her head, and at time, Hero was the only one of us that had even close to that amount of money, so he sat in the lab for hours, and when he came upstairs he told us his mind was made up. That he was going to let them kill her.”

She frowned. “But why? If he had the money—”

“If Hero had paid up, then every poser in the Grove would see Blades women as cash crops,” explained Stone. “Seneka—Orchid—Pansy—none of them would ever be safe again, and keep in mind, Pansy was pregnant at that time, too. He sacrificed Kai’lah and his child for the rest of our girls, wrote the code, and hurting women has been punishable by death ever since.”

Olivia pressed her fingers against her forehead, scratching into herself with frustration. “Then why didn’t he just tell me that?”

“Why do you think? The last woman who loved him is dead, and it was his call.”

She sighed. “Why don’t you respect his wishes and let me leave? What’s in it for you if I stay?”

Stone tugged at the back of his head, and set adrift on a wave of frustration, he looked up into the sky. “Fuck, woman… Hero… he’s…”  He stopped to shift his thoughts. “Haze, she… fuck, you should have seen what Daniel was doing to her. Not just knives, I mean… just anything around the house, he would use it… If you hadn’t seen what you saw, who knows what could have happened to her. How long it would have gone on.” He straightened himself up, affirming his confidence. “We need you down here. The Blades need you. Hero needs you.”

Olivia looked down, her heels scratching against the sidewalk. She had never been needed before.

“Listen,” said Stone. “Crash is gone. No one can get a hold of him, no one knows where he is, and I got a bad feeling he’s up to something. I got a feeling that something is coming, and Hero, he’s… look, he’s different. Every day that’s passed since Kai’lah been gone, he’s changed. It’s like he’s dying, and I don’t know what it is, but I think you’re the only person who can bring him back to life.”

Olivia gripped the edge of the bench.

“And…” began Stone. “And… somebody’s gotta cut Mixer’s hair, ‘cause it looks like shit.”

She laughed with a small sniffle.

“I trust you,” said Stone. “I believe you when you say you won’t tell nobody about what you saw on the hill that night.”

She looked back at him, grinning upon his efforts to inspire her confidence.

“So come on, O,” said Stone. “What do you say?”

Tags: Ace, Ace's Point of View, Hero, Hero's Point of View, Olivia, Olivia's Point of View, Seneka, Stone, Wildcard

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 30th, 2009 at 6:30 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.