The Laws of our Fathers Read Free

pavement - he is just moving on top of what everybody needs.
        He crosses the boulevard, Grace Street, and starts down Lawrence, a block of ruined three-story apartment buildings, stout as battlements, with flat tarred roofs and limestone blocks placed decoratively amid the dark bricks and as a border above the doorways and at the cornices. The windows are gone in some, boarded up. A raised garden area of railroad ties sits under the windows of 338, the dirt desert dry, even the weeds struggling to survive.
        'Yo,' Lovinia calls, emerging like a cat from one of her hiding places. This Lovinia, he thinks. God, look-it here at this scrawny bitch, motherfucker are you gone believe it? With this fuzzball stocking cap dragged down over her whole damn head and this grey coat and twill pants. Don't want nobody comin up on her to know she a bitch is what it is, figure they'll shoot her ass or molest her ass or somethin. They better not try neither, she ain't strapped - armed - she know better than that for when Tic-Tac come by, but you bet she got it near here, under the mailbox, or in a hole in one them trees, you mess with her, she gone smoke you ass. Word up. T-Roc, he think Hardcore stone crazy using Bug, but she sharp. She strut up to the cars, she change her whole routine now, she sort of swingin it a lot. 'What you like, man?' Make them say. Anybody she take for Tic-Tac, narco, when they say 'Dope,' she just go, 'Oh, man, I ain sellin dope, man, I got somethin sweeter 'n that, man, ’ like she thinkin they was here to bone.
        Now she points to the white Nova at the curb, a hundred feet away. ‘I done told her, "Lady, you in the wrong place." ' 'Lady? What kind of motherfuckin lady?'
        Tol' you now, ten-two. He ain come. She come. She be lookin for Or Dell.' Bug smiles then, toward the walk. Lovinia, just a kid and all - fifteen - she love to play.
        'Lady,' Hardcore repeats a few more times. Damn. He advances on the car. 'Lady, this the wrong place for you.' Leaning into the darkness of the car, he catches some of her soapy smell and the humid sour scent of his own overheated breath. 'You best get out here fast.'
        'Mr Trent? I'm June Eddgar.' She extends her hand, and then laboriously leaves the car to stand in the bluish morning light. Old. She be fat, too, big and fat. Some kind of hippie or farmer or some such, and her thighs all mashed together in her jeans. She have a plain face and some long lightish brown kinda hair going to grey, kind of lopsided and knit together like it ain't really combed. 'I thought we could talk a minute.'
        'Lady, they ain nothin for you and me to talk about.'
        'Well, I thought - I'm Nile's mother.'
        'Told him get hisself here. Didn't tell him send nobody's momma.'
        'I thought it was better if I came.'
        'You better go. Thass all. They's some powerful shit may go down here. Word, now. Go on.' He steps away, flitting his hand.
        'Look, I know them both. I think there's a misunderstanding.'
        'Only misunderstandin is you stayin here stead of leavin out when I say go. Thass the only misunderstanding we got.'
        ‘I really think -'
        'Lady, you gone get fucked up bad, you hear? Now jump in you rusty-ass ride.' He throws a hand again in disgust and walks away. Lovinia has stepped toward the street, waving.
        'Gorgo,' she calls, signaling overhead.
        'Aw, fuck me, motherfuck,' Hardcore says. From the alley across the way, Gorgo has emerged, tearing out on a sturdy black-framed mountain bike. He has a mask on, a blue handkerchief across his face like he some cowboy motherfucker, but looks otherwise like he just goin home to momma, blue pack fixed on his back, red satin jacket, hat turned behind his ear, just a kid, if you don't notice the gat - the gun - held low by his side. A 9. Got his Tec-9. The semiautomatic weapon, from its sheer weight, seems to drag behind as Gorgo rides.