CHAPTER 4
“Sharp Dressed Man” —ZZ Top
Kevin was one of those people who Make an Entrance.
Fortunately, Michael had been alerted that The Designer was about to arrive, so he didn’t immediately go into combat mode and kill everyone in the room when the door of the briefing room was flung aside and The Designer entered the room with a flourish, hands outstretched to the side, butt cheeks clearly pressed together like squeezing steel into neutronium and with a distinct twist to the hips.
Kevin Winchard was about five foot six with a sandy blond coif that cascaded to his shoulders and a well-preserved fifty or so courtesy of extensive but well-done plastic surgery. He was dressed so tastefully, Michael immediately regretted wearing jeans and a T-shirt. Coming from a black cultural background, Michael preferred to dress well when the situation called for it. And the situation always called for it when in the room with The Designer.
Crocodiles perished when The Designer came within a hundred miles of their location.
The Designer examined his newest client with due regard, his hands working about as if to frame the picture, then clasped them together and exclaimed:
“OH, YOU’RE LIKE A LITTLE MICHAELANGELO’S DAVID!”
“And you got the Bunsen burner turned all the way up, don’t you?” Michael replied. “Also, I am quite offended by that comparison.”
“I didn’t mean to give offense,” Kevin said, clasping a hand dramatically to exactly where a pearl necklace would rest.
“I am not only better looking than Michelangelo’s model, but I also humbly admit my dick is bigger,” Michael said, nodding sagely. “He ain’t exactly hung if you know what I mean.”
“Oh, you are naughty!” Kevin said, touching his fingers to his lips.
“And you are just about the gayest gay guy ever,” Michael said, chuckling.
“I hope you’re not . . .” Kevin said, clearing his throat.
“Homophobia is very common in the ghetto,” Michael replied. “But, nah, I ain’t. You ain’t no ped, neither. Don’t give off the vibe. You the reason gay called gay. It’s a synonym for happy. Just flame on all the time. But Asian people must be terrified when you walk down the street.”
“Excuse me?” Kevin asked, confused. “I get along extremely well with Asian persons.”
“Man, with that flamethrower going all the time?” Michael said. “Japanese be like ‘He’s coming! The flaming man! He comes! The caves will not save us this time!’”
“Michael!” Alexander said, grimacing.
“Oh, my!” Kevin said, putting a fist to his mouth and trying not to laugh.
“Napalm at your decibel is a terror to the gooks,” Michael continued. “Naked Asian kids be runnin’ down the street screaming. ‘He is destroy the village to save it! Run for your lives! Kevin is coming!’”
“Oh, that’s terrible!” Kevin exclaimed, but he was laughing as he said it. “I am so embarrassed to laugh at something so terrible.”
“All comedy comes from pain,” Michael said. “Which is why I am very funny. Nah, I ain’t no homophobe. My Mama’s trans.”
“Your . . . mother?” Kevin asked.
“Nah,” Michael said. “My mother left me in a alleyway as a newborn. My Mama be Miss Cherise. She the lady found me. She wanted to ’dopt me but they wouldn’t let her. Wasn’t ’cause she was black—all my foster moms pretty much was. Probably wasn’t ’cause she was six foot four in her fishnet stocking feet and”—Michael deepened his voice to a baritone—“talked like this. Probably ’cause she’s a drug fiend and a street ho. But that my Mama.”
They’d only been in touch once since his Acquiring, when Michael had called to let her know he was alive and safe. They didn’t talk often, but his Mama had always been one of the few bright spots in an otherwise miserable life.
“Oh,” Kevin said, his face taking on the exact expression of a Labrador puppy looking out the window at his departing family. “That must have been a terrible childhood!”
“If what don’t kill you make you stronger, I be diamond,” Michael said. “So, what’s up with the costume stuff?”
“Well, I need to think on this,” Kevin said, walking around the juvenile super and regarding him professionally. “It has to be just the right look. Something that expresses who you are while being fashionable and presentable. Also, wearable. You’ll have several; they will be washable or at least can be dry-cleaned.”
“And no capes,” Michael said.
“Absolutely not,” Kevin replied. “Well, we need to get you measured.”
“Joy,” Michael replied.
“It’s entirely hands off,” Kevin said with a friendly smile. “We’re very high tech around here!”
Michael stepped up on the dais in the Costume Department and turned around.
“Sooo . . . ?”
He’d changed into a skintight body suit that left very little to the imagination. He was okay with being eye candy. It was better than some things that had happened in his life. But the body suit was pretty revealing. The polypropylene fabric was so thin as to warrant the term “sheer.”
“Just stand with your hands to the side, fingers spread, feet shoulder-width apart,” Kevin said, standing by the technician. “The lasers will create a three-D picture of you and then we three-D print a replica. We fit the suit on the replica. After I have . . . Designed it.”
“Got it,” Michael said. The federal government burned money like a California wildfire.
“Please hold still for ten seconds,” the tech said. “In three, two, one, close your eyes . . .”
Michael closed his eyes and listened to the buzzing. The ten seconds were enough to get through the quantum bindings of a series of water layers in meta-solid state.
“And we’re done,” the technician said.
Michael kept his eyes closed for a moment longer.
“Done?” the tech repeated.
“Got it,” Michael said. “Sorry, I was thinking. I do on occasion.”
“And as soon as you’re changed, time for lunch,” Alexander said.
“Hot diggity,” Michael said, hopping off the dais. “Anyplace around ’cher gots shrimp tacos?”
“This ain’t half bad,” Michael said, munching on a shrimp taco. “Not as good as Mama Cabrera but ain’t much as good as Mama Cabrera.”
A Mexican place that had a menu online that included shrimp taco was up in Gramercy Park. After some thought they’d taken an Uber as the best alternative. Michael had ridden in silence, contemplating the mysteries of the stars.
The restaurant was more cozy than large and had a rustic feel without being too dirty.
“You either don’t talk at all or talk a mile a minute,” Alexander said. “You didn’t talk at all on the ride. Just sat there with your eyes closed.”
“I don’t talk when I’m thinkin’ real hard,” Michael said. “When I’m not thinkin’ real hard, my mouth is on autopilot.”
“What are you thinking about?” Alexander asked.
How soon can I contact Gondola?
How deep is The Society into the Supers Department?
How soon is MS-13 going to find me?
How incredibly cheesy/fruity an outfit is The Designer going to make me?
“Know much about astrophysics?” Michael asked.
“I heard you’d been recruited by Stanford in that,” Alexander said. “Seriously?”
Michael paused to take another bite before answering.
“There’s this company online,” Michael said. “It’s an online university but not like Phoenix or whatever. You can get a couple of degrees from it—economics, finance, programming, stuff don’t need no science labs. But it doesn’t have its own courses. It sort of aggregates courses from other universities. It’s got contracts with all sorts of universities—Stanford, Wharton, London School of Economics. Southern New Hampshire University is big.
“If you pay for the course, and you’ve got to pay full rate, you can get credit, ya dig?”
“I dig,” Alexander said.
“But if you ain’t got no money and don’t need the credit, you can audit the courses for free.”
“From Stanford?” Alexander asked.
“All of ’em,” Michael said. “I learned about it when I was eight. See, I’d been looking at YouTube videos since I was a kid. All sorts of lectures are online. I was studying calculus before most kids were learning one plus one equals a transgender. But sometimes you get more from actual courses. Even I, I must humbly admit, occasionally need to ask a question. So, I started taking those courses. Mostly to get away from school.”
Michael noted the door swinging open, and a pair of Hispanic men headed to the counter to order. From habit born of a life spent watching his back, Michael tracked them until he judged them to be harmless.
“I got this real bad beatdown, nearly kilt me when I was eight,” Michael said, shrugging. “My face be all reconstructed. Older brother of this kid name of Trayvon. Trayvon always startin’ shit. All mouth no trousers, little pussy mama’s boy with a mouth cashin’ checks he couldn’t back up. But his brother, Ahrmos, he was the opposite. Ahrmos all rage and anger and animal violent. Ahrmos one of the heads of Fifth Street Kings, ya dig? Same mama, different daddies.
“Trayvon start some shit with me at school and I don’t think nothin’ of it, just knock him down, move on,” Michael continued. “Walkin’ back to the home, mindin’ my own bidnett, beat-up little sedan pull up, Trayvon and some dude I don’t know get out. I don’t pay no mind. Trayvon just an irritant. A flea. Like that bit of spring up in your bed you can’t quite avoid when you’re sleeping, ya dig?”
The two men finished ordering and grabbed a table on the far side of the restaurant.
“Turns out his big brother just got out the slam,” Michael said, munching taco. He’d perfected the art of putting a bit of food in the corner of his mouth so he could talk and not spew food everywhere. “Five-to-ten felony drug trafficking, time off for good behavior—but it being Ahrmos, no way there was good behavior. Anyway, Trayvon pointing at me, dude just walk over, kick me in the stomach, start beatin’ me down. Last thing I remember was his fist headed for my face. Next thing after that waking up in recovery from emergency surgery in Mercy Hospital.”
“Seriously?” Alexander said.
Michael just gave him a look.
“Broke collarbone, broke ribs, broke arms, skull fracture. Face all smashed up. Ahrmos had flat stomped me near to death. Stomped an eight-year-old. Later kilt a eleven-year-old. Same thing. Most deaths from violence are due to something like that or blunt instruments rather than guns, ’case you didn’t know. Why sort of the question, right?”
“Yes,” Alexander said.
“See, Trayvon start some shit, all mouth no trousers, get his ass kicked, then run home to his mama cryin’. Then his mama be visitin’ Ahrmos upstate and giving him a load of shit about all the kids ‘picking’ on Trayvon—who always, and take my word for this, always started it. Every damned time.”
Now a young couple came through the door, hanging off each other. Alexander, to his credit, also had his head on a swivel, hawkish eyes casually assessing everyone who came in. Maybe he wasn’t just a wannabe suit.
“Mama, Lucea, she the real problem. She wanted Trayvon to be like Ahrmos. Always beat the other kids down. Always on him to be the toughest and the strongest and grow up to run his own gang. That biggest part of the problem inner city schools, mamas like Lucea.
“Thing is, he ain’t got it. He a mama’s boy. You don’t suddenly get whatever Ahrmos has, hell, what I’ve got. Think it’s something you’re born with, truth. Can talk about the neurology. But Trayvon ain’t got it.
“After that, seein’ as Trayvon would always be startin’ some shit, figured it best to avoid school entirely. When you got what Ahrmos got, what I got, you cain’t back down. There a bit of back-down in you, you ain’t got that. You can try to deconflict. I’ve deconflicted before. But most wise, in the ghetto, ain’t gonna work and often the wrong choice. Most times, one who gets there first with the most the one who’s gonna walk away from it.
“Let me give you one piece of advice, Alexander,” Michael said seriously. “You older nor me but this about survivin’. Someday, Storm, somethin’, find yourself in a bad place, you might need to know how to survive.”
He glanced around to see if anyone was listening in, leaned forward, and lowered his voice.
“I lived, grow’d up, in that movie The Purge. People thinkin’ that would be fun and stuff. Why don’t you just go live in the ghetto? It’s The Purge every single day. Ain’t no law. Ain’t no justice. Ain’t no rules. Gangsta Paradise. You think that’s fun? Go live it. All you gots to do is cross that line into the ghetto and you’re there.
“Rape if you want, ain’t no rule. Kill if you want. You’ll get away with it. Ain’t nobody gonna talk to the poh-leese. But be aware, you’re the one who’s probably going to be doing the dying, be the one that gets raped. Man or woman. ’Cause if you think The Purge looks like fun? You ain’t got it.”
Expression as stony as ever, Alexander nonetheless stopped eating to take in what Michael was saying. Minor shifting indicated he was uncomfortable with the conversation topic.
“The advice is this, Alexander,” Michael said. “When you’re in a situation that’s going to end in violence, don’t do no talkin’. If the inevitable end state is violence, just go straight to it. Don’t talk to people when you’re killin’ ’em. Ain’t no point. Maybe there’s a heaven or a hell they’re going to. Maybe there’s an eternity they can think on what you said. But it’s pointless. They’re dead. Never talk to people when you’re killin’ ’em.
“That’s not exactly . . .” Alexander said, frowning.
“Sporting?” Michael asked. “Fair? Proper? There’s no ‘fair’ in the quick and the dead, Alexander. I don’t mean if you’re having a beef with a coworker at work. You deconflict that shit. I’m talking about if you’re in the depths, in hell, in whatever apocalypse takes you. Hell, in the streets of New York these days. You can take the advice or not. But if you’re in the shit and you don’t . . . well, you won’t last two days. Less.”
Michael picked at the last of the rice on his plate, getting every last crumb. Alexander was barely halfway through his burrito.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Alexander said. “If I’m ever . . . in that situation.”
“Only would in anarchy.” Michael gestured out the door of the restaurant. “Which is what New York is rapidly becoming. And it don’t have to be this way. It’s all because of lack of contract enforcement. The weak point of any anarchic system is the lack of an equitable contract resolution process with enforcement systems.”
“Do you have any idea how hard it is to keep up with you?” Alexander said.
“Yes,” Michael replied. “I grew up in the ghetto and being a thinker would wonder ‘Why’s it gots to be this way? Why’s there always bodies littering the streets?’ And the answer I arrived at it was lack of an equitable contract resolution process.”
He looked at Alexander, who was clearly not processing.
“Think about a drug deal,” Michael said. “So, you’ve probably bought drugs, at least in college.”
“Maybe,” Alexander said.
“And say the dealer sells you some . . . I dunno . . . with you it’d probably be Ecstasy or some shit, supposedly, but it turns out to only be candy. What do you do?”
“Don’t use that dealer again?” Alexander said, taking another bite of his burrito.
“Some people are stupid enough to go to the cops,” Michael said. “Meth heads usually. In the ghetto, you kill that motherfucker. What you can’t do is take them to small-claims court. You can’t have them arrested for fraud.
“The ghetto exists as a clearinghouse for physical transfer of restricted materials, whether that be drug trafficking, stolen materials trafficking, weapons trafficking, sexual trafficking, what have you. Along with government largesse it is the only real economics of the ghetto, and it is in the range of government largesse in most as an economic input.”
The girl of the couple glanced his way with a disgusted look.
“Drugs come in wholesale quantities and concentration, are certainly repackaged to retail quantities and hopefully well-cut retail concentrations. They are then distributed to persons who want them with the moh-ney coming from elsewhere—such as the drug addict driving up to the nice corner drug dealer in a system that resembles in some ways a McDonald’s drive-thru and which was taken from that in a BMW. Fellas goin’ out the ghetto to rob a house or a store. Point being, materials come in, labor is added, materials are sold, and the money for them comes from elsewhere. That’s straight up Adam Smith economics.
“Trade is the wealth of nations but it’s also the wealth of cities, of neighborhoods, of people. The ghetto is the most Smithian economic system in history.
“The real issue is that there is no legal mechanism for contract resolution, other than just going straight to violence. And once the basic mechanism for either social or economic contract resolution becomes criminal action, killings and beatings over bad drug deals being high on the list, criminal action spirals out of control. Dude gets killed over a bad drug deal. Dude’s friend kills the dude who killed him. That dude’s brother kills the friend of the first dude who was killed and so on and so forth, day after day, world without end.
“A lack of equitable contract resolution mechanisms is why I’d trip over dead bodies on my way to the school bus. Make sense now?”
“Sort of,” Alexander said. He shifted uncomfortably again.
“It’s the weakness of any anarchic system,” Michael repeated. “And the people who are trying to foist anarchy on These United States and the world are idiots. Don’t care if they be libertarians or Antifa, they idjuts. Anarchy works reasonably well for some but not most. In shape, violent twentysomething males do just fine in anarchy to the extent there are any available resources. Mad Max. North Philly. East Baltimore. Southside Chicago.”
Granted, that anarchy is actively created by The Society to keep the fabric of lower case “s” society weak, so they can use their useful, violent idiots to apply pressure where they need. But that’s not a conversation I’m ready to have with you, if ever.
“Twentysomething in shape males can survive, even thrive. Everyone else suffers—elderly, children, women, the weak in general. Most of the campus ‘radicals’ pushing for anarchy wouldn’t last a day in South Chicago. Everything you see in The Purge is a wet Thursday evening where I came from.
“Most of them were bullied by the jocks in school and are just itching for some payback. Guess again, scrawny anarchist dude: those jocks are going to do more than pants you and take your lunch money. They’re going to take your money, your girl, and your life.”
The server passed the couple a bag and they headed to the door. The girl shot Michael one last revolted look on the way out.
“Notice how Antifa got itself pantsed a few times by just general dudes, Kyle Rittenhouse comes to mind, there were all of a sudden articles about ‘The White Supremacy Basis of Working Out’? That’s ’cause the anarchists realized that the people who weren’t anarchists tended to be more in shape than they were. And better at violence. Helps to eat meat.
“There is no nobility to savagery,” Michael concluded. “Nobility is being capable of violence, while in the main refraining from it.”
“I guess that being from . . . there you probably don’t like the idea of being a sort of super cop,” Alexander said.
“Not sure where you’re going there,” Michael said. “My problem with being a super cop is that I think we should be more like the military. Just train for the Storm. But . . . not sure what you mean.”
“Well . . .” Alexander said, ducking his head. “The cops are the oppressors, right?”
“Oh, Jesus wept,” Michael said, shaking his head. “Ever seen a poll from the ghetto on feelings about police?”
“They’re not well liked,” Alexander said.
“You grew up in a suburb or something, didn’t you?” Michael said.
“Alexandria,” Alexander said.
“Well, let me clue you in on some things, Alexander of Alexandria,” Michael said. “It’s not true to say that most people in the ghetto love cops. More like adore them.”
“Uhm . . .”
“Alexandria a ghetto, Alexander of Alexandria?” Michael asked.
“No, but . . .”
“But nothing,” Michael said. “But shit. But get the shit that was crammed into your brain by your professors, who also did not grow up in the ghetto, out of your brain. The oppressors in the ghetto, Alexander of Alexandria, are the criminals. The cops are the liberators.
“Think I’m lying? The gang that tried to kill me was called the Fifth Street Kings. Ahrmos was the muscle. The brains was Davon Walker. Not that Davon wasn’t violent, he was. But he mostly let Ahrmos or Two-Shy or Gun Face handle the killings. And there were lots of killings. Not just lack-of-equitable-contract-resolution killings. Just killing. Like a group of serial killers—which is what they were—had broken loose. In the history of violent and murderous gangs in Baltimore, the Fifth Street Kings might not take the cake but they’re in a run for the knife.”
Michael noted the two men were done eating and departed. Alexander, meanwhile, was still nibbling away.
“At one point I had fairly good relations with them,” Michael mused. “Won’t get into why ’cause it was a federal violation with a very long statute of limitations. Wrong thing for the right reasons sort of thing. One time when I was pretty sure he wasn’t going to kill me, I asked Davon: ‘Davon, why you always going around killing people sometimes seems for no reason at all? Double Talk wasn’t no snitch or nothing. Kin I ask and not get kilt? Please?’
“To which he replied: ‘The purpose of terror is terror.’ He quoted Vladimir Lenin, one of the most notable oppressors in history. Tell me he didn’t understand that he was the oppressor.
“You seem like one of those good-hearted people, Alexander of Alexandria,” Michael said. “But you’re also a product of some of the biggest lies, or at least misstatements, in history. I’m sure you support criminal justice reform and giving people a second, third, and indeed hundredth chance.”
“Is there a problem with that?” Alexander asked.
“The good people of the ghetto—and there are good people in the ghetto—are the biggest victims of crime, Alexander. The robbery, the assaults, the rapes, the murders. They are the ones who suffer the most. So, when you support letting criminals go free, cashless bond, no bail, reduced sentences, Alexander of Alexandria, you are saying ‘Let free the wolves upon the sheep. Let them rape. Let them rob. Let them oppress those already suffering greatly! It makes me feel good about myself, so it is good!’
“Not your sheep, of course, Alexander of Alexandria. If you can catch an Uber, you’ll probably make it home okay. You ensure the oppression and pain of those most vulnerable in our society. The poor. The truly oppressed. Almost all persons of color. And I don’t know which is more evil: that you ensure harm comes to the weakest of our society, or that you turn yourself into a pretzel patting your own back for it.
“You may be a man of good heart, Alexander of Alexandria. But that does not mean you are a good man.”