The Last of the Duke Street Kings
an excerpt

I can't tell you this story.
This story grew bone and flesh before I ever knew of it. It jumped up from the slime a long time ago; it stretched; it ate, shit and wandered through dark alleys and deserted streets; it gathered weight and mass, which are not the same thing. It absorbed details, sucking them inside and making them it's own. No one can remember it all now. Nobody can tell this whole story now.
Besides, you can't trust me. Everyone will tell you that.
All I can tell you is what happened that one night. So, pass me a spiritual cigarette. Let's sit down some place warm and get comfortable. It's always nice to be warm; a comfortable cat curled up in front of a fat, crackling fire. And while I spiritually smoke, I'll tell you what I do know. And you can listen and believe.
Or not.
It was early November, I don't remember the exact date anymore. I stepped into the sunlight out of the City Central Juvenile Detention Center, smiled and lit a cigarette. The sun was out, and it actually felt warm as I stood on those cracked and broken cement steps. The sunlight melted into me like a soft butterfly melting into a pancake flower. It felt like that pretty girl pressing up against your body late at night; her breath sweeter than yours; her perfume still clinging to her soft skin; her lips slowly yielding. Even the few barren trees looked good to me for that moment. The lecture about how this was my final chance scraped off the heels of my boots as soon as I started walking. For a few seconds, I was free and free and free. Nobody and nothing could do anything to me.
Then I looked toward the east; toward the river. You can't actually see the river from most places in the city, but it's what you do around here. It's almost a nervous habit. You look to the river, turning to face it instinctively even though your trapped in a concrete, asphalt and steel maze you can't escape. Even though the river flows above you on the map. And below. And never cares about you or the city. You look to the river around here, and you wonder what it might bring.
If the weather held, I thought to myself, everything would be fine, fine, fine. I'd gone into juvie at the start of summer, so I was only wearing only a t-shirt, jeans and boots. They'd given me a grey windbreaker from lost and found as I was being processed out. I had no idea who it belonged to, or how it became lost. Sometimes things don't get lost on accident or on purpose, but I didn't care. It didn't fit, but I put it on anyway.
There was a comb, 78 cents and six cigarettes left in the crumpled pack in my jeans pockets. They'd cut my hair when I came in, so I didn't really have anything to comb. It would take time on the street for my hair to come back; for me to be able to slick it back with a dark, dangerous shine. It would take time on the streets for me to come back. Then I would show everyone something.
I'd daydreamed someone would have been here when I got out, but I knew better than to expect it. Mom would be working, my step dad, Bill, would be slumped in the ratty chair in the living room. Everyone else would be too busy with their own life to care about what was happening in mine.
It wasn't a pretty walk back to the neighborhood from here, but i'd done it before. Sucking on the cigarette, I put one foot in front of the other and started doing it. The warmth of the sun only lasted until I hit the first shadows of the tall, brick buildings that poked up in this part of town like dirty gravestones. Those shadows pulled me back into November; back into reality. The soft, warm girl aged, withered, then faded away from my body. The butterfly's wings lost their color, then curled into a tight, brittle coil that fell into dust when touched. I stuffed my cigarette into my mouth and rubbed my arms with my hands; bounced a bit more on my feet to get the blood moving. My stride quickened. It's not too bad, I thought to myself. I've been in worse.
The weather will hold, Dean, don't worry. You're going to get home, get past that old bastard sleeping in that ratty old chair, dreaming rye and whiskey dreams. There will be eggs and bacon in the fridge. There will be bread and coffee in the cupboard. You're gonna sneak a pack of fresh cigarettes from the dresser. The bacon will crackle and pop, pop, pop. The eggs will bubble and turn yellow when you chop at them with the spatula and cook them all up into a big old mess of hot, good food. Then you'll sit at the table and eat and eat and eat and smoke and smoke and smoke and look out the window while you drink strong coffee and that fat bastard snores away in his chair. Don't worry, Dean, the weather will hold. You're going to get past that old bastard...
Like I said, you can't trust me. If it makes you feel better, I can't trust myself, either. But trust isn't everything, and it wasn't what I needed right then.
As I walked, I could feel the cold in the air grow. You could smell damp in the air, even in the grimy stink of the streets around the juvie center. I ducked my head and walked quicker; slipping my way through the crowd; some staring at me; some smirking. One old guy looked at me, then back toward the river, and shook his head.
"You better not have far to go," he chuckled, armored smugly in his heavy coat. Folks don't usually trust me, but they'll laugh at me when they can.
I walked faster. The crowd sort of thinned a bit. You get to my part of town, not too many people are just outside. They are going somewhere else, or they stay inside. On hot days, maybe, they'll come out, fan themselves and complain about how humid it is. But on days like today, you don't stay out any longer than you have to. You stay inside. You feel restless, angry.
The temperature was dropping. I could tell through the windbreaker. I could feel it stinging my fingers like frozen wasp barbs when I held my cigarette. My cheeks could feel it. The weather wasn't going to hold. The river was brewing up something special for me that day.
It was drifting into late afternoon before I made it back to the home block. The rest of the details of the walk were boring. I was cold; the clouds began to pile up; the sidewalks were cracked; the buildings were run down. Done.
The temperature continued to drop like the blood pressure of a dying old man. But it wasn't too much to handle. Like I said, I'd been in worse. I was finishing my fourth cigarette when I turned the corner to my street. The buildings were all dark, dirty old row houses converted into small apartments. Someone told me that, a long time ago, rich people lived there, one family per building. Now people like my family lived there, jammed into sections of the building. I didn't complain. We were in the upper floor; that wasn't too bad. You could sit at the window and watch people scurry by. If you took time to water it, you could get a plant to grow. The people who lived under the big, wide stairs, in basement apartments with only one window, were doing worse.
I stood at the bottom of the stairs and took a deep breath. I looked up at the windows on the upper right hand side of the building. There wasn't any plant in the window. Mom was never very good with plants. The curtains were missing and it made it look like I was staring at big, blank eyes. I headed up the stairs to the door. I didn't have any plan. I would just have to knock on the door and hope the jerk would wake up and let me in. All the warm clothes that I owned flashed through my mind as I walked. In a couple minutes, I'd be inside; I'd be someplace warm. I would trade all the coffee, eggs and bacon in the world for a coat right then. Maybe even all the cigarettes.
The super, unshaven and wearing a grimy untucked, open shirt that didn't hide his grimy undershirt stood in the hallway as I entered. His eyes flickered as I stepped in. Recognition. Surprise. Then, wariness.
"Well, well. The war hero, back from the battle." His voice was thick with sarcasm. "Guess you didn't get the news up at the front."
"What news?" I replied. I wanted to sound tougher, but my body was unwinding like a cold forged coil as it relaxed in the warmth of the hall. It's hard to sound tough when you're secretly glad to just be inside.
Most times I wish that I was bigger; wish I was one of those big slabs of meat and bone and sinew that force people to be polite merely by being alive. The kind of person people step back from, hold the door for, smile nervously at and nod hello. The kind of person that can choose to be nice because his size makes everyone be nice to him. I'm small; quick; smarter than most I've run into. That doesn't make people be nice to you; doesn't make them feel like starting something would result in pain and bruises. It makes you shift around in the crowd; makes you look for openings to dart through, like a fish or a weasel. It's the quickness, the darting, that makes it so no one can trust you.
"Well, unless you have a wad of cash, you don't live here anymore," the super replied. His name was Ernie, but I never thought of him like that. He was the super of a lousy building; dirty and mean. Balding, sweaty, hairy arms and shoulders that showed through and thrust out of the openings of his shirts. A rat that unplugged your toilet; turned down the heat and changed the locks when you weren't looking and got behind.
"What happened?" I asked.
He shrugged. "You'd have to ask your folks. If you can find them. One day they're here; the next they are gone. The funny thing, they took off before they got behind on the rent. One day, just gone." he shrugged. I felt like he just punched me in the gut. The air went out of my soul like it was a deflating balloon. I looked down and saw it in it's death throws; spinning in a stupid circle as the last of the air shot out of the hole.
"They leave anything behind?" His beady eyes were searching me for my pain like a pig rooting through garbage. I struggled to keep my voice calm. He'd feed on someone else today, not me.
Ernie laughed, his nasty eyes squinting up. "Wouldn't matter if they did. It's mine now."
I just stood there, in the dirty hallway of a crappy apartment building, and took it. Ernie turned and left, hitching up his pants; he was done with me. I was just hours out of juvie; for the second time, out of juvie; he knew I wouldn't try anything. Fists clenched, thrust into my jeans, I left the building where I used to live. Whatever I had there was gone, either with my mom or that scumbag. I suppose I should have seen it in my mom's eyes when they told her I was going away. Again. I should have seen it in how her eyes darted toward my stepdad, a wounded bird glancing at the snake just before it struck. It probably wasn't her idea to leave me. It was Bill's. That idea locked into my head as I fingered the $0.78 in my pocket and felt a surge of despair washing over me like a big, oily wave. There was a thick slice of fear surging through my body as I stepped out.
I'd been through things; I wasn't new to bad news. As I stepped out into the cold, turning away from the direction of the river and watching the uncaring ball of the sun sliding down in the smudgy, gloomy sky, I knew this was more than I had dealt with before. No matter how bad things were on the inside, it would be preferable to anything on the outside tonight.
I shuffled down the street. As I passed an alley, i heard a voice. I looked into the gloom and saw the tall, wrecked remains of Reefer Man. Reefer Man lived in alleys, and nobody knew his name. He would mutter at you as you walked past, hustling you for money for a joint. He wore a huge overcoat that made his body disappear and a knit cap that he pulled down low over his dirty hair and forehead. Blue eyes glared at you from tangled strays of hair, and a stubble covered his gaunt cheeks and chin.
"Hey kid, long time no see," he rasped; his voice rough polished by years of smoke and drink and night life. "You're lookin a little cold today, kid." Today he wore ratty fingerless gloves over his long, thin hands. He gestured toward his trash can fire, like he was inviting me inside.
I turned toward him, hunching into the shadows of the alley. I held my hands over the crackling flames, feeling my fingers loosen and letting them stretch over the flames. For a moment, the butterfly's wings opened again.
"How's business?" I asked, glancing around. No one was on the street that didn't have to be. People were hurrying home, getting inside as the clouds massed.
Reefer man shrugged, took a long, sweet hit off his joint and passed it over. I took it greedily. Reefer man wasn't in the habit of sharing.
"Smokin' up the profits," he rasped, his eyes bright and intense; the reefer cocoon that had encased him for years was splitting open and something different was beginning to emerge. The edge of harder things sounded in his rasping tone, and I wondered what he was on. "It's too cold to work, anyway. I'm gonna lay up someplace warm pretty soon. Something nasty is blowing in tonight."
I nodded; ignoring his words and concentrated on the thick wad of smoke that clenched my lungs until I had to cough it out. He reached for the joint, disapproval in his too bright eyes. "Don' go wastin' that shit, boy. It isn't always easy to come by, even for ole Reefer."
I closed my eyes and tilted back my head. The juices of the smoke cloud--the chemical weed rain that soaked my lungs--absorbed into my system. I felt it move through me, expanding some parts of my mind, shrinking others. I sighed.
"Any ideas where someplace warm might be?" I asked, trying to sound relaxed.
"I know where I'm going," reefer man replied slowly, after expertly exhaling another plume of smoke. "You're gonna have to find your own on your own."
I nodded, thinking that sounded profoundly deep.
"You take care of that fire after I leave, it'll keep you warm," reefer man continued, he was looking away from me now, like he was talking to someone else. "But stayin on the street isn't smart these days. Usta be the really bad shit that happened at night happened down around the docks, but nowadays....."
He shrugged, his flappy armed coat rising and falling slightly.
"Nowadays it's best to be off the streets at night... even when it is warm... That's why reefer man found himself a good place to go at night. Let the bad shit happen outside. I'll stay inside, where it can't find me..."
Reefer man shuddered a bit, his eyes suddenly not so bright, not so crazy. He sucked down the rest of his joint and dropped the remaints of paper into the trash can. Turning, he started to head down the alley.
"You can keep the fire goin, kid. But cold isn't the only thing goin on on these streets any more. You find yourself a place inside tonight, so you don' see some of the shit ole Reefer Man has seen."
He shuffled off, his raggedy coat swimming around his narrow shoulders; his dirty pants and worn shoes kicking along the grimy ground of the alley. I kept my hands over the fire. Reefer Man's coat would keep me warmer than anything I had, but I didn't move. Reefer'd been selling around our streets for a long time. More than once someone thought it would be easy to take his stuff. The people in my neighborhood learned early that is was dangerous to confront the old man; the outside people who came around looking for weed and thought thy didn't mind some trouble, learned the lesson themselves.
The sun kept sliding away; getting dimmer and dimmer in the growing clouds. A mist was winding its way up from the river. In the alley, in the dark twisting streets with narrowly crowding buildings, you couldn't see it yet. But you could feel it. A cold, wet fog that crawled like a lizard, a cold, mean, blue and green salamander that crawled over the rotting docks and the broken, toothless warehouses that had been boarded up since the war. It flicked it's tongue and licked out a hint of colder air. Canadian air, from further up north where the sun doesn't have such a strong hold. Air that flowed down from the artic, crept over the vast lakes, and now spread over the banks of the river. I am coming, it whispered. I am coming.
I shivered, and hunched closer to the round, hot trash can. the flames inside licked around and around like hungry tongues, trying to find new things to suck in and consume. I am leaving, the flames whispered. I am leaving.