gradual but certain, and wrapped in a new vernacular of moral denial.
In the thought and speech of the corner, misdemeanors become not crimes, but capers. Those selling drugs are no longer peddling dope, but serving people; those buying the drugs are not addicts or junkies—perjorative terms of an earlier era—but dope fiends, a term that captures the hunger and devotion of the corner chase, rather than simple dependency. A player who undertakes an armed robbery, a street shooting, or a carjacking is no longer committing a felony, but simply doing a deed. A burn bag sold to a friend, a stash stolen from a first cousin’s bedroom, is no longer a betrayal, but merely getting over. When you do these things, of course, you’re simply playing the game; when these things are done to you, it’s the work of a crudball, a cold motherfucker with no feelings or conscience. The term is never self-applied; corner logic doesn’t work that way. One’s own crudball adventures are not, of course, regarded as such; the most successful of them are recounted by the perpetrators in a bemused tone that suggests professional pride. The rest of the herd, too, can often manage a grudging respect for a player who breaks new ground in doing unto others, so that a crudball act that consistently yields a profit can easily rise in stature. It becomes, in corner parlance, a dope-fiend move.
It’s almost better to be born into the world of the dope-fiend move, and stay there, than to arrive there as a matter of necessity, burdened by ethical baggage that serves no useful purpose. That can only make a player vulnerable. So it is with Gary McCullough, who can’t easily justify anything worse than the penny-ante caper. And so it is with Fran Boyd, who has acquired an arsenal of fiendish moves only to be constrained by a lingering sense of obligation to her sons.
In the end, the corner best serves the hardcore, the junkyard dogs with neither the time nor inclination for pity. It’s for Ronnie Boice, Gary’s girl, who never misses her shot, though her children are running the streets; or Jon-Jon, training twelve-year-olds to sling his bags on Gilmor; or Bunchie, who can make the rent money disappear month after month, knowing that in the end, her brother Scoogie will shell out what’s needed to prevent the eviction; or Dink-Dink, selling burn bags to fiends three times his age and almost hoping that they come back on him, figuring he’ll go to his nine and catch himself a body.
By nature or by nurture, the mindset of the dope-fiend move, once acquired, becomes a lifelong companion. Once in the game, it’s hard for a player to forget the lessons learned and operate in the legitimate world. The dope-fiend move becomes the immediate answer to all problems, the short-term response to life’s long-term struggles. Off the corner and loosed upon the legitimate world, it’s the lie on the housing application, the copied essay on the community college midterm, the petty theft from the register, and ultimately, the justification for returning to the world of the corner. It’s a new way of thinking that can’t be challenged with jobs or educational opportunities or drug treatment, because once you see the world as a dope fiend does, you can’t see it any other way. A few years in the mix and the only voice in your head becomes the collective wail of the corner itself.
How could it be otherwise? Day after goddamn day, the corner proves itself and, by extension, every idiot on the corner is proven as well. Touts, runners, fiends—they’re always where you expect them to be, stand-around-and-serve prophets of the new logic; they speak and you believe.
So when you go up to Fayette and Monroe and hear that your rap buddy just fell dead after slamming some Red Tops, you barely miss a beat. Fuck it, the prophet tells you, he didn’t know how to shoot coke, not the way you do. Never mind that you were gunning with the dead man for a decade, never mind that you shared a hype with him a hundred times, never mind that he’s pounded on your chest to bring you back more than once, he ain’t shit now. Just another no-doping, skin-popping, scramble-shooting punk, says the corner. Nigger wasn’t serious like you; couldn’t handle the good shit. And you believe it; you want the Red Tops.
The corner prophet knows.
You go to court and the downtown judge gives you five years suspended, tells you you’re on supervised probation. Fuck that, says the prophet. If you report and then mess up, they can find you; if you don’t report, they ain’t got no record of you. And you, of course, do like the prophet says, thinking you’re getting over when you ain’t. A month or two later, you take a charge and they drag your ass from city jail to the downtown courthouse. The same prune-faced judge looks down at you, talking about how you’re in violation of probation, talking about how you’re gonna eat the whole five years. And you do the bit, come back from Hagerstown, go back up to the same corner and find that motherfucker. Yo, what up?
And the prophet just looks at you like you’re some kind of fool, talking about how you can get locked up for that shit, saying you should have reported.
And you don’t miss a beat. You nod your head in agreement because, the man’s a got-damn prophet; his shit has to be true. And when the next problem comes around, there you are again on the same corner, looking for more of the same.
“I’m saying, I can’t get rid of this hole, man,” you tell him, rolling up your sleeve to show a dime-sized crater. The prophet just shakes his head and a neophyte jumps into the lull, offering advice.
“Ain’t no hole, man,” says the newcomer. “That an abscess. You gotta get some ointment. Go to the emergency room, they got to give it to you. Clean it right up.”
“Fuck that,” you tell him. “I’m saying, you go there, you got to wait all day. Man, they don’t got no time for no niggers. See, what I’m saying, I can’t be doing that, man. I’m saying, this nigger got things to do.”
And, of course, the prophet finally steps up.
“Shit, you want to clean it up or what?” he asks.
“Yeah, what I’m saying …”
“Get yourself some eggs, two should do it,” the prophet says. “Boil ’em up in a pot ’til they hard. Then you gotta peel ’em real careful like. You want to get that thin skin, be under the shell? You know what I’m talking about, be under the shell?”
“Yeah, uh-huh.”
“You got to peel that off and stick it over the holes. Wrap it up in some gauze. Word up: two weeks. It be like these.”
The prophet shows you the back of his left hand. “Them the kind of scar you get.”
You’re not sure.
“Fuck it, I don’t give a shit if your motherfucking arm falls off,” says the prophet. “That’s on you.”
“No, I’m saying I ain’t heard about doing that. That’s all. I’m saying, it might work. You probably right.”
Two weeks and a dozen eggs later you’re pulling the gauze off your arm and, of course, the hole is now the size of a quarter. And when you go back to the corner prophet, he tells you he don’t know shit about eggs. Potatoes, he tells you. Boiled potatoes are the cure. For a moment or two, you shake your head and curse the prophet, but two hours later you’re pricing spuds at the Super Fresh, though in the end, you’ll say to hell with it. No time for boiling shit up or waiting around emergency rooms. The corner knows; you’re not about fixing the hole in your arm, you’re about that blast.
So you learn: The prophet never lies; he can’t be wrong. As it is for every other wandering animal, the watering hole is the only truth you can afford. It owns you, uses you, kicks your ass, robs your mind, and grinds your body down. But day after lonesome day, it gives you life.
For twenty on the hype, you believe.
Fat Curt lies still on a dirt-slicked mattress as the wind pushes through the cracks of the boarded-up windows, barely breaking stride before it rushes through the darkened rooms. All around him, the moans and coughs and curses of comrades scattered on makeshift bedrolls blend with groans from the boards and joists of Blue’s old house.
Hard soldiering in a hard winter. Curt sheds the tatter of blankets and clothing that have covered him through a February night, throwaways and giveaways layered one atop another for enough warmth to keep the old heart pumping. Curt gropes for