ass! Like a muhfuh shelf! Shit!” After Noel’s narrated climax (he spoke with the embarrassing fluency produced by long inner rehearsals) we drove west to Foxhall Road (you can imagine what kind of people live there, just from the name) and then on into Palisades, where his mother lives.
The morning traffic had just started, and I was able to miss the worst of it. Every asshole in the world comes to D.C. in the morning, to work at some government job. It’s the only industry we have, and everyone involved in it is miserable. So the traffic is just terrible, physically and spiritually. Noel and I were driving away from the nexus of it. We were okay. You know the kind of morning I’m talking about. The air was weightless, like my limbs and head. The pink light exaggerated the innocence of house-fronts and lawns. When I’d parked, he sneezed—as if on purpose, flinging an oystery gob of mucus out to cling to his upper lip. He wiped it off with his hand, then reconsidered. “Shit. You godda muhfuh Kleenex?” I pointed at the glove box, which he opened. And into his hummocky lap slid Kevin’s school file. Yes, I’d been keeping it in my car. So what! So nothing had come of it yet, so what. It was evidence of an exploit. And exploits are valuable in themselves. Noel has this stupid pennant, anyway. On his wall. From Chandler. It’s up over his couch, on the dirty wall, a white-and-red pennant. By far the cleanest thing in his house. No pictures, no posters, nothing but barren, grime-feathered paint—and then that retarded pennant. It’s blindingly visible. As though it meant something. As though he played on any of the Chandler teams. Hockey! Cross-country! Lacrosse! Dressage! As though he even gave a shit! Chandler kicked him out for selling porn he stole from the general store in Blue Knock to his classmates. I’ve never asked him why he keeps the pennant pinned up there. But that’s how everyone is. You can’t refute it. Everyone holding on to the cheap tokens of their past.
“The fuck is this shit?” Noel asked, reading the name on the thumb-grimy index tab. “A’ight, Kevin Broadus , shit. I know who did that boy. You ain’t got no tissues, man. And why you got this anyway.”
I was shocked to notice the calm suffusing me. At his revelation, I mean.
“What do you mean, you like know? Like you know who killed him?”
“Man, I ain’t say I know.” This apparent self-contradiction stumped me. “And shit, man,” he continued, “why you all askin’ up in my face?” Sometimes he fumbles his lingo. Such performances are hard to maintain, I guess.
“Dude, I’m not like trying to be intrusive or anything.” I almost mumbled this. Out of fucking … deference. Amazing, right? His audible, moanlike breathing filled my car.
“Intrusive. Shit. Man, ain’t you wanna know any more?”
“But like I thought you said you didn’t know.”
“Man, ain’t you listen? I ain’t say I knew. I say I heard . Ya heard?” We go through this a lot, back-and-forths, bickering sessions. He thinks it’s how you talk to your friends. He used the same methods with the guys who hung around his house. Although not David, who had kind of a zero-tolerance policy for dialectical nonsense. With the sense of being done a great service, I asked him again what he had heard . Phrasing it correctly this time.
So he told me. “This dude Mike, Short Mike. Mike Lorriner . He out of, uh, Severn, some redneck shit like that.” Severn is a meaningless town somewhere in Maryland, the worst state.
“Short Mike. So like what’s his like deal,” I twittered. Noel inspected his still lightly besnotted hand and cleaned it with a fold of his vast shirt. His clothes are like bales of sailcloth. He’s by far the fattest person I’ve ever spoken to.
“His deal? Muhfuh, you a cop? Why you care? Shit, son. Why you even wanna know?” Another stumper. How to answer this? With a weak-ass piece of obfuscation.
“I knew him.
The morning traffic had just started, and I was able to miss the worst of it. Every asshole in the world comes to D.C. in the morning, to work at some government job. It’s the only industry we have, and everyone involved in it is miserable. So the traffic is just terrible, physically and spiritually. Noel and I were driving away from the nexus of it. We were okay. You know the kind of morning I’m talking about. The air was weightless, like my limbs and head. The pink light exaggerated the innocence of house-fronts and lawns. When I’d parked, he sneezed—as if on purpose, flinging an oystery gob of mucus out to cling to his upper lip. He wiped it off with his hand, then reconsidered. “Shit. You godda muhfuh Kleenex?” I pointed at the glove box, which he opened. And into his hummocky lap slid Kevin’s school file. Yes, I’d been keeping it in my car. So what! So nothing had come of it yet, so what. It was evidence of an exploit. And exploits are valuable in themselves. Noel has this stupid pennant, anyway. On his wall. From Chandler. It’s up over his couch, on the dirty wall, a white-and-red pennant. By far the cleanest thing in his house. No pictures, no posters, nothing but barren, grime-feathered paint—and then that retarded pennant. It’s blindingly visible. As though it meant something. As though he played on any of the Chandler teams. Hockey! Cross-country! Lacrosse! Dressage! As though he even gave a shit! Chandler kicked him out for selling porn he stole from the general store in Blue Knock to his classmates. I’ve never asked him why he keeps the pennant pinned up there. But that’s how everyone is. You can’t refute it. Everyone holding on to the cheap tokens of their past.
“The fuck is this shit?” Noel asked, reading the name on the thumb-grimy index tab. “A’ight, Kevin Broadus , shit. I know who did that boy. You ain’t got no tissues, man. And why you got this anyway.”
I was shocked to notice the calm suffusing me. At his revelation, I mean.
“What do you mean, you like know? Like you know who killed him?”
“Man, I ain’t say I know.” This apparent self-contradiction stumped me. “And shit, man,” he continued, “why you all askin’ up in my face?” Sometimes he fumbles his lingo. Such performances are hard to maintain, I guess.
“Dude, I’m not like trying to be intrusive or anything.” I almost mumbled this. Out of fucking … deference. Amazing, right? His audible, moanlike breathing filled my car.
“Intrusive. Shit. Man, ain’t you wanna know any more?”
“But like I thought you said you didn’t know.”
“Man, ain’t you listen? I ain’t say I knew. I say I heard . Ya heard?” We go through this a lot, back-and-forths, bickering sessions. He thinks it’s how you talk to your friends. He used the same methods with the guys who hung around his house. Although not David, who had kind of a zero-tolerance policy for dialectical nonsense. With the sense of being done a great service, I asked him again what he had heard . Phrasing it correctly this time.
So he told me. “This dude Mike, Short Mike. Mike Lorriner . He out of, uh, Severn, some redneck shit like that.” Severn is a meaningless town somewhere in Maryland, the worst state.
“Short Mike. So like what’s his like deal,” I twittered. Noel inspected his still lightly besnotted hand and cleaned it with a fold of his vast shirt. His clothes are like bales of sailcloth. He’s by far the fattest person I’ve ever spoken to.
“His deal? Muhfuh, you a cop? Why you care? Shit, son. Why you even wanna know?” Another stumper. How to answer this? With a weak-ass piece of obfuscation.
“I knew him.
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