Not Heartless

          I see him through lidded eyes, that Leland character. As I kneel by the bushes at Jack's Tracks and watch Leland write retarded lyrics, I can't help but remember the time my dad passed away (don't you just love euphemisms and how they sugar-coat reality? Gotta love 'em!). It was a Sunday and it was snowing, much like today. I must have been about 9 years old. My parents were divorced and my mother's sanity was completely intact but my father kept becoming more distressed day by day. It was his job, my job. He didn't have the heart to go through with everything and he was feeling guilty for everything he had already done--he had ruined lives and destroyed families.

          I remember startling myself awake as I heard a loud knocking at the door. At the time, I was convinced that it was a monster, some trumped up delusion in my head because I was just coming out of a dream. Because of the juxtaposition of my room and the living room, I was able to look out of my window at a sharp angle and see who was at the front door (it was about five in the morning). I saw a barely discernible figure, dark and large with huge shoulders. I could hardly see him; he was just a black gob of motion in the darkness. But as he knocked again and turned away from the door, the incandescence of the streetlights illuminated his figure. It was a man with a round cap. He began to bang louder and louder on the door. I heard my mother's footsteps pound down the hall past my room and went back to sleep, terrified. I was now convinced that the man was not a monster but a murderer and that I was going to die. So naturally I went back to sleep. Isn't it funny how we do that? We are convinced that there is a murderer in the house and yet we go back to sleep.

          The next morning, it was snowing and the streets outside my house were sloshed over in the weak gray light. The whole world seemed gloomy and off-kilter. The pine tree outside my house was swaying in what was fast becoming a gale. I went into my mom's room as I always did after I woke up and I didn't hear a single sound in the house, not the sound of my dog, not the sound of a TV (which was always on, buzzing with the morning news). Nothing. I saw my mom on her bed and before she opened her mouth, I felt a lump in my throat and a shaky feeling in the pit of my stomach; I knew what had happened before she told me--it was one of those insane moments of intuition that we experience only once in a while. As the words escaped her mouth, I remember looking down on the wooden floor and noticing the intricacies of the little cracks, how they were perfectly symmetrical. I looked out the window and saw a little red bird on the pine branch, beaming and thrusting out his chest with pride. I'll never forget it.

          According to the police--which I now knew explained the shadowy figure outside my house--my father died on the job. I immediately resolved to take his place. I am well-aware of the dangers of my--and my fathers--profession but I am convinced that I trained well enough to prevent a slip-up. And now, as I see Leland stuff his notebook into his pocket and plod back towards his apartment in a scummy snow, I know that the time has come. But I'll allow him to buy his (undoubtedly fake) golden diamond-studded grille. I owe it to him. I'm not heartless.

He makes me smile

          The wolf-man was quite the sight for Leland. He whipped out his lyric book to write down some ideas for the next song. He flips through pages and pages of horrible lyrics: lyrics like "yo yo yo, we in da hood now. We doin' what we should now. Everything is good now in my hood. Represent!" And of course, my personal favorite: "oh shawty dizzle my nizzle till I start to fizzle." That Leland with his double-entendres and innuendoes! I swear sometimes he makes me want to laugh in his face! He finally waded through the crappy lyrics until he found a blank page. He began to write: "I just saw a wolf-man, yuhhh, a wolf-man homie! I just saw a wolf-man and don't know what to make of it, don't know how to shake with it. I just saw a wolf-man, yuhhh, a wolf-man homie!"Apparently, Leland is trying to communicate that he did indeed see a wolf-man.
           He bagan to stroll along the street, clearly proud of his new song. He looked happy and was on his way to get a grill and complete his "hood-swagga"as I've heard him say before. The rain began once again, a thunderous, shrill rain. Leland stood under a small tarp behind the vietnamese place and just stared at a sleek, black limo. I knew from my background research that Leland used to live the life of luxury. It must suck having to stare at that limo. Ha! Above him, a thoughtful man peered out a window into the gray, dismal rain. Unlike the man above him, he doesn't get it. He doesn't understand. Nor does he know that none of his work will ever matter, the fame, the fortune, the success.
          We recently "took care of" the last guy on our list. My colleague told me he severed the mans head clean off and left it in the gutter. Apparently, his friend hired him to be killed. His own friend! I know not why this man would order his friend killed but our job isn't to ask questions or question the moral integrity of our profession. All we do is learn the ins and outs of our target: the way they think, the way they act. Poor Leland. I kind of like the guy, the way he is always so blissfully unaware of everything. He makes me smile.

The Gate

          Leland Jack leaves his drab apartment at Watershed Heights. As the sun peeped through the broken clouds and slanted upon the sleepy little city, he looked troubled. He saw stuffed streets and dank urban filth and the gated community running adjacently left him staring at its beauty, sometimes for hours on end. All he needed to do was make a phone call home, just one simple phone call to his parents and he could be unwinding in a hot-tub right now. He didn’t even own a phone! Ha!

  As he turns a corner, pulls up his basketball shorts, and clicks his mouth in a beat-box gesture, his eyes spot a little black object hanging by a cord. Leland winces, looks in all directions, and lunges for it. He dials: "dddddrrrrrrrriiiing!" A smooth, afro-american comes jostling by, dark as the moon, snapping his fingers to an imaginary rhythm. Soon there was a beating sound and the streets seemed to come to life: drums, a drowsy trumpet biting the air, rugged sidewalk and walls festooned with color and drawings. 
          Leland slams down the phone realizing his mistake and walks across the street towards the train tracks with the hot metal. He walks along the edges of the train track and tries balancing but he wobbles and wobbles. He comes here every now and then to pass the time and concoct ways of becoming rich the real way, through spitting rhymes (shitty rhymes but rhymes nevertheless). He proclaims this area “Jack’s Tracks” because not another soul ever comes near these overgrown train tracks, choked by leaning trees and sunny leaves.
          Walking back from "Jack's Tracks," in a ceaseless drizzle, Leland sees something that strikes him. Was it a vision, a mirage? A wolf...man. A wolf-man. The wolf man is scowling like an unhappy castaway on the island of abnormality. Leland sees his pained mouth, his mean brow and his matted face and stares as if he is looking at himself. Leland, it seems, has been put down his whole life (I've heard others talk about "that white guy who wishes he was black"). Leland, in an instant knew what his new rap song was going to be about: the wolf-man. But hopeless Leland will write trite lyrics and mediocre music, never realizing that his means are fruitless and that his end will come soon. So soon.
  But enough thinking and pondering. Time to get a fye fye grill, yo!

Saggin' and Swaggin'

          Report: Leland Jack

           Dear Mr. Vladamir,

After close investigation, I have assembled a subjective report on the man who goes by the name "Leland jack." I hope that my findings will illuminate the situation at hand.

      

          Leland Jack swaggers into Da Club, bobbing his head to the din of rap music. Shaquille O’neil brand basketball shorts hang to his ankles and his big, cartooned Fila shoes slap and flop onto the floor. Leland is holding the rim of his basketball shorts with one hand, making sure they don’t slide down his rangy body, because if they did so, the whole African American world would see nothing but pasty, naked skin, for he wore nothing under these shorts, a secret he intends to carry with him to the grave. Because of this, Leland almost never has a free hand, a veritable self-inflicted cripple.  

          His spray-deodorant stings the eyes of those around him, overwhelming all space within 5 feet of him with the scent of a fake pine tree. The deodorant bottle is called “Lucky Night” and claims to attract women to the scent. Leland bathes himself in this product. When the people on the dance floor catch a whiff of Leland, they curl their noses, squint their eyes and furrow their brows. But Leland walks past the blinded dancers and up to the rappers, free-styling on the stage. Golden mic in hand the two rappers took turns insulting the other as a machine tittered a snappy beat in the corner. Leland was pop-eyed, gawking, his mouth agape. Gold grills spat clever, rhyming, hateful taunts accompanied by loud “OH!”’s from the audience. 

  These free-stylers remind him of his home in Decatur, a quiet suburb of Atlanta, where he would blare gangsta-rap records to his mothers dismay. After graduating from Decatur Preparatory College, a place of collared shirts and water polo, he moved here, a place of dilapidated old movie theaters and thumping rap clubs. He was free, free from his mother’s short-leash, free from years of being coddled and caressed, free from Abercrombie and Fitch, free from lacrosse and Keystone beer, free from constricting white briefs. Leland grinned and sweated, his eyes fixed upon the two hood-born rappers, dark as night with brilliant gold tin-foiled teeth. It was in that moment that Leland decided that his fashion repertoire was lacking an essential item.