A fresh stack of expense bills sat in front of him. To what cost is he giving this week. He played the “Bill Game” Many times over when he had his girl. Now she is gone, knowing it is a pathetic waste of time when he sat in front of his bills, scratching the scruff from his beard for an African-American Man that cannot make ends meets on more occasions than necessary.
He stood tall for a young man of his age with a height of six foot, seven inches. He had big hands since he was a kid as his father did mechanic work in the Detroit downtown district. His father worked himself to the bone when the labors of his years started to catch up with him, dying of a massive stroke at the age of thirty eight when a teenage Bruno stood there at the side of his Pop’s casket as the choir ladies sung the by-and-by. His mother stood beside him with the tears that never left when Bruno at the time was running with the Dice One gang on the north side of the downtown district.
What the Dice One gang did – don’t ask. He never told anyone that he killed some people on a lay-one ride before he turned fifteen. It would have broken his mother’s heart if she ever knew he was in Dice One or ever was in Dice One when he kept that a secret and kept it hidden like the closet at the end of the hallway that is locked and barred. He remembered the afro that he grew back when he was in the gang when everyone called him, “Cisco”; like the grease that is used for home cooking.
By the time he turned sixteen and he was paying the bills for momma’s home, he bought his own car, A Chevy Caprice with all the hype for a gang member with a hidden stitch upon the door to hold his Mac-Ten when he knew that one of his homies was on the lo-lo. He always wore the same colors but different suits to dissuade the bitches in badges. His roller though was registered in PLPD with six months payment when he cruised, saying things like, “Fuck the school. It is owned by the hypocritical crackers that eat lobster and pay their bills on the sweat that is working; slinging shards on the streets for fat Benji’s and pay for their momma’s kids.”
Before he left Dice One, he kept a heat roller underneath his pillow which is a .38 revolver when Dice One was getting squeezed out by another gang that poured into their territory. These were the Mexicans that wanted to bring in the dimes for the cartels, setting up quick signs to move their product from the low keys down south. That is before his gang was getting greased and Bruno left with no provocation of being caught when he made about eighty thousand dollars to pay for the bills.
$80,000 which is a lifetime that he made in the city of Detroit; $80,000 that started to make him feel less of a man when the money started to get tight and his mother started to go back to work at the diner, collecting tips for the white pricks that make money off of the brothers.
Slavery never left in capitalism. We are still getting whipped by Pastor Sam and his big, white cotton plantation that is filled with green.
Bruno left Detroit and made a change for the better when he met a white girl that wanted to get out from the boredom of life, getting a job making pizza deliveries while trying to pinch into college but failed to do so in the process. We both got tattoos. We both started to pay the bills on a rental property for six hundred dollars a month, sometimes barely getting enough green to buy food on the table. Then Bruno lost his job and his girlfriend started to sleep around with guys with bigger weight in the backs of their cars.
That made Bruno mad something fierce when he caught her in a lie, being sassy about it when enough is enough. He is alone now, trying to play the bill game when Bruno continued to scratch his beard, thinking about the money in the bank when he knew that he would have to go to the welfare office after signing papers in for different places to get a job.
Bruno knew that they would pass him up, being a man that didn’t even pass high school when he felt that needle of failure stab into his heart more and more when he thought about the streets, thinking of the streets like a recovering alcoholic that is thinking about the drink in the back of his mind as the gorilla on his back leered and laugh for his misery to be so.
The signs of the coming night are soon when he heard the sound of something banging up against the wall to the left of him when he sighed, knowing it is one of the children on the other side of the wall that doesn’t know better. He wondered how long it will be before his head is under the water. He wondered how long will it be for his life to be legit.
He wondered.
The bill game is about to go in session when he heard someone outside his door stomp up the stairs, wondering if it is the pizza delivery girl that works this side of the street when he felt like a hungry beast in looking for some food. He knew all that he had left in the pantry is three wrapped packages of peanut butter bars, one half jar of jelly that should have been placed in the fridge three days ago, and one loaf of bread that has not been even touched yet. The light for the kitchen burned out some time ago when he found the shadow under his front door as someone knocked upon it. He bound his head up from the table when he got up, going across the floor up to the door that is locked and barred.
He unlocked it and opened it.
A man is before him, wearing a white-collared shirt with slacks over his shoulders. In his breast pocket he wore three pens in his shirt that is pressed and cleaned with no spot of stain upon it. His black khakis are pressed as well when within his beard he upheld a smile upon his face.
“Good afternoon, young sir. My name is Borlo from the committee of self-interest. How are you today?” The guy who looks like a press journalist eyed him like a cat that has been caught digging in his garbage.
“You are you?” Bruno asked with leering attitude. He was not in the mood for this sales talk.
“I already told you. I’m here for self-interest. I’m here for your needs.” Borlo continued to smile when out of the blue he whipped a briefcase out from some form of space that should have been there in the first place. It wasn’t there from before. It wasn’t there when Bruno thought about it after he met this odd stranger.
“I can help you though. I can vast wealth, prosperity, and relationships than you can ever imagine. I can give you what you want out of this life that didn’t give you a cent of respect.” Borlo smiled when he whipped out a card from his hand like a magic trick.
“If you feel the urge of changing your life for the better, give me a call. All it would be in purchase is your own soul.” Borlo smiled when Bruno gave him a stare of crazed anger.
“You some crazy fuck, aren’t you?” Bruno balled his hands up in fists when Borlo did nothing but wave his one free hand in the air. The other is holding the briefcase when Bruno noticed that the man’s eyes changed color. Who is this man?
“None at all but if you tell anyone that I was here then they think you are crazy.” Borlo raised his hand and saluted him when he turned towards the stairs and sauntered down it. Borlo is wearing toed pointed cowboy boots that are pitch black before his boots hit the stairs, going down it, not turning back when Bruno looked at the back of the man’s coat before shutting the door in bemused anger.
Bruno had the card in his hand as the sun went down in the west. There is nothing else in this night when he heard a rat scurrying in the corner of his kitchen as he sat upon the couch, playing a video game on the console when it started to rain outside. What the hell is up with the guy that came to his doorstep when something tapped on the window? He turned from the television screen to peer outside, seeing a bird that is on the other side of the window with large black feathers and its one eyes leering through the window like a predator trying to get into the cage with his prey. It continued to look at him when he grabbed the pop cap that is on the table, throwing it to the window when the bird didn’t even flinch, still standing there on the sill of the window.
Why the hell is this bird perched there? It’s after sundown. Bruno thought when he got up from his warm spot to pull the blinds on the window. Before he sat down the bird tapped on the window. He didn’t even bother with it when he got back to the video game that glitch, pulling the game out of the console as the circular disk rattled to the floor like a trash can top.
Piece of junk, Bruno thought. He never felt so lonely in his life.
The very next day, there is a knock upon his door when he awoke to the sound of this rapping. He got up from the couch with the blanket pulled from him, stumbling to the door like a drunk on the after party when he unlocked it. He sees Ellen through the crack of the door with her lip almost quivering. She had a tattoo running up the left side of her neck when she couldn’t make eye contact. She was probably beaten by her other man that she ran off with.
“I didn’t want to come back but I need some help.” Ellen rendered as tears filled up in her eyes.
“Bitch, you trippin’.” Bruno shook his head, rolling his eyes to the floor and then rising them to the ceiling while he threw open the door like tight wound ball.
“I know what I did to you is messed up but what I found out about him is far more than weird. I know but if you can please help me? Momma won’t let me go back to her house and I told her I was clean. I’ve been clean for three months.”
Bruno scoffed. That doesn’t mean anything. He tried not to smile at the point of his craziness.
“What do I know? You were the one that was seeing another trick. Why should I believe you now? I wasn’t born yesterday.”
“What are you talking about?”
“People in the ‘D’ always played something like this and went night came the little hoe let the rest of the boys in to rob me blind and take off what I had left.”
Ellen slapped him across the face as his neck rolled like a spring.
“Why are you like this? Why do you keep going on like you are always the victim? You are nothing. No man, just another sucker.” Ellen raged, creasing her face like the folds of a potato chip.
“You tried to put it together but I won’t let you anymore. You can’t even pay the bills.” she gathered her purse that is on her hip, still standing outside the apartment.
“Coming over here is a mistake. You’re nothing but a busboy!” She turned and ran down the hallway when a little old lady came from her room. She sees Ellen when Ellen almost bumped against her, sending her back into the apartment room with her mouth dropping open in surprise.
“That’s bitch is crazy.” The old man protested when Bruno made sure he threw dust, closing the door without even a bang when he was glad that it is all over.
He didn’t have the television on in the room when he peered at the window on the other side of the living room, seeing the swirls of the horrible cleaning upon the windows that he did last time when he closed his eyes, thinking of a way to get through another day without someone hitching his footsteps behind him. He opened his eyes again and peered through the window as he heard the sound of cop’s sirens on the other side of the window.
About an hour later, he gathered his beanie and walked outside with the day’s heat getting the highest. He kept his head upon a swivel, looking around with his instincts still being the way they are when he grew up in Detroit where there was a shooting every twenty-two minutes and a robbery every six minutes.
While he walked down the cracked, littered sidewalk he spotted a homeless man holding a sign chest level. He is sprawled against a building when he knew that the guy is probably on something. The sign says this: Give money to the homeless. God will bless you. The homeless man that is upon the sidewalk has a billed hat upon his head with no hair underneath it. The jeans that he is wearing have so many holes that it would regard something more holy than what is going on in his drug induced mind. The smell that is coming from him is something so awful that Bruno took four steps back to the other side of the sidewalk when he clutched his fingers around his nostrils.
“My god, don’t you ever get a five and buy deodorant?” Bruno says when the homeless man rolled his head up ever so slowly and pointed at Bruno that is standing before him.
“Borlo is going to get you. He left his mark on your hand. He is going to keep showing up if you don’t stop him.” The homeless man smiled at him when Bruno wound his ears up.
“What did you say?” Bruno shook his head and felt like he is falling but standing, feeling like the world is splitting in two when he felt the wind between his fingers.
“How do you know of him?” Bruno asked the homeless man when he rolled a finger up into the air, pointing at him like zeroing him out for the kill.
“I know Borlo and he will get you. Don’t be shy. You will end up like me, if you’re interested in a friend and all.” The homeless man brought himself out from the wall, crawling towards his feet as the other continued to walk around the both of them with not even a slight interest of what is going on.
The homeless man came closer and closer when Bruno brought his foot up and retreat from the crazed homeless guy.
“Go get another batch of the good stuff crack head.” Bruno brought out a dollar from his pocket and dropped it to the ground, fluttering and fluttering until it hit the sidewalk with the backend of the dollar facing up.
“It’s on the house.”
The homeless guy looked at the dollar like an alcoholic looking at the little shot glass that is filled with the sweet nectar to calm his nerves. He smiled with crazy delight when he crawled to it, collecting the dollar while he cackled.
This scene disgusts Bruno when he waved his hand up in the air, getting away from this when he thought of the guy Borlo. The homeless guy knew the name Borlo. Is it coincidence? Who else has a weird name like Borlo anyway? He continued to walk down towards the cornerstone grocery with his beanie still upon his head when he noticed that his beard is getting more scraggly.
He got to the store and bought a box of Twinkies and some oranges, going home the same way when he came across the scene where the homeless man was. He wasn’t there when Bruno looked around, trying to figure out if the guy is some sort of poser or not when he shrugged and continued to walk down the street with the sidewalk getting more and more cracked with every step that he took. That night, he watched a few episodes of Cheers when a tap-tap-tap came upon his window. He didn’t want to know what it is when he got up, not even looking out the window when he pulled the blinds down on the whole world that is still turning outside.
He went to sit back down and watch when he felt bad, almost crying bad when he didn’t realize that he went to sleep before he opened his eyes again.
When he opened his eyes again, he glanced around the living room to notice that it is in different shape than what he remembered before as he got up, cracking the pressure out of his back. He sees that there is a pizza box in the middle of the hallway when he realized that he did not eat any pizza from the night before. He wiped the crust from his eyes and soothed an itch his left forearm when he kicked the bottle down next to the couch, spilling the contents all over the placed when Bruno uttered an obscenity under his breath. The room is dark from the blinds he pulled from the night before when he clicked his tongue on the roof of his mouth, getting up from the couch to scope out his apartment when he swore he heard something in the other room. He walked with calmness to the hallway when the light escaped all of it, getting darker and darker when Bruno got to the room that is farthest from the living room, opening the door when he peered into the bedroom that is vacant when he got the place some time ago.
In the room sat a raven with big black feathers and a beak that is long and black as well. It sat in the middle of the room when it cawed, jumping him on his feet when he commenced to look around the room, looking for a sign of something out of sync, wondering how the bird got here in the first place? He continued to look around the room when the raven cawed again in the middle of the floor, moving its clawed feet upon the hardwood floor when a knock came upon the front door.
The door from where Bruno is sitting felt like a chant at the edge of a Pentecostal church when Bruno came out of the room, looking for any windows that were open when he sauntered to the door, not missing a stride. He unlocked it when Borlo waved through the crack like a bad stench that would never leave.
“I see you have my bird. How did she get in there, I wonder?” Borlo spoke with his voice being deeper than the last time when Bruno’s anger rose up to full tilt.
“If I was still on the street then your ass would be in the trunk by now.” Bruno threatened him.
“Now, now; no need for that.” Borlo struck a smile, putting his hand through the door and opening it like it is the lightest thing he has ever touched in his life.
“Can I get my bird or not?” Borlo strolled in without even an invitation.
“Hey? You act like you pay the bills around here, bitch!” Bruno stretched his hand upon Borlo’s back when he felt something through the coat that he was wearing, something slimy underneath his shirt when Bruno rebounded his hand like it is about to catch fire.
“You don’t have to touch. It’s not customary for me to be touched.” Borlo kept on walked, not even shocked when he cantered down the hall, lost in his own world.
“You don’t have any right to be in my crib! You don’t know who you are screwing with!” Bruno felt the anger boil over when he attempted to grab the guy when he guy turned.
His face changed into something more imagined in the planes of horror that is too incomprehensible to a human mind. Bruno stood like a thumb that is locked up when he couldn’t move. His back is straight. His eyes are at attention. His lips, he cannot move them He is standing at attention when Borlo smiled, going into the room at the farthest end of the hall to collect the raven that is jutting across the floor and looking at its master when it cawed.
When Borlo came out of the room, the raven is sitting on his left shoulder, walking back to Bruno as he continued to smile like he is holding a terrible and terrifying secret.
“I seem that you are interested in what I do…Do you?” Borlo asked him when Bruno could nothing but look down the hallway with his eyes wide open like cave openings.
“Oh, I’m sorry. You can move your face, but nothing else!” Borlo laughed when Bruno can move his face a little more.
“Now how did I do that, I wonder?” Borlo smiled when he clamored over, coming to his ear to whisper in it ever so soft.
“I am neither of this world living noir dead, rich or poor, pleasure or pain. I can give you what you want but I best take care of my advice. All reactions do have a reaction and action to that goes along with it. I’m sure you will understand?”
Bruno looked at him when he blinked his eyes twice.
“Good. Now this peace of mind; do you really want it?” Borlo asked him when Bruno could do nothing else but look at him. Borlo looked at the raven that is eyeing him like something graceful when Borlo took the raven off of his shoulder and placed it onto Bruno’s own when Bruno felt like his conscience is sucked into another world.
In this world, he is falling from the clouds of something majestic when his heart races at a thousand miles an hour. He keeps falling and falling when he closed his eyes before opening them again, now on the base floor for the entire event that is about to unfold. When he brought his senses together, he witnesses the crowd that is silent around him, wearing cassocks of red on them all with not one word between them. They looked at a stage that is in front of him when he sees the stirrups, the straps, the contraptions that are cast in metal fasteners. No one is on the stage when he swore what he is about to witness is something that he cannot watch, something that he cannot bear.
All the faces that are around them have the same stony expression. They all have nothing to hide in those faces.
When he stared back at the stage, someone came from the stairs on the other side of it. The person that is revealed is Borlo when he cantered up the stairs, keeping his head held up as he got to the top of the stairs and turned to the audience. He had no color in his eyes when he is aware that the audience is watching him, looking at them like looking at the eyes of a thousand dolls that sat there for the show when Borlo smiled, frisking his hands into the pockets of his windbreaker jacket.
“Welcome to the show ladies and gentlemen.” Borlo admired the audience with a cool, cold-cut smile.
“Welcome, Lord Borlo.” The audience replied when Bruno continued to look all around through the crowd. There is nothing but red in the crowd and the faces are all blank. The faces look like they are being controlled when Borlo turned his attention to something behind him before eyeing back to the crowd.
“Today, I have an evil infiltrator in the midst. This man has broken my commandments that I’ve proposed on all of you. Heed my words!”
“Heed our words!” The crowd gathered with unison voices, becoming one.
Where in the hell am I? Bruno asked himself when he looked up towards the sky, seeing the moons that are revolving around the eclipse of the day that is divulging into the night. He glanced down with a deep fire in his heart, gripping into the answer that he is not on planet earth anymore but a different planet far from the likes of where he is.
Lord Borlo? Is he the boss?
“The infiltrator broke the ideals of what I brought for all of you in this kinship that I dared to example upon you all. If you break the kinship then there is no order.”
“There is no order.” The crowd agreed when Bruno started to sweat with the feel of something watching him, waiting for him to make a mistake.
“The infiltrator used to break bread, eat with your families, and speak the words of the G’lotha that was once your divine god before I came and showed you the universe of whence you are brought into. G’lotha is dead. I am your new god now.” Borlo smiled when the crowd started to clap with rhythmic pulses, clapping their hands again and again when Bruno did nothing but glanced at the whole crowd in suspecting horror. What is the matter with them? He didn’t have the answer for.
“The infiltrator is Umma the gracious. He was once the supreme chancellor in the Chambers of Unity which you followed before me. If you still heed the words of G’lotha then your actions will benefit to death. Do you understand this decree?”
“Follow G’lotha and you will follow death.” They all say in unison when Bruno felt something watching him, waiting for him to make a mistake.
“Will the two followers bring out Umma please?” Borlo smiled like a shark waiting to bite when the two base doors flew open in the back of the stage when the shouting commence.
One guy in a white cassock came out when another guy that is worn in robes and bound is pulled up from the base doors; the man kept yelling, “No, No” when another but much bigger guy in white followed the tied one that is trying to break away.
“Now Umma, your death will have some meaning for us all. Your crime is existence and the punishment will be quartering.” Umma is chaperoned towards the center of the stage when Umma looked at the rack that is before him. His eyes widened when he backed up into the big one that is standing behind him like a mountain.
“What is your defense?” Borlo pointed at Umma when Umma looked at him with tears streaming down his face.
“You’re nothing but the master of puppets. These people know what is going on but you are controlling all of them. You’re nothing but a demon of all worlds and god won’t save you.” Umma spat when Borlo giggled, looking at the audience before sliding over to Umma that is glaring at him in the face.
“I met god and I can tell you that he is dead.” Borlo smiled when he grabbed Umma’s hair that is on the top of his head rather violently.
“You are nothing but what is in the ground in a few minutes.”
Umma cringed when Borlo laughed, throwing Umma’s head back when Borlo sighed, going back to the audience that is still staring at him in cool resonance.
“This man – is no man. He is nothing but a parasite and he will be punished for being that so.” Borlo raised his hand when Bruno could do nothing but being felt suck in between two worlds.
He flowed back to planet earth when stood Borlo and the raven that is upon his shoulder.
“Do you know what I can do and then do for you?” Borlo asked him when Bruno felt no need to be angry anymore but afraid for this thing that is before him.
“What about my offer.” Borlo asked him.
“I rather be dead instead of ever talking with you again.” Bruno replied when Borlo broke an evil smile upon his face.
“Good. That is really good. This could be the beginning of my friendship of many, many people in this time forth.” Borlo continued to smile when he walked around Bruno that felt that he couldn’t move for some reason.
He couldn’t feel his hands, his arms, his feet as his mind started to wade – wade – wade into the despot of infinite unknowing as Borlo opened the door, followed by the cawing of a raven before Borlo turned and paid attention to Bruno with his teeth showing. His teeth are not the teeth of human.
“Turn to me.” Borlo commanded.
Bruno turned to him, not feeling his brain connected with the rest of his body when he couldn’t speak. He is not allowed to.
“Raise your hand up to your head.” Borlo commanded again.
Bruno raised his hand towards his head when Bruno felt the power, the power of death, destruction, evil, and countenance of pain that is all around him, closing his mind just to that feeling that is driving him towards the point of insanity.
Borlo stood for a long time as the raven cawed. He did nothing else for almost ten seconds.
“I’ll be seeing you again.” Borlo explained his farewell when he left Bruno’s apartment.
Bruno continued to stand for what seemed like an eternity before his motor functions came back to him. He fell to the floor as he started to heave breath.
Short Stories