The Residue Years Read Online Free Page B

is what they preached to us in my old youth program, what I tell my bellicose brothers whenever they’ll listen, which ain’t if ever often enough.
    Options. Options. Calling Kim, my sweet thing, is on the list. My girl don’t sleep sound at all, so she says, unless we’re lying side by side which means she’s likely up, but since she’s also a first-rate worrier, it probably ain’t worth the trouble. The trouble of lying. Of inventing an excuse for why I’m breaking my embargo on hitting licks this late, a rule I let her impose in the first place. Not to be no sucker, never that, but Kim is special, so special. Yeah, most, if they could, would choose the chick of their dreams, but if you ask me, fantasy girls are never seen in full. My girl’s the girl you’d pick if you were wide awake with time to think, andthough, between you and me, I may here and there indulge in a shot of ancillary pussy, I ain’t in earnest down with risking our good thing.
    Life has options, my old program preached, but on the other hand, here’s the incontrovertible truth about those options: Act too slow and they put on track shoes and sprint right the fuck off.
    The patrol car shifts into park. The doors swing open. A pair of officers hop out and plod my way. I swing around just in time to see them (those flashlight-bearers of love) stop at the base of the first set of steps. Them looking up at me and me squinting into the inscrutable. You live here? the one without the flashlight asks. He’s heads taller than his partner (picture a giant on his tiptoes in heaven), with a voice that sounds beefed up on performance drugs. No sir, I say, hoping the
sir
sounds sincere, honorific. I’m looking for my friend. Haven’t seen him in a while.
    The officers turn towards each other, black silhouettes set in effulgence. And on my life, it should be a crime how long they stay silent.
    They busted this place the other day, one says.
    Busted! You sure? I say, and start towards them.
    So let’s get this straight. You haven’t been here in all this time and you stop by at almost midnight to say hello? the taller one says.
    The three of us stand on the sidewalk, face-to-face; face-to-chest. They’re older and maybe slower, but they’ve got those radios no mere man can outrun, and even if by chance I could, I’d still have the problem of this slithering sack in my crotch. Check it, if it’s true that life has options, it’s also true those choices are full of fast-twitch muscles.
    How about you show us some ID, says the shorter officer, though calling him short is gratuitous to the utmost. Homeboy’sall of five feet nothing—no lie, we’re talking centimeters off a certified dwarf. With hands no good for shooting pool or poker, I give the dwarf my license and watch him (in a hundred frames per second slowmo) march to his car and sit with the door swung open, one foot inside, one foot hovering. He runs my license on speaker, and just like that, my legs are no better than a beat-up ride with bald tires and alignment shot to shit.
    The taller officer asks my name once more, and before I can answer, his partner shouts it out.
    Wait, aren’t you the one that used to play ball? he says, and shakes a finger. Aren’t you the kid that wore those colored socks in the tournament that year? The homunculus appears, looking smug and slapping my license, neither of which are good signs.
    Here comes the chorus of freedom’s theme song. Here it comes and here’s why. One of my homeboys (dude probably never so much as jaywalked) spent almost a week in the county thanks to a handful of faulty warrants in his name by way of false reports to officers by his full-time, lifetime, thug-life cousins. Now, I should be straight, but that’s the thing about this business: You think you know, but you can never know for sure whether you’re in the system.
    The legal-sized