Free Slow Motion Riot by Peter Blauner Page A

Lloyd.
"Why do you ask about him?"
    "I got his homeboy Bobby 'House'
Kirk as my client."
    The name is familiar from Darryl
King's file, but I don't remember the exact details. "Who's Bobby
Kirk?"
    "Bobby the House was one of
Darryl's partners when they robbed that gas station," Lloyd says in a
languorous voice, opening the story up to the group. "They hang out at
Playland on Times Square sometimes. Bobby's what you'd
call a mean motherfucker. He's about six foot four, 280 pounds, and he has a
serious attitude, man. He once tore the door of a subway car off its hinges while
the train was moving..."
    "Why?" I ask.
    "No one knows," Lloyd
says with a shrug. "All I know is Bobby 'House' Kirk's got his name
written in gold across his knuckles, and he once dangled another kid out a
window at Spofford. And he's scared shitless of Darryl King."
    "So what you're saying,"
I say, "is that Darryl's gotta be really bad."
    "That's what I'm saying."
     
     

11
     
    A few minutes after four o'clock , Darryl King stumbled out of the
bedroom in his underwear. His sister's five-year-old daughter, LaToya, was in
the next room, watching a Yogi Bear cartoon on television with the volume
turned all the way up.
    "Yo, turn that shit
down," Darryl told her.
    "Mommy said I could
watch," the little girl said, her words whistling through the space in her
front teeth.
    "And I said, turn that shit
down, I got a headache." Darryl frowned and sat down in front of the
couch. His niece leaned back on his bare legs.
    Paint was coming off the walls in
sheets and there were rat-pellets all over the apartment. Wires stuck out from
the baseboard where the phone jack used to be and urine seeped in under the
front door because someone had taken a piss out in the hall again. There was
another puddle in the corner where the ceiling had fallen in the week before.
No one from the city had come to fix it, so the King family didn't care anymore.
    On the television screen, Yogi Bear
was giving his protege Booboo a set of careful instructions about what to do in
their next adventure. Yogi then turned and walked right smack into a tree
trunk, flattening his entire face.
    "Yo, what's up with that
bear?" Darryl said.
    LaToya squealed with delight and
shook her pigtails. She had a sweet gap-toothed smile and a light in her eyes
that no one else in the family had. "He funny, Dooky!" she said.
    "He's not funny," Darryl
said. "He be acting ill."
    He leaned forward to nuzzle her
head affectionately. A clarinet played on the sound track while Yogi sat on the
ground watching stars go around his head. Darryl and his niece laughed as the
bear jumped in the air and his feet whirled like propellers. The sun was
corning through the broken window and an opened pack of Oreos sat on the table.
Next to it was the Rolex he'd taken off the Spanish guy in Times
Square last night. Only one small dot of blood marred the glass
over the dial. He was starting to feel better now.
    LaToya suddenly whipped around to
look at him. "Grandma says don't miss your pointment," she said in a
high voice.
    His face coiled up. "Moms said
I got an appointment?"
    "She say be downtown."
    "For my probation
officer?"
    She smiled widely and nodded up and
down vigorously. "And what if I don't wanna go?" he asked her.
    She made an angry face and balled
up her fist like she was going to clobber him. "You better."
    "Shit." He grabbed her
fist and stood up. "You don't have to tell me nothin'. I'm all ready for
my appointment."
    He hopped around on one leg, doing
karate kicks and kung fu chops, like he was warming up for a big fight. LaToya
just stared at him. In the bedroom down the hall, something fell over and one
of Darryl's children started crying. Darryl tried to ignore the sound for a
minute, turning back to the TV screen.
    Yogi Bear had just run smack into
another tree and now he was desperately trying to straighten out his snout
again.
    "Bear must be on the
pipe," Darryl said.
     
     

12
     
    After getting all worked