“The people of Noah, and the confederates after them, have brought the charge of imposture before these Meccans…”
The Believer
For 48 hours now I have been awake in this heat. A sin of neglect; a commission of penance; an act of vengeance; an act of purification; an act of punishment; and now this, 15 rounds with this tireless White Devil. How am I on my feet—the floating rib is broken, my metacarpal’s sore to the wrist…where exactly am I?
“That is the best ring work I have gotten since I worked with the ROKs in Seoul. Thank you, Sir.”
The man’s mashed white face, with a tinge of purple already under the left eye, was grinning like the insane White Devil he was. They shook hands amicably before the Lexus.
How did I get out here?
“An Honor Mister…”
“Noble,” the man said, hopefully regarding Akbar Qama’s inability to recall it as a slight and not a failure of the mind to recall the name of an honorable enemy, due to the severe beating he just absorbed.
The man continued, “You are the real deal, Mister Qama. Please, although I loved the sparring, next time, show me that upjab. I can still taste it! Never saw it coming, bang, bing, bop! I’m not going to be able to sleep tonight!”
I won’t be able to sleep for a week with this broken rib, you cursed cracker!
The 15 rounds of savage sparring, which had sent Usef scurrying for the lawyers office no doubt, was tougher than eking out that decision against Tillman in 85 when he was at the end of his pugilistic road.
Speak man, or give up the ghost.
He could have sworn—if he was the swearing type—that he had never heard the voice before, but it was his voice that echoed across the asphalt. “Sir, you are a fine fighting man. If you have a mind for the ring I will corner you. Come back for instruction any time. As for sparring I believe I am on the wrong side of the mountain to lace up with you again. In fact"—yes, they skulk behind me—"I would like you to come by and spar with Jbar and Gans as occasion permits.”
The insane Whiteman grinned widely and looked over his shoulder to the boys as he hugged him, and Jbar groaned, and Gans blurted, “Oh fuck dat shit—he about a steroid bangin’ Jason Bourne some-fuckin’ body, Yo—White Terminator en whatnot.”
Jbar seemed indignant, “Is you stupid nigga? Da Terminator is white—dat dumb shit was redundant!”
He now stood next to the federal agent looking on at his two fine young warriors who had just regressed 100 years under the spark of the just lit street lamp as night fell over the asphalt desert. Again, the voice was distant, somehow not his, “Gans apologize to The Man for the performance-enhancing drug charge.”
Gans just swallowed hard and bowed like a coolie out of some old British movie.
The voice was more distant yet, a sign he recalled of a severe concussion—perhaps his thirtieth one, “Jbar, ninety-nine pushups for taking your ancestors’ misery in vain.”
As Jbar did his pushups to the loud count Mister Noble opened up his car, retrieved his shoulder holster and iron, strapped it on over his drenched dress shirt, complete with soggy tie, and then insanely reached in and grabbed a suit jacket and put that on. As the man slid his lean muscular arms and wide shoulders into the tailored jacket Akbar Qama stepped close and whispered, “Why did you seek me out, Sir, knowing as you do what I am.”
Mister Noble stepped close and locked eyes, speaking through gritted teeth in a voice that Akbar Qama was certain once gave orders in a fire fight, in some distant, sweltering and undeserving place where little dark people were chopped to meat by the guns of this piece of hard white steel and his men. “In the event of a breakdown of civil authority I am to serve as a liaison between the military and community leaders. In such an event, there is only one kind of leader that matters. I believe in hands on work. I played a game of basketball on Sunday night with Terrance Bryce. Mister Akbar Qama, if the Homeland shit ever hits the Security fan, it is the fan I intend to be—nothing less.”
The man then extended his hand as Jbar grunted ‘fifty-eight.’ As they shook hands like a magnetic claw and an iron one, with no conscious deliberation, Mister Noble, said, without a hint of malice, “Your file lists you as fifty-nine. Congratulations on maintaining yourself. I watched the video of the Tillman fight. You haven’t slipped a notch. Even so, I’ve never hit a man so hard and him not hit the deck. You are concussed. Be mindful not to sleep. I don’t need an eggplant for a corner man—I’m representing my boys in a private meet with some FBI boys. You won’t mind cornering for that, will you?”
The devil has got me with a wink! He thought as he roared a short laugh, and patted the man on his now soggy suit jacket, finally sounding again like the man the whites called Poet, “We will call you the Caucasian Sensation.”
Look at him, so confident, as if this is his town, and I am his boy. Does he know—do they know—that I rhyme in their presence to set them at ease; that it made offing those crackers back in Oakland so much the easier to have them smile and relax, thinking I was a street entertainer, before I put bullet to brain?
What is to say that you don’t rhyme to relax you?
The government car pulled off as Jbar strained, “eighty-six”.
His voice was fully his now; the echo of a bruised brain that knew to sleep might be death, the silence of thought, “Enough Jbar, The Man is gone. You men get home now. No dallying with your hoodlum friends. It is hunting season in the streets.”
As Jbar groaned to his feet, Gans perked up, “What about you, Akbar Qama, you hunting tonight—you going over B’More B ta whoop dat Asian ass?”
He looked down at his prize welterweight and said, as paternalistically as possible, “Gans, this town is named Baltimore, named after the slave master that founded it. Do not forget the nature of the place where we find our self. And Gans, I mean ‘to whoop that Asian ass.’ ‘Ta’ and ‘dat’ are not words, but trifling testaments to an impatient tongue.”
“Yes Sir, Brother Qama.”
They bowed out in the street, devoid as it was of cars, parked or otherwise.
He heard the gravel beneath his combat boots before he knew he was walking, in the boots he did not remember lacing—though he knew where he was going; to whom, and for what righteous reason.
