LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

MAY 1992

Diane, Sarah, Carolyn, Mary, Sarah, Emily, Linda, Norwegian baby, Air Force baby, Marianne, Maryland baby, Prince George baby, Sarah Brown, Agatha White Buffalo, Cuban Donna, Cincinnati baby, Savannah baby, Martha, the other Knoxville baby, Pamela, Mary-Anne, Bobbie, Jo, cowgirl, Angela, pipefitting baby, Macon baby, Carver Village baby, Carver Village baby, Plant City baby, Charleston baby, Clearwater baby, Evelyn, Julia, Cleveland baby, Hilda, Leila, Brenda, billboard baby, Chattanooga Choo Choo baby, Gulfport baby, Jackson ladyboy baby, Tennessee baby, Linda Sue, Atlanta baby, Anna Lee, Dorothy, Fredonia, Rosie, Ohio baby, Nawlins baby, Little Woods baby, Mindy, Patricia Anne, Atlanta stripper baby, Atlanta college baby, Savannah sand pile baby, West Memphis blues baby, Kentucky Vegas baby, Fort Myers baby, San Berdu baby, li’l Savannah baby, Tampa Bay baby, Mary Jo, big yellow LA gal, Laurie, Tonya, Granny, li’l LA banger, Bronco Motel baby, Griffith Park baby, Monroe baby, Carol, Linda Sue…

Sam cruised the streets of South Central, slow as a shark in spite of the rock dancing in his blood, making his jaws ache to bite someone’s head off. The rock gets you spinning, gets you thinking, Lord, not straight. But when was anyone ever straight? Can’t even build a straight road in this country.

The rock gets your blood rushing like them Colorado River rapids. Gets the molecules in the very air jumping and jiving. Makes you want to leap up and… What did Old Blue Eyes say? Swing on a star. Moonbeams in a jar. Better idea—take the moonbeams home, put them in your pipe, and smoke ’em.

On the radio, some scratchy-ass station, couple of stupid kids with their pants on backward singing about jump, jump. Whatever happened to Old Blue Eyes?

The Mac Dad? The Daddy Mac?

The fuck these sissy kids talking about? Catchy though.

“Jump, jump!” Sam shouted out the window of the car as he pulled up right on the tail of a working girl, shorts halfway up her ass. No riot gonna put them off their game. Nearly leaped out of her leotard. Ha-haaaa!

Sam drove on. Too skittish, that one.

Georgia, Ohio, Florida, Ohio, Florida, Maryland, DC, Florida, Ohio, Florida, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Florida, Maryland, Florida, Colorado, Ohio, Georgia, California, Oregon, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Nebraska, California, Louisiana, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida, New York, Florida, Georgia, California, Michigan, Nevada, Florida, California, Arizona, Georgia, Florida, Illinois, Florida, Ohio, Georgia, California, Georgia, Tennessee, Florida, New Jersey, Missouri, Florida, Illinois, Texas, Florida, Mississippi, Florida, Mississippi, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, Florida, Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, Ohio, Florida, Alabama, Ohio, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Ohio, Mississippi, Georgia, Louisiana, Ohio, Georgia, Mississippi, Kentucky, Mississippi, Ohio, Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida, Louisiana, Arkansas, Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, Florida, Georgia, Ohio, California, Ohio, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Florida, California, Georgia, Florida, California, Mississippi, Ohio, California, California, CALIFORNIA…

California was supposed to be some kind of sun-kissed Beach Boys blond bikini baby dream. Sam crawled the whore strolls and crack alleys, shadowy no matter how blinding the midday glare.

Jean had loved Hollywood enough to name herself for that cupcake Jean Harlow. She had looked due north most Saturday nights, hoping to see the floodlights of a movie premiere. Brought a tear to his eye, now that she was gone.

At Good Samaritan Hospital, they’d told him he wasn’t responsible for the aneurysm that killed her, in spite of the multiple head injuries he’d inflicted. It hadn’t been that final time he’d pushed her over a rail or any of the times before, when he slammed her head into pavement or had held her underwater. Or peeled off as she slipped from the hood of his car like a sack of potatoes.

Within a month, he’d moved in with Blind Barbara. Blind as a bat, but pretty little thing—honey-colored and soft-haired. He dressed her up like a doll, put lipstick on her, walked her around, and showed her off. Blind girls worked great if you had plenty to hide.

Once, he said he was just going to the restroom and left her sitting at a diner while he killed a new baby lickety-split and still showed up in time to use Blind Barbara’s wallet to pay the bill. What a gas life was. Take it or leave it, you had to laugh.

Pretty as she was, he still couldn’t fuck her, but she seemed to care less than the others.

Why did it make him sick to think about fucking the ones he kept?

Barbara’s sister Helen turned him on to crack. His first couple times were like seeing the face of God. If something feels so good, how can it be wrong? It’s all from God. Crack and hos and fields of motherfucking flowers and necks and him and all of it, all of it. He’d figured out not to crush a larynx or a voice box or break a hyoid bone before you were ready to come. Otherwise it kills them too quick. Leaves you with a bad case of blue balls.

He ran his tongue over the scar on his lower lip as his raggedy-ass Cadillac slid through puddles of streetlight. Through the glare on the windshield, he stalked fresh meat.

Sam did sometimes consider the possibility that if there was a Sam Little, there might not be a God at all.

To question your faith was blasphemy. Mama had always taught him that. If there was no God, how had he lived through the five times people had tried to kill him? He was blessed by God. It was the meaning of his name: named by God. God heard.

Fire from the buildings burning nearby lit the sky up orange. The full moon was bloodred, and a slight drizzle brought black raindrops, heavy with soot.

It was May 2, 1992. For four days, South Central had burned around him. He’d seen things!

He’d seen a man dragged from a truck and beaten, and he had driven around the roadblock, unnoticed. He heard glass shards of smashed windows hit his passenger-side door like so many pebbles, leaving them pocked and scratched. Beat-up old hooptie anyway. Nothing like the cars he used to drive when Jean kept him in style. Still. These mad-ass Negros. Them madder-ass crazy Koreans on the tops of their roofs with AKs.

The George HW idjit president was sending in actual tanks and soldiers onto the streets of South Central like this flip-flop-wearing mob of diaper looters was that Saddam Who-ville in Iraq.

Even the tanks couldn’t begin to fuck with them Koreans though. Had to give it to them.

They didn’t know he was the auteur of an even crazier show, but it was good to be underestimated. What was that picture with the boa constrictor strangling the girl? Ohhh right—I Married a Savage. That was a pretty picture. Crazy whore. Sam sneaked into the theater over and over to see her and that snake of hers when he wasn’t but nine.

The drizzle turned to a light rain. What was that line about the gentle rain from heaven his mama used to say? The mist caught the revolving red-and-blue beams from the tops of the cop cars all around, stripes of color shooting out into the night.

What was the name of the guy who sparked the powder keg? That can’t we all get along guy? Some cops beat the shit out of you—what the fuck you care about getting along? They’d been down and dissed long enough. Let ’em tear it all down.

It was a riot or a revolution or whatever you wanted to call it. If you were a serial killer, it was an opportunity. Who would be paying attention to the nefarious escapades of one lone predator or the loss of one easily forgettable piece of ass? If there was one thing he had mastered, it was becoming the Black man no one saw, finding the Black woman no one would miss.

Ford Mercury, Ford Fairlane, Pontiac Bonneville, Ford Fairlane, Ford Mercury, Ford, convertible Pontiac Bonneville, Buick Riviera, Buick Wildcat, Pontiac Bonneville, Oldsmobile Delta, Pontiac LeMans, Ford Thunderbird, Chrysler Imperial, Chevy Bel Air, Ford Galaxie, Ford Pinto, Lincoln Continental Mark III, Lincoln Continental Mark IV, Ford Thunderbird, Ford Mercury, Cadillac Eldorado…

Keep moving and they may nab you once in a while, but they will never really know you. The day before, Sam had seen a man tie a chain around an ATM machine, attach it to a piece of heavy machinery, and drive until the entire apparatus broke loose and scattered twenty-dollar bills to the wind. Made him sort of sad. Used to be all juke joints and prettied-up strolls. Hos, sure, bangers, sure, but solid folk too.

Now all them dumb motherfuckers getting arrested for stealing a six-pack of wine coolers. Before that, it was a dime bag. All their women left behind, needing a shoulder to cry on.

Long before he got to them and finished the job, his babies had basically been murdered by the streets where he left their shells. Like when you had a sick dog, it was the humane thing to do.

Sam cruised down Fig, past burned-out cars, curled in on themselves.

He locked his crosshairs on a starry-eyed, big-legged, kind of sloppy old baby in a velour housedress and slippers, hanging on her stairwell at a motel on Fig and Imperial.

She leaned forward, took a drag on her cig, looked to the left like she didn’t care.

It was almost too easy. But what do they say about sex and pizza?

She wore a red turban. He rolled down his window to the smell of burning plastic.

“Go on up and change,” he said.

She turned without a word. When she came back, she looked the same. Either she didn’t give a fuck, or she had three identical nightgowns.

Sam let her draw on the pipe first. Long as it took for her to get her fix on. He was a gentleman that way. Wasn’t going to put a baby to bed hungry. He watched the Brillo glow orange at the end of the pipe as the rock sizzled, foamed, and dissolved. He even put on another rock, though a smaller one, and waited. It would never be enough. He’d take it from her eventually, and it wouldn’t be enough for him either, but something would be. Crack was just an aphrodisiac.

They headed down Central, left on Compton, past the courthouse, took a sharp turn near Long Beach Avenue somewhere, not even he knew where, and parked in front of a liquor store he thought was closed. The baby next to him lolled her head back with the relief of her fix. Sam blistered his lip on the hot pipe. When he reached for her throat, she sprang to life as if someone put the paddles to her chest.

“Calm down now. I ain’t gonna hurt you.”

Usually, it took them a while to figure it out, and by the time they did, it was too late. That was his favorite. The look on their faces when they realized.

It gave him a pang in his heart too. He wasn’t without feeling. As hard as it made his dick, it still hurt to watch them suffer. He would have even let this one draw breath for another moment if she hadn’t popped up like some kind of zombie coming out of a grave and screamed bloody murder, reaching over and honking the horn.

Sam was not a violent man, not a rapist. He was a lover, not a fighter. In extreme circumstances, he was regretfully forced to backhand a bitch so hard her head cracked the passenger-side window. That crazy zombie did not miss a beat, came back at him, honked the horn as he batted her hands away and tried to grab her wrists.

In the scuffle, he knocked her turban sideways. Her hands instinctively went to her hair. Sam—always the boxer, even though he wouldn’t box—found the opening. In a nanosecond, he had her by the throat.

A few minutes later, he had propped her up against the seat when some crazy brown guy came running out of the store pointing a Kalashnikov, screaming in Swahili or something. Sam put his arm around the corpse as if at the drive-in, waved, and peeled out. An eyewitness. He was trying not to leave those littered around anymore. Oh well, at least it was a brown guy whose store was probably about to catch fire.

It was a strange sort of peaceful loneliness when the only breath left was your own. When all you could hear was your own breath. He smelled faint smoke.

Tucked away behind a bank or loan building, a poison-green lawn caught his eye. A world or a globe floated by, and he didn’t know if it was in front of him or in his head. There were no stars. The lawn was marbled in shadows, glistening with rain. No one in sight. Sirens and gunshots punctuated the curfew silence. He was out past curfew. Get home. No time for games.

They were angry. Who wouldn’t be? Motherfuckers were barely done being slaves, and the police now beating them down for no big thing while all the pretty people party it up not two miles north, with their own whores and their own cocaine. They got off with a slap on the lily-white wrist while down here, motherfuckers went to prison for a dime bag of weed, were dying with the AIDS right and left from fucking and dirty needles. Don’t tell Sam the CIA didn’t plant the seeds of that shit. Poisoned the Black man. Could make a motherfucker mad enough to toss tables and break windows.

If you were an amateur.

If you were a professional, you never let them see you mad. Never let them see you at all.

What would it be like to be one of these fools who actually cared? He’d never know. The whole natural world was an ecosystem of predation, decay, rebirth. He was the prince of destruction.

He looked back at the limp body in the passenger seat. Dead, they were heavier than the garbage cans he hauled for Dade County Sanitation and more cumbersome. He wouldn’t have to drag her far. With the riots, by the time they found her, there would be dozens of unidentified dead piling up at the morgue every day, thousands more injured. By the time they figured out her name, if they ever did, he’d be a ghost.