Soul Circus

Tosha Smith, fright-time thin with a blue banda

“Tosha,” said Strange.

“Mister Strange.” Her face softened, but not by much. Strange had visited her many times, but the look of relaxation that came with familiarity did not seem to be in her repertoire.

A grown man, on the thin side, with bald patches in his hair, sat on the couch playing a video game, staring at the television screen against the wall as a cigarette burned in an ashtray before him. He did not look away from his game or acknowledge Strange in any way.

Even in the doorway, Strange could take in the unpleasant odor of the apartment, not unclean, exactly, but closed up, airless, with the smell that always reminded him of an unminded refrigerator. And every time he had come by it was dark here, the curtains drawn over shuttered blinds. So it was today.

“You wa

“Robert in there with you?”

“He’s out playin’ with his friends.” Tosha noticed something cross Strange’s face and she gri

“We?”

Tosha jerked her head over her shoulder. “I got Randolph stayin’ here with me now. Boy needs a man around, don’t you think?”

“If it’s right.”

“You don’t have to worry about that. Randolph keeps him in line, tells Robert to mind his mouth when he gets the way young boys get. Randolph’ll go ahead and smack the black out him, his tongue gets too bright.”

Strange could hear a baby crying from back in the apartment. He shifted his feet. “You say Robert’s in the vicinity?”

“You’ll find him out there somewheres close, ridin’ his bike. Tell him to get in here before dark comes, hear?”

Why don’t you drag your junkie ass on out here and tell him yourself? thought Strange. But he only nodded and went back down the stairs.

“I’ll be lookin’ for my money this month,” said Tosha to his back.

Strange kept going, finding relief in the crisp spring air as he made his way outside. The sun had begun to drop behind the neighboring buildings, and shadows had spread upon the apartment grounds.

Strange circled the block in his car, then widened his search to the adjacent streets. He spotted Robert Gray standing around with a group of boys, most of them older, on the corner of another apartment complex. The boys, some wearing wife-beaters with the band of their boxer shorts showing high above the belt line of their jeans, studied Strange as he got out of his curbed Chevy. Gray said something to one of the boys, got on his bike, and rode it over to Strange, now leaning against the front quarter panel of his car out in the street.

“How you doin’, Robert?”

Gray’s eyes went past Strange to somewhere down the street. “I’m all right.”

“Look at me when I talk to you, son.”

Gray fixed his gaze on Strange. He had intelligent eyes, and he was polite enough. But Strange could not recall ever seeing him smile.

“How’s school going?”

Gray shrugged. “We nearly out. Ain’t all that much left to do.”

“Your aunt and them treating you okay?”

“I get along with ’em.”

“The boyfriend, too? He’s not eatin’ up your share of the food, is he?”

“Him and my aunt don’t eat all that much, you want the truth.” Gray cocked an eyebrow. He was a handsome boy, one of those who already had the features of a man. “You see Granville?”

“Saw him today. He was asking after you.”

“They go

“I don’t know. Whatever happens, it doesn’t look like he’s ever go

Gray half nodded and quickly looked off to the group of boys standing on the corner. Strange felt impotent then. To Gray he wasn’t much more than a fool, and an old man in the bargain. This much he knew.

“Look here,” said Strange. “You still up for my football camp?”

“Yeah, I’ll play.”

“I hear you can play.”

“You know I can.”

“We’re go

“I’ll do all right. But how I’m go

“I’ll work that out,” said Strange, realizing that he hadn’t figured it out yet. But he would. “All right then, why don’t you get on home before it gets dark.”

“I will, in a little while.”

“Take care of yourself, young man.”

Gray wheeled off on his bike and joined his friends. Strange got back in his car.

Strange phoned Qui

Strange was looking forward to holding his woman and talking to his stepson, sitting at the di

He turned the radio on and moved the dial to PGC. The Super Funk Regulator was on the air, talking to a woman who had called in from her car.

“Where you at right now?” asked the DJ.

“I’m on Be

“Who you goin’ to see?”

“My son Darius,” said the woman giggling, obviously hyped to be on the radio and live. “He’s ten years old.”

“You have a good one,” said the DJ. “Thanks for rollin’ with a brother.”

“Thanks for lettin’ a sister roll.”

Strange smiled. He did love D.C.

Chapter 10

IT was Terry Qui

He was on a street numbered in the high fifties, in the neighborhood of Lincoln Heights, a residential mix of single-family homes and apartments at the forty-five-degree angle of border close to the Maryland line. This portion of the city, on the east side of the Anacostia River, was called Far Northeast, just as Anacostia was known as Far Southeast by many who lived in that part of town.

Nearby was the W. Bruce Evans Middle School. Administrators there had recently sent a group of “problem students” to the D.C. Jail to be strip-searched in front of prisoners, one of whom had masturbated in plain sight as he watched the kids disrobe. Some District school official had apparently decided to reenact an unauthorized version of Scared Straight. Qui

Lincoln Heights was not all that far from Anacostia, a couple of bus rides away. If Olivia Elliot was trying to put some distance between herself and Mario Durham, she had made only a half-hearted effort. But Qui