🕯️🕯️"Goliath" by Tochi Onyebuchi

You imagined going back someday for the long term. To live and grow there. Maybe do the family thing. Maybe you’re a father by this time. And maybe, before this return, you take your son or your daughter on that ride, familiar to you, novel to him or her, on Metro-North between New Haven and Grand Central, the twice-daily voyage you made throughout early sobriety, when you were in the course, along with others, of rebuilding yourself. And maybe your kid will point out the window and you’ll follow their finger, seeing the smoke billowing from the smokestacks in Bridgeport, the blackened, dilapidated cars in the junkyard, the small cathedral and the emptying factories that surround it. And you hope your kid will marvel at this, and you imagine you will smile, as if to say, “This is a beautiful kingdom and one day, it will be yours.”

You won’t have replaced your father. But maybe the machinery, the family that was disrupted by his removal, can hum again with unfettered, unabated life, sated, properly fed.

“This nigga didn’t spend no kinda money,” Bugs said to no one and everyone as he lifted another batch of planks from the bed of Bishop’s truck and staggered down the path to the clearing where the rest of the planks lay. “He had to move one time because shit had got hot for him, and he had just come into some money, and he was like ‘aight, bet, I’ma buy a new car’ ’cause he wasn’t tryna be seen around the set. And his manager, who was the homie, was like ‘yo, don’t let ’em talk you into spendin’ no kinda money on no car. You need to? Paint your mama car, but don’t let ’em trick you into spendin’ that money.’” He dropped the planks with a crash and didn’t bother arranging them. “I was with him when we went on tour and it was like his first big festival and he had just got some of that advance check.” The others moved around him, clearing more paths for the shuttling of supplies, laying down the foundations for what was supposed to be some log cabin, spreading out blueprints in another place for what looked like stables. “And we went to the ATM ’cause he had wanted to get some money, and he put his thumb on the screen and got rejected. It had said he had no money. And we’re buggin’ out, ’cause he don’t spend like that. No car, just his bills, his mama bills, that’s it. But he looked at me and he was like ‘some niggas done stole my money’ and we was like ‘wow, we really gonna have to kill somebody.’”

Hammering filled the clearing. Jayceon and Kendrick were digging a small moat at the clearing’s edge to catch rainwater and whatever would drain from the forest. Even though Rodney and Linc weren’t close to the same size, they carried a big log over to this part of the forest where they could stand between two tall trees that were about eight feet apart. Then they started fastening the log perpendicular to the trees with paracord.

“But ain’t nobody stole from him. It was just cost of livin’, feel me? That’s the thing, yo. Bein’ alive is so expensive. But yeah, we ain’t kill nobody over no ATM shit.”

Clackin’ and thumpin’ filled the clearing the next day.

“That’s why I can’t fuck with video games, man. The rapper friend, a homie of his kept blowin’ up his line, straight up harassin’ him. Talkin’ all kinds of shit, like gang shit too. And you know what he wanted to do? Nigga wanted to play video games. On the dead homie. Real life, he one of the nicest dudes ever. He got a wife, a kid, I think he mighta actually retired a long time ago, but you put a controller in his hands? Shit is not a game, bro. I done seen puppy-dog eyes-lookin’ niggas turn into savages playin’ Super Smash Brothers. Nigga could be at your cousin’s baptism, then the next day, you see him on the console, he look like he ready to shoot up a school, on the dead homie. Me and the homie had went over his house one time and it wasn’t even on some make-music shit. Like, we didn’t really have rapper-friends like that. Like, we had niggas’ numbers and we knew niggas, but we pick up the phone, it ain’t to talk about no rap shit, niggas got kids and shit. Anyway, we at the other nigga’s spot and he just call up a screen, ’cause he had one of them holos, and he had on the gloves, and he just starts goin’. But the whole time he lookin’ at us like cuz what is you doin’?! He not even lookin’ at the screen. And I’m sittin’ there not tryna disturb him or fuck up his flow, but it’s like he ain’t even payin’ attention like that. He talkin’ to us about his grandmama Jamaica recipes and shit, askin’ if we wanna know, because he know we be wanting to drink something fresh at the crib but only really be fuckin’ with workin’-class joints. He’s Mexican. But, yeah, man, you put the gloves on that nigga hands, he will wash you. And, like, me and the homie, we nice, but we not him, know what I’m sayin’?”

Bishop had told the group that the best thing was to have the structure open on one side so that it was facing the sun in the winter and so that in the summer, the prevailing winds would cool the horses. And the next day, Jayceon and Bishop got out of Bishop’s truck with a ton of sheet metal and Bishop had said it would have to do because fiberglass was too hard to come by. Linc made runs with Mercedes and Rodney for more materials to store under the lean-to. And Rodney was digging holes two feet deep and one foot wide for the wooden posts to go in. Then Timeica showed up with premixed concrete to pour in, then the rest of them set the 4 x 4 posts in place, shouting back and forth about whether or not they were plumb.

“Yeah,” Kendrick was saying, “the Red Store. It’s like … I dunno, a convenience store or corner store or something, I dunno.”

“So, like a bodega, then?” asked Mercedes.

“Nah, you can’t get alcohol there, I don’t think. But I would go there for loosies and—”

Jayceon shook his head. “Kendrick does not sound like an Atlanta name and you a Atlanta-ass nigga, I’m just sayin’.”

Rodney tamping down as he backfilled to make sure the post was square while Bishop used a string line on the front and back to keep it in line.

“Anyway,” said Kendrick. “I would always go to the Red Store with this nigga who was riding bikes. Like, bicycle bikes. And I would go with him because he was a licensed gun carrier. He was always wearing baggy clothes and tank tops and shorts and he would have the hammer in plain sight. Nigga would take over whole lanes of traffic and what were you gonna do? What’re you gonna say to a nigga with dreads on a bike with a red bandanna and a Springfield 45 on his waist. And he sold me my first fixed-gear bike when I was a kid, because we had lived in Edgewood, we moved there when I was like ten or so.”

Mercedes and Sydney running a skirt board along the back and sides of the pole barn and Linc and Bishop working to set the stringer six feet from the ground. Jayceon rushing in to help Sydney, set it on an upended box, raise the front end up to the eight-foot mark.

“Mama was a Exoduster, and Atlanta’s where we wound up because we heard there was Black people there, but also the place just had this huge musical history, and she was really into that. But we was down bad. Like, I would get bike rides to go back and forth to the Red Store for loosies. We was by the housing projects and there was always sirens and always toasters rollin’ up, and sometimes it was like even if bad shit was happening, you didn’t want them to show up, because then it would turn from somethin’ local into some extra shit and our place mighta been a little fucked up, but it was ours. And, like, even then, there was this, like, young energy to it. It was kinda crazy.”

“What’s the story, nigga?” Jayceon called out.

“Fuck you, nigga.” Kendrick turned back around. “Anyway, we get to maybe I been there eight, ten years, right. And you can tell things are startin’ to change. Maybe gettin’ some returnees. Domes start poppin’ up in places, air starts changing, and you can tell that the shit you’re lookin’ at is not how it’s gonna be in like ten years, maybe five. Maybe even two. So cherish it. But it’s this one night. A summer. And it’s supposed to be dry, but the rivers make it humid and sweaty and I was sleepin’ on niggas’ couches and floors by then ’cause Mama had died and I was just broke and angry all the time but wantin’ to make music. And there was this house on Hutchinson Street that I would stay at and it was kinda snug right in between these two other houses, so if one person was like ‘hey I’m throwin’ a party tonight,’ the other two were probably okay with it. Seven days out of the week. And it would turn into like hundreds of people showin’ up. And you’d have girls twerkin’ but also weird shit like this one dude who would always show up and he smelled like pennies and he would be in this tank top and he’d organize these dung beetle battles. And the dung beetles, ’cause of the way the radiation hits down there, they almost the size of dogs. Nigga, I’m not lyin’!”

Half the crowd groaned, half the crowd laughed. Then they switched off.

“Anyway, we’re at this party, right? One of these epic summer parties. And, like, the homie Hurley had just bought a 357. We called him Hurley because he was always wanting to buy one of them motorcycles and look like one of them rednecks out west, but could never say the name right. He was white, but he was just as broke and left-behind as the rest of us. Anyway, he got this gun he just got, right? And people show up to these things with hammers all the time. People are showin’ off their shit out back and in the hallways, people are fuckin’ in random rooms. That kind of energy. But yeah at one point, Hurley comes out of his room and he’s like ‘someone just snatched my Flex.’ And he had just bought this thing. It was one of the big joints that you had to attach to a separate touchboard but it could call up multiple holo screens at the same time. And he had bought it the same time as the gun. So he runs outside and he’s like ‘someone grabbed my shit, what the fuck’ startin’ to go crazy, and we’re askin’ people. And that’s when you hear this car peel off. FRREWWW. Just like that, and you know that’s the niggas that took his shit. And Hurley, poor guy, is runnin’ after this thing in his fuckin’ big-ass boots he’s always wearing even though it’s hotter than fuckin’ donkey balls in Atlanta at that time. But the night kinda ends with that sad, despair-type energy. Because Hurley, man, he had so little, and to see a guy like that lose, it just kinda fucks everything up. The party’s still goin’ on, so we’re startin’ to tell people ‘yo, you gotta leave,’ you know, kickin’ them out. Until I see Hurley go out front. Literally right in the front yard of these houses, and he raises his gun in the air and starts bustin’ shots. POW POW POW. And that gets everybody out.”

Add another 2 x 4-inch (5.08 x 10.16 cm) grit on the side, level with the one you placed against the bottom of the stringer at the back.

Mercedes: “That’ll clear out a party.”

“So we’re all just kinda sitting in this dude’s living room, feelin’ sorry for him. But there’s still that energy in the air, so it’s gotta go somewhere. And you know that weird friend you have, who’s like, into prog metal and like holo-hentai and shit, real weird but watches anime and could kinda fuck you up? We nicknamed him Tetsuo after this old anime we would watch on his dusty-ass Blu-ray player. Anyway, he gets everybody goin’ over the night. Like, who was there, who was where, when this person came in, when that person left, whose car they were in, all this shit. Like actually sittin’ there cracking the case of who stole my man’s Flex.”

Nail the 2 x 4-inch (5.08 x 10.16 cm) wood flat on one end. Use 2 x 6-inch (5.08 x 15.24 cm) wood for the roof rafters that sit on 4-foot (1.22-meter) centers.

“Fast-forward to the next day. We’re in Hurley’s room. Everybody’s makin’ calls, trying to figure out who was at this party. And Tetsuo’s on the socials and he finds a picture of this girl and he’s like ‘that’s it; that’s the girl. I know this the shorty that took your shit.’ And I’m asking why he thinks that, and what’s also in that girl’s account is a photo of the dude who he thinks took Hurley’s shit. And then underneath is a caption: ‘these dumb niggas.’”

“Holy shit,” from Timeica.

“And then he’s like, ‘look, dude has on a purse.’ And it was one of those purses you kinda wear across your front and, like, over your shoulder. Oh, I forgot. Dude also took Hurley’s bullets. So all he’s got to his name is the gun and the bullets in it.”

“Six, right?” Wyatt asked. “357 holds six.”

“Yeah, but he bust half them shits into the air the night of the party.”

“Oh, shit.” Wyatt reared back a little. The reporter’s eyes went wide.

“But anyway, so that’s the caption, and I’m like ‘this is it? This the evidence?’ And he’s like ‘one thousand percent.’ So we head out, but just as we head out, we get a call from another nigga who was at the party who was like ‘I know where the nigga be,’ all cryptic and shit. And he’s like ‘you ain’t hear it from me. Can’t let nobody know I know, but this where the nigga be.’ Then click.”

Fasten metal hurricane hold-down straps to the posts and to the rafters to prevent high wind gusts from pulling the roof off of the support posts.

“And now there’s like four, five of us, and we’re not all, like, goons and shit. We’re weird kids who watch hentai-holos and listen to trap metal. But it’s go-time. We all know what we gotta do. We need to get over there and get Hurley’s shit back. But we squeeze into the car and there’s like five of us squeezed into there and at least three of us are carrying firearms. And not all of ’em got permits. So we go on a drive, and we head up toward the Lennox area of Atlanta. Now, get this. Tetsuo had even geotagged it to the specific apartment they were in.”

Overlap 29-gauge galvanized corrugated roofing panel by 2 inches (5.08 cm) to the skirtboard, stringers, and grits. Cut to fit using a circular saw fitted with a metal cutoff blade on the sloped sides.

“So we get to the apartment building and this nigga Tetsuo even disabled the scanners by the entrance so they wouldn’t tag us for being exposed to too much radiation. Or something, because somehow we got in there and we go up in the hallway, and I’m like ‘okay, so we knock on this door, what are we about to do?’ Like, we could really all be finna die in this hallway, you know what I’m sayin’? And over what? A Flex? I don’t know how it wound up this way, but I wind up bein’ the nigga that gotta stand in front of the camera. So I knock on the door and this girl opens the door and is like ‘who the fuck is you?’ And I’m thinkin’ I’m gonna just cut straight to the chase, so I tell her ‘you were at my house last night. Something went missing. I’m just here to get it back.’ Now, remember, there’s a gang a niggas right next to me at the door, but she can’t see ’em. So she’s like ‘look, you need to get the fuck outta my house. I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

“Soon as the homies hear that, they all come in behind me, so she sees it’s like five niggas on the other side of her open door and she. Breaks. Down! I’m talkin’ snot-crying. ‘Oh my God, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know!’ Just crumples. Two of her friends come out, see what’s happenin’, they go down too. Flump! We thought we was gonna have to bust in this door and be like ‘aye I’ma beat this nigga brains in till he confess’ or ‘I’ma sew his asshole shut and keep feedin’ him till he tell me where my shit’ or whatever. Like, we really thought we was gonna get in a shootout with some niggas over a piece of technology the size of my fuckin’ palm. But, no, it’s just five niggas in a room all of a sudden tryna console these girls who have just completely lost it by now. And I’m rubbin’ the first one’s back like ‘I’m so sorry, I ain’t mean to come across like a threat, we’re sorry for scarin’ you’ like, when I tell you how funny it got, just like that?” Kendrick snapped his fingers, and the reporter started. “Then she starts tellin’. Snitched on everybody. Said the caption wasn’t talking about us but about the niggas she was with. Told us this is where he is, this is where he hangs out, all that. And right there on the counter is the box of bullets.”

Add doors to the front by building a 2 x 4-foot (.61 x 1.22-meter) frame. Use the same sheet metal as the roof and walls, and hang it from the post.

“Then one of the homies grabs my arm, and he’s like ‘we gotta go’ and I’m still thinkin’ I still gotta convince this girl I’m not about to kill her, but he’s like jerkin’ me out the room. And I’m like ‘what’s up’ and he tells us that there’s a guy back at Hurley’s crib who says he beat up the dude who stole Hurley’s shit. Right at the old West End MARTA station. That’s our train system. It was still runnin’ in certain places around that time, but they shut down a bunch of stops. West End was still goin’ tho. So we’re in the car, and the dude’s on the phone like ‘yeah, I saw the nigga and I knew he was the one who took Hurley’s shit so I just started bustin’ his ass.’ And on our way, we pass by the West End station, and Tetsuo’s like ‘STOP! STOP! STOP THE CAR!’”

The reporter’s mouth hung open. “What was it?” she breathed.

“Hurley’s Flex, sittin’ right on top of a bag. Apparently, during the fight, dude getting whooped just dropped the bag and booked it onto a train while the doors was closing. And the whole time—because that fight was happenin’ same time as we ran up on them girls—the whole time between that ending and us gettin’ there, no one took the shit.