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It’s not something he notices right away. In the beginning, he’s too busy. Living a legit life is not fucking easy. No wonder Marlo couldn’t hack it and went back to the streets. There’s work, real motherfucking work now. Not slinging drugs on a depressing corner, not running jobs with a Glock at his side. And so he doesn’t notice for a while. How the fuck did he not see the big picture here, even when the big picture is the only thing he’s been working for. Christ. He is good and fucked.
*****
At first, having Dukie back is awesome. Michael can admit that, he’s not some fucking fag like Cutty. It took him a while, to build up some cash, to find a safe place, to locate Dukie with the other junkies and ratty homeless dudes who crashed among the lit trashcans and cardboard boxes under the Jones Falls, near the Shot Tower off of Gay Street. He held up a few sketchy corner marts. He’s not proud that he did a few smash and grabs too, to get the cash up front. But it’s worth it, as he hands over three-fifty to a guy named Reggie, a month’s rent for a two room place on North Monroe. It’s a shithole, yeah. But it’s gonna be theirs.
That’s not to say that it wasn’t bad at first. It was. It’s good he got there when he did. Michael wants to beat the shit out of the fucking arabber who got Dukie on the junk. But as he walks the pavement, peering at the men who are huddled up over cards or drugs or what the fuck ever, straining to see the face he knows as well as anyone’s, amid the trash and the filth, Michael tries not to give in to the overwhelming feeling that he wants to flee.
Dukie’s lying on a roll-up mat, covered with a camo blanket. Michael crosses through with purpose, shaking Dukie’s shoulder. He feels too cold and Michael tries to ignore all the eyes on him, shakes harder. “Duke. Get up. We’re going.” He starts to gather up a few random items that are within the vicinity of Dukie’s lying figure, a chipped Ravens mug, a set of odd-looking keys. He shoves them into the black backpack he recognizes automatically.
Dukie’s face is slack with sleep or maybe drugs, and it looks soft and sad and innocent. Michael ignores the catch in his throat and resolutely shakes one more time, dragging the blanket off while pulling on Dukie’s arm. As Dukie’s eyes open slowly, Michael shoves the backpack at him and says again, “Get up. We’re going.”
The arabber is making a fuss so Michael pulls forty bucks out of the pocket of his coat and shoves it in the old man’s fist. He doesn’t say anything, just stares, like he’s trying to will his message into the drug-addled brain of a broken man. He’s a ghost. Don’t even try to find him.
“Mike?” Dukie is standing now and without thinking, Michael reaches down and grabs onto Dukie’s hand. It’s cold and his eyes are unfocused and Michael resists the urge to cup his mouth around Dukie’s hand to breathe warmth on it, like he did for Bug countless times when Bug forgot his mittens on a frigid day.
“Yeah, s’me.” He watches as Dukie’s face finally breaks into a dream-like smile. “I got you now, Duke. And we’re goin.”
“You found me,” Dukie murmurs, sleepily, leaning slightly into Michael, as they shuffle away, his hand still firmly locked with Michael’s.
*****
And then there's the withdrawal. The shakes, the stomach cramps, the sweating. Despite never having been a drug user, Michael’s seen all this before. His mother, guys in the neighborhood, all the people he never wanted to be. To see Dukie go through it is fucking painful. There’s moodiness and irritability too, and constant sleeping so that Michael is about to lose his fucking mind when he finally grabs Dukie and orders, “We’re goin out, asshole. Get dressed.”
Dukie obeys and they walk the few blocks to Harlem Square Park. It’s chilly, even with the late afternoon sun slanting through the trees. For a place that has, at many times, more times than Michael wants to remember, been filled with despair, it can also be beautiful, and that makes him sad. The way the light cuts through the branches, the trees that try to retain their leaves in the bright October air, the reminder that this is real, this is the only place he’ll ever live, the only place he’ll know as home. They walk, not saying much, but Michael finds himself looking over every few seconds, like he needs to make sure Dukie’s still there, next to him, not a ghost, not a person he abandoned almost two years ago.
“What.” Dukie finally looks back, his head has been down while they’ve walked, hands tucked firmly into the pockets of his years-old, worn out Timberland coat, smile playing softly at his mouth. “You keep lookin at me, so what, Mike.”
“Nuthin.” Michael shrugs. Nothing’s happening here. No grand gestures. No confessions. No melancholy musings on beauty and Baltimore and the bittersweet feeling in his brain that won’t go away and how everything is a total messed up waste of a life. Why can’t he fucking just talk anymore? “Jus, glad you’re here now. Thas all.” That’s the absolute truth, for real.
“Yeah, me too.” Dukie knocks against him in response, like he always did when they walked sometimes, back in the day. Michael still can’t tell whether it’s purposeful or just Dukie being Dukie. His statement isn’t anywhere near an apology, it can’t be, but Dukie’s gesture seems like it could be something like forgiveness. Just like Dukie, to forgive something that he’ll never even get an apology for. Not a real one, anyway.
Michael blinks rapidly and pulls himself mentally out of this place that has nowhere to go. Only dead ends and alleyways with nothing but five-oh on one end and a baby gangster with a piece on the other. He shoves Dukie back a little harder and says, trying for teasing, “You’re such a clumsy fucker.”
Dukie laughs, his low laugh that Michael tried for years not to hear. “Maybe,” he chuckles. Before Michael can manage out loud what the fuck does that mean, Dukie jogs a little ahead and turns around so that he’s facing Michael. Dukie’s smile is open and wide and his eyes are bright and happy. It’s not the first time in his lifetime, no, but just in the last two years, yeah, Michael feels like he can breathe again.
*****
“I like it here,” Dukie says one day, a few weeks later, as they’re eating chicken and waffles out of styrofoam containers at the rickety card table set up near the galley kitchen. “S’nice.”
Michael nods and doesn’t look up. “Sure as hell ain’t a white picket fence in the county.”
It’s a small memory, a stupid memory, from a random conversation from long ago. Why is he even holding onto it? The day they acted like kids and played hooky from the thug life and kissed some white girls. The day his brain made a leap that he doesn’t often like to examine, from talking about being in love to some ridiculous suburban ideal. He needs to get that shit in check. And quick.
“S’cool, Mike.” Dukie takes a sip of grape Fanta and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “More than I ever thought I’d get.”
Someone blasts Nas from a car with the windows rolled down, even though it’s getting colder by the day now, bass rattling the second-floor windows of their place just a little bit. Michael’s jaw is tight as he picks up the rest of his food and chucks it in the trash.
*****
In school, back when he gave a shit about school, Michael remembers a unit they did in fourth grade on the solar system. It was his favorite thing about school ever. He ate it up, the way Bug freaks out about fish and ocean life and shit. They read about how the planets orbit the sun, the moons orbit the planets. Orbiting. That’s what they’re doing now, now that they’re settled in, now that the shaking and the headaches and the moodiness have worn off, now that this is, in some crazy fucked up sense, their life.
In the old days, it was always Dukie following Michael. Waiting for Michael when he couldn’t join in, taking the school uniform, or extra food, or a crumpled up dollar, whatever Michael would offer. It was Dukie who hung out with them at Cutty’s, never really fitting in or possessing the brash-talking swagger of Namond, the steely, skilled quiet of Michael. And Dukie who became a reluctant domesticated soldier in the game, because there was nothing else for him but this strange, unyielding non-friendship between them.
But now, as he exits the bedroom, buttoning up his flannel shirt that he wears to work on colder days, Michael shakes his head. He can’t help but smile at the sight of Dukie at the card table, pencil in his mouth, reading through passages of Frederick Douglass for his GED class while eating his Cap’n Crunch. Dukie’s mouth is moving as he skims over the passage. Michael stops himself from staring and fills up a travel mug full of orange juice.
“What?” Dukie realizes now that Michael’s there and looks up, but the look on his face is fond.
“Nuthin, sorry. Didn’t mean to mess up your reading or whatever.” Michael moves around the small kitchen, grabs a donut from the box in the fridge, and leans casually back against the narrow counter. “Jus this,” he gestures towards Dukie with his papers spread out. “S’good. Ya know?” Dukie’s staring at him now, and Michael wants to look away, but the moment is just hanging there, like something else needs to be said or done.
The alarm on Dukie’s phone goes off. He jumps up suddenly, shoving the packet he was reading from into his scruffy backpack. “Can’t be late!” He scurries towards the door, forgets his coat, and grabs it from the chair. He’s laughing.
“Yeah. Don’t wanna get detention from the man, motherfucker,” Michael jokes.
Dukie just smiles and shakes his head. “Nah, Mike. No detention.” His look is a little more serious, but he holds Michael’s attention in a way he never did before. Dukie was never an afterthought exactly, but he wasn’t Michael’s primary concern either. Not like keeping Bug safe. Not like destroying his asshole stepfather. “Jus wanna do this is all.”
It’s starting to feel like something else, something that Michael can’t quite place. There’s no vocabulary for it, he doesn’t have the point of reference, outside of watching tv shows or movies. It’s never been there before, but somehow feels like it was there all along. He's uncomfortable. So he looks down, shuffles his feet. “Well, cool. Don’t be late, yo. Get your knowledge on.” He nods and smiles back at Dukie; he keeps his voice light and encouraging.
Dukie tilts his head, like he’s trying to figure something out, and that’s different, because before it never seemed like Dukie was trying to figure anything out. “Thanks Mike,” he says, slinging the backpack over his shoulder.
As he watches Dukie go down the stairs, Michael’s just not sure who is orbiting whom now.
*****
Honest work shouldn’t be so hard. He drives a truck to a warehouse. Loads up a shipment of sodas in cans and bottles using a miniscule handtruck that barely holds four crates at a time. Drives the truck to a market on the corner of MLK, Franklin, Greenmount, North Ave, it doesn’t even matter where. They’re all the same. He loads and unloads and the faces of the owners regard him like he’s a good kid. Not respect, not exactly, because who would respect an eighteen year old high school dropout former gangster. But they don’t look at him like he’s a gangster at all, and that’s a start.
He’s tired, leaning his head back against the wall. He hasn’t bothered to take off his coat. He feels the warmth of the late afternoon sun on his face, when approaching winter makes the days short and any natural heat and light welcome. Maybe they’ll get Chinese food tonight.
Dukie rushes in, breathless and waving a piece of paper. “Hey.” He stands in front of Michael, whose eyes are still closed.
Michael pops an eye open and doesn’t sit upright. “Hey.” He surveys Dukie and asks, “Whas up with you? You look like...I dunno, you look like you won the lottery.”
“Better,” Dukie holds the paper in front of Michael’s face. He’s beaming.
“Yeah okay, don’t think thas possible, but okay.” Michael is amused as he takes the paper out of Dukie’s hand and peers at it. “The fuck is this?”
Dukie grins and slaps Michael’s shoulder with the back of his hand. “GED test, Mike. I passed. Four-fifty. It’s like four-ten to pass. Usually.” His smile grows impossibly wider. “S’cool, right?”
He doesn’t know what to say back. Anything feels like too much or not enough. Michael looks at the paper in his hand and back to Dukie’s happy, excited face. This is real, he thinks. This is it now.
There was a time, long ago, when Bug made a periscope out of milk cartons and two small pocket mirrors for his science project. The whole thing was completely ghetto, with masking tape up the sides, instead of put together with a glue gun or something that half-resembled what an actual grown-up might help a kid produce. It took all Sunday afternoon. But Bug was so proud when they finished it. They could set the thing on the table, look through one of the messily cut out windows and see something entirely different. Michael had looked through and half-laughed and half-cried at Bug’s ecstatic face, and thought, as he gripped Bug’s little happy body, I’m proud of you, and you did it, and I love you.
Michael feels brave as he reaches out, pulling Dukie into an awkward hug. Dukie makes an “umph” sound. He flails around briefly before eventually coming to rest his head on Michael’s shoulder. Michael closes his eyes; he can hear the foot traffic down below the window, he can feel his heart beating somewhere near his throat, and he might laugh or cry or both. They’re hanging on too long now and unbidden, that memory, and those same words rush through his mind.
He pulls back and smiles, saying the only thing he can think of. “Yeah, Duke. The best.”
*****
November is colder and the place, for all its glory, has the shittiest radiator heat ever. They usually joke about it during the day, when Dukie’s taken to wearing a black wool hat while inside, and sometimes Michael turns on the oven even though they’ve never used it cook a goddamn thing.
Michael resolutely ignores the little guilty nagging in his head when he goes to bed, flopped onto the dirty, possibly infested (one other thing he doesn’t examine too closely, why start now) mattress that comes with his three-fifty. He can hear Dukie’s loud mouth-breathing, not exactly a snore, from the floor of the other room, and it never sounds restful.
Dukie must be cold, covered with a sleeping bag that looks ages old, among the dust on the floorboards. But Dukie slept outside, and for god knows how long, with all those homeless guys, so this is probably a huge improvement.
He could easily just offer the mattress to Dukie. They could switch off every other day or every week or something. Although that seems sort of complicated for something that Dukie has never actually complained about. Still. He tries not to think about how cold he is, how cold they both must be, and whether it would be weird to even ask. And why not? It’s just them, like it’s always been.
Who is he kidding? Michael doesn’t bring up shit. He just sighs wearily as he stares at the crack running across the water stained ceiling. He tugs his own sleeping bag tighter and wills himself to sleep.
*****
The bright, crowded auditorium, filled with smiling people from the suburbs, all high on Starbucks and brimming with holiday spirit, is about as much as Michael can handle. They’ve parked the piece of shit station wagon that he borrowed from Reggie, so they could drive to Howard fucking County to watch Bug in his school Christmas play. And Aunt Cecile, he’s not sure if he can deal right now. Things are getting better yeah, but she still can be a Nazi bitch when she wants.
Dukie slides into the cramped up wooden folding seat next to him, looking excited. Michael tunes out his happy chatter, leaning his head back and shutting his eyes. It’s for Bug, he reminds himself, a chance to see Bug, and for that, he’d do basically anything.
The holiday show is hella stupid, but Bug is so into it, singing Rudolph and the other songs very loudly, and Michael can’t help but smile and laugh as Bug rushes through his lines and then grins broadly out at Michael, Dukie, and Aunt Ceci. It makes them all laugh even harder, the fact that Bug is unabashed in his enthusiasm. Michael tries to relax. He concentrates on the happy look on Bug’s face as he takes his bow, the people clapping, the feel of Dukie slightly pressed against his arm, as he leans in, shakes Michael’s knee and loud-whispers, “That was so awesome.”
Dinner is at Aunt Ceci’s. There’s fried catfish, broccoli, cajun rice. Dukie eats like it’s his last night on earth and Bug is almost glowing in the presence of his three favorite people. Michael fights the urge to stand up and peace out multiple times.
“When am I gonna come live with you and Dukie again?” Bug asks, as they get ready to say goodbye.
Michael’s heart hurts more than it ever has before, more than when he dropped Bug off here in the middle of the night, more than forcing Dukie out of the car to an uncertain future with a lie in his mouth, more than when he knew, thanks to Bug, that Dukie was in trouble and it was all his fault. He presses his cheek to Bug’s smooth round one and squeezes his brother gently. “I dunno, lil Bug. I want you to. But you good here, yeah?”
Bug nods solemly. “Yeah. Plus, y’know, you got Dukie back, so it’s all good.” His voice is small and muffled against Michael’s shoulder as he hugs back ferociously.
He tries not to cry in the car as they head back to the west side. Fuck, it only seems like he cries after seeing Bug and Aunt Ceci. He tries not to replay the rest of that last night of them altogether, and everything about this is too familiar. He knows that this part is different, he's changed the ending, he's fixed it now, but he still checks over to see Dukie, who is staring out the car window, rapping softly to the radio under his breath, and Michael's brain repeats his mantra, real, real, real.
When they pull up outside of Reggie’s, on the half-deserted street, Michael doesn’t get out of the car right away. He fingers the keys, flips them around the keyring, back and forth. Dukie’s staring at him, hard, with a look that Michael can’t read, either because it’s way too dark now or because he doesn’t fucking want to, and hasn’t for a long time.
“Mike.” Dukie’s voice is soft, but there’s a tiny amount of pressure, insistence, there. “Why’d you come back for me?”
Michael shakes his head. He cannot fucking do this right now. Or ever. “Don’t ask me that,” he says, a little dangerous, a little too close to pleading for his own comfort.
“I want you to know,” Dukie begins and Michael automatically closes his eyes.
“Dukie. Jus shut the fuck up.”
Dukie’s voice is impossibly softer now. He’s looking out the passenger window and unconsciously tapping his finger against the door lock. Michael can’t even remember a time when Dukie flat out ignored him before. “Mike, I want you to know, I don’t blame you. I know Bug told you, after the aquarium. And I know you and me isn't how you planned it.”
Michael blurts out his usual refrain. “Don’t be stupid.”
He has no idea what is happening right now, or what is about to happen next. He just knows he doesn’t want to do this, he wants Dukie to just go back to being inconsequential, an afterthought.
“I’m not!” Dukie protests. He sets his hand on Michael’s knee, which has been jimmying up and down since this dumbass conversation began. “I jus don’t want you to feel bad about me, cause there’s nuthin to feel bad about.”
Dukie goes to open the door. “I’m happy,” he says. “It’s enough.”
*****
There were fireworks all over the city and probably only a quarter of them were gunshots. Michael crushes up and tosses the empty pizza box from their dinner into the trash. He presses his forehead against the cold glass of the window to survey the previous night’s damage. A fluffy sheen of snow has fallen on the ground, covering the few cars that are parked and haven’t been moved, despite the warning of a “snow emergency.” The sky is still gray, like it might snow again later. The window starts to fog with condensation from the heat of his face. He writes his name and Bug's name with his finger. He watches it as it fades away.
He checks his phone. There’s a message from Bug, counting down as the ball’s dropping. “Happy New Year!” Bug cackles on the voicemail and hangs up. Michael shakes his head with a smile, pocketing the phone in his jeans.
“Oh yo! It snowed, you shoulda got me up!” Dukie’s all bustling excitement as he crowds Michael by the window to see. “Let’s go!”
Michael wants to ask where and to do what, but reluctantly pulls on a black hoodie, his Timbs, his puffy vest, and a beanie. Dukie’s practically dragging him out the door and onto the street, light with the morning and the unadulterated whiteness of snow. It’s quiet. Everything looks brand new.
“I never seen someone so excited about snow when it wasn’t getting us a day off school,” Michael grumbles, but he can feel a smile because Dukie’s running, trying to slide down the sidewalk. “Don’t break your neck, fucker.” He grabs onto the hood of Dukie’s coat, effectively halting the slide as he catches up.
Dukie slides into him with a light shove. He’s up in Michael’s space, like usual, like always. It’s casual, but purposeful though, not just Dukie-style clumsiness. Michael grips the hood tighter and doesn’t let him pull away. Dukie pulls some mittens out of his pockets, bumping his shoulder against Michael’s as they walk.
The park looks desolate and cold and serene, tree branches hanging lower with clumps of snow and the normal, brown frozen ground masked by pristine white. It’s starting to flurry a little bit too, as Michael predicted. The tiny flakes dot Dukie’s hair.
“Snowman?” Dukie suggests, dropping to his knees. He tries to pack the snow into a ball to make the base.
Michael groans. “Don’t think I’ve ever made a snowman.” He crouches down to help.
“You got a shift later, Mike? I could go along, while you drive the truck. Help out.” Dukie looks at him expectantly.
“Nah. Off today.”
Dukie nods and laughs as Michael attempts to pull down his hoodie sleeves over his hands. “Fuck, my hands’re freezing!” Michael admits. He didn’t bring gloves.
A few neighborhood kids have come out now. They’re running and shouting and trying to slide with their bodies across the snow. Michael feels the cold start to seep through his jeans where he’s been kneeling, the frozen solid of the ground hard and unforgiving beneath him. The kids are making joyous sounds and Dukie is humming a Christmas carol. The sky is almost completely white now. This is real, this is real, this is real, he thinks. And for the first time ever, it's enough.
“Duke. We don’t hafta keep doin this,” he says, watching Dukie struggle with packing the snow. Michael’s about given up.
Dukie shakes his head. “Come on, it’s your first snowman, right? I wanna do this.” He crawls over to where Michael is sitting back on his heels, takes off his right mitten, and nudges Michael.
It comes back easily, even though it is ancient history now, that day in Mr. Prezbo’s class, when he was asking about the speed of a rocket ship, and Randy knew the answer, and those two ratchet girls got in a fight with a boxcutter, and one chick ended up spurting blood out the side of her face. That day there wasn’t a thought in Michael’s head about Laetitia and Chiquan, or how to help Mr. Prezbo, or how there was a pool of blood on the floor of his math classroom. Just the memory of Dukie, his heart full of kindness, placing his tiny fan on the ground and pushing it forward for her to take.
He takes the mitten and pulls it on, surveying their work so far, fighting off the desperate feeling that’s building in his chest, the ever-present urge to cry that he doesn’t completely understand, the same way he felt when he held Bug as a baby that first time. This is a different sort of first, but it scares him just as much. His heart feels just as broken, just as full.
“S’good!” Dukie says proudly.
It's the new year. He allows himself to feel braver. Lighter, too. He reaches out and grips Dukie's shoulder, keeps his hand there a second longer than usual. “Yeah, Duke. The best.”
*****