Spit in the Devil’s Eye

Jesse sat on the flat, knee-high ledge surrounding  the roof of the apartment building.  He cautiously leaned over and looked ten floors down . . . so very far. He didn't know why he’d come here.  The yellow police tape across the roof doors had gone to the dump a week ago. Nothing remained of tragedy except Jesse’s memory of Lance’s body hurtling toward the hard, cracked, concrete alley below.

Life on the streets was rotten,so death didn't seem so bad to Jesse or his friends. He certainly never thought about what came after death.   Once, some crazy folks came to their door and invited him and his mom to church services at a mission a few blocks away.  They talked about how a better life waited for folks who knew someone named Jesus.  His mother had gone all quiet and funny-looking when they started to tell her about how this Jesus guy had died for her.  Jesse just thought what a sap this guy was to die for people he didn't know.  He said as much and his mother had shushed him.

One of the women had looked sadly at Jesse and said, “He died for everyone Jesse, so you could have eternal life.  He loves you and wants to make life better for you.”

“So what’s he want me to sell and what’s my take?”  They left, leaving a card with his mother and a promise to pray for both of them.

Today was different. Death was someone Jesse had met and didn't like.  He quickly moved back from the ledge and rubbed his sweating palms on his ragged, dirty jeans.  A cold crept over Jesse that even the 90-degree roof temperature could not warm; he began to shake. Lance died and he lived.  The shame of it nearly made Jesse run away again.  What had happened to them?  What had brought them to this deserted, gravely roof and the ledge?  What led Lance to jump and Jesse to freeze?

They grew up in the same city, in the same apartment house.  Their mothers worked at the same factory, and once found they were dating the same married man.  It had been a joke around the neighborhood that, given their mothers’ choice in men,  Lance and Jesse might actually be brothers. Lance and Jesse believed they were brothers under the skin.

The boys attended and quit the same school together.  They belonged to the same gang.  They shared booze, drugs, and girls. They robbed and brutalized together.  Everything that mattered to them, they shared . . . until two weeks ago.  Jesse had been unable to share death with Lance.

Jesse allowed his body to sag to the roof and he sat Indian fashion, hands hanging limp from his knees, eyes staring across the rooftops of a strangely quiet city.  But Jesse wasn't seeing rooftops.  Instead, memories replayed before his eyes like old movies.  His body jerked and his heart pounded with each rapidly changing scene.

Midnight, two weeks ago, Lance hammered on the door to Jesse’s apartment.   A dazed Jesse staggered from the sofa, where he’d passed out hours earlier from the drugs.  As he opened the door, Lance nearly tumbled to the floor. One look at his eyes and Jesse knew Lance was high on something.

“Hide me, man,  he’s after me.  Please, hide me,” he begged, clutching Jesse by the arms.  He was shaking like the windows in their tenement during a storm.

Confused, Jesse could barely stand under Lance’s clinging weight.  It took several minutes before he could answer and by then, Lance was nervously pacing between the door and window. He would press his ear to the door for a few minutes and then peer cautiously between the faded drapes Jesse’s mother had found in someone’s trash.

“What’s goin’ on, Lance,” Jesse asked, looking out the window over Lance’s shoulder.  “Who’s after you?”

“That dude, the one I got the dope from last week,” he said.  “Tonight I was supposed to pay him for the stuff I sold that week but I don’t have the money.”

Jesse stared at his friend.  “What do you mean you don’t have the money?  You sold the stuff, didn't you?”

Lance moved back to the center of the room.  He rocked side to side on his feet, shaking his hands and rubbing them on his jeans.  Sweat glistened on his face and he brushed his runny nose with the sleeve of his leather Bulls jacket.  Lance was terrified and the terror was taking hold of Jesse, too.

“Yeah, I sold a half a kilo but, man, I needed some of the money.  So I borrowed a little of it.  I ain't got it, Jesse.  What am I gonna do?” Then his look lightened and he said, “Jesse, you got some cash?”

“How much?”

“I need $600.”

“Aw, Lance, you know nobody in this neighborhood has that kind of cash.  That jacket you got on cost that much.  Why don’t you pawn it?”

Lance looked shocked at the idea.  “You crazy?  I saved for six months for this rag.  I had to sell twice as much as usual to get it.  I ain't pawning my coat.  Ain't nothing worth that.”

Jesse contemplated his friend for a moment then said, “Lance, he’s gonna kill you.  That coat is gonna be covered with blood and brains.  Ain't nobody gonna give you a nickel for it then.”

For several minutes Lance said nothing.  Then he grinned and pulled off his jacket and tossed it onto a chair.  “Here, buddy, you keep it somewhere safe for me.”

“Why?”

“Cause if the Man kills me, I want to be buried in that coat,” he grinned, “I’ll be a great looking corpse.  I got me a nice pair of Nikes I ripped off from Branson’s department store to go with it.”

A sound from the stairwell wiped the grin from Lance’s face.  He hurried to the door and pressed his ear to it.  The pale, shiny face became deathly white.  He turned back to Jesse.

“Look, is the roof door locked?”

Jesse shook his head as if he were just waking from a long sleep.  “No, but what good will that do you?”

“Maybe I can hide up there till the heat’s off.”  He twitched his shoulders, shook his hands and added, “ C’mon up with me and keep me company for a while.”

“I don’t know, Lance.  Maybe it’d be better if you talked to him.  Maybe you can work out a deal.”

“Jesse, he don’t do deals.  I got to get out of town as soon as I can.  Besides, I don’t want to be working off that money the rest of my life.  I want to live, to go places, be somebody.  I can’t do that here, too much competition.  I been thinking about moving to one of them small towns and start my own business.  I hear that’s where the action is moving, small towns.  This could be my big break.”

Jesse would remember forever his next thought.  Yeah, he thought, this could be your big break.  You could end up with a broken neck.

Lance opened the door and peeked into the hallway.  The dim light of the bulb at the other end of the hall barely illuminated the area in front of Jesse’s apartment.  Clutching Jesse’s arm, Lance moved out on tiptoe and turned toward the stairs going up toward the next floor and the roof.

No one came out of their apartment.  Apart from a furious knocking on one of the other floors, followed by angry voices and a door slamming, no one even seemed to be awake.  Someone was knocking on each apartment door, and they were moving pretty fast. Even as he and Lance started up the roof stairs, Jesse could hear feet coming up the stairs to his floor.  As he closed the roof door behind them, he could hear the pounding begin again.  Jesse picked up a discard pipe someone had left behind years ago, and jammed it beneath the doorknob.

Jesse studied his friend.  Lance  was again shaking his arms and hands, as if to loosen them from something.  His feet couldn't seem to stay still.  His eyes frantically scanned the roof for possible hiding places.  Finding none, he turned a desperate look toward Jesse.

“Lance, I told you this was a bad idea.  Talk to ‘em.”

“No!  I can’t.  I . . . “  Lance fell silent and stared past Jesse, across the roof, to the next building.  He moved to the knee-high ledge and looked down.  “Jesse, how far you think it is to that building across the alley?”

Jesse could only stare in disbelief at Lance.

Lance looked back at Jesse.  “Well?”

“Farther than you can jump.  You must have a death-wish, Lance.”

“If I don’t jump, I’m dead anyway.  This is as good a way to die as any.  Besides, I bet I can do it.  It can’t be more than ten feet across that alley.”  He moved back to the middle of the roof and crouched into a runner’s stance.

Jesse rushed to him, catching his friend’s arm.  “NO!  You can’t do this.  You’ll never make it.  Look Lance, I’ll tell them I’ll help you get the money.  I know a place I can steal $300 of it.”

Lance grinned and playfully hit Jesse in the shoulder.  “Come on, Jesse.  We've done this kind of thing before.  Let’s do it together, man.  Jump with me.”

Jesse looked in horror at Lance.  “But we only jumped buildings a few feet apart.  We ain't never jumped a gap like that.  We can’t make it.”

“Sure we can.  And even if we don’t, well, what we got to look forward to anyway.  Look around you, Jesse.  Where you gonna be in five years?  Listen, we've done it all, man, together.  Drugs, booze, stealing, killing, girls.  Everything together.  Now, across that alley, we got a chance to get free and start over.”

“But Lance,” Jesse asked, “what if we don’t make it?”

Lance threw back his head and laughed, his eyes glittering wildly. “Then we get to spit in the devil’s eye and take over hell, Jesse.”

It took several seconds for Jesse to understand what Lance was asking of him.  His mind couldn't comprehend that his life-long friend wanted him to risk his life.  For what?  $600? Jesse wasn't sure.

It was then Jesse remembered the church people who’d visited months ago.  They’d talked about a man who died for everyone, so they wouldn't have to die.  He hadn't  really understood. Jesse thought anyone who’d die for a person he didn't know was crazy.  Now, his best friend was asking him to do nearly to the same thing.  Again, Jesse asked himself, for what?

Somehow, he knew that what that Jesus guy had done and what Lance was asking was not the same at all. Jesse suddenly wanted to know why Jesus had done it.

The next several minutes things happened so fast, Jesse struggled to remember the sequence.  Someone began to bang at the roof door.  Lance panicked and grabbed Jesse’s arm.

“Come on, Jesse.  Let’s do it.  NOW!”  He began to run, dragging Jesse along with him.  For a minute, Jesse simply followed because he had always followed Lance’s lead.  But, the moment Jesse’s feet hit the ledge, he couldn't move.  It was as if something locked onto his feet and wouldn't let go.

The roof door slammed back and two dark figures tumbled through.  They stopped when they saw Jesse and Lance on the ledge.

Lance paused, looked back at the men, and then gazed for a brief moment at his friend.  “Let’s go, Jesse.  Together, like always.”

For a moment, Jesse looked into eyes he didn't know and was afraid.

Then he jumped, hard, fast and with a wild whoop.  And Jesse stood on the ledge and watched him sail out, toward the building opposite. Then, Lance’s body turned, falling, slowly it seemed, over and over, and his whoop became a scream, until he hit the cracked, concrete pavement below.

For a long time the night was as silent as a tomb.  Not until the sound of sirens broke the stillness did Jesse realize he was alone.  The men who’d followed them to the roof had disappeared, and Jesse wondered if those dark forms had really been there at all.

He stepped down from the ledge, whatever had held him gone.  Reluctantly, he went  downstairs and picked up the Bulls jacket.  Carrying it across his arm, he went down to meet the police and say good-by to his friend.

The memories faded, just like old movies. Jesse brought his thoughts back from that terrible night and pushed himself up onto his feet.  It was time to leave. He had an appointment in half an hour.  If he left now, there was just enough time to walk the distance to the Mission of Jesus just off Maple Street.  He heard that every Sunday they had a service at 10:00 a.m.  Today was Sunday and today . . . Jesse was free.