Every Man a Menace Read Online Free PDF Page A

child, in peace and heaven; he’s been delivered out,” Shadrack said. He put a stone on Raymond’s forehead, and Raymond closed his eyes.
    “Bless this child in function and form; he’s a Seventh Son.”
    He placed a stone in the hollow of Raymond’s neck.
    “Bless this child of truth, this child of danger, this child of courage.”
    Raymond felt three stones fall across his chest.
    “Bless this child of nourishment. Bless him with rest,” Shadrack said, setting one final stone on Raymond’s belly.
    In his mind’s eye, Raymond saw emeralds cut into shapes that couldn’t be described in human language. He saw the universe and all its workings. He saw the cosmos as veins in a body. He saw the insides of stars like rooms in a house. He saw all things combined into one being. And then he disappeared.
    The next day, Raymond woke to the sound of knocking on his door. He didn’t know where he was; he looked around his room and tried to make sense of it. The knocking continued. His body, as he lifted himself from the bed, felt wrecked. As he moved from dreamless sleep to wakefulness he realized he was still high.
    “Who is it?” he called out.
    “Gloria,” said a voice from outside. He pulled on his shirt, his pants, flattened his hair.
    “It’s two p.m.,” she said, when he’d opened the door. Her face showed concern.
    “I was resting,” he said, stepping back. “Just resting.” He watched the way she entered the room, the way she walked, and concluded that she was afraid. He could see it in her posture. Shadrack’s voice played in his mind: You’re filled with fear. He couldn’t remember if he’d actually said this.
    “You met him?” Gloria asked.
    Only one day had passed since he’d last seen her, but it felt longer than that. Raymond nodded his head, tried toact casual. We met. He felt his cheeks and collarbones get hot. He wanted to be outside.
    “He welcomed you?” she asked.
    Raymond nodded. “Took me to a party,” he said. He felt tongue-tied and dumb, dry mouthed, disorganized, dirty. Gloria had left the door open and he moved to close it, sticking his head out into the hall first. He saw the young Asian man who had driven Gloria’s van standing about ten feet away. He had been text messaging, and now he looked up and stared. Raymond closed the door.
    “Who is that?” he asked.
    “He’s my driver,” she said.
    Raymond shook his head. “He made me do acid.”
    Gloria smiled, looked at the ceiling. “Of course he did.”
    “I think I’m still high.”
    “I see,” she said, as though everything had fallen into place. “When I leave, go to the store. Get a gallon of milk. Drink it. Sober up.”
    He nodded.
    “I need you to go back to his house today,” she said. “This is what you tell him. Tell him: ‘The boat has shipped.’ No—tell him: ‘The ship has sailed.’ That’s it. The ship has sailed. You know, it’s good news. Deliver it like good news and he’ll be happy. Let’s keep him happy, okay?”
    She gave Raymond another three hundred dollars and left him standing there in his room.
    When he was a teenager in Santa Rosa, Raymond’s mother had lost her job at a restaurant. The manager accused herof stealing forty dollars from the till. She didn’t do it—she’d never stolen a cent in her life—but a few things happened after she lost that job. She fell behind on rent, which made her cut back on other spending. It was just Raymond and his mother living alone, then. His father had died of a heart attack when Raymond was two.
    The summer she lost that job, right before his sophomore year, Raymond had a little growth spurt. When school started he felt embarrassed in his too-small clothes, but in the first week he became friends with an acne-faced boy named Couchi Ortiz. Couchi was a stoner, an outcast, but he liked Raymond. It was Couchi who got Raymond into stealing cars. They would go to Marin County and find Toyotas they could unlock with a shaved-down key.