King Cage and the Worth Street Djinni Read online

  The King ran. And ran. And finally found the abandoned Worth Street Station.

  Sure enough, the kid was there, his cellphone propped against a support beam to light the wall. He held the red can to the piece, but his eyes were on the King. The kid must have heard him coming from a block away and waited for him to run up, huffing and puffing, just to see the night’s work ruined.

  “Stop!” the King yelled, pulling himself onto the platform. “Don’t!”

  The kid grinned and turned back to the wall. As if he thought he could do anything worthwhile in the time it took the King to cross the fifty feet between them. The kid thought art was easy. That art was quick. That art was in the act, and not in what remained.

  With one continuous arc, the kid sprayed a big, red infinity mark across the King’s piece. It was broken only in one small segment, suggesting the letters CO.

  Ignacio. Cio. CO.

  The King had to give the kid credit. The long arc was without distortion. Without hesitation. It was a nice symbol. A nice tag.

  But the King’s appreciation didn’t stop him from taking the kid by the sweatshirt and shaking him. The piece was ruined. The djinni would have its escape. And all the King wanted was to lay fist after fist into the kid until he regretted all the blood and sweat and paint he’d wasted.

  “Yo, whatchu’ doin’, puto?”

  The King twisted the kid over his outstretched leg and knocked him to the concrete. The kid landed on his knees and forearms, the red can coming to rest beside the King’s canvas bag.

  “You fucking idiot!” the King yelled. “Do you know what you fucking just did?”

  The kid pushed himself onto his hands, then the King slammed his foot into the kid’s side. He fell over, wailing. The kid’s face twisted so that his buck teeth shone in the low light. Like a fucking rat.

  The King kicked the kid again, knocking him squarely onto his back. He would make the kid pay. It wasn’t enough the King lived on scraps, using all the green he cobbled together to buy the cans it took to save the city. It wasn’t enough he’d forgone every semblance of a normal life. No. On top of everything, he had to deal with shits like this tagging up the only thing worth a damn.

  The King towered over the kid. How tall he must look from the floor. “Do you have any idea—”

  But the King’s sentence was cut short when the kid’s foot shot up between his legs. The King’s body hummed like a receiver for some far out transmission. He grabbed his balls, then fell to his knees.

  “Owned your old ass,” the kid said. Up on his elbows now, he swung his leg at the King’s face, but the King grabbed it. “Yo, get the fuck off!”

  “Fucking shit!” The King twisted, and the kid’s whole body crumpled with an ungodly pivot.

  The kid wailed. He looked like roadkill in the moments after, tangled up and wheezing. His weight was all on his left elbow. But with his right hand, he cuffed the King across the face.

  The King’s teeth scraped against one another so hard his eyes popped. He screamed, and he tasted blood, and he twisted the kid’s leg harder.

  The kid squealed like a mouse in a glue trap. Then he begged.

  “Let go, man! Fucking let go!”

  The King drew forward until he sat atop the kid’s torso, his knees to either side. He growled. “How you think you can own what you ruin, motherfucker?”

  The kid swung. His fist landed against the King’s left cheek, and for a moment the underground turned white.

  “Tha’s what we do, man,” the kid said. “We tag their picket fence. Let them know the world ain’t safe. That they can’t escape, no matter how fast the train go. You think they care you throw up your mark in a minute or an hour? You think anyone cares about your fuckin’ lemons?”

  “Marks?” The King’s voice boomed. “You think we do this for fucking marks?”

  The King punched the kid in the forehead. He felt the swing in his knuckles, then he heard the back of the kid’s head hit against the cement with a thud.

  The kid moaned, and he tried to shake away whatever dizziness had taken him. But the King didn’t give two shits.

  Instead, he slammed his fist down on the kid’s breastplate.

  “Yo!” the kid moaned. “Stop, man!”

  “You want a fucking mark?”

  The King landed his fist against the kid’s ribs, and the kid’s whole body convulsed.

  “Look, man, I didn’t—”

  The King threw his fist down again. “I’ll give you a fucking mark!”

  The kid raised his arms up to block the King’s fists, but the strength had left him. The King grabbed his lanky wrists and pinned them against the cement above his head with one hand. Then he aimed his knuckles against the kid’s chest and slammed them down hard and fast against his boney breastplate. Like a jackhammer.

  “You want a fucking mark? You want a fucking—”

  Punch.

  “I didn’t—”

  Punch.

  “I’m sorry, man, I—”

  Punch.

  “Help! Holy—”

  Punch.

  “Please!”

  Punch.

  “You wanted a motherfucking mark so bad—”

  Punch.

  “I didn’t mean to bust your shit!” the kid yelled. His face was twisted and wet.

  Punch.

  “Please…”

  Punch.

  “I’ll never throw my—”

  Punch.

  The kid gasped and coughed, the snot collecting at the back of his throat. But he couldn’t lift himself up to spit it out, and he couldn’t calm himself down enough to swallow. So he kept on choking, and the King kept punching.

  “What a fucking—”

  Punch.

  “You think you own my—”

  Punch.

  “You’re a motherfucking—”

  “Wait!”

  The King saw in his eyes the kid knew he was going to die right there. Knew that the last thing he’d see was the red face of a full-grown man he never should have messed with.

  But the King raised his fist anyway. Better to finish it. He’d punch a hole right through the kid’s chest. It’s what the djinni would do.

  “I’ll never draw again!” the kid croaked.

  “What?”

  “I’ll never touch another can, I promise,” the kid sobbed. “Never set a pen to paper. I’ll never draw. I’ll never… I…”

  The King released the kid’s wrists and leaned back.

  “Never draw?” Why would the kid barter something like that? Why, unless the kid thought that drawing was something valuable?

  The kid looked up at the King, confused. The King flinched at the sight of him lying there. The kid sighed, realizing he was going to live.

  Then he went right back to sobbing.

  “I didn’t know, man.” The kid brought his hands up to wipe his wet eyes, leaving streaks of subway grease in place of tears. “I didn’t know.”

  The King rolled off the kid’s hips and over to his canvas bag. He felt sick to his stomach, but the cans were all there. Every single one.

  Chapter Seven

  The King pulled masking tape from his bag. Then he picked up the kid’s phone from the subway floor and taped it to a support beam about five feet up. It wasn’t as good as his flashlight, but it’d do.

  The painted djinni’s eyes smoldered red and hot. It was near the surface now, and the King heard its gravelly voice at the back of his mind. Was it even worth trying to finish the piece? It wasn’t any good anyway.

  Just a few feet away, the kid rolled onto one elbow, gagging phlegm up from the back of his throat. He spat at the ground beside him. The sound of the kid’s loogie relieved the King immeasurably. If he could cough like that, the King hadn’t broken anything important.

  “Don’t you got somewhere to be?” the King asked.

  The kid rolled his eyes, snorting down a noseful of wet snot.

  “What the fuck are yo
u still doing here?”

  The kid sat up, wrapping his arms around his knees. “I didn’t know you cared so much about your mark.”

  “It ain’t a fucking mark.” The King could see only the kid’s eyes over his knees. “It’s…”

  The kid raised his eyebrows.

  “Fuck if they care,” the King said. “That ain’t the point.”

  The kid snorted.

  “What’re you laughin’ at?” the King asked.

  “You been throwin’ up since the stone age. You got two documentaries out there. Piss-ants from here to California got posters and T-shirts and baseball caps with your shit. Online cocksuckers write fanfic about your pasty ass. Both my brothers think you’re some kinda god. And you tellin’ me the point ain’t to leave your mark?”

  The King closed his eyes. He couldn’t believe a word of what the kid said. The King would know, wouldn’t he? Even if he didn’t see them day-to-day, he would know if someone cared. He’d feel it. He sure as hell wouldn’t have spent all these years on the precipice of the abyss, would he? Not if there was a even single fucking person out there who thought he was worth a damn…

  “You really don’t know? Or you fuckin’ with me?” the kid asked. “Jesus, man! You have any idea what my brothers woulda said if they saw my tag on your unfinished shit? They’d ‘a given me a motherfuckin’ crown. I woulda had girls. Dro. Shit, whatever I wanted. Maybe get in good with the crew and finally make some buck.”

  The King winced at the way the djinni’s eyes glimmered. The kid’s red mark topped the creature’s cell like a hole in the ozone layer. The piece wasn’t finished. The djinni wasn’t bound. But how the King would love himself a girl. A warm bed. A piece on a wall where it wouldn’t get torn down or white-washed or tagged.

  But, no. That was just the djinni talking through his fragile, fucking ego. Just the djinni tugging him down and turning him around as it worked its way to the surface.

  “I just want my cans.”

  The King grabbed the black can from his bag and one of the cork boards he’d left on the cold cement. He faced the wall and shook the can, but he didn’t spray.

  “You shouldn’t have done it,” he muttered.

  “Done what?” The kid spat blood on the floor beside him. “Jacked your shit or tagged it?”

  “You shouldn’t have told me people know.”

  In the back of the King’s mind, the djinni murmured the secret wishes of his broken, little heart. What was he doing down here in the gutter? He should be up there, makin’ money, takin’ pictures, signin’ autographs.

  The kid licked his broken lip. “Then what’s the point?”

  The King looked at the piece. He needed to get back to work. But the work was different now, or so the gravelly voice whispered. He had an audience, and the audience changed it. Who needed art to communicate? When you had an audience, you could just tell them what you think. And if the djinni hadn’t escaped by now, maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe the piece could wait.

  “It’s art,” the King said. “And the point ain’t to im-press. It’s to ex-press.”

  The King had thought up the line years ago, dreaming of a life very different from his own. He thought for sure it would explain everything, and cleverly. But the kid didn’t seem too im-pressed, and the King didn’t feel like he’d ex-pressed anything at all, now that he’d finally said the words out loud.

  “Look,” the King said. “It’s Cio, right?”

  The kid smirked. It was a good tag.

  “Well, Cio. It’s like this.” The King couldn’t allow his surface mind to speak. It had to come from down deep. From the part he only ever saw when he wasn’t looking. The part that decided on lemons and wine glasses. The part that made magic.

  “Sometimes I get these feelings. Weird feelings, you know? Nothin’ you could name. Just a knot of pictures and sounds and shit. Dreamlike. Nothin’ that makes any sense.”

  The King paused, and he knew from that moment on, he couldn’t turn his eyes from the kid. He couldn’t bear the idea that when he looked away, the kid would drop his thoughtful facade and laugh. Look at the old fool who thinks I actually give a damn. Look at the old fraud ramble.

  “The feelings, they’re like chains,” the King said. “Chains through time. Sometimes years between. Sometimes hours. But with every link, it’s a little bigger. That thing on the other end. A little nearer. A little more impossible to ignore.”

  The kid smiled, and the King stopped.

  “Crazy, ain’t I?”

  “No,” the kid said. “I get it.”

  The King breathed deep. His heart raced.

  “They’re always painful,” he said. “The feelings. Like cuts or bruises or burns. Sometimes, they’re like an ocean full of tears. Like a heart split down the middle. Like two lungs thick with paint. Like acid rain. Sometimes, it’s just me angry at myself, you know? But it’s always the pain that lets me know it’s time.”

  The King swallowed. He was barely breathing now, and he felt that if he could just get the words out, everything would be okay. The kid was important. The kid knew art was important. If the King said the right thing, maybe the kid could be something. Get his art on a wall somewhere nice.

  “I follow the pain,” the King said. “First through memories. Then through stories I read as a kid. Through magazines and shit. I follow it all over the goddamn city. I follow it until it takes me where I’m needed. Where the pain is ready to come through. By then I’m quaking, and I see it there with its snarling face. And I know it’s my job to capture it. Because if I don’t, I’m the one to blame for whoever gets hurt.”

  Finally, the King had to turn away. He’d pummeled the kid to within an inch of his life, and he sure as hell was to blame for that.

  “Sometimes, I’m no good.” The King shook his head, his eyes tracing the grooves of the cement floor. “Sometimes, the moment passes, and I stop feeling. Maybe I changed too much in the doing. Maybe I’m too stupid to keep it in my head. Or maybe I’m just a selfish bastard that can’t live with that pain long enough to finish.”

  The King wiped his brow and waited, his eyes fixed at the base of a support beam. But the kid didn’t say a thing. His eyes were again on the piece. The piece he’d marred.

  “Hey, KC?” The kid’s eyes were wide. His voice shook. “What happens when you don’t lock it down in time? You know, what happens when the pain gets through?”

  The King didn’t have to turn to see what the kid saw then. The thick, red smoke seeping through the paint and coagulating with venomous intent. The sunken eyes. The harsh jaw. The hard, black nails at the tips of its fingers. The sheen of its luminous, red skin pulled tight over virulent, impenetrable muscle.

  The King had waited too long, and now he was going to pay the price.

  “Run!” the King yelled, though the kid could do no better than hobble. The King had made sure of that. He’d beaten the kid to a pulp. And for what? The djinni was free.

  The King lunged for the ground, grabbing both the black and red cans. The others were in the bag. Then he turned his eyes back to the wall, where his piece was blocked in part by a crimson red djinni.

  The air smelled of cardamom. It crackled around the edges of the spirit like fireworks seen from miles away.

  The djinni ran forward with both fists out. The King felt the impact against either side of his chest like two shotgun blasts. Then he was in the air, flying from the platform and onto the tracks.

  Chapter Eight

  The King’s head landed across the second rail, the hard edges of the track’s base wedged between his ribs. He raised his head slowly, his fists still wrapped tightly around the cans. The King was sore from ass to skull, and though he hadn’t broken anything, the night was still young.

  The djinni grimaced from the platform above. Its fire-lit eyes bulged beneath wiry, black eyebrows. The corners of its mouth pulled at the edges like the mark across the King’s own heart, scowling and grinning at once with thick, p
ointed teeth. Its red skin deepened at the apex of its muscular chest, thighs, and calves, and it paled in the cuts between. The djinni flexed its beefy claws, the muscles of its arms pulsing like hot, summer air.

  The King was on the verge of pissing himself, but he was not about to give up. An artist never retires. Not really. Not even this close to the end.

  The djinni leaped from the platform, and the King rolled to his feet, doing his best to put some distance between himself and the Red. The creature landed behind him with a thud.

  The King turned, shaking his cans. He hoped it sounded like a rattlesnake to the djinni, though he feared it sounded more like a death rattle.

  “Show me what you got, you son-of-a-shit.”

  The djinni laughed, deep and malevolent. A pool of slimy, subway water sizzled at the edges of its feet. In moments, the puddle evaporated, and the remaining trash caught in a dozen tiny fires.

  The djinni lunged for the King, bridging the space between them in three heartbeats’ time.

  On the first heartbeat, the King raised the cans up, red in his right, black in his left. On the second heartbeat, he pressed his index fingers down. Two thick clouds of paint burst from the cans with the sound of rushing water. By the time the King’s heart beat a third time, the djinni’s hands were at its eyes, each ringed a different color.

  The King stepped aside as the djinni stumbled by. The King rested the cans on the platform and raised his body up against the ledge. He had to get back to the piece fast if there were any hope of binding the spirit back down.

  Then the station became a carnival. The painted walls glowed with such brightness that even the shadows of the support beams had burned away. The King’s eyes watered, seeing decades of his work illuminated as if by the light of the sun. But it wasn’t the sun, of course. It was the djinni.