Fic: Between Heaven and Here
Hmm . . . this is a pretty little comm that's never been posted to . . .
There doesn't seem to be much of a community for Wire creative works, but, hey, there's a first time for everything, right? I've written a Wire fanfiction--an afterlife piece involving Wallace and Bodie--and if anyone's still lurking, some feedback would be wonderful.
Title: Between Heaven and Here
Word Count: 1,800
Rating: T for language. This piece is gen.
Characters: Bodie and Wallace
Author's Note: Readers will note my gansta spelling of a certain word. There are a few words integral to the Wire experience that I, as a white kid from Maryland, don't feel comfortable saying, even in the context of dialogue between fictional characters. So, this is compromise. No offense is intended.
Bodie lifted a scrap of plastic shaped like a horse. He twirled it idly for a moment before putting it back on the board and sliding it one space, diagonally. “This shit ain’t right.”
Wally glanced up and shrugged. “What? You winning, ain’t you?”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.”
The other boy leaned back in his chair, throwing his coat open in exasperation. “Then what?”
Bodie rubbed his jaw. “I dead, right? That’s what you keep saying?”
“You dead.”
“And I know for a fact that you are one dead-ass nigga.”
“Uh huh. So?”
“So?” He flung his arms open to indicate their surroundings; a blank white room with no doors, furnished only by the metal chairs they sat in and the chess board between them. “So, if you dead, then where’s the all the little winged white chicks waiting to fly your orphan ass outa here? Where’s the little dudes with pitchforks looking to lock me up?”
Wally ran a hand over his face. This was an old debate. “I told you, man, it ain’t like that.”
“The hell it ain’t.” Bodie gnawed on a knuckle. “I tell you, though, it is one sorry-ass state of affairs when even dead, a couple of niggas can’t come ‘cross a decent checkers set.”
Wally’s lip twitched. “Come on, it’s not all bad.”
“Fuck it ain’t.”
“Folk come by sometimes; you know, other boys that got got. And we got that.” He pointed to the room’s one unused feature: a large window made of the same plate glass seen in downtown storefronts. No landscape was visible through the glass; instead it glowed and crackled like an out of focus television. Bodie spat derisively, a thick stream of spit that vanished an instant before touching the luminescent floor. Wally rolled his eyes. “Man, why you always bashin’ the window when you ain’t never tried it?”
“That’s bullshit.”
“I told you; you look through that window, you can see anybody that ain’t been got yet. Wherever they are, whatever they doing, you can watch them.” Wally stared at the board for a moment. “I used to use it a lot,” he admitted quietly, “when I first got here. I’d just stand there and watch you and Poot banging in the pit . . . on the corners . . .”
He trailed off under Bodie’s critical eye. “You messed up, boy.”
Wallace hugged his arms tightly around himself. In his oversized coat, he looked like a little boy playing in his father’s closet. Then, much to the other’s dismay, he looked at Bodie. He stared at his lost friend with big, Bambi eyes and that hurt look that Bodie knew so well; the look that says how-can-you-do-this-to-me. “Just try it, Bodie. One time.”
Bodie groaned internally. Saying “no” to those eyes was a hell of a lot tougher than saying “fuck Marlo Stanfield” on a crowded street. “What the fuck. One time.”
Wally all but bounced to his feet. “It’s real easy, yo,” he explained as he led the way to the glowing screen, “All you gotta do is stare at the snow-looking stuff and think about the guy you wanta see. Go on, try it.”
Bodie hung back, suddenly apprehensive. “Nah, that’s okay. You the one that knows how to work it.”
The boy shrugged and turned to the screen. After a moment, the white and gray flecks glowed brighter, then faded into a slightly fuzzy image. Bodie took a step closer, curious in spite of himself. “Who that?”
“Who it look like? That’s Poot?”
“Serious? What the fuck is he wearing?”
“I dunno. Looks kinda like those uniforms referees wear. You know, for football and shit.”
“Poot ain’t no referee. So, what’s he . . .” Bodie let out a hoot of laughter. “Shoes, nigga!”
“What?”
“Look at him, he’s selling shoes! Probably got a gig at one of them little downtown store fronts or something. Look, that’s a cash register.”
“A cash register?” Wally’s voice was skeptical. “You sure he ain’t jacking it up?”
“Nah, look at him.”
“Well, fuck!”
“Got that right! Damn, Wally, if only his pussy could see him now.”
“Oh, he’s probably still gettin’ more than he needs.”
“In those threads?”
“You work at a place like that, they give you a discount. Poot probably goes home every night with a new set of heels for his girl.”
“He is one domesticated motherfucker!”
“Guess he’s out of the game.”
“Yeah.”
“So, he ain’t coming, then.”
“Coming where?”
“Here.”
The laughter faded from Bodie’s face. After a moment, he turned and stuffed his hands in the pockets of his hoodie. He wished the ground below him were a bit more real. He needed a rock, a bottle, something that he could kick just to watch it clatter away. But, the glowing white floor was as smooth as the tile at Boy’s Village, so he just kept walking.
Wally fell into step beside him. “Wait up! You ain’t hardly looked.”
Bodie spat. “Ain’t nobody I want to see.” Wallace ducked his head like a kicked puppy. Bodie sighed. “Look, let’s just play some more. It’s your turn.” The kid sat down and drew one leg up to his chest. As he studied the pieces, Bodie studied him. “So, you used to watch us, huh?”
Wally nodded without taking his eyes off the board. He moved one of the short pieces one space diagonally. “Sometimes D would come by too. He liked the flowers you got him. That shit was tight.”
Bodie’s brow furrowed. He picked up one of the tower-like pieces and moved it two spaces, claiming the little piece Wally had just moved. “Just stop it, alright?”
Wally finally glanced up. “Stop what?”
“Tryin’ to make me feel better. Just cut it out, okay?”
“Bodie, I ain’t makin’ this shit up! And why the hell would I want you to feel better?”
Now it was Bodie’s turn to look away. “’Cause you ain’t here.” He said it quietly, but Wallace heard.
“What you mean?”
Bodie propped his elbows on his knees. “Face facts, nigga; you dead.”
“Yeah.”
“And you been dead.”
“Yeah.”
“And you know you dead.”
“What the hell is your point?”
“But, me . . . one second I was on the corner. Marlo’s people were half a block away and ducking for cover.”
“Bodie . . .”
“And then . . . nothing. No bang, no bullet, no bright light at the end of a tunnel. I just close my eyes for a sec and then I’m here with you.”
“I told you how it went down. One of Marlo’s boys came up behind you.”
“What boy?”
“The fuck should I know? He was a boy with a gun.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“Or maybe I’m just messed up. People see weird shit sometimes. I could be imagining this whole thing.”
“You ain’t.”
“Maybe. Or maybe I’m down at some ward in General with a big knock on my head and a tube in my arm.”
“Come on, Bodie . . .”
“Maybe any second now, I’ll wake up. Some cute nurse will be taking my temperature and Carver will be bitching at me for shooting up the street.”
“It’s not like that, Bodie. You know it ain’t.”
“How can you be dead and not know it?” Wallace’s only response was a shrug. “I didn’t hear nothing. Didn’t feel nothing.”
Wally stared at the board. “Marlo’s boys are pros.”
Bodie stared at his hands. “You knew? When it happened, you . . .”
Wallace wrapped one arm around his midsection, as if he still felt the lead in his gut. He tried to keep his voice nonchalant. “We were just kids.” Bodie bit down hard on the edge of his finger. “You never asked.”
“Asked what?”
“If I was snitching.”
Bodie picked up the short piece he’d claimed just a few minutes ago and held it between his thumb and forefinger. With a flick of his finger, he sent it clattering across the floor. “No, I didn’t.” Wallace’s only response was to move another piece. Bodie ran a hand over his skull. “So, if I’m really dead, where is everybody? I mean, sounds like you’ve had a whole class reunion up in here, but I ain’t seen nobody but you.”
Wallace shrugged. “Maybe I’m the only one you want to see.” Bodie just stared. A moment later, Wally leaned back, kicked his big feet out in front of him, and folded his hands behind his head. “I’ll tell you one thing, though; if you don’t make a move pretty soon, I’m gonna split. You’re getting to be one boring-ass nigga.”
“Yeah, whatever.” Bodie moved his tallest piece forward, only to lose it to Wally’s horse piece.
“You can use the window whenever, you know.”
“Who am I gonna watch?”
“I dunno, your granny? Ain’t you got no people back there?”
Bodie shrugged. “Not really.” He moved another piece. “One thing, though; I’d like to see that Stanfield boy get got.” Wally took another piece. “That’s probably why you was watching me and Poot.”
Wallace closed his eyes. “Nah, man, it ain’t like that.”
“The fuck do you mean ‘it ain’t like that’? I know what we done.”
“It don’t matter none. The longer you’re here, the less all that shit matters.”
“The less it . . .” Bodie came to his feet. “We’re talking about how you died, nigga! And you saying it don’t matter? The fuck it don’t!”
“I’m just saying . . .”
“And if it don’t matter-if how you died don’t matter, then what the fuck do? And if nothing matters, why’d we play that fucked up game in the first place? Huh? Motherfucker!”
Wallace just stared at Bodie. His big brown eyes suddenly seemed very old. “You ain’t in the hospital, Bodie. You ain’t imagining this. I really am here.”
Bodie just stared at the boy-still a little kid after all these years. Maybe he was telling the truth. Maybe he really was here and the afterlife was nothing more than board games and remembrance. Or maybe, the little bitches with the pitchforks had him. Maybe this was what fire and brimstone looked like-just the big eyes of a little kid who should have grown up, but never would.
He sat down heavily and picked up a piece. It was one of the short dudes-soldiers, D had called them. McNulty had called them something else, but hard as Bodie tried, he couldn’t remember. As he stared at the board, streets and alleyways and cars and vacants dissolved into simple black and white squares. He set the little soldier down and pushed it one space forward. When he saw where it landed, he couldn’t help but smile slightly.
“King me.”
There doesn't seem to be much of a community for Wire creative works, but, hey, there's a first time for everything, right? I've written a Wire fanfiction--an afterlife piece involving Wallace and Bodie--and if anyone's still lurking, some feedback would be wonderful.
Title: Between Heaven and Here
Word Count: 1,800
Rating: T for language. This piece is gen.
Characters: Bodie and Wallace
Author's Note: Readers will note my gansta spelling of a certain word. There are a few words integral to the Wire experience that I, as a white kid from Maryland, don't feel comfortable saying, even in the context of dialogue between fictional characters. So, this is compromise. No offense is intended.
Bodie lifted a scrap of plastic shaped like a horse. He twirled it idly for a moment before putting it back on the board and sliding it one space, diagonally. “This shit ain’t right.”
Wally glanced up and shrugged. “What? You winning, ain’t you?”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.”
The other boy leaned back in his chair, throwing his coat open in exasperation. “Then what?”
Bodie rubbed his jaw. “I dead, right? That’s what you keep saying?”
“You dead.”
“And I know for a fact that you are one dead-ass nigga.”
“Uh huh. So?”
“So?” He flung his arms open to indicate their surroundings; a blank white room with no doors, furnished only by the metal chairs they sat in and the chess board between them. “So, if you dead, then where’s the all the little winged white chicks waiting to fly your orphan ass outa here? Where’s the little dudes with pitchforks looking to lock me up?”
Wally ran a hand over his face. This was an old debate. “I told you, man, it ain’t like that.”
“The hell it ain’t.” Bodie gnawed on a knuckle. “I tell you, though, it is one sorry-ass state of affairs when even dead, a couple of niggas can’t come ‘cross a decent checkers set.”
Wally’s lip twitched. “Come on, it’s not all bad.”
“Fuck it ain’t.”
“Folk come by sometimes; you know, other boys that got got. And we got that.” He pointed to the room’s one unused feature: a large window made of the same plate glass seen in downtown storefronts. No landscape was visible through the glass; instead it glowed and crackled like an out of focus television. Bodie spat derisively, a thick stream of spit that vanished an instant before touching the luminescent floor. Wally rolled his eyes. “Man, why you always bashin’ the window when you ain’t never tried it?”
“That’s bullshit.”
“I told you; you look through that window, you can see anybody that ain’t been got yet. Wherever they are, whatever they doing, you can watch them.” Wally stared at the board for a moment. “I used to use it a lot,” he admitted quietly, “when I first got here. I’d just stand there and watch you and Poot banging in the pit . . . on the corners . . .”
He trailed off under Bodie’s critical eye. “You messed up, boy.”
Wallace hugged his arms tightly around himself. In his oversized coat, he looked like a little boy playing in his father’s closet. Then, much to the other’s dismay, he looked at Bodie. He stared at his lost friend with big, Bambi eyes and that hurt look that Bodie knew so well; the look that says how-can-you-do-this-to-me. “Just try it, Bodie. One time.”
Bodie groaned internally. Saying “no” to those eyes was a hell of a lot tougher than saying “fuck Marlo Stanfield” on a crowded street. “What the fuck. One time.”
Wally all but bounced to his feet. “It’s real easy, yo,” he explained as he led the way to the glowing screen, “All you gotta do is stare at the snow-looking stuff and think about the guy you wanta see. Go on, try it.”
Bodie hung back, suddenly apprehensive. “Nah, that’s okay. You the one that knows how to work it.”
The boy shrugged and turned to the screen. After a moment, the white and gray flecks glowed brighter, then faded into a slightly fuzzy image. Bodie took a step closer, curious in spite of himself. “Who that?”
“Who it look like? That’s Poot?”
“Serious? What the fuck is he wearing?”
“I dunno. Looks kinda like those uniforms referees wear. You know, for football and shit.”
“Poot ain’t no referee. So, what’s he . . .” Bodie let out a hoot of laughter. “Shoes, nigga!”
“What?”
“Look at him, he’s selling shoes! Probably got a gig at one of them little downtown store fronts or something. Look, that’s a cash register.”
“A cash register?” Wally’s voice was skeptical. “You sure he ain’t jacking it up?”
“Nah, look at him.”
“Well, fuck!”
“Got that right! Damn, Wally, if only his pussy could see him now.”
“Oh, he’s probably still gettin’ more than he needs.”
“In those threads?”
“You work at a place like that, they give you a discount. Poot probably goes home every night with a new set of heels for his girl.”
“He is one domesticated motherfucker!”
“Guess he’s out of the game.”
“Yeah.”
“So, he ain’t coming, then.”
“Coming where?”
“Here.”
The laughter faded from Bodie’s face. After a moment, he turned and stuffed his hands in the pockets of his hoodie. He wished the ground below him were a bit more real. He needed a rock, a bottle, something that he could kick just to watch it clatter away. But, the glowing white floor was as smooth as the tile at Boy’s Village, so he just kept walking.
Wally fell into step beside him. “Wait up! You ain’t hardly looked.”
Bodie spat. “Ain’t nobody I want to see.” Wallace ducked his head like a kicked puppy. Bodie sighed. “Look, let’s just play some more. It’s your turn.” The kid sat down and drew one leg up to his chest. As he studied the pieces, Bodie studied him. “So, you used to watch us, huh?”
Wally nodded without taking his eyes off the board. He moved one of the short pieces one space diagonally. “Sometimes D would come by too. He liked the flowers you got him. That shit was tight.”
Bodie’s brow furrowed. He picked up one of the tower-like pieces and moved it two spaces, claiming the little piece Wally had just moved. “Just stop it, alright?”
Wally finally glanced up. “Stop what?”
“Tryin’ to make me feel better. Just cut it out, okay?”
“Bodie, I ain’t makin’ this shit up! And why the hell would I want you to feel better?”
Now it was Bodie’s turn to look away. “’Cause you ain’t here.” He said it quietly, but Wallace heard.
“What you mean?”
Bodie propped his elbows on his knees. “Face facts, nigga; you dead.”
“Yeah.”
“And you been dead.”
“Yeah.”
“And you know you dead.”
“What the hell is your point?”
“But, me . . . one second I was on the corner. Marlo’s people were half a block away and ducking for cover.”
“Bodie . . .”
“And then . . . nothing. No bang, no bullet, no bright light at the end of a tunnel. I just close my eyes for a sec and then I’m here with you.”
“I told you how it went down. One of Marlo’s boys came up behind you.”
“What boy?”
“The fuck should I know? He was a boy with a gun.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“Or maybe I’m just messed up. People see weird shit sometimes. I could be imagining this whole thing.”
“You ain’t.”
“Maybe. Or maybe I’m down at some ward in General with a big knock on my head and a tube in my arm.”
“Come on, Bodie . . .”
“Maybe any second now, I’ll wake up. Some cute nurse will be taking my temperature and Carver will be bitching at me for shooting up the street.”
“It’s not like that, Bodie. You know it ain’t.”
“How can you be dead and not know it?” Wallace’s only response was a shrug. “I didn’t hear nothing. Didn’t feel nothing.”
Wally stared at the board. “Marlo’s boys are pros.”
Bodie stared at his hands. “You knew? When it happened, you . . .”
Wallace wrapped one arm around his midsection, as if he still felt the lead in his gut. He tried to keep his voice nonchalant. “We were just kids.” Bodie bit down hard on the edge of his finger. “You never asked.”
“Asked what?”
“If I was snitching.”
Bodie picked up the short piece he’d claimed just a few minutes ago and held it between his thumb and forefinger. With a flick of his finger, he sent it clattering across the floor. “No, I didn’t.” Wallace’s only response was to move another piece. Bodie ran a hand over his skull. “So, if I’m really dead, where is everybody? I mean, sounds like you’ve had a whole class reunion up in here, but I ain’t seen nobody but you.”
Wallace shrugged. “Maybe I’m the only one you want to see.” Bodie just stared. A moment later, Wally leaned back, kicked his big feet out in front of him, and folded his hands behind his head. “I’ll tell you one thing, though; if you don’t make a move pretty soon, I’m gonna split. You’re getting to be one boring-ass nigga.”
“Yeah, whatever.” Bodie moved his tallest piece forward, only to lose it to Wally’s horse piece.
“You can use the window whenever, you know.”
“Who am I gonna watch?”
“I dunno, your granny? Ain’t you got no people back there?”
Bodie shrugged. “Not really.” He moved another piece. “One thing, though; I’d like to see that Stanfield boy get got.” Wally took another piece. “That’s probably why you was watching me and Poot.”
Wallace closed his eyes. “Nah, man, it ain’t like that.”
“The fuck do you mean ‘it ain’t like that’? I know what we done.”
“It don’t matter none. The longer you’re here, the less all that shit matters.”
“The less it . . .” Bodie came to his feet. “We’re talking about how you died, nigga! And you saying it don’t matter? The fuck it don’t!”
“I’m just saying . . .”
“And if it don’t matter-if how you died don’t matter, then what the fuck do? And if nothing matters, why’d we play that fucked up game in the first place? Huh? Motherfucker!”
Wallace just stared at Bodie. His big brown eyes suddenly seemed very old. “You ain’t in the hospital, Bodie. You ain’t imagining this. I really am here.”
Bodie just stared at the boy-still a little kid after all these years. Maybe he was telling the truth. Maybe he really was here and the afterlife was nothing more than board games and remembrance. Or maybe, the little bitches with the pitchforks had him. Maybe this was what fire and brimstone looked like-just the big eyes of a little kid who should have grown up, but never would.
He sat down heavily and picked up a piece. It was one of the short dudes-soldiers, D had called them. McNulty had called them something else, but hard as Bodie tried, he couldn’t remember. As he stared at the board, streets and alleyways and cars and vacants dissolved into simple black and white squares. He set the little soldier down and pushed it one space forward. When he saw where it landed, he couldn’t help but smile slightly.
“King me.”