Rage Is Back (9781101606179) by Adam Mansbach

facts don’t correlate
    Grab your shit and fuckin’ bounce
    Before we go upside your head
    to change your mindstate
    When I find snakes
    there’s no mistake
    I’ll see you at the wake
    I peeped the moves you made
    Plus I know the girl you date
    She told me everything . . .
    That’s how I know you fake
    When Reggie came home, the three of us were waiting in the living room: Knowledge Born on the couch, a baseball bat stashed beneath him, Twenty-Twenty leaning on a metal cane he’d found in the back of the hall closet, and your boy tucked well out of the way, over by the fire escape.
    Sit down
, Twenty-Twenty said, as scripted
. We need to talk.
    Reggie parked himself on the futon.
What’s up, fellas?
    I called Verizon
, Twenty-Twenty said, hand on his hip.
There’s no such thing as a reinstatement fee. You owe me sixty bucks
.
    It wasn’t a reinstatement fee, dude, it was the money we owed on the bill, plus they said they had to charge us for basic service in advance because we didn’t pay
. Reggie looked around the room, then raised his voice a little, slapped his palms against his knees and bowed his arms out from his sides.
What, you think I tried to rip you off?
    My heart was bucking, and if Reggie had so much as made eye contact I might have jumped out the fucking window, but it was interesting to see how fast he played the wounded-indignation card. I could see why it had been effective in the past, with people like Sue: it forced your hand, flushed any inner doubt up to the surface. And at the same time, there was a current of intimidation running below it, like
even a righteous man will rise up to defend his honor, and lest you forget I happen to be a large bearlike motherfucker.
    The plan was to pick Reggie apart point by point, get him to cop to the small offenses before they raised the major stuff, but that opening statement killed Twenty-Twenty’s patience. He dipped into his room while Reggie was trying to clarify the phone situation, came back with a stack of papers.
    Call Verizon right now, man. Ask them if we—
    Twenty-Twenty flicked the latest overdue notice into Reggie’s lap.
    You know what? Fuck the phone bill. Why are we eight thousand dollars in debt?
    I gotta give Reggie credit. His face fell, but he picked it right back up and tried to turn the tables
.
    What the fuck were you doing in my room?
he demanded, rising a few inches off the couch.
    Knowledge Born sprang to his feet, bat in hand
. We about to get evicted! You better tell us something!
    I can explain!
Reggie yelled, finally starting to appreciate the situation.
    Explain, then
, from Twenty-Twenty. Reggie sputtered for a second, just long enough to not explain, and then Knowledge Born hit him in the shoulder with an aluminum Louisville Slugger left over from some departed dynasty king’s softball league of yore. Reggie doubled over, and Twenty-Twenty brought the cane down on his back.
    They both backed off, and Knowledge Born yelled,
Why we getting evicted?
and Reggie, still doubled over, said
Fuck you, when’s the last time you even paid rent?
and got hit again.
    I’ll give them this: they kept it civilized. Two on one, with weapons, you could easily kill a man. Nobody hit him in the head except once, accidentally, ten minutes in, after countless starts and stops and fruitless demands. Reggie was punch-drunk and leaning back against a wall while Knowledge Born shouted the same questions and swung the bat in the air to keep him at bay. For some reason, Reggie walked into the swing, and got clipped in the forehead. His eyes rolled back and he buckled at the knees, but even then, the dude never went down.
    He never admitted anything either, except lying about that watercolor. Twenty-Twenty threw it at his feet during a lull,
Who painted this shit?
and he looked up, groggy-eyed from being beaten, and said Chynetta’s name.
    Getting him out of the apartment was harder than it