The Conflict Algorithm, Chapter 4
Chickie’s backyard was a strange mix. The salsa-reggaeton-mumble-rap was playing, the cooler full of Coronas was perpetually full. Half the guys looked like thugs. The other half looked like they lifted heavy things every day. The kids were running around crazy, in and out of the house, playing xbox and periodically putting on a half-hearted crazy dance performances.
Sara and Leo sat next to each other on mismatched white plastic outdoor chairs. Talking wasn’t really an option over the booming music. Chickie’s friend, DJ Incognito, was handling the mix on an incongruously professional sound system setup.
“Oooh, I love this song.” Sara said. It was a sensual salsa tune.
Leo waited to respond, words failing and a silly grin plastered on his face. Was she asking him to dance?
Sara popped up after a moment and was swept up by a man Leo hadn’t even noticed.
Her face was serious throughout the dance. Leo felt strange watching them, but couldn’t help himself. He had the strange feeling of living in a movie. This whole scene was pretty far out from his typical social life, a non-existent one. He took a chug of his corona.
Sara spun and swayed, toe step, hip, and there, a smile, a clue that she was surprised by the man’s lead. The whole dance looked so choreographed and smooth, it was hard to believe it was being improvised on the spot, that the two hadn’t danced together before.
Leo started to feel a bit uncomfortable, sitting there alone. Actually, he felt stupid. Why would she bring him here? Why was he here at all?
He was definitely ready to leave. He’d wait until she finished and then tell her.
DJ Incognito smoothly mixed this song into the next, and Sara stayed on the dance floor. This one was a slower tune, and Leo watched the man grind his hips into Sara’s and the intimate hand and arm play between the two. It was just too much. His right leg was bouncing up and down involuntarily and his back hurt from the tension of his frozen position.
A woman, in tight white jeans and a flowy top came up to him and extended her hand. “You’re Sara’s friend. I’m Beatrice,” she said.
Leo took her hand and was yanked out of his seat before he realized it. He still had his empty corona bottle in his hand. Beatrice took it out his hand and placed it on the ground.
Leo’s sense of detachment skyrocketed, full-blown surreal disassociation. He could feel the press of the people around him. He could feel the thump of the bass line in his bones, the driving sadness of the clave rhythm, the night seemed to pop open and wrap around him simultaneously.
Beatrice put his hand on her silk-clad hip and held it there with an iron elbow. He felt the warm, soft curve there. He barely had time to process that before her body was up against his, all heat and smell and hair. And then the movement, simple swaying, in time with the music. He opened his eyes, not realizing he’d had them closed, his nose full of Beatrice’s smells and his body zinging with energy. He looked around, only realizing when he saw her that he was looking for Sara.
She was in a slow twirl with her dance partner. It took a few more seconds to catch eyes. She sent him a look of delight. Was she proud of him? Was she enjoying herself that much? Worry crept in and Leo felt his grip on Beatrice loosen. Beatrice responded by vice-gripping him back into place. It was so abrupt that it forced a laugh from Leo.
DJ Incognito switched to reggaeton and Leo thanked Beatrice with an awkward, “Gracias.” He made his way over to Sara, who had distanced herself from her partner with a prelude dance opening.
He saw how it would go. For the first time in his life, he was sure. They would dance, she would love him, they’d be a family, he’d be saved — he’d save her.
The man said gruffly, “What are you doing?”
Leo was startled, “I’m dancing with her.”
The man shoved Leo in the chest, “Get the fuck out of here.”
“Bebo,” Sara said, stepping in the man’s face, “tranquilense.” The man looked over Sara’s shoulder at Leo with hate.
Sara turned to Leo and moved him to the other side of the dance floor. Leo could feel Bebo’s eyes on him. He glanced back to see if he was right.
He was.
Bebo yelled, “You got a problem?”
The other dancers paid attention. A path cleared between them. Leo felt the precursors of conflict, his body gearing up for fight or flight. Mixed in was a sadness at the triteness of the developing situation. Much like the other night with Beth, his faith in his toolkit had been shaken. He was too afraid to say a word.
When Leo was 9 years old, he and his mom lived on a commune in Dutchess County, New York. The white, Pennsylvania German pastor of this separatist religious community had led a pilgrimage from the inner city slums of New York to a 4 acre plot in the woods.
Members were encouraged to sell all they had. The children attended the school on the grounds. Friendships and even contact with outsiders was strictly forbidden.
Many men at the commune, including Leo’s father, often engaged in epic clashes with the pastor. The end result was the men being excommunicated and separated from their families.
The women were undergoing their own difficult lives. Often they were torn between sacrificing their faith or allowing themselves to be used inappropriately by the pastor.
As a 9 year old, none of this really registered with Leo. His life was spent playing with the other kids and avoiding the pastor’s oldest grandchildren. Together, the two boys would gang up against Leo and inflict pain.
Much later in life, Leo realized that the boys had been experts at getting away with abuse. They never hurt him badly enough to cause a mark, or if they did, there was always plausible deniability.
So Scott would hold him while Theo, the oldest, punched him in the stomach. Scott was an avid wrestling fan and had mastered various choke holds. Theo was a self-proclaimed student of the civil war generals and read military strategy books for fun.
Much of Leo’s experience at fighting, or in most cases, appeasement and avoidance, came from battling the two brothers.
There was one particular incident, so typical of childhood that it could feel inconsequential. The kids, all 30 or so of them were playing. There was a poorly paved asphalt basketball court that served as the primary play area. Only one hoop had a makeshift basket, the other hung empty.
The kids were playing a rousing game of tag and Theo was ‘it.’ Young Leo was quick and wily, and took pride in being the last kid not ‘frozen.’ The ultimate honor was to not stay near the basketball pole that served as ‘base.’ Hovering by base was known as babysitting (coincidentally, so was the practice of the tagger waiting by the base).
Leo had become a temporary hero by besting everyone’s shared bully. Theo was getting increasingly frustrated. Leo deftly avoided Theo’s lunge by dipping and twisting while running at top speed. Leo did this silently, with a gigantic hyperventilating grin, not even feeling the urge to taunt Theo, exulting in the sheer joy of winning.
Leo scooted past Theo and headed full out to reach the base so he could catch his breath. Leo felt his foot catch on something, then felt himself airborne in a headfirst dive. His forehead connected with the basketball pole with a resounding ding that unfroze all his other tag players. He lay on the ground, dazed, and Theo stood over him. “Oops.” Theo said.
Leo stopped where he was, and faced Bebo. He felt a strange calm. He looked over at Chickie and glanced at Sara for clues at how to play this. He felt an extraordinary pressure not to back down. He actually wanted a confrontation. Maybe it was having been recently slapped, pushed, fired, and embarrassed in front of kids, but something in him burned hot and angry.
All that showed on his face was calm.
Sara stepped into the middle of the two as they faced off. She put her hand on Bebo’s chest, looking like an animal tamer. She whispered a few conciliatory remarks. Chickie gestured to DJ Trouble to start the music back up.
“You heading out?” Chickie said to Leo.
Still wired, tense shoulders hovering high, Leo grunted out a “yeah” and felt a little like a fake version of a tough-guy. He took a deep breath, still with an eye on Sara and Bebo.
“Thank you for having me.”
“No problem. Come by the dojo tomorrow.”
“I don’t have any money.”
“We’ll work all that out. See you tomorrow.”
For a moment, Leo thought about waiting for Sara, but he dismissed that thought quickly and determinedly wove his way through the full house. He stepped on the curb and listened to the not-so-muted thumping of the music from the backyard.
Life felt like a big question mark and his chest felt full of jangly bits that didn’t play well together.
His phone vibrated. “Urgent proposal — do not ignore” was the subject of an email sent to his private email.
He tapped the notification and read it as he started the walk home.
Apparently, a competitor wanted to bring him in as a consultant for their anti trolling software, a very similar project to the one he’d just gotten fired from. Leo smiled and picked up his step. He whipped out a response, thumbs flying. Life does indeed go on after CUNY.
A block later, his phone vibrated again. They wanted to meet him tomorrow. Clearly he was a hot commodity. He looked up at the warm and starless city sky.
“Maricon!” Someone yelled. Laughter. “Yo, you fucking bitch, I’m talking to you.”
Leo looked over at the late model Benz and saw Bebo leaning out the rear passenger window.
Perhaps feeling a little confident, Leo said, “Listen, have a good night. We ain’t got no beef.”
Bebo popped out the car and stormed between two parked cars to get at Leo. Bebo swung. Leo’s feet moved on their own. He’d only had one beer and his balance was pretty good.
For almost a minute, Leo avoided Bebo, doing the same thing he’d done with Chickie in the circle. Bebo reached wildly for Leo, who pivoted like a pro and tripped him smoothly. Leo didn’t waste time, he hopped on Bebo’s chest, driving his shin bone onto Bebo’s neck.
Leo felt a weird distance from everything. He heard the car door open and at least two sets of footfalls. At least a couple of cars were blocked behind the Benz on the narrow one-way street and had started honking. That meant witnesses. That didn’t necessarily mean safety.
“Listen, there’s no reason for us to be enemies,” Leo whispered into Bebo’s face. The men from the car were closing in.
“Fuck up off me.” Bebo said.
Leo hopped off and considered running. He decided to be gracious and offer Bebo his hand. The rules of the street meant they could probably be okay after a fair one. The two men stood by the curb. The horns were honking. A driver stood partway out of his car. Lights had popped on in the residential homes on the block like xmas decorations.
Bebo ignored Leo’s hand and climbed to his feet slowly. The two men joined him. This was the extremely tenuous portion of the exchange.
“Look, my bad. I didn’t mean no disrespect. If you want to duke it out, I’ll be at Chickie’s dojo tomorrow. But for real, I’m not trying to start nothing.”
They all paused, and Leo knew he couldn’t leave first.
“Come on, Bebo, this ain’t shit,” the driver said.
Leo lifted his hands and smiled in the universal comic gesture for “I’m not a threat.”
Bebo smiled.
The fist hit Leo’s head like a car accident on a CCTV camera. Like, how? His body collapsed and his head hit the brick fencepost of the nearest house. His prone body began twitching of its own volition. Bebo rubbed his fist as the men walked back to the Benz.
