The Corner (25 page)

“There isn’t any phone at this address?” said the juvenile staffer, holding a hand to his forehead. “The monitoring system requires a phone.”

“Uh umm.”

“Can you get a phone at that address?”

“Not ’less you give me the money.”

And so it was back down to the Village for another week, until Fran could arrange to have DeAndre stay with her aunt up above North Avenue. For some strange reason, the woman had a liking for the boy; and stranger still, DeAndre always behaved whenever he was up at her Etting Street rowhouse.

“They gonna let Andre stay on Etting?” asks Tyreeka.

“If I say so …”

Hearing the doubt in Fran’s tone, Tyreeka pouts, but holds her tongue.

“… but I feel like I ought to leave him be. I feel like I should tell them I can’t control him no more.”

Tyreeka stares sullenly out the window.

“He think he so much a man,” says Fran. “He can just stay where he is until his hearing.”

“That could be months,” says Tyreeka.

Fran ignores her, rambling on instead about DeAndre having money still on the street. He had fronted Boo forty vials, for which Boo owed him two hundred dollars.

“He wants me to get his money for him,” says Fran.

“From Boo?”

“Mmm hmm. He needs some things while he in there and I ain’t got what to pay for it with,” Fran explains. “He told me to get the two hundred that Boo owes him.”

Wounded at the thought of spending spring and maybe even summer without DeAndre, Tyreeka says little else for the rest of the trip, but as it turns out, she has no need for worry.

In Fran’s world, you stand with your children against the downtown agencies. DeAndre can’t often be trusted, but the bureaucrats can’t be trusted at all. Three days later, the paperwork is complete and DeAndre returns that morning to the same Baltimore courthouse and the same juvenile master, who informs him that his pretrial release will be violated if he fails to attend Francis M. Woods High School, or if he fails to remain inside his aunt’s house after 3:30 P.M.

“You understand what you have to do?”

DeAndre nods.

“I didn’t hear you.”

“Yes, um … Yessir.”

From the back bench, Fran allows herself a smirk at DeAndre, sitting there with his hands in his lap. No bluster. No defiance. She can’t help savoring the moment. When they leave the courthouse, it’s almost three; her son has only enough time to go by Fayette Street for some clothes before he has to be indoors on Etting Street.

“I got to get with Boo,” he tells Fran.

“You ain’t got time today.”

“He got my money.”

Fran shrugs. If Boo owes him money, she assures her son, then it’s up to DeAndre to collect. When she tried to press Boo, he only gave her a few dollars, insisting he didn’t owe any more than that.

“Me and him gonna talk,” says DeAndre with some bitterness.

Fran shrugs again. “That’s ’tween you two. But you best get your ass up to your aunt’s house before you get violated.”

DeAndre arrives at Etting Street before the first monitored call and stays indoors that evening. The next morning, he shows up at school on time, but slips out after his third period to run the streets. He checks Ramsay and Stricker, then all along McHenry, then at the basketball rim in the Lemmon Street alley. No sign of Boo. DeAndre is convinced: The nigger is ducking him.

He’s up early the next morning, scouring the side streets from
McHenry to the expressway, trying to pick up the scent of lost money. The day is warmer than most, and DeAndre moves among clusters of kids walking with their schoolbooks, the older ones off to Southwestern or Francis Woods, the younger ones drifting north toward Harlem Park Middle School.

Out near the bus stop on Fayette, DeAndre strikes gold. He pulls up the hoody on his sweatshirt and begins racing down a side alley at a knot of kids on the corner.

R.C., Tyreeka, Manny Man, and Boo all turn to look at the figure running right at them, but with his hood up, DeAndre is almost on them before there’s a glint of recognition.

“It’s Andre,” says Manny, finally.

“Hey, wassup?” says DeAndre, coming to a fast stop. Immediately, he’s in Boo’s face. “Where’s my money?”

“I gave it to your mother,” Boo insists. “I swear.”

“I want my money,” says DeAndre, giving off his best glare.

Boo looks around for help. Tyreeka shakes her head; she told Boo to hold the money for DeAndre, to keep Miss Fran from running any kind of game. Now Boo’s got two choices: flat-out accuse DeAndre’s mother of stealing from him, or pay the debt twice.

“I gave …”

DeAndre rears up with a quick combination, lefts and rights coming in practiced sequence. Boo collapses on the pavement, stunned by the punches. His anger quickly spent, DeAndre refrains from a full-tilt stomping.

Boo gets up slowly, embarrassed and hurt.

“Come on,” DeAndre tells him, turning his head slightly and extending his chin. “Take a shot.”

Boo looks at him strangely. He can’t put it together fast enough and he’s wary of a trap.

“I don’t want to do that,” says Boo.

Manny Man and R.C. are smiling now. Tyreeka, too. This is DeAndre on stage, at his corner best.

“Go ’head,” he says, insistent. “I put your ass on the ground. I feel sorry for you. Take a shot.”

Boo shrugs, then cranks up and launches a right hook. His blow lands solidly against DeAndre’s left cheek, snapping it back for just a moment. Boo freezes in the follow-through, scared, still trying to see where this is going.

DeAndre doesn’t even bother to feel his jaw. He laughs, and for a moment, Boo smiles back nervously.

“You sorry,” DeAndre tells him.

R.C. and Manny Man fall out in a wild fit of laughter. Tyreeka is in love all over again.

“Boo, you a sorry nigger!” R.C. shouts, doubling over.

Boo smiles stupidly, hoping the beef is settled. But DeAndre is once again staring at him coldly, the laughter gone.

“Every time I see you,” he assures him. “You gon’ get beat until I get my money.”

Boo seems convinced. The next day he finds DeAndre at the rec center and calls him outside. At the edge of the Vincent Street alley, he offers up thirty dollars.

“That’s all I got right now.”

DeAndre takes the money.

“I’ll have some more later in the week.”

DeAndre nods. In this world, thirty in the hand is worth twice that in money owed. And besides, DeAndre reasons, the threat of a daily ass-whipping can only carry so far with the likes of Boo, who gets points for being a C.M.B. member. That’s the trouble with subcontracting to friends: When the money or the package gets messed up, there’s a limit to your response unless you genuinely want to do violence to the people you hang with. With a stranger, it might play differently.

Not only that, but there’s now a small voice arguing for caution inside the head of DeAndre McCullough. It’s not like him to listen, but Boys Village got his attention. If he wants to be on the street for his sixteenth summer, he’s going to have to slow things down. The drug charge on Fairmount leaves him with three pending cases. True, the car case was bullshit; DeAndre wasn’t even in the car when they gave him the charge. And true again, the first coke case was hovering at the edge of dismissal because the arresting officer, a white police named Weiner, got himself killed a few months back. But DeAndre figures he has to worry about general appearances. A juvenile master might see all the docket numbers, conclude he was a crime wave in the making, and bang him hard for the Fairmount arrest.

For the same reason, DeAndre has decided to take seriously the pretrial release conditions, showing up every day at school and then getting back uptown to his aunt’s house by half past three. Fairmount
Avenue is still there for him, of course; he left that corner wide open and there is money to be made. But another charge now might cost him the summer.

For three weeks after his release from Boys Village, DeAndre is at the high school when the morning roll is taken. True, he often ducks out of the last class periods to run the streets a bit. True, he does a minimum of classwork and no homework at all. True, his class participation consists of putting his head on his desk and imitating a cadaver. Even so, three weeks of present-and-accounted-for is remarkable for DeAndre McCullough. Rose Davis is impressed and tells him so. A few months like this and DeAndre could make the tenth grade.

In the evenings, he has Tyreeka over to his aunt’s house whenever possible. Other nights, he brings Tae or R.C. up to Etting Street to watch movies or play Nintendo. Beyond that, he’s trapped inside with his young cousins, waiting for that juvenile hearing notice and figuring that if he can pretend to be a changed person for two months at most, he’ll be back on the street.

Having dealt with Boo, there’s just one other bit of unfinished business for DeAndre. He’s heard the talk about Tyreeka and Tae. Tae, it turns out, wants to try for Tyreeka and, while sharing a hack up to Etting Street one day after school, he broaches the subject to DeAndre.

He likes Tyreeka, Tae admits, but he won’t make a move unless DeAndre agrees. “So,” he concludes, “what you think?”

DeAndre shrugs. He could say no, but that probably wouldn’t stop Tae, especially with DeAndre stuck up on Etting Street every night. And, DeAndre reasons, if he says no and is ignored, he’ll look vulnerable. On the other hand, it could be something of a test for Tyreeka. See how loyal his girl really is.

“I’m saying take your best shot,” says DeAndre.

Tae nods and they shake on it.

“But do it now,” DeAndre adds. “Because I’m gonna want her back by summer. The girl stood by me and shit. I mean, she stood with me when I was down and I’m gonna want her back.”

Tae nods in agreement. Fair is fair.

“He’s back,” says Fat Curt, caning away.

“Damn,” says Pimp. “I ain’t even had the chance to get lonely for the man.”

Curt laughs softly, and the two old friends beat feet toward the mouth
of Vine Street. Grizzled and worn, Scalio is waiting there, a look of growing discomfort on his face.

“You seen him?” he asks Curt.

But there isn’t a spare moment in which to answer. Just then, the man himself comes cruising around from Lexington, grimacing behind the wheel. Scalio sags at the sight.

“Shit,” he says, falling in behind Curt and Pimp, “they gave him the wagon.”

At Fayette and Monroe, there is no sight more unwelcome than that of Officer Robert Brown, back from his vacation, laying hands upon the sinners and working the silver bracelets hard. He leads this afternoon’s blitzkrieg from the driver’s seat of the Western District jail van. Bob Brown and his lockup-on-wheels.

“What day is it?” asks Bread.

“Today Tuesday,” says Eggy Daddy.

“Zebra Day,” says Bread, with finality.

The others nod in agreement. Zebra Day is the blanket corner explanation for anything involving drug enforcement in West Baltimore. If it carries cuffs and a nightstick and hits you hard, it’s got something to do with Zebra Day.

“Where he at?”

“Gone down Fulton and round the block.”

“Aw shit. Bob Brown comin’ through.”

The patrolman grabs a tout down at Gilmor, then wheels up to Lexington and rolls the wrong way around the corner at Fulton Avenue, coming up on the Spider Bag crew, where he grabs one of the lookouts. Then down to Fayette again and up the hill to Monroe, where he takes off a white boy trying to cop outside the grocery. Then down to Payson and back up Lexington to Monroe, where he grabs one of Gee’s workhorses.

“Bob Brown collectin’ bodies.”

“Best move indoors.”

Slowly, the corner crews drift off Monroe Street, moving through the back alley between Fayette and Vine, slipping through the minefield of trash and broken furniture until they’re at the rear of 1825 Vine. They can’t help but see Roberta McCullough framed in the rear kitchen window. Though most manage to avoid eye contact, some of the older heads try to be neighborly.

“G’mornin’,” says Bread, waving.

And Miss Roberta, unsure, simply returns the wave.

That the shooting gallery has moved from Blue’s to the rowhouse adjacent to the McCulloughs is no surprise; since Linda Taylor caught the Bug and died in January, ownership of 1825 had settled on Annie, her daughter. Already on probation from one drug charge, Annie was doing little more than waking up every morning and chasing the blast until she fell into bed at night.

And make no mistake: Rita and her patients caught a real break when Annie decided to open her house to them in the dead of winter. After all, there was no heat or running water in Blue’s, and since Blue had been locked up, the fiends had stripped out all that was left of the furniture and most of the windows. By contrast, Annie would open the kitchen oven for warmth that could be felt throughout most of the first floor. And while Rita worked the candles and cookers at the kitchen table, the front room served as the lounge, with the regulars stacked up on what was left of an L-shaped sofa arrangement, all modular and maroon and looking like it belonged in the lobby of a Ramada Inn.

For the McCulloughs next door, the decline and fall of 1825 represented more than the daily irritation of nonstop drug traffic; that much was a given with crews already slinging at either end of Vine. For W.M. and Miss Roberta, a shooting gallery next door meant living with the possibility that they would wake up at three in the morning to the smell of smoke and find their Vine Street home and a half-dozen others ablaze. The McCulloughs could watch the foot traffic and imagine dozens of addicts stumbling in and out of that worn, wood-floor kitchen next door, dropping matches and knocking over candles. Any night now, Annie’s crew might burn half the street out of doors.

The McCulloughs could call the police, of course; Miss Roberta had thought about that. But then again, she had seen how many times the police had run through Blue’s and boarded up the place, only to have the fiends pull off the plywood and start over again. And what if Annie and her houseguests found out that the McCulloughs had called in on them, or even mistakenly believed that the McCulloughs had done so? If the police did come, it could mean more trouble than help. No, there was nothing to do but watch solemnly from the kitchen window, hoping against hope that Annie might pull herself together and tell the circus to move on.