The Old Neighborhood (26 page)

“Anything to drink?” He asked, looking down at me.

“Naw, just water.”

I looked up at him; he was a pudgy Dago in his 30's with a black unibrow.

“You alright, buddy?” he asked.

“What?”

“You're breathing kinda hard.”

“Yeah, I'm cool.”

“Alright.” As he walked away he muttered, “What the fuck are those niggers doing out front?”

A Mexican busboy brought me some water and bread, then paused and stared out the front window.

I was surrounded. No way to get a hold of anyone to help me. If they came in, I knew I could stab the first one, maybe slip out in all the chaos of the blow-up. The bus boys'd probably jump in, maybe the waiter.

I had 40 bucks in my pocket, and when the waiter returned, I ordered linguine in clam sauce with some fried calamari as an appetizer. Figured that'd kill some time—make the fuckers wait if they're gonna get me. As the waiter walked away with my order, T-Money stepped through the door by himself. I slid out of the booth, stood, and showed him the blade. He grinned at it. Then, he slid into the booth and nodded for me to sit. I sat, reluctantly. He put his elbows on the table and smiled at me.

“Come on out, Joe. Tank want a word wit' you.”

“You motherfuckers're gonna jump me.”

“Naw, we ain't. With what Tank finna do to you, we won't need to jump you.”

“Fuck that.”

“Come out and get what you got comin',” he said as he stood. “Come out, or we comin' in.” He walked out of the restaurant.

The waiter walked up after T-Money was gone.

“If those niggers out there are giving you a hard time, we could help you, kid.”

“Naw, I'm fine. Thanks.”

I tried to eat some of the bread. It was stale, and my hands were shaking real bad. What if they came in? I thought about running to the bathroom and locking the door behind me, but the cowardice of that made my eyes tear with disgust. Maybe he's right. Maybe I should just go out there and fight 'em. Fuck, cut 'em all up.

A dishwasher with a round, shaved head rolled his cart past my booth. “We'll fuck up them negritos wichu, homes,” he whispered, then he flashed the crown.

“They're Stones,” I said.

“Moe-Moes,” he said, shrugging and walking away, “I don't like Moes anyways.”

I started to relax a little—grateful for the camaraderie from these perfect strangers. They didn't have to do that.

Matter of fact, we would have been closer with the Kings, but they didn't like Angel. Called him a weto 'cause he was half-white, but it was still nice to know they had our backs.

I ate my meal very slowly, feeling them out there at the door and in the alley. It was so good that I kept forgetting my situation, then suddenly, I'd snap back to attention and arch up to see out the front window and catch one of them slipping past, snarling into their reflection in the glass. I waited for it, devising new plans—seeing the busboys, cooks, and the dishwasher pouring out from the back with rolling pins, frying pans, and butcher knives in hand, all grateful for a break in the monotony. Then, T-Money's face shifting as he made his new calculations. I wouldn't even need the knife then. We'd whomp these motherfuckers up and toss 'em out on the sidewalk.

I started to laugh. The tremble in my hands eased, and I stayed at Calo's for a very long time. I left a ten buck tip, and the Busboy walked out front with me. We looked up and down Clark as it quieted. Across the street, two cute girls walked down the sidewalk holding hands. Kinda funny to think how the TJO's, Stones, Kings, and Spanish Cobras were all warring for power, but it'd end up that lesbians would take over the neighborhood. It was about 11 by then. I'd been inside a couple hours.

“What is you, a TJO?” the busboy asked.

“Nothing. My brother's a TJO,” I answered.

“I work here every night of the week, man, OK?”

“Thanks, man.” We shook, and he stepped inside.

I took a deep breath and jogged it home, watching the shadows for movement.

•

THINGS WERE GOOD.
The potheads were coming from miles around. Even some of the stoners from Gordon were making the trip just to get another taste of them fat sacks of Red Hair we'd been scattering out like birdseed.

We were keeping it cool, but Angel kept sneaking off to toke on his plastic cigarette imitation one-hitter that he'd bought off Rich. He'd come back all red-eyed and giggling. He wasn't skimpin'—he was throwing his money down just like any of 'em. It just made him talk more, and that kept the night moving, rumbling with laughter and that melody of words between people.

“Hey, man,” Ryan said as he slid off his sill. “I got to run over to my place real quick and grab dem last few bags.”

“I'll go with ya,” I said, hopping up. “Alright, Angel, we'll be right back.”

“Alright, but if I get kidnapped by some Latin Queens and held for ransom while they try to make me one of their own, it'll be on your guys' conscience.”

“Hey, by the time we get back, this motherfucker'll be in mascara,” I remarked to Ryan with a smile.

We stepped into the alley tunnel. The fog sifted up from the vents in the sidewalk like there was a fire smoldering beneath the concrete. I glanced back and saw Angel fumbling in his front pants pocket for the one-hit kit.

When we got to the Dead-End-Docks, it was vacant, like an evacuation zone before a disaster. The silence hummed. It wasn't 'til we rounded the lot that I saw them—Monteff and Tank—standing at the mouth of the side alley right where it touched Paulina. It was like they'd seen us coming and were just waiting for us. I was glad I'd came. Glad it wasn't Ryan alone.

We stopped on the sidewalk with only the width of the lot between us. Ryan's goofy grin beamed, and he jutted his thick chin upward as he rocked on his toes.

“What up?” Ryan said. The nervous joy squealed through his throat.

“Shit,” Monteff replied, flashing teeth. “Well, my boy here want a word wit' your boy about some'n went down a few weeks back wit' lil BB.”

Tank's wide forehead flexed and sent two lines shooting across its width. My heart squeaked in my ears, and it was like one of them dentist's suction tubes instantly slurped all the saliva outta my mouth.

“So it's one-on-one, den?” Ryan asked. Then, he scanned his head to see all the spots they could be lurking: the dark-green dumpster in the corner of the alley; the beat-up, white-paneled van across the street; the warped, paint-peeled corner of Ryan's garage.

“One-on-one,” Monteff said, dropping his chin to his throat and glancing down at the tips of his red and black Filas.

“Think I need help to whoop dis bitch?” Tank said, trudging out into the street near the dead end wall. One streetlamp hovered above like a spotlight on the worn, gray and purple blacktop. Its surface rumpled like a thin film of sizzling grease.

Tank hefted his shirt up over his head and flopped it on the ground. His torso heaved. The whites of his eyes beamed starkly against his black skin, and the hulking blocks of muscle at his shoulders and chest levitated over his narrow waist like helium balloons.

It felt like someone tied a rope around my waist and was dragging me out toward the street. The grass felt like mush under the soles of my Pumas. I figured I could make a show of it boxing. I'd run, punch, then run again. I figured he'd be slow with all that muscle. I figured he couldn't hurt me as bad as the old man did.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

“Steal off dat fool like he stole on your nephew,” Monteff shouted from the curb.

When I got close to Tank, he raised his wide fists to his shoulders. His knuckles were bone gray like the skin was transparent. He bared his teeth in a mid-grimace smile and twisted. A wide punch launched out from his shoulders. I lost it in the darkness as I tried to duck, and it bashed into my ear like a sledgehammer, erupting a screaming siren through my head. I tottered to the side. I could see Tank's face laughing as he hopped backward. The siren faded to a steady, panging bell. I threw a punch from far away that missed by yards. Tank lunged forward, and another punch cracked into my forehead. A pulsing pain filled my cranium. Dark, microscopic circles floated upward in my vision like tiny bubbles. I threw a weak, tentative left into the air. Tank bobbed back. His fists now clasped at his waist. The laughter rose up over the bells.

I heard Ryan's voice moan from the curb: “Come on, Joe!”

I stepped forward and punched again. Tank swung with me and his fist collided with my forehead as I was still mid-swing. I forgot where I was. I felt like I'd just woken up. My legs were like jelly, and my balance drug me backwards.

“Come on, get this shit over wit'! Even I'm embarrassed for him,” Monteff's voice swirled in.

Tank stepped forward. I tried to grab him around the waist. He hip-tossed me. My legs cartwheeled up, parallel with my stomach, and I slammed to the blacktop on my side. A swift pain stabbed my ribs, and I clutched them as he swung his leg over my torso. He hunched over me and peered down. He looked like a faceless black ghost as this foggy orange light emanated around his silhouette. Then, from a standing position, he raised his fist and slammed it down, hard. It crashed it into my jaw. I raised my forearms over my face. He crashed his fists into my head and arms.

Ryan shouted, “That's it, man! That's enough!” as he pushed his forearm into Tank's chest. Monteff wrapped his arms around Tank's from behind and pulled him back.

“Don'tchu fuck with my nephew, you motherfuckin' white boy,” Tank shouted as he and Monteff walked away, laughing.

Ryan helped me up and gave me a disappointed look. “Man, why didn't you even fight back, man?”

“Shit, that motherfucker hits hard,” I said, wobbling, still in a haze.

My head hummed, and I could barely stand on my own. Ryan walked me back to my house. I went up in my room, closed the door, and shut the lights off. I'd realized my chain—my crucifix, the one Lil Pat'd given me—was gone. It must have broken in the fight. I called Ryan, and he went and looked everywhere, but it was nowhere to be found. That was just too much for me to take right then, and after I hung up, I cried for the first time in as long I could remember. I fought to be quiet—I screamed silently, furious with myself.

I'd been a coward.

Maybe I couldn't have beaten Tank. Maybe he was just a better street fighter. A bigger, stronger athlete. But I hadn't even tried—too scared to even go down swingin'. I cried until the anger took over, and this deep upwelling of a cool numbness rose from the base of my skull. It stretched into a tense trembling throughout my whole body—rage pulsed in my chest until I knew I'd rather kill myself than cry another tear, and they stopped then.

I promised myself: never again. I'd never let that shit happen again. Never let the fear of pain keep me from action. Never be a coward. I'd rather die. I figured dyin'd feel a whole lot better than I did right then.

The anger faded, and I continued to grapple with what'd happened. I'd lost a heads-up, mano-a-mano. There was honor in that, or at least that's what I tried to convince myself. But at my foundation, I was innately wrong. Something underneath it was wrong. What I'd done was wrong. This was revenge for jumping in on DeAndre and for punching little ass BB. I realized there was no conviction in the way I'd fought Tank, and it was for just that reason—I was wrong. Hell, I might have even deserved it. Maybe I was punishing myself in the way I fought. That's when I decided to never be in the wrong again in violence—to only fight when I had to and for the right side. To protect and defend. I was sure that I'd fight hard and brave then. Otherwise, there'd be nothing behind me—inside me—and I'd lose every time.

•

MISERABLE AND ASHAMED,
I stayed in the next few days.

I was lumped up pretty bad from the ass whoopin', but the only thing visible was an abrasion along my left temple that dried and flaked off before the weekend came. I thought a lot about what they'd say. Nothing is real until it's been put to words, and the look on Ryan's face that night—the disgusted sneer; the disappointed, droopy-eyed silence—gave him away. Then, there was T-Money and all those motherfuckers. I could hear them talking and laughing in my head—or maybe not. Maybe it was my own mind laughing at what I'd thought I was. People lose fights every day in one way or another. There's lot of losing going on in this world.

•

GRAMMA K HAD ASKED ME OVER
to help clear some crap out of a back room in her basement. It was like a tomb down there. Mainly old shit from when she had her doll making school: cracked porcelain baby faces without eyes; tiny, blond nylon wigs; stubby arms with no torsos, like the remnants of some horrible explosion. There were boxes of it, like cardboard coffins stacked up to the ceiling.

After a few minutes of working, the dust billowed up and was swirling around like a dust demon. Then, I came across this plastic milk crate full of books:
A Brief History of Time
by Stephen Hawking,
Coming of Age in the Milky Way
by Timothy Ferris, and several books on the theory of relativity and the Big Bang. I thumbed through 'em—it was just like physics class, except with more depth. It was like physics class was stuck in our solar system. These books were getting out deeper, further back in time and scope, reaching out in all directions.

Gram came down with her wig off—something she only did when it was just close family around. Her hair was short and thinning and combed back straight. I remembered the first time I saw her like that when I was real little. I was shocked, and, not recognizing my own Gramma, I burst into tears. But now, she just seemed worn out, swaying on her arthritic knees. Her house dress dangled like a curtain around her wide belly, and she gripped a chicken salad sandwich wrapped in a square of paper towel, and a glass of milk. She handed me the cool glass, reached in her dress pocket, and came out with a bottle of aspirin. She shook a pair into my palm. “You could use a little protein, Joe. You're running on fumes,” she said.