The Old Neighborhood (39 page)

“Is dat Stud right dere?” Rose said as she looked at a loose group of dealers standing along a black steel fence. Stud was her pet name for any dude she liked. The big guy with the blue Nike sweatband around his shaved head fit the profile.

“Is dat Stud?” She double parked on the narrow one-way. “Samson,” she shouted. The big guy stepped away from the fence towards us.

“Samson,” she said as he walked up grinning widely. He leaned his forearms on her door ledge. “My brotha say he like your beats.”

“What up, big man,” Samson said, then smirked and reached his large hand into the cab towards me.

“What up,” I answered, gripping his immense paw, finding it soft and limp.

A wiry, light-skinned dude eyed us from the sidewalk. He had a dark-blue bandana cribbed on head. The two knotted nubs of the bandana made it look like he hid two horns beneath it. Then, he slowly stepped up behind Samson clutching an aluminum ball bat with a black rubber grip. He peered into the car at Rose with his big lips pouted in an almost perfect circle, and his eyes bugged out—the veins pulsed in them as they trembled in their sockets. He wore a fingerless, black and blue nylon batting glove that rumpled as he squeezed the grip of the short bat. His eyes gleamed with all the menace and suspicion of grade A security.

He slowly stalked around the rear end. I kept him in my periphery as long as I could, until he passed behind me. It felt like he was winding a tight cord around my chest.

“So what'chall up to?” Samson asked.

“Nothin', just got him his birthday present,” Rose answered.

“It's yo birfday?”

“Yeah,” I said, nodding.

“He smoke bud?” Samson asked Rose, nodding toward me.

“You smoke right, Joseph?” She put the loving inflection onto
‘
Joseph,' which was the direct opposite of how Ma used it and always made me grin.

I nodded, and suddenly the security passed slowly beside my cracked-open window. He was menacingly close, like a polar bear passing beside the thick underwater glass at the Lincoln Park Zoo—nothing to keep it from breaking through and eating you whole.

“Here,” Samson said, tossing a walnut-sized ball of tinfoil in my lap.

“Dat's hydro, boy. Gone have yo ass zig-zaggin',” he laughed.

“Why she bringin' dat white mafucka here?” the security asked Samson in a vicious tone. Then, he turned his glower back at me—almost recognizing, almost ignited into action. My urge to leave compounded the pressure of the wires tightening around my torso. He palmed the thick end of the bat that was smudged with brownish-purple spots. The fingers of his naked hand were marred with white scars like teeth marks—like he'd been attacked by a pit bull, or maybe he was the pit bull in the North Side bareknuckle circuit.

I'd never been in the presence of such absolute malice—so cold it was as if he could snatch the life from all three of us in a second, no hesitation.

Later that day, while we toked that very 'dro that sat in my lap, Ryan would tell me his name: D-Ray, the shooter for the Juneway Garden GDs. He'd already been away twice on 'deeds' when he was just a kid, and now at 18-and-a-half, he was head security and prime shooter for the set. The bodies were stacking up. The scars on his knuckles were from fights in juvie, where he'd spent nearly his entire teen years.

As we pulled away, D-Ray snorted loud and disgusted. He must've smelled it on me is all I could figure—the adrenaline, the fear.

We rolled down to Howard, and the wires slowly eased in my shoulders and neck. The realization that my blood, or worse, could have been so easily spilt there on the street seeped into me. It came first as exhilaration, then as rage, and later as sadness that Rose hung out there enough to have a dealer like Samson know her name. He was probably dating her, who the hell knows. I thought of all that was lying in wait for her there in the Jungle.

“Rose, those are some bad people…” I started.

“Samson? Naw, he a football player just like you.”

I wanted to lash out at her, scream,
‘
Stay away from there! That motherfucker is a stone-cold killer!'
But what the fuck ground did I have to stand on? Mickey was just as bad as any of 'em—worse than most, probably.

I slid my hand down my jersey. The newness of it blazed bright green.

“Thanks for the jersey, Rose. Thanks a lot.”

“No problem, little brother. You know I love you, right?”

“I know… I love you, too.”

•

I'D BEEN LOVESICK ALL WEEK
after the dance. I kept having dreams of Hyacinth on the edge of a dance floor of some gymnasium with the hardwood floor shining below her black heels. She was standing there all alone. The whole room filled with people dancing and laughing as she stood there silently, waiting, looking at her feet. Then, she looked up and tears slid down her round cheeks, her eyes all bloodshot. I tried as hard as I could to rush to her, but all the bodies swayed in front of me, blocking me and holding me back.

I'd written her a letter in pencil on a spiral notebook page—the crinkles all spiky and hopelessly undone. I folded it up tight and wrote
‘
HYACINTH' on it in capital letters. I snuck out of the house and walked it over. There was no one out. This cool electric pang pulsed in my heart and leapt into my throat. I picked up a dark-pebbled hunk of concrete from a crack in the sidewalk across the street from her house and went to her window ledge. I placed the letter there, quickly and silently, then tapped her window and hurried away. I went home and finally slept with some semblance of peace.

Dear Hyacinth,

I know you don't want to talk to me and I understand. I've been trying to figure out how to say I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I know it'll never be the way it was. But I still love you the same way that I always did, ever since before I ever kissed you. Before I ever even thought about kissing you, I loved you. Even when you liked other boys, for me, in my head, you were still my girl. I even got in that fight with Angel when he first moved to the neighborhood because I thought you liked him.

I don't even like Gabby 'cause she's dumb and she ain't even pretty. You're the smartest girl I ever knew and not just book smart, you're smart like street smart but more like people smart, you understand things about people and you have compassion for people you don't even know. That was always the thing that made me love you. It's not just that you're the prettiest girl I ever seen, in the whole neighborhood, in the whole city even.

And even if you don't want me back, I'm grateful for all the time I got to be with you, all the time I got to be your guy. I love you and I'm sorry.

Love, Joe

EARLY THAT NEXT MORNING,
I woke to pebbles plunked against my window. Then, a clatter as the pebbles tumbled down the roof of my porch and rattled in the white tin gutters. I got up groggy and looked out. The sun'd risen and painted the houses and brick buildings across the street in a reddish-gold glow. The last of the leaves descended from the tree out front, and there she was down on the walkway near the street. She wore a red coat and her Good Council uniform—the blue skirt with the red and yellow plaid pattern and the knee-high white socks. A pink plastic band held her hair back from her face, and she pressed her books to her chest. She looked down the street and waved a finger to her mother, I guess. 'Wait,' she mouthed. I cranked open my window, and she pulled my folded up letter from her books. She waved it at me and smiled. Her eyes were wet and bright—amber in the sunrise. The light just struck her face as it eased above the buildings, and then she mouthed 'I love you, too.'

“I love you,” I said quietly, shocked, and then she ran off toward her end of the street happily. Her shoes clacked on the sidewalk, and I watched her as far as I could until she disappeared into the profile of the block. All I could do then was listen until her clicking feet stopped. A car door opened and shut, then the engine sluggishly motored away. I sat back down on my bed in a stupor, not sure if what had just happened was a dream or not, or if I'd gone crazy. Then, a slow laughter billowed up from my chest, and I thought of her riding to school with her mom. I saw her smiling in the morning light as I got up and into the shower.

CHAPTER 26

WORMHOLE

I REMEMBER ONE DAY
at the beach near Montrose Harbor, all of us there. I was very young and played in the sand. Dad was off to the side drinking bottles of High Life with my uncle John. I was building sand castles with Jan'n'Rose. I remember digging my feet deep into the sand until my toes found the damp cool. My father back-lit by the falling sun. The sweating beer bottles glowed like light amber orbs in their hands.

There were a few big square-jawed guys throwing a football around, playing tackle. They kicked up tufts of sand and laughed wildly. Then, the ball toppled close to us harmlessly. Sudden, sharp words flared up indistinguishable. The bottles vanished, and one of the square-jaws loomed over my father with his heavy chest heaving. My father's chin jutted long and narrow, and it pointed up at the square-jaw's thorax as he spoke through clenched teeth. The square-jaw's face reddened abruptly. He reached out for my father's collar. My father sprang back and slapped at the larger man's hand; the gesture was at once effeminate and cowardly. Dad turned and stepped away fast. The square-jaw's chest swelled, and he stepped hard after him. My father stopped abruptly and stooped low, like to pick something out of the sand. Suddenly, Dad's whole body lurched upward like a bull placing his horns in the picador's horse. His left arm was straight as a coil-rod. His feet burrowed in the sand. Every bit of the square-jaw's being collapsed inward. My father drove the fist deeper into the base of the man's jaw like the setting of a spear through vitals. The man collapsed on his backside and lay flat atop the sun-sheened sand. His torso heaved slowly. A deep bass hum rumbled through his nostrils. I remember my father peering down at him while grinding something in his molars, examining the man for signs of life. My dad and uncle swept us up and rushed to the van as the other square-jaws huddled about their man.

A perfect silence on the ride home.

•

THIS IS AN EXAMPLE OF WHY,
no matter how big you are, you should never go to somebody's house looking for a fight. It was a school night, around eleven o
'
clock. I lay in bed. I could still hear my parents' TV blaring down the hall. As I started to feel myself drift and fall off to sleep, I heard Rosie's voice raging, “Oh, I know you didn't come up here like THAT! TO MY HOUSE, FOOL?!”

A deep voice grumbled something about, “Where is it, Rose?” I tried to drift back toward sleep. Then, I heard a slap and a scuffle, shoes scraping over pavement.

Rose's voice rippled a vicious “Nooo!” like the hiss of an alley cat. I shot up and looked out the window. My sister wrestled with some large dark figure on the sidewalk out in front of the house. It looked like a grizzly was mauling her. I leapt from bed and rumbled down the stairs. Jan saw me near the front door. “What are you doing?” she shouted from the living room couch.

“Rosie's fighting!” I sprinted out the door. The guy's tall frame squeezed between Ma's maroon van and the car parked in front of it. Rose grasped at his t-shirt sleeve. They both disappeared into the street. I heard Rose say, “You fucked up now! My brotha's out here!” I followed and squeezed through the narrow space. When I got to the street, they'd stopped. I couldn't figure out what she meant by that, because from the looks of it, I was giving up somewhere around 60 pounds and five years to this guy. Then, I realized it was Samson.

I was standing there in the middle of the street, naked except for the thin wool boxers I'd gone to bed in. Samson lurked a few feet away. His Adam's apple flexed, his skin was pitch-black. The streetlight gleamed off his forehead, which loomed high above his wide shoulders. He stared bug-eyed at Rose beside me. Rose's long, frizzy hair splayed out like it'd been caught in a wind surge from a hurricane. Her torso heaved as she glared straight back at him. My heart pattered. I grasped at Rose's arm with both hands
.

“Come on, Rose, let's get in the house,” I said in a weak voice. She tore her arm from my grasp, and she stepped directly to him with two long strides. Samson stood his ground—rigid, and leaning back slightly. His chin tilted upward, almost prideful.

Suddenly, her open palm was outstretched at her side, swinging elastic, stretching out longer than it should have. It sang through the air. There was a clapping collision as her palm struck the base of his jaw. The crack echoed through the narrow one-way street from Hermitage to Ashland. His neck stiffened as his six-foot-plus frame gained a couple inches in height. He rocked backward slightly, and then suddenly, his knees jerked violently. He stumbled as his high-tops shuffled along the patched and bumpy blacktop for balance. I couldn't fucking believe my eyes.
She buckled that giant motherfucker's knees with a SLAP!

I clutched her around the wrist and pulled her toward me as Samson found his footing. “Ah, your brother ain't doin' shit,” he mumbled. He cocked his massive, bony fist and leaned into a right cross that slammed into Rose's eye, solid, sending her arms reaching out wildly for balance. She let out a blaring scream—not of pain, but of an animalistic, seething wrath. It's those kinds of moments that show exactly who you are, reveal your bones, naked to all, and more importantly, to yourself.

I leapt at him. He stepped backward with his chin raised, smiling. I swung a quick, straight punch that just nicked his collar bone. He circled to the side, then pivoted and swung again with the right. I tossed my torso backward seeing that massive fist closing in like the grill of a semi-truck, slowed down. With my last bit of balance, I torqued my head to the side. The wind from his thick fist, then his full arm, gusted past. He'd followed through, hoping, I guess, to dislodge my head from my shoulders.