How It Went Down (2 page)

Kid spins around, face all stormy. His arms are full. My heart’s pounding. My eyes drop to the gun in his hand. He’s facing me now. I’m bracing myself, thinking,
why’d I have to try and get tough?
Thinking,
I’m about to die
. But it’s not right. I’m looking at his hand. Looking for that deadly glint of metal, but there isn’t anything, and then out of nowhere the kid is falling. He buckles like a hinge and drops. I hear a loud noise, and the sound of glass breaking. Something liquid splashes over my feet. I jump back, but the kid is just down.

“Oh, shit,” someone shouts. “Was that for real?”

“Tariq,” someone says.

“We gotta get the fuck out.” Someone else.

Three different voices.

I hear another sound, unfamiliar and close. A popping, kind of pinging, very loud. By the time I turn, what I see is the back of a white man, hustling away. I see people running, ducking. Hear the jingle of bells on a door.

“What happened?” I say it out loud, to the air. “What just happened?”

JENNICA

We were a little high, me and Noodle both. I regret that now, but there’s nothing doing. We were across the street. I didn’t see the first shot, ’cause we were cozying up on the stoop there like normal, but I saw the second one. Tariq was already on the ground. The guy standing over him put a bullet in him, right there on the sidewalk. Then he jumped in his car and drove off.

Noodle said I was like some kind of hero. The guy drove off, and people were screaming, but Noodle said I just walked right across the street to where Tariq was lying. I don’t remember doing that.

I do remember, I got blood on my hands. From the CPR. I got it on my clothes, too, on everything. I remember being on my knees in this terrible pool and pushing up and down on his chest with my arms locked, like I learned.

We took this class in school last year, about how to save a person’s life. I guess I should have signed up for it again this year. I didn’t know enough. I couldn’t save him.

My eyes got all blurry, and his mouth was all bloody, and I couldn’t bring myself to breathe into it. Maybe that was wrong, but I also remember worrying I might blow blood down his throat. Can that happen? I wanted to ask the ambulance man who took over after me, but I couldn’t manage the words. I still haven’t tried to find out.

I’m not sure I really want to know.

NOODLE

Leave it to Tariq to mess up my afternoon. We were sitting on the stoop, Jennica whispering all sexy in my ear. We were waiting for Brick, but I was about ready to bail on meeting up with the guys and find a quiet place, just the two of us.

Then I heard Tariq’s voice, chirping from all the way across the street. Loudmouthed little punk. I quit kissing on my girl and looked over there. Tariq was talking to Brick, who must’ve come up right about the same time, a couple other guys along with him.

Jennica leaned into my neck, all high and turned on. And I was pissed then, because I should be enjoying it. But there went T, arms full of milk and stuff. It figured—he would be too cheap to pay Rocky five cents for a grocery sack.

He had some nerve, talking shit to Brick after everything that went down last week.

Brick was trying to get T to step up into the Kings for real, instead of dancing around the edges like he had been. I never could figure why he wanted that chicken-shit dabbler as his lieutenant. Neither of them seemed to understand what they were saying when they talked about being number one and number two—that it would make me number three. Plus, Tariq is almost five years younger than me. What, I’m supposed to take a backseat to some punk kid who didn’t even really want in? No way should T step up to outrank me. But Brick was determined about it; I still don’t get why.

Across the street, Tariq had to go and drag the big, light guy into it. Guy looked like a refrigerator, but T was talking smack, as usual. Now things were looking up, I thought. I’d seen Tariq in a fistfight. He didn’t have the skills to go up against a guy that size. Fool. I don’t know what Brick saw in that pile of mess.

The Kings crowded in closer to watch the fight. I craned my neck up, trying to see past their shoulders. If Tariq was about to get his ass beat, I was sure as shit gonna be watching. But my view was blocked, partly by the guys and mostly by the car that stopped in the middle of the street.

White dude jumped out. Hauled ass up onto the curb.

Someone—Sammy, I think—shouted, “He has a gun!”

I leaped up, startling Jennica. The Kings backed out, in a loose circle around Tariq and the big man. The big man threw his hands up.

Tariq turned around, facing the new guy. His voice, typically loud. Annoying. “Mind your own business, cracker.” All his shit falls out of his hands. One arm stretched out in front.

Then the shots. One, two.

I thought:
Damn. That motherfucker’s about to get made.
T’s talking shit one minute, the next he smokes a whitey right in front of Brick? That’d earn him a straight shot to the number two spot. No question.

But it was Tariq who fell. Slow-motion. The Kings peeled off and scattered. White dude scrambled to his car. The gun in his hand was silver. Nine millimeter. His arm, straight down. Finger still on the trigger. Wild eyes.

I threw myself down on top of Jennica. We landed awkwardly against the stairs. Her fingers fluttered against my shirt, around my ribs. “Oh, God,” she murmurs. “Oh, my God.”

I stayed like that—I didn’t know what else that crazy white bastard might do—until the car rumbled off down the street with a squeal of tires.

“Was that for real?” Sammy screamed.

“We gotta get the fuck outta here,” ordered Brick. “Now.”

Jennica pushed me off and ran across the street. “Tariq,” she cried. She planted her hands on his chest and started CPR. Jake came running out of his liquor store, phone up against his ear, shouting too. Halfway down the block, another white guy stood frozen, watching.

Jake’s voice and Jennica’s crying—those were the only sounds on the block. The other Kings were gone. Everyone had gone inside. The rumble of the car faded, became part of the distant background hum.

I followed Jennica across the street. Couldn’t see no choice about it—that’s my girl. Stood on the curb, looked down at T’s flat, leaking body.

He was asking for it
, I told myself.

If that guy Franklin didn’t pop him, someone else was gonna, that’s for damn sure. Kid couldn’t keep his mouth shut for a hot second, less he was stuffing a snack in his face.

Brick must have been tripping: no way was T ever gonna be good enough to replace me. I looked upon his slack cheeks, open eyes, and all I felt was relieved.
Good riddance, Tariq Johnson.

I was there. I saw the whole thing. Fucker had it coming.

BRICK

You can’t fault a brother for getting heated. Tariq be talking shit to me, like usual, coming down the street. That little punk. I taught him everything he knows, then he up and flaked out on me, talking about college and turning his back on his homies.

I shepherded that son. From the time he was little, I saw he had this energy, this flow. He coulda run this street with me, if he put his mind to it. But no.

So, yeah. When he come down the street, talking shit, hell yeah. I started hassling him back. He was saying shit about my moms. I don’t let nobody say shit about my moms. So I start talking about his moms. I see the carton of milk in his hand and I say something about how he shouldn’t have to go to the store so often, ’cause he got a cow at home.

That’s when he starts kicking his leg out at me. I dodge him easy, and start laughing, sure he’s gonna blow a whole gasket and start losing all the shit he just bought all over the sidewalk so he can come and get me.

I was howling. Tariq be dancing all over, trying to kick me. He goes, “Imma come back. Imma come back in five minutes and Imma lay you out.”

I just go, “
Wooooooo
.” All the guys howl behind me, like backup singers.

Some big ass punk, a pale-looking brother, steps out of a store and grabs up Tariq outta nowhere. We all thought he must have some real bad bone to pick, thought Tariq’s ass was about to get whooped into tomorrow, so we crowded around to watch. We was still howling. Tariq and he start tussling.

“Shit, he’s got a gun,” Sammy says. He’s looking over my shoulder, toward the street.

I don’t know when Tariq pulled the gun. Next thing I know, big guy’s backing off of him, all freaked out. “Don’t shoot.”

Tariq’s still got all the shit in his arms, and he’s holding out a gun at the light-skinned punk, blackest motherfucking gun I ever saw. “Back the fuck off. I’ll put a hole in you, cracker,” he says.

For a second there, I got real proud of Tariq. I thought,
Fuck college, my boy’s coming home to the street
. For a second there, I got real proud.

TOM ARLEN

I had agreed to loan Jack Franklin my car for a few days while his was in the shop. He came down to pick it up, round four in the afternoon. We got to talking. The weather was good, out there on my back porch, so we cracked a few beers and got to drinking. Couple carefree guys, living the good life. That’s what I was thinking.

So I walked Jack outside, showed him the car and all, handed over the keys. We shook hands. He said, “Thanks, you’re a lifesaver.”

I said, “No problem. Just bring her back to me in one piece.”

I watched him pull out of the parallel spot all right. I wasn’t too worried about the car, I was just ragging on him for old times’ sake. Jack and I go way back. I walked to the corner, waving after him. He didn’t get far.

Middle of the next block, he pulled over. I walked that way to catch up, thinking maybe there was a problem with the car.

Then I realized, it wasn’t the car. There was a whole fracas going on up the block. Bunch of gang members, surrounding a white guy. Threatening him, jostling him around in the circle. He was a huge guy, the whitey, but he looked scared shitless. The gang kids called out names at him. Taunting. Chains dangled at their waists, knife sheaths poked out of their baggy pockets. Gave me the shivers.

I stopped at the corner, scared to go any closer. I never had any problems in the neighborhood from the color of my skin. I keep my head down, go about my business. Most of the people are nice. I steer clear of the gang kids, but so does everyone else.

I didn’t like what I was seeing, though. Jack stood up, my car door open. “Hey,” he yelled over at the group. “You let him alone.”

Jack’s a braver man than I am. He walked around the car. I saw him raise up his arm, I thought, he’s gonna go right in there, try to break it up. I held my breath, thinking they were gonna fold him right in, start hassling him.

Instead, they parted. The big white guy stepped backward, out of the circle, holding his hands up like he was under arrest.

Jack moved forward, arm raised. “Let him alone,” he said again.

“Mind your own business, cracker,” said this scrawny slip of a kid, from the center of things. He came forward. His arm was raised, too. The gun in his hand … Gun!

“Jack!” I called. “Look out!” I didn’t know if he could hear me, but I was scared to go any closer.

Pop-pop.
The kid staggered forward, fell. The other gang boys scattered. Jack spun in a slow circle. His arm was still raised—he had a gun too. The big white guy turned toward Jack, looking grateful.

I shook my head. Jack Franklin. Keeping the peace. We were just talking about it, on my porch. About how everything on the streets is going to shit, because good citizens are too afraid to stand up.

Look at me, for example. Stuck on the corner, watching it all go down. Unable to do anything about it.

The gang kids started moving back in. Sirens wailed in the background. Jack jumped in the car, drove off.
That’s my car
, I thought.
That’s my car
. Jack’s a braver man than I am, but he drove away in my car.

EDWIN “ROCKY” FRY

Tariq forgot his change, is all. I stepped out in the street to try and catch him. I meant to do the right thing, get the kid his money back. It was a dollar seventy three.

He’d bought a half-gallon of milk, a big pour jar of salsa, two rolls of toilet paper, and a Snickers bar. Paid me with a ten.

I stepped out on the street, with the money in my hand. Tried to wave at him. Called out for him to come back. “Tariq!” One of his friends heard me and turned, so I yelled to him, “Hey, stop T, would you?”

I didn’t see who started the fighting. They were all gathered around, like they do sometimes, whooping and hollering. I lost sight of Tariq in the middle of it. I went back inside, because I don’t want any trouble. I don’t want to see anything. Don’t want to have to answer questions later.

I put Tariq’s change in an envelope. Wrote his name on it. I knew he’d be back in about five minutes. His mother would know exactly how much change she was supposed to get, and she’d send him down after it. I’d keep it for her. I try to be a good neighbor like that. I don’t want any trouble.

I hear the shots. I hear the screaming and the shouting and the sound of the car squealing away from the curb.

I didn’t know it was Tariq. Not till later. Even if I knew, I wouldn’t have gone out there. I don’t want any trouble.

His mother never came down for the change. Not surprising, really. It was a dollar seventy three. One round dollar, two quarters, two dimes, and three pennies. I still got those coins.

SAMMY

Tariq was my friend. I ain’t gonna tell nobody what I seen.

I try to figure out how T would want it to be known, but it ain’t that easy.

Brick and them got all puffed up and proud, thinking T was armed and ready to waste Jack Franklin. T woulda liked them thinking that.

Except it’s not just them who seen it. And no one else was supposed to know how T was coming up in the Kings. T ain’t want his momma to find out, or his sister, or even Tyrell. That was his deal with Brick, for the time being. They was fighting about it just the other day.