The Old Neighborhood (13 page)

“Man, fuck the Royals!” Ryan sneered. “They're Folks.”

“You said white Stone Greaser gangs,” I replied, looking at him confused.

“Yeah, but fuck the Royals. My old man got shot by a Royal. I don't wanta ever hear anybody talkin' bout Royals around me.”

“Man, that's stupid,” Angel whined, flashing teeth. “What about the Kansas City Royals? What, we can't talk about them?”

“Yeah, fuck Bo Jackson. That bitch is a Royal!” I spat. Angel and I giggled.

“Fuck you,” Ryan snarled. “You know what I mean.” His face reddened, and his eyebrows trembled.

We let that simmer as we sat on the ledges in wait of something. The yellow streetlights cast dark shadows in the depths of the deep-cut sills like empty bank vaults. Traffic was thick and fast on Ashland, and low heavy metal oozed out of Sy's window across the street. Mike Thompson slouched against the wall beside us. He'd turned into a 13-year-old pothead well on his way to becoming a burn-out. His stuck-up ass mom must have been so proud. He wore these weird pants that were really big and had no shape or taper at the ankle, and the legs looked like two fat, brown sewer pipes. Ryan and I passed a smoke back and forth from adjacent sills. Iron Maiden's rambling clicked off across the street, and a few seconds later, Sy pattered down his front stairs in white gym shoes, jungle-camo pants, and a graying Metallica t-shirt. He strolled across to us. His ragged, dirty-blond hair mopped along his shoulders.

“Thought you said ya never was gonna smoke?” Sy said, grimacing, then he rushed me.

I leapt and dashed away. He swooped up quick. I stopped and cowered against the hospital wall and folded my arms over my head feebly. Sy smacked me, but my hand and wrist deflected it.

“I'm gonna do this every time I catch ya wit' a cigarette,” he said, turning away. I unfurled my guard. He suddenly spun back, crouched, and slammed his fist into my thigh. The deep boom sent a chorus of “Ohhhhh!” out of everyone in earshot, then they settled into an uneasy laughter.

“Damn, Sy!” I said, hopping around on one leg. It felt like a heart pulsing there mid-thigh.

I limped to my ledge and sat back down. Grimacing, I kneaded the deep knot. Ryan tried to pass me the cigarette as he smirked up at Sy.

“No. Fuck no. I seen the light! I quit!” I said.

Sy grinned and slid his thin fingers through my hair, then snatched the cigarette from Ryan and took my pull.

“Aye, Sy, where'd you get that pot from?” Mike Thompson asked, whipping his hair out of his face. “That shit blew my fuckin' mind!”

“Don't worry about where I got it. Just remember where you got it.” Sy patted his chest right on the empty electric chair with the lightning shooting through it.

An ambulance swung into the ER tunnel with its lights swirling, but no siren. A few of us walked over to see. The paramedics rolled an old lady out on a stretcher. She was unconscious, sucking air through some plastic tubes that ran into her nostrils. A green oxygen tank lay beside her on the sheets.

“Dmm Dmm Dmm, Dm Da Dmm, Dm Da Dmm.” Angel hummed the Darth Vader theme as she eased past us. “Pshh, Luke… I am your grandmother,” he bellowed. We roared and loped out of the tunnel.

Sy sat in a sill smoking the cigarette he nicked off Ryan and I. He glanced at me disappointedly as we approached, silencing my laughter.

“You guys oughta stop doing that shit,” he said, squelching his smoke on the concrete shelf beside him. “What if that was your Gramma? Huh?” He glared at me, his brown eyes somber. I looked away and thought about Da, who was only dead a couple years by then. “What if it was one 'a your parents? Hell, what if it was one 'a you? What if it was me for Christ's sake? You think I'd want to hear you little knuckleheads wisecracking about what happened to me?”

“Naw,” I said looking down. My throat tightened. “You're right.”

Sy had a way of seeing things—a way of putting 'em to words, too. He was a songwriter, but he coulda been a poet, coulda been a lot of things. There's been a few times in my life where people have told me things out of the blue, or in the midst of doing heavy drugs and drinking. They'd just come out of the fog for a second of clarity and give me something, like a going away present, but backwards. Like they were giving me something while they still had the time, like they knew it was coming and soon. Like a premonition. Like they were telling me exactly what I needed to know before they were gone forever.

“Check this out,” Ryan said, nodding down the street.

Four hoods rounded the corner at Ashland. One was a Puerto Rican with a fat head and a cheesy smile. Gold flickered in his ear lobe. There were two other thinner Puerto Ricans, too. One wore a Sox cap, and the other had crazy zigzag graphics cut into the sides of his trimmed, black hair. The last one was a skinny little black dude. His big white t-shirt hung off his narrow frame like a blanket and drooped over his baggy black sweatpants. He had a small head, and his eyes were big and wide open like he was on the absolute edge of committing total mayhem. If I'd a seen a similar guy today, I'd have instantly recognized him as a shooter for whatever gang he ran with. In other words, the go-to-guy when it was time to pop someone. But right then, I just thought he was crazy. Such a little guy, Sy coulda whooped his ass easy. This dangly dude looked like he was ready to whoop any man on the planet, but with the heat he probably had stuffed in his pocket, or snug in his waistband, he coulda.

“What up, Heffey?” Sy said as he walked up and greeted them with handshakes.

“What's up, Simon,” the fat one said, grinning and sticking his chest out. His belly swelled against his red Scottie Pippen jersey.

The one with the hat pulled on his brim and asked, “We gonna handle this?”

“Yeah,” Sy said. “Just step into my office.” He led them across the street toward his place.

“Ay, can I play this on that stereo 'a yours? I just want to see what it sound like?” The one with the zigzag graphics pinched the corner of this clear mix-tape and brandished it.

I stared at the black kid.
Who the fuck's he think he is?
They made their way up the steps, and when he reached the top, the black kid stopped, turned, and shot me a glance. His eyes were yellow and hollow like a black cat. No trace of emotion in his face. No trace of life—like some kinda monster. They filed inside, and a few minutes later, hip hop blasted from Sy's open window like a sin.

•

IN THE STREET,
if you can't protect yourself, eventually you will be exposed and victimized. It didn't take long for them PG3s to show their true colors. A couple days later, Angel, Ryan, and me we were out there at the sills as usual. The air was cool and dank. The streetlight above the sills flickered with a tick, like one of those bug zappers. Its audible, electric pulse expanded down to the sidewalk. I wondered how it worked. The sun was a ball of fire, but how did we make light bulbs work? Was there fire in there, too? Maybe it was just electricity, and maybe that's what the sun was: just a big ball of electricity.

Sy sat in a sill with his feet on the ledge, hugging his knees to his chest. His hair flopped down, masking his face. He was silent, so we were silent with him. We even ran off some little kids that were making a racket. Rich and a few metal-heads came up from the corner store gripping glass liter bottles in brown paper bags; it was amazing how easy it was for teens to buy booze in the neighborhood back then. Then, I recognized this tall black one with a spiked mohawk—the guy from Fautches that the skinheads stabbed.

“I remember you,” the black guy said in a weird, almost British accent similar to the Ethiopians along Broadway and Granville.

“I remember when you got stabbed,” I said.

“This,” he pulled his shirt up and revealed a three-inch scar on his stomach, “was nothing.” He smiled. “If you only knew how much pussy a scar like this could get you, kid….”

Rich burst out laughing, then sauntered over to Sy.

“What's da matter witchu, fucker?” Rich said, smirking down at Sy. “You look like somebody died.”

Sy raised his head, and his hair spliced back and revealed this terrible grimace strung across his burly mug.

“Those fuckin' gangbangers broke in while I was at work. They stole my stereo and part of my stash.” Sy spit; it arced out and splattered foamy-white on the concrete.

“Ahh shit!” Rich squealed, stupefied.

“Motherfuckers!” the black guy shot back.

“We're gonna get those motherfuckers,” Sy said, flinging out of his sill at Rich. They squared and gazed fiercely in each other's eyes.

“What's a gangbanger?” I asked, looking up at Rich. I'd never heard it said like that. Usually, it was gangster, or by name like a King or a TJO.

“They fuckin' stand on the corner lookin' tough, and then hide behind guns and numbers! They're fuckin' cowards! They're nothing but a bunch of niggers and spicks,” Rich said, shooting his crazed eyes at mine. Spittle sprayed from his lips.

“Quit saying 'nigger,'” I said. I looked at the black guy.

“What? Joseph?” Rich nudged the black guy. “Joseph ain't a nigger, he's Ghanaian. Joseph hates niggers more than me!”

“They're not Africans,” Joseph sneered. “They're slaves with slave mentalities.”

Rich chortled and leaned his face right in close on Sy's. “Let's go up there right now and bust some fuckin' heads.”

“Hell yeah,” Sy bellowed.

“Let's go,” Joseph urged.

“Come on, motherfucker, you scared?” Rich asked, shoving Sy in the chest. They tore off toward Ashland hooting, hollering, and squealing like swine.

I'd have been worried if I'd heard Lil Pat talking that way, but since it was Rich, I just laughed it off. He wasn't known for being all that tough with guys his own age and size.

“Man, you think they're gonna get 'em?” Angel asked.

“Naw, they'll probably get beat up or somethin',” I retorted.

“Yeah, but maybe Sy though,” Ryan added, arching his red eyebrows. “He's pretty mad.”

“Look what I got.” Angel held up a bag. It was small and had green leaves and light-brown stems and a bunch of little, round seeds in it. I scrunched my nose as the pungent aroma struck my nostrils.

“It's weed, man,” Angel said, disappointed.

“How we gonna smoke it?” Ryan asked.

“Man, give me a cigarette,” Angel said.

Ryan pulled out a Marlboro Light from a tattered Camel pack with an assortment of different-colored butts sticking out. Angel took one and sat down. He crumbled the end in his fingers so about half the tobacco poured out on the ledge of concrete beside him, and we blocked the view from the street with our backs. Ryan took the bag of weed and plucked some of the buds out, then he crumbled 'em into a pile of thin dust next to the stringy lump of tobacco. Then, Angel pinched the green dust in his index and thumb, held the cigarette vertically, and sprinkled it into the hollow end. He filled an inch of the cigarette, then squeezed the paper and twisted it tight. He pulled out his lighter and leaned back. Then, he tilted the cigarette upward, lit it, and puffed hard a few times.

The shit smelled nasty as it swirled up in Angel's eyes. He blew out a small, gray cloud in my face, and passed to Ryan, who puffed and coughed instantly. Angel and I laughed and called him a pussy, then Ryan handed it to me. Maybe it was the nerves or something, but I took a sharp, deep pull and exhaled a huge plume of smoke. This damp, sticky, burning sensation snaked down through my windpipe and into my lungs. Once there, it expanded and twisted into my bronchial tubes like tree roots. I remember seeing Angel's and Ryan's eyes swell wide open. Then, I hunched over and retched, trying to expel the hot liquid, but the only thing that came up was a clear line of drool that dangled down to the sidewalk. It felt like there was molten ooze slithering around inside me. Finally, I recovered and stood up straight. It was like someone had socked me a good one. There were stars. Not the cartoon stars, but real stars, like a thousand tiny dots, flickering over everything. I looked at Angel's laughing face, and his mouth morphed into this giant cave. His big teeth were glossy, wet, and bright. Deep inside the cave, his tiny pink flagella danced and flapped back and forth. Suddenly, it grew eyes. I shuddered and looked away. Ryan sucked hard on the cigarette with his face all tied up in a knot, then the gray smoke poured from his mouth like steam.

My heart thrummed. I was suddenly winded, exhausted, and cold, so I climbed into a sill. My whole being quivered and then crawled up inside my skull. I heard my own thoughts loud in my cranium, and it felt like I could hear everyone else's thoughts, too. First, I heard their words, then their thoughts trailing afterward. They both seemed very far away. Their smiles began to distort into grotesque, elongated masks. They kept trying to hand me the white smoke. The dark-orange ember smoldered audibly. Then, everything went back to normal—time was normal, sound normal, sight normal. Ryan leaned in close and looked at me. I batted my eyes and braced for the next hallucination.

“This motherfucker is fucked up!” Ryan said in awe. I didn't respond. I was scared.
What if I stay like this forever?
Then, it all started again. Everything slowly distorted. My thoughts grew loud. Time stretched.

Suddenly, I heard this familiar voice and turned. Monteff stood at the mouth of the tunnel in some white jeans. The pleats and creases in the jeans created these mountainous glacier legs that flowed down to his Reebok Pumps. He'd said something funny that I didn't catch. They laughed. Monteff's small, bright-white teeth flashed and sent these spiral rays shooting in all directions. He walked up and greeted us with handshakes and toked on the weed smoke.

Monteff was one of the only black dudes from the Dead-End-Docks who would come over by us to chill. He was just one of those vibrant individuals who can transcend race and cliques and haters. He'd surpass those invisible walls and bring his joyful, melodic vibe along with him. But even he was freaking me out in the state I was in. Monteff always arched his eyebrows up when he was listening to something entertaining. Angel was on one of his perverse, sarcastic ramblings, and it sent Monteff's eyebrows stretching up higher and higher. Suddenly, they morphed into the shape of the McDonald's Arches. Then, the tips of his bristly eyebrows melded into the hairline of his trimmed scalp. I was so gripped by it that I couldn't catch what Angel was saying. Angel's voice erupted loudly, then twisted into a chortle. Monteff's eyebrows swelled to form his soft widow's peak, and his eyeballs yawned wide open and protruded out of their sockets. The light-brown flecks caught in the arc lamp.
Man, I really should never smoke weed, especially not kind bud.