The Old Neighborhood (36 page)

They were good, fun dreams, and at one point, I realized I was dreaming and started desperately to think of things I could do. I found a hot chick and started kissing her and squeezing her breasts and ass. Then, that stopped, and I was inside a packed Aldi grocery store. Everyone was tired and pissed off. They were all mixed races and bickered in different languages, and there were huge lines that stretched far down the aisles. I was giddy and suddenly thought maybe I could fly. I concentrated real hard. Of course I could fly. I wanted to grow wings, and I felt them begin to bulge at my back, but before they could break the skin, I started to float upward. Everyone suddenly stopped arguing and turned to see me. I floated up and towards the door and popped outside. People out in the parking lot gawked as I ascended, rising slowly at an angled trajectory. Then, I looked downward and fell back toward the ground. I remembered I was dreaming and rose again. My whole body flexed, and I flew in a controlled way now. I flew high, and I could see all of the dream beneath me. It was so beautiful. There were these neon-green hills surrounding the store that joyfully and brightly glowed off-and-on and told me how happy they were. I was up in the clouds. The soft clouds bumped against me and shot out of sight. There was nothing up there. It got boring, so I floated back down to the Aldi parking lot, where all the people inside had flooded out to. They fought each other, and there was no order to the violence—it wasn't even along racial lines. Pockets of people punched and kicked each other. Moms punched old ladies, kids jumped up and down on babies, a fat guy kicked another fat guy in the face. No one was really angry, either. They moved mechanically. I focused on them and descended diagonally. When they saw me, they looked up and got mad as hell. I smiled down and thought,
you could fly, too, if you want.
Somehow, my thought was transmitted telepathically to all of them, and they stopped, looked up, and got angrier. So I flicked them off saying 'Nigger, spick, chink, honky, fag, dike, sand nigger…” as I soared over their heads. Saying the words gave me more power to accelerate, and I flew like that for a long time until I woke up smiling, my body warm. I wanted to dream more but couldn't fall back to sleep. Then, the warmth and the smile wore off in the reality of the day.

•

THE PG3 COBRAS
weren't through exacting their revenge. That weekend, we were sitting at the mouth of the alley beside St. Greg's gymnasium. The parish was throwing some kind of Thanksgiving festival—God only knows what for. The lot across the street from us was inundated with a thick swarm of people, and in the center of it, the swing ride's top spindle rim loomed above glowing neon-green and pink and orange. The chains hung down straight and bobbed some as the riders jostled in their chairs. The ride started to spin slowly, and the chains began to fan outward. The children swirled into a cyclone with their feet dangling sideways from the swing chairs as they gripped the taut chains. The glowing, circular rim of the ride slowly ascended, and the swings fanned out further, so they soared above the heads of the people speckled about on the blacktop. Then, it tilted to the side. The swings spread like the tentacles of some strange amoeba, and the riders squealed so loud it carried out over the building tops.

Ryan had his bike out. It creaked and yawned under him as he repositioned himself on the plastic banana seat. His ape hanger handlebars tilted down and out over the front white-wall tire, and red metallic-flake paint bubbled over the rust spots at the creases of the frame where he'd forgotten to sand them. But they were his mistakes and his ride, all the way. Ryan's imbecilic smirk was irrepressible. He squinted and blinked, and his prideful eyes glowed wet. Lounging, he splayed his arms out on the long handlebars, and his Dago T drooped off his shoulders. His skin was red from the day's long, slow cruise—we'd ridden all the way to Wrigley and back, and the pedestrians'd taken notice. A bum'd gawked at it for 15 minutes between sips on his cheap wine.

I watched the alley for any sign of a PG3, or any Flake really. The thick, slow crowd swayed side-to-side as they waddled, high on cotton candy and funnel cakes. Beyond them, the alley continued on, loping through the intersections. The hospital hung high above the neighborhood just two short blocks down. Suddenly, there was a squeal of tires.

“TJO KILLA!!! FLAKE KILLA!!! PG3 MOTHAFUCKA! COBRA LOVE!”

A flash of lights spilt across us, then the black Blazer careened into the alley. I snatched Ryan by the back of his neck and elbow and yanked him right off the bike. The front end of the Blazer lurched up and slammed down on the bike's back tire, then it barreled over the frame. The front tire dislodged and bounced down the alley. Ryan and I fell against the red bricks of the gymnasium.

“Get the fuck out-de way, homes!” Heffey yelled as he stuck his big head out of the driver's side window. An absurd grin spread across his lips, and he reeked of warm beer. The Blazer jolted to a stop.

The passenger's side door flung open, and a mob of PG3s poured out. We broke towards home. We hit the busy alley and sliced through the thick crowd, dipping and dodging people the whole way. The PG3s shouted at our back. Finally, we broke through, and I darted blindly across Bryn Mawr without a glance for traffic. Ryan was never fast, but he booked so hard he broke from us. By the time Angel and me approached Olive, he'd already crossed it. Suddenly, the Blazer emerged and swerved on a diagonal across the mouth of the alley at Olive. It skidded to a stop as I cut around the front end, and Angel leapt up and slid across the black, rusted hood. He stumbled, and I slowed, then he got his footing, and we sprinted across the street into our alley. Ryan dashed to the abandoned garage and ducked down into the stash. I knew what he sought. A sense of relief washed over me, then it was swallowed again by the fear of those dozen pounding footsteps at my back.

Ryan rose from the stash. He gripped the .25 and slapped the clip in. Then, he stomped into the center of the alley. Angel rounded the corner and paused at the T in the alley. There was a sharp click as the slide barrel registered a round in the chamber. It rang clear over the patter of feet and halted the PG3 Cobras at the mouth of the alley. I stopped, panting, bobbing on my toes. I tried to make eye contact with Ryan, but he just looked down. His lips curled upward at the edges. Tears beaded down and dripped off his sunken chin, sparkling in the stark light. The PG3s shrunk into one glob and gripped at each other's arms; I don't know if it was to keep them together, or to hold their ground. Heffey barged through and emerged in front of them.

“Whatchu gonna do wit' dat BB gun, weto?” he said as he raised his chin and puffed out his belly. The others laughed and bobbed on their toes, still gripping each other like they were walking through a haunted house.

I heard Ryan whisper, “This.”

He raised up the .25 and aimed, dead center, at the glob. He squeezed. It was a low pop, but in the darkness, the fire lit the narrow alley like a camera flash. Angel ducked around the corner at the T in the alley, and I dove between two large, black plastic garbage cans, then peaked over the top. The glob of PG3s dispersed instantly, and Heffey wobbled back to the Blazer. He reached under the seat and brandished a large-caliber black pistol. Ryan's second shot rang out, somehow quieter. He kept a steady, crisp, upright pace. His face glistened wet with the .25 aimed, arm stretched chest-high. Heffey ducked down behind the half-open door and cocked his gun. Then, from a crouch, he raised up the barrel and squeezed off a shot. A deep crackling boom illuminated the alleyway. To my horror, Ryan sprinted straight towards Heffey, dead center in the alley. Another PG3 ran around the Blazer and dove into driver's seat. Ryan's third shot burst through the windshield, splintering the glass up high and making it look like an iceball disintegrated across its width.

“Damn,” Heffey said, trying to hide his fat belly behind the car door. Then, he raised his heavy piece and squeezed another round off from a crouch. Ryan's fourth shot exploded through the window of the door Heffey hid behind. The glass gushed white, and the center descended as the edges clung like crystal drapes in the frame.

The driver threw it in gear as Heffey drug himself into the door. His feet scraped along the pavement as he gripped the shattered window's frame. The V6 roared as Ryan squeezed the last shot. The pop was followed by a metallic thump as the Blazer disappeared the wrong way up Olive. Ryan stopped out in the street and squeezed the trigger, pointed up Olive. It clicked quietly over and over until I ran up and grasped him by the arm.

“We gotta go, man!” I said as an avalanche of tears poured down his face. He finally snapped out of it.

Angel stepped back around the corner and shouted, “Come on!” We followed him around the bend of the alley and into his garage, where he locked the door behind us. We sat in the dark with our backs slumped alongside Angel's mom's car. Our chests heaved in the quiet.

“Motherfuckers!” Ryan screamed.

“Shhhhh,” I said.

“You hit, man?” Angel whispered.

“Naw, that fucking pussy wasn't even aiming for me,” Ryan sneered.

“Jesus, man,” Angel said. I watched Ryan's mug in profile. He wiped his tear-glossed face with the back of his hand.

“Smashed my motherfucking bike, man,” Ryan whispered. “FUCKIN
'
FLAKES!” he seethed.

“Look… We got to be quiet, man,” Angel cut him off as the sound of the sirens swelled in all directions.

“We got to stash the piece and hide out for a while,” Ryan said, getting up and looking out the garage door window. A squad car roared down the alley and its blue-and-red strobe lights flooded through the creases of the garage door.

“Nobody's going nowhere right now,” I said. “We just need to chill for an hour or so.”

“I got a place,” Angel said, climbing onto the hood of his mother's car. “Gimme it.”

Ryan handed the .25 up to Angel, and he stuffed it into the blackness of one of the rafters.

We stayed in the garage for a very long time just smoking cigarettes in silence. The swirling sirens rose and fell in the distance. I couldn't believe Ryan had raised up the burner like that and rushed up on Heffey with him blasting that cannon! It might sound kinda silly to think it was over something like that—a bike. Especially since we were making so much loot down at the sills that he could buy a brand new bike outta the magazine. But that bike meant a lot more to him than two wheels. Hell it wasn't about the bike at all; it was about work and dedication and the friendships we'd deepened planning and conceiving it. It was scary though. I mean, we'd all sworn to kill or be killed for each other and the neighborhood while buzzin', but to see one of us ride out like that tryin' to make good on the promise—that was a different animal. I could feel him slowly drifting away from us even as we sat shoulder-to-shoulder with him in the middle in that dark garage. Finally, the sirens died out completely, and we slipped off home through the gangways
.

•

NEVER DID FIGURE OUT
who tricked. Coulda been a neighbor who saw it while walking their kids home from the festival, or my sisters looking out for their baby brother's best interests, or Officer O'Riley got word it was us… Yeah, probably O'Riley, but it really don't make much difference 'cause either way, I had it comin'.

I walked up the steps of the unlit front porch. Traffic passed in sudden jets of air on Ashland down at the end of the block—bursting, then trailing off like a melody of rifle shots in the distance. I slid the key in, turned it, and opened the door. A surge of cool air poured out. I stepped in. No lights. It was darker than the night outside. I heard a sound, like ropes pulled taut and then released. A large figure loomed near in the black. A sliver of light from the alley came in through the kitchen window and down the long hall, silhouetting the profile of a heavy, thick-fingered fist curling and uncurling in the darkness just before me. It could have been an ape standing there—the wide, hunched shoulders, the long, thick arms.

“Get in the basement.” My father's growl broke the silence like a sledgehammer through a thin film of ice.

My stomach went hollow like a million tiny pores inside opened and sucked in air. I walked past him down the hall and opened the door to the basement stairs. The light was on. Walking down the slow turn of the staircase, I thought about the time he'd thrown Lil Pat down those steps and broke his leg. The stairs ended almost into the foundation wall. I turned and passed under the bright, naked light bulb that dangled down from the exposed floor joist above. I walked down the long hall towards the back door of the basement, near the washer and dryer. The smell of detergent powder mixed with that deep, stale sewer water smell that never left our basement, or any place below ground in the city.

I walked slowly and thought about my brother Rich and the time he tried to fight Dad in the alley and got knocked cold and his nose broken. I didn't want my nose broken. I was the only one of my brothers who hadn't had it broken yet.

I waited for him. I could hear him swear and work himself up at the top of the stairs, then he rumbled down them. As he turned toward me and passed under the light bulb, I saw him for the first time that night. His skin looked white, like the color of lightning. His eyes twitched on his angular face. Two knots of bulging muscle gathered where each jawline met his neck. He never stopped his motion, just slowed as he got close.

“Getcher hands up,” he spat through his teeth as he raised his clutched, wide fists to his chest. I put 'em up.