The Old Neighborhood (41 page)

“That guy was punching on her! What, you want me to go inside and dial 911 while he's BEATING HER TO A PULP?” I said.

“We're not going to ACCEPT that kind of BEHAVIOR IN THIS HOUSE!” Dad blared. Suddenly, he slapped both his palms down hard on the table. It swayed and trembled under him, causing his coffee to slide up and splash over the brim.

“WHAT WOULD YOU-A-DONE?!” I yelled, glaring directly into his eyes. His white, protruding brow undulated above them. There was a frozen, startling quiet. He looked at my mother, then propped his elbows on the table and spliced his fingers together before his thin lips in silence, like he was offering up a prayer.

Rose didn't come home that night, and I spent most of it tossing and rolling in bed. All of the horrific possibilities unfolded in my mind. The wires returned and split them into a matrix. If this, then that, what if…. Repercussions reverberated and expanded outward sucking other people in, then swallowing them whole into this confusing, impulsive rage. What had exactly happened? I tried to flip through the blurry memories of the fight, moment-by-moment. The wires cut deep gouges into the tissue of my brain matter.

Violence has no order. The body is just as confused as the mind and spirit. Years later, I'd have bouts like these that would slowly accelerate into flickering images that'd flash in my mind at an incredible pace—gory wounds; a skull split open from the forehead to the base of the neck with purple sinew splurging up and blood oozing slowly out; my loved ones voices screaming; sounds of torture; a robust breast sliced clean off by an articulate bowed carving knife; gang rapes; cars surging towards me as my legs are planted firmly into the asphalt, then uprooted as the bumper cartwheels me upward. And without medication, sedation, I believe these thoughts would have led to a stroke, or something—something unthinkable. There was a horrible throttle pushing them—a surging velocity—that I hope to never feel again and know, of course, I will.

•

I'D WRITTEN LIL PAT
a letter about a week before I stabbed Samson. I was all high after the presentation by the Fermi Lab guy and just started thinking of people I could talk about it with. Everybody was completely exhausted by my ranting and raving about astro- and particle physics by then, so I wrote Lil Pat—a captive audience, so to speak. Three days after the fight, I got a letter marked
'Menard Penitentiary.'
I was scared to open it at first and just laid the envelope on my bed. I thought maybe Ma or Dad called him and told him he needed to talk to me. I could still remember all the joy I'd felt just a little over a week back—that rush of ideas and engagement I'd gotten with those brainiacs. I was so far away from that now, and to think about Lil Pat on the inside having to hear about me sticking somebody made my chest knot up. Tears welled in my eyes before I even tore open the letter. It was written on yellow notepad paper with red lines—the kind of paper you get out of the commissary.

Dear Joey,

I'm glad you wrote. I really needed it kiddo. I miss you and everyone so much. I'm glad you started the other day. Free Safety is a good position for you. Ya know, once you hit that growth spurt we all get you'll be starting Line Backer.

To tell ya the truth kid I don't understand half of the stuff you wrote me about Particle Physics but you keep writing about it and you keep writing me about it too, ok. You keep playing football, you'll go to college like Blakey and you study physics, you'll end up working in the frickin' Fermi Lab or something. I wish I woulda kept playin ball, I really do. There's so many things I wish I woulda kept up with. You get to be a little older and you'll see, spending all that time having fun and going around being a big shot, when you look back, it's nothing. You got nothing to show for it. I don't want you to ever feel like that ok kiddo, you gotta go and do stuff. If there's a physics club at Gordon, join the damn thing! Who gives a crap what the guys on the team or the frickin' knuckleheads around the block say. You be you, man, and if that physics stuff is you, be it. Don't go givin' it up 'cause those assholes are raggin' on ya. This could lead to something good for you. And you don't gotta hide it either, you can write me about it all you want, heck you even got me to pick up a book in the library. I ain't been in there in a long time and I read that whole thing and still don't get most of the shit you were writing me, musta got the wrong one or something but you get it and that's what matters. Now go on and go somewhere with it or you'll end up like me, wishing ya did or in here or something… Jesus…

Well, gotta go kiddo.

Love ya little Brother,

-Pat

CHAPTER 27

JAG OFFS

I WALKED DOWN THE BLOCK
towards Ashland. The moonless sky was clouded with a murky, purple haze that hung above the canopy of wilting leaves like smoke. As I approached the sills, I saw Ralphy the Junker pushing his empty metal grocery cart out of the mouth of the arterial alley. He crossed Hollywood with his cart rattling as it wobbled on its rickety black wheels. Ralphy stepped behind it in a white hospital coat that'd worn brown and ragged with a black, fuzzy hat sitting atop his gnarled, gray dreadlocks. Ryan and Angel glanced around as traffic flicked past on Ashland, then Ralphy stepped shakily to Ryan, and they made an unmistakable exchange.
Ralphy! Ralphy's a hard-banging junky! No way they're slanging H right there?! How the fuck they doing that shit without asking me?! Even telling me?!
Rage roared in my chest. Heroin destroyed my brother's life, and heroin dealers preyed on him just as much as he'd preyed on them.
Fuck dat shit!
I stomped straight up to Ryan as he leaned against the wall of the hospital in his blue hoodie. Ryan grinned at me with Ralphy long-gone down the tunnel.

“What the fuck
'
s up, man?” I shouted. “You pushing H right here?”

“Naw, Joe. Joe, chill out,” Angel said, stepping to me with his palm out. His heavy blue flannel hung off of him limply.

“Chill?” I said, shooting my eyes at Angel. “All dat shit carries a felony tag, man! You ready for dat?”

Ryan smirked and jutted his stubby chin upward, which instantly flared my anger even worse. Then, I saw a dark-blue bag under his left eye; it was puffy, and there was some black shit twisted into his eyebrow. His face flexed, and a bulbous lump swelled on the side of his head above his ear like he had a golf ball under his buzzed scalp.

“The fuck happened to you?” I asked.

“The PG3s got 'em, the flakes got 'em,” Angel said. His glazed-over, slit-eyed smile revealed his large teeth through his lips.

“Mickey got word-a-what happened,” Ryan explained. His chest swelled as he scratched the peach fuzz above his lips and stood squared up with me. “PG3s put a S.O.S. on my ass. Dey were talkin' shit, said the .25 was a BB gun. Piece by piece, he got the whole thing. Said if the PG3s took me serious enough to set out to kill me, then why wouldn't the TJOs take me serious enough to V me in?”

I took a deep breath and swallowed in all of it, not knowing how to feel. There was the rage at the H, the fear that these PG3s were set on killing Ryan, then the jealously that he was a legit TJO, and I still wasn't shit.

“Who V'd you in?” I asked.

“Man, Chief and Freckles... I don't think you met him yet,” Ryan said excitedly. “This lil Irish fucker. Man, he's little, but he could bag, man. I squared up with him right away—thought I'd rush him, then deal with Chief. But this fool, man, he had fucking lead in his fists, man.” His busted teeth showed wet between his chapped lips.

“No shit?” I asked.

“Yeah, man, it wasn't nothin' nice,” Ryan said, touching the stitches along his eyebrow, “but it's over now, boy. I'm in.” He smiled, and his green eyes sizzled with pride. “I'm getting my ink done this Saturday. It's gonna be a big-ole party. Mickey says you're both invited.”

“Hell yeah,” I said. I reached out and our hands clapped together. His was wide, heavy, and stronger than usual.

“I got to talk to you about this shit, too,” Ryan said as he sat down in his sill. He pulled out a bag from the front pocket his red jeans.

“What?”

Ryan handed it to me.

“We're gonna start making some real money now,” Angel said.

I'd only seen it once up close before, but I knew what it was. The small, crumpled plastic bag. The knot tied around the light-brown powder packed into a tight little ball. It felt so light, so insignificant. But some blackness swelled inside my sternum—a darkness so much larger and heavier than that tiny little bag of dust. The wires looped around it and squeezed, so it evaporated and absorbed into my cells.

“China white,” Ryan said.

“Man...” I handed it back to him.

“What?” Ryan slipped it back in his pocket.

“Man, I can't be part of that shit.” I sat in my sill beside Ryan's.

“What? What the fuck're you talking about?” Angel asked.

“My brother, man...” I threw my hand up sharply. “Look, I just can't, alright?”

“Hey, man, look. Mickey told me all about that, man,” Ryan said, putting his hand on my back. “Pistol Pat, man, he just dipped into his own shit. That's what got him in trouble, man. You can't be dealer and a customer is all.”

“Man, I can't, bro. I just can't, alright?” I said, shrugging Ryan's hand off.

“Look, man, we're gonna be making three time as much as we were off that fucking pot, bro,” Angel said. “Three times as much, man!”

Ryan pulled out a wad of cash and said, “Look, man. This is what we made tonight.” He planted it in my palm.

I weighed it in my palm—it had to be at least a hundred dollars. I handed it back.

“Look, bro, it ain't like we're gonna start doing that shit or nothing,” Angel said, pinching the tip of his nose with his thumb and index finger.

“We're gonna stay strong, man,” Ryan urged. “Look at all this money, man. This is what we always wanted, bro.”

“Hey, look, man, there's something else, too,” Ryan said, glancing over at Angel. “Mickey made me chief of the prospects, so you know I'm supposed to be calling the shots'n shit, but you know the way I see it is we're still Fusion, bro, and ya'll are gonna get V'd in soon enough.”

I sat back in my sill and thought of Lil Pat. I thought of the last day I saw him as a free man with the gun pointed in Ma's face—that trembling that'd taken hold of his entire being. Then, I remembered the last time I'd seen him in the green jumpsuit—how big he'd gotten, the scars on his forehead and brow like he'd shoved his head in a thorn bush, his eye swelled shut. How he said be loyal to Ryan, he'll be a good friend to you. Then, I thought of the money and of Ryan and Angel, and I didn't know what to do. All three of us sat in silence, listening to the traffic riffle past on Ashland. I could walk away and let 'em count this money, let 'em face the PG3s all by themselves. But the thought of that—of not being there when they needed me—made the wires strain at my heart. It was too much, too much to take.

“Hey, look, man... If it's still Fusion then, man...” I sat back in the darkness of my sill, “I'm down. If this is what we gotta do, then it's what we got to do.”

“That's what I like to hear, bro,” Ryan said as he hopped off his sill and looked across the street. A bum milled there at the mouth of the alley. The darkness filled the pathway in an off-kilter beat as the alley lamp flickered above the customer. “Aye,” Ryan said, standing and nodding him over.

“You'll see, man. Shit'll be cool,” Angel said as the bum walked up shrouded in darkness. His face was blackened with dirt or mud or something else, something deeper. A tremble betrayed his steps. Ryan glided up to meet him, and I knew it wouldn't be cool. It wouldn't be cool at all.

•

SATURDAY NIGHT ROLLED AROUND,
and the three of us made the short walk over to the house on Bryn Mawr. The front porch steps were full of guys drinking and smoking and scowling. The music blared inside—some kind of fast-paced metal. Ryan led us up the stairs, and Chief stood at the top with his cheeks all sunken and jaundiced like he had HIV or something, but his forehead shook any concern; it was wide and square like the head of a sledgehammer.

“What up, Ryan?” Chief said, reaching his hand out. They shook in the TJO fashion—hooking at the thumbs and throwing up the J. “What the fuck are these two doin' here?”

“Aye, Tommy, they're with me,” Ryan answered. “Mickey said they should come.”

Tommy nodded at me and Angel, then shook his head in disgust and stepped aside to let us pass in through the screen door. There was nothing but grimy white guys everywhere. The mood was light, but they still had those hard glares in their eyes. Pantera soared on the stereo, and a few of the TJOs leaned against the wall of the enclosed front porch nodding their heads vigorously with their eyes squinted shut. We stepped into the living room. Beer cans and bottles littered the rug. There was the stench of cigarettes, warm beer, and somebody's cheap old lady perfume. The whole room churned in a circus of motion.

A shout came from across the room. “Come here, you little fuck!” We looked over and saw Mickey. His whole head beamed red and glowed in the low table lamp light. His wide grin caused his entire head to flex. Mickey stretched his thick arms out wide as we made our way over to him. When Ryan got close, Mickey clamped his arms around him and planted a big kiss on his forehead. Mickey slid his hand through my slicked-back, Aqua Netted hair, messing it up bad. Then, he turned and karate chopped Angel in the chest playfully.

I noticed this guy standing off to the side by the couch, watching us. He had blond slicked back hair, weathered skin, and light-brown freckles speckling his hard-boiled scowl. His hands were small, though his forearms and shoulders bulged in an undefined bulk. He wore a Dago T and blue jeans that were too big for him at the waist, so they were bunched up on his narrow hips by his tight-slung belt. He stepped to us and punched Ryan in the arm. Ryan recoiled, smiling—his forehead orange in the light. Then, the blond guy grabbed him, pulled him close, and hugged him.