“Little man!” I yelled, standing by the porch. “Help me out!”
He cold-eyed me and stepped back. I knew he recognized me. But I guess he had seen me go toward the police unmarked, and he had made me for a snitch. In his young mind, it was probably the worst thing a man could be. Behind the window, all went dark. As it did, headlights swept the alley and a car came in with the light. The car was black, and it was a Caprice.
I turned and bucked.
I ran my ass off down that alley, my old Timbs struggling for grip in the snow. As I ran, I pulled on trashcans, knocking them over so they would block the path of the Caprice. I didn’t look back. I heard the boys in the car, yelling at me and shit, and I heard them curse as they had to slow down. Soon I was out of the alley, on Princeton Place, running free.
I went down Princeton, cut left on Warder, jogged by the front of the elementary, and hung a right on Otis. There was an alley down there, back behind the ball field, shaped like a T. It would be hard for them to navigate back in there. They couldn’t surprise me or nothing like that.
I walked into the alley. Straight off, a couple of dogs began to bark. Folks kept ’em, shepherd mixes and rottweil with heads big as cattle, for security. Most of them was inside, on account of the weather, but not all. There were some who stayed out all the time, and they were loud. Once they got going, they would bark themselves crazy. They were letting Marquise know where I was.
I saw the Caprice drive real slow down Otis, its head-lights off, and I felt my ears grow hot. I got down in a crouch, pressed myself against a chain-link fence behind someone’s row house. My stomach flipped all the way and I had one of them throw-up burps. Stuff came up, and I swallowed it down.
I didn’t care if it was safe or not; I needed to get my ass home. Couldn’t nobody hurt me there. In my bed, the same bed where I always slept, near my brother James. With my mother and father down the hall.
I listened to a boy calling out my name. Then another boy, from somewhere else, did the same. I could hear the laughter in their voices. I shivered some and bit down on my lip.
Use the alphabet, you get lost. That’s what my father told me when I was a kid. Otis, Princeton, Quebec… I was three streets away.
I turned at the T of the alley and walked down the slope. The dogs were out of their minds, growling and barking, and I went past them and kept my eyes straight ahead. At the bottom of the alley, I saw a boy in a thick coat, hoodie up. He was waiting on me.
I turned around and ran back from where I came. Even with the sounds of the dogs, I could hear myself panting, trying to get my breath. I rounded the T and made it back to Otis, where I cut and headed for the baseball field. I could cross that and be on Princeton. When I got there, I’d be one block closer to my home.
I stepped up onto the field. I walked regular, trying to calm myself down. I didn’t hear a car or anything else. Just the snow crunching beneath my feet.
And then a young man stepped up onto the edge of the field. He wore a bulky coat without a cap or a hood. His hand was inside the coat, and his smile was not the smile of a friend. There were silver caps on his front teeth.
I turned my back on him. Pee ran hot down my thigh. My knees were trembling, but I made my legs move.
The night flashed. I felt a sting, like a bee sting, high on my back.
I stumbled but kept my feet. I looked down at my blood, dotted in the snow. I walked a couple of steps and closed my eyes.
When I opened them, the field was green. It was covered in gold, like it gets here in summer, ’round early evening. A Gamble and Huff thing was coming from the open windows of a car. My father stood before me, his natural full, his chest filling the fabric of his shirt. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows. His arms were outstretched.
I wasn’t afraid or sorry. I’d done right. I had the lottery ticket in my pocket. Detective Barnes, or someone like him, would find it in the morning. When they found
But first I had to speak to my father. I walked to where he stood, waiting. And I knew exactly what I was going to say: I ain’t the low-ass bum you think I am. I been workin’ with the police for a long, long time. Matter of fact, I just solved a homicide.
I’m a confidential informant, Pop. Look at me.
First
By Kenji Jasper
Benning Heights, S.E.
This shit has gone way too far. That’s what the little voice in your head tells you. The black hoodie concealing your face is too warm for mid-April, and is thus putting your Right Guard to the test. However, it will keep you above description. And in this case, it’s all that matters.
The radio’s on but turned all the way down. More commercial breaks than there ever is music. Makes you curse your tape deck for being broken. Maybe it’s a blessing though, one less thing to distract you.
After all there are three other men to worry about. The first, Sean, the one you’ve known since Ms. Abby’s class at nursery school, is in the passenger seat sucking on a half-dead Newport as he loads a final shell into the sawed-off he stole from your first catch of the day. The four of you introduced his flesh to four pair of steel-toed Timberlands. You can still hear his ribs splintering, and that shrill scream he let out at the end, when Babatunde’s fist split his nose in two.
Dante and Baba are in the ’85 Escort behind the house, both in the same hot-ass hoodies you’re rocking. Sean was the only one smart enough to go with short sleeves. But there are beads even on his brow, mostly near the sideburns. You’ve been telling him to cut that nappy ’fro of his for the last six months. It makes him look like a cheap-ass Redman. But he likes Redman.
“This jawnt is like that for ’92!” he proclaims, continuing to take the critique as a compliment. You can’t wait for ’93.
“You ready?” Baba asks, his voice crackling with static through the pair of ten-dollar walkie-talkies you’ve purchased for this hit. The car sits different on your new rear tires. Rochelle slashed the old ones two weeks ago when you told her it was over. Maybe it wasn’t too prudent for you to mention that Catalina had bigger titties.
You love titties, or breasts, as a more elegant politically correct nigga might say. But you ain’t elegant and you definitely ain’t PC. You’re from Southeast. And there’s four lives inside the rules say you gotta take.
It was definitely not supposed to turn out like this. You would have rather spent the last three hours in Catalina’s basement, bumping and grinding in nothing but a latex shield. You should be squeezing her nipples with your fingers, and putting a thumb on that pearl down below.
You were supposed to be five grand richer by dawn. But that hammer hit the base of the shell and next thing you knew, Fat Rodney’s skull was missing a chunk the size of your fist, his blood sprayed across your cheek as you took cover to the left of that door frame. It was your first time out and somebody had the fix in. Go fuckin’ figure.
“So y’all ready?” Dante asks again. Burns Street is nothing but quiet, a block the cops hardly every patrol. Nothing over there but grandmas and kids and the P.G. line just a few up the hill. All of this for Boyz II Men at the Cap Centre. All of this because once again you didn’t know when to pull out.
1
You got up that morning Ferris Bueller style. Peered through the shades and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Your new girl was still on your fingers, the smell of Claiborne all over everything else. You remembered the way her tongue felt against your chest and the way she said good night before she went out through the basement, knowing your moms always slept like a corpse.