Daddy had worked some shit-ass jobs to help us make it. Mama died when we were young, fell down some stairs drunk. Broke her neck. Daddy, he didn’t want us to end up drinking and fighting and getting ourselves in trouble the same way. He tried to raise us right, told us to get an education. That’s what Tim had done, got an education. He’d gone straight, done good. I loved Tim. He was a proud man. Well…boy, really. He wasn’t much older than me. Twenty-two when it was all over for him. When I thought of him, what I thought of as a proud man, I hated that he was gone.
Me, tonight, I wasn’t so proud. I’d beat that girl good and taken her little pink wallet from the pocket of her dress. A pink wallet that when you opened it and folded it out had some pictures, some odds and ends, and five dollars.
“So, you guys, to get in with the gang, you do something like you had me do tonight?” I said.
I knew the answer to that, but I was just making conversation.
“Yeah, well, we did one together,” Juan said. “He was Mexican and almost as dark-skinned as me, and that’s pretty damn dark.” All I could see of him really was his teeth in the blue light from behind the bar. He said, “We did a guy, me and Billy. Did him good.”
“So you do a guy, and then you have me do a girl, and you tell me that’s the way to do it? What about the rest of the gang? Any of them do like I did?”
“Sometimes, something like it,” Billy said. “We had one boy who loved dogs, we had him shoot his own dog. Pet it on the head and open its mouth and stick a gun in there and shoot him. Shot came out that dog’s ass, ain’t kidding you. Went through that dog’s ass and through a wall in the guy’s house and knocked a lamp over.”
“I think the bullet went in there and hit the end table,” Juan said. “I think the table jarred and the lamp fell off.”
“Whatever,” Billy said. “You know what? That guy, he don’t stay in the gang long. He shoots himself. Found him dead, lying over his dog’s grave. That’s no shit. Can you imagine that, getting that way with a dog? You got your gang, and your family…and everything else? That’s just everything else, and that includes dogs or the fucking kitty.”
“So I beat up a girl and this guy shot a dog, and you guys did a guy, so now we’re all equal? That the way it works?”
Juan shook his head. “Well, you got to do something to get in, but we did something big, and that made us kind of lieutenants. You, you’re just like a private. But you’re in, man. You’re in.”
“Mostly,” Billy said.
“The gang, they still got to have a look at you, and our main man, he’s got to give you the okay.”
“So what did you do?” I said. “I’ve heard around, but I was wondering I could get it from you.”
Juan sipped his beer. “Sure,” he said.
Billy said, “Way we did the guy was the thing.”
“We may be small town, baby,” Juan said, “one hundred thousand on the pop sign, but we got our turf and we got our ways, and we did that boy good.”
“He was young, maybe about your age,” Billy said. “Age we are now. He worked at a little corner grocery, was a grocery boy.”
“What grocery?” I said.
“One around the corner, just a half block from here,” Billy said. “Or was around the corner. Ain’t no more. There’s a big burn spot where it used to be.”
Billy and Juan laughed and put their fists together.
“You mean the Clement Grocery?” I said.
“That’s it,” Billy said. “Guess it was, let me see…how long we been in the gang, Juan?”
“Three years come October,” Juan said.
“I know the place,” I said. “Course, I’m pretty new here now, but I used to live here when I was younger, so I know the place. I didn’t live far from here.”
“Yeah?” Billy said. “Where?”
“I don’t remember exactly, but not far from the grocery. I used to go there. I don’t remember where I lived, though, not exactly. Not far from here, though.”
“You ain’t that old. You remember the grocery, you got to remember where you lived,” Billy said.
“I could probably find the place, just don’t remember the street number. You took me around, I could find it. But, man, I don’t give a shit. This thing you did with the grocery boy. Tell me about that.”
“We should have left that grocery and the kid alone,” Juan said. “It was a good place to get stuff quick, and now we got to go way around just to buy some Cokes. But, man, what we did, it was tough. We was gonna be in the gang, you see? And the Headmaster-which is what he calls himself-ain’t that something? Headmaster? Anyway, he says we got to do something on the witchy side, so we went and got a hammer and nails. When we got there, the kid was working in the store and the place was empty. Just goddamn perfect.”
“Perfect,” Billy said.
“So we got hold of the kid and while Billy held him under the arms, I got my knee on his foot and got a big ole nail I had brought. And with the hammer, I drove it right through his foot and nailed him to the floor.”
“He screamed so loud I thought we was caught for sure,” Billy said. “But nobody come running. They must have not heard him, or knew it was best to pretend they didn’t.”
“Fucker kicked me with his other leg, two, three times and I just hammered the shit out of his leg. Billy couldn’t hold him anymore, and he fell over. Then I kicked him a bit and he quit struggling, but he was plenty alive.”
“That’s what makes what happened next choice,” Billy said. “We put some boxes of popcorn on him and then we set fire to the place.”
“You forget I nailed his other foot to the floor.”
“That’s right,” Billy said. “You did.”
“He was so weak from the kicking we had given him, and all the blood that had filled up his shoe, was running out over the top of it, he didn’t know I was doing what I was doing until the nail went in.”
“He really screamed that time,” Billy said.
Juan nodded. “That’s when we got the popcorn, bunch of other stuff, and started the fire. We ran out of there and across the street and in the alley. We could hear that kid screaming across the street, but nobody came. A light went on in a couple windows of buildings where people lived upstairs, but nobody came.”
“Fire took quick,” Billy said. “We were so close-and if I’m lying, I’m dying-we could hear that popcorn popping and him still screaming. And then we saw the flames licking out of the open doorway. Then we saw the kid. He got his feet free, probably tore the nails right through them, and he was crawling out the door. He was all on fire, looked like that Fantastic Four guy. What’s his name, The Flame?”
“The Human Torch,” Juan said. “Don’t you know nothing?”
“Yeah, him,” Billy said. “Anyway, he didn’t crawl far before that fire got him. Then we finally did hear some sirens, and we got out of there.”
“Last look I got of that kid, he wasn’t nothing but a fucking charcoal stick,” Juan said.
“That’s what got us in the gang,” Billy said. “And the Headmaster, he said it was a righteous piece of witchiness, and we was in, big time. You sweating, man?”
I nodded. “A little. I got a cold coming on.”
“Well, don’t give it to me,” Juan said. “I can’t stand no cold right now. I hate those things, so stay back some.”
“This Headmaster, he got a name?” I asked.
“Everyone calls him Slick when they don’t call him Headmaster,” Billy said. “Shit, I don’t even know what his real name is, or even if he’s got one. He’s maybe nearly twenty-six, twenty-seven years old. It don’t matter none to you, though. You done done your thing to get in, and we’re witnesses.”