The Kids Table: 1

A street kid named Tayo finds help dealing with a gang called the Pavement Ghosts.

The day had deteriorated. Before the sun could even get its fingers on the skyline to pull itself over, Tayo had his run-in with the Pavement Ghosts.

He had hit the black, torn streets early in the morning to the dollar store on 40^th because it was least crowded before lunch. It was the closest dollar store to his sleeping spot and it carried the most for cheap in the city. In addition, it was right at the edge of the Neutral Zone, which was the only piece of the city free from gang control. It would’ve been perfect, but it was also located at the crook of a neighborhood where most everyone was bigger, older, and better-armed than him. The fewer people around, the safer it’d be. Tayo had adapted into an early morning creature for that.

Once he was at the dollar store, he filled up his bag with food, bottles, and pills, and poured the collectings of his change pouch out on the counter. The manager recognized him and looked down at him for a few seconds, which Tayo acknowledged with a little wave. He wasn’t that old man’s favourite customer. Any seventeen-year-old covered in dirt, sweat, and a ratty, shapeless hoodie with deep pockets wasn’t particularly welcome at a small, family-owned business. It was understandable. It was crucial then that Tayo didn’t cause any trouble while he was there because making a routine of going to that store kept him safe.

The sharp wind blowing in his face on the way out forced him to keep his eyes on the ground, which caused him to meander into a corner between two buildings. There, he was surrounded by four scarred and bruised twenty-year-olds dressed in black, white, and grey�"the markings of a Neutral Zone gang. They aimed a gun at him and demanded five thousand dollars.

Up until a few months before, having nothing meant there was nothing to steal, so having nothing kept street kids safe. Recently though, that crutch was torn away when the city’s criminals stopped believing Tayo was a street kid. Street kids were an endangered species. They were dying out and being replaced with the kids that turned to the gangs for food, shelter, protection, and a small weekly allowance. One of them could easily cough up the money. Tayo had the rest of the day to do that, or they’d track him down�"and he’d be dealt with.

=====

That night, the weather wasn’t better. It bit and snarled the longer Tayo was out there, so he tried his best to hide from the wind under the bridge in the Oakland park. He and the Pavement Ghosts were supposed to meet in the Energize parking lot, but the bridge was close enough that he could be found anyway.

The minute hand had run laps around the time the meeting was supposed to happen. His hands were in his pockets, fiddling around with strings of lint. Otherwise, they’d just be empty and hanging at his sides, and leaving his hands empty for too long would make him panic. Needles of nerve pain shot around his arms and legs, given momentum from the stress of the situation. There was a conversation behind him which produced his name several times, but he wasn’t paying it attention. The natural division that occurs when two people know each other better than they know the third kept him away. So he stood, knees locked, shoulders drawn in, staring out onto the highway from behind a vast ocean of grass. He didn’t look back until two white sedans diverged off the road and charged at him.

            They didn’t slow down until it was nearly too late. But before he could move away, the cars halted a few feet in front of him and Pavement Ghosts spilled out from the doors. Four of them, cleaned up but still decked out in black, white, and grey stood on the shadow of the bridge, fingers drumming on the guns on their belts. The leader of that particular division was a woman with short chestnut hair and scars sprayed across her cheek. She was much taller than Tayo but stayed a good distance away.

            “S**t, you came!” she said, her crew finding a place to stand at her sides. There were three baseball bats and two handguns among them, and the leader had a shotgun. “And you f****n’ brought yourself a little gang.”

            “Backup,” said Libra, slowly, nasally, and low-pitched. “You haven’t made it very fair otherwise.” She was standing on Tayo’s left, furthest back out of the three, wearing her near-perpetual scowl on her brows. Now, she was a gang kid. It was clear as day when she stood next to Tayo. Her jacket was supposed to be white but had turned light grey from the dust and dirt. Black-gloved hands held a kitchen knife in one hand and a little leather bag in the other. The knife was pointed outward, and the bag was under the crook of her arm.

            “Look lady, I was told not to do anything unless Tayo’s getting beaten up,” said Nessie. Her voice was the reverse of Libra’s�"gruff, and throaty enough that it obscured her gender. She was the one with the shaved head, black paint streaked across her eyes, and bullet belts criss-crossing her body, standing closer to Tayo on his right. What normally marked her as a gang kid wasn’t present. Her clothes were black from head to toe, to the contrary of the bright, expensive colours she adorned herself with. It was night though, and she had been summoned last-minute. The gun in her hand was a semi-automatic, but it was outnumbered.

            “They’re only here to make sure everything goes smoothly,” said Tayo. “I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

            “They’re gang rats, huh?” The Pavement Ghosts’ leader grinned for a moment, flashing chipped teeth and then howling. “That means more money, all.”

            “I don’t have the money,” Tayo said. “What I have is a negotiation.”

            “I don’t want to hear your f****n’ negotiation. It’s the money or a goddamn bullet in your f*****g head. All three of you.”

            “That’s impossible�"”

            “Aim!” was the shout which spurred two Pavement Ghosts into cocking their guns.

            Libra flinched. Nessie didn’t. Her gun hand didn’t even twitch. And Tayo responded with a step back, hands raised above his head. “I need you to cooperate with me. I can get you the money. I just have terms I need you to agree to.”

“Huh? Oh. Amuse me, then.”

Tayo resisted a feeling of relief. It was too early. “Now, my morning routine involves a dollar store at the edge of the Neutral Zone. All of the districts controlled by the crime syndicates have policies around where murder can happen. But the Neutral Zone isn’t controlled by any crime syndicate, and this puts me in danger. In exchange for the money, I’m asking for immunity from any actions perpetrated by the Pavement Ghosts. Anyone sees me, they don’t lay a hand on me.”

            “No,” said the leader. Her gun was aimed too now. “We need the damn money now.”

            Tayo’s eyes narrowed. “What’s the urgency? You can surely survive without it.”

            “It’s not in our service.”

            “What’s it for?”

            “You don’t need to know.”

            “Tell us,” said Libra, “and you might get your goddamn money sooner.”

            The leader narrowed her eyes at Libra, drawing her forward. “The Mechanical Heart project. For the Neutral Zone hospital. That’s it. Back to business�"”

            “If you’re expecting five thousand dollars right now, it’s not going to happen,” Tayo said. “I’m telling you that it will happen if you agree to negotiate on my terms and cooperate with me.”

            “Actually, it is gonna happen.” The leader tapped her gun on her knee and pointed it straight out, darting between the three of them. “There’s three of you b******s here, ain’t there?”

            “Please leave me out of this,” said Libra.

            “Can I kill them yet?” sighed Nessie.

            “Try it, fuckers.” The leader stomped her foot and aimed directly at Tayo’s forehead. “There are snipers on the rooftops ready to shoot on my command. Try anything, you all f****n’ die. Now where’s my money?”

            “You’re bluffing,” said Tayo, lowering his hands to his sides. His tongue twisted itself in his mouth as he spoke, but he persisted. There was no hesitation in his head. “You won’t shoot. From where we’re standing, there are only two possible vantage points for a sniper; you wouldn’t risk using a building owned by an underboss and the other one is blocked by the bridge we’re standing under. You won’t shoot at us yourselves because you can’t. The loading flap on your shotgun is broken, and that handgun is stolen from the pier district; Commissioner Baez made them so only his uniquely-shaped bullets could be loaded in, and those bullets have been discontinued. You only have one functioning handgun, but we have a semi-automatic.”

            The Pavement Ghost leader swallowed something in her throat. The other gang members were skittishly still playing along with the bluff, but they gave up when their leader dropped her shotgun. She then stepped on it and kicked it out of the way. “F*****g�"”

            “You’re not getting the money today,” Tayo said. He was stepping closer now.

            “You’ve made that obvious.”

            “You have no choice but to negotiate.” Tayo was standing so close that she’d be able to reach out and strangle him. “Are you willing to do that?”

            She sighed. “Yes, we are.”

            “Good. We can help each other.”

            “Yes, we can.”

            “What are your terms?”

            The gang leader’s fist collided with Tayo’s stomach. Another strike to the side of his head knocked him onto the cement, noxious aching erupting from his gut to his throat. Another kick sent him sprawling. The darkness of the bridge’s underbelly enveloped him, and everything spun except the new wet splatter on his forehead. Then there was another. The gang leader’s screaming swirled in with the air. And one more, to his chest this time.

            Suddenly it stopped. There was a sound so quick and sharp, it might not have been real. When Tayo regained enough consciousness to look up, he saw the gang leader toppling backwards, blood streaming from bulletholes in her shoulder and her eye.

            Two of the Pavement Ghosts tried going after Nessie, whose gun was still raised. One was mowed down by her semi-automatic, and the other’s attempt to barrel into her was stopped. A kick and an elbow to the head knocked that one onto the ground. The last Pavement Ghost had gone after Libra and wound up right away with a knife in the side of her throat.

            Nessie planted a few more bullets in one of them and rested the gun on her shoulder. “Anyway, great plan. Good job, Tayo.”

            Libra had gone over to Tayo and knelt down beside him. She pulled a cloth out of her bag and held it to stop the bleeding on his forehead while she pressed on his chest to check for damage. He winced when she touched a certain point and his face contorted. “That might be a fractured rib. It’ll heal on its own if you’re not a dumbass about it. But I want to get you back to the apartment and stitch up your forehead.”

            “Can the man even walk?” Nessie asked.

            Tayo groaned, “Yeah.” Libra helped him sit up and hoisted him onto his feet. Tayo looked to her, and then to Nessie, with a nod. “Let’s go.”

            “Let’s get the f**k out of here,” said Nessie. The apartment was a ten-minute walk away, so they’d be locked inside before anyone found the Pavement Ghosts there.

=====

Libra had dropped Tayo onto the bed and he collapsed, clutching his side. Nessie flipped a light switch and Tayo could see the blood streaming down the left side of his face in a closet mirror. He had been smearing it more than stopping the bleeding the whole time. Libra stepped across the bedroom and knelt down to slide her medical kit out from under the nightstand. She nearly dropped it though in surprise when Nessie poured her weapons back into her drawer.

            “This is the shithead we asked for help last month�"the brilliant planner,” she said, falling into an armchair and grabbing a can of beer off the minifridge.

            Libra shook her head, trying hard to focus on prep. “Nobody won and nobody lost. By our standards, we came out ahead. Right, Tayo?”

            He gritted his teeth and folded up his hands as Libra started going to work. He was attempting to look up at Nessie, but it felt like a construction site was whirring with life on his eyebrow.

“You waited before shooting,” he said.

            Nessie just shrugged. “Yeah, I did.”

            “Why?”

            “To teach you a lesson, a*****e.”

            “What lesson is that?”

            “An important one,” she said. “Now you might not wander around in the Neutral Zone without protection. Hope your dick feels a little longer.”

            “Well what am I supposed to do?”

            “Don’t f**k with me like that.” She was standing now, spilling her drink all over her chin before speaking again. “If you want to be a brave, independent, big-balls street kid, that’s your call and this is where it’s got you. But we’ve given you plenty of offers to join our gang, so don’t do that ‘what am I supposed to do’ bullshit. Some of us have clearly made better choices than you.”

            Libra had finished on Tayo’s forehead and was lying him down to check on his ribs. “She has got a point.”

            He sighed and shut his eyes. Still listening, though. Still listening.

            “Okay,” said Libra, “live your life. We owe you for your help on that job last month and we’ll live up to that. It’s just a little suspicious when a street kid keeps asking gang kids for help when he’s not in the gang. People start talking.”

            “Clearly,” Nessie added.

            Libra handed Tayo a bottle of water and he poured half of it down his throat. His heart was still going really quickly, and a fever was starting to burn, but he would be fine. He turned to his side and glanced up at Libra, and then Nessie. There was a spare pile of sheets right there since one of them usually slept in the living room. He had spent the night in it so many times. Far too many.

            “Okay,” said Libra, packing up her kit. “How about this�"we can take you to talk to Don Muhammad and you can talk it out. They’re always looking to grow the gang.”

            Tayo nodded. It might have been an accident, but he didn’t say that.

            “We’ll take you tomorrow,” said Nessie.

            Libra shook her head. “No, we won’t.”

            “Why not?”

            “It’s the sixteenth. Tomorrow’s St. Patrick’s Day.”

            “Oh, f**k yeah,” She pushed herself off her seat and bent down to the pile of cardboard boxes in the corner. There, she fished around and threw clothes and bags and empty cans around the room.

            Tayo furrowed his brow. “What’s St. Patrick’s Day?”

            “It’s a gang thing,” said Libra. “Every year on St. Patrick’s Day, all of the gang leaders call a ceasefire and meet to drink and discuss policies and deals and stuff. But the gang kids use the ceasefire to throw this massive party in Chinatown. Everyone gets drunk and high and pregnant. Even the guys. It’s great.”

            “And we’re taking you,” said Nessie. “See if you aren’t convinced after that.”

            Tayo shrugged. “I don’t think I’m a party type.”

            “Okay f****r,” Nessie said, “if we can drag our asses to the overpass to kill people for you, you can come to a little party with us. You owe us. You’re coming.” Nessie had grabbed a pack of camels and a lighter and was tossing them back and forth between her hands. “Now I’m feeling that post-kill exhaustion so I’m going to sleep. Goodnight, shitheads.”

            She disappeared around the corner and it was just Tayo and Libra. Libra had started going back and forth across the room putting all of her medical supplies back where they were supposed to be, despite Tayo’s attempt to catch her attention. He wasn’t moving. When he suddenly paid attention to it, he was barely breathing.

            “Thank you,” he said. He thought his voice had been drowned out by the clattering tools. Libra heard him.

            “You know, Nessie has a point,” she said. Her low, nasally voice was broken. This time, her real, mellower voice got through. When she turned back around, she sat down in a chair near the bed so their eyes were nearly level. “And it doesn’t happen often. I’d pay attention.”

            “I just don’t think a gang is right for me,” said Tayo.

            “Well, you’re definitely not making it on your own.”

            “I know that. I just wouldn’t fit in.”

            “Yeah, probably not. But hey, the heist last month�"we couldn’t have done it without you.”

            “That’s the thing. A heist is one thing, but with a gang, there’s connections and depending on people and having people being dependant on you. I just want to stay alive. That’s it.”

            Libra’s eyes darted down with a sigh. She grabbed a water bottle off the ground and started screwing the cap off. “Want my advice?”

            “Sure.”

            “This is what I say to Nessie all the time.”

            “Let’s hear it.”

            “Bury your feelings. They’re too fragile for people like us. You can deal with feelings later, but right now, we’re just doing whatever it takes to survive. Right now, that means joining the gang.” She stood, took a little sip from her bottle, and set it down on the table. Then she kicked the chair back and started to head off. “Spend the night. Doctor’s orders. We’ll talk more tomorrow.”

            She put her hand on his shoulder for a second before heading out of the room and turning off the lights. It was dark enough then that anything Tayo could use to distract himself had vanished. It was him, the stitches in his forehead, and the pain running in his nerves. There really wasn’t much to do except sleep.