Backtracking

     I stepped out of the lobby and onto Coles Avenue before heading south. I wanted to check up on the block and see who was doing what. I strolled along 75th Street until I hit Phillips where I found no one of importance so I turned and went half a block up to 74th Place; if you couldn’t find Maniacs on 75th you’d probably have better luck finding them at the dead end. I stepped into the three way intersection and did a goofy little spin as I took in all 360 degrees of my surroundings. Still no one. Right when I was ready to give up and go about my business, a loud, terse whistle pierced both the relative silence and my eardrums. I looked to my left to find what I was seeking in the form of a cinnamon-skinned girl ornamented with more tattoos than anyone else our age I knew and a fat kid with long dreadlocks tied up into a sloppy man-bun " Kitty and Chunk.  They were tucked away between two houses in a walkway that lead to an alley around back. Neither of them lived in either house. As I approached, I noticed Kitty’s bosom seemed a lot fuller than it actually was. “You guys gettin’ that s**t off? It’s dead as hell out here,” I said as I shook hands with them, eyes still fixed on the few bundles worth of product stuffed into Kitty’s bra.

    “Tryin’ to. We was doin’ good at first but then s**t slowed all the way down,” she explained as she idly scratched at a giant red star that sprawled across her entire throat. “Made a lil $300 so far though…” Her voice trailed off as she noticed a fiend milling around in the street just behind me, obviously looking for one of us. “What you lookin’ fah, honey,” she called out to the cluck, a graying man in his late 40’s.

    “Aw, lemme just get two, sweetheart,” the man replied as he pulled $30 in crumpled bills from his pocket. Kitty pulled two tiny wax paper envelopes filled with a quarter gram each of brown powder and in one smooth motion exchanged dogfood for money. I guess the dope near him was trash and he wanted to sample what we had to offer, because I’d never seen this particular fiend around the neighborhood before and he only bought two bags.

    Thank yawww, come back soon,” Kitty crooned. The man smiled warmly and touched the brim of his hat in farewell. Kitty and Chunk parted so that he could walk through to the alley and he went on his way. They looked like they were doing alright to me; it was only like ten anyway. I watched her swiftly pull a larger wad of money from her red track shorts to add the three balled-up Hamiltons and thought about how much her kind and gentle manner contrasted with that of her late older sister. I couldn’t even imagine Drama telling a junkie ‘Thank You’. I don’t even think Kitty had shot a gun before. Meanwhile, Drama had personally walked me through the majority of the most violent moments I’ve experienced so far.

    Chunk just stood there, watching me watching Kitty as he ate a cheese steak. God, he was always eating. He looked like the poster child for sloppy fat f***s everywhere, trying not to get globs of beef and provolone on the front of his shirt, the front of which bore a blue Star of David with a red fist smashing through it. I liked it. “Where’d you get that shirt,” I asked, turning my full attention toward him.

    “Nunna yo’ f****n’ business, squirt,” he teased through a mouthful of sandwich. He knew I hated it when people spoke with their mouth full. I sneered at him, pulled out my phone, and began filming him while he ate. It was a running joke among us at his expense and the fastest way to piss him off.  “B***h stop recordin’ me,” he laughed as he tried to swat my phone from my hand. I pulled back just out of his reach and cackled loudly.

    “LOOK AT YOU. LOOK. AT. YOU,” I taunted, banging my fist against the brick siding of the house next to me for emphasis.

    “Y’all tweakin’, I gotta bra fulla felonies ova’ here,” Kitty interjected as she looked around nervously, warning us about the loud spectacle we were creating. She was right. At that moment I noticed that besides the large quantity of heroin she had on her person very much with the intent to distribute, Chunk also had a .40 caliber XD sticking out of the right front pocket of his sagging True Religion jeans. I then looked down at the fanny pack strapped to my waist and realized that I too was armed. Upon having the revelation that if the cops happened to roll by we’d be mortally fucked, I suddenly became very itchy. Judging by the looks on their faces, they were thinking the same. So we said our goodbyes and parted.

    I headed back south, resuming route along 75th Street. As I crossed Yates I made sure to stay to the left side of the strip of 75th that separated C-Block from Paxtown to minimize the chance of contact with the latter. I was beginning to wish I had just asked Zaina to come pick me up " I really didn’t have any business showing my face over here after what happened last night. I took wavering solace in the knowledge that I had only three blocks to traverse into hostile territory before I could finally veer off down Luella Avenue into slightly less hostile territory. From Yates to Oglesby to Crandon I encountered no one beyond the odd harmless civilian going about their daily life. In the last stretch of the most harrowing part of my journey, I was visibly startled upon sighting a potential belligerent smoking a cigarette alone across the street in front of a storefront church. Spotting me only as I spotted him he had little chance to react as I jammed my hand into the fanny pack, separating its Velcro lips, and onto the revolver " drawing it partially, in anticipation of whatever was to come. The target threw up his hands in surrender and yelled out to me, “Be cool, shorty, it’s me!”

    Ahmad. I hesitantly lowered the revolver back into the fanny pack, finally realizing just who was in front of me. Curdled apprehension melted into rage as I was confronted with this false alarm at the hands of a former childhood friend. Distrustful of him, I yelled back, “I almost smoked your dumb a*s!” Still, I couldn’t curb the lingering feeling that I should anyway. He was from Paxtown, after all.

    Ahmad put his hands on top of his head, trying to relax them while still expressing that he had no ill intentions. “Mannnn, you know I’m not on none a’ that with you, girl,” he appealed. “That’s between you and shorty’nem!” I guess his logic was that since my personal troubles as far as Paxtown went had primarily been with its female members who mostly hung on 73rd, I should leave him alone because he was from 72nd. Fair enough.

    I withdrew my hand from the pack and relaxed it at my side. “Yeah, you’re right,” I forfeited, deciding to spare him. What kind of frigid b***h would I be if I didn’t? I sang nursery rhymes with this kid for f**k’s sake.

    He in turn also relaxed and continued smoking his square. His demeanor shifted from pants-shittingly-horrified to just-bumped-into-an-old-friend and he gleefully said to me, “I ain’t seen you in a minute, g! You still at South Shore? They got me up at Dunbar now. What you been on?” Ugh.

    It was far too late in the game for me to be trying to ‘reconnect’ with this kid at all so I kept it brief. “S**t man, just tryna graduate. But I gotta make this play so I’ll f**k with you later,” I lied, making a point of not answering his first question because it was none of his business; that and I still wasn’t sure whether he was genuinely delighted to see me or if this was just some ruse I would come to fatefully regret falling for.

    He shrugged and told me, “Stay safe.” What the f**k was that supposed to mean?

    “Yeah, you too,” I spit back incredulously before turning and heading down Luella.

    “I mean it,” I heard Ahmad call out behind me. Without breaking pace I just looked at him over my shoulder.

    I shuffled along the last two blocks to Zaina’s house, completely withdrawn from my surroundings as I fumbled to process this encounter with Ahmad. What the f**k just happened? How did things get so bad? It wasn’t just running into him itself; talking to him ignited within me a tragic nostalgia that prompted memories of childhood friends and acquaintances that would eventually align with the opposition. Not just my friends, either - but my friend’s friends. Drama, Chewy, and LoLo used to play double dutch with the girls from Paxtown before they all started trying to wack each other. Bunny and Kilo would spend nearly everyday of the summer in middle school playing basketball and riding bikes with the guys from NoLimit down on 79th Street; now they don’t even go down there unless they’re trying to hurt somebody.

    Alongside the wholesome memories were the less innocent ones that inspired the conviction that everything had led up to this inevitable quagmire I was now a prominent player in. Most vividly I recalled the time in 7th Grade gym class when Ahmad brought a live .40 caliber bullet he stole from his older brother to school to show off. We were awe-stricken. With the shell he wielded a small window into what was an exotic and esteemed world just out of our grasp - the realm of the big kids. What we spent so many of our waking hours speculating about and only ever hearing of second-hand we now had a piece of, however trifling it may have been. We were all in a little huddle on the far end of the gym as Ahmad waved the bullet in our faces, holding it in a manner that made it indiscernible from a distance, bragging all the while.

    “Yeah, yeah! Y’all see how Paxtown rockin’. Big ol’ shells for a f**k n***a,” he rambled proudly even though he had about a solid two years he’d be able to actually call himself ‘Paxtown’. Back then terms like ‘Paxtown’, ‘TerrorTown’, and ‘Maniac’ were just buzzwords you threw around in front of other twelve year olds to look cool; few ever dared to utter them in the presence of an older kid. I would f****n’ murder somebody over those words now. Life is funny.

    “N***a…,” Chunk breathed in disbelief before snatching it away. “Lemme see that s**t.”

    A sarcastic b***h even then, Bunny only sneered at Ahmad and told him, “So what? You gonna throw it at somebody?”

    “Hell naw, I’ma buss’ it,” Ahmad shot back defiantly.

    She laughed in his face. “Yeah, alright.”

    Kilo started in on Ahmad too. “This n***a a scrub, bro! He brought that s**t to school just to flex wit’ it. Don’t even got no pipe for it,” he roared. “Show and tell headass!”

    I jumped in, trying to mask my fascination, “Yeah ‘Mahdi, that’s real cool and s**t but I don’t see your point, bud.”

    “Mannnn, whateva, y’all gone see.” An interesting line, actually. In the time that he’s been active, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of Ahmad shooting at anybody. And I should know. I’m one of the main people he’s supposed to be shooting at. Meanwhile I was probably the last person anyone would expect to start gangbanging at the time, but now here I was: out here knocking s**t down. Again, life is funny.

    Before I even realized, I stepped out of this flashback and into a noticeably ‘better-off’ enclave of manicured lawns and upscale homes that perforated the otherwise destitute landscape. As I approached a large ranch-style house at the corner of 77th & Luella I noticed a burgundy BMX bike peaking from beneath the neatly trimmed hedges that lined the house -- a shoddy substitute for a bike lock. About halfway up the paved path that lead to the front door, the muffled pounding of raucous noise became audible. I rang the doorbell twice before I was greeted by the bike’s owner.

    “Greetings, comrade,” Bunny cheerily yelled out over the music in an exaggerated Soviet Russian accent. I didn’t get it. Bunny was Ukrainian, not Russian. But maybe that was the joke. Either way, I just grinned and pushed past her into the house. Finally inside, I could hear clearly the assault of a powerviolence song raging from speakers in one of the house’s back rooms, its pulse contrasting sharply with the decor of what was now its chamber. The sound of harsh blast beats ricocheted off of olive walls bearing afrocentric paintings and trinkets, producing tremors I could feel as I stood on the polished oak floor. While contemplating the juxtaposition of the music against its surroundings  I also noticed for the first time in a long time just how nice the house was.

    I traced the music back to its source, Bunny in turn trailing me down the long hallway that was the home’s main artery. At the end of the corridor I turned and stepped through the open door to my right, into what looked like another dimension. Unlike the rest of the house with its plush leather and glossy oak, this room was populated only with a small mattress with a blanket, a laptop, a couple wardrobe's worth of strange clothing strewn about, and Zaina herself. Instead of olive walls adorned with assorted paintings and keepsakes, these were sterile white littered with crude scrawls in red and black paint or ink. Among the scrawls was an assortment of words, phrases, and quotes running the gamut from simple gang taunts to brooding exclamations. Messages like “KILL EVERYONE NOW”, “NLMBK”, and “7even-5ive Maniacs” along with sloppy renderings of Islamic crescents, pyramids, broken stars of David, and inverted pitchforks. The scene, music and all, was much what I imagined it to be like inside of Zaina’s head.

    The small Nigerian girl paused the music and pushed long, straight black hair out of her face before looking up at me. “Why do you live like this,” I teased.

    Her thick and pouty lips inverted into a grin before she changed the subject, “Heard what you did last night.”

“Oh yeah,” I said back. “Well you know not to blink out here, then,” I alluded to the slight chance of retaliation. Slight because Paxtown had really fallen off; they’d likely bury Vickie and be done with it. They weren’t what they used to be.

    “When’s your mom comin’ home,” Bunny butted in, right on time. I wasn’t ready to talk about any of that.

    “Not for a while, way after we’re gone.”

    “Not that it matters,” I cut in. “We still gotta make this move, remember?”

    Bunny sucked her teeth at me and ranted, “I know that. But they prolly’ don’t even have it all ready yet. On top of that it’s only eleven; you know those m***********s don’t function this early.” Why the f**k was she rushing me then? I mean, she was wrong -- Bullet texted me on the way over here and said they absolutely were ready. But still.

    “You sound stupid, he just texted me and said they were all waiting on us. Do you even have everything?”

    Her indignant scowl slipped into a timid grin as her eyes shifted to a black Jansport bookbag in the corner that looked suspiciously under-packed. “I’ve got my thing,” she quipped, trying to diffuse the tension. It didn’t work.

    I huffed and thought about blowing up at her but decided against it; it wasn’t like it was gonna help anything. Instead I soberly said, “Well, we’ll have to go get them. I just think it’s funny how you were just nagging me about being late but this whole time you don’t even have the s**t!” That last part may have come out a tad bit more stressed than I intended.

    “Boo f****n’ hoo, Rudy,” Bunny mocked while she plucked her backpack from the ground and turned to head outside. “It’ll take ten minutes.”

    I stood there stunned and stewing in contempt for about two seconds when Zaina abruptly shut her laptop, stood up, and followed behind Bunny. With no one left to b***h at, I got over myself and also went for the front door.

    Once outside we watched Zaina lock the door behind us and started for a black 1997 Town Car that was parked by the curb. “Shotgun,” Bunny exclaimed as she snatched her bike from beneath the hedges and stowed it in the trunk of the car.

    “Do you really think you deserve shotgun,” I said, ignoring her declaration and hopping in front anyway.

I guess the answer was no, because all she did in return was grin and say, “You’re cold-hearted, fam.” She shut the trunk and stuffed her spindly body into the backseat with little fuss. And off we went.

About a block down 77th Street we came upon a quiver of Cobras from C-Block, about seven of them, all sitting on the stoop of an apartment building. All seemingly younger than us but older than JonJon, so I’d say around sixteen; C-Block was one of the tiniest and newest factions within an already tiny gang called the Mickey Cobras. Of the section’s twenty or so members, all were roughly between the ages 13-17; for perspective, Terror Town all together had maybe five hundred heads ranging from 13 to 50 -- even if you only counted the youngest and most active members, 75th Street alone still had a good eighty guys. Citywide, the Mickey Cobras only had a little under 300 members with most of them concentrated around large, long-established Black Stone neighborhoods like Foster Park and Terror Town; which made sense, the gang started in the early ‘80s when the Cobra Stones split from us after our chief, Jeff Fort, had their chief, Mickey Cogwell, killed. Though these days, most Cobra factions at this point had made the safe decision to pad their ranks by aligning with whoever was nearest to a particular set, even if they were Stones: the homies on 51st Street were a mix of Cobras, Stones, and GDs, the few Cobras that were in Englewood had all but realigned with the few Stones that also inhabited that area. In fact, C-Block was probably one of the last all-Cobra hoods in the city -- a difficult status to maintain considering both their size and that they’re boxed in on all sides by some of the largest and most reputed hoods on the eastside. Because of that I had a level of respect and patience for them, however finite it may have been.

Today they decided to test this already taut patience. While Zaina cruised casually along the block, Bunny and I kept our eyes glued to the snake pit -- not so much to issue any kind of challenge but rather to keep an eye on these little turds because they were all crazy. Predictably, this was lost on the Cobras and our little stare-down only served to incite them. They all sprang from the stoop and began throwing up C’s and dropping 5’s with their hands as they shouted “DIE FIVE”, “MANIAC KILLA”, and a few vulgarities concerning a number of our orifices. I just smirked and rolled my eyes at them, making sure to flutter my eyelids extra hard. In the backseat Bunny convulsed with laughter. As we rolled away I turned back to look at them again just in time to catch a 40oz bottle fly through the air before shattering against the trunk of the car with a loud crash. Zaina pumped the brakes and I exploded from the car with the .38 drawn.

“LOOK M***********S,” I shrieked as I aimed it at them, prompting them all to scatter in every direction before I could even get another word out. With the Cobras dispersed, there was nothing really left to do besides get back in the car and keep it moving. So much for talking out our differences. Oh well.

“What the f**k is good with the snakes,” Bunny blurted frantically as Zaina turned onto Yates from 77th.

“They some f****n’ a******s. You know that,” Zaina sighed, slowing to a halt at a stop light.

“That and JonJon shot at them last night.”

They both gaped at me like I had two heads.

“Yep.”

“...Okay, I understand. But for what? You oughta throw him in the f****n’ grinder for that,” Bunny suggested.

“I intend to. As a matter of fact, don’t let me forget to put that order in with the Big Guys,” I tasked her. Even though I was pretty sure they’d authorize it, I didn’t wanna risk issuing a frivolous violation -- because then I’d get violated.

I looked over to Zaina to catch her brow furrow before she impatiently asked, “But why did he do that, Rudy?”

“Oh… yeah. Because they jumped him when he was coming from Bug’s house.”

“That’s what that noise was last night,” Zaina asked incredulously. “He was really fannin’ at them n****s. I heard like at least fifteen shots.”

“Fifteen,” I repeated in disbelief. “You must’a misheard or something. I know for a fact he was using LoLo’s old pipe, and that only holds eight.”

“Nah, you know she always had that fifteen round extendo for it. He probably jammed that in there,” Bunny’s voice rang out behind me. Wow. I wondered if that’s why most of Paxtown was M.I.A. last night save for the few stragglers I found on 71st. JonJon made the neighborhood hot, so they were all put up; besides a small faction of GDs to the south of them, C-Block’s main opposition was Paxtown -- meaning that was the first place the cops would scour for suspects. That actually explained how twelve got to the scene so quick after I knocked down Vickie and Q. My chest tightened and my face grew hot as I internally obsessed over how unwittingly close I came to getting booked for the rest of the ride to Bunny’s house.

After riding through a gradient featuring well-maintained homes with manicured lawns that beyond Yates morphed into the cluster of rundown blocks - each lined with row after row of towering Victorian apartment buildings fashioned from red brick punctuated by the odd Chicago bungalow style house - that made up Terror Town before pulling up in front of one particular red-brick bungalow near the corner of 74th & Kingston with dense, overgrown hedges concealing its porch. A wooden wheelchair ramp snaked from the sidewalk up the left half of the porch’s steps, leaving a narrow path for those of us that still had functioning legs. We got out of the car and started up the pathway, stopping briefly to speak to Kitty, Chunk, and now Chapo, who were all hanging out on the porch next door.

Once inside we all greeted the large paraplegic white man sitting in front of an equally large television while nursing a beer in a small living room with worn furniture from the 1980s and a film of dust just as old. The heavy curtains that framed the windows were perpetually drawn down to block out the bright summer sun along with the vigilant gazes of nosy neighbor and law enforcement officer alike. I could make out the tattoo that read ‘LAW’ in old western letters and trailed down his raised left forearm in the pale glare of the TV. I knew the other had a matching tattoo that said ‘OUT’, together spelling out ‘OUTLAW’, a tribute to the one-percenter motorcycle club of which he was still very much an active member of despite his condition. “Hey, Bear,” I chirped at him.

“Hey there, Rudy,” he bellowed cheerily. Even though he was in a wheelchair, I still had to look up at the massive 6’7” man.

“Where’s the key to the safe?” Bunny called back to her dad as we started toward the back of the house.

Bear turned to us and balled his face up in confusion, “I thought you just left to do that?”

“Yeah, but I forgot them here,” Bunny responded sheepishly, feeling stupid. As she should’ve.

Bunny’s dad just chuckled and turned to me, “Christ, how do you put up with this kid?”

“I don’t know, man,” I said as I took the unlit cigarette out of my mouth and looked at Bunny with a patronizing grin.

“Where’s the key?” she echoed as she flipped me off.

“Bottom of the top drawer. Put it back when you’re done,” he answered before turning his attention back to the TV.

Zaina and I trailed Bunny back from the living room through a long hallway and into her dad’s room before sitting on a king sized bed to watch her as she fished the key from beneath a stack of shirts in her dad’s top dresser drawer. Once she had found the key, she stepped into a walk-in closet where a large black gun safe was tucked away. “What did they want again?” Bunny called out as she opened the safe.

“Uhh fuckinnnn…,” I droned, trying to remember what my cousin had ordered.

She groaned and barked, “What the f**k do you mean ‘uhh’?”

“S**t, man, it’s not like I have it written down.”

I closed my eyes and thought hard about what he’d asked me for the last time we spoke. “Well, maybe you should have,” Bunny nagged.

“Shut up, I’m thinking. Damn. Uhh, nine millimeter Glock. .380 Ruger. And… another Glock? Yeah. There’s a .40 back there, right,” I asked as I stepped into the closet with her and looked into the safe. Holy s**t. I visually combed over a stockpile of small arms and a couple of semi-automatic rifles, probably all from gun shops scattered throughout Indiana and beyond. I’d never seen this many guns at once. Bunny started into the pile and plucked out everything I listed before handing it to me to put into the backpack that was still on her back.

After doing this twice she hesitated before turning around to ask, “You said .40, right?” I nodded and she grabbed the last one. I took it and put it in her bag with the others and zipped. Bunny closed and locked the safe and we stepped out of the closet. She replaced the key before we went back up front to the living room where we found Zaina curled up on a faded sofa bumming a beer from Bunny’s dad. “Hey, we’re out.”

“Hold on, lemme finish this,” she grumbled without taking her eyes off of the TV, which was showing a new episode of Breaking Bad.

“We’re late enough as it is, come on.”

“And what the f**k are you doing, anyway? You drove over here, remember,” Bunny threw in.

Zaina sucked her teeth and brushed us off, “It’s a beer.”

“So finish it outside,” I shouted at her, not so much out of frustration, but rather because in the middle of this exchange our surroundings began to pulse as the rhythmic tremors of what sounded suspiciously like the bass from “Water Whippin’” by Gucci Mane drowned everything else out. Bunny opened the door, peered out and beckoned for us to head out. Incentivized by the prospect of something better to do, Zaina sprang from the couch and joined Bunny at the open door, beer still in hand. I turned to Bear and mouthed at him, “Can I get one too?” F**k it.

Bear winced and shouted, “You kids are f****n’ killin’ me. Yeah, g’head.” I hustled into the kitchen and snatched a bottle of Miller from the fridge, somehow fumbled it open, and joined everyone back in the living room.

“Tell Pete and the rest of those shitheads to keep it down out there,” Bunny’s dad hollered to us as we piled out of the door. Bunny gave her dad a thumbs up before shutting it behind her. We stepped off of the porch and onto the pathway leading up to it then  looked next door to Kitty’s house again, the source of all the commotion. Kitty, Chunk, and Chapo were still there, only now about eight other Maniacs had joined them, some our age, some in their early twenties. Among them was Bunny’s older brother Stretch, sitting with his long legs hanging out of the opened back door of a burgundy 1999 Crown Victoria. This was my first time seeing him in about three months; he just got home from finishing his first year at Duke.

“Dad said shut the F**K up,” Bunny yelled over the music as we approached the gathering of Stones.  Stretch just frowned as he scratched at the still-fresh tattoo of a detailed Egyptian pyramid with the words ‘Maniac Black Stones’ arched over it in old western font on his pale chest before motioning for J-Moe in the driver’s seat to turn the music down some. Wrapped coyly around the pyramid was a wispy white banner with ‘75th and Phillips’ scrawled across it in elegant cursive script. I guess being down in the southern sun had given Stretch a farmer’s tan, because his head and lanky limbs were two shades darker than his ghostly torso. I caught his cold cobalt stare when my eyes drifted up to the small, red five-pointed star tattooed near the outer corner of his left eye.

He smirked at me. “Oooh, rudegirl Ruger what’s up,” he badgered, making fun of the street-name I assumed at 14 that over time burgeoned into an extravagant local character that at this point totally eclipsed my actual identity. Almost everyone who knew me in any meaningful sense teased me over the blatant disconnect between who people thought Ruger was and who Rudy really was. In retrospect I guess it was for the best -- I sure as f**k don’t want all the sketchy s**t I’ve done in the past few years attached to my real name. So I embraced the two personas: to the guys I was Rudy, to everyone else I was Ruger.

“What’s up, you f****n’ ectomorph,” I greeted back, shaking his hand before finally lighting the cigarette I’ve had in my mouth for the past hour or so and sipping my beer. Kilo interrupted our reunion, wrapping a thick muscular arm around my neck -- making me partially spill the bottle’s contents.

“Ay, this my shoota right here, y’all,” Kilo proudly boasted to the rest of the Stones about the other night on my behalf, the older of which were just hearing the specifics of. They all knew someone from Paxtown got nailed recently and that one of us was responsible, but they didn’t know that it was me in particular. “Lil’ moe took shorty’nem smooth out this s**t, on stone.”

I used my free hand to push him away from me and nagged, “Kilo look at what you just made me do!” I pointed to the stain on the concrete.

“Yeah man, that’s a technical foul,” Stretch joined in.

Kilo stumbled backwards and grinned at us. I think he was drunk. “My fault shorty, I was just tryna let n****s know you out here t’d!”

Everyone turned their attention toward me as murmurs of approval echoed among the group. I was honestly flattered, but I was also mortified that so many people seemed to know. I took some comfort in the fact that only people within our circle knew, but even then that was a few too many for my comfort. Still, I swallowed the doubt and donned a cool façade, smugly smirking as I puffed my Newport while the guys laughed and joked at Paxtown’s expense.

We bullshitted for about fifteen more minutes before a silver 2001 Chevy Tahoe pulled up and parked across the street from Kitty’s house, which still had J-Moe’s Crown Vic parked out front with about a dozen gang members congregating on the front lawn. The loud cranking sound of the SUV’s s****y transmission shifting into park finally caught Kitty’s attention, who incidentally was last to notice as she was too busy serving a fiend in front of her own home; I often advised her that this was an awful idea but whatever, she had to live here, not me. Upon looking up she immediately froze with apprehension.

A large, older woman burst from the driver’s side of the Tahoe, absolutely livid with the scene that had unfolded in her front yard. She began yelling before she could even shut the car door. By this time J-Moe had turned the music completely off, Ms. Davis’ scolding replacing it as the dominating sound on the otherwise quiet street, “ALEXUS. GIRL WHAT THA HELL I TELL YOU BOUT HAVIN THESE DUSTY A*S LITTLE BOYS ALL IN FRONT OF MY HOUSE?  I SWEAR IF THEY COME THROUGH HERE SHOOTIN AGAIN I’M PUTTIN YOU ON THE STREET,” alluding to the time the bricks slid through and shot up Kitty’s house after finding out we sometimes hung out front. Kitty timidly stared down her fate like a deer about to be mowed over by an SUV; we all spectated eagerly as Ms. Davis plodded closer and closer, swinging her heavy purse at Kitty’s head as she closed in on her. Kitty flinched, raising her hand to try and deflect the blow. Too late -- the thick leather bag smacked against her face with a hefty ‘slap’. She staggered backwards and held her no-doubt-ringing head, making sure not to take her eyes off of her mother. Not yet satisfied, Ms. Davis charged her again with purse raised; this time Kitty took off, her mother close behind her. That woman really could move, with her fat a*s. We howled hysterically while Kitty fled her mom, right hand cradling her chest -- probably praying to God, Allah, and Yahweh that nothing fell out, if I had to guess.

I was honestly enjoying the show until I suddenly became a part when Ms. Davis decided turn her sights on me. I think she somehow knew now that her oldest daughter was dead, I was running the show -- and by extension, Kitty -- now.  She hurdled toward me, weapon poised. Around me all the guys still roared -- but nothing was really funny anymore.

“Relaxxxxx,” I whined right before she took a swing that I just barely ducked.

Before she could regroup and strike again, I turned and bolted for Zaina’s car. In a record-making stroke of luck, the door was unlocked. I yanked it open and dove inside, pulling the door behind me just in time. She jogged up to the car about two seconds after I’d made my escape, panting. “If I see you around my house again, I’M CALLING THE COPS,” she threatened between gasps of air, voice muffled by the plate of glass separating us. She better f*****g not. I looked past her towards the cluster of onlookers across the street, still taking much delight in mine and Kitty’s misfortune. She was still bitching. Officially done with her, I picked my phone up out of the center console where I left it and checked my messages while I ignored her. I had five messages and three missed calls. All from cousin Bullet wondering where in the f**k I was and when in the f**k I was coming over. It was time to go.

When Ms. Davis finally tired herself out and retreated back into her home, I opened the door of Zaina’s car, which was still parked in front of Bunny’s house and called out to the two, “Let’s f****n’ goooooo, we got s**t to do!”

      All the guys laughed at me. “Kitty mama got you shook to come out that car,” Chunk teased.  I ignored him. It was all I could do. After all, he was right. Instead I just looked at Zaina and Bunny. They suddenly remembered that we were in fact in the middle of doing stuff and joined me in the car. We finally peeled off for Chatham, leaving the rest of the guys there, still laughing at me. Whatever.