The Old Neighborhood (24 page)

There was a throbbing second. Dad snarled and burrowed his eyes through Sonic, who blinked back tears and heaved for breath. The crumpled paper clapped to the floor.

They let up, and Dad stepped toward the door. Sonic bent down and snatched the document, tugged it open, and scowled at it. A little shot of joy blossomed in my heart, and a grin snuck onto my lips. O'Riley caught it, then he grimaced at me, and I hung my head in shame again. We stepped out into the hall, and Ryan was glued to the glass of his cell, all wide eyed. I just shook my head as we walked past.

I'd gotten a few slaps in my day but never a real beating, not like the ones I'd seen Dad give my brothers. He trembled with rage the whole drive home, and I watched him in my periphery—waiting for it. When we got in the house, he said, “Get to your room.” I stepped toward the stairs. He followed and I halted. He paused, then stepped in front of me and up the staircase. I followed him. When he reached the top stair, he turned left toward his room, and I stepped right toward mine. I sighed with relief as I walked inside.

There was a whirl, and a heavy palm impacted the whole side of my head. I was airborne. My entire room flopped sideways, then upside down, and I landed on my belly with a hard squeak of bedsprings. Then, I curled into a fetal ball as Dad rampaged through my room. He tore my big Lowrider poster off the low, slanted ceiling, then vaulted my stereo off my dresser to the old shag carpet. “I'm tearing all this shit outta here!” He yelled, smacking my CD cases so they sprinkled over me. Then, he stomped up and snatched a handful of my hair.

“YOU THINK YOU'RE TOUGH?” He planted a punch into my hairline. Then, he smashed one into my lip. Blood poured in through my teeth. “YOU THINK YOU'RE TOUGH?” He chuckled. He released me and surged toward my open door, then halted in the doorway. “YOU THINK YOU'RE FUCKING TOUGH? YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT TOUGH IS!”

I peered at him through the thin crease between my forearms as he vanished into the hall.

Well, that was the first time he cracked me for real, and I spent the rest of that day and night thinking about why. Was it 'cause I'd gotten caught? Screwed up his day? Maybe because I'd jumped in on a fair fight, or because DeAndre was hurt so bad. I never asked. Looking back, I guess he was just scared for me, wanted to wake me the hell up. Sometimes, that's the only way to get a young man to pull his head of out his ass. I didn't though—spent the rest of the day thinking about how to run away and how to maybe hit him with something heavy when he wasn't looking. Then, I thought about what was waiting for us out there in the neighborhood. Everyone'd want a piece of us now. I couldn't believe how deep of shit we'd gotten in. I was proud, too, crazy as that sounds—proud that we'd stuck together so tight, proud that we'd fought without hesitation, proud that we hadn't gotten jumped again.

I laid like that in my room all afternoon. No one came to see how I was. I was glad they didn't but lonely at the same time. Outside my window, the block flourished in the full-tilt summer. The little boys played war with plastic machine guns that rattled as they cried out and flopped on their bellies in death throes.
Why do boys have to war with each other?
A Mother pushed her stroller across the way. In my mind, I saw DeAndre on a hospital bed with his mom weeping and holding his hand as they waited to do a brain scan. An old man with a brimmed hat walked his muscular pit bull along the sidewalk, and I wondered what Da would think of me now—if he'd be mad with me, or just sad and disappointed. An epic, golden green filtered through the full-leaved tree out front. It splattered on the front porch's roofing but fell short of my window. It was too bright, and eventually, I just pulled my drapes closed.

•

I HAD A STEADILY BEATING HEADACHE
well into the night. I never turned the light on—just sat there on my bed as dusk saturated my wall in a heavy orange-red. Then, darkness, until the streetlights lit yellow and empty. Sleep would come, and the headache would nudge away. The wires slung heavy in my veins, pinning me to the bed. Then, there was a giant red bubble-shaped organ lying on my belly. It was like a transparent tomato. Wet, slimy, and pulsing, it bobbled there, light as a feather. Its force pinned me, not its weight. Then, light images began to pass through it at a quickening pace like a strobe light: pit bulls fighting, encircled by laughter. Cows quartered with enormous, circular blades. Then, the images took on a terrible speed like someone flipping through a thick deck of cards: the Assyrian's cracked skull, Sy's gaping eye wound, the blood beading through Monteff's fingers, Ryan's purple eye, the stitches along Lil Pat's brow. Then, it froze on DeAndre's eyes, swollen shut and bleeding steady tears that dripped down on me like rain. Then, the bubble clouded and undulated atop me—alive. I raised my hand against the force and dipped my finger into it. It elasticized against my fingertip, recoiled, and floated upward. Then, it burst and flooded down in hot, red ooze, and I awoke panting, covered in sweat, gripping my hollow stomach.

Couldn't sleep after that; I kept sifting through all of it for meaning. I felt somewhere deep inside that what I did was wrong—that I should have only jumped in if they did first. Dad'd beat me like that because what I'd done was villainous and cowardly. A one-on-one fight was sacred bond. Win or lose, there was honor in a fair fight, and breaking that code was a terrible thing to do. It was an unjust thing, and I should have let Angel lose if it had to happen. But in what I did, there was no dignity. Fear made me do it, and that made me sick. I resolved to not do it again. If they'd have moved, it'd have been OK, but since I jumped the gun, I was as bad as they'd been when they jumped us. That sin infuriated and dejected me. A man was only as good as his code. I wasn't a man. I knew that. But I was trying, and I'd failed that afternoon.

•

I SNUCK OUT
a few nights later. I walked down the street towards the sills as David Letterman's voice eked out of the Bernhart's open front window and traffic soared quietly along Ashland. There were a few kids down there. Angel had his midnight-purple Lowrider out, and he gazed solemnly down the arterial alleyway as he sat on his bike. Its serpentine lines swayed and twisted together beneath him. The chain-link steering wheel spouted up from the bike's neck like a chrome crown. The other kids shuffled around him, inspecting it. The tall, wide expanse of the hospital wall behind him loomed, immovable, like the prison walls in Joliet.

Ryan sat in his sill with his legs dangling down, toes barely touching the sidewalk. His scowl was harder than a boy's face should be allowed to scowl—harder than it is was capable of. His freckles were dark and large and spattered across his arms and face, and the skin beneath them was milky white—the type of pale that never darkens, only singes red; the kind of burn not easily forgotten.

Ryan saw me and got up to greet me. Angel looked, then he leaned his bike on its pedal and sauntered over.

Ryan flashed his imbecilic, crooked smirk. “Drown your sorrows,” he said, raising a half-pint of whiskey in a crumpled paper bag.

“Thanks, man,” I said, taking the half-killed bottle.

Ryan and Angel glanced at each other. The bulbous, purple mound on my widow's peak had dissipated into a hazy orange, but my cut lip was still puffed out.

“So's DeAndre gonna press charges?” I asked, taking a slug.

“Naw, man. I think the cops were just trying to scare us,” Angel answered, exhaling hard.

I snickered as Ryan offered me his mint-green pack of Newports. I dug one out.

“I think they did a little more than that,” I said, sparking it.

We were silent. I could feel 'em staring at the lump; it felt tight and slid across my skull every time I talked or toked.

“Didn't even see it comin'. Son-of-a-bitch sucker punched me. Believe dat? His own kid.”

“Hey man, you alright?” Angel said, putting his hand on my shoulder. His mahogany eyes were soft like a child's.

“Yeah, I'm fine, man. My brothers got it a lot worse den me. Old man must be getting soft or somethin'.”

“Didn't he break Rich's nose that one time?” Ryan asked.

“Yeah, broke his nose real nasty. I got off easy.”

“Hey, Angel, can I ride it?” a stoner with a threadbare flannel shirt tied around his waist asked Angel, looming beside his bike.

“No,” Angel answered, turning and swaying up to it.

“He's drunk, huh? I better catch up,” I said. I took a few hard swigs and handed the bottle back to Ryan.

“Yeah, you missed it. We smoked a blunt earlier,” Ryan added.

“No shit? What's dat coming out of my cut?”

“Naw, it was outta Angel's personal stash.” Ryan took a swig off of the bottle. “Said we were smoking it for you actually.
‘
For our boy on house arrest.'”

Angel started riding in these wobbly, tightly torqued circles, and a couple of the younger kids ran alongside him. Then, Angel threw his head back and rocked it side to side, gazing into the murky night sky. “My Daddy taught me-ta ride bikes… My Daddy taught me-ta ride bikes…” he sang.

Everybody laughed except Ryan and me. We just walked over, sat in our sills, and watched solemnly.

“Man…,” Ryan said and took a swig. “I'd like to say I miss him.” His brick of a forehead creased. “All he ever did when he was home was beat the shit outta us. Ma got the worst of it, always with her mouth, ya know? Waa, waa, waa,” Ryan mocked his Ma's whiney voice. “Ya know?”

I nodded.

“But still, man, the kinda shit he'd do to her… He'd hit her with a closed fist man… Hard as he could!”

“Damn.”

“I'd try to stop him, ya know, but he'd just whoop my ass, too.” Ryan shrugged, defeated. “One time though, Bear got him. Oh, he got him good. Ran him right out the house. Bit his whole hand up real bad. Had to get stitches and everything.”

“No shit?”

“That's a good dog, man. That was one of the last times he hit her. It was right before he got locked up.”

“Damn, dat is a good dog.”

Angel Rode on. His old man had been in the Army, and they'd lived on a base out in California. He had a screw loose from Nam or booze or drugs, and he ended up going insane. He got a medical discharge, and they committed him into an asylum. It'd been ugly. He'd started lashing out at Angel and his Ma—tormenting them with his delusions and horrifying things brought on by some kind of mescaline or LSD. Monsters and demons, and sometimes, even his little boy became the demon. That was just too much for Angel's mother to take, so they got on a bus for Chicago in the middle of the night. She had a cousin here and a job waiting. Later, they found out about the asylum, then the half-way house, then who knows. He sent Angel a letter every Christmas with five bucks in it. Not another word all year round. Angel told me that one night in the garage when it was just him, me. Tears avalanched off his face.

Suddenly, Angel's front tire smashed into the hospital wall. His springer fork gave, and the frame surged upward, but he let go just before his handlebar grips slammed into the concrete. There was a surge of laughter. Angel laughed, too, then stood, grabbed the handlebars, and started crashing his front tire into the wall. The metal fender crinkled. His forearms flared, and his face knotted in a concentrated grimace. The back tire jolted upward with each collision.

“What the fuck?” I yelled, then we sprang up and dashed over. Ryan yanked Angel off, and the bike thumped and clanked to the sidewalk. I picked it up as Ryan held him back. The front fender was dinged pretty bad. The smooth, curved metal dimpled near the neck of the frame.

“What?” Angel giggled.

“What the fuck are you doing, bro?” I pleaded.

“Fuck you. It's my fucking bike to wreck,” he said, smiling bitterly.

“What the fuck, Angel?”

“Come on,” Angel sang. “It ain't so bad.”

Ryan let go, and Angel mounted it. He started to ride again, but the front tire deflated where it contacted the ground and spilled out flat. His smile'd vanished, but he still rode in tight figure eights. The kids'd stopped following, and the tire finally flopped to the side. The rim ground against the sidewalk, and he toppled off and flopped onto his stomach. Ryan rushed over.

“C'mon, let's get you home, bro,” Ryan said, picking him up by his elbow. “You're a fucking mess.”

Angel bounced up and twisted away, then teetered across the street towards his house.

“Where the fuck you going, man?” Ryan said, following him.

“I'm going home, dog,” Angel said over his shoulder with a constrained laugh.

“Let him go, Ry,” I urged. Ryan stopped before he got to the street. “I'll put it up in the garage tonight.”

Angel loped down the alley atop the uneven pavement and disappeared around the T. I hung a while, killed the bottle with Ryan, then brought the bike home to the garage. I stayed up, patched the inner-tube, and re-fit the tire. Then, I banged the fender back enough to allow the wheel to spin freely—something Angel could have done in half the time and with half the effort, but I did it anyway.

Being fourteen, it was hard for me to see how lucky I was. I thought I was in the same kind of boat as Angel and Ryan—just had a hard-ass for an old man who liked to beat the shit outta his sons. It's incredible how wrong a kid can be. I couldn't understand what it was like to have a dad that was mentally ill or locked up. Maybe none of us could understand what each other was going through, let alone understand what we were going through by ourselves. But at least we had each other to get through it together. At least we had each other.