Blood & Tacos #2 (9 page)

"Give me your money."

The kid was probably twelve or thirteen, skinny with light brown skin, Puerto
Rican or Cuban maybe. He wore a green Dan Marino jersey that was at least two
sizes too big and hung nearly halfway down his thighs. Under the kid’s
right eye were the remnants of a purple bruise.

He made a stabbing motion with the gun and repeated, "Give me your money."

I had seen the kid earlier that day. He had been in the back of the arcade,
hanging out with three older kids I recognized: teenage trash from Staten Island
who took the bus across the Verrazano Bridge to sling herb and harass the girls
from Fontbonne Academy.

They wore matching black bandannas tied around their legs. In Park Hills they
might have been big shit, but to me they just looked like angry assholes hungry
to shit on the world.

I had kicked out the oldest kid twice before. Once for dealing dime-bags and
the second time for kicking the coin door of a Defender machine. I’d heard
someone call him "Sello" once.

I pushed my way through his two friends to where Sello was playing Ghost’n
Goblins. They were teenage vultures dressed in red vinyl jackets and leaking
zits. Both of them were in their late teens. One looked like Charlie Brown,
bald with giant jug ears; the other was bucktoothed and wearing 3-D glasses.

Sello was hunched over, his fingers bouncing from button to button on the game’s
control panel. He was an ugly fucker, fat-lipped and greasy looking. A Marlboro
dangled from his lips as he cursed at the monitor.

"Goddamn bunch of bullshit! Did you guys see that? I swear this game
is fuckin’ broken."

I got close and bumped him with my chest. The game gave out a mournful tone
as Sello lost a life.

He flew up, snapping. "Watch it, bitch!"

I leaned in closer and let his eyes take in my 255 pounds. I’m six two,
but a foot taller with my mohawk. I flexed my arms and leaned into his face.

"I told you to stay away."

Sello took a step back, giving me a yellow grin.

"It’s fresh. Ask the man."

He nodded behind the counter where my Uncle Milo counted out tokens to two
kids in day-glo shirts.

I stepped in closer, so that Sello’s chest touched mine.

"Get the fuck out, before I tear off your face and use it to wipe my
ass."

"It’s cool, man." said Sello’s friend with the 3-D
glasses.

"It’s not cool," Sello snarled. "The Threats run with
Mr. Bread now. Just ’cause you’re built like Hulk Hogan doesn’t
mean you’re bulletproof. Remember that."

I had heard about Mr. Bread. He was supposed to be a heavy, making a name for
himself dealing junk and breaking arms down in Park Hills.

I showed Sello my crazy face.

"Let’s get out of here," Sello said. "This place smells
like shit anyway."

When they left, the kid in the Dan Marino jersey hung his head and followed.

Five minutes ’til closing, the kid came back by himself. Not playing
anything, just standing off to the side, watching the demo on Bega’s Battle
loop over and over.

At eight, I flipped the switch behind the counter, shutting down the games.
I let the last few kids duck under the retractable security gate and when I
turned, the kid in the Dan Marino jersey had a gun on me.

It was a .38 revolver with a dark metal finish. In the kid’s hand, it
looked big and heavy. Good thing my uncle had already gone upstairs. If the
kid had pulled a gun on him, Milo might have killed him.

"Here," I said and tugged on the chain attached to my wallet. "I’ve
got twenty bucks."

I opened my wallet to show him. When the kid looked, I kicked him in the chest
with my combat boot.

The kid flew backward and bounced off a Dig Dug machine, slamming into the
floor. Pained sucking sounds came from his throat as he tried to draw in breath.
I grabbed the gun off the speckled carpet and jammed it in the studded leather
belt I was wearing.

With one arm, I grabbed the kid by his collar and jerked him off the ground
so we were eye to eye. His face was panicked as silent tears floated down his
cheeks.

"You still want to rob me?"

He shook his head and I set him down. I let him cough and wheeze for a minute
until he got his breath back.

"Do you know who I am?"

The kid nodded, "Sello said they call you Cruel."

"He tell you why?"

"He said you pulled off a Russian guy’s toes. Tony T said it was
’cause you broke Jimmy Future’s legs with a shopping cart full of
cinderblocks."

I couldn’t help smiling.

"Sello, Tony T? Those your friends? They put you up to this?"

"The Threats," the kid said. "They said it was my initiation."

"Why would you want to join those assholes?"

The kid shrugged, "Protection, I guess."

"They hassle you?"

"Not really. But they’ll kill me when they find out you got their
gun."

"What’s your name?"

"Hector."

"Come up stairs for a sec."

I showed Hector to the stairwell that leads to the apartment above the arcade.
Inside, Milo was asleep in his La-Z-Boy, a half-eaten TV dinner and several
beer cans sat beside him. I tossed a brightly colored afghan over him and switched
off the television. I put a finger to my lips and Hector followed me down the
hall, past dozens of Milo’s Vietnam photos, to my room.

The kid stood in the door, while I pulled out my earrings and laid them on
the desk. I took a moment to fluff up my mohawk and pulled the gun from my belt.

"What’s wrong with it?" Hector asked, nodding at the game
cabinet I had in the corner next to my weights.

"Burn in."

"What’s that?"

"Sometimes, if the brightness is set to high, a monitor gets discolored
so that you can still see the game even after it’s turned off. Take a
look."

Hector approached the arcade machine and gently traced the ghostly maze with
a finger.

"How do you fix it?"

"You don’t."

I opened the desk’s top drawer and shook out the bullets into it. Then,
I pulled some hollow points from a rectangular box I had hidden behind some
socks. One at a time, I squeezed the bullets in the gun’s cylinders. After
that, I grabbed my jean jacket and slipped the gun into the inside pocket.

"What are you gonna do?" Hector asked.

I snatched my nunchucks off the bedpost and put them in my back pocket. "I’m
gonna give Sello his gun back."

Hector followed me across 99th Street and up two blocks to the bus stop.

While we waited, the kid asked, "What time is it?"

"Eight thirty," I said. "Why? You got some place you need
to be?"

Hector shrugged. "It’s my dad. He gets super pissed when I’m
late."

"You should have thought about that before you decided to rob me. You
can go home. After I talk to Sello."

Ten minutes later we were rolling over the Staten Island Expressway. Hector
sat beside me, his refection shimmering in the bus window as he looked out to
Gravesend Bay. His image looked ghostly and grim.

I slipped my headphones under my jaw and popped a Misfits cassette into my
Walkman. Closing my eyes, I let the music wash over me.

Before Milo came back from ‘Nam and took me in, I lived with the Junkman.
It wasn’t a real house, it was a foster house, two double-wides welded
together next to a maze of ruined cars. The whole place was surrounded by tall
chain-link fences topped with razor wire. It kept people out, and us in.

The Junkman had rules for everything: how to eat, when to use the bathroom,
when to sleep. He didn’t allow us to look at him, or speak without being
spoken to. If you broke the rules, you sat in the chair.

Stevie was one of the kids I shared a bunk with. He was quiet with hound dog
eyes, but really tough. Of all the kids the Junkman kept, Stevie was the only
one who never cried. He was the one who taught me how to turn off the pain.
On the night I ran away, it was Stevie who called me "Cruel."

Hector and I switched buses on New York Avenue, catching the last bus to Clifton.

"What time is it?" Hector asked as the bus barreled through the
evening traffic.

"Maybe nine thirty."

"Man, I got to get home."

We got off the bus at Hylan and walked past the darkened store fronts. The
kid didn’t talk. After a few blocks, Hector pointed at a brown six-story
apartment complex.

"221. Right up the stairs."

"Wait here."

"I can’t," Hector said. "I got to get home."

I moved the revolver out of the jacket and into my belt. "Alright. But
if you’re lying, I’ll come find you."

"I promise. I ain’t lying."

I nodded and watched him disappear down an alley.

Cutting through the parking lot, I noticed a Corvette with a custom New York
plate.

It read: BREAD.

Inside the building, the floor was littered with trash. Wrappers, dirty diapers,
and spoiled take-out covered every inch. Graffiti marred the walls with wisdom
like: "Jamaykan queens can’t tame me" and "If you can’t
fuck a 10, fuck five 2's."

I followed the narrow stairwell to the second floor and listened outside of
apartment 221. Living with the Junkman had taught me how to walk without making
a sound.

Inside, I could hear Pat Benatar howling over laughing voices. I reached up
for the bare light bulb that lit the hallway. My fingertips sizzled, but I ignored
the pain and unscrewed it. Without the light, it was dark except for the dim
glow of street lights beyond the frosted windows. I put the light bulb in my
jacket pocket.

I knocked on the door. I didn’t worry about a peep-hole; there wasn’t
one.

The apartment door opened a crack. Behind the chain, I could see Charlie Brown’s
ugly bald head. The darkened hallway had the same effect as a police lineup;
in the dark, I could see him, but he couldn’t see me.

"Who’s there?"

I kicked the door as hard as I could.

The door chain splintered off the wall and the edge of the door flung back,
striking Charlie Brown between the eyes. He flopped backward and crumpled on
the floor, unconscious.

Sello and the kid with the 3-D glasses sat on a ratty couch. On the coffee
table in front of them were bags of white rocks and tall stacks of ones and
fives. On my right, the TV showed Pat Benatar shaking around like a hobo with
a case of the DTs. I didn’t see Mr. Bread anywhere.

I stepped over Charlie Brown and put a boot on the coffee table.

"I brought your gun back, Sello."

The greasy fuck grinned. "Why don’t you hand it here?"

I kicked over the coffee table, spilling their shit everywhere.

"Why don’t you come and take it?"

Sello brushed himself off and said, "I’m gonna let my man take
care of that."

Something smashed into the side of my face. I staggered back, bumping against
the TV, making the picture jump. I saw another white blur and pain exploded
through my skull. I dropped to my knees. Blood poured down my face and over
my eye, but I could still make out who hit me.

He was big, tan and adorned with flashy gold chains. The seams of his expensive
track suit strained against his massive shoulders. He was 6’4? and a solid
300 pounds. To me he looked like a Rottweiler with a pompadour.

In his hands was a toilet tank lid.

I said, "It’s nice to see you Stevie," as he hit me again.

When I came to, I was on my knees. My head pounded like a low-rider’s
blown speakers. I tried to move but found that my hands had been tied to my
ankles behind me. 3-D and Charlie Brown’s hightops were missing their
laces, so I figured that’s what they used.

In front of me was the toilet lid, a dark splash of blood smeared one end.

On the couch, Sello and his boys finished stowing their shit in green duffel
bags. Stevie sat on the couch’s arm, dabbing at drops of blood on his
sleeve with a wet rag. My nunchucks hung around his massive neck; the revolver
was stuck in his waistband. Once he noticed I was awake, he threw the rag down.

"I knew we’d meet up someday," Stevie said. "I almost
didn’t recognize you. Your hair looks fuckin’ stupid."

I spit a tooth onto the carpet. "Fuck you, Stevie."

"People call me Mr. Bread now."

"Why?" I said. "You fucking the Pillsbury Doughboy?"

Stevie kicked me with his giant Air Jordan and dark spots swam through my vision.
I fell on my side and felt the light bulb in my pocket pop.

"They call me Mr. Bread ’cause I make money. This town is mine.
See these little pussies? They’re mine, too! That shit you spilled, that
was mine. I was gonna turn that rock into six grand. Now I’m gonna take
it out of you."

Charlie Brown laughed as Stevie grabbed my Mohawk and pulled me upright. Smiling,
he held out his hand to Sello.

"Give me your blade."

Sello passed him the switchblade without a word. Stevie held it up so I could
watch it snap open.

"You still like to play?"