The Order of Brigid's Cross - The Wild Hunt (Book 1): The Wild Hunt (2 page)

The basketball thumped rhythmically against the cracked
concrete that had once been a smooth playing court. The stripes of black paint
outlining the boundaries had long since worn off leaving only a gray shadow and
an occasional chip of darker paint left in its place. Weeds had grown through
the crumbled pavement, and litter was strewn everywhere. But the neighborhood
teams had learned to maneuver around them so the ball wouldn't take a bad
bounce when they were working their way forward for a lay-up.

Once bright orange, the thick, metal, support poles and
baskets were now rusted with shards of peeling paint, and where the white
fabric of the basket webbing had hung, now only a few dirty strands of thread
blew in the wind.

On the border of the basketball court, the tall, chain-link
fence had been broken and lay on its side next to empty liquor bottles, beer cans
and used needles. It was a harsh contrast to the few pieces of playground
equipment left in the nearby play yard.

But even decrepit and nearly obliterated, this place was still
magical; it was a place where a boy from the inner city of Chicago could
pretend he was Michael Jordan or Derrick Rose.
 
He could dash down the court on a lay-up and then jump into the air with
a slam dunk.
 
His worn Salvation Army gym
shoes could turn into the latest high-end athletic footwear, giving him the
ability to float in the air towards the goal. His skinny arms could be ripped
with muscles and tattoos. And he could even hear the crowds at the United
Center scream his name. “Jamal.
Jamal.
Jamal.”

“Jamal! You stop your daydreaming and get up to the apartment,
now!” his grandmother screamed from the fourth floor apartment window. “What are
you thinking, child? Making me wait on you?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he answered, as the crowds were silenced and
the magic slipped away into the shadows.
 
Tucking the old basketball under his arm, Jamal made his way across the
courtyard to the lobby of the housing project where he resided.

“Hey, Jamal,” Devonte stepped out from the shadows
underneath the metal and concrete staircase, pulling his long shirt down over
the front of his pants.

Jamal could hear the girlish giggles from the corner and bit
back a smile. Yeah, Devonte was at it again. He already had two baby mamas, but
it sounded like he was working on number three. But at twelve, nearly thirteen
years old, Jamal couldn’t let Devonte know he was close to grinning in
embarrassment. He had to be cool.

“Hey, Devonte,” he replied, walking towards the stairs.

“You think ‘bout what I ask you?”

Jamal shrugged. “Yeah, but I can’t. My grandma, she won’t
let me join no gang,” he said.

Devonte grabbed Jamal’s shirt and yanked him close. “Who you
think gonna watch out for you when you Grandma is gone?” he snarled. Then he
nodded slowly, released Jamal’s shirt and smiled. A smile that reminded Jamal
of the alligator he'd seen at the zoo. “And how you gonna protect your grandma
if you
ain’t
one of the boys?
 
We boys, we take care of our peoples. Don’t
wanna
see your
grandma get
sliced.”

Jamal wasn’t stupid, he knew how things worked.
 
He’d been chosen and he didn’t have a choice.
If he didn’t join Devonte’s gang, his grandmother would be marked and there was
nothing he could do to protect her. “
Whatcha
want me
to do, Devonte?” he asked, his voice showing no emotion.

“Hey, homie, you’re putting too much on it,” Devonte said.
“No big deal. You just show up tonight in the park. We
havin
’
a thrown down.”

“I
ain’t
got
no
hammer,” Jamal said.

Devonte nodded again, reached behind and pulled a pistol out
of the back waistband of his low riders. “I got you covered, man,” he said.
“You meet us at the park at nine and we show you what it means to be a homie,
you got me?”

Jamal took the gun and stuffed it under his shirt and
nodded. “Yeah, man, I got you.”

He turned away and hurried up the steps, taking them two at
a time. He knew he was going to get in trouble. His grandmother didn’t like
when he was late for dinner. When he finally pushed through the apartment door,
his grandmother was standing in the middle of the room, her hands on her hips,
waiting for him.

“Boy! What took you so long?” she demanded. “Don’t tell me
you stopped to talk to one of those worthless pieces of humanity that hang out
in the lobby.”

“Grandma, you know I have to be nice to them,” he said,
backing towards his bedroom. “It would cause us a lot of trouble if I acted
like I thought I was all that.”

“Well, you are all that compared to them,” she insisted.
“You go to school, you get good grades, and you go to church. What do they
do?
 
They get their food stamps and their
welfare checks, they sell their drugs, they fight their wars, and they have sex
like cats in heat.”

“Grandma, we living on their turf right now,” he said. “And
if we want to be safe, we got to play by their rules.”

“This is God’s turf,” she argued. “We
ain’t
got to play by nobody’s rules but God.”

“Well, I
ain’t
quite ready to meet
God yet,” he said. “And I
ain’t
ready for you to meet
God either. So, for now, we just play their game. Okay?”

Her hands slipped from her hips and she stared at him. “Boy,
you
ain’t
gone and done something stupid have you?”
she asked, her voice trembling slightly. “You
ain’t
joined up with them and their gang?”

He stopped and really looked at the woman before him, the
woman who had been more mother than grandmother throughout his whole life.
 
The
woman
who had
cared for him, taught him, lectured him, and held him when the world was too
hard and his fears too great.
 
He looked
at her coarse gray hair, frizzy and uncontrollable, sticking out of the sides
of her head.
 
Her skin was lined, and
there were age spots on her cheeks.
 
Her
frame was bent and she walked slower now.
 
She would be no match for a young, tough, gang member.
 
He had seen what they had done to other old
women, and he couldn’t have that happen to his grandmother.

“Grandma, I
ain’t
done nothing
that would disrespect you,” he said honestly.

She searched his eyes for a moment, not satisfied with his
answer, but he returned her gaze with a steady one of his own. “Fine then,” she
finally said. “You go get washed up. Supper’s done. I’ll put it on the table.”

He hurried to his room, pulled the gun out of his waistband,
stuck it underneath the mattress of his bed and then ran to the bathroom to
wash up.
 
In just a few minutes he was
seated across from his grandmother with his head bowed, waiting for grace to be
said.
 
He felt his grandmother’s hand in
his and he suddenly realized how thin and fragile she had become.

“Father, we thank thee for our daily bread,” the old woman’s
voice shook, but she spoke with conviction and familiarity. “We thank thee for
our safety in this frightening world. We ask for a blessing on this food.
 
We ask for thy continued guidance and grace.
We ask for thy watchful eye on Jamal.
In Jesus name.
Amen.”

“Amen,” he repeated and gently squeezed her hand before
letting it go. Even if something happened to him, even if he died, now that he
was a member, the gang would look out for his grandmother.
 
He could be grateful for that.

With trembling hands, she carefully spooned the macaroni and
cheese onto his plate while he took a piece of bread from the plastic bag and
spread margarine across it.

After helping herself to some food, she paused, her fork in
mid-air, and looked at him. “You need to stay in tonight,” she said.

“
Ain’t
nothing gonna happen
tonight,” he said.

“I just got a whisper,” she said. “And you know my whispers,
they
ain’t
never wrong.”

His stomach twisted into a knot and he struggled for a
moment to keep his voice calm. She spoke the truth. Her whispers had never been
wrong.
 
Her whispers had warned her the
night her daughter, Jamal’s mother, had been killed.
 
Her whispers had kept them safe all these
years in the projects. He didn’t know how she did it or who she was connected
to, but he couldn’t deny the power of her whispers.

“I’ll stay in Grandma,” he said. “I’ll just go in my room
and do my homework.”

She smiled and nodded. “You’re a good boy, Jamal,” she said.

I sure hope your
whispers are wrong tonight
, he thought, ‘
cause
I don’t have a choice this time.

At 8:40, Jamal opened his bedroom window, leaned out and
looked around.
 
The street light behind
the apartment shone on the collection of garbage containers and refuse
scattered on the ground below. He studied the fire escape that hung outside the
living room window.
 
It was about three
feet away from him, and if he used the ledge just below his window, he could
climb over to it.
 
Problem was
,
would Grandma see him climbing down?
 
If that old fire escape made a lot of noise,
she would go to the window for sure.
 
He
pulled himself back in and walked over to his closet.
 
Sliding open the wood laminate door, he bent
over, picked up his baseball bat and went back to the window.

Leaning out as far as he could, he pushed the top of the bat
against the ironwork of the fire escape. Nothing happened. He tried it again,
this time pushing the bat with all his might. The escape jiggled and screeched
against the motion.
 
He pulled himself
back inside just as the living room window slid open and his grandmother poked
her head out. “Who’s out there?” she
called,
her voice
shrill in the night air.

Sighing, he quietly slid his window closed and bolted it
securely. Sitting on the edge of his bed, he wondered how he was going to slip
out of the house without her knowledge. He looked at the red digital numbers on
his alarm clock.
 
8:45.
Even
if he ran he was going to be late.
 
With a sigh, he pulled the gun out from
beneath his mattress, stuck it back into his waistband and pulled his shirt
over the bump. Grabbing his jacket, he held it behind his back and went to his
bedroom door.

Clasping his doorknob, he slowly twisted it, noiselessly
sliding the latch from the faceplate, and then peered around the door to the
living room.
 
Had she gone into her
bedroom? Could he sneak out without her seeing?

The answer to both questions was no. His grandmother was in
her favorite chair watching a program on the Christian channel and slowly
nodding off.
 
But as soon as he stepped
into the living room, she’d know.

“Hey, Grandma,” he called to her. “I’m pretty tired. I think
I’m going to call it a night.”

She turned from the television to him, and grasping both
arms of her chair, she pushed herself into a standing position.
 
“You going to bed already?” she asked, worry
creasing her already wrinkled brow. “You sick or something?”

He shook his head quickly. “No,” he said. “I have a big test
tomorrow, and I thought I’d get up early and study for it.”

“That’s a good idea,” she agreed, nodding approvingly. She
started to lower herself into her chair when her breath caught and she started
to cough.

“Grandma, you okay?” he asked, dropping his jacket and hurrying
to her side.

She nodded, but the coughing continued.
 
He could see she was having trouble
breathing. She’d had these spells before, but it seemed to him that they were
getting more frequent and more severe.
 
He panicked when he noticed that her coloring around her mouth was
getting grayish, a sign the doctor had told him meant she wasn’t getting enough
oxygen. “Where’s your medicine?” he demanded, more frightened than he’d ever
been in his life.

She weakly raised her arm and pointed to the cabinet over
the stove.
 
Rushing over, he pulled the
dark bottle off the shelf and yanked the silverware drawer out, picking up a
spoon.
 
Running back to her, he opened
the bottle and poured some of the dark brown elixir on the spoon.

“Okay, Grandma, you
gotta
hold
still, just for a second.”

She tried to muffle the coughing, but her body still shook
with small spasms.
 
Holding her chin like
the doctor had shown him, he steadied her mouth and poured the spoonful
down.
 
Then he put the spoon down and
held her frail body in his arms. “It’s okay,” he whispered. “You just have to
take those deep breaths the doctor showed you.”

He felt her tremble in his arms, and he held her
tighter.
 
Finally, she drew in a deep
breath and the coughing stopped. Slowly lowering her back into the chair, he
settled her down and then stepped back to get a good look at her.
 
The greyish coloring seemed to be receding and
her breathing was steady. “You okay?”

She nodded and smiled, although tear tracks still stained her
cheeks. “I’m better,” she wheezed. “Don’t know what I
woulda
done if you hadn’t been here.”

He thought about the window, and his stomach knotted. But he
looked at her and smiled.
 
“Guess those
whispers of yours are watching over you,” he said. “Why don’t you go to bed?
I’ll roll the television in there, and you can watch it until you fall asleep.”

“Now, boy, I don’t cotton with those people what got TVs in
every room of their house,” she said.
“
Ain’t
natural to have those boxes speaking to you wherever you go.”

 
He put his arm around
her and helped her from her chair. “Well, I think we can do it this one time.
Just so you can watch your show and rest,” he suggested. “That okay?”

She stepped forward and was surprised she had to lean on
him. “I suppose for one night it
ain’t
going to do no
harm,” she agreed.

He walked her to her room. “Do you need any help?” he asked.

“At the point I need you to help me get ready for bed,
that’s just about when you can pack me up and send me to an old folks’ home,”
she said, grabbing on to the edge of her dresser for support. “You just give me
a few minutes to wash up, and I’ll call you when I’m ready for the television.”

Backing out of her room, he nodded. “Yeah, you just call me
when you’re ready.”

He walked over to the television cart and rolled it away
from the wall.
 
Unplugging the old
television, he wondered if there would ever be a time when they had a new, thin
screen that could be mounted on the wall. He shrugged. It didn’t really make a
difference since they couldn’t afford cable.

He pushed the cart across the old, shag carpeting and
stopped outside her bedroom, then perched on the arm of a chair until she
called.
 
Glancing over, he saw that it
was already nine o’clock.
 
Well, there
was nothing he could do about it. Besides, he thought, a throw down should last
at least an hour. I’ll be there. I’ll just be the reinforcements.

“Jamal,” his grandmother’s voice came from behind the door.
“I’m ready now.”

He opened her door and pushed the television in so it sat
alongside her bed. Then he bent and plugged it in. “This a good place for it?”
he asked.

She nodded as she aimed the remote at the television and it
turned on. “Works just fine,” she said.

He looked at her.
Lying against the
pillows, her face seemed so little and delicate.
“I love you, Grandma,”
he said, leaning over and giving her a kiss on her cheek.

She hugged him. “I love you too, Jamal,” she said with a
soft smile. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight Grandma.”