Читать книгу It Can Always Get Worse - Shandy Kurth - Страница 3

I woke the next morning to someone jerking me out of bed.

“You little punk!” he yelled, throwing me against the wall.

At first, I thought it was AJ, mad about last night. But then I figured it out; it was my old man.

“Get your hands off him,” AJ’s voice commanded, and I felt my dad’s hands let go of me.

I slid down the wall, still half asleep.

“What’s up with you?” AJ yelled at him, standing in the doorway of my room looking more annoyed than angry.

“The little thief has been stealing from me!” my old man hollered, out of breath from the struggle.

“Stealing what?”

“What do you think, kid? He’s been swiping my beer.”

“I didn’t drink it,” I spoke up, realizing what the heck was going on.

“He says he didn’t steal it,” AJ repeated, pulling his work shirt over his head.

“No, he said he didn’t drink it. He didn’t say nothin’ about not stealing it.”

The old man was breathing hard as he stood over me, and I was afraid he was gonna bash me a good one with the empty beer bottle he had in his hand.

“Did you steal it?” AJ asked real calm-like.

“No, I didn’t steal it.”

“He didn’t steal it, so give the kid a break.”

“I’ll catch you next time!” my old man threatened over his shoulder, still obviously drunk as he stumbled out of the room.

“What’s the matter with you?” AJ asked. Again he didn’t seem angry, just tired. “I was about to call the cops last night. Who knew what had happened to you? You could have been lying dead in some alley.”

“I—”

“I was up all night and morning, scared to death of what had happened to you. I didn’t know if I should hug you or kill you when you got home. Where were you all night that was so damn important?”

“Well, I went to a movie, and then shot some pool. On my way home I saw this kid getting jumped so I ran the guys off. Guess who the kid they were jumping was?”

“I’m not in the mood to guess,” he said, sitting down on the side of my bed and pulling on his boots.

“It was Ace’s kid-brother.”

“No kidding?” I finally got some kind of rise out of him.

“No kidding. So I had to walk him home, and he passed out halfway there. He had a pretty good knife cut.”

“Who was it?” he asked.

“Ace’s brother.”

“No, who jumped him?”

“I have no idea. I’ve never seen them before. A couple drifters I think.”

“Well, I gotta go to work.” He looked real tired, and I knew it was my fault. “Stay out of trouble. And don’t pull what you pulled last night again, or I’ll be the one to jump you. Got me?” he threatened.

“Yeah.”

“Oh, by the way, make sure Mark is at the school by eight. He’s got Saturday school.”

“He get in a fight?”

“I don’t know, something like that. Just make sure he gets there. I don’t want him getting suspended.”

“No problem.” That was typical of Mark, my little brother. Mark was the one in the family who liked to start fights. Me and AJ just finished them. I never started a fight— on purpose anyway.

“Anybody home?” a voice came from the living room.

I sat up in bed, trying to shake the sleep from my head. I must have dozed back off.

“In here,” I called, pulling myself up.

“Hey kid, where’s AJ?” Blade asked.

Blade’s real name was Danny. We all called him Blade though because he could do anything with his knife before you even realized he had it out. He was AJ’s best friend. They had known each other since they were in elementary school; he had always been an extra big brother to me.

“Where he’s at every other Saturday. Work,” I said, walking into the living room with Blade on my heels.

“I thought he was switching his hours?” He picked up a box of crackers off of the table and started shoveling them into his mouth before dropping the empty box in the trash.

“Guess not.”

“You know, he was worried sick about you last night. I thought it was gonna give him an ulcer or something.” He stood in my hallway, flipping his knife around in his hand absent-mindedly.

“I know,” I said, picking up an empty bowl from the coffee table and dropping it into the kitchen sink.

“Well, I gotta be getting to work too. Tell him some guy named Clark is looking for him.”

“What do you mean, looking for him?” I asked, looking up from the laundry basket I was digging around in for a clean shirt.

“You know what I mean.”

“What did he do?”

“Don’t ask me,” he shrugged, waltzing back out the front door.

“Yeah, later.”

Stupid people always stirring up trouble like they didn’t have anything better to do. AJ wasn’t one to make trouble, so whatever he was being accused of was BS I was sure.

“Hey Mark,” I called as I walked down the hall to his room. “Mark, get up.”

“I’m up,” he mumbled with his eyes still closed.

“You got fifteen minutes to get ready.”

The school was only a mile away so it only took ten minutes to get to. It was seven-thirty.

Five minutes passed, and Mark still wasn’t up. “Mark, get up!” I hollered, sticking my head into his room.

“Fine,” he grumbled, rolling out of bed. “What’s for breakfast?”

“Whatever you can find.”

“Where were you last night?” he asked, passing me the box of cereal.

Mark had dark hair like AJ’s, kind of long and a mess at that moment, sticking up in every which direction. He was fourteen and small for his age.

“I thought AJ was gonna have the cops out looking for you if you didn’t show up soon.”

“He was that worried, huh?” I asked, feeling worse.

“Yeah, man, it was like the time you got jumped a couple years ago, nobody found you forever.”

Two years ago I got jumped; it was the worst thing that had ever happened to me. Lying half-dead in an alley until you’ve lost so much blood you pass out is an eye opener. Nothing is quite the same after that. There’s always that one extra look over your shoulder, the check of the backseat before you put the car in drive, the double glance of the house locks after you’ve been home for fifteen minutes… nothing is ever quite the same.

It was drifters that had done it. I was walking home. It was early, probably seven at night, the sun dropping out of sight. They thought I was some kid who had hustled them earlier that night. I wasn’t. I had been out at the park with Marty, another Local. There had been two of them. I was fourteen years old, and built like it—scrawny due to a growth spurt. They had come up behind me, grabbed my jacket and slammed me into the brick wall behind the grocery store.

There was no one there to see me or hear me scream. They beat me badly; one held me while the other one hit me over and over again. They were probably forty years old, beating a fourteen-year-old into the pavement.

The knife had come out after what seemed like forever. They cut me all the way down my left side, and left me to bleed to death in the alley. AJ had the whole gang out looking for me. Blade had found me and taken me straight to the hospital. That’s how bad it had been. If you got taken to the hospital you were half dead ‘cause we didn’t have the money for it.

They left a scar that went all the way down the left side of my back where they had cut me, and another on my forearm—a result of the struggle.

“You ready to go?” I asked, pulling on my jacket and taking one more look in the mirror, shaking the memory from my mind.

“Yeah.”

I knew I’d have to walk him there, otherwise he wouldn’t go, and even during the day the street wasn’t the safest place to be. There were other gangs around like us. Our number one rival was Haker’s gang. We were always fighting for territory. Sure, we had our turf that no other street gang dared to step foot on, but the streets were the streets.

Then there were the Spades. We weren’t rivals, but we weren’t allies either. We didn’t really have anything to fight about; we had our turf and they had theirs. Neither of us was about stirring up trouble, we just acted as neighborhood protection from the thugs that itched to destroy it for no better reason than boredom.

The other gang we had ongoing problems with was the Shawns brothers. They had been around for a long time, way before the Locals had joined forces. They just passed the reigns down the generations. They were a tough gang, Shawns’ group, and we were always at war with each other, whether for territory or just to keep them at bay. They weren’t like us, they were hard and mean: they jumped people for fun, sold drugs, and robbed people. We just kept other gangs off the three blocks of our turf, and kept the people who lived there safe… or we tried to anyway.

“Well, I guess we’re here,” Mark said, looking up at the school building.

“What did you do to get Saturday school for anyway?” I looked up at the school, too.

“I may or may not have cussed out Mrs. Blare.”

“You got Mrs. Blare for lit, huh?” I had her when I was a freshman. She was a witch and had always been on my case.

“Sure do.”

“She probably deserved it, but you should try not to get in trouble at school so much.”

“What a hypocrite. You get in trouble all the time at school,” he retorted.

“Yeah, but I don’t do stuff that I know is going to get me in trouble, like cussing out my lit teacher. Of course, if someone picks a fight with me I’m not going to chicken out either. I have a reputation to protect.”

“You’re such a hypocrite.”

“Hey, do as I say not as I do.”

“Practice what you preach,” he threw over his shoulder as he went in the school.

Now I stood alone. Unfortunately, I wasn’t alone long. I hadn’t gone more than a block when a red Honda stopped beside me. It was old, but you could see they were trying to fix it up. It looked to be in-between paint jobs; it was sanded down, and the spoiler looked ridiculously big for the car. Three guys stepped out. I lit a smoke and stood there trying to look calm. You would have to know me to know I was scared out of my mind. I’m tough and I can hold my own in a fight, but getting jumped and almost dying… that changes you. It’s something you never forget; it lurks inside of you and seeps out when you’re alone.

“What’d you want?” I asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

“You a Cove?” one of them asked.

Yeah, I was a Cove. Cove was my last name, but I wasn’t planning on telling him that, just in case one of my brothers had done something out of line. The guy that asked had his head shaved and it looked stupid. Not many could pull the look off, and he wasn’t one of them. The other guys must have been brothers; they looked exactly alike, both tall and lanky with spiky black hair and dull-brown, almost black, eyes.

“What’s it to you?”

“Well, it just so happens, I’m looking for a Cove,” the bald one spoke for the group.

“Is that right?” I said, taking a long drag off my cigarette and starting to size them up.

The brothers didn’t look too tough, but they were trying. They weren’t built like fighters, and I thought maybe if the bald guy wasn’t with them I might’ve been alright. Making a run for it was an option, but they were only fifteen feet away from me. I wasn’t sure how far I would get.

“That’s right,” Baldy smirked.

“Hey, Clay!” I heard a familiar voice call.

I knew it was Sticky, but I wasn’t stupid enough to turn my head on the enemy. Sticky wasn’t a very big guy—rather short but with a good build—but he was a good fighter. He was seventeen, a year older than me. He was the best of thieves and I wouldn’t want him in my house if I didn’t know him so well. That’s, of course, how he got his name. He had been a member of the Locals since he was about thirteen.

“How you been, man?” Sticky asked, playfully punching me on the arm, acting as if I wasn’t about to get myself beat to death. He put an elbow on my shoulder. “What’s up guys?” he spoke to the other three, still smiling that goofy grin.

“We were just looking for ourselves a Cove. It looks like we found us one.” One of the brothers finally stepped up.

“What you want a Cove for, man?” Sticky asked, playing along. I could tell that he was sizing them up, just as I had.

“Well, it seems a Cove jumped Clark here’s kid-brother last night,” the brother said, jerking his thumb toward the bald one he called Clark, the leader.

“You messed up somebody’s kid-brother?” Sticky asked me, a fake puzzled look on his face.

“Sure didn’t,” I assured him, taking in my surroundings.

The street was three feet from my left. There were cars skidding by, late for work, none paying attention to the scene on the sidewalk. Kids fighting was so natural in this neighborhood that no one thought twice about it, no one called the cops or stopped to help.

Sticky looked at the three guys. “This Cove didn’t jump nobody’s kidbrother. So why don’t you leave this Cove alone?”

“Why don’t you mind your own business?” Skinhead warned, taking a threatening step toward us. He looked slightly familiar, but I couldn’t be sure.

“I ain’t got no other business to mind. His is as good as anybody else’s,” Sticky said, still sounding as casual as if we were talking to old friends over coffee.

“The more the better,” one of the brothers smirked, sounding confident they could stomp us with whatever weapons I’m sure they were packing. I watched as one of the brothers dropped his hand into his jacket.

“Sure is,” Sticky said. He never seemed nervous, even if he was about to get jumped. I wasn’t feeling so calm about things.

Just then, a familiar car came around the corner. “Hey, look who it is. Our good buddy Fry.” Sticky grinned.

We both knew they wouldn’t take us three on three. Disappointment crossed their faces and we could hear them swearing all the way back to their messed up Honda as they backed down from the fight.

“What was that all about?” Fry called out the window as they sped away.

“Man, you always come at the right time,” I smiled, glad to see him for the second time in twenty-four hours.

“We could have taken them,” Sticky insisted, full of adrenalin.

“Yeah, but who knows what kind of weapons they had. They were looking for one of us.”

“Speaking of, who did jump that guy’s kid brother? I can’t see AJ just going out and jumping some kid for no reason, and unless someone went with him, Mark can’t mess nobody up by himself.”

“It had to have been AJ, but you’re right, it doesn’t sound right.”

AJ wasn’t the type to get a hold of someone without a reason. He was a model of self-control. It took a lot of pushing before he snapped.

“Well we know one thing; he must not have hurt him too bad or there would have been a lot more people in that car,” Sticky said, hopping in the passenger seat. I got in the back.

“What’re you doing wandering around this early in the morning? Shouldn’t you still be asleep?” I asked Sticky, knowing good and well he was never up before noon.

“My mom kicked me out. I snuck a bit of her whisky. She doesn’t need it anyway.”

“And you do?” I laughed.

“I got to live with her, don’t I?”

I decided I wanted to talk to AJ about what I’d heard. “Hey, Fry, let’s stop by the station. I want to ask AJ what happened.”

“You got it man.” Me and Sticky looked at each other, thinking the same thing. Fry was high as a kite.

AJ worked fifty hours a week at a little body shop that was a mile from the house. The guy he worked for was a mean old geezer who definitely didn’t pay enough, but that was the only job AJ could find. He had looked everywhere but times were rough.

“Hey, AJ!” Sticky called as we walked into the shop.

AJ waltzed in from the back room. “Hey guys,” he said, wiping the grease off his hands onto his coveralls.

“We heard you jumped some kid last night!” Sticky squealed. He was obviously eager for details.

“Yeah, the little punk tried to steal from the cash register while I was in the back. I didn’t hurt him too bad—just good enough so he wouldn’t pull it on me again. How did you all hear about it?”

“His older brother and a couple of his friends almost jumped me,” I said. We filled him in on what happened.

“This jumping thing has gotten way out of hand the past couple years. It just keeps getting worse. People didn’t get jumped all the time when I was your age,” AJ told us as he typed something into the computer on the counter.

“Well, they’re looking for you,” Fry said, lighting a cigarette.

“Yeah, well, they know where to find me. They better leave you two alone,” he said, meaning me and Mark, “or there’s going to be hell to pay.”

That’s what I loved about AJ, he would do anything for me and Mark. The night I got jumped he would have killed the guys that had done it, if he could have found them. I hadn’t seen them before that night, and I never saw them after either, which is a good thing because AJ might have killed them.

“AJ! Get to work!” Mr. Lance, the owner, yelled. “And get those hooligans out of here. They’re scaring all my customers.”

“You guys get going or I’m gonna lose my job. Clay, stay out of trouble.”

“Where you guys want to go?” Sticky asked once we were all in the car. He had somehow gotten the keys from Fry and was easing the car into Saturday morning traffic. The sun hid behind the clouds; it looked like rain. Birds littered the sky. I watched as they passed, wondering what it would be like to fly.

“Let’s go get something to eat,” Fry suggested.

“What’s the matter? You got the munchies?” I laughed.

He didn’t say anything, just grinned. We pulled up to our hangout, a Greasy Spoon on Main Street. The manager hated that we used his little cafe like it was a pool hall or something. But this was Local turf. No other gang ever went there unless they were looking for trouble. The manager seemed to think we scared off customers. Maybe we did, sometimes, but just for his benefit. He always gave us a hard time but I think he knew that without us he would have some real hoods running the show.

“Hey guys!” Slim said, sliding into the booth beside me. “I figured I’d find one of you here.”

Slim was the funny one. He could make you laugh anytime, anywhere. He was a tall, lanky guy which is, of course, how he got the nickname, Slim. His hair was never combed— dark, like mine and AJ’s— and he had baby-blue eyes. I always thought that was pretty cool, having light-blue eyes and dark hair. It looked real tight. He was eighteen, and had walked into the cafe one day and never left. Unlike us, he wasn’t a native to the area. He had moved around a lot until he was fifteen and took up with us. We were usually cautious about new people on the block. Not just anyone could walk in and join forces with us… but there was just something about Slim.

“What can I get you guys?” a young waitress asked. She had short, brown hair and long fingernails. She was hot, there was no denying it, and her smile could melt an iceberg.

“Hmm.” Slim pretended to look at the menu. “I’ll take one piece of paper with your number on it.”

“I don’t think that is on the menu,” she blushed, smiling. “How about you guys?”

“I’ll take a burger and fries,” Fry said without looking at the menu. We had been there so many times we didn’t need to.

“And you guys?” she asked, looking at me and Sticky.

“Nothing for us.”

“Hey, did you guys hear about Ace’s kid-brother getting jumped last night?” Slim asked in an excited voice— the only one he had. I was surprised the word had gotten around so fast, and wondered if Ace had found the guys.

“Sure did. Matter of fact, I had front row seats,” I said, antsy to tell my story.

“What’re you talking about?” Slim asked, puzzled.

“I happened to walk by the fight. I put the slummers in their place, too.”

“You stopped them?” he questioned.

“Sure did. Hell, the kid’s only, like, twelve. They had worked him over pretty good before I got there, though. He passed out on the way home.”

“Lucky you! Now you’re one-up on old Ace,” Slim pointed out. “You ever need out of something and he’ll do it. He’d do anything for that kid!” Kind of like AJ, I thought.

Fry just sat there looking at nothing in particular. He was higher than the heavens, and I wondered for a minute what he was on.

I had tried the drug thing just once. When I was thirteen I had gotten my hands on some Ecstasy from a girl I was dating. That was some crazy stuff. To make a short story of it, AJ happened to come looking for me that night when I was rolling. He knew as soon as he saw me I was sky-high. He pinned me against the wall in front of half the school, everyone at this party, and told me that if he ever caught me using drugs again he’d break my face. He threw me in the car and took me home. Of course, I laughed the whole way which pissed him off even more, and he slugged me a few times trying to get me to sit still in the cold shower he threw me in.

What a night. I hadn’t touched a speck of drugs since. I fully believed AJ would beat me to a pulp if he caught me using anything again. I know better than that now. I had watched a whole list of people get completely messed up on different things; some ruining their lives, others killing themselves.

“So what you guys wanna do tonight?” Slim asked.

“Let’s drag tonight. Maybe we can pick up some chicks or something.” I looked to Fry to see what he thought since he was the only one there who had a car.

“Yeah, okay,” he agreed.

“You new around here? I haven’t seen you in here before,” I asked, when the waitress brought out Fry’s food.

“Yeah, we moved in a month ago. I just started today.” She blushed a bit as she said it, and I could tell she was nervous.

“Well, welcome to the neighborhood. I’m Clay, and you don’t really need to know their names.” I smiled, nodding toward my friends.

“So you’re the one with the plan? They just follow?” She smiled back.

“In his dreams,” Slim laughed, almost shoving me out of the booth.

“Well, if you need anything, we’re always around,” I told her, regaining my composure.

“Thanks,” she said, walking off.

“What, are you sweet on her or something?” Sticky said, grinning his toothy grin.

“Why do you ask?”

“We usually give the new waitresses a hard time. That’s partly why there are always new waitresses to bug.”

“They’re usually old biddies. She seems okay.” I shrugged.

“She is a looker.” Slim turned around in the booth to watch her. I reached over and smacked him, and he looked back at me and grinned.

“I’ll see you guys later,” Sticky called, walking up the front steps of his house where we had dropped him off after leaving the diner. “Pick me up at eight.”

He planned on grabbing some clothes while his old lady was at work. My guess was that he would swipe some more of her booze on his way out, too.

“We gotta’ go pick Mark up,” I told Slim who was behind the wheel. Fry was asleep in the backseat.

Mark was sitting on the school steps when we pulled up. I’m not sure what he was waiting for; usually he would head on home.

“Want a ride?” I called.

He got up and hopped in the back of the car. “Hey guys.”

“You guys going home or what?” Slim asked.

“Let’s go to the park and see if Marty’s there,” I said.

Marty was nineteen. He always hung around the park. His brother had died there, just in front of the park on the street. I wondered why he tortured himself by going there so often, but I guess I had no idea how he felt.

The streets were pretty desolate as we drove with everyone at work.

“Is that Andy?” Slim asked, slowing the car down. I drew my attention off of the squirrel I had spotted scampering beside the road, and looked up at my best friend pinned against a brick wall.

“Sure is.”

Four guys surrounded him and two guys had him pinned against the wall of the bowling alley. Slim hit the brakes and I slammed into the dash, too distracted to brace myself. Fry woke up, realized what was going on, and reached behind his seat to grab a glass bottle.

All four of us got out of the car. Me and Slim had blades, and Fry broke the bottle and gripped it around the neck. Mark didn’t have a weapon. “Here,” I said handing him mine. I figured I had a better chance of being okay, since I was bigger than him.

“What’s going on here?” I called, seeing who it was. They were some of Haker’s gang.

“I’m gonna cut this kid to threads!” one of the guys holding Andy growled, spitting in his face.

“What are you doing over here, Dillon? This ain’t your turf,” Slim cautioned as we advanced.

“This little punk broke out the windows in my car! And I’m going to cut him up for it.”

“How you know it was him?” I questioned.

“I got witnesses.”

“I swear I didn’t do it,” Andy spoke up.

He sounded pretty in control of himself, for the situation. That was Andy for you, always in control of himself. I’m not saying he was never nervous, I’m just saying he never showed it. Andy was pretty quiet. He was tough and all, but he had a plan. He was determined to get out of this town. He was smart and had good grades, unlike me. He was a tall guy, proportionately built, with light-brown hair. His eyes flickered to me; his only display of nervousness.

“Stop lying you SOB, I know you did it!”

“Why? What would be the point of me breaking your windows?” Andy asked, sounding almost bewildered at the thought. Andy was not the type to run around raising hell. He kept to himself and backed us up when we needed it.

“I don’t know why you Locals do what you do,” Dillon growled, rapping Andy hard against the wall, “but you’re going to pay for my windows or I’m going to take it out of your ass!” He threw a fist into Andy’s stomach, doubling him up.

“Sonofa …!” Slim and I moved in.

“Take another step!”

Cold steel met my forehead; one of them, I couldn’t tell who, had pulled a gun. My focus stayed with the gun. My heart raced off. I glanced to his eyes; they were the color of the ocean. They bore into mine like the cold metal bore into my forehead.

Andy leaned against the wall, gasping. “Now, Brance,” Dillon called Andy by his last name, “I’m going to teach you a thing or two…”

“Let him go,” a powerful voice commanded from behind the crowd.

Everybody looked to see Ace. He had his own gun aimed at one of Haker’s guys—a pudgy kid who’s hair was a mess from the wind. “I’ll do it, kid. Don’t push me,” Ace threatened Dillon as he held a knife to Andy’s throat. “Back off,” he instructed in a steady voice.

“You heard him,” Dillon called to his group.

All the guys slowly started to back off. The two guys that had Andy let go and backed away. The guy with the gun on me stood still for a minute, almost challenging Ace, but finally thought better of it and stuffed the metal into his waistband. They were all long gone except the guy Ace was holding with the gun.

“Get outta here,” Ace growled, and the guy jogged to catch up with the others.

Ace put the gun in his belt, and Andy and me both let out a sigh of relief. I was sweating bullets.

No one said anything for a minute. “We’re even,” Ace finally said, looking straight at me.

“Yeah, we’re even,” I repeated, my heart still racing.

“I’ll see you guys around.”

He said nothing else, and walked down the street. We all watched him walk away. I think we were in shock. Ace was someone we were all scared of, but would never admit to it. I wondered if the Spades thought of AJ that way.

“Thank God he came around,” Andy said, sliding to the ground, too shaky to stand. “What did he mean when he said you were even?” he asked, looking up at me, sweat pouring down his face.

“We could have taken them,” Mark said excitedly, his adrenaline obviously still pumping from the encounter. Always an optimist, I thought.

“I saved his kid-brother from a couple guys last night,” I spoke up, taking a deep breath, glad they were gone.

“I want to know what he was doing over here,” Fry said, lighting a smoke.

We stood just down the street from the Greasy Spoon. This whole block was our turf, and I kind of wondered what he had been doing here, too.