Читать книгу It Can Always Get Worse - Shandy Kurth - Страница 4

“Give me the salt,” Mark said, licking ketchup off his fingers. I gave it to him and he poured it on his fries. I watched in disgust. I’m pretty sure I would choke to death if I ever put that much salt on anything. We were at the Greasy Spoon again—AJ’s treat.

“Freakin’ people with their guns. Where do they get money for ‘em?” AJ shook his head, sitting back in the booth, not really eating.

“Selling.”

“It’s insane—people running the streets with guns; kids getting shot. We should get out of here, out of this inner city game.”

“What do you mean, get out of here?” I asked AJ. He was silent for a minute. Like, move? I wondered. Where would we go? I had never lived anywhere but here.

“What was Ace doing over here?” AJ asked.

“I don’t know, but good thing he was, or Andy might be dead right now,” I said, defensive because he wasn’t more worried about Andy. “Or me.”

“Don’t get me wrong, kid,” he said, reading my mind like a book, “I’m glad he’s okay and everything, but we can’t just let anyone on our turf. Otherwise it isn’t our turf. You get what I mean?”

Yeah, I knew what he meant. Fry had told me the same thing earlier. “Yeah I know,” I said, thinking about all the stuff that had been happening lately. Always someone getting jumped or being threatened. Always something.

“So what’re you planning on doing tonight?” AJ asked me, dipping his fries into ketchup.

“Me, Sticky, Slim and Fry are gonna go drag Main.”

Everybody dragged Main on Saturday. There wasn’t much else to do except go to the drive-in or the movies or go bowling. I’d pick dragging over those any day.

“Home by dawn,” AJ said in a stern voice.”

“I’ll be there. What’re you planning on doing?” I asked, taking a bite of my hamburger and grimacing as I realized there were pickles on it.

“Me, Marty, Cole, and Blade are probably gonna hang out here and make sure nobody steps foot on our ground. You want to come?” he asked Mark.

“Sure, I ain’t got nothin’ better to do.”

I went home, flopped on my bed and took a nap. It only took me about half a second to fall asleep, I was exhausted from my long night. I usually got about six hours of sleep on the weekend. I needed a lot more but didn’t seem to have time for it. I woke to the sound of a horn.

“Yo, bro,” AJ called, “your ride’s here.”

I rolled out of bed and glanced in the mirror. My hair was a little rumpled but I looked okay. I grabbed a bag of chips and headed out the door.

“Hey, Cove!” Slim yelled out the window. He was driving Fry’s car.

“Where’s Fry?” I asked, pulling the passenger’s side door open and jumping in.

“He had something to do tonight. He said we could borrow his wheels.”

“Sounds good to me. Let’s drive by Andy’s and see if he wants to come.” Plans had been forgotten earlier with the excitement, and I had completely spaced in asking Andy if he wanted to join in.

Sticky sat in the back smoking a cigarette, looking kind of nervous. Something must be up—Sticky was never nervous. He was the kind of guy who shrugged and said “Oh well” about pretty much everything.

“What’s the matter?” I asked, worried.

“I saw Haker and his whole gang earlier,” he told us.

“Where?” I asked, licking my cheese covered fingers. The streets were already hopping and I could feel it was going to be a good night. The lights were bright and people were hanging on every corner waiting for some action.

“Up by the Spoon. Fry was there. I mean, he was leaving when… when I got the car.”

“What do you think they were doing up there?” I asked.

“No idea,” Sticky said, blowing a smoke ring.“What do you think Fry was doing there?”

“Maybe we should go up there and check it out,” I suggested. “Fry was probably just leaving before shit got out of hand.”

“No way, Clay. All of Haker’s guys were up there. Fifteen or so, man. Not without AJ and Blade. Why didn’t Fry mention it when he gave me the car?”

“Fifteen? That’s a lot of guys. They must really be up to something,” I said as I hopped out of the car and headed up the front steps of Andy’s house, letting Sticky wonder about Fry. I knew Haker sold drugs so it didn’t take much to figure out why they hadn’t beaten Fry down.

I knocked on the door and waited. Nobody answered and the door was unlocked so I went in. “Hey, Andy!” I yelled, almost tripping over his old scruffy cat.

“Hey, Clay,” Andy said, coming from the kitchen carrying a basket of laundry.

“You doing anything tonight?”

“Not yet,” he said, sitting the basket on top of the washing machine.

“Well, me, Sticky and Slim are gonna drag. You wanna come?”

“I’m game.” He tossed the laundry on his bed and followed me out the door.

As we got in the car, clouds were starting to move in from the east. It looked like a storm, which wasn’t unusual for this time of year.

“Let’s stop and get some drinks,” Sticky suggested.

Slim pulled into a little all-night convenient store. It was run down, and had been there ever since I could remember.

“I’ll wait in the car,” Andy volunteered.

The guy that was running the store didn’t take his eyes off of us for a second. He was a short, bald guy with tiny glasses on the top of his oversized nose.

“What are we going to do?” I asked, “His eyes are glued to us.” We were the only customers.

“You two go over there and act like you’re getting in a fight or something, and I’ll get the drinks,” Sticky instructed us.

“Sounds like a good plan to me.” Slim and I headed over to the magazine rack.

“What’s your problem?” I said in a raised voice. I gave Slim a little shove backwards.

“You did not put your hands on me!” Slim yelled back.

“You wanna go?” I threatened, taking a step toward him. We started wrestling around.

The guy rushed out from behind the counter. “You two hoodlums better stop fighting right now or I’ll call the cops,” he warned from a safe distance.

“Stop it you two!” Sticky demanded from across the room; it only took him five steps to reach us. He actually threw me backwards. I spun around quick enough to grab the magazine rack I had knocked into as it wobbled back and forth.

“Come on you guys, let’s get out of here,” Sticky said. Slim and I pushed and shoved each other all the way out the door.

Slim howled in laughter once we were in the car. “That was great!”

“Man, you fool. You almost made me knock over that magazine rack,” I complained to Sticky through choking breaths. I couldn’t stop laughing to save my life.

“Sorry, I had to make it look real.”

Sticky pulled a bunch of bottles out of his jacket, and I wondered how in the heck he had smuggled them out in all the commotion.

“You guys hear about that shooting?” Andy asked as we stopped at a light. I took a swig from the bottle Slim had handed me.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Some guys over on the south side shot each other over some chick.”

“Man! Don’t ever let me get tied up with a chick that way,” Sticky said, shaking his head. “Man, no chick is worth dying for or going to jail over.”

“It was two guys from Shawns,” Andy continued.

“Who needs enemies when you have friends like that? Gives us a break if they’re down there killing each other, though.”

“Yeah, better them than us.” I totally agreed with my friends. You don’t fight with your gang, or you’re not a gang; in a gang you watch everybody’s back.

“Hey, ain’t that the chick from the Spoon?” Slim said, looking through my window.

It sure was, and some guy was all over her. She obviously didn’t want him to be, and was struggling to get away.

“Stop!” I yelled.

Slim slammed on the brakes and I jumped out of the car. I closed the space between us quicker than a guy getting chased by the pigs.

I grabbed the back of the guy’s windbreaker and threw him to the ground. I gave him a good kick in the stomach before he realized what had happened.

“Behind you!” Sticky’s voice rang out.

I squatted just as another guy tried to tackle me from behind, and flipped him over my shoulder. The first guy that had been all over the girl pulled a knife. The other guy lay gasping; the fall had knocked the wind out of him.

“Clay, watch it, he’s got a knife!” Sticky instructed.

I gave the guy on the ground a quick kick in the head. He was older, almost thirty I would say, but smaller, about my size. I concentrated on the guy with the knife. He was scrawny, and high on something, maybe. We circled each other. He had a crazy look in his bloodshot eyes. He was drunk and I could smell the alcohol on his breath. He took a stab at me and I sucked in my gut to avoid it. I had my blade in my pocket, but I figured I could handle him without it.

It felt so good to fight—it had been awhile since I’d had a real good fight. I liked fights for the most part. It really gets the adrenaline pumping, and they’re a nice outlet as long as your enemy was in front of you, and not sneaking up from behind. He took another stab at me, but missed.

“Do something!” I heard the girl cry, off to my right.

“He can handle it,” Andy’s voice came, adding to my confidence. It was time to make my move.

“If you’re not gonna help than I’m gonna go call the cops,” the girl sounded close to tears.

“Like hell you are,” I heard Slim yell.

The guy with the knife stabbed at me again. This time I grabbed his arm and spun him around. I kicked the knife out of his hand and it clattered to the ground. I brought my knee to his stomach, and he gasped for air. Now that the knife was out of the way, the guy I’d flipped over my shoulder had recovered and was trying to take a swing at me. I tripped him, sending him sprawling on the ground and then turned and kicked the other one in the gut again. I reached down and grabbed the knife off the ground.

“Just try me!” I challenged.

There were red flames in my eyes. They must have decided I wasn’t messing around, and spat at my feet before getting into their car and driving off.

“Yeah!” The guys cheered, surrounding me. “That was awesome! Man, you got the style, kid.”

I pushed through them to the girl I’d saved. “You okay?” I asked, seriously.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she said. She had her arms crossed and an angry look on her face. Her blouse was torn a bit by the shoulder and her lipstick was smeared a little, but she didn’t look hurt. She did have tears in her eyes, though.

“What’s the matter?” I asked, worried. “He didn’t hurt you, did he?”

“I can’t believe you just fought that guy.”

“What was I supposed to do? Let them kick my ass?” I all but yelled. Why should she be mad at me? I had just saved her from that scum bag.

“I just…what if they had stabbed you or something? Your so-called friends wouldn’t even help you.”

“Hey,” Andy spoke up defensively, “he had it. If he was in trouble, we would have helped.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?” I asked.

“I’m okay. Thanks, I mean. I’m sorry for being—I was just scared. Jeez—I thought—”

“You’re safe now. It was nothing. So what’re you doing on Main by yourself on a Saturday, anyway? This ain’t the safest place to be alone, you know. The streets are a dangerous place for a girl to be on her own.”

“A girl I met said this was the place to meet people,” she said.

“Sounds familiar,” I mumbled, thinking about some of the girls around here.

“What?”

“The chicks do that to all the new girls.”

“Do what? Tell them to go to Main Street on a Saturday?”

“No, they always send them some place dangerous to see if they’re tough.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Yeah, it is. So you want a ride home or something?” I asked. She had calmed down some and her hands weren’t shaking anymore.

“No, I have a car.

“Well, I guess we’ll see you around then. What did you say your name was?”

“Dyan.”

“Well, Dyan, until you find some loyal friends to come with you, stay off Main,” I instructed.

She climbed into an old, green pick-up and drove off.

“You got it bad, man,” Slim said, giving me a playful punch on the shoulder.