Hard Exit, page 2
“Because you’re his teacher or because you’re sleeping with his mother?”
“Probably both,” he said.
“Is he cool with it?”
“Cool as any sixteen-year-old male would be.”
“Does anyone at the school know?” I asked. “Or would they care?”
“We’ve only been seeing each other for a few weeks. But are you kidding? At Oakville? They’d just be grateful she’s of age.” He finished his bottle and set it at his feet. “That doesn’t make it right, of course. Could compromise my objectivity. Grade inflation’s bad enough as it is. He was one of my students.”
“He’s not as of today. Get over it and deal with the shooting.”
“What’d you find out at the park?”
“Nothing you’re not aware of. Oakville P.D. isn’t going to solve this. The officers were as well organized as a hurricane.”
“They’ll put on a show,” he said, “but it won’t amount to much. One falls in their laps every so often, so who knows? Most cases, though, get solved by the gangs themselves, and that’s why I called you.”
“I was wondering if you were going to tell me.”
Rachelle stuck her head out the door. “Can I get you boys something to eat? I have some leftover barbecue.”
Mike shook his head and said, “I’m okay. You want anything?” The barbecue sounded good, but I wasn’t going to sit there licking my fingers while Mike told me what was going on, so I passed.
“Okay. Let me know, though.” She started to close the door, then stopped and said, “Jack, Wendell wants to know if you have LoJack on your Beemer, ’cause you’re not in Malibu anymore.” Obviously, Mike had told them something about me.
“We white folk just think positive thoughts.”
She laughed, shook her head, and closed the door.
“You’ve never turned down food in your life,” Mike said. “You okay?”
“Just tell me why I’m here so I can eat.”
“Game’s in the MLKs. Most people would guess this moniker is an homage to Martin Luther King Jr., but they’re the Major League Killers, and they’re the archrivals of da Uptown Posse, the ones he said did this.”
“Are they the Hatfields or McCoys?”
“Exactly.” He stared at his wingtips, then said, “Thing is, Game and the other MLKs intend to exact revenge tonight. We can’t let that happen.”
“Understandable.”
“No, there’s more. He’s the last of Rachelle’s boys. She lost his two older brothers to this shit. Despite the magnificent performance she’s putting on, she’s a complete wreck. Game’s been involved for about nine months, and she’s tried everything she can think of to convince him to get out. She asked me if I had a pair of handcuffs so I could keep him inside. Before you arrived, she was pleading with him to end all this today and stay with her because he’s all she has left. He’s calling her a traitor for even thinking he’d allow his brothers’ murders to go unavenged. He’s an excellent student, a tremendous athlete, and, except for the fact he’s in this damned set, he’s a quality teen. Exceptional, considering the cards he’s been dealt.”
“You’re not saying that because you’re dating his mother?”
“No. It was because he was a great kid that I met his mother. I called her to see if there was any way to transfer him out of this awful district into a city in which he might have a chance.”
“No go, huh?”
“She’s a nurse. Sorry, a registered nurse, as she keeps correcting me. There must be a bunch of rogue nurses out there who never completed their paperwork. She says she’d never send him to live with a relative, and she feels lucky to have a stable job, so she won’t risk moving and having to wait tables somewhere.”
“How long ago did his brothers get killed? If payback is exacted quickly among gangs, why haven’t those scores been settled?”
“It’s been about a year since the middle son, Terrell, was killed. But that doesn’t matter. Remember, it’s Hatfields and McCoys, so everyone in the rival set has to be eliminated for the slate to be clean. The war’s still active if anyone’s left standing. That’s why it takes major players to sit down to effect a truce. For every banger gunned down, there’s some poor, lonely kid being jumped in. They know the odds are against them, so they do what they think they have to do. Sadly, it makes a certain sense. They’re a part of something for a while. They have a purpose, at least until they’re killed.”
“Better to go out fighting than to suffer the slow suicide of the hopeless,” I said.
“Something like that.”
“Which takes us to a place where I can’t believe we’re going.” I stood and stretched. I’d overdone it in the kayak and felt my misguided exuberance in my aging back. I wanted food and a massage.
“Look, Jack, you know I wouldn’t ask if I could think of a better way. If he could just stay with you—”
Rachelle’s screams interrupted him: “No! No! Wendell! WENDELL!”
We ran into the house and followed Rachelle through the open front door. She slowed her run to a walk as she reached the street and approached my car. The driver’s-side door was open, and Wendell sat in the car, with his left Adidas basketball shoe on the pavement. By the time we reached the car, Rachelle’s panic had turned to anger, and she was laying into her son.
“Why don’t you just do it quick, Wendell? Take a gun and shoot me, ’cause that’s what you’re doin’ to me every day, you know that? I’m sure you and your bad boys have plenty of weapons to choose from, so why don’t we get it over with now?”
“Don’t tempt me,” he said. He’d put on a shirt and a leather purple-and-gold Lakers jacket.
I stepped past his mother and knocked the keys out of his left hand. The keys landed on the blacktop.
He let out a yelp of surprise and looked up at me with more fear in his eyes than hatred. I grabbed the collar of his jacket, lifted him up, glared at him, and said, “Don’t ever speak to your mother like that again.”
I let go of the jacket, and he said, “You’re dead.”
CHAPTER THREE
“I’m new to this gang stuff,” I said, “but as I understand it, it’s strictly Old Testament—an eye for an eye. What I just did to you was dis you, right?”
“Gonna kill you. Ain’t be my first.”
“Hold on, Wendell. What I’m getting at is that I want to square things up. If you accept my proposal, and apologize to your mother, then we’ll call it even and proceed like men—no grudges, no harm done. If you decline my offer, it won’t be beneath me to press charges against you for trying to steal my car and for making threats against my life.”
“Man, you the one hit me. I should press charges.”
“You mean slapping the keys from your hand? You think that was me hitting you? And do you have any witnesses?”
Mike and Rachelle laughed. She must have been conflicted, wanting to side with her son but also needing something in his life to change.
“Although it’ll pain her to do so,” I said, “your mother will act as a witness, as will Mike, when I accuse you of attempted auto theft and of threatening my life. The Division of Juvenile Justice will not be fun, but it probably won’t kill you. It won’t be a picnic, not with you weighing, what, 135, with the Adidas and the jacket on? They do their best to keep rival gangs separated, but you never can tell when the government’s involved.”
I reached down, picked up the keys, and put them in a pocket of my jeans. I’d left the keys in my jacket, which I’d left in the house. I gestured for Wendell to get up. I could see in his eyes he wanted to resist, to tell me to fuck off, but he knew he had no choice. He stood and stuffed his hands in his jacket pockets. Mike leaned against the car, then Rachelle did, too.
I turned to Rachelle and said, “Because you see the logic of sending him to juvie, you’ll witness my complaint if Wendell doesn’t agree to my terms?”
She hesitated, then nodded. Mike nudged her, and she said, “Yes.”
Wendell took a step away from the car, his head down. A car approached slowly, then passed on the wrong side of the street, the driver’s head swiveling to see what was up.
“You can do it any way you want, but I’d take off my jacket.” He just looked at me. “It’s not complicated. You get to pay me back now. I slapped your wrist and grabbed your collar. Let’s call that two wrongs. You get two-for-one.”
“That’s it? That’s your damn deal?”
“It’s the first part of it, but by participating in this part, you agree to the second part.”
“Ain’t agreeing to nothing, don’t know what it is.”
“It’s agree or juvie, Wendell.”
“Ain’t gonna send me to no juvie. No way.” He looked at his mother.
“We’re not joking. This is for real,” she said.
“Why didn’t the key work?” Wendell asked.
“Can’t tell you. You ready?”
He took his jacket off and set it on the car.
“Three for one,” he said, stepping closer.
“Six free shots? No, too many. Two-for-one, plus a bonus punch, just for being you.”
“Anything I want?”
“Unless you have a razor in your shoe.”
“Then you think we even? What if I still think I owe you?”
“If you try anything, I’ll treat you as an assailant, not as a sixteen-year-old son of an acquaintance, and I’ll put you in the hospital.”
“What the rest of the deal?”
“Start hitting me, and you’ll find out.”
He stepped closer, put up his fists, and thought how best to use his five freebies. I cupped my hands in front of my groin, tucked my chin to my chest in case he went for the throat, and dropped my right leg back to brace myself. The first shot was an overhand right to my left cheek. He landed it solidly, but because I was five inches taller, he couldn’t put his weight behind it, and it didn’t hurt much. I didn’t react at all, hoping he’d find the head shots futile and go for the body. He took the bait and delivered a two-punch combination to the gut. He flinched when he threw the left because of the bullet wound on his left shoulder. I clenched my abs, so I barely felt his fists, but I staggered back a step to sucker him. I must’ve overacted because he stopped the next punch to my gut before it landed.
“Two more.”
“I know,” he said. “Shut up.” As if to help me do so, he caught me with a solid right-cross to the mouth. Even with our size differential, that one hurt. I’d have to ice it. But I didn’t show him shit.
He looked toward his mother and Mike for help with the last one. To my surprise, Rachelle kicked her right leg up sharply. To my relief, Wendell took his mother’s advice and kicked me in the shin. Adidas are fine basketball shoes but lousy weapons. My shin stung for a few seconds, but that was all.
“That’s five. Let’s go inside to finish our negotiations.”
“Damn, you didn’t even feel ’em, huh?” He picked up his jacket and started to walk next to me toward the house.
“The first one wasn’t bad, and the shot to the mouth still hurts. But let me show you something.” I stopped and squared off with him. Tentatively, he took a fighting stance. “Two things. One, a punch is much more effective if you twist your fist when you land it, like this. You hit me straight on. If you’d delivered the right to the mouth like this, you’d have split my lip.”
“Yeah, okay.”
“Two, when you throw an overhand punch, think about your legs. Concentrate on pushing off with your lower body. You’re just using your arms, throwing from the shoulder, not turning your hips to put your weight behind your shots. If you think about launching yourself through your opponent, you’ll punch with your whole body, and he’ll feel it much more.”
“Damn, can I go again?”
“Not on me, you can’t.”
The four of us walked inside. Mike, Wendell, and I sat, and Rachelle went into the kitchen. This time I sat at one end of the couch, Mike settled into an armchair, and Wendell straddled the other side of the couch. Rachelle returned with a Baggie full of ice and handed it to me. I held it to my mouth and felt the sting.
“Because my stomach is beginning to consume itself, let’s set the ground rules, then get something to eat,” I said.
“Popeye’s?” Wendell asked.
“I have leftovers,” Rachelle said.
“I been shot. I deserve Popeye’s.”
“Fine,” I said. “The situation as I see it is this: In the MLKs’ crib, somewhere in Oakville, the guys are planning to hit the Uptown Posse.”
“Da. It da Uptown Posse.”
“Hush!” Rachelle said.
“That’s enough,” Mike said at the same time.
“Our objective is to prevent you from participating in any retaliatory attacks,” I said. “Ultimately, we’d like to see you get out of the MLKs so you can pursue something that offers more longevity.”
“Man, you just met me. Who you to say what I should do?”
“You’re right, I don’t know you, but that doesn’t mean much. I’d like to believe I’d help any sixteen-year-old do what he had to do to free himself from a gang. But right now, we’re talking about you. The plan is for you to stay with me in Malibu. Your mother and Mike are afraid they won’t be able to stop you from joining the attack on da Posse if you stay in Oakville. Correct me, you two, if I’m wrong.”
“No, that’s it,” Rachelle said.
“You got it,” Mike said.
“Why I don’t just head back? Ain’t like I on the moon.”
“Speak English in my house, Wendell.”
“Or what you gonna do, send me to juvie?”
“I showed you earlier what you get when you disrespect your mother. I don’t make a habit of hitting kids, but this is—”
“Who you calling a kid?”
“Despite your badass manner and smart lip, you’re sixteen.”
“Man, I’m gonna—” He got to his feet but without conviction.
“Sit down,” I said.
“This kidnapping.” He looked at his shoes, and asked, “How long?” He slid onto the couch.
“Long enough to let the heat die down. But because it doesn’t look as though the shooting’s ever going to end, maybe forever.”
“Come on, Mama. This ain’t fair.”
“Is it fair I’ve lost two of my boys to this mess?” she asked. “And now you’re trying to follow them into the grave. Is that fair? Tell me, is it? How’re you gonna bring Lawrence and Terrell back to us by shooting someone else? Shooting someone else who didn’t kill them, someone else who has a mama?”
“You don’t know who did it.”
“Exactly, and neither do you, which is what makes shooting people at random so stupid.”
“Ain’t random. Random what they did out there today.”
“Quiet, you two,” Mike said. “Let Jack finish.”
“We’re not planning to shoot anyone tonight or any other night,” I said, “which makes us the adults. Instead, we’re going to save your life. But I’ll give you something in return. I give you my word I’ll do what I can to put away today’s shooters—not because I’m taking sides in this gang rivalry, but because people were killed today.
“Good, bad, or somewhere in between, like most of us, they were people, so someone’s got to do something about their murders. The police department may luck out, but I doubt it, so we’re going to need your help. You’ll let me know what you know. You’ll not only cooperate, but you’ll also participate, offering up information, then tracking down leads. The drive between here and there will give us time to get to know each other.” I smiled a big, goofy smile.
“Just what I need.”
“Good, I’m looking forward to it, too.”
“Why you think I’m not just gonna leave?”
“Because it’ll be difficult. You already failed to take my car.”
“I can take another one. Or catch a bus.”
“Well, that’s the sport of it, then. A little cat and mouse. Meeeooow.”
“Mama, I gotta go with this clown, for real? He crazy.”
“I agree with you, son, but his kind of crazy is what we need right now, so you’re going. Pack some stuff.”
“For real?”
“Go!”
Game slowly rose from the couch, his head hung low. He dragged himself to his room.
“Think it’ll work?” Mike asked.
“I think I can keep him alive through the night. There aren’t a lot of drive-bys in the Bu.”
“What’s the Bu?” Rachelle asked.
“It’s the privileged white kids’ slang for Malibu, like Oakville’s the Ville or Crenshaw’s the Shaw. And the Bu’s a tough ’hood. Some people there actually have to drive Chevys.”
“Do you think you can keep him safe, Jack?” Rachelle asked.
“Safe’s no problem. Keeping him there’s gonna be tricky, but I’ll manage.” I carried my bag of ice to the kitchen, dumped the water and ice in the sink, and threw out the Baggie. I could hear Game opening and closing drawers in his room.
I reentered the living room. Mike said, “He’s a much better student than the average banger. He’s never missed a practice, and, as far as we can tell, he doesn’t do drugs. Maybe grass, but—”
“Who are we to judge, right?” I asked.
“Well, since we’ve managed to make it to adulthood,” Mike said, “with varying degrees of maturity, I’ll grant you, I think it’s okay for us to assume we know what’s best for him.”
Rachelle asked, “But keeping him alive today, tomorrow, what’s that do?”
“Don’t get cynical on us,” Mike said. “Sure, everything could still go wrong. The objective is to keep him out of harm’s way for a while, to give him a change of scenery, maybe a chance to modify his perspective.”
