If I Grow Up

by Todd Strasser

  If I slept, it wasn’t for long. By the time the lobby began filling with natural light, footsteps were coming down the stairs—the heavy thumps of men going to work, the softer steps of women, and the taps of children. This wasn’t the projects. It was a part of town where people had regular jobs and schedules. Where men and women came home at night, and kids went to school until high school was completed.

  When there were a lot of people on the sidewalk outside, I crawled out from under the staircase. One of my pant’s knees was torn, and my new suit was dirty and wrinkled. The tails of my shirt hung out, and the palms of my hands were scraped from diving to the ground the night before.

  I tucked in my shirt and gazed down at the gun in my hand. I’d kept it close during the night just in case, but now I’d have to get rid of it. If I’d hit someone in that car, I didn’t want the cops to be able to trace the bullet back to me. I was sliding the gun into my waistband holster when the door to one of the ground-floor apartments opened. A woman came out with two little kids dressed in clean clothes and carrying backpacks for school. The woman gasped when she saw the gun, then protectively reached for her kids and drew them back.

  “It’s cool,” I said. “I’m going.”

  Holding the kids close, the woman frowned and her mouth began to move. I tensed, expecting her to say something angry, but she said, “You’re…you’re just a boy.”

  Her words caught me by surprise, and I didn’t know how to answer. Maybe it was true. People said I looked young for my age, but it had been a long time since I’d felt like “just a boy.”

  “That no good Jamar,” Marcus muttered that evening in his car. “I told him I wanted him for this.”

  I didn’t ask where we were going. Marcus would tell me when he wanted me to know. The evening was damp and chilly. Wet spring mist hung in the air and covered everything, making streetlamps glitter and cars look dull. Marcus drove past the rail yards and into a part of town I’d never been in before. It was mostly old, brick factory buildings with broken windows and boarded-up doors.

  He stopped the car beside an empty lot. I looked out at the rubble and mounds of garbage bags that had been discarded there. Poking out of the pile was a red pedal-car like the one I used to drive around the apartment when I was little.

  Marcus took out his phone and tried a number. It rang until the message came on. He snapped the phone shut, then propped an elbow against the steering wheel, made a fist, and pressed it against his forehead. His eyes were closed, and I knew he was thinking hard, searching for a solution to whatever problem had beset him. For the first time ever, I sensed he was scared. Finally he took his fist from his forehead and opened his eyes.

  “Got your gun?” he asked, staring out into the dark.

  “No.”

  He turned and looked at me. “What? Why not?”

  “I had to use it last night, and I threw it away.”

  “Use it how?”

  “Someone took a shot at me.”

  Marcus frowned. “Who?”

  “Don’t know. It was dark. They were in a car.”

  “You shoot back? Think you hit anyone?”

  “Might have,” I said.

  Marcus reached across to the glove compartment, pulled out a chrome-plated gun with a tan grip, and handed it to me. It was a .44 caliber. “Get in the back and stay down.”

  I did as I was told, and Marcus started to drive again. “We’re gonna pick up those AK-47s. You stay in the car. Anything goes wrong, you know what to do.”

  I crouched down in the space between the seats. The grip of the .44 slowly grew warm in my hand. The car turned and bounced slightly, as if going into a driveway. It stopped and Marcus got out. I stayed low and listened. There were voices. Someone asked Marcus if he’d come alone and he answered yes. Then someone else spoke. It sounded like Jamar. I raised my head and peeked around the headrest. It was dark, and we were in a parking lot behind some buildings. Marcus was talking to Jamar and the gun dealer. There was something strange about Jamar, and at first I couldn’t tell what it was. Then I realized from the way his jacket was draped over his shoulders that his arm must have been in a sling. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but the conversation continued. It sounded low-key and chatty. Crouched behind the car seat, I relaxed and yawned.

  Pop!

  The sound of the shot made me jump. My first impulse was to stretch up and see what had happened. But something told me not to. If it was Jamar and Marcus and the gun dealer, then it had to be the dealer who got it, right? But I wasn’t sure, so I stayed low and waited. Someone muttered. A shoe scraped against the asphalt. I slowly lifted my head and peeked. Jamar and the gun dealer were walking toward Jamar’s black Escalade on the other side of the parking lot. I stretched up just a hair more and caught my breath.

  Marcus lay on the asphalt.

  “Anything goes wrong,” he’d said, “you know what to do.”

  What did that mean? If Jamar had killed Marcus, I knew what to do. But not now. Not here. Not when it was two against one. And not before I knew why and what was going on. So I huddled in Marcus’s car and waited until I heard the Escalade leave, then got out. Marcus lay facedown on the wet asphalt, a small hole in the back of his head and a spreading puddle of blood on the ground.

  Light mist floated down in the dark. I could feel it seeping into my hair. At my feet lay the one person I never thought would die. The one who would always be there to tell us what to do. As I stood there I imagined the spark of life sputtering out like a flickering flame. Marcus was gone and he was never coming back. Could he really be just another gangbanger, as meaningless and simply forgotten as yesterday’s weather? Was that the fate of all of us? Were we all nothing more than a brief flicker, as easily blown out as a candle?

  The pool of blood under his head kept growing. I kneeled down and pressed my hand against his lifeless back. I felt tears well in my eyes. He’d been a gang leader and a killer, but he’d also been more like a father to me than any man I’d ever known. He was one of the few who’d given me a chance to be something. One of the few who hadn’t left. I owed him. I would find out why Jamar had killed him. I would figure out what to do next.

  DO WHAT’S RIGHT

  Staying in the misty shadows, I took the dark side streets home. There was no telling who might see me if I walked down Abernathy Avenue. By the time I got back to Frederick Douglass, the mist had soaked my hair and seeped down under my collar, chilling me as it crept down my back. I was crossing the yard when my cell phone rang. It was Jamar.

  “Come up.”

  “What’s up?” I pretended not to know.

  “Something happened to Marcus,” he said.

  I slid my hand inside my jacket and felt the grip of the .44. There was always a chance Jamar wanted me dead too. It could have been him who’d tried to kill me at the bus stop the night before.

  I climbed up the stairs slowly, stopping and checking before going around each corner. By the time I got to the fifteenth floor, most of the Disciples were already there, talking in hushed voices and looking agitated. Terrell came over to me.

  “They got Marcus,” he whispered. “We’re squadding up. They got to fall. Jamar got some AKs. We’re gonna hurt them twice as bad.”

  “Who got Marcus?” I asked.

  “Who do you think?”

  All around the room, gangbangers were talking war. Then Jamar strutted in, his arm in a black sling. When our eyes met, he looked away.

  “We going to war, right?” said Jules.

  “Shut it and listen up,” Jamar barked. “We ain’t going to war. Least not right now. Marcus got shot by some crazy hype.”

  “You whack?” said Terrell. “Everybody knows Marcus. Ain’t no hype anywhere would touch him.”

  “Look, I’m telling you it was some hype,” Jamar insisted. “Marcus got soft. He lost respect. It ain’t the same as it used to be.”

  “So what’re we gonna do?” Bublz asked, nervously chewing a f
ingernail.

  “Nothing,” Jamar said.

  A puzzled hush settled over the group.

  “Only now you’re in charge?” I asked.

  Jamar locked eyes with me, then looked around the room. “Anyone got a problem with that?”

  The other Disciples averted their eyes and shook their heads silently.

  “All right,” said Jamar. “Then it’s back to business as usual. Nothing changes. Only I give the orders from now on.”

  Terrell and I started down the stairs. I waited until we were almost to the sixth floor and then stopped him.

  “I gotta tell you something,” I said in a low voice. “You gotta swear not to tell anyone else, understand? This is on our blood oath. It’s the most serious thing I’m ever gonna tell you, and if you tell a soul, it’ll probably get me killed.”

  Terrell nodded and gave me a curious look.

  “You were right before,” I said. “Marcus wasn’t killed by a hype. You and I know darn well that if some hype did it, the first thing Jamar would do was have him killed.”

  Terrell’s eyebrows jumped as he realized this was true. “Then who?…”

  “Jamar.”

  Terrell’s jaw fell open and his forehead wrinkled. “But—”

  I held up my hand to stop him. “I was there. It was an ambush. Jamar doesn’t know I saw him.”

  My friend’s face went stony. “You don’t want to tell the others?”

  “They won’t believe me,” I said. “Or some will and some won’t, and then we’ll have a war among ourselves.”

  “Folks know you don’t lie.”

  I shook my head. “This is too big. They won’t know what to believe. They might think I’m trying to take over. That after Jamar I’d be next in line. Besides, if anyone tells Jamar, he’ll have me killed for sure.”

  Terrell’s eyes wrinkled slightly. “Why you telling me?”

  “If anything happens to me, I need you to know why, and to do what’s right,” I said.

  A SECRET MEETING

  The next morning, I got up early and went out unarmed for the first time in months. It was too soon for the funeral notices for Marcus to start going up in the stairwells. I walked to Munson High.

  At the entrance, I was stopped by Mr. White, the fat, bald assistant principal whose stomach fell over his belt. “DeShawn, what an unexpected surprise,” he said. “What brings you to school today?”

  There was no point in lying. It was the first time I’d been to school in two weeks. “Just want to see my girl, Mr. White.”

  “At least you’re honest,” he said. “Go to my office and wait for me there.”

  I did as I was told. He showed up about twenty minutes later, sat down, and typed on the computer. “Let’s see. Ah, here we are. In the past two months, you’ve missed twenty-seven days of school. Not exactly a stellar attendance record, is it?”

  I didn’t answer. I’d already told him why I was there.

  Mr. White scratched the side of his face. “School’s not supposed to be a place where we come just to socialize, DeShawn. And you can’t learn very much when your attendance averages one day a week.”

  I nodded.

  “Do you have a job?” he asked.

  “No, sir.”

  “May I ask what you do with your free time?”

  We both knew exactly what I did.

  Mr. White picked up a pencil and tapped it against his desk. “You’re from Douglass?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “There’s a boy in your grade from over there. Extraordinarily bright.”

  “Lightbulb.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Raydale,” I said. “Raydale Diggs.”

  “You know him?”

  “He’s working at King Chicken,” I said. Lightbulb had worked his way up to the counter. He knew the price of every item by heart, and no matter how complicated the order, he automatically added it up in his head and calculated the tax and change. The manager constantly had to remind him to use the cash register anyway.

  Mr. White shook his head sadly. “So much wasted potential. They talk about inner-city crime. But the real crime is what happens to boys like him and you.” He glanced at the computer and back at me. “You’re not here to make any trouble?”

  “No, sir.”

  “You can talk to your girlfriend at lunch and in the hall between classes, but I don’t want any reports of you hanging around where you’re not supposed to be.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “If you ever decide you really want to come back to school in a serious way, I can help you.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Get your brother to arrange a meeting between me and Rance,” I said. Tanisha and I were standing in a doorway outside the cafeteria. It was raining, but as long as we stood close to the doors, we wouldn’t get wet.

  “Are you crazy?” Tanisha said, hugging herself for warmth.

  “Serious as I can be.”

  “He’ll kill you.”

  “Maybe not.”

  “Maybe definitely.”

  “It’s important, Tani.”

  “Not as important as you staying alive,” she said.

  “Tell him we can meet somewhere neutral.”

  “He won’t do it.”

  “Tanisha, you gotta make him do it.”

  “I can’t.”

  I moved close and put my hands on her hips, holding her steady and looking into her eyes. “Tani, you ever want the day to come when you and me can be together?”

  Her eyes began to glitter. “We can’t be together if you’re dead.”

  “We can’t be together while I’m alive, either,” I said. “Unless you help me.”

  Walking home, I became aware of a car slowly moving along Abernathy. My hand automatically went to my waist, then I remembered that I wasn’t strapped. I glanced out the corner of my eye. It was a dark green Crown Victoria, a favorite among undercover cops. In a way that was good news, and I relaxed. It was unlikely that a cop would take a shot at me.

  The window went down. “Hey, DeShawn.” It was Officer Patterson, wearing a green plaid jacket. “Congratulate me. I made detective.”

  I kept walking. He had to be crazy to think I’d speak to him. If anyone saw us, I was a dead man.

  “Looks like we’re both rising in our respective organizations,” Patterson said.

  At the corner, I stopped and waited for traffic to pass. But I didn’t look at him.

  “Meet me under the rail-yard bridge in twenty minutes,” Patterson said. “We need to talk.” The Crown Vic pulled away.

  Twenty minutes later I walked toward the bridge. I’d taken a roundabout route through abandoned buildings and over backyard fences, so I was pretty sure I wasn’t followed. The rail-yard bridge was low and made of stone. It was dark and damp and rat-infested underneath. Even homeless people wouldn’t sleep there.

  Patterson was standing in the shadows. No sign of the Crown Vic or anyone else. I walked in and stopped half a dozen yards away from him. Water dripped from the ceiling into puddles, and I thought I heard rats scampering in the dark corners.

  “I won’t keep you long,” Patterson said. “I know what would happen if anyone in your crew found out.”

  I looked around uncomfortably.

  “No one’s coming,” Patterson said.

  “You’re taking a chance too,” I said.

  Patterson smiled. “You never struck me as a cop killer, DeShawn. Just another lost kid who’s run out of options. How old are you?”

  “Sixteen.”

  “How old do you think Marcus Elliot was?”

  It might have sounded strange, but I’d never thought about it. “Twenty-seven? Twenty-eight?”

  “Try twenty. He would have turned twenty-one next month.”

  The news surprised me, just as Patterson knew it would.

  “It’s all about the pose,” Patterson said. “But I guess you know that’s not what I want to talk about. You kno
w that Jamar’s playing both sides against the middle? Making a fortune selling guns and ammo to both the Disciples and the Gangstas.”

  I’d known that for a long time. “How come you don’t bust him?”

  “Certain people…people a lot more cynical than me, seem to think that we’re better off letting gangbangers kill each other. It’s a lot cheaper than putting them in jail, and it becomes a problem only when things get out of hand.”

  “Like when shorties shoot pregnant women?” I said.

  “Or innocent bystanders get caught in the cross fire,” he said.

  “Like my mother.”

  Patterson nodded. “Mothers, little kids, the kind of stuff that makes the news. And then people have to pretend they’re outraged and they’re gonna do something about it. That is, until something else comes along and grabs the headlines. People have short attention spans. All it takes is a hurricane or a political scandal to make them forget last week’s tragedy. Especially when it comes to the projects. All these young women with two or three children by different fathers. All these fatherless boys running around wild, killing each other. People think it’s a shame, but no one really knows how to fix it. So they’d just as soon pretend it doesn’t exist.”

  “If you believe that, why’d you bother becoming a cop?” I asked.

  “So I can sleep at night. How you sleeping these days, DeShawn?”

  I looked around again, letting Patterson know that I was ready to go.

  “We could work together,” Patterson said. “No one has to know. You help me take down Rance Jones and his top lieutenants. Then we go after Jamar. You’d be arrested on some fake charge so it wouldn’t look like you were the snitch. When the time is right, we could move you, your gramma, sister, and those kids some place new. Some place where you could get a fresh start.”

  “That’s what you’re offering me? A fresh start?”

  “Marcus Elliott didn’t live to be twenty-one,” Patterson said. “You’re sixteen, DeShawn. How long you think you’re gonna last?”