by Richard Dry
* * *
A FEW NIGHTS later at the liquor store, Love and Li’l Pit played dice with the crew. Freight put down a ten spot so the rest of them put down a ten.
“I don’t got none,” Li’l Pit complained.
“I’ll cover you,” Curse said. He laid down another ten, then rolled a six.
“Six,” Freight said, confirming it before they went on.
Nat rolled next, an eight.
“Eight.”
Love rolled a seven.
“Seven.”
Li’l Pit rolled another six.
“Ha!” yelled Curse. “It’s you and me, Li’l Poet.” He reached out and tapped Li’l Pit’s fist.
Freight rolled a seven, like Love. He didn’t say anything or even look at Love. Curse spit to the side of his wheelchair.
It was Curse’s turn again. He rolled the die in his hands and blew on them. “Come on, bro, give me a little of your magic breath,” he said, sticking his hands out in front of Li’l Pit, who blew on them too.
Curse tossed the die toward the wall and hit a nine. Love didn’t smile or look at Curse.
Nat rolled and hit his eight. He jumped in the air. “Yeah, boy! You-know-what-I’m-saying. Money, money, money.” He knelt down and picked up the cash.
Freight threw another ten spot down, as did the rest. Curse covered Li’l Pit again.
“First to hit snake eyes,” Freight said. No one argued. They went around the circle three times and no one hit. When it got back to Love, Freight held up his hand to stop the roll. “How many sevens there been?” he asked Love.
“Four.”
“How many fives?”
“Two.”
“Roll.”
Love rolled. Eight. They went around the circle twice again. Then Love hit snake eyes. He reached for the cash, but Freight put out his hand.
“Hold on.” He looked up at Curse. “How many eights?”
“Four,” Curse said.
“How many eights?” Freight asked Love.
“Five.”
“Bullshit,” Curse yelled. “Four. I been counting.”
“It was four,” Nat said, and nodded to Curse. They both looked at Li’l Pit. Li’l Pit looked over at his brother and then back at Curse.
“How many eights, Li’l Poet?” Curse asked.
Li’l Pit clenched his fists as if he were about to get into a fight. He looked at Freight, who waited for him to answer.
“I think it was four of them.”
Curse smiled and nodded. “That’s fuckin right, boy. It was four. Now give me my money.”
Freight dropped his hand and leaned back against the wall.
“Five,” he said.
“Naw, man,” Curse yelled. “It was four, Freight. Don’t do me like that.” He shook his head as Love bent down and picked up the money.
“Fuck this shit,” Curse said, and rolled away down Cranston.
* * *
OVER TIME, FREIGHT began to show Love the mechanics of the operation. One day in December he sent him on his first solo run. Curse always spit on the ground when he saw Freight take Love into the liquor store.
Freight put a ten on the counter.
“Four packs,” he said to Rick. Rick scratched his beard, took the bill, put it into the register, then took out a single and put it in his pocket.
“Hurry up, blood.”
Rick bent down and came back up with a paper bag. He handed it to Freight. Freight wore soft leather gloves, expensive and sleek with rabbit-fur lining. He took off one glove and reached into the bag to feel the vials. He rolled the small jars between his fingers, then shoved the bag into his jacket pocket. He never held the stockpile on him in case the cops showed up.
“What’s the count?” Freight watched the TV screen above him, a scene of a soap opera in a hospital room.
“Twenty-two?”
“Right.” Freight had an impeccable memory and tested Rick often. They looked each other in the eye for a moment, then Rick looked away. A young man in a blue wool cap, thirsty for rock, came to the entrance of the store, his hands deep in his pockets.
“Get outside,” Freight yelled at him.
“This is a store. I can come into a store. It doesn’t mean nothing.”
“I don’t want your kind in here. Get outside. Love, keep this fiend outta here. Shit.”
The man turned around and walked out on his own. Freight looked up to the video monitor that showed him in a spectrum of grays standing in front of the counter, but also the whole area up to the entrance.
“Tilt that camera down more, just so it shows this part,” he said. He walked out as Rick climbed up on the counter to adjust the camera.
“He said he wanted a soda,” Love told Freight outside.
“I don’t care what he said. Don’t let them in the store.” The man in the blue cap stood to the right against the wall on Cranston, cleaning his teeth with his tongue. Freight came toward him and the man began walking away, farther down the street. When he reached a mailbox at a gate a few houses down, the man stopped and turned around.
“It’s in there,” he said.
“Get back,” Freight yelled. The man took a few more steps backward. Freight reached into the mailbox and took out a twenty-dollar bill. He put the bag inside and closed the box. Freight turned and walked back to the store, and the man rushed to the box. He took out the bag, looked in, and disappeared into the burned-out house where Li’l Pit had spent his first week on the West Side.
Love watched this interaction a hundred times a day, and after a while it became a bore. He rubbed his eyes and was knocked off balance by Freight hitting him in the shoulder.
“We’ll be clean out in an hour, so hurry up.” He thrust his hand inside Love’s leather jacket and stuck a roll of money into his pocket.
“Without you?” Love asked.
“Did I say I was coming?”
Love shook his head and got on his dirt bike. He rode up toward Berkeley, his jacket ballooning like a life preserver, and when he reached Alcatraz, he turned and entered a residential area.
A few blocks down, there was a long brown picket fence, high enough that the house inside wasn’t visible from the street. Love got off his bike and pulled the string that hung through a hole at one end of the fence, which Freight had shown him the first time they were there together. Nothing happened for a moment; then there was a buzz, and he pushed on the gate. He let the gate click shut behind him and leaned his bike against the inside fence. The yard was overflowing with twigs, overgrown dried weeds, and a low tree, its branches shooting out over the walkway. The front of the one-story house had two windows, both covered with bamboo curtains.
Love walked along the side of the house and around back where there was a small courtyard and a shed. The back door was shut, and a purple curtain hung over the window. He rang the buzzer. After a moment, the metal mail slot lifted and a mouth appeared.
“What do you want?” a woman’s voice asked.
“It’s Love. I came for Freight.” The slot shut.
He heard voices talking inside, and then the woman opened the slot and whispered.
“Give me the money.” He took the wad of bills from his pocket, five hundred dollars, if it was the same as before. He pushed the money through the metal flap and it was immediately grabbed from his fingers. Nothing happened for a second more, then the mouth appeared again.
“Okay. Go wait in the shed. And close the door.”
Love let out a breath and turned around. The shed was a square concrete building with a thick wooden door. As he walked in, he flipped on the light switch to his left. On the other side of the room was a red wagon with a rusted handle and a cardboard box of firewood in it. There were no chairs, only a wooden table with a clamp screwed into it. The door made a swishing sound as he closed it: there was a plastic cat flap cut into the bottom that brushed along the cement floor. He jumped up to sit on the old table and let his legs swing, rubbing his hands an
d blowing into them.
A single yellow bulb buzzed in the middle of the ceiling, attached to a bumpy metal tube that went across and then down the wall. There were spiderwebs in every corner of the room. Love bent forward and looked under the edge of the table to see if there were spiders there too, then sat back up and crossed his legs in front of him.
He played with the clamp, twirling the stick around until it tightened onto his left hand, then loosened it and looked at the ridges pressed into his skin. There were no windows or clocks to tell how long he’d waited, but he was used to waiting in the quiet-rooms, and it wasn’t so bad except that it was freezing cold, even colder than outside. He was about to put his hand in the vise grip again when the door opened. He jumped off the table, and a thin White man walked in and shut the door. He wore boots and a long blue overcoat. The last time Love was there, the box had just been pushed through the cat door and he never saw a face. This man had straight hair and a little beard. Small crumbs were stuck in the corners of his eyes and he had very thick eyebrows.
“Love’s your name?” He kept his hands in his coat pockets. Love nodded.
“Is that your street name?”
Love shook his head.
“How much is Freight paying you?”
Love shrugged.
“Amanda wants to give you the goods, but she told me to come in here first to see if you wanted to make some extra money.” He waited. He looked at Love’s face and squinted. “How old are you?” Love didn’t say anything. He kept his mouth shut and breathed through his nose.
“You don’t have to be afraid,” the man said.
“I’m not.”
“How old are you?”
“Fourteen.”
“You know how much money you gave us?” The man leaned on the corner of the table between Love and the door. “You know what would happen if you didn’t bring Freight his rock?” Love didn’t move, and the man smiled.
“I want to give you forty dollars. Just for you to keep. Okay?” The man took out the bills. “Okay?”
Love nodded.
“It’s cold in here, isn’t it?” He leaned against the wall behind him and looked at Love for a moment without moving. “If you leave right now, you won’t get any rock.” He undid the belt around his coat and opened it at the bottom. He wasn’t wearing any pants, and his penis sprang out partially erect. His legs were hairy, and he was wearing a white T-shirt.
“Do you know what I want you to do?”
Love looked at the door.
“Don’t try to run. I’m not going to do anything to you that’s going to hurt you, so you don’t have to be afraid.”
“I don’t want the money.” Love put the bills on the table.
The man held himself and moved his hand up and down. “Have you ever seen a White man’s penis before? It’s not very white, is it? I bet it’s not very different than yours. Will you show me yours?”
Love shook his head.
“I’m not going to make you do anything, okay? I could, but I’m not going to. If you don’t want another twenty dollars, you don’t have to touch me. All right?” He waited. “I said all right?”
Love nodded.
“I’m not going to make you touch me. But remember, if I want, I can tell Amanda not to give you anything. She’ll tell Freight you never even came by. You know I could do that?” The man was fully erect and stroking himself faster. “Now all you have to do, and then I’ll give you what you want, all you have to do is—you don’t have to touch me, which is what I came in here to make you do, I was going to make you do something, but I’m just going to ask in case you might want to anyway for an extra … extra hundred dollars—I wanted you to put your mouth on me. Some kids don’t mind. But I’m not going to … to make you do that. Instead, all you have to do for the money, and then you’ll get the stuff, is just show me, just show me yours. You won’t have to touch me at all if you do that.” Love backed into the corner between the table and the wagon.
“But you have to do that,” the man continued, “or else you don’t get your rock.” He stroked himself faster and pushed his hips forward.
Love turned away and faced the wall with his arms down at his sides. The wall was cracked in the corner. A spider had left a few curled-up ants in an old web, their blood sucked out of them. He could hear the man rubbing himself and walking toward him. The table creaked as the man steadied himself with his other hand.
“Show me your thing,” the man said. “You don’t have to do anything to me. I’ll do it to you. I want to suck it for you so bad,” he whispered. “Show me your beautiful little … nuh.” Everything stopped moving, and the man took a long deep breath.
After a few moments, Love looked back. The man wiped his hand with a twenty-dollar bill and tied his coat.
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said. He put the twenty back on the table and bowed his head. “I just thought you might want some money. Lots of kids want some extra cash.” He walked to the door and, without turning back, said: “Don’t worry. You’ll get your stuff. I wasn’t going to keep it from you.” He walked out, closing the door behind him.
Love didn’t touch the money on the table. He stayed in the corner with his back to the wall. A minute later, a bag slid in through the cat door. He picked it up and stuffed it in his jacket, then slowly opened the shed door. As he came out, the back door to the house slammed shut and the purple curtain gently floated to the glass. Love ran to his bike, twisted the lock on the gate, and kicked it open. The gate swung out and then shut behind him, and now he stood in the empty street, the sun directly above in a hazy overcast light.
He didn’t jump on his bike and split, even though he was still just in front of the house. He walked for a moment in the quiet of the open street, down to Alcatraz. He walked slowly, looking at the houses, at trees, at a bird flying overhead. When he reached the corner, he looked at his bike, took a deep breath, and let it out through his nose. He got on and stood up on the pedals, rocking back and forth to balance, like waiting at a starting gate. Then he counted backwards from five, grunted, and took off as fast as he could. He knew he was late and Freight would kick his ass for it.
* * *
THE NEXT DAY, Love rode the train from Oakland to the San Leandro BART station, then walked the rest of the way up into the hills to Los Aspirantes. Once they took him back, he’d get them to take Li’l Pit since he couldn’t stay at Cranston alone. They had said that they cared about him—Tom had said it out loud—and they would be able to tell he was in trouble, out of school during the day, on his own.
He crossed the bridge over the freeway and walked slowly up the incline of the suburban street. He knew these homes and lawns well, these cars and mailboxes and porches, from driving past them to school every morning from the residential house, from taking walks with Tom to get a Slurpee on special outings. There was a peacefulness about knowing a place well, even if you hated it—no surprises: the steep driveway to the school, the chain-link fence around the playground, the long rectangular buildings of the upper and lower blocks.
When he reached the top of the driveway, he stopped and looked at the administrative bungalow with vines of jasmine creeping up its sides. The front door was open, and he knew Krista would be sitting behind the front desk, her jar of lollipops and candy always open. It occurred to him for the first time that he might not be allowed to leave once they saw him. Krista would recognize him and from there, even if he ran away, they would contact Ruby to find him. Had it really been all that bad at Cranston, bad enough to go back to all the rules and restraints, not being allowed to yell fuck you without having to take a time-out, not being allowed to wear a Raiders hat, not being allowed to listen to Public Enemy? All those times he’d been wrestled to the ground and tossed in the quiet-room for throwing a bowl on the floor. Watched all the time, not able to leave on his own, to have to go to therapy, to have to go to school and sit through those boring classes, to have to go to sleep and wake up when
they told you. Was it really worth it?
He could hear the kids playing kickball in the yard: no pushing or cutting, no cursing or hitting. They screamed and clapped for Nita, a girl he knew vaguely from another class. Love walked slowly to the front door and stood by Krista’s desk. She was on the phone, but her face lit up when she saw him. He smiled back. She was the most cheerful person in the whole school, if not the whole world, and for on-campus rewards, kids would always ask to go visit her and get candy. She hung up the phone and shook her head.
“Ronald Love LeRoy, what took you so long to come see us?”
Love looked down and smiled.
“How you doing? How’s it going at home? You want me to call up to Room 7 and see if they can have a visitor?”
“Naw.” Love shook his head.
“Well, have a seat then. You want some candy?”
Love took a piece of butterscotch and sat down on one of the chairs in the waiting area. He unwrapped his candy and pushed it into his cheek with his tongue.
“Who you here to see?” Krista asked.
“I just thought I’d come by.”
The phone rang and she pressed a button. “Hold on, honey.”
While she spoke on the phone, Love stood up and peered around the cubicle to see if someone in charge was around to talk to. A few of the counselors were waiting around to drive the afternoon buses, but he didn’t see anyone he trusted.
When he came back to Krista’s desk, she was writing a note that she stuck to the stapler.
“So you just came by to see me, huh?”
“Is Tom around?” he asked. Sometimes Tom worked in Room 7 and sometimes he stayed at the house, so there was a chance he’d be at the campus.
“Tom?” Krista shook her head and took a piece of candy for herself. “Tom Riley? I don’t think he’s here anymore, Love. You want to talk to him?”
“That’s okay. I’ll stop by the house.”
“No, I mean I don’t think he works here anymore is what I mean. I think he quit.” Love stood frozen, a stream of cold rushed down the inside of his chest to his stomach. She must have seen it in his eyes, for the smile on her face faded and she picked up the phone.
