by Richard Dry
“You a F-O-O-L,” Love spelled.
Snapple stopped and bent over in exaggerated laughter.
“What?” Love asked.
“You can’t even spell fool.”
“Yes I can.”
“Fool is F-U-L.”
“No it ain’t.”
“It is so. What you know? You cut school too long. You don’t even know your ABCs.” Snapple began to walk quickly again.
They reached the parking lot for Adam’s, a small burger joint with a single row of stools behind a glass wall.
Snapple stopped at the corner and put his finger close to Love’s face. “You got to stay outside and guard my back in case some dudes come looking for me.”
“Who?”
Snapple waved his hand in front of his nose. “Damn, dog. Now I know why they call you Pit Bull. That breath smell like Purina Puppy Chow.”
Love pulled his lower lip out and tried to smell his own breath.
“Just be on the lookout for any angry-looking dudes.”
Snapple went inside and got in line at the counter while Love stood to the side of the glass door and surveyed the parking lot. The street was busy, and cars came in and out of the lot every few seconds.
When Snapple came out of the restaurant with the food, he walked straight past Love, who had to jog again to catch up. Then he slowed down, and when Love got out in front a little and led the way, Snapple stepped on the back of his shoe and gave him a flat tire. Love turned with his fists clenched.
“Oh, sorry, dog,” Snapple said. “I didn’t mean to. I thought you was speeding up. Here, let me get you some candy for that. I’ll go get you some candy from a store I know.” Love looked at him for a moment, the anger swelling and then receding inside him.
“Come on, you…” Snapple mumbled something that sounded like “pussy.”
“What?”
Snapple smiled, “What? Come on, I’ll get you candy.”
Love followed him to a liquor store five blocks away. He was angry at Snapple but didn’t know what to do, like when his mama slapped him on the head.
Snapple took him inside the store, and they stopped in front of the candy shelves directly across from the counter.
“Get what you want. You can get ten candy bars.”
“Ten?” Love couldn’t help but smile.
“Yeah. I got to get something to drink from the back for Pop.” Snapple slipped away toward the refrigerated section. Love picked up and replaced different candy bars from the shelves while the owner, a large West Indian man, watched him closely.
“You going to get some of that candy or just touch all of it?”
Love looked at him and then went back to picking out his candy. He knew that he couldn’t eat ten candy bars at once, so it would be important to get some that he could eat right away and some that wouldn’t melt. He couldn’t get too many chocolate bars, but he didn’t like hard candy except for the kind that tasted like sour apple. He also wanted to get something for his little brother, something he could suck on like a Blow Pop, but he didn’t know if Snapple would consider a Blow Pop a whole candy bar or just half, since they cost less. Just as he put back the sucker and picked up a pack of gum, there was a large crash in the back.
“God damn you,” the owner yelled. “What you doing in the back there?” He ran around the counter and up the aisle. At the same moment, Snapple materialized from another aisle and went up to the counter where all the scratch-off lottery tickets were locked up in large rolls of silver and gold.
“Shit!” the West Indian man yelled from the back of the store. “Why don’t you watch what you’re doing?” Snapple lifted himself up on the counter, reached over to the cash register, and pushed all the buttons. The register rang and the tray opened.
“Hey!” the owner yelled and came running back up the aisle. Snapple grabbed as many bills as he could, jumped off the counter, and darted out the door.
“Run,” he screamed to Love, and laughed. In an instant, Snapple was gone, but the owner reached the door and blocked Love’s way. He grabbed Love by the biceps and yelled after Snapple, “I’m going to kill you, you motherfucking rat!”
He lifted Love up by his arm and dragged him behind the counter. With his other hand he dialed the police on the phone.
“I’ve just been robbed and I have one of the rats, and I’m going to kill him if you don’t get over here fast.” He hung up the phone and took a gun out from under his counter. He pointed it at Love.
Love had never stared up the barrel of a gun before, and he was frightened, not by the knowledge that it could kill him as much as by the knowledge that it would make a very loud sound right in his face.
“Get down on the ground.” Love sat down. “Now lay down on your stomach, over here.” Love lay on his stomach, and the man stepped on his back with one heavy foot as he counted the money left in his register.
“What’s your friend’s name?” he demanded. Love could hardly breathe under the weight of the man’s foot. He didn’t answer, and the man pressed down even more.
“What’s his name, you little shit?”
“Murrell.”
“Murrell what?”
“I don’t know.”
“You worthless piece of shit. You know you’re going to go to jail and be beat up every day by murderers and rapists. The police are going to come get you and take you away and you’ll never get out alive. You’ll rot in jail and then you’ll rot in hellfire forever. Kids like you go to hell.”
Two policemen eventually showed up. They walked in slowly with their hands on the butts of their guns.
“You called us?”
“He’s back here,” the owner said. The policemen came around the counter and cuffed Love with a plastic twist-tie device as the owner explained what happened.
“You should lock him up for good,” he added. “These kids are just going to get into more trouble if you let them out. They’re a plague on society and us hardworking people.”
“All right,” the policeman said, lifting Love up and walking him out of the store. “We’ll make sure he doesn’t bother you again.”
They threw him in the back of their police car and got in.
“I didn’t do nothing,” Love mumbled from under his tears.
“What’s your name?”
“Ronald LeRoy. L-e-r-o-y.”
“What was your friend’s name?”
“Murrell.”
“Where does he live?”
Love shrugged, though he knew Snapple lived at the crib.
“Where do you live?”
“Terrace Apartments.”
The cops drove him home, and one of them walked up the stairs with him.
“This it? This where you live?” Love nodded. The policeman knocked. There was no answer and he knocked again.
“You live with your parents?”
Love nodded.
“Know where they’re at?”
Love shook his head. The officer took a deep breath and let it out loudly. The radio on his shoulder spewed information and he talked back into it, then faced Love.
“I guess I’m going to have to take you to CPS. You’re too young to be on your own. And without any shoes on either.”
“I have a key.”
“Well, your parents shouldn’t let you out by yourself and then not be home. I’m supposed to take you with me.”
“No,” Love cried. “I’m not going.” He shook his head. He’d heard of kids in his building being taken away from their parents by the cops and never coming back.
“Hey, hey.” The policeman laughed. “It’s okay. Stop crying. I can’t take you now, anyway. I’ve got to go.” He looked up and down the hallway and then took out a piece of paper from his belt. “Tell me what your parents’ names are.”
“Lida and Marcus.” Love wiped his eyes and spelled their names for the officer.
“Okay. I’m going to leave you here, and then I’m going to send somebody out from CPS.
Now, you understand that if you do anything like this again, if you even go into his store, I’m going to take you to jail. You understand?”
Love nodded. The cop cut off his plastic handcuffs.
“Okay. Now go on inside.” Love waited for the cop to leave, but he didn’t move. “Go on,” he said. “I just want to make sure you get in okay.”
Love took out his key and opened the door, then slipped inside and slammed it shut. The policeman laughed and talked through the door: “Okay. Now you stay there until your parents get home.”
Love heard the cop walk away.
The room was empty except for the mat on the living room floor. He walked into the bedroom, but no one was home and Paul wasn’t on his blanket.
He rubbed his wrists and went to the window. He pulled aside the white towel and watched for the cop to leave. There were people staring at the police car and kids playing kickball in the street. He recognized a guy from Ace Trey on a bike, riding up and down the block ringing his bell, warning the dealers.
There was a thump from the bathroom, and Love turned. There was another thump, and he went to check it out. He found Paul sitting in the empty bathtub in a pool of his own urine, kicking the tub with his heel.
“How long you been here?” Love knelt by the side of the tub and turned on the water. It was cold for almost a minute, and he let it run over his wrists until it warmed up. He plugged up the drain with his palm and the water filled in around his brother’s legs and waist, mixing with the urine.
“I got busted by the cops,” Love said. Paul looked at him silently. Love watched the water rise, slowly swallowing his brother’s body. When it reached his own elbow, he pulled his hand away from the drain and the water emptied at nearly the same rate as it poured in. He took an old towel from the shower rack, soaked it under the faucet, and rubbed the warm cloth around the back of Paul’s neck, across his thin ribs, and over his small potbelly.
* * *
NO ONE FROM CPS ever came to check on them as far as Love ever knew. He continued to hang with Ace Trey, and when Paul got old enough, he brought him to the crib too. The crew called Paul Li’l Pit since he was Pit Bull’s little brother.
Carlyle made Danish pastry braids for Li’l Pit’s fifth birthday. He’d seen how to do it on Julia Child which he reserved the right to watch every afternoon at three. Soda Pop was up for it, bought him all the ingredients he ever wanted. Love was up for it too, and so was Li’l Pit. Pop had them stay in the kitchen while the rest of the set worked in the living room, planning. Ace Trey was going to war. They were going to war for the Tigers against Four Deuce after Four Deuce sent Fletcher Washington to the hospital with a bullet in his spine. Everyone knew it was Claude Sonny who took out Fletcher because Claude just came out of Fulton for trying to get Fletcher two years earlier. There wasn’t anything else to know except that Ace Trey protected the Tigers and the Tigers protected Ace Trey.
Li’l Pit sat on a stool at the kitchen table and Love stood at the counter. Love got to mix the flour and eggs, mash the berries, and add the sugar.
“Give me the measurer,” he told his brother. Li’l Pit brought him the waxed-Pepsi cup on which Carlyle had drawn measuring marks. “Now!” Love poured in twice the amount of sugar called for. “Taste this.” He dipped his finger in and held it out for Li’l Pit.
Snapple sauntered in from the living room with a smile. “How the womenfolk all doin? We got some hungry men waitin out here.”
“Seem like some niggahs don’t want no food,” Carlyle said to Love.
“Damn, dog, I’m just playin wit you.” Snapple tapped Carlyle’s shoulder. “Smell good. Like some serious jam. Well, you little girls keep yourself safe in here.” He walked out again, sure to return, as he had all morning. There wasn’t much for him to do in the living room. They let him watch, but he was still too young to speak up.
“These fools ain’t gonna let me do nothin,” Snapple said when he kicked the kitchen door open a few minutes later. “They too scared I might go crazy and kill a whole lotta niggahs just ’cause I feel like it.” He bumped Li’l Pit off the stool with his hip and sat down.
Li’l Pit stood up and began to bark at him loudly.
Snapple laughed. “Damn, you a sick puppy, Li’l Pit.”
“What you doin, niggah?” Love walked up to Snapple, his fists clenched at his sides. “Give my brother back his stool.”
“This ain’t got nobody’s name on it.”
Li’l Pit continued to bark at Snapple, baring his teeth.
“He was sittin there,” Love said.
“I was sittin here yesterday. I was sittin here ’fore your tiny butt was born.”
Carlyle stepped between them. He was tall and thin, and it was known that he hadn’t hit anyone even once in his life, but he stepped between them, a cookie sheet in his hand.
“Snapple, why you hanging out with the young kids? You growing up or down?”
Snapple spit on the kitchen floor near Li’l Pit’s feet.
“Why don’t you go on out with the big boys?” Carlyle said to him.
“Naw. I got to be in here.” Snapple turned his head to the side and cracked his neck.
“That punk gonna get a lip full,” Love said to Carlyle.
“Yeah,” Snapple replied. “A lip full a your ass.”
“I’m gonna count to three,” Carlyle said, “and then I’m gonna step out the way and let happen whatever happens. But then I’m gonna have Pop beat both your asses, and no telling what he’s gonna do on a day like this.” Carlyle counted out loud slowly. Snapple waved his hand in front of his nose.
“Man, what’s that burning? Somethin in the oven burning.” He went over to the oven, opened it, and looked in. There wasn’t anything in it yet. Li’l Pit got back on the stool.
Love laughed. “It’s not even on.”
“Well, something smell like it’s burning.”
Carlyle went back to the table and rolled the dough out into long rectangles. He gave Li’l Pit a butter knife.
“Cut these like this, in little triangles.”
Li’l Pit took the knife and cut. Snapple stood by the door. Every once in a while, they could hear someone raise his voice in the next room. Carlyle turned on the radio to a jazz station, and Li’l Pit cocked his head to the beat, then started to sing.
I do the cutting
You do the baking
I do the dough and
You do the jam.
“That’s right,” Carlyle said.
“Fuck this noise. I got to go,” Snapple said. “I got to go home and see my brothers.” He put his hands in his pockets and waited.
“What’s keepin you?” Love asked.
“Don’t want to see my pops.”
“I thought your daddy was in the army?”
“He is.”
“The army of God,” Carlyle added.
“No he ain’t. He over there fightin in Panama. I just got a letter.”
“Show it, then,” Love said.
“I lost it.”
“You lost your mind,” Carlyle said, and put the pastry in the oven. He laid out a new sheet of dough, and Li’l Pit cut it into triangles, singing his song again. Love helped press down the edges as Snapple watched silently from the corner.
“Y’all is whack,” he said. “I got places to be.”
“Be there, then,” Carlyle said.
Love pushed his brother off the stool in front of Snapple and sat down. Li’l Pit looked stunned but didn’t bark this time.
Snapple spat on the ground, halfway between them.
“You gonna clean that up, you know,” said Carlyle.
“I can spit if I want.”
“Not in my kitchen. Now grab a rag and wipe that up.”
“The hell I will.”
“Didn’t your mama teach you nothin?”
“My mama taught me not to hang around with no little faggots.”
Love walked toward Snapple again with his fists ready,
but then Li’l Pit started to bark and they all stopped to watch. This time his barks were not like an angry dog, but like a sick, rabid dog, foaming and sloshing with spittle. He wiped his hand across his mouth and nose, leaving a long strand of shiny mucus. Immediately he threw his arm against the tray of dough triangles and sent them flying onto the floor, covered with his saliva.
He stood over his mess, and the rest watched him as he seethed.
Snapple burst out laughing. “Damn. Those look like some good snot tarts you made there, Li’l Pit.” Carlyle reached out to slap him but missed. Snapple backed to the door, smiling.
“‘Didn’t your mama teach y’all nothin?’” he said. “You gonna have to clean that up, you know?” He laughed and went back into the living room.
“What up, bro?” Love asked Li’l Pit. Li’l Pit just turned around and sat on the floor.
Soda Pop opened the door with Snapple behind him.
“See,” Snapple said.
“Who the fuck did this?” Pop asked.
“It was Li’l Pit,” Snapple said. “I told you.”
“Why the hell do you let him in here?” Pop yelled at Carlyle. “You know how he gets.”
“It wasn’t his fault,” Love said.
“Didn’t he throw them on the floor?” Snapple yelled in.
“Shut up, Snapple,” Pop yelled, then turned back to Carlyle. “If you can’t keep control of the kids, then get them the fuck out of here!” He closed the door, but not before Snapple got in one last smile.
* * *
THE NEXT MORNING the war table was used for breakfast. The first battle had not gone well the night before. Puke, Sam’s girlfriend, was supposed to entice Claude Sonny. She’d given him her number the week before, and they were supposed to go to the barbershop on 27th to get him a haircut, and while he was in the chair, Soda Pop was supposed to come in and shoot him in the head. But someone had tipped him off, and Sonny took Puke to an abandoned house where she was raped by five guys. So Ace Trey and the Tigers went and shot up the house, but by then Four Deuce was long gone.
Carlyle served scrambled eggs with mushrooms and diced tomatoes, English muffins with leftover strawberry jam, and a concoction of lemonade and grape juice he called Get-the-Fuck-Up! It was Snapple’s favorite thing to say, and he often finished four glasses of it in one sitting just to ask for more.
