Grind City

by Gary Hardwick

  1

  WHITE KID, DARK LIFE

  Every day, I want to hurt somebody. Not literally, unless you count my next-door neighbor, who I really would like to shoot because he is really annoying.

  I’m not going crazy, I’m just pissed about a lot of shit, injustice mostly, little things like how they tell you that you can do anything in this country, when they know all the odds are against you and how they give false hope to poor people, when if you are born poor, you will probably die poor.

  And who are they? Well, in the black community they are a special, select group of people who have controlled life for ages.

  They are the reason you have a job and the reason you will never make any money at it. They are the ones who own your sports team and the ones who fix the games. They sell dope then arrest you for it, then make it legal but keep you from making legit money on it. They are evil and there’s nothing your ass can do about it.

  This is the kind of shit I can’t get out of my head and probably why I became a cop. I can do something about them, only just a little at a time.

  I am white, Irish actually, which to me is not really white. And I don’t mean this like that crazy woman who pretended to be black. What I mean is, Irish people are the black people of white people. Check your history if you don’t believe me.

  But I don’t sound like a white man. I sound like a black one. I picked up the voice living in one of Detroit’s worst neighborhoods. It’s not an imitation and it’s not a put on. It’s just who I am.

  I got some size on me as the old heads say and so pretty much I don’t get messed with, that and I carry two guns, a Glock and a S&W .45 ACP, which my shrink said reflected my inner and outer conflicts.

  Yeah, I used to see a shrink but like I said, I ain’t going crazy. I had a few issues but it’s all behind me now, mostly.

  I live with a woman named Vinny Shaw. She was my partner when I was in uniform. She is a beautiful woman, a dime like her unfortunate sister.

  I was almost kicked off the force when a guy shot Vinny at a Big Boy Restaurant and I damned near beat him to death. The crowd cheered me on and I broke both hands. By the way, that guy got better, sued the city, won some money and was killed for it by some of his friends. Hashtag, justice.

  Me and Vinny just had a son, Robert Marcus Cavanaugh, who we call The Notorious RMC and is close to a year old now. He’s a great kid, smiles a lot, though he must get that from Vinny. And I know he’s a miracle because when I see him, I don’t want to hurt anybody.

  It’s true that you never appreciate your parents until you have kids. Well, now I do and I can see just how tough my parents’ generation was, how much they sacrificed for us and how sad it is for them to see things change as they are dying.

  We’re all a bunch of pussies now. Whining and crying about our hurt feelings for every little thing that happens. Our parents and their parents before them didn’t do that, too busy worrying about having food and not freezing to death each winter.

  My mother, Lucy was a racist who killed herself because she suffered from clinical depression and no one knew what the hell that was back then. She also died of a broken heart because she saw her little boy corrupted by the dark people she despised and watched him disappear into a culture where she was not wanted and did not want to be.

  In her damaged mind, it was all this terrible, evil thing that was after her and in the end, she was right because it killed her.

  My father, Robert, was a drunk who despite not being a bigot was nonetheless a hard man who wanted me to be as tough as I could be.

  He was the man who walked through my elementary school in full uniform and dropped me into an all-black classroom. Lets just say, there were many scuffles after that.

  I’m tough but at a considerable price. I have buried many friends and I’ve sent several well-deserving lowlives to an early grave. It has left me cold and empty inside, a trait that serves me well as a detective in Detroit but is a struggle in everything else.

  It’s good in a way to see the worse in order to prevent the worst from happening to innocent people. At least, that’s what I tell myself.

  My first days in that all black neighborhood were pretty bad. I was some combination of black and blue all the time. And yet, I never felt resentful of all the black people, just the assholes who are pretty much like the white ones.

  The neighborhood itself was working class. Most of the men worked for the car companies one way or another. You could tell which one by the car they drove, usually. A lot of families struggled and many only had a mother.

  There were a lot of churches, big ones with huge congregations and smaller ones, wedged in tiny storefronts or converted offices that usually had names that tried to make up for their size. My favorite was The Lord’s Holy Cathedral of Righteous and Divine Fellowship.

  My family traveled across town to go to Mass at St. Joseph’s but every once in a while, I went to the black church. My mother never went of course, but my father encouraged it.

  If you’ve never been to black church service, you need to go. It’s an experience if the place is on their game. Good music, good food and good fellowship. Only thing is, they try to keep you there all damned day, like prison.

  The houses in the ‘hood were small, wood-framed boxes that were close together and you had better hope you liked your neighbors because they would know all your business and you would know theirs.

  The people were mostly from the South and many of the older ones still had Mississippi, Georgia or Texas in their voices. The Detroit accent is a combination of these and a Midwestern twang that’s very distinctive.

  I made a friend, a good one, who is still my best friend today. I often feel Jazzy Jeff to his Fresh Prince but that’s okay. He is allowed to be great because we were each other’s lifelines back in the day.

  Marshall Jackson is a handsome, brilliant and now wealthy attorney. I could hate him for that but we have always been an odd fit, a round peg that somehow was always supposed to go into the square hole.

  We fought side by side in school. I was persecuted for being white and he was persecuted for not persecuting me. Still don’t know why he decided to risk his life to be my friend. I guess he’s just good like that.

  And then one day, all my troubles turned around when I fought this kid we called Koney.

  Koney was as big as a man. He’d been left back twice and so he was almost fourteen when he began to terrorize me.

  I had the great misfortune to like a girl that Koney also liked, a pretty little thing named Pricilla. She was dark brown and had the biggest, brownest eyes I’d ever seen. She always smelled nice, like fresh flowers and she spoke with a bit of an accent which made the other girls hate her.

  All my girlfriends have been black. I know that sounds strange, but it isn’t really for most black kids in the inner city. And though I am white, I was indoctrinated just like all the other boys to the ways of the world and in that world, the sisters were everything.

  Well, after a month of begging, I finally got to walk with Pricilla after school. Her mother liked me and her father did too, which almost never happened. And one Saturday, while visiting her at home, she kissed me goodbye, a little peck on the lips that I can still feel sometimes.

  That innocent kiss was not just love and sex but acceptance by the culture that had kept me out for so long.

  Marshall was impressed. He always had at least one girlfriend but looked officially jealous of me for the first time.

  It wasn’t long before I heard that Koney was looking to fight me over taking his woman. I didn’t want to fight him because I thought I’d lose and it’s not like in the movies where a guy gets beat up and the girl runs to him. In Detroit, you lose a fight and you get ridiculed, made fun of and no one wants to be around you.

  I thought it was better not to avoid him and so I went looking for him. He wasn’t hard to find. He was always behind the school near the dumpsters smoking discarded cigarettes or something e
lse he had no business doing. This day, he was in the parking lot.

  I walked up and just stood there. Koney laughed with his two rough-looking friends whose names I can never remember, although one of them would later be killed by a citizen in an attempted carjacking.

  “Shoulda ran home, white boy,” said Koney, dropping the butt he held in his hand.

  I said nothing. I’d had a lot of fights by now and I knew talking was just a lot of nothing.

  Most fights didn’t last very long. My father had been teaching me hand to hand and giving me instruction that often left me hurting pretty bad.

  I had been fighting my father in practice and on the street for real for years now and when you do anything enough, you get good at it. Well, I was going to find out if all my training had amounted to anything.

  Koney waded in, doing karate sounds and acting silly to the delight of the crowd that had assembled. Marshall was behind me ready to get into it if the friends tried to jump me.

  “Yo ass gonna be red as fuck, white boy,” said Koney raising his fists.

  I raised my hands and watched his eyes and matched his foot movement.

  Koney feinted a punch but I did not flinch. His eyes, told me he was not going to attack.

  Suddenly, he rushed at me, hoping to catch me off guard, knock me down and just sit on me and beat me down. This was how most fights were won, with speed and size.

  It didn’t work. I moved to one side and Koney shot by me, lost his footing and fell on his face.

  The crowd gasped and the girls laughed. That was all it took for Koney to become enraged. He got up and stalked toward me as if I were nothing and would just let him grab then beat me.

  He shot out a hand to do just that. I knocked it away and hit him as hard as I could in his gut. He grabbed his middle and cursed. Before he could recover, I raised my head into his chin, snapping his head back. Then I punched him in the throat. He grabbed his neck and he bent forward, choking. I pulled his head down into my knee and broke his nose. He fell backward, blood gushing from his face. He didn’t get up because I fell on him and just beat at his face until my hands were covered with blood.

  One of the friends tried to jump me but Marshall tripped him and he fell on his ass. The other friend took off running. When the other one got up, he wanted no parts of a fight.

  I finally got off Koney after he begged me. I stood and kicked him right in the nuts and he spit out an arc of blood that made the crowd gasp.

  My hands were dripping blood and I felt good. Hell, I felt great. I think that was the first time I really enjoyed a fight. And knowing the code of the street, I raised by bloody hand, pointed to him and said:

  “Next time, you die.”

  After that, I was king shit at school. Someone started a rumor that I was crazy and on medication. Another story was that I had ripped his ear off with my teeth.

  Around the neighborhood, I was challenged. I won some and lost some but soon I was unafraid of anyone and once you get there, no one bothers you, really.

  My father was called to the school but I was never in trouble, in fact, he was very proud of me and gave me a taste of a beer he was drinking. Hashtag, Irish.

  And Pricilla, well, we broke up that summer as soon as something better came along because that’s how kids are.

  There were many other innocent crushes until I met Pamela Tinsley. I was only fifteen and she was nineteen, although she seemed older. Pam was a fun girl and known to give it up without a lot of drama.

  I was actually after another girl in the neighborhood, a local track star named Nerva Wallis. But her mother was a bible toting Christian and that ass was locked up like a bank. That’s what some of the guys called her behind her back. Still, I did like her and so I tried to get next to her but it was rough going. No man can compete with Jesus.

  Pam lived on the same street as Nerva and had her own place in the family’s garage out back. She worked in a restaurant and paid rent to her folks who knew she was one stroke away from having their grandchild and so they at least wanted to keep her close.

  One evening after dropping Nerva from seeing a movie, where all I got were some kisses and a few feels in the dark theater, I was summoned by Pamela who was leaning out of her window in that converted garage.

  “Where you comin’ from Danny?” she asked sweetly.

  “My girl’s place,” I said proudly.

  “You mean that stiff ass Nerva the virgin?”

  “Yeah, but she fine though.”

  “Uh huh. You a virgin, too Danny?”

  “Hell naw,” I lied. “You know I be gettin’ mine, Pam.”

  “I know,” she said with what I would call a delicious smile. “Why don’t you go over to Jo Ann’s and get me a combo? I’ll split it with you.”

  “For real?” I said. Jo Ann’s Barbecue was no joke and I was hungry. “Bet.”

  She gave me the money and I was back with a big bag filled with food. I went inside that little garage and she had a bottle of liquor opened up and was drinking.

  Now every man has what I call pussy radar. It sounds when you realize your chances of getting some are pretty good. Pam was drinking. She had music playing and not just any music, the Isley Brothers’ “Footsteps In The Dark,” old school and now we had some food. I got an erection as soon as I walked in.

  Pam was wearing a low cut top that showed off her breasts and a skirt that was way too short. She was a fine piece of womanhood and I had often fantasized about her but she only dated grown ass men and just teased us little guys.

  I put the food down and she offered me a drink. I took it because I didn’t want to be rude and you know, I am Irish.

  I sipped the brown liquor and we ate the ribs and then she began to talk about some man she was doing and how he had broken up with her over some dumb shit.

  Next thing I know, she got her hand on my leg. I’m complimenting her, telling her how good she looks and how any man would have to be crazy to leave her.

  “You really like that Nerva the bank girl?” she asked.

  “Yeah, I do,” I said and regretted it as soon as I said it. “But you know she ain’t a woman like you.”

  “You know Danny, I don’t think you could lie if you wanted to. That’s a good quality for a man.”

  “Not all the time,” I said truthfully.

  “It is with me,” said Pam “I know you like her but she’s gonna keep you waiting for that. Ain’t right to keep men waiting.”

  “I know how she is but I ain’t trying to gank her for it. I ain’t like that.”

  “No, you’re not,” said Pam smiling again. “You’d think this rotten ass neighborhood would have broken you by now but you’re still here. You and that Marshall.”

  She leaned back on the sofa we were sitting on and I took this to mean maybe she was done talking and I’d have to go. I was already thinking I could weave this little adventure into a nice lie about getting some and then Pam pulled down her top letting me see her breasts, which were damned near perfect.

  “What do you think of me?” she asked. “I know you won’t lie.”

  I had a hard time finding my voice and I remember it cracking a little.

  “You cool. Everybody knows you fine as hell. Some of the fellas they say you a ho but they just mad cause you ain’t feelin’ them. Girls don’t like you unless they fine too, because you have their men staring at you and shit. I saw my dad looking one day. That was weird as fuck.”

  She laughed and her breasts jiggled nicely. She moved across the little sofa and kissed me. My hands went right for her breasts. I grabbed them and pushed her on her back and got on top of her. We kissed for a while and then she pushed me back. I was about to explode and I didn’t know what I had done wrong.

  “It’ll be better in the bed,” she said.

  We walked into a room that had been made by a wall her father had put up and there was a bed and a bathroom in the back.

  “I know you ain’t had none,” said Pam. �
��So, I’m gonna show you how. You gonna come fast the first time but that’s okay. The second time, we’ll take it slower.”

  We got naked and I just stared at her, not believing my luck. She was perfect in her proportions and not that skinny ass body they show on TV. She was Serena Williams like perfect, thick and round and firm.

  Pam pulled a condom out of a drawer I suspected was filled with them. I took it and got it on, almost blind with desire.

  And then, the best thing of all. Any man will tell you that he never forgets when a women surrenders to him the first time. It is a moment of triumph and elation, a time when you are vulnerable and powerful at the same time.

  Pam moved back in the bed and parted her legs and held out her hand.

  “Come on,” she said.

  I climbed into bed and had no trouble finding her. The heat of that first connection was electric. I said something, although I can’t remember what and I started pumping and when I came, I thought all of my insides would empty out of me.

  Turns out I lasted about five minutes, not bad considering it was my first time at bat. Well, Pam and I more than made up for that the second and third times. I wore her out, or she wore me out. In any event, I didn't get home until well after eleven, which got me a stiff arm from my father. I gladly took it and never stopped smiling.

  There were many girlfriends after that summer, all black and all pretty. I saw white girls who I thought were nice but see, there’s this thing about black women, this heavy, savory, kind of sexuality that just commands your desire and once you get it, well, you’re kinda spoiled for anything else.

  And don’t get the feeling that I was some kind of favorite with the sisters. I wasn’t. For every black girl that dared to like me, there were ten who wouldn’t touch me if I was covered with money and pie. If they did, they were called a slut, a ho or a race traitor. I know that sounds bad, but all I can say is, white people were probably doing the same thing to black boys.

  I see all these really rich white men with black wives and I get it. They can do whatever they want without judgment and so they just go for what they’ve always been wanting. I do too. I just didn’t need the money to get there.