The man heads for the fuel station to execute instructions as commanded. Moments later the man’s irate voice erupts inside the station as if the shouts are taking place outside.
I look. I see the man robbing for the supplies instead of rightfully purchasing them. Based on the horrified appearance of the cashier, rounding up the supplies with a gun aimed at his temporal lobe, and the appearance of each local who resides in this part of the city, pudgy cashier included, I can sense that robbery at gunpoint is the norm.
“Gabriel Clevenger.” The leader grabs my attention back to looking straight ahead, away from the tall man forcing the cashier through the glass-door entrance to his knees in front of the nearest pump to fill fuel into a red canister.
I contract my brows at the back of a driver’s license; he has a wallet like mine down at his waist in his non-dominant left hand as he takes his eyes to learn everything there is to know from the personal information on the permit made of plastic in the grip of his dominant one.
I reach behind me to feel my back pocket, and there’s nothing there. If the wallet is mine, the one Jen bought me summers ago, I didn’t feel him take it. I carry my eyes to search the street immediately surrounding me to make sure it is not on the ground somewhere. It’s not. The black wallet in his hand has to be mine, especially if it’s worn out from years of use.
I assume the pickpocket who slipped the wallet from me is him but am afraid to inch out on a limb, make an accusation about what I know. I understand how grave things can become if his belligerent character suspects the minutest impression of disrespect. It’s not that I’m intimidated or afraid of throwing fists. It’s just I’m outnumbered. There’s no way I’d be able to take on an entire gang of men and live to witness another sunrise. Now, if it were just me and the leader, it’d be a different story; I’d crush him square in the mouth before he can think of that nine millimeter. But I can’t do that. I understand how gangs work. If I haul a fist at the leader’s mouth, the rest of the six notorious men, not including the tall one still forcing the cashier to fill fuel into the gas canister, will jump in, punch, elbow, kick, knee, stab me until I’m a standing spirit witnessing them beat my face and muscled flesh out of shape – a beating so brutal that no person alive would be able to recognize who I am afterwards. And that’s if investigators ever find the corpse, because from what I’ve read about the gang, they leave no traces behind.
Quicker than a next thought, the leader jerks hold of me by the pectoral area of my tee. He draws out and puts the nine millimeter to fix the muzzle at my jaw and force me over to the automobile to make sure I am telling the truth, the tall – and insanely chiseled – man now feeding fuel from the canister into the depleted tank.
I hope the automobile starts as the tall man removes the pouring spout to toss down the drained canister into the street. He secures the cap and the fuel door, and he goes to climb behind the wheel for an attempt, which I pray brings a positive end.
I remember seeing the fuel gauge as far to the left as can be, assuming the automobile’s letting down was due to insufficient fuel. I think so; I hope so. It’s difficult to remember anything with the muzzle of the leader’s nine millimeter aimed at my left temporal lobe. I’ve no clue if my life will be spared once this becomes over and done with. The gang of men stands about in wait. If an unknown issue caused the automobile to let down, I’m good as dead, though I honestly believe insufficient fuel is the reason it’s broken down. It won’t matter what I believe if the automobile doesn’t start because I’ll be dealt a bullet to the head. Correction, bullets. After that, the nine millimeter’s entire clip. I wonder what fifteen to seventeen bullets feels like. Painless, I suppose, after the round rips my brain into an insensible state of helpless stoppage.
The tall man shuts himself inside the automobile to press the start-engine button, and mercifully,…the engine starts after he applies index pressure to the electrical switch, its smooth sound drawing an emphatic exhale from me.
All I can seem to ponder was the consequence of it not cranking from the initial attempt. Had it not started and there been something other than what I knew was wrong, preventing the engine from starting, corroborating what I said moments ago, the leader, aiming his nine millimeter at me, would’ve clobbered me in the side of the face with the handle and filled me with lead or just executed me point-blank to then go jump inside the automobile and mash off. As for the others standing near, I’ve not a clue how any of them would’ve reacted because none of them have mumbled a word since they were made aware of me. Just mean and hateful and lethally angered and willing behind their reserved demeanors.
“Hop in, ese,” the dully thrilled tall man says to the leader of the gang.
The leader shoots me a resentful look through the corner of his eyes. He returns the nine millimeter to the place under his belt. He steps nose to nose with me. “One word about what you saw, I’ma hunt ya ass down like prey. Do what I should’ve done over there in the street. Bettannot make me regret my decision. You do, it’ll take a nuke to save you from the obituary section of the newspaper.” The leader takes a long glare at me and rounds the front bumper of the automobile to enter into the front passenger seat.
Two of the other men join them, climb into the backseat to give more reserved versions of the leader’s threatening look as the tall man behind the wheel floors off in the automobile, leaving the remainder of them to push, taunt, threaten, and shoulder past me along their path to step down the sidewalk as if nothing came of me running into them tonight. The shortest one of the men strikes me in the stomach with a hardnosed clenched hand that sends me gasping to one knee, making it impossible to breathe. If not for street lights, the bright source shining from inside the fuel station, and the limited alley lights, their faces would have gone unknown. To me, that is. I’m sure the battered gentleman in the alley, who has yet to find his way from the exit, knows them quite well.
What was I thinking making the turn that led here? Out of all the one hundred something-odd neighborhoods in all of Chicago, I dummied here. I bore so much stress I could hardly concentrate on anything other than the woman I left lying lifelessly in her nippy hospital room. For the sake of other main street drivers, I was present enough not to wreck their automobiles, to distinguish select groupings of people along the way. Other than those few things I must’ve been so psychologically detached from everything that I steered a wrong turn. Even past the excuses, I should’ve known better than this. Life would’ve been easier had I run out of fuel on one of the main streets, quite far from here. Not to be mistaken, I’m not saying robberies and murders happen only in neighborhoods like this, because if such were true Chicago as whole wouldn’t be listed among the more dangerous cities to live in; all I’m saying is there should – and could – have been better judgment on my behalf, being I understand firsthand the consequence of not paying attention to whereabouts and being I was born and raised here. Then again, honest mistakes happen when people are crippled by the hell that sometimes comes with life. Mistakes do happen like this, right?
I snap from my state of unclear thinking. I retrieve the duffle bag from the middle of the street to reposition the strap over my shoulder, and out of nowhere, I hear a desperate, masculine voice shout for help. I turn. I fixate on the entrance to the alley, contemplating whether I should include myself in a matter that doesn’t concern me.
I’m sure the shout came from the helplessly battered gentleman sprawled on the concrete near the dumpster. They put a halt to thrashing him when one of them noticed me.
I felt for the gentleman, I did, but thought twice about interfering in something that wasn’t mine to rescue. I’ve more on the plate in front of me than I’ve ever had. There’s Jen. There’s me. There’s us and the future I’m hoping that will happen. As badly as I wanted to help, common sense wouldn’t let me because I’ve more faith, love, and hope to lose than all of the people I know combined, which happens to be, let’s see, if I include the blue colla
r-minded ones I was fortunate to work with when I was chief executive officer at Jen Juice, hundreds. I’m not declaring that my and Jen’s love is better than anyone else’s. I just believe what we have doesn’t happen once in a lifetime but once in a hundred people’s lifetimes. For every person out there experiencing true, unconditional love, there are a hundred others who go their entire lives not knowing what it feels like to be loved, truly loved. My common sense wouldn’t let me jeopardize that. It wouldn’t let me be initiate. But now that the gang of men are gone, far gone, it wouldn’t hurt now, would it? It wouldn’t hurt to go make sure he’s alright. I hope the middle-aged gentleman understands. That’s if he got a glimpse of me walking past.
I scope the coast to make sure the gang members are gone, that I am clear of provoking them back this direction to cause more ruin than they have. A clear sidewalk goes for a fourth of a mile, peculiarly, considering the paved walk alongside the minor street stretches until the nearest intersection. The daze must’ve kept me for longer than I thought while my breath was catching me. I lag a few feet for the entrance, closer, until I find myself standing where I was when one of them spotted me. The street light nearest me, along with the alley’s limited sources, gives me a clean, dull look at the motionless gentleman lying on his side in a half-fetal position, grimacing at the throbs causing him to ache all over, from his back to his stomach to his chest to his face. He could use a hand up from the ground. I continue my approach to extend just that to him – the gentleman, who, based on his wooly hair and beard that passes for a lion’s mane, his dingy tee and jeans and his busted tennis shoes, appears to be homeless and somewhere near his mid-forties as he accepts my offer to help him onto his feet. A grimace dulls his face as he strains to raise his malnourished frame from the gritty cement, knocking accumulated dust from his clothes.
“’Preciate that.” He acknowledges me for the hand.
“No problem.”
“Tryna catch my breath. Satan and ’em knocked the wind outta me.”
“Who?”
“Satan. Leader of the gang that jumped me,” he answers, an onion-esque, mildew-like funk reeking from his breath and his clothes and armpits. I make light of it out of respect for his predicament because I can tell he’s going through a down time in life; I too am in the same predicament he’s in. “Can tell you ain’t from ’round here. So lemme gi’ you the four-one-one. Whatever you do, don’t piss off them eses ’cause they the most dangerous out here in these streets. Remember that, you good. Now that we on the same page, I’m Louis. Errbody ’round here knows me as Skeebo.” He introduces himself with a character that tells me he’s nothing more than a decent-hearted man bottomed in a hard time.
“Gabriel.” I acknowledge his dark-complexioned hand with a shake.
“People in this world think they can treat homeless people like number two because we lay our heads on the streets at night. Treat illegals better than they do us.”
Before sacrificing what I have thus far, I’ve not once been homeless. Therefore, I’m in no way capable of understanding where he’s coming from with his words. After selling our home to come up with the remainder of money needed to handle medical obligations, although not the place I preferred to be, I still had shelter, a loveseat to lay on at night. When misfortune rock-bottoms you in life, not everyone has secure blankets to see them through to a better time, or, for that matter, blankets to even see them through to a predicament far more devastating than the present, or just a shell of one to hold your nose above water while thinking seriously about the next move. I also had food, a purified water source, central air conditioning, not to mention unlimited access to one of the more premiere high-definition televisions on the market. Depending on the individual and their lifestyle, those could be considered luxuries. Not once did I go parched or starved. I had everything.
“How long you been homeless?” I feel for him beneath my straight face.
“Eight years.” He turns and begins heading from the alley, with me mirroring his steps a shoulders distance away from the injection scars he has over the bulging veins of his right arm. “The nerve of people nowadays,” he says, shaking his head.
“Don’t have to worry about me treating you like that because I’m not them. I don’t believe in doing that, looking down on a person because of what he doesn’t have. I’m no better than you,” I say as we step from the entrance to make a right turn onto the sidewalk and continue. “To be honest, in the same boat as you. They jacked me too for my car, my shelter. I’m homeless.”
He stops, and I do so as well, and he turns to confront me, furrowing his eyebrows slightly. “Look, don’t come ’round here making fun of me and my situation. A blind man can see you ain’t homeless so drop the bullshit. Be straight up.”
“I am being straight up.” I cannot believe his nerve, and I am angered by what he’s insinuating because it seems he’s mislabeling me with people who look down on him. “The same people that jumped you in that alley were gonna kill me if I didn’t bribe ’em with my car. I’m the reason they ran off from killing you, so don’t dare come at me like I’m making fun of you and your situation, because right now, I don’t have a pot to piss in. Sacrificing for something bigger than me, you, and whoever the hell else looks down at me for sacrificing my way into this.” I look him square in the eyes. “Now. We can either work together to make ends meet, or walk away like none of this ever happened, like we never met, your choice. Because, frankly, there’s only one thing that matters to me right now at this very moment: surviving this phase of my life to experience another, as soon as she wakes up out of her coma at the hospital.”
He humbles his brows and his face, street lights and lights from the fuel station helping my eyes to get a solid look at the meek expression appearing on his face. “My bad for comin’ at you like that. Wouldn’t wish nothin’ like that on nobody – not even a worst enemy. Got used to not trustin’ in these streets. Trust’ll get you killed out here. Watched it happen I ’on’t know how many times; mess around and trust the wrong person and be done got robbed or killed or sliced up in a heartbeat.” He scans the surroundings as if he’s checking for someone in particular, the gang members who jumped him moments ago, I suppose. “As for you not havin’ no place to go, more than welcome to crash with me. Ain’t no palace or mansion or nothin’ like that, but it’s somewhere to lay your head and help get you through this kind of life. You in?”
I have a moment to ponder, impressing a slight forehead wrinkle. I take a gander at the grittiness of the sidewalk, the street. I take into account the nearing ambulance and police sirens. I put my attention back on his smudged face. It’s near impossible to keep from noticing his rotten teeth. And I provide a nod. He flashes a slight closemouthed smile. He turns and leads me there, his favorable expression having represented a done funeral for the tension that erupted moments ago.
I must admit, I never saw myself becoming homeless but am prepared to embrace this part of life as much as – if not more than – the life I had before the path led here. There must be something He wants me to learn or see or realize. Then again, I’m not one who believes in questioning Him about His allowances or doings when He has blessed me into the paths of the humblest of people during my number of adversities throughout life. And during those adversities, along with He who strengthens me, those same people were the ones who gave me the prayer and the encouragement that helped me overcome, and recuperate, and adopt a more patient perspective on life. Not to be mistaken or misunderstood, there are times when stubbornness becomes an instigator to the patience I learned from adverse fortunes – that provokes me out of my true character sometimes.
I about pushed. I about robbed. I about stole. I about murdered, and when I say “about”, I mean just about because during such times, I wasn’t in a right frame of mind. I was crippled psychologically next to witnessing my mother let her beautiful health be battered by cowards who cared nothing for her. I was forced to hear one boast about how s
he oralled his genitalia, to see another transform her emotions into a heated barrel of monkeys because she refused to swallow all there was of him. One was someone who oftentimes put hands around her throat and squeezed until her windpipe quit functioning; the other is sealed in thick bottles that sit the shelves of stores you need proof of identification to purchase from.
I know each man has that one adversity in particular that could have led to either homelessness or death or addiction or a lifelong prison sentence, and that situation concerning my mother was mine because I knew she deserved better. For some unspoken reason she just couldn’t sever ties. She didn’t have a job. She didn’t have a high school diploma. She didn’t have the confidence to encourage herself or to believe in her heart that she could triumph over the hand she and life were responsible for. Yet through her imperfections, which he used against her, with due respect to my girlfriend Jennifer, my mother was the strongest, most beautiful person I’ve met. It’s sad. She sacrificed her happiness to see if she could pry good out of a man whose mean abuse cost her the one life we all have. It took everything in me to understand it wasn’t him she was in love with. It was the near-paralyzing fear of what would happen if she left and the sensations she got in the wee hours of night when loud moans came from their bedroom that kept her fastened in a common law marriage with him. Common law marriage, at least that’s what I remember hearing her say to friends both over the telephone and in person. It took from age six to age thirteen for me to comprehend that, and I finally did, five years before the night he made her windpipe quit functioning for good. I wish she, my mother Adeline Clevenger, were here.
Mr. Louis leads me deep into an impoverished neighborhood of badly worn homes, some boarded up. Most seem rented, based on the parked automobiles sitting in each of the driveways. He slows near the edge of the right lane of the street to face a small, charred brick home. Its bricks and its foundation seem to have outlasted a lasting fire, which shattered all windows and cremated the front door from its hinges. Severe erosion has made patches in the knee-high grass right and left of the concrete front walk, paving the way to a small porch.
My Bridge To Forever Page 7
