Mean Little People

by Dearth, Paige

  “Let’s see what ya got,” Blast said, when they were down the block from the house.

  Tony pulled the plastic bag from his coat and pushed it at Blast, who opened the bag and pulled out stacks of twenty-dollar bills.

  Blast looked at Tony. “Was this all that was there?”

  “Yeah, that’s it. I guess the old guy was a big talker.”

  Back at the Slayers’ house, Blast threw the bag of money on the beat-up coffee table. “Count it,” he directed another member.

  Tony had stolen five thousand dollars. He was plagued with guilt. He didn’t like hurting people who hadn’t hurt him.

  “Good job,” Blast said.

  That night as Tony lay on the mattress in the upstairs bedroom, he thought about what he’d done. It made him feel insignificant. He felt like a bully, a piece of shit who just stole from defenseless people. It was the last thing he wanted to become.

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  In the final week of Tony’s probation in the gang, he and Blast were walking to a nearby convenience store. They passed a house where the door was wide open, and they stopped walking and turned toward the screaming. Inside, a man had his young girlfriend by the hair as he delivered punches to her face and back. Tony charged into the house and grabbed the man around the neck. Anger and frustration coursed through Tony’s veins, and he punched the man until he fell to the floor then kicked him in the ribs. Blast grabbed Tony’s arms, which released him from his fury trance.

  “What the fuck, man?” Blast growled. “This ain’t none of our business.”

  “I don’t care. Ya understand?” Tony screamed back. He walked over to the teenage girl lying on the floor trembling.

  “You OK?”

  The Asian teen nodded. “When he wakes up, he’s gonna kill me,” she said, her voice quivering.

  Tony looked at Blast. “She can stay wit’ us, right?”

  “No, man, it don’t work like that. The girls who stay at the house are Slayers.”

  Blast bent down and looked closely at the girl. She was pretty, with long black hair and light-brown eyes. He noticed a tattoo of a dragon on the inner part of her wrist.

  “What’s that tattoo mean?” he asked.

  The girl looked at him bewildered. “Nothing. I got it ’cause I like all the colors.”

  “Ya belong to a gang?”

  She shook her head.

  Blast looked at her lustfully. “This your father?”

  “No. He’s my…my boyfriend.”

  “Ya mean your pimp?”

  A tear splashed onto her cheek. “Yeah.”

  Blast’s heart sped up; his hormones cranked high. “What’s your name?”

  “Reena.”

  Blast reconsidered his initial stance, knowing that the girl could make money for the Slayers. “All right, Reena. Ya wanna come wit’ us?” Blast said, extending his hand to her.

  Reena nodded, put her hand in his, and Blast pulled her up.

  Tony watched. He was no longer sure that it was a good idea for Reena to go with them. Blast’s demeanor had changed, and if there was one thing Tony had learned over the past month, it was that all the gang members exploited everything and everyone that didn’t belong to their circle.

  Back at the Slayers’ house, Blast walked in and pulled Reena inside.

  “This is Reena. She wants to stay wit’ us for a while. Maybe even be a part of our family,” he said in a flat voice.

  The other male gang members lustfully looked at Reena while the female gang members gave her scowling looks.

  “If that bitch wants to stay here, she’s gotta earn it,” Goldie said.

  Tony watched intently. Goldie was the head of the girls and Razor’s girlfriend. She was tall with thin legs, big boobs, and a thick, flabby middle. She wore her clothes too tight and her dark brown hair down to her waist. Tony found out later that they called her Goldie because of her obsession with beating up other girls and stealing their gold jewelry.

  Goldie was hovering over Reena, and Reena shrank away.

  “Take your shirt and bra off, bitch,” Goldie ordered.

  Reena removed her clothing. Having been a prostitute for the prior two years, it didn’t bother her to show her body. Reena stood in the middle of the room. Her firm body made Goldie more irate.

  “Ya think you’re good enough to be here wit’ us, huh? Let me tell ya right now—you’ll be my bitch. That means you’ll be out on the street making money; you got that?”

  “It ain’t no different than what I’ve been doin’,” Reena responded.

  “Yeah, well, it is different ’cause I’ll be your motherfucking boss and master. That means you’ll do what I say when I say it.”

  Goldie took Reena’s nipples between her fingers and squeezed. Reena stood facing her until she couldn’t take it anymore and went down to her knees.

  “Yeah, I thought we’d have to toughen ya up a bit,” Goldie mocked. She turned to the other female members of the gang. “Bitch looks like she needs an ass whooping.”

  With that, five other girls converged on Reena. They punched, slapped, and pinched the teen until she was lying on the floor curled up into a tight ball.

  “Get your filthy ass off my floor,” Goldie yelled.

  Reena uncurled her body and slowly got up on her hands and knees. Goldie pulled her foot back and kicked the girl in the stomach. On instinct, Tony shot forward. Razor positioned himself in front of Goldie before Tony got there.

  “What the fuck is your problem?” Razor snarled, chin jutting out and eyes fixed like stone.

  “She’s had enough. Ya can’t just keep beatin’ her,” Tony said, matching Razor’s intensity.

  “You don’t make the calls here. Understand? Not even if you do get initiated.”

  Tony looked down at Reena, who was staring up at him. Blood dripped from her mouth onto her chin. When her eyes met Tony’s, she quickly looked back at the floor.

  “That might be true, but I ain’t standin’ here watchin’ this shit happen.”

  Tony turned and walked into the kitchen and grabbed a warm beer. He guzzled it down and went back into the living room. Reena was sitting on the floor, leaning against the far wall. The girls were standing around her telling Reena how ugly, worthless, and fat she was. Tony shook his head and walked outside. Blast followed him.

  “She’ll have a better life wit’ us then she did wit’ that asshole if Goldie decides to give her a chance.”

  “How? She gets the shit kicked outta her for nothin’ and gotta go sell herself on the streets ’cause Goldie said so?”

  Blast nodded. “That’s how it works here. That’s what our life is about. Ya gotta grow your balls bigger if ya wanna survive this shit. Thing is, in the end, this will be the safest place you’ll ever live. There’ll be a lot of men that will cover your ass and help ya outta bad shit. It’s all about not bein’ alone anymore. If Reena stays, she’ll eventually have a family, or at least a place where people will know her name. Besides, Goldie is real protective of her whores on the street. She’s got seven of ’em now, and she don’t let nobody fuck wit’ ’em. As long as they are bringing money into the club, she keeps ’em safe.”

  “Oh yeah? How does Goldie do that?”

  “Bitch ain’t got no heart, just a big empty hole inside her chest. Ya don’t wanna cross her ’cause she always gets even. Has three brothers a lot older than us that watch out for her too. They’re wit’ another gang, an older one, a motorcycle gang…one that we get along wit’ mainly ’cause of Goldie. She’s got lots of power, so be careful,” Blast explained.

  “Oh, so that’s what’s wrong wit’ her—there ain’t nothing inside pumping real blood through her veins. She ain’t gotta be so fuckin’ mean all the time. Goldie talks to everyone like they’re nothin’. I stay away from her ’cause I could feel she’s no good,” Tony admitted.

  Tony looked down the block and back at Blast. “I guess we’re all no good. All we do is hurt other people so we c
an live.”

  Blast lit a cigarette and blew the smoke in Tony’s direction. “You’re missing the point. We ain’t just about hurting people and stealin’ shit. We’re all about having a place to belong. This,” Blast said, waving his hand at the rundown house, “is where we thrive. It’s where we know we go to lay our heads. Yeah, we ain’t the nicest people, but we ain’t the worst people either. Our own families have let us down, but unless you cross the Slayers, they’ll always have your back. That’s what counts.”

  “I guess so,” Tony said, unconvincingly.

  Blast gave him a soft punch on the shoulder. “You ain’t seen nothin’ till ya lived through a girl getting initiated. It’ll make your initiation seem like a fuckin’ party.”

  Tony hated to ask, but he had to know. “When is my initiation?”

  “Next week. On Wednesday night.”

  Tony squeezed his hands into fists. He was dreading everything he had coming to him, but more than that, he wasn’t sure about signing up for life with the Slayers. He was so young. He wanted more out of his life than just being in a gang.

  Blast put his arm over Tony’s shoulder. “Let’s go inside. The fun is about to start.”

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Inside the house, Reena was still sitting against the wall, looking around the room with wide eyes. She had been ordered by Goldie to sit where she was and not move a muscle. Tony plopped down on a wooden chair next to the sofa. Tony didn’t think this was ‘fun’, he felt sorry for Reena and wanted to help her, but the odds were against him.

  The next night, as Tony sat on the sofa drinking a beer, Goldie came down the steps with her hand twisted into Reena’s hair, dragging her behind. The two girls stood in the middle of the living room.

  “Do what I just told ya, bitch,” Goldie barked.

  Reena obeyed and took off all of her clothes and lay in the middle of the floor.

  Goldie gave Razor a jagged look. “You go first. I don’t want to catch no diseases from any of these pricks,” she said, gesturing to the other gang members.

  Razor stood over Reena and unzipped his pants. He stepped out of them and sat on top of Reena in his boxers.

  Tony leaned over to Chin Ass. “What the fuck’s happenin’?”

  Chin Ass kept his eyes glued to the scene. “Bitch is gettin’ raped in.”

  “Wait. What?”

  Chin Ass turned to Tony with a shut-the-fuck-up look on his face. “Ya heard me. That’s what we do. We rape the bitches in.”

  Tony watched Razor grab Reena around the throat and choke her. Tony stood up from his place on the sofa, but Chin Ass pulled him back down. Razor let go of Reena’s throat, and as she gasped for air, he jammed himself inside of her. Reena’s eyes darted around the room.

  When Razor was done, Goldie stood over top of Reena and kicked the girl in the hip. Then Goldie hacked up phlegm and spat on her. “Ya ever go near my man again, I’ll skin your skank ass alive,” she threatened.

  One by one, the gang members had sex with Reena. By the fifth gang member, her pain was so unbearable that Reena made sharp squealing noises.

  Goldie walked up to the twenty-seven-year-old riding Reena and put her hand on his head. He stopped moving. He looked up at Goldie. “What the fuck?”

  “What the fuck? This whore needs to shut the fuck up and stop squealing like a pig.”

  Goldie bent low and put her face into Reena’s. “Ya wanna stay here and be my bitch, then I better not hear one more fuckin’ sound come outta your mouth. If I do, I’ll bring ya back to your old pimp and give ’im a baseball bat to bash your brains in wit’. Then I’ll help him hide your body.”

  A stream of tears rolled out the sides of Reena’s eyes as she lay on the floor, hosting ten gang members, one after another. By the seventh member, her pain had turned to a fiery torture. She’d slept with a lot of guys on the streets, but never more than four in a night. On the streets, it wasn’t always intercourse either.

  Some of the gang members were rough with Reena. Several of them slapped her in the face. Some pinched her in sensitive places. But one, the nastiest of the members, hog-tied Reena and sodomized her. Tony almost threw up watching, seeing for the first time what he had looked like in that same compromising position.

  Tony looked away from the horrific scene. His own ghosts lingered over him like a shroud—the haunting memories of the past with the three guards at juvie. He could still feel the shame he wore on the outside, a result of his wounds that marked him forever on the inside. He wanted to help Reena, but he knew he couldn’t fight the whole gang and that she had “willingly” agreed to the barbaric ritual so she could become Goldie’s bitch. Tony intimately knew the isolated, dark feeling of loneliness from Reena’s dead stare. Loneliness was his worst enemy; not having the love of another human was a fate worse than death. Reena’s face was now void of emotion. The mask of solitude made her look older than her eighteen years, and Tony understood that for Reena to escape her desolate world, she was pledging herself to an eternity in hell surrounded by demons.

  “What about Tony?” Blast asked, when the last member had finished.

  Tony’s heart seized in his chest. He wanted nothing to do with the twisted ritual being done to the girl.

  “No. He ain’t a member, so he don’t get to participate,” Razor snapped.

  Blast threw his hands up in disgust and walked out of the room. Finally, Tony was happy to be left out of something. He remembered what the bus driver had told him when he was a kid: “Sometimes bein’ left out is better than bein’ let in. Remember that.” He didn’t believe he could have gone through with it even if they’d tried to force him. As damaged as he was, Tony hadn’t had intercourse, hadn’t lost his virginity to a girl. He clung to this pure thought; it made Tony feel like he had a small sliver of humanity left in him.

  The “rape-in” of Reena churned over in Tony’s mind for the days that followed. He was finding it less appealing to be a Slayer. He didn’t like how they treated women, and he wasn’t a fan of being expected to do things against his core values. He thought about going back to South Philadelphia, even a foster home, but Tony convinced himself that the Slayers would find him, and he’d be punished, probably killed, so he resolved himself to stay.

  ***

  On Wednesday night of that week, the gang members stood on either side of the living room, and the girls watched from the kitchen, egging on the violence. Tony had to make it through the entire line of the ten main members without running, screaming, or fighting back.

  Tony stood before the group of members in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt.

  Razor spoke in a booming voice. “On the count of three, ya start walkin’ through. One. Two. Three.”

  Tony stepped in front of the first two members, who punched him in the head and back. The members beat him through the line as he was passed to the next members. Their thumps were relentless, and Tony wondered if he’d make it through the next eight members alive. As each twosome beat him and then pushed him to the next two, the intensity of the beating grew. He felt as though he was about to die when he got pushed to the last two members, Razor and Boner. While Boner was slamming Tony with his fists, Razor pulled his belt from his pant loops and whipped him with it. Tony was on the floor by then, and Razor jumped into the air and brought his booted foot down on Tony’s back. After almost thirty seconds of Razor’s out-of-control rage, Blast and a few of the older members stepped in.

  “He’s had enough, Razor. You’re gonna fuckin’ kill ’im,” one of the members yelled.

  “That’s right! I’m gonna kill ’im ’cause he don’t belong here. He never should’ve come up for membership,” Razor grunted through heavy breaths.

  Blast grabbed Razor by the shoulders. “We voted. It was a majority. He got in and made it through his initiation. Now you gotta accept him like any other member in this room.”

  Razor looked down at Tony’s still body on the floor and slammed one more kick into his spine. T
hen, he and Boner walked out of the room and left the rest of the members to deal with the pile of flesh they’d left on the floor.

  Blast and Chin Ass got Tony up to the bedroom, and some of the girl members bandaged his wounds and held ice on his swollen, bulging face. It would be several days before Tony could make it out of the bedroom. For the first three days, the skin around his eyes was so engorged that he couldn’t see.

  A week later, Tony sat in the living room with his brothers. He was happy that the initiation was over and that he finally belonged somewhere.

  Chapter Sixty

  Two years had passed since Tony was initiated into the Slayers. In that time, Dooley, his cellmate from juvie had been sent to adult prison, because he killed another inmate for selling drugs to his regular customers. The details that the judge heard were sketchy. Other inmates that were eyewitnesses said Dooley killed the man in self-defense, but the judge didn’t buy the whole story, and Dooley was sentenced to another fourteen years. This meant that Razor retained his position as head of the Slayers until Dooley served out his sentence. The gang was disappointed to hear the news. Some of the gang liked Razor and others not so much, but they all knew that Dooley was a much better leader and had been hopeful he would be back in North Philadelphia soon.

  Tony tried to keep himself busy, and he didn’t love the gang the way the others did. The gang helped him to survive, but he didn’t agree with a lot of their beliefs. Tony would be turning sixteen and he was no further along in figuring out what to do with his life than when he had joined. He was bored of the same old routine, which included robbery, selling drugs, and violent battles with rival gangs. With each criminal act, there was no greater outcome or positive impact on his life. Tony was lonely, and the only normalcy he had in his life was the time he spent at the bakery with Donata and Ruth. Even that had become a source of ridicule by the other gang members. But for Tony, it wasn’t a matter of working a job anymore; it was a safe place for him to go and be loved by Donata and Ruth. They were his secret family, the two people that could never be taken from him.