Eastside

by Caleb Alexander

  “Well, boys, everyone has been asking me if they could buy it, but I’m afraid the car isn’t for sale,” she told them with a smile. “It belonged to my late husband. He loved to work on that car, so I’m gonna keep it for a little while longer.”

  Darius smiled back and nodded. “Okay, ma’am. Sorry to have disturbed you.”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” Travon added. He and Darius turned, and returned down the path to the rented Escort. They climbed inside, and closed their doors.

  “What she say?” Marcus asked.

  “She said that she wanted to keep it,” Darius explained. “She said that it belonged to her husband who died.”

  “Keep it!” Lil Fade exploded. “How long can she keep it? The old bitch is gonna croak any minute now! Fuck that shit, Blood! This is BSV. That old bitch is gonna come off the car, or I’m gonna smoke her ass!”

  Lil Fade quickly climbed out of the car. “I put that on the set!” he told the others.

  Travon panicked. “Naw, man! It’s cool! I didn’t want it anyway!”

  “Yeah, we can go get that nine-eight up there on New Braunsfels Street,” Marcus added. “It’s cleaner anyway.”

  “C’mon, get back in the car, Blood,” Darius told Lil Fade. “Let’s bail.”

  Lil Fade waved them off. “Naw, fuck that shit! I put it on my set.”

  He stormed up the path toward the front door. Travon reached for his weapon.

  “No!” Travon shouted. He pulled out his handgun, and tried to exit the vehicle. Darius and Marcus grabbed him.

  “No!” Travon shouted. “You can’t let him do it! Stop him! Stop him!” He struggled violently to break free.

  “Tre!” Marcus shouted.

  “Travon,” Darius said to him through clenched teeth, “you are going to kill me. This gun is going to go off by accident, and you are going to kill me.”

  Travon continued to struggle and try to break free from their grasp, but removed his finger from the trigger of his weapon. Darius and Marcus were finally able to pull the gun away from him. Marcus leaned over the seat and spoke directly into Travon’s ear.

  “Tre! If you get out of this car, he will kill you. Do you hear me, Tre? He will kill you! Let it ride, Tre. Let it ride.”

  Through tear-filled eyes Travon watched the events on the porch unfold. Lil Fade and the old woman stood talking.

  “Please, God, no! No!” Travon begged. “Don’t let it happen, don’t let it happen!”

  He watched as Lil Fade reached for his weapon, and the old lady slammed the door. He watched as Lil Fade pumped twelve shots through the front door.

  “No! No!” Travon shouted. Tears flowed from his eyes, saliva from his mouth, and mucus from his nose. “Noooo! Noooo!”

  Suddenly, Travon lurched, and Marcus and Darius quickly released him. He opened the car door and vomited.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Lil Fade asked, as he climbed inside the vehicle.

  “Nothin’,” Marcus told him. “Probably just some bad juvenile food.”

  “Well, let’s go!” Lil Fade told them.

  Marcus climbed out of the backseat, and slid behind the wheel of the vehicle, scooting Travon over. Darius climbed into the back, and Marcus pulled away.

  The old woman’s name was Mrs. Jackson. She was eighty-nine years old; however, due to multiple gunshot wounds to her back, she would not live to be ninety.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “Drop me off at the hood store,” Travon told them. He was leaning against the passenger-side window, staring out of it lethargically.

  “Okay,” Marcus said, acknowledging Travon’s request. They were the first words that had been spoken since they’d left the old woman’s house more than eight minutes ago. They were now motoring through the Denver Heights.

  Marcus pulled into the parking lot of Mrs. Chang’s, and Travon slowly opened his door and staggered out. He feebly headed for the entrance.

  Marcus climbed out of the car and peered at Travon over the roof. “Do you want us to wait for you?”

  Travon shook his head, and Marcus climbed back inside of the car and pulled away. Travon turned, and staggered into the store.

  “What’s up, Tre?” Mr. Chang asked.

  Travon shook his head. “Nothin’, Mr. C.”

  Mr. Chang squinted his eyes and examined Travon carefully. “Are you all right? You don’t look so good.”

  “I’m okay,” Travon replied. “I just need a beer.”

  He walked to the beer freezer, threw open the door, and grabbed a Crazy Horse. He unscrewed the top, and immediately began to guzzle it down.

  “How’s Vera?” Mr. Chang asked, as Travon returned to the counter with his half-drunk beer. “Haven’t seen her in here in a while.”

  “She’s okay,” Travon replied.

  “You usually talk my ear off, Tre,” Mr. Chang told him. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  Travon bit down upon his bottom lip and stared off into space. “I’ll be okay again, eventually.”

  Mr. Chang placed his hands flat on the counter top and leaned forward. “Tre, look at me.”

  Travon lifted his head and stared Mr. Chang in the eyes. Mr. Chang could tell that he had been crying. He could also see deeper.

  “You’re one of them now,” Mr. Chang said softly. “I can see it in your eyes.”

  “What?” Travon asked, turning away. “You can see what, Mr. C? What are you talking about?”

  “You’re one of them,” Mr. Chang repeated, pointing out to the streets. “You’ve done too much; you’ve seen too much; you’ve been through too much.”

  He shook his finger at Travon. “I remember when you first came to this neighborhood. You were different. You were innocent. Always asking questions, helping out around the store, so full of energy. Now, you look tired, worn. You look like the kids I served with in Vietnam. Just like a lot of the other kids that come through here.”

  Leaning forward he whispered, “Too much war, Tre. Don’t let it drag you in, don’t let it engulf you, don’t let it destroy you. It will eat you alive, trust me, I’ve seen it.”

  Mr. Chang waved toward the front door, motioning toward the neighborhood. “You don’t have to become a part of this ‘jungle,’ as they call it. Don’t become a predator. Don’t become a monster.”

  Travon stared at Mr. Chang coldly. “And the guns you sell us? What are they for?”

  Chang looked down at the counter, and a deep sadness spread across his face. After several moments, he lifted his head and returned his gaze to Travon.

  “Not one time has my store been robbed, and I have been here twenty years. My wife has not been assaulted, or murdered, and she works here alone, sometimes at night.” He pointed toward the ground. “We live in this neighborhood. We could have moved away to the Northside, but why? We are welcomed, loved, and protected here. Not once has my home been shot up or burglarized.”

  Mr. Chang paused for a moment, and then held up his index finger.

  “Then, there is my son, Johnny. He loved this neighborhood, and he loved your buddies. I know that you’ve heard them talk about my son.”

  Mr. Chang pointed toward the ground. “He grew up here. He was a BSV, just like you. My son gave his life in this war!” he shouted. “He died with a red rag tied around his head. He died right at the bus stop at the corner of Pine and Dakota Street. All of the boys were so nice to my wife and I after the funeral. When they were children, these same boys played in my front yard, spent the night in my home, ate at my dinner table, and accepted my Asian son as one of their brothers.”

  Mr. Chang’s voice turned cold. “I will give them whatever they need to protect themselves, so that their families will not have to go through what my family did. That is why I do what I do.”

  Travon took a step forward. “And the families of the people they use them against?”

  “I don’t know them, I know you,” Mr. Chang told him coldly. He sighed. “Take my advice, Tre. Protect yourself, g
et a job, move out of the hood, raise a family, and grow old. Live your life and grow old.”

  Chang removed his glasses and sat them down on top of the counter. “Son, I survived my Vietnam.” He poked Travon in the chest with his index finger. “Now you have to survive yours.”

  Travon lowered his gaze to the floor, as he allowed what he had just been told to sink in. After a moment, he lifted his head again and smiled.

  “Thanks, Mr. C.”

  “For what?”

  “For keeping it real,” Travon told him. He put two dollars on the counter, turned, and walked out of the store.

  Travon began to think about his life, about what he had just been told. He thought long and hard about what Mr. Chang said about him not having to become a monster. There were other ways out of the hood. He knew what his first step would have to be. He would have to physically extricate himself from Darius, Marcus, Romeo, Capone, and especially Lil Fade. He needed to get back in school, but first of all, he needed a plan. Something he could follow, something he could use as a guide. The steps wouldn’t have to be major; they could be baby steps at first. Anything would be progress.

  “Hey, boy, ain’t you about three payments late?” a voice called from the side.

  Travon looked up. Cooney and Preto were driving along the side of him.

  “Help your black ass out of trouble, and look how you repay us! By not paying us!” Cooney told him. “What kind of nigger shit is that?”

  “Boy, stop walking when we’re talking to you!” Preto shouted.

  Travon stopped, and the patrol car stopped beside him. Cars had to swerve around the patrol car, because it had stopped in the middle of the street.

  “Look, nigga boy, did you think we were fuckin’ with you?” Cooney asked. “We’ll string your fuckin’ ass up on the tallest Texas oak we can find, and not give a shit if it’s in the middle of downtown.”

  The thought of his brother having to deal with these two angered Travon. He could picture them calling his brother some of the names that they had called him. His thoughts shifted to the old lady who died that day, her only sin being that she loved her husband and wanted to keep a memento of him. His thoughts shifted to the little girl, whose only sin was that she wanted to go to the park and swing that day. He thought of his mother, who had to bury her son, because of bullshit like this. He thought of his brush with death and the painful beating that he took at the hands of Tech Nine, Quentin, and Lil Texas. He thought of the car chase, the park shootout, the hospital stay, the trip to juvenile, and decided that he had had enough. He turned toward the patrol car.

  “Martin Cooney, eighteen twenty-one Artesia Way, Sky Harbor subdivision,” he said.

  Cooney and Preto exchanged glances.

  “Yeah, I found your address in my brother’s wallet,” Travon continued. “I also have all of the straps you sold him, along with Preto’s fingerprints on the Beretta from the day that little girl got shot in the Courts. That, along with the videotapes I stole from Mrs. Chang’s store of y’all shaking her down, should get you twenty to thirty in a Federal prison. A few statements from the other neighborhood businesses you two honkies have been shaking down will just seal the case up airtight.”

  Travon stepped closer to the patrol car. “They will just love your fat, pale white ass in U.S.P. Atlanta, Cooney. The brothers will be fighting over you for the first two weeks after you get there. I imagine some big strong Georgia buck will wind up becoming you husband though. And I guarantee, all of that nigga shit you been talking? Well, it’ll just ooze right out of ya after the first couple of times that he runs up in ya.”

  Cooney and Preto were stunned into silence.

  “The deal’s been changed,” Travon told them. “The new contract is this. You leave me the fuck alone, and I’ll leave you the fuck alone. If anything happens to me, even accidentally, I have already set it up so that one of my relatives will send my little information package to the newspaper.”

  “Bullshit!” Preto spat.

  Travon shrugged. “You may get a lot of time, you may get a little, you may even get none at all. But your careers as bloodsucking pigs will be over. And your legal bills, well, they’ll be so fuckin’ outrageous that you’ll spend the rest of your miserable lives trying to pay them off.”

  He jabbed his finger at them. “Don’t fuck with me, you white sacks of shit!” Turning, he briskly walked away.

  After a few moments, Cooney and Preto pulled alongside him again.

  “Nigga boy, you have just declared a war you cannot win,” Cooney told him. “If I catch you at night with your shirt on, I will swear that I saw you reaching for something, and I am going to blow your black face off!”

  The officers accelerated past Travon, turned onto a main thoroughfare and sped off. Travon threw his arms into the air and smiled. He felt good. His thoughts immediately shifted to his next battle, the battle that mattered the most. It was the battle to get away from his cousins, the battle for his future; it was the battle for his life.

  Aunt Vera’s House

  Travon walked into the yard.

  “What’s up, T?” Romeo greeted him. “Where have you been?”

  “Just walking and thinking,” Travon replied.

  Marcus opened the screen door and stepped outside. Travon stared at him in silence.

  “Tre, he would have killed you,” Romeo told him. “Don’t cross him, that muthafucka is crazy. Marcus told me what happened, they did the right thing.”

  “If he’s so crazy, then why do we still fuck with him?” Travon asked. “He’s our age, and everybody is scared of his white ass! Fuck him!”

  Romeo extended his hands in a calming motion. “Tre, calm down. He’s crazy, but he is the homie, and he is BSV.”

  Travon jabbed his finger in the air. “Fuck that albino muthafucka!”

  “Tre, calm down,” Romeo told him.

  Travon pointed accusingly toward Romeo. “You’re just taking up for him because he’s Capone’s best fuckin’ friend! Your brother is a lunatic just like him!”

  Romeo’s face turned to stone. “And what was Too-Low?” he asked calmly. “Anything Capone does, or has already done, can never, and will never, be able to match the blood on Too-Low’s hands.”

  Travon stepped forward, leaning into Romeo’s face. “That son of a bitch killed an old lady, Romeo! In cold fuckin’ blood! She wasn’t banging, he just got pissed. No, change that. He wasn’t even pissed, he just killed her!”

  Romeo, still offended by Travon’s attack on his brother, pointed toward the Wheatley Courts. “And Too-Low is better than Lil Fade because the people he killed were young? Is that what you’re trying to say, Tre? Killin’ those five guys in the country execution-style was okay? They were on their knees, with their hands tied behind their backs! And Too-Low, your fuckin’ sainted brother, put a bullet in the back of their heads, one by one. Two of them were brothers. One brother had to watch the other die!”

  Travon’s mouth fell open, but he could not speak. He wanted to call Romeo a liar, but deep down inside, he was not sure if he could.

  “And what about the motel jackin’?” Romeo continued. “Another execution-style killing. And the two girls found dead in their car in the Courts? What about the two bodies found in the dumpster in the Courts?”

  “That’s enough, Romeo!” Marcus shouted.

  Travon wanted to run away. He wanted to run away from this foul truth, from this exposure, but he could not. The truth had to be known, and it held him in its vise-like clutches, refusing to let him go. His legs felt as if they were two-hundred-year-old tree stumps rooted deeply into the ground. They could not move even if he wanted them to.

  “What about the bodies behind the middle school?” Romeo continued. “The security guard at Windsor Apartments? The two Crips from Austin? The…”

  “That’s enough!” Marcus repeated, but Romeo ignored him.

  “What about the time Too-Low got into it with Mike-Mike, and Mike-Mike ran back t
o California, so Too-Low kicked in the door to Mike-Mike’s baby momma’s apartment and killed her. In front of their kid, while she was pregnant with the other! The amount of bodies Too-Low left behind for his master Dejuan and their beloved Wheatley Courts runs past the one fifty mark. Too-Low left bodies in California, Virginia, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Georgia, Florida, Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas. There are scars from your brother’s trips all over Texas. Dallas, Houston, Waco, Midland, Lubbock, Austin, Fort Worth, and of course, good ole San Antone. Dozens of people in dozens of towns all across Texas will always have something to remember Too-Low by!”

  Romeo jabbed his finger at Travon’s face. “Don’t you ever again put your fuckin’ lips together and call my brother a murderer!”

  He turned and stormed into the house, leaving a shocked Travon to digest what he had just been told. Travon turned to Marcus, searching for answers. Marcus just walked away.

  The fact that Marcus could not face him told him enough. He too walked into the house. He ran up the stairs and into his bedroom, where he closed the door.

  Travon seated himself on the edge of his bed, and then opened his nightstand drawer. He removed his massive Desert Eagle fifty magnum handgun, placed the weapon to his temple, and slowly squeezed the trigger. Click.

  Travon squeezed the trigger once again, and again nothing happened. Angrily, he threw the weapon against his bedroom wall, and then buried his face into his pillow, where he cried himself to sleep.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The Next Day

  Aunt Vera’s House

  “C’mon, Tre,” Marcus shouted through the bedroom door. “We gonna go up to Caesar’s on New Braunsfels and peep out that nine-eight.”

  “Come in,” Travon told him.

  Marcus opened the door and stood just inside of the doorway. Travon was sitting on his bed. He still wore the previous day’s clothing.

  “Shit, we ain’t got no wheels,” Travon told him. “How are we gonna get there?”

  “Robert Jr. got his car,” Marcus told him. “Him, Ace, and Frog are downstairs right now.”