You could tell by the way that kid came screaming around the corner – all high knees and elbows – there was trouble closing fast behind. Seconds later, a pair of shirtless silhouettes appeared in his wake, twin aluminum bats reflecting in the moonlight.
The kid was a quarter of the way down the block before one of the silhouettes wound up and let fly, chucking his bat end-over-end, like a pickaxe in mid-air. It struck the kid square in the back, propelling him forward, where he fumbled for a moment, before falling to the ground.
Then the entire world went silent, save for the static thud of aluminum alloy, and the guttural screams of that scrawny, helpless kid, writhing wildly on the sidewalk.
I watched the horrid episode from a second-story porch across the way. Once both the silhouettes had disappeared, I put my beer down and hurried off toward the steps.
“What the fuck are you doing?” my roommate John asked.
John was one of several roommates I was living with at the time. John had orange hair and pasty skin. John was staring over at me, a 12-ounce bottle in his hand.
“We gotta go see if that kid’s OK,” I said. I stood frozen at the top of a flight of stairs.
“The fuck we do,” John said. “Get back over here, man. You’re liable to get yourself killed down there.”
I looked across the street at that kid, who was struggling to his feet. He made it two steps, maybe three, before collapsing to the sidewalk. The kid was beaten, and bloody, and you could tell by several abbreviated movements that critical ligaments were no longer making full connections.
“C’mon, man,” John said.
I did an about-face. I started back toward my seat. As if on cue, a flatbed truck came zipping around the intersection – a pair of shirtless silhouettes standing upright in the back. The driver stopped just short of where that poor kid still lay, struggling. One of the silhouettes leaned down, picked up a brick from the flatbed, then launched it at the back of that kid’s head, delivering what appeared to be a knockout blow.
The truck peeled off heading west along Maple, followed less than 30 seconds later by the sound of EMTs arriving on the scene. Drunken neighbors went filtering out into the street now.
“You see?” John said, patting me on the shoulder. “No matter how bad it might seem, you don’t ever get involved. Ever.”
“I don’t know, man,” I said. “I still feel kind of bad.”
“Why?” John asked. “You don’t know who that kid was. You don’t know what he might’ve gotten himself into. In fact, you don’t know whether that kid just got exactly what he had coming to him, which is exactly why you do not get involved.”
I watched the kid get wheeled into an ambulance. It could’ve been me, according to John. Or maybe it didn’t have to be anyone. These ghetto streets weren’t made for martyrs.
***
During the first few weeks of that summer, John taught me how to work a job for a couple off-peak hours, then quit and suggest petty cash in lieu of paperwork. He taught me how to make a proper fist (I spent 18 years sandwiching my thumb inside four fingers), and he taught me about the Christian House – a nearby homeless shelter that offered cost-free meals three times a day.
The Christian House represented an ideal way to keep from starving. The only trade-off being that the bread was stale, and volunteers read from scripture at the beginning of each meal. “I was dying,” one guy sitting next to me insisted as we were eating one evening. “I’d been sleeping in this shed for damn near a month, without any food or water. Then one day, this asshole comes along and tosses me, for real. That same night a big ole’ snowstorm hit. That shit came piling down in droves, man. Real hard. Like so hard I got this frostbite all the way up on the foretips of my fingers.”
He lifted both hands, and then he wiggled his fingers, as if to show me it worked out.
“In the moments just before I was about to pass out, I looked down into this snowdrift, see. And I saw Jesus, and he was just staring right on up at me. There he was, man, plain as day. As soon as he appeared, I didn’t feel so cold no more. And when I looked back down the road, I could see this pair of headlights approachin’. Them headlights were attached to somethin’ big, man, a big ole’ fuckin’ truck, see. And so eventually, this truck driver, he slowed down to ask me if I needed a ride. Took me into town, man. Found me a warm bed. Saved my fuckin’ life, man. To this day, I truly believe that man to have been my savior. I ain’t never been the same since. Like, not ever. Never.”
It was still early June then, which meant dire straits for a poacher like me. What little scams I’d learned – counting cards, upselling beer for a dollar a can – required a constant flow of people, and there really weren’t any, at least during the week. I was sharing an apartment with 15 other tenants, and all of those tenants with the exception of me were weekenders. Come Sunday night, they would all drive back to Philadelphia. The loneliness didn’t affect me. I had become friends with Lou, the property manager, and I could always wander over to his place for some free beer and weed. Lou had introduced me to Vince – an African-American drug delaer from Bedford-Stuyesant. One night Vince told me the story of a rival drug dealer from Flatbush, Brooklyn. This dealer had beaten Vince’s brother for a bag of money and some coke. One week later, Vince and his crew had tracked that dealer down, jumped him from behind, forced him to the ground, and then hacked into his kneecaps with a machete. “You want to sever that motherfuckin’ ligament at just the right angle,” Vince assured me, demonstrating the downward motion with his arm. “Sometimes you even gotta step on that fucker’s hamstring for leverage, cause pulling a machete out of the flesh is a little bit like pulling a goddamn axe out of a tree.”
***
Alone and hungry, I would regularly break into the apartment upstairs, using a kitchen knife to slip the lock. On most occasions, I’d steal either a handful of loose change or a 5-oz box of macaroni and cheese. If I stole a box of macaroni and cheese, I would boil it on the stove in our apartment, then eat it raw out of the pot. If I stole a handful of change, I’d walk across the street to the Maple Deli, where I could usually afford either a pair of soft pretzels or a pack of Ramen noodles.
The first week in June, I landed a job as a cashier at Curley’s Fries. Curley’s was a popular boardwalk fry joint that employed a largely Mexican staff. Curley’s would pay me under the table (I had no photo ID), which meant that I would be capable of affording a cheeseburger or a bar of soap or a 12-pack of beer within a few days.
I was living with a group of jocks, the majority of whom had graduated from a rival high school back in Delaware County. John had emerged as the unofficial leader of the group, and it was John who had initially agreed to let me stay at the apartment. But it was also John who was charging me double what the other tenants were paying, a detail I did not become aware of until a few weeks down the line.
There were parties every Saturday, and by mid-June the apartment’s walls had gotten marked up and riddled with holes. The kitchen table had collapsed. There was a gaping tear along the living room ceiling. Fearing that we would get evicted, I started holding back rent. Money was tight, I reasoned, and if things eased up, I could still pay off the remaining balance before September. Shortly after, what little possessions I owned began disappearing from my bureau. One weekend, my portable radio went missing; the next weekend, a bag of cassettes. Battle lines were being drawn, and it did not take long before the majority of my roommates started walking away from me in mid-sentence. One of those roommates had even threatened to beat me up.
Toward the end of June, our landlord showed up with a pair of Class II police officers and ordered us to vacate the premises no later than July 5th. He posted an eviction notice on the apartment door. In response, my roommates planned one final blowout to coincide with the 4th of July. I packed my bags, and I left my belongings at a friend’s apartment on East 24th Street. I spent the first two weeks of July sleeping on the beach.
One night, I wound up walking the streets well past 2 am with a summer girl named Tonya. There were “too many drunk people lying about” for us to crash at Tonya’s apartment, so I decided to take her over to the ex-apartment on East Maple. The landlord couldn’t have completed all the necessary repairs, I figured, which meant the place would still be empty. What’s more, I knew three different ways to break into that apartment without a key.
When Tonya and I made a left onto Pacific Avenue two blocks south of Maple, a trio of drunk dudes fell in behind us.
“You lookin’ for somebody to walk you home?” one of the drunk dudes shouted to Tonya.
“I’m fine, thanks,” I responded.
“The fuck d’you say?” one of the drunk dudes shot back. He sprinted forward until he and I stood parallel. Then he elbowed Tonya out of the way. “The FUCK d’you say!?” he asked me a second time.
This dude had a shaved head, and he flicked his cigarette against my shirt. He made a proper fist, tight and white. He was backing me up now, against a storefront. I could feel my fight-or-flight response kick in. And that’s when something struck me … something strong and solid with the force of a wave. That something sent me stumbling. I landed on the sidewalk, where I curled into a ball.
“Are you FUCKIN’ with him?” I heard a gravelly voice demand from above. “I said, are you FUCKIN’ with him? Answer me, motherfucker. Are you or are you not FUCKIN’ with that white boy on the ground?”
It was Vince from Brooklyn. Vince had that dude jacked up against the storefront. The other two drunk dudes took off.
“Look at me,” Vince said, his tone more relaxed. “I want that you should look at me. Are you lookin’ at me?”
The drunk dude was looking at Vince.
“I want you to remember this face. D’you think you can remember this face?”
The drunk dude did believe that he could remember that face.
“I want you to remember this motherfucker too,” Vince said, forcing the drunk dude’s face down within a few inches of mine. “D’you think you can remember this motherfucker’s face?”
The drunk dude did believe that he could remember my face.
“You fuck with him,” Vince said, pointing to me with his index finger, “You fuck with me. We clear?”
They were.
“Now get the fuck out of here,” Vince tossed the drunk dude aside.
“Thanks, man,” I said. I was clapping gravel off both hands. “Seriously, thanks. Those guys would’ve killed me if it hadn’t been for you.”
“Tell me about it,” Vince said. There was a vein pulsing along the side of his neck. “I didn’t even realize that that was you until I got all up in that motherfucker’s grill.”
“You’re kidding,” I said.
“Nope,” Vince told me. “I wouldn’t kid about no shit like that.”
“So why intervene?” I said.
“I turned the corner and saw three wetback motherfuckers about to roll some skinny-ass white dude,” Vince said. “What the fuck was I supposed to do?”
Day 107
***
(Moving On is a regular feature on IFB)
©Copyright Bob Hill