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One
I’ve been jumped before, and I really didn’t care for it. So when I saw that kid getting beat into the pavement, it got my blood boiling.
There were only two attackers. The kid was only twelve or thirteen, so they weren’t having much of a problem keeping control. He was fighting them back, yelling and calling out into the night, but it did no good.
I advanced toward them, quickly and quietly, listening to the kid’s gasps and whimpers. Without being noticed I flipped out a switch with four inches of cold metal that I had swiped from some kid at the bowling alley. I grabbed the guy closest to me and held the blade to his throat.
“That’s enough!” I growled. The other guy stopped in mid punch, looking to see what had happened. “Leave him alone or I’ll cut you to threads!”
The guy I was holding was about my age, fifteen or sixteen. The other guy looked a little older, maybe eighteen or so.
The older guy didn’t stick around to see what was going to happen. He took off, leaving the younger of the two to fight his battle—what a friend. The younger guy stood real still, his breathing quick; I couldn’t tell if it was from beating the kid, or fear of the cold steel across his throat.
“Come on man,” he pleaded, “we were just having some harmless fun!”
“Harmless my ass! You call beatin’ up some kid harmless fun? He’s freakin’ twelve!”
I turned him around real quick-like and punched him square in the face. It caught him off guard, and he fell to the ground. I gave him a swift kick for good measure before he sprinted into the night.
The young kid was still conscious, but they had worked him over pretty good before I had got there. He just lay still, breathing real hard. I pulled him into a sitting position against the alley wall. His jacket was torn, and so were the knees of his jeans.
“Did they cut you?” I asked, staring down at him.
He said nothin’ as tears—he was entitled to—ran down his face. I grabbed his chin and turned his head slowly to the side.
“Man, they got you pretty good.”
There was a knife cut from his ear to his chin that would be a life-long scar.
“What’s your name?”
“Eric Rice,” he answered, still not looking at me.
Oh man, he was Ace’s little brother. Ace was a guy I wouldn’t want to tangle with; he was the ring leader of the Spades. We weren’t rivals, but we were far from friends.
“Well, I better get you home. Can you walk?”
I helped him stand, but he leaned mostly on me, wrapping one arm around his ribs. Blood dripped down the side of his face, drenching his light-blue t-shirt.
Ace lived a couple blocks away, and since we didn’t have wheels, we were walking. The streets were dark. There was only an occasional street lamp to light our way. People leaned in the shadows, and cars whizzed past us on the street.
Eric suddenly went limp in my arms. I almost dropped him as he fell. I grabbed him up and got a hold of him again, hoping he had crashed from shock and not from loss of blood, which was all over my white shirt.
The house didn’t look much different from mine; it needed paint, and some of the shingles needed replacing. The grass could’ve used a cut, and there were dark oil stains in the gravel driveway. The yard was surrounded by a chain link fence that needed some work too. The lights were on, and I wondered what time it was as I slowly made my way up the porch steps. I kicked the door as a way of knocking, and looked in the front window that led directly into the living room. I could see the TV on inside.
Ace opened the door. He had a look of worry, or maybe anger, on his face—he was hard to read as he held the door open and I carried Eric inside. Ace led me to a small room in the back of the house, and I laid Eric on the bed.
“They cut him pretty good,” I said as Ace checked out the cut.
“What happened?”
“I walked up on some guys jumping him. They said they were just having fun.”
A flash of pure hatred flickered in his eyes. He sat beside his brother, examining the gash on the side of his head.
“Who? Haker? Shawns?” he tossed out a couple gang names.
“Um, I don’t know. I never saw them before. He was still conscious when I ran them off. He passed out on the way over here.”
“Stupid kid, I’ve told him a thousand times not to run around by himself. Not to mention, he was supposed to be home a couple hours ago.”
“Speaking of, I better get going or AJ’ll hit the roof.” Again, I wondered what time it was.
“Yeah, I’ll see you around.”
I let myself out, thinking I probably shouldn’t be out there alone either. I wondered how pissed AJ’d be when I got in.
I was still quite a ways from home when I saw headlights bearing down on me. Then I heard the hum of the engine die. The street was a bad place to be by yourself, and a shiver ran down my spine. I had grown up on the streets, and learned to always be aware, always be ready. I groped in my pocket for my switch.
“Hey, Clay!” a familiar voice called.
I turned to see Fry hanging out the driver’s window of his old Buick, and a wave of relief spread over me. Fry was one of the gang, the Locals, headed by AJ. Fry was a major druggie, and I’m not sure why AJ kept him around, but he did. We all called him Fry because we knew all the drugs he took were going to fry his brain some day. He had a head full of crazy blond hair that was never in the right place. He was tall and thin, like most drug-heads I knew, with gray eyes that never seemed to actually be looking at you. I blamed the drugs for that one too.
“You scared me half to death,” I griped, even though I was glad to see him and be in the safety of his car.
It was late, and I was tired. My eyes were heavy as I slumped in the seat, and the chance to relax made me realize how dang tired I really was. It would’ve taken me a good fifteen minutes to walk home, and I was sure AJ was mad enough as it was.
AJ was my older brother; six foot two, dark-haired, and handsome according to the girls’ who followed him around. AJ was like…security to me. He had pretty much been the only person I had ever looked up to. We lived with my father, but he was too much of a drunk to be of any use, and if I ever needed anything fatherly AJ would be the one I would go to. He’d taken care of me and my kid-brother since before I could remember, and sometimes I forgot that he was only a few years older than me.
“AJ’s probably all worried, it’s four in the morning.”
“You kidding me? It’s really four in the morning?” I asked as we rounded the corner onto my street.
“Yeah, where you been?”
“Around. I went to the movies and played some pool. Made some good money over it, too.”
“You’re going to
