right,” Baldy smirked.
“Hey, Clay!” I heard a familiar voice call.
I knew it was Sticky, but I wasn’t stupid enough to turn my head on the enemy. Sticky wasn’t a very big guy—rather short but with a good build—but he was a good fighter. He was seventeen, a year older than me. He was the best of thieves and I wouldn’t want him in my house if I didn’t know him so well. That’s, of course, how he got his name. He had been a member of the Locals since he was about thirteen.
“How you been, man?” Sticky asked, playfully punching me on the arm, acting as if I wasn’t about to get myself beat to death. He put an elbow on my shoulder. “What’s up guys?” he spoke to the other three, still smiling that goofy grin.
“We were just looking for ourselves a Cove. It looks like we found us one.” One of the brothers finally stepped up.
“What you want a Cove for, man?” Sticky asked, playing along. I could tell that he was sizing them up, just as I had.
“Well, it seems a Cove jumped Clark here’s kid-brother last night,” the brother said, jerking his thumb toward the bald one he called Clark, the leader.
“You messed up somebody’s kid-brother?” Sticky asked me, a fake puzzled look on his face.
“Sure didn’t,” I assured him, taking in my surroundings.
The street was three feet from my left. There were cars skidding by, late for work, none paying attention to the scene on the sidewalk. Kids fighting was so natural in this neighborhood that no one thought twice about it, no one called the cops or stopped to help.
Sticky looked at the three guys. “This Cove didn’t jump nobody’s kidbrother. So why don’t you leave this Cove alone?”
“Why don’t you mind your own business?” Skinhead warned, taking a threatening step toward us. He looked slightly familiar, but I couldn’t be sure.
“I ain’t got no other business to mind. His is as good as anybody else’s,” Sticky said, still sounding as casual as if we were talking to old friends over coffee.
“The more the better,” one of the brothers smirked, sounding confident they could stomp us with whatever weapons I’m sure they were packing. I watched as one of the brothers dropped his hand into his jacket.
“Sure is,” Sticky said. He never seemed nervous, even if he was about to get jumped. I wasn’t feeling so calm about things.
Just then, a familiar car came around the corner. “Hey, look who it is. Our good buddy Fry.” Sticky grinned.
We both knew they wouldn’t take us three on three. Disappointment crossed their faces and we could hear them swearing all the way back to their messed up Honda as they backed down from the fight.
“What was that all about?” Fry called out the window as they sped away.
“Man, you always come at the right time,” I smiled, glad to see him for the second time in twenty-four hours.
“We could have taken them,” Sticky insisted, full of adrenalin.
“Yeah, but who knows what kind of weapons they had. They were looking for one of us.”
“Speaking of, who did jump that guy’s kid brother? I can’t see AJ just going out and jumping some kid for no reason, and unless someone went with him, Mark can’t mess nobody up by himself.”
“It had to have been AJ, but you’re right, it doesn’t sound right.”
AJ wasn’t the type to get a hold of someone without a reason. He was a model of self-control. It took a lot of pushing before he snapped.
“Well we know one thing; he must not have hurt him too bad or there would have been a lot more people in that car,” Sticky said, hopping in the passenger seat. I got in the back.
“What’re you doing wandering around this early in the morning? Shouldn’t you still be asleep?” I asked Sticky, knowing good and well he was never up before noon.
“My mom kicked me out. I snuck a bit of her whisky. She doesn’t need it anyway.”
“And you do?” I laughed.
“I got to live with her, don’t I?”
I decided I wanted to talk to AJ about what I’d heard. “Hey, Fry, let’s stop by the station. I want to ask AJ what happened.”
“You got it man.” Me and Sticky looked at each other, thinking the same thing. Fry was high as a kite.
AJ worked fifty hours a week at a little body shop that was a mile from the house. The guy he worked for was a mean old geezer who definitely didn’t pay enough, but that was the only job AJ could find. He had looked everywhere but times were rough.
“Hey, AJ!” Sticky called as we walked into the shop.
AJ waltzed in from the back room. “Hey guys,” he said, wiping the grease off his hands onto his coveralls.
“We heard you jumped some kid last night!” Sticky squealed. He was obviously eager for details.
“Yeah, the little punk tried to steal from the cash register while I was in the back. I didn’t hurt him too bad—just good enough so he wouldn’t pull it on me again. How did you all hear about it?”
“His older brother and a couple of his friends almost jumped me,” I said. We filled him in on what happened.
“This jumping thing has gotten way out of hand the past couple years. It just keeps getting worse. People didn’t get jumped all the time when I was your age,” AJ told us as he typed something into the computer on the counter.
“Well, they’re looking for you,” Fry said, lighting a cigarette.
“Yeah, well, they know where to find me. They better leave you two alone,” he said, meaning me and Mark, “or there’s going to be hell to pay.”
That’s what I loved about AJ, he would do anything for me and Mark. The night I got jumped he would have killed the guys that had done it, if he could have found them. I hadn’t seen them before that night, and I never saw them after either, which is a good thing because AJ might have killed them.
“AJ! Get to work!” Mr. Lance, the owner, yelled. “And get those hooligans out of here. They’re scaring all my customers.”
“You guys get going or I’m gonna lose my job. Clay, stay out of trouble.”
“Where you guys want to go?” Sticky asked once we were all in the car. He had somehow gotten the keys from Fry and was easing the car into Saturday morning traffic. The sun hid behind the clouds; it looked like rain. Birds littered the sky. I watched as they passed, wondering what it would be like to fly.
“Let’s go get something to eat,” Fry suggested.
“What’s the matter? You got the munchies?” I laughed.
He
