by Ginger Scott
Cry Baby
Ginger Scott
Copyright © 2018 by Ginger Scott
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or events is entirely coincidental.
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Ginger Scott
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Books by Ginger Scott
For Tim.
Because you believe in me something fierce.
Must be the love talkin’.
Prologue
People don’t question a kid. Even if they did, I’m not really who they’re worried about. They’re worried about the guys with tats on their faces and angry eyes. Funny thing: those are the last people they should fear around here. It’s the smiles they should be afraid of. I’ve seen men laugh while they kick someone’s face in—just so they could steal his car.
I thought I almost got caught last weekend. There was an older lady sitting on the bench next to me waiting on her husband to get out of the bathroom at the theater. She asked me if I liked the movies, and I shrugged because Dub doesn’t like me to talk too much.
I should have talked to her, though…said something that scared her, maybe, because she kept watching me after that. Dub knocked while she was still sitting on the bench, and when I stood up to open the exit door, I felt her body shift to stop me. One look at the boss and the crew, and I saw her hand fall away. Lady didn’t step off fast enough, though, and Dub…he got all up in her face, staring at her while she walked backward in her ugly shoes. Ha. She almost backed up into the men’s room. We all laughed about it on our way into the movie theater, but later that night, he pulled me into a corner right outside the mall and grabbed the center of my T-shirt collar in his fist, twisting until it started to cut into my neck, and told me to make sure nobody was watching me work next time.
Dub’s like my dad, only he isn’t my dad. My dad’s in prison. Dub says he did something stupid and got caught, so everything he teaches me is to make sure I don’t end up there like my pops. I don’t mess up much; not like my friend Paul. He gets in trouble a lot, so everyone quit giving him important things to do. He got caught shoplifting the last time he worked the movie theater door with me. He stole candy because he was hungry. I told him not to, but he never listens to me. Dub burned the top of his hand with a cigarette the next day, said it was so he wouldn’t forget. Paul just laughed and laughed the whole time his skin was melting away. He didn’t cry until he hid in my room after. That’s when they started calling him Joker, because everything’s funny to him. That’s what he wants them to think, at least.
I let Paul help me sometimes, because I feel bad and I can tell he wants to prove that he can do things without messing up. He only does the little things with me, though, like when we have to watch houses or make sure that The Tribe guys don’t sell on our basketball court. The Tribe takes up the other side of Sixty-First Street, but they don’t have a park or a good place to hang out. That’s their problem, though.
Dub says I was born to take over his crew one day. When I do, I’m going to make Paul someone important. He would never stab me in the back. I trust him like a brother. That’s how Dub trusted my dad. He says that my dad is good at keeping his mouth shut. I asked him what that meant once, and he said that my dad’s in prison because people want to break up our gang, but they can’t do it if my dad doesn’t tell them how. He’s never coming home because of his love for all of us. He’d rather die there then get us in any trouble.
I’m just like him. I would die there too.
There were a few people hanging out near the bench tonight, so I started to hold my stomach, moan and pretend like I was going to get sick. The people around me were all on dates, waiting for their movies to start—rich white kids with their own cars and shit. They had plans, and a ten-year-old with old clothes and brown skin was not worth their time; so they moved away and pretended they didn’t notice me. My plan worked, because nobody’s been around my area but me for the last five minutes.
My palm on the exit door bar, I roll my other hand over to check the time on my phone. We don’t send texts—no record that we were ever here. Dub picks a movie and gives us all a time, and everyone does their job. If someone doesn’t, then they’re out. And nobody wants to be out of the Fifty-Seven. Not when we come from this neighborhood. People who are out die young and broke. I know that at least if I’m in, I’ve got my brothers to watch my back.
I count the seconds—six, five, four…
Pushing the bar in slowly, I open the exit enough for Dub to hook his fingers inside and slide his body through the small opening. It’s just me and him tonight. We don’t speak, but he presses his hand on top of my head, pushing my hat lower over my eyebrows. My mouth rises on one side as I push the brim of my hat back up and meet his stare in response. That’s his way of telling me I did good this time.
My real name is Tristan Lopez, but Dub calls me Cry Baby. He says it’s funny because I never really cry at all, which is true—I don’t. I was afraid when he started calling me that last year that the others would make fun of me, but Paul said nobody would dare, because Dub gave me the name. He was right.
I follow him into the theater, just a kid going to the movies with his big brother. That’s the story we tell people by the way we look—smiles, eye contact with people, as if we paid to get in here just like they did. My baggy jeans sag like his, but where his arms are marked by black, twisted numbers and letters, mine are covered by my dad’s old flannel shirt. It hangs long over my knuckles, covering my fingers completely. A cigarette burn stains the front pocket, a charred hole like a bullseye in the center.
We pause at the back of the theater, behind the seats, so Dub can find the right row. He looks for less crowded spaces, no “extra eyes” to watch him work, but public enough that if anyone sees something they won’t want to believe it.
“Drug deals don’t happen right here in the open like this. Not in Brookfield.”
The money comes in, and the bags go out. People get what they pay for, and if they don’t pay enough, some of the other guys on the crew find a way for them to make it up.
I learn things when I watch him work.
The screen is bright with gunfire, a preview from the next Jason Foreman movie.
“Look at that fool hold a gun like he knows what to do with it,” Dub whispers, leaning into me and bending down. I can smell the alcohol on his breath. Faint, probably from yesterday.
I laugh and watch as two cars roar down an alley on the scr
een, one of the guys hanging from the passenger window and firing at the tires of the car in the front. It flashes to a scene where Jason Foreman—who’s supposed to be some tough crime boss in New York or Boston or wherever—has the detective dude on the ground, begging for his life. He kicks the guy and lets him leave, his Glock pointed down at the guy’s feet while he runs back to his car.
A real man wouldn’t let him leave. He wouldn’t point his gun down at the ground either. He would show him who the boss is and make him stare at the dark hole encased with metal and wait long enough for him to imagine the smoke that could spill from it with just…one…click.
Dub’s elbow brushes mine again, and I turn to him. His arm lifts slowly, and his lips crease on either side as they stretch into a tight, straight line. His finger pointing at the millionaire on the screen, one of his eyes squints. As his arm straightens, his fingers curl. If he were holding his piece right now, Jason Foreman would be dead.
Dumb fool. Nobody does gangster like Dub Lewis.
Chapter One
Seven Years Later
Tristan
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Joker’s been throwing that stupid racquetball against our garage door for twenty minutes straight. He’s pissed because I won’t let him smoke out here, but my mom doesn’t ask for much and honestly, that shit’s so bad for him anyhow.
The repetitive sound has lulled us both into a trance. At least three cars have driven by my house, and I don’t know what color any of them were. That’s dangerous—not noticing details? I snap from my hazed state and snag the ball mid-air just before it dents my already-broken garage door one more time.
“Come on, man. That thing’s busted anyways. It won’t even shut all the way.” He rolls his eyes a little and his tongue pops out a short tick.
“That sound is like death,” I deadpan before tossing the ball into the neighbor’s yard.
Joker winces then rolls his head until his eyes meet mine.
“You’re a dick.”
I don’t respond. My ass is numb from sitting in this metal chair. Dub told us to wait out front for him, but he was supposed to be here almost an hour ago. I don’t think he’s coming.
“Just text him, man,” I say, leaning forward and resting elbows on my knees. Joker palms his phone and runs his fingertips in circles over the screen nervously.
He’s turning eighteen in three days, which means he gets jumped and becomes official. It doesn’t have to happen on his actual birthday—just near it. I could tell when he showed up at my front door this morning that he thought it was going to happen today. Dub wouldn’t pull up with a crew here, though. My mom sees too much, and she doesn’t trust him.
She shouldn’t. Those drugs she went to rehab for when I was eleven came from his crew. They strung her out for most of my life, and it took her years to break away from the pull. When my dad died in prison, she found God. I stayed with my uncle Alonzo until she came home from the rehab joint. She’s been clean for six years. Goes to church every single day. Works there, even. I know a part of her wants to try to save me, but she can’t. I sold myself to this life when I was a kid, blinded by these criminals I idolized and the stories they told me about my dad. The only way I can shield her from this part of my life is to draw this loose line where I keep the bad stuff outside of our home—sometimes, keeping it out feels impossible.
I’ve got five months until I turn eighteen, but the beating is a formality for me. I’d give anything to trade places with Joker. Not because I want to hurry to my fate, but because he still has a choice. It’s a faint one, but it’s more than I will ever have. If he wants out, all he has to do is survive the worst and wear a brand. My only way out is to die. There are tougher lives than mine, though, so whatever.
The thump announces Dub’s car before it rounds the corner, and Joker’s face flushes with relief that he didn’t send a text. His nervous ticks are all still here though in anticipation, but his shoulders relax when he counts only two guys in the car. When they beat someone, there are a minimum of seven members who participate. Those are the rules, and nobody knows why. Young men made them up years ago just to prove how tough they were. Nobody questions it. If someone does, they just take a beating.
The passenger window on his Camaro rolls down as his wheels slow, and Dub leans over the center console, into the guy sitting next to him. I don’t recognize him, but he must be someone important to be with Dub. He’s covered in tats, some scribbled over older ones, like a messy story fighting to be rewritten. The dude’s high; I can tell. I’ve read his story before. It’s tragic and boring.
“What are you pussies up to?” The guy sitting next to him coughs out a mixture of pot smoke and laughter. I breathe the scent in. I don’t smoke it, but the smell always soothes me. I’m sure I’ve been smelling it since I slept in a crib.
“Just waiting on your ass is all,” I bark back. Joker hates it when I talk to Dub like this, and the tension crawls right back up his spine, shortening his neck.
Dub’s lip ticks up, his eyes hidden behind black sunglasses. The bottom of the cross tattoo next to his eye peeks out from underneath the side of the rims. He’s nineteen years older than me, but he still pretends he’s my age. Mentally, we’re probably switched. He wears the same baggy clothes he’s worn since he unofficially adopted me when my dad went away. He’s obsessed with hats, always flat-brimmed and cocked to the side. His initials—DL—are stitched on the right. Today’s hat is white with gold lettering. The diamond on the front is his own design. He said it means riches, which is funny because he’s constantly broke and in need of money fast.
“How was school, preppy?” He teases me as he throws the bag of weed at my chest. I catch it like a poorly thrown football and awkwardly slide it into the front pocket of my hoodie.
“Same,” I shrug.
It wasn’t the same at all, really. I was too good somewhere along the way, and it got me noticed. By ten o’clock, I found myself in my counselor’s office—I didn’t even know I had a counselor. Sheryl Beaumont must be one of those teacher types I’ve seen in the movies that take jobs working at shitty schools like mine because they want to inspire kids at the bottom to do better and “pull themselves up by the bootstraps” like every politician says they should. She’s a pretty, blonde, white lady in a school filled with every color of poor and some of the most violent fights that break out in the city. She called me in to talk about college, because apparently, I can go. I don’t know how she hasn’t had her BMW jacked yet.
“You think you can move that shit by Friday?” Dub must need cash. He only gives me a deadline when he needs money for something.
I roll my head side to side.
“I dunno, maybe?” I can feel Joker turn his head to look at me. If it was him that Dub threw the pot at, he would have said “yes” no matter what. He would have been lying, though. We can’t deal at school anymore. There are cameras everywhere since someone shot a gun in the main hallway. They ripped our lockers out, so we have to carry our shit with us wherever we go, and there are random bag checks all the time. We sell at the courts, but the serious buyers don’t come around until Friday and Saturday nights. Crowds are better places to hide.
“I need half by Friday night. You think you can do that?” Dub must be desperate.
“Yeah, we got this,” Joke pipes in without giving me a chance to be real. I hate it when he does this, and he knows I’m pissed. He takes a casual step out of my reach after he speaks.
“Good. See you after hours.” Dub nods once, like a period on his sentence, then pulls away.
I wait less than a second after he turns to slap the back of Joker’s neck.
“What? I’ve gotta prove my worth, man. I don’t want to have to do it some other way.” He rubs the pink spot on his skin with his palm as he sways on his feet and puts more distance between us. All I can do is shake my head and spit on the ground.
“Fuck,” I mumble to myself as I move toward the house.
; Joker actually thinks if he cashes out a couple thousand dollars in pot for Dub in four days that he won’t have to do all of the other things they make the new initiates do to prove their loyalty—like stabbing rivals or narcs with hunting knives and dropping them off at busy street corners to fight for their lives. I don’t tell him how many times I was in the backseat of the car when Dub put someone through the test. And I know he can’t handle the reality of what happens when it all goes wrong. Joker likes the fantasy of playing gangbanger. The minute he has to help bury the body of some dude who bled out before the crew could drop him on a corner is when his eyes will be totally clear. I can’t warn him. The reality of our world is something he just has to see to understand, and by then, it’ll be too late to run.
Unless you’re me, and your dad and his best friend started this gang, so you grew up with your eyes wide open. Sometimes there really isn’t much difference between a gift and a curse, I guess.
“Come on, we’ll just go to the courts every night. We can skip after lunch, too.” My friend sounds like a child trying to talk their parent into taking them to the circus. He has no concept of responsibilities and consequences.
“And then they’ll report us, and Larry will have to come to our houses,” I respond automatically. Larry’s the school resource officer. He’s armed more than most, and he’s been given a lot of authority because of the problems at South High.
“Ah, it’s just once. We haven’t skipped in two months,” Joker says as he trails me inside and to my room at the back of the house. I don’t answer him immediately, and I know that’s making him anxious. It should. He should have been anxious before he opened his big, fat mouth. It might have kept him from promising something that I’m going to end up having to work my ass off to make happen.