by Glenn Trust
“That’s right. Mind your own business.” Sole nodded approvingly. “Ignore them and they’ll move on.”
His silent admonition was unnecessary. It was clear that the three at the bus stop had no intention of engaging with the gangbanger in the car.
“Good.” Sole nodded. “Now move on.”
The Chevy did, and Sole relaxed. “Now on to the next stop.”
The next stop was a corner where they made their drug buy. Sole could tell it was weed, the dealer undoubtedly one of the DM crew. There was no attempt at concealment. The dealer handed the baggie through the window, they laughed for a second, a fist bump, and the Chevy moved on, its occupants content with their daily supply.
***
When he told them about the car Ben entered each day, Edgar and Maggie had identified the driver as Joey Gonzales, a friend of Ben’s since childhood.
“As I feared,” Edgar had said. “Joey has a lot of influence with Benjamin. He’s gone bad.”
“He was there the day Mr. Estevez was attacked.”
“He was?” Edgar’s eyes opened wide. “Joey did that? I knew he was going with the gang, but I didn’t think he would hurt anyone.”
“I don’t know if he hurt anyone,” Sole said. “I only saw him in the van that was leaving the area when they almost ran into my truck.”
“Still, he should not be there.” Edgar shook his head. “When he was young, he was a good boy … used to come to play with Benjamin in the back of the store. How can he be with the gang now? How can a good boy turn into one of those gang people?”
They were valid questions. How did little boys grow up to be gangbangers?
Sole understood. Poverty, abusive parents, absent fathers, an entitlement system that dis-incentivized them to find a more productive way of life, trapped in a dead-end life with no way to escape, a need for societal respect and camaraderie.
It all added up. Then there was the money, more money than they could ever hope to earn in any legitimate way. Probably the only reason Ben still teetered on the edge of gang life was that Maggie and Edgar had provided a solid home for him, even without a father figure.
He said only, “Sometimes young men go bad … for lots of reasons.”
“Don’t let my son go bad.” Maggie’s lip trembled.
And there it was, snared by circumstances once again. He found it impossible to tell her honestly that the prospect of saving her boy was remote.
He swallowed hard and said, “I won’t.”
***
“Alright, where now?” he said, spinning the wheel to follow the Chevy around a corner.
Instead of cruising the neighborhood, Joey Gonzales, former good boy, headed straight to the abandoned warehouse where they ended up each day. It was an old industrial area full of similar buildings. With a little restoration, some might even be usable, but no business was going to risk spending money to open a business in gang territory.
The Chevy pulled behind the DM headquarters. Sole proceeded to the end of the block and turned in past a row of buildings, driving to the rear. From his vantage point, he could see across the abandoned lots to the loading dock of the warehouse that the gang used as their entry. He parked and pulled out a pair of binoculars.
It reminded him of a stakeout, waiting for something to happen. TV dramas made it look easy. Sip some coffee, clever banter with your partner, and then close in for the arrest when the bad guys showed up to do bad things.
Sole knew from experience that most often on stakeouts nothing happened—ever. Just mind-numbing, boring, tedium with no clear result.
He sensed that things were about to change on this one.
“You’re here early,” he whispered. “Something must be up.”
No More Pretendin’
The warehouse was full. Ben had never seen so many of the DM gangbangers gathered in one place before.
“What’s going on?” he asked Keet as they walked in through the loading dock door.
“Slice called everyone in.”
Keet led the way through the crowded room to a stack of pallets against a wall. Ben eyed the surrounding faces. Some he recognized from the streets and neighborhood. Others were new to him, DM members who stayed out on the streets conducting gang business, which meant selling drugs, committing crimes and finding ways to bring in dollars.
A few women, teenage girls mostly, mingled with them, moving from one to the other, offering sexual favors in exchange for drugs. Some DMs took them up on the offers and moved to the shadows in the corners, where after a few minutes of grunting and moaning they would come back into the main area, followed by the girl. Then both would light up a joint or do a line of coke and lean back, mutually satisfied and mellow for the moment.
Keet grabbed two joints from the communal bucket they kept supplied and handed one to Ben. “Here, bro. Light up. Get chill. You gonna need it.”
Ben accepted the joint and leaned back against a pile of packing blankets to light up. “Gonna need it? Why’s that?” he asked as he pulled a lighter from his pocket. “Already feeling pretty chill.”
Keet grinned, shook his head and said only, “You gonna see”.
They sat smoking weed, watching the others, listening to the music that vibrated the sheet metal walls. Whenever one of the girls pulled a DM to the corner to service him and receive her reward, the others made catcalls and nudged each other in the ribs as if they were in the stands at a high school football game, gawking at cheerleaders and rooting on the team.
A shadow hovered over them, and they looked up. It was Ape.
“Slice want to see you,” he said.
“Who me?” Ben grinned through his buzzed, smoky haze.
“Yeah, you.” Ape stood motionless, hulking over them, not threatening but not to be denied either. “Move.”
“Yeah, right, man? I’m moving.”
Ben pulled himself up straight and clambered down from the stack of pallets. He turned to Keet. “You, comin’, bro?”
“Naw, man. Not this time,” Keet replied without making eye contact, taking a drag on the joint and staring at the far wall.
Ben walked unsteadily to the lawn chair where Slice sat enthroned, the undisputed ruler of the gathering. A DM Ben did not recognize, but who wore their colors, hunched over in front of Slice, handing over cash. Slice nodded, said something inaudible, and motioned for him to depart. The gang member turned, gave a curious glance in Ben’s direction, followed by a wry smile, and then left the area.
Ape put a hand on Ben’s back and pushed him forward. “He’s ready for you.”
“You havin’ a good time?” Slice asked. The light from the single overhead fluorescent lamp illuminating his corner of the room reflected off his dark brown eyes.
It was a simple question, but Ben understood there was more behind it. Slice didn’t inquire about anyone’s state of happiness without some purpose in mind.
“Yeah, Slice, sure.” Ben fumbled for words. “I mean, it’s all good … hanging here and everything.”
“I guess it is.” Slice nodded, eyes narrowing. The reflected light there became two tiny glinting white points, shining up at him from a distant place.
A tingle of apprehension crawled up Ben’s spine. In his time hanging out with the DMs, he had never been singled out or subject to Slice’s attention in this way. He had seen how rapidly things could turn for the worse for the unfortunate gangbanger who displeased the gang’s leader.
“Did I do …” Ben began, swallowing hard to get the words out. “Is something wrong, Slice? I mean I didn’t mean to … I mean it’s cool hanging here, and I wouldn’t do anything to …”
“Naw, man, it’s all good,” Slice said with a grin. “We cool. Right, Ape … we cool with Benny here.”
“We cool,” Ape’s bass voice reverberated behind Ben.
“Gotta be cool,” Slice continued, the grin grew wider on his face, but the eyes narrowed into dangerous points of light. “You got dope, right?”
>
Ben nodded.
“Girls if you want them, right?”
Ben nodded.
“You one of us, right?”
Ben nodded.
“Hell, no you ain’t one of us!” The grin was gone. “You ain’t one of us!” Slice repeated loudly enough that others turned to see what was happening.
When they saw that Keet’s FNG—fucking new guy—stood cowed before their leader, they nodded and nudged each other. In seconds, the entire crowd was riveted by what was happening. Someone turned the music player off.
“But, I thought …” Ben managed to say.
“You thought what?” Slice sneered. “That you one of us?”
Ben’s head swiveled, searching for Joey in the sea of faces that edged closer, penning him in before Slice. He found him standing on the outer edge of the crowd, as riveted as the others, but with no inclination to step forward and intervene on behalf of his friend. Ben realized that Joey had known this was coming.
Slice eyed the Converse sneakers on Ben’s feet and smirked. “You got the shoes … the look … but you ain’t one of us.”
“All I was saying was …”
“What you was sayin’ don’t mean shit. You know why?” Slice leaned toward him. “You a pretender. You just pretendin’ to be one of us.” He shook his head. “But you ain’t.”
Heads nodded. Voices rumbled around the room. “Yeah, Benny been actin’ like he one of us, but he just pretendin’.”
“You gotta be one of us,” Slice said, his voice milder now, friendlier, now that the reminder about his status had been delivered.
“Right,” the voices murmured. “Gotta be one of us.”
“Tomorrow you be one of us,” Slice said.
“Tomorrow. Yeah, tomorrow.” Heads in the crowd nodded as the murmur swirled around the room.
“You know how that happens, right?” Slice asked.
Ben had tried to put the initiation out of his mind. He had known Salvadore Estevez since childhood, and the idea of doing to someone else what Joey did to Mr. Estevez made him queasy. Mellowed by the drugs and safe in the cocoon of gang camaraderie, he had put off thinking about it.
Showing up each day with Joey, it seemed he had been welcomed into the group. He thought—hoped—he had become one of them by default. Things were about to change, and looking into Slice’s eyes, an uneasy realization settled over him. More was expected of him.
“Asked you a question, boy. Answer it,” Slice snapped at him.
“I have to hit someone. That’s how you do it, right?”
“Hit someone!” Slice laughed, and the others followed suit. “You knock them out. One punch in the head and they go down. After that you get blooded and you one of us.”
“But I …”
“Tomorrow, you do it,” Slice interrupted. “You come with me and Ape and Cheech. We pick the one you gonna knock out. Then you do it and you one of us. Right?”
Wide-eyed and sweating now, Ben couldn’t make the words come from his mouth.
“Whatsamatter, boy? You afraid.”
“No.” Ben shook his head. “I just … I can’t.” His throat tightened. He had difficulty forcing the words out. “Not that …”
“What you mean you can’t?” Slice looked around the room. “Keet, get your ass up here.”
The crowd parted and Keet pushed forward, glaring at Ben for putting him in the position of being singled out by Slice.
“Your, bro here don’t seem like he want to be one of us, but you been bringin’ him in every day. What’s that?”
“He do want to be one of us, Slice,” Keet said. “I know he do. We talked about it and he told me.”
“Then why he sayin’ he can’t?”
“It’s just … he ain’t much of a fighter. We was in school together. He never got in no fights,” Joey was talking fast, wondering why he hadn’t considered the ramifications of recruiting Benny’s pussy ass into the DMs. They’d be lucky if they both didn’t get an ass beating, or worse.
“He ain’t a fighter?” Slice asked, his eyebrows rising. “And you brought him to us?”
“Yeah, he never had the stomach for it … didn’t like the sight of blood or some shit like that.”
There were laughs around the room. Keet forced a grin, letting the laughter settle for a few seconds, hoping it would relieve the tension, then he continued, “But Benny’s smart … real smart. They’s all sorts of things he can do for us … smart things … computer shit … planning shit. You know, smart things.”
“Smart things,” Slice said, shaking his head. “What the fuck that supposed to mean?”
The room was silent as Slice considered the fate of Benny, the FNG, and Keet, who brought him in. Slice’s eyes bored into Ben for a full minute. Finally, he nodded and spoke.
“You a lover, not a fighter. Is that it? A smart lover, but you don’t like to fight.”
Ben managed to nod, and dared a smile. “Yeah … a lover.”
More laughter rippled around him.
“Alright, smart lover boy. We’ll figure something out. Maybe we can change things up a little about the knockout, but one thing is for sure. Tomorrow you gonna be here and you gonna be one of us. You seen too much not to. You Understand?”
“Yes,” Ben managed to whisper.
“And don’t think about not comin’ back.” Slice’s eyes narrowed again and the tiny points of light bored laser-like into Ben. “That old man you live with and your mama … they protected by us. That don’t come free. You don’t come back, they gonna pay for it. No more pretendin’. You understand that?”
“I understand.” Ben nodded. “I’ll be back.”
“Now get out.” He looked at Keet. “Drop him at home and get back here.”
Keet turned and led the way, Ben following close behind. The gang members were silent.
When they were gone, Ape growled at Slice, “The knockout’s how it is … that’s how he gets to be one of us … always been that way. You and me made it that way.”
“Yeah, we did, bro.” Slice nodded. “But what if I come up with something better?”
“I don’t like it, changing the rules,” Ape rumbled.
“You gonna like this.”
To Pissing on Fences
They were out early tonight. The sun had been down only an hour when the loading dock door opened and Joey Gonzales led Ben out. Sole squinted through the binoculars.
The usual grabass chatter between them was missing. Even at this distance, he could see the looks of worry on their faces. They got into Gonzales’ car without speaking.
“Something’s up,” Sole muttered to himself. “Why would that be?”
They drove off, moving with a purpose, not the usual random wandering back and forth through the city streets. He was surprised when Joey pulled to the curb in front of Dupart’s store and Ben got out. Joey said something. Ben nodded and turned to the door as the Chevy pulled away.
“What was that all about?” Sole wondered.
He considered following Joey but then decided against it. He might learn more by being in the apartment. After parking in the alley, he went through the back door and looked into the store before heading up the stairs.
Edgar was behind the register, reading a newspaper. He looked up and called out, “You’re back early tonight. Is everything alright?”
“Not sure,” Sole said, stepping into the store and looking around.
“There’s no one here,” Edgar said. “You can speak freely.”
“Where’s Maggie?” Sole glanced toward the back room.
“Not here. She went up to start dinner.”
“We should probably talk … all of us.”
“Okay.” Edgar nodded. “Business is slow anyway. I’ll close and be up in a few minutes.”
Sole climbed the stairs and pushed the door open without the need to use the key they had provided. He had found that the apartment was always unlocked. At night the exterior doors from the store we
re secured, but the door to the apartment above was unlocked.
He found Maggie in the kitchen soaking a piece of skirt steak in marinade for carne asada. Ben was in his room, playing music loud enough for the bass to vibrate the walls.
Maggie smiled and made the same comment Edgar had. “You’re back early tonight.”
“Right.” He sat at the kitchen table. “Ben’s home early. I followed him back here.”
Maggie turned, saw the expression on his face, and her brow furrowed. “You look worried.”
Sole nodded. “A little maybe.”
“About?” She pulled out a chair and sat across from him. “Tell me.”
“I think something big is about to happen,” he said, trying to explain the telltale signs he picked up between Ben and Joey. “Not sure what, but I sensed that things were different today between Ben and Joey, and no doubt that probably has something to do with the gang. Whatever it is might give us a chance to intervene in some way.”
Hope flooded over her face again, and he felt guilty for giving it to her. Hope could be crushed by reality.
“What is about to happen?” she asked.
“I’m not sure, just signs, the way Ben and Joey are acting, the way they left early.” He shook his head. “I shouldn’t have said that it might give us a chance. I have no idea, really. It’s just that sometimes when a bad thing happens it gives you a chance to step in and remove the bad thing.” He shrugged. “There’s a chance at least.”
That was clear as mud, he thought. What the hell are you talking about? You’re talking in riddles, John-boy.
The hope faded a little from her face, and Maggie nodded. “I understand.”
Edgar came into the kitchen. “You two seem very serious.”
Maggie looked up and smiled. “Bill thinks something is about to happen, something that might help get Ben away from the gang.”
“I see.” Edgar nodded and sat with them at the table. “Tell me.”
They talked while Maggie prepared dinner. When Sole finished explaining, Edgar summed things up.
“So, we hope that something bad happens while you are there to stop the bad thing. Is that it?”