Wrath James White

by Skinzz

  "Walk, mutherfucker!"

  Mack punched him in the stomach, doubling Billy over and dropping him to his knees. Billy coughed and moaned and tried to curl into a fetal ball. Mack jerked him back up to his feet.

  "Fuck this!" Jason said then gave Billy a shove that sent him tumbling down the stairs ass over ankles. He landed on the hard concrete floor with a loud "Thwap!" A small dark halo of blood formed around his head.

  "Oh, shit. I think you killed him." Chills raced over his skin. His stomach twisted and the room tilted and spun. He felt like he was going to throw up. It wasn't the fact that he had just killed someone that made him feel faint and nauseous. He could not have cared less about killing a skinhead. It was the fear of getting caught.

  "Shhhh! Keep your fuckin' voice down. You want everybody in the house to know?" Jason whispered. He peeked around the corner into the living room, everyone was still getting high. Chris was trying to get laid and Breezy and the Jersey girls were on another planet.

  Mack and Jason stood at the top of the stairs for almost a full minute, waiting for Billy to move. He didn't.

  "His chest ain't movin'. Dude is dead," Mack whispered.

  Jason shrugged. "Fuck it. Let's deal with it in the morning. We can dump him in the projects or something. The cops'll just think he got mugged."

  Mack knew he made a lot of bad decisions since he started hanging out in the hardcore scene. He was working two jobs when he met Jason a year ago. He quit both of them a month later. Mack was supposed to have left for college in Ohio this past fall but he called the school and delayed his admission by a year. Still, he knew that not calling the cops right then and there might just have been the worst mistake he ever made. If they hid Billy's body somewhere it would be an admission of guilt. They were about to turn a legitimate accident into a first degree homicide.

  Demon is still high and drunk off his ass, but I'm not drunk yet. What's my excuse? Mack thought. Then he turned off the light in the basement and closed the door.

  In for a penny. In for a pound.

  Chapter 4

  The squat house, 10:03 AM

  "Old-fuckin'-Milwaukee! That's all you can find in this damn neighborhood. Pabst Blue Ribbon and Old-fuckin'-Milwaukee. This shit tastes like piss! If I don't get some more Colt 45 soon I'm gonna kill a mutherfucker!"

  Mack hurled the empty forty-ounce bottle at the stone fireplace and smiled viciously, watching it shatter and spray shards of glass onto the carpet. Chris's huge platinum Mohawk was sticking out from beneath a blanket as he slept beside the fireplace in a drunken stupor. Tiny shards of glass rained down onto his head.

  "Hey!"

  "Shut the fuck up, Chris! Take your drunk ass back to sleep."

  Chris rolled over, mumbling under his breath and pulling his leather jacket over his head to protect him from any further debris.

  "Relax, dude. This is an Irish neighborhood. You ain't gonna find shit but whiskey and Old Milwaukee. That's just how that shit is here," Jason said. "Now you done scared the shit out of Chris. He probably pissed himself."

  Mack snickered.

  "Yeah. He probably did."

  "We'll get some Colt 45 when we walk up to South Street later."

  Mack smiled wide and nodded. Jason always knew how to mellow him out.

  "Bet."

  Mack was not a small kid. He was only eighteen years old but built like a middleweight boxer. Before he started hanging out with Jason and all his punk rock friends, he'd been working construction full time doing concrete and blacktop and working part-time at South Philadelphia Recreation Center, teaching weightlifting to young Italian kids, most of whom had parents in the Mafia. He'd been lifting weights since he was twelve years old when he bought his first weight set, one of those old vinyl sets filled with concrete, with the money he raised on his paper route. Since he joined the scene, the only time he went home was to eat, shower, and workout. The rest of the time, he stayed in shape by doing pushups with Jason sitting on his back. Jason only weighed about a hundred and twenty-five pounds. Mack could do twenty pushups easily with him on his back.

  Mack's head was shaved on the sides with dreadlocks on top that he slathered in mousse so that they stuck straight up off his head. He wore black jeans, black motorcycle boots, a thick leather belt with two small daggers crossed through the belt buckle, no shirt and a leather motorcycle jacket he'd borrowed from Rachael, the girl who used to live at the house they were all squatting in. The jacket and the hair combined to give him the appearance of some sort of leather clad voodoo priest.

  All the kids in the house looked to Mack for protection from the thugs, jocks, and, most importantly, the skinheads. Mack delighted in his role. It was the first time in his life that he'd ever felt like he fit in anywhere. Back in his own neighborhood, he felt like an outcast because he didn't use or sell drugs, didn't speak in one never ending stream of profanity-laced slang, and would rather read comic books and horror novels than watch The Sixers or The Eagles on TV. The only way he fit in was by fighting. Kicking the shit out of anyone who threatened his friends was his greatest joy in life.

  Mack was the only black kid in the house and one of only five black punk rockers in the scene. That made him more than just an oddity. It made him fucking cool. Mack was the guy who could walk them all safely through the projects. He was the guy who could score them good weed from the kids in the Martin Luther King Projects at the other end of South Street. And whenever there was violence to be done, he was the one they all turned to. They felt safer having him in the house with them and he felt like he was part of something, a family, a culture, more so than he'd ever felt in the black community where he had always been an outcast.

  "So, what are we gonna do about Billy?"

  "Shhhhh! We have to wait until everybody leaves. Then we can sneak him out and hide him somewhere."

  "How? We just gonna carry him through the street in broad-fucking-daylight? We ain't got no car."

  "I'll see if I can borrow my dad's car."

  "Oh yeah. Hi, Dad. It's me, your son that you haven't seen in six months. I just came back to borrow the car. You pull that shit off and you're the mutherfuckin' man."

  "Doesn't Breezy have a car?"

  "I don't know but I bet these Jersey bitches do."

  "I don't even know their names."

  "Didn't you fuck one of 'em last night?"

  Jason shrugged.

  "I still don't know her name."

  "It doesn't matter. She had to get here somehow. I doubt she took a cab over the bridge. Ask her when she wakes up."

  Jason smiled lopsidedly and looked at the floor, shuffling his feet bashfully.

  "Ummm."

  "What is it now?"

  "I can't remember who she is."

  "What?"

  "I don't remember which one I fucked. I was drunk and I was flirting with all three of 'em. I know I fucked one of 'em. I still smell like pussy and I remember putting a condom on. I remember I was fucking one of 'em doggystyle and I couldn't cum because I was so drunk. So she gave me head and I came down her throat. I just don't remember seeing her face."

  "Am I the only one not getting fucked around here?" Mack yelled.

  "Man, chill! We're trying to sleep!" Chris yelled back, pulling the blankets up higher.

  "Even Chris got fucked last night. I hate this mutherfucker. He fucked Alexis last night. Can you believe that? I wanted that bitch."

  "It's racism!" Jason shouted.

  "I'm starting to think it is, man." Mack was serious. For a moment, he looked like he was about to cry. He hadn't gotten any pussy in the two weeks they'd been squatting in the house, despite all the girls who'd come and gone. He'd made out with a few of them, but that was as far as it had gone. Mack rubbed his eyes and took a deep breath. He wasn't about to cry over pussy.

  "I'm telling you, they're all afraid of the soul pole," Jason joked, hugging Mack and kissing him on the cheek.

  "Yeah, whatever." He wasn't in the mood f
or jokes.

  "I'm getting hungry," Jason said.

  "There's no food."

  "Let's just go up to South Street and pick up some more dumb suburban chicks and get them to buy us breakfast."

  "Bet."

  At that time, "dumb suburban chicks" who were desperate to rebel against their parents and hang out with real punk rockers, were their number one source of income. They bought them food, paid for their beer, and usually paid their way into punk rock shows at Club Revival, an old eighteenth century church downtown that had been converted into a punk rock club. When there were no girls around to pay for their beer and food, Jason would walk up to the train station at the Gallery Mall to panhandle. His puppydog eyes made him a natural.

  Jason was little and cute. He had the whole "Johnny Depp with an edge" thing going for him and when he wanted to, he could look downright pitiful. He would get thirty or forty bucks panhandling easily. Sometimes people even tried to take him home with them. He usually made enough in one hour to buy beer for the whole house. But it was too cold for that and the Jersey girls were broke. They'd paid for the beer and the drugs the last two nights but they had run out of money. It was time to replace them, but not before Jason and Mack used their car to transport a body.

  Mack knew their lifestyle was unsustainable, but for now they were living the way they wanted to live: wild, free, with no one to answer to, no clocks to punch, and no schedule to keep. They slept when they were tired and woke up whenever they felt like it. It was the best time of their lives and it was all about to end.

  "Let's just go up to South Street for a while and get some coffee at The Gathering Space. Padre should be there by now. Then we can see if there are any girls out. By then, the Jersey girls should be awake and we can borrow their car."

  Mack put his arm around Jason and walked him into the dining room. He didn't want Chris to hear what he was about to say, just in case he was still awake. He would trip if he knew there was a corpse in the basement.

  "Should we check on him? Cover him up or something? What if he starts to smell?"

  "It's freezing down there. He ain't gonna rot. Not for a few days anyway. Let's just go and get back before everyone wakes up. I'm fuckin' starving!"

  "Man. You're a trip. You're going to go stuff your face and then help me carry a body? What if we have to cut him up or something?"

  Jason shrugged.

  "Gotta do what we gotta do. I still need to eat."

  South Street was dead. It was too early and no one was out yet except a smattering of school kids hanging out. Jason and Mack walked down to Ishkabibbles to see if Breezy was working. She was one of the few punks they knew with a regular job and she would sometimes sneak them free pizza fries or chilli-cheese-dogs when she could, but it was too early. They weren't open yet and Breezy was probably still sleeping off her hangover. For all they knew she might have never left the party. She may have still been back at their house, passed out in one of the bedrooms.

  "Damn!"

  "I guess we need to walk up to the Gallery."

  "Fuck, I really ain't in the mood."

  "You in the mood to starve?"

  "Fuck! Let's go."

  They left South Street and headed up Fourth Street, trudging through the snow. They'd only walked a few blocks when they spotted a group of skinheads heading down Fourth Street in the opposite direction on the other side of the street. There were six of them. Mack loved those odds.

  "Well, things are looking up. Let's cross the street." Mack was grinning like a kid chasing an ice cream truck.

  "Aw, come on, Mack. It's too damn cold to fight."

  "I can't help it, Demon. This is what I do. You get money and bitches. I beat the shit out of skinheads!"

  Mack stepped out into the street, holding out his hand to stop an oncoming Camaro. Jason paused to let the car pass before he followed. Mack crossed the street in a few long strides and overtook the skinheads.

  "Hey bitches!" Mack said, then lifted his knee to his chest and kicked the first skinhead directly in the face. The man went down, holding his busted nose while his buddies charged. Mack had his attack perfected. He would kick one in the chest to knock him back and buy himself some time while he punched another one. Each punch he threw landed flush on the jaw. He never seemed to miss.

  Jason pulled a bike chain from his inside pocket and whipped it hard across one of the skin's legs, dropping him to his knees, howling in pain. He finished him with a combat boot to the side of the guy's head. By the time he turned to face the next one, Mack had already dropped three more. Four of the six skinheads were now lying unconscious on the sidewalk. Jason stepped forward with the chain. The two remaining skinheads raised their fists, ready to fight. One was almost the same height as Mack but twice as wide. He was big but he looked soft. The shorter one looked like a wrestler. His bomber jacket had slipped down off his shoulders, revealing big muscular traps that almost reached his earlobes. He had a tattoo around his neck that read "White Power". There was a swastika tattooed on the back of his hand.

  "Put the chain down and fight like a fucking man. We'll take you and your monkey!" the wrestler said.

  Mack took off his motorcycle jacket and handed it to Jason.

  "I got this, Demon."

  Jason took Mack's jacket, draped it over his arm and leaned against one of the parked cars that lined the street. He took out a pack of Kools, tapped the bottom of the pack, then opened it and lit one up, blowing out a smoke ring. He stomped his feet in place, rubbing his belly and looking impatient.

  "Make it quick. I'm still fucking hungry."

  The first skinhead, the big guy, swung a clumsy right hand that Mack swatted aside like he was fanning away an unpleasant smell. The skinhead's momentum carried him forward, right into Mack's knee. Mack drove it hard into the big guy's chin, smiling maliciously when he heard the satisfying crunch of shattered teeth. The guy dropped to the sidewalk at Mack's feet. Mack stepped over the unconscious skinhead and waved the wrestler forward. The guy with the White Power tattoo was the only one left. He sneered and stepped forward with both fists raised then turned and ran. Mack chased after him.

  "Mack! Wait! Fuck!" Jason yelled as he tried to follow them. He ran a few yards then stopped. He was still carrying Mack's coat and it felt like it weighed a ton.

  Mack chased the wrestler for two blocks. He hated the idea that a sonuvabitch with the nerve to walk around his town with a swastika and a white power tattoo was going to get away unscathed. Just the thought of it made him want to scream.

  "Aaaarrrrrrrrgh! Get back here and fight me, you fucking pussy! Get tha fuck back here!"

  Mack's motorcycle boots slipped in the snow and he had to grab hold of a mailbox to keep from falling on his ass. The skinhead stopped and held up both middle fingers.

  "Fuck you, nigger! White Power! Unrest!" The wrestler pumped his fist in the air then picked up a bottle and threw it at Mack. It hit him in the forehead and shattered. Blood dribbled down Mack's face into his eyes. The short, muscle-bound skinhead laughed and took off running again. Mack was insane with rage.

  "I'm going to tear your fucking heart out!"

  Mack pushed himself off the mailbox and tried to chase the guy again. This time he did fall. His legs kicked out from beneath him and he landed hard on his back. He tried to get up and fell down again. Jason caught up with him just as he managed to scramble to his feet.

  "You done now?"

  Mack turned, every muscle was tensed and for a moment he could see his fist pounding into Jason's face but the kid was just too damned cute to hate. Jason smiled and handed Mack his jacket. Mack deflated, feeling foolish for what he'd been thinking. He probably did look pretty silly rolling around in the snow. He laughed.

  "Yeah, mutherfucker. I'm done."

  He shrugged back into his jacket and continued walking toward Market Street and the Gallery Mall.

  "I think I hurt my hand on one of their thick fucking heads."

  "We just t
ook on six skinheads and won. You know what this means, right?"

  "It means we're a couple of badasses."

  "It means that next time they'll bring more. We just made ourselves the number one targets of The Unrest."

  "Fuck The Unrest. If I knew where they hung out I'd walk right into their fucking clubhouse and kill every one of those fuckers. I'd burn it down and beat the shit out of anyone who tried to get out. I'd do a fucking Osage on their asses!"

  "Mack, I don't think you hear what I'm sayin'. They're gonna be gunnin' for us now."

  Mack stopped walking and turned to look Jason in the eyes.

  "I hear exactly what you're saying. I just don't give a fuck. They want me? Then they can come get me. I fucking hope they come for me. I'll kill any bitch-ass skinhead who steps to me! They can bring ten, fuck, they can bring twenty mutherfuckers! They may get me, but I swear I'll kill a dozen of those mutherfuckers first!"

  Mack could see the fear in Jason's eyes and he wished he had some words of encouragement but he didn't feel the same fear. The idea of fighting a dozen skinheads excited him. The idea of dying in battle thrilled him. It was how he wanted to die, like a true warrior, going out on his shield. The prospect of living, leaving Philly to go off to college, one day leaving college to get a nine-to-five, having the wife, the house, the car, the kids, the dog, grandkids, winding up in an old folks home getting his adult diaper changed by apathetic nurses, that was far scarier. Getting old terrified him. Dying a legend, was his dream.

  At no time in Mack's life had he ever expected to live a long life. The life expectancy for young black males in the 80s was the lowest it had ever been. Every morning that he opened his eyes and breathed fresh air was a surprise to him. He felt like he was living on borrowed time and that was cool. At least now, he knew exactly how he would die. It was a comforting feeling.

  "Fuck going all the way to The Gallery. It's too damn cold out here. Let's go over to The Gathering Space. Padre always has coffee and stuff. There might be some donuts and cookies left over from the AA meeting."