Wrath James White

by Skinzz

  Padre had told him to confront her about it, tell her how he felt, but that would mean admitting that he felt anything which he wasn't quite ready to do. He plugged in his headphones and slipped them over his ears. It was a compromise. Now, they wouldn't have to hear his music but he still wouldn't have to hear them.

  He wanted to go out, talk to Padre again, maybe even get drunk, but he was afraid that his parents wouldn't let him back in if he did. Besides, the streets weren't safe for him without Mack. Those skinheads were all just looking for the chance to catch the two of them apart and Jason had no illusions about his chances of surviving an attack by even two or three skinheads without Mack by his side. As Mack always said, he was "knee-high to a grasshopper". As much as he loved to fight, when it came down to it, he was just a little guy. He'd get squashed like a bug if he got attacked by himself. So that meant spending the night in the house, alone, listening to his parents bitch and complain.

  Man, this fucking sucks, Jason thought. He couldn't wait until tomorrow night when Mack came back. He had an idea that they should go see Miranda before the concert. That might give Mack the fuel he needed to do some real damage to those Nazi bastards.

  I can't wait, Jason thought. This is going to be fucking epic!

  Chapter 15

  Germantown, 9:01pm

  The bus ride back to Germantown had taken over an hour. Mack staggered off the bus, barely awake. He was exhausted. He hurt all over as a result of the beating he'd taken from the skinheads and he was terrified that the police would be waiting for him when he arrived home and that he'd be arrested for aggravated assault, assault with a deadly weapon, and maybe even attempted homicide. Unless, of course, the kid didn't make it, then he'd be fighting murder or manslaughter charges. He thought back to the body he and Jason had dropped off in the lot earlier. His chest felt heavy. If they found Billy's body, he might be facing murder charges anyway.

  Mack walked up the hill to his house, wondering if anyone had seen the Suzuki, and trying to console himself by telling himself that there were hundreds of white Suzuki Samurais on the road and that nobody ever noticed license plates. He knew that he was going to have to avoid those Jersey girls for a while. If someone had spotted the vehicle and it was known that he and Jason regularly hung out with girls who drove a Suzuki, it wouldn't take the police long to put two and two together.

  I am so fucked.

  The neighborhood was quiet. The streets were unusually empty for so early in the evening, but it was cold out and there was still snow on the ground. Cold weather tended to drive even the hardest hoodrats indoors.

  The houses looked somehow cleaner covered in white snow, less depressed. The trees looked beautiful, like a winter wonderland. The air even smelled cleaner, crisper. The night sky was so clear that you could see every star in the heaven. Mack was staring up at the sky when someone in a big hooded ski jacket with fur around the collar stepped out from behind a large shrub and pointed a gun in his face. He'd been caught slippin' and now he was a dead man.

  I love you, Mom. And I love you too, Miranda.

  Mack stared hard at the gunman. He wanted to remember the guy's face on the off-chance that there was an afterlife and he would get the chance to see the bastard again. He wanted to remember him, so that he could pay him back in the next life. The guy was fat, pudgy and his skin was pockmarked. He looked familiar.

  "Give me your money or I'll blow your fuckin' head off."

  A robbery. That's better. A little better. At least the guy isn't tryin' to kill me. He just wants money.

  Then Mack placed the face. He knew the guy. They'd gone to elementary school together. He knew the guy's mom and his two brothers. They lived two blocks away. "Sid? It's me! Mack."

  The gun didn't waver. There was no recognition in the guy's eyes. His eyes were glassy, the pupils dilated as wide as the gun barrel. He was high as fuck.

  "Sid! It's me, man. It's Mack! Get that fuckin' gun out my face."

  Still no recognition.

  "Give me your fuckin' money! I ain't playin'!"

  He cocked the gun.

  "I ain't playin' either! Get that fuckin' gun out my face, Sid!"

  Slowly, recognition seeped back into Sid's eyes.

  "Awww, man. I was just playin' with you! You should have seen your face! Why you all beat up like that? Somebody kick your ass?" Sid laughed. But Mack had seen his eyes. Sid hadn't been playin'. He was so high that he hadn't recognized Mack. He'd known him since he was ten-years-old and he had been ready to put a bullet in Mack's brain.

  "Yeah, funny." Mack walked past him, shaking his head.

  "I was just playin' wit you, man! Why you trippin'?"

  Mack didn't look back. If Sid wanted to get mad about it, he could shoot him in the back, but Mack was tired, sore, and not in the mood. This was the third time tonight that someone had threatened his life. It wasn't a completely atypical day in Philly. Philadelphia wasn't the murder capital but it was in the top ten. Fights and gunshots common everyday occurrences and that adrenaline dump that came with the "fight or flight" instinct was something that Mack felt five or six times a day on average. Still, this damn sure wasn't one of his better days.

  He wanted to kill Sid. The only thing preventing him was the soreness in his muscles and the gun in Sid's hand. He walked the remaining blocks to his house, feeling like he could collapse at any moment.

  Mack knew that the violence that surrounded him was not just a problem with Philly. It was a problem with him. It was a direct result of who and what he was, what he had willingly become. Philadelphia was definitely a tough town. No question there. But his lifestyle was making it tougher. Where he lived, how he dressed, the friends he chose, the places he hung out, even the music he listened to, were all magnets for violence. It was only a matter of time before that violence overcame him. But, at least on this day, he had once again prevailed over it, once again survived. Still, it felt like his time and his luck was beginning to run out.

  He turned the corner onto Ambrose Street and felt an immediate wave of relief flood over him. He was alive. He hadn't been shot. There were no police parked outside his house and his mom's car was there. She was home. The light was on in the living room and he could hear the television. She was awake. He walked up to the door and rang the doorbell.

  His mom was in her houserobe with curlers in her hair when she opened the door.

  "Hi, Mom."

  She reached out to touch his swollen face.

  "What the hell happened to you?"

  "I was just playin' with some friends. We got a little rough. No biggie."

  Her eyes narrowed as she looked at him closer.

  "You weren't out there fightin' again were you? I told you, you ain't a kid no more. You're nineteen now. They'll take you to jail for fighting!"

  "I know, Mom. Don't worry. I'm not going to jail."

  Not yet anyway.

  "Were you doing that slam dancing?"

  Mack smiled. His mother had been trying her best lately to understand his new lifestyle. He loved her for that.

  "Yeah, sort of."

  "That just don't make no sense to me. Out there hurtin' yourselves for fun. I think you should call that college back and see if you can get in there right now. The streets ain't no good for you. You know your friend Lamar got shot the other day, up there on the avenue. I heard he was messin' around with drugs or somethin'."

  Mack shrugged.

  "He wasn't really a friend. He was older than me. He used to beat me up all the time when I was little. Lamar was kind of a jerk. Once I grew up, he would run from me like a little punk."

  "Oh, don't talk that way about dead people. It ain't nice."

  "I'm sorry, Mom."

  "Now, come on over here and give your momma a hug and a kiss. It feels like I ain't seen you in days. What's out in them streets that's so exciting it keeps you out all night? Ain't nothin' in this town open after two am but legs."

  "Well, that's enough to keep me
out all night."

  Mack smiled and winked.

  "Oh, you're terrible. You're just like your grand daddy. You know, Pop was a real ladies man when he was young. You got that honest. It's in your blood."

  Mack leaned down and kissed his mother on the cheek, hugging her tight. Whenever she talked about him inheriting any male characteristics it was always from his grandfather or great grandfather. She never mentioned his father at all. Mack had never met his dad and never wanted to. He knew the man lived in the neighborhood somewhere or had at one time, but Mack had never seen him or if he had, he never knew who it was. His mother had gone to great pains to keep "that bad influence" away from him and he had respected her wishes. If she said that he was better off not knowing him then Mack believed her. His mother had been all the parent he'd ever needed.

  Mack's mother was a tall woman with strong angular facial features, high cheek bones, a strong jaw, and dark piercing eyes that she attributed to "Indian blood" like half the black people Mack knew. It was like black folks couldn't stand the idea of being completely black. They had to validate themselves by adding something else to their racial composition as if black wasn't good enough. But the truth was that Mack's great-grandmother had been Seminole. He just didn't talk about it because he didn't want to sound like the rest of the self-haters. As far as he was concerned, his family was black. That was enough.

  "Hey, where's Jonas?"

  Jonas was his mother's boyfriend, a big, corn-fed country white boy almost as tall as Mack and twice as heavy. He looked like a reject from Mayberry. Mack used to work for Jonas at his construction company. That's how his mom met the guy. The two of them made the most unusual couple imaginable but he made his mother happy...usually.

  "He kept looking in my pots while I was cooking. You know I hate when people look in my pots when I'm cooking, gettin' all in my way. So, I kicked him out."

  "You kicked him out? Of the house?"

  "Yeah!"

  "So, when's he's coming back?"

  "He ain't coming back. I kicked him out I tole' you."

  Mack couldn't believe what he was hearing.

  "You mean for good?"

  She nodded.

  "I told him to pack up all his shit and get the hell outta my house. Yes, I did."

  "Mom..."

  He wanted to tell his mother that she had to learn to give a little, that she needed to be able to compromise and overlook some things, but he knew it wouldn't have done any good. She had been single too long, ever since his father left them. She had been used to ruling the household. Compromise wasn't in her vocabulary.

  "...are you guys off for good then?"

  "Off? We ain't off. We're still dating. I just can't live with him. He'll be here tomorrow."

  Mack smiled and shook his head.

  "I'm gonna go upstairs and take a nap then work out for a while."

  "You hungry? I know you ain't been eatin' right. You look so skinny. I've got some fried chicken in the refrigerator from last night. I can heat it up for you? "

  Mack smiled.

  "You don't have to do that. I like it cold. I'll just throw some hot sauce on it. You go ahead and get some rest. How was work today?"

  "Oh, you know how it is. Them white folks tryin'a run your poor mother into the ground."

  Mack smiled. With the exception of the skinheads, Mack had never really experienced real racism. His mother's own prejudices struck him as quaint and a bit of an odd contradiction considering Jonas. In her mind, white people were still conspiring to keep black people down. She considered it a mere matter of time before the white girls that Mack sometimes brought home called him a nigger in a fit of rage. Strange, she never thought of Jonas that way. To her, he was always an exception though Mack thought it far more likely that nigger would slip out of Jonas' mouth than from any of the girls he dated. The man had a tendency to defend the wrong things, like racial profiling and doing away with Affirmative Action programs. His mother defended him by saying he was just from a different era. Like the Klan is from α different era? Mack thought. But he never said it. He didn't hate the guy. Jonas was actually a pretty nice guy. He was good to his mother, generous and loving. There was just something off about him. Mack had once gone through the man's video tape collection and found a tape that contained nothing but black porn and episodes of "Soul Train". The man had a fetish and Mack was sure that his fetish was the only reason he was with his mom. It was more than a little disgusting. But his mom was blind to it and she was happy and whatever made his mom happy was cool with Mack.

  Despite her relationship with Jonas, Mack's mother still held onto her own militant stance on most racial issues. She had been a black panther in the early seventies and Mack could remember going on marches with her. Though she never directly said so, he knew that she was still waiting for "The Revolution". She expected a racial civil war to erupt at any minute. In her way, she was just as ignorant in regards to race as the skinheads. But, in her way, she was also right. A racial civil war was about to happen and it would probably happen on South Street with Mack right in the center of it. Only it wouldn't be as clear cut as blacks against whites. It would be racist assholes with shaved heads against guys in leather and spikes with Mohawks and Technicolor hairdos.

  Mack leaned in and kissed his mother on the forehead.

  "Good night, Mom. I'll see you in the morning."

  Chapter 16

  Cindy's house, 9:34 pm

  "It's too late. He's asleep and I'm not waking him up. You should have come earlier."

  Little Davey rolled his eyes and grit his teeth. Cindy got on his nerves more than any other human being on earth. Just the tone of her voice could throw him into a violent rage. Holding in his temper now was taking a Herculean effort, but flipping out would only result in him going to jail where they might even link him to the stabbing of the queer in the Michael Jackson get-up. At the least, she'd get a restraining order and he'd never see his kid again.

  "I'm sorry. I had to go grocery shopping for my dad when I went to pick up the diapers."

  Cindy put one hand on her hip and twisted her pursed lips sideways on her face. She looked at him like he was a bug on a windshield.

  "You could have just given me the money. I would have picked up his diapers."

  "I brought you some money too, but I ain't givin' you shit if I can't see my kid."

  For a brief moment it looked like she was going to challenge him but then she relented and opened the door to let him in.

  "He's upstairs. I'll go get him. You stay down here. You can't stay long though. My boyfriend is coming over. It wouldn't be cool for you to be here when he gets here."

  "Who the fuck is this boyfriend and why are you letting this dude around my kid?"

  Cindy was a small girl, just over five feet tall and barely over a hundred pounds but she had the attitude of a five-hundred pound gorilla. She didn't back down from anyone and that had made for a bad match. They always butted heads and it usually ended with her throwing something at him, him hitting her, her hitting back, and the cops intervening. When they were still together, weekends usually ended with one of them in jail.

  "Who he is, is none of your fuckin' business and I'll let whoever the hell I want into MY house! If you want to start paying my bills then you can start having a say in what goes on here. Otherwise, mind your own damn business!"

  "My son IS my business! Who is he?"

  "He's my boyfriend! What else do you need to know?"

  "Is he black?"

  Cindy's mouth dropped open.

  "What did you just say?"

  "Your boyfriend, is he a fucking nigger?"

  "Get out of my house."

  "I'm not going anywhere until I see my son."

  Cindy stepped up until she was nose to nose with Davey then screamed at the top of her lungs pointing at the front door.

  "GET THE HELL OUT OF MY HOUSE!!!"

  Davey cupped her entire face in his hand and pushed her back.
He turned and headed for the door. She punched him in the back of his head and he turned and palmed her face again, pushing her down on her ass. Then he opened the front door.

  "Get the fuck out, you fucking loser!"

  "I'm coming back to see my son tomorrow and if there's any guys here when I get here you're both going to regret it."

  Cindy scrambled back to her feet.

  "Are you threatening me? Get out of my house you little-dick piece of shit!"

  The muscles in Davey's jaw hurt from biting down. His body began to tremble with adrenalin-fueled rage.

  "I will kill you, you fucking cunt. If you don't let me see my son, I will fucking kill you."

  There was no bravado in his voice. He didn't even yell. It was stated as a simple fact. He turned and walked out of the house, slamming the door behind him.

  Chapter 17

  Bo's apartment, 10:15 pm.

  "Why do you hang out with those losers? Aren't you getting a little old for all of this skinhead shit?" Gia asked. She was cuddled up next to Bo on the bed with her head resting on his chest and his seed drying on her belly. Bo had been just about to drift off to sleep. He wiped away a line of drool that had dribbled out the corner of his mouth and blinked himself awake.

  "W-what?"

  "Skinner and Little Davey? Why the hell do you hang out with those idiots? You know they're only going to get you into trouble. They're kind of crazy. You know, I heard that Skinner used to torture animals when he was a kid and Little Davey just takes this whole Nazi thing way too far. Why would you hang out with guys like that?"

  Bo shrugged. "It's what I believe and don't tell me you like Jews and niggers any more than I do. I've met your family. Your dad is the most racist sonuvabitch I know."