by Skinzz
"You should see how he talks about you behind your back. He calls you my "pet paddy" or "that big Irish Leprechaun". He doesn't like anyone who isn't Italian. Except he doesn't go around shaving his head and joining a club."
"Why are you bringing this shit up? You knew what I was about when you met me."
Gia looked at him with obvious worry in her eyes.
"What is it?"
"I was watching the news today. They found a body in the projects in Philly, near South Street where you guys hang out. It was a skinhead. Somebody bashed his brains out."
"It wasn't one of us was it?"
"I don't know. I didn't recognize the name. They think he got killed trying to buy drugs down there. His family said he had a drug problem but they said he wasn't a skinhead like you guys. They said he was against racism."
"But they killed him anyway. See, it doesn't matter how you treat these animals."
Gia hugged him closer, nuzzling his beard.
"I just don't want anything to happen to you. I love you."
"I love you too, Gia and don't worry. Ain't nothing gonna happen to me."
The phone rang and Bo and Gia looked at each other. Immediately, they both knew it wasn't good news. Good news seldom came after 10pm. Bo crawled from the covers, disengaging Gia's embrace and slipping out from beneath her head. As he walked to the phone, he was expecting it to be Little Davey or Skinner calling from the police station to tell him they were all going down for murder. He was surprised when he picked up the phone and heard Skinner's mom on the other end.
"Bo?" the voice was shaky, cracking with emotion.
"Mrs. McDowell?"
"Evan's dead. They killed my boy!"
"Evan? Skinner? What happened? Who killed him?"
Bo wondered if it had been his body the police found in Philly but Gia said she'd seen it on the news this morning and Skinner had been with them until a few hours ago. It couldn't have been him. Maybe his mother had gotten it wrong. Skinner couldn't be dead.
"His name was Evan! Call him by his name!"
"Sorry. Sorry, Mrs. McDowell. What happened to Evan?"
There was a long pause and Bo could hear the faint sounds of weeping from the other end of the phone.
"He was walking home and he got jumped by a bunch of black guys. They shot him in the head! Those fucking niggers killed my baby! I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. God, please forgive me."
Bo took a long deep breath.
"Don't worry, Mrs. McDowell. We'll pay them back. We won't let Evan die in vain."
"No! It was your fault! You and that other little degenerate you hang out with. You killed him! They shot him because of the way he was dressed. Because of all this skinhead nonsense. They said he was a racist, a Nazi. That's what killed him! You just stay away from me and my family. I don't want you anywhere near us. I just wanted you to know what you did!"
"I'm sor—"
The phone clicked and the dial tone whined in his ear. Bo hung up, shaken, afraid of what would happen when Little Davey and the rest of The Unrest found out what happened. Maybe Gia was right. Maybe it was time to get out.
Chapter 18
A woman with tight, shiny, white skin from too many plastic surgeries and blonde hair squeezed into a puritanical bun, sat at her desk in the Channel 11 newsroom. On a large screen behind her, the Martin Luther King projects loomed. A coroner's van was parked amid several police cruisers. A small crowd of African Americans had gathered. They seemed to be celebrating, smiling and laughing into the camera. Two men in dark blue jumpsuits with "Medical Examiner" stenciled on the back carried a gurney with a long black vinyl bag on it that presumably contained a body. And Mack knew exactly whose body it was.
Shit!
The camera panned over to the empty lot with the piles of trash and broken furniture. Mack turned up the sound.
"...the victim is believed to be affiliated with a skinhead group. Police speculate that he may have come to the Martin Luther King projects for the purpose of purchasing drugs. The victim's shaved head, leather jacket, and combat boots, usually associated with Nazi separatist groups, may have instigated the assault. Skinheads and other Nazi groups have achieved recent notoriety following an on-air brawl on the Geraldo Rivera show. Police have no suspects at this time. Drug-related crimes have been on the rise in Philadelphia..."
Mack's eyes glazed over as he listened to the newswoman drone on. Soon, he couldn't hear her at all. He was trying to decide if this meant they had gotten away with it or if the cops were just withholding information, trying to make the real killers believe that they weren't suspects while they gathered more evidence and prepared to make their arrest. If they thought it was drug-related and were blaming the hoodrats in the projects for it then that meant that he and Jason were clear. But there was no way to be sure. Only time would tell. The camera shifted to the living room of an older couple. They were Billy's parents.
"...he wasn't a racist. He used to date a black girl. He grew up in a mixed neighborhood. He had a drug problem but he wasn't a Nazi. Why did they have to kill him?"
Mack felt like shit.
There was a noise behind him and all the hairs stood up on the back of his neck. Mack leapt from the couch and spun around with his fists raised.
"What are you so jumpy for? You look like you've seen a ghost."
Mack stared at his mother. His heart was racing. He lowered his fists, still breathing heavily.
"What's the matter, baby? Why are you so worked up? Did I scare you?"
Mack fumbled for the right words, trying to decide whether he should confide in her or not. He looked down at the TV, but they had moved on to some celebrity-worship drivel about Madonna wannabees. When he looked back at his mother, his bottom lip was trembling and there were tears in his eyes.
"Ohhh, baby. What's wrong?" She rushed over and wrapped her arms around him which unleashed the floodgates. He began to sob openly.
"What's wrong, baby? Tell me what's the matter? Whatever it is, we can work through it. You know your momma will fix it."
Mack sniffled a few times as he wiped away his tears.
"Not this time, momma. You can't help me with this."
"What is it?"
The concern in her eyes was so genuine, so profound, that Mack had to struggle to hold back another outbreak of tears. Disappointing his mother was the worst thing he could imagine. But he was afraid that if he told her, she'd want him to go to the police. He thought about it a moment longer before he decided.
"I think I may have accidentally killed someone."
It hung there in the room like a dank cloud between them. The silence was stifling and oppressive. Mack didn't breathe until she spoke. "Do the police know?"
Mack shook his head. His mother nodded, looking up at the ceiling in deep thought.
"Is there anything to connect you to it? Did you leave any evidence?"
Mack shrugged.
"I don't know. I don't think so."
She sighed heavily and shook her head.
"Well, tell me how it happened."
Mack told her about Billy getting high and slamming his head against the walls and how they'd tried to throw him out of the house but he'd started yelling and throwing bottles. He told them about how Billy hit his head on the cement floor when Jason pushed him down the basement steps and finally how they'd used the Jersey girl's Suzuki to dump the body in the projects.
"Did anyone see the car?"
"They didn't say anything about it on the news."
She nodded, scratching her chin before rubbing an imaginary line of sweat from her brow.
"And you wouldn't want to turn your friend Jason in I assume?"
"No, I couldn't do that. It's just as much my fault and I helped hide the body."
"And you don't think he'd try to turn you in? He wouldn't make a deal with the police to save his own ass?"
This was not the line of questions Mack had been expecting from his mother. She was
calmer, more rational, than he ever would have imagined. It was almost spooky.
Mack shook his head slowly.
"No. He wouldn't do that. He's not like that."
She sighed again.
"Then you need to call that college back right now and get there as soon as possible. You need to get off the streets until this blows over. You can't stay here in Philly anymore."
Chapter 19
Jason's house, 9:17 am
"I'm leaving for work. Why don't you look for a job and clean up your room a little bit as long as you're here."
Jason was only half awake and in no mood for his stepfather's shit. He looked up to see the man standing in his doorway in a suit and tie with a briefcase in his hand. Jason's mother stood beyond him in the hallway looking nervous and fidgety.
Oh, here it comes. They're kicking me out again. Why does that dickless bastard always have to fuck with me?
"Don't worry. I'll be gone by the time you get back," Jason said.
"You don't have to leave. We're not kicking you out."
Sure you are.
"I'm just saying that if you're going to stay here you're going to have to find a job and help your mother out around here."
"I'm not staying. Like I said, it was just for the night. I'll be leaving in a few. Do you mind if I take a shower and get some breakfast first?"
Finally, Jason's mother stepped forward into the room, squeezing past her husband who looked amused despite the serious tone of his voice. He was getting off on this, delighting in Jason's discomfort. He held all the power and he knew it.
"Jason, of course you can take a shower. We're not kicking you out. You can stay as long as you like."
Jason snorted and chuckled.
"Yeah, right. You know how that will end. I think it's best for all of us if I get out of here."
Jason stood up and walked to his bedroom door. He grabbed the doorknob and slowly closed the door. His stepfather's hand was still holding the doorknob on the other side and a brief tug-of-war began.
"Do you mind? I need to get changed for a shower."
"Okay. Okay, sport. I'll see you around then."
His stepfather stared him in his eyes, challenging him, with a subtle smirk curling up one corner of his mouth. Jason returned the smirk and slowly closed the door. This time his stepfather did not resist.
Asshole.
Jason listened for the slam of the front door and the sound of his stepfather's car revving up for an annoyingly long time before driving off down the road. His stepfather drove a red Camaro that Jason called his "midlife crisis mobile". Jason hated that car almost as much as he hated his stepfather. It was another symbol of the man's enormous ego. Jason fantasized about destroying that vehicle with the same frequency that he fantasized about destroying the man himself. Jason could feel all the tension leave his body once he was certain the man was gone. He stripped out of his clothes, leaving them in a pile on the floor as he walked across the hall to the bathroom. If his mom saw him wandering the halls naked, so be it. She needed a shock or two to wake her up from her catatonia. Seeing her son's mature cock swinging from thigh to thigh might be just the thing to jar her to her senses. He laughed at the thought of it.
I'm sure I'm hung better than that asshole she's married to.
Jason stepped into the shower and felt almost instant relief as the warm spray took away the rest of his tension. He could feel the knotted chords in his neck and shoulders unwinding. He turned the spray nozzle on the showerhead to "pulsate" then turned the water temperature up higher until it was almost scalding, just below the limits of his pain tolerance. The anxiety and fear caused by Billy's death left him for a moment as he closed his eyes and luxuriated in the feel of the near boiling water firing onto his upper back. He wanted to crawl back into bed and sleep for another couple of hours but didn't want to deal with his mother's complaints. If she tried to make him clean his room or take out the garbage it wouldn't end well.
In less than an hour, Jason had washed, changed clothes, stolen six dollars from his mother's purse, ate breakfast, and left. He walked up Ninth Street at a brisk pace, eager to get back to South Street where he could erase the stain of middle-class mediocrity from his mind. He refused to turn out like his parents. If the choice was between being beaten to death by skinheads or being an uptight, passionless, wage-slave, getting a nine-to-five, a BMW, voting Republican, and going to church on Sundays, he knew what his choice would be.
Despite his bravado, the idea of being cornered by a group of Nazi assholes without Mack beside him, terrified him. Once he made it to South Street, he knew he'd be okay. Even at ten o'clock in the morning there'd be a few punks there he knew. Some of his friends, like Chris and Breezy, worked on South Street. If it came down to it, they'd jump in before they'd let him get murdered. But it was unlikely that there would be any skinheads out until night. Most of them had jobs or were still in school. If this had been a weekend, he would not have been so bold.
Jason made it to South Street without incident. It was no wonder. The street was empty. The cold weather had reduced it to a graveyard. Even the usual crowd of shoppers from the mainline and sight-seeing history buffs who came to gawk at the Liberty Bell and Betsy Ross's house were staying away, delaying their foray into the city until the temperature rose.
He walked down to the hamburger shop where Breezy worked and was happy to find that she was there. Her long blonde hair was now in dreadlocks. She wore a frilly white vintage dress under her leather jacket and combat boots that came up to her knees with soles that were almost four inches thick. She'd obviously been shopping at Trash & Vaudeville.
"Hey Breezy! Cool hair. That looks badass!"
She smiled and clasped her hands in her lap, hunching her shoulders and turning slightly away, trying to look bashful.
"Thank you. I just wanted to do something different. You don't see a lot of white chicks with dreads."
"It looks awesome. Really. It looks great."
"Where's Mack?"
She looked behind him as if his five-foot-eight inch frame might have somehow been concealing the six-foot-six teenager.
"He went home to see his mom. You know Mack. He's always been a momma's boy and proud of it."
Breezy laughed.
"I didn't know that. That's funny. Kinda cute actually. He acts like such a jerk sometimes, always talking about how big his dick is and who he wants to fuck. It's cool to know he has a soft side."
Jason nodded and looked away.
"Yeah, he loves his momma. Hey, are you coming to the Agnostic Front concert at City Gardens tonight? We could use a ride."
"Aren't the Circle Jerks playing too? I'll definitely be there."
"Cool. Do you know if Chris is coming?"
Breezy shrugged her shoulders.
"Who knows."
"What happened with you two? I thought you were tight."
"We were until he fucked my best friend."
"Were you two dating?"
"No. But he knew I liked him. So did Alexis."
"That's fucked up."
Breezy waved it off.
"I don't care. I hope they're happy together."
Jason grinned and nodded.
"I kind of got the impression it was a one night thing. She's not really his type. He likes skinny girls and Alexis is kind of..."
"Fat? Yeah, but she's got big titties and guys like that. That's why Mack was always trying to fuck her."
"Yeah, but Chris wants a girl that looks good on his arm. He likes Asian chicks 'cause he's all into Japanese Anime."
"Whatever. You want something to eat?"
"I thought you'd never ask."
Breezy turned her back to him and threw some meat on the grille.
"So what are you up to?"
Jason shrugged.
"Just hangin' out. I was gonna go see Padre and get some coffee."
"Tell him I said hi."
She flipped the burger patty a few times
, slapped some cheese on it then scooped it up and placed it on a bun. There was still oil and blood dripping from the sizzling meat and Jason preferred his well-done but beggars couldn't be choosers. Who knew when he'd get another meal.
"Thanks, Breezy."
He took a bite of the burger then cocked his head and looked at her.
"What?"
"You know, you look kind of hot with your hair that way."
"Oh, stop."
"No, seriously. You do. You look beautiful."
This time she blushed for real.
"Well thanks, Demon. I always thought you were cute."
Jason winked at her.
"That's 'cause I am."
He flirted with Breezy while he finished his burger. Every time she smiled at him he felt something flutter in his chest. He'd barely noticed her before but now he couldn't take his eyes off her. Even the freckles on her cheeks, her long pointy nose, and the mole on her neck looked beautiful to him. Her huge blue eyes and pale skin made her look like a porcelain doll.
"How come we never hooked up?" he asked her.
"Because you were too busy hooking up with everyone else. Besides, I thought you and Mack might have been hooking up."
"What? You thought I was gay?"
"No. I knew you liked girls. You and Mack were always bringing girls back to the squat. I just thought maybe you liked boys too. I mean, I thought you liked Mack."
Jason laughed. It sounded fake, even to him.
"You're crazy. I love Mack. He's like my brother. But that doesn't mean I want to fuck him. I mean, I tried that gay shit once, with this guy named Phoenix. I knew I wasn't gay the minute he kissed me. I kissed him. I wasn't into it. So, I walked the fuck away. That was it. That ended any confusion I had about my sexuality. I know who I am now."
Breezy held up her hands.
"I was just telling you what I thought."
"You asked."
"Yeah, I asked."
Jason took the last bite of his burger then stared at Breezy with a goofy smile on his face.
"What?" Breezy asked.
"We should date."