waistband to retrieve the strap the vic pounced on him with all of his height and weight. Diamond went down as if he wasn’t even in the vic’s way. De, Tray Stone, and I moved with alacrity to aid the homie who was now being pummeled by the vic, who was screaming something about him working too hard for his shit. Somehow, Diamond managed to wiggle free of the vic. He did so on his own, because the head blows we were delivering to the vic seemed to do little. The man had gone stone crazy on us.
When Diamond jumped up, looking like a frightened boy who had just seen a ghost, he started backing away mouthing something that we could not catch. The vic began to turn his big frame in our direction. Tray Stone hollered for Diamond to “shoot him, shoot the muthafucka.” That’s when Diamond found his voice and screamed, “He got the strap!”
By then it was too late.
“Now,” the vic-turned-assailant said, “I’m gonna kill all you dirty, no-good little punks.”
All I could think about was
POW!
Good, I thought, he ain’t shootin’ at me. And then the second shot cracked.
POW!
And I’ll be damned if he didn’t hit me in the back. Two other shots cracked off and I presumed them to be at the others. In the meantime, I dove for cover.
Within minutes of being shot my whole right arm was numb and I couldn’t move it or my fingers. The shooting had stopped, but I was still reluctant to get out of my hiding place. My worst fear came from thinking about what the .22 bullet had done to me internally. All the stories of bullets traveling, ricocheting, and tearing up organs came rushing on me in every voice I had ever heard them in.
Suddenly I saw a shadow to my right and tensed. The shadow seemed to tense, too. Friend or foe? He must have thought the same thing I did, because simultaneously we both broke and ran. As I made distance I looked back. Shit, it was Diamond.
“Diamond,” I hissed, “over here, it’s me, Monster.”
Diamond doubled back huffing and puffing, still wearing his frightened-little-boy face.
“Oh, what’s up, cuz?”
“I’m hit,” I said with all the it’s-your-fault I could put into it.
“Damn, cuz,” Diamond said, now looking out from our hiding place like we were trapped in Khe Shan. “I’m sorry, homie, but that big—”
“Don’t sweat it,” I interrupted him. “We got to get away from here. I can’t move my arm.”
“Damn,” Diamond whispered with disgust.
“C’mon, cuz,” I instructed Diamond, “we got to move.”
We bailed out of our foxhole and into the lights of an on-coming car, Diamond waving his arms dramatically.
“Cuz, that’s a van,” I shouted. “It might be—”
“Muthafuckas!” was all we heard coming from the van. Then:
POW! POW! POW!
It was him all right, rolling on us. We darted to the left and ran through some apartment buildings, out the back, and onto Manchester Avenue. Once on Manchester we made our way over to the Boys Market parking lot. There we found Tray Stone and Crazy De. My entire right side now throbbed. With all the excitement making my heart pump faster I knew that I was losing a lot of blood.
Before I could say anything, Diamond told De and Stone that I was shot and that the man was rolling around looking for us. De looked like he was going to be sick. Stone kept mumbling threats about killing the man.
“We gotta get Monster to the hospital,” Diamond said, feeling responsible for my wounding.
“How we gonna do that?” De said. “You done let fool take the damn strap from you. How we gonna—”
“Man, fuck you, De!” Diamond shot back. “You seen cuz over me, what I s’posed to do? Huh? What?”
“Cuz, fuck it, just fuck it,” De said, waving Diamond off dismissively.
“Naw, ain’t no just ’fuck it’, ’cause you seem to—”
“HEY!!” I shouted. “I’m dying, man, we better do
Stone spotted the father of one of our homegirls and flagged him down. We piled into his car and Stone told him to take us to the hospital. I objected, to everyone’s surprise, and said to take me home. I had an irresistible longing to see my mother. Blue, our homegirl’s father, was driving at a slower than normal pace, leaning in the seat—obviously drunk—and listening to old down-home blues.
After several blocks of this, with us looking from one to the other in irritation, Crazy De leaned over, inches from Blue’s ear, and whispered, “Monster got shot tonight and we tryin’ to get him home. Now, if he dies in this car because yo’ old ass is drivin’ too slow, you gonna die in this car, too.” Then, more loudly, “NOW DRIVE!”
Blue drove so fast that I was scared we’d all die in an auto accident. He bent corners on two wheels, ran stop signs, and bullied his way through red lights. I don’t know if he was driving this way for me or him. Moments later we came to a screeching halt in front of my house. When we piled out, Blue looked relieved.
We knocked on the front door and Kerwin let us in. He and Mom sat at the front-room table eating.
“Mom,” I began with a stammer, “I’m shot.”
“Boy, get outta here with that damn foolishness, I ain’t got time for it.”
“No, I’m serious, I can’t move this arm,” I said, pointing to my right arm with my left hand. I felt like a small boy trying to convince Mom that I had scraped my knee without there being a hole in my pants leg.
“No, Mrs. Scott, he really is shot,” De said respectfully.
To this Mom balled up her napkin, threw it into her remaining food and said, “Shit, boy, you
“Let me see,” Kerwin said, getting up from the table.
“Man, fuck you!” I responded and sat down.
“What happened?” Kerwin asked, looking at the others, clearly not expecting an answer from me. But the homies already knew that Kerwin was a spy for Mom, so they said nothing. Every morning when I woke up I’d hear him in the front room telling Mom about things he had heard I’d done.
“Kody turned a party out on Eighty-fourth,” or “Kody shot such-and-such,” he’d say, so I knew not to tell him anything. If he heard it on the street, so what? It could be rumors.
When Mom came back up the hallway she had her keys, jacket, and purse with her.
“C’mon here, boy,” she said, and walked right past me out the door. When I went after her, the troops followed. “And where y’all think you goin’?” she said, primping herself. “I am sure not going to be riding around this city with the four of you. It’s bad enough that I got to ride with this one.”
I rolled my eyes to the moonless sky and saluted the homies with the Tray.
“Three minutes,” came their reply, and Mom and I were on our way. At the first corner she began in on me.
“Now what happened this time?”
“Nothin’,” I said sullenly.
“You don’t want to know,” I said, staring out of the window, trying to disengage.
“Kody, I need to know what happened. These people are not stupid. They are going to need an explanation to this shooting. Now what happened?”
“Is that why you wanna know, just so you can have an explanation for them?” I shot back. “What about you? You haven’t even asked me if I am hurtin’. No, you too busy fussin’ to show me love, to say somethin’ kind or nice. No, it’s always fuss, fuss, fuss.”
She gave no reply, just looked straight ahead. So I continued.
“You wanna know what really happened, Mom? Really?”
She didn’t answer.
“We went to take a van for a move and the dude took the gun from Diamond and shot me in the back.”
