“Nah, uh-uh.”
“Why not?”
“Dewayne and Zulu wanted you to hold the gun, they would’ve put it in your hand.”
“Damn, boy, why you do me that way?” Jones looked over at his friend. “Feels good to have it, though, right?”
“Yeah,” said Long. “I dare a motherfucker to start some shit out here tonight.”
JAMES and Jeremy Coates had been drinking and smoking hydro since the afternoon, and now James was getting stupid behind it, daring other drivers at stoplights with his eyes, flashing that kill-grin he had, shit like that. Jeremy had seen him get like this too many times before, but he knew better than to comment on it, and anyway, Jeremy’s head was all cooked, too.
James called himself J-1 and Jeremy called himself J-2. They had argued briefly over who would get the number one designation at the time they had come up with the names. James had won the argument, since he was the older of the two.
They had been driving around for an hour or so, looking for girls, rolling up in the usual spots, the Tradewinds and other places in PG, but as yet had found no luck.
The cousins had not done well with D.C. women. They were not attractive in any way, though they did not know this or would not admit it, and they had not yet found their sense of city style. So if they had women at all, they usually had to buy them with money or drugs. Sometimes, if the girl was game, and sometimes even if she was not, they would share a girl or scare one enough to give herself up.
Often they couldn’t even tempt a girl into the car with cash or cocaine. This had been one of those nights. James and Jeremy looked an awful lot alike: Both were small and wiry, with bulbous noses and thyroid-mad eyes, and when they were high and sweaty like they were now, it scared girls some to look at them. Scary or no, the Coateses didn’t like to be turned down. James especially, when he wanted some of that stuff and couldn’t get it, he got mean.
They were driving through Washington Highlands on Atlantic, going over the drainage ditch of Oxon Run. Jeremy was under the wheel of their beige-over-tan ’91 240SX, shifting into third on the five- speed as he pushed the car up the hill. It was a four-cylinder rag, but they hadn’t known that or even asked about it when they’d bought the car. It had a spoiler on the back of it, and it looked kinda like a Z, so they had figured the ride was fast.
“Boulay bookoo chay abec moms, ses-wa,” sang James as he turned the radio up high.
“Turn that bullshit down,” said Jeremy. He reached for the volume dial and heard a horn sound as the 240 swerved into the oncoming lane. He brought the car back to the right of the line.
“That’s French, yang,” said James. “Talkin’ about the Moolong Rooge. They be sayin’, Do you want to fuck with my moms? or sumshit like that.”
“I don’t give a fuck what they be singin’ about. Sounds like they’re screamin’ more than singin’, you ask me.”
“Which one of them bitches from the video you like the best?”
Jeremy Coates screwed his face up into a grimace as he thought it over. “Not the white bitch, I can tell you that. No-ass bitch, looks like a chicken with those legs comin’ out her like they do. I guess Maya, I had to choose.”
“I like Pink. Pink has got some ass on her, yang.” James smiled. “I bet it’s pink inside, too.”
“Shit, even a mule is pink inside.”
“You ought to know. Remember that time I came up on you on the farm, back in Georgia?”
“
“I ain’t see no brush.”
“I was washin’ it.”
“Yeah, looked like you was waxin’ it, too.”
“Aw,
James laughed. He punched his cousin on the shoulder and got no response. Jeremy turned right on Mississippi. As he did, the batch of little tree deodorizers hanging from the rearview swung back and forth.
“We goin’ to see the Six Hundred boys?” said James.
“Thought we’d drive by and see what’s what.”
“I saw that Jerome Long outside a club last night with a girl. Girl was laughin’, lookin’ at him like she was lookin’ up at Taye Diggs or sumshit like that.”
James had a beef with Nutjob Long, who had looked at him the wrong way and smiled one night at a club. Long was known to be good with the women. James Coates hated Long for that, too.
James pulled a gun up from under the seat. It was a 9mm Hi-Point compact with a plastic stock and alloy frame, holding eight rounds in its magazine. The gun was a starter nine, popular with young men because of its low price. James had traded a hundred and twenty dollars’ worth of marijuana to get it. He fondled the gun as he held it in his lap.
Jeremy looked down at the gun, then back at the road. “Damn, boy, you ought to be ashamed to be holdin’ some cheap shit like that.”
“It shoots.”
“And a Geo gets you from place to place, too. You don’t see me drivin’ one, do you?”
“I’m gonna get me one of those Rugers next.”
“Sure you are.”
James looked through the windshield at the elementary school, coming up on their left. “Slow this piece down, yang. I want them to see us while we pass.”
They cruised slowly by the school. They ignored the kids who were selling on the street and the lookouts riding their bikes, and they stared hard up the hill toward the two young men standing by the flagpole. James made sure the young men could see his smile.
“That’s Long,” said James. “That’s his boy Lil’ J up there beside him, too.”
“So?”
“So keep on going a few blocks, then turn this motherfucker around and bring it back. Drive past ’em a little faster this time.”
“Tell me what you doin’ before you do it, hear?”
“We’re in their house, right?”
“Yeah, we in it.”
“We’re just gonna announce ourselves, then.”
Jeremy gave the Nissan gas. James pulled back the receiver on the Hi-Point and laughed. They were having fun.
“THAT’S them,” said Jerome Long as the Nissan went down the block. “That’s those cousins from the Yuma.”
“They be tryin’ to mock us,” said Allante Jones.
“They can try.”
“You see all those little trees they got swingin’ from their mirror?”
“And that spoiler, too.”
“Like it’s gonna make that hooptie go faster. Next thing they gonna do is paint some flames on the sides.”
“ ’Bamas,” said Long.
The taillights on the Nissan flared as the car slowed down.
Jones squinted. “Looks like they’re stopping.”
