lots strewn with rubble and garbage. Tenements stood here and there, listing like punch-drunk boxers. The pediments above each door had been stripped away along with any brass or metal trim, drainpipes, mail slots, street numbers — anything that could plausibly be carried off and sold. Someone had erected a chainlink fence around one of these buildings to define a sort of yard; scumbles of garbage were caught in it like fish in a drift net.
‘These row houses used to stretch for miles,’ Kelly said. ‘Used to be a nice place. Italians lived here, Irish, Jews. They all got out.’
We passed the Winthrop Village housing project, a cluster of concrete bunkers set in a landscaped park. A Boston Housing Authority Police cruiser sat idling near the entrance, and the cop, an enormous black guy with a badass goatee and wraparound shades, watched us drive past.
Kelly pointed to graffiti, the same insignia recurring over and over: two interlocking letters, MP, artlessly spray-painted in childish lettering. ‘Braxton’s crew,’ Kelly said. ‘Mission Posse.’ The Posse had tagged everything: MP on telephone poles, MP on sidewalks, they’d even painted over street signs with it.
‘Pull in here, Ben Truman.’ Kelly was pointing at a little market called Mal’s. ‘I want to use the phone.’
Kelly disappeared into the store, and after flipping through the radio stations for a minute, I decided to get out of the car, take in the sunshine and the view. There was not much to look at. The oatmeal shade of the sidewalk nearly matched Mal’s storefront. Even the signs in the window had been bleached by the sun. I stood on the sidewalk, crossing and uncrossing my arms, leaning and unleaning against a parking meter.
People stared. A kid hanging in a doorway, sagging against the doorjamb like an empty set of clothes. An overweight woman in Adidas shower sandals. Were they staring? What were they staring at? Mine was the only white face on the street — was that enough to draw attention?
The kid draped in the doorway roused himself to approach me. His face was the color of caramel, almost as fair as my own. He wore new-out-of-the-box white sneakers and a loose hockey-style shirt that hung off his bony shoulders.
A second kid joined him. A huge, plump kid I had not noticed before.
There was a cretinous quality about him. He had narrow eyes incised into a bloated, doughy face.
‘What are you waiting for?’ the first kid said.
‘Just waiting on a friend. He’s inside.’
The kid studied me, as if my answer were suspicious.
‘This is a nice car,’ the slit-eyed guy said.
The first kid was still staring at me. ‘You got any money?’
‘No.’
‘We need some money to go to the store.’
‘Sorry’
‘You lost?’
‘No. I told you, my friend is in the store.’
‘All we need is like a dollar,’ said Slit Eyes.
‘I told you-’
‘Come on, a dollar?’
I gave them a one-dollar bill.
‘Thought you didn’t have any money’
‘I didn’t say that. I said I wasn’t giving you any’
‘Only now you did. You gave us some.’
‘So?’
‘So, a dollar? That’s like, why don’t you just give us a fuckin’ penny?’ The skinny kid watched me for a reaction. ‘Come on, you got a whole walletful. I just seen it. We need it to go to the store.’
‘No. Sorry’
‘We need to get something to eat.’
‘Yeah,’ agreed Slit Eyes, ‘something to eat.’
‘I’m not giving you any more.’
‘Why not? I told you, we need it.’
I shook my head. Maybe it was time to announce that I was a cop. But these were just kids, it was under control. Besides, I was not a cop here. I was outside my jurisdiction, I had no police powers. Just another tourist. ‘I gave you a buck, fellas. That’s all you’re gonna get.’
Slit Eyes edged beside me. ‘But I just seen your wallet.’ He was taller and heavier than me. His eyelids squeezed tight as clams.
‘Come on,’ the first kid wheedled, ‘just help us out.’
He stepped toward me, not aggressively — or maybe it was aggressively, I’m still not sure. I raised my hand to hold him away. My five fingertips pressed lightly on his breastbone.
‘Hey, don’t touch me!’ the skinny kid said softly. ‘You don’t want to get physical.’
‘I’m not getting phys-’
Slit Eyes cut me off: ‘Hey, yo, don’t go getting physical. There’s no need.’
‘Look, you asked for a buck, I gave it to you.’
‘Yeah,’ the skinny kid said, ‘but now you went and started getting physical. What’s up with that?’
‘I didn’t get physical.’
‘Have I disrespected you?’
‘No.’
‘No, we’re just talking here. I just asked you for some help. How come you’re all mad?’
‘I’m not mad.’ I pulled my hand back down. ‘I’m asking you nicely now, respectfully: Step back.’
‘It’s a public sidewalk. You think you can tell me where to go just ’cause I asked you for help? It’s like that? I got to step back because you gave me a whole dollar?’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘You thought it. I can see.’
‘I didn’t think anything.’
‘Yes, you did.’ The skinny kid reached out and tapped my front pants pocket with his knuckles, apparently to feel my wallet.
I brushed his hand away, gently. ‘Don’t touch me.’
‘Hey! I told you, you don’t have to push. I’m just talking to you.’
Kelly emerged from the little market. He glanced at the three of us, then said, in a peremptory way, ‘Come on, Ben, we don’t have time to fool around. I want to see my daughter.’ He brushed between us and climbed into the passenger seat. ‘Well? Let’s go.’
I stepped around the two kids without a word, and they offered not a word to me.
‘It’s like another country,’ I said in the car, but Kelly did not respond, and saying it did not dispel my uneasiness.
12
Mission Flats District Court, First Session.
By 12:45, Judge Hilton Bell was no longer sitting at the judge’s bench but pacing behind it, his black robe unzipped to the navel. The judge had been processing arraignments since nine o’clock sharp, and still his courtroom was packed. There were occasional shouts of protest from the holding cells in the basement; they, too, were still crowded.
I sat on a front bench, wedged between an armrest and a young woman who smelled, not unpleasantly, of Dune perfume and armpit. For reasons I can’t begin to explain, this woman clutched a plastic baggie containing dark curls of what appeared to be human hair.
(John Kelly had the good sense to avoid the courtroom. He waited outside on the street, where it was cooler.)
