He pushed Damon.
“Look,” said Damon, staggering back slightly and throwing up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “You win. You rule this. I’m out.”
“Punk,” said D. Dog.
“Yep,” said Damon. “Peace.”
‘Just walk away.’
The rage and fear that he could feel building was so tangible he could taste metal in his mouth. D. Dog pushed him again, so hard that Damon stumbled.
“Heard you got punked out by my old rag doll,” taunted Dragon Dog.” “Told you about them sloppy seconds.”
Damon righted himself and looked around wildly at the crowd. Everyone seemed to be holding their collective breaths.
“Daddy’s baby!” taunted D. Dog. “Now you see him, now you don’t.”
Damon turned and started blindly walking away. All he wanted to do was escape. His stomach was cramping and his breath was coming in short sharp bursts. Damon’s vision blurred. He took a few steps, barely hearing the crowd murmuring before D. Dog spun him around by the shoulder, butterfly knife glinting in his other hand.
“Don’t you turn your back on me, punk,” D. Dog said, grabbing a hand full of Damon’s sweat shirt. He hauled Damon around by the right shoulder. Suppressed rage exploded through Damon’s body and he let momentum carry him around. Damon’s left fist connected with D. Dog’s jaw with a stunning blow that jarred his whole body. He heard the knife clatter to the floor. He caught D. Dog solidly under the right eye with the second punch and broke his nose. He could hear the cartilage crush under his fist and feel the blood start to gush as his knuckle split and D. Dog dropped to the floor like a stone.
“Don’t ever touch me again, Craig,” Damon said. Damon whirled around to see one of the Death Lords reach into his shirt.
“He’s got a gun!” someone screamed and the crowd scattered in panic.
“FREEZE! POLICE!”
Damon stood there expecting to die, unsure of why he didn’t feel sorrier about that.
Damon
“Damon?”
When Damon came back to himself, he was sitting in the back of a police squad car staring at the cage in front of him. He heard someone call his name but he couldn’t figure out where he was or what was going on.
“Damon!” This time the voice was peremptory and angry. He struggled to climb out of the stupor and focused on his mother’s voice.
“Yes, mama?” he asked.
“Are you all right?” She grabbed his elbow and pulled. He got out of the car.
He didn’t answer. He did not understand the question.
“Damon!”
He turned his head and saw her standing there with a police officer.
“Are you okay?” she asked, gently, tears in her eyes.
He nodded slowly, not certain why she was asking him that question. Now that he’d emerged from his stupor he noticed a beehive of activity. He was surprised to see that he was alive and standing next to the police car and that the police car was at the mall. There were two ambulances parked askew in front of the police car and Craig was being loaded into one of them. He couldn’t see who was on the other stretcher but the paramedics were moving quickly and efficiently. They loaded the stretcher into the second ambulance and took off, sirens blaring.
“What happened?” he asked his mother. His whole body felt tired and heavy.
She shook her head.
“Can he go, officer?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” said the officer to Mrs. Harris. “We just needed a parent to release him to since he is a minor. He’s been very cooperative. He’s answered all of our questions. He needs to come down to the station to make a statement, later.”
Damon looked around some more and was surprised to see his father talking to another police officer in front of the mall.
“What’s dad doing here?”
No one answered.
He turned back to the officer standing next to the police car.
“Am I under arrest?” he asked.
“No,” said the officer. “All of the witnesses, including mall security, already stated that you were the victim and that you tried to walk away from the scene several times. Pretty clear cut case of self-defense. We’ll need you to come down to the station to make a statement later, but for now, you’re free to go home with your parents. You probably want to stop by the hospital and get your hands looked at, though.”
Damon had subtly become aware of a dull ache in his hands. He looked down and saw that his right hand was bandaged and his left was splinted and bandaged.
“What happened?” he asked.
His father walked up to him.
“Was’ sup, Mike Tyson?” he asked.
“What happened?”
“As far as we can tell, one of the Death Lords got stabbed,” said his mother.
“By who?” asked Damon.
“They are trying to figure it out.”
“I didn’t do it?”
“Did you have a knife?”
“No.”
“Hard to stab somebody with no knife.”
“Oh, true.”
His mother led him to the car and opened the door for him. He got into the back seat and laid his head back, eyes closed. His eyes popped open as a thought occurred to him.
“Is Craig Frazier getting arrested?”
“After they take him to the hospital,” said his mother. “Something about possession of a firearm.”
“You fought somebody with a gun?” said his father. He shook his head.
Damon shrugged.
“He told me he was Ricky’s father,” said Damon.
His mother snorted. “Hope to God that’s not true. I wouldn’t wish that fool on anybody.”
“But what if he is?”
“It is what it is, “said his father. “You sure you all right?”
“Yes, sir.”
May
Sasha and Damon
“Why are you here Damon?”
The doorbell rang and Sasha went to answer it. She had just put Ricky down for his one hour catnap and was wiping the baby vomit off of the front of her favorite yellow top so she wasn’t really paying attention when she yanked open the door. If she had known he was going to be standing on the outside she would never have opened it. They both stood there, stupefied, staring at each
