There were tears in her eyes now.
“Please get him out, Mr. Barnes. Please.”
We stood like that for a minute, facing each other but not touching. Then Larretta took some tissues out of her pocket and wiped her face and I said, “Let’s go see Anthony.”
* * *
Anthony was sitting up in bed watching TV when his mother and I walked into his room. The Steelers were on Monday Night Football, and he was watching an expanded pre-game show on ESPN. My first thought on seeing Anthony was that his father must be a fairly large individual, because Anthony was a lot bigger than his mother, probably about five-eleven and around a-hundred-and-sixty pounds. Larretta went over and leaned down and hugged him, then straightened up and turned back to me.
“Mr. Barnes, this is my son, Anthony. Anthony, this here’s my teacher I been tellin’ you about, Mr. Barnes.”
I walked over and put out my hand and said, “How do you do, Anthony.”
Anthony had smiled when he hugged his mother, but now there was a neutral expression on his face as he slowly gave me a handshake that could use some work.
“H’lo,” he sort of mumbled.
“Mr. Barnes was the best teacher I ever had, Anthony,” said Larretta.
If that piece of information moved him, Anthony did a masterful job of hiding it.
“You should see how he teaches Romeo and Juliet,” Larretta said.
Again, Anthony managed to contain his excitement.
“If you’d like,” I told him, “I could bring in some videotapes of several of my lectures. I call them the Best of Barnes. I’d even let you take notes and stuff and then see how you do on one of my tests.”
Anthony looked up at me then, and the neutral expression was gone. In its place was the same look of confusion I used to get when I was teaching, especially at the beginning of the year, when my students hadn’t yet grasped the, shall we say, subtleties of my personality. In Anthony’s case, I could see that he was trying to come to grips with the idea that I had videotaped my lessons and, even worse, was offering to share some of those gems with him.
“Hey,” I added, “don’t worry. I’ll bring the popcorn.”
Now the kid was really worried, because it was beginning to look as though I was serious about this English lesson/multiplex thing. His mom stepped in and saved him.
“Anthony, can’t you see he’s funnin’ with you? I told you Mr. Barnes was always crackin’ us up in class.”
“Uh-huh,” he said, slowly, still staring at me like I was something that didn’t quite fit into his reference bank. I’m used to that, though.
“How’s the head, Anthony?” I asked.
“S’okay,” he said. Then he glanced at my bandage and said, “I saw you at school today. You pulled them Gates offa me.”
“Gates?”
“Wingates,” he said. “Dudes attacked me be from the Wingate Projects.”
“The other gang,” I said, nodding. “And which gang are you with?”
“Anthony ain’t in no gang, Mr. Barnes,” Larretta interrupted. “Leastways, not no more.” Looking at her son, she added, “Right, Anthony?”
Anthony was back in neutral again.
“Right, Anthony?” Larretta repeated.
“Ma, I tole you before, you don’t unnerstand.”
I had the idea that this wasn’t the first time these two had had this conversation, and listening to them have it again didn’t strike me as a particularly productive endeavor for any of us, at least not at the moment.
“Larretta,” I said, “do you think I could talk to Anthony alone for a while?”
She stared at her son for another minute and than said, “Sure, Mr. Barnes. I think that’s a good idea” She walked over to the door, then turned back to look at us.
“Anthony, honey, you listen to Mr. Barnes, hear? He’s tryin’ to help you.”
Then she left.
“So which gang are you in, Anthony?” I asked again.
“I be with the Links,” he said. Seeing my confusion, he added, “Lincoln Avenue. Call ourselves the Links, like a chain-link fence, ya know? Only as strong as its weakest link. Ain’t none of us wanna be the weak link, so everybody be stayin’ strong.”
“When did you join the Links?”
Anthony gave me that look of extreme exasperation that teenagers save for adults who ask silly questions.
“Didn’t join the Links, man. We ain’t no fuckin’ fraternity, ya know.”
I noticed that the profanity came out only after his mother had left the room. Anthony wanted to see how I’d react, so I didn’t.
“Well, then,” I said, “how long have you been with the Links?”
He shrugged and said, “I dunno, probly since sometime last year.”
“Why are you with them?”
I didn’t have any particular destination yet with this conversation. I just wanted to keep Anthony talking, see what I could learn about him, the gang, whatever.
“You got to be with either the Links or the Gates,” he said.
“Why?”
“Man, you try walkin’ those streets by yourself sometime, see how long you last.”
“Okay,” I said. “You probably have a point there, at least from your perspective anyway. You like being in the Links?”
“Ain’t no like or not like about it,” he said. “Just is, that’s all.” After a pause, he suddenly said, “My mom says you’re a private detective.”
“She’s right,” I told him. “I left teaching about eight years ago.”
“You got a gun?” he asked.
“Yep.”
“Got it with you?”
“Nope. I’d heard how tough the nurses were here, but I figured my sense of humor would get me out of any trouble I ran into.”
He almost smiled, but he caught himself just in time.
“So how come you here?”
“Your mother asked me to come. She wants me to talk you into leaving the Links.”
“Ain’t gonna happen.”
“Not tonight,” I agreed. “That’s for sure.”
“How you think you gonna get me out the Links,” he asked, “when you don’t even know fuck about the gangs in the first place?”
And the thing of it is, he was right.
Chapter 14
I said goodnight to Anthony and walked down to the little waiting
