“And that provoked the Gates into the payback situation at the school last Monday,” I said.
“Be my guess,” said Asaan. His expression grew hard for a minute. “Took me a long time to get the gangs to agree to declare the school neutral turf, no fighting there. Now, I’m afraid we might have to start all over. Even worse, word is that both sides are getting ready to ratchet things up a bit.”
“That’s what I heard, too,” I said. “Anything you can do about it?”
“I’m meeting with the Gates kids later today, try to get them to commit to a cooling-off period. As for the Links, that’s still up in the air. T-Man said he’d meet with me, maybe, but he refused to make any promises.”
I stood, and so did Asaan.
“I don’t want to take any more of your time,” I said. “Thanks for the information.”
“Whaddya gonna do?” he asked.
“Talk to Anthony and his mother,” I said. “See if I can get a handle on this thing, whether Anthony even knows what he wants to do.”
“Well,” he said, extending his hand across the desk, “good luck. Let me know if I can help.”
I assured him that I would, and I walked out of his office and over to the front door, where I thanked Tiffany again, and then I walked out into the chilly morning and got in my new car and drove away.
So, Anthony, I thought, is you is or is you isn’t?
Chapter 23
As I drove away from the center, I thought about Asaan and Anthony and Franklin High School and the gangs. And scones. Food is never far from my mind, and I didn’t have anything else to do at the moment, so I drove home and parked the Camry in my driveway and walked to Starbucks. I can think and eat at the same time, a skill that I have demonstrated on numerous occasions. No need not to do so again.
Irv wasn’t on duty, and I knew the place would be busy soon with the lunch crowd, so I just grabbed a latte to go and a cranberry scone and sat on a bench outside and people-watched for a while. Nobody who walked by me seemed particularly impressed with my thinking-and-eating performance, so eventually I got up and went home. It wasn’t that I was upset with the citizens of Shadyside for failing to acknowledge my accomplishment, just that, like all true artistes, I have my pride.
There weren’t any messages on my machine, and I didn’t have any e-mail. I looked at my watch. It was one-thirty. Anthony Warren was probably still in the gang. Did he want to be? If not, could I help him get out? And even if I could, should I? Probably best to tackle those questions in order, so I called Home Depot and asked to speak to Larretta Warren. After about two minutes, she came on the line.
“Hi, this is Larretta.”
“Larretta, this is Jeremy Barnes.”
“Oh, hi, Mr. Barnes. You callin’ about our pre-season sale on snow-throwers?
“Some other time,” I laughed. “Listen, Larretta, I’d like to talk with Anthony again. When do you think would be a good time?”
“How ‘bout today? He’s usually home by three o’clock, so you could stop by our place, if that would be okay.”
“That would be fine,” I said, and she gave me the address and we hung up.
There. I was making progress already.
* * *
At a little before three, I drove one block past Franklin High and hung a right onto Patterson Avenue. Larretta and Anthony lived about four blocks down, and as I drove along Patterson, I couldn’t help but notice the changes in the neighborhood since my teaching days. Fifteen or twenty years ago, the area had been a stronghold of lower-middle to middle-class families, working people who went to church and paid their taxes and taught their kids to respect their elders. Then the gangs moved in. At first, the people in the community resisted, employing the usual tactics: block watches, town hall-type meetings, complaints to the politicians and police, all of which, ultimately, did little good. The gangs were ruthless and relentless, while the response from the authorities was too little and too late. Eventually, those who could, fled to other areas of the city or, in some cases, the suburbs, stripping the neighborhood of its middle-class base, which just exacerbated the problem. By the time the city was finally able to get rid of the gangs, most of the damage to the homes, and their residents’ psyches, had been done. In the intervening years, the area had pretty much stagnated.
As I searched for the address Larretta had given me, I was aware of the almost total absence of any people on the block. No adults running errands, no kids playing outside, no delivery trucks. And all the windows were covered by blinds or curtains or, in a couple of places, pieces of cardboard. I realized that there was something else absent here: hope.
Larretta’s house was one of several in a row of small, two-story homes made of mustard-colored bricks. The tiny lawn in front of Larretta’s place, unlike those of some of her neighbors, was freshly mowed, and there were rows of impatiens growing along both sides of the short stone walkway that led to the front porch. The flowers were colorful, and I couldn’t decide if their overall effect was to brighten the surroundings or simply accentuate the general drabness of everything else in the area.
I parked in front of 1329 Patterson and got out of my car. Anthony was on his front porch.
So were five other guys.
* * *
I walked up to the bottom of the steps. Anthony and the others were all wearing jeans and black tennis shoes and black T-shirts under dark-colored jackets. Everybody also had a dark red bandana wrapped around the top of his head.
