“What about me?” John frowned. “Don’t I get a gun?”
“No,” Sherm told him. “You’re driving the getaway car.”
“Cool! Now that’s what I’m talking about.”
“Two hundred bucks? Sherm, all I’ve got is this last paycheck and I just deposited it this afternoon.”
“So? You got an ATM card, right?”
“Yeah, but we needed that money for bills. What the hell am I gonna tell Michelle if she finds out I spent it?”
“Dude, think about it. In less than a week, you’ll have all the money you need to pay the bills. All the money you fucking need . . .”
He flipped open his cell phone and made a call. John ate his slice of pizza and I smoked. Ice Cube’s “Until We Rich” played softly, the lyrics matching the echoes of what Sherm had said. Finally, Sherm snapped his cell phone shut and poked John in the back of the head.
“Let’s go, boys. We’re taking a trip to York. He’s got what we need.”
* * *
Halfway to York, as we stopped at an ATM machine, I felt the world closing in on me. I coughed blood, spat it out, and grimaced at the rawness in my throat. It felt like somebody had sandpapered my insides.
While Sherm and John waited impatiently in the car, I fumbled my wallet out of my pocket. My fingers didn’t seem to work properly. They felt thick and swollen. I fished out the card and slid it into the slot. The machine asked me for my pin number and it took me two tries to get it right. I entered the amount for withdrawal. Two hundred dollars.
It asked me if that was the correct amount. I pressed YES.
It asked me to please wait while it dispensed my cash.
As the bills, all twenties, rolled out of the machine, I knew there was no turning back. I’d lied to my wife about the cancer, and now I was going behind her back like this with the money, draining our account. Sure, in the long run, I was doing it for her and T. J., but it was still fucked up. And now, on top of everything else, we were going to go buy guns with the cash. Just like real-life gangsters.
I put the money in my wallet and crammed the wallet into my back pocket. It felt heavy, like it was made out of lead.
No turning back now, I thought.
The enormity of it all hit me then, and for the next few minutes, I forgot all about the fact that I was dying.
I looked up at the moon, pale and cold and lifeless, and saw my face in its reflection.
“No turning back now . . .” the moon whispered.
I got back into the car and slammed the door. It sounded like a gunshot, and John and Sherm both jumped. A gunshot— or a closing coffin lid.
Sherm fired up a bowl and passed it up to me. I inhaled, trying not to choke— and trying to ignore the bad feeling in my gut. A feeling that had nothing to do with cancer.
SEVEN
So what’s this guy’s name again?” I asked Sherm as we drove into the city.
“Wallace.”
“Is that his first name or his last name?”
Sherm shrugged. “I don’t know. Never asked the dude. I just know him as Wallace. That’s what everyone in his crew calls him.”
We rolled down West Market Street, past crumbling brownstones and crack houses, abandoned factories and burned-out apartments, tattoo parlors and seedy bars. York is a small city, but it has the crime rate of a big metropolitan area. If you look on a map, it sits right in the middle of things, an hour or less from Baltimore and Harrisburg, and within a few hours’ drive of Philadelphia, Washington, DC, Pittsburgh, and New York. This makes it ideal for drug gangs, mostly crews from New York City and North Philly, but some from as far away as Chicago and Detroit. Back in the day, the Greek Mafia had controlled most of York’s crime, but those days are gone— old and feeble like the men who made them, men who were now serving life terms upstate. Their children had turned their backs on a life of organized crime, and the families died out, replaced by the gangbangers.
John turned onto South Queen Street. A drunken Hispanic woman lurched in front of the car and he swerved to avoid her. She shot him the finger, shrieked something in Spanish, and stumbled on. He sank down in the seat, turning off the Cypress Hill disc we’d been jamming to.
“Sherm,” he whispered, “we’re the only white people down here.”
“Chill, John. You don’t fuck with nobody and nobody will fuck with you.”
“What’s the big deal, John?” I asked. “You’ve been to downtown York plenty of times.”
“Yeah, but not late at night like this. We could get carjacked or something. Mugged. It’s kind of scary, isn’t it?”
Sherm snorted. “No way in hell somebody is gonna jack you for this piece of shit.”
We stopped at another traffic light. The car stereos around us competed for supremacy, melding into one solid bass line. On the corner, some kids played in a puddle, long after they should have been in bed. Rough-looking women, possibly their mothers, leaned into car windows, flashing cleavage and haggling over the cost of blow jobs. I missed Michelle and T. J. and I wanted to be home with them, not driving around in the ghetto, looking for guns. I felt tired— and sick. There was blood in my throat and the taste was nauseating.
John looked back at Sherm. “What’s the address again?”
“Forty-two. Two-story brick up here on the right. But he doesn’t do business in his crib. We’re supposed to meet him in the alley out back.”
“How come?” I asked.
“He’s got kids and shit, man. He doesn’t mix business and home life.”
“Oh, a drug dealer with principles . . .”
“Yo, how often do you smoke weed, Tommy?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Once or twice a week maybe. Tonight. Whenever you bring it around, I guess.”
“That’s right. And where the fuck do you think I get it from? You think I just pick it up at the grocery store?”
“Okay, point taken.”
“Hey,” John piped up, “since you got cancer, now you can smoke all the weed you want, right? I think it’s legal if you got cancer. Isn’t it supposed to help keep you from throwing up and shit?”
“Shut up, Carpet Dick!” Sherm and I said at the same time.
John parked the car under a broken streetlight and we got out. Crack vials and shattered glass crunched under our feet. I kicked a dirty diaper out of the way. The graffiti on the house next to us said PROSPER C. JOHNSON & THA’ GANGSTA DISCIPLES and 630 ROOSEVELT
CRU and NSB RULZ, and wished that someone named Donny B. would rest in peace. The air smelled like spoiled milk. Somebody hollered something unintelligible. In the distance, a baby screamed, and was answered by the mournful wail of a police siren. A feral cat glared at us from behind a trash can.
Sherm pointed a finger at John. “Now listen up. You keep quiet, Carpet Dick. I mean it! These guys don’t fucking play.”
John gave him a two-fisted thumbs-up sign, then grabbed his nut sack when Sherm turned away. Rolling my eyes, I motioned for him to follow us.
We stepped off the curb and crossed the street. Halfway across, the light changed to green and the traffic surged toward us from both directions. John froze like a deer caught in headlights as the cars bore down upon him. A horn blared, then another, as somebody shook their fist through the driver’s side window.
“Get out the road you stupid motherfucking wigger!”
He started to raise his middle finger but I ran back, grabbed his wrist, and dragged his ass across.
“This is Sherm’s play. Don’t fuck it up. Just keep quiet and don’t do or say anything, okay?”
He nodded.
We followed along behind Sherm and approached the alley. Two black guys, both a few years younger than
