Twelve and Nine: Part 3

Wally's mother gave him twelve dollars. She had him count it three times. A five; a two, two dollar coins, and four shillin. 'I could have di shillin?' he asked each time he finished counting, each time interrupting her grocery list. He knew it by heart by now though. It was the same thing every Saturday: Beans, flour, rice. She didn't tell him but he knew when he came back there'd already be a dead chicken on the table. It would be one of the chickens they let roam in the alleys. It would also probably be one of the ones he'd named, which was why he was going to the shop now, while she wring its neck. Eating his pets didn't bother him so much when he couldn't recognize them anymore. Once, though, his mother had made the mistake of scooping up a peel-neck fowl and dispatching it right in front of Wally. The boy cried for days.

“Yuh musn't tink ih soffy-soffy.” Explained Miss Pearl. She baked bread on Sundays and Wally's mother would always bring back a few loaves in exchange for some eggs, and some motherly advice. “The things dat po lee bwai done sih at such a young age? All the violence around here, and his father...Chile just feel good he still have some kinda consideration for gods creatures, yerr?” It was with this in mind that Wally's mother always included the four quarters. She didn't say it, but Wally set off for the shop every Saturday, knowing they were for him.

Jun-Jun knew where it was hidden. He'd seen it taken from its hiding spot and put back there countless times. It wasn't his. He didn't bother asking for it, he just took it. It was the same thing, every time. The boys would find him in front of the shop when they'd come to buy their papers. He'd have just managed to scrape up enough coins for something to eat when they'd hold him by the back of the neck and rifle through his pockets. And the only reason they got away with it was because they were older than him. Bigger. Closer to being called men. But Jun-Jun was already a man. They couldn't just disrespect him like that, just because they said they were from 'Back-a-alley' didn't mean they owned the damn place. They'd slap his face and cuff his head, but he wouldn't cry. He was a man. They had to respect him. He tucked it in his waist, under his shirt, and the weight of it made the back of his pants droop. They'd have to respect him.

Wally had the flour in its own bag hanging off the left side of the handlebars. He had the rice and the beans together in a bag hanging off the right side of the handlebars. He had seventy five cents worth of sweets overflowing his pockets and a long pink ideal hanging from his mouth. He was preparing himself in his head, getting ready to right himself on the two wheels and slowly start pedaling. The boys came up from behind him, walking in wide legged gates despite their baggy, sagging pants. As they walked past him, one on either side, one of them laughed. The other called out to him. “Peely-Batty-Pauly-Wally!” Wally smiled. The ideal dropped out of his mouth. He bent to pick it up.

Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! That's what it sounded like. That and the sound of scuffling feet. Of sudden, frantic screaming from the shop just behind them. There was the popping and then there was the sound of an entire neighborhood in panic. In uproar. There was the sound of running, then stumbling, then falling. The boys from Back-a-alley didn't even know what hit them. They didn't even see the shooter. They heard the pops and their brains instinctively told their feet 'Flee!' They only got a few yards before their lungs gurgled and spurted blood. Their hearts said 'No more. No more. No.' There were the pops, and then there was the sound of plastic bags hitting the ground, weighed down by so many pounds of flour, beans, and rice. There was the sound of a bicycle falling, spokes and pedals clattering. Chain rattling. Then there were the same sounds in reverse as Jun Jun snatched up the bike. He walked with it a few yards before getting on, and even then he pedaled slowly. Perhaps he was waiting for the sound of respect. The respect he deserved. It sounded like people screaming. It sounded like a little girl running through back alleys. Running to give a mother even more bad news. Wally was 12. Jun-Jun was 9.

Twelve and Nine: Part 2

Jun-Jun was nine years old.  His real name was Kenton.  His mother knew this.  It was also his father’s name, though his father was also called Junie.  Junie-K, to be exact, since there had to be something to distinguish him from Junie-B, Junie-C, Junie-J, and Junie-L.  The five Junies made up the head of the “Back-a-alley Gang”, and had, through a matter of technicalities, been born the day Junie-K was born, which, incidentally, was also the day his father, Kenton Wallace, died. 

While most people blamed the state of affairs in the back alleys on the gang, even Kenton Wallace, when he was alive, could tell you that things were always bad.  The families that lived there had been put there; set aside like a pen or a set of keys that were sure to be lost, by the government after a hurricane had destroyed their previous homes.  They’d built ‘temporary’ shelters; quick, piecemeal wooden bungalows that would keep the rain and other elements out, until they could properly rebuild their old neighborhood.  Years later, their old neighborhoods were memorial parks dedicated to those lost in that devastating storm.  Their temporary shelters had become permanent homes.  They all shared the same square plot of low, swampy land, which soon became a city block even though the swamp was still there, in the back yard that all these houses shared. 

When it rained water invaded the bungalow houses, barging in off the streets right in through their front doors, then settling in a little too comfortably among the rest of the muck at the back.  Inevitably, flies did the same, spawning mere feet away from the kitchens, sucking the life right out of them at night, spreading disease.  if the flies were bad, then the people who acted like flies were even worse.  Just like the mosquitoes, they rutted in full view of kitchen windows, and at night they preyed on the people who lived there.  Kenton Wallace could simply wave his hands over his wife’s swollen belly in the evenings and swatted them when they landed on her thighs.  In fact he took great pleasure in doing so.   He tried swatting a man one night.  The experience was considerably less satisfying.

He’d come into the kitchen for something cold to drink and as he stood naked in his own house he spotted a curtain move without breeze to blow it.  The curtain took off running, bursting through the broken back door it had come in through, and Kenton Wallace chased after it.  So great was his rage that he couldn’t be bothered to make a fist.  He swatted at the man with a heavy, flat palm.  The first time Kenton Wallace swatted him, the thief dropped a toaster oven.  The second time, it was a blender.  The third time that Kenton Wallace’s palm, tough as tree bark from his job at the saw mill, came down on the back of the burglar’s head the thief swung round and dropped a knife deep into the naked chest of his pursuer.  Kenton’s wife found him dead and, dropping to her knees, felt a warm water draining over her legs and puddle in a rut in the yard.  Junie-J, the oldest of the Back-a-alley gang, was twelve years old when Junie-K, the youngest, was born. 

The Junies grew older, and, tired of mosquitoes and men who acted like mosquitoes, they began filling the yards.  They brought dirt by the wheelbarrow full, from schoolyards, from river beds, from most places that were none of your damn business.  One day, Junie-L and Junie-C came bursting in with loads of sand they’d stolen from a construction site, along with a sign that read ‘Future Site of Barclay’s Bank’.  “We rich now!” they’d said.  “Dis da good ting!” 

They spread the sand in all the ruts and mosquito nests.  They leveled off the back yards and shored up the front yards too.  It was the boys that made the swamp disappear but, now free to walk from one house to the other, it was the women who’d actually formed the pathways and alleys.

The Junies started wearing black gloves and carried cricket bats and clubs.  “Time fi mek wi staat do some dirty work, fellas.”  Junie-J had told them while handing out the cloves.  “But that nuh means we fi get dirty too.”  They didn’t ask the mosquitoes where they came from.  If they found one, they swatted it.  They treated the strange faced men they found in the alleys the same way.  Occasionally, one of the Junies would leave the Alleys at night and not return.  Occasionally the police would come wandering through the alleys; either looking for one of the Junies to take away for years at a time, or to tell his family that he’d been taken by someone else.  There was always someone willing to take his place though; always some young bwai who wanted oh so badly to be a Junie.

Pretty soon there were no invaders in the yards and houses.  The only ones walking in through front doors unannounced were the people that had grown up there.  The only flies people found in their yards were lit roaches.  Junie-B bought a ticket to L.A. the day before the Police came to the Alleys looking for him.  The day after that, Jun-Jun was conceived in full view of his grandmother’s kitchen window.

I Could Call you Brother

(Also got an 'Aww' or two at Literary Night.)

Oh, what brown a face!
What a wide, well shaped nose.
You, my friend, were made a thing of beauty!
But you smell, quite strongly, of sweat and fatigue.
Is that what you were doing, perhaps, when I first saw you?
Lost in a field of high grass
Casting angry looks at the fruit cart.
And then you came charging along the path,
excitement in your eyes as if
you knew you'd done something wrong.
You blazed by me.
I could run with you
in the heat of mid day sun
and call you brother.
But only if I threw my human life away.

Oh, what brown a face.
What a wide, well shaped nose.
Don't you know you were made a thing of beauty?
But you shine, not brightly, sweat and frustration on your brow.
Is that how you were feeling, perhaps, when I first saw you?
Lost in a sea of bodies
until strong fingers snatched free a thin gold lace.
And then you came charging through the street,
hunger in your eyes although
you knew you'd done something wrong.
And you blazed by me.
I've seen your kind of hunger,
Brother.
I could run with you.
But only if I threw my life away.

For My Dawg (Very first draft)

Oh, what brown a face!
What a wide, well shaped nose.
You, my friend, were made a thing of beauty!
But you smell, quite strongly, of horse manure.
Is that what you were doing, perhaps, when I first saw you?
Lost in a field of high grass
All four legs in the air.
And then you came charging along the path,
excitement in your eyes as if
you knew you'd done something wrong.
and you blazed by me.
I could run with you
in the heat of mid day sun
and call you brother.
But only if I threw my human being away.

Oh, what brown a face.
What a wide, well shaped nose.
Don't you know you were made a thing of beauty?
But you shine, quite strongly, from the sweat on your brow.
Is that what you were doing, perhaps, when I first saw you?
Lost in a sea of bodies
until strong fingers snatched free a golden lace.
And then you came charging through the street,
hunger in your eyes although
you knew you'd done something wrong.
And you blazed by me.
I've seen your kind of hunger,
Brother.
I could run with you.
But only if I threw my being away.