Drive-By (3 page)

M
rs. Washington’s house doesn’t look like it from the outside, but it has two bedrooms upstairs. The walls slant and the windows jut out on the roof.

Mrs. Washington gave one upstairs room to me and the one across the hall to Mina. The rooms smelled of mothballs and Lysol spray, but even that couldn’t cover the old smells of heat and dust.

I opened the window and hoped Mom didn’t see. She’d make me close it so I wouldn’t catch a cold. I think she really just felt better with the windows locked.

Mom had put my clothes in two drawers and in the closet. She’d even tacked my G.I. Joe posters on the walls even though I’d outgrown them.

I had never had my own bedroom.

Then I noticed Jimmy’s clothes were gone.

“Mom, where is Jimmy’s stuff?”

“I’m going to give it to people who need it more,” she said.

“There’s no one in the world who needs it more than I do,” I said.

She looked at me curiously as if she was going to cry. I didn’t want her to cry. Not again. I knew Jimmy would be mad at me if she did.

Then she smiled and said, “You’re right. Help me carry the boxes up to your room.”

Mom and I each carried a box up to my new room. Mina carried a shoe box filled with track medals and shoelaces and a stop watch.

Later, Mina and I went through the boxes. Jimmy didn’t have much. He never got all the things he wanted. Jimmy always said he wanted money so he could hear life sing. He thought money made life better.

I looked in the first box, stuffed with T-shirts and jeans, and wondered how money or things could make life better. Maybe in the end Jimmy knew his life was singing with the way he made everyone laugh. I hoped he did.

I slept in Jimmy’s old Raiders T-shirt. Mina slept with his track medals clutched in her hands.
A princess needs treasures, I guess.

That night something woke me. I sat up in bed, listening.

Spider had his nose on the windowsill, whining as if something had scared him.

When I was little, I woke up in the night. Many times. Because I thought I heard Dad coming home. He left when Mina was born. He couldn’t take living here. He said if he had to be poor, he’d rather be poor in Tennessee, where he didn’t have to breathe smog all day long. Mom wouldn’t go back to Tennessee with him. She had dreams about a new life here in Los Angeles. She didn’t want Jimmy and me to grow up and work in the mines.

I wondered if she had told Dad about Jimmy or if she even knew where Dad lived now.

I don’t think about Dad the way I used to.

I stared at the dark and wondered if I would forget Jimmy the same way.

I promised myself that I would think about Jimmy at least once a day for the rest of my life.

Spider whined again.

A car door slammed.

I crept out of bed and looked out the window.

The blue Oldsmobile was parked in front of our old house.

Spider licked my hand. I kept scratching him behind his ear, trying to keep him quiet.

Lamar and Ice Breaker Joe stood on the sidewalk. The guy in the baseball cap, the one who wore the bandanna across his face like a bandit, used a crowbar to break open the front door to my old house.

They went inside.

A fourth guy stayed at the car and looked up and down the street, watching.

I didn’t know if I should call the police or wake Mom.

Before I could decide, they ran back outside.

They jumped in the car and drove away. I wondered what they’d been doing inside. The house was empty.

Spider seemed okay then and jumped on my bed. I spent the rest of the night with paws poking my back.

I didn’t sleep much. I couldn’t figure why they broke into the house. What were they looking for? How did Detective Howard know they weren’t after me, or my mom or Mina?

I shivered.

It wasn’t cold air from the open window that made me shiver.

I was afraid.

W
hen I woke up the next morning, sunlight hit my face. I had forgotten how happy early-morning sunshine made me feel. In my old room, boards covered the broken window.

Spider was barking in the backyard. He must have thought he was a rooster.

I jumped out of bed and pulled on my jeans. I took one of Jimmy’s T-shirts from the box. The shirt hung down to my knees. I liked the style. Mom wouldn’t let me buy shirts that big, but I didn’t think she’d tell me I couldn’t wear Jimmy’s.

Mina was dressed for kindergarten. She sat in front of the TV, eating Rice Krispies with too much sugar and watching Nickelodeon.

I warmed milk and poured it over buttered toast. I like milk toast better than cereal.

Mom had already left for work.

I ate milk toast and watched Mrs. Washington peel apples at the sink. I hoped that meant she was baking an apple pie. She sang while she worked. Her voice was rich and thick, and I didn’t want to stop her song with my stupid questions about pie.

When Mina and I went outside to walk to school, Zev waved from his front yard.

He carried his books in a small suitcase. He wore a black jacket and a white shirt tucked in. His black shoes shone. How was he ever going to make friends when his mom made him dress like an old man?

I tossed my backpack over my shoulder.

“Hi, Tito,” Zev said. “Do you want to play after school?”

“I can’t today,” I lied.

Zev went to another school across town. His mom thought our school was too violent. The first week after his family arrived in the United States, his mother paid me a dollar to ride the Metro with Zev so he wouldn’t get lost. He had to wear a little cap all the time. Mom told me it was a yarmulke, and that he wore it because he was
Jewish. I thought he’d get into fights over it, but no one seemed to mind at his school.

Mina and I waved good-bye and started off. I liked the sound Jimmy’s tennis shoes made on the sidewalk.

When we were halfway to school, Mina asked, “Where do dragons live?”

“Where did you hear about dragons?” I asked, trying to think of an answer.

“On TV. A knight has to slay a dragon for me.”

“Do you know what slay means, Mina?”

She looked at me in a way that meant she didn’t.

“It means kill,” I said.

She thought for a minute. “I’ll ask my knight to put the dragon in a zoo then.”

“Good,” I said. “Dragons live on Komodo Island.”

She looked at me to see if I was teasing.

The Komodo dragon isn’t really a dragon, just a large lizard. A lizard ten feet long that weighs three hundred pounds and has clawed feet and a forked tongue is close enough, so I wasn’t really lying.

When we got to Big Molly’s Diner, I saw the front end of a blue Oldsmobile parked at the side of
the building. I was sure it was the same car I saw last night. I wanted to find out who the other guy was, the one who wore the bandanna tied across his face.

“Mina, wait here. I’m going inside. I’ll only be a minute. Promise me you won’t go anywhere.”

She nodded and leaned against a brick planter.

I went inside. Ice Breaker Joe and Lamar sat in a booth, stuffing Big Molly’s special scrambled eggs, made with onions and hot green chili peppers, into their mouths.

I took a step closer to see if there was anyone else in the booth with them.

That’s when I felt someone tug on my shirt. I turned around. Mina stood behind me.

“Mina, I told you to wait outside,” I whispered.

“I got scared about dragons,” Mina said.

Mina stared at a plate of French fries soaking in country gravy. The man seated at the counter eating the fries put his newspaper between Mina and his breakfast as if he thought Mina was going to steal his precious fries.

I took her hand. We went to the telephone near the bathrooms. I punched 911. I wasn’t even sure what I was going to say. I couldn’t say these guys
broke into an empty house last night. Did that sound like a crime, with everything else that was happening?

I was ready to hang up when Lamar saw me.

He looked directly at me. He stood and walked toward me, his eyes half closed, trying to scare me.

It worked.

Ice Breaker Joe followed him.

I dropped the phone receiver.

“Go on to school, Mina,” I whispered.

She’s always wandering away, but now when she should have run, she stayed next to me. She must have thought she was watching Nickelodeon.

Lamar stood over me, big and tall and mean.

“How’s Jimmy’s business?” Lamar said with his onion-smelling breath.

“What do you mean?”

“I said how is Jimmy’s business?”

Ice Breaker Joe laughed. His chipped teeth looked yellow and rotted.

“Run, Mina, run,” I whispered.

She grabbed my shirt instead and twisted her hand in it.

I grabbed Mina’s hand and dove into the women’s rest room.

I thought going into the women’s rest room would stop Lamar.

Lamar followed me in.

I’ve never heard a door bang so loudly against a wall.

L
amar stared at me.

“You and me, we got business,” he said.

Then the door banged open again, hitting the same tile Lamar had broken seconds before.

Dust and pieces of tile fell to the floor.

Ice Breaker Joe jumped into the rest room, grabbed Lamar’s arm, and jerked him out.

Sirens broke the morning air.

I had forgotten that when you dial 911 and leave the phone off the hook, computers give the location to the police department.

Tires squealed outside.

Sirens grew louder, then more distant. I guessed the cops were chasing the blue Olds. I waited with Mina. I didn’t know what to do.

Mina solved the problem.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” she said.

“Now?” I asked. Dumb question. “Okay. I’ll wait.”

I figured if I left the women’s rest room now, I’d be in trouble anyway.

Mina entered a stall, and I sat on the sink counter.

I began to think maybe I was imagining all kinds of things. Was it just an overactive imagination? Did Lamar really ask me about Jimmy’s business? What did that mean?

What kind of business did he have with me?

Maybe the words didn’t mean what I thought they meant. Gangbangers make up new meanings to words. That way no one but their own gang members can understand what they’re talking about.

The door to the women’s rest room opened.

I’d forgotten where I was. I jumped off the counter and was face to face with Lisa Tosca.

“Oh, excuse me,” Lisa said and walked back out. She looked at the door and came back in.

“Hi,” I said like this was perfectly normal. I had never planned on meeting her in the women’s rest room in Big Molly’s Diner.

How could my life get more messed up?

Mina flushed the toilet.

Lisa stared at me while I helped Mina wash her hands. Even with her mouth wide open, Lisa looked pretty.

“’Bye,” I said; then we left.

When we got outside, I screamed with frustration.

Mina jumped.

I didn’t mean to frighten her.

“Sorry, Mina,” I said. How could I explain it to her?

One block from school, Gus jumped from an alley and grabbed my backpack.

“Give it back, Gus,” I said.

“It’s mine now,” Gus said.

He teased me, holding my backpack away from me like he wanted me to chase him for it. He hadn’t done something that stupid since first grade.

“Give me back my backpack,” I said.

I wasn’t going to chase him.

Finally he came back.

“Here,” he said, and handed it to me.

I swung the backpack over my shoulder. It felt really heavy.

I unzipped it and looked inside.

A gun sat on top of the peanut-butter-and-pickle sandwiches I had made that morning.

“You know what to do with it,” Gus said. “You got to get revenge for Jimmy.”

My hands started shaking.

“Take it back,” I said. “I don’t want it.”

“You’ll need it when the guys in the black Chevy come looking for you again,” Gus said. “It’s a gift from me and my homies. With Jimmy gone, you need us. Use the gun to show us what you got.”

I shook my head. I felt like my heart was pounding so fast that my lungs couldn’t breathe. “I don’t want it, Gus.”

“You don’t want people treating you like you’re nothing. You need a family,” Gus said. “Being in a gang, it’s the flying-est feeling.” Then he started running down the block.

I ran after him, but I was afraid to run too fast. What if the gun went off?

I lost him.

I zipped the backpack closed.

“What did Gus put in your bag?” Mina asked when she caught up with me.

She reached for my backpack.

I slapped her hand really hard.

She looked at me, shocked. I had never hit her. Ever. Not even when we were little.

She started to cry.

“I’m sorry, Mina.” I didn’t put my arms around her like I would have any other time.

I couldn’t.

I was afraid the gun might go off. I had heard too many stories about kids shooting their friends because they didn’t know how to handle a gun. I didn’t know anything about guns.

Maybe I imagined it.

I unzipped the backpack and looked inside again. There it was, a big cold metal gun.

I zipped the backpack closed and looked for Mina. She’d run off. We were close to school. I hoped she’d gone on to her kindergarten class.

There was no way I was going to go looking for her now. I had big problems of my own.

Someone tapped my shoulder.

I screamed and turned around.

Lisa Tosca stood behind me.

“Why did you scream?” she asked.

“It’s something guys do to get ready for football season,” I lied, hoping she didn’t have any brothers.

“Oh,” she said.

Then she added, “I think it’s sweet the way you take care of your sister.”

She had a neat smile.

“Want to walk me to school?” she said.

Of course I wanted to walk her to school, but I kept thinking about the gun.

“Did you hear me?” she asked.

“Not today,” I said.

She stopped smiling. She still looked pretty.

“Sorry,” I said.

She started walking away like she couldn’t get far enough from me.

“Tomorrow,” I yelled after her. “Tomorrow I’ll walk you to school. I promise.”

I knew she thought I was nuts.

If anything more happened I
would
be nuts.