Young Junius, page 6
part #4 of Jack Palms Series
She watched a rusty Toyota pull in from the street and find a parking place. Its driver got out slowly, a tall man dressed in thick Carhartt layers, coveralls and a jacket over that. He worked at Logan. They’d spoken once. Everyone knew who she was, she expected, but some of them were polite enough to pretend they didn’t. Even with the fur.
He worked loading and unloading planes for UPS, packing boxes to ship through the night. The last time she’d seen him he walked fast, comfortable; now he limped, moved slowly toward her building. He lived with his wife, a cleaning woman who worked days and second shift. They saw each other only on the weekends.
As he came up now, his hat low over his face, he barely met Marlene’s eyes, just offered a short nod.
“Your walk,” she said. “What happened?” Her hand instinctively went to the envelope in her pocket, even seeing on this man’s face that he’d be too proud.
“Fell,” he said. “Few weeks back.” He stopped in front of her. Tall and wide. She guessed he’d weigh 250, maybe more. He played basketball somewhere, at some point. She’d seen him with her brother at the courts.
“You played with Malik, right?”
He nodded. “Timothy.” He pulled off a glove and offered her his hand. His cold, hard skin scratched her palm as she shook it, but she looked him in the eyes. “Morning. Nice to see you.” He took his hand back and pushed it into a pocket, then turned to resume toward the building.
He didn’t get ten feet before a boy, a kid who couldn’t be more than twelve, thirteen, turned out from behind one of the pillars. How long had he been there? Without saying a word, the boy held up a baggie and took a bill from the man’s hand. Timothy didn’t even stop his forward progress, just accepted the exchange like a worker would accept a free paper at the T.
“All right,” the boy said. “Have a good one.” Then he saw Marlene and his smile disappeared. He ducked behind the pillar.
“Stop,” she said. “Come here.”
He did as he was told, looking up with a blank face. “Yes, Miss Marlene,” he said.
“Who are you?”
“Jeremy. I’m Jesse’s boy.”
Jesse: one of her runners, a guy barely Malik’s age who’d been a few years ahead of her in school.
“How old?”
“Thirteen.”
“You go to school?”
He shrugged. “Most days. This week school vacation.” From the smoothness of the exchange with Timothy, she knew his attendance record wouldn’t improve when vacation was over. He saw what she knew. “I go or I don’t go,” he said. “Them teachers don’t care. They think I stupid.”
“How’s your math?”
“Good enough,” he said, holding out a roll of cash.
“You know him?” She nodded at where Timothy had been, and the boy told her he sold to the man every day.
“Since the pain,” he said. “This what he need to get by.” He patted his other front pocket.
“What you carry?”
The boy held out in his hand: dime bags, twenties, nickels, a few baggies with red-and-yellow pills that she took.
“What are these?”
“You know. Ups, downs. They the regular, like Dunkin’ Donuts.”
Marlene wanted to say no, to take the pills away from the boy, from the people in her building. But she knew if she did they’d get them from someone else. She’d talk to Malik about it.
“You holding rock?” she asked. This was what she really wanted to know.
“No, ma’am.” He shook his head, looked down. “If they want that, I say go get it from him.” He pointed at the far tower, the 412.
“They do it?”
He nodded.
“They come back after?”
He shook his head. “No. Uh uh. They get that shit, they don’t come back. That’s why you should hook me up with it. Help sales like Christmas.”
She gave him back the pills. “Go home,” she said. “Tell your father I said you’re not working today, and that next week you go back to school.”
The boy looked like she just took his best friend. “I hate school!”
“You need it,” she said, gripping the top of his head and turning him back toward the building. “Now go inside and get warm. Get some sleep. Play a game or something.”
She watched him go slowly, stubbornly, looking back over his shoulder a few times to see if she was still there. With any luck she wouldn’t see him out here again. He’d be back, she knew, but if she didn’t see him then it wasn’t a direct challenge to her authority. If she did see him, then Jesse would have to sit down for a listen.
She turned back to the parking lot. Nearing eight o’clock, the traffic was slow. Those who started work at eight were long gone, those who started later would be coming soon, heading for the trains and buses. But for now there was a lull. She watched her world. To the right, at 410, she saw quiet action: an old man pushing a cart and a boy around eighteen leaning up against a car, waiting to sell.
To her left, she could see 412, Rock’s house, and a man running out of the building pulling on an old, tan jacket. He had a beard and a short Afro, his body stocky but strong. It was Clarence—one of Rock’s closest boys. Malik had told her to watch him, said he wouldn’t be afraid.
In his hurry, Clarence didn’t see her. Just ran for his car, a gold Olds 98, that he started hard, backed out hard, and then tore out of the lot in, taking a right on Rindge and heading toward Mass Ave., away from Route 2.
18
Clarence rolled the 98 up Rindge Ave., too much in a hurry, too early in the morning to let this shit slide for anybody. So what if that old woman had known his mom, even been good to him when he was coming up.
He hadn’t pointed the gun at her; it was Dee, even if he gave the order. He punched the pine trees hanging from his mirror when he hit traffic on Rindge, knocked the plastic baggie off his newest.
He counted eight trees while waiting for the bitch school crossing guard to get the little assholes across the street and into school. When the traffic finally did start again, he smelled his fingers: they felt oily at the tips where he’d touched the trees and, sure enough, smelled like too much “Pine-Fresh” scent. He wiped them on his seat, hoping it would be good for the leather. What he wanted was a hit from his stash back up in the apartment, even just a cigarette. That’s what his fingertips should smell like.
He knew he’d catch another light up at Mass Ave., but still thought he’d get to Porter before the kids, if Ness was right about where they were headed. Then he’d have a smoke—shit, a whole pack of smokes.
The light at the top of Rindge was next: sometimes you made it, sometimes you got fucked; today, Clarence made it. He made the right without even coming to a full stop, caught the red just before the Mass Ave. morning traffic came at him. Maybe this day would work out all right.
Two blocks up, he was in the left lane, slowing for the light, when he saw them—Junius and Little Elf—coming up Mass Ave. He slapped the wheel into a hard left, cutting across the two oncoming lanes—another lucky gap—and just missed them. He swore, knowing he’d have run them down if he had been three seconds faster through the turn. He hit the wheel and the horn. They both looked back, and he gave them a hard eye-fucking, thought for a second about just stopping the car and getting out to run grab them up. But there was another car behind him trying to make the turn, caught in the middle of Mass Ave. and honking its horn.
“Fuck!” he said again.
They cut across Mass Ave., and he saw them run down a side street as he started up Russell, driving the only direction he could, parked cars along both sides of the street and not enough room to pull over.
The car behind him lay on the horn the whole way, and Clarence had to white-knuckle the steering wheel to keep from getting out and slapping the shit out of somebody.
“That was Clarence,” Elf said as they hit the curb on the other side of Mass Ave. and kept going.
Junius didn’t slow. He cut down the other half of Russell at a trot, not looking back. Only a week ago, Temple had told him the old train tracks were getting hooked into Porter Square station for the commuter rail. He hoped it meant they could get into the station a back way.
He’d gotten to know Russell Street last summer, when he started messing around with Dawn. Her mom had an apartment in a house on the last part of the block, and they sometimes went there when she was at work. Now Junius didn’t stop to look at the house, wonder if Dawn was home, or try to guess who she was fucking. She’d become a ho and nothing more. If he was a part of her transition, it wasn’t his concern.
They hit the short fence that dead-ended the street, and Junius went high, his legs at one side, while Elf just hit it dead-on at his waist. When he was over the top, Junius saw the ten-foot drop to the gravel along the tracks. But with his feet already in the air and his hands letting go of the fence, there was nothing he could do. He floated for a split second at the top of his vault—that instant before he started down, he just flat-out hung above the cold earth.
Then he fell. His Nikes hit gravel and he rolled to his side, wound up on his ass, looking back up at the fence in time to see Elf do his flip. He caught his upper body on the tracks side of the fence—through the ivy—and then swung his legs around so they were beneath him. He paused for a second like that, perfectly in control. Then he let go and landed softly on the gravel. He turned to Junius. “Need some help?”
Junius just shook his head. “You work on that?”
Elf laughed. “Every day, my man. Every fucking day.”
They walked the tracks along the gravel, puffing and winded, their breath billowing out of them into the cold.
At the station, they had to pull themselves up onto the platform. It wasn’t even in use yet but would soon be a real stop along the commuter rail line. Opaque plastic tarps hung over the benches and covered the spots where signs would be installed. The entranceway to the rest of the station was roped off—red plastic tape stretched across it—but they went through anyway, up a dark set of stairs that didn’t smell like piss yet, and to another plastic sheet. Behind it, Junius could make out the rest of the station: the high expanse of the main entrance and the token booth.
He used Elf’s house key to cut along the bottom, about three feet from the ground on down. Then they crawled into the Porter Square stop on the Red Line, two outbound stops from Alewife and less than a half-hour ride from South Station.
19
Inside, the station was busy with commuters, briefcases, students. It didn’t make sense for them to hop the turnstiles and draw attention, so Junius went to the booth and bought two student-rate tokens with a dollar, never showing his student card because no one ever bothered to ask.
He passed a token to Elf, checking the escalators up to the street for Derek or Clarence pushing through the crowd. Once past the turnstiles, they took the long escalators down to the subway. People said it was the deepest station in Boston: seven stories into the ground. It was the longest set of escalators Junius knew, and when he first rode them he’d been impressed. Now he just wanted to get down as fast as he could. They walked on the left with the commuters, Junius watching all around.
At the bottom, getting off past all the brass gloves and mittens, he saw Derek waiting in the crowd.
Derek and, on a second look, Ness with him, both scanning the inbound platform. Junius pulled Elf against the wall.
“What?”
“They here. Dee and Ness. I just seen them.”
Elf closed his eyes and shook his head. Whenever he stopped to think, it worried Junius. For him, it all just seemed something he had to do.
“What we do now?”
Junius moved to the row of newspaper machines and squatted behind them. He could see Dee and Ness going up and down the platform through the crowd.
The sound of a train coming started with a low, far-off rumble and built steadily. Junius couldn’t tell what direction it was headed or what end of the tunnels it came from. He waited.
When it came, the train was inbound as Junius had hoped. People around Dee and Ness started moving, hustling to get on. Junius pulled Elf behind him, and they made their move: around the newspaper machines and toward the platforms, then quickly down the escalators to the outbound level. They ducked as they rode, watching above for any faces peering down.
On the lower platform, they sprinted along the wall opposite the tracks and hid behind the handicapped elevator shaft.
“Now what?” Elf asked.
“Got two choices: either wait for the next inbound, try to time it right, and ride the elevator up, hoping they don’t see us—”
“You think Clarence be up there?” Elf scratched at the scab on his lower lip.
Junius shook his head. “Or we wait them out down here, hope they get bored or tired and think we tried something else.”
“How we know they left?”
“We just wait.”
Now it was Elf’s turn to shake his head. “Or we get the next outbound and switch trains out at Alewife or Davis.”
“That three choices.”
“Which you like?”
“I’m thinking.”
“Man.” Elf brought his hands up to the sides of his head and pushed his hat down toward his eyebrows. “Shit. What you thinking? New York?”
“Brooklyn,” Junius said. “That or we go and see Marlene, find out about Temp.”
“You crazy?”
But Junius could see a gleam in Elf’s eyes when he said it. There was something about this he liked.
“We just saw Clarence ain’t at the towers. Dee and Ness right up there.”
“You think Rock ain’t got other boys?”
Junius nodded. “No. No, he do. He do. I’m just saying—” He shrugged.
The sound of another train coming began somewhere down the tunnels. Junius thought he could tell it was an outbound. The sound rose, its vibrations increasing.
“What you think?” Elf asked.
“About our choices?”
“Yeah. All four.”
“I say this train come headed outbound, we get on.”
“And then we switch, or we head to Marlene?”
Junius felt himself smile, already deciding where to head. “What you think? You want be sitting on the T when Clarence come?”
“No.”
“I’m saying.” Junius could see the lights of the train heading toward them on the outbound track, and he made ready to move.
20
The train stopped, the car in front of them nearly empty, and they got on. Junius watched the platform through the glass as the other passengers got on and off the train. When the car finally chimed and the doors closed, he sighed in relief. For a second he considered yelling up to Dee and Ness, just to pop shit, but then the doors were closed, and he sat down across from Elf.
“Yeah, niggah,” he said. “We go backdoor and do the shit we originally intended.”
“Marlene? You really bent on that shit?” He pulled up the hood on his jacket, then just nodded his head between his shoulders. He slumped forward to rest his elbows on his knees as the train sped up. By the time the view was just black tunnel walls, Elf was shaking his head, but Junius didn’t want to start fixing any problems that weren’t broken.
As the train pulled into Davis, Junius jumped over to Elf’s side so both of their backs faced the platform. If any of Rock’s crew waited, he didn’t want to risk meeting their eyes. Elf pulled his hood up around his head again, and Junius did the same, slumped back against the glass so it’d look like he was just trying to catch a little sleep.
When the car chimed and the doors were about to close, Junius looked up. There were only a few other people in the car: a tired-looking nightshift worker and a mother with her baby sleeping on her lap.
Then Junius chanced a look at the platform and he met Pooh’s eyes—Pooh standing on the platform watching, looking at the train. As soon as he saw Junius, Pooh jumped forward and stuck his arm through the closing doors. Junius could see his hand inside and the red lights over the doors blinking. He knew the doors would open again in a moment and let Pooh inside. But on the platform, Junius didn’t see anyone else, no one to get Pooh’s back. He started down the car.
By the time the doors opened again and Pooh stepped in, Junius was already halfway down the aisle. The mother with her baby saw what was going to happen before anyone else and shielded her child with both arms. “Oh my God,” she cried.
Junius didn’t stop. He flat-out ran the last part of the car and jumped Pooh with his whole body, laid him out over the divider between the seats and the door.
Pooh landed underneath Junius with his legs up over his head and his torso on the seats. Junius was caught on the divider, but had enough touch with the ground to pull himself back. The nightshift guy shook his head, swore, and then looked purposefully away as Junius came around the partition to start punching. Pooh flailed his arms, trying to block.
Junius connected twice before Pooh scrambled into a better position and started kicking at Junius from his back.
Junius stepped away, and Pooh slid off the seats and got to his feet. Then he backed into Elf. The train rocked and started moving, and Junius lost his footing for a second with the jolt. Pooh turned on Elf, who pushed him, and then Junius threw Pooh back down onto the seats and hit him hard on the mouth.
The mother with her baby started to scream now, past “Oh my God” to terror at what she might be witnessing.
Junius saw his friend’s waist next to his head. “Yo, help me hold him down.”
“Fuck! What we gonna do with him?”
“That’s what I don’t know.” Junius shoved Pooh’s face into the seat, then pulled his head back and slammed it down as hard as he could.
“Let him loose,” the night man said. “What you boys trying to do?” He had on dirty, blue coveralls and stood tall above them, taller than Junius even. His hands curled into big fists.
