Lovers & Haters (6 page)

Ne Ne was selfish, but not stupid. She had gone to the old man when everybody else had rejected her applications to lease a decent home because of her bottom-feeding credit score. He'd given Ne Ne a chance and saved her and her sons from certain homelessness. Her credit score still lived in the crapper. Her bad credit would grow horns, a tail, and a pitchfork and would stick her in the butt if she lost the house because Nate wanted to have a pissing contest with her landlord.

“Why doesn't everybody calm down.” Ne Ne finally stood up from the chair. She, too, was aware of her landlord's pedigree for destruction. She saw where this was headed. It wasn't going to end well for her boyfriend. “Nate, you have to go. I'll call you later.”

Nate got loud. “This old fool don't want none of me!”

“Nate, I told you to get in your car and go.”

“Nate,” Billy said. “She asked you once, ain't gonna ask again.”

There was something in the old man's eyes that told Nate he'd better leave—and right now! Nate was no dummy. He saw his death in Billy's baby browns if he kept on popping off at the chops.

“Well, I'm leaving because you asked me,” Nate told Ne Ne, while trying to play down his fear.

Xavier knew better. Nate's true colors were playing out in high definition. He was a straight clown and everybody could see. The sucka came off like he was a pit bull. He might've had a little pit in him, but the rest was bull. He was a coward who had been skilled in the art of trash talking.

Once Nate made it out to his ride, parked at the curb in front of the house, Xavier could see the tension in Billy's face ease up.

Nate opened the car door, still talking junk. “Old dude, you better be lucky my lady wants me to leave. But I'll see you another time.”

Xavier thought that Billy was going for his pistol.

But the old guy simply slipped his right hand underneath his smock and raised it, brandishing the signature black and smooth handle belonging to a Glock. “We'll be waiting here for you, young dummy.”

Nate caught eyes with Ne Ne before slipping into the car and closing the door. Anger was there. Like Ne Ne was his, and the next man who stuck his nose in where it didn't belong would be in for the rough stuff. Nate started his hooptie of a silver 2007 Chevy Impala and peeled off down the street.

“Ms. Hunter,” Billy said, “I can't tell you how to run your life, but you really need to make wiser choices about the company you keep—especially when it pertains to my rental property.”

“Mr. Hawkins,” Ne Ne said, “my apologies for my friend Nathaniel. It'll never happen again.”

Billy was aware of the pain in Xavier's face—couldn't miss it. The old man had been standing and listening near the screen door. He'd heard most of the conversation leading up to the argument between them. Billy had grown to love Xavier and Alfonso like they were his own kids.

“Listen, can I have a word with you in private?” he asked Ne Ne, gesturing with a hand to step over into his driveway and out of Xavier's earshot.

Ne Ne followed until they were standing next to Billy's vintage sky blue '77 Cadillac Eldorado.

“This might not be my place to say, but I think you are very wrong about the boy's education—”

Ne Ne tried to interrupt.

Billy put his hand up to wave her silent. “No, Ms. Hunter, I'm gonna have my say. You can't stop the child from getting his education. He's a good boy, never gets in any trouble. That street you're trying to steer him into, for whatever reasons, it's just waiting to turn a good boy bad.”

Ne Ne wasn't used to any man talking to her about her business like Billy was. She understood all too well that her landlord was the gateway between her scrounging through dumpsters in an alley for dinner and having a hot meal inside the nice, warm kitchen of a house. So she bit her tongue.

“And another thing,” Billy prattled on. “You are asking for trouble if you keep embarrassing Xavier in front of your . . .
friend
. It's not right, and one day that bomb is gonna blow up in your face. Ain't nothing good going to come out of you talking down about the boy's father in front of another man.”

“You done?” Ne Ne asked with an attitude. “Can I go?”

Billy looked at her and scratched his head. He could tell that nothing he had said had gotten through her thick skull. There was no chance to answer her because gunfire erupted from somewhere on the next block.

Boom! Boom!

Bullets didn't have a name, so some of the neighbors who had been out eavesdropping earlier on Ne Ne's family drama took cover.

The neighborhood was rocked again by another round of gunfire—

Pow! Batak-tak-tak!

It sounded like a war being waged around the corner and the sounds were getting closer.

“Y'all take cover in the trenches,” Billy loudly urged Ne Ne and Xavier.

Xavier ducked around the house, thinking
trenches
? He didn't know if the gunfire had caused the old dude to have one of his Vietnam flashbacks. Under normal circumstances, it would've been funny to see Billy hit the ground hard like he was now demonstrating and pulling out his pistol as though he was back in the jungles, expecting the Vietnamese enemy to come surging over the hill. The old dude was about to get his butt-crack blown off and there was nothing that Xavier could do.

The high velocity sound of shots ringing out had now produced a bloodcurdling scream.

“Help me!” the voice of a young man begged.

The voice was vaguely familiar to Xavier. The owner of it was coming around the corner very fast, bringing the sound of gunfire behind him.

Xavier was hoping and praying that it wasn't who he thought it was, but praying had not been enough. Xavier was careful not to stick his coconut too far out for a bird's-eye view. His heart sank when he saw fifteen-year-old Mitchell Green cutting the corner like an Olympic sprinter going for the gold. Crimson red blood soaked his white tee. The neck of the shirt had been stretched out of place like somebody had snatched him up by it, while trying to beat the brakes off of him. The boy was literally running for his life, a look of terror frozen across his beaten face. Mitchell was moving so fast that the bullets shot by the masked gunmen giving chase were zinging about, hitting everything except for him. Mitchell had left the gunmen ten car lengths behind—that was until he took a bullet in the right thigh, and down he went. His body hit the pavement so hard the momentum had him sliding across the rough surface of the street and slamming against the curb, kicking up a cloud of dust as his body banked off it.

Xavier had to resist his natural impulse to go out and help a fallen homeboy. But the masked goons didn't look like they were finished. Their steady advancement triggered Billy. He let out some type of an inaudible battle cry. Xavier didn't know if Billy was still zoning out, but if anybody could save Mitchell from further harm, it was the wily Vietnam War veteran. He possessed the crazy combat skills to level the playing field. Billy threw himself into the fray, and with his weapon held out in front, charged toward the action, scaring and surprising the hell out of the assailants. Billy got off three shots to send the goons backpedaling, scurrying back to the hole that they had crawled out of.

The fact that they didn't have bullet holes in their retreating bodies led Xavier to believe that Billy just meant to scare them away. He had accompanied Billy to the gun range enough times to know that the man was an expert marksman, and whatever he wanted to hit, he did. When the threat was neutralized, the block buzzed to life.

“Somebody call nine-one-one!” Billy yelled at the approaching crowd.

Xavier ran over to his wounded friend. Billy had already yanked off his smock and had placed it underneath Mitchell's head for comfort. Xavier kneeled down beside his bleeding friend. Upon first observation, the bullet hole in the right side of Mitchell's shirt looked to be the only one.

“X,” Mitchell said, with panic inside his bulging eyes. “X, man, how am I doing? Don't lie to me . . . te-tell . . . me how I'm doing.” His breathing was labored and his body shook with convulsions.

Xavier tried not to look overly concerned. Mitchell didn't look too good, didn't look like he was gonna make it. The dark blood he spat up was confirmation. But Xavier wasn't a doctor, so he couldn't make that call.

“You gonna be all right, Mitchell,” Xavier assured.

As Xavier kneeled, holding Mitchell's bloody hand, Billy was up and fending off curious spectators who had surrounded the scene and tightly closed in.

“Give the boy some air!” Billy screamed, pushing people away.

“Please, X,” Mitchell pleaded with Xavier. “Please don't let me die.”

“Tell him that he has to slow down his breathing,” Billy added, now holding up his gun to keep the crowd at bay.

 

The police had been the first to arrive on the scene, followed by the paramedics. There were tons of people standing around, yapping about what had gone down. Detectives were working the crowd to establish some type of lead in bringing the perpetrators to justice. Screaming and crying relatives watched as the paramedics loaded Mitchell into the back of the ambulance. The boy was still alive—barely clinging to life. The EMT unit sped off, leaving the police behind to piece together the crime.

Xavier had answered all of the police questions to their satisfaction. He couldn't tell them jack because he didn't know anything. All he knew was that Mitchell had come flying around the corner screaming and yelling for somebody to help him, with the shooters busting caps right behind him. Mitchell's blood stained Xavier's jeans and patches of his hoodie. The whole thing was crazy. He was gonna have to do something to get his family out of this neighborhood. Young men were dropping like flies. Just to think that it could've been him or Alfonso lying in Mitchell's place frightened Xavier. And the neighborhood was getting worse every year, with murders reaching a record high last summer.

As he jostled his way through the crowd, Xavier could see his little brother, Alfonso. There was a group of rowdy teenaged guys standing around him. From the distance, they appeared to be clowning Alfonso, giving him the business about something. It looked like they were pushing him around, having fun at his little brother's expense. Once Xavier's big body emerged from the crowd of rubberneckers, the group of teens stopped the harassing—real quick.

“Alfonso, you all right?” Xavier questioned. There was a serious edge to his voice.

The ringleader of this little group of juvenile delinquents was nicknamed Fathead, but he was all mouth. He was thirteen years old and an excellent salesman—stellar at convincing folks that he was a serious case and as hard as they came. Fathead was a short, thick, dark-skinned, pimple-faced young punk with hair standing up on his head like he had stuck his finger in an electrical wall outlet, and blue jeans low on his butt, showing off his boxers. He stared intensely at Alfonso. It was almost like he was warning Alfonso with his eyes to say anything but the truth.

Alfonso dropped his head in submission and lied to his brother. “Fathead and 'em were just playing around. That's all. We were just playing.”

Xavier didn't believe his little brother's load of bull. These jerks were always picking on Alfonso, making fun of him because of his disability.

“Yeah, yeah, that's it, Xavier,” Fathead said, talking real fast. “Alfonso is a funny guy, always quoting
Scarface
. We were just kicking it about the movie.”

“That
Scarface
dude is a bad motha—” a skinny, light-skinned, big-eared dude named Dusty said, but was cut off.

“Shut yo' mouth,” said an ugly, brown-complexioned boy named Monster. This little cat was wearing a nappy Mohawk.

The fourth and last boy was quiet. Unlike the rest, he didn't have a nickname. He was Apollo Johnson, a fourteen-year-old, and the oldest of the group. His family was new to the block and nobody knew much about them. Where Xavier stood six foot two, Apollo rounded out at about six feet. Copper-complexioned, gangly, but very muscular for his age, Apollo had a look on his face like he was always sizing up folks, studying, dissecting a person's every movement for some kind of weakness. The rest of the little knuckleheads Xavier wasn't too concerned about. They were merely hot air, just mouth and no action. Apollo looked to be a different stretch of road, though.

Xavier didn't have time for this. He was too bothered by the fact that he'd just witnessed a friend gunned down before his very eyes, an assault that could possibly end in murder. He was too stressed and didn't feel in the mood to be yanked around by a bunch of gangsta wannabes who were probably seven to eight years removed from wet diapers and baby powder. And if Alfonso wanted to chill with this bunch, then he could have at it.

The crowd seemed to grow bigger with the arrival of the news media. The white news van sat parked at the corner, antennae raised high in the air, and a cameraman filmed the crowd with a bald, gray-bearded news reporter out in front of the camera, talking into a microphone about the details surrounding the shooting.

“Too bad about Mitchell Green,” Fathead remarked.

“Snitches get stitches,” Monster added, smirking like he had said something cute.

“What you mean by that, little homey?” Xavier asked Monster.

With the exception of Alfonso, the four of them looked at each other and snickered like they had valuable info about what had led to the shooting.

“Like we said, big homey,” the young boy named Dusty piped. “Snitches get stitches.”

“Y'all stupid,” Xavier said bluntly. “If y'all know something, you should be telling the police. Mitchell is cool peoples. He didn't deserve that. So if you know anything, I'm advising y'all to tell it. You would want somebody to do the same for you.”