here’s the deal,” Chickey say’s to me as he reaches his hand around his back, grabbing for something. “The name of the game is to not be more scared than your victim.”

“Not to what?”

“Not to be more…” He pauses when he sees the look on my face. “All right, I know it sounds stupid but I’m not kidding. You gotta listen to me.”

We’re in Stanely’s Furniture Warehouse just off of Dume St., converged in a two man huddle among the fallen bar joist, the torn sheet rock and rotten framing of this discarded building. A slight current whistles through the cracks giving us our last tastes of real coldness for the season. It’s a tapered, dull sensation; an apathetic hush, a dreary stare. The winter months has turned Worcester into a purgatory of decaying snow, prison gray skies and orange light that, like a coma, shrouds the wet streets in dismal slumber. There’s an ache in your gut as these months squirm by, as the snow turns to brown slush sitting in ugly piles next to staircases and doorways, pushed to the end of the streets and into alleys, pushed beneath the orange light where the light and the snow fester into each other breeding a visual hum which lies just behind the eye’s awareness; hypnotic and subliminal. Almost like repressed memories, it reminds you of pain. I hate it. I hate these months, this town. The soul senses abandonment, a loss of hope among the derelict shelters and the Narcotics Anonymous meetings where the best dope can always be found; among the AIDS clinics where all the low-tariff girls gather in restless flocks, bright makeup smeared along their worn lips, their voices as shrill and broken up as that of the crows which fly above them. Not far from where me and Chickey are nestled is the Boy’s Club. It’s perched on top of Ionic Avenue, looming over us. And even with its provincial brick and wrought iron figure, with its frame made from the promise of hope, it still casts a vanquished face across the city. As if to say it has given up too. As if to say that it’s all right to give up, it’s understandable, it’s almost wise. Buildings: bend your faces towards this tarnished light, inhale the grayness of age, soak in the despondency of your city’s people, cry with them, endure them. And it seems to say this most to the empty buildings that immediately surround it. The ones that will never be boarded up and at the same time, never restored.

The Ionic Ave. Boys Club. That’s where I met Chickey. We were twelve years old, on our way to Golden Gloves, to championship and I remember that night we met. It was my first time in the rink room, the first time I ever laced up a pair of gloves to go against an actual opponent of flesh and blood. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking. My chest tightened around my heart, squeezing it, causing each beat to resonate through my whole body. This yellowish cast emitted from an overhead light made all the other kids in there look sick, like they had been demonically possessed---hollow, ghostly bodies, feline eyes that showed the hunger of hell, the rage of primal torments. I could feel fire. I could feel the jungle, its rhythms and the weight of its sweat soaked nights; chanting, drum beats. I could feel evil in the room. My fear had been supercharged.

As I looked around the rink for something of comfort I saw that the only other white kid besides me was a small redhead sort of thing, with thin hair and a pale face. Drab and dull all over except for where a large black and purple ring circled his eye; whoever landed that one on him definitely wasn’t wearing gloves. I watched the poor kid struggle to look tough, attempting to belong by mashing his fists into each other and flaring his nostrils. He sharpened his eyebrows and rolled his lips, jumped up and down a few times but he was a mouse, a scrap of prey giving off the smell of weakness. Thanks buddy, I thought to myself, you’d be useless if I had any idea of whites allied for empowerment. I was on my own. Alone with the mousers of the rink. Alone and trembling as I knew my turn to fight was next, as I watched my sparring partner in the corner across from me running in place, beads of sweat already forming on his brow. This guy wasn’t nervous: no flaring nostrils, no self-conscious movement, no tension around the eyes. He was ready for me. A tall and lean black kid, he seemed to have only a little bit of power in his arms, but he had reach, and those arms sure moved fast while he ran. The worst thing was that this guy was from the Great Brook Valley projects. Nothing is more discouraging to a twelve year old who’s trying to learn boxing than to have to fight a kid who’s from the most notorious set of projects in Massachusetts. This jungle, I knew for sure, would eat me alive.

As I was about to stand up, a Puerto Rican leaned in to my side. “He’s from GBV. Dudes from the Valley only know how to use guns. When it comes to fists, they’d be lucky to squash a grape in a food fight. Don’t worry god, you got this thing locked.” It was Chickey. And we became friends. And the South Main St. area became our paradise in hell, our nightmare in heaven, built on the torment, the give-and-take of lust; where you earn your joy from the pain of the triple deckers stretched down the street, the pain of your family, of the late winter weather that gnaws at the muscle of the spirit. You earn a joy that isn’t even yours. You steal it. And then the street steals it right back.

 

our years since now sees us near Dume Street, crouching in the darkness. I know there’s a light somewhere, from a street lamp. It’s too far in the distance to elicit any of its warmth near us, but I can anticipate it. There’s that languid sense of its glow, haunting, hiding, pulsing --- just behind the eye.

“I’m not messing with you man,” Chickey say’s. “You gonna be nervous doing this your first time. And don’t try to act all hard and pretend like you ain’t because you will be. Being out there by yourself, nobody’s got your back, nobody’s got look out…it can cut up your nerves. Just don’t be more scared than the person you’re robbing. That fear, man, I’m telling you. They can smell it. You pull a gun on a vic and you bring that person down to some kind of base survival mode. He goes fight-or-flight on your ass. And take it from me: forget what you heard or what you think you know about being a stickup kid, if he smells fear in you he’s gonna fight.” Chickey gets pensive for a moment, looks up through a hole in the ceiling, forehead crinkles and then he looks back to me. “You remember Eddy?”

“Eddy?”

“Ya, busted ass Eddy. Half Italian, half Dominican kid from Plumly Village. Dropped out of Burcoat a few months ago and does a little bit of light weight for Max and all them.”

The name doesn’t register. I shake my head.

“Anyway, it doesn’t matter. The dude came up to me one morning not too far back, right? And he was type sick. I don’t mean that nasty puke full on sickness, but he didn’t have long to go. I never figured Eddy to get on empty like that. I mean, the kid’s young, you know? But he came to me scared, like he knew what was coming, he knew he’d have to get right and he’d have to get right fast or suffer hell. It’s that desperate look. I don’t why it is, but people are always uglier with the desperate look than they are with the sick look. I guess there’s that hunger that goes away when you’ve given up….hell, I don’t know. But I know that Eddy definitely was one of the ugliest hard-ups I’d seen in a long time. He had his nose dripping all over the place, eyes leaking like he just bit into a hot chili pepper and in between sneezing fits, he comes at me like, ‘Yo Chickey, I’m assed out man. Nobody’s doing nothing. You gotta help me.’ And I’m thinking, is this kid serious? Does he have any idea how sorry he’s gotta be to come at me asking what he’s asking for? But what I’m gonna do? I can’t change where money comes from. So I told him I only have one strap left. A .9mm Beretta. My .9mm Beretta.” Chickey pokes his chest with his index finger. “Where if the cops try hard enough --- and believe me, they will if the crime is right --- it could be traced back to me. And that don’t sit well with me at all. So I told him if he wanted it, it’d be an extra twenty dollars. And he could forget about getting a live clip. I’d leave him with one in the chamber and he should be damn happy with that. I warned him. I told him that if he had any doubts, then he just needs to remember that each bullet found in a gun used in a crime is an extra six months in Walpole. Did this open his eyes, make him think about where his choices have been leading him? Nope. He’s fine, of course. He’s just got to do this one thing, just this one time and then he’s back with Max and Lamant, playing it safe. He’ll have all, if not, most of my money come daybreak and I should just relax and stop acting like his nagging mamma. So I told him OK. Just have a chunk for me by the time you bring the strap back and don’t make me chase you. I told him it’s the end of the month, go hang around Gold Star or Lincoln or something, hang close to a check-cashing store and wait for the right vic. I told him decently dressed white boys in their early twenties always have the most money. I told him that people who walk around with their hands in their pockets carry heavy loot. I told him that if he wants to play it safe, hit old ladies wearing them thick ass glasses and who seem a little out of it. You might not get a whole lot in one pop but you got to remember that it’s dangerous having to hit more than one person to make all your cash back. Plenty of things can go wrong. But with the old ladies that ain’t the case. You can hit one after the other all day long and sing about it. They’re the least likely to go to the cops and even less likely to be able to identify you if they do. The first time an old lady’s gonna say anything about it will be, like, two weeks after the fact when her son calls with the monthly grandkid update. A big fuss might be made, but no cops. No arrest. I told him everything that I could think of except for the obvious: stay out of your own neighborhood.

“What does the idiot do? He goes right down Worcester City Blvd., where there’s no white guys in their early twenties, no old ladies coming outta boutique shops, no check-cashing stores and definitely no distance between him and his own damn neighborhood.

“So he settles in, watches, plays it out. He figures he ain’t got much time. His legs are already starting to cramp up and he’s beating the side of his fist against a brick wall cause he can’t stand still. And then finally he ends up on this chick, right? Some older chick, maybe like eighteen or nineteen, simple looking, small, not flashy but dressed well. She’s coming outta the Bank of New England. He follows her through the parking lot, trying to be real smooth about it, you know, walking behind her in ambush style all low to the ground like he’s some kind of Navy Seal, ducking beneath the cars and stuff. He hears her unlock the door with the button from her key chain. He gets up close, waits till she opens the door, springs around and jumps into the passenger seat. With his hands shaking he whips out the gun --- ‘All right lady, I won’t kill you,’ he say’s. ‘But I’ll blast your kneecaps off if you don’t run your purse.’”

Chickey pauses. He leans back, shaking both hands in the air in some sort of mock jest like he’s critiquing the work of a poor student. I watch him, study, notice how even in the blackness of this building there seems to be that ghostly light which briefly falls on his face; maybe it’s from a star or a swift exposure of the moon as the heavy winter clouds span beyond it. Maybe it’s from his smile as his white teeth curve into the corners of the darkness, a gleam from the metal studs, a flicker from a distant pair of headlights. It comes from somewhere, and it’s funny to me. I laugh. Inside myself only. My face stays as solemn as the idea of a fourteen year old blowing off someone’s kneecaps.

“OK, first thing wrong was his voice,” Chickey starts up. “It was quivering. There was no confidence in it, only weakness. If your voice isn’t sturdy, neither will you be. But what’s more is that she could see it, man. She could see that fear in his eyes. I know he got in that car with the pistol drawn and as soon as he looked at her, as soon as he realized he was pointing a gun at someone he must’ve felt like a sack of bricks just sank to the bottom of his stomach, you know, like when you’re on a roller coaster or something. And he couldn’t handle it. And his eyes showed it. She could see that fear and no doubt, she was scared too. I mean come on, who the hell wouldn’t be? Especially in these days when even little eight-year-olds can have itchy trigger fingers. But goddamn Eddy was more scared and he lost control of the situation.

“So of course she screams for him to get the hell out of the car. And he say’s no, not without the money. Fight-or-flight sets in with the girl, right? There’s no thinking. There’s no decision making. Automatically, this chick just turns the key and starts driving. Eddy didn’t know what the hell to do. He’s just sitting there, mouth open, gun limped down to his side. Now come on, man! Couldn’t he have said something like, ‘Hey bitch, pull over right now and give me your money or I will shoot you?’ Couldn’t he have given her even just the slightest of pistol whippings, you know, just smack it upside her jaw, straighten her out a little bit just to let her know who was in charge? Nope. Not Eddy. Not in the space he was in. He was too scared; he was too off guard to do anything except sit there in shock like a damn fool.

“So check this out. Right down the street, she drives. It’s a straight drive, no traffic lights, like I think maybe one stop sign. Where to? …The goddamn police station. Pulls right into the parking lot, jumps out, leaves the door open, the car running, leaves an armed robber sitting right there in the passenger seat and she bolts towards the station screaming her ass off. Now for a second, Eddy’s so shocked and rocked that he’s still trying to figure out how to get her to pull over and give up the cash. But he catches himself. And, in his kick sick head, he’s got enough sense to realize that her purse is still in the car. He thinks that in a messed up kinda way, this is the situation he’s hoping for, you know, an unattended purse lying right there in front of him. So he knows he’s got to take off running but first --- he reaches over, grabs the purse and then looks up to see the girl pointing to her car and yelling like a spazz to a cop who’s about to get in his cruiser. The cop pretty much understands; he lets go of the handle to his black-and-white and hurtles his ass towards the chick’s car. Now this guy ain’t no slow poke, so Eddy’s only got about half a second to let fight-or-flight decide what the hell he’s gonna do. He keeps his eyes on the cop and as fast as he can he gets himself over to the driver’s side, punches the gas and takes off. He hauls ass onto the street, figuring he can just drive a couple blocks far away enough from the cop to ditch the ride and be ghost. But where you gonna go when you’re tail ended into oncoming traffic and you can’t move until the light changes? This stuff ain’t like the movies, you know. You gotta wait. And he did, and as soon as he gets some leeway he starts gunning down the wrong side of the street, shooting through red lights, bull dogging cars off the road. And now the cops are hot. They got a couple of squads right behind him and one trying to pull around in front. He tries to stay ahead. Maybe tries to loose them as he winded his way towards Lyons. But that’s gonna be nothing but hopeless, you know? His ride was short and busted from the start. After he gets past the bridge on Belmont, he pulls over in the Store 24 parking lot. The hooks pull right in with him. He doesn’t care. He just lies down on the seat. Guns are drawn; they’re screaming at him to get outta the car, to show them his hands. He doesn’t give a damn. Come and get me, he’s thinking. They drag him from the car onto the street, throw him in the squad. He’s hoping to puke on them while they drive back to the station.

“When I talked to him, he said he was cramping real bad and he was too antsy to keep up the chase. He had to pull over. There was no way around it. Now this poor kid’s whittling miniature canoes in a Juvie Hall shop class.

“So you see what happened? You see how it can all go down the drain in a matter of seconds? One quick glance between hunter and hunted, a size-up of fears…that’s all it takes.”

He finally pulls the gun from his waistband --- it’s a black Beretta .22, small and efficient. He holds it out to me, flat in his palm. “So DO NOT be more scared than your victim.”

“All right Chickey,” I say.

He drops his body to the floor, sitting on his knees, fingers spidered around his kneecaps. I look at his head of curly black hair. Like clown’s hair. The hair of people who are buoyant, who are carefree and happy. Chickey is none of these things. There is no sparkle in him, no spirit of light. I rarely ever see him outside of shadows, outside of places left in noxious ruins, places where rats scurry across the floor like marbles from a shattering jar, and where the darkness is always saturated with the presence of venomous men. But for whatever it’s worth, Chickey cares. And he has wisdom. Between him and me, I think he’s the only one that actually knows if I can, if I will do this or not. That’s a wisdom I do not ask him to share with me. Keep it. We nod to each other. Goodbye. Good luck. Be safe.

I run my finger along the bottom of the grip. It’s loaded. I click the safety on and tuck it into my pocket before walking out of Stanely’s Furniture Warehouse. Outside. The cold. I exhale and watch the smoky puff of breath evaporate in the air. As the warm moisture disappears, I think of that first boxing spar some years back at the Ionic Ave. Boys Club. I won that fight. My heart raced and my arms flew like hawks and after I heard the whistle blow, I watched them as they carried the kid out of the ring. But I don’t know how I can win this time. How do you remember what winning means when for years all you know is losing? You plunder, you cheat, you swindle tiny moments of peace and then with your heart in your hands, you offer it to the streets. And when the streets take it, you say Thank You as though it did you a favor. And you try to find something soft to put your head on for a little while, not wanting sleep, but just wanting your ears to rub against something warm; wanting the warmth to take place of thought, the softness to persuade your skin into gentler forms of sensation, to convince your mind of more benevolent truths. It’s a rigged game. A loser’s game. But how do you fix it when you’re so sick that you don’t know well enough not to play? See that you’re sick, boy. See spring. It’s close. See it. Look for it.

I stand for a moment in the silence of the evening; a somber quiet that feels vast, as if there’s been no noise for years. A light snow is brewing in the sky. A neighborhood that’s not well off, but not really poor, is laid out in front of me. A few dogs bark in the distance, breaking the age-old stillness. Their leashes rattle against chain fences and asphalt, their echoes falling asunder in the hollow gloom of the streets. I walk down the road towards Dume St. The orange light from the lamp gets closer and brighter. Feet crunch salt on the pavement. Closer and brighter. I smell the flawless odors of winter, inhaling the rich scents of crisp steel, evergreens, and stiffened birch wood trees deep into my lungs. Closer and brighter. The flowering of desolate magic, the petals of night blossom all around me as the winter anguish spreads across the city. It’s the celestial hunger, the blessings for venial lives, relics, the cosmic beacon. I move into it. Closer and brighter. Closer and brighter.

 

[END]

© 2004 Michael Cannon - Contributor's Bio