There was no one there to see me or hear me scream. They beat me badly; one held me while the other one hit me over and over again. They were probably forty years old, beating a fourteen-year-old into the pavement.
The knife had come out after what seemed like forever. They cut me all the way down my left side, and left me to bleed to death in the alley. AJ had the whole gang out looking for me. Blade had found me and taken me straight to the hospital. That’s how bad it had been. If you got taken to the hospital you were half dead ‘cause we didn’t have the money for it.
They left a scar that went all the way down the left side of my back where they had cut me, and another on my forearm—a result of the struggle.
“You ready to go?” I asked, pulling on my jacket and taking one more look in the mirror, shaking the memory from my mind.
“Yeah.”
I knew I’d have to walk him there, otherwise he wouldn’t go, and even during the day the street wasn’t the safest place to be. There were other gangs around like us. Our number one rival was Haker’s gang. We were always fighting for territory. Sure, we had our turf that no other street gang dared to step foot on, but the streets were the streets.
Then there were the Spades. We weren’t rivals, but we weren’t allies either. We didn’t really have anything to fight about; we had our turf and they had theirs. Neither of us was about stirring up trouble, we just acted as neighborhood protection from the thugs that itched to destroy it for no better reason than boredom.
The other gang we had ongoing problems with was the Shawns brothers. They had been around for a long time, way before the Locals had joined forces. They just passed the reigns down the generations. They were a tough gang, Shawns’ group, and we were always at war with each other, whether for territory or just to keep them at bay. They weren’t like us, they were hard and mean: they jumped people for fun, sold drugs, and robbed people. We just kept other gangs off the three blocks of our turf, and kept the people who lived there safe… or we tried to anyway.
“Well, I guess we’re here,” Mark said, looking up at the school building.
“What did you do to get Saturday school for anyway?” I looked up at the school, too.
“I may or may not have cussed out Mrs. Blare.”
“You got Mrs. Blare for lit, huh?” I had her when I was a freshman. She was a witch and had always been on my case.
“Sure do.”
“She probably deserved it, but you should try not to get in trouble at school so much.”
“What a hypocrite. You get in trouble all the time at school,” he retorted.
“Yeah, but I don’t do stuff that I know is going to get me in trouble, like cussing out my lit teacher. Of course, if someone picks a fight with me I’m not going to chicken out either. I have a reputation to protect.”
“You’re such a hypocrite.”
“Hey, do as I say not as I do.”
“Practice what you preach,” he threw over his shoulder as he went in the school.
Now I stood alone. Unfortunately, I wasn’t alone long. I hadn’t gone more than a block when a red Honda stopped beside me. It was old, but you could see they were trying to fix it up. It looked to be in-between paint jobs; it was sanded down, and the spoiler looked ridiculously big for the car. Three guys stepped out. I lit a smoke and stood there trying to look calm. You would have to know me to know I was scared out of my mind. I’m tough and I can hold my own in a fight, but getting jumped and almost dying… that changes you. It’s something you never forget; it lurks inside of you and seeps out when you’re alone.
“What’d you want?” I asked, trying to sound nonchalant.
“You a Cove?” one of them asked.
Yeah, I was a Cove. Cove was my last name, but I wasn’t planning on telling him that, just in case one of my brothers had done something out of line. The guy that asked had his head shaved and it looked stupid. Not many could pull the look off, and he wasn’t one of them. The other guys must have been brothers; they looked exactly alike, both tall and lanky with spiky black hair and dull-brown, almost black, eyes.
“What’s it to you?”
“Well, it just so happens, I’m looking for a Cove,” the bald one spoke for the group.
“Is that right?” I said, taking a long drag off my cigarette and starting to size them up.
The brothers didn’t look too tough, but they were trying. They weren’t built like fighters, and I thought maybe if the bald guy wasn’t with them I might’ve been alright. Making a run for it was an option, but they were only fifteen feet away from me. I wasn’t sure how far I would get.
“That’s right,” Baldy smirked.
“Hey, Clay!” I heard a familiar voice call.
I knew it was Sticky, but I wasn’t stupid enough to turn my head on the enemy. Sticky wasn’t a very big guy—rather short but with a good build—but he was a good fighter. He was seventeen, a year older than me. He was the best of thieves and I wouldn’t want him in my house if I didn’t know him so well. That’s, of course, how he got his name. He had been a member of the Locals since he was about thirteen.
“How you been, man?” Sticky asked, playfully punching me on the arm, acting as if I wasn’t about to get myself beat to death. He put an elbow on my shoulder. “What’s up guys?” he spoke to the other three, still smiling that goofy grin.
“We were just looking for ourselves a Cove. It looks like we found us one.” One of the brothers finally stepped up.
“What you want a Cove for, man?” Sticky asked, playing along. I could tell that he was sizing them up, just as I had.
“Well, it seems a Cove jumped Clark here’s kid-brother last night,” the brother said, jerking his thumb toward the bald one he called Clark, the leader.
“You messed up somebody’s kid-brother?” Sticky asked me, a fake puzzled look on his face.
“Sure didn’t,” I assured him, taking in my surroundings.
The street was three feet from my left. There were cars skidding by, late for work, none paying attention to the scene on the sidewalk. Kids fighting was so natural in this neighborhood that no one thought twice about it, no one called the cops or stopped to help.
Sticky looked at the three guys. “This Cove didn’t jump nobody’s kidbrother. So why don’t you leave this Cove alone?”
“Why don’t you mind your own business?” Skinhead warned, taking a threatening step toward us. He looked slightly familiar, but I couldn’t be sure.
“I ain’t got no other business to mind. His is as good as anybody else’s,” Sticky said, still sounding as casual as if we were talking to old friends over coffee.
“The more the better,” one of the brothers smirked, sounding confident they could stomp us with whatever weapons I’m sure they were packing. I watched as one of the brothers dropped his hand into his jacket.
“Sure is,” Sticky said. He never seemed nervous, even if he was about to get jumped. I wasn’t feeling so calm about things.
Just then, a familiar car came around the corner. “Hey, look who it is. Our good buddy Fry.” Sticky grinned.
We both knew they wouldn’t take us three on three. Disappointment crossed their faces and we