"Pete what are we gonna do if those kids show up with twice as many of them?" I asked.
"I'll tell you what I'm gonna do," Pete replied. "I'm gonna kick their butts."
"They didn't even really do anything, except cuss you out a little," I responded.
"Eh, you know me, I like pickin' fights for no reason; otherwise, this town gets boring as hell." Pete said.
To be honest, Pete was actually right about that. This town is really boring if you don't make your fun somehow.
I wouldn't personally choose to beat up a bunch of kids, but we weren't about to judge Pete's intentions. It's just who he was.
Besides, he always fought a fair fight, and never used weapons of any kind.
In fact, one time, during this time last year, he had picked a fight with a sophomore, Bruce Williams.
Bruce was the biggest, scariest dude in school. He was captain of the football team and everyone knew not to mess with him. Anyway, they had agreed on no blades or weapons of any kind. Pete still got beat up real bad of course, but he didn't back down, even when Bruce pulled a wooden baseball bat on him.
We all tried to jump in and help Pete out, giving him a fair fight, but the dude wouldn't allow it. He had too much pride and too much integrity. He'd rather get beat up and lose than cheat to win.
Pretty soon those kids showed up on their bikes while we were chillin'. They seemed to be just goofing off for a while before approaching us.
'Hey what the hell y'all doin here so early?" Pete shouted as he sprinted up to them leaving us behind. Sally and I turned to each other with a quick glance and then followed quickly behind Pete.
"Y'all kids get outta here unless you're ready to fight now," Pete said.
Sally had already dropped her headphones on the ground gettin' ready to fight. I put both my fists in the air and shouted, "He's right we're gonna beat the hell outta ya for hangin' 'round on our territory."
They were on our turf uninvited and we took this as a serious threat. Pete might've been crazy to pick a fight in the first place, but now they deserved it.
I saw what looked to be the oldest and leader of the group reach his fist deep into his front pocket. Assuming him to be reaching for a blade I put my left hand on my knife in my back pocket while still keeping my right fist in front of my face ready to either take a hit or quickly throw a punch.
Before he could pull anything out, Pete reached out his left arm, grabbed the punk by his shirt and yanked him off of his bike.
Winding up his right arm and clenching a fist preparing to throw the first punch at the kid, when all of a sudden, we heard that dreaded sound. A police siren. The noise sounded like it was close. We all turned around quickly and the cop was sitting in his car on the other side of the lot.
Pete immediately dropped the chump he was holding and took off in the other direction. He hopped the fence into Erik's yard and kept running from there. The rest of us scattered, even the little brats we were about to fight knew that this time we were all on the same side against the cop. Everyone knew that it was every man for himself so that the cop couldn't catch all of us, and if one of us did get caught the rest of us just would keep running. A man down is a man lost. All we could do was pray for his dear soul. Not that any of us were particularly religious or anything.
The cop for some reason didn't chase any of us and instead made a b-line towards the direction that Pete had run. I thought it was odd, since he didn't really do anything, besides trash talk back and forth with a few kids and attempt to pick a fight. Pete hadn't even thrown the first punch yet. However, the old store clerk was probably the one that called the cops and the cop surely recognized Pete from the clerk's description.
Sally and I regrouped after a few minutes outside of Erik's house. We didn't want to go back to the lot for now, so we figured we'd stay inside for a while. Erik was in the garage working on his truck, but stopped to take a break when we showed up.
Filing through the front door of Erik's house, we all clustered into the living room and plopped ourselves down on to the couch. No one else was home at the moment. I think Erik's little brother had a baseball game or something and I'm sure his dad was working even on a Saturday. His parents were never home. They were either always at work or doing something with Erik's little brother. It's not that they didn't like doing things with Erik, but they knew that he was a teenager and sometimes needed his space. Besides, he had all of us. Even Jason would take Erik and I to hangout for the day sometimes. We all looked out for each other, that's just what gangs did. That's just what friends did.
I reached for the remote to turn on the boob tube, but Erik grabbed it before me.
"Oh no you don't," he said as he quickly snatched it away. "We ain't gonna watch noneya anime Dragon Ball crap," he teased as he flicked the T.V. on and started surfing through the few channels they had.
"Ya got anything to eat 'round here?" Sally asked.
"Nah, not really," Erik responded. " The fridge is empty and mom can't buy more groceries until dad gets paid next Friday."
"That sucks," she replied.
"If y'all want though we can take the bin of soda cans I collected down to the drug store and use the money to buy a pizza or something?" Erik suggested.
It was then that it hit me just how poor Erik's family actually was. My brother and I were poor too, but Jason always managed to at least have extra food around. I never imagined needing to collect soda cans and bottles to bring in for spare change just to buy some lunch. I felt kind of bad for him, even though I knew he didn't care what anybody thought. The thought still haunted me a little bit.
"Sure," Sally said as she jumped up. "Sounds like a good idea. I'm starving."
"Say, how'd it'd go with your old lady and the broken glass earlier?" I asked.
"It's all fine," Erik replied. I got grounded for the week though. Y'all will have to get outta here before my parents show up again, but that won't be until later tonight."
We followed Erik out to the garage where he kept a plastic bin on a red, Radioflyer wagon, filled to the brim with pop cans.
As He was fastening it to his bike, Sally and I were looking around the garage, mostly at his truck. "So how far are you until you get this thing runnin," I asked, pointing at the old rusty Ford Bronco.
"Imma work on it tonight." Erik said, "I gotta get a few parts as soon as my old man gets paid, but I should have it done in a week or so. It all depends on if my dad will loan me the cash for the parts. It actually is running now, but just a little rough."
"I still think it's a piece of crap," Sally said as she rolled her eyes.
"Oh shoot!" She exclaimed.
"What is it?" Erik and I both asked simultaneously.
"I left my headphones on the ground at the lot."
"No worries," Erik said calmly. "We'll swing by and grab it."
We opened the garage to go outside, walking alongside Erik who was pushing his bike. We stopped by my house first to get my bike, then ran over to the lot. Sally looked around frantically not seeing her headphones anywhere, until all of a sudden with a tear in her eye she shrieked as she pointed to the ground. Erik stayed by the sidewalk with our bikes as I ran over to her.
Sally picked up the busted and smashed CD player with her headphoness smashed up too.
"Those kids are gonna pay," she said under her breath. "They are going to pay," she said again angrily.
"Sally, it'll be fine. We'll all chip in and get you a new one."
"They're GONNA PAY!" She screamed as she whipped her head around at me.
After a few minutes of Sally freaking out, she started to calm down. We walked back over to Erik who was still waiting with the bikes. In this neighborhood you don't dare leave your bike unattended, not even for a second.
"What's wro--oh, I'm sorry Sally."
"Y'all go on without me," she said.
"Are you sure?" I asked.
"Yea, just go. I need some time alone."
Erik and I hopped on our bikes and rode off.
I turned my head around to see Sally kneeling on the ground, holding her CD player and sobbing uncontrollably. She briefly looked up to see me staring. We made eye contact and then she quickly turned herself around so as to not be seen. I knew that she wanted us to leave so we wouldn't see her cry like that. It was an unspoken rule in the group that if you needed to sob over something, you kept to yourself and no one else in the group was to judge it for any reason. Sally especially didn't want to be seen crying. She was rough and tough. She never wanted anyone to see her fragile side, which we all knew was there, but didn't even dream of speaking about.
Soon the two of us made our way to the town's only grocery store. The store was a dinky little shack run by a retired old couple in their mid '70s or maybe even their '80s. I don't know, I just know they were old as dirt itself.
We parked our bikes and the wagon outside as we carried the bin of cans up to the counter.
Erik waited for the cashier to add up all the cans while I went to go pick out a pizza from the freezer section of the store.
I opened the freezer door and pulled out the family size pepperoni pizza, but quickly put it back remembering that I wasn't with my brother and that this pizza was way too expensive for Erik and I too afford on our own. I opened up the freezer door again and instead pulled out their cheap Jack's brand pizza. "This stuff tastes like cardboard," I muttered under my breath. I didn't dare say that to Erik though who honestly wouldn't care and would probably just laugh and agree, but nonetheless he was trying his hardest to provide for himself and I with a little bit to eat.
I walked back up to the counter where Erik had been waiting. He had gotten just enough change to buy the pizza.
We rode our bikes back to Erik's place.
After finishing eating and watching a little T.V., we went over to my place to play video games on my Xbox. We played Mortal Kombat for about an hour, but once it had gotten dark Erik left quickly to beat his parents home.
Jason walked in the door just as Erik had left. Supposedly he had been on a date that night.
"How was your date," I asked with a smug look.
"It was fine I guess. I ain't gonna call her again though."
"Why not?"
"I don't have the time or the money to be dating right now. Maybe after you graduate."
I set my game controller down and looked wide eyed at my brother. "I'm sorry," I said with almost tears in my eyes.
"Don't worry about it kid," Jason said as he walked over and rubbed his hand on my head, messing up my neatly combed hair.
"My God, kid how much gel ya got in your hair? I gotta go wash my hands. What are ya' some kinda greaser now?" Jason chuckled as we walked over to the bathroom sink to wash his hands.
I laughed and picked up my controller again.
Jason finished scrubbing his hands and came back into the living room.
"Can I join ya?" He plopped himself down on the couch and picked up the controller that Erik had been using which was sitting on the coffee table.
We stayed up all hours of the night hanging out and playing video games.