LITMIR.BIZ

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      “It was awesome!”

      Sy was the coolest. He just had a knack for making the best out of anything. He smiled and combed his sweat-dampened hand through my hair.

      I lugged Excalibur and followed Rich out the back door past the bathroom. There was blood smeared all over the white-tiled walls and a dark pool in the sink. As we passed, the guys saw it and burst into laughter. Outside, I noticed two long, skinny legs sticking out of the bushes that lined the cinderblock wall. The black combat boots attached to them crumpled inward on each other. I walked over, stooped down, and peered into the narrow crevasse.

      “What,” Rich shouted toward the bushes. “Can’t hold your liquor?” He set the amp he carried down on the stones and opened the truck’s back hatch.

      It took a second for my eyes to adjust—it was the black dude with the spiked mohawk. He sat and clutched his stomach. A smear of dark red blood covered the white Dago T. His eyes stared blankly into the bushes.

      “You alright?” I asked. I reached out and touched his ankle.

      Sy walked up next to me, still chuckling at what Rich had said.

      “He’s hurt,” I said, glancing up at Sy.

      Sy bent down and looked.

      “Oh shit! Call a fuckin’ ambulance!” Sy yelled as the other guys scrambled back inside.

      “Shit, man! You OK?” Sy crouched down. The guy looked at Sy and started to say something, then his head just slumped to the side, and he passed out. His thin torso began to slide down the wall. Sy pushed the bushes back and reached in, grabbing him and holding him up.

      “What?” Rich asked as he sauntered over.

      “He’s fucking hurt, Rich!” Sy shouted. “Call an ambulance!”

      “Oh shit,” Rich laughed. “Them skins got him.”

      “Wake up, man,” Sy said and slapped him lightly on the cheek. The guy seized. A line of yellow ooze slid out of his lips, touched the stones, and then slurped back before just dangling from the corner of his mouth. He started to shake violently, and his legs jerked and kicked up the stones.

      “Man, leave that nigger where he lays,” Rich said, laughing.

      “What the fuck, Rich?” Sy yelled. “Are they calling or what?”

      “Come on, Joey,” Rich said as he put his arm around my shoulder and led me to the truck. The fat bouncers rushed out of the club.

      We left after the ambulance got there. I was in back, scrunched next to Sy.

      “Think he’s gonna die?” Rich said as he turned slowly onto Peterson. The red and blue ambulance and police strobes spun and spilt onto the crowded street.

      “Shit, I don’t know,” Sy answered. “He looked bad, didn’t he?”

      “He came to the wrong fucking place,” Rich said.

      “That guy wasn’t doing nothing to nobody, man,” Sy said as he slammed his fist into the pleather headrest in front of him. “He was just slamming like the rest of ’em.”

      “Had the wrong skin tone is all,” Rich drawled as one of the others chortled.

      “Richard, would you quit that shit already?” Sy sighed. “What the hell they ever do to you?”

      “Ahh, they hate me just as much as I hate them,” Rich laughed. I thought about Jan’n’Rose and wondered if they really did hate each other. It sure seemed like it sometimes. My mind drifted as we drove home along Peterson, and I thought of the black punker and hoped he’d be OK. Why do people hurt each other so bad? I felt the bumps along my forehead. Why can’t we get along? I closed my eyes and tried to think of nothing as the wind howled in my window. The Assyrian floated in a black haze. His eyes were closed, and his arms were folded over his chest in some ancient burial pose. Why’d you have’ta die? His mouth opened, and he whispered, “I ain’t dead,” then he smiled and vanished.

      We pulled up in front of the house, and Rich double-parked. He got out and walked me toward the house.

      “Now you know you can’t tell Ma or Dad or anybody what happened tonight, right?” Rich said, rubbing my shoulders. “Or else you won’t be able to go with again, OK?”

      “OK,” I said, and started up the front stairs.

      “Alright. I’ll see ya later buddy,” Rich said.

      “OK. Thanks, Rich,” I went through the front door and didn’t tell a soul.

      Rich was like that. He could be really good to me sometimes, and he could be a miserable son of a bitch, too. It all depended on his mood that day I guess. But to be honest, when I look back on it, I could see that he really loved me. He even really loved Jan’n’Rose, too. He was just all mixed up and living in a fucked-up world out there—almost getting raped like that. I mean, that could radicalize anyone. All those crazy radicals out there, all of ’em had either something horrible happen to ’em, or some kind of mental illness, and Rich had both. That made it rough for him, and it was only gonna get worse.

      He needed a guy like Simon around. Sy had sense. He could make sense of the world for these guys. He made them feel like what they were going through mattered and had meaning. That respecting each other and being there for each other was what mattered. The whole North Side knew Sy, whether it was because of his bands or just that he was always around the metal scene back then. People just latched onto him. He knew everyone, and everyone loved him. Sy had a sense of right and wrong, too— something Rich had lost somewhere along the way. Without Sy around, I think Rich woulda been doing way worse shit out there in the neighborhood. In fact, I’m sure of it.

      CHAPTER 5

      SEEDS

      MY BROTHER BLAKE was a terribly sick child. He had a hole in his heart the size of a walnut, and they weren’t sure if he’d make it his first five years. He literally could have been rushed into surgery at any moment, so Dad even stepped down from his foreman position in order to take on a Union Steward job, (basically, the Union’s eyes and ears on the site). He couldn’t afford to get laid off and lose his insurance, even for a week, and stewards worked all year round. By the time Blake was about twelve, the hole sealed up on its own. He started playing Pop Warner football with the High Ridge Chargers and ended up being pretty good.

      Lil Pat was a brutal big brother to Blake. Don’t ask me why. Sometimes, when two eggs hatch, a terrible war unfolds within the nest. That seemed to be the force of nature at work between ’em. Rich told me that when they were little, Lil Pat would do horrible things to Blake. Things like literally holding him down and taking a shit on him, or pushing him out of a tall tree, which broke Blake’s arm. It was a long, cruel list, but Blake survived.

      Blake started out high school as one of the smallest and slightest kids at Gordon. He was a little over five foot and about a hundred and twenty pounds. He worked hard on the football field and ran the practice squad. He concocted mock defenses in order to imitate their next opponent. But then, something miraculous happened: his sophomore year, he started to grow. By the beginning of his junior year, he was closing in on six feet in height. By the end of the season, he was 6'1" and starting receiver and safety for a pretty strong Catholic League squad.

      His growth spurt had its ill effects on Rich, who’d been bigger and taller than his older brother for several years by then, though Rich could never fight a lick, and Blake could always best him. But now that the tide had shifted, so to speak, Blake recalled the brutality he’d endured most of his life inflicted by a big brother. So, he decided to educate Rich on what it was like to be a hated little brother.

      One night, the summer before Blake left for Drake, shit got messy. He’d moved into one of the side rooms in the partially-finished basement. We had a TV and stereo set up down there.

      It was about one in the morning, and Rich and Sy sat on the sofa in the basement chowing down

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