LITMIR.BIZ

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parkway.

      The forty-mile trip to Arlington takes more than an hour, a journey that ends with a phalanx of soldiers, black and white, gathered for a time-honored ritual as only the military can provide. A bugler sounds tender notes. On the ridge above, a squad in dress blues snaps to a muffled command. Rifles fire a sharp retort, and the mourners jump and bristle uncomfortably, the sound itself measured differently in the world they know. Ella watches, awed, as the stretch of flag is held taut above the finished coffin, the warriors making crisp, triangular folds. Then, with the click of locking heels, the folded flag is delivered to the grieving mother.

      On the way home, Kiti sleeps soundly, and Ella is alone to think on the hallowed perfection of Arlington and to enjoy the greenery that surrounds Interstate 95 between the cities. Then Baltimore rises up, the vista of the city’s west side extending outward in a complex of broad horizontal lines, block after block of flat-roofed rowhouses, broken only by the occasional church spire.

      Kiti wakes when Ella hits a red light at Carey Street.

      “It’s depressing,” she says, confronted once again by the litter of men and women on the usual corners. “Even the air smells different.”

      When Kiti gives her a look, she laughs. “I’m serious … It’s so depressing to come home. It’s sad.”

      Kiti says nothing.

      “What time is it?” she asks him.

      “Two-thirty.”

      Ella rushes into the apartment for a quick change of clothes, with Kiti behind her, heading listlessly toward his bedroom. She won’t worry about Kiti right now. He’ll be in his room, maybe on the phone with one of his girlfriends. Kiti doesn’t hang much, and for that, Ella is grateful.

      Dressed in jeans, a sweatshirt, and a green hooded jacket, she leaves her car on Fayette, preferring to walk as a way of showing the flag. She moves at a brisk pace, looking neither right nor left, her visage set, her eyes cloaked. In this neighborhood, even Ella Thompson has a game face.

      When she crosses Bruce, a tout steps up and announces his product without conviction. He can tell there’s no sale here, but figures there’s no harm trying.

      A young slinger glares at the tout. “Not her, yo.”

      He apologizes and Ella pushes on toward Mount, where the market chatter increases in volume. A generation back and Mount Street was lucrative territory that competing crews might war over. Now, though, with so many crews working so many packages, territory has ceased to be an issue. In Baltimore, anyone can sell anywhere, so long as there are fiends willing to pay. Now, a drug corner is all about product and name recognition.

      “Got orange tops.”

      “Big whites. Big white bags.”

      “Reds. Red tops. Reds make you sparkle. Red tops.”

      And, as always, “In the Hole.”

      Black Beauty, a dark-skinned tout known for her hard look, is busy touting today for that crew, which sells heroin under a brand name that has its origin in local geography. Perfectly isolated, the back alley that runs between Mount and Vincent on the south side of Fayette has long been known as the Hole. In service of that brand, Black Beauty walks a tight circle on Mount Street, barking in mindless repetition, like a mating bird left lonesome in spring.

      “In the Hole. In the Hole. In the Hole.”

      Ella cuts diagonally across Mount and enters an alley that sits hard against the rubble of a collapsing rowhouse. She surveys an expanse of cracked, uneven blacktop, strewn with glass shards, corralled by the tatters of a chain-link fence. An old, twisted backboard with no rim, a swing set, monkey bars, and a sliding board with a mean metallic bite at the bottom are the archaeological remnants that suggest a playground.

      On the northern edge of the lot squats a single-story, cinder-block building, its eyeless gray facade capped with a ribbon of dull red paint. Small and ugly and brooding, the thing was given life by an architect who might have learned his craft on the Maginot Line, so closely does it resemble a wartime bunker.

      Ella catches sight of two adolescent figures leaning against one of the two concrete planter boxes that flank the metal grate. Manny Man and Tae are idling, waiting for the recreation center to open.

      “Why aren’t you two in school?”

      “We got a half-day,” Tae says easily.

      The standard answer, delivered four times a week on the average. Ella gives them each a quick look, letting them feel her suspicion, but the boys stay passive. She mounts the steps, unbolts two heavy locks, and bends to pull up the metal grate. It squeaks protest and fights her all the way. She unlocks one of the two double doors and enters; the boys follow. Above the doorway, a bent square of tin proclaims, “The Martin Luther King Jr. Recreation Center.”

      Stepping into the darkness, Ella fiddles with her key ring as she rushes to open the small back office and turn off the alarm system. She returns to flip up the bank of light switches.

      “Sign the book,” she says as Tae bumps past Manny Man and claims the privilege of being the first to sign the composition notebook that serves as a roster for the flock of children who find their way here five days a week.

      “I’m first,” says Tae, admiring his signature, “Dontae,” written in a neat, tight script on the first line.

      “So what?” says Manny. “I been first before.”

      Tae thumbs through the notebook. “Look who’s always first. R.C. Damn, that boy don’t never go to school,” he says.

      Tae is deep into the notebook. He is a bantam-sized fifteen-year-old, with a wiry body of broad shoulders, long arms, and bowed legs. His hair is cut close and the skin of his face is pulled taut, giving him a pinched, sharp look. He flashes a wide grin.

      “DeAndre, too. Them two boys be crazy,” he says with relish.

      Tae still plays the game, going to school, doing his homework, obeying his mother’s curfew. He runs track and gets low-B grades and still has college or the military within his grasp. But today, he cut early to hook up with Manny Man and check the rumor that Miss Ella is thinking about a basketball team.

      “When we gonna play?” asks Manny, trying to provoke her into a commitment.

      “I don’t know yet. I wish you worried me about school the way you do about basketball,” she says.

      “Miss Ella, we’d be good,” Manny pleads.

      “We’ll see. Now don’t be pushing me.”

      Ella retreats to her small back office, hoping for a moment or two to herself. She’s torn about the basketball idea and would like to think it through. A fifteen-and-under team would be a big commitment for her and the rec, but she knows she needs something to occupy the older boys, who are getting too rough for the smaller children. Some days, it’s all she can do to keep a semblance of order.

      Outside, as if on cue, the larger room erupts in noise. There’s wild pounding against the double metal doors and laughter from Tae and Manny Man.

      “I SAID OPEN THE DAMN DOOR.”

      So much for a chance to think. Ella pushes her chair back, sighs, and goes out to open the door for Richard Carter.

      “OPEN THE MOTHERFUCKING DOOR,” shouts R.C., as Tae and Manny sit smirking, content to watch him through the wire-mesh windows as he pounds away in frustration. They, in turn, are safe behind the rule that only Ella or her part-time assistant at the rec, Marzell Myers, is permitted to open the door.

      “R.C., please,” says Ella, ending the standoff. “You don’t have to curse.”

      “MISS ELLA,” he wails, his voice raised, as usual, to the level of a shout. “THEY WON’T OPEN THE DOOR.”

      “R.C., you know the rules.”

      “YEAH, BUT

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