LITMIR.BIZ

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say Kiti gonna be mixin’,” says R.C.

      “Yeah, I be there,” DeAndre says, before turning his attention back to Boo. “You comin’?”

      “Huh?”

      “You comin’ down?”

      “Yeah.”

      And off he goes, a fifteen-year-old entrepreneur on his daily commute to the office. With Boo trailing, DeAndre walks past Stubby, who’s back out slinging Pink Tops at Fayette and Vincent since Collins rolled out; on past Scar, who’s selling green vials in front of the vacant house on the other side of the street; on past Drac, who’s working out with Killer Bee along Gilmor; arriving at last at the Fairmount corners, the market niche that he has made his own. Fairmount and Gilmor, home of the Big Blue Top.

      There, on his corner, DeAndre proceeds to have a day like no other, a sell-out-the-store bonanza that keeps him running into the late hours of night. He’s got a bomb and his name is ringing. Customers are coming at him from Monroe Street, from Hollins and Payson, from down below Baltimore Street. He’s out there when Boo sells off his allotment and settles up. He’s out there still when Boo has gone home for the night. He’s tired, working hard, and ultimately, getting a little bit lazy in the wee hours—all the more so after two Phillies blunts packed with that good Edmondson Avenue weed. By eleven or so, he’s no longer ducking back into the labyrinth of alleys that run off the 1500 block of Fairmount. He’s out in the open for most of the sales, carrying it with him, serving people right along Gilmor.

      He’s too busy to notice the unmarked Cavalier at the other end of Gilmor, too tired to bother sending the girl with the $10 bill back into the alley for her two vials, too ready to believe that he can go on like this forever, slinging on autopilot, making more money than even Tyreeka knows how to spend.

      “FIVE-OH.”

      Aw shit. Coming up Gilmor. Two of ’em on a jump-out from a gray Chevy. And right when DeAndre was about to pass two vials to the girl. He drops them in the gutter and races into one of the side alleys. Behind him, he can hear the car doors slam and heavy footsteps. But fuck that, he knows Fairmount’s alleys and he knows where he’s going. He’s also a fifteen-year-old running on adrenaline and $120 high-tops; not many rollers are going to stay with that, burdened as they are with utility belts, Kevlar vests, and hard-soled shoes.

      The footsteps behind him fade, but as a precaution, DeAndre cuts through to Baltimore Street, then doubles back and waits a few more minutes before slipping back out onto Baltimore again. Then, finally, he saunters casually up to the corner, standing there for a moment, peering up Gilmor to Fairmount and the scene of the crime, so to speak. No cops, no crowds—just the regulars drifting back toward the corner.

      Then from behind him, he hears the screech of radials. DeAndre turns and they’re out of the car and on him—Huffham and some other roller that DeAndre doesn’t recognize. This time he doesn’t bother to run. He even manages a little smile, figuring he’s gotten over.

      “What’s up?” he asks Huffham.

      The cop is shaking his head, one meaty hand gripping DeAndre by the upper arm, lurching him into the liquor store window grate. It hurts like hell—especially when they yank his arms back and apply the cuffs.

      “Why’d you run?” the other police asks.

      “What?” says DeAndre.

      Huffham shakes his head again, but DeAndre could care less. He beat them straight up, ran them into the dust in those back alleys. He could have stayed hid forever if he wanted; he only popped out on Baltimore Street because he knew they didn’t have the coke. And now they’re late; they’re dragging his ass back up to Fairmount and the corner is cluttered with fiends and dealers. No way. They didn’t have it and DeAndre knew they never would.

      All the way up the block, he’s holding down the smile, trying to manage a hard-as-nails gangster look for the sake of appearances. He sees Linwood in the crowd. Dink-Dink, too.

      Huff ham is still gripping his arm, moving him toward the curb in starts and jolts. The other cop is a few steps ahead, bending down. Aw shit.

      “You want these back?”

      Got-damn. Couldn’t someone—anyone—out here have picked the shit up? Lord, please, I’m on a corner with every fiend in the neighborhood and not one of them sees fit to pick up two vials of coke lying in the gutter? He’d have gone on home if he thought the people at Fairmount and Gilmor were just going to leave Blue Tops lying all over the place.

      He waits for the wagon. The corner—his corner—watches the dethronement with indifference. DeAndre shouts toward the closest recognizable face.

      “Tell my mother I’m up the Western.”

      There’s no comprehensive ass-kicking this time, though he did run from the police—a sin that often provokes a Western uniform to deliver some parting shots on principle. Perhaps it’s because he’s fifteen, perhaps because he didn’t bolt a second time when they pulled up on Baltimore Street, and perhaps because Huffham and his partner are about police work by the rules. For whatever reason, DeAndre arrives at the station house unhurt.

      Huffham is good about trying to reach Fran as well, but that’s no surprise: the juvenile system is such a pain-in-the-ass complication for a working police that it’s better by far to get a parent or guardian to come up to the station and sign for the kid. In fact, some police will actually lock a kid up, process him, and then drive the arrestee back home rather than suffer through the wait for a juvenile hearing officer. Worse, if the kid is committed to JSA custody, there’s also that drive to Hickey or Waxter. So for the rest of the four-to-twelve shift, they’re calling for Fran to come and get her son, trying to reach her by calling a neighbor who lets people from the Dew Drop use her phone. When that doesn’t work, DeAndre gives Huffham the number at his grandmother’s house on Vine Street.

      He’s waiting and watching, listening to the cop try to explain the situation, probably talking to Miss Roberta, who’s probably confused. No, she doesn’t know where Fran is. Fran doesn’t live here. Aw shit.

      Nothing is working. Fran is out on her own adventure and the connections aren’t getting made. At midnight, the shift changes and there’s no alternative but to call for juvenile intake. DeAndre’s still hoping that someone on Fairmount got the word to his mother, that Fran is on her way up to the Western now. But barring that, he’s bound for Hickey.

      It’s nearly two in the morning by the time the intake officer has DeAndre McCullough properly processed as a delinquent child. She commits him to the Hickey School in Baltimore County, citing not only the lack of an available parent to take custody and the current offense of possession of cocaine with intent to distribute, but two other pending juvenile cases: another cocaine charge from September and a stolen car charge from August.

      He’s still waiting for the early-morning ride out to Hickey when word comes back that the training school is over capacity. New juvenile arrests are being sent fifty miles south of the city, to Boys Village in the lower reaches of Prince George’s County. That’s trouble. DeAndre was ready for Hickey; he’d heard about the place from half a dozen C.M.B. boys already. But Boys Village is way worse than Hickey, filled with D.C. niggers who like to beef with the Baltimore boys.

      His sense of foreboding increases as he rides south, the amber glow of the city receding as he’s hauled down Route 3 through miles of suburbs that give way to farms and woods and Lord knows what else. Highway signs point to places that DeAndre can only wonder about: Crofton, Bowie, Upper Marlboro. Watching the outline of an open-slat tobacco barn roll by under the moonlight, DeAndre wonders where in hell they’re taking him. Klan country, probably.

      On Fayette Street, the standing assumption is that any place in America without bricks and pavement and black people is, by definition, a playground for sheet-wearing, pickup-truck-wrecking, get-a-rope rednecks. It’s a powerful and enduring myth to the young men and women of West Baltimore, a self-imposed construct of the corner mind: They don’t want us out there. They don’t need us. Stray from the streets you know, you fall

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