George Pelecanos - The Turnaround

Raymond went to the back bedroom, which he and James had always shared. There were two single beds placed against opposite walls. The beds had become too small for them as they had grown, and now their feet hung off the ends. At the foot of each bed was a dresser, previously owned, that their father had brought home, having found them or bought them for next to nothing. Ernest had strengthened the dressers with nails and fortified them with carpenter’s glue and vises. He had then refinished them, making them better than fine. One closet held shirts and church trousers that needed to be hung.

On the wall was tacked a team photo of the 1971 Washington Redskins, who had reached the playoffs for the first time in twenty-six years. The man who ran Nunzio’s had given Raymond the photo, having obtained it in a Coca-Cola promotion, saying he had no use for it. Raymond suspected the man was just being kind. Raymond was into the Skins, but his first love was basketball. The Knicks were his team. He was a Clyde Frazier fan, and James was partial to Earl Monroe. Some folks called Earl Monroe the Pearl, and some called him Black Jesus. James and his friends just called him Jesus, but not around Almeda, who said that this was blasphemous.

James had a white T-shirt on the back of which he had Magic Markered the name Monroe, with Earl’s number, 15, carefully written below. He’d put the number on the front as well. Raymond Monroe had decorated a T-shirt in the same way, with Frazier’s jersey number hand-printed on the front and back, along with the single name Clyde.

Raymond picked up James’s Earl Monroe T-shirt off the wood floor and smelled it to see if it was clean. It didn’t stink much, so he folded it and went to James’s dresser, opening a drawer and placing the shirt inside. His hand lingered on top of the shirts, and he looked over his shoulder at the open door. He didn’t hear footsteps. There were the sounds coming from the television and the muffled voices of James and their father, still talking.

He ran his hand under the T-shirts and felt nothing. He closed the drawer and pulled on the one below it, which housed jeans and shorts. Beneath the shorts, Raymond found steel. A short barrel, a crenellated cylinder, and a checkered grip.

It was as if a match had been struck inside him. Strength and manhood could come to a boy at once with the touch of a gun.

Charles was about bullshit most times. But this time, Charles had spoken true.

Alex Pappas had the ticket stub from the Rolling Stones concert up on the bulletin board in his room. The Stones had played RFK Stadium on July 4, a few weeks earlier, and Alex and his friends Billy Cachoris and Pete Whitten had been there. Alex had spent hours in line at the Ticketron outlet at Sears in White Oak, waiting with the other heads to score seats, but it had been worth it. Alex did not think he would ever forget that day, not even when he got to be as ancient as his old man.

Also on the board were tickets from Baltimore Bullets games he had attended with his father, who had generously driven him and his friends up to the Baltimore Civic Center. Earl the Pearl, Alex’s player, had been traded to the Knicks this midseason past, and with him had gone some of the attraction of the Bullets. It wasn’t the same, rooting for Dave Stallworth and Mike Riordan instead of Monroe.

Alex was in his bedroom, waiting for his girlfriend to call. The record by that new group Blue Oyster Cult was playing on his compact stereo system, an eighty-watt Webcor home entertainment unit that included two air suspension speakers, an AM/FM radio, a record changer and dust cover, and a built-in eight-track deck. He had saved up his tip money and bought it with cash up at the Dalmo store in Wheaton. By the unit were some eight-tracks, Manassas, Thick as a Brick, and Broken Barricades, but Alex preferred records, which sounded better than tape and didn’t have channel breaks in the middle of the songs. Plus, he liked to take the shrink-wrap off a new album, read the credits and liner notes, and study the artwork as he listened to the music.

He was looking at the Blue Oyster Cult art now, while “Then Came the Last Days of May” played in the room. The song was about the end of something, its tone both ominous and mysterious, and it troubled Alex and excited him. The cover of the record was a black-and-white drawing of a building that stretched out to infinity, stars and a sliver of moon in a black sky above it, and, hovering over the building, a symbol that looked like a hooked cross. The images were unsettling, in keeping with the music, which was heavy, dark, dangerous, and beautiful. This was Alex’s favorite new group. They were due to open for Quicksilver Messenger Service at Constitution Hall, and Alex planned to go.

The phone on the floor rang, and Alex picked it up. From the tremor in her voice he knew Karen had been crying.

“What’s wrong?” said Alex.

“My stepmother is such a bitch.”

“What she do?”

“She won’t let me go out tonight,” said Karen. “She says I’ve got to stay and babysit my sister. She says she told me about this last week. But she never told me anything.”

Karen’s sister was her half sister. The baby, no longer an infant, was the result of the union between Karen’s father and his youngish second wife. Karen’s mother had died of breast cancer. Karen’s father was a prick. Everything was wrong in their home.

“Can you sneak out later?” said Alex.

“Alex, the baby’s only two years old. I can’t leave her.”

“Just for, like, fifteen minutes.”

“Alex!”

“Look, okay, I’ll come over. After your folks go out.”

“What are we going to do?”

“You know, just talk,” said Alex. He was thinking of Karen’s pink nipples and black bush.

“We better not,” said Karen. “You know what happened last time.”

Her parents had come home early and surprised them during a make-out session on Karen’s bed. Alex had emerged from Karen’s bedroom with a bone protruding from under the fabric of his Levi’s and some excuse about having gone in there to try and fix her stereo. Her father had stood there red-faced, unable to speak. He was a class-A jagoff who had been lousy to Karen since the new wife had come into the family.

“I guess you’re right,” said Alex. “I’ll just go out with Billy and Pete.”

“Maybe tomorrow?” said Karen.

“Maybe,” said Alex.

He hung up and found his friends. Pete could get the family’s Olds that night, and Billy was ready to go. Alex put on jeans with a thick belt, a shirt with snap buttons, and Jarman two-tone shoes with three-inch heels. He shut down the stereo and left the room.

His brother, Matthew, fourteen, was in his bedroom down the hall. Matthew was close to Alex’s size and excelled on the football field, the baseball diamond, and in class. He was more competent than Alex in every way except the one way that counted between boys. Alex could still take him in a fight. It wouldn’t be that way for much longer, but for now, it defined their relationship.

Alex stopped in the doorway. Matthew was lying atop his bed, tossing a baseball up in the air and catching it with his glove. He had thick, wavy hair and a big beak, like the old man. Alex’s hair was curly, like their mom’s.

“Pussy,” said Alex.

“Fag,” said Matthew.

“I’m headin out.”

“Later.”

Alex went along the hall, past his parents’ bedroom, and stopped at the bathroom door, which was slightly ajar. The air drifting out smelled like soapy water, cigarettes, and farts. His father was in there, taking one of his half-hour baths, something he did every night.

“I’m goin out, Dad,” said Alex through the break in the door. “With Billy and Pete.”