Frank Zafiro - Under a Raging Moon

He sighed and glanced at the comic book rack. He mulled over the possibility of giving Spiderman a try. Then his gaze drifted toward the candy rack. He was considering having a Snickers bar when a flash of movement near the door caught his eye.

Curly saw it for trouble before the guy even hit the door. He recognized the black hair down to the shoulders from the newspaper drawing. The scar seemed to leap right off the man’s intense face as he burst through the glass doors. The intensity reminded Curly, briefly, of his drill instructor at boot camp.

“The fucking money in a bag! Now!” The man even sounded like a drill sergeant. He leveled the small black revolver at Curly’s face.

Scared, Curly slid the register drawer open. At the same moment, a thought occurred to him. A wonderful thought. A way to gain recognition. Maybe even get himself back into the Corps. To be a hero.

“Put the money in the fucking bag, you little geek!” The man screamed, out of control. Curly figured that as a good thing. The ones that didn’t keep their heads always lost at paint-ball.

Curly put all the bills into a paper bag and slid the register closed. Using the bag to cover his movement, he reached under the register and grasped the.25 auto.

“Free-” he started to say, bringing the gun up. He felt a sharp pain in his cheek and heard a muffled roar. Everything slowed down. He tried to squeeze the trigger but couldn’t. He saw a flash of light and felt a pinprick in his abdomen. The floor rushed up and caught him, leaving him sprawled on his back. He watched the man jump over the counter and take the bag from his hand.

He blinked.

The man was gone.

He blinked again, staring at the alarm button. He willed it to depress itself. The button sat motionless, a stoic accusation.

You blew it, it said. You blew it in the Corps and you are no hero, Curly.

He tried to blink again, but found he could not open his eyes after he had closed them.

Monday, August 22nd

1609 hours

A gang meant family, plain and simple. It provided what kids either didn’t have in their own families or just didn’t want from them. Until people realized that, they would never understand the power of the gangs. It was about being a part of something. Being accepted .

Gerald Anthony Trellis knew all about that. He did everything he could to be black. He talked like the gangsters, dressed like them, walked like them. He listened to rap. Most of all, he cursed his white skin, an accident of birth. He knew what some of the racist white boys in River City called him-wigger. White nigger. They meant it as an insult, but he accepted the word with a measure of pride, even though it was the only thing that kept him from being fully accepted.

In a way, he should be thankful that he was from River City. Demographics forced the Compton Crips who’d relocated up here to allow whites into their gang activity. And Trellis, who called himself T-Dog, was the number one recruit of Morris the Cat.

Morris lay on T-Dog’s couch with earphones on, listening to one of T-Dog’s many rap CDs. T-Dog gave Morris pretty much anything he wanted. CDs, booze, a place to crash. Whatever the gangster wanted. Morris had the juice here in the RC, and so he held T-Dog’s ticket to full acceptance. Plus, The Cat liked him. Only last week he had mentioned sponsoring T-dog on a trip down to Compton to get beat in.

Man, to get beat in by a Compton Crip set! T-Dog felt a rush of pride. His whole life, everyone told him what a loser he was. His father, on the rare occasion when he was around, just beat on him. His mother had all these stupid rules she expected him to follow. She didn’t understand that no one ever got anywhere playing by the rules. A man got somewhere by making his own rules.

School wasn’t for him, either. Why should he sit politely in class and listen to some adult talk about something stupid when he made more money working with Morris than they did? How many 17-year-olds could afford a brand new car?

No, the Crips gave him power and he liked it. Soon, Morris would make sure he got beat in, making him a full member and giving him even more power.

The thing was, though, Morris had been pretty distracted and pissed off lately. He hadn’t mentioned the beat-in for over a week. He spent all his time bitching about everything, especially that white cop who busted him. T-Dog had never seen Morris so enraged. After he picked him up from jail that night, Morris screamed for almost an hour. Most of what he said hadn’t made much sense. Or at least, T-dog didn’t understand it. He’d been upset over something concerning what the other guys in the car were going to say about the way that cop treated him.

T-dog didn’t see what the problem was. Hell, getting busted by five-oh and keeping your mouth shut was another way to earn your stripes. But T-Dog knew he wasn’t as smart as Morris. The guy was in charge not only because of his juice but also because of his brains. He tried to listen to everything Morris said, so that he could learn from him.

The one thing that he’d learned about the most was juice. Street credibility. It was way more important than money or bitches or cars. If a man had juice, he had the world. So, with that in mind, T-Dog started to formulate a small plan. He thought it was one that would satisfy Morris’ rage and give them both some juice. Maybe even enough to get him beat in.

After all, where could he get the ultimate juice?

1654 hours

Eyes droopy and his breathing shallow, James Mace sat in the small chair in the corner of the apartment bedroom. On the floor beside him he’d discarded the small needle that had delivered all three of them to this land of floating stillness. A bent and burnt spoon lay on the nightstand next to a wet, deflated cotton ball.

Mace blinked slowly, forcing his eyes to open again. He knew his face bore an impassive mien, but he imagined himself with an idiot’s grin.

Things were getting worse. There was a time when his grin would be real, not imaginary. He couldn’t even enjoy his fix anymore. It was like taking aspirin now, taking away his itches, aches and nausea. His skin and clothing were disgustingly dirty, but he didn’t care. It kept the drug inside longer. Besides, cleanliness was overrated.

He looked over at the bed. Leslie and Andrea, both nude, lay motionless, their limbs wrapped around each other. He wished that he had more than a passing drive for sex. He hadn’t slept with either of them for weeks. He didn’t care that they were occasionally doing each other in his absence. Both of them were worthless, anyway. On the last two store jobs, he had to call another whore, Carla, to drive. Crack-head Carla. She worked cheap and quickly realized that driving a car was more profitable and less dangerous than hooking.

He’d banged Carla twice last week, more to subjugate her than for any real need for sex. A woman was more easily controlled once you’d screwed her. Made ’em loyal. At least Carla had shown a little more enthusiasm than Leslie or Andrea had in a long while.

Being the man was hard, Mace groused from the depths of his floating world. He had to be responsible for everything. Even in the midst of what should have been his euphoria, he was thinking of his next fix and how he would get the money for it. Maybe he could relax during that high.

His thoughts drifted to the last robbery. God damn that had been sweet. That goofy little clerk tried to pull a gun on him, and he fucking wasted the little geek. Blew a hole right in his cheek and pumped another one into his gut. That had been the greatest thrill Mace had experienced since Panama. The power rush was incredible. It made him feel alive. Hell, he needed the heroin just to come down from that high.