Wrath White - Yaccub's Curse

We froze for a second, cringing against the tires of the shiny new Caddy while the belt whipped searing welts on our skin. Finally our brains kicked into gear and we ran like the devil was on our tail.

“Damn kids! Ya’ll just let me catch ya foolin’ with my car again and see what happens to you little niggas!” he yelled after us. He could rest assured that that would never happen.

We sat on the steps of the corner store comparing welts and talking about the hell our parents would visit upon Mr. Steeltower when we told them how he had beaten us with his belt in the middle of the street.

“My Mom will shoot that fat muthafucka right in his fat-ass!”

“When Warlock finds out he’ll probably get so mad he’ll cut his damn balls off!”

Nikky didn’t talk about his parents. They were both drunks and drug addicts who sat around their musty old house drinking MD 20/20 and smoking weed all day.

I told my mom and Nikky told his brother, but nobody did anything. Steeltower was a notorious gun and numbers runner and all three of his sons were killers with rap sheets a mile long. Nobody messed with that family. When I got home I found out that Steeltower had already been there and spoken to my mother. When I opened the door she was standing there with her hands on her hips balled into tight little fists. The cords in her neck were bulging and the vein in the center of her forehead was pulsating. I wound up getting a second beating far more vicious than the first.

“You know that man almost shot you?” she asked as the sole of her shoe worked savagely across my thighs, back, and buttocks.

“The only reason he didn’t pull the trigger was cause he recognized you as my child! Now you march your smart ass back over there and apologize to that man!”

She smacked the shoe against my crying pleading body a few more times; holding me tightly by the arm with her nails leaving half-moons in my bicep as she jerked me around to keep me off balance and open more areas for attack. She was nearly out of breath when she finally released me to comply with her command.

I did as I was told and was surprised to find a grinning friendly Mr. Steeltower who eagerly accepted my apology. He was impressed with my politeness and humility in a time where kids my age were already robbing old folks for their social security checks though he was no doubt aware that all my cockiness had been beaten out of me prior to coming over there. Incredibly, he slipped me a five-dollar bill and told me to come see him if I ever needed anything. I left with a newfound respect for the man. I later found out he was my grandmother’s sometime lover.

Nikky and I were always getting into shit. We used to go down to the Woolworth’s on Germantown and Chelten Ave and steal Hot Wheels cars from the toy section.

In our neighborhood Hot Wheels cars were a sort of status symbol. Since nobody around the way actually paid for them, how many cars you possessed was a sign of how accomplished a thief you were. Nikky and I had well over a hundred between us. We would spend hours racing the cars down hills and betting on which ones would make it to the bottom first.

Once we walked into the Woolworth’s with the pads from our BMX bikes in our hands. We had intended on unwrapping a few Hot Wheels cars and hiding them inside the pads. We had racked up about six cars each and were on our way out when I noticed the rumpled old, gray-haired, security guard, with the skin-tight high-water uniform on, circling around to intercept us at the exit. I knew he was going to ask to check our pads so I decide to pull a Bugs Bunny move on him. I handed both pads to Nikky and just as the security guard walked up I asked him what time it was. As unbelievable as it sounds, the fool actually stopped and looked at his watch. Nikky slipped safely out the door with the contraband and I stood and waited for the security guard to reply.

“Four o’clock.” The grizzled old rent-a-cop answered and I smiled politely, thanking him for the info, and walked out the door leaving him scratching his head and trying to convince himself that he hadn’t just been scammed by an eight-year-old. Nobody likes to think they’re an idiot even when all evidence points to that conclusion.

Winters in G-town were even more fun than the summers, but only marginally less violent. Right after the first large snowfall the entire neighborhood would rush down to Wissahickon Park to race sleds and inner tubes down Tommy Hill. Tommy Hill was about the length of two city blocks inverted at a seventy-degree angle and dotted with trees and bushes both large and small. My mother would smother me in endless layers of clothing, fill a thermos with hot chocolate, jam my head into a ski mask, earmuffs, and a scarf, which I would get rid of within minutes of leaving the house, and send me off with my rusted old Red Flyer sled to brave the hill.

Beneath my goosedown winter coat, I would be wrapped in Long John underwear, two pairs of pants, a T-shirt, a shirt, two sweaters, and a nylon jacket with a fleece lining. My feet were stuffed into two pairs of socks and plastic bags to keep the moisture out and then packed into huge snow boots that looked like something you’d wear for a walk on the moon. Off I’d speed towards Tommy Hill and there I’d stay ’til I lost all feeling in my extremities and Mom would have to hold my hands and feet under hot water while I screamed and cried as feeling returned in an onrush of white hot pain.

The hill looked like a swarm of ants on an ice-cream cone as kids from all over raced down the hill. The White kids who actually lived in that neighborhood had long ago been driven off after several violent confrontations with some of G-town’s hardest. The few that did venture out were quickly relieved of any valuable possessions and sent home with bloody noses, missing teeth, busted lips, or blackened eyes, and sometimes worse. G-town had staked its claim.

Freezing winds scoured our faces, cutting into our skin like icy razor blades as we recklessly careened down the hill catching air and landing in sprays of snow. Inevitably someone crashed into a tree and had to be taken to the hospital, but as soon as the ambulance left we would all start flying down the hill again; careful to steer around the red snow.

It was rumored that the hill had been named after a kid who’d been killed sledding down it a hundred years ago. I couldn’t remember anyone ever dying while we were out there, but bruises, lacerations, and concussions were an everyday thing.

One day during Christmas vacation, after spending hours racing up and down the hill, we were walking home when a bunch of kids who were throwing snowballs at cars on Green Street decided that we would make better targets.

“Get those muthafuckas over there!” one kid yelled and suddenly the sky became a blizzard of frozen projectiles. The snowballs were mostly slush and we were soaking wet in seconds. A short stocky kid with snot running down his face like a fat black soda fountain with a leak picked up a big piece of ice and threw it, hitting Nikky in the face, cutting his lip and bloodying his nose. Nikky started crying and sat down in the snow holding his face. The rest of the kids zeroed in on him and began bombing him with snowballs as he wailed and sobbed and screamed for them to stop. I ran across the street breathless with rage and dove on the short kid. I was pounding the kid’s head into the snow when the other boys started kicking and punching me, dragging me off of the snotty nosed boy.

There were more than eight of them and fists and feet struck me from all angles as I swung blindly trying to connect with anything. Out of the corner of my eyes I saw Nikky rush over and fight his way through to my side. They were surprised by Nikky’s attack and for a moment it almost looked like they would retreat, then one of them tackled Nikky and they all started stomping and kicking him as he struggled to get up. They ran off and left us both bleeding in the snow freezing half to death. Worst of all, they had stolen our sleds.