Brian Keene - Urban Gothic

“That’s perfect.” Javier took the bra from her and knelt next to Brett. His hands moved quickly and deftly, wrapping the still warm undergarment around Brett’s wrist and pulling it tight. A moment later he pulled the belt away and examined Brett’s fingers.

“Heather, can you light his hand?”

Heather shined the screen over Brett’s hand, and they all leaned closer. His remaining fingers were swelling. Kerri winced as she looked at the damage. She didn’t know how Javier could study the wounds with such clinical detachment.

“Good,” Javier said. “The blood flow has stopped. Cutting off the circulation was a quick fix, but if we don’t get you to a doctor soon, you’ll have bigger worries than a few fingers. You need blood in your hand or you’ll wind up losing it. So it’s good that the flow has ceased.”

Brett cleared his throat and moved his hand out of the light. “So, let’s get going. Fuck this sitting around shit.”

His tone was lighthearted, but Kerri could hear the fear in his voice. She knew how he felt. Brett had always been one to make jokes or talk tough when he was nervous or insecure or scared. This time was no exception, but he couldn’t mask the terror. It was there in his voice, no matter how hard he tried to hide it.

It mirrored her own.

TEN

“Still no po-po,” Leo sighed. “This shit is fucked up.”

Their other friends had wandered off down the street, bored with waiting around and looking for some other form of entertainment. He, Markus, Jamal, Chris, and Dookie were still standing on the corner, watching the house at the end of the block. The derelict building seemed to loom larger as the night grew darker. Mr. Watkins stayed outside with them as well, not saying much. Just listening. Privately, Leo wondered if Mr. Watkins suspected they were going to fuck with the white kids’ car and was hanging around to make sure they didn’t.

“Yo,” Chris said. “Y’all remember when them NSB boys were outrunning the cops, and they holed up inside the Mütter Museum and took hostages and shit?”

The others nodded.

“Yeah,” Leo replied. “So what?”

“I watched that shit on television. This shorty I knew from back in the day was banging a dude from NSB’s crew.”

“Only shorty you know,” Markus teased, “is the one that gave you the drips.”

“Shut the fuck up.” Chris frowned. “Anyway, there were cops all deep around that museum, in like, five minutes and shit. Now why do they show up for that, but not for this?”

“Because,” Leo told him, “there ain’t no tourists flocking to see our neighborhood like they do for the Mütter Museum.”

The boys chuckled. Leo glanced at Mr. Watkins. The older man’s eyes seemed to sparkle, and there was a slight grin on his face.

“Mr. Watkins,” Leo said, “you know you don’t have to hang out here with us, right? I mean, if you gotta go to work tomorrow, then you probably want to go to bed. It doesn’t look like the police are gonna show, anyway.”

Shrugging, Perry took a drag off his cigarette and exhaled smoke into the night air. “That’s okay. Lawanda don’t like me smoking in the house, so you boys are doing me a favor. The longer you hang out, the more nicotine I get in my system.” He lowered his voice and leaned forward conspiratorially. “And believe me, living with her, I need all the nicotine I can get.”

Their chuckles turned to laughter, and Perry’s grin transformed into a broad, beaming smile.

“And I’ll tell you boys why the police haven’t shown up yet.” He sat down on the top step of his porch. Leo and the others took seats around him or leaned against the railing. Leo thought that Mr. Watkins seemed surprised—and maybe a little pleased—by their undivided attention.

“Now, it’s true,” he continued, “that the cops are slow to respond down here. Sometimes it takes hours. About ten years ago, I saw a young man get gunned down right over there.” He pointed. “Took the police three hours to respond, while he lay there and bled to death. It ain’t no thing for them to be late. Most nights, it pisses me off, but sometimes I can’t really say that I blame them. With the economy the way it is, they’re even worse about showing up. Ain’t just the big corporations going broke. It’s the governments, too. All levels. Municipal, city, state—even the Feds. It doesn’t matter who’s in charge. Hell, California almost filed for bankruptcy last year. California—an entire goddamned state!”

“What’s that got to do with us?” Jamal asked.

Perry took another drag off his cigarette. “I’ll tell you what it’s got to do with you. People ain’t got no money, so they don’t pay their taxes or other bills. Then the city goes broke. Starts looking for ways to cope with the budget crisis. Ways to save money. First they go after all the programs they don’t think are necessary—the programs that a lot of folks down here count on to survive. But then they’re still coming up short of cash at the end of the month, so they start laying people off. Parking meter attendants, garbage men, maintenance workers—and cops. Always the cops. In the end, the city ends up with fewer cops, but just as much crime. Hell, more crime even. The worse the economy gets, the higher crime rises. But now there aren’t as many cops to deal with it, and the ones who are left—they’ve got priorities. And our neighborhood ain’t very high on that list.”

The boys were silent, pondering his words, weighing them. Finally, Leo spoke up. “It shouldn’t be that way.”

“No,” Perry agreed. “It shouldn’t. It definitely shouldn’t. But it is. Been that way long as I can remember, and I’ve lived here a long time. On television, the president talks about change, and I’d like to believe that he means it, but down here, ain’t a damn thing changed.”

One by one, their gazes were drawn back to the house at the end of the street. Perry’s cigarette tip glowed orange in the darkness.

Leo frowned. “What is it with that place, Mr. Watkins? I mean, I know not to go in there. Ever since we were little, we’ve been told it was haunted. Hell, it looks haunted. Nobody goes inside. Everybody knows that the people who go inside don’t come out again.”

“True that,” Jamal said. “Not even the crackheads or meth skanks go near there anymore.”

“But why?” Leo insisted. “What’s it all about? What happens to the folks who vanish? There’s got to be a story behind it all.”

“You asking me for the history of that place?” Perry watched them nod, then sighed. “No one knows, boys. No one knows. At least, not anymore. Maybe folks did at one time, but if so, then those folks are dead by now, or old and senile. This neighborhood ain’t got no sense of history. Not like the rest of the city. You think about that for a moment. There’s over a million people living in Philly proper—almost six-million if we count the whole metropolitan area. We’re the fourth largest city in the country. With that many people, you’d think somebody would know the story behind that house over there, but they don’t. They can tell you all about the Liberty Bell and Ben Franklin and the Underground Railroad and the influenza outbreak. They can even tell you about when the police declared war on MOVE and firebombed their house back in the eighties. But none of that happened on our street or on our block, so we don’t matter. We don’t even rate a footnote. Only thing that happens here is black folks killing other black folks, and that don’t make the news unless it’s a bumper between sports and weather.”

He made a broad, sweeping gesture with his hand and continued. “Look around you. You kids see anything to be proud of? You see anything here worth noting or remembering? Of course you don’t. We’ve got no pride because there’s nothing here to be proud of. There’s nothing here that we want to remember. And when that happens—when the folks in a neighborhood lose their pride in where they live, then their history—and the history of that neighborhood—gets lost, too. If you took a drive out there to the suburbs, you know what you’d find?”