No Tears For Crying

It’s a little after ten on a quiet summer night. Ice doesn’t care about the time. Ten o’clock, eleven or even midnight won’t matter much either way. He only needs a couple of hours for his alibi in case the cops show up with questions and search warrants. If push comes to shove, he’s already got guys ready to swear he was at a club downtown.

His Glock is tucked inside a sweatshirt pocket, the hood pulled low over his head as he moves along the sidewalk. The street is quiet. The air feels heavy and still. Like a forgotten part of the city, weathered and worn. A few heads poke out second and third floor apartment windows, a couple of corner boys huddle together sharing cigarettes in the doorway of the Korean grocery store, hip-hop blasting from a radio perched on somebody’s window ledge. A few blocks away a siren wails but it comes and goes, the sound quickly fading.

None of that is important.

A neighborhood kid named Derrick who was Ice’s cellmate in county lockup a few years back, had been hit that morning while standing on the corner talking to friends. Like most drive-bys, nobody saw it coming. A dark blue Honda Civic rolled down the street, pulling alongside Derrick. Two shooters with MAC-10s leaned out the windows and opened fire, cutting him down before he made it halfway across the sidewalk. Left Derrick face down on the concrete in a pool of blood while his friends scattered.

Nobody saw nothing.

Nobody knows anything, but Ice is certain the guy behind it is a punk named Jayson.

Derrick once took a beating meant for Ice. Didn’t flinch, didn’t give up a name, just wiped the blood from his mouth and said, “We even.” After that, Ice never forgot who was solid and who wasn’t. A code like that didn’t need to be spoken — just remembered and repaid.

Jayson and Derrick ran a Fulton County crew, slinging rock and pills to tourists and nine-to-five workers on a corner near Five Points, not far from the CNN Plaza. Their own slice of heaven. Somebody said Jayson got greedy, wanted a bigger piece of the profits. Got tired of sharing when he could take it all for himself. No such thing as an amicable end to business partnerships in their neighborhood, and nobody just walks away when somebody wants you gone. Things get settled without negotiations, handshakes or severance packages.

Jayson took out Derrick, then took the corner for himself.

Now Ice wants him dead.

He’s gonna do it like a man though, not hire thugs when he can do the job himself. Do it without spraying a magazine full of bullets while he is minding his own business on a street corner or talking to his crew. Do it calm and business-like without taking out innocents who aren’t part of the deal. No head shots like the younger kids favored either. Look Jayson in the eye when he squeezes the trigger. Empty the gun into his chest. Old school. Eye for an eye.

The way things used to be done. Back when there was a code.

He pops a stick of Juicy Fruit in his mouth, moving silently across the street, hugging the buildings.

Jayson is talking to his old lady at the end of the block along with a couple of friends. Ice swallows his grin. The guy is as regular as a Rolex; every night on that same corner, holding court like the mayor. It doesn’t matter what day it is or whether it’s cold, hot or somewhere in-between, he stands in that spot, acting like he runs the neighborhood. The sound of laughter carries down the street. Ice thinks how Jayson will never hear that sound again. Never share a laugh or smile, and never see another night on his corner.

Dead is dead.

No coming back from that.

Ice moves softly through the shadows, making himself small so no one can see him.

When he comes up behind Jayson he has the gun extended, aimed towards the center of his body. A surge of adrenalin crackles through his body. Hears the heavy sound of his own breath. Feels his finger on the trigger.

Ice gets right behind him, smiling the kind of satisfied grin revenge creates.

“Jayson,” he says, low and hard.

Ice doesn’t wait. Doesn’t lock eyes with Jayson, read the fear in his expression like he wants. Doesn’t see the look crossing Jayson’s face as he turns. Doesn’t notice him holding his baby daughter tight against his chest when he squeezes the trigger, feeling the gun bark, emptying the gun.

The world turns down the volume.

The only sound Ice hears as he turns and runs is the pained, piercing screams of the baby’s mother, shrieking as she cradles both bodies in her arms. That scream will live inside, haunting him forever.

BIO: Michael Downing’s latest book, Saints of the Asphalt, is available online and at select bookstores. Over the past twenty years, he’s written plays, published several other books, and had short stories featured in a range of literary magazines and anthologies—some of which have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes. He remains unmistakably Jersey even though he now lives in Georgia: full of attitude, edge, and Springsteen songs (but absolutely not Bon Jovi). Website:www.downingfiction.com