Book I: The Sub-Urban Brawl, Chapter 4

Manny found himself pressed firmly against a wall by a man far too strong for him to break away from. He could tell by a fat lip and red bruises on the other that Marty and Fel had knocked him up quite a bit before escaping.

“Your little friends took my fucking wallet,” he seethed, his big block head red all over. “Do you have any idea what the boys're gonna think of that? A bunch of fucking kids?!” Kids? Marty and Fel weren't too much younger than this guy, Manny thought, but his fear and the alcohol on the other's breath kept his mouth shut. “Fuck!” The big man shoved Manny against the stone support of the bridge. Manny's head hit hard.

The man then grabbed the other by the wrist and lead him along the river, pulling ever ahead, no matter how much the other resisted. “You're coming with me and if you even fucking think about trying to escape I will make you wish you didn't. I'm tired of little fucks like you and your little friends fucking up the rest of the world for decent people. You're the reason this country's in the condition it is.”

The two made it to a set of steps which led to the top of the incline, across the grass, then an empty Front Street, and up a narrow alley that housed the Harrisburg City Police Station. Upon realization of their destination Manny became at once a terrified little child and his struggling grew more violent, not that it changed anything while in the powerful clutches of his the other.

His musclebound captor approached an old pot-bellied officer, who worked at a desk from behind a bullet-proof window, and explained how he was a proud member of the navy, toured the Persian Gulf, saw great men die in a bout with pirates, and, lastly, caught one of three kids involved in theft and assault, which he only survived due to his exceptional military training. The officer thanked him for his local and national services on behalf of the city of Harrisburg, made a phone call and Manny Gonzalez was taken to the back, searched for drugs or weapons and fingerprinted...

“Who are you?”

“Where are you from?”

“Do you have any I.D.?”

“Tell us what happened!”

“I said, tell us what the hell happened!”

The demands of the officer, a short female with a booming voice that more than made up for her size, were only met with silence. The bright lights, constant stream of radio transmissions and uniformed men and women that revolved around him existed in such blatant contrast to the life of shadows and chaos he was used to that he could not help but be afraid, thought he hid it well behind a false face of stubborn courage.

In an empty jail cell he went, the female officer put him in there snickering to an older guy about learning lessons and no-good Spics. “No name, no money, you're gonna be here for a while,” she spat. “Ya little shit.”

Hours passed. The sun would be up within the next thirty minutes. Manny sat in a corner of his cage, wiping the tears from his eyes before anyone could see them. “This is my life now,” he thought. “Because of something I didn't even do...because I couldn't leave shit alone...” He accepted his fate for what it was- a possible one for someone of his age, race, and social status. It happened. Though there was one thing he was certain of, a single feeling that brought a tiny glimmer of comfort: while under the protection of the law, he would be spared the wrath of the man he betrayed.

“You're free to go,” said the officer who caged him. She walked in sucking at her teeth, uninterested in her own news, which took some time to process in Manny's head as displayed by his blank-stare response. “Are you deaf?! Somebody posted your bail and you can go.” She unlocked the door to the cell. “So get the fuck out!”

Manny followed her past desk after desk and a dozen scowling officers who seemed to be blaming the boy for every hardship in their lives with their collective eyes. She led him to the entrance, opened the door, and told him that his ride was waiting around the corner.

He cautiously walked to the alley where his liberator waited, only to find that liberation was the last luxury he would be given. Mr. Blik, that tall imposing figure, stood propped up against his jet-black Mercedes, his dark eyes boring, drilling into Manny's soul. “Emmanuel,” he said, his voice slow and intense. “You're lucky the navy boy didn't press charges.” Manny watched the other, not daring to utter a word or make a move unless ordered to. “You disappointed me. Betrayed me.” Manny's heart was pounding in his chest. “All for what? Answers? Your dead-beat dad? Well, here's your answer. I had him killed. He was working for a man trying to work my streets so I took care of it.” Blik showed a sliver of fatigue. “It was supposed to happen before he got to you.”

Burning tears swelled up in Manny's eyes. “I'm sorry!” he cried. “Please! Please don't-! I'm sorry!”

“And what's worse,” Blik continued, unaffected by the other's pleas, “you used my kids behind my back. Fel told me the whole story when she and Marty returned home. She saw the men on the boat. She heard you yelling after them.”

Blik examined the other, slowing looking him up and down until he stopped, meeting him eye-to-eye. WHAM! He drove his fist hard into Manny's stomach. The boy collapsed to the ground. If any cops saw, they didn't do anything to stop it. “Find Jen,” demanded Blik through clenched teeth. “I don't know where she went off to during all of this, but it is your fault. You will bring her back to me or you will suffer.”


Jerry chased Lou who chased the pickpocket, but he didn't know why. He had no ties to him anymore. This time Lou was just running away instead of slowly fading.

Maybe Jerry chased his old friend out of habit, like he was still running the third leg of the 100m relay in eighth grade, rounding the track's top semicircle, his tightly laced Adidases slapping the surface of brown-red rubber in Lane 3, arms cutting the air, breath shortening, Lou accelerating in front, yelling “Stick!,” and placing the Linglestown Eagles' blue and white baton into Lou's extended palm for the anchor leg.

Jerry didn't run like that anymore. In high school, speech tournaments quickly replaced track meets as his primary Saturday activity. Jerry, as a competitive and smart young man, knew he stood a far greater chance of winning a trophy in the Extemporaneous Speaking category than a ribbon long jumping, and there ended his illustrious track career. And at NYU, he never ran except for spring semester sophomore year on Tuesdays and Thursdays to make it to that damn eight o'clock Anthro class across Washington Square, his messenger bag taking flight off his shoulder in the early morning air, but that really didn't count, which explained why Lou, despite his new gargantuan size, and his wallet-toting perp beat Jerry across Front St. and through the sliver of a park next to it, and had now tumbled down the steep embankment towards the Susquehanna River.

He leaned his hands on his knees and inhaled and looked at the chilly blueness rolling by, above it City Island, where the lights still shown on a playground he had frequented years ago. Every corner he turned in this city was another memory. It happened to him in New York neighborhoods as well, but those were recent memories, nothing older than two years. Every building and nook in Harrisburg felt old, too old to be his.

And that's when she kicked him from behind, one of those childish kicks that do no damage other than buckling your knees, but Jerry went down, breath still heaving, now with his back in the grass and his eyes taken out by looking straight up at the overhanging streetlight. The girl continued sprinting into the blackness, petite and fast.

Jerry yelled after her, “Hey, what the hell?” He lay sprawled out in the street light, exposed by an interrogation lamp, lit up in a spotlight center stage.

She spun, her figure silhouetted in the lights from the sidewalk. “No fucking way - Jerry Ashcroft?” She took a few steps forward. First the light caught her legs, thin and dolled up in black tights, then a tiny plaid skirt, then a blouse halfway undone, and then her little mouth said, “Un-fucking-real,” and it was Jen Karpency.



In a dimly lit bedroom in Harrisburg's downtrodden and much ignored south side, a woman in her forties sat at the foot of her bed once again crushed beneath the constricting guilt from what she lost. The sounds of happy children running in the apartment below were only salt to the wounds. She sat, as she often would, with the lights out and the windows drawn, consumed by what she had chased away.

The phone rang.

“Hello?” she answered, her Spanish accent thick and voice trembling.

“Is this Mrs. Angela Gonzalez?”

“Si. Yes. It is.”

“Well, Mrs. Gonzalez, this is Officer Randall of the Harrisburg City Police. I think we found your son.”