I told Scrat that I was a runaway, which was the truth, and I was looking for a new place to crash. I thought he could point me out to an abandoned building or something. Instead, he said, "Hey! My guys can hook you up, man! Ever here of the Chain Gang?"
It did sound familiar. I shrugged. "I'm from out of town, remember?" He laughed. Then he said, "Stop me if you've heard this before; four guys who perform a legitimate public protection service to the area. Just call us up, tell us your story, and we'll take care of it. Well, for a small fee of course."
I took a minute to take this in. "You're...." I began, "a rent-a-cop?" A flash of anger appeared on his face, then he calmed down. "That's under-mining it a bit. Did you notice I didn't actually pay for any of the food you're eating?" Now that I think about it, I saw a lack of greens being exchanged at the counter when we were up there.
He smiled. "We saved this place from getting totally trashed. They repay us with some free grub, eh, well, once a day at least. We can't completely clean this place out." he finished, chuckling a little at the end. "But, you get the idea right? We're like those, uh, 'Hero for Hire' guys in the comics. Like Luke Cage, ya' know?"
I did kind of know. This kid wanted to be a hero, to seize the moment, like I did when I was trying to save the people in that building so long ago.
After a minute or two of silence, he said, "So you want to hang with us, or what?" I nodded. "Let's go. Right after I finish these fries."
We walked to what looked like a condemned apartment building, when he stopped, turned around and said, "Double M-X-two." Actually, he almost screamed it at me. I gave him a funny look and said, "What?" He looked at me for a long time and said, "Sorry. Just testing you. I had to make sure you weren't a spy or something."
This sounded interesting, "Spy for what, exactly?" He sighed and said, "There's been a gang running around that seems to like causing havoc. Been giving us crap since they formed." Then he opened the door leading into the condemned building. "Wait." I said. He stopped and half-turned to me. He smiled and said, "Trust me for a sec, will ya?"
I was reluctant, but I followed him into the building. The room looked like an over sized living room. The floor was all carpeted dark blue, except the little square where we entered. The square was surrounded by shoes of every kind. I saw one pair of girl shoes. The far right of the room had a fair sized TV surrounded by old couches and lawn chairs. On the other side, there was a brown wooden desk with filing cabinets against the walls. The desk was cluttered with papers, a phone, and an old computer. There were three other guys and one girl in the room. The girl was behind the desk writing something down with one hand, and typing something else with the other. The guys were watching a football game. Everyone froze and stared at me; not at Scrat, but me.
Luckily, Scrat knew what to say, "It's okay guys. He's cool. He saved my butt from some Double M-X-two thugs." Within seconds the guys were standing in front of me, checking me out. Scrat was the shortest of them, the black kid was in the middle, and the other two were competing with height. The black kid stood in front of the rest. "How we know if he ain't a spy, or something?" he said. The Hispanic girl called out to him, "Eddie...."
Eddie turned to her and said, "What? It happened before, and we lost-" He shut his mouth. A sense of dread swept the kids and hung in the air. I sighed. "Scrat," I said, "I appreciate the offer, but I don't think this is going to work. Thanks for the meal though." Scrat grabbed onto my arm. "Wait up, man. Guys, he ain't a spy. He doesn't even know the gangs around here." The skinnier of the two tall ones said, "Is he from out of town?" Scrat and I looked at each other. "Something like that." We both said.
Eddie pulled Scrat aside and they both started talking in hushed voices. The stick and the giant blocked my view from them. After a minute of just scuffing my shoe on the floor, Eddie and Scrat revealed themselves again. "OK." Eddie said, "We'll let you crash here, but only if you help us out a little bit. No free-loaders here. Got it?"
I nodded. "Fair enough." I said.
No comments:
Post a Comment