Brothers in arms

Chapter 7

" Just chill for a while, homes you started losing it the other night. I heard you laughing in your sleep. that's messed up," Frankie said.

You know it's bad when a guy with a knife wound in his stomach and a gun in his car tells you to relax.

" I hate this. its like I'm in prison or something," I said. I was standing at a pay phone down the street from our new apartment. my mom had refused to set up a phone down the street from our new apartment. My mom had refused to set up a phone in our place because she wanted to cut me off from my friends. She used cell phone for all her calls. I was allowed to use it but only in front of her.

It's for your own good. h
You need go make new friends. the ones you have are only going to lead you to trouble," mom had said when she made her decision. she made me feel like I was three years oold. it didn't matter, though. she couldn't stop me from grabbing some change and using a pay phone.

"Marcus, I'm gonna find the person who shot Lamar," Frankie assured me. "when I do, we'll come for you. right now, you're to far away to do anything, so just chill."

I hated that Frankie was right. my mother moves us to the other side of the city. to get back home, I had to take a fifty-minute stop and go trip by bus, one I'd have to pay for. there was no getting around it; I was stuck.

I hung up the phone and started walking. anything to pass the time. you can only watch so much tv in the middle of the day before you start to really go crazy.

The new neighborhood was completely different from back home. for one thing, there were black people everywhere, old and young, on the sstreet. where I came from, on the street. came from, almost everyone was Chicano or Mexican. we had blacks in a few houses, and they didn't hang with us. that was just the rule, and no one said aanything.

It's the sand with the white people. they didn't live anywhere near us, and they always seemed scared when they made wrong turn ended up on my street. but they weren't scared when they were looking for a Mexican house keeper or someone to take care of their yard, pick their vegetables. to them, we were all the same, even though my mom was third generation American. she hardly it, expect for a few words.

Some day, if I ever get a house with a yard, I want to hire white people to cut my grass. just because.

Beside blacks, I saw a little shop owned by what I guessed Chinese ppeople then there was a pizza shop called nikos. those people were white, but they weren't speaking a language I knew.

Down the busiest street near my place, I found restaurant that looked kind of nice called the golden grill. all the cars parked in the lot. We're nice and new. no low riders with chrome rims and booming systems. I wasn't impressed.

Not far from the golden grill was an ice cream stand called scoops. a pretty white girl with blond hair was working in there. I nodded at her as she cleaned the front windows, but she ignored me. its all good, though. blond girl ms aren't my type.

I turned up another street, and quickly the vibe of the neighborhood changed. the house were squeezed closer together, and broke down cars lines the street. done of the homes had iron bars on the windows and doors. other were rundown and in need of paint. a stop sign on the corner had been spray painted with a tag I didn't recognize. the work "Stop
Had been covered in silver paint, and beneath it someone had written the word "GO". Two black kids in baggy jeans checked me out as I walked.