Which is pretty easy, actually, when you’re walking into the repetitive nothing of government housing: all redbrick and flaking paint, and iron railings corralling concrete porch steps.
A long, nothing walk, long because Lincoln Green is kind of big, the whole thing dumped off this five-lane drag. The central road into Lincoln Green, named after a civil rights leader, naturally, spirals around these semicircular pods, each facing the road with the single-level duplex units ringing the two-level townhouse units in the middle—which is where we live. I guess the single levels are on the perimeter so that their view won’t get blocked. Because everyone loves to stare at traffic or a concrete drainage ditch deep enough to float a ski boat if there was ever enough rain.
Yeah, swift thinking. It gets better. Each little semicircular pod u-bends toward the street and each other, arcing around a pathetic patch of grass and dirt. Like the patch is this luxury that deserves spotlighting. Like the curve is beautiful. It’s supposed to feel all spacious: You’re not trapped at all, see? You’ve got this patch. Choked with weeds and sun-bleached toys, but it’s there.
Behind the buildings is a little access road with parking spaces—so there’s this double rainbow of crap: scrub yard, old AC units, laundry, cars, salvaged grills, sofas and plastic lawn chairs, busted window screens, cinder blocks, and people. Everywhere.
The best part of the crap-rainbows design is it actually amplifies noise. Late-night fights, people screaming on their porches, girls shrieking and pulling hair, kids crying, men and women throwing down—you can hear it all.
Which is how I heard the thrum of the car engine, even over the screaming kids.
The car pulled up behind me, the crunch of tires on gravel announcing the slither to the edge. I moved onto the scrub and waited for it to prowl by.
“Hey! Jason!”
I turned and saw Michael Springfield shouting out the window of his vintage Mustang.
You wouldn’t normally find guys like Michael or cars like that within one hundred yards of public housing. Prom King Jock—sandy hair flopping into dark eyes, like a movie star. Girls thought so, too, but Cyndra was his steady girlfriend.
She wasn’t the obvious choice for the job, until you looked at her. She wasn’t a cheerleader, she wasn’t going to be in the homecoming court, she wouldn’t give a damn about painting banners or shaking pom-poms. There was an edge to her, beautiful and cold, like a dagger made of ice.
She sat in the passenger seat, watching me with emerald eyes and a scythe-curved smile. The fingers of one hand toyed with the large diamond stud in her ear.
My school is kind of bizarre—it’s like two schools in one: the public school and the private one. And most of the Lincoln Green kids get bused to another school—don’t ask me how they pulled that. Some politician loved his alma mater too much to see it overrun, I guess. Anyway, the rich kids are all on the “advanced” diploma track—so they’re usually not in the regular classes with the rest of us.
Except every now and then the regular classes are full to bursting, and so they’ll pull some of us and put us in advanced curriculum classes. I’ve been in Advanced Lit and Honors History, and one time Botany—which, believe me, they don’t push to regular diploma kids. I guess they’re afraid all of us regular trackers’ll grow weed in the hydroponic wheel or something. Clay wouldn’t even let me joke about that. It’s funny what gets under his skin sometimes.
This year it was an AP History class they put me in. They said I didn’t have to take it for college credit, but that I should try anyway.
Which was maybe why Michael Springfield was talking to me, because I sit in front of him in class.
“Jason,” he repeated. He gunned the engine as he popped it out of gear.
I didn’t speak. Just waited.
Michael stopped smiling. I guess he isn’t used to silence when he speaks to a nobody. If he stayed at the curb much longer, snot-nosed kids would steal his hubcaps while he idled.
Cyndra curled forward, clasping her hands between her knees. She has to know what that move does to her breasts.
“Listen,” Michael said. “I want to talk with you about something. I’ll pay you for your time.” He sounded like a bad movie and looked like one as he laid a fifty on the dashboard. “Cyndra—”
She tilted her cleavage toward her boyfriend.
“Get in the back, baby. Jason’s going to ride up front.”
She popped on all fours and slowly climbed between the seats.
I pulled a cigarette out of my coat. I know, I know, smoking is lame. But it’s not like I’m going to be an old man on a ventilator. I’ll be dead long before then.
I ignored the fifty and peered in through the open window.
“What time is it?”
“Six o’clock,” Cyndra said.
I let the cigarette dangle from my lip and pulled a hand through my hair. Janie won’t cut it as often as I’d like—she says it looks tough longer. Personally, I think the last time I asked her to cut it she just went through the motions, but if that makes her happy, I guess I don’t care.
The Mustang idled like a predatory cat, purring. I ran the time in my head. If it was only six, then there was a little more than an hour, probably, before my dad would make it home. Time to burn. Besides, I was curious. And I thought of what I could get with that fifty.
Cyndra might give me a few more glimpses, too.
I could feel the eyes of the neighborhood on me. To his credit, Michael didn’t rush me.
“Fine.” I took a deep drag before letting the smoke fume slowly out of my mouth. “But you bring me back here by seven fifteen at the latest. No games, no waiting.”
Cyndra laughed. “What? Don’t tell me you have a curfew.”
What an idiot.
It must have showed on my face, because she stopped smiling and for the first time looked away.
“Sure, no problem.” Michael leaned across the car and popped the door open.