My moms is mad. And I don't mean mad like she fixin' to box my ears, though sometime she is. I mean mad like put garlic up your nose to hide from the cameras mad. I mean mad like she gotta scratch her arms all to hell on account of the bugs trying to get out. I mean mad like sometime she need to scream so much and so loud it hurts my heart to hear it. When she carry on like that I just hold her and whisper in her dirty hair that everything be alright and ain't nobody gonna hurt her no more.
I don't know what make her go crazy all the time. I seen people be just as normal as you please for the longest time and then just get mad one day like something broke up in they head. Sometime I wonder if my moms was like that. Like maybe once she used to be normal, too. But she always been mad that I can tell. I don't never remember her not being mad, so to me it's like she been mad forever.
That's why we don't have no house to sleep at or put our stuff. People want money for most things and houses take a whole lot of money, I guess. But moms and me, we don't often have money. Moms don't work much 'cause she too crazy, and I'm too young to work for real. Sometime I find something to do and gets paid, but it's never like a real job, and it's never paid good. Somebody might need they floors cleaned up real good and that's a fine job for a young boy, so I learned how to be good at cleaning. It's something I can do good and it makes me a little money. Sometime money come out of nowhere. We go to sleep this one night in this old empty house we found and when we wake up the next morning there this ten-dollar bill wadded up in my hand and I don't even know how it got there. Sometime when we do have money my moms will save it away someplace and forget where she save it at. That's like not having no money at all, to me. Sometime I think about somebody finding the money my moms saved up and spending it on cheeseburgers or fancy shoes and I get so mad. Not mad at my moms, but mad at the person who take from someone who need it more. In my mind that's about the worst thing they is.
It's not easy, not having no money. Like I said, people want money for most things, so not having no money means you can't get most things you want. I seen stores where people buy nice clothes but all my clothes ever came from a church bin. My friend Walker says that those clothes in those stores ain't never been worn by nobody. He say when you buy them clothes you have to wash the poison off them before you can wear them. If you don't wash the poison out, you skin turn black and peel right off if you rub it. I don't know why they put poison on the clothes in those stores. Maybe so the rats don't get at them in the night. But I don't need those clothes anyway. I figure a person only need three things: food to eat, a place to sleep where you don't get rained on, and somebody to keep you from getting lonely. I got my moms, so I don't never get lonely, though sometime I do get bored. We can get food at the shelters and sometime nice people give us a sandwich or something. You can find food most anywhere if you ain't too picky. And we just sleep any old place if the weather be nice. When it gets cold or rainy my moms can always find a place to hide up at so we don't get frozed up or rained on while we sleep. And you be surprised at what nice things some people put in they garbage. I don't guess that's stealing if they done already throwed it away. Sometime, though, I worry that somebody gonna find us and take they stuff back.
I never did go to school for real. I been to the churchy-school sometime, though, and I like that pretty good. Some of them churchy-schools have donuts for us kids. On Sundays when moms remembers and takes me to the churchy-school she make sure I get all cleaned up first. This about the only time I ever see my moms act like maybe she not be crazy no more. She get real quiet and her face all scrunch up like she thinking 'bout something real hard. Early in the morning we go to the laundry-mat and moms gets me in the bathroom and take my dirty clothes. She tell me to wash up in the sink while the clothes wash. Sometime I have to wait a long time and I get cold waiting. It cost two quarters to wash, where we go, and moms sometime spend two more quarters on a little box of soap for the machine. She let the machine wash up our dirty things real good and they come out smelling kinda not so stinky even though they still look dirty most times. When the clothes gets done she come back to the bathroom and gives them to me. I puts on my wet, clean clothes and they dry on my body. Moms says it much better that way than using the dryer machines. Moms know about the dryer machines they have there, but she never use them. She say the dryer machines make the clothes smell like electricity, and God don't like that smell in His house. I don't know if that's true, but I can't smell electricity so maybe moms is right. But moms is crazy, so maybe not.
I like the churchy-school. Besides the donuts they also teach us games and tell stories and things. What I like most is when they let us sing. I like to sing and, the churchy-lady, she say I got the most prettiest voice she ever heard. She say I got the voice of a angel and when I sing she feel closer to God than ever. That kinda talk makes me think maybe the churchy-lady is crazy, too.
I don't know where moms goes when I'm at the churchy-school, but she always waiting outside when they let us go. I used to think she just wait there for me, but she always look real tired when I get out so I know she weren't resting. She be extra crazy then, too. I don't know where she go or what she do, and she never tell me, neither. She don't talk so good those times. She talk to me like she trying to tell me something, but her words are all crazy-like and she don't make no sense. She don't look like she hurt or scared or nothing. She look like she all excited about something she can't tell me. I think those times are the only times she ever really happy.
After the churchy-school, moms and me go down to the river park and sit by the water. Moms takes some bread out of her coat and we eat the bread and watch the ducks. I guess the bread comes from the church, 'cause she only ever have it on Sundays. Maybe they make it from the leftover donuts. It's the best bread I ever did eat in my life. When she take it out, it look like a little ball, perfect and round and white as snow. She always say a little something in that crazy-talk of hers before she break it in half. Inside, the bread got little strings of honey that shine like sunlight and taste so sweet. I always eat all the bread up and don't never get hungry again all that day. Moms is so quiet when she eats it and sometimes she cry a little. Not like her crazy crying, but like when you see a thing so beautiful it makes your heart hurt a little. I guess we both like that bread a lot.
Sometime, when we stay at the shelter, my moms gets some work. This don't happen often, but sometime somebody hire lots of people from the shelter to clean or stuff. My moms, she don't never go work by her own self, but when they need lots of people she sometime go too. I think maybe it's 'cause she don't seem so crazy when there be lots of people. Like her kinda crazy don't stand out so much in a crowd. Those times I stay at the shelter and play with the other kids.
A lot of kids come and go at the shelter, but don't none of them stay 'round too long. No one really talks about where people go when they ain't 'round no more. One time I ask about this girl that I got to like pretty good, but the lady at the shelter, she just bounce her shoulders and shake her head like that was some kinda answer. I learned that sometime people go away and you don't get to see them no more. I think that's kinda sad, but it's the kinda sad you can get used to. I think that's kinda sad too, in a way.
I only know one other kid at the shelter that been around long enough for me to call him a friend. His name is Walker, and I knowed him since we was both little kids. Walker is a different kind of kid. He's really tall for a ten year old, and he's really skinny. His skin is shiny black when he's clean, and sometime it turn kinda gray when he scratches. He can get real mad sometime when people do something stupid, but when he's happy, he smile so big and you can see his teeth are so white. He always wears the same red hoody with the hood pulled up to hide his head. His hair is all gone on his head and he don't got no eyebrows. I never ask him why he don't have no hair, but one time this other kid ask him and Walker punched him down. I think maybe Walker likes me 'cause we're the same age and I never ask him stupid questions 'bout why he's different. Everybody's different from every other body, and I think that's fine.
Today my moms went out with the work crew, so I go and look for Walker. I find him and a bunch of the other kids sitting 'round on the shady side of the shelter. They just sitting 'round on the ground, and one of the older kids talking to them. Walker, he sees me and waves his hand at me so I go sit down too.
The older kid, his name is Tony but he makes us call him Tee. He talking about the Secret City; the city that most people don't know about 'cause they too busy to pay attention. We ain't never too busy, so we notice a lot of things that other people miss. Tony, he older than us other kids. He practically a growed-up. He has a little stripe of hair on his lip like a mustache, but it's real skinny and crooked. He been lotsa places and knows all about the Secret City. Tony was the one who warned us about the pigeons. If they poo on your shirt it means you gonna die the next day. The only thing you can do is give your shirt away, and that means you safe. That makes the pigeons confused, 'cause pigeons ain't too smart. The Secret City, though, it like to stay secret. Sometime it get angry when people see it doing things it want to hide. When the City get angry, it can be dangerous. We all know this is true, so when Tony starts telling his stories, we all listen, 'cause it might be important.
"You heard about what happened to the Guerra's?" Tony ask us and we all shake our heads except this one boy.
"I heard they move to Milwaukee," he tells Tony.
"They didn't move to no Milwaukee. They got them a house in the City. Real cheap house. Only three dollars a month."
"Three dollars! You can't get no house for three dollars!"
"You can when the house is a ghost house," Tony say and look real mean at us. "On Beech Tree Lane, over west-side, they got this house. And mister Guerra, he real happy, 'cause that mean they can get cable TV, right? So he move his family into that Beech Tree house one day, and they don't never come out. In the house they go, and ain't nobody sees 'em again for six days. On the sixth day, the neighbors get suspicious and they go in to see what happen to 'em."
"What happen?" someone ask.
"Shut up and I tell you," Tony says back, with his mean face on. "They find the Guerras in the house alright. Missus Guerra, they find her standing up in the fridgerator, but her head in the icebox. Cut off, with her necklace still on. They little baby boy in the microwave, cooked black. They girl, Livy? She in the damn washin' machine, all twisted 'round in a circle twelve feet long. And mister Guerra... he crammed up into the TV so tight they had to bury him in it."
"What happened to them?" someone ask.
"Damn ghost house got 'em, that's what happen. And you know what the number of that house on Beech Tree is?"
We all shake our heads and wait for it.
"666," Tony say, and run a finger across his mustache. "Ain't no such thing as a three-dollar house. Not if you wanna live, they ain't."
I turn to ask Walker if he believe the Beech Tree house, but he got his hood pulled down over his eyes like he do when he scared, so I guess he believe. Believe enough to be scared, anyway. Me, I don't know about no Beech Tree house, or number 666 house. I know they ghost houses in the city, but I heard the Guerras move to Milwaukee too, so maybe they did. But if someone try to sell me a three-dollar house, I ain't gonna buy it. No sir. Save that for a cheeseburger.
I poke at Walker with my elbow to see if he gonna come outta his hoody, and he raise it up a little and look sideways at me. "You okay?" I ask.
"Yeah," he say, but don't sound too sure. "But my momma's cousin from Chicago bought that house last year. Same thing, 'cept he got buried in the oven."
"No way," I say, but now I'm none too sure, neither. Walker's momma wouldn't lie about her cousin would she? "You go to the funeral?"
Walker shake his head, but he come out of his hoody now. "I was too scared. You think they put that oven in a coffin for him? Or just bury him straight like that?"
"I guess he'd get a coffin, but I don't know."
"I hope so," Walker says, "'cause if you don't get a coffin then they vampires can take you up as a zombie and you have to serve them forever as they slave."
"Wouldn't the oven keep 'em out?"
Walker shake his head. "They weak to wood. That's how you kill 'em. In they heart. But they can open a oven easy."
"I don't like to talk about Bloody Mary," Tony says when the other kids ask him. "Bloody Mary got my girlfriend's sister. I don't like to talk about it."
"How'd she get her?" someone asks, and Tony tells the story anyway. He always does.
"This buncha girls was home by theyselves one night. My girlfriend and her sister was stayin' over with a couple other girls. Slumber party or some stupid thing. And this one girl tells about Bloody Mary. My girlfriend and her sister ain't never heard that story, and they think it's stupid. So the one girl dares them to go in the bathroom with the lights off and say 'Bloody Mary' thirteen times into the mirror."
"Did she do it?"
"No. They ain't stupid."
"Then how Bloody Mary get yer girlfriend?"
"My girlfriend sister, stupid. And I tell you if you shut up." Tony glares at the stupid kid and rubs his mustache like he thinkin' real hard. "They all went to bed, and in the middle of the night, my girlfriend wakes up and her sister is gone. She has to go pee, so she gets up to go to the bathroom. But when she gets down the hall, she hears mumbles comin' from the bathroom door. It's dark in the hall, so she can tell the light in the bathroom is off, and she starts to get real scared. But then she recognizes her sister's voice, and her sister sayin' 'Bloody Mary' over and over. Then she hear her sister scream and the mirror shattering all over the bathroom. My girlfriend, she so scared she pee herself in the hallway, but that her sister in there, so she open the door to see. Her sister ain't there, and the mirror ain't broke, but when she turn the light on she see pieces of her sister hair stuck to the mirror with blood."
"Where'd her sister go?" someone ask. Someone always ask.
Tony rub his mustache and shake his head. "Bloody Mary got her. Pulled her through the mirror to the other side and ate her face off."
"Bloody Mary don't eat faces," someone says. "Black Agnes eats faces, not Bloody Mary."
"That ain't true," Tony says. "Black Agnes scratches yer face off, she don't eat it. And she don't take you through the mirror, neither. She leaves you lyin' on the floor, bloody and crazy."
"I heard she eats it after she scratch it off. That's why you go crazy. 'Cause she make you watch."
"Man that's gross. You a gross little boy."
"But it's true."
"Shut-up gross-boy."
Walker don't hide this time. We all know about Bloody Mary already. Walker, he believe in Bloody Mary, but he don't believe Tony's story.
"Tony don't have no girlfriend," Walker say to me, but he say it quiet so Tony don't hear. "Come on, Danny. Let's go." Walker stand up and tug on my shirt to follow, so I get up too. I kinda want to hear more of the stories, but Walker look like he got a mischief in mind, and that sometime more fun. He don't say nothing though as we walk behind the shelter to the Big Hole. They this big field behind the shelter, and I guess someone was gonna build something in it, but they never did. Put a big hole in it, though, before they give up. In the winter it get icy and us kids take they trash lids from the neighborhood and slide down the hole on 'em. Other times I see the bigger kids go there to fight something out. They bigger kids call it the Pit, but it just the Big Hole to us. They a chain fence between the shelter and the hole, but someone once cut a hole through it and now you can just push it by like a door and scoot on in. Walker duck through first and hold the fence out my way so I can come through, then we walk over to the Big Hole and look down at the mess in it. They a whole big mess down there all the time. Old newspapers and plastic cups. Colored paper bags from those drive-thru places. Broken bottles, dirty torned-up clothes, and in one corner there a girly magazine that the boys all pee on. Last summer, Walker and me and some other boys went to go look at that magazine, but it was so dirty you couldn't see nothing. When Walker bend down to turn the page, one of the other boys call him a pee-pee toucher and Walker punch his arm. That boy cried.
Walker don't say nothing at first, so I don't neither. We just look at the Big Hole and watch the wind blow the trash around. Sometime the wind come down and pick up a piece of trash and carry it off across the hole. I always hope when that happen that the wind gonna carry that trash right out the hole and over the fence to some place where boys don't pee on girly magazines. But I never seen that happen yet.
Finally Walker say, "Hey Danny. You remember last year?"
That might seem like a stupid thing to ask, to you, but I know what Walker mean. "Yeah, I remember."
"I been havin' a dream about it."
"What kinda dream?"
"Scary dream."
"Yeah?"
Walker pick up a rock and turn it over in his hands, brushin' the dirt off it with his fingers. "You ain't never told no one 'bout it? Right?"
"No. I don't even tell my moms, Walker."
Walker nod his head and look at his rock for a minute. Then he pull down his hood and say, "I told someone."
That make me get real scared all a sudden. My face get all hot and I feel like I need to go pee, but I hold it 'cause this important. I try to look at his face, but he got the hoody pulled down and I can't see. "Who you tell, Walker?"
"Lukey Spade." Walker say the name real quiet like, and he squeeze his rock so hard his knuckles turn white.
"Well. Well, when you tell him?"
"Yesterday. Last night." I can't say nothing at first, and after a minute Walker throw his rock out over the Big Hole as hard as he can. I watch it sail to the other side and hit the fence over there. It bounce off a pole and back down into the Big Hole. "I'm scared, Danny."
"What'd Lukey say?" I ask.
"I don't know. Something stupid. But that don't matter, Danny, you know that. All that matter is I told someone."
"Well. Well that don't mean nothing, Walker. It been a year. It don't mean nothing."
"What if it does? What about Robby? Robby told, and he..."
"Yeah..." I don't know what to say to him. There are some secrets you don't tell, no matter what. Secrets that ain't yours, but get handed down to you from some other place. You gotta keep those secrets, or something bad gonna happen. Last year, this boy Robby come to the shelter with his pappa. The other kids called him Fat Robby, 'cause he belly so big and he had boobs like a girl. Maybe 'cause he so fat the other kids pick on him a lot. It made me so mad to see that. So I tell the other boys to cut it out or else, and Walker come up too. The other boys weren't so tough, and when me and Walker come up they backed off and let Robby alone. After that Robby was kinda our friend. He weren't never close like Walker and me, but he was funny sometime, and never mean. We got along pretty good for a while.
One day Robby tell us he found something he wanna show us. Big secret he say, and ask us to come out the shelter that night. You supposed to stay in the shelter all night if you wanna sleep there, but you can sneak out if you quick and not too loud. I don't know how Robby got out, but when me and Walker come outside he whistling at us from the corner, with some big thing under his arm. He tell us he got to show us something cool, but we have to go somewhere to see it. This don't seem like a good idea to me, but Walker and me was bored that night, and Robby so excited, we decide to go with him.
There this apartment building a few streets over that got burned out by a fire one day and never got fixed back again. Sometime we go there to play during the day, but at night it be real scary. That where Robby wanna go to show us this thing he found. We get to the building, and Walker got his hood pull down, but that was before I knowed what it meant, so I didn't know he was scared as me. Robby weren't scared though, and me and Walker didn't wanna say we was scared if Fat Robby weren't scared. So that's how we ended up in the building that night, and Robby put up candles on the floor of this room he picked and tell us sit on the floor. When we on the floor, Robby take this thing out the bag and Walker and me we both knowed what it is right away. Robby got a magic board from someplace. He wouldn't say where he got it, but he put it down on the floor between us. We call it the Witchy Board, and it look pretty witchy with all those letters and numbers, and down in the corners it say "Yes" and "No". It got this strange little coin with three sides and a big glass eye in it's middle. That the magic eye. And Robby, he tell us he gonna show us our futures.
Everybody know that the Witchy Board can tell the future. That part may seem like a fun thing, but the Witchy Board got it's own mind to it, and the things it tell you ain't always good, and they don't always make you happy. The other thing is, anything the Witchy Board tell you is a secret, and you can never tell no one. If you do, bad things gonna happen to you. Robby knowed that. I don't know why he told, but he did. Maybe he didn't believe, but that don't matter to the Witchy Board.
"I told someone and now I got this bad dream on me," Walker say, and kick more rocks down into the big hole.
"What happen in the dream?" I ask.
Walker shrug and tug at his hoody. "I dreamed that building again. Where we went. That burned out one?" Walker tilt his head and look at me. His eyes are all big, and he blink too much, but then he look back down at his feet right away. "I go up those stairs again, and down that hall. And I can see the lights in that room. They candle lights, the way they move and make scary shadows out of every damn thing. And I don't wanna go, but I can't turn 'round, neither. It's like I'm not walking at all, just falling down the hall at that door. And. And I'm real scared about what's in that room, but I can't stop falling at it."
Walker stop talking and he pull his hoody down real close on his face. I can tell he wiping his eyes, but I don't say nothing 'bout that. I think to tell him it be alright, but when I open my mouth I can't make the words come up. So I just stand there, quiet, until he finish.
"When I get to the door. When I get there. I see Robby. Sittin' on the floor with his candles and that damn thing. Danny? He don't look good. He don't look right."
"He say anything?" I ask, scared myself.
"No," Walker say. "No, but he... He put his finger up at his lips." And Walker put his finger at his lips to show what he mean, but I already know.
"Don't tell," I say, and Walker nod.
"But I did, Danny. I did tell. And now I got this scary dream on me, and something bad gonna happen." Walker tuck his hands into his hoody and put his head down low. I can't see if he crying or not, but I know he is. I know he is 'cause I'm crying. And if I'm crying then I know Walker crying, too. We always been like that.
"I think," I start to say, but I don't know what I think. I need to say something, but I don't know what. If the Witchy Board got its eye on Walker, then that's bad news. "I think maybe we just be careful for a while. Okay? I'll stick with you. You stick with me and won't nothing bad happen, okay? Robby, he... He weren't careful like us. He didn't know about the City like we do."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. You just stick with me and won't nothing happen." I don't know if that true or not, but it feel the right thing to say. And anyway, if something gonna happen to Walker then I wanna be there when it does. He my friend, my only friend, and I gonna be there. "Besides," I say, "it been a year, Walker. It prolly don't even remember." But I know that a lie. When you look in the Witchy Board's eye, it look back at you. It see you face. And it don't never forget.
"Maybe we should find Lukey," Walker say. "Tell him keep his mouth shut."
"Yeah."
"Just in case."
"Yeah."
Lukey Spade this card guy that sometime stay at the shelter when his luck run bad. Most times his luck run good and he stay at the Motel Del Rio down on States Avenue. But when they turn on him he show up all empty pockets and the shelter lady, she can't turn him out like that 'cause she know he don't got nowhere to be at. That some kinda law, she say, but that law don't say why he get to sleep up in her room upstairs. Those nights Lukey come down after dark with his cards and a roll of quarters. The old guys sit in the corner with him and play until someone get too loud. Then the shelter lady come down with her hair all done up in plastic and yell at them go to bed. Lukey got one ear a lot bigger than his other ear, and the shelter lady grab onto it like a handle and drag him back up the stairs. Walker and me sometime wonder if she grab that ear because it so big, or if it big because she grab it all the time. Either way, that the last we see of Lukey 'til morning.
Lukey most time stay on at the shelter 'til they give out the lunch, then he take his cards and go to find his luck again down on States. Since Lukey stay at the shelter last night, we figure there a good chance we find him in the table room waitin' on his sandwich, so we go to see.
"Why you tell Lukey, anyway?" I ask Walker.
"I told him in trade."
"Trade for what?"
"Card trick."
"You trade the witchy board secrets for a card trick?"
"Lukey say the card tricks is a secret thing. Can only be traded for money or another secret. And since I don't have no money..."
"You ain't got no other secret than the witchy board? That ain't your secret to tell, Walker."
"I know."
Walker kick the door on the way in, and it bounce off the wall with a big racket. That one way you can tell Walker angry. He kick at stuff. So I let him alone about it. I figure he mostly mad at himself, and don't need me bein' mad at him, too.
"He show you that card trick?" I ask instead.
"Yeah," Walker say and grin over to me.
"Good one?"
"Yeah. But I can't tell you it."
"Come on, Walker. You can teach me the trick can't you?"
Walker shake his head, but he still grinning, which a lot better than kicking. "I let you see it. Sure. But I can't tell you the secret. That's where the power is."
That make sense to me, and I know what it cost him to learn it. I don't have nothing to buy it with but my own witchy board secret, and I ain't gonna tell that.
We find Lukey in the table room picking the salad off his sandwich with this ugly I-hate-salad look on his face. When we sit down across from him he look up at us and say, "Cheese for a quarter. You want my cheese?"
Was last summer when the cheese thing happen. Used to be us kids always got cheese on our sandwich, but not after that. It was a bored day, and a hot one, too. This boy Ray thought it would be funny to put his cheese on Mr. Goodkind's car, so he take his sandwich outside and he slap his cheese on the windshield. Like I said it was hot and that cheese start to melt and slide down the windshield right away. Us kids thought that was a funny thing to see, and next thing you know there a dozen pieces a cheese slipping all over Goodkind's windshield. When Goodkind heard all the fuss he come out to see what we was up to and he got so mad, yelling and cursing and kicking us away from his car, but we just laughed and laughed 'cause weren't no damage done. But Mr. Goodkind get in his car and he start the wipers up and they wipers just slap the cheese around on his car and make a big ol' mess even bigger. We all fell out laughing at that. It was a sight, but we never had cheese since. Anyway, that's why we laugh when Lukey said that about his cheese.
"Salad's free, though. You can have the salad," he say.
"I don't want you cheese, Lukey. But I got somethin' to say to you."
"Careful boy. Words like that likely to scare a man if you was a bit bigger. What come after words like that ain't often good, and ain't often words, neither. More like punching or some stabbing. You take these tomatoes, Walker? Danny? No charge for salad."
We shake our heads at him.
"God I hate tomatoes. Nasty things, tomatoes."
"I need to ask you about our trade last night. For the card trick?"
"Did I trade a trick with you last night, Walker?"
"Yeah, you trade me a trick for that secret I tell you. You don't remember?"
"I don't. What trick I trade you? Maybe that remind me."
Walker look over at me, then lean in close to Lukey and whisper, but I can still hear him say "pigeon pull", whatever that mean.
"The hell you say, boy?" Lukey push his sandwich down on his plate, all angry like. "I teach you to pigeon pull last night?"
"You did."
"The hell you give me for that trick? That ain't no kid trick for a boy like you."
"You taught me it just the same."
"For what? For what I teach you that pull?"
"I done told you! I ain't gonna tell you twice!"
"Boy, you best learn what words mean. You throw around some words a lot bigger than you can take." Lukey got his finger out now, and he point it at Walker's chest like it gonna go off and put a hole in 'im. I seen boys pee theyselves when that finger come out, 'cause that mean Lukey done playing. But Walker just lean across that table at Lukey with his mad face on, not scared or nothing.
"Anyhow I come to warn you that secret is dangerous is all. If you don't remember then that's just good for you, 'cause you don't want to."
Lukey Spade narrow his eyes at Walker and take a good long look while he think on this. "I remember now," he say after a little while. "I remember a little bit. That was City business you told me. Wasn't it boy?"
Walker nod and lean back from the table. "Yeah."
"That was City business and you trade that for a pull."
Walker shift on his butt in his chair. He look like he wanna say something, but then he look over to me and decide not to.
"You a stupid boy, Walker. You ain't gonna live the night, you know that?"
Walker face get real hard, and that thumping sound from under the table is Walker kicking his own feet he so mad. "Anyway I just come to say that, is all. Now I did."
Walker stand up and start walking to the doors in a real hurry, his one hand making fists at his hip, the other pulling his hoody down on his face. Whole lot of chairs got kicked on the way out.
"Sure you don't want my cheese, boy?" Lukey yell as I catch up to Walker at the door. "Bologna sandwich make a poor last meal. Slice a cheese make it a whole lot nicer."
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