It was a gang fight. I could tell that much from my window. Twenty boys with baseball bats, pit bulls, and acne careened up and down the street, shrieking and swinging the bats as they chased down a pair of adolescents interloping on their turf. The group darted between trees and parked cars in pursuit of the two, ducking in and out the streetlight shadows. My wife punched 911. And I pulled the shade back a touch and peeked out to watch the show.
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And then it seemed that the mob hesitated. Inside their threats they hemmed and hawed, looking for a pal to strike the first blow. A pit bull sniffed a piece of sidewalk refuse, undisturbed by the rantings and ravings of its master. Still, no one swung. They stalled so long that finally, from both ends of the street, a half-dozen police cars barreled down onto the scene.
Most of the boys’ faces were familiar to us. We pass them every day as they slouch against the wall of the comer store. We step by them as they gulp soda-pop wine and harass any woman walking alone. They wait, I suppose, for the first woman in the history of the world to respond favorably to a wine-soaked teenager clicking his tongue at her like some rabid squirrel. They speak in that guttural city way that can best be described as the Yo, Fuck dialect. They quit school years ago, don’t have jobs, and still live at home with their mothers. Each one of them loves to be called a gangbanger.
Once the last of the squads had pulled away, the remaining boys crawled out of the alleys’ cracks and crevices and back onto the sidewalk, One by one they emerged; bereft of the mob machismo, they skulked warily down the block, sometimes peeking furtively over their shoulders. But mostly they walked quickly, hands in pockets and eyes staring straight down. The headlights of a passing car sent them scurrying back into the shadows. Within a half-hour, each boy had succeeded in the dash back to mother and home. The night became so quiet you could hear the mercury-vapor hum of the streetlights.
