..... After school, Collin went to where the man on the phone had told him to go: The abandoned community center crusted at the mouth of Desire Parkway's Projects. The man had told him she would be there. Collin would have walked into Hell.
..... Same difference, he thought, trudging into the sweltering ruins.
..... Kids were splayed or crouching in the sun. The bare trees and blistering graffiti provided no shade, just mad scratches on the husks of the yard.
..... Heat was a sullen and hunkered thing in Desire's summer, like being in the slaver of an animal waiting to take a fatal bite. Every drop of sweat it bit from him made Collin feel smaller. He looked for his friends.
..... And there she was: Sky. Seeing her put a breeze through him.
..... Sky was over with Nony and some younger kids-ten- and twelve-year-olds, looking tiny under the kettles of their crooked ball caps. They clustered around something near the overgrown yards that corralled the center.
..... "Man up, dumbass," Nony called to something the kids were grouped around. "Come on, you can do it."
..... Collin ambled up. Sky stared at him but did not brighten as usual. Her hand was trembling by her tight pink shorts. He considered taking it, but his fingers felt so small.
..... "What you fools up to?" Collin asked and made fists.
..... Then he saw-a little mutt, chained to a tree. It had only inches of slack, enough to either stand or huddle. Someone had put a popcorn tin filled with water just out of its reach. The mutt was beyond whining; just blinked its muddy eyes.
..... Nony chucked a stone at it from the handful he had. It inspired a shudder of pain from the dog.
..... "Where's your fight at, man?" Nony grinned his huge gold teeth at the dog. "You don't want your water?"
..... "Stupid dog," said one of the kids. Collin felt a bleak anxiety welling up in him, formless but fierce.
..... "Damn right, he a stupid, little dog." Nony shook his head and stretched his body to full, fifteen-year-old majesty, his wifebeater on him like a mantle. "He got no love for his life, little homies. He don't want it enough."
..... "Come on, dog," Sky whispered, hands flexing, eyes urging.
..... The dog didn't move. Nony's next stone hit its back and won a yelp.
..... "Come on, little man!" Nony yelled. Humor had begun to twist into actual anger.
..... "Nony." Collin's voice was buried under the feeling in him.
..... "Get up and get your water, boy!" Nony chucked another stone. The mutt started up, tugged for the bowl, and collapsed in front of it, panting, eyes and mouth running.
..... "Nony," Collin said louder.
..... Nony and Sky looked at Collin. Sky pressed closer and Nony forced a smile. An instant later, anger yanked his features mean and pulled his focus back to the mutt.
..... "You believe this little pussy-ass dog, Collin?" Nony rolled another ready stone. "Someone left him chained here, abandoned, and he just given up on life."
..... Collin considered suggesting they just push the water closer for the dog. The anxious feeling stopped him by taking form. It became contempt. He looked at the animal, its development lodged somewhere between puppy and full dog, and was sickened to see its shivering and its surrender.
..... "He can't help it," Collin said, but the words rang hateful.
..... "Bullshit he can't." Nony dropped his stones with a dismissive wave. "The moment a bitch start thinking like that, bitch best find a grave."
..... They both looked at the dog, horrified and hot with disdain.
..... "You feel me?" Nony said. "It's got to be all about getting your own-your cash money-in this world, or a man just be walking dead."
..... "I guess." Collin believed it, though. And maybe it was the hard set of his jaw, but something made Sky lean her braids on his shoulder.
..... They flew away the next moment as Nony put an open palm to Collin's forehead and shoved.
..... "You guess?" Nony said as Collin found his feet again. "What did that feel like?"
..... "Like you shoving me."
..... "Naw, that's what waking up feels like," Nony said, glancing hot around the crowd to sear the lesson into them. "Like a motherfucking fact of life."
..... "I got enough facts," Collin growled. It wasn't the shove that had his anger simmering hotter than the summer's bite. It was that dog. That damned little dog. He wanted Nony to hit it with another stone.
..... "What, because your mama all alone, with only you and her rock habit to keep her company?" Nony smirked like a busted gold mine. "Fool, please."
..... He shoved Collin's shoulder. They both smiled, but the voice that called out to them from the Parkway was serious as a backhand.
..... "You boys starting something?" Reverend Watson said, carefully shutting the door of his ancient Sentra before strolling toward the boys.
..... Slight as he was in his Salvation Army sweater and stitched jeans, Watson looked vast to Collin. Nony had six inches on the Reverend and still his shoulders withered.
..... "We ain't doing nothing, Preach," Nony muttered. "Fuck off back to your red letters and leave us to the real world."
..... Watson shot Nony a glare. "Don't mouth off to me. You may not have parents that I can get to shake sense into you, but there's still ways to get to you."
..... "What?" Nony talked loud to smother a shudder. "You going to drop a line on me, get the police to search my locker again?"
..... "My word is a bond, Melvin," Watson said to Nony. "And I told you-you and Parnell-that I would do whatever it takes to keep you kids from the drugs and violence around here."
..... "You done too much for your own good already, always on the phone about us with the police like you is-calling in our stashes and dropping lines on our corner boys right and left. That kind of money, trouble and product lost is a hassle, preacher." Nony pushed his lips up, shook his head. "You don't want to be hassling Parnell."
..... "I said, whatever it takes."
..... "You wouldn't know what it takes if I read you a book on it," Nony sniffed.