The Battle of the Century

The Week of Insanity

It was a normal Monday at first. Denise and I were walking to the music store for guitar picks, drumsticks for Luther, and some new strings. We were crossing the street when I saw an all too familiar truck speeding toward us. Denise and I dived for the side walk and Jeb's pickup sped right past with cars tailing it. It wasn't police but they sure were shooting an awful lot. Both of us just continued to the store.

After we got what we needed, Jim let us use the store phone so I could call Dad to come get us since we were still a little shaken up from whatever it was that  happened outside. Dad came and took us to Dale's house, where we were practicing.

"Holy cow, guys." Dale said as I entered his basement. "You hear about the chase between Anthony, Jeb, and Porter? Crips are after 'em"

"Hear?" Denise crossed her arms. "Tommy and I fucking witnessed it."

"I'll be dogged." Jerry looked up from his bass. "Anthony's recklessness will get him killed one day if not today."

"I'm surprised he's lasted this long." Luther said. "He almost killed me the other day with his driving."

"Enough about my cousin." I said. "Let's get to practicing."

We practiced until Dale's mother told us all to leave. 

The next day, I had just come out of the barber when car crashed straight into the bar across the street. In it's driver seat was Ellis Goff. The police were there immediately.  Ellis was rushed to the hospital and Officer Mackenzie started asking me what happen. I told her that it happened right as I walked out of the barber and that's all I saw.

Officer Walsh immediately started hassling everyone away and Donnelly did the same.

"DAVIDSON!" Walsh screamed at me next. "GET OUT OF HERE AND STOP INTERFERING WITH POLICE BUSINESS!!!"

"Walsh." Officer Mackenzie turned to him. "I was asking him a question about the crash."

"DON'T APOLOGIZE FOR HIM, WOMAN."

I left as soon as possible. 

That same day, I ran into one of the Crips from when Wes and I went walkabout.

"You..." His face twisted into a cold grimace. "I remember you!"

I started backing away.

"YOU'RE THE REASON CHOPPER IS IN THE JOINT RIGHT NOW! YOU GONNA PAY, SON!!!"

I took off running and didn't stop until I got to Denise's house, where we would be practicing that week. I knocked on the door and there was Mr. Davis.

"Tom, you're early." He said. "Denise is still in study hall. Nobody's here yet but you can come in."

"Thanks Mr. Davis." I took my overshirt off and set it on a coat hook. "I have to ask you something."

He sat down across from me at the kitchen table. "What is it?"

"Why do you stand up for me so much? Like with Brian and them giving me trouble, you always saved my ass. Why?"

"It's because I understand what it's like to be in your shoes." He said. "My friends and I were always ganged up on when I was your age back in the late 50s. They messed with us, not because we were greasers or because we were poor, but because we were different. Socially, money didn't have a huge role in Manhattan, it was what type of people you hung out with and where you worked and how you were raised. Like this one boy, His name was Matthew Chambers. He was never told no by his parents and he ended up shooting his cousin and one of my best friends right in front of me in a diner during a Fourth of July celebration. He managed to get away with it for a while and it was pinned on me. I was in jail for a month until he fessed up to his therapist. They let me out on my sixteenth birthday and deemed him criminally insane. He died in an attempt to bust out of the mental hospital he was held in in 1962. It all comes down to difference, boy."