The July Tree As Tinesha Green was staring at a cloud formation in the sky and her brother Rondell was dribbling his basketball on the concrete sidewalk, a luxury car sped in front of them, capturing their attention. It was a 350 SE, jittering in and out of the traffic line like many a car that went in an out of the crack dens, but that didn't matter to much to them. They thought the car was pretty. "That's my car" said Tinesha, turning her head to eyeball the back bumper. "Uh-uhhh said Rondell "that's my car. I'm gonna get it when I get my basketball scholarship." "No, stupid. You don't get a car when you get a college scholarship. "Uh uhhhhh. Ronnie Jenkins got a car when he went to Clemson." Rondell continued dribbling, paying attention to each column on the pavement. In his 14 years of life, he had dribbled across almost every street in hilltop, so much so that he would dribble past divots, humps and creases in the sidewalk in order to better his ball handling skills. With the exception of school, they almost never went outside very often or very far without the supervision of their grandmother, but this was Saturday afternoon, and big momma, asserting that the Crips, after doing their business long into the night, were fast asleep, let them out to play. Dribbling faster, he narrowly escaping a divot, did a crossover past a huge hump and palmed the ball over a two inch crevasse while Tinesha would walk with a boundless energy, almost as if to skip, circling around him one minute, gazing at the clouds the next and staring at the houses they were passing by after that. They passed several rows of streets on their way to the basketball courts, filled with all kinds of houses, apartments and projects. There were old Victorian stucco houses from the 20 's, dilapidated gray old Victorian houses built a century ago and seemingly abandoned a short time after that, old houses renovated by young couples, vintage duplexes, housing projects, funky a$$ shacks with lawns as high as your knee and pristine houses greatly taken care of by neighborhood stalwarts. One of those stalwarts was Deacon Lee Evers, the neighborhood expert on gardening who, after Rondell dribbled the ball off his foot, was surprised to see a dark orange orifice in his petunias. " Dammit" said deacon "I done spent all this time, watering fertilizing and getting these babies just right and look what you done did." "I'm sorry Mr. Evers" said Rondell, with his head down. "Now I loves you like you was my own kin, but dammit watch yourself. Now if you gonna play you got to keep your eye on the ball, or they gonna take it away. Then your a$$ be on the bench. "Yes sir." "Aight Then." Deacon said as he patted him on the head "now they's gonna be a cookout at six. You two come round and I'm gonna get your mama a hot plate. Bye bye now." As the walked to the court the rest of the fog clouds dissipated and the sun came out in full view. " I'm hot " said Rondell, wiping a light sweat off his brow. "Lets go to 7-11" said Tinesha. "I aint got no money". "well I got some." "I know you was good for something." The neighborhood 7-11 was ran by a man name Ronald Kim. Over the past 10 years that he had ran it, Kim was considered to be a neighborhood pariah, primarily for his tendency to shoot robbers in the behind. But both Tinesha and Rondell came to a fine understanding of him and the parameters of their relationship: they didn't steal anything, Mr. Kim didn't shoot them in the a$$, everybody was happy. After waving to Mr. Kim while he was mopping the floors between the aisles, Tinesha filled up her big gulp with sprite while Rondell filled his up to the brim with pepsi, measuring to the millimeter to get every last inch of soda. "Why you filling it up so much." said Tinesha snidely "You're paying 99 cents for this big gulp. I'm gonna get 99 cents for a big gulp." "First off , you know that if you drink that, you gonna be running as fast to the bathroom 2 hours from now. Second you better take a sip on that first, fore you liable to spill, mess up his floor and break your hip. they you wouldn't be playing no basketball now, huh." "Shut the f*ck up." "No cussing, Rondell" said Mr. Kim in a stern voice as he mopped past the middle aisle "I'm sorry Mr. Kim" "Put your money on the counter and have a nice day" he said, smiling as he went to the bucket to get more water. As they finished their big gulps, they walked two blocks past a group of run down crack houses to get to the courts. A block and a half wide in diameter, the courts consisted of one side where there were eight basketball courts and another which was a children's playground separated by a sandbox three yards wide and long. In the middle at the far end of the playground was an old rundown wood house with dilapidated paint and boarded up windows which you could barely see because so much graffiti was sprayed upon them. The signs, gang insignias and various marks had given the house an ominous flavor to it and the people hanging around it looked like grayish ghosts. Next to it was a long, thick and tall Douglass fern with stark green branches. It stuck out amid the drab colors of the pavement and the scattered garbage, broken glass and used needles that could be found buried beneath the sand. Wanting to be as far away from the people and the house as possible, Rondell shot hoops on the far left corner while Tinesha wrote in her journal. After 45 minutes they were interrupted by 5 kids in blue, three of them both Tinesha and Rondell knew from school, two were in their early 20's The oldest one grabbed his ball as it clanked off the backboard." This looks like my ball" he said. "Gimmie my ball back" said Rondell. "Yeah leave us alone we don't want no trouble." said Tinesha "Shut up b!tch, we are doing a initiation" the oldest boy with the ball said, holding a 40 bottle in his right hand and a small wet brown cigarette in his left. "Yeah man." said a skinny boy who was in Tinesha's art class " We gonna initiate." Tinesha tried to rush him but Rondell caught her and grabbed her by the waist. "Let's go home" he said. The walked 20 feet before they heard a crash followed by a childlike whimper behind them. They turned around to see the same young boy on the ground, wet and bleeding with broken glass everywhere. The leader was standing over him with a broken bottle, smoking the wet cigarette. The alcohol on the cuts made him wail in agony. The other two boys started to cry, prompting the oldest one to scream at them " Crip, crip n*gga" he said. "Do you want to me a man! Do you want to be a little soldier! I said do you wanna be a solider? Then take it. You in this family motherf*cker, I took it we all took it be a man. Concerned one of the older boys walked toward him "it's gonna be all right dawg, we gonna take care of you." "what the f*ck you doin?" said the oldest to him "He needs to go to the hospital." " I said what the f*ck you doin?" he responded, rushing him and swinging the broken 40 bottle's jagged edges. Just then Tinesha snapped. She ran and jumped on his shoulders, elbowed him in the back, and punched him on the groin. In response he elbowed her in the head, knocked her to the ground pulled out the pistol he had in the pocket and shot her twice in the heart. Seeing her lying on the ground, Rondell raced toward her, took his shirt off and put it on her breast to stop the blood flow. "Somebody call the hospital" he yelled as he tried to catch his breath. A group of gangstas and junkies responding to the shot huddled around Rondell as he pressed harder on her chest. "Somebody help me" he as she shifted the shirt around in order to soak more blood, but everyone around him stood still. "Dammit why you do that for?" said one of the gang members. "She hit me motherf*cker, she hit me Hit me! Hit me!!!!" said the older one, twitching and drooling from the mouth. "Oh god d*mm this n!gga's shermed up" said another man. "Well what are we gonna do?" "Kill him." At the sound of those words Rondell pushed aside a junkie and jumped toward the gate opening, with his chest heaving, legs heavy and lungs gasping for air as he gritted his teeth and sprinted down the exit on the east corner of the playground. The courts and the garbage surrounding them were a blur going by him as he focused on the little piece of open space at the end. BAM! A bullet whizzed four feet past him knocking off a stop sign. He got to the exit, turned right and saw a cop car in a vacant parking lot 2 blocks away. Thank god, he thought. He kicked up his legs and raced toward the vehicle, growing emboldened as he grew closer to the car. For a split second he turned to see what seemed to him to be an army of people, some black wearing blue, some faces of gray, coming at him like a dark sea, never wavering, seeming to grow closer with ease. When he got to the intersection, he saw that the light was red. If I wait, they would have enough time to catch me, drag me into a street corner and fill me full of holes, he thought, so he decided to run through traffic. He turned to see a truck 50 feet away and decided that he could out run it, so he went past the two left lanes only to be stopped by a Toyota sedan five feet away from him in the two right ones. Almost spun around, he stumbled toward the cop car and fell face first on the ground five feet away. After 25 seconds of writhing on the pavement, the policeman got out of his car, walked to him and poked his arm with a stick. "What you doin, boy." "Offic..offic..Officer." "Boy, what's wrong." "offic..." he tried to tell him that there had been a shooting but he didn't have the strength to say the words. "Boy, I saw you crossing that street. Don't you know I can bust you for jaywalking. He willed all of his strength to point toward the park two blocks away. "Shooting" he said. "What , I didnt hear no shooting. I didnt hear no shots." "Please sir...shooti...." "I said I didnt hear nothin. Boy, are you on PCP." Rondell groaned and looked at the sky..."please...please" "Son, you look like you been smoking that sherm. If I had a dollar for every sherm head I see in this neigborhood, I'd be able to buy a beach house. Listen, i'm gonna stroll around this block and if i see you here, i'm gonna take you in for public intoxication, here me." "Please" he said to the officer as he was going into the car. "Beat it" he said, slamming the door. And with that Rondell snapped. He didnt see what he was doing and ran on sheer instinct to Mr Kim's grocery store. His mind was a surrealistic row of shots, screams and visions of blood as his arms flailed away while he ran. He didnt even realize that the crips, convinced that he had lost his mind, had stopped chasing after him. He ran past a second street light, narrowly being hit by the car, but he didnt know see or feel anything. Mr kim and the deacon were talking when they saw him running with his hands in a windmill. Startled, Mr kim raced in front of Rondell and tackled him to the ground. " What's wrong, Rondell" he said " Speak to me, man." "Oh lord jesus, where's tinesha" said the deacon, moving his short feet as fast as he could. But all rondell could do was cry. "Oh lord" said the deacon, placing his hand on his heart "Oh lord."
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