“Boulay bookoo chay abec moms, ses-wa,” sang James as he turned the radio up high.

“Turn that bullshit down,” said Jeremy. He reached for the volume dial and heard a horn sound as the 240 swerved into the oncoming lane. He brought the car back to the right of the line.

“That’s French, yang,” said James. “Talkin’ about the Moolong Rooge. They be sayin’, Do you want to fuck with my moms? or sumshit like that.”

“I don’t give a fuck what they be singin’ about. Sounds like they’re screamin’ more than singin’, you ask me.”

“Which one of them bitches from the video you like the best?”

Jeremy Coates screwed his face up into a grimace as he thought it over. “Not the white bitch, I can tell you that. No-ass bitch, looks like a chicken with those legs comin’ out her like they do. I guess Maya, I had to choose.”

“I like Pink. Pink has got some ass on her, yang.” James smiled. “I bet it’s pink inside, too.”

“Shit, even a mule is pink inside.”

“You ought to know. Remember that time I came up on you on the farm, back in Georgia?”

“Shut the fuck up. I was just cleanin’ that mule off.”

“I ain’t see no brush.”

“I was washin’ it.”

“Yeah, looked like you was waxin’ it, too.”

“Aw, fuck you, man.”

James laughed. He punched his cousin on the shoulder and got no response. Jeremy turned right on Mississippi. As he did, the batch of little tree deodorizers hanging from the rearview swung back and forth.

“We goin’ to see the Six Hundred boys?” said James.

“Thought we’d drive by and see what’s what.”

“I saw that Jerome Long outside a club last night with a girl. Girl was laughin’, lookin’ at him like she was lookin’ up at Taye Diggs or sumshit like that.”

James had a beef with Nutjob Long, who had looked at him the wrong way and smiled one night at a club. Long was known to be good with the women. James Coates hated Long for that, too.

James pulled a gun up from under the seat. It was a 9mm Hi-Point compact with a plastic stock and alloy frame, holding eight rounds in its magazine. The gun was a starter nine, popular with young men because of its low price. James had traded a hundred and twenty dollars’ worth of marijuana to get it. He fondled the gun as he held it in his lap.

Jeremy looked down at the gun, then back at the road. “Damn, boy, you ought to be ashamed to be holdin’ some cheap shit like that.”

“It shoots.”

“And a Geo gets you from place to place, too. You don’t see me drivin’ one, do you?”

“I’m gonna get me one of those Rugers next.”

“Sure you are.”

James looked through the windshield at the elementary school, coming up on their left. “Slow this piece down, yang. I want them to see us while we pass.”

They cruised slowly by the school. They ignored the kids who were selling on the street and the lookouts riding their bikes, and they stared hard up the hill toward the two young men standing by the flagpole. James made sure the young men could see his smile.

“That’s Long,” said James. “That’s his boy Lil’ J up there beside him, too.”

“So?”

“So keep on going a few blocks, then turn this motherfucker around and bring it back. Drive past ’em a little faster this time.”

“Tell me what you doin’ before you do it, hear?”

“We’re in their house, right?”

“Yeah, we in it.”

“We’re just gonna announce ourselves, then.”

Jeremy gave the Nissan gas. James pulled back the receiver on the Hi-Point and laughed. They were having fun.

“THAT’S them,” said Jerome Long as the Nissan went down the block. “That’s those cousins from the Yuma.”

“They be tryin’ to mock us,” said Allante Jones.

“They can try.”

“You see all those little trees they got swingin’ from their mirror?”

“And that spoiler, too.”

“Like it’s gonna make that hooptie go faster. Next thing they gonna do is paint some flames on the sides.”

“ ’Bamas,” said Long.

The taillights on the Nissan flared as the car slowed down.

Jones squinted. “Looks like they’re stopping.”

“They ain’t stoppin’,” said Long. “They turnin’ around.”

The Nissan had U-turned and was now accelerating back in the direction of the school. Long could hear the driver, the one named Jeremy, called himself J-2, going through the gears. And then he saw James Coates, ugly like his cousin but crazier by an inch, leaning out the window of the passenger side, smiling at them, laughing, as they came up on the school. And then he saw the gun in his hand, and saw a puff of smoke come from it just about the time he heard the pops. Long froze; he couldn’t make his hand go to the Glock and he couldn’t move his feet. He felt his friend Lil’ J tackle him to the ground.

As he went down it looked all jittery, like one of those videos where the camera can’t sit still. Long saw the troops diving for cover, a lookout on his bike pedaling like it was the devil behind him, and he heard more shots and it was as if he could feel them going by. There was a metallic sound as a round sparked off the flagpole, and Long put his head down and covered his ears. When he uncovered them, there was just the laughter of James Coates and the music they were listenin’ to. Under all that was the sound of their four-banger struggling up the street as they sped away.

The troops were slow getting up.

Jones released his hold on Long and rolled off of him, standing to his feet. Long brushed the dirt off his clothes as he stood. He locked hands with Jones and pulled him in for the forearm-to-forearm hug.

“My boy,” said Long, his voice sounding high to his own ears.

“You know I got your back.”

“Better tell everyone to pull it off the street for a while. All those shots, you know someone’s bound to call up the police.”

“I’ll do it. We could use a break our own selves, too.”

It shamed Long that his hands were shaking. It shamed him that he had frozen up the way he had. He buried his hands in the pockets of his jeans. He was embarrassed now, standing next to his friend, as he’d just been bragging about daring a motherfucker to come by here and start something tonight. And here he was, trembling like a kid. He hadn’t even been able to pull his gun.

“They surprised us,” said Jones, as if he could read Long’s mind. “You didn’t even have no time to think on it.”

“I knew they was stupid,” said Long. “But I didn’t know they’d be so bold.”

“They need to be got,” said Jones.

“They will be.”

“You know where they stay at?”

“I know this girl who does,” said Long. “And I’m gonna remember that car.”

ARNICE Durham lived in a nice town house her son Dewayne had bought for her in the Walter E. Washington Estates near the Maryland line. She had given birth to Mario when she was sixteen, and Dewayne came, by another man, when she was twenty-six. Arnice was now creeping up on fifty but didn’t feel it. Her friends told her she carried her age good.

She had always took care of her body. Though many of her men smoked and used drugs and alcohol, she did not. She was also a regular at church. It was true that she had been poor and looked ghetto most of her life, but that changed when Dewayne started earning the money that he had been bringing in the past two years or so. With Dewayne’s cash she bought furniture for her new house, and clothes and jewelry, and she made two trips a week to the hair salon and had her nails done while she was there. Money kept you young. Anyone who said different ain’t never had none.

She let Dewayne and his friend Bernard into the house. Dewayne kissed her on the cheek, and she said hello to Bernard and asked if he was wanting on something to drink. She had told Dewayne that his friends were always welcome here.

They went past the slipcovered furniture and wide-screen TV of the living room into the dining room, where a scale was set in the corner along with a cash counting machine. Durham used his mother’s place for work – bagging up, scaling out, packaging, and counting – at night, mostly, when it wasn’t smart to burn the candles in that house on Atlantic. She knew to let his troops in whenever they came by, long as they went and called ahead first. And she knew not to talk to the police about anything, anytime.