One night!

By Chanuga Rollins

 

After working a 2-10 pm shift at a job that I fucking hated, I couldn’t wait to get home, it’s been a long night. After parking my car in front of my house, my neighbor Chuck invited me over to play a game or two of chess.

Usually, on a Friday night, I’d hit a club or two with my friends, but I didn’t feel like it tonight. So, I took Chuck up on his offer to play some chess. Chuck loved smoking pot, and when he did, he used to tell me these amazing stories, Unfortunately, we were both out of pot on this evening.

We started playing chess when Chuck began whining about not getting high, Let’s go to Oliver Street and get some pot he said. Oliver Street was in a very bad all black section of the city. It was about four blocks from where we were and a very dangerous place at 11pm at night, especially if you were white.

I was totally against it, but Chuck insisted on it. I should have just gone home, my bad. Chuck was about ten years older than me, so I kind of looked up to him, and he’s had my back more than once, so I caved in and took him to Oliver Street. 

We took my car because Chuck had an old junky van that half the time never ran, and in this area of the city a reliable car was mandatory. At this time of night, it only took us a few minutes to get to Oliver Street. We saw a black guy standing on the corner; this area was a known drug area. We pulled up and asked if he was selling. He asked what we were looking for, we told him, and he asked if he could get in the back seat. He said that he wasn’t holding but could get whatever we wanted. He asked me to drive down the street to the bar; there must have been fifty to sixty black people hanging out front. As he got out of the car, he told us not to buy from anyone else and that he’d be right back.

But Chuck, who was a racist, ignored this guy and then looked around for someone else to buy from. That’s when these five black assholes walked up to us, what you looking for one of them asked. A dime bag Chuck said, show me the money this asshole said, Chuck showed him a ten dollar bill. This animal snatched the ten then made like he had a gun under his jacket, now mother fucker, what you going to do now. This act of disrespect enraged Chuck; I never saw him so mad. I took off at this point and headed home, but Chuck wouldn’t let it go; he deserves to die, he said.

Them fucking niggers, he kept saying, we have to take revenge, we have to go back he kept ranting, like I’ve said I never saw him so mad, losing ten dollars was nothing. I’m almost certain that Chuck has killed before; he did two tours in Vietnam, and before that, he was a member of a violent motorcycle club in New York City. Although married with kids now, people don’t really change; they may clean up their act, but deep down, they don’t change.

When we got home and, against my better judgement, I gave in to Chuck, we were going back, but I had conditions: first, we only got the guys who ripped us off, and next, we didn’t harm anyone at the bar even though they were laughing at us. Chuck wasn’t happy, but he agreed; we got two guns. Back then, I always had some hot guns lying around; they were great if you needed quick cash; people were always looking for guns. Taking a breath, we recouped then loaded up and went back, I of course was nervous but in complete control, Chuck on the other hand was acting crazy, he wanted this because he hated black people, for me, it was just business; it meant nothing to me one way or the other.

When we pulled up to that bar, you could have heard a pin drop, although they laughed before, someone did say uh-oh, and I know that Chuck would have opened fire if he didn’t promise me not to. These five assholes weren’t there so I pulled away and went down Oliver street, these five idiots were breaking into someone’s car, we just passed them and went back around the block they never even noticed us.

When we came back around, we rolled up on them with the car lights out. I put the car in park, and Chuck and I jumped out and opened fire. We hit all five that I was certain of; we left them all sprawled out on someone’s lawn, crying and moaning in pain with lots of blood. With our guns empty, we jumped back into the car and went home. I was more scared of getting caught than doing what I just did, and Chuck was overjoyed. Right then and there, I thought Chuck was crazy.

When we got home, I hid my car behind a funeral home down the street from my house, and then we went over Chuck’s. He immediately bragged about the shooting to his wife. She and I were close, but she gave me a disappointed look that kind of hurt my feelings. Even when I was alone with her, she never talked about that night.

I stayed at Chuck’s for about an hour, then walked across the street to my house. The next morning, I hurried to get the morning newspaper, but there was nothing, not one word on the shooting. I take it that none of them died, or surely it would have made the papers. But in reality, this area was plagued with crime and where murders were common, or maybe racism played a role I don’t know. I don’t regret what I did, them assholes deserved it, but what I did regret was being influenced by Chuck, to satisfy his blood lust he jeopardized my freedom for a grubby ten dollars and that wasn’t ok for me.    

Not long after the shooting, my friendship with Chuck soured. As I got to know him better, his mood swings were troubling, and I heard from others that he was using Heroin. In less than two years, because of his drug use, he lost his wife and kids, his job, and his home. The last time I talked to him, we had an idle conversation. Two weeks later, Chuck was killed on a motorcycle under some strange circumstances.

The end