Walking The Tightrope

That June night, Terrill, Shannon, and Darnell left Charlotte’s Dunn River Park in Darnell’s silver Acura.  Bernard and the Branford Homes Crew came to the park around sunset to play ball however, the game soon turned into an argument and ended with 30 people scattering for their cars.  The rumor mill had it that one of Bernard’s cousins had pulled out a gun.  But no one had seen that part.

When the first three girls screamed and started running, everyone took off and a series of automatic bullets cut into the air.

Shannon barely had the passenger side door closed before Darnell moved the gearshift into first and the car fish-tailed out of the parking lot, nearly missing a Ford Focus.

Darnell looked cautiously in the rearview mirror as Terrill erupted into a laughter that was supposed to make everyone feel a bit better about the drama.

“Man, did you see that bitch Patrick start running and push them girls over to get to his car?” Terrill shouted as he rocked back and forth in laughter.

Darnell glanced at Shannon out the corner of his eye and didn’t respond.

“That’s some stupid shit,” Shannon said turning around to look at Terrill.

“Oh yeah? Wait until y’all niggas see how stupid shit is when I come back next Christmas and got my name all over them papers again,” Terrill answered.

His face lit up a couple watts.

Shannon turned back around in his seat and pushed a selection on the c.d. player. Jay-Z was the one thing they always agreed on and “Reasonable Doubt” was the crew’s all time favorite c.d.

Shan usually ignored Haggs when he went into his prophecies about how set he was gonna be when he returned from the University of Charlotte after his first semester.

“Gonna have all the girls, ESPN gonna be talking about this one right here. What do you know about that Shan? We don’t even play that little ass J.V. College you’re going to. Where exactly is Nole U. anyway…haha?”

Darnell interrupted Terrill’s gloating by opening the sunroof and turning up the song blasting from the c.d., droning out Terrill.  He made a right turn and moved about 15 miles per hour into the IHOP parking lot.

The line to be served was well out the door and everyone was either, sitting in their cars, waiting in line, or milling around the parking lot.

Darnell backed into a parking spot, careful to make sure the task lasted over two minutes, and the three boys got in line.  Thirty minutes later they were seated.

“When you going to school?” Darnell asked Terrill as they waited in a booth for their food.

“Sometime in August, I gotta check, though…you send your shit into the community college?”

Darnell twitched his jaw and raised his eyebrows in a nonchalant manner.  Shannon could tell he was irritated when that particular expression came across his face.

“T.Haggs always in my shit bout some damn school…naw man. D-Wood got his own plans.”

“Like what?” Shan asked.

“I’ll be doing something like getting at Haggs little sister when he takes his ass off to school.”

 “Yeah right…” Terrill said with a straight face.

“But for real, I don’t know. I’ll probably get a job at the Marquis Club downtown,” Darnell stated. “Work the door or something. That nigga Rodney, who used to live across the street from us used to