Chapter 4

"Hi baby," Leelah White greeted her daughter with a big smile as Vanessa climbed into the driver's seat.

"Hi." She slammed the door and then threw her jacket into the backseat. Leelah slipped a tape into the deck and Sly and The Family Stone's If You Want Me To Stay began playing. "You hungry? Let's go to Tico Taco for dinner. How's that sound?"

"Yeah!" Vanessa cheered.

As they drove Leelah began to sing and then Vanessa joined her, both mimicking Sly's screams and shouts and laughing as they did so.

That night while her mother soaked in the bathtub Vanessa watched for the streetlights to go out. Once all of the kids had gone in for the night Vanessa turned off the lamp in her bedroom and stood just behind the curtain. She waited there until she saw the glint of spokes on the hill heading out of the ghetto and toward the hilltop.

Her heart began to hammer in her chest and she stepped back from the curtain. She stood in the shadows but could still see out. A moment later a lone figure could be seen pedaling a bike towards the townhomes of Garden Hilltop.

Scotty Tremont pedaled fast as if the hounds of hell were at his heels. He never stopped to rest but once he got to the parking lot right outside her complex Scotty stood and coasted expertly balancing on the ten-speed. As he ended his circuit, he began pedaling rapidly again, climbing to the second level parking lot where he disappeared from sight long enough to complete the second circuit. She didn't realize that she was holding her breath until he reappeared and it came out in a gush.

Blonde hair flowed in the air behind him as he pedaled down the steep incline. If she was riding her bike down that hill she would have applied breaks but he didn't. It seemed as if he wanted to break a speed limit, that maybe he was trying to fly…

II

Scotty barely felt the chill in the air even though he was just wearing jeans and a short-sleeved shirt. The elements didn't much bother him after so many years of no heat in winter and no air conditioning in the summer.

By the time he got to the court where he lived Scotty was winded. He had raced a car and nearly won except that the asshole had burned rubber to get past him. The apartment door was unlocked—as always and he wheeled his bike into the living room and propped it up against the wall out of the way so no one would trip over it.

Someone was crying while someone else was having an argument with another someone else. Scotty tuned out the sound of his little brothers and sisters and walked into the dirty kitchen.

The baby was in the high chair eating soupy Ramen noodles, which were congealing on the tray of the high chair. His seven year old sister Ginger was dunking a hotdog bun into her soup and EJ was arguing with his twin sister over something that had happened on T.V. Scotty quickly counted heads and saw that two of his younger siblings were missing.

"Hey!" He shouted over the racket. "Where's Phonso and Beady?"

"She's with her Grandma," Ginger said while twirling noodles with her fork. "And Phonso's still outside."

His jaw clenched. "I'm going to kill him," he muttered as he headed for the door. It opened just as he reached for it and Tino entered.

"Hold up, where you going?"

Scotty tried to slip past his brother. "I'm going to look for Phonso."

Tino gripped his arm. "Leave him. He's with Jaydog. He'll be home when he's done eating."

Jaydog was Tino's buddy and he worked in a greasy spoon where they sold something that passed for soul food. Scotty noted that Tino was holding a bag from the very same restaurant, and it carried the aroma of warm food; food, which included meat. He followed his brother back into the house and into the kitchen where Tino tossed the bag of squashed hamburgers onto the table.

EJ was the first to reach it and he dug his hands into the sack only seconds before Erica snatched it, ripping the paper sack and causing foil wrapped burgers to rain down onto the table.

Scotty retrieved one and watched as Tino tickled the baby's chin before opening the fridge and searching for a nonexistent beer.

"I don't know why I bother trying to keep beer in the house." Tino growled before slamming the door of the refrigerator. "Where is she?" He barked out in annoyance, referring to their mother. Ginger shrugged her shoulders her mouth filled with delicious burger.

"I want to go to Beady's grandmother's house," she stated.

EJ, who was nine and therefore older, scowled. "You can't because she's not your grandmother."

Ginger's green eyes which held a perpetually confused cast, settled on him. "So. Her grandma is nice and she buys her dolls."

EJ scoffed. "She don't want you. You're white!"

Ginger frowned. "I don't care-"

"Well she don't want nothing to do with you so case is closed!"

"Shut up EJ," Scotty said while taking a second bite of his burger. He was just going in for the next bite when Tino knocked it out of his hand and to the floor.

Scotty gave him an incredulous look. "Why and the hell did you do that-?"

Tino smacked him playfully in the head only it really did hurt. "Let's go make a beer run." Tino was bigger than Scotty although both boys were nearly six feet tall. But it seemed that where Tino probably wouldn't become much taller, Scotty was destined to be the height of a successful basketball player. And where Scotty was wiry with a slight build, Tino was built like a football player.

The differences didn't stop there. The older boy had a darker complexion matched by dark brown eyes and thick unruly hair, which he wore in an Afro. His Latin good looks had also created a young man who was charismatic and who could talk his way into or out of any and everything that he wanted.