Eastside by Caleb Alexander

Romeo were the same age.
    â€œI hope they go home soon,” Travon whispered beneath his breath.
    â€œWhat’s up, Tre?” Romeo asked.
    â€œNothin’, kinfolk,” Travon replied. He forced a smile and hugged Romeo. When finished, he turned and hugged Capone.
    â€œYou know we served them niggaz after we heard what they did to you,” Capone told Travon.
    â€œOh, yeah?” Travon was surprised. Although knowing his cousins, he knew that he should not have been. They irritated him to death, but they also stuck together. Theirs was a close family. In his opinion, too close.
    â€œHell yeah, Blood!” Romeo shouted. “We took they motherfuckin’ hats to ’em!”
    Aunt Chicken walked out of the front door.
    â€œTre, baby, come and give your Aunt Chicken a hug,” she told him, spreading her arms wide.
    Travon dragged himself up the porch steps and embraced his aunt tightly.
    After hugging him, she leaned back slightly and stared into his eyes. “Are you all right?”
    Travon nodded. “Yeah, I’m okay.”
    â€œThat’s good. Now come on in here and call your mother. She’s been worried sick about you. They been shootin’ over in them damn Courts again.” Chicken shook her head and frowned. “I don’t know why Elmira insists on staying out there, when she can come and live with me, or Vera, or Gina, or a hundred other people. She’s just so damn prideful and stubborn!”
    She pounded her two tiny fists together. “Times like this, I just get mad at her!”
    Travon walked inside, lifted the telephone, and dialed his mother’s number.

CHAPTER NINE
    â€œHello?”
    â€œMomma, it’s me, Tre. What’s up? Chicken said that you was worried about me.”
    â€œOh, baby, I just wanted to hear your voice, and make sure that you was all right. V said that you left early this morning, and that she hadn’t seen you since. Plus, Miss Martha told me that they had a great big old shoot-out over here earlier.”
    â€œOh,” Travon said, hesitating for several moments, before finally regaining his composure. “Naw, I’m doing fine. I just ran around the corner to kick it for a while.”
    â€œWell, they say that Quentin got shot in the stomach, and that Smoke got grazed in the head. The bad part is, Miss Elly’s granddaughter got killed.” Elmira sniffled, trying to hold back her tears. “I know what that woman is going through right now.”
    Travon could not speak.
    â€œThe police are saying that it was them Crip boys that did it, and that it was just a gang shooting. Them the same group a boys that they say shot your brother, and they ain’t got them boys yet. They need to close that damn East Terrace down, and put all them boys in jail! Oooh, Tre, baby, it’s on TV right now! Channel Five, hurry, baby!”
    Travon lifted the remote and turned the television on. He quickly flipped to Channel Five News and turned up the volume.
    The news showed footage of Quentin lying on a stretcher and throwing up gang signs as the paramedics loaded him into an ambulance. The news cameras then cut to Smoke One, who was seated on the curb, holding a large blood-stained bandage to his forehead.
    â€œAnother shooting on the city’s Eastside occurred today,” the anchorman announced to the audience. “This one happened in the city’s Wheatley Courts housing projects. It left two wounded, and one child dead.”
    The camera cut to footage of a woman holding a little girl’s limp body, while screaming hysterically.
    â€œTre,” Elmira called to her son over the telephone. “Tre.”
    â€œHold on, Momma, let me cut the TV down.” Travon lifted the remote control and silenced the television. “Okay, I’m here.”
    â€œBoy, you say something when I’m talking to you,” Elmira told him.
    â€œMomma, the night Too-Low died, he told me