“We’re going to take him home. He lives in this neighborhood, so he should especially know better!” the dark-haired policeman replied.

“Officer, let him go. Obviously, he was with my brother and his friends. It’s my fault. I should have come sooner. I didn’t mean to be so late.” Benny’s brother looked at Davy with a deep look of concern on his face.

“No, we’ve got this under control. We can take him home.” We watched him leave, watched Sam sitting in the patrol car, arms in handcuffs up on the street near the apartment building where the top reached the sky. When Sam was gone, Davy came past us and Billie reached out to touch his shoulder but he smacked it away.

“Davy, we’re sorry,” Louie called out.

“Sorry?” he turned around. “Sorry for what? That you got him in trouble for something y’all did? Man! I know who shot that gun,” he said and pointed at Benny.

“It wasn’t him, man. It was me,” Louie said, almost in a whisper.

“Look, I’m sorry for what my brother did. Here, can I offer you some money?” Benny’s brother said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a

twenty-dollar bill and offered it to Davy, who spat on the ground in front of us.

“We don’t need your money! You’re not buying us!” he said, rocking from side to side and walking backward.

“Take it anyway,” Benny’s brother said and dropped it on the ground in front of me. Davy produced the gun from inside his pants. He held it in the air before dropping it on the ground.

“Take that.”

“I guess we’re even then,” Benny’s brother said.

“Yeah,” Davy said, nodding his head, “I guess so.” Davy left then, the gun still on the ground in front of him. The cops were going to be back soon and his prints were all over it but he didn’t care.

Benny’s brother headed toward the car. He didn’t pick up the money and when Benny did, he told him to leave it. Benny chased after him, shaking his head in confusion and asking his brother why.

“That’s our ticket out of here, that’s why. If we pick up the money, then it means we really didn’t mean it. It means that we are just as full of shit as if he were to pick up the gun. Someday you’ll understand but he called my bluff and I called his bluff. He’s nobody’s fool and neither am I,” Benny’s brother simply said.