This is Gonna Require a Little Finesse

The five of us sat the bar of Johnny G, whiskey glasses in hand. The alcohol tingled annoyingly at the back of my throat, but a smile crept over my face as Bobby made a toast and the five of us tipped our heads back and warmth spread through my body. Banging the glasses back on the table Bobby requested more drinks, "Johnny, pour me and my brothers another round. And a warm milk for my sister here."

"Hey!" I snapped, offended at Bobby's comment.

"Not you, you moron. Jackie." Bobby explained, chuckling.

Jack replied stubbornly, "Man, I will drink you under the table."

I laughed a little while looking down, Jack had just set himself up for another insult from his oldest brother. You just refuse to learn, don't you Jackie?

"We're not talking about sperm, Jack, this is whiskey." Bobby teased, clasping his brother on the shoulder.

An hour later we were all sitting at a small table. We were all finding out just who could hold their liquor... and who couldn't. "Jack drinks, Jack. Jack drinks, Jack."

O. My. God. I thought to myself in disbelief, as a smirk infecting my face from ear to ear.

"That's your brother." Jerry told Bobby pointing at the youngest Mercer. I tipped my chair back on its two hind legs and rested my feet on the table while crossing my arms across my chest, fingers lazily looped around the neck of a half empty bottle. Angel gave me a look that said he was about to go ballistic on Jack if he didn't shut up, which just caused my smirk to widen and I laughed despite everything. Then I sighed and looked at the ceiling with a 'Why did you leave me with these idiots, Evelyn?' sort of look on my face.

"Jack drin--"

"Jack licks ass crack and ball sack." Bobby argued.

I huffed, going through more than 4 minutes of no jokes poking at Jacks' sexual orientation was APPARENTLY too much to ask for. Whatever happened next I wasn't paying attention to. Growing up in my house would have forced anyone to learn how to block out background noise. So I pictured myself somewhere else: the park a few blocks from Evie's house where I used to hang out after school.

I didn't come back down until I heard Jerry swear in frustration. Johnny G was leaning against the wall near us, looking like he had something to say.

"Oh, shit. Here we go. I knew it." Jerry whined, clanging his beer bottle against the table in annoyance.

Sure enough Johnny G did have something to say, "I think I heard something. The neighborhood's really upset about this--"

"Same old Bobby." Jerry cut in; he wasn't done playing 'Jimminy Cricket' for Bobby, "Ma always said, 'As smart as Bobby is, he just does not like to think.' Ain't no good gonna come from this, man. Let the police do their damn job."

That last comment made me want to puke, "The police Jer?" I spat shaking my head, "Stop with the police, okay?"

"Half the cops in this town are crooked." Bobby backed me, "You think the other half give two shits about another liquor-store holdup?"

"I'm telling you, man, Green's on our side on this one!"

"Come on, man." Jack groaned at Jerry in disgust. "Green?"

Finally, Angel, who'd been silent the whole time, decided to grace us all with his opinion, "She's the only woman that ever gave a damn, man. The least we can do is go bang on a few doors and see what happens. We owe her that much."

"Or bang a few doors down." I agreed in a mumble that was barely audible over the chatter in the bar.

"Why are you acting like such a bitch, Jerry?" Bobby growled.

"Okay. So, what...y'all just gonna shoot up the whole town 'cause y'all mad!?"

"Why not?" Angel asked.

"Come on, man!" Jerry hollered, disbelief at how dense his family still was etched all over his face. "The people who did this, they probably from the same shitty-ass streets we from. Mom would've been the first to forgive 'em. Y'all know that!"

"We can't all be saints, Jerry." I told him, with a sad look in my eye.

"Yeah, we can't all be saints, Jerry." Jack slurred, agreeing with me.

"Yeah, all right. All right; cool." Jerry growled as he jumped up and pulled on his jacket, obviously not pleased with any of us. "Don't call me when y'all get shot up. This is Detroit in case y'all forgot."

"Bye, Jerry!!" I called after him, pretty smug with myself for getting him worked up.

After, Johnny had been kind enough to spill his guts about the new gangs in town, we'd all sobered up just a little bit. I hung on Bobby's shoulder affectionately-and partially to annoy him- which I succeeded in doing. "Here, take this would you." he told Jack as he shook me off.

I leaned against Jack as he put a cigarette between his lips. I let out a sigh of boredom and watched the fog of my breath disappear into the cold Detroit night as the four of us gathered at the trunk of Bobby's car. Jack blew a stream of cigarette smoke after my own clean breath. His exhale swirled around and was easier to see. I stuck my tongue out at him childishly. He just grinned, knowing he had won the unspoken competition.

"You got a burner?" Bobby asked Angel.

"I flew in." No.

"Man, be careful with my baby."

"Got ammo?" Angel asked cocking the gun.

"Yeah. It's loaded little brother, careful." Bobby said waving a hand to deter Angel from doing anything stupid. "Here, you carry the gas can."

He thrust the vibrant red container at me, and I stumbled back off of Jack, the side of my body now assaulted by the frigid air. My eyes lit up, "We're gonna go that gas thing!?" I asked, suddenly energized. I'd never been allowed to par-take in 'the gas thing' before.

"Yeah, we're gonna do the gas thing." Bobby squeaked in a horribly mean mimic of my excitement.

I stuck my tongue out at him as he turned away and pulled out a shotgun for himself. That's a lot of tongue tonight. I thought to myself, I was still a bit drunk.

"The only thing that scares people more than getting burned to death, is people gettin' eaten alive. Let's go" Bobby ordered starting to shut the trunk.

"What do I get?" Jack interrupted expectantly.

"For comin' with us?" Bobby looked around the bed of his car, then handed Jackie a crow bar, "Here you go sweetheart. Poke 'em with that."

"O, thanks." Jack grumbled not hiding his disappointment.

"You're welcome." Bobby replied looking happy with himself. Then sighed looking at me, "You gonna complain too, Legs?"

I laughed and lifted my right leg so I could reach the top of my boot. A smile slipped across my face again as I pulled out a gun of my own, "Come on now, B. Little ole me out in Chicago all by myself with no protection?" I said in a small innocent child voice. "Unlikely." To my surprise he didn't have anything bad to say about it, he just returned the grin and took off toward the 'abandoned' mall.

"Sure, I'm the only one who doesn't get a gun." Jack mumbled, more to himself.

I turned to him with another smile and said, "Hey, Christmas is coming, behave yourself and I'll think about getting you something this year. Hm?"

"The popo's is here!" Bobby yelled in a high pitched voice, next to Angel, me and Jack following close behind. I had my gun pointed down, but my arm tense in case one of the teens decided to surprise us. "Y'all better run, man, these white cops is crazy! They killed Cornbread! They killed him! He didn't do nothin'!"

It was obvious who was running the party, he was at the back sitting in a chair that faced out to the rest of the building. A handful of kids were still there with him, the last thing I wanted was any of those idiots to run, they might know something. So I decided to speak up as my group neared, "Everybody put your fucking hands up!"

"Detroit Police! I wanna see your fucking hands in the air!" Bobby echoed. "Sit down and shut the fuck up!" Bobby bellowed as he shoved the head kid back into his seat. "Give me the gas." I handed it to him and he handed off his shotgun to Jackie.

Bobby dumped the gasoline onto the boy, obviously infuriating him, "Yo. What the hell y'all want? Y'all ain't no cops. What the hell you doin' here, man?"

"You're gonna wish I was the police when I'm done with your ass." Bobby threatened. Just shut up kid and he won't hurt you. Tell him what he wants to hear. Why did I agree to do this!? I didn't want to see Bobby beat the shit out of this kid, but I didn't let it show. Or I thought I hadn't; I could feel eyes on me and when I looked up Jack was looking at me with a deeply worried expression on his face. I gave him a small reassuring smile, and he returned it, along with a nod letting me know it'd be okay.

"This is not the talking part, okay?" Bobby told the kid harshly, shoving a piece of blue cloth into his mouth. Holding out his hand, Bobby received the lit cigarette from Jack. "This is the listening part so shut your mouth. You know who I am?"

He shook his head 'no'.

"You don't know why we're here?"

...again 'no'.

Bobby jabbed the light dangerously close to the hostages face, "I know you're not gonna tell me what I wanna know, so I'm gonna light your little bitch ass on fire. Then we're gonna watch you run around here like a chicken with its head cut off, lighting all your little friends on fire. Is that what you want!?"

...a more frantic shaking of 'no'.

"Which one of your boys shot up the liquor store on 104th Street?"

A mumble that I could make out as, "what boys, man?"

"The police got witnesses!" Angel yelled.

"Okay, tough guy. Hey! Now is the talking part. And you better start saying what the fuck I wanna hear. Speak." Bobby demanded.

He wasted no time opening his mouth to do just that, "Man, that shit was counterfeit as a motherfucker, man. Ain't nobody playin' no basketball when that shit went down, okay? Why you think cops ain't arrest nobody?"

That was obviously the wrong answer because it was rewarded with a strong punch from Bobby. "How do you know nobody was playing basketball if you weren't there?"

He obviously still hadn't learned, "Because, bitch, police said those people wasn't killed till 11:00."

"So what!?" I chirped, not understanding what he was getting at.

"So, they turn the court lights out at 10:00!" He yelled at me.

Bobby looked at his watch hurriedly, looked at the three of us, and nodded toward the exit. Angel grabbed him and dragged him along. "You little fucking bastards need to stay in school."

Jack swung the crow bar lazily in his hand and then rested it behind his neck as he turned back to the smaller mass of people and commented as if he was leaving the party early, "I hope you all have a very nice evening!" then turned back and fell into step next to me. He nudged me arm with his elbow, I looked up at him and he ruffled my hair a little and smiled softly.