OGGIE AND I WERE on our way over to Dad and Cyndi’s apartment, trying not to be late, when we saw the Night Riders hanging out at the corner. They were wearing their jackets that have the crazed-looking eagle attacking a rattlesnake on the back.
“Don’t worry about it,” I told Oggie. “They can’t do anything to us.”
“How do you know they can’t?” he said.
“Because it’s day. It’s out in the open. The Night Riders do their stuff at night when no one can see. That’s why they call themselves that.”
“I don’t know,” Oggie said. I saw he had the yeeks.
Oggie’s my little brother. His real name is Ogden Jackson Jones. When he’s scared, he gets these shivers that go over his whole body. I never knew any person who could get shivers like that, just dogs when they know they’re going to the vet. Oggie calls them the yeeks. He hates it when people notice, so I never say anything.
“Stick with me,” I told him. “Don’t look. Just walk.”
“I don’t know,” Oggie said again. He’d slowed way down.
The Night Riders came around our neighborhood when they wanted to show off. They were tough kids, thirteen, maybe fourteen years old, that lived across Washington Boulevard on Garden Street, which is nothing like a garden, I can tell you. Half the houses are boarded up. Well, maybe not half, but a lot are, anyway.
There’s trash in the yards and busted-up sidewalks and druggies sitting around bumming spare change. Oggie had never even seen Garden Street. He was too little. Mom would’ve killed me if I brought him over there. She would’ve killed me, too, if she ever knew I went.
“Keep walking,” I told him.
“I don’t want to,” he said.
He was only six then. Creeps like the Night Riders probably looked like mass murderers to him. I mean, I wasn’t too happy about meeting up with them, either.
“I know you don’t want to,” I said, “but you’ve got to. How do you think it would look if we turned around and went back before they even noticed us?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, it would look bad,” I told him. “It would look gutless. The best thing is to keep going.”
We were hardly going anywhere at this point. Oggie was taking these little mouse-size steps. The yeeks were flying out of everywhere. Up ahead, the Riders had kind of spread out on the corner. They were outside this food store called Wong’s Market, smoking and spitting like they owned the world. One of them spotted us, and they all turned around and stared. Then they laughed these sort of gruesome laughs.
“Archie, I want to go back,” Oggie said. “I’m going back.” He tried to run, but I grabbed his coat.
“Listen, you can’t!” I whispered. “Mom’s not there now. The house is locked. I don’t have the key.”
“I don’t care!”
“If we don’t keep going, we’ll be late. Dad’s waiting, remember? He’ll LEAVE us. Don’t you want to go to the ball game?”
Our dad was taking us to see the Blue Hawks play that day. He hates people who are late. He works for the telephone company fixing people’s phones, and he has these days packed solid with appointments. You have to be on time or he gets fed up and leaves.
“Come on, Oggie. Move it!”
“No!”
“Oggie, walk!”
“Will you hold my hand?” he asked.
“HOLD YOUR HAND!” I just about croaked. “Listen, that would be the worst thing. Look at these guys. They hate people who do that.”
“I’ll only go if you hold my hand,” Oggie said. I knew he meant it. He can be pretty stubborn. My whole heart sank and shriveled up in total panic. But we had to get to Dad’s.
The thing is, he calls up Mom and they make these appointments with each other to see us, and it’s a real strain for them both to even talk to each other, so you can’t go around being late or not showing up. They get really hurt and mad.
“Okay,” I told Oggie. “Okay, okay.” I grabbed his hand and pulled him along as fast as he could go. We headed straight for the middle of the gang. It kind of surprised them. They stepped out of the way, and we went through like an express train. They recovered fast, though, because after we’d passed, one of them yelled:
“Hey, Ralphie, look at that. The big baby brother is holding the little baby brother’s hand. How cute! How cutesy-wootsy is that?”
We were a good ten feet away, still going at top speed, so it didn’t really affect us. My whole heart was pounding, though. It was about to come out of my shirt. I couldn’t even breathe for a while. Then I brought myself back to normal. That’s something you learn to do after you’ve been through a few tight situations, bring yourself back to normal.
“See that?” I told Oggie. “See, it wasn’t so bad as you thought. You’ve got to remember that in the future. Keep going no matter what.”
Oggie didn’t answer. I tried to let go of his hand, but he wouldn’t let go. When I looked over, I saw how bad he still needed to hold on and let him do it.
Who cares what people think, anyway? They can’t see half of what’s really happening. They don’t know how things are going to work out, either, so they shouldn’t sit around judging people as if they did.
For instance, right there on that corner, the Night Riders had no idea Oggie and I were going to feature so big in their future. If they’d known, they might have been a little more polite.
Of course, we had no idea the Night Riders would be coming into our life, either. The horizon was hazy, as they say. Which was just as well because if you ever could see into the future and know all the bad stuff that’s waiting to land on you just down the road, you’d probably hole up in your house and never want to go anywhere again.