Black Alley Read Online Free Page A

eyes were fixed on Cléo. Remember, Marcelo, his smile had disappeared.
    Â 
    Four silhouettes advance along the Côte-des-Neiges sidewalk, occasionally lit up by the headlights of the cars speeding past them. They go along Avenue Appleton, the northern boundary of Parc Kent, pass by the pétanque pitches where ten or so old men are assembled, most wearing skullcaps. In the lead, Pato and Alfonso make their way, their heads lowered, their hands behind their backs, while, behind them, the two Haitians, taller and with broader shoulders, chat about a girl they saw on the bus. One of them describes her as he sculpts imaginary curves while the other smiles. It’s already dark out and, strangely, the April air is as stagnant as a sweltering summer evening.
    In front of the baseball diamond, Pato notices boys who are older than him, almost all Asians, playing a game he doesn’t know the name of, a kind of volleyball you play with your feet. On the right, despite the falling darkness, three boys, with very dark skin, are tossing a football back and forth. As he advances
towards a good beating, life goes on all around him. People’s movements, their smiles, seem somehow unreal. He clenches his fists to boost his courage, but he realizes his hands are damp. He has to keep his cool, as his brother likes to say. When his brother finds out he got caught, he’s going to be furious, no doubt about it. Pato closes his eyes: there’s only one thing left to do: take it like a man. He realizes, Dios mío , his teeth are chattering! I’ll never steal again, Dios mío, ayúdame, que no me peguen , never again! What if I just start running, right now? What if I yell? Suddenly he remembers: the condor. That’s it, he’s done for! With his usual bad luck, the chain will fall out later right in front of those niggers, and then, well, they’ll kick his ass good! ¡Putamadre!
    The Haitians gesticulate a lot as they talk, but they don’t take their eyes off them. Yet he and Alfonso are out of their league: they’re in grade seven and the Haitians are in grade ten or eleven. To his great surprise, when they caught them red-handed they laughed at them more than they threatened or hit them. How long had they been spying on them, hiding behind the lockers? Probably from the very beginning. Afterwards, the Haitians decided to go eat some Kentucky Fried Chicken while they waited for CB to show up at Parc Kent. While they stuffed themselves in the parking lot, Pato’d had to cough a lot to cover up the rumbling in his stomach. Then they took them to Parc Vézina where they met some other Haitians and ordered the Latinos to get down on all fours so they could ride them like in a rodeo. Around seven o’clock, they headed towards Parc Kent to meet CB and the other Bad Boys.
    They step over the imaginary line, set foot in Haitian territory. Pato is almost completely unfamiliar with this part of the park: he’s always been forbidden set foot in it. They walk beneath the spray of the streetlights and, once they come out at the running track, they turn and, their backs hunched, make their way beneath the bleachers that seem to form a tunnel. It takes an
eternity. Then, at the end, Pato can see a group of Blacks chatting, gathered around a guy slumped in a patio chair. They’re all wearing baggy pants and backward baseball caps. They cut off their discussion and, as they notice the Latinos, their eyes open wide. One of their escorts triumphantly tosses the cap and sunglasses on the ground. A heavy girl with short hair rushes towards the objects. She shows them to the guy sitting in the chair.
    â€œCB, check it out!”
    He sits up quickly. After a pause, as if he regretted his initial reaction, he sinks back down against the back of the chair, strokes his goatee at length, and then, one by one, cracks each of his knuckles. Finally, he motions to the girl with his chin and she immediately