Yellow Submarine #8

I missed the deadline due to a violent stomach illness and a very ill-timed power outage as I was finishing my response. I am posting anyway. I know this won't count towards the vote, but I want to respond anyway because if I am to be voted off, it will not be for negligence.

I have never shared the following story, and outside of the parties involved, no one knows it happened. Because of the type of neighborhood it took place in, it was never reported to the police. I share it with you now only under the cloak of anonymity and in referrence to the topic at hand.
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What would you do for a friend? How far would you go to protect them, even from themselves? I guess it all depends on the friends you make.

Your friends can either be an amazing force for good in your life or they can drag you to the depths of human nature. Astrologically speaking, I am a Pisces. Without delving too much further into what that means, the lead sentence applies double for me. It's symbol is the two fish swimming in opposite directions. One fish is always swimming upwards, the other is always swimming down. I call it the Pariah/Messiah dichotomy. Every Pisces is both at turns and which direction we're swimming in tends to have a lot to do with which circle of friends we're running in at the time.

My choice of friends has always ran the gamut of the good, the bad, and the ugly. The good do things like mix their own CDs, arrange online writing contests, or go to college to become elementary school teachers. The bad do the sort of things that aren't discussed in polite conversation, but provide chaff for the evening news. The ugly just plain need help getting their life straight. Most people fall into two of these camps, some all three, but no one ever only falls into one. I think its because good, bad, and ugly are only reflections of the most basic aspects of human nature and as such everyone has their turn at each... Certain people just lean more one way than the other...
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During one of my periodic Ugly phases, I met a guy named Danny. I met his whole family actually. I met his mother Viola, his girlfriend Crystal, and his sister Rachel. They were all waiting for a cousin to get off of work at the Denny's where I had been whittling away my insomnia. We were discussing certain issues of legal liability for some reason or the other and Viola and I hit it off immediately. Viola was very much the matriarch of the family and had taken an interest in the law much for the same reason I had. This was namely because everyone around us always seemed to be getting into trouble.

As we were sitting there having a rather enlightening discussion, a car drove by the window and sped away.

Danny recognizes the driver and was immediately up from the table and running to his truck in the parking lot. "I'm going to the house!" was all he seemed to be able to spare on his way out the door. I wasn't sure what all the hubbub was about, but I knew it was serious and there was a big possibility that something could go wrong. I caught up with him in the parking lot and told him I was coming with. "Alright. Hop in, but get my twenty-two. Its under your seat."

On the way over, he explains to me the scenario: Some close friends of the family had gotten on the wrong side of a few local gang members in a drug turf dispute and there was the possibility they might be going by the house to do something less than polite. He wasn't worried about the friends; they were big enough to handle themselves. He was worried because Crystal's five year old daughter Amy was still there.

When we got there we checked the house and everything seemed kosher. We started talking some more, one thing led to another and a few hours later I had built him a fence. A nice one too. I'm still not sure why any of that makes sense to me.

Later that day he introduced me to his brother Ronnie and his sister's boyfriend who, it just so happens, knew me in a different life when I was known as 'the Professor'.

I seem to collect nicknames and alter-egos. Among every circle of friends I remain not better, but seperate. My separateness is always so pronounced that it tends to take on a life of its own in the form of a moniker. Practically nobody of a certain association calls me 'Yellow'.

Where that particular name comes from is a whole nuther story altogether, so let's just say I helped him and a few of his friends out once upon a time and he vouched for me.

After that I was part of the family.
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A week later I was homeless, for reasons of my own. I liked being homeless. I had nothing to worry about save my next meal and my next nap. I had bags of clothes and things scattered and well hidden across town, I carried a tote bag with all my hygeine supplies in it plus a book or two from the local library and was able to stay relatively clean and well groomed in public bathrooms and swimming holes. I was able to wash my clothes as well. Between all these arrangements I was the most kempt, unhomeless looking homeless man you ever met. I just wasn't able to hide it forever because of the sleep thing.

The first thing that most people do when they're homeless is change their sleep schedule. I was no exception after the first few nights because while you can be warm and comfortable in an alley, you are never safe and you stand a good chance of being taken. Much better to sleep during the day and become nocturnal. One day, I was visiting Danny's cousin at the Denny's. I excused myself to the restroom and I couldn't keep from resting my head on my lap and dozing off in a stall. She was worried about me when I hadn't come out after forty-five minutes and had called Danny to see if I was okay. Danny came in there expecting to find me dead on the toilet. He found me still sleeping.

I apologized for startling everyone, and Danny got the whole story out of me. He asked why I hadn't told him before and I responded that I didn't want Viola to worry about me. He insisted that I stay with him for a while. I did oddjobs around the house so I wouldn't feel like I was free-loading. I found there was all sorts of stuff I could do. A load of dishes here, repairing a washer there, helping to clean the engine block of Viola's Fiero. All of it was appreciated, but I still felt that without monetary compensation I was a freeloader. Eventually I got back on my feet with the help of some good friends, but I couldn't forget the family.
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While all this self-betterment was going on in the front of the house, the destructive influence of the turf dispute centering around the seperate room at the end of the lot set the tone for the back of it. Josh was a friend of Danny's since they were two halves of an acorn. He was like a son to Viola and a brother in the family. But he kept dealing drugs, and eventually the gang put him under contract. When some guys came to collect on him, Danny was at his side and together they fought them off. This extended the contract to the family.

I was staying at a friend's house one night when I got a phone call telling me that Viola's place had been hit. Both Viola and Ronnie were there at the time and Mama's car was torched. Everyone was at the house. I asked my friend for a ride over and when I got there I told him I wouldn't be needing a ride back. He got the message and jammed out of there.
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I was impatient so I hopped the fence and marched up to the door. Before I hit the front porch, the door had swung open and I was staring down the barrel of his nine.

"You know Danny, if this is how you treat a guest then I'm afraid your hospitality sucks."

He wasn't amused but he recognized my voice "C'mon in Yellow. Not for nothing, but we've been expecting some guys to crash our little shindig here."

"Is mom alright?"

"Yeah, a little shaken but she's okay."

"How's Ronnie?"

"How do you think he is? He's pissed! Matter of fact I'm glad you showed up. We got the boys together and we're about to go find those bastards. Do you want a pistol or a rifle?"

"No. no. no. no. no. no. no. no. You can't go out there."

"Why the fuck not?"

"And leave Mom, Crystal and Amy here alone?"

"Fine. So you stay, but we're going to find those bastards."

"No, you're not."

Danny had had about enough of this. He wasn't trying to stand there and debate with me. He reared on me and for the second time that night I was staring down the barrel of his gun.

"Are you going to stop me? Who's side are FUCKING ON ANYWAY?"

With the emphasis on his last words his chest was heaving and he didn't look like he was in the mood for further conversation. Any guy who ever tells you he's stared down the barrel of a gun and not been afraid is lying on one of those counts. Danny was a close friend, but friend or no, a man that pissed and paranoid will shoot you.

"I can take any one of those Mother Fuckers! And if you're not with me..." He cocked his gun.

I had maintained eye contact with him over the sight of his gun. I knew that to an unstable man, this was a test and any lack of resolve on my part would constitute an admission of guilt.

"Danny, in a fair fight I have no doubt you'd come out on top. You're one tough bastard and I should know, but bullets don't make that distinction. If they're going to cap you, you won't know they're even there until after they've already pulled the trigger. But let's say you do manage to take out one or two of these guys... They travel in packs. There'll always be another two to deal with. Then two more. Then four more. Out there you're vulnerable.

"But that's not what bothers me the most. If a contract's been put out on the family, then they're not going to be after just you or Josh or Ronnie. They'll want everyone. They probably have eyes on this house right now. If you're out there, mom and Amy and Crystal are at the mercy of anyone swinging by the house. This house and the protection it provides are your greatest assets, it is your fortress. If you're going to make it through tonight, if they're going to make it throught the night, you have to stay here. They're most likely expecting you to be rush out the door with a posse. Its not that if you go out there you're dead. Its that if you go out there we're all dead. They're going to finish the job and the whether they finish you or the family first will depend entirely on how much you pissed them off and how much they want you to suffer."

Now for the gamble...

"If you have any doubts that I'm speaking the truth, or that my loyalties lay anywhere other than with the safety and protection of this family, then by all means pull the fucking trigger."
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He remained fixed. He was searching my eyes for weakness or deception.

He roared.

I didn't blink.

Finally he let off a shot into the ceiling.That seemed to calm him down. With the tension gone he even laughed a little.

"So how 'bout it Professor? How would you handle this?"

"First off, I'd make them fight me on my turf. If you don't come to them, they'll come to you, most likely in a drive-by. Take your heavy furniture and push it against the windows. Keep Mom, Amy, and Crystal in the center of the house where their less likely to be struck by a stray round..."

In the matter of a half an hour of brainstorming and heavy-lifting we had turned the house into a compound. I won't bore you with the details of how or what we did, but the last detail of the arrangement involved me taking a rifle, getting to the roof of the church diagonally across the street. I was to keep a look-out and providing cover fire if necessary.

I took the rifle, wrapped it in a blanket and walked outside. I called back to the house," 'Preciate it Danny. I'll have the blanket back to you at the end of the weekend. Grandma sends her regards.." I walked across the street and two blocks past the church singing something from the score of "The H.M.S. Pinafore". Then I doubled back a different way under cover of darkness and scaled the side of the church until I reached the roof. Fortunately for me it had a lot of railings and overhangs which lent themselves to easy scaling. There was no moon out and I found a spot where the light was to my side and I could lay prone in the shadow of an over hang. I could see everything below, yet I was concealed in darkness. It was perfect. I set up watch for the night.
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I kept an eye on all the traffic, pedestrian and otherwise, not that there was much at two in the morning.

About two and a half hours into my watch, I saw a car pull around into the parking lot of the convenience store across the street from the house. Two guys jumped out, not in any specific gang colors, but obviously gang related. Their pants were sagging and their shoelaces were in, but untied to the point where the tongues were practically hanging out on their K-Swiss. The symbolism behind gang attire is too intricate to go into right now, but suffice it to say I could tell by what they were wearing that they were probably initiates, earning their colors by doing the hit. Of the two, one was obviously carrying heat in his waistband, but the other had a bottle in each hand. They left the door open and the engine running. These were obviously the guys, so there was probably another shooter in the car, probably as much there to shoot as to oversee the fresh fish. The one thing that I just couldn't understand was why risk getting out of the car and possibly compromising both your identity and your getaway? Why not just spray the house, get away and send the message?

I saw the guy with the heat take out a lighter and try to light a rag hanging from the first bottle. Then it hit me.

The bottles were make-shift molotovs filled with incendiary liquid. Probably a high proof alcohol or a gasoline or a mixture. The rags would have had to be lightly soaked in a slower burning liquid, like kerosene perhaps to provide a small time delay. They were going to burn everybody out and hit them as they came or otherwise turn the house into a crematorium. The second bottle was probably to speed things up or in case something went wrong with the first one. Either way, no one was going to make it out of there.

The only reason to go through all this hassle was if they wanted somebody and knew they weren't coming out on their own. In this case they had to have eyes on the house, and they probably had guys covering the other ends of the house which would mean they had to be in contact with each other. They were probably waiting for the fire to begin shooting, though. Someone really put some thought into this.

The rag was lit in the moment it took for all of this to dawn on me. In that brief moment before action I couldn't help thinking to myself, Danny, I don't know what you did to piss these guys off, but they're not fucking around. They're going to end this thing tonight.

What happened next went something like this...

CRACK CRACK

WHOOSH

CRASH

WHOOSH

(screaming)

POP POP POPPOPOPPPOP

CRACK

POP POP

SQQQUUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAALL

The first crack was my rifle.

The second crack and the first whoosh was my shot busting the bottle of the lit molotov and throwing liquid fire all over the two poor dumb bastards. The way it was sticking, they must have used an emulsifying agent. Someone had been reading the anarchist's cookbook. I was impressed.

The crash was the second molotov being dropped in the confusion and the whoosh thereafter was the fire ball catching onto, and consuming their shoes. I felt bad about it later, but really, that's what the daffy bastards get for dropping it while they were on fire. I was not impressed.

Then came the screaming and a few shots fired at the house, plus one or two in my general direction from the overseer in the car. Judging from where he was shooting, my shot caught him completely off guard and all he could figure out was that I was on the other side of the road. I wasn't itching to fire twice to give him a slightly better idea where I was, at least not until I had some cover fire. By now fire was being returned from the house and the two punks were hiding behind a nearby car trying to remember in which order they were supposed to stop, drop, and/or roll.

Evidently the overseer wasn't too impressed with the performance of the pair, least of all when he motioned for them to get in the car, and they refused. Perhaps they just didn't want to risk getting plugged by crossfire or another phantom bullet on the way over. Perhaps they knew what sort of retribution was in store if they went along. Perhaps it was something else entirely, I'll never know for sure. One thing was certain though, the two had no intention of getting into that car and overseer was not at all pleased.

This presented a problem for the overseer. These guys failed their test, but they knew too much to simply let them go. They could be dealt with later if they came along, but leave them there as witnesses and you risk all sorts of fun legal incriminations or criminal reprisals for the higher ups. He turned his gun on the pair, either to scare them into coming or to silence them.

Luckily for tweedledee and teedledumb-ass, I was watching this whole sordid affair through my sights and I winged him before he could turn threat to practice. After I tagged him, he wasn't trying to hang around any longer. He popped off two shots and dove into the car which even then was speeding away, tires smoking and squealing. Two other cars followed.

The two would be bombers crawled away in the other direction an hour after the fire-fight stopped, probably when they thought everyone had forgotten about them or wasn't paying attention anymore. I had been watching them the whole time. If they were bent on redeeming themselves, they would have tried something earlier. It looked like they had learned their lesson.

I found out later that when they got home, their burns were so severe that they had to go to the hospital, and when they got there, they spilled all their guts and had to go into witness protection. I don't know if that last part's true, but I have a friend who's a nurse in the hospital and she corroborates the first part.
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I had a dream last night. When I told Danny about it the next day, he and I went at it. I told him that the way things were going was a lose/lose situation. One day this would have to end and the way he was going, when that day came he would have to choose between losing Josh or losing Amy or Mom. He didn't see the choice that had to be made. For an hour we went at it. I stuck to my guns. He defended Josh to the last. Upon realizing I wasn't going to convince him, I told him that I admired his loyalty, but not his foresight and I left.

Two days later, a psychic friend of mine from another circle later told me that you only get three chances to change your destiny and I had already had two. I would have to make a choice soon, and depending on which road I chose I would be dead inside of the year. Another friend corroborated.

At the time this could have meant either sticking around or going to my mother's house to battle my step-father, an extremely violent, narcotic addicted, ex-navy, ex-con.

I decided to go where I was needed most, Grim Reaper be damned. I was grateful to the family, but now I had to attend to the affairs of my family. Two weeks later I was six hundred miles away wrestling with a man who smelled of bad cigars.

I heard from a mutual friend that the day I had warned Danny about had come sooner rather than later. A week after I left, the gang had regrouped and had tried again, this time in broad daylight. Amy wasn't in the house, but Mom was and she was hit. Josh was out the same night.

I didn't take the news very well. Mom didn't take it very well either. I sent my respects to her hospital before she passed. I just wish I could've been there, cryptic warnings or no. She deserved better than that.
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So there you have it. Over the course of a couple of months I had gained a second family, been homeless, lied to everybody about it, built a fence, rebuilt a house, twice stared down a gun, told my best friend he was going to get himself killed, taken sides in a gang dispute breaking I don't know how many laws in the process, foiled two would-be arsonists sending them to the hospital, saved their lives by wounding their fellow ne'er-do-well, got shot at, had a contract put out on me (which has since been removed due to the influence of some other friends of mine), had a bad dream and a worse roe with my best friend, and moved six hundred miles away to rescue my mother only to be listened to too late after misguided loyalty condemned a good woman to die for the continued sins of another.

I have no qualms about backing you up with my fullest if it means protecting you or our shared interests, and I can take any abuse you send my way in the heat of the moment, but I'm not going to spare you my tongue when your actions mean dire consequences for either yourself or another.

But hey, I guess that's just the kind of friend I am.