CHAPTER THREE: The Decision



Where were we? Oh yes, the scream. Like I said, I heard somebody scream just as I was trying to sort together the pile of shit that had become my life for the last few days.

"Somebody, please help me!" a female screamed.

I looked downward, just to see what was going on. I heard the voice coming closer to me, and then I could see who it came from. It was a girl, who couldn't have been too much younger than me. Maybe about fifteen or sixteen. I admit, at first I was going to ignore her. After all, I had my own problems to deal with. But then I glanced down at her, and I could see that she was crying. People on the street were walking right past her while she begged for help. Slowly, I slid down the wall while staying in the shadows.

"Hey," I called to her. "What's wrong?"

The girl jumped at the sound of my voice, and then she began walking toward me.

"Stay where you are," I said. She immediately stopped in her tracks. "What's the problem?"

"My...my mother...her boyfriend is beating her and...I'm afraid he's going to kill her...she's a drug addict and she owes him money and..." the girl said through tears. I could see that the girl had a fresh black eye herself.

"Say no more." The word "drug" hit a nerve. As you know, I feel pretty strongly about the subject. "Where is your mother now?" I asked.

"She's in the apartment buildings down the street, Building 4, Apartment 3B," the girl replied.

"What's your name?"

"Tiffany."

"Alright, Tiffany, I want you to go somewhere safe. Go to a friend's house or something, and call the cops. I'll take care of the rest."

"But...who are you?"

"Somebody who knows what abuse feels like. Get moving."

Tiffany eventually nodded and ran off. As for me, I got moving myself. I moved through the alleys and ran to the apartment, and then I ran inside of the building. Running upstairs, I found Apartment 3B. From outside of the door, I could hear screaming and the sound of flesh meeting flesh in a harsh blow. The door was locked, so I kicked it in. The first thing I saw was a woman on the floor with several bruises and cuts on her face. There was a large man standing over her. His head was bald, and he had a goatee. The guy easily weighed three-hundred pounds of pure muscle. I had recognized him the second I saw him. He was a known enforcer for a local gang. His specialty was to literally break a person's face, as well as occasionally their ribcage. When he did the latter, he would use his own head to do it. Nobody even knew his real name, but on the street, he was known as Rhino.

"Who the fuck are you?" asked Rhino.

I didn't answer immediately. It had just occurred to me that I was a damned fool for running into such a situation without even thinking about it.

"You deaf or somethin'? Who the hell are you?" he asked again.

"Let her go," I said.

Rhino stared at me in awe for a moment, and then he started laughing.

"What the hell are you supposed to be, some kind of hero?"

I didn't have a response for him. I just wanted to make him pay for what he had done. It was people like him who had caused my mother to become what she was. It was people like him who had taken away my childhood.

"I'll only warn you once more," I warned.

Rhino laughed again. In a split second, he had leapt across the room and had implanted his fist in my jaw. I fell backwards and found myself laying outside of the apartment door. I could taste blood in my mouth. It didn't help that Rhino had just grabbed me by my throat and tossed me back into the apartment. I landed on my hands and knees, and I could see Rhino advancing upon me again. I felt the buzz in my neck again, and I raised my hand in time to block a punch that would have introduced my head to the floor. Rhino stared at me in shock as I squeezed his fist. I then retaliated with a haymaker that knocked him out of the apartment and into the wall on the other side of the hall. Rhino slowly rose to his feet and prepared to attack me again. He crouched, lowered his head, and charged. For a man his size, he could move pretty quickly, but I was faster this time. I leapt above him as he charged, landed on one hand, and fired a web at his ankle with the other hand. Then I flipped to my feet and pulled on the webline as I moved. Rhino's body fell forward, and his head put a hole in the wall. I watched him slowly rise to his feet. He lowered his head and prepared to ram me again. This time, however, I fired webbing from both hands, pinning him to the wall. Rhino struggled against the webs as I approached him and smiled.

"What the hell is this? What the hell are you?" exclaimed Rhino.

I was feeling pretty good about myself at the moment, so I wanted to say something that was pretty dramatic, like in the movies. At the same time, I wasn't about to tell him my real name, so I just said the first thing that popped into my head.

"I'm Spider-Man," I replied.

"You're a dead motherfucker! You hear me? I'm gonna fuckin' kill you!" Rhino screamed.

"Sure you are. When you can manage to get yourself off of that wall, then we'll see if there's any truth to that statement," I replied.

In the distance I could hear sirens approaching. Smiling, I leapt to the windowsill and turned back to the woman inside.

"You'll be alright now, miss. Oh, and Rhino? Don't drop the soap, dog."

I could hear Rhino spitting obscenities at me as I slid down the exterior wall. About a minute later, I could see police cars approaching the building. I walked through the shadows and made my way home.

********

Okay, I think it's safe to skip ahead a few hours. Unless, that is, you want to hear about me sleeping. You don't want to hear about me sleeping, do you? Didn't think so. Okay, here we go. It's the next day, and this time I actually took my ass to school. There was a lot of buzz going around the school. Everybody was talking about how some guy had taken down the legendary Rhino. It was unbelievable to a lot of people. Of course, I just acted as if I didn't know it had happened. Still, it made me feel good that I was able to accomplish such a feat.

But not all of the hype was good. Rhino was pretty influential in the drug trade, and he had contacts who actually attended the school. See, it was lunchtime, and I was eating with and talking to Angel and Brian. At one point, we heard a lot of commotion, and we saw a crowd gathering. That's when I heard somebody getting slapped. I stood up to see what was going on. Working my way through the crowd, I managed to see three guys surrounding one girl. The girl was on the ground and holding her face. One of the guys kicked her in the side.

"Get up, bitch. You gotta pay for what you did," the guy said.

The guy's name was Mark. He, along with his two partners, Rashawn and Steve, were known to work under Rhino. That's when I realized who the girl was.

"Tiffany?" I asked myself out loud.

It was the girl who I had seen the previous night. That's when it had dawned upon me that they probably held her responsible for what had happened. I felt guilty immediately for what was going on. Tiffany rose to her feet and wiped a tear from her eye.

"I didn't do anything to him! He was beating my mom!" Tiffany argued.

Mark retaliated by punching her with a closed fist.

"Enough!" I yelled as I fought my way out of the crowd.

"Stay out of this, bitch," Mark said to me.

"Three of you motherfuckers are beatin' on one girl, but you call me a bitch?" I replied.

"You know what? I'm sick of bein' nice. Fuck him up," Mark commanded to his partners.

Steve and Rashawn each drew knives and advanced upon me. Not that I was really intimidated or anything. Just as I prepared to attack, I could see three school police officers out of the corner of my eye. They each rushed Mark, Steve, and Rashawn. I just stood back and watched as they were each cuffed and hauled away. They were all busy yelling threats to both Tiffany and myself as they were taken away. I turned to see if Tiffany was alright, but she was already on her way out of the lunchroom. One of the officers came back to me and asked if I was alright, and I nodded in the affirmative. Angel and Brian approached me after that.

"What the hell were you thinking? Don't you know who they are?" said Brian.

"If they had been jumpin' you, I wouldn't just stand back and watch," I replied.

"Yeah, but they could have killed you. You don't even know who that girl is, and you were ready to give your life for her?"

"They wouldn't have killed me."

"How do you know that?"

I thought for a second, and then I just smiled.

"I just know."

"Know what? You're crazier than I am. You need to lay off of the weed."

"Never."

Brian shook his head and walked away. I glanced at Angel, who had a concerned look on her face.

"What?" I asked.

"Rob, are you feeling okay?" asked Angel.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Why?"

"Ever since the other day, you've been acting differently. You didn't come to school for no reason, you almost got yourself killed a minute ago, and you barely even talk to me any more."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"And you've been smoking more. Don't think I didn't notice."

I didn't have a reply for her. I just turned my eyes away from hers.

"Aren't we supposed to be best friends, Rob? You can tell me anything. You know that, right?" asked Angel.

"Yeah..." I said back.

"So, what's wrong?"

"...You wouldn't understand..."

With that, I walked out of the lunchroom and down the hall. I felt confused. I felt helpless. What was it that was bothering me? I thought that I had done the right thing the previous night, but it had seemed like all I did was make things worse. That's why I didn't want to get involved in the first place. I continued walking and thinking until I heard a noise. Around the corner at the end of the hall, I could hear somebody crying. I walked around the corner, and there was Tiffany, sitting on the floor with her hands over her face. I stood there, staring at her, and I felt the pain in my heart swell up. Her mother was like my mother, and her pain was like my pain. I found myself sliding down the wall and sitting next to her. I pulled some tissue from my pocket and offered it to her.

"Hey," I said to get her attention. She looked up, saw the tissues, and took them gratefully.

"Thank you," she replied through tears.

"You alright?" I asked.

"Yeah...yeah, I'm fine. You didn't have to step in, you know. They might make you a target, too."

"Let 'em."

"Why are you willing to put yourself in danger over me? We've never met."

"I couldn't just stand around and watch. And besides, it's not like we can't meet now."

I stared into Tiffany's eyes and saw so much pain. It felt pretty familiar to me. Aside from the bruise on her cheek, she was very pretty. She was light-skinned, with long, brown hair. Now don't ask me why, but for a second I had actually thought to myself, "She's prettier than Angel". I caught myself with that thought for a second, but I didn't say anything. Angel had a darker complexion and had short black hair, but she was still very pretty. I wiped a falling tear from Tiffany's face and smiled.

"Even with a bruise, you're pretty," I said.

"Thanks," Tiffany said with a smile. She held out her hand after a second. "I'm Tiffany."

"Rob," I said, taking her hand.

Tiffany lay her head back, and I did the same. We sat there talking for the rest of the lunch period, although I wished it wouldn't have ended.

********

The last class of the day was my Social Science class. Angel sat beside me in that class, and although we normally talked during this period, she was very quiet this time. I glanced at her a couple of times, but she never even made eye contact with me. Ms. Drummond, the teacher, was holding a class discussion on, of all things, drugs. What a happy subject, right? I wasn't really paying attention, as I didn't want to hear it, until she said one thing that got my attention.

"So, who here thinks that drugs will ever go away?"

The class fell silent for awhile, and nobody raised their hands. Eventually one student spoke up.

"Drugs are good business, Ms. Drummond. I don't think that they'll ever go away," the student said.

"An interesting point. Does anybody have anything to add?" asked Ms. Drummond.

"Dealers prey on the innocent, and the innocent move to them like lambs to the slaughter. It's an easy business, and unless somebody can put a stop to it, drugs will always be around, there will always be people to push them, and there will always be somebody to abuse them," I said without looking up.

"That's quite true, Mr. Jordan. But, who would possibly be able to stop such a thing?" asked Ms. Drummond.

I sat in thought for a second. Then I spoke.

"I don't know. But somebody will rise up to try," I said. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Angel looking at me, but I never looked back up.

At the end of the day, I was walking to the bus stop with Angel and Brian. They were both talking, but I was keeping to myself. It was a few minutes before I could vaguely hear my name.

"Ain't that right, Rob?" said Brian. "Rob? Rob!"

"Huh? What?" I said, looking up.

"That test today in Ms. Litz's class. Wasn't that tough?"

"Oh...yeah, it was..." I wasn't really thinking about the test. I had other things on my mind.

Just then, as we were walking, Angel had noticed somebody from a few feet away.

"Oh, God..." she said in an exasperated tone.

I looked up, and there was my weed contact. He saw me, smiled, and approached. Brian seemed indifferent to his presence, but Angel was obviously very annoyed. The guy nodded to Brian, and Brian nodded back, just to be polite, I guess. Then the guy turned to Angel.

"Hey, Sweet Thang, how you doin'?" the guy asked Angel.

"I know you?" she said without making eye contact. Brian snickered a little bit. I just stared at the guy, 'cuz I knew what he wanted.

"Aw, don't be like that, Ma," the guy said. Angel simply continued walking. Eventually she stopped and turned back to me.

"Rob, are you coming?" asked Angel.

The dealer turned to me after that and smiled.

"My boy'll be with you in one second, pretty. First, we gotta talk business," the guy said. He presented a small packet of weed. "Ain't that right?"

I looked down at the drugs in his hand. This guy had always been a reliable supplier, I'd give him that. But I thought about everything that had been going through my head. I looked up at my friends, and I saw the disappointed look in their eyes, as if they just knew that I was going to buy the weed. I looked back down at the weed, and then I looked the dealer in the eyes.

"Wrong," I said as I pushed his hand away from me. "I'm done with that shit."

I continued walking, and my astonished friends followed soon afterwards. I kept walking until I reached the bus stop. We stood in silence for a few minutes until the bus came. Once it did, we all went to the back of the bus and sat down. Again, we were silent. But then, Brian broke the silence.

"Rob, are you okay?" he asked.

"What, is that the question of the day?" I asked. I was seriously tired of being asked if I was okay.

"Dog, you turned down weed. You, Robert Jordan, turned down weed. I mean...it makes no sense!"

"So is that a good thing or a bad thing?" I asked.

"Very good," Angel said. "But, why? Normally you'd jump at the chance to smoke."

"Look...have you ever had a feeling like...like you wanted to change things?" I asked.

"What kinds of things?" asked Angel.

"I mean, you know about my mom...and my brother...it's just..."

"It's fucked up, but at least they'll still be around when you need them," said Brian.

"I haven't heard from my mother in months and the other day my brother got fifteen years. They will not be around when I need them," I snapped back.

Brian stopped and had a look of surprise on his face.

"You never told us about that," said Brian.

"Is that why you didn't come to school the other day?" asked Angel.

I thought for a moment about the events of that day.

"More or less..." I replied.

"So how are you going to change things?" asked Angel.

"I don't know. I just feel like...like I need to make a difference..."

"You know what? You're sounding really cliche right now. Like something out of a movie or a comic book. You're not gonna become a superhero or anything, are you, Rob?" Brian asked as he laughed.

"No," I said, looking out of the window. "No, of course not..."



END OF CHAPTER THREE