#54 – Shady
Excerpt from Chapter Five – The Gorilla Speaks
A week or so after we rescued Ax from the bottom of the Pacific, he asked me if I would help him get acquainted with human culture. I guess he'd accepted the fact that he was going to be here on Earth for a while, and it marked the beginning of his "get to know the humans" phase.
My idea was to take him on one of those scenic tours they run. You could get on a bus for a couple of bucks and they'd drive you around, with some guy on a microphone telling you what was what. I was still living in the bad part of town, and we had to cross a couple of gang neighborhoods to get to where the tour started. It wasn't any big deal to me – I knew how to navigate those neighborhoods. Head down, fast walk, try not to look like you have anything of value.
Ax did not know how to act in a gang neighborhood. We had to pass fairly close to four guys in chinos and wifebeaters standing on a corner, and of course they yelled at us. That's what gangsters do – they're basically school bullies who've graduated to drug dealing and armed robbery…but at heart, they're all just bullies.
"Hey!" one of them yelled at us. "Hey, come here!"
I kept my head down and walked a little faster. I didn't think anything of it. Usually if you just went on about your business, guys like that didn't care enough to bother you. Ax didn't know that; I guess it was my fault for not telling him. It took me a minute, but I realized that Ax had stopped and was staring at the guys across the street.
"Ax, come on!" I hissed, getting that cold feeling in my stomach I get when things are about to go terribly wrong.
"Those men are hailing us," Ax said. "Uss-suh. We should find out why. Wai. Wai-yuh."
"No!" I hissed, trying to convey my urgency without speaking loud enough for the gangsters to hear us. "Let's go, now!"
The guys were all paying attention, now. They probably yelled at everyone who walked by, and here was someone dumb enough to stop. The one who was obviously in charged glanced around at his homies with an excited look on his face and yelled at Ax again. "Come over here, man! We want to talk to you!"
To my neverending dismay, Ax said, "Okay. Kay-yuh." He actually got three steps into the street before I grabbed his arm and began bodily hauling him away.
"It is rude to not return a greeting," Ax told me, sounding scandalized, and I almost laughed out loud. I would have laughed, but that's when I saw the guys coming our way. They weren't going to wait for Ax; he'd gotten their attention, and now he had a bullseye painted on him. Me, too.
I considered running, but I would have had to leave Ax behind. He wasn't comfortable enough in his human morph to pull that off, yet. This is bad, this is really bad, I kept repeating to myself.
The leader got across the street with his thugs right behind him and smiled. His mouth twinkled with gold, and Ax actually said, "Ooh!" in awe. This is gonna be bad, really bad.
"Why you in such a hurry, holmes?" the guy asked me. "Your friend wants to talk. Don't you?"
"I will talk," Ax said obediently. "Talk-uh."
"Yeah, see? He'll talk." The guy looked around, checking for cops, I guess. "And I want to talk about how much money you two have in your pockets. Can we talk about that?"
It's bad, really bad. I decided the tour was off, anyway. Ax wasn't ready to be around people yet; I should have known that. "Yeah," I said. I was trying hard not to show that I was afraid. "We can talk about that." I reached into my pocket and handed the guy the five dollar bill. "That's all I have."
Luckily, that seemed to satisfy the dude. He smiled again and pocketed it. "Good move," he told me. Luckily, he didn't seem to be in the mood to pound some kids who'd given up their money willingly. He turned to Ax and said, "Now you. Let me have what's in your pockets and you can go."
"He doesn't have any money," I said. "Ax, turn out your pockets so he can see." When Ax just looked at me quizzically, I reached around him and pulled his pockets inside out. "Sorry for stepping on your block," I told the guy, hoping it would be enough to get out of there.
Apparently, five bucks and me acknowledging he was the boss was good enough. "All right, little hero. You and your boy can bounce."
Unfortunately, that wasn't good enough for Ax.
"What do we get in return, human?" he asked the guy's receding back. All four of them turned quickly. Ax added, "Huh-yoo-man," to their stunned faces.
"What?" the leader and I asked at the same time. We both sounded incredulous. I felt like I was in a bad dream I couldn't wake up from.
"I said – say-yed – what do we get in return? My friend has given you currency. En-cee. You must give us something in return. That is the way the barter system operates. Pie-rates."
The guy was confused by Ax's halting way of speaking, but he got the gist of it. "How about you get out of here with all of your skin and teeth? That's what you get in return."
"That's just what we're gonna do," I said, grabbing Ax again and pulling as hard as I could. He didn't sense the danger. I don't know how, but he just didn't. He shook my tugging arm off, and I seriously considered leaving him there.
"You have taken our money. You would take our teeth and skin, too? Skintoo?" He turned to me, looking like the space cadet he was, and asked, "What subculture are these humans from that they would take our body parts?"
I gave up trying to deal with Ax and appealed to the gangsters directly. "He's sick, man. Sick in the head. I'm trying to take him back to the hospital," I lied wildly, hoping they wouldn't want to mix in with a crazy dude.
The gangster didn't know what was going on…and when you confuse a guy like that, his default mode is aggression. He pulled up his shirt to reveal the handle of a pistol stuck in his wasteband. "Even locos understand this, fool."
Now Ax got it. Alien or not, he knew a gun when he saw one. Unbelievably, he told the gangster, "I do not believe you are authorized to use that weapon."
The guy took it as a threat. "Ese, if I was you, I would go. Right now, before I bust your fucking head with this unauthorized weapon."
It was out of control. Now a gun was in the mix. Ax was going to get us both killed. Not by Yeerks, but by everyday California street hoods. I'm not exactly proud of what I did, but I couldn't think of anything else to do. I hauled off and punched Ax as hard as I could, right in the eye.
Ax lost his balance and fell heavily on his butt, clutching his injured eye. I shook out my hand; I'd never punched someone before, but it felt like I'd slugged the side of a refrigerator. "You struck me!" Ax cried out. "Why would you strike me, Marco?"
I pushed him onto his back and got on top of him like I was about to wail on him. I grabbed the collar of his shirt and pulled his face close to mine. "The lesson is over. You are going to obey every word I say without asking a single question, do you understand me?"
Thank the Lord, he studied me for a second and said, "Yes. Yes-suh, I understand."
The gangsters actually made way for us as I hauled Ax to his feet and began leading him back toward my house. "Let's go. Walk," I told him, and he did. The only thing Hoodlum #1 said after I popped Ax was, "Hey, yo, you both are fuckin' loco. Stay away from here!" He waited until we were about thirty feet away to call it to our backs.
Later, when we were safe, I explained the situation to Ax. He listened without interrupting and told me he understood when I was done explaining. I told him I was sorry for hitting him, and he forgave me…but as he was leaving to go back to the forest, he made a comment I found hilarious, for some reason.
"I believe the next time I wish to learn about human culture, I will ask Prince Jake-kuh." He actually pouted. "I do not believe Prince Jake will strike me."
He turned and walked away, and that was Ax's first real lesson about being human.