The Turnaround by George Pelecanos

gathered after the liturgy. Mr. Cachoris was afraid of black people, too. That’s all it was: fear turned into hate. Billy wasn’t a bad guy, not really. His father had taught him to be ignorant. With Pete it was something different. He always had to look down on someone. Alex wasn’t very book smart, but these were things he knew.
    “I just wanna go home.”
    “Alex got himself a nig girlfriend down at his father’s coffee shop,” said Billy. “He doesn’t like it when I talk bad about his peoples.”
    Billy and Pete gave each other skin and laughed. Alex got small in his seat. Wondering, as he often did when he was coming down at the end of the night, why he hung with these guys.
    “I’m tired,” said Alex.
    “Pappas wanna go night-night,” said Pete.
    Pete Whitten tipped his head back to kill his beer, his long blond hair catching the wind.
    The boys grew quiet on the ride home.
    RAYMOND WAS in his bed, listening to the crickets making their sounds out in the yard. He and James kept the windows open in their room three seasons of the year. Their father had made wood-frame screens that slid apart like wings to fit the space and hold up the sash windows, which no longer stayed up on their own, as their tracked ropes had long since torn. Ernest Monroe could fix most anything with his hands.
    Raymond, wearing only briefs, lay atop the sheets, wide awake. He was excited by what he’d found and also feeling a bit guilty for going through his brother’s dresser drawers. James had come in a while ago, said he was tired, and flopped down on his bed. That would have been the time to talk about the gun, but Raymond had been hesitant. He had been wrong to do what he’d done. He’d have to admit that his interest had been stirred by Charles and Larry, and Raymond knew that James didn’t think much of them. It was complicated, trying to find the best way to start the conversation. By the time he’d gotten up the courage to do it, a stillness had fallen in the room that told Raymond he had waited too long.
    “Hey, James,” said Raymond.
    The crickets rubbed their legs together. A little dog barked from the backyard of the tiny house down the street where Miss Anna lived.
    Softly, Raymond said, “James.”

Four
    T HREE TEENAGE boys cruised the streets in a Gran Torino, drinking beer, smoking weed, and listening to the radio. Three Dog Night’s “Black and White” came from the dash speaker. The vocalist sang, “The world is black, the world is white / Together we learn to read and write.” Billy sang along but changed the words to “Your daddy’s black, your mama’s white / Your daddy likes his poontang tight.” They had heard Billy sing this one many times, but they were laughing as if it were new to them. The three of them had just blown a fat bone. Though the temperature was in the upper eighties, they had rolled up the windows to keep the high in the car.
    Billy sat under the wheel of the Torino, a green-over-green two-door with a 351 Cleveland under the hood, his dad’s latest loaner. He wore a red bandanna over his thick black hair. He looked like a heavy pirate.
    “Pin this piece,” said Alex from the backseat.
    Billy gave the Ford gas. Beneath them, dual pipes rumbled pleasantly as they headed up a long rise on an east–west residential thruway. They were nearing the small commercial district not far from their neighborhood.
    “Mach One,” said Billy, reverently. “Hear it roar.”
    “It’s a Torino,” said Pete, riding shotgun.
    “Same engine as the Mach,” said Billy. “That’s all I’m sayin.”
    “To ree no,” said Pete.
    “Least I’m drivin a car,” said Billy.
    “It’s off your dad’s lot,” said Pete. “It’s like a rental.”
    “Still, I’m drivin it. Wasn’t for me, you’d be walkin.”
    “To your mother’s house,” said Pete.
    Billy’s wide shoulders shook. He laughed easily, the way big guys did, even when a friend was cracking on his mother.
    “Your