Dillon looked up and saw five skinnies coming for them with bottles and bricks and said, “No way, Rico. I’m staying!”

Rico shouted, ‘”Mutherfucker, they adult skinnies on chem-khat—we can’t beat ‘em and my short ass cain’t outrun them. Get my Uncle, he’ll avenge me—go!”

Dillon looked at his only friend on earth, blood running down his check from where his brow was cut by that bottle, his fists up, waiting for the skinny charge, looked at the oncoming men, and wondered if even he could outrun them.

As he took off he slapped Rico on the shoulder and snarled, “I’ll be back, Bro—with your Uncle,” and ran faster than any piece of inert white trash caught on the winter wind ever whipped down Putty Hill Road.

He heard a whoop of skinny jargon behind him, heard some bottles break, heard a sickening thud and heard sneakered feet tearing up the asphalt behind him and dared not look back for fear these six foot men would gain the half-step they needed to get him.

He darted across Putty Hill, leaping the one abandoned car that had been left on the centerline all weak, didn’t bother looking for traffic in the far lane, vaulted the curb, sidewalk and heroin needle garden into the parking lot where the white people had their homeless camp, ripped through the tents, avoiding one man on crutches, sprinted around the Immaculate Heart of Guadalupe Church, past the two armed ushers in their sunglasses, weapons across their chest, and headed out Saint Chavez Drive, going for broke, the fastest kid in the Baynesville Academy by far, faster than most fast men and he noticed that no footsteps followed him, that he was alone and the streets were fairly deserted of traffic. No tortilla makers where plying their craft or frying chips on the sidewalks on Joppa Road, no skinnies on his tail—everybody was inside of the various homes, businesses and eateries, watching the great televised event, watching the Second Coming of America as it had been christened.