Finally, after 2 hours cruising around downtown in this miserable east coast Yankee ghetto Martha May Wilson pulled away from the Frosty Cream Dream drive through window with the perfect chocolate Frosty Cream Dream between her legs as she rumbled up the road in her Dear Departed Daddy’s 1979 candy apple red Dodge Charger. She eased it into 2nd as the custom built 400 CC 4-barrell engine rumbled pleasingly under her leather covered seat.

“Slurp!”

“Mmm, mmm, good!”

“Daddy’s Girl, this is the very best money can buy and Honey can try!”

“Ahhh!”

Something smashed into the right left fender of Daddy’s Girl splashing Martha May with her chocolate Frosty Cream Dream even as her formerly plush cozy climate-controlled mobile world was engulfed in the screaming and chainsaw revving of dirt bikes and 4-wheel ATVs.

“What the hell!?!”

And they were gone just like that, popping wheelies, rapping with their fists in the air, videoing each other with camcorders and phones, and having a good old ghetto time breaking the law and ruining her night. What was worse is that none of them even seemed to take notice of her, of her prize vehicle—a real vehicle with a personality and assertive nature as well—other than to use the fender to push off with a foot, and to veer around her like she was just another obstacle on their course.

She set her frosty in the passenger side cup holder and then looked down to grab her smart phone and photo the brightly risen moon—and saw it!

“You punks! You brats! You stained my cream leather upholstery!

“Oh it is on!”

He was out with Snake River, Brass Balls, Baby Back and Phat Man Sam, cruising the street, having a fine time. They were the Slate Street Crew and they beat the hell out of them other urban dirt bike jockeys. They ruled the streets. The bitch police were not even allowed to chase them! Shoot, they might not be the 12 O’clock Boys with their own documentary and what not, but there motto was ‘It was always 12 O’clock somewhere!’

This was Ebowly’s first ride with the Slate Street Crew and it had been awesome. They had been out for hours and the bitch police had given up, just let them go as they wound through the side streets, throttles gunning, front wheels high in the air spinning like a carnival ride wheel that had smoked some good weed!

Phat Man Sam on his ATV 4-wheel singled to them that it was time to head back in the Vacants, back down the side streets that they truly owned for no one lived there. The cops would never even follow night riders into the Vacants because there were no civilians or motorists to bother, just rats and junkies.

Ebowly and Baby Back followed Phat Man Sam, because they were the new riders in this joint and were going to be tested against curbs and stairs and railings while Snake River and Brass Balls were going to ride the perimeter to draw off any police or 12 o’clock Boys that might want to mess with their moment.

Thurmonte Street was badass! This was a C-curve of a road with no parked cars, with curbs to ride, dead light poles to push off of, and even concrete porch stoops to do set backs on.

Ebowly and Baby Back were following Phat Man Sam in an inverted V formation, all three popping the 12 O’clock as Baby Back rapped, “Yo nigga, it twelve-o-fuckin’ A’clock somewhere yo!”

Ebowly had never felt more like he belonged. School had been terrible and home was just alone. But this, this riding at 12 O’clock, shaking your fist at the police and getting away with it, owning the night and the hood, and not being sniped on corners or locked up in the joint for dealing in The Game, this was all good.

They came back down on their front wheels and Phat Man Sam winked at him, kept on ahead, and put his fist up again, singling that it was time for a curb trick. Ebowly peeled off with a smile just as his rear wheel was ripped out from under him and he went spinning and flipping on his bike to the rumbled of a large race car engine.

Some red sports car with no headlights, just riding under the light of the moon, had come up behind them and did a doughnut, side swiping his rear wheel out from underneath. He realized as he flew backward toward the sidewalk with his foot stuck behind the front fork that had he not begun to peel off he would be getting launched into Phat Man Sam right this moment—and Phat Man Sam was going down!

“Oh God Yo! Dis shit hurt!”

Ebowly felt something separate in his back as the sickening sensation of having his foot broken made him forget about the burning in his back. He skidded backward across the pavement as he saw Phat Man Sam fall back under his ATV, his head sent flying across the street by the back tire of the spinning race car.

His shoulder crashed into something and a numb pain overcame him, temporarily blacking out his vision…

He came to with eyes already open. In the street before him lay the headless Phat Man Sam under his ATV. Under the surreal light of this full moon played out a terrible scene. Baby Back, who was for some reason on foot, was running between Ebowly and Phat Man Sam down the street trying to gain the safety of the vacant house at the base of the C-curve that was Thurmonte Street, a house with an open front door that he could dive into.

As Ebowly sat in shock unable to feel his leg—or the other one—which should have hurt a whole lot, his best friend, 12-year-old Baby Back, was running for his not-so-blessed life.

Baby Back was only two paces from the sidewalk where he should be safe from a car. The rumble of the engine though dampened Ebowly’s hope for his friend, just as it seemed to hypnotize Baby Back, who should have never looked back!

Just as Baby Back was taking the last long stride that would bring him within leaping distance of the doorway just above the three short steps, he was called to look around by the hypnotic roar of the rumbling car engine. He did not slow as he did so. But when he saw how close the speeding car was he froze, and it hit him right in the butt at who even knew how many miles per hour. As Baby Back broke in half at the butt his body whip-snapped forward and was flung at high speed into the brick face of the brownstone row house as the car screeched to a stop so fast that its rear wheels seemed to rear up.

As Baby Back flopped with a squishy splat back onto the concrete sidewalk to which he finally made it after having passed over in such a terrible manner, the car turned sharply as if driven by some race driver, and whipped on out of there faster than the ear could follow, for Ebowly could not move his head.

There he was, all alone, all strung up with tubes in this hospital room. When he looked to the chair on the right and saw Baby Back’s mom there, he vaguely recalled that his mother had been sitting there, and had overdosed and been taken off with a needle in her arm and her face all blue, upset nurse faces looking at him in pity.

Baby Back’s mom had a tear in her eye but managed to smile anyhow. “Oh Baby, I’ll get the nurse—the police are here too, they be wantin’ to have a talk with you.”

Without even a worry about the tubes popping out of his veins Ebowly pushed out of bed hard enough to hit the ground running, only something went wrong, because all that happened was his head and right shoulder fell out of the bed, and his legs, which he could not even feel, stayed where they were. Extreme pain wracked his lower back as he was all of a sudden hanging in startled agony to the side, unable to even cry out, and none too concerned just now about any police wanting to speak with him…