"Peace little sister." Wally B walked up and sat down on the crate beside me.

I was hiding out in my usual spot, behind Ray's Jazz Club. They didn't open until late, and even when Ray came in to set up early, he never told anybody I was back there. Ray was real cool. I liked him a lot. I used to tell him that I was going to open a jazz club, too, like him one day. I had never been inside of a jazz club, or any club, but Ray's always sounded like a whole lot of fun. I would sit back there in the alley and close my eyes, picturing ladies in fancy dresses and handsome men with mustaches in suits with drinks and money in their hands.

"Peace Wally B."

Wally B was confusing. He greeted everyone with peace and had us all greet each other that way. But in his heart, he was all about war. If it wasn't war with another gang trying to move in on his territory, or another pusher trying to take his business, it was war against "The Man," "The P.I.G," and "The Establishment." He was a genius, but he never went to school. He was always talking about how all power should be given to The People, and how we should lift each other up and stop tearing each other down. He was always telling us that we had to take care of our own and that we should police our own neighborhoods if we wanted to keep the PIGS out, but he was a gangster and he dealt heroin. To us. The People. Even I could see that it was destroying our neighborhood. Heroin wasn't lifting anybody up. It was making people...lazy. And uninspired.

Which was the opposite of the way that Wally B said we should be.

I didn't really know what to make of him, but I liked him. He always called me "little sister," and treated me like a sister, too. He wouldn't let any of his friends, and definitely none of the men, near me or Claire. He looked out for all of the young girls in the neighborhood. He protected us and made the other boys respect us. That's just the way he was. He was so different than anyone else around. Like Christian. Christian was different, too. Only Wally B was always in the street, and Christian was always at home or at church.

But they were both in love with my sister.

Wally B never said anything about it, never acted on it. But I could tell.

He lit up a joint and passed it to me. "What's on your mind, little sis?"

"Nothing." I shook my head and closed my eyes, waiting for the numbness to set in. It had been a long day.

"You sure?" he looked into my eyes as I passed the joint back to him. It was always hard to lie to Wally B.

I nodded and then looked down at the ground.

Wally B passed the joint back to me.

"Let it out little sister." He watched me as I took a long drag, and then as I put my head back against the red brick wall behind us and let it out real slow. I took another drag and held it as I passed the joint back to him. Then I let that one out slow, too.

Finally, the numbness that I was searching for found me and I relaxed as it took its time making its way through my whole body and down to my toes.

I loved that feeling.

I needed that feeling.

Nothing mattered after that calmness kicked in. I closed my eyes and then opened them and stared up at the sky. A bird flew past and I wondered what it would be like to get on an airplane. I had never been anywhere outside of Baton Rouge. I wanted to go somewhere, though.

Anywhere.

I didn't care where.

"Your mama still giving you a hard time?" Wally B gently interrupted my thoughts. I nodded and kept my eyes on the bird.

I felt Wally B relax into the wall beside me and I looked over at him.

"You like my sister?"

He kind of jumped and looked over at me, surprised. I had never asked him that before.

"Nah." He shook his head. "She too young."

I nodded in agreement. "She too young for Christian, too, but she wit' him."

Wally B looked at me thoughtfully and reached out for the joint that I was holding too long. I handed it over to him and ran my eyes across his face. Wally B was real good looking. He was tall, lean, brown and mean. And handsome. Like a movie star.

"My mother..." I looked down and then back up at him. "She still blame me for Marguerite."

Wally B shook his head sympathetically and passed the joint back to me. Then he pulled another one out of his pocket and lit it.

"She think I shoulda been looking after my sister because I have a better head on my shoulders than she do. But Marguerite older!" I sat up and looked at him. "How she expect me to control that girl? She too wild. Nobody can."

Wally B nodded and passed me the new joint. I threw the one that we were done with onto the ground. Wally B knew my sister. He knew how she was. No one could control her. And she was fast. There was no way to keep her cooled off and in the house.

"I'm worried about Claire."

Wally B sat forward and started coughing hard on the smoke. I watched him and waited for him to talk.

"Why?" he gasped out through his coughs.

"My sister's good. She the good one. But she love that boy and she always sneaking out to see him. Mother been takin' it out on me."

Wally B slowly pulled himself together and sat forward, listening to every word. I could tell he didn't know she was doing any of this. Claire was real sneaky. Nothing in the neighborhood got past Wally B, but this did.

"Why you lookin' at me like that?" I shied away from his intense focus. I couldn't get a good read on him, but he looked angry. It made me nervous. Wally B wasn't the one to piss off.

He sat back and relaxed again. I handed him the joint.

"What're you thinkin'?" I asked hesitantly. I wasn't sure that I wanted to know.

Wally B took a deep drag and let it out slowly, staring up into the sky. Then he looked back over at me.

"Christian's a good kid."

I was surprised to hear him say that. Christian didn't really like Wally B, and I always assumed that Wally B felt the same way about Christian. Wally B passed the joint back to me and looked back up at the sky.

"But if he do get your sister in trouble, and yo' daddy try that same shit on Claire that he did to Marguerite, the Council will take action against him."

I nodded and looked up at the sky, too. I knew that was true. The only reason he didn't have to answer to Wally B and the Council's policing the first time was because Marguerite ran away before anyone found out what happened to her. No one knew until a long time after she was already gone.

Wally B looked over at me. "You want to run down the programs at the next meeting?"

I started grinning and couldn't stop. I had gone to every one of Wally B's neighborhood meetings, but he had always treated me like a tag-a-long kid, not like part of the Organization. And that's how he presented me to everyone else, too. So, they all looked at me like I was just a kid, but I knew deep down that I could run this whole neighborhood just as good as any of them.

"Yeah, Wally B." I smiled at him. "Thanks."

"Peace, little sis." Then he stood up and walked off.

I smiled after him, and then sat back against the wall and stared again up into the sky.