Free Darius & Twig by Walter Dean Myers

you know that Watson here thinks these steps are going to get up and walk away if he don’t sit on them?” Sammy asked. “That’s why he’s here every day.”
    Old friends talking old-friends talk. Sweet.
    â€œI’m sorry if I get so mad,” Mr. Watson said, “but you know how old this mess gets? Was a time an old dude like me could look at his life and think it wasn’t so bad, because he had made a little bit of a path for some young folks. Didn’t even make a difference if the young folks knew it or not—an old man could remember what he’d been through. You know what I mean?”
    â€œYeah, kind of,” I said.
    â€œNow we’re burying our young people, so what we got to look back on?”
    â€œI’m looking for some exercise to keep my body young in case I think of getting married again,” Sammy said.
    â€œGetting married again?” Mr. Watson shook his head slowly. “How long you been married to Hazel? Forty years? Damn near fifty years, and she’s the only one who can stand you. What you going to marry next? It better be a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken because that’s about the only thing you can handle. And you better marry it on a day when you got your teeth in.”
    Old men talking. Finding good vibes in being old men. Sweet.
    â€œLord, this man is hard on me!” Sammy said, grinning. “He don’t show me no mercy!”
    â€œLook at these fools coming down the street with their pants hanging around their hips looking like four-year-olds,” Mr. Watson said.
    â€œYou know they keep their pants low to get some air on their brains, don’t you?” Sammy said.
    I looked down the street and saw Midnight and Tall Boy coming our way. I saw Tall Boy point to me as they neared.
    â€œYo, Darius, where your girl?” he said. “She out running some races?”
    â€œTwig ran his race last Saturday,” I said. “Won it, too.”
    â€œYeah, yeah.” Midnight looked down the street. “How you doing, Mr. Watson?”
    â€œDoing good,” Mr. Watson said. “Ain’t seen you in church for a while. See your mother there every Sunday.”
    â€œYou know how that goes.” Midnight hunched his shoulders. “What y’all think about that shooting at the party? That was some foul mess.”
    â€œPretty little girl,” Sammy said. “All eyes. I think she’s a little Muslim girl. But what kind of fool brings a gun to a party? Maybe they think shooting people is a lot of fun.”
    â€œYeah, we got some names,” Tall Boy said. “And we got the answer to the question they throwing.”
    â€œYou got the names of the people who did the shooting?” Mr. Watson looked up. “You call the police? You know you don’t have to give them your name. Just tell them who did the shooting.”
    â€œThat ain’t the way it works in the street,” Midnight said. “What they throwing is ‘Are we some kind of punks going to let people just shoot our little sisters and shit?’ They want to know what kind of heart we got. The police don’t have nothing to do with it. This is a heart thing. We got enough heart and they’ll keep their stuff on their own blocks, you hearing me?”
    â€œWhat I’m hearing is you saying that they came into your area and laid down some stink, and now you want to lay down some more stink to prove you can outstink them,” Mr. Watson said. “Why you think that’s a good idea?”
    â€œYou don’t know what’s happening, old man,” Midnight said, shaking his head. “The set just blew by you, and you didn’t even see it coming. You like Peter Pan over here. Him and his little fairy friend going to run around in shorts and take over the world.”
    â€œAt least Twig is doing something with his life,” I said, feeling stupid as the words came out. “There