Free The Dying Ground by Nichelle D. Tramble Page A

mistake. Sometimes when we got deep in conversation I would forget he was a little boy.
    “Why you call her that?”
    “I was just kidding. You know I like to mess with you sometimes.” He looked skeptical but didn’t press the issue.
    Patrice Hall was the perfect friend for Chantal, but I’d never say that to Scottie. She was two years behind me in school and an avid fan of baseball players. Unlike the majority of my teammates, I’d resisted the fruit off that tree.

S cottie tapped me on the leg and pointed to an ambulance parked haphazardly at the curb in front of his home. A group of neighbors had gathered on the sidewalk, rubbernecking and hoping for snatches of conversation that might include remnants of the truth.
    Scottie’s apartment building was a horseshoe-shaped two-story complex called Bay Manor Villas, or the BMVs, which in local lingo translated to Baby’s Mama Village because of all the single mothers that lived inside. The courtyard consisted of burnt-out grass and a jungle gym that had seen too many unsupervised children. Daddy Al, the latest owner, replaced the structure every four months and instructed the kids and parents to take better care, but the words didn’t seem to stick.
    “There’s my mama.” Scottie leaned his head out the window and beamed at the woman scowling in my direction. Chantal stood at the head of the gathered crowd, arms foldedacross her chest, braids piled on top of her head. She had the look of a wolf that had just caught its prey. Me.
    I followed Scottie out of the car. “Maceo, Maceo, Maceo, what I gotta do to catch up with you?” She asked the question in a taunting singsongy voice.
    I nodded toward the ambulance. “What’s up?”
    “One a these crackheads going into labor. I hope they take the baby right there at the hospital and give it half a chance.”
    “Chantal, man, that’s cold-blooded.”
    “Nah, uh-uh, her not having her tubes tied is cold-blooded.”
    “Did you call the ambulance?” Chantal was the unofficial apartment manager of the complex, a polite way of saying she monitored all the comings and goings, breakups and makeups, of the inhabitants. After meeting Scottie and hearing about his old neighborhood, Daddy Al rented a first-floor apartment to Chantal. He never regretted a good deed but he grew to regret her weekly reports on who was doing what, who might be trying to move out in the middle of the night, and who wasn’t paying rent but just had a big-screen TV delivered. Both he and Gra’mère had become used to tenant phone calls complaining about Chantal’s guerrilla tactics.
    “Yeah, I called; you know she ain’t got no phone. Knocked on my door, hemming and hawing and holding on to that little scrawny belly.” She looked toward the paramedics as they made their way down from the second floor. “Oh, and here come Miss Thang.”
    Chantal’s eyes were focused on a woman walking behind the paramedics and spitting out information with an authority that didn’t match her surroundings. Miss Thang was dressed in a nylon jogging suit stretched to the limits by a generous figure. She had a short boyish haircut, high cheekbones, and slanted Asian eyes. I watched as she held the patient’s hand until she was lifted into the ambulance.
    The crowd started to disperse once the ambulance turned the corner and the sirens faded away. I continued to stare as the woman bent down to tie her shoelaces and look at her watch.
    “What you lookin’ at?”
    Scottie giggled as his mother busted me out with her nosy question.
    “Man, why you so mean? You’re just evil, Chantal.”
    “Whatever.” She turned to the jogger. “Where you on your way to?”
    “I came to see if Scottie wanted to run the lake with me.” Scottie perked up at the mention of his name.
    “Scottie got homework, dinner, chores—”
    “We won’t be gone long. I thought we could run, then stop for some ice cream.”
    “Ya thought wrong. I don’t know how they do it where