It was raining on us.  No one liked the rain.  Not when you had to walk to school in it.  It worked its way down the back of your neck and leapt up onto your ankles.  Golf ball sized drops pelted you from tree branches.  Buildings would pour their gutters into your book bag if you weren’t paying attention.  The rain was angry in that city.  Everyone was angry in that city. 

Marcus “BB” Knight was on my left.  His legs were too long and his pants never reached his shoes.  We made fun of him for it until he got the BB gun.  After that, if you made fun of him he’d shoot your eyes out.  BB had a nasty temper.  

On BB’s left was Dominic “Trey” Winslow.  I don’t know why his nickname was Trey.  Dominic came up with it on his own, maybe because it sounded tough.  Trey wasn’t tough.  He had eyes that looked tired most of the time and swollen cheeks for no reason.  Trey was mostly BB’s tag-along.

On my right was Jessie.  He didn’t have a nickname.  I don’t think he had a last name either – just “Jessie.”  Everyone knew Jessie because he was the biggest kid in the neighborhood.  Most of it was fat, but you even think to say that with him around.  He could move for a big kid.  Taylor Mays jumped thirty-nine fences trying to get away from Jessie.  Every time he looked back Jessie was right on him, hurdling fences, not showing an ounce of fatigue.  Eventually, Jessie caught Taylor and beat him so bad that he moved to a different school.

To Jessie’s right was Kelly “Nickle” Williams.  Kelly was a boy with a girl’s first name.  He was smarter than the others, but couldn’t handle pressure.  Even when Kelly knew something was bound to go bad, he could be talked into going along with it.  At the end of the day, he was always the one saying “I told you so.”

Jessie rarely went to school.  When he did show up, he didn’t even bother bringing a book bag.  You were lucky if he had a chewed pencil in his pocket.  The teachers didn’t like him.  They were scared of him most of the time.  I guess his reputation got around, even with the faculty.

It felt good walking in a line with those boys.  They called me “Chase.” My real name is Chauncey Harper.  I didn’t mind the nickname.  I think BB picked it out.  I didn’t bother complaining about it.  I didn’t want BB trying to shoot my eyes out.

 People moved out of your way when you had a group like that.  We walked in the rain and didn’t smile.  We fooled around, but not in the rain.  All of us wanted to get somewhere dry, even Jessie.  That’s the only reason he was going to school that day, to get out of that rain.

I don’t remember what I said.  Whatever it was, Trey took it to heart.  He was real upset about it and kept asking BB to let him borrow the gun so he could teach me a lesson.  BB wouldn’t let him have it.

Trey tried to fight me.  He shoved me, but I didn’t have it in me to fight that early in the morning.  Not in the rain.  I kept walking.  BB instigated for both sides.  He said he’d shoot both of our eyes out if we didn’t settle it.  Jessie agreed.

I looked to Nickle, being the smartest one in the group, to calm Trey down.  I could see it in his eyes, he wanted to help, but he didn’t want to get involved.  In those days, it was too easy to become the victim.

I was the perfect example of that.  Trey shoved me again and I stepped in a puddle of gutter water.  It splashed up on Jessie’s pant leg.  As soon as that happened, I became the victim, and there was no way out.

Trey pushed me one way and Jessie shoved me back the other.  BB shoved me because Jessie did and Nickle shoved me so he wouldn’t be the odd man out.

I was doing my best to stay on my feet.  It didn’t matter which way I stumbled, one of them was there to shove me back the other way.  We were close to the school.  I thought if I could make it there, they’d leave me be.

The problem was, Jessie was too strong.  He pushed me into Trey and I tried to use BB to keep my balance.  BB went for the BB gun and started snapping off shots.  I knew he was aiming for my eyes because I could hear them whizzing by my face. 

I started running, but that only turned me into live bait.  Before I knew it, Jessie was on me and I was in the mud.

The cold rain was seeping up from the ground through my pants.  They held me down and took turns punching on me.  Trey splashed mud in my eyes with his shoe.  I was taking some serious punishment from Jessie. The last thing I remember was being on my back and between all of those fists and feet, just for a second, I had a perfect view of a bright blue gap in the clouds.

It was like the whole world was laughing at me.