If the bus up there had been inconvenient, the bus back schlepping a giant box of stuff was worse. The truly bad thing though, was the way the neighborhood felt walking back from the bus stop. It felt like everyone was staying at me.

I've lived in the same housing project, even if not in the same apartment, since I was in diapers. Folks here knew me and I knew them, but somehow being local just didn't feel like the same security blanket it usually was.

There were plenty of people out, sitting on stoops, shooting baskets on one of those popup hoops in the parking lot, grilling on the little window patios. After a little bit I twigged to the fact that the demographics weren't right. All the little kids and the old people were somewhere else, just teens and adults present, and I felt my asshole pucker.

It was like the riots after the election when I was in elementary. You could taste the tension in the neighborhood. I kept my head down and my pace steady. Running might pop something off, plus this was still my neighborhood. I made it all the way to my building unscathed.

My head was down, but I'm not dumb, I was paying attention. When I started up the path to the doors a couple guys stepped out in front of me and I stopped with plenty of space in between. I didn't know the guy in front with the grill, but his homie with the face tattoo I had gone to middle school with.

"Whats in the box?"

"You don't sound anything like Brad Pitt, gotta put some desperation in your voice, man. What's up, Selvin?"

"The fuck is that supposed to mean?"

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"He's cool, that's Chris."

"I don't give a fuck if that's Christmas. I asked him politely bout the box and this white boy gonna get lippy with me?"

That was a problem. I knew Selvin was tight with Mr. Reyes and I assumed that meant he would take the lead over whoever this guy was. My natural assholery hadn't been the smart move and I needed to de-escalate this.

"It's an old movie, dude. I didn't mean anything by it. The box is full of broken shit. "

"What?"

Oh shit, that 'what' had sounded like it came from the end of the movie. My attempt to calm things wasn't working and I was starting to run the math on how many of the onlookers would come in and in who's side if this got physical. I didn't like the answer I was getting when I heard a soft voice intervene.

"What's going on here, boys?"

Selvin answered with "nothing jefe" about the same time I said, "hello, Mr. Reyes."

The other guy just stood there mean mugging me for a second before he gave a sullen, "I wanna know what's in the box. "

Mr. Reyes said something half under his breath in Spanish way too fast for me to understand it then, "Miguel, Chris has lived here since he was a pequino nino, and there is a way we do things here. " then he sighed and looked at me, "but so we can all be happy, can you tell us what is in your box?"

"Uh, I'm gonna try refurbishing electronics to make extra money, this is a bunch of broken stuff I got for parts. "

The old man nudged down his expensive sun glasses to peer at me in a way that just felt kind of cheesy. He hit me with big shit eating grin though. "Wonderful, I knew you were a smart one, Chris. You maybe come fix some stuff for me sometime, okay?"

I knew he was connected to the cartels and was definitely involved in some unsavory shit, and I had spent the last 6 years desperately trying to not get a job from him without offending him. Now after he basically vouched for me in front of whoever the fuck Miguel is, I felt compelled to nod.

"Maybe sometime. I'm still learning, Mr. Reyes."

He just nodded at me and clasped Miguel by the arm crusading him over to the domino game on the picnic table so I had a straight shot to the stairs. I hustled onward, trying to make it back into my apartment before anything else could go wrong.