I shake my head. —Kid, this jacket won't fit you.

The one who snagged the cop's cap outside the Stadium pulls the bill of that cap to the side. —White guy talks.

The one with eyes for my jacket runs a finger over the thin shadow of a moustache that rims his upper lip. —Don't worry, white guy, I grow into it.

The smallest one guns a bike forward into the light from the streetlamp, and I see she's a girl

She snaps her bubble gum. —Don't know why you want that funky-lookin jacket. Look stinky.

The last one, the one with the Dominican flag do-rag, drags on a Newport.

—Too hot for a jacket. He don't need no jacket.

Moustache holds out his hand. —Gimme the fuckin' jacket, white guy.

The unconscious drug dealer in the dirt at my feet groans. I was just getting ready to slip the business end of an I.V. needle in his arm when the kids rode by and one of them caught a whiff of me and they veered onto the sidewalk and into the shadows behind the abandoned shed at the back of the vacant lot. With just me to worry about, the dealer would have been in pretty good shape. I'd have taken his bankroll, sure, that and whatever rock he's carrying, to make it look like a straight robbery. Other than his arm being a little sore and his head being a bit woozy, he might never have known about the blood I would have siphoned off.

But now it looks like he's gonna have a few more mouths to feed.

I look down at him as his eyes flutter open. —Trust me, buddy, you don't want to see any of this.

I kick him in the head and he goes back to sleep. —Said, Gimme the fuckin'jacket, white guy. Didn't say kick niggah in the head.

I look at him.

—Told you it's too big for you.

He rolls his shoulders. —Told you I grow into it.

I stuff my hands in my jacket pockets. Gun, switchblade, blood works, lock picks, Zippo, last few dollar bills and some change fill those pockets. Those things I'm most reluctant to leave behind when the running starts.

Prized possessions?

Not really.

But the jacket itself.

That was a gift.

I take my hands out of my pockets; one holds the switchblade, the other the empty gun. —Touch my jacket, you won't grow any more at all.

Gum Snapper pulls a gun as big as her head from the waistband of her skintight low riders and shoots me in the stomach. The clear advantage of having actual bullets being that you get to shoot people instead of just empty-threat them.

I fall on top of the dealer and bleed on him and point my gun at the four kids

as they duck-walk their bikes over and look down at me. Moustache reaches for the gun and I pull the trigger a few times, hoping my math is off and that maybe there's a bullet in there I forgot about. But there isn't.

He takes the gun and looks at it. —This a nappy fuckin' gun.

He chucks it over the fence behind the lot, down into the bushes at the back of the Museum.

Do-rag flicks ash from his Newport. —You gonna rock his jacket, or what? —Jacket got blood all over it now.

Gum Snapper climbs off her bike, tucks the massive piece back in her pants and comes over to me. I wave the switchblade at her and she kicks it from my hand.

—Bitch, don't even think bout cuttin1 my ass. I stick that thing in you fuckin dick.

She grabs the shoulders of my jacket and pulls me off the dealer.

I could make it harder for her. The pain is pretty bad, but I could definitely make it harder for her. Except that gun she shot me with, it was really, really fucking big. And just now I need to focus on holding the guts that want to spill

out of my belly in their proper place. Right now I need to focus on not moving too much so the Vyrus can use all its energy to close up this goddamn hole and put my intestines back together. Whatever attention I can spare from that task, I can maybe use hoping the bullet didn't fragment inside me and rip up my liver and kidneys and spleen and such. Cause that much damage, I don't know if I can get better from that.

So I'm gonna lie here quiet in the dirt and try to bleed as little as possible while Gum Snapper breaks out a set of homemade works that consist of the sharpened needle from a bicycle pump, a length of junkie's rubber hose, and a few heavy-duty Ziploc freezer bags. She goes to work on the dealer, and Police Cap comes and looks at me. —Think this him?

Do-rag takes a wire cutter from the pocket of the jeans that sag down past the top of his boxers. —It him.

He climbs the fence and starts clipping lengths of barbwire, handing them to Moustache. When they have four long ones he climbs down and comes over. —Got it all?

Gum Snapper pulls the needle from the dealer's neck and licks it.

—I got it.

Moustache kneels at my feet and starts wrapping barbwire around my ankles while Do-rag runs the ends to the bikes, twisting one strand each around the bikes' rear forks.

Police Cap helps Gum Snapper with the blood bags and they all saddle up.

Moustache looks over his shoulder at me. —Fuck I want you shitty jacket anyway, white guy? Fuck you jacket.

Gum Snapper rises up on her pegs. —Roll. Get this white guy to lament.

And they gun hard, rear tires roostertailing dirt all over me until they grab traction and burn out of the vacant lot and onto the street. Dragging me behind them, trailing blood and wondering why they think they need to take me to lament someplace special.