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Chapter Two – The Kid from the Hood

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Vinh

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We’ve just started inspecting his falsies and wondering how much they’d fetch if we pawn them, when the front door slams open against the wall and a figure comes in.

“What the—”

“Run!” Xuan yells, knocking over a pot plant in his haste to get back to the window. “He’s here! The fucker’s here!”

The man in question, Mr Hargraves, is standing stock still, but Xuan’s insult spurs him into action. “Fucking kids! Bloody hoodlums, is what you are! Don’t think I won’t be calling the cops on you; I’ve had it with your violence and terrorism! Why don’t you go back to your own country, eh? Go back where you belong!”

I glance back at him. Truc follows my gaze and shouts.

“Vinh, no!”

Too late. I smash the mirror next to the man’s head with all my strength. He’s shocked, appalled, and just a little bit terrified.

“This is my country,” I hiss into his ear, “and I’m not going to let you, or anyone else, say otherwise.” I slam my fist down against the wall, centimetres from his ear, as a final warning. His eyes move wildly back over to the others, where they’re escaping with his digital camera.

“Come on!” Truc calls over his shoulder, as he follows both Xuan and Phuong’s lead over the windowsill. “We’ve gotta get outta here!”

The sirens start off barely audible, but within seconds we can hear them growing louder as the pigs begin to close in on us. Truc slides out through the window without waiting for me to follow, and in three strides I’m across the room, expertly adjusting my body to fit through the gap. Hargraves doesn’t bother trying to apprehend me himself.

The others have taken off into the darkness, their shadowy forms just barely visible on the back fence as they lift themselves up and over. Their exhilarated laughter carries across the small yard and I have no trouble finding them.

“Thought you said he wouldn’t be coming back?” Phuong accuses, dropping to the other side with a thud.

Xuan shrugs. “We’ve been watching all week,” he replies, referring to both his brother and himself. “He’s gone every night from eleven ‘til three.”

“Where’s he go then?”

“Fucked if I know,” Xuan dismisses with a wave of his hand. We begin jogging down a dirty laneway, single file, kicking bottles out of way as we go – Truc, Phuong, Xuan and then me bringing up in the rear.

“Nice camera, but,” Phuong says admiringly.

“Yeah, God knows you’re never getting one!” Xuan digs.

“Fuck off! I’ve got my eye on a nice job at Dick Smith.”

“You know you gotta pay there, right?”

We’re almost at the end of the alley when I hear it. Crunch.

“Oi!”

“It’s the pigs!” I yell out, and Phuong’s thrilled screech is the only response I receive. Truc picks up his pace and turns left, downtown, while Phuong veers right sharply, throwing down the steel pole she picked up only seconds before. Xuan has no choice but to keep going straight ahead, running so fast that I have no trouble believing he broke the under 18s 100 meter sprint record back in high school – the cops’ll never catch him at that rate.

Across the road is a house without lights, and I spring over the bordering fence as though I’ve been doing it all my life. Their side yard, just narrow enough for me to slip between the bricks and the fence, is partially covered by foliage and for a second I’m deluded into thinking the coppers haven’t seen me.

“That way,” one of them calls, and the thunderous successive footsteps tells me all I need to know.

I push my way through a bush, then leap onto a vegetable patch and over a sandpit. Their back fence is the kind that’s nearly impossible to climb – no footholds whatsoever – but the left side has easy railings and I throw myself over it.

I’m two steps into the yard before I stop dead. There, looking back at me in a tiny inner-city yard, is a massive German shepherd. The very same breed that police use as attack dogs and illegal hunters use to rip apart animals.

“Fuck,” I curse, as the dog growls, a low, throaty warning, and I can hear the cops behind me coming into the next yard. By now lights have turned on and I can hear groggy people standing around outside.

The yard I’m in, though, backs onto another alleyway – one that I know from previous experience leads to a shortcut back to my apartment. The only thing standing between it and me is the dog, which doesn’t look like it’s going to move anytime soon.

“Give it up, kid,” a voice shouts from the other side of the fence, and it’s such a typical cliché that I’m tempted to laugh out loud and tell them to stick it.

Instead, I make a break for it. I’ve latched myself onto the fence by the time that the dog grabs me. Its jaws clamp down on my arm and the pain is so indescribable that I clench my teeth and let out a hiss. It shakes its head from side to side, its teeth digging deeper into my flesh, but I’ve managed to position myself horizontally across the fence by the time the police make their way into the yard.

One of them, a younger female, laughs out loud and I sneer at her through my pain. The other copper, a middle-aged man whose voice I heard before, looks at the dog warily.

“You reckon it’ll turn on us?” he asks his partner, before scanning the exterior of the house we’re behind. There’s no lights – let alone any obvious sign of maintenance or inhabitation – to suggest an owner, and so he shuffles forward towards me.

“Got yourself in quite a predicament, huh?” he says jovially, and the second he approaches the dog it lets out a feral growl without releasing my arm. The pain is so bad that I can feel the inadvertent tears welling up behind my eyelids, and the cops evidently notice the blood pooling because the woman speaks into her radio for an ambulance.

“We’re gonna need a dog catcher, too,” the man calls over his shoulder, and he grins up at me, enjoying the situation as only the sadistic can. “So, you want to give us the names of your little buddies?”

I flick him off.

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I spend that night in the hospital with a police guard, all the whilst being written up for the many offences I’ve chalked up – breaking and entering, burglary, trespassing, and damaging private property (the owner of the vegetable patch is apparently seeking compensation), among other things.

“Have you got anyone you’d like to call?” a new officer who introduces himself as Constable O’Reilly asks concernedly, leaning against the wall.

A list of possibilities filters through my head. Mum. Dad. Truc. Xuan. Phuong. “No.”

“You’re going to be remanded for bail,” he reminds me, as though I haven’t already heard it five times tonight. “If you don’t have anyone who’ll be willing to post it—”

“Whatever,” I mutter, inspecting the bandage on my arm. Twenty stitches and they still couldn’t give me a break.

“Look, I don’t think you realise the implications of your criminal activities,” he says with a frown. His thick orange moustache doesn’t help the look. “It’s not your first offence, so by rights you could be put in prison – you’re too old to be tried in the children’s court, so you’re looking at the maximum penalty.”

I sigh resignedly. Fuck. “Can I borrow a few coins?”

Constable O’Reilly nods, all too eager to help the ‘poor, troubled teenager’ that he’s already deemed me to be. “Here you go.”

The hospital’s pay phone is just around the corner from my room, but I’ve got no hope of running off because the good old constable’s following behind, careful to keep a distance of at least ten feet at all times.

I drop the coins in the slot and punch in the number, bracing myself for an unwelcome reception. The phone picks up after the tenth ring.

“What?”

“Hey, it’s me… Look, I’m in a bit of trouble… I need you to bail me out, man.”

Something smashes in the background, and the line transmits his heavy breathing. “How much?”

“Yeah, about that…”

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The court case is two months later and I even wear a tie – with jeans and a long sleeved shirt, but it’s not as if I can afford a suit.

Gabrielle Jennings, the government-appointed solicitor handling my case, is standing outside the court, boring holes in her watch with her eyes and pacing agitatedly. She spies me strolling up and whips around, furious.

“Where have you been? You’ve kept the court waiting for forty-five minutes!”

I shrug nonchalantly. “The trains were delayed… You know what public transport’s like.”

“You could have taken a taxi,” she points out, striding through the open doors as I walk calmly beside her.

“I don’t even have enough money for a taxi fare,” I say. “I’m poor.”

She looks at me, incredulous. It isn’t the first time she’s had to represent me, and by now she’s getting used to what she terms as my ‘personality flaws’. “You’re seriously going to play the poor little me card?”

“Why not?” I straighten my tie before stepping forward and pushing the doors to court four open. “It’s worked before.”

“This is the fifth time, Vinh,” she hisses at me as we make our way down the aisle to the front. The only spectators are a class of what looks to be high school students, all of whom have sheets of paper in front of them but none of whom are actually taking notes.

“Ms Jennings,” the magistrate booms loudly, “I see you’ve finally collected your client.”

“My apologies, your honour,” she replies, somehow managing to remain calm and composed as we slip into our seats.

Compared to TV, small, insignificant cases such as mine are usually low-key and relaxed. There’s not a whole lot of procedure going on during them, no jury, and it’s rare that you find a judge who actually cares.

“Mr Nguyen,” she says to me, “I trust you know why you are here today?”

“Yeah—”

Gabrielle Jennings clears her throat.

“Yes, your honour,” I bite out, inwardly feeling the bile rise in my throat.

“You are here today on a number of charges,” she continues anyway. “What is your plea?”

“Guilty, your honour,” Gabrielle Jennings says for me. She elbows me sharply in the ribs and I look up at the magistrate, silently affirming my solicitor’s statement.

The magistrate nods and proceeds to read out my previous misdemeanours, and then my more recent charges. She comes to a stop, tilts her head, and looks at me. “Mr Nguyen,” she says, stumbling over the pronunciation. “Have you any family members here today?”

I lift a shoulder vaguely. “No… your honour.”

“And why is that?”

What business is it of hers? I bristle, “My family have… washed their hands of me.” And also there’s the minor issue of having never told them about my activities in the first place.

“I see.” Her whole demeanour changes; suddenly it’s no longer ‘you’re-just-another-no-hoping-delinquent’ and it’s ‘oh-your-family-has-abandoned-you-no-wonder-you’re-so-messed-up’. She doesn’t know the half of it. “And how did you pay for bail?”

“I borrowed some money… from a friend.” I lie smoothly.

“How do you intend on paying it back?” Background information is a good way for them to gain information on your character and your chances of ‘rehabilitation’. People thrive on changing other people – ‘everyone deserves a second chance’. But it’s once they decide there’s absolutely no possibility that you can ever be ‘cured’ that they give up completely and lock you away.

I raised my eyes to meet hers solemnly. “I’ve got an excellent employment record,” I say, reciting word-for-word what Gabrielle Jennings has told me to say previously. “Unfortunately my employer recently went under, so I’m currently unemployed until I can find another job.”

“I see,” she repeats, writing something down on the clipboard in front of her. “I understand that you were not the only one involved in the crime?”

I glance towards Gabrielle Jennings, who nods almost imperceptibly. “No, your honour.”

She leans forward, as though to give me advice like we’re the only people in the room. “As admirable as your loyalty is, Mr Nguyen, there comes a time in life when one must put themselves before others. You realise you are putting your whole future at risk by protecting your friends?”

They’d all successfully escaped, from both the pigs and the animal-inflicted wounds.

“Yes, your honour.”

“Well, then.” She sits back, scrutinising me through her wire-rimmed glasses. “Well. I’d like to see the evidence now, if you don’t mind, Mr Gregory.”

The evidence is not as damning as I first thought – if nothing else, you can always trust the cops to bungle a case. I can see Gabrielle Jennings’ slow grin of triumph, and I half expect to be let free with only a warning. This fallacy though, is shattered with the conclusion of the case.

“Well,” the magistrate begins with her signature phrase, “well. Mr Nguyen, I do have to say that I am extremely disappointed—”

“How sad,” I mutter under my breath.

“—In you. No matter how dire your circumstances appear to be, crime is never the answer. However, I have taken into account the increasing severity of these allegations, and combined with your previous prosecutions, I believe that you haven’t had the right amount of… guidance… to correct your misbehaviours once and for all.

“Which is why I’m sentencing you to two-hundred hours of community service, to be completed within a time frame of the next eight months.”

I turn, horrified, to Gabrielle Jennings. Her forehead is creased and she’s muttering to herself, but other than that she doesn’t look particularly worried.

“Two-hundred hours?” I repeat flatly.

Gabrielle Jennings shrugs. “It was bound to happen eventually, Vinh.”

“You’re supposed to defend me. I didn’t see much defending happen.”

She sighs and stops in the middle of packing her things into a briefcase. “Are you paying me for my service? No? Well then, you should be grateful you had a solicitor at all. A lot of people aren’t happy that their tax money goes to defending delinquents that really, should just grow up and get a life.

“You’re nineteen, Vinh. It’s about time you took some responsibility.” And then, in a complete contradiction to what she was saying, she adds, “I’ll see you next time you get arrested,” and walks off without a backwards glance.

Everywhere around me people are leaving, talking or preparing for the next case. The class of students are chattering so loudly I can barely hear myself think, and then I feel it: my phone, buried deep inside my jeans pocket, vibrates and begins to blare Smile Empty Soul’s Meaningless. I pull it out and glance at it. Truc’s number flashes on the screen, and my thumb hovers over the ‘answer’ button.

“I really hope you get something out of the community service, Vinh,” the magistrate smiles sincerely as she walks past me and down the aisle.

I stare after her, then press the ‘off’ button and slowly slip my phone back into my pocket. It’s not like I won’t have two-hundred hours to confront them later.

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