Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 51, No. 6, June 2006

Didn’t Do Nothing by Steve Hockensmith

Every day, Scottie Crocker walked past Jayzee’s corner on his way to the store for a Coke. And every day, one of Jayzee’s guys would waddle after him, imitating him, babbling, maybe even drooling. Scottie had learned to ignore them.

But then one day, Jayzee himself actually spoke to Scottie, and Jayzee you couldn’t ignore.

“Hey, Crackhead!” Jayzee said. “Come here!”

All the young people in the neighborhood called Scottie “Crackhead.” Some of the older people too. When it first started, Scottie tried to argue.

“I ain’t no crackhead!”

He always got the same answer.

“No, you just act like one!” And laughter.

So Scottie stopped fighting it, and when Jayzee said, “Hey, Crackhead! Come here!” Scottie walked over and said, “What?”

“You know Goldfinger, right?”

“You... you mean Michael Gra... Graham? D-down on Eighty-first St... Street?”

It was hard for Scottie to get words out when he was nervous — and Jayzee made him nervous. Jayzee was a few years younger than Scottie, probably no older than eighteen or nineteen, but he had a confidence, a fierce fearlessness, that Scottie knew he’d never have no matter how long he lived.

“Yeah, yeah, him,” Jayzee said.

“I... I know him. I went to school wi-wi... with his sister.”

Jayzee’s guys snickered.

“Didn’t know you ever went to school, Crackhead,” one of them said.

“Sure he did,” another cackled. “Crackhead went to retard school.”

“Oh, yeah,” the first one said. “Used to see him ridin’ the short bus.”

“I ain’t no retard!”

Scottie knew immediately that he’d made a mistake. That was his problem. People would lay traps for him, the same traps over and over, but he never recognized them until it was too late.

The guys’ eyes lit up, and it was just a matter of who would say it first.

No, you just act like one.

Jayzee spoke first. But he didn’t say it.

“Hey, hey, ease off,” he told his guys. He snaked an arm around Scottie’s neck. “Crackhead’s my man — ain’t you, Crackhead?”

“Sure,” Scottie said, because his mistake had reminded him to be cautious.

“Good. Cuz I need you to do somethin’ for me. And if you do it right, I’ll give you twenty dollars.”

The guys whistled and whooped.

“Twenty dollars, Crackhead!” one of them said, punching Scottie’s arm. “That’s a lot of money!”

“Wh-what I gotta do?”

Jayzee smiled. “Nothin’. Just go over to Goldfinger’s corner — Eighty-first and Langley — and take a walk around.” He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a cell phone. “Then push this button — this one right here. See it? REDIAL? Can you read that?”

“Sure.”

“What I tell you?” Jayzee said to his guys. “My man here ain’t no retard.” When he turned back to Scottie, his smile had grown even bigger. “When you push that button, the phone’ll call me. And when I pick up, you just tell me who’s over there with Goldfinger and what they doin’ and what side of the street they on. But don’t let Goldfinger see you, understand?”

“Sure.”

“Good. That’s it. That’s all you gotta do. Can you do it?”

“Yeah, I... I guess.”

“All right! That’s my man!” Jayzee slapped Scottie on the back. “I give you the money when you get back.”

“Okay.”

“All right, then.”

Scottie stood there a moment, confused by this break in his daily routine of watching TV and going to the store for Cokes and heading home for more TV.

“Well, go, Crackhead,” Jayzee said, still smiling.

“Ri... right now?”

“Yeah, right now. Go on.”

Jayzee’s guys laughed as Scottie walked away. Certain people were always laughing when Scottie was around. He didn’t know why. He didn’t think he was funny.

It took Scottie fifteen minutes to walk to Eighty-first Street. In that time, he left his neighborhood and entered another. There were no border checkpoints, no men in uniform asking for passports, but most men Scottie’s age would have been unwelcome foreigners there. They would have seen the warnings — graffiti, glares, posture, gestures — and they would have left. Quickly.

But Scottie was different. He didn’t see the danger signs, and because he didn’t see them, they had no power. And because they had no power, they had no reason for being. The slouch of his shoulders, the perpetual bend in his knees, the trudging rhythm of his gait, his breathy mumbling and unfocused eyes — it charged him like a magnet. He didn’t attract attention here. He repelled it. He wasn’t a threat, so he could be ignored.

Michael Graham — “Goldfinger” — ignored him too.

“I saw Mi-Michael with his little br... brother Ronnie and another guy,” Scottie told Jayzee over the phone. He was in an alley a half block from Goldfinger’s corner. “A man pulled up in a car and th-they talked and then he drove a... away.”

“Which side of the street they on?”

Scottie thought hard. “The closer side.”

“Closer to our neighborhood? You mean the north side?”

“Yeah. I guess.”

“And it was just the three of ’em?”

“Yeah.”

“Who went up to talk to the guy in the car?”

“Michael.”

“You sure about that? Goldfinger walked up to the car?”

“Yeah. I’m sh... sure.”

“By himself?”

“Yeah.”

“Damn,” Jayzee said. He didn’t sound angry, though. He sounded surprised and pleased. He even laughed. “You my man, Crackhead. I see you later.”

Scottie stuffed the phone into his pocket and headed home. When he got back to his own street, Jayzee was still on his corner. But only one of his guys was with him — a skinny kid called “Freak.” Jayzee’s other guys were gone.

Jayzee held out his hand.

“Phone,” he said.

Scottie dug the cell phone out and handed it over.

Jayzee didn’t look at the phone as it slid into his palm. His eyes stayed locked on Scottie, piercing him, pinning him in place.

Scottie couldn’t hold the gaze. He looked down at his shoes.

When he looked back up, Jayzee was smiling.

“You did good, Crackhead,” Jayzee said. He turned to Freak. “Give the man his money.”

Freak guffawed.

“What are you laughin’ at?” Jayzee snapped. “I said give my man Crackhead twenty dollars.”

The laughter choked to a stop, and Freak slowly pulled a wad of money from his jacket and counted out twenty ones and gave them to Scottie.

Scottie couldn’t believe how light and small and dry the bills were. He didn’t expect twenty dollars to feel that way. He thought it would be heavier.

“You did good,” Jayzee said again. “Maybe I’ll need you to take another walk for me sometime.”

“Okay,” Scottie said.

“Hey, Crackhead,” Freak said, as Scottie turned to go. “Gimme that money back and I’ll give you somethin’ good.”

Scottie kept walking. He already knew what he wanted. He had to take the bus and walk six blocks and then take the bus again, and by the time he got back, he only had a few pennies and dimes left, but it was worth it.

When Scottie’s aunt Nichelle came home from her night job, she found him in front of the TV with his ten-year-old cousin Keesha. They were playing Super Mario Bros. 3 on the battered old Nintendo Scottie had purchased that afternoon at a Funcoland on Cicero.

“Where’d you get that?” Nichelle asked. There wasn’t much snap in her words. She worked three jobs to support herself and Keesha and Scottie. She didn’t have the energy for snap.

It took Scottie a few seconds to answer. Mario was jumping, grabbing magic coins out of the air. “I bought it.”

“Where’d you get the money?”

“Jayzee Clements gave it to me.”

“Jayzee Clements? Why would he give anything to you?”

“I did somethin’ for him.”

A giant plant snapped at Mario, almost swallowing him, and Scottie grunted and cursed. Keesha giggled and said, “Hey!”

“What’d you do for Jayzee?”

Scottie shrugged without turning to look at his aunt. “Nothin’.”

“Make up your mind, Scottie. Did you do somethin’ or did you do nothin’?”

Scottie began to breathe hard, almost panting. It was the sound he made when he couldn’t make words, when the circuit between his brain and his mouth overloaded, shorted out.

On the screen, Mario hopped and ran and hopped and ran until he ran when he should have hopped. He plummeted off a cloud, disappearing from the screen, and Keesha shouted, “My turn! My turn!”

Scottie handed her the controller and finally looked around at Nichelle.

“I bought McDonald’s too,” he said. “We saved you some fries.” He wasn’t panting anymore. He was smiling.

Nichelle didn’t return his smile. Instead, she took in a deep breath and held it for a moment, as if unsure what to do with the air in her lungs — talk, yell, scream, sigh.

In the end, she did none of these things. She simply turned and walked into the kitchen. It was almost ten o’clock, and she hadn’t had dinner.

Scottie found out Goldfinger was dead nearly a week later. Scottie was in church with Nichelle and Keesha, and some of the ladies were shaking their heads about that poor Michael Graham, who had so much promise once. Scottie thought it was sad too.

A few days after that, Jayzee stopped him on the street again.

“Hey, Crocker!” Jayzee called out.

Not “Crackhead.” Crocker.

“I got another secret mission for ya’, C,” Jayzee said when Scottie got close. “You know Marcus Dillard?”

He did. Scottie spent the next day following him, just as Jayzee asked. It was like a game, watching Marcus, trying not to be seen, and Scottie enjoyed it. He found himself moving more quickly, and thinking more quickly than he had in years.

He reported back to Jayzee the next morning. He stammered at first, fighting with the words. But for once Scottie won that fight, and the words started to come quickly and obey him.

“...and then he went to the building where Ricky Thompson lives and he talked to Ricky outside and Ricky gave him somethin’ in a brown bag and they looked at me so I went around the corner. And when I came back Marcus was gone so I looked for him and I found him walkin’ up Calumet and he stopped and got a burrito and then he started walkin’ again. And Dion Baker was drivin’ by in a car and he got out and Marcus gave him the thing he’d been carryin’ and...”

By the time Scottie was finished, Jayzee and his guys were laughing. But Scottie could tell it was a different kind of laughter this time, a kind he rarely heard. He didn’t understand it until Jayzee, shaking his head, said, “Damn, C. You really got you some eyes, don’t you?”

It was good. Scottie had done good.

Jayzee gave him another twenty dollars, and Scottie bought more old games for his Nintendo and a frozen pizza and a birthday present for Keesha — a pink Dora the Explorer backpack he found at Goodwill — even though her birthday had come and gone two months before. Scottie hadn’t worked in years, not since he’d lost his job sweeping up at McDonald’s because he forgot to show up sometimes, and he yelled at the customers when they called him “retard” and “Crackhead.” So for once, Scottie had his own money to buy Keesha a gift, and it didn’t matter to him if it was her birthday or not. Aunt Nichelle didn’t ask any questions this time, and Scottie felt something he hadn’t felt in so long he’d forgotten he could feel it: pride.

A few days later, Marcus Dillard and Ricky Thompson were dead.

They were found together in a dumpster, both of them shot in the chest. Scottie’s pride turned sour, bubbling in his stomach as if he’d swallowed something rancid. He wasn’t sure why he felt that way. No one knew who’d killed Marcus and Ricky, and Scottie certainly hadn’t hurt anybody. But the pain in his gut wouldn’t go away.

There was a memorial service for Marcus at Scottie’s church, and Scottie and Nichelle and Keesha went. The body was there, in an open casket, and Scottie almost expected Marcus to sit up and say something to him, say something about him.

But just looking at a dead man can’t bring him back to life, Scottie told himself. Just like looking at a living man can’t kill him.

Scottie avoided Jayzee’s corner after that, going blocks out of his way when he went to the store. He avoided certain thoughts in the same way — sidestepping them, not taking the most direct route from point A to point B. He didn’t think about why he was staying away from Jayzee. He didn’t think about why he’d stopped playing his Nintendo games. He tried not to think about any whys at all.

But it wasn’t easy to avoid Jayzee — not if he wanted to see you. One day when Scottie was in the store buying himself a Coke, he turned to find Freak behind him, blocking his way out.

“Hey, Crackhead,” Freak said. “Whatcha doin’?”

Scottie shrugged. “N-n... nothin’.”

“Good. Then you can come with me.”

Freak wrapped a hand around Scottie’s arm and pulled him toward the door. Even after they were outside, the hand remained, steering Scottie to Jayzee’s corner.

Jayzee greeted them with a big smile. “C! Where you been, my man?”

“I... I b-been... I been around.”

“Not where I could see you.” There was still a smile on Jayzee’s face, but Scottie couldn’t hear any smile in his voice.

“I... I j-just... I...”

Words abandoned Scottie, and he began to huff out hard puffs of air in their place.

“Hey, C! Don’t get like that,” Jayzee said, sounding friendly again. He wrapped an arm around Scottie’s shoulders, pulling him in tight. “I was just worried somethin’ was wrong, that’s all.”

Scottie’s breathing slowed. Jayzee’s smiling face was just inches from his own, so close they were inhaling the same air. Scottie tried to smile back.

“N-nothin’s wrong,” Scottie said, unsure if his words were true or not.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Jayzee’s hand squeezed the flesh between Scottie’s shoulder and neck. It felt reassuring at first, but the pressure increased, began to pinch, swaying on the line between pleasure and pain.

“You’d tell me, wouldn’t you?” Jayzee said. “If somethin’ was wrong?”

Scottie nodded. “Y-yeah. Sure.”

Jayzee let go of Scottie and took a step back.

“Good. Cuz I need you again.”

“N-need... me?”

“That’s right, C. You know Antoine Miller, right?”

Everyone knew Antoine Miller — knew to stay away, unless they were in the market for something he could provide. He had a corner of his own, guys of his own, just like Jayzee.

Just like Michael Graham.

“Sure,” Scottie said.

“Go do your James Bond thing on him. See what he’s doin’ and how he does it.” Jayzee slipped a hand into his jacket pocket and pulled something out. “Then use this.”

Scottie looked down.

The cell phone.

Scottie didn’t take it.

“I... I...”

“You what?” Jayzee said. He was still holding his hand out to Scottie. The phone hung between them like a bridge.

“I... I wanna know. Wh... what’s gonna happen?”

Freak and the rest of Jayzee’s guys had been snorting, snickering, whispering. But suddenly they were totally silent. Totally still.

Scottie wasn’t sure what he expected Jayzee to say until Jayzee didn’t say it. Scottie expected a laugh, he realized. He expected “Whatta you mean, C? Nothin’s gonna happen.”

But what Jayzee said was, “Why you wanna know that?”

The way he said it, it didn’t sound mean or angry. It didn’t even sound like a question. It sounded like advice.

“Well, what... what if—?”

Jayzee cut Scottie off with a sigh. “What am I askin’ you to do, C? Look a little. Talk a little. Well, lookin’ and talkin’ don’t hurt nobody, right? Whatever else happens—” Jayzee shrugged. “That ain’t you.”

Scottie hesitated, thinking it over.

“B-but what if—”

“You afraid somebody might get hurt?” Jayzee snapped. He did sound angry now. He was losing his patience.

Still, Scottie nodded.

“Well, stop worryin’ about people you don’t even know. You oughta be worried about Keesha.” Jayzee’s gaze flicked over to Freak for a split second. Freak’s eyes brightened. “You oughta be worried about your aunt. They could get hurt. You hear what I’m sayin’, retard?” He pushed the phone into Scottie’s belly like a knife. “I ain’t gonna explain anymore. You gonna do this thing.”

Scottie took the phone.

Jayzee put another grin on his face, and Scottie saw for the first time how stiff and unnatural Jayzee’s smile really was, like a plastic mask strapped to his face with a rubber band.

“That’s my man,” Jayzee said. “Don’t worry, C. This is the last time I’ll ask you to help me.” His eyes connected with Freak’s again, flashing some silent message. “The last time. I promise. Now go.”

He sent Scottie on his way with a pat on the back. Jayzee’s guys joined in as Scottie shuffled away, each of them slapping him between the shoulder blades as they giggled at some private joke.

“Thanks, Crackhead.”

“You can do it, Crackhead.”

“Yeah, go get ’em, Crackhead.”

And the last words, from Freak.

“See ya’ later, Crackhead.”

It took Scottie ten minutes to walk to Antoine Miller’s corner. Houses and apartment buildings and cars and people slid past unseen as he shambled along. He was thinking about what was going to happen to Antoine — and anyone standing nearby when it happened. He thought about how he’d never meant to hurt anybody, and how that didn’t matter. You could hurt someone by doing practically nothing at all. He thought about the people he would hurt if he did nothing now — Keesha and Aunt Nichelle, maybe even himself. And when he saw Antoine Miller, he knew what he had to do.

“He’s on the west side of Eb-Eb... Eberhart Avenue,” Scottie told Jayzee over the phone. “There’s another guy wi-with him who goes up to the cars and talks to the dr-dr... drivers. Then he calls Antoine over and Antoine g-g-gives him something in a bag.”

“Antoine comes to the car with the stuff?”

“Yeah.”

“And it’s just him and one other guy there now?”

“Yeah.”

A muffled rumble came over the line, the sound of Jayzee putting his hand over the phone and saying something to his guys. Then the rumbling stopped, and Jayzee was back, his voice clear and bright.

“Go home. Right now. Stay there.”

“Okay.”

“We shouldn’t be seen talkin’ to each other today. Freak’ll give you your money tonight. Meet him in the alley behind your building at midnight.”

“Okay.”

“Don’t tell anybody you’re goin’ to see him. It’s a secret, right? Just between us.”

“Okay.”

There was a long pause, and just as Scottie began to think Jayzee was gone, Jayzee spoke again.

“Good-bye, C,” he said.

“Bye, Jayzee.”

Jayzee hung up then, so Scottie turned the phone off and put it back in his pocket.

“S-see?” he said to the burly man who’d been leaning in close, his ear just inches from the phone while Scottie and Jayzee spoke.

“How do I know that was really Jayzee Clements?” Antoine Miller asked. He was glaring at Scottie skeptically, like someone might look at a unicorn or an angel — something too good to be true. It was the same expression he’d been wearing ever since Scottie crossed the street and walked up to him and his guys and said, “I g-got to tell you s-somethin’.”

“I d-don’t know. It just... is,” Scottie said with a shrug. “He’ll send Tommy and... B-Boost. They’re probably on their way now. Jayzee’ll stay on his corner a-a... alone with Freak.”

“If this is some kinda trick, retard, I swear I’ll hunt you down and mess you up,” Antoine growled.

“I ain’t l-lyin’.”

Antoine went on staring at Scottie for a long time, his guys gathered silently around him, waiting for his signal, ready to sneer, laugh, kill.

“Naw,” Antoine finally said, “you’re too dumb to lie this good, ain’t you?”

Then he turned away and started barking out orders.

“T.T., Ray — go get Tonio and have him drive you down to Jayzee’s corner. You know what to do — just like we done with Jon-Jon and McNeil. Monk and me’ll take care of things here. Monk, when that car pulls up, you go around behind it and...”

They were ignoring Scottie, too absorbed in their war plans to waste any more time on the “retard.” So he left.

Scottie took his time walking home. He was hoping he’d miss it all — return to find a quiet street, a deserted corner. Whatever he’d brought into his neighborhood, he didn’t want to see it.

Not that he should feel guilty. None of it would be his fault. Jayzee said it himself: Lookin’ don’t hurt nobody. Talkin’ don’t hurt nobody. Whatever else happens, that ain’t you, right? Right?

When Scottie got back to his block, he saw the flashing lights of police cars and ambulances. A woman — someone’s mom or aunt or sister — was out by Jayzee’s corner, screaming. A crowd was gathered around, people pulled from in front of their televisions by the drama outside their doors. Some were trying to comfort the hysterical woman. Most simply stood nearby, watching.

Scottie didn’t join them. Instead he went upstairs and switched on the TV and the Nintendo.

He turned the volume up loud.