Melinda Gibson Per 2. Final Draft

Another Crazy Night

“Yo, you smell that?” my cousin Dave asks.
“No, what? Don’t tell me you busting your a** again?!?” I reply laughing.
“No” Dave says laughing, “It smells like gas.”
“Oh my God, I know he didn’t, not with these babies in here!” we hear my aunt yelling from upstairs.
“Dave go check that.” I say to my cousin.
“Yeah, he disconnected the gas from the stove,” Dave yells back from the kitchen.
“Ya’ll go outside, I’m calling the cops. Melinda take her outside,” my aunt directs my cousins and I. Samira, my cousin Curt's baby girl, was sitting in my lap entertaining herself crumbling a sheet of paper that she retrieved from the close by coffee table.
“Alright” I say as I picked her up and grabbbed her jacket as I left. To escape the smell and commotion I found myself moving away to a stoop a little farther down the street. I shuddered as a cold breeze of air swept the block and quickly pulled Samira closer to shield her from the brisk winds. A few minutes later the cops and firemen arrived. While the firemen entered and secured the house, my aunt spoke with the police officers and told them about the situation at hand. In the middle of the conversation they were distracted by the image of a bald, dingy looking male wearing a wrinkled t-shirt and baggy sweats covered with dried up paint, my uncle, Curt Sr., was returning up the hill acting as though he was ignorant of the whole incident.
“What’s going on?” my uncle asks, his question directed towards the cops.
“You know damn well what’s going on! Officer before he left he told myself and the kids that we were all going to sleep!,” my aunt says in a shocked tone.
“What are you talking about woman? I’m just coming home,” my uncle shoots back.
“Excuse me sir” one of the cops interrupts. “May we talk to you for a minute?”
“Sure officer” my uncle responds as the cops lead him into the backyard through the narrow alley way. A few minutes later the cops return with my uncle in handcuffs, his head lowered as if ashamed.
“What happened?” my aunt asks, as though concerned.
“That dummy tried to run and slipped when he tried to hop the fence!” my older cousin Curt laughs as he runs out of the now secured house. Everyone smirked as they tried to picture what had just taken place but their expression soon changed back as their minds returned to reality. The cops put my uncle in their squad car and returned to talk to my aunt for a few minutes before they left. Approximately ten minutes later the block had returned to its normal state, the older kids and adults conversated on the porches, while the smaller kids played along the street. Everything was back to normal, or so we thought.
“Yo Curt chill!” my older cousin Alicia says to her younger brother.
“No, I’m not going to let him disrespect me like that, he not getting away with that,” Curt replies angrily.
“It isn’t even about that anymore and you know it” Lish says watching Curt storm through the house looking for his keys.
“Yeah whatever” Curt says as he retrieves his keys, finally locating them on a nearby shelf, and leaves slamming the front door behind him. No more than a minute later we hear shouting outside and everyone hurries out to find out what’s going on. Curt and Jon-Jon, the neighbor from down the street, were in the middle of the street arguing which soon escalated to fighting. My cousin Dave and his younger sister DD hurry down the porch steps to aid Curt. I was soon distracted by Samira’s crying and hurried back into the house to retrieve her. She was leaning in the middle of the couch with tears rolling down her chubby baby face. Upon he recognition of my return she lessened her cries and reached her arms out as I leaned over the armrest to pick her up. I gently wiped and cleaned her face before taking her out to the front porch with me. By the time I returned DD and Jon’s younger cousin were also fighting. The other dudes from the block had also joined in and all you could see from the porch were fist swinging from all directions. Few hits had landed but had no great effect on their victims. The fights lasted a while longer before they were broken up by the adults. Dave tried to restrain Curt while I did the same to DD but Curt broke free. Expecting Curt to attempt hitting Jon again Dave ran after him, but surprisingly Curt just hopped in his car and drove away. We knew he’d return, he always did, but with what was the question nagging our minds. I finally managed to calm DD down a little and she continued up to the porch, but in all the commotion she managed to pull one of my individuals out. I stopped and sat on the rail halfway down the front steps to make sure DD wouldn’t try to leave. Jon’s cousin resists the adults telling her to go back down the street and continues toward the porch taunting DD, to prevent her from advancing onto the porch I stand from my post. The young girl stopped and looked at me as though I had lost my mind.
“You can get it too,” she says as if to intimidate me. I glance at the porch to my younger cousin DD and smirked, she returned the expression and we broke out laughing.
“Yeah alright,” DD says from the porch. The girl resides back down the street angrily and tension died down once again. Curt pulls up a while later and rushes into the house, followed by Lish. They soon returned, Lish trying to calm him down. Upon seeing his condition Jon’s family taunted Curt, which only aggravated him more and everyone started arguing again.
“Damn, here we go again,” I say, holding my little cousin in my lap.
Before long cop cars proceeded up the block and toward the commotion. Unable to disperse the people and put an end to the commotion they remove their nightclubs, which soon catches the crowd’s eyes. Everyone returned to their sides of the block but that didn’t cease the arguing between the groups back and forth across the street.
“Yo, he took four Zannies before he came back” Lish says to me as we watch.
“What?!?” I reply. “Are you serious? Damn.”
The cops spoke with group gathered across the street before proceeding to porch to find out our side of the story. In all the earlier commotion Curt hit his head on the concrete steps and remained in an unconscious state for some time. The cops radioed for ambulance assistance and soon after Curt regained consciousness and returned to his aggravated state. Not able to calm Curt down, the cops attempt to remove him from the porch.
“No I’m not going anywhere,” Curt shouts at the cops. “Give me my daughter,” he says as he reaches toward me for Samira.
“No! Get him!” shouts one of the other cops. Upon one’s attempt to apprehend him an officer leapt and managed to grab Curt but weren’t able to balance and fell down the rest of the hard concrete steps, in result breaking his leg and knocking Curt back into his unconscious state. Without any consideration the other officers grab Curt and quickly place him under arrest while the ambulance took care of the injured officer. DD runs to Curt and in attempt to break the cops away but she is also arrested for being insubordinate.
As the cops lead him to the Patty-wagon they over exaggerate, seeing as though Curt was still somewhat unconscious, acting as though he was resisting the arrest and bang his head against the Patty-wagons front. Watching the mistreatment in amazement, the group from across the street, which only minutes ago had been known as enemies, tried to assist Curt to their best abilities but failed. The wagon pulled off, as did most of the other squad cars upon Curt’s retrieval. The last car remained while the driver spoke to my aunt advising her to call in in order to obtain more information before trying to retrieve either of her children. No one could sleep that night and remained outside, ignoring the cold armies of air beating against them, comforting one another awaiting tomorrow’s sorrows.