The Crab Tree Gang-Excerpt

The Crab-tree Gang by A.G. Mitchell The crab-tree gang was at lunch. They numbered five youths all under eighteen except Bryce Deans who was reported to be nineteen. Naddy had ridden a mile to the nearest fast food outlet to buy their food. This was his payment to the gang in lieu of hard cash. The gang had been operating at Mc Clellans’s High School for the past fifteen years. Leadership and membership of the gang had been passed down among families.“We nearly didn’t collect enough money to buy our lunch,” Bryce told them as he bit into a piece of chicken. “It seems as if those youths don’t want us to protect them anymore,” Welton Bright declared as he bit into a huge piece of chicken. He was seventeen years of age and in his last year at school. He had come into membership of the gang through a cousin. The gang protected children from Nixon, Norton, Waste Land and Big Leaf districts numbering about three hundred in all. “If they don’t pay us they’ll have to pay the Deuce gang and they charge more than us. Maybe they’d like to pay the Ridley or the Dexterous gang,” Dalton Dillon opined as he drank some more of his fruit punch. He was big and burly and a month younger than Welton. Dudley West and Bidey Dixon made up the rest of the gang. Dudley was of medium height and was a few months past his sixteenth birthday while Bidey was also of medium height and was going on eighteen. These boys had gotten into all sorts of trouble and had just missed being kicked out of school on several occasions. Bryce had to repeat grades at least twice and it wasn’t because he wasn’t good at his lessons. He loved loafing about and playing all sorts of pranks plus he was something of a playboy. In addition, each boy was required to spend at least a week being an enforcer in either Kingston or Spanish Town. So that some days at least two boys from the gang would be absent from the school and dressed in plain clothes. So in addition to their behavior, their attendance record was also very poor. All the gangs controlled different clusters of districts and had their enforcers in the school. The Crab-tree gang only operated at Mc Clelland High and was not an offshoot of any other gang like the others. The surplus cash from the day’s takings was split among the gang members who used it to outfit themselves or their girls and to party with them. They bought the most expensive cell phones, sneakers, clothes and sunglasses. Occasionally they would make up a collection to give to Stash, the area Don, who, although he didn’t demand it, felt that the youths were showing him respect the more frequently they gave him money. Bad men were roaming the communities doing kidnappings and raping of young girls. They were also robbing children of their lunch money and lately their cell phones. All the youths had bicycles. They would shepherd those children, they protected to school in the mornings and back home in the evenings. Bryce had gotten into fights several times with grown men and came out the winner each time. Each of the other boys had confrontations with some of these men and had prevailed over them. The gangs had managed to chase some of these miscreants out of the communities. A few remained and it was these that the students sought protection from by partaking of some of their lunch money to the various gangs operating at their school. But the real fillip in all this was when a bad man by the name of Weller and Bryce had a confrontation. Weller thought of himself as some sort of a Don and fancied the bigger girls at Mc Lelland High to such an extent that the majority of them would run or hide whenever they saw him. Bryce was riding his bicycle home one evening alongside a girl he fancied. Weller confronted him about trying to be friendly with his woman. Weller drew a knife to stab Bryce. Bryce grabbed an iron pipe which he carried on his bicycle and promptly broke Weller’s hand. Weller fled the community and was never seen in the area again. *** “I want to make a collection to give Stash next month,” Bryce announced. “Maybe we shouldn’t promise him anything until we collect the money. After all we have to eat good food every day, outfit ourselves and our girls,” Dalton opined. Before Stash they knew that the gang had to give money to a man called Dell. He had been shot and killed in May Pen about two years ago. “But we never promise him anything. Only when we have surplus cash we give him,” Bryce remarked as they finished their meal. “We’ll have to go over the books to see who owes us money and make them pay. I’m sure they wouldn’t like to stop coming to school,” Bidey told them. A man called Bilton kept their tally book for them. He also kept weapons and contraband, all for a fee. He lived within a half a mile of the school. He also sold marijuana and whatever things they needed such as condoms, anti-pregnancy and aphrodisiac pills. “Suppose Stash goes to Bilton for the information on our takings?” Dudley West asked. “He doesn’t know about Bilton and he wouldn’t tell him about us,” Bryce replied. “I understand that they are having a big splash at Goofer’s tomorrow. We could collect our girls and go,” Welton stated. Goofers was a club in May Pen where fetes were put on. Students could normally attend because most of the activities took place during the day. “Well, tomorrow being a Friday we should reach there by about three o’clock,” Bryce said. His main woman was a teacher at the nearby basic school, but her school wouldn’t be over by the time they were ready to leave so he would have to take Deika, the grade eleven girl, he had been romancing for about a month now. The gang heard the bell ringing for the afternoon session of school and got up wearily from their seats, knowing that after such a hearty meal they would probably sleep out the rest of the afternoon. If you enjoyed this excerpt why not visit the Austin Mitchell page at Amazon.com and make a selection. Thanks.