I clicked up with a gang of my peeps at the payphone across the street from Brown Middle School. We were fourteen and school had just let out for the afternoon. The sun was bright and smiling down on us, just your average happy day. I called my girlfriend, Boo-boo-kitty-fuk, told her I was coming over later to get some Lewinsky and she said shyt, her too, but I said I had business to take care of first, and to hold her breath and I’d be there before she passed out. I slammed down the phone and me and my peeps went to our homeboi JP’s house on Clark Road.

See me and my peeps had some smoke we was gonna settle with the Opp. His name was Smooth and he was gonna be at JP’s house. It was a known bando house folks would link up at when they skipped school and after to get zombified.

Inside, the house had an inviting smell of sweet oatmeal cookies. I asked, but there were no cookies, so after getting blunted and drippd I posted up in the kitchen along with my brother, Spider, and Vogue and Smooth, who were best friends, to make myself a sandwich. On the back porch was Lil C, Mask, and JP smoking cigs. On MTV, Hanson’s MMMbop was playing.

See everybody in the school knew about the smoke me and my peeps had with Smooth, see Smooth could spitt game and wound up pullin’ Lil C’s gurl, 1Love, and Smooth was planning on goin’ to the school dance with her later that night, so we was gonna beat him down, that was the play.

In the kitchen, Vogue and Smooth was playin’ with JP’s dad’s glizzy, a Sig .40 cal pistol, flexin’ and shyt. Spider was the only one watching when Smooth said, It’s jammed!, and Vogue said, Let me see it, I can fix it. Smooth handed it over. I was just spreading the grape on my peanut butter and jelly sandwich when suddenly I heard a loud pop followed by a deafening tone in my ears. Disoriented, I turned to see Spider get ghost to the back porch in fear. Vogue stood there in shock with the gun in hand and in a shaky voice, almost a whisper, said, It was jammed. I saw Smooth layin’ dead on the linoleum floor with blood racing away from his head in all directions, all over the kitchen, table, seats, walls, even me.

By this time, all seven of us was in the kitchen. JP was in a panic, sayin’ we need to call 12. He picked up the phone, but I quickly stopped him, terrified cause I knew the entire school had an idea that we were gonna handle the smoke. Me being the only one in the house with a criminal record and time in juvie, that scared the hell out of me. By this time the sweet smell of oatmeal cookies had long faded and the air was filled with the nasty stench of stagnant water from the blood congealing and everybody’s sweat.

We took just under an hour, with all of us arguing back and forth, before someone finally called 12. The cops separated all of us and interrogated us there in the house what felt like a hundred times by a hundred different officers. I thought for sure no one would believe what had happened, but I told the truth. I thought I was goin’ back to juvie for sure because I didn’t see who pulled the trigger, just a body on the floor—real street shyt, the kind of shyt 12 hated. But Vogue owned up to his shyt and took responsibility for his actions. Real G shyt.

That Friday was the longest I can remember. The school dance was canceled, and I left the house feeling guilty and ashamed. Even now, thirty years on, my mind won’t let me forget never putting that peanut butter and jelly sandwich together.

I left it on the counter fully dressed, both slices separated.

___

Charles Montgomery tries each day to live a life of choice and meaning, and he hopes never to see the inside of a jail cell again. “My First Dead Body” is his first publication, and his favorite novel is Frankenstein. Charles is currently working on a book about his experiences with street life, the justice system, and recovery, and he is also trying his hand at poetry.

Artwork by Michael Todd Cohen