On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City by Alice Goffman Read Free Book Online Page A

spare upstairs bedroom into a giant walk-in closet,
     with shoes, purses, and clothing arranged by color on the kind of white metal shelves
     that you buy and install yourself.
    Our getaway had produced a mild euphoria. Reggie brushed past Chuck to examine the
     shoe collection, and Chuck wiped his arm off dramatically, teasing his younger brother
     about how sweaty he was.
    “Look at yourself, nigga! You don’t run for shit now with that little bit of shell
     in your shoulder,” Reggie responded, referring to the partial bullet that had lodged
     just below the back of Chuck’s neck when he was shot the month before.
    Chuck laughed. “I’m in the best shape of my life.” He explained that his shoulder
     hurt only when he played basketball.
    Reggie sat on a small leopard-print stool and said, “Name a fat motherfucker who runs
     faster than me. Not just in the ’hood but anywhere in Philly.”
    “Oh, here you go,” Chuck complained.
    Chuck joked about the extensive shoe collection, saying you’d never know Miss Toya
     was like that. Reggie pulled out a pair of suede high heels and attempted to get one
     onto his foot, asking me to do up the straps. He got on her computer and started browsing
     pit bull websites, thenYouTube videos of street fights. Chuck cringed and exclaimed loudly as Kimbo, a well-known
     street fighter, hit his opponent repeatedly in the eye, revealing bloody and battered
     tissue that Chuck called “spaghetti and meatballs.”
    I asked Chuck why he made me run, and consequently dirty my sneakers, when I’m not
     even wanted.
    “It’s good practice.”
    Reggie grinned and said, “You be taking your fucking time, A.”
    “You’re no track star,” I replied.
    “What!? I was haul-assing.”
    Chuck got on the phone with his mother and then a neighbor to find out how many police
     were on his block and for whom they had come. Apparently they were looking for a man
     who had fled on foot after being stopped on an off-road motorbike. They didn’t find
     this man, but did take two others from the house next door: one had a bench warrant
     for failure to appear, and the other had a small amount of crack in his pocket. Into
     the phone Chuck was saying, “Damn. They got Jay-Jay? Damn.”
    About an hour later, his mother called to tell Chuck that the police had gone. We
     waited another ten minutes, then left for Pappi’s, the corner store. Chuck ordered
     Miss Toya a turkey hoagie and BBQ chips and brought them to her as thanks. We then
     walked back to the block with Dutch cigars and sodas.
    Running wasn’t always the smartest thing to do when the cops came, but the urge to
     run was so ingrained that sometimes it was hard to stand still.
    When the police came for Reggie, they blocked off the alleyway on both ends simultaneously,
     using at least five cars that I could count from where I was standing, and then ran
     into Reggie’s mother’s house. Chuck, Anthony, and two other guys were outside, trapped.
     Chuck and these two young men were clean, but Anthony had the warrant for failure
     to appear. As the police dragged Reggie out of his house, laid him on the ground,
     and searched him, one guy whispered to Anthony to be calm and stay still. Anthony
     kept quiet as Reggie was cuffed and placed in the squad car, but then he started whispering
     that he thought Reggie was looking at him funny, and might say something to the police.Anthony started sweating and twitching his hands; the two young men and I whispered
     again to him to chill. One said, “Be easy. He’s not looking at you.”
    We stood there, and time dragged on. When the police started searching the ground
     for whatever Reggie may have tossed before getting into the squad car, Anthony couldn’t
     seem to take it anymore. He started mumbling his concerns, and then he took off up
     the alley. One of the officers went after him, causing the other young man standing
     next to him to shake his head in frustrated