Despite the brave front he tried to put on it, Damaso Torres did not face new things easily. He never had. His family deciding to illegally immigrate from Mexico to the United States had been catastrophic for him, and he had reacted even worse to being imprisoned by Jamaal Jackson's Dark Forces.

The way he and his family had been treated in America had turned his family off of settling permanently in the States Damaso had been relieved. Was that selfish of him?

Now the Latino youth was facing a new situation. Life as a gardener.  It just seemed so damned cliché!

Wreck and Ruin, his saviors, had gotten him employment with Tyrone Washington the man who had reared and trained the two brothers the man who had taught them how to kill. But after a week of being part of the ex-mercenary's yard crew, the Latino youth found himself becoming more fascinated by Tyrone's gay lover Zulu Spears.

Damaso also took an interest in Tyrone's young nephew Tariq. Not in a weirdo way, but in a fraternal way. The boy was very likable. And both the Latino youth and the black youngster had something in common. They were both fascinated by Tyrone's male lover, Zulu.

The very first time that nine-year-old Tariq Washington saw Zulu Spears, the stud was simultaneously fooling around with his father's brother and eating a pastry in his aunt and uncle's kitchen.

Zulu was saying something to his uncle probably protesting Tyrone Washington's actions because he'd thrown himself upon him while the stud was in the middle of consuming a jelly doughnut. Tariq didn't think his Uncle Tyrone could hear Zulu because, at the time, he was moving his lips against the outermost part of his male lover's ear while the stud was speaking.

"What about your wife?"

Zulu's voice quivered ever so slightly as he mouthed these words. He even tried to downplay their significance by kittenishly wiping a bit of powdered sugar from the corner of the ex-mercenary's mouth and put it to his generous lips,

"I really don't think it was a good idea for me to have come here, Tyrone."

Without answering, Tariq's bald uncle bent his head to kiss the strawberry jelly away from Zulu's own mouth. The boy observed as his uncle's tongue greedily sampled the apparently complimentary combination of Zulu and the jelly. Tariq supposed it made sense that the stud would taste good. After all, his nickname on the street was "Chocolate Chaos".

"Ohhhh, Shit … shit … !"

The responsive stud was now moving his lips against the ex-mercenary's as he blissfully sighed the word over and over again. Tariq figured his uncle must have tasted atleast as good as Zulu himself did.

The boy leaned his half-grown self against the doorjamb and watched this erotic freak show with puerile fascination.

He watched as his uncle traced a streak of perspiration from Zulu's dark brown cheek to the stud's expertly sculpted eyebrow, detouring along the way to lick more strawberry jelly from the baby-fine hair that decorated the sides of his face like sideburns. The boy took note that, for an extremely dark man, his uncle had the brightest, pinkest tongue he'd ever seen.

And he must have been good at using that tongue because, when he knelt down in front of Zulu and pulled down his pants and undershorts, the stud got an intense, ecstatic look in his dark eyes. 

When he sucked Zulu’s toes, Tariq thought he might faint.  The sight of his uncle blissfully suckling upon all ten digits was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen in the world.  When his uncle’s tongue dutifully probed between each toe—licking as if strawberry jelly might be found there as well—he felt his knees get weak.

Zulu leaned back against the kitchen counter, gazing beneath half-opened eyelids at the black, gleaming bald head that was now apparently doing one heck of a job on his extensive dick and gargantuan balls.

"I'm floating," Tariq heard Zulu mumble to his uncle. "When you dance your tongue around my balls, shockwave sensations race through me like hot rum and cool cherry ice cream."

Now the stud was making Tariq rather hungry, so assuming that his presence would not be detected at such an intense moment the toffee-eyed boy crept over to the counter and reached into the pink cardboard box for one of the dozen assorted his Uncle Tyrone had bought.

Whipping around to catch his nephew with his hand in the box of goodies, Tyrone Washington cried,

"Tariq!"

The bald man's mouth was glazed and sort of glittered in the early morning sunlight. Tariq guessed that his uncle was so surprised because he'd been caught with his tongue on some goodies, in a manner of speaking,

"Get the hell out of here! Go outside and play or something!"

So, grabbing a bear-claw, Tariq exited the kitchen and made his way out of doors.

He was traversing across the street, towards his Grandfather's workshop, when old Miss Busey yelled out for him to watch out for oncoming cars. Scared the heck out of him. Having your every move monitored by at least a dozen adults was the price one paid for temporarily residing in a neighborhood like his.

It was a great place to live, but most of the "African-Americans" residing there adhered to old school values. Tariq would have personally preferred to deal with the hazards of the inner city he had come from.

Almost every adult within a four block radius could order around any kid in this new town he was vacationing in. One could be having a perfectly innocent fist-fight with one's best friend or even one's own brother, and some nosy grown person would shout,

"You fools better stop that!" from a window or doorway.

And if the offending kids didn't obey, this same nosy adult would phone their parents, or … if the spirit moved them — would take a belt or switch to the young malefactors themselves. Modern child psychology was just so much bullshit to them.

As Tariq walked the concourse of the quiet neighborhood he did manage to spot two shirtless boys who were scuffling beyond the view of the watchful eyes of the adults. These two boys were Freddie Hamilton and Rasheed Ellington. The young duo had apparently been playing basketball when an alleged foul shot had brought them to blows.

But the fighting and the argument stopped dead when Freddie grabbed Rasheed from behind and placed his fingers on the smaller boy's ribs threatening to tickle him senseless unless he admitted that he'd fouled him.

Rasheed twitched when he felt his friend's fingertips lightly rest themselves on his ribcage on either side. The youngster opened his eyes wide, and (with slight turn of his head) was able to catch Freddie's sadistic smile … as well as the leering look in his older friend's dark young eyes.

"You gonna admit that you fouled me, homey?"

Rasheed shook his head adamantly.

So ....

The torture began with Freddie going to work on the smaller boy's ribs with both hands. His tactics were absolutely sadistic as he attacked Rasheed with mercilessly insistent fingers. He poked, prodded, grabbed, squeezed! Jolts of electricity seemed to course through the smaller boy's torso causing him to literally vibrate!

The youngster screamed and wanted so badly to flee or at least use his arms to protect his ribcage, but he couldn't! His situation was clearly torturous and it was clear that Rasheed's body ached from being held in such a rigid grip. To make matters worse, his shirtless form offered every inch of his upper body's skin to Freebie's sadistic whims.

After several minutes of this ticklish tribulation, the smaller boy simply couldn't take it anymore and he broke completely crumpling to the black-topped street in a helpless frantic fit of all-consuming laughter.

But Freddie still refused to release the smaller by or halt with his tickling.

He used both hands unrelentingly. Rasheed's laughter and pleading went on non-stop then. Sweat now ran freely down his suffering, shuddering torso. His efforts to take only shallow breaths were futile, so he gulped air whenever possible. Tariq was amazed to see that tears were rolling down Rasheed's cheeks tears of frustration, torment, and horrible unwitting laughter.

Eventually Tariq turned away from the two boys and towards portly Miss Busey who was hanging up her clothes on a line in her backyard. The toffee-eyed youngster was irked by this. You see, this woman's son was one of the hottest producer's in R&B music, but she hangs her clothes out like she's still one of the "po" folk. Tariq glared at her, contemplating the idea of giving her the finger.

He supposed Miss Busey read his mind, because she glared right back at him, her mouth full of clothespins. Eventually she stopped hanging pair after pair of unmentionables and said,

"Boy, I'll slap them eyes right out yo' head."

"No you won't." Tariq said without much conviction.

She put her hands on her hips,

"You gon' be the no-eyed, blindest brother in Ladera Heights if you don't get rid of that attitude."

Well, to make a long story short, Tariq wound up helping the old woman hang her laundry.

That's how adults in his aunt and uncle's neighborhood operated. If they saw a young person wandering around aimlessly, they enlisted their aid in some sort of task. They didn't want their aimlessness to degenerate into mischief, you see.

Mischief might turn into violence, and it wouldn't do to have the "young people of color" in Ladera Heights behaving like those inner-city niggers. Tariq did learn something interesting as he suspended the clothing, however. Miss Busey didn't hang out her clothing because her rich-ass son was too cheap to buy her a dryer — she just preferred to have her clothes smell spring-time fresh naturally.

Anyway, Tariq made his way over to his Grandfather's place once he was done. Tariq supposed his Grandpa was taking a leak at the time he entered, because the tiled workshop the place where Old Leon Washington was most-likely to be found at all hours of the day was empty. Well, almost empty. You, see the old man had left his work lying around unattended. This wouldn't have been so unnerving if it weren't for the fact that his Grandpa was a mortician.

And Leon Washington wasn't just any old mortician. He employed his amazing narcotizing skills for the wealthy. The VERY wealthy. In fact, most of the well-off brothers and sisters in Ladera Heights couldn't even afford his services.

As Tariq ventured further into the room, he could see that, sprawled atop the porcelain table, was another well-fed looking white-guy. This poor fella appeared to be in his mid-thirties younger than his Grandpa's usual subject matter. He glanced at the tag wired to his big left toe, but the name written there was illegible to the nine-year-old. Still, an idea dawned on him.

He folded the guy's hands behind his head and crossed his feet at the ankles. Manipulating the somewhat stiff limbs wasn't difficult at all thanks to the gunk the old man had pumped into the body in order to stave off rigor mortis.

Now Tariq had the corpse looking like some pale nudist sunning himself on an exclusive beach. The toffee-eyed boy then retrieved one of his Grandpa's cigars (which the old man kept in a drawer right next to glass containers filled with the arterial and cavity fluid!) and wedged it between the guy's teeth.

Tariq even considered the idea of lighting the stogie, but came to the wise conclusion that this would be pushing it. He did, however, decorate the corpse a bit with a sun visor and shades from his Grandpa's closet.

The old man arrived, dressed in his disposable apron and latex gloves, after a few minutes. Upon noticing the condition of the corpse, his eyes grew wide and he clutched at his chest just like Redd Foxx used to on that old television show. Then he saw Tariq standing off to the side and all but rolling on the floor with laughter. After a moment he composed himself, glanced disdainfully towards the laid-back carcass, then focused his onyx-like eyes on his youngest grandson.

Tariq could tell that his Grandfather wanted to be stern, but when the old man finally got around to saying something, he was laughing,

"Boy, you need Jesus!"

Tariq just beamed at him. He loved his Grandfather. The old man was his best friend.

To be continued…