Memories of Local Alley

Section 1: A New Future for Local Alley

The familiar female reporter stood at the entrance of Local Alley, microphone in hand.

“Local Alley, a neighborhood that has carried generations of memories, may soon be entering an exciting new chapter.”

Behind her, pedestrians moved through the narrow street as usual.

“A major development group has announced plans to transform the area into a large modern casino. The project is expected to create jobs, attract visitors, stimulate the local economy, and bring new entertainment to the community.”

She smiled at the camera.

“Residents will also be able to enjoy Texas Hold’em, mahjong, and other recreational games without having to travel far from home.”

She glanced back at the old buildings.

“After decades of memories, Local Alley may soon be heading toward a very different future.”

The Local Hero Association was far less enthusiastic about the redevelopment.

By the next morning, it had announced a protest for the coming weekend. Hundreds of flyers were printed and divided into stacks, then handed out to local heroes throughout the neighborhood.

Their job was simple: deliver them door to door and encourage the residents of Local Alley to join the protest.

For the next few days, the local heroes had temporarily become mailmen.

Section 2: Reasons to Protest

Lazy Guy found Tom beside a garbage pile, sorting empty bottles and cans into a plastic bag.

Tom was still recovering from the accident. He wore shorts, and his right knee and lower leg were wrapped thickly in bandages. A crutch rested under one arm as he worked.

“Hey, Tom.” Lazy Guy handed him a protest flyer. “They’re planning to turn Local Alley into a casino. We’re holding a protest this weekend, and the community needs your support.”

Tom stared at the flyer for several seconds. He had never really learned how to read. He could barely recognize a handful of the words.

“Make sure you read it,” Lazy Guy said.

Tom nodded, folded the flyer, and slipped it into his pocket. He planned to use it as toilet paper the next time he took a shit.

“Remember to come. The community needs people like you.”

Tom nodded again, and Lazy Guy turned to leave. After walking a few steps, however, he suddenly remembered something and looked back.

“Oh, right. There’ll be free food and drinks, so you don’t need to eat before you come.”

Tom, who until that moment had shown almost no interest in the protest, immediately looked more serious. He gave Lazy Guy a firm nod.

“Yes. I’ll be there on time.”

Benson received a flyer as well.

At first, he only gave it a casual glance. Then he noticed a small photograph printed near the bottom. The familiar female reporter from the news would be at the protest to cover the event and interview local residents.

In the photograph, her long hair fell neatly around her shoulders, framing a pretty face. She wore a fitted reporter’s blazer over a button-up shirt, with the top few buttons left undone, the opening low enough to reveal a noticeable amount of cleavage.

Benson stared at the photograph for several seconds. A suspicious little tingling began in his crotch.

Then he carefully folded the flyer and slipped it into his pajama pocket.

“I think I have to go. This is something a man must do.”

Farther down Local Alley, Lazy Guy approached an old beggar sitting against a wall with a begging bowl in front of him. The man looked to be in his eighties. Dressed in old-fashioned railroad-worker clothes, he looked as though he belonged to another era.

Lazy Guy dropped a protest flyer directly into his bowl.

The old beggar picked it up and slowly read through it. His expression grew serious.

“Oh, no. They can’t do this to Local Alley.”

He looked down the street at the aging buildings around him.

“I’ve been begging here for more than ten years, ever since I was a kid. I can’t just sit here and let them tear this place down.”

He carefully folded the flyer.

“I think I’ll go.”

Section 3: The Baddest Badass in the Alley

Sean carried a stack of protest flyers into one of the apartment buildings in Local Alley and began working his way from door to door. By the time he reached the fifth floor, the stack in his hands had grown noticeably thinner.

He walked down the hallway, stopped at the next apartment, and knocked. A few seconds later, the door opened, and Sean froze.

Canelo was standing on the other side.

He stared at Sean for a moment before a crooked smile spread across his face.

“Well, well, well. Look, look, look who it is. Our circus clown of a local hero.”

Sean held up one of the flyers. “We’re holding a protest this weekend. They’re planning to tear down Local Alley and build a casino. We’re asking the residents to come out and support us.”

Canelo barely looked at it. “Not even remotely interested. Get lost, you traitor.”

Sean didn’t leave. He stood there for a moment, thinking. “Hey. You remember that thing you drew on Mr. Shek’s wall when we were kids? That ugly-ass picture. You wrote ‘The Baddest Badass in the Alley’ under it. Even spelled it wrong.”

“Oh, shit. Yeah. I remember that.”

“And you remember Mr. Shit coming after us?”

Mr. Shit wasn’t his real name. His name was Mr. Shek. That was simply what Sean and Canelo had called him behind his back when they were kids.

“Yeah, dude,” Canelo said. “That old guy with the big-ass mole and that one long hair sticking outta it.”

“He chased us halfway down the alley. Dude was already in his eighties and could still run like hell.”

“But we still managed to get away.”

Canelo laughed. “Yo, you already here anyway. Come in. Have a smoke before you go.”

Sean walked inside. “I quit smoking a long time ago. But I could take a Coke.”

Canelo grabbed two bottles of Coke from the refrigerator and tossed one to Sean. They sat down on the couch, opened their drinks, and Sean took a sip before looking through the window toward the buildings across the alley.

After a moment, he pointed outside. “Look. There it is.”

Canelo followed his finger. On the old wall below, faded by decades of rain and sunlight, the graffiti was still there. The muscular figure Canelo had drawn was barely visible anymore, but the crooked words beneath it could still be made out.

THE BADDEST BADASS IN THE ALLEY.

“Oh, shit. That thing’s still there?” Canelo said, looking more closely. “Yo, I remember drawing all them muscles.”

Then he noticed two small spots of colored chalk on the figure’s chest, one on each pectoral.

“Wait. I ain’t draw those nipples.”

“Oh, those were me,” Sean said. “I passed by the next day and added them.”

Canelo took another drink. “Man, back then, all we wanted was to be the baddest gangsters in this whole damn alley.”

Sean looked at the faded graffiti. “And somehow, we actually did it.”

Section 4: Richard the Dick

As they kept talking, the old memories began coming back faster, and before long, both of them were getting more excited.

“Yo, Sean,” Canelo said. “You remember Richard?”

“Richard?” Sean thought for a second. “Oh, yeah. Richard the Dick, right?”

“Yeah, dude. How the hell he get that name again?”

Sean took another sip of Coke. “Wasn’t it because of his Haki? He could make his whole arm turn black and hard as hell. Especially his fist. That thing was like fucking iron.”

Canelo frowned as the memory came back.

“Man, that dude fucked me up bad back then. When I first started gangstering, every damn time I tried to rob somebody or get some money, that motherfucker showed up and fucked the whole thing up. I was broke as shit for a long-ass time. Dude, I could barely even buy plain white bread.”

Sean shook his head. “No, that’s not why they called him Richard the Dick.”

Canelo looked at him. “Then why?”

“You seriously forgot? One night Richard got completely wasted. He was walking through the alley when he saw a crack in a wall. For some reason, the guy stripped butt naked and decided to stick his dick into it.”

Canelo stared at him for a second. “Oh, shit.”

“Yeah. And then it got stuck.”

Canelo burst out laughing as the rest of the memory came flooding back. “Oh, shit! Yeah! I remember that shit!”

“They couldn’t get him out,” Sean continued. “Fire trucks came. An ambulance came. Half the neighborhood came out to watch. Reporters showed up too, and the whole thing made the news.”

The two of them laughed their asses off. After that night, nobody called him Richard anymore. Everyone just called him Richard the Dick.

Canelo took another drink and leaned back against the couch.

“See? That’s why I fucking hate them Local Heroes. All of ’em are trash. Every time I see one, I just wanna beat their ass. Fuck ’em all.”

Sean gave him a hard look. “What you did to that female Local Hero the other day was different, Canelo. You ripped her clothes off right there in public, in the middle of the street, with all those people watching. You went too far that time. You really crossed the line. How was she supposed to show her face around here after that?”

Canelo said nothing.

“She was a promising young Local Hero,” Sean continued. “She was still new to the job, but she had a real future ahead of her. And after what happened, she left the profession for good.”

Canelo finally frowned. “Hold up. That girl was flat-chested as hell, and she was wearing a push-up bra.”

Sean stared at him.

“That shit’s fake,” Canelo continued. “She got people thinking she got something she don’t. That’s straight-up fraud. Same shit as some sixteen-year-old flashing a fake ID, saying he twenty-one so he can get in the club, drink beer, and pop ketamine. That ain’t just wrong. That shit should be illegal.”

Sean looked at him for a long moment. “I’m pretty sure it doesn’t work that way.”

“Okay, Sean. I don’t wanna hear shit about no Local Heroes. And that includes this garbage Local Hero shit you doing now.”

But Sean pressed on. “I’m serious. She was good. She could’ve had a long career. She could’ve—”

Canelo suddenly cleared his throat.

“Ahem.”

Sean stopped.

Canelo took another sip of Coke. “Yo, Sean. You remember when you went to prison a few years back?”

Sean stared at him.

“Fine.”

Neither of them said another word.

For the next minute, they sat on the couch drinking their Cokes in complete, awkward silence.

A full minute passed before either of them spoke again.

Section 5: The Last Time We Saw Mr. Shit

Sean finally broke the silence. “You know, Richard the Dick has been dead for a long time. Must be twenty years by now.”

“Oh, yeah.” Canelo nodded. “Dude got drunk as shit that night, right? Walked across the street in the middle of the night, got nailed by a truck. Died right there.”

“Yeah. I remember Mr. Shit came to his funeral.”

Canelo thought for a moment, then started to grin. “Oh, shit. You remember that speech he gave?”

Sean immediately remembered.

Mr. Shek had stood in front of everyone at the funeral and delivered the words with complete solemnity.

“Some people die with great honor. Some people die and leave almost nothing behind. But Richard the Dick’s death… wasn’t worth even a single pubic hair.”

The entire funeral went silent.

Nobody laughed. Nobody spoke. Everyone simply stood there in awkward silence, unsure of how they were supposed to react.

Back on the couch, Sean slowly nodded.

“Yeah. That was the last time we ever saw Mr. Shit. More than twenty years ago.”

Sean thought about it for a moment. “Mr. Shek was already in his eighties back then. He’s probably gone by now.”

“Probably?” Canelo snorted. “Dude, that was over twenty years ago. That old motherfucker dead for sure. His body probably turned into dirt by now.”

Sean gave a small nod. “Yeah. Probably.”

Section 6: Leave It to the Young People

Across the alley, on the first floor of another apartment building, a white-haired old man lowered himself toward the floor and pushed himself back up.

“Ninety-eight… ninety-nine… one hundred.”

Mr. Shek rose from the floor. Despite his age, his arms and shoulders were still surprisingly muscular. On his face sat the same large mole from decades ago, with a single long hair growing from its center—only now, the hair had turned completely white.

He walked toward the window and noticed an envelope lying on the table nearby.

TO MR. SHEK

He picked it up, opened it, and slowly read the protest flyer inside.

“So they want to turn Local Alley into a casino.”

Mr. Shek looked out the window at the old buildings across the street.

“I should probably go to this protest. This alley has a lot of memories.”

He thought about it, then shook his head.

“Ah, forget it. I’m too old for this stuff now. Things like this should be left to the young people.”

He returned his attention to the flyer.

“My memory these days isn’t so good. Sometimes I can’t even remember what happened a few days ago. Funny, though. Somehow I still remember things from decades ago clear as day.”

Mr. Shek began thinking about the younger generation of Local Alley.

“Let’s see… Tom… Sean…”

He paused.

“Oh, no. Not Sean. Sean’s still in prison.”

He started again.

“Tom… Canelo… Benson… Richard the Dick…”

Mr. Shek nodded to himself.

“Yes. You kids should be the ones going to this protest. It’s up to young people like you to do your part and decide the future of Local Alley.”

A knock came at the door.

“Hey, Grandpa. Time for your dementia medication.”

“Come in.”

The door opened, and a woman stepped inside carrying a glass of water and a few pills in her hand. She walked over to Mr. Shek and held them out to him.

Mr. Shek turned toward her. His eyes suddenly sharpened as he studied her face.

“Hey. Who are you?”

The woman paused.

“Grandpa, I’m your granddaughter.”

Mr. Shek stared at her for another few seconds, then slowly shook his head.

“No. I don’t know you. I don’t remember you at all.”

Her granddaughter signed.

“You senile old fool…”