by Carey Lewis
“You’re full of shit.”
“You know what? Was a white girl told me that. She’s the one dated a China man had the nerve to ask.”
“She sounds racist.”
“Among other things. You see that?”
Noah looked over from the passenger seat. They were driving along the canal, the two lane road that ran along most of the waterway, detouring sometimes for a bridge but then came back around.
What Noah saw was a man laying on his stomach in a little lot off to the side. Boon pulled the car in while Noah called Mesiah, telling him what they saw. He hung up the phone, told Boon they had to take him.
But the guy was heavy, pushing two-thirty, two-forty at least, just solid muscle. He heard some gunshots, just pops echoing from the industrial buildings on the other side of the road. He called Mesiah back.
“I’m telling you, it’s like the guy’s stuck on the ground with glue.” Then he listened for a bit, said “okay,” then hung up.
“We get this heavy prick in the car no matter what and we do it quick. You go get the Orientals and bring them back.”
“Asians.”
“Whatever they call themselves.”
“You got me confused about it now.”
Boon grabbed the legs and Noah grabbed the arms and with all their strength the furthest they could get Rex off the ground was maybe an inch.
“What if we get his legs up first? Then both of us do the head part?” Boon asked. So they grabbed his legs, propped them up into the trunk, then went about lifting his shoulders. Eventually, Rex folded into the trunk like an accordion and they were both out of breath.
“Think I got a hernia type of thing,” Noah said as they were both sitting on the ground, leaned up against the car, trying to catch their breath.
Then Noah stood up, got his AK-47 from the backseat, and walked toward the gunshots he heard earlier, leaving Boon to go pick up the Cyber Punks.
Dax had no idea where to go when he heard the shots in the air, turned back to see Rex fall to the ground, then Max and Lex staring at him. He assumed it was them, it was Max anyway, the guy so big you could see him from space.
So he turned and ran, the place completely deserted. And what the hell was that, a machine gun?
The streets seemed too bright, nowhere dark to hide. All these empty cement buildings going up as high as maybe two floors, all looking the same. The little parking lots in the front that could hold maybe twenty cars, some more parking for employees at the sides or in the fenced off back areas.
Jogged along the street, not really wanting to climb another fence with his hands cut up from the mesh at the canal. Jesus, where did he get a machine gun from?
He heard the high pitched whine behind him, turned and saw the hatchback stopping at the corner. Saw Lex in the passenger seat pointing at him, saw the car coming this way, the whine getting a higher pitch as the car accelerated.
Running along the street, not seeing a place to go. Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t climb a fence now. They’d be on him when he was still trying to get over. He heard the whine of the engine getting closer. He looked back, saw Lex and that rifle sticking out of the window, Lex smiling.
They were almost on top of him, looking like they weren’t going to slow down to get out and chase him on foot. Hearing Lex laugh, the high pitch to it competing with the car.
He heard the first bullet pop and just as fast heard a thud against the building beside him so Dax jumped to the ground, covered his head with his hands. Heard the volley of shots, heard them pucking against the ground, the building, the glass shattering. Heard the car speed by then Lex yell something, angry. He heard the tires squeal as the car screeched to a stop.
Dax looked up, saw the car on the road, Lex screaming in a panic, saw the car reverse, then go forward, then reverse, then forward again to make it’s way back around to him. He’d have to take a fence, so he ran across the lot, climbed into a junkyard. He came down on the other side as he heard the tires squeal to a stop behind him, heard a door slam.
Lex’s dad had a machine gun, did he take it from him? Hank always walked around with that thing, like a peacock showing off it’s feathers.
Dax ran into the junkyard, the demolished cars in front of him with writing in marker on the pieces to be sold, made his way down the row of single cars to the stacks where they were piled on top of each other. Ducked through them, looking up at the towers of cars, wondering if he should climb. He looked back, saw the little trails of blood his hands were leaving, cursed himself, then ducked and went through another row of cars, and then another, trying to get to the back of the yard.
He stopped, hearing the sound of his own breathing, tried to control it. That’s when he heard the alarm for the first time. Lex shooting that gun, broke a window, must’ve set the alarm off.
Dax waited. There wasn’t much to hear, the towers of cars blocking out most of the sound other than the wail of the alarm. He thought he waited a good amount of time, started to go back to the fence, make sure Lex wasn’t there. And he wasn’t. But there was a black guy with an AK-47 and black beret looking around on the other side.
Dax went back into the junkyard, hoping to find another way out before the cops came.
Noah didn’t tell him how many he was picking up, so when he saw the two kids that looked like they were from The Matrix, that’s as many as he thought there were. Boon didn’t realize there were two more hiding out and watching.
He pulled the car into the all night donut shop, got out and looked around. A little subdivision in the distance, an apartment building across the street, a grade school behind the donut joint. Through the window he saw the two kids staring at him. Boon waved them out. He didn’t want to be far from his AK-47, sitting there in the passenger seat just in case.
Boon kept looking around as these two kids came out, wearing their shiny, black, tight pants, asked if it was leather.
“It’s PVC,” Case said.
“You the one on the phone?”
Case nodded, the two Cyber Punks stood across from Boon while he leaned on his car, the handgun hanging loosely from his hand.
“Ain’t PVC the shit those sex freaks wear? Dominatrix’s and shit?”
“It’s used for a lot of things.”
“Go into Home Depot, see pipes called PVC, you can breathe in that?”
He saw them roll their eyes, these two kids giving him attitude. That’s why race relations never went anywhere, Boon thought. You want to learn something, you ask questions then they think you’re stupid for asking.
“Asked this guy about Vishnu before, gives me a look just like that, like what you did. Asked what he needs all those arms for. Guy says he’s Sikh. I ask what he’s sick with, he gives me the finger and walks away. It’s why we don’t get nowhere.”
The kids didn’t say anything.
“Alright kids, time for the search. Hands on the car.”
Case and Orwell put their hands on the hood of the car and Boon started patting them down.
“I find out later Sikh a religion, those guys run around with swords? This guy, his ignorance to my question, I don’t know what his answer meant. He saying he’s Sikh so he don’t do the guy with arms? Or he’s saying it’s a different Vishnu he follows, ain’t got all those arms? See what I’m saying?”
Boon got their phones, tossed them on the ground. Satisfied they didn’t have weapons, he told them to turn.
“How am I going to learn I don’t ask? You guys, what you like to be called? Orientals, Asians, China men? I don’t know ‘less I ask.”
“People,” Case said. “We like to be called people.”
“You know that dude in the wheelchair, talks with the robot voice?”
“Stephen Hawking?”
“Yeah, that motherfucker. I go ask him, I say ‘Steve, what’s a black hole look like?’ or some shit like that he knows what it look like because he staring at it everyday. He going to roll his eyes just like you did
because it’s obvious to him, you see? Put those on,” Boon pointed to the black hoods on the roof of the car. Orwell reached over and grabbed them, handed one to Case.
“White folk come up to me when they get to know me ask what they call me, black, African American, Jamaican, what? Lower their voice when they do, thinking they going to offend somebody. I see this shit everyday so it’s dumb to me but I know where they coming from because they don’t know. Some people don’t know shit about some people that’s why you got to ask. You know what I say to them?”
Stopping now, waiting for an answer. The kids standing there in their hoods.
“I say call me the motherfucker with the gun,” then he smashed Case in the nose with the butt of his handgun. “Get in the fucking car.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
She sat in the tunnel for what felt like hours, playing the situation over and over in her head. How she told him, what she should’ve said differently. But he wouldn’t stop asking. Maybe this was good. She’d get attached and it was just a matter of time before she ran into someone she knew from the old days, calling her Saint Catharine all over again, then she’d have to explain it then anyway. The difference being it would be a year from now and she’d be more attached.
But she was already attached.
Attached or not, she’d have no more of it. No more gangs, no more being used. She was more than the sum of her past. A phoenix can rise from it’s ashes, why not her? Jesus Christ Catharine, are you really comparing yourself to a phoenix?
She wanted better. She liked Cochise because he didn’t want anything from her. And she wasn’t at the point where she could stop her past from defining her. Well, she would be now. It was going to take awhile, but she would do it. She’d pick herself up and brush herself off and be someone that was important. She wouldn’t feel lucky because a nice guy liked her. A nice guy was going to feel lucky because she maybe gave him a wink or a smile. She saw herself in a fancy hotel bar, looking over the rim of her expensive drink at some guy. See that guy get flush in the face because she offered him a moment of her attention.
Or you know what? No. She lived so long having men define her and look where that got her. Always making herself into something they wanted, something they wanted her to be, and then stupid Catharine, tried to be that person. No. She was going to be the girl, no, be the fucking woman that didn’t need a man. She’d make it on her own, and if she decided she wanted a man, it would be her gift to him and that guy would realize how lucky he was.
It would be a long process so she should stand up and get out of this puddle, that would be her first step. Then get out of the tunnel and come into the light, reborn. She liked the sound of that. Then go about making herself better. Get some education in her. Get rid of her clothes, get a job while she was working on herself. Leave all this shit behind. She couldn’t help but smile when she thought of this, feeling the water drip off her body when she lifted herself up.
Walking, watching her step in the dark, thinking how she didn’t like the people she was around so she wouldn’t do that anymore. No more gangs. No more being passed around to anyone that would have her. She wasn’t the waste. They wasted her. She thought of becoming a success, come back and rub it in their faces. Then she thought no, they were trash, and no one picks themselves out of that to lower themselves back in. They weren’t her motivation. She had to be her own motivation.
She saw the speck of light now, still smiling, not knowing what was at the end of the tunnel but knew her new life was there, whatever it might look like. Just one foot in front of the other, that would be her new life, the same way she would get out of the tunnel. One foot in front of the other.
The light was growing bigger. She could see her hands now, covered in dirt and slime. Her legs the same way. Take a shower, have that be symbolic of washing her old life away with the dirt and grime. Seeing the tunnel fall off into a drainage passage below her, lights shining on the area. The green foliage out there.
Coming to the end of the tunnel now, wanting to run. Seeing the path that would take her home.
Seeing Cochise’s hair as she moved forward. Seeing his face, the smile when he saw her walking out, down there in that drainage passage. Seeing his whole body, an unconscious clown with red hair laying on his back, passed out in the shallow running water.
Cochise, her first test. The guy she was pretty sure she loved but was in a gang. There was no room in her new life for anything that didn’t support it.
“Did you see the fire?” he asked.
“I did,” she said.
He came running out of the tunnel, looking back over his shoulder occasionally, swearing he saw the fire; the boy and his parents hugging, heard the screams. Saw the light at the end, it was good, meant he was almost there. Looked over his shoulder thinking Catharine was behind him. Looked back to the mouth of the tunnel and saw the clown standing there, his stringy red hair getting caught in the wind.
It’s not like he had time to move out of the way, the clown came out of nowhere. All he could do was lower his shoulder and keep running, the two of them landing six feet down, going right over the slope that led from the tunnel into the drain passage or whatever you call it.
That’s what Cochise remembered when he woke up.
His head was resting on the clowns chest, like they were cuddling in their sleep. He felt the kink in his neck, figured he must’ve twisted it when he landed. Looked at the clown, still sleeping. He opened one of his eyelids, saw the pupil dilate in the light, but he still didn’t wake up. Then he thought to put his head back on his chest, see if he was breathing. He was, but it sounded like he smoked - raspy.
Cochise decided to let him sleep it off. What was he doing, appearing at the end of the tunnel like that? What did he expect to happen? Then he remembered there were more clowns, and that’s when he got scared. Started looking into the bushes around him, the long blades of grass on top of the tunnel. The green haired one was on the other side, it’d probably be him that came over the top.
He stood up, listening for sounds. He heard the wind coming through the trees, the brush. The sound of the water running. His own breathing. He looked up to the tunnel, afraid to call out her name but wished she’d appear.
And then she did.
And then they were walking along a path that was barely there, through the woods. Catharine walked in front, not seeming to care if she left Cochise behind. She said she saw the fire and that was the end of them talking. She didn’t say anything when he told her he thought she was behind him. Didn’t say anything when he apologized.
Then the trees broke and they were in a large field with soccer posts, a building over to his right and beyond that, what looked like a road.
“Where we going?” he asked and got silence in return. She was walking really fast now with her arms crossed on her chest.
“Are you cold?” he struggled to keep up with her, feeling stupid doing this half walk, half jog thing.
“Where are you going then?”
That’s when she spoke, said “I don’t know.”
“Can I come?”
“There’s no room.”
That confused him, Catharine not knowing where she was going but knew there wasn’t any room. He wished she would stop, tell him what was on her mind.
“Is it the Saint Catharine thing?”
She didn’t answer.
“Is it?”
“I left that behind.”
“Good, because I don’t care.”
And she kept walking.
“In the tunnel, I left it behind,” she said again.
“I don’t care about it. If that’s why you’re mad.”
She stopped, turned to face him, “I’m not that person anymore. Saint Catharine is gone.”
“Yeah, you left her in the tunnel.”
“If it’s not good for me it’s gone. I’m not doing it anymore.”
She started to walk off again and Cochise said, “what if y
ou’re good for me?” and she turned and saw those eyes, looking like a puppy when it’s owner goes to work. Then thought of getting a dog, might be good for her, have something that will love her no matter what.
“I think you’d be good for me Catharine. I can only try my best to return it.”
It was everything she hoped someone would say to her. But she pulled herself together, said “I don’t do gangs anymore.”
“I’m not in a gang.”
She reached out, held the tail of his plaid shirt, lifted it.
“That’s family” he said, “not a gang.”
“It’s a choice,” she said, “and I’m saying no,” then she walked away.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
It turned out, the kids wearing masks were pretty cool. They went to the house of the one that wore the Michael Myers mask - his garage actually. They never did find Chucky or Freddy, which was disappointing. Bulldog wanted to see his claws and always loved seeing a midget.
So Bulldog and Mick sat with them for awhile. Michael stole some of his dad’s liquor from the house and they played an old video game system the kids called a super version of Nintendo while drinking rye and smoking a few joints. Bulldog only allowed himself two drinks and no pot and found having restraint difficult.
The whole reason he agreed to come to Mike’s parents house was to get information from them. It was Mick having a great time, drinking and smoking all the old man’s booze and the kid’s weed. Plus, he was secretly hoping Freddy would turn up and he could see the razor blade fingers. Instead he got someone in a mask saying he was from the Saw movies.
“How many are there?”
“Eight or nine?”
“So which one are you in?”
He tried explaining to Bulldog it was the same dude in all of them, like Friday the 13th or Nightmare on Elm Street. Bulldog pointed out that Jason wasn’t the killer in the first one and the kids got offended, told him everyone knew that. That’s when Bulldog lost interest.
