by AJ Elmore
It's still hard for me to accept that I broke to her so easily, and a vague sense of guilt still stirs in me when I think about it. But who could honestly have resisted her. Guilt is not the only thing that stirs within me. I check myself, realize I'm watching her laugh at something her grandmother said – something I missed entirely in my introspection.
“You look like you have seen a ghost, Frederick,” says Abuela, and I feel what little color that's there drain from my face. I can hear traces of tequila in her accent, which gets thicker the more she drinks, but she has called me out yet again.
“They follow me sometimes,” I answer, and her eyebrows hitch the slightest bit. My words are entirely too somber for the setting, which I realize as soon as they leave my mouth. They're also, perhaps, a little too poetic for my bad reputation.
She studies me for a moment longer, then says, “Drink up, you've hardly touched your beer.”
Somehow I know this is not actually what she wants to say to me. I wonder what it'd be like to talk to her one-on-one, even if I have doubts that my tattered resolve could withstand the weight of her wisdom.
Izzy is to my left. He stabs out a cigarette as he says, “Freddy doesn't drink much. He's kind of a lightweight.”
It sounds like a jeer, but it feels like he's taking up for me somehow, like he too can sense the serious and urgent restlessness that's mounting in me. How strange. Maybe it's the booze, making him soft.
Or maybe it’s just a jab.
Abuela lays a hand on his forearm, says, “Sobriety is a virtue,” and winks at me.
Her action draws a small smile from me, so I lightly elbow Izzy in the ribs and say, “Yeah.”
How can I say I don't like to be drunk because it enhances my paranoia that at any moment, I'll be fighting for my life? And how can I explain that I've been the victim of habitual drunken physical abuse? I don't, not here in front of everyone. So I fake a little grin.
Everyone chuckles, and I notice that Abuela doesn't remove her hand from Izzy's arm. The more tequila she drinks, the more she seems to like touching him, and I can't stop from wondering if this night will end with him in her bed. The thought just adds to the weirdness of the situation, like we've traveled to some alternate reality.
“Behold!” Josh blurts and holds up the damn near perfectly rolled blunt.
His eyes are bright blue as he inspects his work, and he looks like a little kid with a picture he colored. His hair is a mass of curls, which only adds to the illusion. Attention scatters as he lights it up, and I'm thankful for the distraction. I hate being in the center of group discussions. The weed smells so good as it begins to burn. The scent of it calms my nerves and my unease.
I'm up next, and as I lift the thing to my lips, I notice through the smoke that Maria's watching me intently. I recognize the simmering heat in her eyes, like she wants very much to devour my pleasure just as she did mere hours ago, like the same memories are hot on her mind.
I pause under the intensity, hold the eye contact for as long as I dare, which I know instantly is too long. Joshua has taken a keen interest in our moment of closed connection. I know damn well that I'm sharing the table with her boy toy, but I wonder if he knows it for sure. Does he know that she fucked me first before he ever came around? I have to look away, so I pretend to be interested in my paltry winnings. I take a hard hit. Am I being jealous?
Because that's not my style.
It's my deal, so I pass the blunt to Izzy and scoop up the deck. I can still feel eyes on me, but it's Josh, not Maria. I'd love to pretend that he's too stupid to pick up on the tension that's strung across the table, but I know that he's not that stupid. Not stupid at all. Naïve, maybe. Soft for sure, but he's not an idiot. The weed blunts the edges on my nerves, but I still feel the anxiety shaking in my gut. The thought of another drink of beer makes me want to puke.
I flick the cards to each player with seasoned quickness. Poker is a game that's good to me – usually better than this. I've got the next biggest pot to Abuela, even if it's pathetic compared to hers. I set the deck down and am reaching for my hand, when the loud eruption of punk music breaks the moment. It's Maria's phone, thrashing against the night and my agitation.
She frowns and says, “It's Jack.” Attention inevitably redirects to her side of the conversation as she answers.
Her expression twists from that frown into shock, tinged with anger that narrows her eyes and makes her suck in a breath.
“What!” she all but screams, and her tone is like a blade to my skin.
This is not good.
“Motherfucker,” she spits and my hand falls to the table. She stands, loudly scooting the chair back on the wood of the porch. The sound feels like it ticks along every bone of my spine.
“Is he . . . dead?”
Oh god. The edge returns to my nerves, and I feel the sharp instinct to start gathering my guns. Except that most of them are safely tucked behind a false wall in Jack’s and Noah's apartment. Silence and apprehension have descended upon us as we wait. Maria has grown quiet when she says, “We'll be back as soon as possible.”
I can hear Jack tell her no. I can't quite make out what else he says, but she finally says, “Keep me posted. We'll be back as soon as it's safe. I'm going to end this, Jack. I'm so sorry.”
She hangs up, drops the phone on the table, and stares blankly at the cards. We're all hanging on the moment, she must know it, but I watch all the warmth fade from her eyes and she struggles internally with . . . who could know. The chill that claims her expression is so similar to the one she wore when she returned from Biloxi and her first act of revenge that I can already pretty well guess at the situation. An act of violence returned for the violence we have given, my violence.
Finally she lifts her eyes and they fall, by default, on me. I recognize and understand the icy rage I can see in that gaze. There's something else in it, though, an affirmation of the words Abuela had spoken upon our arrival. She glances at her grandmother then back at her phone.
“They shot Noah.”
Sure, it's expected, but it still knots my gut into cold anxiety and a fury that could level a city block. I know the extent of Gram's heartlessness better than anyone here, but Noah? Fucking pussy Gram couldn't find any of us, so he took it out on a distant ally. I loose a long sigh full of frustration that no one seems to notice under the weight of the news.
Josh sits back in his chair, muted, horrified. Izzy sighs in his old man, knowing way and shakes a cigarette from his pack. Abuela passes the blunt to Maria with an unreadable expression.
“He was taking out trash. They gunned him down behind the restaurant. He's critical. There are cops everywhere and there's nothing we can do tonight.”
“And if they find our guns and our drugs?” Izzy asks.
Always the practical one. I forget sometimes that he's seen as much death and destruction as I have, until he says shit like that.
Maria says, “As of now they have no reason to even enter the apartment. They're treating it as a random act of violence, and Jack's doing his best to keep it that way. We'll have to get that shit out of there as soon as we can, though.”
She takes a rough hit of the weed and frowns through her exhalation. She passes the blunt back to Josh, and as she does, she nails him with a look as heavy as the drop of an anchor.
She says, “I want you to seriously consider what I said to you all at the hotel. If you want out, now is the time. I don't want to lose any of you to this, but there's shit I have to handle.”
We all know she's talking to everyone, but still she's holding Joshua against his seat with her attention. If he wants to squirm, I can't tell, and if he's feeling shaky, it doesn't show. I'd throw my whole arsenal in the poker pot to wager that we all expect him to freak out, that he wants to freak out, but it seems he has finally taken some sort of lesson from the veterans. His answering expression is stone cold. The blunt burns idly for a stretch, then h
e hits it, plays the tension, and answers solemnly.
“I told you I wouldn't go unless you turned me out. I meant it.”
It's a scathing bit of honesty, especially coming from him, but it's a sentiment that I can fully appreciate. This is growing up. This is what it's like to feel your heart harden. There's heat in his cheeks, but he stands his ground, holds her eyes. She sighs.
“You're not ready for this,” she says, “but I can't make you go. I won't. It's your choice.”
She looks to me then to Izzy, then she grabs her phone and pushes away from the table. No one says a word as she walks off the porch and into the darkness.
Josh watches her go, taking a long hit, then his gaze skates to Abuela. My attention follows his. She's wearing a tiny smile but her eyes are blank and I have no way of knowing what emotion feeds her expression. It sends a chill down my spine, nonetheless.
I divert my attention so she doesn't look at me, looking to the hand I've yet to see. What the hell. The game's over but maybe my luck will hold.
I pick up the hand. Royal flush.
My cheeks fire. I've never drawn a royal flush on the first deal and it's wasted on misfortune. My brow furrows and my jaw clenches. A familiar rage comes clawing to the surface.
“Would you bet on it, Frederick?” Abuela asks.
My eyes snap to her. I realize I've been glaring at my cards. The anger crystalizes into something colder. I don't twitch a facial muscle when I say, “Everything.”
Josh and Izzy are staring at me and neither says a word. They've become spectators, so suddenly and subtly that I doubt either of them notices.
She smiles, a genuine one that reminds me of a snake. She eyes my stack of chips and says, “I'll match.”
She's nonchalant enough that it makes me nervous, more than I have been in a long time. I'm staring at the highest hand in the game and this bitch still scares me. She moves so slowly when she lays out her hand that I almost lose my calm. I want to twitch or get the fuck out of here. I want to run into the night and become a quick sacrifice to the swamp things. Sweat tickles my face but I don't move.
A full house. Also an exceptionally lucky hand on the first deal, but not as lucky as mine. I crack a one-sided smirk, a risky show of attitude, but also a rare show of my personality. I toss my cards atop the pot, and her eyes follow, then widen. I never thought I'd get to see what surprised looks like on her, but it's a strangely gratifying feeling to do so.
Then she smiles, and it's not a snake's smile but a proud one. Damn clever bitch. She caught me in the midst of a test and I didn't even realize it.
“Bien jugado,” she says. “Buenas noches, boys.”
Chapter 20 Little Red Xs
Maria
In the city, one can wander down rows and rows of old, above-ground tombs in the historic graveyards. To most, to the locals, those rows have become little more than tourist traps. But if you really pay attention to all those aged and degraded mausoleums, you'll find the unmarked ones that are covered in little red Xs. Those scratched letters are no tourist matter. They are voodoo.
I'm standing on the outskirts of the swamp, listening to the creatures of the ancient in their song of the witching hour and staring at the crescent moon. I have no grave at which to beg. I have no brick on which to scrawl my prayer: please, brother, lend me your grace.
I carve the letter x three times on the moon's face with my heart and knock on the walls of a nonexistent grave: I offer anything I have left to give just to repay the loss that was forced upon me. Please just spare the innocent from the whims of the Devil.
An enthusiastic shuffle catches my attention from some nearby vegetation. I'm too tense not to be suspicious of the native population, and the noise steals my affection from the sky. The urge rises in me to reach for a weapon, and just when my hand moves toward the gun I don't have, the idea of innocence implodes.
Noah didn't deserve to get shot over my antics, but he gave up innocence when he willingly partook in the trade. I remember my own words to Isaiah. We won't have to be afraid. What bullshit. It never ends. He knew it when I said it, though he declined to call me out. Of course I knew it, too, or at least I thought I knew.
That thought leads to Joshua, still clinging to some noble idea of true love and chivalry. Still, he won't leave my side, and – still – I can't make myself make him go.
A mosquito finds its mark on my right shoulder. I feel the bite like an insult. My skin quickly burns, then itches, and by the time I swipe at the fucker, it's gone. Like a stupid girl, I think. I have dared to tread in the swamp's territory with naught but shorts and a tank top for protection. This is not my world. Just as I dared to bust down the established gates of the trade with no regard for the rules.
For all my experience and education, I can't lie now to the moon and say I know what I'm doing. Somehow I doubt this is what Charlie meant when he told me to go with my gut. The only times we ever fought were over his leadership decisions. He never changed his mind on account of my arguments. What the fuck have I done?
For a moment, I want to cry, just rage and throw a fit and let someone make it better, just as I have always done. But then, I know I'm alone. Salvation will not be given, only earned, and I nearly fall to my knees just to beg whatever power might listen to undo what I've created. If I could be granted just a few days to erase, I would disband my amazing and tiny army. I would tell them all to disappear, to please just find a new life because this one will only lead us to pain.
A lot of good my pleas will do now. I turn my back to the swamp and my gaze returns to the punctuated stars. My grandmother called it so easily, knew where my choices would lead me. I think maybe that's why Charlie said that I didn't get along well with my father's mother: because she has done what I am inclined to do, and because she has dealt with the consequences when I never have.
Now, just now, I must learn what I never had to take seriously. Sure, owning the moment has never been hard for me, but cleaning up my own messes is such a far-flung concept. I couldn't let myself realize that truth until I found myself waist deep in regret.
Again my tears attempt to rise. Not for me, but the souls who have blindly followed me. I choke back my emotions, just because I know I don't deserve the satisfaction of crying like a bitch when I have toyed with the lives of precious souls. I deserve to drown in my own sadness, or theirs. I know I have obstinately overstepped the extent of my privileges. And now I must own up to my actions. I know I've been playing the situation as if Charlie might rise from the dead just to save me, as if exacting revenge will bring him back.
The distant sound of a harmonica hits me in the chest, hooks to the very core of my internal conflict. For a moment, all I can do is hang my head and stare at the lush green grass all swathed in darkness. I know it's much too late for regret, that there's far too much momentum behind me. Now the other dealers will be more inclined to be our friends. We are united enemies of Gram and his Reaps. Everyone gets anxious when the shots start flying.
The harmonica cries across the yard, and I realize the sound is coming from the back porch. I sigh against the lonesome music, then take a long slow breath. My only path is forward and my only chance at surviving what's to come is my will. With one last glance at the moon, I take off toward the house.
When I get a bit closer, I can see that the wielder of the harmonica is Joshua, and that he's sitting on the steps with a beer beside him. His eyes are closed in the soft light from the porch. His little curls shiver as he finds his notes. In this moment, I just watch him.
This, this is what Joshua should be, someone who creates, who inspires. Someone beautiful. This is also why I can't quite send him away. His energy and vitality feed me and help me remember that in myself. It's a point that has become sorely obvious in these past days. But how cruel would I be to keep close at hand a boy who thinks he loves me?
The music lulls. He opens his eyes, jumps at the sight of me. I hadn't realiz
ed I approached so quietly, thought for sure he had heard me. He looks down at the tiny instrument and clears his throat before inching it into his pocket as he has been caught off guard in a moment of serenity.
He still won't look me in the eye when he says, “You okay?”
I give him a small smile. He's so boyish and charming in this moment, like a fairy tale. My little prince, long lost from his kingdom.
Instead of addressing his question, I sit down beside him, say, “I didn't know you played the harmonica. How have you kept this hidden for so long?”
He makes a soft, uneasy laugh that doesn't quite turn into a smile for him. In the dim light, I swear I can see him blush.
He says, “I've been learning off and on for a while, but I'm no good, so I play when no one's around.”
“You play guitar in front of people,” I say. I can feel the tension in him and something deep down makes me want to soothe him.
“I've been playing guitar for a long time,” he says with a sidelong glance at me, like he doesn't know how to handle my sudden interest in his music. Then he picks up something from the step and hands it toward me. He adds, “Here, everyone went to bed.”
I see that it's half of the blunt that he rolled just before I got the call from Jack. He hands me a lighter. I spark it up, breathe it in, then pass it. I can tell there's a lot swimming in his head, a lot he wants to say.
He takes a heavy hit, exhales, and says, “Look, what I said in the car . . . I shouldn't have said it.” He takes another hit, passes it. “I should never have told you that.”
I watch the cherry glow on the end of the blunt as I pull on it. For all that we've been through, for all that he's taken so quietly without questioning me, I know that I owe him at least my honesty now. I hold in the smoke for as long as I can, just to stall for a few more seconds.
