by Toni Andrews
Though most children of six have not yet reached the stage where they worry about looking foolish, I realize now I was more self-aware than the other kids in my first-grade class. Afraid of embarrassing myself, I moved quickly through the tunnel, placing my feet carefully so I wouldn’t fall and avoiding the sliding, shrieking children.
I found the strange, undulating mirrors mildly amusing, moving from one to another in order to see myself growing impossibly tall or improbably fat. I made faces, turning bared teeth into foot-long fangs, and turned sidewise and extended my arms in order to look like a leaping saber-toothed tiger.
When a group of children abandoned the barrel roll to join me, I became self-conscious and moved to the entrance to the next room.
The A-Maze, the sign read. Another, which I had to sound out carefully, said, Enter at Your Own Risk. Another clown face, painted with a lurid wink, showed that the warning was a joke, but this subtlety was beyond my six-year-old understanding.
The room was composed of corridors made of panels, some with mirrors and some painted with bright geometric shapes and the ubiquitous clowns. A few of the panels pivoted, creating new gaps and routes through the labyrinth, and others were stationary. After I’d made a few turns, I realized I had no idea how to get back to the door.
I tried to retrace my steps, but some other kids had come through—I’d heard their voices but not seen them—and either they’d moved some of the pivoting panels and blocked my escape, or I’d made a wrong turn. I started out in a new direction, only to find a sea of panels that looked so similar to the last that I wasn’t sure whether I was going in circles.
That was when I panicked.
Whereas another child might have screamed or sobbed, running randomly, I pushed myself into a nook made by three of the stationary panels and sat down facing a pivoting panel painted with clowns. I pulled up my knees and wrapped my arms around them, then laid my head against them.
I sat there until the cold from the concrete floor seeped into my bones and made me shiver, but I didn’t move or cry out. Even when the voices of passing children had faded, to be replaced by those of adults, I stayed where I was, frozen and silent.
The first adult voice must have been an employee, making sure the room was empty before shutting it down for the evening. The second was Bobbie’s. I wanted to cry out, but I just couldn’t. It was as if the blood in my veins had thickened, then gradually turned to stone.
I don’t know how long it was before the clown panel in front of me turned and a flashlight beam shone into my space. I looked up, squinting into the light. Blinded, I could make out two silhouettes, but not their features.
“For crying out loud, Mercy,” said Bobbie. “We’ve been looking for you forever. Why in heaven’s name didn’t you answer me when I called?”
I tried to respond, but my voice wouldn’t seem to work. When she grabbed my arms and hauled me to my feet, it took all my concentration to make my stiff limbs work well enough to stumble along behind her as she followed the attendant back through the maze, past the mirrors and through the now-still barrel.
I still hate clowns.
And I still hate mazes.
Now, as I stood between the walls of automobile corpses, I tasted the familiar tinge of nausea and the metallic flavor of panic. And I froze.
Come on, Mercy, I ordered myself. It’s not a real maze. And there are definitely no clowns here.
Just then two shots thundered somewhere ahead of me. There was a pinging sound, as if one of the shots had ricocheted off metal, and then a shout from somewhere to my right.
“Fucking bastard, I’ll kill you!”
It was Tino’s voice, and it galvanized me in a way Bobbie’s had failed to do all those years ago. I ran in the direction of the voice, quickly reaching another wall of cars blocking my forward progress and forcing me to turn left or right.
Another shot, this time closer, and not from the same direction as the first. This sound was sharper than the first—a different shooter, a different gun.
“Cuidado, hombre,” called a voice I didn’t recognize. “You don’t want to hit your brother.”
“Fucking cabrón.” Tino’s voice was closer now, and I guessed that last gunshot had come from him.
“Tino!” I called. “Tino, where are you?”
“Mercy? What the fuck are you doing here?” It sounded as if he was on the other side of the row of cars. Or rows—I had no idea how many there were between us.
“Teresa sent me. Where are you? I can’t figure out how to get through.”
“Stay where you are!” he shouted back. “That motherfucker is shooting at me.”
That sounded like a good idea. I should just head back the way I’d come and—
My escape was blocked by an image of Teresa’s face as she pleaded with me to help her sons. Please, if you have any kind of power…
And I did. If I could just get to where Joaquin could see and hear me, I could make him stop shooting. And I could make Tino leave with me. And…
“Where’s Gus? Is he okay?”
“I told you to get out of here. Go.”
Sorry, Tino, I apologized silently. As afraid as I am of getting shot, I think I’d rather take a bullet than face your mother without either of her sons.
I headed down the row, back toward the wall, hoping to find an opening to wherever Tino was positioned. I found one at last, but it was too tight to wiggle through, so I headed back the other way. In the direction of the first set of shots.
“Let him go, Joaquin.” Tino’s voice was still in the same general area, and I moved past it as quickly as I could. He had to be talking about Gus, but why didn’t Gus say something?
I found a hole that led to the right and darted through it. The path made an elbow turn to the left, which was away from Tino’s voice and closer to Joaquin’s, just the way I was looking to go.
“This is the police,” said an amplified voice, ahead and to my left. “Put down your guns and come out.”
“I have a hostage—a kid!” screamed Joaquin. “You cocksuckers better stay back or I’ll kill him.”
The corridor made another elbow turn, this time to the right, and I took it, then stopped when I saw sunlight glinting off metal just beyond the row of cars to my right. I’d found the exit from the maze.
“Let the kid go. We just want to talk to you. There are only two exits, and we have them both blocked,” said the voice from what had to be a bullhorn.
The police must not have known about the track-side exit, or else they’d assumed it was closed off. I inched forward, trying to peek out without being seen.
More derelict cars, uncrushed and arranged more or less by model, sat in rows, but they weren’t jammed as closely together as the flattened ones, and I could see between some of them.
“Let him go, Joaquin. The police aren’t going to let you out.” Tino’s voice was almost behind me now.
“Fuck you,” Joaquin responded succinctly.
I tried to follow the sound of Joaquin’s voice and caught a bit of movement through the window of a pickup truck, the rear of which had been twisted and crushed in what had clearly been a horrendous accident. Bending low, I moved across the narrow open space to the side of the truck, crouching to keep it between me and where I’d seen the motion.
I was afraid to rise high enough to see through the window—afraid that Joaquin would see me and shoot before I had time to press him. Instead, I crawled toward the front of the truck, which looked to be squeezed up against another, larger pickup. Maybe I could see between the two vehicles. I had to keep my head low—the tires had been removed from both trucks, considerably shortening the distance from the ground to the top of the door. I lay flat on my stomach—my trousers would probably be ruined, too—and eased forward until I could peek between the juxtaposed bumpers.
The shock of what I saw almost made me pull back. A man I didn’t recognize lay on the oily dirt, face up, eyes staring, no more than twent
y feet away from me. A sizeable piece of his skull was missing, and I could see the grayish cottage cheese of his brain. My stomach lurched, but I willed it back down, forcing my gaze away from the corpse and to the movement behind it. At the back of an unpainted concrete building, an Hispanic man stood, his back pressed into the recess behind a Dumpster. His arm was around the neck of a shorter figure facing the same way, the muzzle of an enormous pistol pressed against his head. Gus’s head.
Gus’s eyes were closed, and his face looked gray and chalky in the shadows. His leather jacket hung open, revealing a white T-shirt with a red stain seeping from shoulder to hemline.
Shit. Was he dead?
No, Gus’s eyes flickered open, and his head moved slightly, as if he were trying to pull away from Joaquin’s gun.
Alive. Good. I remembered the paramedics’ truck I’d seen screaming this way and hoped that meant they could get to him in time.
But it meant I had no time to lose. I pulled myself into a kneeling position and put my mouth as close as I could to the opening between the trucks.
“Joaquin!” I shouted. “Let the boy go and drop your gun.” I watched for a reaction, but there wasn’t one.
Suddenly Joaquin pulled the gun away from Gus’s head and fired at something off to my right. I spun around just in time to see Tino somersault like a cinematic action hero, then dive behind the row of trucks to end up ten feet away from me, a row of sandy explosions following at his heels as Joaquin took three more shots.
“Put the gun down,” I screamed again, as Tino crawled closer to me.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he said, panting.
“I’m trying to press him—I mean, hypnotize him,” I said. “I don’t know why it’s not working.”
“He probably can’t hear you,” said Tino. “Joaquin’s got that big fucking cannon of a gun. He’s gotta be deaf by now, all the shots he’s fired.”
“Put down your weapons and come out,” repeated the amplified voice. “This is your last warning before we come in.”
The voice through the bullhorn must have been loud enough to overcome his deafness, because Joaquin shouted back, “I said I got a hostage, you motherfuckers.”
Tino shook with frustration. “I gotta get him to let Gus go. He’s bleeding bad.”
“There are paramedics right out front,” I told him. “If I can just get Joaquin’s attention, I can make him surrender, and then they’ll be able to get Gus to the hospital, stop the bleeding.”
“Try again,” Tino urged, and I shouted loud enough to hurt my lungs.
“Put the gun down!” Again I peered at Joaquin, whose head turned as if he could hear something, but his stance didn’t change.
“Shit. He can’t hear me, or at least not well enough to make out what I’m saying. How many bullets does he have left?”
“I don’t know. Depends on what kind of clip he’s using. He’s had time to reload.” Tino started to get to his feet. “This ain’t working. I gotta go after him.”
“No!” I grabbed him by the jacket and pulled him back down. “There’s—there’s something else I can try.”
“What?” Tino tried to get up again. “The police come in, they could hit Gus easy as Joaquin, and—”
“Be quiet and sit still!”
I hadn’t meant to press as hard as I did, and Tino’s head snapped back as if I’d slapped him. But he shut up and slumped back into a sitting position, staring at me with huge, angry eyes.
Whatever. I didn’t have time to worry about that now.
I positioned myself to stare straight through the gap, then closed my eyes and tried to concentrate. It was hard to do with my heart hammering in my ears and my nerves jumping like bacon sizzling on a griddle, but I tried. I held a mental picture of the man holding the gun and tried to…aim at the image.
Joaquin, put down the gun. Put. Down. The. Gun.
I opened my eyes, but Joaquin hadn’t moved. Damn.
Forcing my breath to slow, I closed my eyes and tried again.
Joaquin, listen to me. Put down the gun. Just put it down.
I took another quick look. Nothing.
This wasn’t working. When I’d made the nurse look for something he’d dropped the other day, it had only been a message, not a press. I wasn’t sure I could press telepathically—the idea had been wild-ass conjecture on Sukey’s part.
I saw Tino out of the corner of my eye, still staring at me furiously and silently. I tuned him out and took another look at Joaquin. One more try. This time I would keep my eyes open—it had worked with the nurse.
Just as I reached for the press, Gus moaned and stirred, and Joaquin pulled back the big gun and cuffed him with it. Gus went totally limp, but the bigger man easily caught his weight.
Rage surged through me like a tidal wave forced through a narrow opening.
Joaquin, you motherfucker. I wish you’d just put that cannon to your head and pull the trigger.
Instantly Joaquin turned the gun toward his own temple and fired. Half of his face disappeared in a spray of blood and brains, and Gus slid to the ground, followed immediately by Joaquin.
I stared, frozen. No, I didn’t mean it. I was just going to have you drop the gun. But I got mad, and—
My shock was interrupted by a loud metallic crash ahead and to my left. I rose up higher on my knees and looked through the empty frame of the truck’s back window. Police, in full riot gear, were streaming in past the crumpled remains of a roll-up door.
I looked at Tino. “Come on,” I said, somehow remembering to press. “We have to get out of here.”
I turned and sprinted across the open space and into the corridor between the cars. Tino followed silently, and I remembered I’d pressed him to be quiet.
“You can talk now,” I called over my shoulder, navigating a turn.
“I gotta go back for Gus,” he gasped.
“The paramedics will help him,” I said. I could hear shouts from the policemen, but couldn’t tell if they were getting closer. “You aren’t going to be able to do anything. The cops will grab you as soon as they see you, if they don’t shoot you first.”
“They’re gonna find us back here anyway,” he said, right behind me.
“No, there’s a way out. Just follow me.” He gave me a wary look—there was no way he’d missed the press this time—but he followed.
This time I didn’t panic—didn’t forget any of the turns. In moments I was back at the ruined door, squeezing through with Tino on my heels. “This way.” I shuffled toward Second Street.
I was relieved to see only the lone empty police car on the street. I’d been afraid other units would have joined it by now. Even so, I didn’t think it was a good idea to head back down this side of the street, so I darted across, toward the vacant lot. I wondered if they would ever find their battering ram.
I made myself walk casually, in case more police cars pulled up, and Tino was soon panting next to me.
“They see me, they’re gonna recognize me.”
“As soon as we get past the next building, we should be able to get over to Third, or the alley, or whatever’s there.”
“They’ll find my car,” he said.
I winced. Mine, too, but they might not take notice, since it was a couple of blocks away and not as recognizable as Tino’s. “Do you know the people at the stereo place? Will they cover for you?”
“Yeah, they put in my sound system. I can call them. Shit, my phone’s in the trunk.”
“As soon as we get out of sight, you can use mine.”
We made it to the alley that snaked off toward Third without being spotted, and I breathed easier.
“Man, I hate leaving Gus back there with Joaquin,” said Tino. “What if Joaquin gets into it with the police and Gus gets shot?”
“He won’t,” I said.
“How do you know?” His tone was truculent, and I slowed, blowing out a breath as we came around the corner onto Third. Not a cop in
sight, although I heard a helicopter approaching. Tino moved under an awning, and I followed him.
I might as well tell him—it would be all over the news before long.
“Joaquin’s dead.”
“What? The police didn’t fire any shots. I thought—”
“He shot himself.” With a little help from yours truly.
“What? What the fuck are you talking about?”
“I saw him do it.” I wanted to say more, to offer a possible explanation, but a sudden vivid picture of Joaquin’s head exploding like a rotten, blood-filled pumpkin filled my head. I just made it to the curb before vomiting.
“Shit, Mercy, we gotta get you outta here. Where’s your car?”
I stood with my hands on my knees, my head swimming. When I was sure I wasn’t going to vomit again, I looked up. Curious faces peeked from a window in a building across the way, under a sign saying Cafe Sonora. When they saw me looking, they moved back.
“My car’s back near yours. Too close to the action. We’ll have to figure out another way to get out of here.”
Tino looked across the street in the direction of the cafe. “Come on, these guys know me.”
We waited to make sure the chopper had passed before crossing the street and ducking into the tiny working class restaurant. A man behind the counter looked up, apprehensive.
Tino had a brief conversation in Spanish—I was too shell-shocked to concentrate on the words—then turned to me.
“Come on. There’s a room upstairs. We can stay there for a while, let the police stuff die down a little. We’ll get Hilda or one of my uncles to come get us later.”
I followed him up the stairs and sank onto a bench opposite a cluttered desk.
“Can I use your phone?” Tino asked.
I handed it to him, listening distractedly as he called the stereo store, where the guys agreed to say they were installing a new subwoofer. Then he called Hilda.
“You better let me talk to Mami,” he said, after briefly reassuring her that he was okay. He walked around the desk and sat heavily in the chair. The set of his shoulders showed exhaustion, along with his apprehension at conveying bad news to Teresa.
