Psycho Save Us

by Huskins, Chad

  “I am!” Shannon said. She turned them out, and there was nothing left.

  “Did you drop some back in the store?”

  “No!”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes!”

  “We gotta go back.” Then, a part of young Kaley’s mind rebelled. It’s just four dollars and some change you’re missing, it said. Let it go. Let this go, girl. That sounded like Nan, strangely. And then she argued back. It’s not “just” anything. It’s money that was owed me. One thing Kaley shared with her mother, and not her Nan, was her anger over being cheated.

  It was a mistake. You know Mac well enough. He’s not gonna short you four dollars on purpose! Then, on the heels of that, You don’t know that for sure.

  And then, something else told her not to go back. It was a feeling, not any sort of argument with herself or with Nan. When she had been inside that store, Kaley had felt a looming threat from the white man. She didn’t think it was aimed directly at her, but it was there. Of that, the charm had been perfectly clear. I don’t want Shannon in the middle of that. And if she had listened to that last piece of advice from her charm, Kaley wouldn’t have been plagued with nightmares for the rest of her life. She wouldn’t have blamed herself to the point of winding up on a therapist’s couch for years on end, trying to forgive herself for something everyone else had forgiven her for long, long ago.

  He’s got our money, she thought.

  Then Kaley remembered the white man, him in his black hoodie and jeans, looking over at her at one point with his smile and feral face and…shaking his head? Yes, he had definitely shaken his head at her in a warning sign. He even warned me away. The more she’d been around him, the more she had known that he was no good. He’s not a nice man. No, that wasn’t right, he wasn’t just not nice. He was sick. He was deranged. He was vicious. “You don’ have to tell nobody why you decide the things you decide,” Nan had told her. “Jes listen to yo charm an’ let everybody think you’re crazy. You’ll know you made the right decision.”

  But it’s not the right decision to let someone rip you off. It’s just crazy. Charm may skip a generation, but when it comes to crazy, apples don’t fall far from the tree. Kaley’s mother was a crazed meth-head now, and Nan had been out of her gourd for the last few years of her life. Kaley was not going to be like them.

  She thought about the warning shake of the head from the white man. You imagined it. That’s that.

  So that was that. With new resolve, she put the rest of the money in her pocket and said, “Here, pick up the orange juice. I’ll carry the rest.”

  “We goin’ home?”

  “No. We’re going back.”

  “But it’s just—”

  “It’s another day’s groceries! That’s what that is!”

  “I don’t wanna—”

  “We’re going and that’s final, Shannon!”

  “That’s not fair!”

  “Hush now. Ninjas don’t talk. C’mon. We’re just gonna get what’s ours.”

  They started back down Kenton. Up the street behind her, two cars were parked. An El Camino and Expedition. The El Camino flashed its lights twice, and the Expedition flashed once in response. The El Camino pulled down the street slowly, and the Expedition followed just behind.

  Kaley felt a tickle at the back of her head. This one, too, she ignored.

  The phone had rung and gone to voicemail eight times. Spencer looked over at Mac, who was sitting in a chair that completely disappeared beneath his wide ass. He had his arms folded, and had flipped on a small television that showed SportsCenter. Highlight reels of the day’s games were rolling. The Bulls weren’t doing so hot this year according to Charles Barkley, his host, Kevin Negandhi agreed.

  Spencer dialed again. The phone rang four times, then came the message, “Yo, cut this, cuz. I ain’t around. Leave a message. I’ll holla atcha, a’ight? Peace!”

  “Basil, it’s me. Now answer your goddam phone, Yeti. You high or somethin’? I need what you have. Now. ASAP. I know you moved but I’ll find out where you live. I’ll be comin’ around your place later tonight, you better believe that.” He hung up, and then dialed two more times just to be sure. But Basil the “Yeti” never picked up. He sighed and stood there in the shop, the phone in one hand and Mac’s special burger in the other. He took a bite and shook his head.

  “Sounds like you a friendless muthafucka tonight,” Mac said, calling that one over his shoulder.

  Spencer looked at him. He tossed the phone back to the prick and said, “Catch.” Mac caught it just in time, and put it in his pocket. “Know where I can get a good night’s sleep around here? I got no ID, so I need that to be not an issue.”

  “I feel ya, playboy,” he said. “Up the street three blocks. Take a right on Filmore. Second stoplight, make a right. You be Motel Quickin’ like a muthafucka.”

  “Motel Quick? That’s the place’s name?”

  “Ya heard me.”

  Spencer nodded and turned away. But before he walked out the door, he said, “Get a new jersey.”

  “Huh? Why?”

  “You support illegal dog fighters?”

  “You like eatin’ dead cows?”

  Spencer looked down at the burger in his hand. “Touché. You may not make a great burger, Mac, but you make one hell of an argument.”

  Mac tapped a finger to the side of his head. “I’m all wise an’ shit.”

  “I see that now. Sayonara, Obi-Wan,” he said, pulling his hood over his head. On his way out, Spencer lifted his Dr. Pepper from the counter and raised it in mock salute.

  “Yo, I’m Yoda, playa,” he said, popping open a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon. “Obi-Wan’s a whiny-ass lil’ bitch.”

  Spencer stepped out into the night and gave a quick nod to the four fellows hanging out outside Dodson’s. He glanced up the street, saw that the two black boys outside of the car title pawn shop Strike Gold were still there. However, the El Camino and the Expedition were gone now. He checked his watch, and marked the time.

  As he approached the driver’s side of his stolen Toyota, a pair of stray cats darted out from underneath it. He watched them cross the lonely street, then opened the door. He paused again when he glanced down the street, and saw the two black girls returning. By now he’d come to realize his earlier paranoia had been unfounded. The girl was just curious, that’s all. Her parents hadn’t taught her that it was rude to stare.

  Spencer heard some shouting behind him. He turned and saw a black man and a black woman walking on the sidewalk across the street. The woman was hollering inarticulate threats while she walked ahead of the man. A lover’s quarrel, one the man seemed to hardly care about as he was busy texting someone on his phone.

  Spencer hopped inside the truck and cranked it up. He looked out at the four black guys still leaning against the glass windows of Dodson’s Store, and raised his Dr. Pepper to them. “A salute to your future schemes and depredations,” Spencer Pelletier said. He took a sip.

  And then several things seemed to happen at once. Tires screeched. Someone screamed. Then someone else screamed. The four black guys leaning against Dodson’s Store bolted like their lives were on the line. There was some more shouting. “Get her! Get that one! Don’t let her fuckin’ get away!” Someone else screamed, “Run, Shannon! Ruuuuuuuuuuuuun!”

  Spencer threw his Dr. Pepper into the floorboard and put his truck into drive, then looked in his rearview mirror just long enough to see that it wasn’t the cops, and the attack wasn’t meant for him.

  They were almost there. Dodson’s blinking sign had just come within view, those few letters switching on and off indecisively. Kaley slowed down a bit when she saw the white man exit the front of the store. He had his burger in one hand and his soda in the other. He had pulled his hood up over his head, and was glancing right and left, combing the street like he was expecting someone. His eyes darted all around at all times, though Kaley somehow didn’t believe he knew he was doing it. He not
ices things with those kind eyes, things others don’t. He marks things.

  She pulled lightly back on Shannon’s hand, a sisterly communication that was immediately heeded, no matter how cross Shannon was with her. They both waited for the white man to hop inside his truck. “You think he bad?” Shannon asked, partially coming out of her sulking mood and looking at the white man with a mixture of curiosity and trepidation. Kaley didn’t answer. Once he was inside and had cranked it up, they started moving again.

  That’s when she became aware of the dull hum from behind.

  “It’ll be quick,” Kaley promised her sister, who turned away, remembering to sulk. “Just in an out.”

  The humming got louder.

  Something happened then. Vertigo, or something close to it. She felt it deep in her guts. Her stomach leapt to her throat, and then it eased back down. She looked up and saw things in slow motion. She also saw her future. There was a black man holding her hand, kissing it. He was very handsome. Was he her husband? For a moment, Kaley was swimming in happiness, then darkness crept in, the way a bad feeling creeps in on a good dream and gives it ominous new undertones. Like the worst of nightmares, the bad feeling was perceptual rather than conceptual.

  Then, she snapped out of it. Only a second or two had passed, and she and Shannon were walking again.

  Then there was the humming. It was an engine. Wonder what kind of car that is? she thought, and turned to see. The El Camino was coming so fast she thought she was about to be hit. Without thinking, Kaley shoved Shannon out of the way. Her little sister screamed indignantly as she hit the pavement. Kaley put her arms in front of her and prepared to die…

  And, oh God, if only she had.

  The El Camino screeched to a halt. The Expedition came up right beside but didn’t stop. Instead, the Expedition slowed down and pulled around to the curb. In an instant, Kaley knew what this was. Somehow she knew.

  Someone shouted, “Get her! Get that one! Don’t let her fuckin’ get away!” That confirmed it.

  Kaley flung her groceries at the El Camino’s windshield. “Run, Shannon! Ruuuuuuuuuuuuun!” The charm had told her, had fed her all the warning signs. She hadn’t listened. She hadn’t heeded Nan’s advice.

  Shannon, not understanding, got to her feet but didn’t run anywhere. Lost without the Anchor, without the all-comforting touch of her big sister’s hand, she stood there wide-eyed and confused. By now the tattooed white men had leapt out of the El Camino and were bolting for her. She turned and screamed at Shannon again, “Run!” This time, the Big Sister command jolted the little one out of her inactive state, and Shannon obeyed. But the Expedition had pulled in front of her, corralling both Big and Little Sister. Ahead of the Expedition, the four guys that had been hanging out outside Dodson’s turned and ran, like they knew the score here and didn’t want to be either an accessory or another victim. Shannon tried to run around to the back, but the Expedition stopped, went into reverse and cut her off. Just then, someone leapt out of the back driver’s side door and reached out to snatch Shan.

  “No!” Kaley screamed, and ran directly at the big man. This one was black and bald, and twice the size of Rick, Kaley’s ex-stepdad. In those as-yet-unlived years of guilt, Kaley would hate herself for making another mistake. Instead of running for Shannon she should’ve run away. That would’ve allowed her to tell the police everything she’d seen and give a description. That would’ve been the smart thing to do.

  But Big Sister Protocol performed an override of rationale, and it demanded she never leave Shannon alone, and so she hadn’t. Kaley balled up her fist and smacked the big fucker across his face, just as he was bending over and snatching Shannon up by her right sleeve. This had almost bought Shannon time to escape. The man staggered back in surprise, and Shannon’s Jimmy Hendrix shirt that Rick had bought for her before he left tore in the man’s grip. Shannon got two steps before one of the tattooed white men got hold of her.

  “No!” Kaley screamed, and leapt for her.

  Then, a hand made of steel grabbed her around her mouth, jerked her head backwards and lifted her off the ground. There was something clamped between the hand and her mouth. It smelled sweet at first, then really awful, like the fumes of gasoline or Drano. Her head swam for a moment as she kicked backwards at the monster’s shins. She heard him grunt, but otherwise she didn’t seem to have any effect at all.

  Someone muttered words she didn’t comprehend. “Bez prablem.”

  Someone else replied, “Khorosho.”

  Someone else said, “Hurry the fuck up!”

  The world lurched, her limbs went numb and her eyelids became very, very heavy. She saw Shannon being lifted and handed off to someone in the back of the Expedition. Rounded up…like cattle…

  It was the last coherent thing that passed through her head. The last thing she saw and felt was Nan’s hand in hers. She was on her deathbed, shaking her head disapprovingly at her. On that day, Kaley had felt something. The charm, perhaps. She had also seen something in Nan’s eyes, something akin to a great, inestimable pity. Kaley suddenly recalled the old woman’s last words. “Oh, chil’…you got a lotta hurt comin’ yo way…good luck…”

  It had all happened so quickly that Spencer had barely had time to climb out of his truck. He hopped back inside when he saw the older girl getting tossed limply into the back of the El Camino, just before the two vehicles took off. The El Camino peeled out at first, then followed the Expedition up the street past Strike Gold. As the Expedition went past, Spencer spotted a white fellow in the passenger side seat, leaning an arm with huge biceps out the window. The bicep had a crimson bear on it, one claw lifted, preparing to swipe.

  The two vehicles burned ondown the road, but they passed close enough, even the dark, that Spencer could make out the Georgia license plate. Bartow County, number AXC 327. The two cars made a hard turn at the corner of Cheshire Road, a maneuver that was at odds witht eh Expedition’s size and tonnage. Its right-side tires momentarily left the pavement, then it stabilized, and then both vehicles were gone.

  He jumped out again. The street was utterly silent, not even a honking horn in the distance. The four black men, who had seemed so eager to boast their confidence before, had vanished quick as a dream. Across the street, the black couple, who had been arguing just moments earlier, now stood looking dumbly up and down the street. Right, left, then right, then left again. They were probably wondering the same thing Spencer was. Did I just fuckin’ see what I think I did?

  “Huh,” Spencer said to himself. “Ya don’t see that every day.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out another Marlboro, lit it, and opened the driver’s side door to hop back in. He stopped, though, when he spotted Mac coming out of the store. The fat man barely fit through the front door, and he opened it more with his belly than he did his hand, the bell jingling hard against the glass. In his right hand he carried a weapon. Not a MAC-10, but a Glock, something that would do the job just as well. “They’re gone, Yoda,” Spencer said.

  “What the fuck was that shit?!” he screamed, looking up and down the street. Mac’s eyes found something on the sidewalk and locked on. He was panting, but his breathing slowed as he started to put something together. Spencer followed his gaze, and saw the groceries spilled on the ground, the artifacts of a perfectly normal life for two girls until seconds ago. Then Mac looked up at Spencer accusatorily. He raised his gun.

  “Hey, hey, hey!” Spencer shouted, stepping so that he could get cover behind most of the Toyota. He reached behind him, touched his own weapon, a Glock Pocket 10, a concealable weapon barely bigger than his hand. “Chill out, homeboy.”

  “The fuck just happened here, white boy?” Mac demanded. “Tell me! Did ya see it? They take the girls?”

  “Yeah.”

  “God damn it!” He pulled out his cell and started dialing.

  “You knew ’em?”

  Mac put the phone to his ear. “Yeah, I knew ’em! They momma live up on Beltway. Always
high as a muthaf—hey! Where you goin’?”

  “Good luck to you and them,” Spencer said, stepping inside the truck.

  “Hey, you can’t just leave like this! I’m callin’ the po-po, man! You gotta give a description an’ shit! Give a statement! That’s how this shit works, yo!”

  “Ask the kind couple across the street,” he said, pointing to the still dumbfounded woman and her man on the opposite sidewalk. “They probably saw more than I did.”

  “The fuck you runnin’ from?”

  Spencer said nothing, he just shut the door and got moving. I can’t be here when the cops show up. If anybody’ll recognize me, it’ll be a goddam pig. He squealed out without a second’s consideration, glanced in his rearview mirror once to see Dodson’s Store and Mac’s big ass diminishing behind him. Mac was holding his cell to his ear with one hand and waving desperately with his gun hand. He could’ve shot me, or threatened to shoot me, but he didn’t. Spencer had gauged the fat man wrong. He wasn’t like these other niggers around here, no, he was one of those that tried to defend himself from the rest of the garbage. The girls were part of his tribe, and he at least wanted to protect them.

  Spencer made a turn on Cheshire road, but in the opposite direction that the Expedition and El Camino had gone. He looked in his rearview mirror, didn’t see them. Wouldn’t be able to follow them anyway, he thought. A crew like that, they probably have some safehouse nearby, a garage where they can dip in and hide. Yes, they had moved quickly. A professional pull crew if Spencer ever saw one. Just pullin’ them off the streets. Snatch, snatch.

  He had already moved on. The past was past. The two girls had to fend for themselves. He couldn’t be a part of it because it would undoubtedly bring a shitstorm down on him, as well. In fact, considering his record, the pigs were likely to think he had something to do with it. No, no statement. And no time to hang around talking to Mac about what he’d seen. It was time to move.