Run

by Douglas E. Winter

  That gets me moving. I touch the wound on my cheek, feel something warm and wet. Then I realize I can’t feel anything else, and before I can even think I’m paralyzed my hands are pushing me off the floor.

  I manage to get onto an elbow when I hear the next voice:

  Lookin good, Burdon Lane. Lookin real good.

  At least that’s what I think he’s saying. My left ear hears only a dial tone, thanks to CK’s Magnum.

  I spit the grit off my tongue, and then I spit the words:

  Fuck you.

  Whoever shot me made three mistakes:

  He used a popgun, probably a .22.

  He shot me in the back.

  And he only shot me once.

  So instead of making a nonrefundable deposit on a six-foot sleep sofa, I’ve got a good taste of pavement, a left arm so far asleep that it’s a pincushion, some kind of flesh wound under my eye, and a place south of my left shoulder blade that feels like it’s taken a sharp swing from a ball peen hammer. Whatever took me down will bruise me like Jehu, but it won’t kill me. Unless there’s internal bleeding. Got to keep thinking those happy kinds of thoughts.

  I’m wearing a Kevlar Type IIA ballistic vest. The brand name is Second Chance. Like the big-nosed guy on the TV used to say: Don’t leave home without it.

  Now there’s no such thing as a bulletproof vest. The Du Pont guys invented this Kevlar stuff for tires and didn’t know what they had till later. They call it bullet resistant, which means this Kevlar stuff is like that carpet fiber they make; you know, it’s stain resistant, which is the smile, the nod, the wink: You live with a kid or a dog or a drunk, you know your carpet’s going to get dirty. Well, if you wear a vest, you might still get wet. Good enough shot, good enough round, you’ll go down, vest or no vest. Wounds don’t always kill you, anyway; it’s the shock that counts.

  Which is not the kind of shock I’m having now that I see who’s talking to me, who’s standing there with what looks like one of my Glocks pointed at my head, who else but the Yellow Nigger, my new pal Jinx.

  So I say the very first thing that comes to mind:

  Where were you?

  The wolf smile, just a little teeth, and he says:

  You on the floor. I’m askin the questions.

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, I tell him. If this guy wanted me dead—well, I’d be dead right now. So I say to him:

  Okay. Ask away.

  He decides to prove the point and angles the pistol away. His eyes rock upstairs.

  They dead, ain’t they?

  All of your guys, I tell him. I’m trying to figure where this is going. Right about now there’s only one safe answer, and that’s what I tell him: Maybe all of mine.

  Maybe? he says.

  Way maybe, I tell him.

  And you?

  I got lucky.

  That’s when I see that little dog again. Lucky. You left me, Lucky says. Left me.

  Some kind of luck, Jinx tells me. Out of the fryin pan, Frosty. And into my fire.

  He levels the pistol back into my face. Christ, I am getting tired of that shit.

  Get yourself off the floor and into the car.

  Easier said than done. My left arm is still napping, but that ball peen hammer feeling is gone. Now it’s like sharp knives are rooting around in my back and carving me an upper asshole. I take a deep breath and it hurts. I hook the door handle and it hurts. I try to pull myself up and it hurts. Onto my knees, okay. Onto my feet—

  Whoa. Somebody’s playing games with the concrete, it’s tilting left, then right, then left again. A goddamn sea cruise. I get my hands up, but only a little because of the buzzing in my arm and the agony in my back. I stagger toward Jinx. He grabs my left arm, and that’s when I lean into him, forcing his pistol hand away with the weight of my body, and put the punch to his gut. I kick up but I miss his crotch, my knee driving hard into his hip instead, and he’s got his forearm under my chin and he smashes me back into the car and it doesn’t hurt, it’s beyond simple things like pain now, and I’ve got nothing to do but slide right down onto my butt.

  Time is tickin, boy. That’s what Jinx tells me. Get the fuck up. Get up and get in the trunk.

  So now I start over. I find the door handle, use it for leverage, and it takes a while but I get to my feet and try to get my bearings. The waters have calmed. My legs are steadier. But:

  I’m not getting in the trunk, I tell him.

  The pistol again.

  I shake my head. So he knows that I know he isn’t going to use it. At least not now, not here.

  You want out of here? he says.

  Yeah, I tell him.

  And then I tell him: Okay. Yeah. So I’m getting in the trunk.

  This is not a smart move but I don’t think I have a choice. I manage to get one leg up and into the trunk when he gives me a shove.

  Hey—

  I start to tell him about how he ought to pop a hole in the lid, the side panel, somewhere, give me some fresh air, but it’s wham-bam-no-thank-you-ma’am and I’m locked in the trunk of some old Buick Regal that’s parked in the basement of a burning building, and I have this sudden feeling that this is where I’m going to stay, and I think to myself, I think: Well, life is what you make it.

  This is when I hear the engine fight for life with a cough straight from a throat cancer patient. Everything rattles. The engine turns and turns and after a while it gets going.

  My next breath is fumes and my sinuses burn. The Buick is moving, slowly at first, then picking up speed, and I feel an incline and a turn and another incline and the air is getting better but I don’t know how long it’s going to last.

  Then we stop.

  I hear sirens and I hear voices and more sirens and I listen and I listen and I don’t hear anything for a moment and then I hear Jinx’s voice and somebody else. Then Jinx, then somebody else, and the car starts rolling. Stops. Starts. Stops again. Starts, and it’s picking up speed and more speed and now I know that somehow, someway, Jinx has driven that old Buick Regal right out of the hurricane, we’ve made it, we’re out, because it’s potholes and broken pavement and honking horns, the stink of sewers and sad-faced people.

  Hey, New York. Like Old Blue Eyes used to sing: My kind of town.

  Except, come to think of it, that’s Chicago.

  the light of the world

  Jesus said: I am the light.

  That was before they hung him out to dry on a couple two-by-fours.

  I learned that Jesus guy’s story a long time ago, right about the time I lost my dog Lucky. They told me that guy’s story in Sunday School at the First Baptist Church. I learned that story, and I learned my lesson, too. You keep your mouth shut, and you stay out of the light. Otherwise they’ll hang you out to dry, maybe not on a piece of wood but the same sort of thing. And nobody’s going to come around on Sundays to worship you.

  It’s too bright, that light. You see everything. You see so much you get blind. Which is my problem right about now. Too much light. Sunlight. Noon, maybe, who knows? I squint out the ass end of the Buick Regal and into everything, so bright that it’s nothing. Light so bright it hurts. Then one big black shadow that hides it all.

  The light and the dark, that’s what it’s all about. At least that’s what they said it was about, and not just in the Sunday School stories but in the grade school stories and the television stories and all the rest of the fucking stories. There’s the good guys and there’s the bad guys, the light and the dark, the white and the black, and nothing no way nothing in between. No grey. No fucking way there’s grey.

  I see those hands, big and black, coming out of the light, reaching down for me, and I hear that voice, whispering, whispering at the back of my head:

  Kill the nigger.

  Then I hear the other voice, the voice that’s in my face, the dreamy toke voice of Jinx as he reels my face in close to his and says:

  Got me a Chevy.

  I start to say something smart and I cough and I cou
gh and I don’t think I’m ever going to stop coughing. My lungs feel like I’ve been sucking five packs a day since the time I learned about Jesus.

  Jinx hauls me up like a sack of garbage and I’m out of that stinking trunk and onto dry land. There’s nothing like a long hard ride in the trunk of a Buick Regal to make you love life. Breathing through a handkerchief, wishing for a taste of fresh air, feeling your kidneys squirm. Contemplating the agony of your bruised back with each bumpity-bump. Watching the past few hours of your life over and over again, like some bad video you rented and can’t get out of the tape deck:

  See Burdon Lane. See Burdon Lane fuck up. See Burdon Lane fuck up big time. See Burdon Lane dead in the trunk of a Buick.

  Somewhere in there, round about the fourth or fifth time through that sorry adventure through the looking-glass, I did about the only good thing you can do when you’re locked in the trunk of a car: I fell asleep. Or the fumes got to me. And somehow I managed to wake up. Now I just got to get out of this sunlight and find me a cold six-pack.

  Hey.

  I’m still squinting and I still can’t make out Jinx’s face.

  Or the face of the guy next to him. This guy’s wearing a bad suit, sort of thing you can pick up at the Goodwill for five bucks, shiny Soul Train polyester with a shirt that used to be yellow, and from what I can see of him, he looks like Uncle Ben with about three teeth and a serious hankering for Four Roses.

  Hee-hee, the Uncle Ben guy says. Lookee what dropped out the poop chute.

  I’m too busy breathing to take much offense. Besides, Jinx is dealing dollars into the Uncle Ben guy’s hand and I do think he’s the rest of the way out of here, wherever here happens to be.

  Where the hell are we? I say to Jinx, and it cramps my throat and I start coughing again.

  You in a world of hurt, Jinx says. Then:

  Me, though, I’m in Newark. This here’s the back of Dooley’s Yard. And this here—he tilts his head toward the Uncle Ben guy—this is Arbutus Dooley. And Mr. Dooley, he done bought himself a Buick Regal.

  Hee-hee, the Uncle Ben guy says again to nobody special. Then to Jinx:

  Better make that another fifty, cool breeze. Didn’t know you wanted ole Dooley forgettin somethin white.

  Tell you what, old man, Jinx says. He shows the Uncle Ben guy a bill with a pair of zeroes, crushes it into a ball, and adds it to the rumpled stack of green in the guy’s right palm. Startin now, you can go and forget ever white man in the whole fuckin state.

  Hee-hee, the Uncle Ben guy says as he nods a few times and shuffles off to wherever he’s got a bottle and a place to put his butt and do his forgetting.

  Let’s get goin, Jinx says to me. He gestures to this sedan that looks painted with urine, and it’s a Chevrolet, but that’s all I can say about it. I don’t have the faintest clue about the name or the year, just that it’s a Chevy something. And its trunk is open like the maw of some hungry metal beast. Beyond the Chevy something is the first of many gnarled mountains of rusted junk.

  Hate to lose that Buick, Jinx says. I love all that metal. Nice smooth ride, too, you know what I’m sayin?

  He drills me with those shaded eyes, not showing a smile, not anything. Then he’s past me, pulling open the back door of the Buick.

  Still, he says. Can’t be takin no chances. Somebody gonna be missin these wheels sooner or later. NYPD Blue doin their job today, it’s gonna be sooner.

  That’s as right as rain, I tell him, and I’m feeling better about this already.

  Now get in the car.

  Uh-uh, I tell him. Just do what you got to do, and do it now. I ain’t getting in the trunk of that car.

  He reaches into the Buick, slides my duffel bag from the back seat.

  Naw, you ain’t gettin in the trunk of no car. You ridin with me, bubba. But this—

  He lifts the duffel bag.

  This motha goes in the trunk.

  And in it goes. He tosses my duffel into the trunk of the Chevy something, slams the lid, and says:

  Now get in the fuckin car.

  So we’re in the front seat of that Chevy something, he’s driving and I’m riding an empty-handed shotgun, and he’s grooving the Chevy something down a ribbon of dirt and rock, past the hand-painted sign for Dooley’s Yard and onto a deserted street, the last lap of some industrial park turned into the usual Jersey wasteland.

  Just two things, he says to me. I drive. You sit over there, you keep your hands on your lap. And you talk. You got a lotta talkin to do, cracker.

  Oh, yeah? I tell him.

  Oh yeah, he says. You got somethin to tell me, and the sooner you tell me, the better.

  Oh, yeah? I tell him.

  Oh yeah, he says. Cause we’re almost there.

  Oh, yeah? I tell him. Because it’s a sign of weakness to ask him where, and I think I have a pretty good idea about this there place, anyway. It’s one of those places, been there, done that, and it’s probably that rat-trap remains of a gas station up ahead, no, no, come to think of it, that clump of trees behind the station looks more like the place. Yeah, that’s it, that’s … there.

  He weaves the Chevy something past the rusted Sunoco sign and through the pumps and around to the back of the station. I don’t even wait for him to tell me to get out of the car. I just dismount and head for the trees.

  Hey, he says, hustling from behind the driver’s seat to catch up with me. He’s pulled that Ruger .38.

  Let’s get it over with, I tell him, and I duck under some branches, fighting my way deeper into the trees until I find a nice pocket of grass. It’s a shitty place to have to die, but when you think about it, there’s no good place to die. This looks like a little bit of peace, though, so I say:

  Pull the fucking trigger and let me get some sleep.

  You a bad man, Burdon Lane. A real bad man. You gonna let me cap you, that it? You gonna step off right here and now?

  Believe it or not, I manage to yawn.

  I’m tired and I’m hurting, I tell him. So just … do it.

  Tell me why, he says. You gonna go down for your crew? This some kind of white-boy G thing?

  Maybe you don’t know nothing about that.

  Me? Probly not. I’m just a nigga from South East D.C. But you, devil, you capped the Reverend Gideon Parks.

  I didn’t kill—

  And here I stop because I started to say nobody, but I sure did kill somebody and then I killed somebody else, didn’t I? So I just say:

  I didn’t kill Gideon Parks.

  You mean you didn’t pull the trigger.

  Listen. Believe what you want, pal, but I knew jack nothing. It was a run. A meet. A deal. Money for guns, that was it. And that’s all I do. That’s my job. Money for guns, guns for money.

  That’s all you do, then why you wantin to get dead?

  Because you want me to tell you something, and I’m not talking.

  You gonna go down for them guys? You been played, Burdon Lane.

  Could be, I tell him. Could be that you been played, too.

  Don’t crack wise with me, white boy.

  Easy thing to say, I tell him, when you got a gun in your hand.

  Ain’t that the truth, he says, and it’s the funniest truth I’ve ever heard, sort of sounds like the thing you put on top of a house: troof.

  I take another pass at this stand of trees. It really is a shitty place to die and I don’t feel like dying yet. And this Jinx guy, he doesn’t feel like killing me. Yet. So that means there’s another game to play. I tell him:

  You think I’m gonna tell you something, pal, then you’re wrong. So you got a problem: You can kill me, but then you don’t get to find out what you want to know. But if you don’t kill me, well, then you got to live with me. And that ain’t gonna be easy.

  No shit, he says. He armpits the Ruger and stands there for a long, long while before making his move.

  So, Mr. Lane, he says. Where we goin?

  Funny thing, I tell him. That’s what I wa
s about to ask you.

  No, he says. That’s what you bout to tell me.

  I just smile and he shakes his head.

  You worse than my old grandmomma. Where we goin, you fuckin ghost, is to find your mothafuckin friends. The meetin place. The rendezvous. The one nobody told me or Juan E about. And it ain’t Morristown, neither.

  Really? I tell him.

  Don’t you really me, punk. Maybe I should just dig you a ditch.

  Yeah, right. Sticks and stones, pal. Sticks and fucking stones. You know you don’t want to kill me, and hey, I know you know. So—

  So what?

  So tell me about Morristown. Why it ain’t Morristown.

  I know things too, fool.

  Like I told you, pal. I know you know. What I want to know is: How do you know?

  I called me that 1-900 number, he says. Dionne Warwick on the Psychic Hotline.

  Yeah, well, I hope she told you how you’re gonna take down whoever you find wherever it is you’re going. With a couple handguns or whatever you got.

  Ah, he says. But I ain’t gonna be doin it by myself, now am I?

  Guess he’s got me there.

  He checks the horizon, says:

  And the sooner we get started, the sooner we get done.

  He straightens his sunglasses.

  Okay, white boy. I’m drivin, you’re ridin. Where we goin?

  So I’m back in the front seat of that Chevy something, shaking out the cramps in my arms and legs and wishing I could get the set of steak knives out of my spine. But I’m not telling this Jinx guy where we’re going, I’m telling him how we’re getting there, which is to say I’m telling him to keep driving south, to stay on the New Jersey Turnpike, to go past the part where the highway divides so the trucks can go one way and the cars can go another way, past the part where it comes back together again, past the part with three lanes and into the part with two lanes, to keep driving and driving and driving. South.

  I wonder whether CK was lying about the second rendezvous. I mean, with what was about to go down, would the guy really tell me the rendezvous? CK’s not that stupid. But he sure is that arrogant.

  Hey, I say to Jinx. Don’t suppose you’d let me get into my duffel bag?