Arizona Allspice

by Lewin, Renee

  ******

  I watched them in the backyard using beer bottles as targets. The back of our trailer opened up to a long stretch of barren land mottled with rocks, the perfect place to practice your aim. I watched as Joey positioned his BB gun. His mouth was going and Manny had an annoyed look on his face. They were arguing, as usual.

  I’d been a real jerk lately, to both my brother and Joey, so I decided to bring a bag of chips and a six pack out to them to be nice. I looked out the window over the kitchen sink again. Joey hit all ten targets. I left the trailer with the snacks. Joey came running towards me, hopping over rocks, to grab the food and drinks from me. He was smiling the whole way, the slight breeze and the movement of his running body made his curly red hair lively. I was caught off guard. I’d never seen him smile like that before.

  “Let me bring that over for you. You don’t need to stumble through this field.” His blue eyes shined up at me as I stood on the steps at the back door.

  “Thanks. I thought you guys might be thirsty or something. So…here you go.”

  “We appreciate it, Laney.” He took the chips and beer from my hands, his fingers brushed against mine. “See you later,” he said, then spun around and jogged back to their makeshift firing range. I went back into the house. Dad was having his afternoon nap. I returned to writing in my journal. The first few paragraphs of my latest story were alright, but I was stuck. I didn’t know what direction the main character should choose to go.

  ******

  “Here are the provisions provided by Señorita Laney,” Joey said smiling as he walked up behind Emanuel. Joey set the food and beer down on the flat stone where he had placed his cell phone. “Dude, where’s my phone?” He turned to find Manny holding it.

  “Why is Denise calling you?” Manny glared.

  Joey looked down at the ground and shook his head. “Crap. Okay, first of all, it’s not what you think.” Suddenly, Joey felt a blow to his cheek. In complete shock, he looked up to see rage in his friend Manny’s eyes. Joey could feel his own blood heating up. “Don’t hit me man. We need to talk about this. I don’t want to fight,” he said in a controlled voice.

  “Go to hell!” Manny swung again, but Joey leaned away and dodged it.

  “Don’t do it,” Joey warned. It was taking all of his control not to get angry.

  Manny ran up on him and boxed him on the side of the head.

  Joey’s eyes reddened. “I said don’t hit me!” he roared. Joey pulled back a fist and the brawl began.

  ******

  I tried to write in my journal but for some reason Joey’s azure eyes were all I could see on the blank page in front of me. I could see the translucent freckles on his eyelids and every singular sun-bleached eyelash above blue orbs. He’d never called me “Laney” before. I sat my pen down and closed the journal. I wandered over to the window again. Across the field Joey and Manny were wrestling on the ground. I wondered how target practice had become a wrestling match but I figured that’s how boys’ play goes. The two split up and got to their feet. Joey’s fist flew up and connected with the left side of Manny’s face. My eyes widened. The screened door was left wide open as I bolted out of the trailer.

  “Stop it!” I screamed, running and stumbling over the rocks hidden in the grass. “Stop! Joey, you’re hurting him!

  ******

  Raul heard Elaine’s shouting coming from her backyard so he headed around to the back of the trailer. He was surprised to see that Joey had literally beaten him to it. Joey was punching Manny repeatedly in the face. Raul laughed. Maybe they could start a tag team. He and Joey versus Manny. Then Manny got Joey once in the stomach. Stronger than he looks, Raul thought.

  ******

  Doubled over, Joey remembered the vow he made that no one would hit him and get away with it. Not anymore.

  Elaine neared the scuffle. “Just stop it, you guys!”

  Manny’s mouth was bloody and his cheek was swelling.

  Joey had a cut at his eyebrow and knew his chin would have a bruise. He straightened up and drew back his arm.

  Elaine ran closer trying to break it up.

  Joey stepped forward to hit Manny again. He hit Elaine.

  Her hand went up to her mouth. Blood ran from her lip. She looked up at Joey in shock.

  He was mortified.

  Raul ran towards them.

  “Oh my God,” Joey stammered, “I’m—I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Laney, I’m sorry.” His fingers were at her mouth in some attempt to stop the bleeding. His hand pulled away from her lips, red. “I didn’t mean it,” Joey’s voice quivered.

  Then Manny lunged. His hands were around Joey’s throat.

  Joey stumbled over a rock and fell backwards under Manny’s weight.

  The thud of bone hitting stone rang out through the field and invaded their ears. Joey whimpered and his eyes shut. Elaine’s scream was piercing.

  Manny’s fist hung in the air.

  “Laney!” Raul yelled as he neared.

  Manny’s arm fell limply to his side. His eyes filled with tears. “Joey? Joey?” he whispered. Joey did not respond.

  “Raul! Call an ambulance!” Elaine yelled.

  He saw the whole thing. He wanted to run to her but Raul followed her orders and turned to run inside the trailer.

  Manny stood up from over Joey’s body, staggered a few feet away and vomited.

  Elaine knelt down and smoothed a hand on Joey’s cheek. “Joey?” She put her ear to his chest. He was still breathing. She held his hand and prayed.

  “What’s going on?” Edward Roberts asked.

  “Joey’s hurt, Mr. Roberts.” Raul picked up the phone and dialed 911. He spoke briefly to the operator. “Don’t worry, Mr. Roberts. The police will be here soon.”

  “The police?” Frightened, Mr. Roberts ran out to the backyard.

  The police arrived. “Over here!” Raul directed them and ran towards Elaine.

  Mr. Roberts grabbed his daughter’s hand and dragged her away from Joey. He grabbed Manny’s hand as well. “Stay away!” he yelled at the cops.

  The ambulance arrived. They lifted Joey delicately onto the gurney and put an oxygen mask on him. They rushed him into the ambulance.

  More police officers arrived. “Calm down, sir,” they said. “What happened?”

  “I did it,” Manny confessed.

  “No! It was an accident!” Elaine protested.

  The officer neared them. “We need to get a statement from each one of you.”

  “Back away,” their father said to the agents disguised as police officers.

  “He’s scared,” Elaine explained.

  More police officers surround them. “Don’t worry, sir.” The officer neared with his hands up.

  Mr. Roberts felt trapped. “No!” he yelled. One officer grabbed the man’s hand. Mr. Roberts pushed the second agent away, but they were too strong. “Laney! Manny!” he called out.

  “Don’t hurt him. He has a mental illness. He’s scared!” Elaine begged.

  The cops cuff Mr. Roberts. “Calm down, sir. We have to arrest you for assaulting a law enforcement officer.” They drag him into a cop car.

  Three male officers pull Manny aside and he watches as Elaine is approached as well.

  A female cop walks up to her. “Don’t worry. He’ll be evaluated and put into proper care. Can you tell me what happened with Joseph Kinsley and your brother?” Elaine tells her it was all an accident. “Well, that contradicts what Raul Campos has stated. He said he witnessed Emanuel physically push Joey’s head down onto the ground. Onto the rock.”

  “What? No! Why would Raul say that?”

  The officer raises an eyebrow.

  Elaine sees a police officer turn her brother around and force his hands together. “What’s going on? Why are they arresting Manny?!”

  “Calm down,” the female officer tells her.

  “No!” she cried. “Stop taking my family away from me!”

  They put Emanuel in the
back of a police car. A man with a blue shirt takes pictures of the blood stained stone. The backyard is a crime scene.

  Raul walks over and tries to comfort her with a hug.

  “Get off of me, you bastard!” Elaine screamed.

  He glances at the female cop and then back at Elaine. “Call me when you’re ready,” he says and walks away.

  “Miss Roberts, here’s my card. I’m Detective Lansbury. After we question your brother thoroughly we will call you in for formal questioning as well. Don’t worry. Everything will be resolved. Your father will be in good hands.”

  All the cop cars drove away, their lights flashing, throwing up dust with their tires and leaving an unbearable silence.

  ******

  Everyone in the neighborhood had come outside to witness everything fall apart, but I am alone. I stand in my backyard with dried blood on my chin and my lip swollen. My head feels heavy but it isn’t fatigue because I’m alert. My eyes are wide and my heart is racing like I’m a pursued doe. The remaining spectators watch as I walk into the house. At the kitchen sink, I dampen a dish towel and wiped the blood away. I place some ice cubes from the freezer into the cloth and gently place it to my throbbing bottom lip. My hands go to my glasses to adjust them. Amazingly they hadn’t been knocked off of my face in the incident. I stare at the kitchen window view of the Arizona landscape stretching out to the horizon.

  Why did this happen to me? To my family? And what can I do now? How do I get them back? How could Raul tell such a lie? Manny could go to prison for that lie. My skin crawls where Raul’s hands had touched me. Only Emanuel, Joey, and I know what really happened. Emanuel is so guilt-ridden he is taking the blame. So it’s me and Joey. I need a statement from Joey. He’s my last hope. Maybe he’s conscious now and could give the police a statement. I grab my cell phone and run to the F-150. I speed off, calling every single hospital in the Pima County area in search of him.

  “Okay, thank you.” I flip my phone closed, toss it into the empty passenger seat, and press my boot down harder on the gas pedal. I know exactly where to go. I’ve been there before. He’s been admitted to St. Mary’s Hospital. That hospital has hallway floors laid with smooth gray tile; cool to the skin even in June. That hospital is where I lost my mother.

  FIVE

  I enter the emergency room, past porcelain faced EMTs, nurses and doctors swarmed together with desperate patients and loved ones heading towards the waiting room, away from the waiting room, or out of the hospital bandaged, above crutches, or wheeled through in wheel chairs. I make my way through the shape shifting path and near the waiting room. I see Joey’s doctor. I don’t know how I know it’s his doctor. I just know. The doctor is a tall tired man with long auburn hair kept back in a ponytail and has nicely trimmed facial hair of a darker shade. He looks too young for his gold framed glasses with oversized circular lenses and he walks leaning slightly to the right. I imagine it was from the weight of responsibility on his broad shoulders. The tail of his long white coat worn over dark blue scrubs flutters behind him, an ivory cape.

  I watch as his slanted gait brings him into the waiting room. I can’t hear what he’s saying from where I’m concealed, standing against a column near the front desk, but I figure he was calling someone’s name. My instinct is to run to him but something tells me to wait. A woman stands. Her blue eyes and the curl and color of her hair make it obvious that she is Joey’s mother. She has such a round youthful face that she could’ve passed as an older sister. She wears tan suede Birkenstocks and gray sweatpants, a mostly orange tie-dye shirt and an oversized jean jacket with folded up sleeves. Maybe it was an old jacket of Joey’s. Distressed, her expectant blue eyes peer up at the doctor.

  With my arms wrapped tight around myself to combat the cold dry hospital air, I watch as the doctor speaks and Miss Kinsley nods. Her face twists with sadness. She seems to ask a question to which the doctor shakes his head and, after placing a hand warmly on her shoulder, he leaves the waiting room and starts down the hall right past me. I watch as Miss Kinsley plops down into her chair and bows her head, her long reddish curls falling across her face and she shudders with her crying.

  My hands rise to my chest above my pulsing heart and my eyes brim with moisture. It hits me hard: the thought, the possibility. Joey Kinsley, so vibrant and strong, a fire, both intimidating and warm, who stood up for my family, may not be there, may not be here. He might not have survived this thing that happened to us. Because of some stupid fight, over something I won’t know until I can talk to Manny. And Manny won’t be there, won’t be here, if Joey’s gone. Manny could go to prison for the rest of his life. This isn’t how our separation was supposed to happen.

  Finally, I breathe again. I have to get myself together. I can’t give up on this. I can’t assume the worst and be defeated. Just because I lost my mother here in this hospital doesn’t mean that history has to repeat itself. Joey doesn’t have to leave this earth and Manny doesn’t have to leave me. I push myself from the pillar and somehow my weak legs carry me down the hall following the doctor’s fluttering white cape and swinging ponytail. Everything is in slow motion; my breathing, the hospital staff walking up and down, my hand reaching out, until I have him by the shoulder and time abruptly quickens to normal speed as he turned around.

  “Doctor,” I whisper.

  His head tilts to the right. “Can I help you?” His green eyes look me up and down for any wounds, abrasions, bruises, and then settled on my swollen lip. My hand moves to cover the side of my mouth. My fingertips brush along it and I am reminded of Joey’s hand at my face, so apologetic.

  “Joey…Is Joey Kinsley all right?”

  “I’m sorry I can’t talk about the details of a patient unless you’re a relation.”

  “Well, I’m his girlfriend,” I lie.

  “Immediate relation. His mother is sitting in the waiting room. You can speak with her if you want.”

  “No, I can’t,” I plead. I can’t talk to his mother. I have no idea what she’s heard about the accident and my brother’s involvement. She might rip me to shreds if Joey’s temper is at all inherited. “She doesn’t approve of our relationship; you know, because of what, uh, color I am.” The doctor frowns. I glance at his name tag. “Dr. Rice, I just need to know if he’s alive. Please!”

  Dr. Rice squints at me from behind his glasses and then looks over my head to the nurses and doctors walking around. Then he grasps my shoulder and bends to speak softly into my ear. “He’s alive but in critical condition. His head injury caused a lot of swelling and intra-cranial pressure. We decided it was best to put him into a barbiturate-induced coma to slow blood flow and swelling and hopefully prevent any further damage to the brain.”

  I let out a relieved sigh. “Okay. Um, how long do you think he’ll be in the coma?” I whisper.

  “It could be anywhere from a few days to a week or two.”

  “Thank you, doctor,” I said, half relieved, half disappointed.

  He gives a warm squeeze to my arm, says “Good luck,” and walks away. I don’t know if I have two weeks to wait on Joey. It occurred to me that I could wait two weeks for him to be taken out of his coma, two weeks would pass with Manny in legal trouble, and Joey could wake up and not remember. Even worse, he could wake up still angry. He could give the police a statement against Manny and seal my brother’s fate in court. There is nothing left for me to do but wait. I’ll be in this hospital every day until he wakes up. I swear to be the first person Joey sees when his blue eyes open to the world. But, I have other responsibilities that can’t wait: Detective Lansbury.

  ******

  The coffee they’d given me was cold and strangely gritty. I push the Styrofoam cup away and shift my weight around in my seat in some attempt to make the metal folding chair comfortable. The door knob turns and the two walk in.

  “Good evening Elaine, I’m Sergeant Ross and you already know Detective Lansbury here,” he smiles, the fluorescent light’s reflection shini
ng from the top of his naked brown head. I nod in response. “We understand this is a hard situation for you right now. In order for us to help your brother and your father we need you to tell us exactly what happened this afternoon.” I retell the fight to them, but they are skeptical. They ask why Raul gave them a different statement when he had no reason to lie. I explain that Raul’s motive for lying was me and start some questioning of my own.

  “When do I get to see my brother and father?”

  “You’ll hear from them,” Lansbury dismisses.

  “Listen lady. I know you do this job day in and day out but this is my life, this is my family we’re talking about! If you don’t tell me exactly what is going to happen to them I will not hesitate to report you to your police chief or all the news stations in Arizona or to your own damn mother-in-law if I have to. You don’t have the right to do this to me.”