Fight or Flee

by Patrick Jones

  “You as good as admitted it,” Hinton says, trying not to raise his voice as he steps in the room. “When you ran away, you told me all I needed to know. Innocent men don’t flee.”

  Hinton kneels next to his stepfather, who hasn’t stirred. Hinton whispers in his ear. “Clay, you’re going to die for what you did. For killing my dad, marrying my mom, everything else you’ve done. Why should I consider killing myself when I’m not the problem, you are?”

  Clay gurgles, saliva dribbles down his chin. Hinton puts the edge of the knife against Clay’s throat, but Clay doesn’t budge. More gurgle, more drool.

  Hinton raises his voice. “You need to know it was me, and you need to know why.” Hinton presses the knife closer until a small trickle of blood oozes from Clay’s throat. Clay still doesn’t move.

  Hinton scoots back on his knees and hears a clinking sound. He reaches behind him and picks up the empty bottle of vodka.

  “You’re passed out,” Hinton hisses. “No, no. You need to know it was me. I want to see the look of terror in your eyes. I want you to know it was me. You’re even going to steal that satisfaction from me?”

  Hinton picks up the bottle. He swings it so it misses his uncle’s head by an inch, and then hurls it against the wall. Clay doesn’t stir, doesn’t know what fate he just narrowly escaped.

  10

  “Mother, Paul said you wanted to see me,” Hinton says as he enters his mother’s room. She’s in the small bathroom staring blankly at the reflection of her heavy eyes and tired face.

  Hinton hangs outside the door, but his mother motions for him to enter. Head down, as if ashamed, he edges his tall body into the small room. “Your behavior last night was horrible,” Gabrielle says.

  “Maybe so,” Hinton mumbles. “One bad night. You’ve had months of them.”

  Still staring at her reflection, his mother hisses, “What does that mean?”

  “You know exactly what that means, Mother,” Hinton says, moving closer. They eye their reflections in the mirror, but his mother still doesn’t turn. Hinton’s face turns as red as his hair once was as he hurls accusations. “How could you marry Clay so quickly after Dad died? Did he die or was he murdered? Tell me what you know!” His mom says nothing, but her eyes fill with tears.

  “Say something!” Hinton shouts into her ear as he reaches into his front pocket. “If you don’t tell me the truth, I will—” The clicking of the blade finishes the sentence. Hinton pushes the blade by his mom’s neck, but then thrusts his arm in front, blade pointed at his own wrist.

  There’s only the sounds of their breathing until Hinton’s mom yells, “Clay! Help me!”

  “He can’t help you,” Hinton starts to say, but he stops when he hears the bedroom door open and the heavy footsteps of his usurper uncle. Out of the corner of his eye, Hinton sees the telltale jacket as a blur coming toward him. He spins around and pierces the jacket with his knife. The blond haired man in the Silver Skulls jacket staggers backward. Paul.

  As Paul’s body hits the floor, Hinton’s mom vomits into the sink. “Hinton,” she gasps, “what you have done?”

  Hinton bends down, listening for breathing. There is none. He pulls the blade from Paul’s chest and wipes it clean with a white towel from the rack, but says nothing.

  “Hinton, what have you done?” His mom repeats it over and over, like a techno beat, until Hinton stands in front of her. Bright silver blade in one hand; bloody towel in the other.

  “Nothing worse than you have done, Mother, so how dare you say anything to—”

  “Worse than I have done. I have no idea—”

  “What I’ve done here was an accident, but what you did marrying Clay,” Hinton says, the veins on his neck bulging, his eyes narrowing. “After he killed my father.”

  Hinton’s mom tries to leave the room, but he blocks her way. “I will not listen to—”

  “Yes, you will listen,” Hinton snaps. “You dishonor my father’s memory every time you lay in bed with Clay, his brother. You married your husband’s brother and murderer, so don’t tell—”

  “Clay is a good man who—”

  “A good man does not kill his brother and then marry his widow. A good man does—”

  His mother slaps his face and points at Paul’s body. “What does that make you then?”

  “This was an accident, an impulse, it happened,” Hinton says. “But what Clay did was not. He thought, he planned, he waited. But you didn’t wait, did you?

  “You don’t know how—”

  “This is what I know. You should leave Clay tonight. Save yourself, and save your soul.”

  “No, I won’t.”

  “If you tell him about this he’ll send me away, or worse,” Hinton says. “He’s killed one person in our family already, so don’t kid yourself that he won’t kill another. Me. You. Us.”

  “Hinton, you’re talking madness.”

  “Am I mad? Or am I just pretending?” he says. “You’ll never know for sure.”

  “I know for sure that you’re not the son I love.”

  Hinton bends down, grabs Paul’s limp left leg. He starts dragging him across the room. “You’re not the mother I once loved unless you protect me. Can you do that for me?”

  She answers by vomiting again as Hinton pulls Paul’s bloody corpse toward the window.

  11

  “I’m afraid he’s crazy,” Gabrielle tells Clay after she finishes her story about Hinton killing Paul.

  “It could’ve been worse,” Clay says, cracks a smile. “It could’ve been me.”

  Gabrielle’s expression of horror from earlier remains on her face. She’s in bed with her husband. He sits up, glass in his left hand, his right arm wrapped around his wife’s shoulders.

  “He dragged out the body?” Clay asks. “Where did he take it?”

  Gabrielle says nothing.

  “I know he’s your son, Love, but this has gone too far. I thought that time away might have really changed him, but it seems it’s made him worse. I’ve seen it before. Sweet kids go to prison as juvenile delinquents but come out as hardened criminals.”

  “Sometimes it’s like he’s two people at the same time,” she whispers. “Not a split personality but a tug of war between who he was and who he wants to be.”

  “He’s shown what he is capable of, so there’s no choice. I could send him to St. Paul—”

  Gabrielle cuts her husband off, head shaking. “We could call the police and—”

  “We don’t want police snooping around here,” Clay snaps. “Maybe a trip back to Mandan will straighten him out. We got crew there, so he’d be safe, have friends around.”

  “I don’t think I can take losing him again, Clay,” she sobs into her husband’s chest.

  “Maybe this time he’ll really change, but he’s got to own this, and that starts with me telling the council what’s he done. And I have to tell Olivia and Latrell about their father.”

  “But do we have to tell them it was Hinton?”

  “We do, Love. If we don’t, they might think I had something to do with Paul’s death,” Clay says. “Last thing we need is people thinking that I’d murder one of my own crew. Get it?”

  ***

  “Hinton, there’s no discussion.” Clay’s on one side of the desk, Hinton on the other. Horace stands behind his friend, hand on his shoulder. “And Marcus agrees with me.”

  Marcus says nothing, standing tall behind Clay’s shoulder like Paul used to do.

  “I probably should’ve done something sooner,” Clay continues, “but now that we’ve seen what happens when you act on impulse, this can’t wait.”

  Hinton’s face is down, staring at his shoes. He rubs his forehead raw under the hoodie.

  “So the only question is what happens.” Clay rises from his desk, walks over to Hinton. He positions himself between the bright desk lamp and Hinton’s chair. “I could exile you. But where would I send you? Not to live with Latrell, since you killed his dad.�
�� Clay grasps Hinton’s shoulders.

  “Smart thinking, Clay,” Marcus says softly.

  “Could call the cops, but we know that’s not a good idea, right Marcus?”

  “Don’t need any of that, no sir, Clay.”

  “So that leaves one last option: you’ll violate parole, and you’ll go back to Mandan.” Clay speaks without a hint of emotion. Hinton remains unmoving like a statue. “You go back there, do some more time, and get yourself together.”

  All eyes turn to Hinton, who doesn’t react.

  “Your father is speaking to you, Hinton! Don’t you have anything to say?” Marcus asks.

  “He is not my father,” Hinton growls. He pulls his head up, cranes his neck, throws back his hoodie to reveal his undyed red hair. He stares at Clay. “It should’ve been you at the end of my blade,” Hinton whispers.

  “Get him out of here!” Clay roars. Marcus grabs Hinton’s arm and pulls him up. Hinton tries to stand his ground, but Marcus is stronger, so Hinton gives up. “Close the door behind you, Marcus!”

  As soon as the door slams, Clay pulls out a cell, punches a number, waits. “Do we got somebody with a kid in Mandan who owes us a debt?” Pause. “Good.” Pause. “I got a big one.”

  12

  “Hint, you sure about this?” Horace hands Hinton the blunt, stuffed with Granddaddy Purple. They stand on the back porch waiting for Hinton’s PO to arrive to do a scheduled UA, which he’ll fail royally.

  Hinton laughs and then spits in the slowly melting snow. “I’m not sure about anything, and that’s the problem. Before I went to Mandan, I didn’t think, I did stuff. Inside, they taught me how to think, rather than act. Consider all the consequences. All that stuff is probably good, but it’s not what I need now. I can’t flee from the truth anymore. I gotta fight, but I don’t think I can win. So.”

  “I don’t know, doing stuff for the sake of doing it seems like bad business,” Horace says, lighting up the blunt. “Like Forty taking over that native gang. Guess it was pretty bloody, but he didn’t need to do that. He could’ve negotiated, reasoned, but instead he acted violently, and for what?”

  Hinton takes the blunt, inhales, holds the smoke in his mouth.

  “I like the old impulsive Hinton better as a friend, but as future leader of this crew, this new one is better,” Horace says.

  Hinton exhales. A cloud of smoke swallows him. Purple, the royal colors of a king.

  ***

  “How long has she been like this?” Gabrielle shouts at Frank and Barry, assigned to watch over Olivia. They stand in the kitchen in Olivia’s house. It is a mess like the rest of the house, as if a tornado skipped through town but leveled destruction only inside these four walls.

  “Ever since Clay told her about her father’s, uh, accident,” Barry mumbles.

  “It was an accident,” Gabrielle says sharply. Barry nods, Frank follows like a clone. Loud rap music booms from Olivia’s room with female singers repeating the refrain of “Jesus Walks.” Gabrielle sighs. “We should get this cleaned up before Latrell comes back and we—”

  Gabrielle stops when she hears Olivia sing over Kanye West, shouting at the top of her lungs about walking through the valley of the shadow of death and the view leaving her breathless.

  Barry laughs again, but Gabrielle’s not amused. “What is wrong with her?”

  “Maybe she’s crazy like—” Frank starts, but Barry slugs his shoulder, hard.

  “Shut up, Frank,” Barry says.

  “Crazy like who?” Gabrielle asks. “Like my son? Like Hinton? Is that what you wanted to say? Well, you are wrong, both of you. This is serious. I’m calling Clay.”

  Gabrielle pulls out her cell, but before she can call, Olivia emerges from her room. She’s dressed in her father’s clothes, oversized on her frame, and Hinton’s name is written on her pale forearms. The music throbs through the house. Olivia runs in circles as if looking for someone. Gabrielle covers her mouth in horror. Frank and Barry look away uncomfortably.

  Gabrielle grabs Olivia’s arms, tries to get her to slow down. “Olivia, it’s Gabrielle.”

  “Where’s my father?” Olivia whispers. When Gabrielle doesn’t answer, Olivia repeats the question, increasing the volume each time until her screams almost rattle the room. Olivia breaks free, turns her back to Gabrielle, and begins kicking and punching the wall. Gabrielle puts her hands on her ears: the music, the kicking, and Olivia’s screaming is deafening.

  “What the hell is going on here?” an angry male voice yells from the back door.

  Gabrielle turns away from Olivia at the emerging figure. Latrell. His face is a mask of pain and rage. Gabrielle reaches for him, but he rushes past her to his sister. He wraps his arms around her and whispers into her ear. “Olivia, it’s Latrell. It’s going to be okay.”

  The song ends. Latrell keeps his arm around Olivia but turns to face the others. “I want to see Clay,” Latrell shouts. “I want to know what happened to my father.”

  Gabrielle looks at the floor. “We told you, Latrell, it was an accident.”

  “Lots of accidents involving people close to Clay. I don’t believe it. Let me see him!”

  13

  “Latrell, I’m glad you understand,” Clay says, in an almost fatherly tone. “Paul was my friend, my advisor, so I would have no reason to let anything happen to him. Now, let’s think about who would.”

  “Marcus?” Latrell asks. They’re in Clay’s office, talking death as if it were a matter of business.

  “I’ve known Marcus for a long time, and it’s not his way,” Clay answers. “Good soldier but not ambitious at all. That’s what you have to ask yourself, Latrell. If your father was murdered who gains? Who rights a wrong done to him?”

  Latrell starts to speak and then pauses as if collecting his thoughts. Clay says nothing, waits.

  “Hinton?” Latrell asks, voice unsure, almost afraid. Clay nods, sighs, and nods again.

  “Hinton,” Latrell says. “It makes sense. Where is he?”

  “At County, then probably on his way back to Mandan,” Clay says. “He failed his UA. Something got him pretty upset, not sure what. He’s been so moody since coming back, you saw that.”

  “I thought it was because of Olivia breaking up with him.”

  “You need to take care of your sister,” Clay says softly. “Family matters most, always.”

  Latrell starts asking Clay about funeral arrangements, but Clay’s cell rings. Clay looks at the number and a puzzled expression washes over his face. He sighs, picks up, and listens.

  “What? A detention alternative and treatment program? Are you serious, Krantz?”

  Clay listens intently into the phone but says nothing else. When Clay hangs up, he sighs, but then looking at Latrell, Clay starts to smile. “Well, Latrell, I guess you’ll get your chance to see him.”

  “Who? Hinton?”

  “Seems County is full because of the war between Forty and the native gang, and failing a UA isn’t enough to get Hinton back to prison. So they’re giving him community service.”

  “Unbelievable.” Latrell shakes his head.

  “I think maybe you need to do some community service, Latrell.”

  “What do you mean?” Latrell asks, sitting forward in his chair.

  “You need to avenge your father’s death,” Clay says, smiling broadly. “But when you do, people have to know it’s fair and just. You still got a blade?”

  Latrell reaches into pocket, pulls out the switch, flicks it. The point glints.

  “Hinton used to be good with a blade,” Latrell says, now seeming hesitant.

  “That’s skill, but you have righteous anger, which is a mighty force, Latrell. Use it. End this!”

  Latrell stands and shakes Clay’s hand. “I need to go see my sister and see that—”

  He stops speaking when the door opens and Gabrielle appears. Her red hair makes the washed-out expression on her face even paler. She walks in the room slowly, starts to speak bu
t is unable to form words. Clay stands, walks to her, and pulls her close. “What’s wrong, Love?”

  Gabrielle buries her face in her husband’s chest. “She’s dead.”

  “Who is dead?” Clay asks, caressing his wife’s hair.

  She lifts her head up, looks at her husband, but then turns to Latrell. “Latrell, I’m sorry.”

  Latrell drops to his knees, howling in pain. “They found Olivia in the pond,” Gabrielle says softly. “She fell through the ice. I don’t know how, I just—Latrell, I’m so sorry.”

  Latrell lifts himself from the ground and shoves over the chair he’d been sitting in. He rushes past Clay and Gabrielle out of the office. “I can’t imagine what he’s feeling,” she says.

  “I can. It’s called righteous anger and trust me, Love, it’s just what he needs right now.”

  ***

  Hinton picks up his property and waits outside of the county jail. After failing his UA, they’d tossed him in the juvenile section for violating his parole. But after three days, with the facility too crowded, they’d let him go. Krantz seemed sympathetic, talking about everything Hinton has “endured” and maybe he deserves a second chance. Hinton agreed, but the second chance wasn’t to do right, but to right a long-overdue wrong.

  He turns on his phone, and it lights up like a Christmas tree full of messages and missed calls. More distractions; he turns it off, borrows a smoke from a guy on the street, and waits for Horace to take him home.

  “I got some bad news,” Horace says the second Hinton climbs into the old Impala. Horace stares at the windshield. “I don’t know how to tell you this other than to say it.” Horace tries to form words, but for once the words don’t come easy.

  Hinton smacks his fist against the dashboard so hard the glove box opens. “What!”

  Horace whispers, “Olivia, she is—she drowned. She’s dead.”

  Hinton buries his face in his hands and shrieks at the top of his lungs. Horace puts his hand on Hinton’s shoulders, but he smacks it away and burrows into the corner of the car.