by Aletto, Anna
“I’m terrifies me. I don’t want to live a normal, boring life. It makes me think of my cousin.”
“In what way?”
“I remember the summer before my ninth-grade year, when I was fourteen, I found out my cousin was pregnant. She was eighteen at the time, what I am today. I had always looked up to her and she was always extra nice to me. I didn’t hang out with her a lot since I was younger, but I knew she was sort of wild. Her parents bought her this hot red Mustang convertible and she’d take me for rides and we’d put down the top and drive really fast. I heard stories of her staying out all night, coming home at dawn, and getting in big fights with her mom or dad.
“My cousin was gorgeous and totally cool. She was everything I wanted to be. She was a great softball player and had offers to play in college. And on the side she did some modeling for local commercial and magazine ads.
“One time she drove me to a batting cage and we practiced hitting. I never was that into sports, but I went along anyway just because I enjoyed hanging out with her. Hitting the baseballs from the pitching machine with the aluminum bat hurt my hands anyway, so I mostly just watched. After that we drove back to her house. She went into the kitchen and took a couple wine coolers from the fridge and gave me one. I drank it and had a nice buzz for the rest of the afternoon.
“There was this guy who she’d been dating off and on. She told me she liked him but that he could be a total idiot. He made horrible grades in school and was considering dropping out. He had a part-time job as a pizza delivery guy so I guess he was thinking of looking for something more full-time. Anyway, I had no opinion on it but just listened and was fascinated by what older kids did.
“Not long after she ended up pregnant. It was, like, this huge deal and I was a little surprised but it wasn’t anything tragic to me. I never thought she’d have the baby. She liked modeling. And she told me about how much she wanted to play softball in college. She was going to visit the schools that had offered her scholarships.
“We had a family get-together for the Fourth of July, like a cook-out, and that was the first time I saw my cousin since I’d heard the news. I didn’t know if she was still pregnant and I definitely wasn’t going to bring it up or anything. Our dads were at the grill and I was sitting in the backyard in a lawn chair, off by myself. My cousin pulled a chair up beside me and said, ‘So when I have my baby, are you going to come over and play with him or her?’
“I was sort of shocked and asked, “You’re actually having it?’
“She asked what I thought she was going to do.
“I asked about her playing softball.
“She said that that wasn’t in her future anymore and that maybe she’d find a college nearby to take classes part-time.
“I told her, honestly, I thought she’d have an abortion.
“She said she didn’t believe in it and I asked why not. She shrugged and said ‘Well, I’m a Christian. It’s against my morals.’
“So, even at fourteen I could be kind of a bitch and I said, ‘Where were your morals when you were having sex?’
“She got angry at me and she said, ‘Sleeping with him was a mistake. But now that I’m pregnant I have to do the right thing.’
“I got angry back for some reason and said, ‘When you look at your kid’s face and see the resemblance of the guy you told me was an idiot, you can comfort yourself by saying that you did the right thing.’ I stood up and went inside. Our family was going to have dinner and set off fireworks but I didn’t stay. I walked around the neighborhood. For some reason it really bothered me. I really looked up to her and I felt like in some way she was letting me down. I never talked to her after that.
“My cousin actually ended up marrying that boyfriend, the dad of what turned out to be her daughter in a shotgun wedding. They all lived with her parents the next couple years until my cousin found out he had a casual meth habit. They divorced and my cousin’s mom watches the kid now while she works nights as a waitress or something. I mean, it’s this huge fucking cliché. She never went to college and last I heard she was talking again to that same boyfriend, trying to work things out or whatever. He wanted to reconcile and she was considering it for the sake of the child.”
I shake my head. “Sounds like a mess.”
“I know, right? She had everything going for her and she threw it away to be some boring, single-mother stereotype. I don’t want my life to be like that. Nor do I want a house in suburbia with two point five kids and a minivan, getting fat sitting on a couch everyday married to a man I never have sex with anymore. You only have one life. I don’t want mine to be boring.”
Packed into the cooler, for dessert, I have cupcakes. “I forgot to buy any candles to light for you to make a wish.”
“That’s fine. You already know what I want,” Angela tells me. “Help me make it true.”
Chapter Twelve
My physical relationship with Britney progresses slowly, but steadily.
After our third date, in which we go bowling, we make out at the doorway of her apartment. Britney puts her arms on my shoulders. My hands are on her waist and I press her against her front door. She grinds her pelvis into mine, then freezes, surprised by herself.
“Everything okay?” I ask.
“Yeah,” she says. “I have a lot of homework to do. But I had a lot of fun. I’ll call you, okay?”
On our fourth date we go to a University of Arkansas football game in the afternoon. Afterward at the front door of her apartment she seems hesitant.
“Are we going inside?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” she says. “I’m not sure if it’s appropriate.”
I chuckle and say, “I promise I’ll be on my best behavior.”
Her apartment is modest with carpet flooring and off-white walls. In the living room are a worn green fabric couch, a small wood coffee table, and a thirty-inch television. Separating the living room from a small kitchen is a bar countertop with a few bar stools. Down the hallway from the living room is a bathroom. I see only a glimpse of her bedroom.
I sit on the couch.
Britney walks into the kitchen and opens the refrigerator. “I’m going to have a Snapple. Do you want one?”
“Sure.”
“What flavor do you want?”
“Surprise me.”
She drinks Apple and hands me a Peach Iced Tea. Sitting together on the couch we both take a few sips. “Is my tongue green?” she asks and sticks it out.
“A little.”
“I never tried that flavor,” she says pointing to my drink. “Is it good?”
“Yeah. How does my tongue look?”
“Peach colored.”
“Do you want to try it?”
“Okay.”
I set my Snapple on the coffee table and kiss her. While kissing I take hers out of her hand and place it on the table too. She reclines back onto a couch pillow. I start with my hands on her hips but slowly move them up her body. I caress the sides of her body, her abdomen, then her breasts at which point she pulls away.
“I need to stop now.” Britney sits up.
“Are you not enjoying yourself?”
“No, I am. Too much, maybe.” She averts her eyes from mine. “That’s why I think we need to slow down.” She stands and excuses herself to go straighten her hair and clothes.
Our fifth date is an evening trip to Lokomotion Family Fun Park in the neighboring town of Springdale. We play one game of mini-golf. Then we drive go-karts for two and a half hours and Britney wins the last two races. Exhilarated, she invites me into her apartment afterward. After walking through the door I grab her immediately. We make out as I move her toward her bedroom. I push her back onto her bed and unbuckle her belt. I slide off her blue jeans. Britney grabs my T-shirt and pulls it off me. I kiss her neck and she moans lightly. I run my hand down her abdomen and reach for her underwear. Abruptly she pushes me back and jumps up. Surprised, I kneel on the bed. I watch her cover her fac
e with her hands as she walks into the corner of the room and starts crying.
I step off the bed and walk to her and put my hand on her back. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know what I’m doing. I can’t be doing this.”
“What? Everything’s fine.”
“It’s not right if we’re not married. I mean, I really I want to. I … I don’t know why I want to do something so much that I know is wrong.” She removes her hands from her face. Her eyes are red and tears stream down her cheeks. She slides down the wall and sits on the floor.
I look at her and say, “Well, maybe it’s not wrong if you feel so strongly about wanting to do it.”
“God tests us sometimes,” she says, her voice wavering. “And Satan tempts us. I just didn’t realize I was so vulnerable.”
I smile and sit down beside her and ask, “How do you feel about our relationship?”
Britney stares at the floor and says, “It’s the best thing that’s happened to me in a long time. Since we’ve started dating I’ve thanked God every day.” She looks up at me. “How about you?”
“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think it was worth it. Honestly, I’ve never met anyone quite like you.”
She smiles slightly.
“You feel comfortable with me, don’t you?”
“Yeah, I do.”
I nod and say, “Then feel good when we’re together when we express our feelings for each other. Don’t feel guilty for being affectionate.”
She sits quietly for a few moments. “Maybe you’re right,” she finally murmurs. “Everything I’m feeling right now is so confusing.” She covers her face with her hands again, though she doesn’t cry this time.
“I’m here to talk to and support you however you feel.”
Britney removes her hand from her face and hugs me tight. “Can you stay here tonight?” she whispers to me. “I mean, can we sleep together without sleeping together?”
“Yeah, sure,” I tell her. “We’ll do whatever you’re comfortable with.”
Each in a state of undress, we fall asleep cuddled together on her bed.
Terrell was the luckiest person I ever met. He was smart too, but his luck was almost unbelievable.
On weekends Terrell held late-night card games at his house. DeAnthony was usually there along with old high school friends or acquaintances from the neighborhood. They played poker.
I played too at first, but soon decided to come over to hang out and drink and watch everyone else play. My reason for quitting was that Terrell won constantly. In a night he usually tripled or quadrupled his money. Many learned their lesson like me and quit playing, never to return. But enough did come back, certain Terrell’s luck would run out and they’d win their money back.
I suspected he counted cards, but he told me he didn’t.
Terrell explained it to me like this: “Picture every single person alive today. They all fit somewhere on the spectrum. It’s just probability. On the spectrum of luck, almost everyone lands somewhere in the middle. Sometimes they win, sometimes they lose. But there has to be some exceptions. Some people land all the way down the spectrum – the unluckiest people on earth. But at the same time, there have to be people who win an inordinate amount of the time. For some reason I’m one of those people.”
I asked if he ever gambled at casinos. He said he did until an incident on a boat in Tunica, Mississippi. Terrell had been there twice before and won about a grand on each occasion. Then one evening he arrived early and played without a break, splitting his time between poker and blackjack. He showed up with six-hundred dollars. After Terrell lost several hands and three-hundred dollars to begin the night, his luck turned red-hot. He won game after game and bet more and more money. Eventually his winnings totaled seventy grand.
Security guards approached him and forced him into a back room. They confiscated his chips and interrogated him about card-counting. When he denied it they asked if he knew any of the dealers that worked there and they patted him down and checked the contents of his pockets. Without any evidence against him, they kicked him out for “undesirable behavior” and refused to pay him his winnings. Terrell vowed to never step foot into a casino again and hadn’t since.
In the summer before my junior year in high school, G.C. came to Terrell with a lucrative opportunity. The downside was the tremendous risk. G.C. had acquired information about a prosperous Memphis drug kingpin named Curtis Reznok. Stored in a house in an upscale midtown neighborhood were copious amounts of marijuana and cocaine. And more importantly, in a safe in a walk-in closet of the master bedroom was ten million dollars.
To avoid prosecution in case of a bust, the deed to the house was not in Curtis’s name but that of a close friend and confidante. It was one of a handful of houses in the city like this, used to store drugs and cash, keeping his operation running. All of the houses were in wealthy neighborhoods and he never visited any of them himself, instead ordering his underlings to manage their upkeep, while he stayed unlinked to the properties. Curtis’s subordinates lived at each house and he demanded they all keep low profiles, keeping the shades drawn and cars parked in the garage, avoiding being seen at all if possible.
According to his information, G.C. learned of a house in which five of Curtis’s employees lived. They had each received a large monetary bonus for their hard work and were going out to a strip club on the Fourth of July for a celebration. In a rare circumstance, the house and the ten million dollars within would be left unguarded for a few hours.
G.C. proposed the idea. Terrell was left to make the decision. Aside from the obvious danger, we only had a week to prepare. We usually spent a minimum of two months. G.C. knew the model of their safe and was confident he could crack it quickly. He wanted it to be our last robbery. Split four ways, we each would walk away with over two million dollars. G.C. said he planned to quit his regular job and retire if we went through with it. “An opportunity like this ain’t coming around again,” he warned. “We’ve been working our asses off, scrapping just to make thousands. How about we make millions and have everything we ever fucking wanted?”
Terrell listened but didn’t seem to like the idea.
“We’ve got the brains to do this,” G.C. insisted. “Plus, with your luck, who the fuck will touch us? Instead of going for peanuts, why not go for it all?”
Terrell wanted to think about it more. He arranged for the four of us – himself, G.C., DeAnthony, and me – to meet at his house the next afternoon to make a final decision.
The next day he called me over about an hour before we were supposed to meet. In his bedroom he watched an old black and white film on his big-screen TV. He muted it and dabbed a joint on an ashtray on his bedside. “What do you think of this thing?” he asked me.
Curtis Reznok, the drug lord whose house we targeted, was someone I had never met but had heard of. His days of personally peddling drugs were long over. Now the actual dealers were at the bottom of a citywide chain of command of which he was the mastermind. Physically, he stayed as far away from the illegality as possible, directing and issuing orders from afar. Nonetheless, rumors of his operation occasionally floated around and I’d heard a few.
One that stuck with me involved a rich sixteen-year-old private prep school kid who routinely bought cocaine from one his dealers. The kid lived in a big house in midtown with his father and mother – a pediatrician and a stay-at-home mom, respectively. He often stole from his mom’s purse or his dad’s wallet to support his habit, even though his parents already gave him a hefty allowance. The kid not only bought for himself, but for his friends to hold little parties.
His parents, upon discovering his drug use, cut down on his cash and severely restricted his time out of the house. Nonetheless, his coke habit continued and he started a tab with the dealer, promising to pay the debt over time. The debt only rose though, eventually totaling ten grand. When the dealer tried to collect, the kid started avoiding him, instead seeking out a
new dealer and shirking the bill.
After a month, the kid’s home was visited by two men. By chance, the kid wasn’t home. The maid was. Also at home in the kitchen was the kid’s mother who had just returned home from grocery shopping. The maid escaped the house. The mother’s head, decapitated from her body, was later found on the kitchen sink beside broccoli and a bag of oranges. The two men were never arrested or identified.
So in response to Terrell’s question I said, “I think –”
“‘Cause I think it’s fucking stupid,” he interjected.
I nodded.
“Forget we have no time to scout this place out,” he said. “We’re dealing with some motherfuckers who no doubt carry firearms twenty-four seven. And for the shady shit I’ve done, I’ve always kept away from the gangs and the dealers and anything else related to the ghetto. If I’m going to take something, I want to take it from some rich motherfuckers in the suburbs who are going to file a police report and collect on their insurance. Not people who’ll track me down and put a bullet in my head because I disrespected them. We do this and something goes wrong, even if we do survive, how long do we survive? We’ll have to be like fucking vampires keeping an eye open even when we sleep, otherwise we’ll wake up with teeth marks in our necks.”
I listened.
“And I can’t forget my eighty-nine year old grandmother,” Terrell added. “She’s made it this far. I’d don’t want her to get hurt because of my stupid ass.”
“So we’re not doing it?”
“I don’t know.” Terrell rubbed his brow. “Can you think of any reason we should?”
“Ten million is a lot of money.”
“Yeah.” He sighed. “It is a lot.”
“What does DeAnthony think?”
“I only talked to him real quick on the phone. But he sounds all for it.”
“So how do we decide?”
Terrell picked the joint off the ashtray and took a long drag. Then he said, “You decide.”
I chuckled.
“I’m serious.” He sat forward and handed me the joint.
