No Take Backs

by Otis Hanby

  “So, Corey. I heard you, and some of the guys are having some trouble with some of the colored kids,” Andy says.

  “Not really anymore since that one day,” I respond.

  “That’s not what I hear. I hear them talking at school, and they seem to be focused on the skaters,” Andy says.

  “They pretty much leave me alone. I’ve been getting dirty looks, but that’s about it,” I say.

  “Well, the buzz is that the blacks are thinking that skaters and skinheads have some alliance. We don’t even have any skinheads at school,” Andy says.

  “What’s up y’all?” Chad and Tyler walk in. Chad adds, “We just walked back from the store, and these Mexican gangster kids were fucking with the clerk. I kind of know him. He’s skated with Tyler and me a few times. They kept asking what he was going to do if they stole some cigarettes they were holding instead of paying for them. Then they told him he wasn’t gonna do shit and called him a pussy. Tyler and I were in the back of the store, and we told those fuckers to leave him alone. They just laughed. I said they’re pretty tough with their homies around. There are about five of them. They said they could kick our asses one-on-one. I told them to meet us behind the empty Safeway across the street if they want to settle it. They asked if it was just going to be us two. I said no, I got some friends who will meet us there. They said they’d be there in thirty minutes.”

  “Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s get over there,” Andy says, getting up and grabbing his jeans jacket.

  I get a real sick feeling in my stomach. I don’t want to get into a gang fight. I just want to stay here with Erica. But I can’t look like a wimp, so I get up with everybody else and we all head for the door. All of us guys are out the front door, and the girls are still inside. I turn and ask if they’re coming.

  “No, this is guy stuff. Y’all just be careful,” Leann says.

  The three girls stand there. Erica meets my eyes in what looks like disappointment instead of worry.

  “Hey, Corey! Are you coming or what?” Rodney yells.

  “Yeah!” I yell back, breaking eye contact with Erica.

  I jump in the back seat of Chad’s car with Rodney. Braydon goes with Andy in his car. Chad starts his old Chevy Nova and peels out with Andy following behind.

  We pull behind the abandoned Safeway. No one is there yet. We get out of the cars, and a nervous and anxious energy begins brewing. Andy has a tire iron in his hand. Chad takes a baseball bat out of the trunk of his car. I’m getting scared thinking these gangsters are going to bring guns and knives. I don’t want to die tonight. I feel a tremor deep inside my stomach, and my legs are starting to shake. To hide my nervousness, I sit on the hood of Chad’s car. I hug myself against the cold. It’s so dark out here; we might as well be invisible.

  Tyler leans back against the car. He took the chain off his wallet and is holding it as a weapon. I follow his example and remove the chain off my wallet, figuring it’s better than nothing. Rodney slips on a set of brass knuckles. Where did he get brass knuckles? Braydon is walking around looking for something to use as a weapon. He comes back with a broken shovel handle. “This ought to work pretty good eh?”

  We sit here for several minutes waiting for something to happen. Andy walks off and tells us to stay where we are, and disappears into the dark. He’s gone a minute or two, and then we see headlights coming around the corner of the old store. A Chevy Impala rounds the corner slowly, coming to a stop about twenty yards away from us, and sits idling. The guys and I are standing, waiting for them to make a move. I grow more and more nervous by the second. Suddenly I see movement from the side of the Impala. Then there’s a crash, and it sounds like glass breaking.

  It’s Andy hitting the windshield of the car with the tire iron and yelling, “Come on you pussies!”

  Andy keeps hitting the windshield with the tire iron. Chad takes off running towards the car. The passenger door of the Impala begins to open, and Andy kicks it shut. He then hits the passenger side window with the tire iron. Chad jumps on the hood of the Impala and swings the bat down on the roof of the car. I see someone trying to open the driver’s door, and Chad hits whoever’s getting out on the arm. I hear a cry of pain and the Impala starts backing up. Chad jumps off the car and spits in the driver’s window. I see Andy’s hard breaths against the cold air like angry puffs of smoke as the Impala backs up. Chad takes one last swing and hits the headlight on the driver’s side. The headlight doesn’t break but the light jolts from the impact.

  “You fuckers are dead!” I hear someone yell from inside the car.

  The car spins around and peels away. Andy and Chad come running back. Andy is laughing, and Chad is yelling, “Let’s go before they come back and shoot us.”

  “That was fucking crazy,” Tyler says, laughing.

  We all get back into the cars and take off fast, back to Braydon’s house. Tyler’s still laughing as we go inside. He keeps saying, “You should have seen you guys. That was freaking nuts. There was no time to react.”

  “That was the point. Catch those fuckers off guard,” Andy says.

  Leann is sitting on the couch, and Andy sits down next to her.

  “Where’s Erica?” I ask Leann.

  “She’s in Braydon’s room lying down. Marcy’s in there too.”

  I open the door to Braydon’s room. It’s dark, so I call out to Erica.

  “I’m over here,” she says from a mattress on the floor.

  Her head is covered up so I couldn’t see her. Braydon comes in behind me and goes to his bed where Marcy is. I climb down onto the mattress that Erica’s on. I kick off my shoes and lie next to her under the covers. I put my hand under her shirt feeling her soft skin.

  “You awake?” I ask her.

  “Yeah. Is everybody okay?” she asks.

  “Yeah. Chad and Andy chased them away before we even got a chance to do anything,” I tell her, hoping she’ll be happy.

  “That’s good,” she says.

  I scoot closer to her. My nose touches hers, and I feel her breath on my face. I hear Marcy giggling. Braydon and her must be messing around. I run my hand slowly up Erica’s side, and my hand brushes the side of her breast. I kiss her, and she kisses me back. Both of our shirts come off, and we continue kissing passionately. I grab the waistline of her boxers.

  “I’m still not ready,” she says in a whisper.

  “I wasn’t trying to do anything,” I say, knowing it sounds lame, hoping that she believes me.

  I lie next to her and hold her. She seems content. I’m a little worked up, but her boundaries don’t upset me. I soon fall asleep holding her.

  I wake up to the room lights turning on. Erica and I are under the covers, but the lights bleed through. I open my eyes and see Erica pushing herself up, eyes squinted against the sudden brightness. She smiles and kisses me on the forehead. She sits all the way up with the covers still over her head and puts her shirt on. I put my shirt back on too. We get up, and I see Braydon and Marcy asleep in each other’s arms. Rodney’s standing in the doorway.

  “We gotta get back. I told my dad I would be in around midnight,” Rodney says.

  “Alright. Do I have time to have a smoke with Erica?”

  “Yeah. We just need to leave pretty soon.”

  I grab Erica’s hand, and we reach for our jackets. We sit on the front steps, and I light our cigarettes as we sit in silence. I have a peaceful feeling, sitting here with her. All is quiet, and the cold air feels good.

  “So, what are you, Leann, and Marcy doing for the rest of the night?” I ask Erica.

  “I don’t know. We’ll probably head back to their house pretty soon.”

  “Am I going to see you this weekend?” I ask her.

  “I don’t know. My mom wants me to spend the weekend with her. She says we don’t spend enough time together.”

  “That’s cool. So, I guess you’ll be in Dallas all weekend.”

  “Yeah, but I’ll see you at school on
Monday.”

  “I guess that works,” I say, trying not to sound put out.

  “You about ready?” Rodney asks, opening the front door.

  “Yeah.” I get up. Erica hugs me.

  “I’ll see you later,” I tell her.

  “See you later.” She gives me a quick kiss on the lips.

  She goes inside without looking back. The dark feeling starts swelling up again. I thought it had subsided, but there it is again. I sigh, turn around, and walk to Rodney’s car. I fall asleep while he drives.

  I wake up somewhere near Rodney’s neighborhood. His house is at the edge of a Housing Development, and there’s still a lot of rural land. We’re driving by a field, and I can see the backs of the houses that are near his.

  “Where are we going?” I ask him.

  “I want to take a quick spin through Ranch One-Eleven.”

  “Ranch One-Eleven?”

  “Yeah. You scared?”

  “No,” I lie.

  Ranch One-Eleven is rumored to be a place where Satanists hang out. There are all sorts of stories about sacrifices, alters, and carvings of pentagrams and stuff. I once heard there are hollow trees that they put animal guts in after they do whatever it is they do. This place is supposed to be really bad.

  “Have you ever been there?” I ask.

  “Yeah, in the daylight.” He says casually.

  We’ve been driving another five minutes or so when Rodney slows down. He takes a left and slowly makes his way down a gravel drive. It’s creepy already. There’s an open gate with an archway over it reading “Ranch 111.” The trees are thick on either side of the entrance, creating a kind of tree tunnel into the ranch. We drive under the arch and descend into the tree tunnel. We creep onto an old wooden bridge, and I can hear the wood shifting under the weight of the car as if to tell the ranch that we’ve arrived. I can hear people talking and laughing in the creek bed. I look down to where the creek runs, but it’s too dark to see anything.

  “What the fuck you looking at?” I hear someone yell.

  We continue to ease forward, and I see a bonfire in the distance. There are people milling around all over the place. As soon as we’re on the other side of the bridge, the road forks left and right. Rodney veers to the right as a guy walks beside the car with his head down. His long hair covers his face, and he’s wearing a green Army-style jacket with a flannel shirt hanging out of the back. He turns his head in our direction with a scowl on his face.

  “Who the fuck invited you?” he yells.

  He jumps up and kicks the side of the car shaking it. Rodney responds by spinning his rear tires on the dirt road.

  “Fuck you!” the man yells, flipping us off with both hands. We pass him and approach the bonfire, and I try not to look back at the guy. The road curves to the left in a circle as we follow it. There are people everywhere. It’s like a big party, but there’s a lot of tension in the air. There’s a group of people by the bonfire I hadn’t seen at first wearing black robes and with hoods covering their heads. As we drive by, they look in our direction. A cold chill shoots down my spine as I look into the dark spaces where the shadows hide their faces. The road circles away from the bonfire and more people seem to materialize from the shadows. I can’t wait to get out of here. Rodney is just as calm as ever as if it’s some kind of game. We complete the circle and end up at the fork where we started. Rodney heads back to where we turned off Highway 78. We reach the bridge with the tree tunnel, and then Rodney stops on top of the bridge.

  “Get the fuck out of here! You weren’t invited,” someone yells from down below.

  “Fuck you!” Rodney yells, rolling down his window.

  No sooner does he yell back when headlights turn on behind us and aloud engine roars to life. As the engine revs up a couple of times the headlights jerk forward, taunting us. Rodney puts his car into drive, and the car dies.

  “Shit!” Rodney says, trying to crank the car. The engine turns over but won’t start.

  “You’re fucked now!” another voice yells from down below, accompanied by others laughing.

  The headlights come closer. I visualize the vehicle ramming into us from behind and pushing us off the bridge into the creek below. Rodney keeps cranking the Firebird and pumping the gas pedal. The vehicle behind us is nearly on top of us when the Firebird roars to life. Rodney shifts into drive and spins the tires hard on the bridge. The vehicle behind us guns his engine to close the distance. Rodney’s car gains traction and jumps forward with sudden force. The highway is coming quick, and the vehicle is staying with us. Rodney pulls onto the blacktop from Ranch one-eleven heading south. With the wheels spinning and white smoke billowing from the rear end, Rodney accelerates down the road. I look back and see that a full-size truck is just turning onto the highway. It follows us.

  “Step on it, man!” I yell at Rodney.

  “Don’t worry man. That truck can’t catch us.”

  Rodney floors the gas pedal anyway, and the Firebird launches forward with more force than I thought it had. I look back again and see the truck getting further and further away. Soon I can only make out the truck’s headlights. I turn back around and grab a couple of cigarettes out of my pack. I light both and hand one to Rodney.

  “You doubt me too much,” Rodney says after taking a drag.

  I guess I do doubt him. He just takes too many risks for my taste. I smoke my cigarette and Rodney puts a Metallica cassette in the cassette player. “Kill ’Em All” blasts from the speakers as we push on. I glance at the speedometer and sees he’s doing 110 mph. I look back one more time, and there’s nobody in sight. We come to a curve in the road, and Rodney slows down to 50 mph.

  “It’s almost one in the morning. Isn’t your dad going to be pissed?” I ask.

  “We’ll just sneak in. We’ve done it before, and we’ve never gotten caught,” he says confidently.

  That’s true. We’ve snuck in and out of his house many times and never gotten caught due to Rodney’s dad being a sound sleeper.

  We pull up to his house, and he kills the engine. We walk to the front door, and Rodney puts his key into the deadbolt, eases the door open, and shuts it as quietly as a cat burglar. We take off our shoes, as we always do in his house, and make our way silently up the carpeted stairs. As we get to the top, we pass his dad’s room that’s on the left. The door is open but too dark to see inside. I wonder if his dad is watching us from the darkness. We creep to the right towards Rodney’s room. With every tiptoe, I expect Rodney’s dad to come out of his room and catch us, but he never does. Rodney opens his bedroom door, and we slip inside. He turns on his television and the bedroom light, and I crash onto his bed. Rodney undresses to his boxers and sits at the end of the bed watching TV. I look at him for a moment trying to figure out what he might be thinking before falling asleep.

  Chapter Ten

  The next morning, I wake up, and Rodney’s not in the room. I go downstairs and find him eating a bowl of cereal while he’s talking to his dad about getting a dirt bike. I couldn’t fathom my dad wanting to buy a dirt bike for me. It’s very alien to me to see a father and son discuss something like that. I’m envious, to say the least. And it’s not the dirt bike I’m jealous of. It’s the fact that Rodney can engage with his father like this. A small pain pulses through my heart. Rodney’s dad looks my direction and says hi.

  “Hi,” I say back.

  Rodney’s dad sets a bowl in front of me, and I grab the box of cereal that’s on the table. I look around the kitchen and admire how spotless it is. Not one room in their whole house is ever dirty. Even Rodney’s dad’s workshop is immaculate.

  “Let’s go to Dallas and skate today,” Rodney suggests as his dad exits the kitchen.

  “That sounds cool. Are we going with everyone else?” I ask.

  “Well you don’t skate downtown Dallas by yourself,” Rodney says, grabbing the phone and dialing.

  “Hey Greg, what’s up? Hey, you want to go to Dallas and skate toda
y? … Alright… Meet us at Erica’s… You’re gonna ride with Seth? … I haven’t skated with him in a long time… See you soon… Hey, call Chad and tell him, too… See ya.”

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea to go to Erica’s today. She said she was supposed to hang out with her mom,” I say as Rodney hangs up.

  “We’ll just go by there. We’re going to meet everyone at the tennis courts anyway. Her house is on the way, so it’s a good place to meet up.”

  “Yeah, okay,” I say, feeling it’s probably easier to go along with what he wants instead of arguing. Rodney can be pretty stubborn. Either he’ll ignore me, or he’ll get pissed off, and then the day would just suck, so I don’t pursue it. After we finish our breakfast, we put our skateboards in Rodney’s trunk and head out.

  We drive the whole way to Dallas in silence, listening to music and smoking cigarettes. As we pull off the interstate, we see Seth’s car go by instead of pulling off the interstate. We pull around the apartment complex and drive up to the tennis courts and see Greg skating around, doing tricks. He sees us and skates up to the car. Rodney rolls down his window, and Greg leans in.

  “Hey, fools,” Greg says.

  “What’s up? Where’s Seth at?” Rodney asks.

  “He went to the store or something. He wanted me to wait here for you guys.”

  “Oh. We’re going to check and see if Erica is home. You want to ride down with us?” Rodney asks.

  “Okay,” Greg says, getting in the back as Rodney opens the driver’s door and leans the seat forward.

  We drive to the bottom of the hill and through the parking in the rear of the apartments. I don’t see Erica’s mom’s car.

  “Hey, Corey. Get in the trunk, and we’ll act like you didn’t come with us. Then I’ll pop the trunk, and you can surprise her,” Rodney says.

  “Oh hell no. Last time I was back there I was drunk sick, and you were being an asshole,” I say, a little annoyed.

  “I promise I won’t do that this time. It’s just a joke to play on Erica. She’ll be all disappointed you’re not here, and then she’ll be happy that you are.”