The day he took charge

He took a last long drag on his cigarette, and coughed.  Awakened from his short reverie, he found a miniscule nub attached to the filter.  He flicked the cigarette off his middle finger into the dark alley.  It sparked on hitting the pavement and rolled into a dark corner.  It hadn’t helped.  His heart continued thumping two hundred beats per minute.  Or at least that is what it felt like.  He was still as wired as a speed freak on a pot of coffee. 

He repeated the sequence of events once again, mumbling to himself, and tapping his front right pocket, with a jittery hand, to make sure his piece was still there.  It was.  Nice to know it hadn’t dropped out his pocket or something.

He sucked in deep breaths and exhaled slowly for a while but found that didn’t work either.  His nerves continued shooting lightning back and forth across his body.  Nervous energy arced across his shoulders and shot up his spine. 

He reviewed the plan in his head.  Closing his eyes, he reviewed the next thirty seconds on a mental video recorder.  What he would say.  What he would do.  He approached the scene from different angles.  He reviewed it all several times until he was convinced it could go no other way.

He flung the door to the convenience store open.  It flew open and cracked against the concrete behind it as he rushed into the store.  The overhead bell clanged loudly once then fell from wherever it had been attached.

“Give me the money!”

The stern-looking mustached arab behind the counter was frightened but not terribly.  This wasn’t the first time he’d been threatened.  The black ski mask wasn’t enough.  He reached into his front pocket and pulled the gun.  Amazingly it came free on the first try, even in his sweaty jittery hand.

The black gun metal convinced him.  He hit a button behind the register and it clanged open.  “Show me your hands!”  The arab hesitated.

“Show me your f***ing hands!”

The arab raised both hands slowly, eyeballing him carefully, no doubt imagining a face behind the mask.  The arab had done something behind that counter, of that much he was sure.

He reached over the counter, snatched a stack of twenties and tens out of the drawer shoved them in his ample pockets, and made for the door.  He flung it open, almost crashed into a man in a suit, pushed off him and ran for the darkness of the alley almost forty feet away.

Impossibly, blue and red lights bounced off the brick building in front of him.  The two colors he had not wanted to see.  “Freeze!” The police yelled behind him, as he rounded the corner into the alleyway.  How could this have happened?  He had been in the store less than sixty seconds and yet here they were New York’s finest.

His patrol car rolled back and forth across the living room carpet.  “Whoop! Whoop!” He cried, and pretended the colored wood atop his toy car flashed red and blue.

“What are you doing?”

“Playing cops and robbers, Daddy.” He looked up, and stopped rolling his police car.

“They’re all robbers.  You know that right?”

He looked up puzzled, scrunched his seven year old eyebrows.  He had no idea what his Dad meant by this.

“You got to take what you want in this world.  Screw whoever you have to to get it.”

It was then he saw the sweating, half-drunk beer swishing in his hand.  It was also then that he dismissed everything his Dad had just said.

“I’ll show you when your mother gets home.” With that, he rose from the recliner and strode down the hall.  

He had no idea what Dad meant by that but it wasn’t good.  Something bad was going to happen.  He gave up the patrol car, and flipped on the t.v. silently.  He turned the volume down to three so as not to disturb his Dad.  Back in his parent’s bedroom, his Dad was not “sleeping it off” as Momma had always suggested he should.  Items crashed into walls.  Furniture scraped against the floor.  He wanted to tell Dad to “sleep it off”, but he couldn’t.  He was just a kid.

It was then that Momma arrived.  She was sweaty, and droopy, but she was here.  She dropped the shoulder strap of her purse off her shoulder.  It landed in a heap next to the door. She ran one hand through her long black hair, removed some of the sweat, then took a rubber band, gathered her hair and bound it in a ponytail behind her head.

“Hi Momma.”

“Hi baby.” She immediately scanned the room, aware that they were the only ones there.

“Where’s your father?”

“In your room.”

“And is he O.K.?”  By this she meant drunk.  Tommy Johnson two doors down had told him what it meant.

“No.” He said unequivocally.

“Stay here.”

He turned and watched her stride down the hallway.  She stopped at the door which was open a crack.  A sliver of light passed into the hallway.  Something crashed against the wall.  It was then she opened the door.  Light flooded the place.  Beyond the door, Dad stood atop the bed holding a lamp.  The unplugged cord dangled from it.  Momma closed the door behind her.

She didn’t want him to hear the yelling.  He knew this.  The walls were so thin it really didn’t matter, he could hear every word.  He stopped watching the television.

The typical yelling ensued.  Back and forth, back and forth.  Soon came the cursing, some words he had heard before, some he hadn’t.  Then the hitting.  He’d heard it before.  Slaps.  The sound of clapping hands but louder and sharper, accompanied by painful grunts of the person who getting slapped.  Momma.  It was worse this time, and somehow he knew. The house shook when something heavy hit the wall.  Momma.  She was screaming, then gasping, screaming, then gasping.  He went to the kitchen and pulled a knife out of the drawer.  A big, scary one, to scare Dad with.  The walls shook hard again and he almost dropped it.

He stepped down the hallway, where the sounds became louder.  He wasn’t sure if he could do this.  Could he do this?  He convinced himself he could do this.  He could do this for Momma. His grip tightened on the knife.

Inside the room, Momma screamed louder than before. And the door opened.  He was too stunned to move.  Momma stumbled out of the door.  Blood streamed down her forhead.  Her torn shirt trailed behind her.  Dad was kicking her, and kicking her.  She sucked in air, barely, but he wouldn’t stop.

“Baby, move!” She yelled frantically.

He did, and she pulled the door shut.

“Call 9-1-1”  He did as was told, went to the kitchen and traded the big scary knife for the cordless phone.  He punched in the numbers in the hallway and held the phone out.

“You got to talk to them.”  She grunted on the word “them” as the door was being pulled out of her grasp from the other side.

He finished the alleyway, crossed the street and jumped onto a five foot chain-link fence.  He shoved one foot into the chainlink, while the fence rattled under his weight.  He swung the other foot to the top of the fence then hopped over.

The only thing he had to fear now was dogs.  It seemed unlikely that he would run into one especially a vicious one behind a five foot fence.  Most dogs could jump that quite easily.

He crossed the dandelion lawn, littered with shredded paper, broken bottles and cigarette butts.  Ahead the two-story house, cracked concrete porch, and rusted swingset were deserted.  At one side the fence dipped to two feet.  He quickly hurtled over it.  He found himself on an open street.  He was unable to slow down with the cops close on his heels.  So he didn’t.  He ran.  Two men were talking next to a broke-down van on the street.  He winked at them, and hurried past.

They weren’t fools.  In this neighborhood, people didn’t jog for health.  They knew he was running from somebody, and they knew enough to stay out of it.  Police or a dealer were the two likely suspects and they’d know soon enough when the police emerged over the fence, or in a patrol car down the street.