Cape Cod Noir - By David L Ulin Page 0,9
safety. The chrome slide was definite against the night in the car. The black pistol grip disappeared in darkness. He took it from me with both hands, half-cradling it like a broken bird.
I spoke before he could. It was better that way.
“Take care of yourself, Gleason. Stay free.”
He didn’t smile, just stared at the gun. He looked at me and gave a short, sharp nod. I got out of the car and walked toward my own. Then I stopped and peered back in through the rear window. Gleason’s hands were spread out a little from his sides. He was looking at his kids on his cell phone in his left hand. The gun weighed down his right.
I drove right out of that parking lot without looking back. Had to get a step ahead. After that, I lived in New Bedford for a few weeks. I stayed in a small apartment Balthazar owned down the street from Taqueria la Raza. It had a stove and a bookcase. He took the little rent he charged out of my paycheck. I worked the line with him in the kitchen, and he kept my name off the books.
We kept our eyes to the papers, our ears to the radio, and Balthazar’s son checked the Internet at the library. We made calls from the pay phone. There was never any news. I couldn’t chance a run back up to the Cape, and it was only a matter of time before my p.o knew I had stopped showing for work. If he cared at all. On the outside, I’m a threat to him because he’s neck-deep in this shit too.
I couldn’t stay with Balthazar long. No news came from the Cape. The night before I left Taqueria la Raza, I remembered the words that echoed down the tiers at me. They made me think of what we looked like beneath that eclipse, totally clear in the black, the guts of it all shining silver like an animal with its belly slit.
I’ve got my savings. And illegals aren’t the only ones who can play tricks with Social Security numbers.
I’m on the run. Movement is freedom.
I hope he made it back to Brazil.
SECOND CHANCE
BY ELYSSA EAST
Buzzards Bay
Cunningham said that he had set up the reform school on Penikese Island so we could have a clean break with our pasts. We couldn’t walk home from out here in the middle of nowhere Buzzards Bay. Couldn’t hitch or swim here, either. Even boaters considered the currents dangerous where we were, twelve miles out from the Cape, past the islands of Nonamesset, Veckatimest, Uncatena, Naushon, the Weepeckets, Pasque, and Nashawena, just north of Cuttyhunk. There was no Cumbie Farms, no Dunkin’ Donuts, no running water, Internet, or cell service here. Not even any trees. Just a house made from the hull of an old wooden ship that had run aground. Me and six other guys, all high school age, who were lucky to be here instead of in some lock-up, lived with Cunningham and the staff, most of whom were also our teachers. The school had a barn, chicken coop, woodshop, and outhouse. The only other things were the ruins of a leper colony, a couple of tombstones that Cunningham liked to call a cemetery, and the birds. Lots of birds. Seagulls, all of them, that hovered over this place like a screeching, shifting cloud that rained crap and dove at our heads all day.
This was our clean slate, a barren rock covered in seagull shit.
We had to leave most of our things behind on the mainland when we were shipped out here on a rusty lobster boat called Second Chance, but our pasts couldn’t help but follow us here anyway. We were always looking over our shoulders and finding them there. Depending on the time of day, we were either chasing the shadows of our pasts or being chased by them. We cast them out over the water with our fishing nets. They were with us when we hoed the garden, split wood, and changed the oil to keep Second Chance, the school’s only boat, in working order. We watched them tackle and collide and fall to the ground next to us while we played football and beat the shit out of each other much like the waves that endlessly pounded this rock. I just wondered when our pasts would pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and walk away. You could say that’s what we all wanted them to do.