“We’re doing this. I have to get on with my life.”
Cars and SUVs whistled by. No eighteen-wheelers. With all the stop and go, we weren’t on the freeway. Freeway was all stop or all go, lots of lane changing, more cars passing by.
The sound of city traffic faded.
“Lisa, you know I’m all about the business.”
“What now?”
“Make sure I get homeboy’s cut.”
“All you worry about is money. ”
“If I had money I wouldn’t worry about it.”
“I got it right here.”
“Kids in private school. That shit costs a grip.”
“How’s your mother?”
“Lisa, you know, you really should call Auntie from time to time. She’s getting up there. Since you hooked up with white boy you ain’t been hanging out with the family too much. ”
Thought I heard an airplane taking off. All flights took off going west, then turned and found their bearings. We were heading west. That meant we were heading toward the ocean.
Then my weight shifted toward the front of the trunk. They were going downhill.
“Lose the headlights.”
“Headlights lost.”
All I could smell taste feel was my own fear.
These would be the last voices I heard.
“Lisa, mind if I smoke?”
“You firing up a joint?”
“Nah. Smokes I picked up when I did a job in Canada. ”
“Looks like a blunt. ”
“Du Maurier. French.”
The car rode a moment, slowed down, squealed to an easy stop. My heartbeat sped up. Sweat rained. The stench from his cancer stick made it that much harder to breathe. The car was dilapidated. The backseat had to be ragged enough for smoke and sounds to come through.
My feet were as numb as my hands. Pain muted by whatever they had tied me with. I breathed with the pain, chest expanding like a woman in labor, short puffs through my nose.
“You’re going to drown him?”
“Unless you want me to get some gas. Brought some just in case. ”
“No. I’m not down with that. Just ... no fire. Water is fine. ”
“We’ll take him to the water.”
“How long will it take?”
“As long as you want it to. Told you that, Lisa. We can toss him in, watch him struggle, or we can do it right off. Your money, your call. Why that face? Problem with that?”
“Just ... no. I don’t have a problem. ”
“He’s beat down, but your boy ain’t no joke. All I have to do is tie him up with some duct tape, take him out, drop him in the ocean. Three minutes later gurgle gurgle and we’re heading toward Jerry’s Deli. Unless you want to make it last a while. We can play with him.”
“Just ... Just ... just get it over with. ”
I imagined.
Imagined Rufus sprinting across the beach, sand kicking up behind him, his colorful locks flying behind him like Superman’s cape, that gun I had given him extended, scowling like he was the Punisher from the comic books, barrel blazing, bullets flying, taking out the lion.
“You getting out?”
She paused. “No.”
Or Arizona appearing out of nowhere, naked like she was the night I searched her, her streamlined beauty, long hair, and golden skin catching the lion off guard long enough for her cunning smile to disarm him, then to use her switchblade to cut him every way but loose.
The lion said, “Give me the stun gun.”
“For what?”
Imagined Freeman showing up and throwing books like missiles, those bobbleheads charging and attacking the lion and Lisa, taking them down, tying them up like Gulliver.
“I‘mma zap him a few times, soften him up.”
Panther. Imagined her running across the beach in boy shorts and thigh-high boots, her long hair flying behind her, tears in her eyes, wailing like a banshee, gun extended like she was on her way to be the lead in Kill Bill.
None of that was gonna happen.
After a long hesitation, Lisa told the lion, “I’ll get out too. I’ll see this through. ”
“You don’t have to, Lisa.”
“I have to.”
I got my leg to move. Struggled and got my swollen hands to my ankle. Panther’s gift was still there. They hadn’t seen the ankle strap. Too busy trying to rush me inside this Deuce to search me. My fingers found the .380. Heartbeat was drumming between my ears.
I was blind. A gun in my hand and living in Stevie Wonder’s world, a world devoid of a sense that I needed right now, a world not to be taken for granted.