It’s strangely quiet out on the street. No sirens of car horns, no vehicle traffic either. Still, we keep a tight grip on our weapons.
“Kind of far. Ten blocks that way,” I reply, pointing.
“Does he have kids? I mean, what if we get there and – “
“He doesn’t have any kids.”
“Then why didn’t we go there before, instead of Jobie’s?”
“Because Jobie kept telling me that his dad was gone for good! And I believed him!”.
“God, if we’d gone there first Jobie would still be alive.”
“Well we didn’t. And he’s not. Okay?”
“Poor Jobie,” Lynda says, shaking her head. “That paramedic must have been his dad. How do you think he identified him? I mean, you said he hadn’t seen Jobie since he was three.”
“I don’t know. Maybe by instinct. Or maybe just because Jobie was there in his mother’s apartment.
A car pulls up next to us. The driver honks the horn. I tighten my grip on my knife, expecting the worst, but when I turn to look I see that the car is filled with kids – young kids, aged maybe ten to fourteen. The driver is a long-haired blonde girl of about twelve. The kids all brandish knives and hammers and make whooping sounds. I give them a half-hearted wave and they speed off.
“Jesus,” Madison says, then turns to me. “Are you sure your uncle’s gonna be there?”
“He’ll be there.”
“Won’t Dad look for us there?” Taylor asks.
“I doubt it. He doesn’t know that I know the address.”
“But you said you were there before.”
“Yeah – without him knowing about it.”
We reach an intersection and start to cross, but then hear a woman shouting down the block to our right.
“Go away! Leave me alone!”
We all look and see a fortyish woman in a wheelchair being menaced by two tall male teens, one African American, one white.
“You bastards!” the woman shouts.
“We should help her,” Lynda says. God, what a little moralist she’s become since the world’s gone to hell! Always suggesting that we cover bodies and pray and help people. Okay, I’m glad she’s gained enough insight to apologize for her past hatefulness towards me, but damn!
“Maybe she killed her kid and they’re avenging him,” I say. The words are barely out of my mouth when Madison bolts across the street to help the woman. At first I think she’s still in rage mode because of Jobie, but then I remember what she said about her mom being wheelchair bound. Could that woman be her mom? Or just someone who resembles her? As I watch from the corner, trying to make out the woman’s features, Madison is hit by a car. The impact knocks her out of her sneakers and throws her into the air. She bounces off the car’s roof and lands on the asphalt with her arms and legs at crazy angles. Her superspade lands next to her. The car, a red four door muscle car – a Camaro, I think – doesn’t even slow down.
Once again, Lynda screams and turns away. Taylor just stares, horrified. I run out into the street to check on her, making sure to look both ways. One look at Madison’s staring, unseeing eyes and I know she’s dead.
“Yo!” a deep male voice exclaims. I look up to see the two thug teens cool walking towards the intersection. Behind them, almost out of sight, the woman in the wheelchair rolls rapidly down the street, making her escape.
“Too bad,” the white teen says, with very little sympathy in his voice.
Ignoring the two thugs, I pick up Madison’s superspade and rejoin my siblings on the sidewalk. Lynda throws her arms around me and sobs, while Taylor keeps gaping. “My God,” he says.
“Let’s go!” I bark. “Taylor, get her off of me or so help me God I’ll leave you both here.”
Faced with abandonment, Taylor snaps out of it. He grabs Lynda by her upper arms and tries to pull her off of me. “Come on Lynda,” he says gently. “We gotta get off the street.” But she just won’t let go.
To hell with this! I pivot my body, breaking Lynda’s grip, and start half walking, half running from both of them.
“Move!” Taylor shouts behind me. When I reach the other side of the street a few seconds later they’re both at my side. We march along the rest of the way without communicating, hearing only other people’s voices – some adult, some adolescent, some preadolescent. Some with a visible source, others coming from open windows. All of them shouting or cursing or screaming.