It was supposed to be an easy job. Security guard in a suburban bank, mostly just standing around to keep people from thinking about robbing a bank that nobody tried to rob anyway.
Because Mama needed something to do with herself, retirement driving her crazy like everybody knew it would. She needed something easy, no danger, not much to think about. And best of all, somewhere she couldn’t cause any trouble.
So, of course, after three weeks at the new job, Mama had to shoot somebody.
“Why would you go after a man who had a gun, Mama?” Dwayne asked.
She shrugged, opening a package of tater tots. “He was robbing the bank.”
“I know that. But he had a gun.”
“It wasn’t his money.”
“What?”
“It wasn’t his money and he was trying to take it. That’s not right.”
“But it wasn’t your money either,” her son hissed through clenched teeth. “In fact, it wasn’t even the bank’s money! That money is insured, Mama. You risked your life to protect money that didn’t belong to you and didn’t belong to your employer.”
She looked up from a boiling pot for the first time during the talk, lips slanted into a smirk. “You see the way he held that gun?”
Dwayne sighed deeply. “I wasn’t there, Mama. Of course I didn’t see it.”
“All sideways. Like that was going to help him aim better or something.”
Dwayne said nothing. He’d given up for now, taken his gaze away from this madwoman who’d given birth to him. He was wip-ing his glasses now.
Mama started humming. Just another evening over the stove to her.
Dwayne had more. “You know how much trouble we had to go through to get you that job, Mama?”
No answer. Stirring the pot now.
“A lot. We go through hell to get you a job — “
She turned, sent him an arctic blast of a stare.
“We go through heck to get you a job, and you wind up shooting a young punk — maybe to death, we ain’t heard from the hospital yet — over money that wasn’t yours?”
She turned to him again, another smirk. “He didn’t get the money, did he?” Not asking, gloating.
“No, Mama.” He was grinding his teeth now. “He didn’t get the money.”
“You staying for dinner?”
***
Javon had his laptop now, so he wasn’t bored anymore, laying up in the hospital bed next to some old dude who didn’t look like he’d be around much longer, tubes and shit and all up in his nose.
The next few days were going to be fucked up, he just knew it. The police had already been around and he knew they’d be back, and not just with questions next time.
He figured he wouldn’t have to worry that much about catching a long ride in the joint, but he was going to get sent up, no question about it. Only nineteen, arrests as a minor not part of his record and all that, but he was going to get sent up. Javon knew it.
And worst of it all was his boys. He al-ready knew they’d clown him, getting shot by an old lady like that? When they called him in the hospital, they started laughing right away, didn’t even bother with ‘hey, dog, you alright? You going to make it?’ They just started laughing soon as he picked up the phone like the shit would have been funny even if he was dying.
But not Darian. That was his boy from jump. That’s why when he walked into the hospital room, he had this serious look on his face, not laughing or even smiling. Of course, that was also because he was em-barrassed by what he did at the bank. He stayed at the hospital room door, all timid and shit, eyes big and aimed at the floor.
Javon reached under the covers for that little metal toilet to throw at Darian’s punk ass, but figured with his luck he’d have to take a shit a little later and the got damn thing would be laying there on the floor across the room, so he stopped. “The fuck you want?” he spat.
“Wanted to see if you was a’ight, that’s all. Sorry about what happened.”
He was supposed to hang at the back of the line in the bank, make sure everything was going okay and wait for the signal. If he got the signal, he was supposed to take off, go to the parking lot, warm up the car in advance so they wouldn’t have to sit there waiting all damn day for his fucked Olds to start. If he didn’t get the signal, he was supposed to stay there, take out his gun same time as Javon and help hold shit down.
But he didn’t wait for the signal, with his dumb ass. Motherfucker just panicked and took off, leaving his boy all alone in the bank to deal with officer grandmama.
“Stupid motherfucker. Only reason I chose your ass was because you could blend in, hang in the back and act like you ain’t with me. With your dorky looking ass, wouldn’t nobody think you was robbing a bank. So you could slip in and out without nobody noticing. But you couldn’t handle some simple shit like that?”
“Well, I slipped out and nobody noticed.”
Javon exploded. “But you was sup-posed to wait for the signal!”
“I forgot what the signal was.”
Javon choked back another eruption, sent his eyes somewhere else. No sense letting this stupid motherfucker push his blood pressure off the charts. He took another deep breath and waited, then turned to him, putting a pissed-off finger in his face. “You owe me.”
Darian jerked his body a little, still look-ing down like he was ready to cry or something.
Javon shook his head, laughed a little. “the fuck did you do in the car all that time?”
“Just waited, took pictures.”
“Pictures of what?”
“Cars in the parking lot. See, I came up with this Idea,” he said, eyes up for the first time, getting kind of happy. “I was like, okay, I’m gonna pretend like I’m on the phone, but really I’m taking pictures with video and shit, that way in case that shit goes to court, I can be like ‘I wasn’t even there at the time of robbery.’” He held up the phone, showed the video with a smile.
“Yeah, you stupid motherfucker. But they got you right there in parking lot, getting ready to drive off. You ever heard of ac-complice to grand larceny?”
His eyes went down again. He mum-bled something like “No? But it’s bad, right?”
Javon shook his head, but then saw something on the video just as his boy started to pull the phone away. “Hold up. Let me see that?”
Darian handed over the phone.
He took a second look, watched an old lady getting into her car, then watched it a third time just to make sure. “Got damn!” Javon knew that face, that fucked-up wig, those glasses. “That’s officer grandmama,” he said, nodding slowly. “That’s her.”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
He watched it again, eyes at the bottom of the screen this time. Still nodding, he was smiling now. “763-ERT.”
“What’s that?”
“Her license plate. With that, you can find out who that lady is, where she live and everything.”
“For what?”
“For her ass to get taken down!”
“What, you plan on waiting till you get out of jail for that?”
“Javon shook his head, then lifted a fin-ger to his boy’s face. “You owe me, dog. No joke.”
“Come on!”
He was nodding and smiling again. “And here’s the thing: You saw all those dudes talking shit about me, talking about I got shot by grandmama and all that?”
Darian tried to stop a giggle from leak-ing, but didn’t catch it in time.
“Oh, that was funny, was it? Yeah, real funny. But here’s the thing: They was really laughing at your ass. Think about that. You the one made that possible.”
His boy shook his head.
“No joke. You. You with your dumb ass waiting in the car in the parking lot for two hours.”
Darian stopped moving. No more laughs.
“Yeah. And sooner or later, that shit’s gonna be on the news, motherfuckers laughing at your ass. They won’t know what they really laughing at. But you will.” More nodding and smiling.
Darian kept looking at the floor, shaking his head, but his face was on some different shit now, eyes getting sharp, jaw tight like he wanted to throw hands or something.
So Javon stayed on him, kept laughing, talking shit. “You wait till I tell dudes about this shit, about how you was sitting in the car, taking pictures.”
“But you said yourself that was good! Cause now you got her license plate.”
“Yeah, but what good do it do if you won’t do nothing?”
Darian sent his eyes away, thinking about something.
Javon kept laughing, knew where this was going. He knew how to manipulate Darian’s sorry ass. This was something he’d get him to do, a way for him to pay back for that bullet he caught. And even if he fucked this up, what did he care anyway? His ass would be in the joint, already serving time. Might as well take a shot.
“I don’t even know how to find out where she live.”
“You let me take care of that,” Javon said.
Darian nodded, eyes still at the floor. “I don’t know. I never been involved in some shit like this.”
“Shit, you can handle it. You just got to calm down, make sure you don’t panic like you did at the bank. But I know you can do that. You got this.”
Darian kept shaking his head ‘no,’ but the shakes were getting softer.
“Yeah, you make sure you don’t panic, you got this shit. You got it, dog.”
Soon he was nodding his head, eyes on fire.
“Yeah. You got this.”
***
Mama lived in a nice place, two bedroom Victorian home tucked between the lakeside country and the suburbs. Shrubs and trees lined up from house to house in a way that looked weird to Dwayne. Perfect lawns, gardens flowing with pink and purple, quiet enough to hear the grass grow. So all those damn locks on the door didn’t make sense. Mama being Mama, she probably worried because she was used to worrying. All those years on the Southside, bars on the windows, leaving the lights on when she left home.
She’d gotten robbed a few times and it rattled her, reminded her she wasn’t in Williamville, North Carolina anymore. But now she needed to be reminded that she wasn’t on the Southside anymore.
A 93 Oldsmobile drove past slowly, probably nothing. But Dwayne shook his head anyway. Skinny kid with coke bottle glasses at the wheel looked like a gangster wannabe. Sneer on his face, oversized football jersey. Probably some suburban kid thinking he looked cool or bad or whatever they call it now.
Once inside, Dwayne found Mama asleep on the couch, one hand on the remote control, the other on a beer. He clicked off the TV and took a seat next to her, pulling the blanket over her shoulders, adjusting her wig.
It was decided that he’d be the one who moved in with her. No way would she get talked into moving out of her home and into his in Baldwin Hills. And who knew what kind of mischief she’d cause on her own — especially without a job now.
Mama could be a handful, but he could handle it. He’d get tired of hearing the stories over and over, especially the one about Charlie and the hog, but it would be okay.
She grunted herself awake. “You lock up?”
“Yeah, I locked up.”
“You sure? All the locks?”
“Yeah, Mama,” he lied. “All the locks.”
“Who’s that driving past the house?”
“Nobody, Mama.”
***
This shit wasn’t going to be hard. Darian just wanted to make sure he had the right house, wanted to make sure this was where officer grandmama lived before doing what he needed to do.
It was her, alright, sitting on the couch, next to that dude that got out of that brand new Benz. It was fucked up what she did, now she was probably telling him what happened, laughing about it, which meant she was really laughing at him. Just like the dude did as he walked into the house, shaking his head as he turned back at the car.
Darian thought he might have been laughing at the Olds, all rusty and shit with that busted back window where somebody tried to get in. But he might have been laughing at him. Maybe he knew the story al-ready, somehow knew he’d been sitting his car in the parking lot when he should have been going back to help or whatever it was Javon thought he should have been doing.
The sun was going down soon. Once night fell, he could slip inside that door no time at all. Javon taught him how.
He knew how to do shit, and not just video games and school. Everybody thought he was one of those nerdy motherfuckers who liked to read but couldn’t handle a gun, but that was alright. He just had to find a place to park. Maybe down by the creek or somewhere nobody would suspect any-thing. He’d be in and out, take care of business and that would be that.
***
The story began around dinner, Mama doing her usual thing of setting the scene, giv-ing every damn detail before finally getting to either Charlie or the hog. Dwayne smiled along with things, but really he was going about his business, washing the dishes, checking his cell phone, filing his nails, all while grunting ‘uh-huh’ every once in a while.
“… now here come Zeke, running out the house, screeching and screaming about one the hogs tried to come after him, bite him on his behind. I say, serves him right for bringing a hog in the house in the first place. Now the hog runs out, zigzagging, like he can’t make up his mind which way he going. Something look wrong about him. This was Chester, the prize hog…”
“Uh-huh,” Dwayne said, putting dishes away, then, taking a bag of cookies out of the cupboard, checking the expiration date.
“… This got me a little worried. Chester was the biggest of the bunch, and here’s Zeke fifty pounds soaking wet. He’s crying and carrying on. Daddy comes around the corner, face fixed like he ready to explode. ‘What’s all that crying about?’
“Mmm-hmm,” her son said, mouth full of oatmeal raisin cookie.
“… Zeke pointed at Chester. ‘He tried to bite me!’ So daddy turned and looked at the hog, long and hard. Didn’t move or noth-ing, just staring, hands on his hips…”
“Yeah.” Dwayne was in the guest room room now, getting ready for bed. He noticed something weird on the book shelf. A guide to Tantric Games? Not something he’d expect Mama to read. It brought a smile to his face.
“… So now daddy just walks into the house, casual as you please. We just think he’s ignoring us. But naw. Comes out thirty seconds later with Charlie in his hands, gives it a good pump and walks toward Ches-ter…”
Dwayne pulled the book out, curious. Right away it didn’t feel like a book. Too heavy, clunky. Then something slipped free from the hollowed out book, landed on the carpet with a dull, angry thud. Shit.
“… he gives Chester two good shots to the back of his head, ‘till it dropped to the grass. He wiggled a little, squealed but when he was done, he was done. Daddy walked back into the house like he was just brush-ing his teeth or taking out the trash. Just another day for him. He turned to us and says —“
“Mama what’s this doing here?” Dwayne held up the gun, the butt between his fingers like it was a dirty diaper.
She shrugged. “Protection.”
“I don’t like you having this. It’s not like you need it anyhow. But even if you did, I don’t like you having it.”
“You think I can’t handle it?”
“Didn’t say that.”
“Ask that boy in the bank.”
“Mama, I need you to get rid of this. Throw it away, whatever you have to do.”
“Tomorrow. I’ll bring it to the pawn shop.”
Dwayne reached for the courage give her a disapproving sneer, but could only manage a firm nod, then he turned and went back into the guest room, gently placed the gun in the wastebasket because he’d heard those things could go off if you drop it and they’re loaded. He saw that in a mov-ie.
He stared at it for a while, then picked it up, pushed the chamber open like he’d seen them do in movies, the westerns. It was loaded, bullets right there. He gently placed it at the bottom of the wastebasket again. A voice from behind startled him. “I’m off to bed now. You have a good night.”
Instead of turning and delivering the staunch lecture Mama needed, he groaned, “Goodnight, Mama.” Then the lights were out with Dwayne sitting there wondering would it be a problem if he put the hallway light on and left it on.
***
By the time Darian got to the creek, the sun was on its way down, creeping behind the skyscrapers that looked a million miles away and making those long shadows fade into the night. He parked behind a dumpster and waited a little longer for the glow behind those giant buildings to die. It was time to do what he came to do.
Darian moved quickly through the alley, stepping lightly so nobody could hear, hood pulled over his eyes.
It was quiet but if he kept his footsteps nice and easy, he could stay hidden. Not much light coming from the street lamps, so that dark gave him cover. He could even pull his gun out without anybody seeing him, wave it around a little. It felt good. Like lightning at him command.
“Laughing at me, huh?” He said. “Let’s see how funny this shit is,” he said. But quietly, to himself.
***
Dwayne sprang wide awake when something metallic snapped. Then came a long, slow whine. A door pushed open. The back door. “Mama?”
But he didn’t say it loud enough, half afraid it wouldn’t be her.
Footsteps followed, light, but steady. No limp, no drag in the steps. This wasn’t Mama.
Time to get on the phone, dial 9-1-1. He glanced through the sliver in the door, an eye on the doorway across the hall — Ma-ma’s room — as he waited for an answer.
“Nine-one-one, what’s your emergen-cy?”
He started to speak, but a silhouette dis-tracted him. Young boy, gun at his hip, scanning things, mumbling to himself. “Where you at, Grandma?” He asked. “I got something for your ass.”
The kid spun, put his ear to the door of Mama’s room, then kicked at it. The door didn’t budge, so he tried again. Nothing. He pulled something metallic from his pocket, stabbed at the lock.
Dwayne jumped to his feet, phone fall-ing to the floor. He reached for the wastebasket, jabbed a hand inside and groped for the gun, loud as fuck now, but he didn’t care. The guy was about to get into mama’s room.
He peeked again through the sliver, found the silhouette frozen, then turning his head toward the guest room, nice and slow. Not scared at all.
Gun in his hand, Dwayne took a deep breath.
Then came more footsteps, harder and louder, charging toward the guest room. A pound at his door and it was kicked open. Dwayne pulled the gun up, not sure if he was holding it right. He yanked twice at the trigger and couldn’t get it to fire. Shit.
Then came a boom that shook the floor, followed by a deep groan that kept going even as the body in front of him jerked for-ward, leg kicked out from under it, everything else tumbling to the carpet in a dark crim-son mess.
The hallway light came on and revealed Mama with a shotgun, shaking her head as she moved forward. “Damn shame,” she said.
Dwayne looked up and struggled for words.
“Guess we better call somebody,” she said. “What you think?”
Her son nodded. “Whatever you say, Mama.”
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