Blacktop Wasteland

by S. A. Cosby

  The Toyota backed out of the yard and took off down the dirt lane like a bat out of hell.

  * * *

  Kia was pacing a hole in the floor. Beauregard went through the living room and sat at the kitchen table. Kia came and sat down across from him.

  “What was all that about?” she asked.

  “Just some guys with some work for me,” he said.

  “What kind of work?”

  He took her hand and closed his fingers around it. “The nursing home called today. They say Mama owes them $48,000. Something went wrong with her Medicaid. With everything else going, I think I should just hear them out.”

  “No. NO. Why the hell does your Mama owe them that much? Bug, I don’t mean to sound evil, but that’s on your Mama. We got our own problems,” Kia said.

  “That’s why I’m gonna hear them out,” he said. Kia pulled her hand out of his grasp.

  “No. I’m not gonna let you do this. I can’t. Do you know what it’s like laying in bed waiting for somebody to call and tell me to come identify your body because you got killed on a job? Yeah, the money was good, but I can’t take you coming in here with a bullet in your shoulder and a head full of broken glass. Going up to Boonie’s when you should be in a hospital.”

  Beauregard reached out to stroke her cheek. She flinched but did not pull away.

  “We don’t have any choice. We right behind it. If this is legit it might give us some breathing room,” he said.

  Kia inhaled, held it for a second, and let out a long breath. “Sell the Duster. It’s worth at least twenty-five thousand. God knows you’ve put enough money in it.”

  “You know that’s not an option.” His voice was low. Dark.

  “Why, because it belonged to your Daddy? I don’t want you to end up like him. You holding on to that car like he was some kind of saint when everybody know he was a snitch,” Kia said. Beauregard stopped stroking her cheek.

  “Bug, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t—”

  Beauregard slammed his fist down on the table. Two jelly jars at the far end fell off and shattered on the floor.

  “The Duster ain’t for fucking sale,” he said. He got up and stalked out the front door. The whole house shook when he slammed it.

  * * *

  Ronnie and Reggie were sitting in front of the garage when he got there. Beauregard didn’t speak to them when he got out of the truck. He went to the door, unlocked it and stepped inside. They got the hint after a few minutes and followed him. He was sitting behind his desk by the time they got to the office. Ronnie sat and Reggie leaned against the door frame.

  “Talk,” Beauregard said.

  “Damn, right to the point, huh? Alright. So I got this little piece I mess with. She lives over in Cutter County near Newport News. She works at a jewelry store. The manager is this big bull dyke who probably got a strap-on pecker bigger than yours and mine put together. Anyway, she been trying to get down Jenny’s pants. That’s her name, Jenny. So one night a couple of weeks ago, this carpet licker took Jenny out for drinks and let it drop they were getting in a shipment of diamonds. Diamonds that ain’t on no manifest. Jenny said she was talking about giving her one of the diamonds. You know, because she all sweet on her and shit. Now this the part when you ask how much we talking about,” Ronnie said.

  Beauregard took the gun out of his waistband and put it on the desk between them.

  “How much we talking about, Ronnie.” His tone was flat as a pancake.

  Ronnie ignored his apparent disinterest. He knew the next words out of his mouth would change that. “Five hundred thousand dollars’ worth. I know a boy out of DC who says he will give us fifty cents on the dollar for them. That’s $250,000 split three ways. Eighty grand, Beau. That can buy a lot of motor oil.”

  “It’s $83,333.33. My cut would be $87,133.33. You owe me, remember,” Beauregard said.

  Ronnie sniffed hard. “Yeah, I remember.”

  Beauregard leaned forward and put his elbows on the desk. “How many people know about this other than you, me, Jenny, your brother back there and the fence?” he asked.

  Ronnie frowned. “Well, Quan knows,” he said.

  “Who is Quan?”

  “He’s the third guy. I met him upstate. He’s good for this.”

  “When you trying to do this?” Beauregard asked.

  “Next week,” Ronnie said without hesitation.

  Beauregard got up and grabbed a beer out of the mini-fridge, then sat down again. He popped the top off with the edge of the desk. “That ain’t gonna work. Next week the Fourth of July. Traffic on the roads gonna be heavy as shit. Plus it’s supposed to be nice. In the mid-eighties. Cops are out heavy in that kind of weather.” He took a long swig and killed half the bottle. “Plus we would need to go check it out. Plan routes. Get the layout of the store. Things like that,” Beauregard said.

  “So how long you thinking?” Ronnie asked. Beauregard hadn’t offered him a beer, but he wanted one. Badly.

  “At least a month. Depending on the route,” Beauregard said. He finished his beer.

  “A month? That’s not gonna work. I need this like yesterday, man,” Ronnie said.

  Beauregard tossed his beer in the trash can in the corner. “See, that’s why that damn horse died. You always in a rush,” he said. Ronnie didn’t say anything. He rubbed the palms of his hands over his thighs. He pushed the heels down into his thick-corded quadriceps.

  “Look, man, can we split the difference and say two weeks?” he said.

  “I didn’t say I was in. I’m just saying what you would need to do,” Beauregard said.

  Ronnie leaned back in his chair until the front legs came off the floor. “Bug, I got a guy who is gonna be in DC on the twenty-sixth and gone by the end of the thirty-first. At the most, that gives us three weeks to get ready. And that’s pushing it. This gotta move smooth and quick. Like I said, we can get paid. Real money. Not some pissy-ass stick-up money. Real dollars. But we gotta move fast. I need you on this, man. Not just cuz I owe you but because you the best. I ain’t never seen nobody do what you can do with four wheels on the road,” Ronnie said.

  “I ain’t some trailer park trick you trying to talk out of her panties, Ronnie. I’m listening to what you have to say. You lucky I’m doing that,” he said.

  “Alright, Bug. I hear you. I’m just trying to help you out. It looks like you need it,” Ronnie said.

  “What you mean by that?” Beauregard said.

  The way he stared at him made Ronnie’s balls climb up somewhere around his ears.

  “I didn’t mean nothing. Nothing. I noticed you only got the two cars on the lifts, that’s all,” Ronnie said. Beauregard studied Ronnie’s face. His cheeks bloomed with red splotches that worked their way up from his neck. Ronnie’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard.

  “I’ll think about it,” Beauregard said.

  “Alright then. Look, let me leave you my brother’s cell phone number. When you make up your mind, give me a call,” Ronnie said.

  “Go get a burner phone and call the shop tomorrow around noon,” Beauregard said. Ronnie nodded his head up and down like he was in a lecture hall. He stood.

  “Hey, man, don’t think I don’t understand what you are doing here. This is legal and ain’t nothing wrong with that. I just figured I could give you a little help, that’s all,” Ronnie said. Beauregard didn’t say anything. “Well, talk at you tomorrow, man,” Ronnie said. He brushed past Reggie and headed for the door.

  “Reggie, we leaving,” he said. Reggie jumped like a demon had spoken to him.

  “Oh yeah,” he said. He slipped out of the office and ran after his brother.

  Beauregard waited until he heard their car start, then he got up and cut the lights off for the second time that day. He locked up, hopped in his truck and headed back toward his house. He was passing the Long Street Mart when he saw a pink Ford Mustang idling by the gas pumps. He slammed on the brakes with his left foot while hitting the gas wit
h his right. He swung the steering wheel to the right and the whole truck did a 180-degree turn. It slid into the parking lot sideways. He let it roll until he was behind the Mustang. He got out of the truck and walked up to the driver’s side.

  She wasn’t in the car. That didn’t mean the car was empty. A young black guy was in the passenger seat. He had frizzy braids sticking up all over his head like he had thumb-wrestled a light socket. A teardrop was drawn near his left eye. Beauregard thought the lines were too clean to be a jailhouse work of art. He had those small, thin features that teenaged girls loved and grown women avoided like the plague.

  “What you want, old man?” the boy asked when he noticed Beauregard.

  “Where’s Ariel?” Beauregard asked in return.

  “Why you asking about my girl, nigga?” the boy asked.

  “Because I’m her daddy,” Beauregard said. At first the words didn’t seem to register. As they sank in, the boy’s face broke into a wide platinum-toothed smile.

  “Aw shit, man, I thought you was some old dude trying to holla at my girl. My bad, man. She in the store with her fine self,” the boy said.

  Beauregard thought he was entirely too comfortable talking about how fine Ariel was. “What’s your name?” he asked the boy.

  “Lil Rip,” the boy said.

  “No. Your name. What your mama calls you when she mad at you,” Beauregard said.

  The boy’s smile faltered. “William,” Lil Rip said.

  “William. Nice to meet you. I’m Beauregard. You be nice to my girl, alright?” He squatted and extended his hand through the open car window. Lil Rip stared at it for a second before extending his own hand. Beauregard grabbed it and squeezed as hard as he could. Years of gripping pliers, stretching serpentine belts and pulling apart brake calipers ensured that was quite hard. Lil Rip winced. His lips parted slightly, and a few drops of spittle fell from his mouth.

  “Cuz if you don’t, if she ever tells me you giving her some problems, you and me are gonna have problems. And you don’t want that do you … William?” Beauregard asked. He clamped down on Lil Rip’s hand even tighter before finally letting it go. Then he straightened up and walked into the store without waiting for an answer. Lil Rip flexed his hand.

  “Crazy motherfucker,” he said when Beauregard was almost out of earshot.

  Ariel was standing in front of the drink cooler. She was sporting a pair of cut-off denim shorts and a black tank top that Beauregard thought was at least one size too small. Her mop of brownish black curls was piled up on the top of her head in a loose bun. Beauregard’s dark chocolate genes and her mother’s French and Dutch genetic code had given her a light toffee complexion. Her light gray eyes were a gift from her grandmother.

  “Hey,” he said. She turned, gave him a once-over and then turned back to the drink cooler.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “How’s the Mustang holding up?” he asked.

  “I’m driving it so it’s doing alright, I guess,” she said. She grabbed a fruit drink out of the cooler.

  “I met your friend. Lil Rip. The one with the teardrop tattoo,” Beauregard said.

  “It’s not a tattoo. He had me draw it for him with my makeup pen,” she said. She pushed an errant lock of hair out of her face and then poked out her bottom lip and let out a gust of air. It was her tell when she was upset about something. He had watched her do the same thing in her car seat when he wouldn’t let her have another piece of candy.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Ariel shrugged her shoulders. “Nothing. Just getting ready for graduation. Me and the other five dummies who couldn’t graduate with the rest of the class.”

  “You ain’t no dummy. You had a lot going on,” he said.

  “Yeah. Like Mama getting her third DUI and wrecking my car. Of course, that ain’t no excuse, according to her and grandma,” Ariel said. She shook her bottle of juice lackadaisically in her left hand.

  “Don’t worry about them. You just concentrate on college and getting that accounting degree,” Beauregard said.

  Ariel blew air over her bottom lip.

  “What?” Beauregard said.

  “Since I won’t be eighteen until January, Mama has to co-sign for my student loans. She says she don’t want to put her name down on nothing like that. She says I should just take classes at J. Sargeant Reynolds and get a job until January,” Ariel said.

  “I could sign for you,” Beauregard said.

  “I don’t think Kia would like that, do you?” Ariel asked. She put one hand on her hip and kept shaking the bottle of juice. “It’s okay. I’ll just get a job at the hospital or Walmart or something. Go to school in the spring,” she said. Her body language said she was resigned to the fact that college was on hold for now.

  But she didn’t sound resigned to the idea. In fact, she sounded pissed. Beauregard thought she was about to blow up on him. He felt like their conversation was on the verge of devolving into a clichéd confrontation. She would start screaming at him about why he hadn’t done more for her. She would ask why he hadn’t taken her and raised her in his house. He would respond that he had only been seventeen and fresh out of juvie when he got her mother pregnant. He readied himself to take whatever came out of her mouth. He deserved it. Ariel deserved a better father and a better mother. She deserved a father who wasn’t barely treading water. She deserved a mom who wasn’t eating OxyContin like Tic Tacs and washing them down with vodka. She didn’t deserve a grandmother who took one look at her tawny skin and cranked up Fox News as she tried to pretend her granddaughter wasn’t half black.

  Ariel didn’t scream at him. She didn’t ask him anything. She just shrugged her shoulders. “It is what it is, I guess. I gotta get Rip to work,” she said.

  Beauregard stepped aside. He wanted to ask for a hug. Wrap his arms around her and tell her he was sorry he hadn’t been stronger. Apologize for not taking her from that viper’s nest of a household. Tell her that every time he went on a job, he gave her mother half his earnings. Let her know he fought for her. Actually, fought her grandfather and her uncles and her mother for her. That he was the reason her Uncle Chad walked with a limp. Pull her close and whisper in her ear that her grandmother filed a restraining order to keep him away. Wouldn’t even accept child support from him. That once he got married he filed for custody, but the judge took one look at him and threw the case out of court. Squeeze her tight and say he loved her just as much as he loved Darren and Javon. He wanted to say all those things. Had wanted to say them for a long time. But he didn’t. Explanations were like assholes. Everyone has one and they are all full of shit.

  “Alright then. Let me know if you have any problems with the Mustang,” he said.

  Ariel shook her head. “See ya,” she said. He watched as she walked up to the counter, paid for her drink and her gas and strolled out of the store. As she stepped across the parking lot it was like he was watching a time-lapse movie in reverse. She was sixteen, then twelve, then five. By the time she got to the car, he could see her in his arms just after she had been born. Her little fists had been balled up like she was ready for a fight. A fight she was destined to lose because the game was rigged, and the points didn’t matter.

  Through the big picture window he saw her get in the Mustang and tear out of the parking lot spinning tires. Like grandfather, like father, like daughter.

  He would tell himself later that he had slept on it. That he had mulled over the pros and cons and finally decided the benefits outweighed the risks. All that was true. However, in his heart he knew that when Ariel told him about skipping college, that was the moment he decided to take the job with Ronnie Sessions and hit the jewelry store.

  FIVE

  Ronnie rolled over on his back and stared up at the ceiling. The AC in the window of Reggie’s trailer was as weak as a chicken. It pushed the heat around but didn’t actually condition the air. A trickle of sweat was working its way down his forehead. He hadn’t slept at all. He and Reggie
had left Beauregard’s and went over to Wonderland to score some Percs.

  Reggie had $100 left from his disability check. Ronnie had nothing left from the $2,000 he had gotten for running some stolen eels up to Philly for Chuly Pettigrew. Eels were a delicacy in fancy restaurants all over New York and Chicago. Chuly’s men had stolen a batch of eels from a fisherman in South Carolina who was now sleeping with the fishes. They weren’t worth much in South Carolina, about $70 a pound. But take them up to Philly or New York and some pretentious celebrity chef would cream his linen pants for eel sushi. The guy in Philly had paid $1,000 per pound. There had been 125 pounds of eels in the trunk of the car he and Skunk Mitchell had driven to Philly.

  That was $125,500 for some slimy sea worms. Skunk was one of Chuly’s main men. Ronnie had done some of his time with one of Chuly’s other main guys, Winston Chambers. He’d recommended Ronnie as a good ol’ boy who could handle a gun and keep his mouth shut. Everything had gone smooth and less than a week after leaving prison Ronnie had a pocketful of money. Which he promptly blew up like the World Trade Center. That wasn’t that surprising or that big of a deal. How he had blown it, however, was quite concerning. Ronnie swung his feet around and moved into a sitting position. He grabbed his T-shirt from the back of the couch he had crashed on and pulled it over his head. Reggie was in his room with a girl they had taken home from Wonderland. She was a big girl, but Ronnie didn’t mind. She tried hard to please both of them, but Reggie couldn’t get it up and Ronnie was quick on the draw. She didn’t seem to mind that and curled up with Reggie after Ronnie had rolled off her.

  Ronnie got up and went into the kitchenette and grabbed a beer from the fridge. When he had gotten back from Philly, he had gone down to North Carolina and celebrated a job well done at a strip club Chuly owned just outside of Fayetteville. A strip club that had poker games and craps in the back. Long story short, he had drunk away two hundred dollars, made it rain with a hundred dollars’ worth of ones and gambled away the rest. Then he had done something so monumentally stupid he figured he should be the one getting a disability check. He had gotten a marker from Chuly’s guy at the club. They let him play and play until Skunk had the guy cut him off. By that time, he was fifteen thousand dollars in the hole.