Jeraline's Alley

by Becca C. Smith

  This appeared to perk Rachel up. “He had nothing but good things to say about you, Josh. You impressed him a lot. Maybe we could get him to read some of your work?”

  Josh immediately put his head down and didn’t make eye contact with Rachel. The idea of showing his work to anyone, especially an author as established as Z.T., obviously freaked him out. Josh being a writer was one of the things I liked most about him, though I hadn’t read anything he wrote. I simply loved that he did. Devouring books was one of my main passions, so it always amazed me when someone came up with stories on their own.

  Jumping behind the counter and opening up the main cash register for the nightly count, Josh forced a smile toward Rachel. “That’s great. Yeah, maybe.”

  Awkward.

  Rachel didn’t seem pleased by Josh’s lack of enthusiasm, so naturally she took it out on me. “Take the trash out. I’ll count out your register.”

  And with that, I gladly took my cue to leave. I needed to give Hank his dinner anyway.

  After grabbing Hank’s bag full of goodies from the fridge, I carried the trash in one hand and his food in the other. Barely able to turn the knob due to both hands being full, I finally moved it enough that I pushed the door open the rest of the way with my hip. Tossing the garbage into the dumpster, I tried not to gag at the smell.

  Edmond Dantès leaned against the dumpster, still dressed in raggedy clothing from his Monte Cristo prison. “My offer for vengeance still stands.”

  Edmond transformed into Hank: the homeless guy I’d become friends with over the years. He had a big grin for me, and I smiled back, handing him the brown paper bag.

  “There’s a couple of sandwiches and a bottle of water in there. Oh, and my grandma made some peanut butter chocolate chip cookies.”

  Hank’s eyes lit up at the mention of Grandma’s cookies, and it made this whole crazy day worth it. “You doing okay, Hank?”

  Hank opened the bag and smelled the cookies, his expression grateful. “I’m better now. Thank you, Jeraline.”

  “No worries. I’ll be closing again tomorrow, so I’ll see you then?”

  He nodded, and my stomach tightened when his face blushed with shame. I wanted to comfort him and tell him everything was going to be okay, but I knew that wasn’t true. I was completely helpless, and the only thing I could do was make sure he was fed whenever I worked a shift.

  Although our first encounter had been shaky, we’d gotten to know each other pretty well over the last few years. I can still remember the look of terror in his eyes when he first spoke to me. I had been throwing the wrapper of my breakfast sandwich away in the dumpster, and I heard Hank’s voice complimenting my bag. While turning around to face him, I thanked him and told him that I had made it. When we came face-to-face, he must have thought I was startled to see a homeless man standing there, and he had run away, but not before saying he used to be an artist as well. I was horrified that I had caused this sweet old man to run. Fully expecting to lose him, I had to try to get him back, so I called out to him and asked him what kind of artist he was.

  And that was the beginning of our friendship. His true passion was painting, but he had never made a living at it, so he worked the odd job here and there until no one wanted to hire him anymore. He had been fifty-eight when he lost his apartment, and he had no family or friends who were willing to take him in. Hank said he’d always been kind of a loner, and it had been the first time in his life that he truly regretted that fact. Thirty years of his paintings were thrown out by the manager of his building. Hank told me he didn’t blame the guy, it wasn’t as if Hank had a place to store them, but I could tell it hurt him to think about. All that work, passion, and creativity, years and years of it, just gone. All because of money. No money, no life. That was how it seemed to me anyway. He was sixty-one now, and his full social security wouldn’t kick in until he was sixty-seven, and I didn’t know if he’d make it that long, not without shelter or medical care or . . . human decency.

  I wished I were rich so I could rent him an apartment and buy him as many canvases, paints, and paint brushes he wanted. At Hank’s age, he should be enjoying the rest of his life, taking vacations, creating all day because he could. I knew he was one of millions, and that only made me angrier about life and how things should be.

  My mood now deflated, I mustered up a friendly wave. “Good night, Hank.”

  “Night, Jeraline. See you tomorrow.” He walked away, and I felt slightly better when I heard the crunch of him biting into one of Grandma’s delicious cookies.

  With one last glance in Hank’s direction, I turned and entered the store, locking the door behind me.

  I was so close to leaving I could taste it.

  Grabbing my backpack from the back room, I tossed it over my shoulder and headed to the front of the store.

  Almost out of here.

  Rachel finished up the count, and Josh looked ready to go like I was.

  I made eye contact with Rachel. “I’m going to head on out, if it’s all right?”

  So close, only a few steps from the door.

  I got the barely-acknowledge-my-existence nod, which sent a thrill of relief through me.

  Almost out.

  “Good night,” I said, taking my key and reaching toward the lock.

  “Jeraline, wait,” Josh called out to me.

  I turned, all fear gone from my body.

  “Yes, Josh?”

  Josh hurried over to me and held me in his arms. “Jeraline, I can’t hide my feelings for you any longer. I love you. I’ve loved you since the day I first saw you. Say you’ll be mine.”

  We kissed.

  Pulling away, I said, “Of course I will.”

  Yeah.

  That didn’t happen.

  Unlocking the door, I exited into the night air.

  Finally out.

  Free to go home.

  Locking the door behind me, I wondered what Josh must really think of me.

  Because after today, I’d bet he never wanted to talk to me again.

  Here it came.

  The alley.

  I didn’t know why I kept walking home this way. I could avoid the alley entirely, but there was something about it, something I needed to conquer. The alley was my enemy. My foe. If I didn’t defeat it in some way, my life would be forever ruined. It was as if all the torment in my life had manifested itself into this one alley, the physical embodiment of every fear I’d ever had. And simply walking past it was a test of bravery because I knew if I gave the alley a chance, it would swallow me whole.

  The old familiar twist of my gut brought me to reality. Ten feet and I’d be there. My daily fear could almost be construed as “normal” at this point. It certainly happened every time I walked by the alley, my alley.

  And there it was.

  Out of a living nightmare.

  Approaching cautiously, I kept at least eight feet of distance from the maw of the beast. Wanted signs plastered the bricked edges, framing the entrance like gatekeepers of evil.

  Because that was what this alley was.

  Evil.

  Evil and alive.

  As if all my fears had brought it into existence.

  It breathed in and out as I walked by, the darkness within an inky black. I had no way of knowing if someone was standing right there, staring at me as I carefully moved forward. The two side-by-side brick buildings that were forced to share one of their walls with this terrifying dream were affected by the power of the alley as well, their brickwork going from solid red to blackened, moldy stone the closer they were to the entrance. And the sounds! They emanated from the blackness itself, not human, not even animal, though that was the closest reference that came to mind. Growling, snarling, or sometimes a kind of rattling stillness that was scarier than any bestial noise I’d heard.

  But today there was a different noise.

  The clattering of footsteps.

  Someone was in there.

  And they were
coming out.

  I found my feet unable to move.

  The silhouette of what looked like a man walked closer, but let’s face it, it was probably some kind of demon.

  Echoes of gunshots rang in my ear, and all I could think was . . .

  Run.

  My intuition finally kicked in.

  I ran fast, though I knew I must look like a crazy person to anyone who happened to be staring down from their apartment.

  I didn’t stop until I swung the door open to our apartment building, ran up the stairs, and practically flew into the living room.

  I immediately locked the door behind me as if the alley itself had followed me home.

  Grandma looked at me from the couch in front of the television, holding her chest from shock. “You scared the crap out of me.”

  “Sorry. I just got spooked,” I admitted without going into detail.

  Turning off the TV, Grandma nodded for me to join her. “How was the signing?” she asked.

  I plopped down on the armchair next to Grams. “Good. He was super nice, and Rachel was mean, but not the worst.”

  Grandma grumbled, “There’s something wrong with that woman. Do you want me to talk to her?”

  “Definitely not. She’d fire me on the spot.” I didn’t believe that though. Rachel had been horrible since day one, and the puking incident alone should have been means for firing me, but for some reason she kept me around. I was pretty sure in her own warped way she liked me to some degree, but I also wondered if the bookstore itself was watching over me, protecting me in some way. It was like my second home, and even though Rachel was the gatekeeper, I still felt welcome there.

  But Grandma seemed to enjoy the idea of me leaving the bookstore. “I’m not sure if that’s a bad thing. Ever since your parents were killed . . .” She paused, obviously gauging my reaction, which even I wasn’t sure of at the moment. “I haven’t seen you do much else but go to work and come back here. You need to get out there, Jeraline.”

  “Not this again,” I groaned. “I’m fine. Really. I like my time at home. I can design and sew and create. It helps me. Honestly.”

  “What about that boy you have a picture of by your bedside? Josh, is it? You obviously like him.”

  So embarrassing.

  It wasn’t as if I hid the picture I stole, but for some reason, having Grams talk about it out loud made me feel like the stalking freak that I was. But my need for advice after today’s debacle outweighed my humiliation at the moment. “I get so nervous when I’m around him. I fumble all my words. He probably thinks something’s wrong with me.”

  “I’m sure he doesn’t think that. You need more practice talking to people. We need to get you out there,” Grandma insisted.

  And I wished she’d stop. “What’s wrong with me?”

  Grandma sat back on the couch and sighed. “Liking someone makes everyone an idiot. Some people are better at hiding their nerves than others is all. I’m pretty terrible at dating too, if you hadn’t noticed.”

  “But you don’t want to date.” As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I had no idea if it was true or not. I just didn’t think of Grams as someone who dated. I figured she was too old to date.

  “Who said I didn’t want to date? I never did,” she answered as if hearing my thoughts. Then she continued, “I’m too damn scared. It’s not because I don’t want to. And I have a feeling it’s the same for you.”

  I was about to respond when Grandma stood up and went to the counter, grabbing a small cardboard box and bringing it over to me.

  It wasn’t my birthday or any other holiday or anniversary I could remember. More cookies maybe? But that wouldn’t explain the seriousness on Grandma’s face.

  “I know this might upset you at first, but hear me out,” she began.

  Uh-oh.

  I didn’t like the sound of that.

  What in the heck was in that brown box?

  Grandma sat back down on the couch but close enough to me that our knees touched. She placed the box on my lap. “Open it up.”

  I was officially freaked.

  Slowly, I opened the lid on the box, fully expecting something to jump out and bite me. When the lid opened, I froze.

  There had to be some kind of mistake. There was no way in any lifetime that Grandma was giving me a . . .

  Gun.

  And not just a gun: a very large revolver that looked like it came out of a cartoon western.

  Finally, words formed in the back of my throat. “Grandma. What is this?” I said it so quietly I wasn’t sure if Grams heard me.

  She did.

  “I know it’s a bit of a shock, but Jeraline, listen to me . . .”

  I cut her off and shoved the box back on her lap. “I don’t want this! You know what happened to Mom and Dad! They were gunned down! By a . . . gun!”

  Grandma reached over the box and held my hands in hers. “Which is why I want you to have one yourself. It’s registered under your name, but we can return it if you decide not to keep it.” She paused, considering the expression on my face, then continued, “Maybe if you felt safe, you’d start living again.”

  “I am living,” I retorted defensively.

  Squeezing my hands tighter, she answered, “No. You aren’t. You’re so scared of life that you’re hiding in this apartment.”

  “I have a job!” Anger seethed through me.

  But Grandma stayed calm, her hands tightly grasping mine. “The only reason you keep that job despite that horrible woman is because you’re surrounded by books. They’ve always been your security blankets. You’re terrified of losing that job because you’d lose your only other escape.” Taking her hands away gently, Grandma placed the open box back on my lap. “We can get you lessons so you know how to use it, so that you feel comfortable with it. Maybe if Hannah and Paul had had a gun that day, things might have turned out differently.”

  That was it. I didn’t want to hear anymore. “Being gunned down with ten other people in a grocery store wouldn’t have changed if they had a gun, except maybe more people might have died!”

  “You don’t know that,” Grandma argued.

  “You don’t know either because it didn’t happen. They died. No one else had a gun.” I didn’t know what I was saying anymore. My insides began to shake having the hand cannon on my lap.

  “Will you at least think about it? For me? I’d feel safer if you carried this with you,” Grandma pleaded, and there were tears in her eyes. She truly meant it.

  I had lost my mother that day, but Grandma had lost her daughter too, and now she seemed convinced that if Mom had carried a gun on her, maybe she wouldn’t have died. I understood it, but I didn’t know if I could ever agree with it. The weight of the gun inside the box on my lap was enough to make my blood curdle. This was a weapon. A weapon that could kill another human being. A weapon that killed my parents. How could Grandma ever expect me to be okay with using it?

  She begged one more time. “You need to protect yourself.”

  I repeated the words out loud, “Protect myself.”

  Protect myself.

  Protect myself.

  No matter how many times I said it in my head, I couldn’t come to terms with the gun staring at me from the box. Guns scared me. Guns terrified me. Guns ruined my life.

  But the little voice inside me kept gnawing at me, screaming that I needed to level the battlefield. The bad guys had guns, and unless I planned on making an entire wardrobe made of Kevlar, I’d always be in danger.

  I didn’t want to live that way though, in constant fear.

  But was Grandma right? Was I already living that way? Even without the gun? Would the gun help me feel safe? Would my parents have lived if they had carried a gun? Would they have stopped that murderer from killing all of those people? In this crazy world, did I need a gun? Because if I didn’t have one, I’d end up like my parents?

  Tears flowed down Grandma’s cheeks as she took the box away from me and
placed it on the coffee table. “I can’t lose you, too,” she whispered.

  My own tears flooded my eyes before I could stop them. At the same moment, Grandma and I reached for each other, arms wrapping around the only family we had left. I couldn’t stop crying, and neither could she. We had mourned for my parents, but it never stopped hurting. The loss never went away, never lessened. It was always there, like a permanent lump in my throat. Maybe having a gun would help me stop being scared all the time. Maybe it would give me my power back.

  Before I made a decision, Grandma pulled out of the hug and wiped my tears with her thumbs, staring at me with love. “Let’s not make any decisions now. Maybe you won’t need it. But you and I are going to break out of this self-isolation funk we’ve put ourselves into regardless.”

  Um.

  Not sure I liked the sound of that either.

  At this moment, Grandma was worse than the alley.

  “What does that mean?” I asked, afraid to hear the answer.

  Wiping away the rest of her own tears, Grandma took a deep breath and smiled (which kind of scared me more). “What do normal seventy-year-olds do for fun?”

  “Play weird card games that no one’s ever heard of?” I guessed wildly.

  “Euchre is fun. I’ll get you to like it someday. But no.”

  “Oh boy. What is it?”

  Grandma’s smile grew even larger as she said, “We’re going to play bingo.”

  Surprisingly, that didn’t sound that bad.

  “Okay.”

  Hand in hand, my grandmother and I approached the flashing neon lights beaming the word “Bingo” to everyone in a five-mile radius. Okay, maybe not that far, but it was pretty obnoxious. The letters in the sign had to be at least fifteen feet high. The building itself was an old abandoned warehouse that the local community renovated to be some kind of recreation center, but after a year of almost exclusive bingo playing, they decided to make it a bingo parlor full-time with an occasional rent-out for local events. That had been two years ago. The neon sign was relatively new though, arriving about six months ago. Apparently, the man in charge, Frank Lewis, thought he had bought a much smaller version of the sign, but I was sure he was secretly pleased at the enormous size mix-up.