by John Vercher
The barflies stopped their buzzing, eavesdropping. Paul repeatedly wiped down the same section of the bar as he watched the volley back and forth. One patron, a white man in a wrinkled oxford and tie, loosened at the neck, picked up his clamshell cell phone from the bar and pulled up the antenna. He eyed the conversation between Aaron and Darryl while he pulled open the phone.
“Aaron,” Bobby said, tugging at his sleeve. Aaron pulled his arm away. His eyes stayed on Darryl.
“So, what,” Darryl said, “he held the dude with one arm while he killed her with the other? Come on, man. All of this, it’s the same old bullshit. Don’t nobody like to see a nigger with money. Especially the police. O.J. running around in nice cars with a white woman on his arm like Jack Johnson up in this piece. And cops be pulling down what? Forty? Fifty thousand a year, if they lucky? Man, please. You know how I spell ‘conspiracy’? L.A.P.D. Those niggas hate niggers.”
Aaron scoffed. “Conspiracy? You can’t be serious.”
“You remember Rodney King?” Darryl asked. “That nigga was crawling on the ground and those cops beat him like he killed somebody.”
“You remember Reginald Denny?” Aaron asked. “The guy was just driving his truck when those animals pulled him from it.” He looked at Bobby while he talked. He fought a smile as if to keep from laughing.
“Wait, who?” Bobby asked.
“Reginald Denny,” Michelle said. “The truck driver. He took a wrong turn off the Santa Monica freeway and ended up in the middle of the L.A. riots. He got pulled from his semi and somebody hit him in the face with a brick.”
Bobby stared at Aaron. Aaron winked at him.
“So what you saying?” Darryl asked Aaron.
“What I’m saying,” Aaron said, “is you can’t demonize an entire police force because of what a handful of cops did. Cops that were acquitted, by the way. You know what that means, right? Cleared of wrongdoing.”
“Demonize?” Darryl asked. “They let you read in the joint?”
“But it’s fair to demonize an entire race based on the actions of criminals?” Michelle asked.
Aaron turned and smirked at her. “Check your facts, sweetie. One of your people that attacked Denny was a process server. No criminal record. But the looting and violence got that blood of his up, and he just couldn’t deny his DNA. None of them can. They stole from their own businesses. Attacked their own people. So do me a favor and flex your sociology minor somewhere else, okay? Men are talking.”
As Aaron ranted, Bobby lit matches and tossed them in the ashtray. He prayed for a kitchen fire, a power outage, someone to come in and rob the place, anything to shut Aaron up or things were going to get bad in a hurry. He’d taken his eyes off the man with the phone.
“What about Bobby Green?” Michelle asked Aaron.
“Who?” Aaron asked.
“The man who drove Denny to the hospital when he saw him lying the street. The black man. Was that in his DNA? To risk his life for someone he didn’t even know? Maybe you need to check your facts, sweetie.”
Aaron’s smirk disappeared. He leaned back in his seat and gave Michelle the once over. “So what are you, exactly?” he asked her.
“What?”
“I mean, you’re not white, clearly” he said. “But all that shit in your face and the hair. It’s got me a little confused.”
Darryl pointed at Bobby. “You better get your boy.”
“Guys,” Paul said.
“I’m a human being,” Michelle said.
Aaron sipped his beer and shrugged. “Half of one, maybe,” he said. “Still doesn’t count.”
Michelle laughed in disgust. Darryl stood up.
Shit, here we go, thought Bobby. He looked across the bar again. The man with the phone looked towards the entrance to the bistro.
Michelle put her hand up to Darryl. She shook her head to signal it wasn’t worth it. Aaron smiled at him. Just like he did to the kid at the Original. Bobby pulled at him. “Man, I think we’d better leave.” Aaron ignored him.
“Keep smiling at me with them pretty white teeth, dude” Darryl said. “They new, right? You got them from the state, huh? Yeah, they do that for you bitches in the joint.”
Darryl smiled. Aaron didn’t.
“What, you didn’t know?” Darryl asked Bobby. “You had to notice. Those teeth ain’t his. My cousin was in lock-up with your boy there. Yeah, nigger, I know all about you.”
Aaron turned away from Darryl. He hunched over his beer and swirled the glass on the ring of water in which it sat. Darryl saw he had Aaron on the ropes and moved in.
“Leave him be, man,” Bobby said. “We get it.”
“See, Bobby, you can’t bite down on a dick in your mouth if you got no teeth,” Darryl said. “The brothers busted them shits out his first day in. Saw through that weak-ass wannabe-a-nigger bullshit, didn’t they? You just got a little too cute. Tried to act hard and shit. Way I heard it, they passed you around the first week. Used that mouth like a pussy.”
Aaron bit his lip and stared into his glass while everyone at the bar watched at him. He withdrew, as small as the day he went to prison, tucked in on himself like he did in the truck. For an instant, Bobby forgave him for what he did to the kid. He almost understood it. He saw the scrawny loud-mouthed friend who was the brother he never had, and he cringed with every insult Darryl tossed at him. That Darryl’s words affected him like that made Bobby think that maybe, just maybe there was something left of Aaron that he remembered. If Darryl could get to him, maybe Bobby could get through to him to find some way out of the mess he’d gotten them into. Darryl’s humiliation wasn’t having the effect he wanted. Not on Bobby. The verbal abuse made him feel defensive of Aaron. Even Michelle looked embarrassed for him.
“Okay, that’s enough,” Michelle said to Darryl.
“Whatever,” Darryl said and turned to go back to his seat. “Fuck him.”
“What happened to him?” Aaron said, his eyes still on his beer.
“What?” Darryl asked.
“Your cousin. What happened to him?”
“What you mean, what happened to him. Who said something happened to him?”
Aaron removed the hand that covered the spider-web tattoo on his elbow. He looked up at Darryl and covered his mouth. “Oops. Guess you hadn’t heard everything.”
It was the second time Bobby had seen that face on Aaron. It was the look he saw after he bricked the kid, after he leaned back in the passenger seat with a cigarette and calmly directed them home.
Satisfaction. Pleasure.
All the understanding rushed away. Aaron had crushed that kid’s face because he wanted to. Not because he felt threatened. Not out of some need to protect Bobby. He was drunk and that kid mouthing off thought he was dealing with two scared white boys, when only one of them was white, and he wasn’t the one who was scared. Maybe there had been a time when Aaron felt ashamed about what happened to him in prison, but that time was gone, and so was Aaron. If what Darryl said was true, what happened to Aaron in prison shattered him into unrecognizable pieces and violent bigots took him in and put him back together, but they fucked up the pieces and forced them to fit where they didn’t. Aaron faked embarrassment while Darryl laid into him. He baited him just like he did that kid. That face he made sealed it. The Aaron Bobby knew was gone, and he knew then for certain that he whatever thing had grown inside Aaron had lashed out and ensnared Bobby, pulling him behind his wake.
Darryl walked towards Aaron with his fists tight. Aaron finished his beer and stood. Bobby stood in between them, hands out to keep them separated. Paul ran to the outside of the bar to put himself between the two of them as well. Michelle shouted for them to stop. Paul put his hands on Darryl’s chest. Darryl batted them away and Paul pushed him again. Some of the other staff that sat at the bar rushed the scene.
“You better be bullshitting,” Darryl shouted over the barrier of people.
“Am I?” Aaron shouted back. “Look at me,
Darryl. Am I?”
“Aaron, shut the fuck up!” Bobby yelled.
“Listen to your boy,” Darryl said. “Faggot.”
Aaron snorted and spit at Darryl. The glob landed on Darryl’s cheek.
The sound sucked out of the room. Darryl wiped his face. Bobby, Michelle, Paul, stood inanimate, arms out to the side, fingertips spread, braced against nothing but the electric air.
“Okay,” Darryl said.
He lunged. Paul dipped under his outstretched arms and wrapped his own around Darryl’s body. The rubber soles of his boots squeaked on the polished hardwood as Darry drove forward for Aaron.
“Let him go!” Aaron said to Paul.
Bobby held Aaron back, too. Michelle stood between Paul and Bobby, arms outstretched, Samson-like, hands on their backs, screaming for them both to stop. Bobby grunted and squinted with the effort. His eyes opened at the sound of the doors to the foyer swinging open.
Two white police officers, dressed in cold weather gear, bounded up the three steps to the bar area. One pushed back Michelle, Bobby, and Aaron, while the other peeled Paul from Darryl. Paul stepped away with his hands raised. The officer stood less than a foot from Darryl, one hand in front of him with an admonishing finger raised, the other hovering near his hip.
“What’s the problem?” he asked Darryl.
“What you asking me for?” Darryl said, incredulous. “Ask that bitch.” He pointed at Aaron. Bobby turned to look at Aaron. The rage in his face gone. The fanned neck, the wild eyes, contained. The officer glanced over his shoulder, past his partner to Aaron. Aaron shrugged, palms up in confusion. The officer turned back to Darryl.
“I’m asking you,” he said. “And watch your mouth.”
“This motherfucker spits in my face and I got to watch my mouth?”
The officer grabbed him by the wrist and spun him towards the railing surrounding the bar. The force made Darryl’s hands shoot out and grip the rail. The officer grabbed him by the ribs and kicked his feet out to the sides. He patted him down.
“I don’t believe this shit,” Darryl said.
“I told you to watch your mouth,” the officer said. He wrenched Darryl’s arm behind him and Darryl shouted.
“He didn’t do anything!” Michelle said.
Russell ran up from the kitchen, wet at the pits and out of breath. “What the hell is going on?”
“We got a call about a disturbance,” said the officer standing in front of Michelle, Bobby, and Aaron. “You the manager?”
“I am.” He pointed past the officer to his partner, who clicked shut the cuffs on Darryl’s wrists. “Why is he under arrest?”
“The call said he’d become violent with another patron here, sir. Then he put his hand in my face and became belligerent.” He yanked Darryl upright.
“That’s bullshit!” Michelle said. She pointed at Aaron. “He spit at Darryl!”
“Why would I do that?” said Aaron. “I was minding my own business when he started berating me.”
“Oh, my God, he’s lying.” She looked at Bobby. “Tell them.”
Bobby looked at the floor, then to the bar. All those whose eyes had been locked on the situation now looked elsewhere. Everyone wanted to watch the action while it happened, but now that consequences loomed, they all turned away when Bobby’s eyes met theirs. A short, quiet laugh escaped.
“It was just an argument. Nothing happened.” He kept his head bowed, though the glares were almost palpable.
“We’ve just got a misunderstanding here, officers,” said Russell. “Would you please let that young man go?”
The officer separating them from Darryl looked back to his partner and nodded. He rolled his eyes and pushed Darryl at the shoulder, turning him. He took a key to the cuffs.
“Whatever happens,” he said to Russell, “it’s on you.”
“Understood,” Russell said. “Thank you.”
“You see?” the officer said to Darryl, spinning the loose cuffs once around his finger. “Polite. That’s how you talk to people.” He walked towards his partner and they headed towards the steps leading away from the bar. Darryl kneaded his shoulder and moved his arm back and forth.
“Yeah, whatever man.”
Russell clenched his jaw. “Darryl, shut up.”
The officer called out without looking back. “You watch that mouth of yours, son. It’s going to get you in trouble.” The doors closed behind them. Darryl pointed to Aaron.
“Outside,” he said.
Aaron opened his mouth to respond, but Russell spoke first.
“Like hell,” Russell said. “Darryl, get your shit, and let’s go.”
“What? Why I got to leave?”
“Oh, you’re both out of here, but you’re not fighting in my parking lot. I’m walking you out to your car to make sure you leave.” He gestured to Aaron. “And then it’s your turn.”
Darryl snatched his belongings from the bar. Russell guided him by the elbow. Aaron stood as they approached. Russell stopped in front of him, placing himself between Aaron and Darryl. He stepped closer to Aaron, the space between them mere inches. Bobby eyes bounced back and forth between them. Aaron was a head taller than Russell and looked at him from underneath lazy eyelids, a crooked smile creasing the corner of his face.
“Sit your ass down before I call your P.O.” He looked over Aaron’s tattoos. “You think I don’t know what all this shit means? I should have them send you back. It wouldn’t take much.” He took a small step closer. “But I know why you have all this ink.” Aaron’s smirk disappeared. “I know what men like you have to do to survive in there. And I don’t want to send you back to that. So I’m telling you now, and that’s the last time I’m going to tell you. Watch yourself.”
Russell took Darryl outside. Bobby watched Aaron. He looked shaken. Darryl threw insults like a boxer going for the head, looking for the one-shot knockout blow. But Russell’s quiet words landed like a shot to the liver, a pain localized at first, that echoed along neurons and synapses until they reached the brain and told the body to go down. Don’t suffer anymore.
Russell re-entered within minutes and told Bobby and Aaron to go. Aaron offered no resistance. Bobby took his apron and gave the closed-out checks to Michelle. She reached for them, automatic in her movement, dazed from what had transpired.
“Hell of a first night, huh?” Bobby said with a weak smile. Michelle snapped to. She narrowed her eyes as she took the checks from his hand.
“Sincerely,” she said, “go fuck yourself.” She threw the checks onto the bar, turned her back to Bobby and took her seat. Bobby watched her back for a moment, then followed Aaron down the steps.
Outside the snow fell light but steady. Plow trucks scraped the parking lot clean. Salt crunched under Aaron’s boots as he walked towards the rear parking lot. Bobby called after him to wait up. The pickup chirped and his taillights winked and he walked around to the passenger’s side door. He pulled it open, popped the glove compartment, and retrieved the gun he’d gotten from Cort the night before. Pressure filled Bobby’s chest.
“Aaron, what are you doing?”
Aaron paced the length of the truck. “They think they can talk to me like that? Any of them? Russell thinks he knows me?” Aaron’s fingers gripped and released the gun. “He wants to know, I’ll show him.”
“Enough!”
Bobby’s shout echoed throughout the parking lot. Aaron stopped pacing. His arms hung by his side. Bobby ran his hands over his face and moaned into them in aggravation.
“What are you doing, man? First that kid and now you’re going to shoot someone? You’re going to walk in there and just murder Russell, or whoever? Who are you, man?”
“Who am I? Who the fuck are you, dude?” His temples pulsed with each contraction of his jaw muscles. “You don’t stick up for me in there? You don’t have my back, now, after all this time?” He held the gun sideways and jabbed it in the air towards Bobby. “You don’t defend yourself when that bitch s
ays you’re half nigger? Nah, fuck that.”
Aaron stepped to move around him but Bobby put his hand on Aaron’s chest. He stopped. Bobby looked to his gun hand. It shook. Fear? Anger? He pushed against Bobby’s hand but only just. It would have been nothing for him to overpower Bobby, to shove him aside. But there he stood. As if he wanted to be stopped.
“Aaron. Come on, man. Please.” He stopped pushing against Bobby’s hand. Bobby cautiously lowered his arm but every muscle in his body felt ready to act, although to do what, he hadn’t the slightest idea. Aaron breathed hard and fast. Then, with one forceful breath out, he calmed. His shoulders eased away from his ears. The throbbing at his temples faded.
“I was just trying to protect you, man. Last night. Just like you always did for me.”
“No, man,” Bobby said. “You don’t get to do that. You are not going to make this about me.” Heat roiled in his stomach and rose, swelled, easing the tension in his chest, relaxing the hold on his throat, melting his fear. He stepped aside. “You know what, go ahead. If you want to go in there and shoot him, shoot everyone, fuck it, man, go to town. I can’t stop you. But don’t you for one more second put this on me. You shoot him, it’s because you want to. You think you’re protecting me, you’re dragging me deeper into a hole that neither of us can climb out of.”
He stared at Bobby and held the gun by his side.
“Just put it away, man,” Bobby said. “Please.”
Aaron walked back to the truck and replaced the gun. He came back with his hands in his pockets like a scolded child.
“I’m sorry,” Aaron said.
“For what, Aaron? I mean do you even know?”
“You never answered my question.”
“What?”
“Time was you couldn’t stand these people, Bobby. You used to give me a lot of shit for the way I was, but you always had my back. Always.”
Bobby stayed silent.
“Do you have my back, Bobby? I need to know.”
“Sure, man. Of course.”
Bobby heard Isabel’s false reassurance in his answer. Aaron’s half nod indicated he heard it, too.
“Come on, I’ll give you a ride home.”