Three-Fifths

by John Vercher

  “Turn here,” Aaron said.

  Bobby pulled on the steering wheel, and as he rounded the corner, he glanced at the rearview mirror and saw a patrol car at the end of the block they’d left behind.

  “Shit, shit, shit, shit,” Bobby said.

  Aaron turned to look out the rear window and cursed. He curled in on himself and squeezed his head between his hands, the .45 in one, and groaned. He smacked the stock of the gun against his forehead.

  “Why?” he said. “Why would you do this?”

  “Aaron, I swear to fucking God this wasn’t me. I swear!”

  The patrol car, now behind them, turned on their roof lights and the siren let out a single whoop. The officer called from his speaker.

  “Driver, pull over!”

  Bobby jumped at the sound and complied. The flashing lights lit the inside of the truck. Seconds passed like years until the officer ordered them to roll down their windows and place both hands outside. Bobby reached for his door and Aaron growled.

  “Don’t you touch that fucking button.”

  Bobby raised his hands and placed them on the wheel, his palms slick with sweat. Aaron looked down at the gun in his hands and spoke in a whisper.

  “Why? Why would you do this to me? To us? Do you know what happens if I go back? Do you have any idea what they’ll do to you?”

  “Aaron, listen to what I’m telling you, I swear to you this was not me. I didn’t do this.” He looked at his driver’s side mirror. Both doors of the cruiser opened and the officers perched their arms on the top, guns drawn. “Oh, fuck, Aaron. Jesus, they’ve got their guns out, man. Please, just turn yourself in.”

  Aaron opened the glove compartment, pulled back the magazine and shoved it into the stock with a click. Bobby’s vocal cords nearly strangled the words in his throat. If he opened the door, the cops would shoot him or Aaron would.

  “Aaron, please, don’t do this, please, please. They’re going to shoot us, man. I don’t want to die.”

  Aaron broke into hysterical sobs. He cradled the gun in both hands. A tear hit the barrel and he wiped it away as he took a deep breath. Bobby looked in the mirror again and saw the cops creeping towards the truck.

  “Aaron, put that fucking thing away, they’re going to kill us!”

  “No, they won’t. I’m sorry, Bobby. I love you.”

  Aaron pressed the barrel to Bobby’s eye. It was cold.

  Thunder clapped in the cab of the truck. A white light accompanied the high-pitched squeal in Bobby’s ears. His face felt wet but he couldn’t bring his hands up to wipe it. Nothing would move. The flash-bulb glare faded, as did all other light in the truck. Bobby watched Aaron open his mouth, saw the cords and muscles in his neck go taut and rigid. He screamed, but the pressure in Bobby’s ears muffled the sound.

  As the black edges around Bobby’s vision swelled, he saw Aaron put the .45 in his mouth.

  Bobby heard another report from the gun echo in the cab and Aaron’s head snapped back.

  The edges closed in.

  Morning brought no answers, only more questions. Robert’s anxiety had reached tsunami heights. At every traffic light, he thought about taking the corner and making the turns that would take him back home to Sewickley, but not Homewood. He kept on. He knew the block of Frankstown where Isabel’d told him she lived. Driving it now for the first time struck Robert with a sadness he found difficult to bear. Cars were parked fender to fender, but the block looked abandoned, minutes from where his family home was. His Mama created a world for them to protect them from this one. The lawn, such as it was, was always trimmed and the flower box outside the window was always full of petunias. A garden in the back, no bigger than a sidewalk square, grew okra that she fried and filled the house with smells that felt like warm hands on Robert’s face when he came home from school. But the minute he could, Robert ran, off to college and left his Mama to this blight just minutes from her doorstep while she fought to keep that world out. All the while, a boy, her grandson, a child trying to find his way to being a man in the middle of all this, had a world that could have protected him just blocks away. Robert parked the car.

  The hallway to Isabel’s apartment smelled like abandonment and the condition of the walls and floor reflected the scent. A television blared at full volume. Robert stood in front of her door and knocked. He smoothed the front of his shirt and wiped at the corners of his mouth. He was actually nervous, and he thought about what might be the appropriate greeting when about to sit and talk with your son about the decades passed between them. The light through the peephole remained constant and Robert knocked louder. He began to feel foolish, and more than a bit angry.

  She wasn’t here.

  Was this a con? Had he been manipulated and forced to relive memories he’d tried hard to leave buried.

  He repeatedly smacked his open palm on the door. “Isabel!”

  The door behind him opened and a greasy-haired white man in sweatpants and an undersized white t-shirt appeared, grayish brown at the armpits. He eyed Robert with suspicion.

  “You want to keep it down? Been nothing but noise from that apartment all day,” he said.

  “Noise? What do you mean?” Robert asked.

  “Late last night, or early this morning, however you want to look at it. Screaming woke me right up.”

  “Was it Isabel?”

  “That her name? I guess, yeah. Looked out my door and there’s the cops.”

  Robert pinched the bridge of his nose. This had been some kind of scam. “Arresting her?” he asked.

  “Not that I could tell, because next thing I know there’s two EMT’s taking her out on a stretcher. Wailing something awful.”

  A heaviness settled in Robert’s chest.

  “Hope she’s all right,” the man continued. “Just kept saying ‘no,’ over and over again.”

  This was no con, Robert thought. She hadn’t been caught in some scheme. Jesus, what had happened?

  “Where was her son?”

  “I didn’t see anybody but her.”

  Robert thanked him and ran down the hallway. Back to his car, Robert pulled out onto Frankstown and drove as fast as he could to the only other place someone might know where to find her.

  LOU’S WAS CLOSED, but through the glass door, Robert saw Nico behind the counter slicing lemons. Robert slapped his hand against the glass and Nico looked up. His expression when he saw Robert was not the same as the night before. The disdain remained but something else circled the borders of it. He unlocked the door and let Robert in. As Robert took a stool, Nico folded his arms and leaned against the countertop behind him.

  “Look, I know you don’t like me, all right?” Robert said. “I don’t know why, but I’ve got my guesses. I don’t know what Izzy has or hasn’t told you, but I can tell you that unless you talked to her since last night, a lot of it probably isn’t what you think. I’m asking you, please, if you know where she is, tell me what happened.”

  Nico crossed his arms across his stomach and let out a breath through pursed lips.

  “We met yesterday, me, Izzy, and Bobby,” Robert continued. We were supposed to talk again today. I went to their apartment but neither of them were there. Bobby told me had to take care of something. Does this have something to do with that?”

  Nico pulled a rocks glass from the bar and placed it front of Robert. Robert said no, but Nico pulled a bottle of Glen Fiddich from the shelf and poured generously.

  “Believe me,” he said. “You’ll want a drink.”

  Robert took a sip while Nico rested his forearms on the bar and told Robert the story he said the police had told him.

  Robert stared past him at his own reflection in the spotted mirror lining the wall behind the bar.

  “There had been an assault two nights ago,” said Nico. “Turns out it was that tattooed behemoth in the truck with Bobby. Put a brick through the face of some kid outside the Original in Oakland.”

  Oh, my God. The kid in the I
CU.

  “The whole thing got caught on a security tape,” Nico said. “According to the cops, someone else was there, because this muscle-headed freak jumped in the passenger side of a white pickup and they took off like a shot. The camera footage was kind of grainy and they couldn’t see through the glare on the windshield to tell who was driving, but they picked up a part of the license plate. The cops tried to talk to the other guy, the one with the kid that got all fucked up—”

  “He’s dead,” Robert said.

  “Oh, shit,” Nico said. “That sucks. Anyway, the guy wouldn’t talk to the cops. Even to help out his boy. Ain’t that something?”

  Robert glared at Nico, but he seemed not to notice.

  “Anyway, the plates come up belonging to this other guy, out on parole. The police find out the address of where he’s staying from his P.O. and send two squad cars. The cops are just getting out to walk up to the apartment when—don’t you know—that white pick-up shows up.” Nico poured himself a drink and took a sip.

  “Did they think Bobby was driving the night of the assault?” Robert asked.

  “It’s all a guess at this point. But yeah, probably.”

  Robert shook his head as if to shake loose the story. Bobby had embraced him so warmly when they’d met. Was it possible he was capable of something like this? Did he have that kind of hate in his heart?

  “Why did he drive away?” Robert asked. “Why would he leave that kid there to die?”

  “Bobby was a good kid, man. Before you go casting judgment.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Shit, he was probably scared, man. Twenty-something-year-old kid probably never saw anything like that in his life. Imagine you’re seeing that horror show. I’d have hauled ass, too.”

  They let out simultaneous breaths in a whoosh.

  “Where’s Isabel now?” Robert asked. “A man in her building said they took her out of the apartment screaming.”

  “You’re a doctor, right?” Nico asked. “What’s that number when they take you away for cracking up?”

  “Three zero two.”

  Nico snapped his fingers. “That’s the one. Yeah, they three-oh-two’d her to the psych ward at county. Probably best, too. If she’s going to deal with this, she’s going to need to stay dried out and get it together. That kid was all she had. He didn’t like me much, but he took care of her when she couldn’t take care of herself.” Robert thought he heard a crack in his voice. Nico saw Robert watching him and cleared his throat. “Anyway, she’ll stay with me when she gets out.”

  Robert put his head in his hands. “Jesus Christ,” he said.

  Nico raised his drink and gestured for Robert to do the same, and they touched glasses.

  “Amen to that,” Nico said. “Let me ask you something now.”

  Robert looked up and nodded.

  “After Isabel woke up in the ward,” Nico said, “she started talking to me about Bobby’s dad.”

  Robert swallowed hard and looked back down into his glass, swirling the cubes.

  “She kept talking about how Bobby had met him. She was still pretty doped up at that point, and as far as I knew, Bobby’s dad was dead, so it actually made sense to me, you know? Them finally getting to meet and what not. I thought it was the saddest fucking thing I’d ever heard, but I understood it.” He finished his pint and rinsed it in the sink. “But then you show up here today, after appearing out of nowhere just a couple of days ago.” He put the glass on the drying rack and stood in front of Robert again, arms folded. “She was talking about you, huh?”

  All of Robert’s swirling melted the ice and the outside of the glass sweated. Nico looked as if he already knew the answer, waiting for Robert to say it.

  “Yes,” Robert said.

  An overwhelming sense of dread, one that had started in Robert’s stomach in front of Isabel’s apartment door, expanded until it compressed everything inside and pushed his heart up against his ribs until each beat resonated through his bones. And when Nico told him that Bobby was dead…

  He wanted to find some way to tell Tamara he was sorry. He finally understood. In some ways he’d never taken possession of the child they lost. Because she’d carried it, she knew it in a way he couldn’t. She shared a feeling with the baby that was just between them and though Robert didn’t know it then, he resented them both for it. But in that moment, he knew without a doubt that Bobby was his, because for a brief instant when Nico said he was gone, Robert felt like he wanted to die.

  “Crazy how much he looked like you,” Nico said. “White as he was. Can’t believe I didn’t see it before, but then I guess I wasn’t really looking.”

  Tears rolled down Robert’s cheeks.

  Robert took a deep breath and wiped at his eyes. “What can I do?”

  Nico’s shoulders relaxed and his face softened. He leaned his elbows on the bar.

  “Stay away from her. She sees you, she sees him.”

  Robert closed his eyes and balled his fists. He wanted to grab Nico by the collar of his shirt and drag him across the bar for being territorial in this moment, but something in what he said resonated. He thought of Tamara again and wondered if that must have been what she felt—that each time she looked at him, she was reminded of what they had lost.

  He opened his hands, placed them on the bar, and stood.

  “Please tell her I’m sorry,” Robert said. He reached in his jacket for his wallet, but Nico dismissed the gesture and patted his chest to tell Robert they were on him. Robert copied his movement as a thank you and looked back once as he walked out. Nico gave a single nod of his head and resumed his prep work for the day ahead.

  Outside it felt a little warmer than it had earlier in the day, but the wind shot down the streets in frigid gusts. Large flakes fell from the ash-grey sky and thunder rumbled in the distance. They predicted another squall coming through, the last leg of the nor’easter as it swirled over Pittsburgh and made its way up the states. Robert walked back to his car in a daze. He felt outside of himself, but not just watching him. He watched it all, from some other place in time where all of their lives drove on separate streets, running in parallel at first, but converging on a point. When he got in and closed the door behind him, those lives came together, cars all trying to beat the light at an intersection and colliding.

  Robert cried, harder than he’d ever cried in his life, for all of them, everyone all at once, and when he was done, he started the car and drove home.

  I begin with the usual disclaimer that if there is someone I’ve forgotten, please know that any omission is not intentional. There have been so many who have been exceedingly generous with their time, love, counsel, and support, that it’s quite easy to lose track. It’s a good problem to have.

  To my editor, Chantelle Osman, I am eternally grateful that you saw something in this story and took a chance on it and me. At the sake of sounding cliché, I could not have asked for a better or more patient editor, and I look forward to working with you for a long time to come.

  To my publisher, Jason Pinter. I sincerely appreciate your vision in bringing Agora to life, and in trusting me to be a part of the inaugural class. Here’s to a long and lasting partnership!

  Michelle Richter, my agent, you made the leap with me and I couldn’t be more thankful. Here’s to more deals in the future.

  Paula Munier, my story would never have gotten to where it had without your valuable input and advice. I hope our paths continue to cross on our respective writing journeys.

  Mom and Dad, it took me a while to figure out what I was meant to do, but with your support, I did it.

  Ted Flanagan. My homeboy. Ever since the first day of the MFA program, we’ve been fast friends, and now the best of friends. Not only that, but you’re my most trusted second reader, sounding board, and therapist when the impostor syndrome rears its ugly head. The day we’re doing panels and readings together is fast approaching. Thank you for being there every step of the wa
y. May your head ever bobble.

  Diane Les Becquets, Richard Carey, thank you for seeing something in my writing. One phone call changed the direction of my life.

  Merle Drown, Chinelo Okparanta, and Mitch Wieland, thank you for your guidance and sharing your wisdom, friendship, and knowledge of the craft. I would not have found my voice without you.

  Gabino Iglesias and Matt Coleman, your early and continued support for a random guy you met on Twitter continues to amaze me. I’m proud to call you friends and to be a part of your community.

  Big shout out goes to Kellye Garrett and the rest of the Crime Writers of Color community, which is getting too large to name everyone, and that’s a damn good thing.

  Thank you to the crew at Cognoscenti, namely Kelly Horan, Frannie Carr Toth, and Kathleen Burge. You gave my words a voice and a forum and I will never forget it.

  Bob Shaffer and Sharon Brody at WBUR Boston, meeting you both and having the opportunity to work with you was one of the most memorable experiences of my life. I am indebted to both of you for the opportunity you provided me.

  Finally, Michelle Vercher. Your unwavering love and support for this dream pushed me through so many periods of self-doubt and insecurity. You are my best friend, my partner-in-crime, an incredible mother, and the best wife a man can hope for. I can’t imagine a day where laughter doesn’t fill the rooms of our home. I cheese sandwich you, Peanut.

  John Vercher is a writer currently living in the Philadelphia area with his wife and two sons. He holds a Bachelor’s in English from the University of Pittsburgh and an MFA in Creative Writing from the Mountainview Master of Fine Arts program. His fiction has appeared on Akashic Books’ Mondays are Murder and Fri-SciFi. and he is a contributing writer for Cognoscenti, the thoughts and opinions page of WBUR Boston. Two of his essays published there on race, identity, and parenting were picked up by NPR, and he has appeared on WBUR’s Weekend Edition. His non-fiction has also appeared in Entropy Magazine. You can find him on his website www.johnvercherauthor.com and on Twitter at @jverch75.