by G. Neri
Erica slowly breathed out and lowered her fist. “I’m nothing like you. I don’t know what happened to you, but I will never be like you. There’s something broken in you, Kalvin.” She opened her hands and shook them out. “And fuck you if you think I’d ever stoop to hitting that man. He has suffered enough, but to you, he’s still a joke, a thing to be played with. Well, I’m done with this game. And so are you.”
She glanced over her shoulder. Joe was about ten yards away, watching them. He recognized her. She looked Kalvin in the eye. “Now just walk away, before it’s too late.” She stuck her hand in her pocket. There was an audible click.
He rolled his eyes. “It’s never too late.” He took a step toward her.
She took a deliberate step to put herself between him and Joe. When Kalvin smirked, she pulled out her gun and pointed it at his face.
He froze, his eyes wide with surprise. Then he kind of laughed. “Damn, girl. Is that thing for real?”
“As real as it gets.”
“Have you ever shot a gun before?” he asked. His voice wavered.
Erica swallowed. “Don’t have to be a sniper to hit something from this range.”
He took a step back, admiring her. “Look at you. You’re one tough motherfucker. And I mean that in the best way. I’m impressed.”
“I don’t give a shit. Start walking.”
Now he was getting pissed. “You really think you’re gonna shoot me, right here? On the very spot where that woman died, the one you helped kill?” He said it loud enough for Joe to hear.
She cocked the gun. “I didn’t kill her. But I think the police would say I was acting in self-defense if I shot you. They might even find it fitting that it happened right here.”
He seemed unsettled for the first time.
When she heard the footsteps coming up fast behind her, she spun around—Joe rushed toward her, holding out his hands.
“Don’t do it!” he shouted. “Don’t! Please! It’s not worth it!”
She froze, distracted. She felt a pop in her head and everything went white and blurry. All she heard was the ringing in her ears as the ground came rushing up to her face.
47
A loud bang startled me awake. My face was numb. I couldn’t feel a thing. For a minute I thought I was still in bed, but that didn’t make sense because why would my bed be covered in snow? When I tried lifting my head, my cheek was kind of frozen to the ground. I had to peel it off slowly and that’s when my face started burning and the world began to spin. I dry heaved, but nothing came up. My jaw hurt like hell. I tried to open my eyes, but they felt frozen shut and crusted over. I could smell flowers. And candles. I could feel the snow falling gently on my face.
I heard some whimpering and Boner started to lick my face.
Stop it, I tried to say but I couldn’t get my mouth to work. The dog came right up to me and licked my left eye. I let him. It felt good. I forced my eye open. Everything was blurry, but I could see Boner’s nose, then his big eyes staring at me. For a second I saw the reflection of a zombie in his pupils. The zombie had red hair.
I felt my face. It was like touching my lip at the dentist—I couldn’t feel it. From the swelling, I probably looked like the Elephant Man, all puffy and distorted. I rubbed the crust off my eyes and looked at my hand.
Blood.
I tried getting up, but it was like the earth was tied to my back. So I pushed myself to the fence next to me and pulled myself up into a sitting position.
I almost heaved again.
Fuck, what happened?
I was in an alley. Why was I in an alley?
Then I saw footprints leading away from me. There were little droplets of blood splattered in the snow.
It came rushing back.
Kalvin.
Joe.
There was a gun. My gun. But now it was gone. Boner was yapping in my face, which fried my ears and sent a train roaring through my head.
“Shhh . . .” I croaked. Even saying that stung my brain. Boner grabbed my jacket sleeve in his little teeth and tried to yank me up.
My camera was still in my hand, the strap around my wrist. I got onto one knee and pulled myself up on the fence. It felt like climbing a ladder made of ice; I kept slipping and catching myself.
Once I was on my feet, I had to rest my head against the fence. I was burning up. The cold felt good on my skin. I opened an eye and searched the empty alley. The little drops of blood looked like red bread crumbs sprinkled along the white snow.
OK, think ...call someone....
I fumbled for my phone and managed to get it out of my pocket. But I couldn’t think straight. I thought about calling Destiny, but it was too much to find her number.
I dialed the only number I could think of. Each ring made my head vibrate with pain.
“911, how can I help you?”
When I tried to open my mouth to talk, a pain shot through my jaw. I couldn’t move my mouth. No words came out, only garbled sounds. I managed to croak, “Gun.”
“Ma’am, I’m afraid I can’t understand you. Are you in distress?”
I nodded.
“Ma’am, I’m showing that your service provider carries a Public Safety Answering Point device in your phone. We can locate you to help. Do you need assistance?”
I managed a “Yes.”
“Keep your phone on. Assistance is en route.”
I shoved the phone into my pocket without thinking. I looked at those footprints and the trail of blood. It looked like there was a scuffle, then like someone ran.
Each step sent a wave of pain through my jaw and into the space behind my nose. But I was not going to let Joe down again. He deserved to live. It felt like I walked a hundred miles. The pain absorbed my head, dulled my thoughts, set me on autopilot. My body knew how to get there. Just follow the blood.
Somehow it did. Boner ran around me in circles, excited I was taking him on a walk. Stupid dog.
Two smaller boys passed me on their bikes and almost crashed into each other when they saw me stumble by. A homeless person gawked at me from the inside of a refrigerator box he was living in. I heard him say, “You OK?” But I kept walking.
Then I heard voices. I wasn’t sure if they were real or not. The footsteps led into the yard of a partially torn-down house. The voices were coming from in there.
I spotted them immediately.
Kalvin, his back to me, had Joe cornered against a tall gate. He was pointing my gun at Joe.
I could finally hear them over the pounding in my skull. “—don’t have to do this,” Joe said painfully. His arm was bleeding.
Kalvin was out of breath, like he’d been talking a long time, psyching himself up to do something.
“Fuck. I’m tired of this shit,” he said. “Why you making me look bad? If you don’t keep your mouth shut, I’ll have to shut it for you!”
“How can I be silent after what you’ve done?” he said. “I have nothing more to lose.”
“You can lose your life.”
Joe didn’t have to think about it. “I already have.”
That pissed Kalvin off even more. “Jesus, you really are fucking crazy.”
“Go ahead then, do it.”
“Stop saying that!”
They were both breathing hard, their frozen breath huffing into the air like smoke signals. Neither seemed to know what to do next.
Kalvin was looking for a way out. Joe saw me out of the corner of his eye and cringed. I must’ve looked pretty bad. “You can do like that girl said—just walk away. From everything. You have your whole life in front of you still. But once you pull that trigger, it’ll be murder. Then it’ll really be over.”
“Over for you.” He saw Joe look at me and glanced over his shoulder.
“You got a witness now,” said Joe. “You kill me, then you’ll have to kill her too.”
Kalvin wiped the sweat from his eyes. “Shut up. I’m sick of you!” He took a step forward and stuck the gun
in Joe’s face. “Take back what you said.”
Joe didn’t cower. “I can’t. I remember now. As soon as you pointed that gun at me back there, it came flooding back. I remembered you attacking me and my wife—”
“You can’t remember. Your head, it’s not right. You’re making things up.”
Joe looked exhausted. “I’m tired of running. . . .”
“You want me, you’re going to have to turn her in too. She was the one who did it.”
Joe looked at me. “I don’t believe that. I know she was there, but she’s not like you are. You’re responsible for all of it.”
“Fuck you, you racist piece of shit!” Kalvin was panicking, swinging the gun wildly. “Listen. Take your own advice and walk away. Why would you even want to stay here with this hanging over you? Leave, and then I won’t have to kill you.”
Joe thought about it, but I could see it wasn’t going to happen. “This was our home. I refuse to leave it because of you. You committed yourself to this trap. I’m going to keep speaking out. So, you might as well take the next step. You seem to want to destroy everything, including your own life. So do it.”
“Maybe I will.” Kalvin shook his head, his body tensing up like he was going to do just that.
“Kalvin,” I said through gritted teeth.
He didn’t look back. “Go away.”
I struggled to speak. “I called . . . the cops,” I managed to say. His shoulders slumped. “You people don’t know how to play . . .,” he said quietly.
“It’s not . . . a game.” Each word stung like ice picks. “Let . . . him go.”
He had the muzzle of the gun resting against Joe’s forehead. “I can’t.”
I stepped closer. I could taste the blood on my tongue. “You . . . can.”
“No, I can’t. Stay back.”
“Kalvin,” I said. I swallowed the pain and reached out to put my hand on his shoulder.
“You don’t understand.”
I was trying to talk him down, all the while thinking, did he already fire a shot? “I think . . . I do. Now . . . let him go.” I wrapped my arms around him.
“Fuck,” he said to himself.
I made eye contact with Joe, motioning for him to leave. He slowly put his hands down. “Look at me . . . Kalvin.”
He gazed over his shoulder, lowering the gun.
Joe moved away as quietly as he could.
“Give . . . me . . . the gun.”
“Can’t do that, Fish.”
Far in the distance, I could hear the sirens coming.
“You . . . are better . . . than that.”
“Am I?” He listened to the sirens coming. He shrugged himself out of my arms. “You know, everything was good before you showed up.”
I saw the gun slowly swing my way. I could hear voices in the background.
“You don’t . . . believe that.”
He stared at the gun. “Wouldn’t it be a great ending to our movie? I shoot you, then blow my own brains out and nobody ever catches me.”
“That would . . . suck . . . as an ending. I thought . . . you only liked . . . beginnings?” I stared into the barrel of the gun. Was that a bullet in the chamber? “You have a chance . . . to begin again. Turn yourself in—”
Something caught his attention. He looked past me. “What’re you doing here?”
“Trying to keep her from doing something stupid.” Destiny.
Kalvin was pissed. “What’d you do, invite the whole world? I been knocking people out for four years now, training my Tokers how to do it right. And now you want me to turn myself in? I wasn’t gonna kill him.”
Joe suddenly collapsed against the house. There was so much blood on the snow.
“Did you . . . shoot him?”
He shrugged. “He tried to get away. I couldn’t let him escape after all this.”
The sirens were getting closer. Destiny moved slowly toward us. “Put the gun down, K.”
He grabbed me by the shoulder and spun me around so I was facing Destiny. He wrapped his arm around me, the gun resting against my neck. “Don’t tell me what to do.”
Destiny froze. “It’s gonna be OK, Fish. Trust me.”
“Why should she trust you?” he spat.
My face was on fire, but I had to keep him talking. “She was the one . . . who took me . . . to get tested,” I said.
He kind of fumbled. “Tested for what?”
“I thought I was . . . preg . . .” I couldn’t say the word.
His face dropped. “You’re pregnant?”
I could hear the sirens coming down the alley now. I didn’t know what to say.
“I’m gonna be a daddy?”
I looked at Destiny, then shook my head. “No.”
He took a step back. He didn’t know what to do.
“I wouldn’t want . . . to have . . . your baby,” I said.
He was looking at the gun, cradled in his hands.
“You and me . . . we coulda been like Bonnie and Clyde. On the run with our own little Toker.”
“I watched the end . . . of that movie. Clyde . . . dies,” I said. He blinked. “So does Bonnie.” He cocked the gun. I could smell the residue of smoke.
“Mutherfucker,” said Destiny. “You put that gun down before I—”
He pointed the gun at Destiny.
“There’re no more bullets,” I said.
His grip got tighter. “Fuck both of you,” he said and pulled the trigger. Click.
Destiny turned pale, piss slowly spreading down the legs of her pants. She stood there, frozen.
Kalvin looked at the gun again, not sure why it didn’t fire.
“Fuck this.” I pushed away from him—he raised the gun to strike me. I steeled myself, but looked him straight in the eye. “You can’t hurt me . . . more than you already . . . have.”
He hesitated. “There’s always more pain. Just when you think you’ve had all you can handle, there’s always more.”
The sirens were getting closer. I thought of my mom. “Pain . . . is a gift,” I said.
Kalvin looked confused. “You’re crazy.”
The sirens were deafening now.
He took a few steps back. “I gotta go now. Maybe I’ll drop by later for a visit.” He looked at the gun. “I’m sure your dad would appreciate it if I reloaded this before returning it. Next time, we’ll have a blast.”
He put the gun in his pocket and glanced at me one last time. He looked nothing like the self-confident Kalvin I first met. “See ya when I see ya,” he mumbled, reaching for the fence gate behind him.
He opened the gate and that’s when I saw Tuffy Jones. Before Kalvin could even think, Tuffy sent his fist crashing into Kalvin’s face and Kalvin dropped like a ton of bricks, his head bouncing off the snow.
Tuffy stood there rubbing his fist. He shot Destiny a look. “Now we even, D.” He shook his head at the sight of my face. “I was the first Knockout King. Now I’m the last. It’s done.” Then he just turned and walked away.
Destiny came running up and grabbed me. “I brought the cavalry.”
“How did you know . . .?” I slurred.
“You said the library was open and then it hit me—of course, that’s where Kalvin would ask you to go.”
I looked back at Joe, who was leaning against the fence, holding his arm and looking as pale as the snow.
“Are you . . . OK?” I grunted.
He lifted his hand and winced at the bullet wound. “Seen worse in the war. You need to worry about yourself.”
I felt faint. Destiny grabbed me as I buckled to the snow.
Maybe I passed out for a bit. My mind drifted and for a few seconds I could see everything that was happening. I was floating high overhead. I saw myself in Destiny’s arms; I saw Joe drag himself over and look into my eyes. Tuffy was walking away, his hands tucked in his pockets as a cop car rushed by. It pulled up in front of us and two cops jumped out. One radioed for an ambulance; the other, at Joe’s urging, w
ent over to check on the Knockout King, who was spread out, facedown in the snow. It all felt like a dream.
Then the pain woke me up.
It turns out life is not like a movie. It doesn’t have a happy ending where the hero defeats the villain and rides off into the sunset. Life is more like a puzzle. With a few pieces missing.
When Kalvin came to, his wrists cuffed, his face bloodied, he looked shocked and confused. At that moment, I saw the real him for the first time—just some kid who pretended to be a tough guy with a heart of gold—a character in his own movie. For a few months, we all existed in that movie—a stream of hi-def moments that proved we could leave our mark in this world. The TKO Club was digitally immortalized—just like Alex, or Sundance, or Bonnie and Clyde.
But then the real world came crashing down on us, and now, his movie would be replaced by a new one.
My camera had recorded everything that day. There was now enough evidence and eyewitness testimony to get convictions. Tyreese broke down and confessed to his actions. The judge tried him as a minor, but he was found guilty on second-degree manslaughter. He will be in juvie until he’s eighteen. Some of the other Tokers ended up doing two to four months, then transferred out to Grant Remedial.
Unfortunately for Prince, after doing only eight weeks for aiding and abetting, he tried to knock out a Watcher who happened to be an off-duty cop. The cop was packing. Prince died before he reached the hospital.
Destiny and Boner were the only two who got away unscathed, but I knew they both bore their own scars. They were the only good things to come out of this whole mess.
As for me, after a period of house arrest, I got probation and enough community service to fill up the next couple of years. I knew why. I was not innocent. I would never be innocent again. I had to skip the rest of my sophomore year, and was forced to repeat it again the next year. That was alright by me because the do-over kind of allowed me to pretend that it never happened. And after I turn eighteen and have my record wiped clean, maybe it never did.
Kalvin, the Knockout King, was found guilty in adult court for attempted murder, assault and battery, possession of a stolen firearm, and conspiracy. Since it was his first conviction, he only got twenty years—still, longer than he’d been alive. But Tillman warned me that with all the efforts to relieve prison overcrowding, Kalvin could be out in ten with good behavior.