Trapped with a Way Out

by Jeffery Martinez

  Rodriguez's eyes reflected the light of the television screen, staring at it emptily as the images changed, some showing photographs taken of the crime scene, displaying blood stains on an unkept yellow and green lawn, and red pools left on the sun bleached sidewalk. Yellow tape fluttered in the wind, visible trees rustling around what appeared to be a home that before the shooting had looked like any of the other houses in the area. Excited neighbors were interviewed.

  "I heard the 'dun dun dun dun dun dun dun' of the gun just going off for forever! Just 'powpowpow', one right after the other, and it sounded like more than one person was shooting. But I remember the yelling and the gun just being louder than them. Then curses and the screech of a car speeding away and a few more shots down the street. Then it was dead quiet. Music had been pounding from the place before the shots, but after…it was dead quiet. Nothing moved. I know none of our family moved. Scared. Just damn right terrified. Then there were yells for help, and we all scrambled outside. I went to the phone and called. I think lots of people called the police. Then all night there were blinking, flashing lights from ambulances and the police. One –beep- of a Christmas, is all I have to say. –beep- those –beep- -beep- that are responsible for this –beep- mess. They'll have a judge to answer too, whether the police catch them or not. But this was a night none of us are going to be able to forget. No. Never. Not even if we wanted to. You just can't get that gunfire and those kids- Just… There's no reason that this had to happen."

  William entered the room as the reporter claimed the screen again and the news shifted to the next report about drug activity in high schools in the county. The girl sat next to her brother, but he didn't even look at her. His face in his hands, elbows planted on his knees, bent over and seeing nothing. His hands slipped under his glasses, covering his eyes. William looked at the television and heard the familiar names of different high schools in the district. "Mom says Vincent wasn't involved. But she hasn't had time to check on him-"

  "Then why can't we drive out there? It's not like it was near where he is."

  The girl sighed to herself and let head lean into the back of the couch. "Mom says it's dangerous. Nobody knows what's going to happen. But it's a given that some gang is trying to provoke the other or something. She told me that there're threats spray painted over other graffiti that's supposed to mark another gang's territory, all over the city too. I can't believe…two houses shot at… The media's making a big deal out of the eight that died and the poor man that was shot for no reason. At least no one else died in the other place."

  "One kid's in critical condition." Rodriguez broke in, fixing his glasses and sitting up to see the screen. "A seventeen year old guy from my school."

  The siblings were quiet, chilled by the information that could easily be used to describe Vincent. But it wasn't Vincent. That was the only optimistic approach the two could find for the situation. Eight dead. 12 wounded. And two in critical condition… Not to mention the amount of drugs that had been discovered…

  …

  …

  They stood outside the pharmacy. Just standing. Watching the passing bodies. Glances and frowns were given to them, but they either ignored the looks, or they returned the looks with their own. Black, blue, and white, they stood to the side of the door. Far enough to give the passerby a zone of comfort, but close enough that they were able to see each and every individual that went to the doors. In front of widely used stores throughout the city, black, blue, and white were visible. Vons, Ralphs, super malls, and this pharmacy with the large letters spelling Rite Aid on its front. Small clusters were present all day long, changing faces but keeping the steady presence of black, blue, and white. They looked like average delinquents, or just teenagers hanging out. No chains. No tattoos left visible. No weapons…that were visible. The clusters were not identified as being gang members by the everyday citizen. Should law enforcement happen upon a registered gang member, they would take note of them and those around the individual, but the clusters weren't doing anything to obstruct the peace of society. They were just standing and watching the passing bodies.

  Vincent sighed, his body moving with the breath as he leaned back against the tan brick wall behind him that eventually ended with a wall of stucco as the material that reached the roof of the Rite Aid. The breeze kept the air crisp, but the sky was relatively blue with accumulating cloud cover coming in from the west with a few white, fluffy clouds hanging over them presently. Two other teens accompanied him. They were talking about something and one of them laughed loudly, but they took no notice of the other boy's sigh. A woman stared at him longer than what counted as being casual interest, and Vincent gazed back at the woman for a while. Her brow creased at him with her mouth hardening as well, but it was a look of disgust as she saw these teens wasting their precious youth doing nothing, and defacing their bodies with red contacts and piercings she saw in the other two that were talking. And they were unhealthy, the one with red eyes was as pale as a sheet and too thin for her approval. The woman shook her head and entered the pharmacy, the glass door sliding closed automatically behind her. Vincent lost interest in the woman when she was gone, so he turned his eyes to the parking lot again.

  A figure became rigid when his eyes passed over it, so Vincent naturally looked at the figure again. He stared at it intently, from the other teen's shoes to the hat the stranger was wearing. There was another figuring walking beside the rigid teen. Both were wearing red bandanas. One wore the cloth around his neck and the other wore it under his hat. But they were there, they were red…and they were rival colors.

  Crimson burned as a hostile glower that kept the two teens from approaching. The rivals glanced at the two that stood with Vincent and then gradually retreated, giving up when they saw they were clearly outmatched. Whatever they wanted or needed from the store was outside their reach. It was outside anyone's reach so long as they wore red and had the appearance of a gang member. The red usually came in the form of a bandana so recognizing the other gangsters was not that challenging, and neither was intimidating them.

  They would be barred from entering stores within the city which were guarded by the clusters of black, blue, and white, until they handed over the ones responsible for the shooting. It had been three days. Their families wanted the goods that the clusters were denying them. Only a matter of days, Vincent thought taking another generous sigh as he watched the passing bodies dimly. Only a matter of days until they'll give in. Seeing how they're being right now, the shooting wasn't something all of them organized. A newly joined gang, not entirely unified. Eight deaths for no reason. And one boy was left crippled, at the height of his youth. There was no need, no reason, so many had said these words and Vincent found himself echoing them in his thoughts. It was a pity.

  …

  …

  Vincent sat up sharply, heavy eyes moving with muddled alarm. The teen looked down at the couch cushions beneath him and then shivered, knuckles becoming paler as his fists clutched the end of a square cushion. Red moved along the couch, able to pick up on the shape of a folded blanket and a pillow, which were sitting on one of the arm rests of the couch. Still in the surreal state left behind by a complex dream, Vincent clumsily grabbed the pillow and pushed it into the couch, leaning on it to grasp the blanket which he unraveled when he dragged it over himself to block out his chill. With heat being returned to him now, Vincent let himself fall into the pillow and cushions to resume his sleep.

  He dreamed of blood and guns and dead teenagers and drugs that ruined a number of lives and sent just as many to be locked behind bars. The dream was so real that his heart rate rose and sweat beaded on his brow as his body would sometimes jerk as he moved in his dream, his closed eyes seeing the image of baseball bats and guns and knives, blood dripping from corpses dangling from the ceiling on iron hooks suspended by thick chains, the blood building a sea whose waves grasped the teen and threw him into the murderous ocean to drown.

  The
teen woke up and stared at the ceiling, seeing the hanging bodies for a moment before the dim light of the morning entered his eyes and wiped away the vision. Now that he was awake, the dream seemed interesting and he tried to recall what he remembered about it. Vincent spent several minutes doing this, separated from fear as he saw the hazy images of dead bodies, no details left for a conscious mind. When he tired of this, the sneeze of a rat brought Vincent to the cage and he smirked at the excited furry faces that peered at him through the horizontal bars. The rats climbed up the side of the cage, investigating the new creature that had a familiar scent, and then checking to see if they could find the scent of food as well. They didn't, but they still saw Vincent and wanted him to take them out of their cage, so the teen obliged and soon held the weight of two rats, one on each shoulder. Thus, the lightened morning grew brighter when the beams of sunlight squeezed between the blinds over a window in the kitchen that viewed the street.

  When the giant emerged, a tired scowl went to the teen petting rats that were crawling up and down his arms, but Jake didn't comment when he lumbered into his kitchen.

  "Jack-bean."

  "Jake." The man's irritated grunt retorted, fixing something to eat. Eggs, milk, and a bowl sat on the counter as he added butter to a heating pan. Vincent teased a rat with his finger, tricking the blonde and white beast into believing that it was possibly something edible so that its nose sniffed around in a circle, following the finger that would soon disappoint it.

  The teen wanted an answer, so he nodded with his finger, making the rat nod for him. "Jake, do you have dreams often?"

  The sound of activity in the kitchen filled a pause as the man sighed off his ill humored mood. "Sometimes, Max, but enough with the randomness in the morning, or could you keep it turned down? Not used to having to deal with it right when I get up, you know what I'm mean?"

  Vincent didn't respond for a time, focusing on the blonde rat on the back of his hand. "I just had a weird dream, that's all. Not being random, or whatever you mean by that."

  A fork scraped the side of the bowl, swirling the yellow and white together before Jake added water to the mixture. "Just as long as it wasn't the type of dream that would ruin my couch, I'm fine with dreams."

  A startled Vincent gawked at the back of Jakes head from where he was sitting on the floor in front of the couch. His teeth clamped shut with an annoyed growl vibrating in his throat when he heard chuckles. "Talk about randomness in the morning…and maturity…"

  Jake shrugged at the mumble, smirking to himself as he poured some of the yellow mixture into a pan. "Trying to humor myself. I'm not the best morning person, so be thankful brat."

  "I'm sticking my tongue at you in my mature mind." Vincent's voice replied, earning a partially amused chuckle. The teen frowned at a rat, moving it to his other arm so that the two rats could be together. "My clean-couch dream was about-" Another growl broke off the sentence and Vincent raised his volume to overwhelm Jake's snicker. "Was pretty much about dead people hooked on those hanging hooks you see in one of those slaughter houses where the pig bodies are hung up when they're cut open and stuff. And before that it was about people getting shot and how we-"

  "First." Jake was looking over the divider that separated the kitchen from the living room, showing little expression other than slight disturbance on his face. The pan sizzled in the background. "That's messed up. –Now what do you want in your omelet, you have the choice of plain or with cheese. Not a chef, so I can't guarantee you won't find a piece of shell in yours."

  Red blinked at Jake, somehow taken aback by what he was saying. "I can't take your food."

  "I already broke the eggs so you've got no choice. I could give it to ya raw if you feel like being a pain in the ass." Vincent was staring at him blankly, so Jake gave up on him and turned back to the sizzling pan, folding the omelet over. "You got plain."

  "…Thanks…" It was quiet until a spatula transferred the omelet to a plate and the sizzling ended. "I'm going to steal some ketchup."

  Jake paused, holding the steaming plate in one hand, his other hand in a drawer fishing out a fork among the jumbled mess of silverware. "Ketchup?"

  "Ketchup, Jack-bean. Pulverized tomatoes and people. That's how murderers hide bodies. Make 'em into ketchup, that's why it's red."

  Jake made a sound of disbelief and disgust before placing the plate on the counter away from his working area. "Whatever, the ketchup's in the drawer, the packets."

  Vincent searched the drawers and found the said packets, claimed a few, and then ripped them open to spill their contents onto his omelet. As he coaxed the remaining ketchup from the corners of the packet in his hand, he shrugged. "I like it. You ever tried ketchup and eggs? It's good."

  "After your story…" The giant sighed, shaking his head over his cooking omelet. "…I'm not gonna be able to eat ketchup the same way again. You're getting messed up in the head. Dead bodies in a slaughter house, dead bodies in stuff people eat, it's like a bad omen."

  With a mouth full of egg and ketchup, Vincent hummed and nodded at his food as he stood at the counter. "I see dead people everywhere Jack-bean, perfectly normal. But they're not nearly as interesting as the voices." Dark chuckles made Jake's features become heavy and he frowned at the stove.

  "Guess you know how it feels to be me with you tagging along for six years, talk about annoying voices."

  "Interesting voices, not annoying voices. Hell, it'd suck if they were annoying. Might have to drill a hole in my head to get 'em out."

  Brown eyes twitched. "Okay, enough." He murmured over the plate he set aside with an omelet covering most of it while he poured out the remaining contents of the bowl into the pan. "Your sense of humor's damn sketchy sometimes."

  The teen chewed in silence after that, watching his food with his arm on the counter so he was leaning over the plate. Jake was eating now and he looked at Vincent until the teen noticed.

  "You're going to have to fix the mess you're in. You need to be more involved."

  Flashes of his dreams shadowed Vincent's eyes and he watched his plate, only one bite remaining. He took that last bite with a nod.

  Involved…in what? His uncle's specialties had been in theft, robbery, and killing for 'blood money', contract killing, things that required little collaboration and contact with the 'customer'. Both were done with complete secrecy.

  Vincent didn't mind shoplifting. It was easy, didn't involve trespassing onto private property, and it was common. Teenagers and kids shoplift. A toy, a pair of shoes, a CD, or maybe something like an iPod; he could do, though the electronics were hard, those trigger alarms, but it was do-able. And it went down as a misdemeanor. He could steal things under a thousand dollars and it wouldn't be that bad. Drinking would be illegal, but again, lots of teenagers drink. Most teenagers drink. And then socializing isn't illegal, and socializing was important. It wouldn't be too bad, and he needed the money anyway.

  Richard would hiss whenever the memory of Jake's appearance at her house came to mind, and her lips would scowl on their own whenever she recalled her father giving Jake permission to enter her home. She couldn't press charges for trespassing. He hadn't done anything illegal, other than the trespassing itself. There had not been a no trespassing sign that the man had ignored. And her father had given him permission to come into her house and she had not stepped in and refused, so she could do nothing. If he had returned, she could file for a restraining order and probably have an ex parte to fill the time it would take for the judge to determine whether she (and her family) required one. But Jake had been coming for Vincent. The one that would look bad if she tried to press charges…was her.

  But the other pressing issue was…Vincentimir had told Jake where she lived. That was a nightmare, in and of itself. With her children, her family, in possible peril…

  God, was that a nightmare. But there was no waking up from it, if it was true.

  Then…when she had checked on the boy, she had discovered
that Vincentimir had moved out of his 'apartment' completely, on Christmas Day…the same day the landlord fell down the stairs and was hospitalized with a mangled jaw and a fractured skull. It was fishy, but no evidence and the insistence of the landlord himself prevented the development of a case. So the woman was left with nothing, once more. Only Jake's criminal file saved on her desktop and the knowledge that Vincentimir Max Ramos had yet to be registered as a gang affiliate and had yet to enter the system at all. So far, the boy's record was clean…nonexistent.

  Days passed without an appearance from the pale teen.

  Vincent couldn't remember much of what happened that night, how he came to be in that dark ally with the black towering structure of the city in the moonless distance, no horizon, no escape, the darkness surrounding him like a tomb, puddles on the filth blackened asphalt while buzzing electric wires strung between the buildings to his sides dripped meager droplets of water. He remembered no sky, no lights, no people; only his uncle, the blazing icy fire in those blue eyes, brighter than any mortal fire, and the dark crimson of the blood, a spray like a mist across the man's face. Vincent had stared at the man with his eyes wide, unable to blink as the burning blue watched him, a dot of blood slowly rolling down Walter's cheek. Vincent was still eleven when he witnessed his first murder and learned what paid for the food he ate and the roof over his head. Blood money, money earned through the death of another.

  Walter's face betrayed nothing, as blank as an inhuman mask. He hadn't noticed that the boy had been following him until he had slit his target's throat with his glistening wire sliding through the soft bone and flesh like it would through water, stopping short of decapitating the man entirely. The blood had erupted from the wound, peppering Walter's face, and then had cascaded down the dead man's front until he fell, flowing to form a puddle that bled into the more innocent collection of rainwater beside it, swirling and dyeing the water red. The blood was still tainting this water as the bright blue eyes watched the wide horror displayed in the lightless red, pale skin making it easy to read the child's expression. Fear, terrible fear, shock, and a mixture that prevented the child from recognizing his own feelings. The bloody wire glistened with its new color, red running along the length of the wire until it touched the exposed fingers, never reaching the man's gloves. The blood dyed his skin red, just as it had done with the water.